It was three days march to Lancre. Three quiet days. Supplies were plentiful, there was enough food and alcohol for twice their number. But that was the problem. Nobody was in the mood to drink. Some soldiers now sported a shiny sword tucked into their belt, a few wore colorful clothing, if slightly bloodstained. Most people hid whatever they found on the battlefield, to sell when they returned home. Nobles weren't fond of peasants dressing like them.

  Three days was a long time to have a hole in your arm. Zig could still eat with one arm, and march with the group, but the wound wasn't getting any better. It ached, and fresh bandages went red pretty quick. Hepp alternated between being super helpful and asking a thousand questions.

  "Are you an elf?"

  "Nope."

  "King? Are you a secret king? Zig you need to tell me if you're secretly a king."

  "Not a king, Hepp. I'm just me."

  "You gotta throw rocks for like a thousand years to get Legendary. So you are at least a thousand years old. Don't lie."

  "Not lying Hepp. I'm 17."

  "Zig, I shifted my entire class in that battle. That means both my Focused Shot and my Weapon Proficiency are now at Adept. This is the biggest moment of my life. And you can down a full knight by throwing a stone. I just... I..."

  "You're amazing Hepp. Took out more knights than I did."

  "That's because you were handing out arrows. I thought I was doing you a favor! Are you a troll wearing a human's skin?"

  "Not a troll Hepp. Trolls are scary."

  "Zig you are scary. The whole army retreated because of you. Are you an archmage in disguise? A youth potion went wrong and you're stuck looking like...?"

  "Hey!"

  "I'm just asking!"

  Eventually they returned to Lancre. It was everything Zig was expecting. Full medieval town. Cobblestone streets. Palisade walls, with each wooden pole sharpened at the tip. Donkeys and carts everywhere. It was quaint. As they passed the town gates, an officer from the army gave each soldier a pouch of coins. Zig took one and looked inside. Seven silver coins and a bunch of coppers shone dully. What was more valuable to Zig was the pouch itself. Simple cloth with a drawstring, but Zig had been carrying five gold coins in his pocket this entire time. He added them to the pouch and followed Hepp into the market square in the center of town. Hepp led him straight to a small-yet-grand building that looked almost like a cathedral from back home. Inside was a receptionist that directed them to a small room with a chair, a bed, and... a doctor?

  It was like a doctor's office, if such a thing existed in the old times. An old man wearing robes like a monk came in and unwrapped Zig's bandages. It looked nasty. The hole was still there, with much of it crusted over with dried blood. Instead of a pure red there were all sorts of colors starting to form. Hepp turned green and left the room. The old man chuckled and looked at the infection with a sparkle in his eye.

  "It's good you came today, boy, another day or two and it might be beyond my capacity."

  The doctor took his arm and put the palm of his hand directly on the wound. Gross. Zig wondered how many disgusting wounds the same hand touched. He wondered if the doctor washed his hands between consultations. Then his thoughts sharpened into the present moment, because something was happening. A warm white glow surrounded his arm, and the pain he'd become very used to was fading away. After a minute or so, the man withdrew his hand and there was a small scar where a gaping hole had once been. This world's medicine was a touch ahead of his own, Zig concluded in wonder. He clenched and unclenched his fist, and the movement didn't hurt at all. He was fully healed.

  Zig thanked the old man and came out of the office to find Hepp arguing with the receptionist.

  "We can pay! Of course we can pay! It's just not right now. How about a silver a week? I know, I know it's better up front. I have seven silver on me. What if we paid double, but over time?"

  The receptionist wasn't looking happy at all.

  "You will definitely pay, sir, but you didn't mention lack of funds before the healing. We take dishonesty very seriously here. If we have to hire someone to curse you, we will. But we don't want to, you understand? That's more paperwork, more hassle, and honestly more than we want to deal with. So how about this."

  In a split-second whirl, the receptionist reached up with a tiny knife and cut a lock of Hepp's hair. Hepp blanched as she placed the hair in a little cloth bag and tucked it into a drawer in her desk.

  "Now. I won't do anything with that hair, but I'll give you one week to return with the full payment. Am I clear?"

  Hepp nodded wordlessly, saw Zig and took him outside.

  "What was that about?"

  "Oh, nothing. I never thanked you, for saving my life. That arrow was meant for me. Don't worry about paying for the healing, I've got it."

  "Hepp, your face tells me that you definitely do not 'got it'. How much was the healing?"

  "...two gold."

  "Two gold? Just that?"

  "Just that, he says!"

  Hepp threw his hands up.

  "Are you from another world? Do you know how many coppers to a gold?"

  "Maybe I am, and maybe I don't!"

  "20 coppers to a silver, Zig. 12 silvers to a gold. That's like..."

  Hepp started tracing out math on his pants.

  "240 coppers for a gold. And we need two of them. Marching in the army to three battles, even if one of them turned into a weird landslide event, gave only seven silver. That took weeks, Zig."

  "I'm starting to see the problem."

  Zig turned around and started heading back to the healer's office.

  "What are you doing? Zig maybe we can figure something out, find some jobs? Maybe we can, uh, where are you—"

  Zig opened the doors and walked inside, placed two gold coins and held out his hand for the weird hair pouch. The receptionist gave it to him with a tight smile, and he walked back out. Hepp groaned.

  "Zig, I'm trying to pay you back and you're just pushing me further into your debt. Are you a prince? Do you have a skill that poops gold?"

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  "Not a prince, Hepp. I sold some dirty old clothes for six gold. I still have three left."

  They sat down at a restaurant, and Zig told Hepp about coming from another... place, and somehow teleporting onto the mountain. He didn't mention the landslide, but did talk about selling his old, bloodstained clothes to a merchant.

  "Were they enchanted?"

  "What, the clothes? Does it look like I have enchanted clothes?"

  "Well no, but that's because you sold them."

  "Hepp, I sold them because they were dirty, cut up, bloody, and very much unenchanted. They were colored though, and had weird designs, so the merchant must have thought they were something special."

  "Zig, you sold dirty underpants for six gold?"

  "Not the underpants, Hepp, I'm still wearing them. They are the source of my strength."

  Zig thought they would visit Hepp's family, but the young man was reluctant to talk about them. Instead, they found an inn near the market square and booked a room with two beds. It was three coppers for the night, and included breakfast the next day. Zig was starting to understand the value of a gold coin.

  "Is everything this cheap?"

  "We are in the poor corner of a poor town. Three copper here gets you a room and a meal. I've heard inns in capital cities that charge a silver a night and food's extra. It's all about the service, see? This innkeeper doesn't have any skills, maybe they cook faster or something like that. The fancy inns give you better sleep, or maybe they have musicians that take anxieties away, food that fills you for three days, that sort of thing."

  Zig lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. What a world. No toothbrushes, no cars, no youtube, unfortunately. And yet. Zig stared at the already-faded scar on his arm. He imagined a licensed therapist who simply played a violin and cured patients of all kinds of troubles. He remembered Haynes leaping over a wagon. It started raining outside and Hepp got up to shut the windows. Wooden windows. Things were different here.

  "Ever been to Northsong Hepp?"

  "That's halfway across the nation Zig, of course not."

  "You always wanted to be an adventurer, right?"

  "Yea."

  "Let's go on an adventure."

  "Northsong?"

  "I got a message. In my head. Hard to explain, only parts of it came through, but it mentions Northsong."

  Zig talked about the weird message in his dreams. Since the battle, instead of the troll it was now knights in armor chasing him down and thrusting the scroll at him. It still didn't make sense, but he wanted to find out what it was all about. Hepp listened and didn't hesitate to respond.

  "Zig, I owe a life-debt. Twice now, I think. And you're asking if I want to live out my own dreams? We're heading to the adventurer's guild first thing tomorrow."

  "No way. There's a guild?"

  "Sure is. Official membership and everything. Comes with a place to hang out in every town, and a quest board to see what jobs are available."

  "Quests. Like you kill ten rats and get a silver?"

  "Zig that's the funniest thing I've heard all day. You'd be lucky to get two coppers for killing some rats. Cats do it for free every day."

  "But they are quests though. With rewards and everything."

  "That's how adventurers get paid Zig. Everybody's gotta eat."

  The next day, men came to the inn looking for a boy, with a rough charcoal sketch. They didn't look like friendly types. The innkeeper was relieved she could tell them that they had already left.

  Elsewhere in town, Hepp and Zig stopped in front of a building. It looked like another inn, really. There was an open room with a fireplace, full of tables where people could eat food or have a drink. To one side there was a man sitting at a table, with a small line of people talking to him. Nearby was a wall with a bunch of papers nailed to it. Like a 14th century post-it board. Zig and Hepp joined the line and soon came to the man at the table.

  "Ho good sir! We'd like to become adventurers."

  Hepp said that with a real smile. It was something he'd wanted to say for a long time. The man sat back and looked both of them up and down.

  "That's guildmaster Holt to you, not 'sir'. So, you fancy yourself heroes eh? Ready to die?"

  "We've just come back from the army. Guildmaster Holt sir!"

  "Hmph. Ready indeed then. I heard only half of you came back this time. Nasty business. Alright, one silver each to join the guild, and we give you a pretty badge with all that comes with it."

  They passed two silver coins to the man, and he gave them each a bronze pin in the shape of a little dagger.

  "Put that anywhere, but you'll need to show it to collect guild rewards. It also might help if you encounter trouble on the road."

  "You mean, it can ward off monsters?"

  The guildmaster looked at Zig.

  "You think we hand out enchanted pins for a silver? No, I meant other travellers will know you're part of the guild."

  The boys thanked the guildmaster and went to the quest board to see what was there. Hepp started looking over the papers, but Zig stared blankly at the board. There was a problem. Quite a problem.

  "Hepp, old buddy. What language is this?"

  "Zig, you say a lot of strange things, and this is one of them. This is common. We're speaking common. We're not ancient elves. We're people, speaking the language of people."

  Zig was pretty sure he didn't grow up speaking "common", but didn't argue. What was weird, though, was whatever gave him the ability to speak didn't include reading.

  "I can't read Hepp."

  "Half the town can't read Zig, but don't worry I learned some letters."

  Hepp was scanning the board, and Zig got a crash course in how to read at least numbers and coins. One of the quests had a much bigger number than the others.

  "What's that one? Eight silver seems good."

  "That's to clear out a goblin infestation in the old mines. Pay's good, but there's no way we could..."

  Hepp looked at Zig, and remembered a fully plated knight crumbling like a paper ball.

  "Let's start big."

  The old mines were a couple hours walk outside the town. Hepp's bow belonged to the army, and he'd returned it when he got his pay. Their first stop was to find a new one in the market, plus a big bundle of arrows. Zig assumed there were rocks in the mines, so he was ready to go without any further equipment.

  To Zig's surprise, there were train tracks connecting the mines to the city. Zig looked around, but didn't see any trains. There were, however, plenty of carts around the entrance of the mines, with wheels that fitted into the tracks. They were all broken down and in terrible disrepair, some with wheels rusting through completely. Zig had the weirdest feeling that he could get them up and running in no time. He'd heard of a survey back home where lots of people assumed they could land a plane in an emergency, with no prior training, and this felt similar. Zig had never done anything train-related his entire life. Why did the carts feel so familiar? Why were the more broken and rusted ones more appealing to him? He walked up to a cart still attached to the rails. It was a wooden bucket with wheels. One of the wheels was missing a huge chunk, and there was a big hole in the bottom of the bucket. Before he really knew what he was doing, Zig had grabbed another wheel from a different cart and was attaching it. He stripped off a couple of planks from the other cart too, and lay them at the bottom to patch up the holes. He gave the cart an experimental push, and it slid somewhat smoothly on the rails. Zig started loading it with rocks from the ground. Hepp stopped scratching his head and joined in. Soon they had a working mine cart filled with rocks, ranging from golfball to baseball in size.

  "Ok, I'm ready. How do we find the goblins?"

  "I have an idea, wait a second."

  Hepp marched up to the entrance of the mine shaft. It was a classic wood-framed hole in the side of a hill, it sloped down and quickly left the sunlight, so they couldn't see far. Hepp cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted as loudly as he could.

  "YOO HOO. GOBLINS. COME OUT."

  The shout echoed into the mines for a bit, and then there were sounds. Clanging, banging, scraping, and a weird yipping sound. Hepp hurried back to where Zig was waiting.

  "Maybe we should have checked how many before—"

  The goblins came out. They were skinny, gangly things, constantly chattering to each other. Their skin was green but they were all covered in black soot and dust. Were they mining coal? Or they just never bathed? Zig didn't have time to think because the goblins were sprinting at him. He picked up a rock and threw. It took out three goblins, since they were so tightly clustered together. The rest paused to see the destruction, and Zig used the moment to throw two more rocks. Hepp joined in, shooting as fast as he could. The two of them kept up a steady stream of missiles, and the goblins never reached them. After a dozen or so went down, the chittering changed tone and all the goblins rushed back into the mine. Zig felt alive with the adrenaline.

  "That was nice because we were out in the open. We have the advantage with our range. Do we go in there?"

  Zig asked while peering into the tunnels. It looked dark and cramped. The open field they were currently standing in was perfect for the bowman and the rock thrower. Narrow tunnels would be a bit scarier.

  "Maybe this counts for something to the guild?"

  Hepp gestured to the fallen goblins lying on the ground.

  "Hmm, well, the quest said to clear out the mines, Hepp. I don't think it counts until we search the place. Um, do you want to go first?"

  "Zig, I would be honoured to give you the privilege of being first."

  "Hepp, you know more about goblins, and I can be right behind you with a rock or two."

  "Zig, my friend, my brother, I can support you from even farther back with my finest arrows."

  "Hepp, I think we need someone else on our team. Someone who can take a hit or two."

  "Zig, you have never said finer words."

  The two brave young men bravely decided that that was enough goblins for today, and headed back into Lancre.