It was an hour of tracking before the party came upon a dead tree. It was laying on its side, likely falling in a storm long after it had died. Where the roots had been they discovered the hole. That hadn’t been caused by the falling tree. No, what likely caused it was the dead man deep inside the pit bellow. Raven had used a light spell at the end of her staff to see him. A human, matching the description of the missing hunter. Over ten feet bellow the surface in a stone-lined chamber of some kind. His body seemed twisted, laying amid stone and dirt down there. The fixed expression making her believe the fall had killed him.

  “Well, not a monster.” Jace remarked as he unslung his pack.

  “Something far more interesting, though quiet sad for the man who found it.” Veshy agreed, exchanging a look with her sister.

  Raven pulled back her staff and unslung her own pack. Both she and Jace started anchoring rope as the sisters carefully tested the area. If the single man could collapse this much of the ground into an ancient buried room then the rest of them didn’t want to get too close without ropes. The sisters were much lighter than the human and paracrest. They could also survive a fall much better as they did not have bones to break, just a shell that could be repaired, or even replaced over time.

  Both oraths took hold of the anchored ropes and made their way down clutching lights of their own. Torches were not practical things for them to hold so instead they had glowing crystals on arm braces. Raven watched them vanish over the edge as she and Jace kept back.

  “There is a passage ways downs here!” She heard Isky shout. Raven’s sail rose high. A passage? The stones she saw had looked uniform if broken. Perhaps there was a dungeon of sorts bellow their feet. Not just a vault or hideaway. The guild would want to know about this.

  Raven tried to quash her excitement at the find. A man had died after all. Still, there was no telling what could be waiting. Treasures perhaps? Knowledge that the scholar ward would pay for? Of course there could be strange monsters down there as well, or even undead. She shivered at that second one. Undead could be in all sorts of places that living things wouldn’t have had access to for their own dens. They were not uncommon in the desert, but she hated dealing with them.

  It was several minutes of waiting for the two up top before Veshy yelled “Ok, we have him tied to the ropes, lift him up!”

  Raven carefully pulled up her rope as Jace did the same with his own. It took them a few moments to get in sync as the body began to rise up from the depths. She could see sweat beading at his hairline as they worked. This was something she had to get used to with humans, their bodies broke out like this with exertion.

  Soon the corpse of the hunter was out of the pit, being pulled a bit closer to the intact trees that the ropes were anchored to. Raven freed the body as Jace started feeding the ropes back down into the pit. Veshy came back first, her eyes swiveled downward.

  “Isky, come on. We can come back and investigate this later. We will need to get the guild on board with paying us for it, just in case there is nothing worth selling down there.”

  “Buts…” Raven heard the other orath call from the pit, “I ams sure the tunnels leads somewhere interestings. My [Hunter] senses marks this as only the tops of a possible dens.”

  Raven hoped it wouldn’t be the den of some monster. But if it was that meant it opened up somewhere else, or the monster was something strange. It was nice to know though that the [Hunter] skill she had could determine empty spaces though. It could be useful if they ever got lost in a tunnel system.

  “Come on Isky,” Veshy went on, “We will get paid for this job, report our find and make sure they let us take the quest to investigate. That’s how it works. Now get up here so we can make it back to the camp before nightfall.”

  As the sisters bickered Raven went on with the task of gently wrapping the body. They knew this was a possibility coming on this journey so had brought the supplies for carrying the dead just in case. That way his wife could have a funeral with whatever her customs were.

  ———

  I promised rabbits to Thanolin but right now I had taken down a deer. It was actually kind of nice to be out in nature again, to use my [Hunter] class once more. I loved the library and being around books but this, it just felt right too. And I was no longer lost and lonely as I had been the first time. I knew where the road was. I knew how to get to the city.

  I had almost finished dressing the deer when the others returned. I could tell from the bundle that the sisters had strapped between them that they had success, but not for the hunter’s benefit. He was not as lucky as I was, sitting here with a fresh kill to share. I sighed, nodding my head at the group.

  “You’re welcome to dinner, but I’ve only got deer to share.” I looked over at Raven who was lowering herself next to the fire I had built.

  “Thanks!” Isky hissed as she set the body down a little ways from my camp. She slid over to inspect my kill, making a few odd sounds in the process. “Wells junior hunters, it seems you have done goods here.”

  “Thank you for your praise Hunter Isky.” I said in return, making strips of meat that would be easier to cook. I could see Raven putting something into the ash at her side of the fire before pulling a small pot from her pack.

  I wasn’t sure what the paracrest was making and for some reason I felt bad that I had nothing she could eat. Meat was not part of their diets and I had not bothered to find any berries or forage for anything else in my hunt. At least when it came to the others I was not ill prepared. Where once I would have used a stick or flat rock to help roast the meet I brought forth a pan lent to me by my landlord.

  “Oooh, hes able to cooks too?” Isky took over the dressing of the deer as I took the meat I had cut and started tending it in the pan.

  “Not so much that I have a class. Just enough to help out my landlord. I’d gotten a taste for it when I was alone out here actually.”

  “Oh yea,” Jace looked up, pulling out a shallow bowl and utensils from his pack, “We were supposed to talk about that weren’t we?”

  As I continued my frying of the meet I saw that Raven had a pot of water. I hadn’t seen her move off to the lake so I wasn’t sure how she had gotten so much so quick. “Uh yes. I did say that I would feel better talking about it out here and not in the restaurant. I’m still getting used to it being a thing.”

  I cleared my throat and started to tell them about appearing in that stone corridor, being chased by a hillsec and fleeing off into the woods. Of the days of wandering, gaining my first levels and keeping myself alive. They listened and didn’t interrupt until I got to the point of finding the road.

  “So wait…” Jace held up a hand, “You couldn’t speak or understand the common tongue at all? This was what, a few months ago?” He was looking at me with an expression I was sure meant disbelief on a human face.

  “Yes. It took me over a month before I could speak fully. It wasn’t until I learned how to read common that I had a better vocab.”

  The human shook his head, poking a stick into the fire as he looked away from me. “See, that’s where it doesn’t make any sense. You couldn’t even speak, so how did you learn to read?”

  The other three were silent, perhaps just as curious as the human. That was ok, it was a bit of surprise to me as well. But that is when I gestured at the rock where I had signed my name ages ago in Vazack. “Because I am a [Chronicler] I think. Even before I got out of the forest I had been writing in my own language. That there has my name written. That’s why I knew this was my camp site. So when I had earned a little cash and found a story that had writing supplies I bought this.”

  I pulled my old notebook from my pack. It was filled now with writing in both Vazack and Common. “When I learned a few written words here and there I was able to write them down and put my own language next to them. It helped me out, and earned me a skill called [Translate Writing]. I am not sure how fluent or literate I would be without it.”

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “But how’d you get money to begin with?”

  I went back to my story, explaining all about the nice couple who had taken me in. They helped me with work I could do. About the people I ‘d met at the warehouse. I got a laugh from Jace and a few chuckles from the others when I mentioned in as nice of terms as possible what I got up to with Tyrech. It seemed they were familiar with the antics of talloni as well.

  I finished my story with the library job and moving to the scholar ward. I didn’t talk about my landlord or roommate situation, just that I had a room there. “So that is everything.”

  “Well,” Raven spoke, pouring the hot water into cups for herself and Jace, “Not everything. What about the land you came from? Is there no classes there?”

  “Not coming in dreams in your own voice no.” I admitted, “And where I came from was very different than this. It is hard to put into words that will be understood. Where I came from I could access information from anywhere whenever I wanted. We still went to school, mostly so we could interact with others. Where I come from we had many like me, it was our home, but we had welcomed in others from further distances.” I tried to put it in ways they could understand. Glossing over the high technology but telling them of the races I had known about before getting here. I had even heard of orath and human before but prior to here had never met them.

  “So I think that is about it. My parents and my siblings I am sure miss me but I hope if there is no way back that they will still have each other. I miss them too but again, if this is home now I need to make the best of it.”

  Raven fished out the object she had buried in the ash, some kind of tuber from the looks of it. “My parents died before I hatched.” She told me, cutting the tuber into pieces. “My grandmother raised me. She’s dead now too. I miss her a lot. There really is no difference between dead and never able to see again. So I’m sorry for your loss.”

  I wanted to object to that statement. As far as I knew they were alive and well, but she was right. As far as I knew I would never see them again, never be in their company, know about their days. My ears drooped as I pulled the pan from the fire. I sniffled, turning my face away from the stinging fire.

  ———

  Raven hadn’t meant to upset him. Perhaps Ramjack hadn’t really thought about what it meant to be here before. Not on an emotional level. She quietly ate her cooked potato as the others gathered the cooked strips of meat he had made for them. Her sail flagged as she worried. Setting her bowl aside she moved closer to him.

  “I’m sorry.” She whispered, guessing that his ears were sensitive enough to hear her. She expected him to tell her to go away but he looked up at her instead from where he was crouched.

  “I… well, the few who know of elsewhere have never said anything about people returning there. And, well, I have never heard stories of people claiming to be from other lands in my people’s histories.”

  “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.” She said, sitting next to him, “My people have no stories of a paracrest coming from elsewhere. Humans do. Talloni do.” She told him.

  “We do too.” Isky had been a lot closer than Raven realized and was sitting down next to them, shell touching the ground. “They says thats longs ago a village durings matings seasons looks ups to see a new sky. Thats the hunters when they wents forth agains found alls other villages gone.”

  Raven didn’t know that story about the orath. “I’ve heard the Talloni say something like that.” She confessed. “So I do wonder why some people have that happen but never to others.”

  “I don’t know either.” Ramjack said, wiping at his eyes, “But I have never heard of the paracrest before. Or lizardfolk, minotaurs, chelkren, hillsec or aulterun. I grew up with a talloni as I’ve said, and selvaryn. I’d heard of orath, of kethi and even humans, though they were pretty new. None had visited our… lands… before. There are others too, and some that go by other names but I’m sure are from lands close to mine that I just never met.”

  “That is quiet a list.” Jace stood near us now, chewing on the meat Ramjack had cooked. “So maybe different worlds then? But no one has seen another like you before. At least not that I know of.”

  “Perhaps I am the first Zagariean to appear here.” The [Chronicler] suggested.

  What Jace said did make some sort of sense. It still didn’t explain why the races Ramjack listed as not having heard of before were the same races that Raven had never heard of appearance stories before.

  ———

  I had slept a little fitfully that night on my bedroll. Was I really the first? If so why me? No one seemed to know what caused people to appear let alone why. It was just something that happened, like the gaining of classes. I doubted I would be the one to crack the mystery of it.

  When I woke I turned my mind to other things, pushing the mystery of how I got here for another time. My eyes landed on the carefully wrapped bundle in the tree not far from where we slept. I had another closer to the river and made a sudden choice. I did not know the dead man or his widow but I would give over the rest of the deer to her. There was plenty of meat even after our meal last night.

  I still did a little hunting on the trip back, snagging several rabbits for Thanolin to enjoy. We were just as quiet on the walk back as we had coming out here to begin with so I was once more alone with my thoughts. I swung my musings towards what the others had found. An underground structure. Like a dungeon from a fantasy game. Equal parts terrifying and interesting.

  I was not an adventurer though. I was a librarian, ready to help out with maps or recording scrolls. Besides, it had the chance to be dangerous. Apparently undead were a thing. And why not? Magic was real here so why not other fantasy tropes?

  The more I thought about it the more I wondered if the reason so many worlds had magic and old underground ruins as their fantasies had something to do with this place. Maybe it was an unconscious thing? I read something about that in my writing classes dealing with the philosophy of imagination.

  It wasn’t long before the clean smell of the forest gave way for the concentrated scents of the city. My nose itched from the sheer amount of people and transport animals. I had gotten so used to it that just taking an overnight in the forest had reminded me of how much I was smelling on a daily basis.

  My entry back into the city was much faster than the first time I had used this gate. I was with the adventurers and they just flashed their guild seal for the guards. I followed them in with my kills and continued on towards the Guild Ward. It was different, going to the adventure guild, this time. I wasn’t rushing, looking for the place. I wasn’t tasked with talking to anyone. Raven took care of things, turning in the quest and explaining what they had found.

  I was only surprised when the body was removed from the back of the sisters. The guild would hold on to him for when his widow was ready. Isky did take the deer off my hands though, able to manage it over her shell with ease.

  “Thank you for your assistance Ramjack.” Raven told me, a few coins in her hands. “It might have taken us a few days, even with the map, to find the campsite and trail.”

  “I got lucky he used the same. It just felt like something a fellow [Hunter] would do, use an old campsite rather than make a new one if they could.” I took the offered coins. It wasn’t much, I had spent more on the hunting supplies and getup. “Thank you.”

  “You are a goods hunters” Isky told me, tapping my arm with her upper limb. “Goods withs a bows.”

  Hearing that from an orath heated my ears. The weapon did feel good slung over my back. Maybe I would do some more hunting on days off. Perhaps closer to the city so I wouldn’t need to overnight. Rabbits were good since I could share those with my landlord. And that is what I did after I departed from the guild.

  I brought the rabbits home, dressed them, and had them cooking for when the aulterun woke up. He hooted in joy to see the feast I had brought back and started asking questions about the journey.

  “It wasn’t bad on my end. The hunter they were looking for had stopped by a campsite I had made when I was lost. They were able to track him from there. He was dead sadly. Fell into some old underground ruins.”

  “Old ruins you say?” He tilted his head a bit, eyes more on the ceiling than on me. “Civilization does rise and fall. Even around here. Before Dacathus was founded there was an old empire that spanned this part of the world. Many of the guilds trace their roots to the Amber Empire. But their old cities were laid to waste. It is said giants marched across the land, breaking forests and stone. Others say it was just the people rising up against tyrants who burned the cities and fled. Ah well, history was never as much my strength. Hard to parse the truth from some of those stories.”

  “It’s a good thing I work at the library then. Marigold has had me reading over maps of the lands. I’m sure she’ll be happy if I understand history too. It will make me more efficient at directing people to books, or researching for them.”

  The aulterun hooted at that even as I served the rabbits. “Oh my. I know it is not your place to ask if it is a student making such requests but if they don’t take the time to rewrite their papers their professors are known to dock them serious points in academia.”

  ———

  I did not expect the dreams again, not so soon. If this was to happen I would have expected it at the campsite while tucked into my bedroll. But here I found myself staring at two floating objects. I had another choice to make. One was a bow and the other a pan. I was in no hurry to make a choice, this wasn’t life or death as it had when I was first lost. I was also quiet lucid.

  “A bow, and a pan.” I said softly to myself without reaching out. I could turn around, choice to ignore them both, but why? I went back to the RPGs I played and considered the skill trees. The bow seemed pretty obvious to me, this would increase my [Hunter] class. But what about the pan?

  I laughed, thinking better on it. I remembered my study of classes and what was common. One of those was [Cook]. If I took the pan it would tilt me that way. I doubted everyone who just cooked got the class though so why me?

  I shook my head. No, I did not need a [Cook] class to be able to handle cooking. I didn’t need more levels in [Hunter] either to go hunting, but that one kept drawing me back. It was the fact that it was the bow, and not some other hunting tool, that drew me in. One thing I had read was that if one got enough levels their class could change, classes could even merge forming something unique.

  No longer hesitating I reached out and grasped the bow.

  [Hunter] level 2, skill gained [Steady Hands].