It wasn't long into the journey before sudden heaviness tugged at Malcolm's eyelids and his head began to droop. Instinctually resisting the urge to sleep, he sat up straighter in his seat, and shook his head feverishly.

"Don't fight it so hard, lad." Berlung spoke up. His voice was gruff and dry, which he sought to remedy from a long draw from his water skin. "Go on and sleep, we won't be at the predetermined rest stop for a few more hours." Small droplets of water soaked into his beard as he wiped his mouth.

Malcolm thought to argue, but he was extremely tired. So instead he shut his mouth. He had never gotten an ounce of decent sleep since coming to this world, his body craved a rest. The journey had been slow going from the beginning. Saria and Malcolm had taken out the map and thoroughly went through how long the journey would be to reach the abandoned mine.

Malcolm didn't know much about basic cartography but with Darion and Saria's help they managed to set out a course for their journey and gauge how long it'd take. Four days. Three if they rushed.

Malcolm didn't feel any need to rush, especially since he didn't really know what to expect upon arriving at the mine.

For all I know, I could be rushing right into the endgame and bumble right into a dragon's lair. With the way he's luck was going so far, he wouldn't be surprised.

"Twenty minutes," Malcolm's voice came out slurred. "Wake me up in twenty minutes." He mumbled some more words, but they were soon replaced with soft snoring.

Berlung chortled quietly. "Aye, sir. Rest easy."

The words Berlung spoke chased after Malcolm as he slipped out of consciousness, distorting and echoing as he began to dream.

When Malcolm opened his eyes again, he knew he was dreaming. The entire landscape around him had changed. No more dryness and dusty desert but now a humid and fetid swamp, he looked down to see the murky water coming to his knees.

He whipped his head all around and couldn't see anything, just old burnt tree stumps jutting from the water. He could hear quiet signs of life, a constant chirping of insects, the croaking of a group of frogs, and even the call of an owl.

"Hoo..."

Malcolm began to wander, though it was difficult with the thick mud beneath the water sucking his feet deep, making each step a workout. Surging with all his strength he pulled his foot out of the mud, it made a sickly popping noise as his foot came free. He stumbled forward and fell face first into the stagnant water.

Suddenly he was being dragged under the water, he tried to swim free, legs kicking manically. A bony hand grabbed at his collar and yanked him down. The air in his lungs began to burn, a scream building in his throat. He grabbed the bony hand and bent the fingers away, snapping them like twigs to free himself.

Finally, the bony hand released him, he rushed for the surface. Legs and arms pumping like an Olympian athletic swimmer. Bursting from the water in a hacking fit, coughing as his lungs took in air. He looked back to the water and was shocked to see that the water was now gone, nothing but dry cracked earth.

Panicked, he looked around and noticed the entire swamp was gone. It was all gone, the tree stumps, the frogs, the bugs, all of it. He was now in a wasteland, it was so dry he could feel the moisture being pulled from his very being.

"Hoo..."

Malcolm's eyes bulged. The owl. It hadn't left him, not yet. Frantically he began to search for it, straining his ears. The sound came again, and he ran towards it. He ran and ran, it felt like he was running the full length of the Grand Canyon, though he never got tired. He kept running until he skidded to a stop in front of a long dead spindly tree.

The owl was perched on one of the branches, it's back facing him.

"Hoo...?"

Malcolm began to scream and shout, trying to get the owls attention. But the bird kept its back to him. Malcolm tried to walk around the tree to see its face, but the owl would move its head with him. Fuming, Malcolm decided he'd climb the tree.

Digging his fingers into the trees surprisingly soft bark he began to climb. He climbed and climbed, the branch the owl sat upon seeming to get further away from his reach. Until finally he grabbed it, pulled himself on top of it, and looked at the owl with a wild Cheshire like smile on his lips.

"Who...?"

The owl paid him no mind, not even when he shouted and swiped at it. Steeling himself, and refusing to look down, he began to creep closer to the owl on the now far too skinny branch. He reached a hand towards the bird, but then he froze. The owl had begun to snicker. Malcolm's heart fell, and he began to feel a chill surround him as he watched the owl distort and shift.

"Hoo... wh-hoos a..."

The owl snapped its own neck to face Malcolm, its three red eyes gazing right through him, right into his soul. Blood sprayed from the owl's eyes, as its face changed into another, a pig nosed brute. Barolo.

"Whooss a g-good b-b-b-boy!?" Barolo hollered. "Not so pretty now, am I? Huh!? Hahaha." The orc let out a raucous laugh.

Maggots poured out of the orc's mouth and washed over Malcolm. He screamed, he screamed so hard that his screams screamed. Barolo continued to laugh as he vomited maggots.

Again, a bony hand grabbed at Malcolm, grasping the back of his collar. Before Malcolm could react, the hand yanked him back. He was pulled until he slammed into a reclined ottoman chair, the cushioned seat contorted to his body instantly.

Though Malcolm continued to scream, until a bony hand slapped him across the face.

"Shush!" A voice hissed at him.

Malcolm stopped screaming but began to go into hysterics as he whispered to himself and shivered. He looked to the source of the voice and recoiled slightly. "L-Lorne? What's... What is this? What did you do to me!"

"Night terrors." Lorne said irritably. "It seems thrusting you straight into battle like that has had some negative effects on your subconscious mind." She then snapped her fingers and a book materialized into her hand. "No need to worry, I'll give you something to reprieve it a bit. And it won't even count as cheating."

"Cheating?" Malcolm said through chattering teeth.

"Hush, child." Lorne waved off the question as she scanned the book in her hand. "I have just the spell to help, I wrote it myself over half millennia ago. Ah, here it is. Now, sit still. Ahem, Tranquillitas animi!"

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

The words she spoke came out in a tumble and seemed to echo through Malcolm's skull. Lorne jabbed a finger towards him, and a flash of purple light flashed into him. The force of the blow knocked the wind clear out of him and caused an intense headache to erupt in his frontal lobe for just a moment before it vanished, and a tingling sensation enveloped him.

An opaque window popped into his view.

New ability learned! You have learned: Calmest Mind!

Info: Whenever put in a suddenly stressful or traumatic, or tense situation you will feel an unnatural calm wash over you. This is a passive ability. Bonuses: +50% Resistance to Emotion/ Mind altering effects. +25% to magic control (This increases the effects of some spells).

Warning: If a traumatic enough event occurs, this ability has chance of overloading and rendering you mentally and emotionally damage!

The feeling of the ability activating was beyond alien to Malcolm, he could nearly physically feel his thoughts becoming unclouded and clearer. He sat up in his comfy chair, shaking his head slowly.

"Thank you," Malcolm rubbed his temples. "That actually really helped."

Lorne gave a nonchalant shrug. "It's no big deal. You're actually the first person I used that spell on, I'm glad to see that it worked."

Malcolm bit his tongue before he could lash out about being used as a guinea pig. The spell had worked, and she had even pulled him out of his night terror, which he was more than thankful for. He really didn't like the way that nightmare was going.

"So, I'm guessing this is like my dreamscape?" He looked around the room. The room wasn't all that big, it was just big enough to fit the large oak desk Lorne sat behind and the sofa chair he sat upon. Other than that, the room was bare. The only item of decoration he could see was a framed picture of a pale skinned frowning little girl, for a moment Malcolm thought it was Lorne as a kid but saw that the frame had writing all around it in colored macaroni. "My Precious Daughter". It looked like something a child would make in grade school.

Lorne caught him staring at the photo and smiled. "Cute, isn't she? My one and only daughter, Nexima. Nexima De Le Rosa Hexenbrand. Though I called her Nexi for short, she hated it." She continued to coo and go on for a while until Malcolm interrupted her with a cough.

"Oh! Look at me, wasting time. You don't care about little Nexi do you?"

No, I really don't. Get to the point already! Malcolm shouted in his head.

"Well, not yet anyway." She giggled then cleared her throat. "Now, let's get to the point. I saw that you have learned a bit of magic. Mana Manipulation." She tapped a slender finger to her sharp chin. "Oh my, that's interesting. Do you know how rare being able to learn that ability is? With the right kind of determination and imagination its potential could be exponential!" Her eyes flashed with greed as she gazed down at him, a too wide smile spreading on her half enticing and half decayed lips.

The sight made Malcolm's stomach churn uneasily.

"I'd suggest you begin familiarizing yourself with your new abilities." Lorne went on. "You will reach your destination in a few days and let's just say it'd be very beneficial to be ready for a fight."

Malcolm rolled his eyes in annoyance. "No more orcs." He said suddenly exhausted.

"Oh, no." Lorne clicked her tongue. "I'll give you a hint, they are an undead type of creature."

Malcom's face twisted to some extent. "They? How many are there?"

Lorne frowned. "Ah-ah! You got your hint and that's all you'll get. Now, go train and learn all that you can. Knowledge is power in this realm. But then again power is power, so you better muster as much of that as you can as well." She grinned.

Malcolm nodded in deep thought, he had already been planning to give his magic a spin. Hell, he was surprised he didn't start shooting more mana arrows as he rode in the carriage. But he was exhausted after all the fighting. He made a mental note to begin exploring his abilities as soon as possible, he also wondered if he could pump Saria for more information.

"You could always ask me for more information." Lorne leaned in close.

Did she just read my mind? Malcolm strained to not look surprised or frightened.

"Would you actually give me straight answers?" Malcolm gave her a leveled glare.

The goddess bobbed her head from side to side as if giving the question serious thought before saying. "Maybe..." She drawled out the word slowly.

"Thought so," Malcolm sighed. "I think I'll stick to questioning Saria. She speaks in less riddles than you do."

"Good call." Lorne winked. Or at least it looked like a wink, it was kind of hard to tell since the other side of her face had only an empty moldy eye socket. "Well, it's time for you to wake up. Any last words?"

Malcolm was about to tell her no, until a thought popped into his head. "I'm guessing you still aren't going to answer the question I asked before." Malcolm said almost sheepishly. "About why I was brought here..."

A humorless smile crept onto Lorne's face. "You're like a broken record, you'll get your answers in due time. Buh bye- oh, one more thing." Her face stiffened, and she gave him a hard look. "Do not disappoint me."

Malcolm woke up to the sudden jerking sensation as the carriage came to a stop. He squinted his eyes open to see the sky darkening due to the setting sun, the clouds were few and far in between. No rain tonight, he thought to himself.

"We have a situation here, lad." Berlung said in a harsh whisper.

Malcolm looked over to the dwarf besides him. "What's going on? Why have we stopped, are we at the resting point?" He stretched his arms forward, grunting as his shoulders popped.

"Not quite yet. We've still got at least a few hours. But we stopped because of those." The dwarf pointed a stubby finger ahead of them.

Malcolm followed the finger and looked ahead of them, squinting at the sight in front of them. "What in god's name are those?"

The creatures were a distance away, but Malcolm could tell from the shape of them that they were scorpions. They all had the crab like pincers and long arching barbed tails, but they were huge. The smallest among them was about the size of a mastiff and there were over a dozen of them. The monsters were all huddled together, snapping and hissing.

"Bull Scorpions, feisty beast. Even feistier now due to mating season." Berlung's voice quivered with fear.

"Mating season...?" Malcolm took notice of the older man's shift in disposition.

"Aye. Their senses get doubled while in heat, plus they get mighty defensive over their territory. I reckon the only reason they aren't rushing us is because we're downwind." Berlung let out a groan. "Can't go around them, they'd see us or smell us and come running. Best option would be to wait it out."

"How long would we have to wait?"

"Well, seeing how their mating season began just a week ago." Berlung scratched his beard in thought. "I'd reckon we'd have to wait a month, probably two."

"What? A month!" Malcolm snapped. "Nah, ain't no way we're waiting out here for that long."

"Sorry sir, but that's our only option."

"Not true." Malcolm clenched his fist, a plan cooking in his head. "We could go through them."

Malcolm gathered the others together to go over what he had planned.

"That's not a plan!" Saria flustered. "You just want us to rush in and attack!?"

"There's some wisdom in it." Darion cut in. "We are downwind, they won't know we're coming. We'd catch them unawares."

"Exactly!" Malcolm grinned. "The three of us and maybe we can get a few volunteers from the pilgrimage. I've counted about twenty of them, though there could be more. Their levels range from five to eight, so they shouldn't be too difficult to beat." Malcolm gripped the handle of his sword. "I admit, it's risky. But we don't have a choice, either we cut through them or just sit here and wait till they're done getting it on."

Saria folded her arms over her chest." This is not a good plan... "

"Listen," Malcolm cut her off. "we don't any other options here. Either we fight them now or we wait two months. We don't even have enough supplies to make it through a week!" He waited for Saria to reply before going on. "It'll be easy. Darion and I will rush in and you'll watch our backs and administer aid if one of us needs it. We'll pick most of them off with ranged attacks..."

After some more argument and tense discussion, Saria finally grumbled consent. Malcolm looked over the large group of people who had decide to accompany him and remembered that these weren't just helpless individuals anymore. These people had fought beside him to earn their freedom, they were fighters. If I asked them, would they help us? Biting his lower lip, he walked over to the crowd. Speech time, I guess. Gotta channel my inner Captain America. Malcolm joked to himself, trying to lower his own nerves.

"Listen up people!" Malcolm shouted. "As many of you can see, we have a bit of an obstacle before us. Bull Scorpions, apparently it's mating season and they made the mistake of deciding to fraternize in our path." Malcolm scanned the crowd. "I'll level with you all, we don't have many supplies to last, we can't wait them out. I know most of you are tired, but I must ask you. Will you fight with me? Will you accompany me once more as we carve our path to freedom?!"

The cheers took Malcolm by surprise. He was never much good at public speaking, yet here he was rallying a group of people to fight with him. It was exhilarating.

Rally Cry has leveled up! Stat boost now last 10% longer!

"Liberty or death!" Someone cried out, then was soon echoed by the rest.

A smile widened on Malcolm's face as he drew his scimitar and raised it high. "Well, it looks like we’re having scorpion stew tonight!”