Anika stood in front of Vok, an imposing Kineta about 6 inches taller than she was with void black eyes, more muscles than she had seen on this planet, and an aura of ‘you don’t talk, you listen’ that would shut up even the most troublesome pre-teen.

  Lily did not seem to be picking up on Vok’s vibes, however… or just didn’t care. She pushed herself up on her hind legs to stand between the two humanoids and rested her front paws on Vok’s knees like an over excited puppy.

  “We are going to train her to be awesome and we are going to go have dungeon parties and we are going to be the best, like no one ever was!”

  Anika almost burst out laughing to hear her talking pocket monster unintentionally quote the opening lines of the anime theme song. The inspirational speech from the oversized rodent seemed to catch Vok completely off guard, as he took a step back and looked down at Lily in surprise. In doing so, he seemed to instantly melt to Lily’s capybara charm.

  “Aren’t you the cutest little critter on the planet,” Vok knelt on one knee and rubbed Lily enthusiastically on the head. “I suppose your partner here won’t be at a complete loss with you to keep her in line.”

  He looked back over at Anika, assessing her in a slightly more kind way this time, before he grunted and walked over to a rack. Pulling a weapon off the rack, he whirled and tossed it at her, “Congratulations. You’re an archer now. You don’t have time to learn a proper melee weapon, and with water’s healing magic, you’re better off standing in the back anyway. Archery takes practice and patience, but will be far easier to master than close combat. And I am sure you will practice diligently,” the slightly menacing glare mixed with the bland sentence would make any instructor back on Earth proud, and Anika nodded vigorously.

  Clutching the recurve bow, Anika examined the dark wood with small, glowing blue runes carved into it as she watched Vok out of the corner of her eye. Given a choice, she would have gravitated to the bow anyway – she remembered being pretty terrible at coordinating her body in martial arts, so trying to learn a sword would have likely been a disaster. This tidbit about water having healing powers was interesting. She often played healers, and they didn’t usually run into melee. Her favorite characters usually stood in the back, and that was often the best place for strategizing based on monster positioning, so being a ranger sorcerer sounded like the optimal choice. Besides, for the most part she could just stand still and shoot rather than having to move and dodge and block with a sword, and that was something her clumsy body could manage.

  As Anika thought about the potential of archery and magic, Lily sauntered around the room after Vok, clearly proud of herself for her speech earlier, as he pulled items off shelves and racks. Anika saw him grabbing all the normal items she would expect to see for an archer – a sturdy belt and quiver, a leather arm guard and glove, and a bag full of arrows with metal tips and white and blue fletching feathers. To the archery equipment, he added clothing and armor in shades of blue, white, and grey, including what looked like a belt and some small pouches. Anika wasn’t quite sure what all the pieces were from this distance, but she was sure that this, at least, she would be able to figure out based on her extensive knowledge of fantasy RPGs.

  The last thing Vox grabbed was a durable looking grey sack which he put all the clothing and armor in. He did not add the archery equipment to the bag, but carried it back over to her, thrusting it at her.

  “Put this on.”

  Not interested in arguing, Anika quickly held the bow under her arm as she awkwardly buckled the belt on her waist, putting the quiver to her left. She leaned the bow against her as she slipped the glove on her right hand and buckled the arm guard around her left arm. The arm guard was more of a full armor piece, covering both sides of her arm and extending to an articulated leather elbow. Vok grunted in slight approval that she at least knew how to put the equipment on.

  “Follow me.” Vok turned and walked into the larger training room and pointed to a wooden wall scattered with holes and several targets. “Show me what you remember from… summer camp,” he said the last words like they were a foreign language, so Anika assumed that going away to camp was not something they did on this planet as kids.

  Summer camp was many years ago, but Anika had played archers several times in video games as well as playing a Ranger in a tabletop campaign once, so she’d been down several rabbit holes of YouTube and TikTok watching archers of varied skill. Hoping to at least hit the wall and not the expensive looking large mirror perpendicular to the target wall, Anika held the bow in her left hand as she drew an arrow from the quiver with her right. She noted that the metal tip of the arrow was blunted - clearly a practice arrow. With her left foot forward, she nocked the arrow on the string and drew it back with her fingers to her cheek. It was NOT easy – the bow’s draw weight was way more than she could handle. While she wanted to look cool and confident, she shook, barely managing to hold the arrow to her cheek for an instant before releasing it haphazardly. She cringed, waiting for the sound of cracking glass and was relieved when she only heard the thud of an arrow burying itself into the wall… near the ground, about two feet under the target she had been aiming at.

  “Yay Anika!” Lily cheered as the arrow hit the wall, clearly not bothered by the distance from the target.

  “Sorry…” Anika said, “It’s been a long time since I did this…”

  Vok grunted, walking to the wall to retrieve the arrow. “It is not the worst thing I have seen. Your form is acceptable, but your strength is abysmal. You will complete the exercises I give you and put points into Potency on your next levels until you are able to draw and hold the bow for 30 seconds without shaking or releasing it prematurely.”

  “Yes sir…” Anika replied as she thought about what he said. Good to know that she would be able to assign stat points and they weren’t just automatically assigned. She really wished there was a help file. Not that she usually read the help file before playing a game, but it was nice to be able to reference something if there was anything she couldn’t figure out just by clicking randomly. Thinking about it, randomly assigning stat points was probably not the best strategy when there was unlikely to be a convenient reset button in real life.

  “You will practice drawing the bow until someone comes to pick you up. You will return here each morning after breakfast until I am satisfied that you are not going to accidentally shoot your charming companion before you will be allowed to adventure with the bow. Until then, use this if you get into trouble.” Vok withdrew a small dagger in a simple leather sheath from the bag. “You are unlikely to encounter anything truly dangerous at your level, and even an untrained child can figure out how to stab a slime with a knife.”

  Anika debated retorting that she was not an untrained child but thought better of it. She absolutely was an untrained hazard to those around her, and that might as well make her a child compared to everyone else. Instead, she mumbled “Yes, sir” again as Vok dropped the bag at her side and left her and Lily in the training hall and returned to the armory.

  “Well.. it seems I’ve been given my orders,” Anika said. Putting the dagger back in the bag, she did as she was told and started drawing the bow over and over, working out muscles that hadn’t really been used since high school gym class.

  “I think you did really good!” Lily commented, curling up next to Anika and using the bag of clothing and armor as a pillow. “I know you wouldn’t shoot me!”

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  “I’m glad you are confident in me, Lily, but I am fairly sure that I’m rolling with disadvantage and will critical fumble the first chance I get.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Uhh… it means that I’m not very good at this and likely to make a mistake and shoot you in the back by accident.”

  “You’d never shoot me!”

  “I’d never try to shoot you. But I am an accident waiting to happen, and I don’t want that to hurt you.” As if to emphasize her inability, the bowstring chose that moment to snap back and catch her chest, leaving Anika doubling over in pain.

  “Owwwww that did NOT feel good.”

  --------

  After the slowest, most painful hour or so of her life, a young Degeta walked in with Philip behind her.

  “Oh hey Anika! And Lily.” Philip beamed like he was seeing a long-lost best friend.

  “Hi Philip,” Lily chirped immediately.

  Anika was not upset to have an excuse to stop drawing the bow. Her bicep ached like it had been run over with a semi-truck. “Hi Philip… where’s Epona?”

  “Epona went to the stables. They have some real fancy stables with a bunch of other not horses. Epona seemed real happy there. She said I can visit her any time and she’d come when I went to the dungeon. It’s crazy, she can still hear me even when she isn’t here! She must have the best hearing!”

  Anika resisted the urge to pat the simple-minded man on the head like a child. The fact that he only stood as tall as her bicep only reinforced the childish innocence he faced the world with.

  “Philip, I think Epona can hear you because you can talk telepathically with her…” Philip looked confused and Anika added, “you know, like, talk to each other in your minds? Not out loud?”

  “Ohhh wow that is so cool!” He stopped right outside the door to the armory and scrunched up his face, looking like he was thinking really hard about something. After a moment, he opened his eyes, a shocked expression on his face, “She heard me in her mind! And I talked in my mind. Wow!”

  From inside the room, Anika heard the gruff voice of Master Vok as he called out to Philip “I don’t have all day. Get inside!”

  Philip quickly ran inside the room and Anika couldn’t help but sidle over to the doorway where she could better hear and see inside the room. Philip looked relatively muscular, like he wasn’t unfamiliar with working out or manual labor, so she assumed he knew how to use weapons and was curious what he would end up with. And she was not remotely interested in more bow practice with her exhausted spaghetti arms. Lily had been napping while she practiced, and it seemed that she had quickly tired of the conversation with Philip, as she was already curled up again in the middle of the training room.

  “What weapon training do you have,” Vok asked as Philip looked up at the Kineta towering over him.

  “I don’t use weapons. I just kill stuff that attacks the farm with my hands. Or my tools. I had to keep the bad animals away, but they were easy to kill.”

  Anika saw Vok’s expression turning dour as Philip spoke. Looks like he wasn’t happy with another fancy summoned hero being inexperienced with weapons. Philip looked over to the left of the room and Anika saw his face light up.

  He ran out of her eyesight shouting “Oh cool you have pitchforks here! This is my favorite!”

  Anika crept closer into the door to see what Philip was talking about – she had been in the room and definitely did not remember farm implements being in the armory. She looked inside and saw him swinging a long weapon around his head, surprisingly adeptly for someone who had just said he didn’t have weapon training.

  “That is not a pitchfork.” Vok said, grabbing the weapon from his hand so Anika could see three prongs with sharp silver points on the end of the long metal spear pole, “This is a trident."

  “I use this at home! It’s a pitchfork. I can throw it at the bad birds and make them fall to the ground.” Philip looked confident about his assertions, and Anika assumed that no one had ever taught him the difference between a pitchfork and a trident. After all, he still seemed to think his own pegasus was some kind of “not horse”.

  Anika couldn’t tell if Vok was about to pound Philip into the ground or burst out laughing as he stared down at the small, clueless man in front of him. After a moment, he sighed and handed the trident back to Philip.

  “Come. Show me how you use it.”

  Anika quickly scrambled back from the door, almost tripping over Lily as she rushed to not look like she had been spying on their conversation. She held the bow as if she had just finished a practice pull as Philip followed Vok out of the room.

  “Throw it at the target on the wall,” Vok commanded Philip as they reached the center of the room where Anika stood.

  Philip hefted the trident and quickly threw it at the target that Anika had failed to shoot earlier. Unlike her feeble attempt, Philip’s trident flew straight and true, burying itself in the center of the target. Anika gaped as Vok grunted in approval before heading over to retrieve the trident.

  Lily, who had woken up upon almost being tripped over, cheered Philip on in Epona’s absence, “Wow! That was so good! You are really strong Philip!”

  Philip turned a goofy grin on Lily as he replied “I am good at keeping bad stuff away from the animals!”

  “How long have you been using that weapon?” Anika couldn’t help asking as she regained her composure.

  “A long time! Since I got to the farm! It’s been…” Philip paused to look down as his hands, as if counting, “more than ten years!”

  Anika looked at Philip with surprise. He had thrown the trident with skill, but if had really been more than ten years since he had moved to the farm at age 13, he was older than she was. He certainly didn’t act his age. But all the other heroes looked to be in the same age range, so it made sense that he was not as young as he seemed.

  Vok grabbed a sword from a practice stand on another wall as he returned to Philip with the trident. He turned to Anika and Lily, “Move.”

  Anika scampered away, back towards the door that led out of the room to the hallway, Lily at her heels. She turned back around to watch as Vok handed the trident to Philip.

  “Defend yourself,” Vok commanded, as he lunged at Philip with the sword. Philip twirled the trident with surprising adeptness and blocked the sword with the side of the metal pole. Pulling back, Vok angled the sword down toward Philip’s knee on the opposite side of his body from the first attack. Philip adjusted his grip on the trident to block again. The sword bounced off the smooth metal as Vok twirled the sword up over head and down towards Philips shoulder. Thrusting the tines of the trident up, Philip caught the sword between the tines and twisted, not quite disarming Vok, but loosening his grip on the sword and preventing him from pressing the attack. Vok pulled back, nodding with satisfaction.

  “That is acceptable. You may have no official training, but you are able to handle the weapon well. It is an unusual choice for an Earth mage, but it will allow you versatility and reach on the front line.” Vok turned and headed back to the armory, depositing the sword he used on a rack as he entered the room.

  Philip stood in the center of the room, looking unsure of what he was doing now that Vok had wandered off. Anika took pity on him and approached with Lily.

  “That was pretty good, Philip. You handled that trident much better than I handled the bow.” Anika gestured the bow forward so Philip could see.

  “What are you talking about, Anika, you did amazing!” Lily cheered.

  “Yeah, Anika, I’m sure you did real good.” Philip added with a smile.

  “I appreciate you saying that,” Anika said, “But I really wasn’t good. I have a long way to go. I’ll just have to practice more.” She sighed, wondering how much she would have to practice before she could just smoothly shoot arrows off in rapid succession like Legolas.

  “I fought stuff off at the farm all the time. They liked me because of my earth magic, but I also hit stuff hard when we got attacked one time. They liked to keep me on guard duty after that. But I still had to put out new hay bales every day before guard duty.” Philip leaned on the trident, and Anika understood now how he had gotten so adept with the weapon after using pitchforks every day.

  Anika was about to reply, when she heard someone speak from behind her in the doorway.

  “Are you ready, Anika? I will take you back to your room so you can change into your armor, and then you will go to the dungeon.” Sinaya had returned, and Anika turned and stared at her in shock.

  “The dungeon? Now? Already?”