My entire body was throbbing, particularly my head.

Whatever it was that we had just experienced, every cell of me wanted me to know, in no uncertain terms, not to do it again. I had had hangovers before, once or twice, and this was very much like that. Plus a bad case of the flu. And maybe having recently been hit by a truck. Crawling out of the mud, I slowly made my way to the grass on the side of the road and violently began praying to the gods of the turf. They were unappreciative.

After the heaving had stopped, I laid there on my stomach for some time, just breathing. I felt a little better, but my brain had switched itself off again. It does that sometimes. Whenever I am really tired or stressed, it will just go nope and I will have to sit there for five to ten minutes until I am allowed to think once more. There had been many times in the past, particularly when I had just gotten off work, when this had happened. I would drive home, turn off the key to the car, and then just sit there. Unable to move or think. Unless I am interrupted by something.

Jax coughed from behind me, and I rolled over to look at him. He was laying on his back, looking at the sky as he tried to catch his breath. The entirety of the front half of his body was covered in black mud, all the way down to his ear tips. I looked down at my hands and discovered that I was in a similar condition. Fortunately, I knew of a nice little stream we could bathe in. And it was only a four hour walk from here.

“Jax…” I croaked. We both winced at the sound of my voice, but I was determined. “Alcohol,” I continued, making a grasping motion with one hand.

He giggled for a moment at that, but then abruptly, he clasped his hand to his mouth and scurried to the opposite side of the road, beginning his own adulations. Unfortunately, that meant that my target was now further away from me, and I could not seem to make myself get up to go get it.

Seeing as how I now had to wait, my mind started piecing together the last five minutes of my life. It was a task I had wanted to avoid, but we do not always get what we want. That was what Mick Jagger claimed, anyway. Sitting up, I placed my head in my hands and closed my eyes.

Toilet. I now knew the word, toilet. I mean, I had known the word, in English anyway, for most of my life. This, though. This was different. It was like there was now a hole in my mind that led… elsewhere. And that elsewhere was… I could scarcely describe it. It was like… like a library maybe? But made entirely of rows and rows of books all containing that single word. Toilet. In every language I had ever heard of, there it was. It was such a ridiculous thing. The spooky part, though, were the other languages. Languages I had never heard of. Languages that I could not even begin to pronounce. Languages with alphabets that hurt to even look at. Languages involving scents. Patterns of light waves. Radio signals. Binary code. Hexadecimal. All of it. I now knew how to say ‘toilet’ in… well, I do not know. Maybe every language, as impossible as that might be.

But there in the center of it all, was the Word. There was Power in that Word. It was a thing that I knew on an instinctual level. Regrettably, what I could not understand was what I was actually supposed to do with it. Opening my mouth, experimentally, I tried to say it aloud. I knew the shape of it. I knew the cadence of it. I knew that Word with every fiber of my being, but actually saying it out loud was like trying to bench press an ocean liner. The effort of trying it, though, seemed to be doing something.

Jax’s head whipped around to look at me. As I finally gave up, he slowly nodded, “Aye, like I thought.” He sat up to wipe his mouth, but seeing the filthy condition of his hands, he thought better of it. “I never seen it afore, but they tell of it in the stories. Bard song and the like. Word Bearers can… push like ye just did. An’ mortal kind can feel it.” He looked up at me, “How did ye do that, anyway?”

I shook my head, “I was just trying to say… say that Word out loud. But I couldn’t get it out.” I tilted my head curiously, “Did you get it, too?”

His eyes drifted off to nowhere for a moment and he slowly nodded. He took a breath and pushed. I could feel it then, like a subtle weight pressing down on me. It was not uncomfortable nor oppressive. It was just a feeling… like the world was holding its breath for a moment. Finally, he exhaled and the pressure lifted. Looking up at me, he smiled slightly, and said, “Choo.”

I knew exactly what he meant the second he said it. My brain had instantly been transported to the card catalog of my new library and pulled up the word like I had known it my entire life. I looked at him curiously, “Do you have any idea what language that even was?”

He shook his head, “Not a jobby clue.” Then he grinned at me mischievously, “But I like it. The choo! Ha!”

I chuckled at his mirth and raised my hand again, “Alcohol!”

He rolled his eyes, “Alright, alright. Settle yer wobblers.”

He stretched over to his pack from where it had dropped on the road. Reaching his hand in to fish out the jug, he stopped. “Oh no…” Slowly, and with mournful ceremony, he pulled out the broken handle of the booze bottle. With a panicked urgency, he emptied out the rest of his bag. The jug had shattered in our fall, soaking his spare clothes in the process.

“It ain’t fair,” he choked. Tears started falling from his eyes. He looked up at me like a child whose pet puppy had just been run over. “It ain’t fair!” he cried again.

Oddly enough, I started crying, too.

Once we had recovered sufficiently to move, we had decided to resume our journey. We had silently, yet mutually, agreed not to discuss the little emotional incident again, as was only becoming of menfolk. It was midday already, and it turned out that the campsite that I never wanted to see again was, in fact, the nearest source of water. This, owing to our own dwindling reserves, having been stuck in the Dungeon for who knows how long, set our direction more than any other concern.

Coincidentally, it was also the direction of the nearest inn, situated in a little hamlet Jax had called Kemry-in-the-Moors, though that was several days distant. It was kind of an odd name for a town, I thought. Why not just call it Kemry? Maybe there was a Kemry-in-the-Mountains? Or a Kemry-in-the-House? The new spin-off from everyone’s favorite show ‘That’s So Éadaoin’, starring a spunky Irish lad whose father gets a job as the grounds keeper at the White House. Coming this Fall!

No! Bad brain! Bad!

Shaking my head to clear it of the unwelcome sitcom references, I looked out to the tree line. The vibrant oranges and reds of the leaves were starting to fade to brown, and they were just starting their migration to the ground below. I could see where the giant Dungeon Mouth frog-thing had crashed through them, too. Several were cracked and shattered at their base, tilting at odd angles or shorn off completely. There was no sign of it now, though. Thankfully.

“Do we need to worry about that Dungeon Mouth coming back?” I asked.

Jax looked around, “I do nay think so. Never heard of anyone gettin’ swallowed twice by the same Mouth afore.” He considered, “Best be on the lookout, all the same.”

I nodded once. I was going to do that anyway. The last thing I wanted was a return trip to the Dungeon.

“How does that even work, anyway?” I asked. “Enter the Mouth to get to the Dungeon. Exit the Dungeon and… what? Back about where you entered? But where did the Mouth go?”

Jax waved his fingers spookily, “Magic.”

Ah, the old catch-all for ‘I dunno’.

He looked over at me, “What was you expectin’? Fer it to jobby us out?”

Actually… Yes, that was what I was expecting. Wait… Is that what ‘jobby’ means? Eww…

“While we’s on the subject…” Jax continued, “Why do ye think She called it ‘My Dungeon’?”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“After we landed in yon puddle. She said ‘thankee fer tryin’ My Dungeon’… or sommat,” he tried to clarify.

“Oh,” I said, thinking back. I had been a little preoccupied at the time, but I did recall that the message had been a bit off. “I guess I had assumed that was a message directly from uh… what did you call her? The Demon Queen? The Mistress of the Dungeon?”

“Lady o’ the Dungeon,” he corrected. “But it were Bline’s voice what were talkin’.”

“Really?” I asked. “It seemed a lot more… oh, I don’t know… personalized than what I usually get from her.” I considered how to describe it better, “Like an actual person wrote it to me instead of at me like usual.” I scratched at my cheek. I was doing a bad job of this.

“She sounded the same ter me…” he said, quietly. From his expression, that worried him.

“Well…” I started, grabbing at ideas randomly, “Maybe because you get spoken to directly, it just naturally comes off as more personal?” I snapped my fingers, “Or! Maybe we have different Faen!”

“Huh? What do ye mean?” he looked at me as we walked.

“Well, think about it. You said yourself that the goddesses have helpers, right? How do you expect Her to talk to all of us at the same time?” I smiled. “Maybe yours is just… flirty?” And mine has a penchant for old RPG menus?

He raised his eyebrows at the thought, “Huh… I never thought of it that a way.”

I shrugged. I had no idea, of course. It sounded plausible. Then again, plausible was not a word I would use to describe… any of this.

“I did nay think that the Queen could talk to mortals, though,” he mused. “Or, if what ye was sayin’ is true, that Bline’s Faen would carry messages for other’ns.”

“I don’t see why not,” I said. “I mean… well, obviously, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’m sure higher beings have their ways.”

“Maybe,” he said thoughtfully.

“Why does it matter?”

He glanced at me quickly, but then looked back at the ground before saying, “I suppose it don’t.”

When we arrived at the campsite, the sun yet hung a finger’s width above the horizon. Surprisingly, my feet only felt a little sore. I had to suppose that my improved walking skill plus the Toughness point that I had gained were contributing to that. Or I was just getting used to it. Whatever it was, it was welcome.

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The campsite looked as I remembered it, though there were signs that it had been used somewhat recently. The road was still pretty muddy, like it had rained at least once since the last time I had been here, but the fire pit showed fresh ash. Jax figured that it had been used within the last day at the least. Whomever had used it was long gone by this point, though. It was a curious thing, or so I thought, that despite all the walking we had been doing, we had not seen a soul along this road.

“Darvinton sends a man with a cart through here every month fer trade,” Jax explained. “We used to make the bugger pay a toll fer the privilege. He must be smilin’ something fierce to see nary a hide of us.” He grinned at the memory, but his face fell at my expression. “Sorry.”

I did not say anything for a moment. A racket like that was probably small potatoes in his mind, and I knew from what he had told me that he had done much worse in the past. Still, I hardly wanted the reminder. I sighed, “No need to apologize. Not to me anyway.” I decided to leave it at that. There was no lecture I could give that would tell him anything he did not already know. And what right did I, a man who until recently had never known a day of hunger, have to give it to him? Besides, he would probably be harder on himself that I ever would. “I’ll go get some firewood, okay?”

We were sitting next to the fire later that night. The conversation had lapsed into a comfortable silence. Jax was idly poking at the flame with a stick, while I was perched on the flat rock nearby. There had been no sign of my old polo shirt when we got here. I had to assume that either it had been burned or taken, though I could not think of any reason someone would want the thing. It had been little more than a rag when I had left it.

We had taken turns at the creek, washing the mud from ourselves. The stream was still running high from the recent rains, and our water skins were full again. The loss of the alcohol, though meant that it was less safe to drink, long term, though boiling it would help. Hopefully, our luck would hold in that regard. Luck had not been altogether on our side, lately. Just enough to be alive, maybe. Small blessings.

Jax got up to tend the stew he had been putting together. He had found some herbs somewhere while I had been gathering the wood. He claimed it would be transformative to the flavor. My hopes were slim, but I would give anything a try at this point. If I had to choke down one more can of pemmican…

“Stew’s done,” he said, handing me a jar full of the stuff. It… did smell a bit better, I had to admit.

“So what should I expect in this place? Kemry-in-the-Moors,” I asked, mainly to get the conversation going again. Also, the stew was scalding hot.

He gave a slight shrug, “Cotton farmers mainly. Grows pretty well on the moorland.”

“Really? Cotton? Isn’t that a labor intensive crop?” I asked, surprised.

He nodded, “Aye, if yer level’s low. Some o’ them ol’ bent backs can pull two… three acres a day, though.” He grinned up at me, like he was remembering something, “Don’t pick a fight with ‘em, neither. Some of ‘em can carry forty stone like it were a feather.”

I had no idea how heavy a stone was, but it sounded impressive. “How do farmers gain levels?” I asked, curiously. “They don’t go hunting monsters, do they?”

He tilted his head slightly, “Sometimes, aye. Weak stuff, I’ve seen ‘em do. Mostly, I figure they buy the Gems like the rest o’ the commons.”

I frowned, blowing on the still steaming jar. That just did not make sense to me. “Okay, explain that. Why would anyone want to sell Gems of Power?”

He was sipping at his own jar, carefully. Smacking his tongue with a slight frown, he said, “Ah… stuff still tastes o’ the lavvy.” Reaching for some more of the herbs, he looked up at me, “Uh… money, mostly. Also, there’s supposed to be a hard cut at uh… tenth layer, I think.” He pursed his lips, “Or were it five? Anyway, makes the rank one Gems worthless to ye.”

“Worthless? So… what? You can’t use them anymore?” I sipped at my own broth. The scent of the herbs was not doing much for the flavor directly. It just gave it a fresh quality. Not a bad addition, honestly.

He nodded, “I think so, aye.”

I thought about that for a while. Rank one Gems, huh… “How many ranks are there?” I asked.

He sighed, setting his mostly full jar aside, “I don’t know that. Actually, I don’t know that anyone knows that. There’s tales o’ people what can leap o’er mountains tall. Don’t ask me what kind o’ Gems they’d need ter swallow to notice. Fer men like that, there be two fates. They either get too old ‘n kick their feet up somewheres, or the Dungeon takes ‘em. I never heard o’ no tale of a man nor woman besides ever findin’ a limit what didn’t die first.”

Legends were rarely the most reliable authority, but still, for no one to have even made up a story about someone succeeding? Then again, I had to consider the source. “Who’s the strongest person you’ve heard of?” I asked, changing course.

He screwed up his eyes, “Round here, that’d be the Matriarch of Enbraden. What were her name…” He started mumbling under his breath, “Jizza? Jezzer? Oh, I forget. Anyway, I hear she got to fifty recently.”

“And that’s… good?”

He snorted, “Well, don’t go pissin’ in ‘er tea, mate. But enough talk!” Pulling his bag in front of him, he gave me a mischievous grin. “Me vengeance be at hand.”

“What?” I pulled back nervously. “What vengeance?”

His grin only deepened, “Inventory.” He made a few gestures in the air until he found what he was looking for, and the Greater Gem of Power we had found in the treasure chest floated into his hand.

Now, I was deeply confused. “What are you planning on doing with that?”

He started to toss the little marble up and down in his hand like a Prohibition mobster, “Now, we’ll just see what’s what, ain’t we?”

“Uh… dude? You’re starting to freak me out a little.”

He chuckled, “Good… Gooood.” Then, he popped the sphere into his mouth, looking at me expectantly.

I blinked a few times, calming down. Was that not… what you were supposed to do with those? Why the build-up?

After a few moments, I began to feel the transfer from Jax. It was a pleasantly warm sensation, like always, but the curious thing was that it was entering my core from below. Actually… I shifted my seat…

Abruptly, Jax spat the Gem back into his palm and shuddered. Panting a bit, he looked me up and down. “Maggot eaten fud o’ the Shepherdess…” Apparently, he did not see what he was looking for, and shooting to his feet, he started stomping toward the trees, “I gotta piss.”

What… was that? I sat there silently for a while processing what had just happened. I was pretty dense when it came to interpreting other people’s unspoken emotional states… but that… My thought was interrupted by the sensation of my core being filled once more. The feeling of it was… sensual. If I were in a different kind of mood… also, the fact that it was coming from Jax. I gave a pained expression.

From the darkness, I began hearing Jax faintly grunting and moaning. Oh, Watcher’s Eyes… He had to know that I could hear him, right? Maybe it was a bandit thing? Living out here in the woods with monsters all around, there could not have been much room for privacy. And what was worse, I was still feeling that sensation from my core being filled. It was like a silk scarf being slowly drawn across my privates while I was trying to watch old sitcom reruns and eating a freshly delivered pizza. I was not laughing, and I was not aroused… but I was getting comfortably full.

Jax started getting louder. Ugh… I stood up. I have to put a stop to this.

I sat back down, shaking my head. No, nope. No, I don’t. I started rocking back and forth with my head between my hands. Leave the man alone. Just endure. How long does it take for that damned thing to dissolve?!

When Jax started almost wailing, I shot back to my feet. Yeah, no. This has to stop.

Before I had even taken a step, Jax suddenly fell silent, and after a breath, I heard a thud.

Thinking the worst, I hurried forward, “Jax!?” From all the noise he had been making, it could have attracted anything from out there. Rounding the trees, I found him. He was lying in an unconscious heap on the ground, his pants around his ankles, and his… equipment… still in hand. It was still engaged, too. Kind of small, though. I gave a shake to my head and studiously avoided looking at it. And hairless? Gah! I gagged a bit. I did not need to know that!

Kicking his ankle lightly while trying to keep my eyes averted, I whispered, “Come on, dude… Wake up!” He was out cold. I looked up at the stars through the canopy resignedly. I should just leave him here. Looking around into the darkness, I thought I heard something. Probably an owl… Whatever it was, I did not hear it again.

Looking back down at the man, I heaved a great sigh. Grabbing him by the ankles, I started dragging him back to the campfire, all the while mumbling under my breath, “Goddesses above take mercy… I could have just found a nice little dog or something, right? I didn’t have to get saddled with this guy, did I? Curses like a sailor, can’t understand half of what the guy says… fucking masturbates all the time…”

Arriving back at the fire, I carelessly dropped his feet to the ground, and glanced back. He was lying on his back, still very much at attention and somehow his hand had remained wrapped around it. Wincing like I’d been slapped, I shuffled over and roughly rolled him over with my foot. The view was little better, as he was ‘mooning the moon’ to turn a phrase. Not wanting to see that either, I unfurled his bedroll and laid it over top of him.

Tiredly, I collapsed on the rock by the fire and looked over at his unconscious form. “Well, now… I don’t know if that was the revenge you were looking for, but you got something for your trouble.”

I was sitting in my American History 101 class, waiting on the teacher to show up. By the Three, how I hated this class.

I had no idea if the professor was tenured or just an associate, but he might have been the very worst teacher I had ever seen. Well… no. I take it back. There was that one woman back in middle school. Anyway, his entire teaching style was to show up about five to ten minutes late and start silently writing lecture notes on the chalkboard. Once he had filled every available inch on the massive wall-to-wall structure, he would turn around, plop his notebook on his lectern, and start, oh so slowly, reading the notes at us. Every single day.

As bad as that was, the dribbling idiots in my class, either because they really were that stupid or out of some warped sense of troll-like humor, would keep interrupting the man to ask him to repeat himself because they couldn’t write that fast! And he would! Even slower! If the class wasn’t required for my Major, I would have dropped it after the first day. As it was, I had started skipping every other session just to maintain my own sanity.

Today, though, was going to be a little different. We were going to be taking a ‘book report’ quiz. It wasn’t really a ‘report’ so much as it was a proof that we had read the assigned literature. The text in question had been a lovely little paperback entitled ‘Women of the Depression: Caste and Culture in San Antonio 1929-1939, Vol. II’. I had been studiously putting off reading the thing for months, and the night previous, only just realizing that our test was the next day, I finally broke down. It had been 1 a.m. when I started. I made it through the Prologue.

And here I was. Ready to take a test on a book I had barely even cracked open. And it was worth fifteen percent of our entire semester’s grade. I was exhausted.

I was sitting at the back of the class, as was my custom. For classes I hated, anyway. The chair backs were designed just right so that I could comfortably rest the back of my head against the wall. The prof finally decided to make his appearance just as my eyes were starting to drift shut. Scheduling this class right after lunch was a cruel joke. He was a balding man of middle years and with a prominent paunch of a belly barely restrained by his belt. His features were otherwise what you would call ‘doughy’. I had taken to calling him Dr. Potatohead. Privately, of course.

Slipping in right behind him, a very pretty girl looked hastily around for a seat. She had this really largely styled, poofy white hair, of all things, which was set off by a very big set of black rimmed glasses. Strangely enough, I was sure I had met her somewhere before, but I couldn’t see how. One doesn’t forget hair like that. I had been wanting to ask her out for ages, but I wasn’t the type to aim quite so far over my own head.

Seeing that the seat next to me was vacant, she hurried over and sat down. Like it was no big deal! I was sure my face was going to burst, it was so red. Studiously controlling my expression, I said, “Hi.” Yus! Smooth.

“Hi,” she whispered back. “Did you actually read that book? It was so boring! I read the whole thing, and I don’t think I remember a thing!”

I blinked a few times. Was she actually talking to me? Oh, shit! She asked you a question! Uh… Uh… “I only made it through the Prologue.” I mentally groaned at myself. I was such an oaf. Maybe she’d appreciate the honesty?

She tittered, “I think the Prologue was the only part I didn’t read.”

Nice! She laughed! Now, what do I…

The professor interrupted my thought, “Alright. Books away. Pencils out. You have until the end of the class to finish the quiz. If you finish early, silently turn in your paper, and you may leave.”

Silently cursing the man for disrupting our conversation, I readied myself for the inevitable. At least I could get out of here early.

As he was handing out the quiz sheets, the girl turned to me again, “By the way, I really liked it when you called my name.”

Steam shot from my ears at that. I adjusted my collar with a trembling hand. Her name? But I didn’t know her name. I had never bothered to find out, not wanting to set myself up for disappointment. Oh, fuck me… how do I go about asking now? I smiled at her, and chuckled to deflect. I would definitely have to find out later. Who would I even ask, though? I didn’t know anyone in this class. Argh!

Right about then, the quiz sheet arrived at my desk, and I started looking it over.

…

Hmm… Hey, I actually know this one…

I glanced down. I knew… all of these…

…

That lazy son of a bitch! He made the test entirely from the damned Prologue! Ha!

Hurriedly, I began writing in the answers like a cat making off with the fisherman’s catch. I am so lucky!

“Donum… Donum!” she whispered. I stopped. This was it. This was my moment! I had an in! She hadn’t read the Prologue!

“Donum, wake up!” she whispered again. My face slowly fell…

Oh, no…