They followed Kargarn out of Irondeep. Instead of taking the way back to Crossing, he chose to move in a straight line for Northhill. Their way took them through hilly and wooded terrain.

“Wouldn’t it have been far easier to just take the road back to Crossing and take the path to Northhill from there?” Daniel asked while climbing over a large rock.

“No, we’ll save a lot of time this way. Walking back to Crossing is a large detour.” Kargarn explain.

“I’m curious, how much time are we exactly saving by taking this way?” Isabella, who was pretty exhausted from the rough terrain and her lower endurance, asked.

“Well, at least an hour!” The dwarf answered proudly.

Daniel only shook his head and Fedor started to laugh. Isabella looked angry, but for some reason decided not to say anything.

“If we save this much time, this way is clearly much better!” Anna commented in a sarcastic tone. The dwarf grinned and nodded to her, not getting her sarcasm at all.

Two hours later, they arrived at the small river and saw Northhill on the other side. It was around 40 meters wide and the current was pretty fast. For some reason the dwarf had a nervous look on his face when the river came into sight.

“I might have forgotten that we need to cross that river.” He explained and Isabella who was dirty and exhausted had enough.

“Are you an idiot? I thought you were an experienced adventurer. How can you choose such a stupid way. I’ll never follow you again anywhere!” She screamed at the dwarf, who’s face turned red in embarrassment.

“Well, my specialty is more in the area of killing stuff.” He tried to explain.

“We arrived, look at it as a training exercise. At least, my endurance rose on the way here.” Fedor tried to calm Isabella down.

“Moving through that river will be almost the same as my training in the snow. The water comes from the melting snow in the mountains and should be very close to freezing. You’ll get some extra toughness and endurance.” Daniel added and went to an area were the river didn’t look very deep. After hesitating for a moment, he went in and noticed that he had been wrong pretty quickly. The current made the cooling effect from the water way worse than the snow he had trained in.

The others watched when he came back out again. He removed his new rope from his inventory, put one end around himself and gave the other to Fedor.

“Probably safer, in case I’ll pass out from the cold or fall down. After I arrive on the other side, it will help Anna and Isaballa. They have the lowest toughness.” Daniel explained and Fedor nodded in agreement.

He went back into the river and after a third of the way, he got a familiar status notification.

Status effect inflicted

Mild Hypothermia

Stamina regeneration decreased

He ignored it as usual and went on, the water was only a bit over a meter deep after all. When he was close to the other side, he got another notification.

Status effect inflicted

Hypothermia

Light stamina loss over time

This river would be far more useful for training than the snow, he thought as he climbed out of the water.

Isabella went next and Fedor knotted the rope around her. She threw an angry stare at the dwarf when she entered the water and Daniel only heared that she was mumbling something, but he wasn’t able to understand her curses.

She moved far slower than him and started to struggle when she reached the middle of the river. Taking another step, she lost her footing and her head went under the water. Daniel decided to help her and started to pull at the rope as fast as he could. Ten seconds later, she arrived at his side and he pulled her out of the water. He saw that she was trying to talk, but she wasn’t able to. Instead, she started to cast a spell and Daniel decided it would probably be smart to move a bit away from the angry Latina.

A ring of fire appeared around her and she sighed in relieve when the heat of the fire reached her. It burned the rope that was still attached to her, but Daniel decided not to comment on it.

“This moronic dwarf! I got a deadly hypothermia status effect and lost 30 percent of my health!” She cursed after being able to speak again. Not knowing how to calm her down, Daniel tried to put a positive spin on the situation.

“At least your attributes should have increase from the experience.”

Isabella turned her angry glare at him.

“You are an idiot, too. Not every shitty situation is a training exercise!” She paused and had an empty stare for a moment, before she continued in a surprised tone. “Wow, my toughness increased by three, my endurance by four and my vitality by two.”

Daniel decided it would be best to leave her alone in her ring of fire, at least for the moment. When he turned to his friends on the other side, he saw that Fedor was getting ready for the crossing and put a rope around himself.

“Would it be possible to take a second rope for me? Dwarves and water aren’t exactly friendly and it would almost go up to my head.” The dwarf asked in an embarrassed tone and Fedor accepted with a grin.

The three managed to cross the river without much difficulty, only Anna looked pretty exhausted when she arrived. She used her water magic to dry herself and then went to Isabella’s fire.

“We should stay here for today. We won’t be able to reach the dungeon today anyway and we can use the time to train our toughness in the river. Isabella and me focussed too much on magic and our physical attributes really need some leveling.” She suggested after warming herself up a bit. Isabella looked at her like she was some kind of moron.

“She is right, you need more toughness. While you stay back in most of the fights, we don’t know what to expect from the second dungeon level. If there a more of the goblin shamans, I don’t think you can prevent getting hit by a spell in every fight. I think we should all train here. My toughness reached 70, but even I got a hypothermia status effect.” Fedor explained.

“You are right, but let us enter the village and talk to Jacob first.” Daniel proposed and they moved to the village.

The first person they encountered was John. He was swinging an axe at a large tree.

“Looks like your arm is healed.” He greeted Daniel with a smile.

“Did anything interesting happen in the village while we were gone?” Anna asked.

“You could say so." He looked at Daniel and gestured in the direction of the dwarf. Daniel nodded to inform John that Kargarn did know about their situation. So, John continued. "Most of the other travelers left. Only Azza and I are stayed. Bjoern’s party decided to go back to the dungeon after buying some equipment, the others wanted to move to a bigger city. The life of a rustic villager didn’t have much appeal to them.” John explained with a smile.

“Who is Bjoern?” Daniel asked and his friends looked at him in a bewildered way.

“Bjoern is the large man with the axe that was in the other party that made boss runs before we left the dungeon. You really should have talked to more of the other travelers. How many of the others do you even know by name?” Anna asked.

“Well, I know that James guy, Azza and John here. Oh and the names of the two people that fought the boss with us were Evan and Achmed.” Daniel explained in a slightly embarrassed tone.

“Are you autistic? You spend almost a week with these people and don’t even know their names.” Isabella asked.

“I had a lot of stuff to do, training, fighting dungeons, you know? I didn’t really socialize with them. In case some of them didn’t make it, I didn’t want to get too close to them anyway. Seeing people die I consider friends is an experience I kind of want to avert.” Daniel explained his actions.

“That’s cold, but I can understand that way of thinking. Sometimes it’s better for your mental health if people are just numbers. You sure that you weren’t in the military?” John asked.

“No, he is just a nerd.” Anna commented with a smile.

“If the others left, isn’t it dangerous for you and Azza to stay here? If one of them doesn’t keep his mouth shut and is questioned, he can tell them about the black woman in Northhill that is a traveler. She stands out a lot in this village.” Fedor asked and John nodded.

“I talked with Azza about it, but she decided to take the risk. She wants to have the others know where to find help if they need it. She is just too good of a person, but that is what I love about her. If she wants to stay here for the other travelers to have a safe gathering place, I will support her. But, I have decided to keep training myself. Just in case we get some unfriendly visitors. In addition, raising stats feels kind of nice.” John explained with a smile.

“You sure that you don’t want to become an adventurer, too?” Daniel asked and John started to laugh.

“Yes, but maybe you can ask me in a few years again.” John suggested.

With that, he went back to swinging his axe at the tree.

“John, wait, why are you felling the tree?” Anna asked.

“We are building a house. I don’t know how Azza did it, but half of the village is already helping us.” He explained.

Anna nodded and removed the chainsaw from her inventory.

“Here, this might be helpful. I don’t have a use for it anyway.”

John looked at the chainsaw and shook his head. Kargarn eyes went wide and he started to inspect the chainsaw immediately.

“I’m using the axe instead of magic to train my strength and creating fuel for it would be pretty complicated. In addition, the people here don’t know that we are travelers, so it would be pretty noticeable.”

“Well, maybe you’ll find some use for it. I can’t sell it and it only uses space in my inventory. Maybe, you could use the motor for something else or have a good smith make a copy of the motor design and use it as a pump or something. Use it for pumping water from a well, for example.”

“I don’t know how the technological base is in the bigger cities of the kingdom, but the use of internal combustion engines could be a game changer. You sure about this Anna? While travelers are not wanted in this area, you could probably make a lot of money with it in a bigger city.” Daniel asked.

“Yes, look at it as an early gift for your moving in a new house.” Anna answered with a smile and John accepted the gift and put it away in his inventory. Kargarn wasn’t looking happy about it and turned to John.

“I’ll give you 100 gold coins for this fascinating machine.” He suggested and John started to laugh.

“Thank you, but it’s rude to sell a gift.”

The dwarf cursed and they went on to the village to meet with Jacob.

“What, the Jacob you talked about is him? You want to take this old fogey with us to the dungeon? He quit being an adventurer because nobody wanted to hear his fussing anymore! I know, because when I started out, I was part of his team for a while!” Kargarn shouted.

“Hello Kargarn, I’m surprised that you are still alive. Normally adventurers with your 'Don’t think, kill!' attitude don’t make it very long. Has it already been ten years?” Jacob greeted them.

“At least, I’m not a coward!” The dwarf declared proudly.

“So you know each other, good. Jacob, I don’t know how to say this, but you seem to have retired for a reason. Are you really sure you want to go back into the dungeon with us?” Daniel asked and Jacob sighted.

“When Kargarn was in my party, I was in a dark place. I was the only survivor and saw all of my friends die at an unforeseen dungeon break. But, I didn’t want to quit, so I decided to team up with some new aspiring adventurers. It went good for a while, but the fear of losing another party made me a pretty miserable company. That was a long time ago. You don’t have to worry about me. When do you want to leave for the dungeon?” Jacob asked.

Daniel looked at his friends, but it was the dwarf that spoke first.

“In two days, they need to increase their toughness first. Hopefully you are right Jacob. If your bitching starts again, I’m out. I accompanied them to have some fun while I'm waiting for my new axe, not to hear the fears of an old man. While they train, you can organize our food situation. While goblins don’t taste awful, I’d like to have real food and we don’t know how big the second floor is going to be.” Kargarn responded and turned around to leave.

The time to their departure passed very fast. When they were not training in the river, Daniel did sprints, crunches, push-ups, pull-ups and squads. When his life force was near 100 percent, he started to condense mana until he was back at 90 percent. In addition, he did some exercises with his new sword. The handling was different from the saber he was used to, but he started to get a grip on it.

Attributes

Strength

Agility

Vitality

Endurance

Mana Capacity

Regeneration

Mana Regeneration

Toughness

39

65

32

75

67

104

12

53

-

+30%

-

-

+35%

-

-

-

Skills

Swordsmanship

Meditation

Self Improvement

Channeler

Mana compression

unlocked at level 25

Novice 63%

Novice 32%

Novice 30%

Novice 20%

Novice 4%

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