image [https://imgur.com/nh0Wzmc.png]

Gregor gingerly pushed aside some kind of prickly sticking vine, wincing as it caught on his arm anyways. He was soaked with sweat, hungry, thirsty, and really needed to poop but didn’t feel comfortable saying anything. Luka and Samantha plowed on ahead of him. The Greeter seemed completely unphased by any obstacle in their way, and in spite of her somewhat naive and ditzy nature Samantha also seemed oddly unbothered. She had a determined look on her face, but occasionally she would exclaim with delight at a pretty flower, or the clouds overhead, or just take a deep breath and exhale as if she was enjoying the weather.

He shook his head. She could clearly pull herself together when she needed to, but overall she just seemed so helpless. He swiped stinging sweat from his eyes, and then tripped over a root on the ground nearly falling flat. Leaning against a tree and gasping he watched her move forwards. But that couldn’t be the case. She had managed to go toe to toe with a Lord, if just briefly. And then she had gotten them both out of the pit… He frowned. There hadn’t been a lot of time to stop and consider, but how had she gotten them out of that pit?

He slumped against the tree. “W… wait! Let’s take a breather.” Samantha looked back, and a look of concern came over her face. “You okay Gregor? We can take a break for a moment, but I’m sure we are being chased.” Luka nodded, face grim. Gregor panted, fanning his shirt. “Hey, can’t you like, teleport us again? How did you do that the first time anyways?” Luka also seemed interested, but said nothing. He was oddly deferential to Samantha.

Samantha fidgeted, smiling sheepishly and a faint blush came onto her face. “Uhm… I was wondering when you’d ask that…” She glanced up at Luka, and then clasped her hands together. “Okay please don’t be mad! But when I was in the pit the book reached out to me and it gave me some abilities!! I HAD to take them, otherwise…!” Luka immediately frowned, looking worried. “Samantha, I-” He rubbed at his forehead. “You can’t trust a cursed object. I told you we should have gotten rid of it!”

Samantha pouted, crossing her arms. “And if we had I would have been dead, right? Sometimes you have to make do with what you’ve got! You told me that!” Luka frowned. “I… maybe I did? But…” Gregor watched intently, slowly fanning himself. What an odd Greeter. He had none of the confidence his own Greeter had shown. But, he didn’t really know many of them. Perhaps some of them were pushovers.

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Luka muttered something about “needing to talk more about this” but it felt very half hearted. Gregor rubbed at his face. He didn’t want this. This sucked. He let out a long sigh. “Okay, I’m going to go be a farmer or something. I’ll probably be pretty good at that, and farmers make a good living, right?” Samantha tilted her head and looked at him quizzically. “But Gregor, they’ll hunt you down and probably draw and quarter you or something?” Gregor blinked at her. “But… I don’t want to do this anymore. Can I just go home then?”

It was Luka’s turn to look at him with an odd expression. “Gregor… no. Perhaps if we evade our pursuers you could slip away and live a mundane life, but this world does not easily tolerate a Hero living a life away from battle. You were brought here to fight, and events will conspire to make that happen.”

An odd bubbling emotion swelled inside Gregor’s chest. It felt like when he was a child, and he would melt down into crying fits. He clenched his fists, looking away from both Luka and Samantha. “Well… that’s not… very fair…” Samantha leaned down, and hugged him. Gregor shivered, a strong warm comforting feeling rolling over him. He hadn’t noticed it before, but she was really very lovely. And kind. Maybe if he stuck around… he cleared his throat, feeling his face heat up. Samantha stood back up, smiling at him gently. “It isn’t fair Gregor. But we got into this mess together, and we will get out of it together, okay?” Gregor nodded, eyes staring down between his feet.

Samantha looked over at Luka. “Well, we can probably rest for a minute, right? I’ve been meaning to ask, do the intelligent monsters of this world ever interact peacefully with Heroes?” Luka slowly shook his head. “No. It is exceedingly rare that the true monsters can speak, and attempts at communication break down into violence almost immediately.” Samantha frowned. “But those goblins were tool users, and clearly had a community. Can they at least be reasoned with?” Luka once again shook his head. “Again, no. We cannot understand their sounds, and it is unlikely they can understand ours.” Samantha was looking very focused now. “Interesting. This world automatically translates so much… Hm.”

Samantha seemed very thoughtful, looking off to the side. Then she slowly smiled. “I see how it is. Interesting.” She moved her fingers through the air. “Ah, the book is saying that there are multiple scouting parties moving through the forest. I think they are centering in on us.” Luka frowned. “There are caves nearby. We could attempt to lose them that way, but they could continuously reinforce anyone that came in after us, and we would be cut off. Eventually hundreds of soldiers and Heroes could pursue us, if they deemed us important.”

Samantha had a small cute smile on her face. “But there is a place we can go into that they couldn’t follow us, at least not with an overwhelming numerical advantage!” She fluttered her eyes, and Gregor couldn’t help but smile. Was she being silly to lighten the mood? No… she was just like this. Luka looked thoughtful. “Wh… oh.” He shut his eyes slowly. “That would solve the problem of overwhelming pursuit, but…”

Gregor was also frowning now. “What? Where? Let’s go then!”

Samantha turned to him, her smile wide. “Yes! Let’s go into a Dungeon!”