Ember was up before Chris—a rare occurrence, but one he took in stride. He walked over to the cart, shivering in the morning chill, and started to rummage through it for food. He grimaced. We’re running low. Hopefully, we’ll make it to our destination before we completely run out.

  As he re-stoked the flame and set to making breakfast, Chris walked out of the tent. He looked exhausted, bags under his eyes, and clearly had not had a good night’s rest.

  “Morning,” Ember said, as the last of their non-perishable meat sizzled on a rock. Beside it, a small pot of tea was brewing, and some homemade bread was baking in the coals.

  Chris grunted as he plopped down on his stool. “You look worse for wear,” he said.

  “Look at the pot calling the kettle black,” Ember shot back.

  Chris tilted his head. “Not familiar with that saying. Honestly, I’m not familiar with a lot of the sayings you talk about.”

  Ember sighed. “Just my world’s lingo, don’t worry about it. It just means right back at you.”

  Chris grunted. His arm looked significantly better than it had yesterday. It was no longer swollen, now having settled into an angry red blotch.

  “Were you working on it last night?”

  Chris gingerly touched his arm. “I couldn’t go to sleep, so I decided I would go into the overflow state. This’ll dramatically decrease the time it’s going to take for me to recover, but this is not going to be a fun day. Not for me, at least.”

  Silence filled the small camp as they ate. Chris wanted to break down camp, but Ember told him to not even think about it.

  “You’re injured. There’s no reason for you to do anything.” Chris looked like he wanted to argue, but a glare from Ember made him sit. I swear to god this guy is insane. Who tries to break down a camp with a broken arm?

  After getting the horses harnessed and all the remaining supplies into the cart, he hopped up onto the bench and helped Chris up. He held the reins nervously. I’ve never driven a horse-drawn cart. It can’t be much different from driving a car...right?

  “It’s pretty simple,” Chris said. “If you pull the reins to the left or the right, the horses will turn in that direction. You snap them to make them go forward, snap them twice to make them trot, and three times for an all-out run. If you want them to stop, you pull back on the reins. It’s pretty simple stuff.”

  “Right,” Ember said flatly. “Simple stuff.” His hands sweat profusely as he wiped them on his pants. No big deal. It’s not like our entire lives are dependent on me not pissing the horses off.

  Chris grabbed his shield and held it with his non-injured hand. “All right, I’ll be going into overflow. Do your best not to disturb me. This is a delicate process.”

  “Okay,” Ember said, trying to keep his voice from cracking. He thought he did a pretty good job of sounding in control. The look Chris gave him didn’t seem convinced.

  With that, Chris closed his eyes, and his shield flashed gold. The air around him became quiet and meditative, like a calm before a storm, but it also had an intensity to it. He didn’t move; nothing visible about him changed, but Ember could feel the shift. There was a spark to the atmosphere now. It set him on edge, but he did his best to ignore it as he snapped the reins. The horses trotted back onto the path, and they were on their way.

  They came across the troll they had killed yesterday, its body still lying in the path. Ember managed to maneuver the horses around it. They neighed in protest, but eventually went off the path and around a tree so they could avoid the corpse.

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  The rest of the day was uneventful. Ember had started seeing fewer and fewer people the farther they got from Basin Town, and now they hadn’t come across a single person in the last couple of days. Ember wanted to reflect on the journey so far, but he shoved it out of his mind. Instead, he focused on the trees, the horses, and the path ahead. The last thing he wanted to do was look back on his mistakes.

  By the time the sun started hitting the edge of the horizon, Chris was finally out of his meditative state. His arm was completely healed. But if anything, he looked even more haggard. He rested beside Ember, his head plopping onto Ember’s shoulder. Ember wanted to move him, but figured he’d get an earful if he did. A little discomfort didn’t mean much to him anymore.

  The giant sequoia redwoods began to thin, giving way to smaller oaks and other broad-leaved trees. Their leaves were orange, some beginning to fall—proof that winter was on its way.

  It took Ember a little while to find a spot flat enough, but eventually he did, then tapped Chris awake.

  Chris shot up. “What? What’s happening? Where am I?”

  “Relax, man.”

  “Oh.” Chris blinked at him. “I must have fallen asleep.”

  “Wonder what gave it away,” He replied sarcastically.

  Chris gave him a glare and shoulder nudge before flexing his now healed arm. He grinned, “Back to a hundred percent. Let’s get camp set up.”

  As Ember got to work setting up, Chris went out to find something to eat. Just before sunset, he returned with a pair of rabbits.

  “You ever cook rabbits?”

  Ember looked at him, disgusted.

  “Yeah, I guess not,” Chris chuckled. “All right, follow me. I’ll show you how to field dress these. You’ll need to know how.”

  Ember followed him to a nearby stream and watched Chris as he quickly and efficiently gutted one of the rabbits. Ember wanted to puke and had to visibly hold back his bile. Sure, he had done dissections in bilogy, but those were clean and done with carefully guided instruction. This was anything but.

  “This is called field dressing,” Chris explained. “Once you kill something, you want to get it gutted as soon as possible. That way, the meat doesn’t go bad as quickly.”

  Ember blanched as Chris handed him the second rabbit.

  “Are you serious?” he asked weakly, eyes on Chris’s bloody hands.

  “Yes. You’ll need to get over your disgust eventually. Better to do it now when you can make mistakes.”

  Reluctantly, Ember held the dead animal. It felt unnerving in his hands—lifeless but still warm. He swallowed back the bile and knelt down. Chris showed him how to cut the fur and rip it, then moved on to the worst part: cutting off the head and slicing open the belly to pull out the guts.

  The moment Ember’s fingers brushed the intestines, he ran off and threw up.

  Chris just laughed. He didn’t make Ember finish. Afterward, Chris cleaned both rabbits in the stream, and they walked back to camp.

  He tossed Ember his shield. “All right, we don’t have much time before night hits, but it’d be good for you to get some more training done. I don’t have any other weapons that are rare or above. Just for future reference, any weapon that isn’t at least rare quality doesn’t have enough Ichor to utilize. So we’re kind of out of luck. You’re going to have to use my shield. It’s significantly stronger than a rare weapon, an epic class, but we don’t have another choice, because I’m sure as hell not letting you use that sword.”

  “Okay,” Ember said reluctantly, holding the shield like it was a bomb.

  “It’s going to be intense,” Chris warned as he started chopping up the rabbit meat. “Just prepare yourself.”

  “Right.” His hands shook slightly.

  “I’m right here, so if something goes wrong, I’ll stop you.”

  Ember nodded nervously, clutching the shield. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and pictured the cup—or goblet, in his case. The goblet looked like a regualr sized cup in his mind's eye. However, as soon as he thought of filling it with the golden blood, the liquid poured into the cup at an alarming speed, and he knew he would overflow in seconds.

  Ember tried his best to cut the stream off, but he could already tell he was about to lose it. The feeling of the ichor coursing through his arm was significantly colder than with the old sword he had used—the coldness seeping into his very bones.

  As a last-ditch effort, Ember tried to activate the shield’s ability, but nothing happened. Panic surged. He knew that was the worst thing to do, but his chest was freezing, and he could feel himself about to overflow. His mind began to lose grasp on reality.

  And then it was gone.

  The sudden absence of cold shocked his body into trembling. Ember gasped, clutching his chest and dropping to the ground.

  Chris stood above him, frowning. “That’s not good,” he said. “That’s not good at all.”