“Why does my skin hurt so bad?” Nest asked his escort. “We’ve been out of the mountain for thirty minutes, and I feel like my skin is going to char and fall off.”

  “First time out in the sun?” the dwarf with the darker skin asked. He was about the same age in appearance as Nest was and had a reasonably young demeanor about him.

  Nest had always noticed that the sinners in the clan always had darker skin than he did. The more frequently they left the mountain, the darker their skin became from the typical flushed white of his clan mates.

  “It is.” Nest agreed. “People live in this?”

  The escort chuckled and nodded. “It’s called a sunburn. Here-” The man tossed a jar to Nest, who caught it.

  On the inside of the jar, there was some sort of topical cream. “Is this the stuff the smiths use to keep from getting burned by their forges?”

  The man bobbed his head from side to side. “Similar- same base, but this protects from sunlight. Dungeon light doesn’t burn the skin if you stay in it for too long. Well, our dungeon doesn’t. I’ve been in one nasty dungeon that burned twice as bad as the sun. That’s where that came from. Rub it on your exposed skin.”

  “How does anyone get anything done in this? Does everyone work at night?”

  “Some do, yeah. Most work in the early morning when it’s not as hot or bright. Mostly though-” the dwarf pointed to his arm. “Once you start to tan, you don’t burn as easily. On top of that, you’re a sinner now. After a while, you’ll be too tough to burn anyway.”

  Nest rubbed the balm into his burned skin, feeling it relax as the moisture rehydrated the surface. “Heavenly forest, that’s better.” Nest exhaled, holding up the jar to toss back to his escort. The man waved him down.

  “Nah, you keep it. If I use it too often on the road I lose my tan and my mood seems to go to shit.”

  Nest looked down at the jar, weighing the pros and cons of using it.

  He wasn’t bothered.

  If the ointment protected his scorching flesh, he’d gladly take the protection. He’d allow any tan he’d get to develop in small stents. He looked up at the sun again and reminded himself for the ninth time since leaving that you couldn’t look at the shining sky flame.

  How was this right? How was there this absolutely massive ball of heat and light just lingering in the sky above and nobody was staring at it? How was it not the only thing people were talking about?

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  He’d known about the sun of course, but knowing about something and experiencing it for the first time were vastly different things. Almost immediately after leaving the mountain, he’d tried to talk with his traveling party about it, but to them, it was old news. Well, to the other male dwarf in their troop. The female dwarf he’d attempted speaking to apparently had no words for a weak greenhorn sinner like him.

  Shame. Nest found the red haired woman to be very pretty. Her hair was even darker red than her blushed cheeks; done into two large braids on either side of the back of her head. At the base of each braid there were thick ardite rings that held the hair tight.

  Across her back was a war hammer. In the shape of a fist holding a rail spike.

  Nest caught a glance at the female dwarf for what had to be the too manieth time. She didn’t return the glance.

  “Wrong tree,” the male escort whispered to Nest. “Sarah doesn’t care much for-” He thought about it for a moment. “Well, anyone really.”

  “Sarah?” Nest had heard everything the escort had said, but had only processed Sarah’s name.

  “Aye, Sarah Demoncrest.” The escort nodded.

  “Right, all clan sinners are part of the noble houses. I’m Nest Dungeonstalker now-”

  “Dungeonstalker?” Sarah spoke up for the first time. Nest wasn’t aware she had been listening. “There are only four houses; Demoncrest, Wolfhammer, Nightwrathe and Windcrasher. All of which were named after the first dwarf of the house and their soul abilities.”

  The impromptu history lesson wasn’t what Nest had expected, but it bore decent fruit. The noble names always seemed strange to him. It made sense they would be named after soul abilities, which Nest had learned could be unusual.

  “There is no House Dungeonstalker,” Sarah continued. The matter-of-fact way she had said it sent a chill down Nest’s spine. Not a good chill.

  She was very pretty, but nest found it dreadfully annoying when someone was so confidently wrong. She hadn’t even stopped to consider that things might have changed. She just spouted out that Nest was the one who was misinformed. This trait was among the worst traits Nest thought a person could have. He really hoped this was a lapse in character and not a recurring issue.

  “You’re right. There were only four houses,” Nest informed her with a hard look. “Things are different now. Nice to meet you, my name's Nest Dungeonstalker, Lord of the Fifth Noble house of The Clan of the Hidden Tree.”

  Sarah flushed, flustered beyond the ability to speak. Despite the situation, Nest didn’t hate it.

  Before she could reply, the male escort stepped back in. “Pleased to meet you, Nest. I’m Harald Windcrasher; D-Rank Four cultivator. Sarah and I are the newest sinners in the clan, besides you. That’s why we're on escort duty. We got our start at the same time about ten years ago. She’s D-Rank Six.”

  Nest took the offered hand and shook it. “Explains why we’ve never met. I would have guessed you were my age, but I was still in school ten years ago.”

  Harald nodded his head. “Yeah, cultivation slows things down a bit.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Harald.” Nest shifted his attention to the female dwarf. “Wish it was as pleasant to have met you, Sarah.”