“First thing to learn about magic: everyone sucks at it! Except the gods!” Sol crossed her arms and smirked, staring at Luka like a kid with a trophy. “But! World Walkers are different! Their magic comes directly from the gods. So, in conclusion, you’re going to double suck at magic!”

“Double suck?” Luka echoed.

At the same time, Eve spoke, her face locked in deadpan, “Wow, come up with that thesis all by yourself?”

“Now, now, deary,” Mayor Tram patted her on the arm. Give your aunt some respect. She was top of her class at Rok’yr University.”

“Allegedly,” Franky coughed.

Squawking on her head, Sol’s raven cawed out a series of bird curse words. Sol ignored the comments and said to Luka, “All magic, even the divine kind, originates from the same basic principles.”

At his confused face, Eve added, “Like how all cloth is formed by weaving. The threads may change, as well as the detail and quality, but at the end of the day, cloth is cloth.”

Luka hummed to himself. “I think I understand.”

Sol scoffed. “No, you don’t. But maybe one day, ten years from now.”

“Don’t be rude, crone,” Tram calmly stated.

The resident mystic glanced at the Mayor and back to the World Walker. “Interesting little get-together we have here, now that I think about it.”

“You should’ve seen the divine butterfly yesterday.”

“The what?”

Tram raised her hand and looked over to the playing kids. “Don’t worry about it.”

Before Sol could respond, Eve interrupted, “Please, Aunty, can we move on?”

The raven cawed at her.

“Children these days are always rushing things.” Sol reached over and took Luka’s hands. She held them tight when he tried to subtly slip her grip. “Divine magic is the same magic as normal magic, just better. Simple burlap versus leyberry silk, to use the earlier analogy—both a form a cloth, just one’s better.”

“Objectively,” Eve crudely added.

“Bah,” Sol threw her hands up, releasing Luka. “That’s the modern take! Back in my day, all divine magic was better than mortal magic on principle! But these new coming mages and mystics!” She scoffed. “I pity your generation is all I’m going to say on that matter.”

Luka stole a glance at Tram, who limply shrugged. “Uh, okay?” he then said. “Where are you going with this, Sol?”

“Anywhere I damn well please!” She held her nose high. “You have divine magic, but you are not divine! Therefore, you double suck since divine magic is ‘objectively’ better than mortal.”

Eve rolled her eyes.

“Double, therefore, your magic is powerful. But you are not. Hence why you were so tired after making an oven.”

Franky spoke up, “To be fair, it’s a nice oven.”

Sol stared at him until he looked away. “It’s a small feat. Nothing compared to what you will be doing later.”

Tram quickly added, “But a feat, nonetheless. Don’t rain on his gnomish cake, Sol, otherwise you’ll stunt his growth.”

Luka looked between the two old women, their appearances opposites. Tram was wrinkled and sporting piercings and tattoos, while Sol was fair-skinned, smooth, and without so much as a drop of ink or piercing on her.

Instead of interfering with their staring contest, Luka asked, “What’s a gnomish cake?”

Franky answered, “Gnomes, for some reason, make really good cake. And for it to be rained on would ruin it.”

“Are they small?”

“No, why would they be?”

Luka paused. “Because gnomes are small?”

“Oh.” The bald orc’s eyes opened wide. “Huh. Why aren’t they small now that you mentioned it?”

Sol slammed her hands onto the table. “Back to magic. You’ll have to learn the basic foundations to get better at your divine magic. And all good foundations start in one thing: glyphs.”

“Will that help with my efficiency?” Luka asked.

“Immensely.” She pointed to the baking stone inside the oven. It was polished and checkerboarded, both to prevent the raw dough from sticking. “That’s the most inefficient part of what you just created.”

“Really?” he leaned back. “It’s just a flat piece of rock—I didn’t do much to it.”

“Exactly—much. You could’ve simply added a polishing or pattern glyph.”

“I was trying to reduce sticking—”

“Then a slick glyph. That’s even more efficient. Better yet, imbue the whole oven with a kitchen cluster.”

“Cluster?”

“A series of well-defined glyphs that are often used together. Kitchen-cluster has sterilization, non-stick or stick, preservation, self-clean, temperature regulation and retention, scent emitter, and two dozen more.”

Helpfully, Eve added, “Clusters are very simple to make. Instead of drawing dozens of glyphs, you draw a single one that contains all the others. Essentially, they are premade shortcuts.”

Luka nodded along. “But how do I learn glyphs? Seems like a lot of memorization.”

A thick tome bulging with loose papers appeared an inch off the table. It fell hard, expelling years of dust and dirt. Beside Sol, everyone waved their hands before their faces and coughed to the side.

“Read this,” she said. “It has everything you need to know about glyphs in it.”

Luka frowned at the leather-bound book. Wooden veneer circulated through the cover and spine, slowly sneaking in a closed loop. Over the course of a few seconds, the wood spelled out the word “glyphs,” twinkling as it went. From there, the wood retreated across the cover, inscribing circles and geometric patterns.

“Don’t try to memorize it all at once,” Eve muttered. “Trust me on that.”

Looking at her, Luka asked, “Mind adding a fire or heating glyph to the oven? It needs to preheat.”

Sol snapped her fingers, sending the tome into a frenzy. It wobbled and thrashed, bouncing from page to page until landing upon an early chapter. On the left page, a diagram explained each point of the set of circles and squiggles—a heating glyph. On the right page, the details were expanded along with information pertaining to the squiggles.

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“Heating glyphs are simple,” Sol then said. “A basic elemental base circle and a few limiter additions.”

“Which are the—”

“The squiggles.”

Luka snapped his mouth shut.

Eve pointed at the topmost squiggle. “That one deals with temperature.” She moved to the next. “Radius.” The third squiggle was more rectangular. “This one specifies what kind of heat. Roasting, hot ember, sunlight, dry, and so on. For an oven, we’ll go with roasting.”

Sol took the last squiggle. “And that one’s the power limiter and timer. You don’t want the glyph to explode if you make it continuously heat up.”

“Why would you want that?” Luka asked.

“Weapons.”

Eve rolled her eyes and stood from the table. From her pocket, she pulled her etching quill. It was pure white and simple like it had been plucked from a cockatoo rather than an albino peacock. She reached deep into the oven and started drawing.

Sol said, “Quills are the favorite tool of many for inscribing things with glyphs. And while it's an art form in and of itself, you’re never going to learn the discipline.”

Watching thick orange lines cut ethereally into the inside of the oven, Luka asked, “What do you mean?”

“You’ve got divine fabrication magic. When you make something with your magic, you’ll just add the glyph to it. No need to hand draw.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Sol sighed, picking up a rock. She slammed it down next to the tome’s heating glyph diagram. “Carve the glyph into the rock as thin as you can.”

Frowning, Luka willed the strands in his vision. They connected to the rock, milling away a layer of stone no deeper than a hair. When it was all said and done, he blew on the rock, sending dust into the air.

The rock started to get hot.

“Going for the exploding kind of glyph, aye?” Sol picked it up and waved it around. Everyone sitting leaned away when it got close.

“Destroy the damn thing, Sol,” Tram harped. “Before you get one of them killed.”

Ignoring her, Sol asked, “Do you see now, Mr. World Walker? You carved a perfect glyph into an uneven surface. You’ll never have to pick up a quill.”

Luka reached his hand out. She casually dropped it into his palm—he instantly dropped it, letting it bounce off the wooden picnic table. Where it landed, the wood burned, and where it touched Luka’s hand, his skin seared smooth. He yelped in pain.

Sol snapped her fingers, and her stuffed raven darted off her headdress, snatching the rock in its talons. It then flapped high into the sky, bringing the ticking time bomb with it. At the same time, a rush of magic circled Luka, coalescing around his hand. Blue light extended across his palm, prying his clamped fingers open and rubbing into the seared skin. Relief flooded the World Walker, and time reverted, healing his wounds.

“What was that?” he asked.

“A simple time spell. Great for wounds!” Sol bellowed. “Is it time for lunch—”

The rock exploded in the sky, blasting a cascade of smoking pebbles at the group. The wind picked up at a flick of Sol’s wrist, sending the pebbles off course.

She smacked her lips. “Pee-za, was it? Sounds lovely.”

Muttering to himself, Luka closed the tome of glyphs and began preparing the ingredients… at least until he saw a man and child approaching.

“Looks like we’ve got more mouths to feed.”

Franky craned his head. “That’s Judge Ben and—”

“Ren. The little brat,” Tram said, crossed her arms.

Judge Ben wore glasses, the only orc Luka had seen to do so. He was relatively skinny, more lithe than lean. A wide-brimmed hat sat on his head, the kind old women would wear on Earth while weeding the garden. Rolling white hair cascaded down his chin and stud-pierced cheeks, wrapping together at the top of his nape. The beard jittered with his moments, the rocky ground causing uneven steps.

The kid—Ren—was likewise an orc. Without tattoos or piercings, he looked like the other orc children. His skin was lighter than Franky or Eve’s, pastel green rather than faded jade. He clutched a small book in his hand, one with pictures of stylized hand-drawn food on the cover—a cookbook.

“Was he in the kitchens again?” Tram asked Ben once close enough.

The Judge nodded. “Found him trying to practice julienning.”

Sighing, Tram looked Ren straight in the eyes. “What did I tell you about practicing knife work?”

Ren’s eyes found the ground. “That ‘I’ll cut off my fingers.’”

“Exactly right. Now go play in the water with the other kids. Lunch—”

“What’s this?” Ren sidestepped around the Mayor and picnic table, finding the stone oven.

Tram and Ben both groaned.

“It’s a pizza oven,” Luka said.

Ren’s eyes lit up. “Pizza.” He tasted the word. “Is that from your world?”

“Oh no, you don’t!” Tram practically leaped from her seat, grabbing Ren by the armpits and leading him down toward the water. “Stop being nosey and go play! We’ll get you when the food’s done!”

She dropped him onto the slide, causing him to flail into the water while screaming about “fairness!”

Judge Ben held his fist out to Luka—the orc greeting. “Well met, World Walker Luka. We briefly met yesterday outside the courthouse. I am Judge Ben, husband to Tram, please call me Ben.”

Gently, Luka pressed his knuckles into Ben’s—causing all the other orcs to frown. “Hi, call me Luka.”

Franky bit his bottom lip. “Well, that’s odd looking.”

“You can say that again,” Eve muttered.

“Humans,” Sol huffed in a tone both joking and not.

Ben pulled his fist back, looked at his knuckles, then looked back to Luka. “No one’s taught you how to greet an orc properly, huh?”

Franky shrugged. “He saw me and Clay yesterday. Figured he’d learn by seeing.”

“I’m not going to punch an orc—” Luka quickly said. “I’d break my hand.”

Ben softly smiled. “Orcs are a blessed race. The gods gave us unparalleled strength, for the most part, and trust me, we revel in the fact. But there is nothing worse when others can’t play along.” He put his fist back out. “Go ahead, I promise you won’t hurt yourself.”

“As hard as you can!” Franky yelled.

Luka glanced at Eve, who nodded to go ahead.

Rearing back, Luka snapped his fist forward, punching Ben’s. Their bones snapped together, echoing against the orange canopy. And yet—no pain.

Flexing his fingers, Luka said, “I don’t understand.”

Mayor Tram sat back down. “Being strong is fun, but not when others get hurt. The gods made sure we could greet everyone the same way our ancestors greeted each other.”

Luka just shook his head. “This world is weird.”

“Not as weird as peeing on za!” Franky yelled.

“Pizza. It’s called—” Luka sighed, causing the table to laugh.

A tug at the hem of his shirt pulled his attention from the child-like adults to an actual child. The young dryad Nicole held Mr. Sticky in one arm and glanced from the ground to Luka like her irises were windshield wipers.

“Um… Mr. World Walker… Ren said… you were making lunch… we wanted to know when?”

Behind her, a sea of children watched their bravest soldier speak for the group.

Luka instantly spotted a problem—the single picnic table didn’t have enough spots for all the kids to sit. He leaned over at eye level with Nicole. “Give me ten more minutes; I’ve got tables to make.”

***

After extending the picnic table with magic to accommodate all the kids, Luka tasked Eve with dividing the dough into equal pieces—one for everyone… well, two for Franky because he complained.

“Okay, everyone, follow after me!” Luka yelled so the kids at the end of the table could hear. “Press into the dough with all your fingers, knocking all the air out and stretching it into a circle!”

Sitting on their knees for better leverage, the kids followed along, utterly failing to make anything near a circle. There was also a lot of sticking—nothing a few added slippery glyphs couldn’t fix… except that Luka made them too big, causing the seats to act as if they were coated in oil. Sol mocked him as she fixed it.

“Step two is adding the sauce! The Mayor is going—”

A small arm shot into the air. The kid nearest Luka waved it around desperately.

“Yes, Ren?”

“Is pizza good? I only eat good food.”

Tram muttered something, ending with “brat.”

Luka kept a straight face and said, “Well, you’ll be the one to make it. So if it’s bad, it’s your fault.”

Ren’s face darkened, and he eyed the World Walker suspiciously, taking the statement as a personal challenge. “We’ll see about that,” he declared.

Ben spoke up, “We better. With all your ‘practice,’ you’ll be able to open a restaurant the moment you become an adult.”

Ren’s cheeks turned rosy. “I’ll have the best restaurant around.”

Franky slapped his hand on the table, causing his oblong disks of dough to bounce. “Stop interrupting! I’m trying to focus!”

Luka went right back to it. “The Mayor’s bringing around the sauce. Spread it to the edge, leaving an inch or so naked—”

“He said naked!” one of the kids down the table said.

All the others snickered.

“—then we’ll sprinkle on the cheese and bake it.” Luka watched as one kid launched a fistful of sauce at another.

Quietly, he said to Eve, “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

“Are you kidding?” she asked. “This is a great idea!”

She tossed some sauce at him, his enchanted magical shirt holding strong against the stain.