The camp was appropriately silent as we entered, only a few were not out chasing the quota and they gave us knowing looks… This was something they had all tried before. Moll left us in the yard and went to see Deggan.

  I just stood there, lost until Nelly took my hand and dragged me towards the mess hall. Here we all got served some beer by a silent Torle and had a little time to grieve our friend. I didn’t really get to know Frino, but from the stories the others shared I felt we would have gotten along well.

  As I sit and listen to these small stories, like the time Frino fell in the latrine or when Frino saved Barlo from a dropbear. The sadness and anger grew in me… the docile acceptance of it all reminded me of my sickness, there had been nothing to do I was told and in my prior life I had accepted that.

  But this? This was not right! There had to be something we could do! There simply had to! It was not right that Frino was lost because of some wood quota! It was not right that my friend was out there alone because they didn’t want to fight for their friend! It was not right that I had awoken in a strange mystical world, just to experience the same bullshit acceptance!

  Admittedly some of it is probably worry about Stalker, but suddenly I slam my hand on the table and say “This is bullshit! We should be going after Frino! Some wood, no matter what the rich people might think, is not worth our lives or the lives of our friends!”

  The others just look at me and each other, heads down and then Barlo with tears in his eyes says “Stop that! Don’t you think we want to save Frino? He was OUR friend, not yours!” and Nelly adds “The first few times someone went missing, we tried to get them back…” she continues “Moll wasn’t wrong, we lost more friends that way… sometimes we did find them…” She shudders “the wood had claimed them and what we found was no longer our friends but a monster!”

  At this time Deggan enters the mess hall and comes over to our group. He looks at us and says “Okay, now that you have had some time to remember your friend, get some early dinner, then some sleep, you are on the first shift of the night watch” He runs his hand through the beard and sighs “Good thing you just got a new man on your crew, you are behind the quota and tomorrow you will have to make an effort to catch up”

  I was stunned at the callousness of Deggan, but looking around at the others I could see that it was expected. Don’t get me wrong, they did not look happy about any of this, but it was a sad resigned anger that manifested in silence during dinner and using fork and knife extra loud like we were children protesting an unjust parent.

  I don’t know what had happened in this camp, but at some point, it looked like either the woods or Deggan had broken the spirit of these people… After dinner I said to the others, that I needed some time alone and I would join them later in the barracks. I kept sitting at my place as the others left.

  Not long after Torle came to clean up and saw me sitting there. He sat down opposite of me and after a silent moment said, “It is always sad when the forest takes one of us. Old Torle has seen it again and again” He shook his head and then looked around and, maybe trying to change the subject, asked “Where is your little friend? I have saved some good meat for him?”

  He must have seen something in my face, because faster than I would have believed possible, the old goat person was next to me, holding my shoulder and asked “Oh no, did you lose him to the woods as well?”

  Shaking my head nonono trying to keep the tears away from my eyes I answered “No, no Stalker went after Frino and the woodwraith… And I am worried and scared and ashamed!” I looked Torle in the eyes and repeated “Ashamed! I should have gone with him!” more silent “We all should have!”

  Torle eyes looking understanding at first, hardened at the last sentence and said, more harshly than I had ever heard him speak “There is the traveler of myth and legends the stories warn of! Always knowing what should have been done, never staying long enough to learn why things are the way they are!” I shifted uncomfortably in my seat next to him, getting his point, but still thinking I was right!

  Seeing that he was not getting through to me he sighed and started to get up “ahh forgive Old Torle, you are young and today has been horrible and you have worry for your friend to deal with” he clapped my shoulder and said “I will leave you to your thoughts, and maybe some sleep? I hear you have the early shift.”

  I almost let him go, still struggling with the complicated feelings of guilt, worry and righteous anger, but I needed answers. And more than answers I needed a distraction!

  I said as much to Torle, and he looked around and sat down opposite me again and with a sad smile said “Good, asking for knowledge will serve you well and maybe next time you will think before you speak?” as I looked up, still with some fight in my eyes. He just chuckled and said “ahh how old Torle misses the fire of youth!”

  “There is much to tell and not a lot of time to do it” Torle said and the continued “Considering what just happened today I should probably tell you about the woods and why nobody is going after Frino” He looked at me and then shook his head “No down that road lies more sadness and no real gain, so not today.”

  I nodded in understanding and Torle continued “Lets start with those necklaces you carry around, I gather you found them somewhere? They looked ancient" again I just nodded and Torle smiled “Hah a captive and obedient audience! You spoil old Torle!”

  “Those symbols are of an old religious group that worshipped the gate and the gods that came with it.” He looked around making sure we still were alone “They are forbidden and have been since the gates and gods were cast out of Limbo”

  leaning closer to him, I said, “the place I found them, it looked like someone had tried destroying all clues to what was there” I continued “I also found a mural depicting a gate and many races exiting it, the other murals were destroyed”

  Torle nodded “This revolt happened many many many years ago, and the Concord did what they could to erase the memory of it all” he looked me in the eyes and said “and they still do! Talking about that mural or showing those necklaces to members of Concord could very well be the death of you!”

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  I gulped, thinking how freely I had been with the necklaces in the sleeping barracks! I needed to take more care with them.

  Torle continued “Throwing out the gods and closing the gates, started so many of the trouble that plague Limbo today, they call them the dead gods curses…” I nodded and said “yes, my crew told me about some of those”

  “Did they now” he said “That is good, then you know a little” again I nodded. Torle was silent, then he said, “Maybe this next little bit of history will help you understand why the people in this camp appear to be so subdued.” At this I sat up straighter, there was a reason!

  “One of the curses was the gods taking away the classes and professions, leaving only spite and fighting among us!” Torle shook his head “I don’t know what the truth of it is, but certain is it that very few new classes appear, professions are seen a bit more often, but still not a common thing!”

  He continued “Classes can be inherited, they can be taken by killing the one with a class and they can be found rarely in archives” At this I had to ask, my librarian spirit needed to know! “Do you mean archives like a collection of books and stuff?”

  He shook his head “No we will not talk about archives to night” I slumped down, and he smiled as he said “Also from what I hear it would be very rare for an archive to be as straight forward as a collection of books… or as peaceful”

  Getting back on track, Torle continued “Now professions are kinda the same for the advanced ones, but basic professions can be gained through hard work also” at this I again had to interrupt “Do you know why you can learn basic ones and are there a set rule for how and how long it takes?”

  Torle shrugged “good questions and something people have been trying to figure out for ages, alas we still know so very little about how it all works”

  He continued “We do know that classes and professions bring power beyond what a mere level give… How much depends on what class you have”

  “As you maybe can imagine this means that classes and professions over time have been gathered by a few powerful groups and families and in turn been used to keep it like that…” I nodded, this made sense and mirrored the way my old world worked with money and influence.

  Torle stopped for a second and then said “And this is also why people here do not go against Deggan” I noddedm as I saw where this was going and Torle said ”he is the only person here that has a real class and that is power that is hard to stand up to!”

  Torle got up and said “and on that note Traveler, lets end for tonight. I believe you need to get some sleep before your watch.”

  “Thank you Torle!” I smiled as I stood up “I really appreciate this, I have so many questions still, but for now you are totally right I will see if I can get a bit of sleep before watch duty.”

  As I walked over to the sleeping barrack I realized that I had spent an hour with Torle and that he had succeeded in distracting me, from Frino, from Stalker and from the little blue indicator telling me something was up with my status screen!

  Quest: Lorekeeper

  Duration: 14 days (3 days 10 hours 32 minutes 28 seconds)

  Objective: Delve into the lore and history of Limbo, unearth stories, artifacts and places of cultural import. Partial completion possible.

  Reward: Skill selection, reward will depend on rate of completion

  Nice! The stories from Torle must have been enough to get it over the finish line, I thought. I was very tempted to just hit complete and see what kind of skill choice I was looking at, but I still had some time left and the quest specified that rewards would depend on how well I completed it…

  I decided to wait a bit, as I figured I was bound to get some more quest completion by diving into those dead god curses (at least they would be good for something that way) and the gamer in me wanted to optimize when I had the chance.

  Before getting to the barracks I stopped and looked towards the woods. He was probably out of range, but I emoted be safe and sad pack… get home. I hope he is safe and gets back soon, he was my first friend in this world, and I missed him.

  I entered as silent as I could, respecting the others sleep and managed to get all the way over to my bunk without waking anyone and quietly I crept into bed and went to sleep exhausted, thinking about Stalker, Frino and how this world, for all its wonder, seemed so much to mirror my old one.

  All too soon Sslaras clawed hand shook me awake. It was time to get ready for the watch. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any armor or something useful like that, so we were basically just handed an axe and told which brazier we would be standing guard at.

  I was to partner up with Sslaras and we quickly made our way through the thick mist, that coated the entire camp in a heavy layer of white. As we carried our brazier to the designated spot, it struck me how the mist seemed to eat bits of sounds, making it hard to judge where they came from or from what…

  I was not looking forward to this watch at all. I only had my limited experience from the year I had spent in the military (I came from a country with mandatory military service), but in this soup of a mist and with sounds distorted, knowing that there were literal monsters out there? Yeah, not going to do anything good to my stress levels… If only Stalker had returned, but so far he had not responded on my tries to reach him.

  It would be 4 hours before we would be relieved, so Sslaras and I got the fire going and started talking in hushed tones. Constantly interrupted by one of us going “What was that!” or “Did you hear that?” and as the minutes turned to hours, we both went silent…

  Suddenly a loud clank sounded, breaching the dampening effect of the mist, it was quickly followed by cursing and soon two shapes came out of the mist from the lumbercamp. We had made it through our watch without incident!

  As Sslaras and I were released, we shared a smile and wished the two new guards a pleasant and uneventful watch and we made our way back to the barrack, to safety, warmth and hopefully some sleep. Sslaras went straight to bed, but I needed to visit the outhouse (God I missed indoor toilets!).

  As I returned from the outhouse, my mind already full of the warm bed waiting for me. I decided to stop and try and reach out to Stalker one final time before going to bed. I looked in the direction of the woods and simply emoted come home… and then I turned to enter the barracks.

  Just as I reached for the door, a faint whisper of a feeling hit me Old smell danger … protect home… protect pack!