Twenty minutes later, Cara squatted on the ground, eying a pile of wood. Some of it was fresh—but the rest was alarmingly old. The [Knight] deposited another armful.

“There. Roots from the entrance. I prune them anyways.”

The wood was dried and exceptionally ancient. It would go up in moments—if Cara could strike a light.

She had already taken one of the roots and was rubbing it energetically against another. But no smoke.

She looked up, hopefully.

“I don’t suppose you can create fire?”

“I’m a [Knight], not a [Mage]. Nor am I a member of the Order of Seasons or another [Knight]-order with magical abilities.”

He snapped, very put out. Cara had been ordering him around, and he had been forced to skin, gut the mice, and also get tinder. She wasn’t about to get some disease.

“Well—thank you. Really.”

The [Knight] looked surprised at the thanks. But Cara wasn’t about to not acknowledge hard work. She pondered over how to get the wood to light. That was her job rather than Dalius’. His touch would frost over the dried wood.

“Okay, this world has levels. And Skills. I have Skills. A class. But where are we? Again?”

As Cara tried to create fire with friction, rubbing two pieces of wood together and watching them fall to pieces, Ser Dalius explained.

“We are in the Tombs of Afiele. And as I said, it is a province in Noelictus. My home province, and my homeland. If Noelictus still exists—it is in Terandria.”

“Which is…?”

Cara tossed aside the two broken pieces of roots and tried again. The second makeshift tinder fell to pieces just as fast. Still—she needed a fire so she kept going. Meanwhile, Ser Dalius tried to draw a man in the dust on the ground.

“The Order of the Shadowed Blooms, my order, belongs to Noelictus. You see—we are in the northwestern part of Terandria. Here. We border Levicus—a small [Kingdom], here—and to the north and south…”

He was sketching a map of the continent. It was shaped vaguely like a horizontal oval—or maybe that was Dalius’ drawing ability. Noelictus was in the upper left quadrant, but the rest of it was just Greek to Cara.

Still, she listened. Noelictus was…a dead land.

“Ah, the skies are shrouded. And the daylight less than other nations. But it is a beautiful land that knows the wonder of shadows. In ages past, we wrestled with the undead. We still do in truth; death magic is plentiful here.”

“I wonder why.”

Cara glanced at the rows of graves. Ser Dalius waved that away.