*Date: 33,479 Third Quarter - Isles of Selqua*
Aris sat in the cabin where they treated patients, hands clasped, trying to apply healing touch to his foot. It had been more than three years, and Aris was now a teenager stuck in this realm at age sixteen.
"Sixth. This is the sixth dud healing. The next one should work." He clasped his hands again and tried to heal his foot with healing touch. Green aura emanated from his hand and healed the scratch on his foot.
"Every seventh spell working. Well, at least for healing touch. I never materialized anything else from master's books," he said to himself.
He drew a small knife from his belt and cut a small incision on his foot. "I need to try again. Make sure." The pattern had become clear over months of testing. "It's been three years. I never saw any advancement toward us getting out," he said to himself while trying to cast healing touch. "And... seven."
Green aura again emanated from his hand and healed his foot for the second time today.
"All right, it's good. There's still some logic. I can survive with this. But I should learn more than casting healing touch and basic potions."
The discovery both thrilled and frustrated him. He had found a pattern, a rule his magic followed. But why every seventh attempt? What did it mean?
---
*Date: 33,479 Third Quarter - Iron Confederacy*
Demir's lungs burned, each breath tearing through his chest as though it wanted to rip free. His boots pounded against the earth, kicking up dirt and pine needles, his shield dragging at his arm like a slab of iron. Behind him, the guttural roar of the bear shook the trees.
Nineteen now. Taller, shoulders broader, beard beginning to show in ragged strands through the cracks of his battered armor. He had survived nearly four years in this cursed world, but survival didn't mean safety. With every heartbeat thundering in his ears, he wondered if this was the end of his luck.
"Gods, it's faster than me," Demir thought. He pushed harder, weaving between ancient trunks. The forest floor blurred beneath his boots. He wasn't running straight - he'd learned long ago that a straight path made you predictable - but the bear kept coming, relentless, driven by rage or hunger or simple wild instinct.
After what felt like hours but was no more than minutes, his legs screamed for release. He stumbled into a clearing and froze. Ahead, the trees ended in a sheer wall of gray stone. The cliff rose high, jagged and merciless.
No way up. No way around. "Damn it, Demir."
The growl behind him turned into thunder as the bear charged, foam at its jaws, its hulking body blotting out the light filtering through the canopy. Demir clenched his jaw, forced himself to stand firm, though terror rattled his bones. He set his feet at the cliff's edge.
"Come on then," he muttered, dropping his shield, freeing both hands to grip the hilt of his short sword. "My only chance."
The beast thundered closer, a wall of fur and fury. At the last heartbeat, Demir sidestepped, every muscle screaming as he flung himself clear. The bear's bulk smashed against the cliff with a sickening crack, stone trembling under the force.
Dust and rock chips rained down. The bear reeled, stunned, shaking its massive head. Demir didn't think. He raised the sword high, two hands on the grip, and swung with all the weight of his body. Steel bit into fur and muscle, carving deep into the thick neck.
The beast roared, staggered, blood spraying across Demir's armor. The short sword lodged deep but didn't finish it. For a horrifying moment, the bear surged again, claws raking the air where Demir's chest had been. He stumbled back, boots skidding in dirt.
The beast dropped to one knee, its growl fading to a pitiful rasp. Slowly, agonizingly, it collapsed, body trembling before going still.
Demir leaned against the cliff wall, chest heaving. The sword was still in the bear's neck, quivering slightly as the last shudders of life left it.
"This wasn't worth it," he muttered bitterly. His voice cracked in the silence. "Not for me. Not for you, brother. You'd get no meat from my bones, and I nearly lost everything." He glanced around the vast, empty forest. "Gods know where I am."
He'd been running for more than an hour, twisting through paths he only half-remembered. The Amfi Inn was somewhere beyond these woods, tucked behind hills and streams. But he was deep now, outside the boundaries they usually hunted, well past the markers they used to keep each other safe.
He pulled his sword free with a grunt, wiping the blood on his worn armor. As he turned, something caught his eye - a faint glimmer along the cliff wall, just beside the bear's fallen body.
Demir frowned and stepped closer, shoving at the dead weight of the animal until he cleared a space. Sunlight slid across the stone, catching on a small crack. It sparkled.
Kneeling, Demir pressed his hand against it. His fingers came away faintly dusted with metallic flecks - silver, iron, maybe even something rarer. The crack widened in places, metal veins glinting within.
His lips parted in a grin. "Yes... finally. A vein. A mineral deposit. It's real. Something useful. Something we can trade." He chuckled under his breath, the sound rough from exhaustion. "The twins will love this."
He turned to the bear, expression softening. "Sorry, brother. No disrespect to your corpse. But this - this is important."
The problem was not just finding something valuable, but surviving long enough to bring it home. He thought of dragging the bear. Impossible. Three hundred pounds at least. And even if he managed to haul it, he was already lost.
He exhaled, ran a hand through his tangled hair. "I'll have to leave you here. Well most of you. Mark the spot. Maybe I can make it back."
He began skinning the bear. The hide stank, wet and heavy. Fifty pounds at least, but better than nothing. He slung it across his shoulders, gagging slightly at the stench. "At least this I can carry."
The artificial sun at noon gave no clear signs of east or west, but after a few hours, its position showed Demir which way was west. He started walking east.
He set to work quickly, survival instincts sharp. He cut twenty branches into makeshift stakes, dipping each into the bear's blood.
Every ten minutes of walking, he drove one into the earth. When the stakes ran low, he used his knife to carve deep notches into trees. Primitive trail signs, but enough to guide him back.
He walked for hours, placing stakes, carving trees, counting his steps. Every sound in the forest pricked his ears. Once, he saw footprints - three-toed, too wide, clawed. Goblin tracks. Fresh. His stomach twisted.
"They're too close. Too damn close."
But he had no time to follow, no time to risk. Home was priority. The signs would serve as warning enough if he returned.
Finally, as dusk fell across the artifical sky, he stumbled onto a narrow path he recognized. Relief surged through him. He drove the last three stakes into the earth in a triangle, marking the trailhead. Then, shoulders aching, legs trembling, he hurried toward the inn.
The first to greet him was Usahn, the cobbler. Without customers, he'd taken to drying hides by the firepit, experimenting with crude leather armor. The pieces hung stiff and misshapen - barely protective, but something.
"Demir? By the gods - what in Aethyros' name is that on your back? Is that a bear pelt? A huge one. How did you survive that thing with armor falling apart at the seams?"
Demir staggered to a halt, lowering the hide onto a bench. His grin was half pride, half exhaustion. "Luck and strategy, my friend. That's all. Don't use it for scraps. Once it's dried, I'm selling it to Moradin."
"Whatever you say. You're the leader here."
The words hit Demir harder than the bear's charge. He blinked. "I am?"
"Of course you are. People follow you, Demir. Not me, not anyone else." Usahn shrugged, returning to his hides. "You've been making the choices. That's what leadership is."
Inside, the inn was quiet. Only Selene remained, polishing wooden cups with a rag, her silver hair gleaming in the lamplight.
"You hungry, Demir? I made a meat pie."
He dropped heavily into a chair, rubbing his temples. "Thanks, Selene. Starving. But more importantly - I found something. Where are the boys? Where's Alexious?"
"Out," she said with a fond sigh. "Looking for a place to bury their pickaxe, as always."
Demir laughed, shaking his head. "They won't believe me. But I found it before them."
Her eyes widened. "No. After all these years? They'll be furious and overjoyed all at once."
"It's far," Demir admitted. "But away from the dwarves' territory. Safe enough. We can trade without their claws in our pockets."
Selene set down the cup, her smile soft. "Then this requires celebration. I'm opening that barrel tonight - fermented or not."
Demir raised his fists in mock triumph. "Wooo-hoo!"
But behind his laughter, his mind churned. The goblin tracks in the forest, the shadows creeping closer. The find was real, the pelt was real, the inn was safe - for now.
But safety, Demir knew, was only ever borrowed time.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if Aris was still alive, still finding his own way to survive in this world that had become all too real for both of them.