Zily had mastered juggling three stones before they reached the first military waystation. Marke had been impressed at the speed she learned, but Zily explained that anyone who had invested in dexterity could master relatively simple coordination exercises like juggling. Between the first and second waystations, Zily gave Marke a lesson on basic swordsmanship. Marke had no trouble following her instructions, but he found he didn’t enjoy using a sword “correctly”. He felt like the footwork and positions were remarkably restrictive. Kente encouraged Marke to continue training, however. “We still have nearly a thousand realms to work through after this one. Knowing how to use a sword will benefit us in the long term.” Marke sighed internally but was forced to agree.

The waystations were often more than a day apart, and the pair camped in the side of the road several times. One morning, Zily woke up earlier than usual and found Marke working through his tai chi forms. It had taken more than a year in this realm for Marke to feel an echo of the weightless stability he had experienced while using the ‘grace’ skill in the eclipse realm. With his high stats and constant attention to Priority Three over the years in the tunnels, Marke had completely mastered his cobbled-together, half-remembered version of tai chi.

“Is that the Way of ?” Zily asked when he finished.

Marke turned around in surprise. “You recognize this?” He asked.

Zily nodded a bit uncertainly. “It reminds me of something I saw once. A defeated my uncle in a spar when I was a child and they claimed to use the Way of .”

“I don’t know those words, and , what do they mean?” Marke asked as he lit a small cooking fire.

Zily began to move through her own set of morning movements as she considered how to explain. “I do not know anything about the Way of , so I can’t explain the meaning. The that defeated my uncle was a person who was not an elf. The realm is mostly full of elves and goblins, but just as there are other monsters, there are other races of people. are not . They have -”

Marke interrupted. “Sorry, I don’t know those words either. Can you draw a picture?”

Zily frowned. “I can not draw a good picture of them. They are…” Zily made a few sounds of minor frustration before she paused and turned to face Marke. “Do not repeat this–it is extremely rude.” Zily waited for Marke to nod in acceptance before continuing. “They are… snake people.” She said in a quiet voice. That is what the word ‘Ophidian’ means, it’s a polite word. Do not use other words related to snakes unless you intend an insult and to say an ophidian is an animal.”

“Of course.” Marke said, nodding. “Thank you for explaining.” Zily nodded back and returned to her movements.

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Let’s go there when I have a body. Kente said. If they have something even a little like tai chi, it could give us good material for Priority Three. Marke agreed wholeheartedly.

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Marke leaned against the outer wall of the small city they had reached. He was feeling rather embarrassed, despite Kente’s reassurance that he was fine and it was understandable. It’s PTSD, Marke. Escaping the tunnels didn’t fix everything that happened to us down there. It’s going to take more than a few weeks traveling with a pretty elf hero to replace the trauma of fighting so many vampire horses. Kente said. Marke chuckled. Why were there so many? It never made sense–where would they find new horses to turn? He replied. They had had this discussion many times, and the familiar topic helped Marke feel a bit better.

Zily joined him a while later, having requisitioned supplies for the second half of their journey. “Are you alright?” She asked. Her concern was plain on her face.

Marke nodded. “Yes, I am fine. I haven’t been in a crowd in a very long time and I think my experiences in the tunnels mixed with some bad memories of the last crowd I was in.” Marke lifted his portion of the supplies off the back of Zily’s horse and slung them over his back. He gestured towards the road and was grateful that Zily took the hint and let him walk behind instead of to the side. Marke reached into his woven basket bag and pulled out one of the notebooks that had come with him into this world. It was battered and worn and partially eaten, but it held all his notes from his first six months in the tunnel. He flipped through it slowly, reminiscing with Kente about the good times and the bad. When he reached the end of the notebook, he decided Zily would enjoy the story about being followed by a giant grub that wanted nothing more than to eat his paper notebooks. Before he could tell her the story, however, they were attacked by bandits.

“Are those bandits?” Marke asked. A medium sized group of roughly dressed elves with mismatched weapons and armor was running towards them out of the trees.

Zily shook her head. “They look like bandits, but I suspect they are only pretending. It is improbably that the military would allow a group of bandits to operate this close to the city and this far from the border.” Zily drew her sword and calmly leapt from her horse onto the lead bandit.

Marke watched as Zily disabled the bandits by breaking limbs or knocking them unconscious. From what identify was telling him, neither he nor the elven hero were in any danger. It was only a few minutes before the bandits lay in a heap in the middle of the road, groaning in pain and fear. Marke took a small healing ‘bandage’ from his pack and slapped it on one of the bandits that had fallen badly and needed immediate first aid. The ‘bandage’ was one of a hundred that Marke had made in a hidden alchemy lab a few months earlier. He didn’t know what the proper name for them was, but they acted like magic bandages. For some reason, identify had agreed with him and called them ‘magic bandages’.

“What now?” Marke asked.

Zily halfheartedly searched the bandits, looking for orders or identifying material. After a few minutes, she stood and shrugged. “Their will probably come looking for them. Let’s go.”

When they were well out of earshot, Marke asked a question. “Why did they attack us?”

Zily sighed. “It might be for several reasons. It was probably a clumsy attempt to embarrass me, my mother, and you. If you had joined the fight and killed one of them, someone might have leveraged that for political influence.” Zily sighed again, harder. “It’s all foolishness.”

Blah. Kente said. Is politics contrary to Priority One? He asked.