We rode late into the night. I’m proud to say I didn’t fall off, though it was a close thing. The going was slow at first, so they could give me some instruction. I was lucky, the horse I had gotten on was mellow enough not to give me too much trouble.

  We had caught up to Mott’s horse within an hour of riding, and the adjutant’s body was battered and bloodied, his foot still stuck in the stirrup. The hole left by my ice shard spell went all the way through his head, but had filled up with a mixture of dirt and brain gunk. I almost fell off my horse, getting down to free the body, only to be joined by Harper.

  She got down and looked at the corpse’s missing eye and possibly nose, poking at it with a long, thin-bladed knife. She shook her head and looked up at me as I maneuvered his foot out of the stirrup. “How did you get him in one shot, new guy? You’re only level two versus his 35. And why didn’t you do more than hit the rest with that lightning spell? You just froze up.”

  I dropped the foot, suddenly feeling ill. The horse ignored me, exhausted. I looked away from her and the body, and at the saddlebags. These I could get into and not have to face the body of the man I’d killed. “I… don’t know. I was angry and afraid. And I threw everything I had into… into killing him. And then, after I hit the others with chain lightning, I was out of mana.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Juan, is this a mage thing? Boosting a spell with more mana? I’ve never heard of this before.”

  The old bowman sat on the horse, looking back down the road. “You know mages are rare, Harper. The last one I knew was about thirty years ago. I didn’t know enough about other classes then to know what to ask about. I was too focused on what I could do. But I remember watching her take down a rock giant we’d stumbled into in one spell. There were five of us and we all would have died if not for her. Now that I think of it, she drank three regular mana potions afterwards.”

  So that is what I had done. “Wait. This is normal?” I asked, while stuffing three large pouches of gold and some biscuits from the saddlebag in my backpack. Shit was expensive.

  Juan stroked his goatee. “As far as I know, there isn’t another class or subclass that can do that. Though Berserkers do something similar, except with their health. It is always a good idea not to be too close to one when they fight for that reason. A brush from their backswing can kill a person.”

  “Then it’s just a mage thing. A freaky, fucked up mage thing. Loot the body, New Guy. He’s all yours.” Harper grinned at my discomfort over looting the body and moved away from what once was a man named Mott. I would never forget that moment, his one eye accusing me while the oozing mass where the other one should have been, testified to my horrendous act. It was a strange moment, and that saying that pops up in movies and tv shows, about how you never forget your first one, echoed in my head.

  I took his belt knife before I checked his pockets. Natives didn’t have the same inventory system as us, so whatever he carried on him was it. I found a few more pieces of gold, a silver ring, and a letter from some woman. The letter I left in his pocket. I didn’t want to know who else I had hurt with my actions.

  Our ride continued, and we turned west at the first crossroads we came to. By then, the moon had come up, and it was much easier to see. With no sign of habitation, Juan led us deep into the woods to make camp.

  “Cold camp. No fire.” He said.

  I pulled the sleeping roll from behind the horse’s saddle and put it to the smell test. Freshly cleaned, with more than a hint of horse. I felt somewhat lucky. All things considered, wash day for gear in the mercenary camp could have been tomorrow. And to sleep with someone else’s stank in your nose was not a thing I wanted. I would have if that had been the case, but I wouldn’t have liked it.

  I sat down on the bedding after helping tie the horses to a nearby tree. Juan had explained it had to be done with a long enough lead that they could eat if they wanted. I checked my stats, finding that I had a bunch of experience energy. I quickly accepted it and went up four. Fucking. Levels. I was angry that Mott was only worth four levels of experience to me. Was that what a man was worth? I was chilled by my even thinking about the experience not being enough. Was I already getting used to it?

  I knew I needed to assign my stat points and set the feelings aside for a less stressful time. I had 10 points, two more than I expected. My intelligence and wisdom had already gone up to 25 each. I put two each into my strength, stamina, endurance, and charisma. After a moment, I put the last two into my intelligence. My stats were now: strength 17, stamina 16, endurance 16, dexterity 20, intelligence 27, wisdom 25, and charisma 17. Health had gone up to 149, mana to 151, and my carry weight went up to a whopping 553 max. Well, toss out those diapers and the binky. I was ready for pull-ups and crayons. I was a bit more powerful and was not thinking about how I got the experience. Nope.

  It wasn’t until morning came and we were munching on dry biscuits that Harper noticed my level jump. She walked over and ruffled my hair. She had to reach to do it, so there’s that. “Good job, New Guy! Keep it up and you just might make it to level 10.”

  “Hey! Stop that.” Feeling indignant about being treated as a red shirt, I glared at her. I remembered that one from Sean and had stopped what I was doing to ask him what it meant. I had to watch some clips from an old scifi show, including the crew going on missions away from the spaceship. Every extra that died in the clips wore a red shirt. At the time, it was pretty funny. “Why can’t you call me by my name, Harper?”

  “Oh, I could. But then I would get attached and it would suck a lot more when I have to bury you, New Guy.” She smiled at me and turned away toward the horses.

  Ouch. I had nothing. No rejoinder, nothing remotely more clever than my muttered “oh.” This place, hell, this world, was not one that bred familiarity. Why bother getting close to anyone new when they were just going to die when you look away for a second? So, for Harper, I was just another new guy. A red shirt. I am so fucked.

  Juan had an entirely different reaction to my leveling, getting me to tell him where I had put the points. “As a mage, you need to put most of your points into intelligence, stamina, and dexterity. The mental strain from higher-level spells is less the higher your stamina is, and you’ll want to be prepared for the longer casting times by increasing your Dexterity. No more points in strength.”

  I still wanted to put points into strength, but I trusted Juan knew what he was talking about. We left soon after, and the forest gave way to rolling hills. I didn’t see any mountains in the distance, so it must have been something else that caused this. My map didn’t show any mountains, but outside of where I had traveled, it was still dark. And kinda swirly. I hadn’t noticed that before, and almost missed the blinking spot I had seen yesterday. It was west of us still, and since the road we were on was angling to the north, it was also slightly south of us. I decided to ask Juan about it.

  “Hey Juan? I got a question about something I’m seeing on the map.”

  Juan dropped back to ride next to me. “On the map? Describe it to me.”

  I focused on the blinking spot. “It’s a blinking spot, slightly to the south but far west of us. Can you tell me what that is?”

  Juan got this unfocused look in his eyes, raising an eyebrow. “Hmmm. I don’t see any blinking spots. Are you sure it’s not a swirl? That happens when you look at your map while in motion.”

  “No, I see the swirls. This is an actual dot on the map that is blinking.”

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  He shook his head. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. West of us, you say?”

  “Far west. I don’t know how to tell the distance, but I zoomed my map out once to see how far we came. And if there are mountains ahead. So its maybe halfway between us and the edge of the map.”

  He nodded his head. “Okay… I still don’t see a blinking light. There is a mining camp in that general vicinity. And some caves.”

  Evidently, that was enough for my map to update in that vicinity. The blinking dot was near what may have been a cave entrance. The entrance was not far from what looked like a village with a pickaxe next to it. I had a feeling that this was important. “Can we…. stop by there?”

  Juan’s eyes focused and he looked thoughtful. “It’s out of our way. And it is very important that we pass on the information about where the Steel Falcon Company is. And gather enough of a force to root them out of that area. If people are being sent here again, then we need to have that starting area free of higher-level threats.”

  “So, no. I don’t think we can until we’ve got those two things done. At the very least, pass on the information and get the ball rolling.” He sounded sure of this, and I didn’t press the issue.

  “In coming!” yells Harper. The sound of something large moving fast over the semi-flat land accompanied a pillar of dust coming right at us. Two more pillars appeared over the obscuring hill. She wheeled her horse around and started riding hard, away from whatever the fuck was coming at us.

  We raced after her. “Why are we running?” I asked Juan.

  He glanced back. “Do you know what a rhino is?”

  “Yes! Large mammal, lives in Africa, has a horn on its nose? Is that what those are?”

  “No, but they’re about the same size. And they have teeth. And claws. We call them the brask. Brask have been spreading everywhere and we don’t know where from.”

  “Okay. Again, why are we running?”

  “They’re higher level than me. Believe me, we don’t have the firepower to stop them! So we ride and try to find a place to lose them.”

  But there was nothing but rolling hills, nothing close enough to be useful before the horses gave out. We went over yet another hill and saw what I could only describe as a stockade. We rode hard for it, hoping against hope there was someone who would let us in. And close the gate behind us.

  The gate was partially open as we approached, enough that we could get through on our horses. As the last horse was through, the gate was closed with a bang. We immediately came to a stop, my horse rearing at the multitude of spears leveled at us. I fell off. I think I had hit my head because everything went dark.

  ***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

  I came to a few minutes later. I think it was a few minutes later. My horse was not under me, nor stamping on me. But the spears were still there. And the people holding them. They were green, with big ears, sharp teeth, and they towered over my prone figure. I couldn’t tell how many there were, being as I was on the ground, but the amount of legs I saw made me think there was a lot.

  My head rang, and I wasn’t really tracking what was going on. One of the green guys got down and looked into my eyes. Then he checked my head. He yelled… something… to his friends, and they lowered their spears. I thought I heard the voices of my companions, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I passed out again and dreamed that I was on a boat. Gently moving through a dark sea. It was nice. Peaceful. I thought I heard singing in the distance.

  It was dark when I woke again. I was confused as to where I was, remnants of my dreams clouding my thoughts. I was in a cozy room, small with rugs on the walls. A candle flickered in a corner on a small table. My head still hurt, but in a distant sort of way. I tried to get up, but a hand held me down. A warm motherly voice accompanied the hand. “Don’t get up. You’re safe here. You need to rest and heal.”

  I fell back asleep. This time, I didn’t dream.

  When I awoke again, it was to the sound of something being ground against stone or concrete. It sounded a lot like a rock grinding against a sidewalk. I noticed a woman with brown hair, her back mostly turned to me, working a mortar and pestle. The sound was coming from there.

  My mouth was dry, but I whispered. “Where am I?”

  The woman didn’t stop what she was doing, but she turned to look at me. Her skin was a dark green in the low light, and I noticed her pointed ears. They were like Harper’s ears, but only in the points. This woman’s ears were larger, with the tips of her ears pointing more out than up. She was older than me, likely in her late thirties if I could judge, and her brown eyes were kind.

  She smiled unabashedly at my consideration. “You’re in my bed. Since we have little in the way of space, it’s the best I could do. Would you believe I used to have a clinic? With twenty beds?” she said. “All gone now. As is my home. As is the settlement we had built.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Her smile faltered. “The war, of course. Asanog’s war against your folk. How do you not know this?” She finished her grinding and emptied the powder into a mug on the table. She added some water from a steaming kettle I hadn’t noticed and came over to the bed, sitting on a stool beside it. She brought the mug to my lips. “Here now, drink some of this.”

  I sipped the hot, bitter liquid gratefully. My parched throat felt better. “My folk? I’m sorry. I just came to this world a few days ago and I really don’t know what’s going on.”

  She widened her eyes a little at the mention of coming to this world. “So your people aren’t from the east? I didn’t know… no matter. You are hurt and need healing. And I am the only healer for this camp and for many miles. I’ll get you back on your feet.”

  “My friends?” I asked.

  “Your friends are fine. That whole misunderstanding when you all rode in chased by brask… Well, we Goblins don’t like being startled in normal times, let alone when we are running and hiding.” She made me drink some more of what I thought of as tea before she continued. “Everything is just fine now, and no one else got hurt. They checked in on you while you slept. But like everyone knows, Goblins take care of their guests.”

  The way she said the last did not sound ominous based on her tone and the kindness in her eyes. Yet, I thought goblins were supposed to be bad guys. That’s how Sean had always talked about them. And those kinds of goblins would also take care of their “guests.”

  By the time I got the tea down, I was already feeling better. I sat up. My head, which had felt terrible earlier, did not fall off. It ached, though, and my feeling of wooziness hadn’t fully gone away. And that may have been why I spoke so openly about my confusion about goblins to this kind soul helping me get better. “You’re a goblin? I thought goblins were supposed to be evil creatures that ate people.”

  “What kind of nonsense is that? Is that how goblins are where you come from?” she had this horrified look on her face, which flushed a little. “I’ll have you know we are a peaceful people. I’ve never heard such hateful drivel.”

  Again, I fucked up. This would go on the list of things that kept me awake at night. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to imply you, I mean any of you… they were stories from my world where we don’t have any real goblins. I don’t know why I said any of that. I know nothing about your people, and I-I’m sorry.”

  She still looked a little flushed, but no longer like she was going to bite my head off. “I guess you don’t know any better. But don’t you go saying things like that anymore. The world is not a kind place right now, and we have not had an easy time of it. It would not do for anyone to hear of anyone considering us monsters. Being refugees is bad enough.”

  “I…I won’t. I’m sorry.”

  She nodded her head curtly. Her face softened a bit, and she felt my forehead. Her hand was warm. “Your fever’s gone, which is good. Though why you had one in the first place is beyond me. Your color is better, so I would say you should be able to walk around a bit this evening. If I had been able to bring all of my supplies, I would have had you back on your feet and healthy days ago. As it is, what little healing magic I have and the herbs that I have been able to gather kept you from dying from your head injury.”

  “Thank you… ah, I don’t know your name.” I said. Grateful for her healing and moving on from my fuck up. But I was out for days? That was not good.

  “My name’s Marta. Do you remember your name?” she replied.

  I wasn’t expecting that question, but it made sense for her to check if my head was right after a fall like that. “Thank you, Marta. My name is Finn.”

  “Good, and how old are you Finn?” she asked, apparently checking off the boxes like a doctor back home would.

  “23 last August.” I replied. I hoped she wouldn’t start asking too many questions, like my pet’s name or favorite job.

  “Good, your memory seems fine. Though I don’t know this August you talk about. Is that a festival or something? Not that it matters. Are you hungry?” She reached over to a nightstand I hadn’t noticed and showed me a tray of food.

  I shook my head and regretted it. “Ah. No, thank you. Maybe in a little while.”

  She nodded and set the tray back. “Then you should get some more sleep. I’ll let your friends know that you’re better.” She got up from the stool and I listened to her leave, not wanting to move my head to watch her go. I eased myself down again and looked up at the bare ceiling. To sleep in a goblin’s bed. An attractive goblin’s bed. Whom I had insulted. I drifted off, thoughts of how much of an idiot I am not hampering my exit of the waking world.