Valora raised her shield with both arms above her head. *Chop* The blunt wooden sword struck her wooden shield and came quickly overhead again as Bastion chopped downward in heavy strikes. Valora back peddled in a circular pattern.

  “ Again! HIGHER! Jump!” Bastion said swinging low forcing Valora to jump over a low swinging slash. Bastion followed his swing through and gave a quick twirl chopping the sword to his side like a batter hitting a ball, in this case Valora's shield. She braced and caught the strike on the shield but the quick succession of his strikes put her off balance and she fell to her butt. Bastion stepped forward and grabbed her hand pulling her back up.

  “ You're doing well, Valora. You learn quickly. How are your arms?” Bastion said sheathing the training sword.

  Valora dropped the shield. It clattered on the floor. Her forearms were numb, her hands shaking. She shook her arms out trying to get more blood flow. Opening and closing her fingers she replied “ It's still numb but I can move them. “

  “ Good. I think you're ready for the next step then. What say you?” Bastion said, grabbing the buckle for his training sword and handing it towards her.

  Valora clenched her jaw. She had already settled for the fact, she was not getting passed level one today. She had gained plenty from her day in her Legacy space. Information, on the world outside her walls. The kinds of races she could expect, places to avoid. And stories about Bastions time as a knight, mostly years passed. He had been here now for close to ten years, waiting. Waiting for men to return, or an aspiring Squire to approach for an attempt at knighthood. What knighthood meant, what the Knights of Freedom's Thunder were. And now she had begun her training. Bastion said he would not let her leave without giving her basic training, forcing her hand as she didn't even know where the dungeon door was. She had come to respect Bastion, he at least seemed to care for her well being. After hearing the codes, and memorizing them, she knew he had her best interests in mind. If she succeeded then so would he. She handed him her shield, in trade for the wooden longsword. She clasped the sheath to her leather belt. She grabbed the hilt with shaky hands. “Second Wind” she whispered, feeling a cool breath fill her lungs, the cool swept throughout her body relaxing her hot muscles. Light steam left her form for a small moment as she exhaled a condensed breath.

  Bastion tightened the shield's strap to his left arm and grabbed a broom in the stable. He kicked the head of it, swiveling it off. He held it like a spear, crouching, peeking behind his shield. “ Alright, two hands, the sword is your shield now. Use mobility around my weapons range. Don't get too close or my shield becomes a weapon as well. Land three blows, and you can go to level one. If I land a hundred, another day of chores.”

  “ Rrrgh!” Valora struck out, quick in anger from her side. Bastion blocked with the shield and poked the broom stick into her leg.

  “ That's one! Breathe and calm yourself.”

  Valora mean mugged Bastion, sighed, then got into a stance similar to Bastions holding the longsword next to her brow pointed at him. Their weapons aloft Bastion smiled behind the shield, he whispered “ Quick learner. Prayers answered.” Valora poked out her sword to stab, Bastion pushed it to the side with his shield poking her quickly in the stomach. “Have patience, exploit oversteps, watch my feet, war is a balance. The rope is thin, your life taken with one wrong slip.” He poked out in quick succession three times backing Valora to the wall, she jumped to the side and rolled away.

  “ Gooood! Again!”

  ---------

  Lance, Reilly and King stood next to the fire. Lance turned a bat on the rotisserie and sprinkled some diced cave weeds on it. Courage stood away from the fire keeping Screech from seeing the bat, fed it some Cave Dwellers Salad that Lance made for the pair of them, it was the only way to divide the experience so that Courage could see its effects on Screech. Lance stabbed into the bat with a goblin knife creating pockets, which he poked into with experience gems. He was loading the bat like a ham full of cloves. The large bat dribbled experience out of the holes as it liquefied and bubbled from the pockets, the slow turning of the rotisserie catching and hardening the juices to the skin. King turned over a map in his hands, it had been dropped by a goblin Gacha he decided to open. As far as he could tell it was a treasure map but the crude drawing alluded to a forest rather than the cave. Reilly took to looking for more cave weeds around the small camp they had taken over from a few goblins, the light from the roof holes shed gentle light through the smoke rising up its shaft.

  “ Ya know this is way better than last time. What'd you add?” Courage said with his mouthful, juices dripping from his chin.

  “ Little bit of Slime soda. I was hoping it was good, thanks for being the guinea pig. Didn't think the flavor would match.” Lance shook his almost empty waterskin, then tossed it over to Courage.

  Reilly came back with a satchel of weeds, some a foot long. “ Lance, cut these and put them on mine please.”

  She set the bag down next to him. King curious, went over and grabbed a pinch of Courage's food. “ *crunch* “Mmph, Yea its good Lance” King said and dropped a small spider gem in Courage’s lap. Courage gave a thumbs up.

  “ Okay guys I think it's done. Gimme a hand.” Lance grabbed one side of the spit, King came over grabbing the opposite end. They sidestepped towards a large Enstone platter Lance made where Reilly held the bat down. Lance pulled the spit from it, then stabbed it into the dirt. He knelt down to the bat examining it. He'd removed the wings, head, and feet, and shaved its fur making this the cleanest cut bat he'd had yet. He had washed it in a small pool of water they found. He looked at it proudly. He cut along its breast and down the stomach. Lance had removed the intestines and stuffed it with the strips of meat from the arms, cave mushrooms, weeds, and spider meat. It was plump like and the juices pooled in the platter. He cut away meat from the bones and separated it in three piles.

  New recipe created - Cave Stuffed Bat Roast.

  Cave Stuffed Bat Roast

  +10% experience gain for 1 hour

  Full heal regeneration when eaten at a checkpoint. (Not to include removal of poisoning, debuff, etc.)

  Grade: Novice Chef

  Description: Cave bat stuffed with delightful blends of Cave dwelling foliage and critters. Smokey and slow cooked over open flame this main dish is best paired with a sparkling wine and gem gravy.

  Value: 1 Dim Exp Gem

  Lance's mouth watered. He diced up the cave weed for Reilly and sprinkled it on her side. They all dug in. Nodding in agreement the sounds of them all murmuring through their mouths full of food. Reilly slurped through her teeth to cool the spice. Courage walked over leaving Screech on his Enstoned plate. He reached over to King's side of the platter for a small pinch of meat. King swatted his hand quickly and gave him a wave of his finger No. Courage pulled out the spider gem presenting it. King pulled a strip of meat off and put it in his hand. Taking the gem. Lance giggled and shook his head. He pushed a piece of meat over to the vacant section of the platter then so did Reilly at this point red hot fanning her face with her tongue out from the spice. Everyone laughed and continued eating.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Lance burped sitting up. He grabbed the platter and cleaned up after everyone had finished. “ Well time to pack up and log out. Let us know how Valora did. Hopefully she likes her new class.”

  Courage petting Screech, who seemed to have grown a little, “ Yeah I'll send a message. Hey by the way, uhm where do you live Lance?”

  King and Reilly perked their ears a bit. “Texas, you?

  “ Ah man that explains it. You can grill. Okay cool. I live in Australia.”

  “ Japan” Reilly said, waving.

  “ Florida.” King said.

  Everyone seemed happy to share personal information with each other. Like they pulled away a mask of the world. Reilly, Courage and Lance had all shared their names, their real ones. They seemed to all look at King at once expecting him to share. King looked around shrugging.

  “ What, bat on my chin or something?”

  “ What's your name dude?” Lance said. Laughing a little.

  “ Oh, Gray. Names Gray. Sorry I thought I shared that. Totally used to the King thing for games.”

  “i'M da KiNG” Courage said, mocking Gray a bit, sticking his nose in the air.

  Everyone laughed. They said goodbyes and left the dungeon.

  Lance entered his Legacy space. In his hand he had a platter with four stone plates atop it. He set his pack down and went behind his counter. Only then noticing Wellyn sitting there with the cask of Goblinalco next to him sipping from his cup drunk. He looked up to Lance with dry tear trails on his cheeks. “ Look who it is. Troible makeser..Coming back wifth more bad news. Huh? Ginnie Violet” Wellyn said, putting his hand up.

  Lance grabbed his hand and put the vial Violet was in, in it. “What's wrong Wellyn? Drunk and crying? What happened.” Lance grabbed a cup and sat on the floor next to him.

  “ DONT take her in... I messed up… sorry. I got kicked out of the guild. They took your cloak an the letter. Said it's too important for a wish to be involved wit *hic* I stood up for you and said you're different, a living crow. They kicked me out on my ass and called me crazy” Wellyn took a large drink of the alcohol.

  “They what? I don't understand what's a wish? What's a crow?”

  Wellyn went to take a drink but this time, of the vial Violet was in. He popped the cork and gulped down Violet, emptying it. A second later he gagged as the sound of gelatin gurgled from his throat and Violet rained out of his mouth like vomit. Her body formed quickly on the floor and her eyes popped up. Even without a full face Lance could see she was upset. Wellyn coughed and sat up.

  “ Sorry, girl needed a pick up.” “Alright ladd. Time to break your heart. You. Are. A Wish. Your buds, the people you meet there, all of’em wishes. This is a Legacy space. We have jobs in this world to take care of them, so they can serve the Wishes. Outside this room is the rest of the world, you only get to experience it in sections, you call them dungeons or levels, they're real places. That's where memories come from. Memories are the things you gain from whatever exploits you have here. That cloak was an important one. We have to use those memories to find and fix the devoured lands. So much rides on you all and this world is just your toy. We're losing. Devouring is happening everywhere.”

  Wellyn grabbed Lance's Waterskin and began to drink it. Lance sat there dumbfounded. “ It's a lot to tell you. And it won't make much sense. But that's the gist of it. And yeah you are a Crow. Gone and messed around in the devouring. The devouring is like your lawmakers. You break too many rules and you deal with the consequences. They send in the crows to feed on your remains. You have a crows mask. Those things try to put wish laws on us, we have to kill them before they claim people or places, making devoured lands. The problem is they're already dead. But you're alive, and I don't know how. They put these masks on those they claim and before long, those corpses, rise. They terrorize everything in their path. They have to be torn apart, prayed over, buried. We call them crows because the worst ones come in big groups. They have leaders, they look like scarecrows, then they devour everything down to the memory of em, becoming what they should be fighting against, vermin, a plague.”

  Lance tried to take everything in. He looked Wellyn in the eyes. “ So why didn't you run? When I came back with the mask?”

  Wellyn took a deep breath. “ Never heard of one coming through a Dungeon door. Plus they are...primal. You’d know if you saw one. They're like hollow versions of what they were.”

  “ What about other people, if I get to a place with people like you. Or higher floors whatever you call it. Will they be scared of me?”

  Wellyn nodded. “ The only thing I could say is maybe find a big helmet? And be careful with who knows that you look like that. It looks like your wave of wishes is the biggest we've ever seen. Once most of you start to learn, they might come for you. For that memory.” Wellyn said, pointing to the sack on Lance's head.

  “ Wave? What do you mean? This isn't new? This isn’t.. how long has this happened to your people.”

  “ I don't even know. There were once kingdoms and great civilizations, but it's all shattered. It's all we know.”

  “ How many waves have there been?”

  “ Hundreds ”

  “ What about where you go? The guild and stuff, how can you walk out there?

  “ Slow down.. Lance, it's a lot I know. Just do your best. Things will make more sense eventually. Just go in there and bring back memories. A lot of questions will be answered in time. If you can find the answers.”

  Lance pulled out a Gacha ball of Praise tier. “ These are memories?”

  “ Yes but these ones hardly make a difference. We need to find the powerful ones. Like that cloak.”

  Lance checked his time, he only had a few minutes left. He quickly got up to put his things away. “ Memories huh” he wondered. He moved the stone ware he made into the kitchen. He could only do so much per trip to the dungeon because it cost mana and the needed time to prepare a mold from things but he'd made enough to at least eat on with the party. So many questions raced in his mind about the game, he had to take so much in. “ Damn so the game does have a story. Are they not all the same?” He walked back out into the bar area.

  “ By the way, I'll probably end up staying here a bit longer…I kind of don't have anywhere to head back to now.” Wellyn said, petting Violet on the counter.

  “Bummer, but you're more than welcome to. See you tomorrow.” Lance said as he logged out. He spent his remaining time putting up his Gachas on the game store he didn't want anymore Shame tiers. If the only ones that mattered were the rarer ones then he wanted gems immediately.

  He also went to the trade goods tabs. He put up listings for his food, the descriptions populated but he didn't describe the buffs. His menu was small and practically all consisted of Cave dwellers styled foods. He didn't care, he wanted to turn a profit on the food, without selling people their experience. He'd keep that to his friends. But the prices of gems varied with his dishes and he was eager for them. He needed to fill his kitchen. There was a choice to make a restaurant name in the menu, but he opted to just leaving it under his in-game name. There were plenty of people trying to sell food, but it was mainly ingredients, the values of the stuff currently listed was skewed. Some people put up large quantities of things just to value one dull experience gem. When Lance made his recipes available it moved his to the top regardless of the sorting he chose. It was like the rest of the posts didn't matter. “Shit, that's gonna be problematic. I just broke the food section of the market. Tomorrow's problem.”

  Lance sat up on his bed, taking his helmet off. He set his helmet down beside his bed placing it onto the docking station. He rolled over on his bed exhausted and quickly fell asleep.