For the first time in, well, he wasn't sure how long exactly, but it had to be years at this point, Ollie woke up and wasn't immediately tired. He felt like a whole new person.

  He did ache though, all over, but it was a good kind of pain.

  There were a few, brief seconds where he wriggled into the warmth of the covers and enjoyed the feeling, before he remembered everything that had happened, and the reality of his situation came crashing back.

  Was that voice real?

  For long moments he remained with his eyes closed, wondering - hoping maybe - that it had all been a fever dream. Then the scent of furs began to assert themselves, and the rougher texture of his bed became apparent, and a snuffling sound came from outside.

  Goblins and cervitaurs and silvermanes, oh my.

  One of the aches grew more insistent, and he remembered a goblin spear ripping into his arm.

  Cracking open eyes to the dim light of a room that definitely wasn't in his north London flat, Ollie stared around and took in what he'd been too exhausted to the previous night.

  It was certainly large enough; it took up most of the hollow oak tree it was built inside.

  How is the thing still alive?

  There was a table, a backless chair, a basin with a steady trickle of water falling from the trunk wall into it, cupboards and shelves covered in various jars and bottles and containers. Most seemed to be glass but others were wooden or wicker or even stone.

  A cauldron large enough to sit in leaned against the wall by the door, a stack of firewood piled nearly next to it, and racks on the wall held spoons of all sizes, ladles and equipment that wouldn't have been out of place in an old-fashioned apothecary. There were even a few woodworking tools.

  The floor was earthen but clean, and covered in rugs, nowhere so much as where he'd lain down to sleep. His eyes drifted down to his rumpled and torn clothing; he’d slept in it, and the smell wasn’t going to let him forget it.

  I’ll need a shower later. Oh, god. I hope they have showers here.

  Off to the left, almost opposite the front door, the only wall not made from the tree stood. It looked like a hanging cloth, but sturdy.

  What was her name? Tirrin? No, Tirwen. Tirwen's room?

  He reached out to the pitcher next to him and shook it without looking. Hearing the water slosh inside he brought it to his lips and took a long draught. It was deliciously cool.

  There was no sign that his host was awake, at least, not in the room, so he rose, brushed himself down, straightened his hair as best he could with fingers alone, and checked out the window.

  A wall of silver-grey greeted him, followed by a huge yellow eye.

  He froze for a split second, then shook his head.

  Right. Those.

  There was no sign of the cervitaur outside, and he didn't want to wake her if she was sleeping, so he said nothing until he opened the front door and went outside.

  The largest of the wolves - the silvermane matriarch, if the chiming voice was to be believed - padded round from his right and stood, injured but healing, as a young pup wobbled forward on ungainly paws to stand beneath her.

  Pup? Or is it cub?

  He stared into the eyes of the matriarch, fairly sure it wouldn't rouse her ire, and she snorted.

  She's hungry?

  It wasn't like he was speaking to the creature, but the sense of its meaning was sudden and undeniable.

  “Er,” his voice croaked as his vocal cords warmed up, and he cleared his throat, “good morning. Can you understand me?”

  She whuffed back.

  That’s a yes.

  “Right. Okay. Totally normal. Would…you like something to eat?”

  Her head swung down and to the side as she broke eye contact.

  Yes, but you're hurt. You're…

  “No shame in needing a day to recover. It was a big night.” He looked around at the dell they were in. “Tirwen said the poultices would help you heal, but until then… can I get you…breakfast?” He looked up at the sky through the trees. “Or maybe brunch? What, er…what do you eat?”

  He couldn’t put a finger on how the creature’s stance shifted, but the idea of ‘prey’ was hard to mistake.

  Still more eloquent than some of my students.

  “Rabbits? Deer? Goblins I know. Mice maybe?”

  The expression that passed across the matriarch's face at the last was almost human.

  “Okay, right. I’ll stick to the bigger things.”

  Scanning for any sign of greenskins and finding nothing, he berated himself for the sudden paranoia. The area around the tree was clear, and he had to step back inside to find his club and the goblin bow and arrows stacked neatly by the door.

  How hard can it be?

  Before leaving, he circled round the matriarch and cub to check the semi-conscious juvenile which was still lying where he’d left it. It definitely wasn’t in worse condition, but was it better?

  Whatever the case, it wouldn’t do well if it starved. He glanced back to where the other two silvermanes were watching.

  “I’ll.. just be off then. Wish me luck!”

  He could have sworn the older wolf rolled her eyes.

  —

  Half an hour and an unknown distance from the cervitaur’s home, Ollie considered that he might have bitten off more than he could chew, which was ironic, because at this rate he wouldn’t be chewing anything.

  On the plus side, he wasn’t lost. He’d been moving between landmarks that he spotted, and marking trees when there was nothing else to navigate by. If there was one thing he didn’t want, it was to be alone on the mountainside with no idea how to get back.

  On the downside, he was once again struggling to find any living thing.

  The few times he’d glimpsed something it’d been darting off in the distance, obscured by a dozen tree trunks or dense underbrush.

  At least there aren’t any goblins.

  He stopped and took out one of the few arrows he'd designated for practice, stringing the bow and sighting down the shaft as he aimed at a tree and loosed.

  It might not have been perfect but it wasn't half bad. Maybe a foot away from the knot he'd been targeting, and the arrow was good enough to try with again. He tried a few more times until the arrow broke.

  With no practical experience, all he could do was to keep searching and to repeat the few hints he’d picked up from books and films. Or simple logic.

  Keep downwind of the target. Great… but how do I know where downwind of them is when I don’t know where they are?

  The simplest answer was to keep heading into the wind, but that hadn’t worked so far. So, what was he doing wrong?

  A twig snapped under his foot, and he glared at it as though it were mocking him; he hadn’t been making that much noise, had he?

  After a few more minutes, he decided to take a different approach, and shrugged off the quiver with the bow and arrows, and set his club down before considering the pine tree next to him.

  Checking his jacket was zipped up, he reached out for a handhold.

  He’d picked this particular tree for the number of broken branches that circled its trunk as much as its height, but even so he felt the grip come easily, and he began to scale it faster than he’d have expected. He paused for half a second and stared at his hands.

  Is gravity less here? Come to think of it, what else might be different? How long is the day? Do they have different seasons? You’ve got to assume that the fundamental laws of physics are the same but…with magic thrown into the mix?

  The list of questions he needed to quiz Tirwen on was growing longer by the minute, and he wondered if it would be worth drawing up an outline. Not a lesson plan as such, he didn’t need learning objectives or differentiated work, but a natural progression of topics to avoid confusion and make the process more efficient.

  He’d got a rough outline in his head when he realised he’d reached the top of the tree. The highest part that would support his weight anyway.

  Looking out over the forest he took a moment to revel in the sheer beauty of the place.

  He could see for miles upon miles, towering mountains interrupting his view in only one direction.

  A wild sea of green undulated beneath him, rising and falling with a gentle breeze that stole the heat of the day and exertion from him before it grew uncomfortable. Blossoms dotted the canopy, and here and there were trees with unfamiliar colours - violet leaves or ones speckled with orange, or whose limbs seemed to move of their own volition, independent of the wind.

  The sky above was a pale blue with a handful of clouds scudding by.

  Ollie leaned back against the trunk, gripping a branch with his legs and straightened his jacket, brushing off sap residue and traces of moss and bark, letting the sunlight invigorate him before a nagging thought broke through the calm.

  I’m going to need new clothes.

  That was an issue for later though; right now, he needed to find prey.

  Flocks of birds flew up around the treetops, none close enough to shoot even if he’d had the bow. A larger shape too distant to see clearly erupted out of the endless verdant carpet and broke apart one wheeling formation in its own hunt.

  “What are you?”

  Ollie peered closer, squinting against the brightness of the sun and the hundreds of yards between him and the creatures and concluded two things.

  Firstly, that there were a lot of dangerous beasts in this forest, so he’d better be damn careful, and secondly, that he wouldn’t be heading in that direction.

  Fortunately, despite the density of the treetops that dominated his vision, there were glimpses of what lay beneath, and as he scanned the terrain in the direction he’d been travelling he saw, not far off his path, a rippling blue that hinted of a river.

  And where there’s water, creatures will come to drink.

  It was a solid plan. Keep heading upwind, reach the riverbank, and then follow it up or downstream until he happened across a creature that came to slake its thirst.

  He took a deep breath, exulting in the view one final time, then wrinkling his nose and quickly adding another step to his plan as an unfortunate truth dawned on him.

  Wash in the river.

  Descending with ease, Ollie brushed his hands off and geared back up. The river was only a few minutes walk away, though honestly at this point it was more of a stream.

  Still, it was enough water to clean himself with, and with a brief check for goblins or other dangers, he set about the task of scrubbing himself down.

  Without soap and a proper loofa there was only so much he could do, especially when he froze at every sound that intruded into his rapid bathing. Only once would it prove to be an animal, and even then it was only a squirrel-like creature flitting between the branches overhead before launching itself through the air above him in a glide across the stream.

  Removing a handful of thick moss from a bank-side tree, he stripped to the waist and cleaned his upper body, then did the best he could to rinse and wring out his running shirt and jacket.

  There was nowhere to dry them where they wouldn’t immediately pick up dirt and detritus so he shrugged back into them. It was a warm day; they’d dry well enough on him.

  A full minute passed by as he debated the pros and cons of removing everything else he was wearing for round two, before deciding that, whilst potentially having to flee from danger topless was more than possible, donald ducking it if he needed to run for his life was a step too far, even if it meant he had to perform an awkward dance as he stood up to his navel in cold mountain water and shoved a hand down his trousers to scrub himself clean.

  By the time he finished he almost felt normal, and he could only be thankful that it wasn’t winter in this place.

  It had been bracing in the chill of the stream but he was glad to be out of it, and as soon as he marked his route, he headed downstream, if for no other reason than it would put more distance between him and the large flying creature.

  Creeping as quietly as he could, the first signs of life were too small to bother with. Voles and sparrows and a couple more of the squirrels, or at least, creatures that looked like them. He practiced sneaking up on them as close as he could but he never made it far before they darted off.

  Every few minutes he licked a finger and held it up to check the direction of the breeze, and made sure he was approaching from downwind, but it wasn't until the eighth or ninth attempt that he got close enough to hear something, or, more accurately, hear them.

  A rat-like creature chittered as it sprinted from a rotted tree stump to a hole in the riverbank, and Ollie heard it calling out to others to hide from the squeaking one.

  Right. Wet clothes.

  Or more specifically, wet shoes.

  He focused more carefully as he stepped and heard the faint squeak that came with every footfall, and tightened his jaw in frustration.

  There was nothing for it but to wait and dry off.

  So, as the sun approached its zenith, he did.

  —

  Ollie was used to skipping breakfast; it was hard to work up an appetite when you got up before dawn most days, but by the time he got moving again it was near lunchtime, and he hadn't eaten the previous evening, and the distracting novelty of this new world began to give way to more urgent needs.

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  His stomach was beginning to rumble, and if the animals he was hunting heard his shoes squeaking, they would definitely hear the borborygmus echoing out from his belly like distant thunder. Without knowing if the water was safe to drink, he began searching for something else to fill the rapidly growing hole inside him, and with his body betraying his attempts at stealth, he needed a simpler goal.

  More than a mile had passed by his best estimates by the time he spotted something that might be edible.

  The small, round berries on the bush were purple and resembled the bastard offspring of blueberries with raspberries. Ollie took a minute to consider the wisdom of eating a fruit he didn’t recognise, but if there were similarities between this world and Earth, he was willing to bet these weren’t poisonous.

  Aggregate fruit, high density. Not usually toxic.

  He reached in to snap one of the stems the clustered berries grew off, stifling a curse as he caught the skin of his thumb on a thorn.

  Relies on brambles for defence. Sap is clear and watery.

  Picking one of the fruits, he squashed half the drupelets between his fingers and smeared a little on his wrist, then, after a few minutes of nothing happening, he sniffed the juice and tried it on his lip.

  No reaction.

  Five minutes later he popped the rest of the berry in his mouth and pushed it round with his tongue. Mildly sweet. Not unpleasant.

  He chewed and swallowed and picked enough to fill his jacket pockets. He’d eat one every few minutes unless he started feeling ill, and if his stomach began to rebel he’d force himself to throw up and risk the stream water.

  Fast flowing. Remote. Probably won’t kill me…

  As the path of the sun peaked overhead Ollie returned to the stream bank, drier and slowly sating his hunger.

  He felt the sweet sugars in the berries giving him the energy he’d been so lacking before and, more alert and steady in his movements, he began to track back downriver, until he heard a snuffling.

  The stream was only a few yards across at this point, and on the other side a group of quadrupeds rooted round in the soft earth.

  They look like boars but… covered in metal?

  Ollie cursed his luck. He’d read plenty of stories and there was no way he’d attempt to hunt even a lone boar with his meagre skills. Especially one wearing armour. He listened in on their grunts and occasional squeals; they were hunting their own prey - worms and buried roots.

  Neither he nor the wolves would stoop to that level yet, so he popped another berry in his mouth and continued on.

  Creeping slowly but surely, it took another hour and the remainder of the berries until he came across a creature he had a chance with.

  Floppy ears; domesticated, or at least not fully wild.

  Some small part of him hesitated still, but time was marching on and he wasn’t about to disappoint his silvemane friends by returning empty-handed.

  He lined up a shot from fifteen yards away, and loosed.

  —

  When Tirwen appeared, shoulder freshly wrapped with a clean bandage, Ollie was easing himself down from a pale ash tree, holding his side, seeping blood from a dozen small scrapes, eyes bloodshot, pupils dilated.

  He flinched as the cervitaur broke a twig underhoof and when she saw the animal he’d laid low she stifled a laugh.

  “Tangling with a sporehide? I assume you did get the [Madman] Class then?”

  The body of the goat-like creature was indeed covered in a shaggy coat that was more plant matter than hair. It looked like it was wearing a mildewed rug.

  “There were only a handful, and they didn’t look that dangerous.”

  “They spit on you?”

  “Yeah. Why does it hurt so much?”

  Ollie tried to focus on the wounds that itched, but it was difficult to concentrate.

  “Poisonous saliva. Sometimes worse if they’ve been feeding on any magical plants. Just be grateful they hadn’t been eating sunstalks or you’d have gotten a much worse burn. Come here, you need to wash off what you can, and drink as much as you can stomach.”

  He let her lead him to the stream and for the second time that day began to wash himself.

  “Are you sure it’s safe to drink?”

  “Never does me any harm. Besides, you need to dilute the poison or you’ll spend the next few days curled in a ball with your guts cramping worse than childbirth.”

  Ollie shuddered as the icy caress of the water embraced him again, with the heat of the sun doing nothing but making it colder this time by comparison, and gently washed the remnants of sticky saliva from his exposed skin.

  Five minutes later, with the aid of some yellow leaves that Tirwen said would neutralise the worst of it, he was shivering, standing in a patch of sunlight as the cervitaur [Witch] examined the corpse.

  “You go to all this trouble for the silvermanes?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Well you’ll need to skin it before they’ll touch it. Got to be careful with a sporehide. Should probably remove the liver and drain the stomach contents too. Never know what they’ve been eating.”

  Directing him to pick it up by the hooves alone, Tirwen helped him lash the body to his club so they could carry it between them like a carcass in an abattoir, the cervitaur taking the lead.

  “I don’t know if I’m cut out for that. I’m not a big fan of mess… I prefer my meat from a butcher’s, or at least prepared and packaged up.”

  Tirwen looked back over her shoulder. The uninjured one.

  “You could take it to a [Butcher] but it’ll take you half a day to get there and back. It’s a waste of money if you ask me when skinning is so easy. I’ll do it if you let me keep the liver.”

  The churning in Ollie’s guts could have been due to the lingering poison or the visceral image, but he clamped down on any nausea.

  “It’s a deal. I’ll have to find a better way to feed the silvermanes in the future though; I can’t be doing this every day.”

  “What, no stomach for it? If you’re willing to eat it you should be willing to do the work for it.”

  Ollie grunted as he shifted his club to the opposite shoulder to his quiver.

  “Don’t get me wrong - I definitely don’t want to do it, but I will if I need to. I just don’t think my clothes will last...”

  “Right. That could be a problem. I’ll see if I have anything back at the house but we’re, well, more than a little different. Maybe you could trade the sporehide skin for something in the village.”

  “There’s a village here?”

  “Not here, but on the forest edge. That’s where the [Butcher] is. It’s not huge but I think there’s a [Tailor], or maybe a [Weaver]. Even if there isn’t you could probably trade for something second-hand. If you’re sticking around you’ll need something for when it starts to get colder too, but that won’t be for a few months still.”

  Well, that answers one question at least.

  They’d traipsed for twenty minutes by the time Ollie realised they weren’t following his route out in reverse, and another question popped into his head.

  “Hey, Tirwen, how did you find me?”

  She didn’t turn around this time, but he couldn’t miss the flush that came to her neck and crept up her face.

  “Oh, just a little spell.”

  “Oh?”

  Ollie let the silence hang.

  Just like getting a confession from a guilty student.

  “I- I found one of your hairs on the rug pile - that was for washing by the way - and did a simple little {Dowsing} spell. Nothing major.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her back.

  “Are you saying you used part of my body to track me?”

  She cleared her throat, still not looking back.

  “Sort of. Don’t worry, I destroyed it afterwards.”

  As they navigated the twisting route through trees and thick underbrush, through dells and over hills, Ollie considered that, and wasn’t sure how affronted he should be. But the more he thought about it the more he began to consider something else.

  “Hey, Tirwen?”

  “Yes?”

  “Could you use that spell on goats?”

  —

  “All I’m saying is, if we can find them quickly and safely, or even go after other creatures, you can take more bits for your ingredients shelf and I’ll sell the rest when I go to this village. I can watch them longer - pick a better moment. It only needs to be until the silvermanes are back on their fee- paws.”

  “I’ll consider it.”

  They were back at the tree-house, and the lupine trio were watching on as Tirwen showed Ollie how to safely skin and prepare a sporehide.

  “Thank you. Honestly, Tirwen, you’ve been so generous and welcoming. If there’s more I can do for you…”

  “You can pay attention to what I’m doing so I don’t have to demonstrate it for you again.”

  “I am! Really, I’ve got a reasonable idea of the biology - they resemble some creatures on my world, as do the organs - I just wanted to be sure what parts needed removal. If I had a proper dissecting kit, and maybe some gloves…”

  “Well you don’t. If you want to pay me back you can help me forage for herbs and mushrooms if we go out to hunt-”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  “-if we go out to hunt. In the meantime you can give me a hand with some chores and repairs I’ve not gotten round to for a while, and keep an eye out for goblins. Oh, and if you want to know everything about this world, you have to tell me more about yours.”

  “Of course. What do you want to know?”

  That had been one of the first things Tirwen had quizzed him on as they’d returned with the dead goat: whether he was from another place or if he was pulling her leg.

  The strangeness of his clothes had given her cause to hear him out, though she still questioned whether he was just a [Madman], but when he began telling her about London and England, she’d finally believed him. Not about cars and the Tube, or phones and the internet. The thing that had convinced her had been…

  “Explain to me about your [Kings] and [Queens] again.”

  “Okay, so, my country, England, well, the United Kingdom, which is made up of England and Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland-”

  “But not Southern Ireland.”

  “-It’s called the Republic of Ireland-”

  “Why?”

  He accepted a skinned goat leg, dripping blood, with a grimace.

  “I - I’m really not qualified to get into that. I wasn’t a history teacher so I only know a bit from what I’ve read. That’s better left for another time. Anyway, the United Kingdom is governed by the Cabinet, which is made up of men and women appointed by the Prime Minister - the head of the party that was elected into power by the people-”

  “Not the [King] or [Queen]?”

  “-no-”

  “But you do have one. A [King] right now, you said.”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t hold power.”

  “A [King]...with no power…”

  “Not real power, well, sort of. In theory he could, but he doesn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if he did it would sort of break things, so he doesn’t, but he has what some people call soft political power. He’s influential.”

  “So the people vote for the person to be in charge. The [Prime Minister]?”

  “Sort of, yes. Technically they vote for their local party representative and the policies of the party they support, then the party with the most support wins.”

  “And then your representatives become the council and enact their policies, I see.”

  Ollie drew a deep breath.

  “Well, no. The representatives sit in the Houses of Parliament and debate issues but the Prime Minister appoints a Cabinet from the party members. And they don’t always enact the policies they said they would. In fact, they often don’t.”

  Tirwen stopped mid-slice and turned round.

  “Why do people vote for them then?”

  He sighed.

  “To stop worse people getting into power usually.”

  The conversation continued as Tirwen finished the grisly work at hand, until she was sliding the sporehide’s liver in a glass jar and he was taking a cloth full of offal, meat and bones to the salivating silvermanes.

  “So let me get this right. The people that lose the vote have to sit in a big room opposite the people that won, and your realm pays them to argue with the winners?”

  Ollie grunted as he set down the wolves’ breakfast-lunch-dinner and backed off before he lost a hand.

  “In a sense, yes.”

  “Bleeding velvet your homeland is weird. It is too strange to be made up.”

  “You have no idea.”

  They retired inside to wash their hands in a basin which was kept topped up from an open spigot that Tirwen informed him tapped into the groundwater the tree absorbed. They didn’t waste the bloody water though, and poured it out the window into a rough trough made from a hollowed out log for the silvermanes to drink from.

  As Tirwen pulled out some dried fruit and salad, including some of the same berries he’d been snacking on earlier, he broached the question that had been on his mind all day.

  “So, Tirwen, tell me about Classes and Levels and Skills. There really is nothing like it in my world - outside roleplaying games.”

  “What are roleplaying games? Is that some weird kind of se-”

  “They’re just games you play around a table with friends where you tell a story together.” Ollie cut her off before she could go any further. “Usually with dice. But tell me about this world and I’ll fill you in on RPGs later. We can see if there’s any overlap.”

  Tirwen scratched her antlers and looked up to the ceiling as she considered her reply. She chewed her lip.

  “Hmm. How do you explain something as basic as Classes and Skills and Levels; how would you explain something as intrinsic as breathing?”

  “The intercostal muscles and diaphragm contract, forcing the rib cage to expand, creating a pressure difference which draws air into the lungs, where oxygen diffuses from the higher concentration in the air to the lower concentration in the blood, mostly through the partially permeable membrane of the alveoli.” Ollie traced the outline the air would take as he spoke. “The carbon dioxide flows the other way, and is forced out when the muscles relax. That’s the basic level anyway.”

  The cervitaur gave him a dirty look.

  “Riiight.”

  “Sorry. I did say I was a teacher. Science, mainly. At least in the last few years.”

  She muttered something Ollie couldn’t quite catch under her breath before she continued, speaking around mouthfuls of nuts and berries and freshly-peeled vegetables.

  “I guess the best way to describe it is: when you work at something, you grow. I became a [Witch] after I was taught the basics by… a mentor. I brewed my first potion and practiced my first c- chant, and when I slept that night I got my first level in the Class.”

  “That makes sense. When I went to sleep last night I got to [Warrior] Level 3, and I got some Skills - [Soaring Strike], [Basic Proficiency: Bludgeoning Weapons] and [Enlarged Grip]. Is that normal for all [Warriors]?”

  Tirwen raised an eyebrow.

  “Nothing in [Beast Trainer]?”

  “I got [Beast Tamer] Level 4 too.”

  Her other eyebrow joined the first, and both rose higher.

  “Seven levels? That’s definitely not normal, although it was a dangerous situation, more from the silvermanes than anything…” she noticed his look of confusion. “You gain levels more quickly from difficult or dangerous tasks. I wouldn’t have thought the goblins would warrant that many, but perhaps with the presence of the silvermanes…”

  “What about the Skills though.” Ollie urged as her focus wandered. “Does everyone get the same?”

  “No.” Tirwen shook her head. “Some Classes get certain Skills more often - proficiency in some sort of weapon is pretty common for a [Warrior] or [Fighter] Class I expect - but overall it depends a bit on what you do and a bit on random chance.”

  “So I could have gotten anything?”

  “Well, it seems obvious that your proficiency in bludgeoning weapons came from your use of that club,” she nodded to where the length of rock-hard tree branch rested once again up by the door, “and [Soaring Strike] no doubt from when you made the idiotic decision to leap down into the middle of it all, but [Enlarged Grip] seems fairly random. I’m not sure why you’d get it but I suppose it’s a [Warrior] type Skill, and that’s how it works out sometimes.”

  Ollie thought for a moment, chewing on a tart brown root that was surprisingly palatable.

  Almost like a sherbert lemon, but less… citrussy.

  “So the Skills can be a bit random, but what about the Classes? If I wash up the plates after we eat will I get a [Cleaner] or [Potwasher] Class or something?”

  “Not likely.” Tirwen snorted. “You need more effort than that to pick up a Class, and you don’t earn one for every little thing you do. You need… I guess…” Her mouth moved silently as she searched for the words or explanation she wanted. “If I went to work for someone else, cleaning their house, I might get a [Cleaner] Class after a day of hard work, but no matter how long I spend cleaning up my own house I don’t think I’d get it. Sorry, I’ve not had to explain this before. Does that make sense?”

  Intent matters?

  Considering that, Tirrin began to nod, slowly at first, then with more confidence.

  “Sort of. You seemed pretty sure last night about the Classes I would get. Do you know all of them and how to get them?”

  At that, Tirwen laughed.

  “Not even slightly. I’d say there are as many Classes as people in the world - that have ever existed maybe. The higher level you become - the more you grow - the more Skills and Classes you will get. If you get high enough they can change or merge into entirely new ones. There are a bunch of [Hunters] in the village, but they’re not all really [Hunters]; some will be [Trappers] or [Stalking Hunters] or [Forest Hunters] maybe. I know there’s one [Poacher] and a [Wilderness Ranger]. They all started out as [Hunters], I expect, but when their paths in life diverge who knows where they'll end up.”

  That was much more information to digest, and raised a lot more possibilities. There were a few minutes of silence where both continued to eat.

  Not like Dungeons and Dragons I guess. Maybe FATE or something similar? Except it’s not a game.

  “You said you were a [Witch] and a [Herbalist]. Are they the actual Classes or have they…evolved? I've got two Classes now too. Is having more better?”

  Tirwen finished her meal before she replied.

  “I've not progressed beyond the basic Classes yet; my old mentor would say I don't take enough risks, although I got a level from last night.” She frowned. “Not seven, but still..” She shook her head. “I don't see any downside in having lots of Classes. You'd definitely get more Skills, but I guess it just depends how much time you'd have to dedicate to Leveling them. There are only so many hours in the day.” She thought for a moment before adding. “Higher levels tend to give more powerful Skills. That's what my mentor said. If your [Warrior] Class progressed I bet you'd have more than a basic proficiency.”

  “How high can you go?”

  Tirwen shrugged.

  “Who knows? I’ve heard people say Level 100, but I don’t think anyone in the world is anywhere near that.”

  “Level 100 total, or between multiple Classes?”

  She shrugged again.

  “I’ve not met anyone who’s passed their 30s in even one Class.”

  More questions to be answered.

  The excitement of a new world might have faded earlier when he was traipsing through a forest, shivering in a river, covered in muck, or walking around soaking wet and hungry, but with his appetite sated, and with a host of opportunities and possibilities opened up to him, Ollie's pulse began to rise once more, and he wished he had a pen and paper or a working phone to make notes with.

  If there’s any logic to this, even with the element of chance…

  “What gives you the levels?”

  Tirwen paused as she took the rough-carved plates to the basin, confusion evident. Ollie clarified his question.

  “Where do they come from? Some sort of… magical effect?”

  What the hell is this ‘magic’ anyway. Do spirits exist? Is there a god? Or maybe gods plural?

  The blank look didn’t leave her face.

  “I don’t know. It just… is.”

  And another mystery to be solved. That and magic.

  The water seeping from the tree-tap was surprisingly warm, and Ollie washed the dishes in silence, contemplating where he would go from here.

  He dried them and put them away as Tirwen gave him a run down of her home, showed him where the essential amenities were and what she was happy for him to use for the next few days. When she was done and the initial rush of renewed excitement had come down from its dizzying heights of possibility, he reigned his racing thoughts in and thought to thank her for her hospitality once more.

  “I don’t mean to impose on you, and again I’m eternally grateful for your generosity in taking me in whilst I work out what’s going on and how I ended up here. Are you sure you’re okay with this? I’ll try to make it up to you in whatever way I can. I’ll help with work and repairs, and look for ingredients for your craft. I’ll do my part if the goblins do come here - I’ll keep watch for them too. I can even cook, though I’d need to find some ingredients…”

  Tirwen pulled out a crate of dried fruit for him to take out to the wolves..

  “It’s fine. The biggest challenge will be keeping the silvermanes fed. You can pay me in any of those ways, and stories of your world as well. It sounds so…weird.”

  He snuck a sideways look at her as she mentioned the last option, replacing the half-empty crate, scraping it along the ground and into the alcove it was stored in.

  She says she’s a [Witch] and that they aren’t all bad. Do people avoid her? Is she just lonely?

  Well, he could certainly keep her company whilst he found his footing. He owed her much more than that, but it would be a start. He made a silent pledge to find a way to really repay her as soon as he could, but before he could do that…

  “Deal! Stories in exchange for information? Maybe I can teach you some things from Earth and you can show me how to do some things here in return too? Not [Witch] stuff - I don’t think that’s my scene, but I’m interested in learning about what [Herbalist] Skills are like, if for nothing more than cooking ingredients.”

  The cervitaur straightened up and shook his hand before passing him the silvermane’s dessert.

  It was good to know some gestures translated.

  Which ones don’t though. And are we speaking English? Seems unlikely.

  As yet another question got added to his growing list, he ducked out the front door and came face to face with the silvermane matriarch.

  “Yeah, yeah. Back up one second and I’ll set it down.”

  The huge wolf padded back a few steps, and then Ollie felt a weight he hadn’t noticed lifting from his shoulders as the motion revealed the juvenile silvermane limping over to join her and the pup.

  “You’re on your feet! Well, paws. That’s great!”

  The wolves snuffed their thanks to him as they ripped into the fruit, and he looked down at them before raising his gaze to the ridge of the dell.

  “I guess I need to talk to you guys too. If I’m going to survive here, and if we need to prepare for a goblin attack, I’m going to need all the information I can get...”

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