As it turned out, the ability to create a big fancy stone oven did not make Luka a good pizza chef. Also, telling children to “make the dough into a circle” and “keep the sauce in the center” were not detailed enough instructions for a world without the dish. So, in the end, most pizzas came out burnt and misshapen, with gloopy cheese and dried sauce.

Perhaps the saddest part of the affair was that the children loved every second of it.

Or that was the best part of it.

A trio of young girls giggled together, sharing a polished stone knife to cut their pizzas. They drummed their hands across the table and sang about the cheese and crispy crust. Nicole tried to feed Mr. Sticky a bite, but the doll only ended up with tomato smeared across its face. Sitting at the center of the picnic table, a boy shaped his pizza into a triangle, an act of defiance for sure, but one neither Tram nor Ben cared to correct.

Either way, the boy devoured it when it came blistered and spotted out of the oven.

Then there was Ren. Luka eyed the child, quirking an eyebrow as the young orc sniffed his creation not once but twice.

Ren held the crust up, tapping the underside with a knuckle. He listened to the dull thud of the airy bread, seemingly content with whatever he was listening for. Then all the cheese slipped off, splattering his plate. Curses flew from his mouth a heartbeat later—and a stern Tram snapped at him a moment later.

Ignoring the old mayor, Ren spoke to Luka, “I thought you said it was supposed to be flatbread? This isn’t flat.”

“I made sure to get yeasted dough,” Luka replied.

“So?”

“Yeast causes the dough to puff up.”

Ren’s eyes lit up, and he quickly opened his cookbook to see an early page filled with scribbles. He wrote the yeast-thing down.

Ben leaned in close to Luka and whispered, “He asks a lot of questions. All the village bakers and cooks ignore him now, especially after catching him breaking into their homes to ‘try out a few recipes.’”

A bit of smoke wafted from the oven. Luka muttered a curse himself, snatching up his magic fabricated peel and sticking it deep into the hot stone. A burnt pizza emerged.

“Sorry, Franky,” he said to the man, dropping the pizza in front of him. “Burnt it.”

“Did you?” Franky asked. “This looks divine.” Without waiting for it to cool, he folded it like a calzone and stuffed one end into his mouth. “I was right!” he said, his mouth leaking steam.

Luka slipped another pie in, removing another in the process. The oven could hold five at a time but only took ninety seconds to bake—if he didn’t burn them, that was. And with Franky’s second pizza baking, only the other adults were left waiting for their pizzas.

“Why cheese?” Ren asked, practically yelling.

“Why not?” Luka retorted.

“Why not meat?”

“You could do meat if you wanted. Pepperoni is popular.”

“Pepper-oh-knee?”

Luka didn’t correct the pronunciation. “It’s a cured sausage. A bit spicy.”

Ren scribbled more notes. “You stick a whole sausage on pizza? That’s weird.”

Again, Luka didn’t correct him. “Any vegetables also. Other meats, different sauces. Anything you want, really.”

Looking up, Ren eyed the World Walker suspiciously. “Even sweet things?”

“Dessert pizza is a thing, yeah. You wouldn’t do tomato sauce, though.”

Luka took out two more pizzas, dropping them before Sol and Eve. They got to eating right away, completely ignoring the temperature, just like Franky.

“What about mutgrins?” Ren asked.

“I don’t know what that is,” Luka answered.

“It’s a fritter—”

“Ren,” Tram said in a warning voice. “Leave the man alone; you’ll talk his ear off.”

The kid deflated.

“I don’t mind,” Luka said, dropping two more pies off.

“Your funeral.” The Mayor sampled her pizza.

Ben took a big bite. “This is good!”

Franky echoed the sentiment with a grunt, his mouth full. He pulled his folded calzone back, showing off a long cheese stretch. The other adults grunted as well, agreeing in between bites.

Finally, Luka served himself. Some of the kids had finished already and rushed back to the slides after a quick “thank you.” Then he took a bite. It was okay. The dough was more cracker-like, the tomato sauce was missing herbs, and the cheese was closer to Swiss than mozzarella. And over all, it was bland. Why was it so bland?

“Needs salt,” Ren said, working on his second slice.

Luka snapped his fingers, startling the boy. “That’s what’s missing! Salt!”

Eventually, the novelty of the pizzas ran out, and all the kids were back in the lake or taking turns going down the slide. Even Ren left after forcing Luka to give all of Earth’s recipes to him. Sol also bid adieu, disappearing in a puff of smoke and black feathers.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Eve said, “Could it kill her to walk home normally?”

“It probably would,” muttered Franky as he eyed the remaining dough.

Luka tossed the leftovers to him. “Flatten it out and cut them into long strips, then tie them into knots. We don’t have any garlic, but it should still be tasty.”

Franky instantly got to work, unaware of what “garlic” was.

“Careful,” warned Tram, “if Ren sees, he’ll come running.”

“Is he one of the more difficult ones?” Luka asked. “I got into my fair share of mischief when I was a kid.”

“No,” Tram forced herself to say. “He’s not difficult at all, really. Just passionate. I suppose all the kids are—a symptom of their upbringing.”

“They’re good kids despite their rambunctiousness,” Ben added.

One of the kids went down the wavy slide, standing on his feet and crouching low. Another tried to do the same right after, but flipped over and ended up splashing into the water backwards. A few others mocked him for the failure, only to fail themselves when it was their turn.

“Is it just you two who take care of them?” Luka asked.

Tram shook her head. “Everyone in the village does; some have more free time than others, that's all.”

“We’re practically retired,” Ben said, taking his wife’s hand. “Not much to govern around here. And we always wanted kids, back when we were young.”

“To what could have been,” Tram said, receiving a solemn nod from all the other orcs—even Franky, who was trying to figure out how to use the pizza peel.

Luka mimicked the gesture. “It’s nice here,” he then said. “Reminds me of some places back home.”

Tram and Ben shared a glance, the latter removing a paper from his back pocket. Emberwood’s Judge cleared his throat and straightened his posture.

“World Walker Luka, I didn’t come here only to escort Ren.” He pushed the paper toward Luka. “I came to present this.”

“A contract?” Luka asked, reading the first few lines.

“More like a document of residency. These papers prove you’d be one of Emberwood’s residents and patrons.” Ben quickly added, “And you’d be tax-free for the first ten years.”

Eve and Franky stared at the papers, even as dark smoke poured from the oven—the knots were burning.

“I don’t understand,” Luka said.

Sighing, Tram gently took the paper from him. “We want you to be a resident here. In Emberwood. Full disclosure, World Walkers bring prosperity wherever they go. And well,” she gestured at the kids, “we need some of that right now.”

“You can’t be serious?” Franky asked pointedly. “Mayor, this is Luka’s second day here, and you’re already throwing this at him?”

“I expect nothing.” Tram tore the contract in half, then half again. “There’s not a doubt in my mind there are better places to live in this world. Goddess above, the wealth bonuses any human city could dangle are many times over what we could ever hope to offer in a year. But you’re right, Franky, we shouldn’t have led with a contract.”

She paused for a long moment as the others collected their thoughts. “But, Emberwood is where you were placed in this world by the Goddess. That has to mean something?”

Ben added, “Orcs don’t usually make contracts, by the way. We figured you, as a human, would feel more at home with a contract. Humans love contracts for some reason…”

“He’s a World Walker,” Eve said. “He might not even know what a contract is!”

Ben’s eyes went wide. “Oh, Goddess above! I’m so sorry—”

Luka chuckled. “I know what contracts are. Don’t worry about offending me. I just… I just don’t know what’s being offered here.”

Eve answered, speaking far faster than the Mayor or Judge, “World Walkers are, for lack of a better term, valuable. Most of the time, the places they settle down become beacons for culture or the economy—sometimes both.”

“Like the Golden Well,” Franky said, “or the Temple of the Hypothesis.”

Luka blinked a few times—were those names supposed to mean anything to him? He glanced around, finding everyone nodding at Franky’s statement. Luka asked, “Why can’t World Walkers just move around?”

“They can and some do,” Eve answered. “They become known as Worldly Vagabonds or Heroes.”

“’Heroes?’”

She nodded. “The ones without homes usually hunt monsters and fix problems before they can arise. Like plagues or natural disasters.”

“They can just stop a natural disaster?”

“Hero Tide Turner got her name from turning a tsunami away from a cluster of coastal cities. World Walker magic can do some amazing things, sometimes. Especially if the world they originally came from has their own magic.”

“Earth isn’t the only world World Walkers come from?”

“Far from it,” Tram said, tapping the torn contract. “Don’t worry about answering now, or even this month. Eve and Franky are right—you’re a fledgling here, and forcing you to live in this village would be the true death of it.”

Nodding along with his wife, Ben said, “We just want to state it as plainly as possible: we want you to live here. And offering before some other city dangles a fulminating rose topaz as a housewarming present seemed like the best, safest option for us.”

Luka didn’t know what to say. The siblings didn’t either.

“Also,” Ben quietly said, “we don’t want to take advantage of you. It’s rare, but there are a few known instances where a World Walker is ‘taken.’ All their rights as a person are stripped and tarnished. Everything they created is not theirs but rather the city to which they belong. We won’t do that, and we even offer to—if another city piques your interest—go over exactly what they are offering and what they want from you so that you aren’t taken advantage of.”

“Oh, okay… thanks…” Luka said awkwardly. He retreated back into himself, allowing the conversation to teeter out.

Eve and Franky gave Ben and Tram angry glares, even as Franky snacked on burnt knots. The elders ignore them. There was no shame in their eyes, not when the rehabilitation of their home could start with the alien sitting across from them.

They’re nice people. They care and obviously want what’s best for everyone, Luka thought. If what Ben said was true, then people were eventually going to offer promises of wealth and power—some with malicious intent. The safest option would be to agree to Emberwood’s terms outright and ignore all future favor attempts. He saw problems, of course, none he knew the full extent of.

Luka did like it here though. A quiet, small community bound by deep, deep connections. He had friends already, he had people who made him happy, and he had plenty of kids to give happiness to.

He twiddled the chalky rock he’d used to draw on the table between his fingers, slowly tracing the image in his mind onto the woodgrain. He had time to decide, he knew; there was no point in rushing things—not yet, at least. Few people knew he was a World Walker, and it didn’t seem like news traveled fast in this world.

Distantly, he could hear the children laughing and giggling, their splashing like bird song. He continued to sketch.

“What are you working on?”

Luka turned, finding Eve leaning in close. Lost in thought, he’d been drawing a simple design. It’d need some tuning, especially with Mystic Sol’s glyph lessons, but the physics and mechanics all remained the same. He drew gears, pulleys, and simple machines perfectly, detailing their lengths and teeth. He found an issue in sketching the horses, at least until he realized dire-wolves and emus would fit better.

“This,” he told Eve, “is what’s called a carousel. It’s rather simple; all it does is slowly spin. But, like the pizzas, I think the kids would get a kick out of it.”

He nodded at the tome of glyphs. “And I’m thinking of using glyphs. Mind helping me figure it all out?”

“O-of course,” Eve said.

Luka met Tram’s eyes. “I’m not going to sign any contracts right now, but I thank you for being upfront with me. Are you alright with me staying as a guest for now?”

Tram leaned over the table, harshly tapping a single finger into Luka’s sketch. “If you build this, the kids will never let you leave.”

Maybe that’d be a good thing, Luka thought.