The next day, before we got moving, I did something I rarely if ever did; I sent a message. It was a quick note to my paladins, plus Dalmar and Maria, telling them about legendary weapons. I also mentioned that someone should stop in the Emporium and tell them to barter for magic items on the mana potions.

Jeff wouldn't get to Riverbend for another seven days, so when we got there a day later, I told Shadow and Siril I would meet them at the same Inn in six days. Shadow looked conflicted about things, but as far as I was concerned, doing nothing was a choice in itself.

I was home thirty minutes after ditching the two of them, and hugging Mary and casting my first heal spell two minutes after that. A few minutes later I found out the Serpent wouldn't come off, but we decided to just ignore it.

When we came downstairs the next morning, there was a group waiting for me. Susan, Mirabeth, Ariel, and Sienna were sitting at my table talking, and they all stood up when Mary and I joined them. I was somewhat surprised at the hugs from Susan and Ariel, but seriously shocked when I got one from Mirabeth. Sienna almost came around for one I think, but settled for a smile and a nod.

"Wow" I said as I pulled chairs over and settled in with Mary "Seems like a while since I've seen the whole group"

Sienna giggled. Really. Then said "We all just finished saying the same thing"

Ariel and Susan nodded agreement, and Susan said "Maria asked to meet so we can team up with some of her people. She thought it would be a good idea to back each other up and for her people to learn from us, though I think that's mostly oriented toward Sienna and Mirabeth"

"Amen to that" I said with an eye roll "I just went through a dungeon with a fire mage who was about as useless as...something useless" I faltered at the end since my focus shifted to a bunch of food Samuel and a couple of new girls brought out and placed around the table. Paula and Sara had been added to the Inn staff to help Mary and Darla, and while I hadn't noticed, the Inn had grown a little more. I said hello to the two girls, but they just smiled shyly and wouldn't say anything. Totally not what you think of when you think tavern wench. I wondered if this reality was different, or if the other reality had just stereotyped.

"Is that the whip thing?" Ariel asked, nodding toward my forearm. At my nod, she said "Tried it out yet?"

"Nope" I replied "Maybe later today, but I'll get away from people until I know it won't kill anyone"

"Tales say that those who held weapons created by Krisnon the Mad thought they were living creatures" Mirabeth said "and that one did not use the weapon so much as joined with it"

That wasn't at all mysterious, and no, I hadn't missed 'the mad' part. I chuckled at the thought, but added "Well, it does come with a 'be warned' message, so you can't say I wasn't"

"Did you name it?" Susan said with a grin

"I'm thinking Sam" I said "that way I can drag it out and say Sssssam" I got a giggle from Mary, and a round of chuckles from the group, though not Mirabeth. She just nodded and said "Naming it is probably a wise idea"

We moved on to my recent foray into the tour business, and we all had a good laugh at what a learning experience it was. Ariel got laugh tears when I described Siril blowing Jeff up, and Jeff's response to my outrage. She was still laughing when she said "Same thing. Couple guys in that little town outside the capital. I was beating on this warrior type, and his buddy hit us both with a fireball. Finished his buddy off for me"

"They have time to get better" Susan said "but it's to our benefit that they don't until we have the rules ingrained into our society. One of the coastal cities is pretty large and it sounds like they are organized. Captain Pagalis says there are 37 eternals with spawn points there, and more than a few are holding slaves. We'll be heading that way after we get Maria's people together"

They were going to the Guardian castle, so I spent the morning getting caught up on things. I ordered three more portal stones, walked the walls with Andulin, meeting the ever growing number of guards, and spent some time talking with Seth about how stuff was selling.

It was the afternoon by the time I went to the clearing Mary and I did our picnics in and took a look at what I would be dealing with. So far the snake had just sat on my arm like some kind of decorative bracer, so getting it to do anything would be the first step.

"Alright Sam" I started, addressing the snake as I held my arm up "You've got a tough act to follow in Bruce, so you'll want to bring your 'A' game" The snake didn't twitch, so I closed my eyes and tried to remember the Indiana Jones movies and how the whip looked. I kept my eyes closed, and moved my hand back, then forward like I was whipping something, but Sam just sat there like a decoration. This attempt was followed by multiple visualization attempts, clearing my mind attempts, picturing a tree as an enemy attempts, and even yelling at the whip attempts. After an hour I had accomplished nothing other than raising my frustration level. I called it quits after blessing the darn thing, and even asking the goddess for hints. The blessing just made it shine brightly for a second, and the request just got a giggle.

A million swords, knives, hammers, and bows, and I get a whip. I was pretty sure in a hundred years I would be an expert with it, but now; now I just felt like an idiot. Well, I had said I wanted to spend my time learning a weapon, so complaining would just make me sound like a whiner. Not that I've ever said I wasn't one, but still.

Dalmar was at the Inn when I got back, and he had one of Maria's people with him. The first thing I noticed was that she had curly black hair. Not afro type, but loose curls that hung down to her shoulders. I remembered seeing it on the trip through the Forbidden Lands, and in a world where all the eternals opted for straight hair, her name was one I remembered. Diana. She was about my height, and looked strong, though that was harder to judge with women, who seemed to maintain their feminine form no matter how strong. She had a warhammer sitting beside her, sort of matching Dalmar's, but his had that uber magic look, and hers didn't.

"Dalmar, Diana" I said by way of a greeting, reaching over to shake hands with Dalmar, then pausing until Diana held hers out, before reaching out to shake hers.

"Hey Jake" Dalmar said before nodding Diana's way and saying "You obviously remember Diana. We've teamed up"

There was something steady and reassuring about Dalmar, probably why Maria had made the teddy bear crack. He just struck you as solid and unexcitable. The stocky body, short bearded face, and calm demeanor made a difference, but it was more that he struck you as older and experienced. I was betting he had been a big man in the real world, and probably in his fifties or sixties.

They had been doing trips in the Forbidden Lands, taking teams of guardians out for the experience, and to do some exploring.

"Lots of stuff out there" Diana said "We haven't tried to enter them yet, but we've found a couple of ruins, and three caves that are dungeon entrances"

"To risky until everyone gets up into the teens" Dalmar said with a nod "most of Maria's people will be hitting level 7, so they'll be making choices soon" he nodded at Diana and said "Diana's just hit 6" He took a drink from his mug, then set it down like he was getting to business, and said "I think we have a way into Lor Frell. My people have what they call the Underroads. It's basically roads they built underground connecting various cities, and we should be able to access them way west of dragon territory"

"Sounds easy" I said "What's the catch?"

"The dwarves don't travel those sections anymore, so we'll be dealing with whoever is living in them" Diana said with a grin "and the tunnels go everywhere, so we'll have to follow a map"

"So, getting lost and eaten" I said with a nod "normal stuff"

"You know Bob's thinking about looking into the Blight?" Dalmar asked, and at my nod, said "Maria wants in on that, so she has one of her three person teams working with him" he paused at Diana's laugh, then shrugged and added "a little tension at first, but things have settled down a lot" he gestured at me and said "I know we talked about doing a small group, but Maria and I think we should do two groups. Bob and his team, and you, me, Maria, and Diana in the other"

I couldn't see any downside to the idea, other than the whole crowd thing, so I said "I have no problem with it"

"Good" Dalmar said with a smile "didn't think you would, but wanted to make sure. The best access point to the underroads appears to be five days southeast of Riverbend. That'll mean somewhere between another seven to ten days getting to Lor Frell, depending on any issues"

"When you thinking about going?" I asked

Dalmar shrugged and said "Whenever you're ready. A day or two to get everyone to Riverbend and get supplies, and we could go"

"In six days then" I said "I have to meet with that tour group and get paid, but we can leave the day after that"

"You let them get away without paying you?" Diana asked with a laugh "you do know why everyone is in here right?" The question got a chuckle from Dalmar, and I gave Diana a rueful smile as I said "Yeah, but it was sort of set up this way in the agreement, though Telina says they might try to weasel out of it"

"Telina says?" Diana asked, then waved a hand and added "Never mind, Dalmar warned me"

"About your chit chats with the goddess" Dalmar said, then added "Your rates sounded damn cheap to me, what are they going to argue about? It's not like there's a lot of magic items you can use"

I raised my arm so he could see the snake, getting a comprehending snort from him as Diana said "Thought that thing chose you" I nodded and said "It did, so hopefully it won't be an issue. Really, they only owe me one magic item I know of, and a tenth of the gold, so it would be stupid to argue about it"

Dalmar shook his head and leaned back as he said "Well, if stupid was an attribute, most of the people in here seem to have maxed it out"

Couldn't have said it better myself.

That left me with five days to do what I wanted (other than the requisite spawn point change duty), so I used it to make mana potions to sell at the emporium, and bought vials to take with me. I had redone the fire rune on Bruce, so I added a lightning rune to him that triggered on 'Electric Slide', figuring I would have time to make another flashbang grenade before we left, and whatever else we needed on the way to Lor Frell.

I also took Mary on a shopping trip to Mairisian City. I kept it as low key as possible, and thankfully only had to deal with the guards recognizing me. There were a lot of stores it would never have occurred to me to enter, so it was fun as hell to just stop in and browse places. Clothing stores were the best, and I actually bought myself some nicer clothes, though I would probably only ever wear them somewhere safe like Mudtown. They also had very interesting versions of women's sleepwear, and I encouraged Mary to buy everything she was willing to wear. And...they had candy stores. How I hadn't known about that, was an indictment of the whole system. We had an awesome time, and if it weren't for needing to watch out for eternals, and the odd pickpocket (yeah, surprised me too), it would have been just about perfect.

There was only one bit of business I did while there, and that was to talk with Rabin and Narn to arrange for them to disperse copper coins to the needy in Telina's name. A copper would feed someone for a couple of days depending on what they ate, and Telina was the goddess of beggars.

The time flew by, and it wasn't long before I found myself stepping through the portal to Riverbend. I had a two months supply of food, lots of vials, a rope I bought in the capital, and a dozen gems to make grenades out of. Thankfully my strength was higher now, because I couldn't have carried it all when it was only at five. I stopped in at my groups normal Inn, and left word with Gina that my group would be gathering there, then headed to the one Jeff's group used.

Jeff, Siril, and Shadow were sitting at the same table as last time, so I tossed a grin at the serving girl and gave the universal hand sign for 'I need a drink'. Sitting down at the table, I took a second to evaluate how things stood. Shadow looked irritated, Siril bored, and Jeff intense. I chuckled at how silly it all seemed, since I could care less about the gold and magic item, but didn't want people to think they could cheat me and get away with it.

My drink came, so I took a sip, set it down and clapped my hands together before saying "So. Five days at 6 gold a day, plus one tenth, and first refusal on items usable by me. Ready?"

"Not so fast" Jeff said, getting a grin from me. The grin seemed to irritate him since he and Shadow were starting to share the expression. Shadow threw her hands up and said "God damn it Jeff. You're being a moron. We beat an unbeatable dungeon, got a double level jump, and you're going to nitpick over a stupid magic item?"

"Damn right" Jeff said, turning on her angrily "It was the boss drop. We went for the goblin king and should get his drop"

I held up a hand with a sigh and said "Two things. First one is, the whip isn't removable. I haven't even figured out how to get it to do anything but be a decoration, so it's not going to be changing hands. Second thing is, we had an agreement for first refusal on all items usable by me. If you wanted it to be something different, you should have addressed it before we left"

"And he killed the guy" Siril said with a shrug "I mean, it's not like Shadow and I could have done it. If he hadn't pulled that last trick out of his ass, we would have all been killed"

Jeff gave Siril a hurt look, almost making me laugh, but I had enough diplomacy to not do it. Jeff tried to cross his arms, but he was so muscled it was an obvious strain, so he dropped them again and said "It's bullshit. We had the quest, and he never would have gotten the thing except for us" he glared at me and said "I'll trade the gold and other magic items we owe you for it"

Damn. I sighed and shook my head, then said "We had an agreement. You standing behind it, or are you breaking your word?"

He just glared at me, obviously deciding that by saying nothing he could avoid responsibility. I rolled my eyes and looked between Siril and Shadow, saying "Breaking your word in Tarinath isn't like back in old reality. It's obvious that neither of you support him on this, but continuing to be partners with him will have consequences"

"He's being an asshole" Shadow said with a sigh "but we've stood together through to much"

When Siril nodded agreement, I finished my ale and stood up. Raising a hand and speaking in my priestly voice while mentally connecting to the goddess, I said loudly "Let it be known throughout these lands that be you warrior, farmer, beggar, or thief, the goddesses have no love for those who would break their word. As Telina's priest, I ask her to grant you ill-fortune until such time as you have restored your honor"

The glow that suddenly outlined the three wasn't missed by anyone, and all three of them jumped up, with Jeff and Shadow pulling weapons. I just lowered my hand and shook my head in disgust, as I turned to leave. The "What the hell did you do?" followed me as I left, with me only pausing long enough to look back and say "I'm leaving tomorrow and won't be back for at least a month"

I was getting a sense of approval from Telina, though I wasn't completely sure what she gained from the whole thing. Well, not my problem anymore. Either they settled up or they didn't, but it would be nice to know what the curse did.

No one else had arrived, so I arranged for horses, though I had paid a silver for mine to be stabled at the Inn. Portal hopping was spoiling me, and I wasn't looking forward to days of traveling, especially the walking kind. It was around noon when everyone arrived en masse, causing a bit of a stir in town. Turns out that the Queen Maria thing had taken hold pretty strongly, and the local guards insisted on treating her like royalty, even having the governor show up. I stayed well away from it all, and when it appeared things wouldn't settle down, suggested we head out early and get a half days riding in.

Maria looked pretty much the same, though her cloak was black like the other four women's, and the tiara or crown thing definitely had a bit of a glow to it. But it was the same Maria, and she was grinning when she found me bringing the horses out, skipping over to give me a hard hug and a kiss. Laughing at the look on my face she said "Mary said it was ok as long as I gave her one too"

Oh man, that thought was going to stick.

She was still laughing, as she took my arm and leaned against me as she introduced her people. I had met Diana, and she was standing with Dalmar, but the other three were Anna, a dark haired sword and shield human warrior who stood a half a head taller than me. Neara, a bow carrying elven ranger, the one who had been stung by that scorpion, and Rayna, an elven defensive mage. They were all a lot more relaxed than they had been when we started the march through the Forbidden Lands, and Rayna's spawn point had been the second one I'd done. All of them shook hands with me, then stepped aside so Bob and I could exchange grins and arm grips.

"Your last teammates have titles now, did you know that?" he asked as he released my hand, breaking into a laugh at my confused look. He nodded and said "No shit. I saw them leaving the city earlier. The big, barbarian looking dude had his saddle break and he fell on one of the city guards. I heard them called the 'Dishonored' when the guard leader was straightening it out"

Cool. It sounded like someone's curse was working. I chuckled at the image and said "Well, Telina works in mysterious ways" Maria and Bob laughed, though the other women looked like they weren't sure it was meant as a joke.

We rode out together, stopping at the south gate to get head bows and shake hands with the guards, then moving into the slow trot that we traveled at. Maria and Dalmar gravitated toward each other, and in minutes I had the normal sight of the two of them leading the way, with Maria laughing and talking as Dalmar smiled or made quiet comments. I'd missed traveling with them.

"Yeah, they make the trip a lot more fun don't they" Bob said from my left, getting me to give him a questioning look. Neara was on Bob's left, and she looked over as Bob said "Maria and Dalmar I mean. Hard not to enjoy things when you're with them"

I nodded my agreement and said "Just got to experience what these things are like with a bunch of amateurs, and it ended up turning into work"

"Well, they got lucky" Rayna said from behind us "I talked with some people in the capital who said that Goblin King quest had a lot of people taking runs at it and failing. I imagine a bunch of groups got quest failed messages after you guys killed him"

"We did get lucky" I said, turning slightly in the saddle to include her "but a well balanced team might have done ok if they had mages who could renew their mana quickly" I shrugged and added "Shadow, their rogue, was really good though, and I was pretty impressed with her skills"

"Better than a ranger?" Neara asked from my right, making me think having a conversation with a group while on horses could get pretty awkward. I shook my head no and said sort of generally to the group "No, the archer thing is too useful, but she was devastating against mages and would make a great fifth if you needed one"

"Kind of surprising considering we were all criminals, but I don't think very many people chose the rogue class" Bob said

"Too weak" Rayna said "or at least it seemed that way when you were choosing a class"

"Power" Anna said from the back "We were prisoners. Powerless to do anything. When given the choice, of course people went for the obvious"

Had to agree with that. I would have chosen warrior for sure, though I doubted I would have made the same mistakes Jeff had made. Having arms so big you couldn't do a good butt scratch would take a lot of the joy out of life.

We ended up talking about the goblin king trip for a while, with everyone trying to think of ways to get around the maze if you didn't have directions. Everyone agreed that if you had to keep backtracking you'd get overrun pretty quickly as the spiders massed behind you. The best anyone could think of was at least three mages, and preferably four, so a couple would have time to restore while the other two fought.

"You think that was one of the dark elves that supposedly went east?" Bob asked later

I honestly hadn't given it a thought, not being interested in asking questions about things that might just be due to some random number generator or something. It was the same with the whole level up and spell accrual thing. As far as I could tell, you could never be sure that what worked today, wouldn't change tomorrow. Add in the goddesses and the way eternals affected things, well, it could get weird. I finally shrugged and said "Don't know. If so, he got left behind because no one liked him. Guy was a total asshole"

That got a round of laughs, though I hadn't really meant to be funny. Anyone who had a sneer in their repertoire of expressions was an asshole in my book.

Eight people made for large camps, and the large group kept us safe until we hit the Forbidden land border two days later and ditched the horses. It was just an arbitrary point on the map, but we all put our game faces on, and I did my armor spell as needed. We rotated lead team periodically, and it was Dalmar's team that was leading when the ogres that seemed to guard the border appeared, and...Sam finally did something.

We were crossing a flat plain and saw the ogres come shambling our way from quite a distance, and as soon as I saw them, I found myself with the handle of a whip in my hand, and the whip sort of pooled at my feet. I'm not sure what my expression was, but Maria broke into giggles and said "Hey, it happens to every guy at least once"

Hearing people laughing hysterically as they approached was probably a new thing for the ogres, but that didn't stop them from attacking us. Dalmar and Diana moved forward and engaged, while everyone else sort of gathered around me. I moved the whip back and forth a little, getting a feel for it's weight and how flexible it was, and finding it to be perfectly comfortable feeling really. I'd never used a whip, but Sam seemed about fifteen feet long, and was as flexible as the ones I'd seen on TV.

"Give it a try" Bob said, motioning for everyone to move away from me. I flicked a quick heal Diana's way, since she had taken a good whack, and to let her know I hadn't forgotten her.

Checking to see everyone was clear behind me, I held the whip out in front of me, then slowly brought it back over my shoulder before slashing out and down with it.

"Son of a..." I yelled as the damn thing flicked my arm and shoulder as it came forward. I could swear Sam was laughing at me as I pulled him back and set up to do it again. I sent a couple of more heal spells out, in between trying to make the damn whip slash forward. I wasn't really aiming at anything except a point in the air ten feet to the side of our group, which, if anything had been there, would have been perfectly safe.

The ogres were killed before I'd done more than five or six attempts, and of course Sam kind of slithered out of my hand, and wrapped around my wrist when the ogres disappeared.

"I think it was wanting to hit the ogres" Rayna said as I was glaring at my wrist. I looked up in surprise, but Bob nodded and said "It looked like it would twitch that way when you swung it back, or at least it did from where I was standing"

"Yeah, it did" Rayna said "I think the thing is sort of alive"

I held Sam up and studied it for a second, but it just looked like a decorative bracer now. I shrugged and dropped my arm before saying "Well, next monster we fight I'll give it a swing" I hesitated, then added "Everyone might want to stay a good distance away"

"You know" Diana said after the fight was over and we were walking again "everyone talks about how unbalanced things are, against us I mean. How we're too easy to kill, and don't do enough damage most time. But with Jake, it almost goes the other way. Diana is level 6 and she just took down a level 16 ogre. What would have happened if a bunch of people had been priests?"

"True" Maria said with a nod "it does seemed designed with the idea there wouldn't be any priests to heal us"

Another one of those unanswerable questions. Maybe there would be a quest for the Holy Help File or something that would answer all our questions. That would be kind of cool, now that I thought about it.

Since all of Maria's women were level 1 when they joined her, they benefited from the things we had learned over the last few months, the most important being how to allocate attribute points. As a rule, it appeared every mage started with 20 points in the intelligence attribute (by choice) and 10 in dexterity. That made things fairly straightforward, as long as you weren't an idiot, and Maria encouraged them to pump the next ten points straight into stamina to get their health to something usable. The warriors appeared to start with 10 in stamina, but they needed to improve that, and add wisdom points if they planned to go paladin. They were encouraged to accept whatever strength and dexterity they had, and just focus on wisdom until it reached at least 10, then dump everything into stamina. The upshot was, all of Maria's people had at least 150 points of health, making my life a lot easier.

The second attack came as we made camp, and it came so fast that we were fairly disorganized at first. It was a saber-toothed tiger of all things, and it might have managed to sneak close enough for an ambush if Maria hadn't yelled a warning. Neara and Maria drew and fired, but Maria was the much quicker of the two, and had an arrow in the creature even as it leaped into the middle of our group. Sam chose to make an appearance, and this time I just focused on attacking the tiger rather than trying to practice. I almost cheered when the whip hit the thing, but my swing caused the whip to basically slap down across its back, rather than strike with the tip. Maria already had two arrows in it, Neara one, and everyone else was pulling weapons, but the tiger decided I should be eaten first. A whip might be a cool sort of weapon, but let me tell you, it's pretty much useless when something is biting you. I got mauled pretty good after the thing leaped on me and knocked me flat on my back. The two long teeth didn't bite so much as gouge, and I ended up with two long furrows dug into my chest, and a hell of a paw swipe across the face.

An arrow in its ass got it to jump away, and I healed the 80 points of damage it had done as I rolled to my feet. Rayna joined the fight then, hitting the creature with her slow spell, though a slow tiger is still pretty fast. It did allow me to get a couple more swings in, with the last one hitting with a snap. The impact point had a small flash of fire, and overall it did about 12 points of damage. Not the full amount it could have done, but it was a start. The slowed tiger didn't last to long with all of our warriors crowding in and swinging hard. I tossed two heals out, one to Anna, and one to Dalmar, both of whom had gotten clawed a couple of times.

Sam of course turned into a bracelet as soon as the tiger died, and as we settled back down I asked the group in general for suggestions. I ended up reading the weapon's legend to everyone, then listened as they discussed it, with Neara finally speaking up and asking "What skills is it using?"

Huh, never thought to check. I pulled up my stats to find an addition

 + 1.2% hand to hand

+ 96% light armor

+ 89% Blunt Weapon

+ 95% Concentration

+ 60% Faith

+ 96% Cooking

+ 87% Repair

Legendary Weapon (Serpent Strike)

  Bond (1%)

  Weapon (1%)

  Magic (0%)

Ok, that was weird. I explained what it said, with most everyone agreeing the weapon part probably meant using it as a whip, with a few saying it could also mean using it to channel my magic. The thought being that the magic reference might be to using something inherent in Sam. Neara had the most interesting observation.

"When I started learning the bow" she said from the other side of the fire, leaning back comfortably against a log "Maria told me to not bother trying to practice against targets and stuff. She said the system handled the muscle memory and stuff like that, and all we needed to do was concentrate on an aim point" I didn't quite follow that, and my expression probably made it clear, so she said "It's like your mace. I bet you don't practice using it, just go out and swing at whatever creatures are attacking you. No science or special technique type things you learn, just beating on something until it's dead" I had to nod at that, starting to get her point. She grinned back before saying "So with the bow, we set an arrow, draw it back, then focus on the point we want to hit. No adjusting for distance or wind or even your stance. Hell, Maria and I don't even hold the arrow the same, she kind of squeezes it between finger and thumb, and I hook my two fingers around the strings. Doesn't matter. The system handles all the details, and the more your skill improves, the more you'll hit your target"

"I'm at 98%" Maria said "and all I do is focus on my aim point until the arrow hits"

Neara nodded and said "Right. And we think the percentage is telling you something about the likelihood of hitting an unprotected target, and maybe something about how much damage you'll do" She shrugged before adding "Obviously it's not an exact thing since we hit more than one percent of the time at first, but everything she suggested to me seems to work"

"So your saying to ignore trying to figure out how to use a whip and just...swing at a point?" I asked

"I think she's right" Dalmar said "I have two skills associated with this hammer; blunt weapon, and two-handed weapon. The blunt weapon one went up fairly quickly as I beat on things, but when I started trying to block or do more..." He paused, searching for the right word, and Bob chimed in with "Exotic attacks"

Dalmar nodded agreement and said "Yeah. Punching out, or aiming for knees or weapons. Things like that. Anyway, that's when the two-handed weapon one started going up. I didn't think about it until Bob and I were talking, and we realized we didn't have a block skill, even though we were blocking attacks"

"A lot of games have layers of skills" Rayna said "like with the shield. I've played games where you learn ten or twelve different levels of shield skills, including attacks and special defenses. This place doesn't have all that, so it must be kind of built in"

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"So I'm thinking you do the same" Neara said, getting a round of nods from the rest of the group

"Makes sense" I said, looking down at Sam and considering how I had been trying to remember how to use a whip correctly. I hadn't done that with my mace, just commenced to walloping whatever got in my way.

"Have you noticed we don't have a dodge skill, but some of the rings and stuff give you bonuses for it?" Maria asked with a grin. At my blank look, she said "Yeah, most people don't think about it, but I've also noticed most people don't try to dodge things. I think you can. You know, arrows and those flame bolt things. Everyone stands and waits, expecting the system to roll the dice, and hope for the best. I think it's like Dalmar and Bob blocking with their weapons, it doesn't really help you until you decide to do it"

"Shit" I muttered, remembering those damn goblin archers "you think I might have been able to avoid getting hit if I'd tried to duck?"

"Maybe" Maria said "It's pretty much a given that a lot of these things are being done in the background, but I think you have to at least make the decision to do something before it will even roll the dice"

Again, that made a lot of sense.

As it turned out, it also helped a lot. I didn't try anything fancy, but the next few days I concentrated on just wanting to hit whatever was attacking us, and didn't worry about how to hit it. It reminded me of my early days with the mace where I managed to miss a forty foot dragon from two feet away, but I did start either hitting the creature, or looking like I would have if I hadn't missed. I could feel a sense of...satisfaction, from Sam whenever we hit something. It wasn't like with Telina, where, even if she was sending me just emotions, it still seemed like she was whispering them into my ear. It was hard to really explain, but it felt more like a pet. A pet that sent feelings of happiness or something to you, and you felt them inside.

We had made the trip through the Forbidden Lands enough that it had become somewhat easy, especially with the two groups. We had the normal two, maybe three fights a day for three days, and I incrementally moved the weapon skill up to 2%, but didn't try channeling Fist through it yet. The land stayed fairly flat until we came to a stone doorway in the side of a mountain. It was actually in a flat cliff at the base of the first of a series of small mountains stretching east. The door had a stone lintel and twenty foot high doors that had letters carved into it. The door appeared to be a single stone, fifteen feet wide, but there was a bit of mines of Moria feel to it all, though it didn't have the scary pool of water in front of it, just a bunch of scrub brush.

Maria marched up, put her hand on the door, and said "Friend!" It didn't work of course, but it got a laugh. Dalmar, being a dwarf, had to do something similar, but he said "Azantis". Supposedly it meant 'Open' in dwarf. A series of clunking, grinding sounds started, and when the last lock was undone, it caused the stone door to sink down and out of sight, sort of taking us by surprise. Luckily, no dragon charged out when the doors came down.

"We'll need torches for a lot of this, since it'll be so dark we won't see very far without it" Dalmar said as we all gathered at the doorway "This first section is pretty much a straight shot until we reach what looks like a huge natural cavern. There's like ten different ways out of the cavern, and we'll need to find something that marks our path. Lots of smaller tunnels feed into the one we'll be on, so keep together and watch our back in case something comes up behind us. I'll lead, and Bob's team will be rearguard"

He looked over at Maria to see if she had anything to add, getting a nod and "Most of us played the games in the real world, and it seems like the monsters here are kind of a mix of different games. A lot of the underground creatures did magic or could paralyze or stun, so watch yourself when we meet something new" she paused, then grinned and added "If anyone sees a beholder, I recommend screaming and running away"

Everyone else laughed, and I wasn't going to look stupid by asking what a beholder was, so just smiled like I understood. Didn't sound all that bad, but I was guessing it was a lot worse than the name implied. We took a break and made something to eat before starting down, so I checked my current leveling status. The goblin king thing had left me more than half way to level 13, and when I checked, the last few days had pushed me to about 90%. That made me realize no one had leveled up, which with Maria's lower level people, seemed weird.

When I sidled over to stand beside her and asked her about it, she said "Yeah. All my people here are either level 6 or 7, but have enough points to go paladin. They're not allocating points until they reach 8 and see how things go"

"You can do that?" I asked. Her giggle made me grin, and she said "No reason you have to allocate your points, but it doesn't make any sense not too unless you're doing something like this. This is sort of a test run for something I worked out with my besties"

Uh-huh. Sounded like my friend Maria and her goddesses had a plan and were moving to make it happen. Looking around the group, I realized what the paladin thing would mean, and I grinned as I saw her smiling and nodding at me "Makes sense" I said "Is Tarra going to be part of the team?"

"That's the plan" Maria said with a laugh. I studied the group, seeing how she had things, and asked "I thought paladins had to be warriors, can Rayna be one? I'm guessing Tanira, the battle goddess?" The staff thing made sense if it was possible.

"Yep" Maria answered, grinning as she leaned in to take my arm, something she seemed to do more often. She had a satisfied look on her face as we both looked at the group, and she added "I suggested it when I first met with them. Telina has you and three paladins right now, so if this works, I can balance that a little if most of my people get selected"

"Balance?" I asked, though I had a pretty good idea what she meant. She nodded and said "Goddess influence. Dalmar and I discussed this a lot when you started getting things done, and even more once I took this position. Right now things are pretty disorganized, and us eternals are sort of concentrated in the empire. But later, after we spread out some, and your efforts start building Telina's influence, there's going to be issues if we don't have anything to balance out her influence at least a little" she looked up at me, her face serious and said "I trust you and her, but even if you don't do another thing, the locals will all begin to move the way you and her want, and that means everyone moving in the same direction. I want everyone to have a choice"

I shrugged and said "I have absolutely no problem with that" I felt a sense of satisfaction from Telina, so added "and Telina is onboard with it"

"Good" Maria said, leaning up to kiss my cheek before stepping forward and saying "Everyone ready to begin the Dalmar Dragonsbane tunnel of love tour?"

The underroads really were roads, fifteen feet wide and twenty feet high to match the door. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all smooth stone, and air seemed to be getting drawn down, causing a gentle breeze to blow over us as we stepped inside. Light from outside illuminated for quite a ways, and it looked like the road sloped very gently downwards as far as I could see.  I had done a group blessing and an armor spell before restoring, so was as ready as possible to start. I had a torch in my left hand, as did Rayna, leaving everyone else's hands free to use their weapons, so the door sliding closed behind our group didn't cause any undo worries.

We all stopped as the doors ground shut, and after the noise stopped, we all kind of just stood and listened. The flickering of my torch stopped when the doors cut off the gentle breeze, and I kind of held my breath to listen as we stood there. Dalmar and Diana were leading the way, and I stood just behind them with my torch, and Bob and Anna stood at the back, with Rayna just in front of them, allowing our torches to illuminate forward and back enough to give some warning. Our elven and dwarven eyesight would work in absolute darkness, but only to see the heat of other living things, so we needed the torches for finding traps, and seeing other threats.

 I think everyone else was doing what I was, and we kind of froze there for a moment, all straining to hear, until Dalmar's deep voice broke the moment with "Stay together. Try not to make to much noise, since we don't know what will draw aggro down here" he paused, then said gruffly "Let's do this thing"

Everyone was tense and trying to be quiet as we moved forward into the darkness, all eyes and ears straining as the deep silence and heavy air kind of pressed down on us. Maria broke the silence when she whispered "Dalmar just farted"

Dalmar's chuckle got everyone else to laugh quietly, and I whispered back "He who smelt it, dealt it"

"A poet and didn't know it" Rayna said with a giggle from behind me, drawing a "Shhh" from Dalmar

The mood had lifted though, so we weren't crouching and creeping along anymore, and the pace picked up a little. The floors were dusty, though it didn't stir up enough to bother us, and periodically we would pass a pile of trash or broken crates. About a half hour in, we came across a decaying cart still attached to the bones of a horse. We didn't stop, but everyone looked over when Dalmar pointed at the heavy bones of a dwarf lying in the back of the cart, apparently from where he had fallen backwards when he died.

"Bones are intact" Maria said softly "Doesn't look like they were attacked"

I wasn't sure that was all that reassuring since it meant he died from something other than being attacked. Suffocated? Gas maybe? I was guessing we could die that way too, so hoped it wasn't either one.

We had been walking for over an hour before we came across our first cross hallway. Dalmar held up a hand to stop us, and he and Diana moved forward until they stood in front of the opening. When nothing attacked them he said "Looks ok", before waving us forward until the torches could light up the hallway. It wasn't as wide, maybe ten feet, and appeared to go at right angles to our road, straight and level as far as I could see. We continued on with only a "Time to start checking behind us Bob" from Dalmar

Diana and Dalmar both carried their warhammers sort of up and resting on their right shoulders as they walked in front of me, and I had one of those moments of unreality as the torch light, surrounding darkness, and an armed and armored dwarf and human made me realize how really strange everything was. It suddenly felt like one of those adventure movies, and I almost laughed as I thought 'Hey, we're on a quest!'

We passed a hallway on our left side less than ten minutes later, and it was pretty much identical to the other, though it looked like it might slope upward just slightly. We could hear a very faint 'tink...tink' of metal hitting metal from it, but it was so quiet that you lost it as soon as you left the mouth of the hall. It was a steady sound, making me think of something blowing in the wind, and we all sort of shrugged and kept going.

The gentle slope of the road we were on made it very hard to guess how deep we were a couple hours later when Dalmar raised a hand for us to stop. We had reached a crossroads, with hallways intersecting from both the right and left. Dalmar and Diana seemed to be looking down at something, but it took me a moment to realize that the dust on the floor was disturbed where something had walked through it.

Everyone moved up beside Dalmar as he said "Either one very busy creature, or something has a village down here" I had to agree. The two cross hallways seemed to be almost completely clear of dust, and the road going down had a clear spot in the middle, with various scuffs and disturbances on the sides where something stepped or got dragged.

"Stay quiet, let me see if I can hear anything" Dalmar said quietly as he moved to stand in the middle of the crossroads. Other than our own small noises I couldn't hear a darn thing, but Dalmar stood with eyes closed for a couple minutes before looking back at us and saying "Nothing to the right, but there's something ahead of us, and a lot of somethings on the left"

Huh, dwarves must have pretty good hearing.

"We pick up the pace" Dalmar said, studying the map he had pulled out of inventory "We're a couple of hours from the cavern, with one more crossroads about halfway there. Last thing we need is to get in a fight, then get attacked from the rear. We'll pick up the pace and try to push through any resistance. Rayna casts her find traps spell and works with Maria to keep us out of trouble" he looked over the group, then paused to look at Anna and said "Anna, I'd like you to move to the front with Diana and I. Bob can hold with Jake if necessary, but I'm hoping to stay ahead of anyone behind us" he gave everyone a grin before adding "I plan to bulldoze over anyone who tries to stop us. Maria, Neara, and Rayna target the mages and archers first, then anyone else you see" 

"Let's do this" he said gruffly as he turned and started walking forward again. His height meant he didn't have a long stride, but he began moving at a purposeful pace, one that covered ground quickly. As Bob had pointed out, walking didn't use endurance, so the only negative here was the noise. Chainmail and metal weapons make noise, so there was little we could do to prevent someone from hearing us if they were listening.

Our first encounter came twenty minutes later when Dalmar slowed, then finally came to a stop. A moment later a group of creatures walking toward us came into view, then stopped just outside the range of Rayna's torchlight.

I could see them clearly, as I'm sure everyone except Bob, who was the farthest back, and human, could. They were lizards of some kind. They walked upright, carried what appeared to be tridents, and reminded me of those velociraptors all the dinosaur movies were so fond of. If, you know, velociraptors had human type arms and carried weapons.

My first guesstimate put the group at twelve or thirteen, all armed the same, and walking in two columns. The standoff lasted less than a half minute before the foremost lizard hissed "Food!", and started toward us.

I guess Maria and I thought a lot alike, because as Dalmar, Anna, and Diana all charged forward, Maria and I yelled "Food!", then started laughing as we followed our group into battle.

Drakeling Hunter

Level 9

Health 85

made up the majority, though a couple toward the back looked a little bigger. The creatures were slightly shorter than Anna, making them about a half head taller than Dalmar. So when Dalmar's hammer did an overhand swing, it impacted on the first creature's face, driving it back and down, tripping up a couple behind it.

The tridents were a new thing, but they were surprisingly short, so they weren't as awkward as the gnolls' halberds in a fight like this. Anna had it the best, her shield very effective against the jabbing weapons, and the tight quarters perfect for a thrusting attack from the sword. The first three drakelings went down almost immediately; and Anna pushing forward, shield sweeping tridents out of the way, caused the third row of drakelings to get snarled up as Diana and Dalmar finished off the ones that had stumbled and fell.

Maria and Neara began shooting at the ones farthest back, but Maria yelled over the sound of combat "Hold off Rayna. Use a spell on any that try to flee!"

Bob and I were pretty much spectators. He would turn and check behind us periodically, but this was obviously a surprise engagement, not an ambush, so I didn't expect an attack from the rear.  

Our archers concentrated on the two bigger ones in the back as our tanks rolled over the ones in front. Both Diana and Dalmar had taken some damage, but it wasn't worth a heal spell yet. Anna hadn't taken a single hit, which said a lot for the sword and shield method. Watching from the rear, the difference between Dalmar being a higher level was easier to see. He never missed, pretty much killed most with one swing, and few of the creatures ever did more than a small amount of damage. Anna and Diana did a lot of damage, but sometimes a thrust or swing wouldn't connect or get blocked, and it usually took two or three swings to finish a creature off.

Eight of the drakelings were down in the first two minutes, and one of the larger ones had succumbed to arrows before the last big one hissed something that made the other five creatures turn to run. Rayna hit them with her slow spell at that point, and I raised my left hand (since Sam was in my right) and sent Holy Fire down on the big guy at the back. The combination of being slowed, then knocked down, left the drakelings pretty much helpless; and I took the opportunity to call fist, then swing Sam at one to the right who wasn't blocked by my people.

"!!!!"...a sense of exaltation came from Sam as my whip snapped out and the tip hit with a crack. Rather than fire, there was a flash of frost on the creatures skin where Sam hit, then a small burst of white light as my fist spell was released. The creature had taken some damage already from the holy fire, so the whip attack plus fist ended up finishing it off.

"That's what I'm talking about!" I yelled, getting an answering surge of happiness from Sam. I was darn tempted to try it again, but my people were blocking clear access and I didn't want to cause a friendly fire incident.

Diana hit the last one with her hammer, turning it into a gear pile, then looked at Maria and said "I just got eight!" Anna held up her sword and said "Yeah, me too"

"Neara", "Rayna?" Maria asked. The two women shrugged, and Rayna said "that last fight before we entered the mountain" getting a nod from Neara and say "the one before that"

"Ok" Maria said with a grin before saying to Dalmar "We need a few minutes. You guys can watch for more of them and scrounge the drop"

The girls grouped up, standing in a circle around Maria, but Maria stuck her tongue out at me when she caught me watching, and said "No peeking. Go help Dalmar or something"

Huh, look what happens when you decide to start a secret society. They start keeping secrets.

I decided to take Maria's advice and joined Dalmar in picking up coins, and sorting through the gear. The things dropped the tridents and cheap knives, but no armor or anything. The tridents were actually usable by warriors, but Dalmar said they didn't do enough damage to be worth the trouble. They seemed to be like a sword, but without the ability to slice something. Of course, underground like this, swinging big weapons like Dalmar's warhammer, or Bob's two handed sword, could get problematic in tight quarters.

"You ever been somewhere it was to tight to swing that thing?" I asked Dalmar, nodding at his hammer.

He stood up from scrounging the last coins and said "Yeah. Couple of times. I carry a one hand version if I need it" he chuckled, surprising me, and said "Actually started with it. Reminded me of that hammer Thor used in all the movies and comics. One of my nephews had the whole costume one Halloween. Switched over, oh, back when I was like level ten or twelve I guess, and found this one"

He nodded his head toward the group of women muttering behind us and said "Anna has the right idea really. Probably the best set up for tanks is that sword-shield thing. But it's kind of...boring" he chuckled again at his description, then added "It also doesn't do as much damage. As your strength gets above 18, the damage multipliers really kick in for two handed weapons. Single handed weapons are more dexterity oriented, so I lose a lot of effectiveness when I switch to one" he sort of nodded down at the items scattered on the floor and said "These guys didn't have any armor, so swords like Anna's and Bob's are really effective. You start fighting heavily armored monsters though, that's where Diana and I do our most damage"

Made sense. There was always some kind of trade off between offense and defense when picking a weapon here. I actually thought Ariel's combination of hammer and shield would be my preference. Good defense, and a fun but effective weapon for kicking ass with. The spike at the top of Zac even gave her a bit of thrusting damage.

Maria's group stayed huddled for a good ten minutes before they broke up, laughing and hugging each other; obviously happy about how things went. I headed back to my spot in our marching order as we got set to move again, but Maria gave us a quick update, speaking just loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Ok, you guys are now in the presence of four more paladins" Maria said. I could see Rayna turn slightly and grin at Maria, before Maria continued "They all have a few new things they can do, so we should be more effective"

When she didn't add anything else I rolled my eyes, and muttered "Sure, keep us in suspense"

All five of the women laughed or giggled, telling me they must have all agreed to keep their new skills a secret to tease us guys. I let it go, and instead took the chance to update my armor spell, and do a group blessing as we walked. None of the paladins complained about receiving a blessing from Telina, so I counted that as a sign our goddesses wouldn't interfere with each other's powers. A quick restore and I was ready to go.

Anna stayed up front, and Dalmar kept a quick pace as we continued. It was hard to evaluate enemy intentions and actions here since I wasn't sure if their actions were the result of random programming choice, or if they were based on some level of...reality. Back home, meeting a bunch of armed people all heading in the same direction would make me think of hunters, or a war party. Here...it was hard to tell.

Our next encounter occurred about an hour later as we got close to the intersection Dalmar had spoken of. It was heralded by a steady 'squeak-squeak-squeak' that sounded mechanical, and brought to mind a wheel with a bad bearing.

We slowed but didn't stop moving forward, and we ended up meeting another group of drakelings before getting to the intersection. This group was larger, and they had a couple of wagons being pulled by things that looked a little like a triceratops without the horns, and a much smaller shield thing on top of their heads. The wagons had cages on them, and I could see they were filled with some kind of furry creatures, but that was all I had time to take in.

This time Dalmar, Bob, and Anna joined Maria and I in yelling "Food!!!", beating the lizard people by half a second. Our group was all laughing as our tanks charged forward and engaged the front row of drakelings.

Anna had added a full body glow, and the head of Diana's hammer had begun glowing red, almost like she had just pulled it out of a forge. I couldn't tell off hand that either did anything special, but didn't have time for spectating as a dozen more drakelings came charging forward, sliding by the wagons on both sides.

Sam snapped out as a couple slid by on Dalmar's side, my swing missing by a couple inches, but startling one when Sam 'cracked' an inch away from its face. My follow up swing hit its shoulder just as an arrow thanked into its chest. That one went down as Bob stepped past and thrust his sword straight through the other ones chest.

A sudden green fog forming around all of us toward the back let me know we had an enemy Mage. A burning sensation all over, and the steadily dropping health made me concentrate on sending healing spells around. We had talked once about whether gasses were dispellable, so I didn't try it, sending my first spell at Neara, who was shooting an arrow back at one of the drakes. I turned to send one at Rayna, but found the cloud seemed to be blocked by some kind of sparkly shield around her. The fog was taking about 5 points a second, so I didn't worry about Bob or myself for now.

Rayna's slow spell had most of the lizard people doing the weird mime impression for a bit until the other Mage dispelled it. I sent a heal toward Maria, then Anna, before hitting Neara again as the fog finally dissipated.

Sam got a second chance after that and this time one of the drakes got an ice patch on his arm, and around a dozen points of damage. I wasn't sure what brought the ice instead of the fire, but being these were some kind of lizard things, it would have been what I selected given a choice.

Our tanks were moving forward as they rolled over the first batch of drakes, so I moved with them, trying to keep close enough for my aura to help.

"There!" Neara yelled, letting an arrow go. Rayna and I both looked up and followed the shot to see one of the lizard guys holding a short staff, with symbols and lines painted across his body and face. Rayna's magic missiles crossed paths with...something weird. It took my brain a second to decipher what I was seeing, but it was definitely a cloud full of teeth. Yep, a grey cloud with a mouth two feet across, filled with sharp teeth that were gnashing as it hit Neara and started chewing as she pushed her bow out to intercept it.

I tossed a heal at her as it chewed on her arm, then hit the thing with a dispel. The damn thing actually let out a disappointed screech as it faded away.

"What the hell was that?" I yelled as Neara and Rayna finished the mage with another arrow and set of missiles.

"Painful" Neara said with a laugh as she slowly lowered her bow, eyes scanning for any more enemies. It looked like the mage was one of the last, so I did a restore just in case, then joined the group as they looked at the caged creatures.

Foxes was my first thought. Well, foxes that stood upright, were four feet tall, wore clothes, and appeared to speak English. At first glance I couldn't tell gender, since they were all wearing actual pants and cotton like shirts, but the fox who stood toward the front and looked us over made me think female. Her voice, when she spoke, confirmed it.

"Elves, humans, and a Dwarf" She said, her head cocking right, then left, as she studied each of us in turn "Eternals even. How unusual" Her tail, as well as the others in the cage, was full and bushy, and it sort of stood upright so the tip rested on her shoulder. She kind of stroked the end as she studied us, the way a human might rub his chin as he considered something.

No one else said anything, so I slid forward and said "Yes ma'am, eternals. We're kind of passing through, but it looks like you could use a little help"

She leaned forward a little, sniffing delicately, then leaned back and shrugged before turning her head to look back and bark a couple of little yips. The, I'm guessing commands, got a couple of other foxes to move to the cage doors, where soft clicking sounds began as the foxes picked the locks.

"Your killing of the drakelings is greatly appreciated" she said, her eyes back to studying my group, finally stopping on Neara and widening slightly as she said "You serve the goddess Tessa"

Neara gave her a somewhat formal nod and said "I am a paladin of Tessa. I also serve Maria Dragonsbane, Queen of the Guardians of Tarinath" she gestured with her right hand to indicate a smiling Maria. I thought Neara had done the whole thing quite well, and the fox lady turned her attention to Maria.

"Giving aid to those in need is the reason the Guardians exist" Maria said with a grin as she stepped up beside me

"We will be returning to the Buried Forest. Do you travel in that direction?" the fox asked as her people started exiting the cages. A few of them were being carried, or being helped by others, so it looked like they hadn't been taken without a fight.

"We are passing through Mora Rosel, or the Cavern of Light, on our way to Lor Frell" Dalmar answered as the fox lady was helped out of the cage. Her people's tag said they were Vulpar, and she was a level 16 Shaman.

"Mora Rosel is Dwarven name for my people's lands" the fox lady said "and you will find that the path to Lor Frell not so easy to follow"

I would have been disappointed if she hadn't said something cryptic. Next she would be telling us 'There be dragons ahead'.

"The dead have risen in Lor Frell, and my people suffer because of it" the shamaness (shamani?, shamana?) said.

Ok, that was just as good. I chuckled, getting everyone to give me questioning looks, so I said "It needed that last little kick, you know?"

"You're weird" Maria said with a giggle, taking my arm as she said to the fox "My friend here is a priest of Telina, so we'll see what we can do about the undead problem while we're there"

"Aah" foxy said, eyeing me for a moment. She must have decided we'd talked enough at that point, because she turned and started talking to her people in their own language.

"Gather up the dropped items" Dalmar said. I stepped over to the group of fox people (twenty four of them), then waited for the shamaness to look up at me to say "I can cast healing spells on your injured if you like"

She did, and I did. More than half were injured, but I had the mana to get them all before doing a restore.

We split our group, with Dalmar, Diana, Anna, Me, and Maria in front, and Bob, Rayna, and Neara behind the fox people. Now that they were all healthy, they didn't slow us down any, and we reached the last intersection in a very short time. The shamaness explained that both halls had been deliberately blocked by cave ins decades ago to make it harder for the drakelings to reach them. These, and the last set of hallways went to two small dwarven towns that had been taken over by the drakelings. The drakes mostly hunted above ground, but had recently begun raiding the Vulpa.

"The Tree weakens as the undead gain strength" the shamaness said, getting me and Maria to exchange grins at the way the story was building.

"You guys seem to be having a lot of fun" Anna said, giving me and Maria a questioning look.

"It's an adventure" I said "just like you might read about. I've done other quests and stuff, but this is...better" I kind of petered out at the end, not able to come up with a good explanation

"Everything else has been basically just fetch quests, or some kind of kill quest" Maria said from beside me "Like Jake said, this is an adventure, but it kind of makes us part of everything. We're not just a bunch eternals killing things, we're...heroes" the last word got a giggle from her, but I nodded agreement. That was exactly what I was feeling.

"We're part of the story of Dalmar Dreadhammer's Quest for the Lost City of Lor Frell" I said portentously, getting a deep laugh from Dalmar, and a lighter one from Diana.