They spent the next 5 days camping out, relaxing, and all around recuperating from the three weeks of travel. It was nice to not be moving. Throughout the 5 days they saw neither hide nor hair of anyone else. During that time Bjorn took some time to brew a few potions with what he had on hand for herbs.

  He made 4 weak healing potions, a few pain relievers, and a few doses of medicine that should help with most common illnesses that people would get. Ultimately nothing major to him, but to a small town of elves cut off from any real civilization it would be a godsend. He figured that would be a fair trade.

  When they went back they were met by the same tall elf who stopped them in the field north of town. “Wait here, I will send someone to grab the leg for you.” The little elf boy was apparently always in his shadow because the boy took off heading into town.

  He came back a few minutes later with Hagred in tow. In-between the pair was a small wooden leg that looked to be hand carved. Its attached foot was ever so slightly curved downwards making it so that Meira would mostly be walking on her toes. But it looked like the front of the foot was expertly carved so that the toes area was flat giving her a little platform to stand on.

  “Here try it on.” Hagred said as he drew near. Setting the leg on the ground, he got down on a knee to hold it in place.

  Meira let go of Bjorn's arm and hopped forward and positioned herself so her leg was right over the wood. He walked over to inspect the leg with her. It was a little taller than he expected it to be. at the top was a small ball carved into the wood, a socket for her stump to fit into. There was a small leather strap that had been embedded into wood itself which Meira could use to tie the leg to her leg.

  She lowered her stump into the hole and it fit surprisingly well. So well in fact that she almost didn’t even need the leather straps to hold it in place. “I formed it so it should fit well enough onto your leg. The only real reason for the leather is to hold it in place in case you get it stuck in mud or in a high stress situation like fighting a mauler.” He gave her a look that was hard to place. It was there for a moment and then gone.

  The wood of the false leg matched Meira’s bronze skin tone almost perfectly. “In the event that you do get the wood dirty, which lets face it, will happen seeing how it is your leg. You can wash it in any stream to remove any mud, dirt, or even blood that you get on this wood. I made it out of the wood of a rinnel tree. It should hold up just fine to getting wet. The wood is surprisingly tough, and resistant to wear and tear. It is a difficult wood to work with because of that. But this should last you a long while until you can come up with something better.”

  The entire time he was talking he was down on his knee cinching the leather straps tight around her leg. When he finished he sat back on his heels. “Go on, walk around a bit. See how you like it.”

  Meira complied. She was able to walk just fine as she took a small lap around the group. At first she was a little hesitant, but as she made her lap her confidence grew. By the end of her lap she was walking almost normally, it wasn’t as smooth and graceful as she once had been but it was good enough. She finally was able to move around without Bjorn’s help.

  Meira stopped before the old man and pulled him back to his feet. She held his hands for a few moments and bent her head down and kissed the back of his hands. “Thank you Hagred, I don’t think you understand what this means to me. How much do we owe you?”

  The old elf snorted. “Pay? You don’t owe me anything. Getting to see you walk around like that with that smile on your face was payment enough for me.”

  “Be that as it may.” Bjorn said. He held out the bag that he had prepared for Hagred. ”You have provided us with a massive boon. Let me return the favor.”

  Curiosity got the better of the old man. He reached out his hand and took the bag from Bjorn. As soon as it was in his possession he opened the top of the bag and peered into it. “What is it?”

  “These are a few potions I was able to prepare for your village as you worked on Meira’s leg. The red ones are healing potions, they should be of decent quality, restoring roughly 117 hp over 10 seconds. It won’t be enough to fully restore someone, but it should be enough to save a life if someone is in a dire need of healing, there are 4 of them. The clear ones are pain medication, they should help alleviate the majority of the pain someone is feeling. It should make setting bones to heal much easier, and more pleasant for the person, there are 8 of those. Lastly the blue ones are a general medicine that should be able to heal most severe common illnesses. They should be able to heal any sickness that doesn’t require a specialized potion, of those there are 5. Use them wisely.”

  The tall elf blanched as he looked at the treasure trove of potions that were just bestowed upon their village. Throughout the entire interaction he had a deep scowl on his face, as if he wanted nothing better than to throw the vagrants who wandered into town out. The scowl transformed to gratitude.

  He bowed deeply. “I am sorry if my actions have offended you. I was quick to judge. Thank you for this gift you have given us, it will save us from many hardships for the years to come. But I fear that you don’t understand the value of such things to a settlement like this. What we have given you in return is not enough. Ask for it, and whatever you wish will be yours.”

  “Well in that case I want your wife.” Bjorn said with a mischievous grin on his face. Meira smacked him. Bjorn ducked away with a chuckle. “In all seriousness, I don’t think you understand how grateful we are for you to fix this problem for us. I think what I have given you is more than enough to compensate for what you have done for Meira. Trust me I understand the value of something like this for a village like yours. So the way I see it we are square.”

  The elf got up from his bow, and there were tears freely streaming down his face. “Thank you.” he said again.

  Hagred looked at the state of the elf and looked back at Meira and Bjorn with raised eyebrows. He shook his head and turned to the elf. He placed his arm around his shoulders and said. “Come on Tormund, let's get you back to the village. And let these nice people get on their way, I am sure they have a long way to travel from here.” He shook his head and he slowly started to lead Tormund away from the small group with Taredd in tow.

  As the trio made their way back to town they could hear Hagred’s voice as it faded away. “See what happens when you help people? They often times will help you back. Maybe next time you will think twice about turning them aw-” The voice at that point became too faint to hear what was being said.

  Bjorn looked at Meira. Her hand had wormed its way into his hand at some point during the talk with the rest of the elves. “I am proud of you.” She said warmly.

  “What why? I thought you wouldn’t be, after all I did ask Tormund for his wife.”

  She rested her head on Bjorn’s shoulder. “You aren’t going to be rid of me that easily. Besides you can barely handle one elf, are you sure you want a second.”

  “On second thought I should have asked him to take you with him.”

  “Hey!”

  Bjorn just smiled at her and kissed her to stifle her protests. When he pulled away he looked down at her. “I love you.”

  “I love you too. Don’t think you can just kiss me to get my forgiveness.” She protested. In response he leaned in and kissed her again. “Although it is damn hard to not forgive you.”

  Bjorn chuckled. “Alright shall we? We still have a long way to go yet to get to our destination.”

  She groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

  With that the pair headed out. For the first time in weeks they actually made a decent pace as they walked along. Now that he didn’t have to half carry Meira, and she could travel under her own power it was much easier to travel. They traveled with Meira in the front so that Bjorn would be able to catch her if she tripped.

  She was considerably more mobile now that she had a second leg, but she was still a little clumsy with it. She wasn’t fully used to having to pick up her leg. She didn’t realize how much of her walking and being graceful while doing it hinged on her ability to flex her foot at the ankle and flex her toes. It would just take some practice.

  They spent weeks traveling through the countryside heading mostly northward as that was the direction that their deed told them to go. As they traveled they would oftentimes stop and duck into a nook, or hideyhole to let a monster or large animal pass by. They saw trolls, bears, rock monsters, and a weird creature that had 9 legs and two different heads the shape of a pit bulls head. It was called a shriek hound.

  Regardless they avoided fighting whenever and wherever they could. Both because of Bjorn’s newfound desire to not kill, and Meira’s desire to respect that wish. But fights weren’t always avoidable. Whenever a monster decided that it was worth attacking Bjorn and Meira they tried to end the fight quickly. Bjorn would try and distract the best he could with both his weapons and his body. Meira would try to quickly put it down with her magic.

  The pair worked quite well together. Bjorn’s job was to not die, while she did the real work. He had become very adept at his task by this point. He was used to being the useless fighter in their group. Though it had been a while since he had been this useless. Almost every time he without fail would get mauled by whatever they were fighting. Which was good experience for Meira to train her life magic, as her progress in that school had mostly stagnated due to no longer being in the middle of a battlefield.

  The pair continued to make good time as they headed northward. Each day they covered more and more ground as the woods started to give way to grasslands, Meira also became more and more confident in her leg, letting them travel at greater speeds. Bjorn had also gained a few stat points which helped as well. He had gained 1 in str 1 in dex, and another point in end. Due to his constant getting attacked and hurt he also gained 2 points in constitution.

  The trifecta allowed the pair to reach the northern part of the kingdom of Escar within a month and a half. As they neared The northern edge the open fields turned once again into woods. Only this time instead of dense trees and dense under foliage, it was more of a healthy forest. Not many shrubs, and the trees were more evenly spaced. This made traveling northward easy.

  When they hit the woods they pulled out their deed which directed them to the northwest. They followed it northwest until something finally changed. The deed Stopped pointing in a direction and instead turned green and started to slowly pulsate. As soon as he stepped onto the land a window appeared in front of his vision.

  You have entered a piece of land that you own the deed for. As of this time this land is ownerless. Would you like to lay claim to this piece of land? Yes/No?

  A little confused as to why he got the prompt Bjorn mentally clicked on the yes. When he did the deed that Meira had been holding in her hand dissolved. The paper disappearing within her hands startled her and she jumped back letting out a little yelp. She stood in place staring down at her hand in disbelief for a few long seconds.

  “What the hell?”

  “Did you get a prompt to claim this land as well?” Bjorn asked her.

  “Yeah I did. When I clicked yes I got a message. ‘Waiting for the other potential owner. Owners, 1 out of 2.’”

  “Weird.” Bjorn’s attention was drawn to the blinking icon.

  Congratulations you have laid claim to a plot of land. Would you like to give it a name?

  Mentally Bjorn dismissed the prompt, he was about to say something to Meira when a new prompt appeared in the middle of his vision.

  You are now the owner of the Clucking Cock Farm. You have decided on a name for your plot of land. As such you are not able to change the name of your land for exactly 1 year.

  Bjorn narrowed his eyes and turned towards Meira. For her part she just started to laugh, uncontrollably. “The Clucking Cock?” Bjorn asked with incredulity in his voice. When Bjorn said the name of their new piece of land Meira’s laughter redoubled.

  He waited for her laughter to die down. “Are you serious? And now we can’t change the name for a year.” The look on Bjorn’s face and the way that he said that set her off once again. At first he was mad, but as he heard her laugh uncontrollably his anger started to die off. In its place he started to see the humor in the situation. It was good, he hadn’t heard her laugh like that in over a year.

  Eventually she was able to get control of her laughter, but her face was still plastered with a large smile. “I am sorry.” She said as she laughed. “I didn’t think that it would actually take the name, I also didn’t think that there wouldn’t be a confirmation, and lastly I didn’t know that we weren’t able to change the name of our land for a whole year.”

  He wanted to be mad at her, but he just could be. Seeing the smile plastered on her face he couldn’t stay angry. The smile lit up her face. It was the type of smile that you could make a commercial about. The only thing he could think when he looked at her was. “Beautiful.”

  “Alright, well I disagree with your choice of name, at least I think that we are alone out here.”

  Your land covers a total of 3000 acres of land. It has lain abandoned for over 50 years. Who knows what you will find there. Be cautious as you explore your new land, who knows what has moved in while the land has laid abandoned.

  As a landowner you have the option to establish a settlement. Find a place on your land where you would like to establish your settlement.

  Notice! The land you own is outside the confines of any large governing body. As such, if others decide to live on your land and you grow sufficiently enough you may establish your own kingdom.

  “What does it mean to establish a settlement?” Bjorn asked Meira.

  “Beats me, let’s explore our land and see what we can find here.”

  They started to slowly explore around their new home, at least for the foreseeable future. What initially caught Bjorn’s attention was his minimap. He directed his attention to it. There was a line that was running through the center of his minimap. One side of the line looked normal, the exact same as it did for the rest of the map. On the other side, the one where they were standing, it was covered in a mostly transparent green layer. It was enough of a tinge to make it noticeable, but not too much to where it made it impossible to see.

  Bjorn made a comment about it to Meira. She pulled out the copy of the map and the pair came to the rather obvious conclusion that the highlighted area indicated their land. Together they decided to explore around the outside of their land. It took them a few hours to explore around the outside of their land.

  At first Bjorn thought that it was going to be a large square. But it actually was a weird amorphous blob. There was actually no nice long straight line that indicated their land. The only place where it was kind of like that was right where they came into their land.

  From what they saw as they walked around the edge of the clucking cock was that there were several small streams cutting through the land itself, with one larger river that was nearly 5 feet across that also ran through their land. It was mostly covered in woods, there were a few spots where there were clearings in the trees. It was in one of the clearing where they found the remains of a small house. When they searched it, it was basically empty with anything of use rotted away, or too rusty to be of any use.

  Stolen story; please report.

  It was mostly flat ground with the occasional hill. It was on one of those hills that they decided to set up camp. It was one of the highest points in their land. It also had the added benefit of being completely devoid of trees. It also was right next to the river. The hill itself was mostly flat on top, with two sides of the hill being cliffs. The other two sides gradually sloped downwards into a nice lush meadow.

  From their vantage point on top of their hill they had a beautiful view of the meadow, the trees surrounding them, and of the restless volcano off to their east. Ultimately it was a great place for them to settle down. As Bjorn stood at the top of the hill he looked down at the meadow and he could envision a farm that he wanted to build.

  “This will do wonderfully. We can build our house up here, and down there we can make a few fields to grow crops for us. If we want we can build some buildings like a barn down there to shelter animals. What do you think love?”

  As he started to lay out his plans for the land Meira walked up to him and rested her head on his shoulder, her hand lacing with his. “I think we can make this work love. Let’s set up our tent for the night though. It will be a bit of a struggle to build something that will shelter us for the winter though. There is a chilly wind tonight, winter will soon be upon us.”

  “I know. I think we can build a basic shelter down there in that tree line. It’s where the trees are the densest, that should give us the most shelter from the elements. In the meantime though we need to set up a few things.”

  “Oh such as?”

  “I think that we should dig a foundation for our house. As much fun as I think digging a hole in the ground for a foundation when the ground is frozen will be, I think I would rather not do that.”

  “I agree, digging in frozen ground is never fun. But we do need a few tools for this project though. All we have is two shovels. If we are going to become farmers we need other things, such as a hoe, racks, bags of seed, maybe an animal or two.”

  “Yeah I don’t think we have time to be farmers this year though, I think we should just get started on the hole. We have two shovels and a pickaxe.” Bjorn shuddered a little when he said Pickaxe. “I hate the thought of touching that tool. You know I actually thought about throwing it out when I was switching from the Portable Pocket to the Bag of Holding, Alaric convinced me to keep it. He said ‘You never know when you will need a tool might as well keep it.’” Bjorn said that last part in his impersonation of Alaric’s voice.

  “He was wiser and smarter than we gave him credit for. I am glad that we convinced you to keep it now.”

  “Same.” Bjorn said. “At some point we will need to find some sort of settlement where we can trade to get what we need.”

  “Yeah, but I think we should wait until winter fully sets in before we try to find people.”

  “I agree, might as well get as much done as we can before the snow sets.”

  That night they set their tent up on top of their hill. They did so to test mainly, they wanted to see how much wind would get to them being up so high. At the highest point on the hill they were roughly 40 feet above the meadow floor. Luckily for them the trees that surrounded them were close to 100 feet tall. They weren’t as densely packed as the forests surrounding the Serrated mountains, but with the greater distance between the trees they grew taller and thicker in exchange. This made it so that it still wasn’t too bad even from their elevated position.

  Happy with how it went that night they moved their tent in the morning, they set it up in the tree line on the east side of the meadow. They spent some time finding a relatively smooth and flat patch of ground. After removing the rocks from their camping spot they set up the tent. They then spent the next 2 days setting up a rudimentary lean-to.

  The spot that they set up was right next to a large 10 foot tree to their west. So they built a better lean-to that covered the tent to the north, east, and south. Providing better coverage to their tent. They built a frame out of large fallen branches that they found scattered around the ground. They tested the strength of the limbs before they actually used them for the structure.

  To cover the gaps between the limbs for their frames they used. A mix of canvas that they salvaged from the other tents. When they were deciding on what to bring they left the poles used for the structure of tent behind, but they brought the thick canvas, figuring that it could be useful. In this case they were right. They also used bundles of leaves that they took from the trees around them. While Bjorn was putting together the structure of the lean-to, Meira was busy drying the leaves out over the fire.

  They weren’t sure what type of tree they got the leaves from, but it was the perfect one for their job. When the leaves were dried out instead of shriveling up and getting crispy the leaves instead became almost rigid and flattened out. They found that the leaves only took on those properties when they were rapidly dried, when left to air dry they became just like almost any other leaf.

  Taking the newly dried leaves they layered it over the canvas hoping to make it more waterproof. Every once and a while they would run a string across to hold the leaves in place. All in all it did a good job of preventing most of the moisture from getting inside their lean-to, it also kept most of the wind off of them. Two things that would greatly improve their quality of life during the winter. It was also built so that the roof of the lean-to would come to a point. This served to easily funnel any smoke from a fire that they built up and out, not trapping any of it within the lean-to. It was true for a fire they built anywhere within the lean-to.

  When their lean-to was finished Bjorn took a step back and on a whim used his identify on it.

  Huh. It was the first time that Bjorn used W.A.I.L.A. on a building. It makes sense that it would have a durability rating; he found it interesting that the quality of the building was something that he had never seen before. He absently mindedly wondered if buildings had a different scale of quality, or if it was a quality that he just had never seen before. Instead of getting his answer he just stared admiring his work.

  Meira made her way over to where Bjorn was standing. She laced her fingers in his and rested her head on his shoulder. “Good job love. That looks great.”

  “Thanks, it will do for now. But for us this won’t do, at least for now it is a temporary structure.”

  “I know, we still did good, I think for the amount of effort we put into it.”

  He nodded, and pulled her into a full hug. “That we did. There is still a little light out, I think I am going to start working on the house. Do you want to come with me and we can figure out a rough footprint for what we want to build.”

  Meira gave her assent. They spent the next few hours talking about what they want for a home, and how they want it to look, what size they want, and the exact placement. Bjorn had brought a handful of sticks with him when they headed up. As they decided what they wanted Bjorn would pound a stick in place as a boundary to their home. Eventually they ended up with a nice rough idea.

  They made their way back to the lean-to. From there Bjorn had the idea to offload his bag of holding. Emptying it out on the ground. Leaving all of his worldly possessions in the open air. He did so, so that he could fill it with dirt and rock and move the entire bag so that it would be easier to excavate the hole that would end up as their basement.

  A Lot of the space that was taken up within his bag of holding were plants, herbs that he wanted to grow. He transferred those that he figured he wouldn’t be able to find here into Meira’s portable pocket. As it had the same properties of stopping the wilting process of plants that were stored. The more common herbs he gave the Meira to start letting them dry. As Bjorn left to start working on digging up their home, Meira was busy tying strings to the herbs and hanging them up from their lean-to to let them dry.

  Bjorn’s job was hardly easy, but it was straightforward. He would start the digging process by setting his bag of holding on the ground and opening up the top of the bag. He would then take his shovel and shovel dirt and stone right into the top of the bag. At first he thought that maybe the soil wouldn’t go inside the bag as it kind of sat there for a brief moment.

  Eventually the dirt that was sitting on top of the bag sank down into the bag itself. Of the 20 by 20 grid each shovel full filled a single square of the bag. So he got to work slowly filling the 400 slots. With his first load he made a mistake. As he fully filled the bag. This made the entire bag way too heavy for him to pick up, even with the 90% reduction in weight he still couldn’t lift it with his diminished stats.

  He began to slowly and methodically remove dirt and rocks out of the bag 1 slot at a time. It was weird, he was able to somehow remove a slot at a time. Each time he had to reach into the bag and mentally extract the pile of dirt. When he removed his hand the full shovelful would materialize out of thin air on top of the bag. Where it would immediately break apart and crumble. Luckily it wouldn't sink back into the bag, instead it would just sit on the mouth, kind of floating on top of the bag, where the bag could be tipped and the material would just slide off.

  After each slot he would test and see if he could pick up the bag. He was able to finally pick the bag up around it being 2/3rd full. For the time being he took the dirt that he dug and climbed down to the bottom of the hill and he began the process of pulling the dirt out of the bag. It was slow, but ultimately he was able to move much more dirt all at once than he could have been able to move by himself without his bag of holding. It felt slow, but it was still faster than he expected.

  Once he was finished he hiked back up to the top of the hill to survey how much he had been able to accomplish. When he saw the size of the hole that he dug in relation to the area that they marked out for their house he momentarily got disheartened. The hole he dug was respectable, it was 3 feet by 3 feet by 2 feet deep. But when he looked at the total area left to dig it was demoralizing.

  By the time he finished the first trip with the bag Meira came over and told him dinner was ready. So the two of them ate. After dinner they spent some time together and did some more menial tasks around their campsite, to make it a little bit nicer for them to live there. Then they went to bed.

  The next morning Bjorn resigned himself to a long day of just digging. After he woke up near dawn he climbed out of bed and started doing just that. The belt of sustenance was coming in clutch letting him get fully rested for less sleep, and letting him get more productive hours out of his day. He moved soil all day long, there were a few times where he had to stop to rest. Or he had to use the pickaxe to break apart larger rocks so they would fit within the bag of holding. Early in the morning Meira joined him and brought him food. They spent the entire day between the two of them working on digging the hole. In the evening they stopped working and Bjorn made dinner that night.

  For the next 2 and a half weeks they spent it in the exact same routine, they spent most of the day making the hole for their basement bigger. They alternated between who was the one who did the cooking. And enjoying each other's company. One thing that Bjorn started to do was take small excursions out from their camp to explore the surrounding area. Around a week in Bjorn found a field filled with large stone blocks that were made out of granite. This gave him an idea but he decided to wait to maybe act upon it later. The field was on the far side of the river and not too far off from where they set up camp.

  One thing that did change throughout the 2 and a half weeks was that Bjorn did actually manage to gain a few stat points, to no one’s surprise. He managed to gain 2 in strength, 1 in endurance, and surprisingly 1 in agility. As it turned out, spending two weeks working sun up to sun down digging and moving dirt did wonders for his own personal strength. The stat gains once again further increased the rate at which he was able to move dirt, which cut down what would have been a 3 week project into the 2 and a half one it was.

  At the end of the two and a half weeks they finally finished excavating the giant hole in the ground, at least to a satisfactory level. They ultimately dug a pit that was around 30 by 20 by 7. Taking much more time than he expected it to. More than a dozen different times during the project Bjorn lamented the fact that they didn’t have machines that could do the digging for them.

  It was on the morning after they finished digging that they found out that they were not alone out on their farm. Just past mid morning they were working on widening the stairs that they used to get down into the basement when they were startled by the sound of someone whistling. It was an aimless tune.

  Both froze in place when they heard the tune and made eye contact with each other. They stood there watching each other’s reactions waiting to see what would happen. The tune just continued, it sounded as if it was getting closer, but not at a fast pace.

  “Let’s see what is going on.” Meira whispered to Bjorn.

  He nodded and together the two of them slowly climbed up the set of dirt and rock stairs that led out of their hole and they edged their way over to the lip of their cliff, which was the direction that the whistling was coming from. It originated to the east. They got down on their bellies and waited.

  They didn’t have to wait long, as after a few minutes a pair of young kids came strolling through the trees. There was a girl probably in her mid teens and a young boy who didn’t look like he had hit puberty yet. It was the boy who was whistling. They were still far enough away that they couldn’t quite tell races, but the girl looked to be fairly tall, so not a dwarf or gnome. It was hard to tell with the boy as he came up to her armpit.

  The girl said something to the boy as they walked and the whistling got louder, she scowled at him and stuck her tongue out at him. They watched the duo for a few minutes from their vantage point.

  When it became obvious that they were alone Bjorn whispered to Meira. “What do you want to do? Do we draw attention to ourselves and introduce ourselves? Or do we go down and meet them? I doubt that they mean us any harm.”

  Meira just watched them a little while longer and shook her head. “I don’t know, we should probably try and introduce ourselves.”

  By that point the two were fairly close to the river so Bjorn decided to stand up. He did so and called down to the two kids. “Hey down there. Not to alarm you but you guys are drawing near to our new house. Do you hail from a nearby village?” The tone he was going for was kind, friendly, and nonthreatening.

  When he started speaking the pair froze in place and looked up in terror. Before Bjorn got more than 5 words into his speech the two turned tail and ran. They quickly made it to the tree line and disappeared into it.

  Meira stood next to Bjorn and smacked him with the back of her hand. “Nice going, you scared them off, now we won’t get any answers as to if there is anything near by.”

  “No, I don’t believe that. That boy was probably near 13, and she was probably around 17 or 18. There is no way that a pair of kids that age would be wandering this far out alone. There has to be a village nearby or something. But it will be hard to find anything without searching.” He turned to look at the sky. “The weather will probably turn in a day or two. We can search then.”

  Meira’s eyes lingered on where the forms disappeared to. “That’s fair. Besides, I have a feeling that if we stay here they will manage to find us again. Or at least they will bring back a few adults with them.”

  “That’s fair, let's get back to work. We just need to keep an eye on that tree line as we work.”

  They didn’t have to wait overly long. It was mid afternoon when 5 figures appeared in the edge of the tree line and started to walk cautiously towards the hill that Bjorn and Meira were working on. They were a little busy so they didn’t notice. That is until one of the party called out.

  “Hey, my son told me that there was a man here. Are you still here? We were wondering who you are and where you come from if you are still here.”

  Upon hearing the voice the pair stopped what they were doing and made their way over to the cliff face. Peering down they finally saw the 5 people standing there. Meira called back down to them. “Hey, yes, not just a man. If you wait right by the river’s edge we will come down and meet you there.”

  “Go ahead, we will wait for you.” The voice called back.

  “Alright, well let’s go meet the neighbors.” Meira said to Bjorn with a smile on her face.

  They made their way down off of their hill and walked around the outside of the cliff. Spotting a small opening In the stone that drew his attention. But he ignored it for now. The pair finished walking around the bottom of the cliffs. This was his first time walking down there.

  As they rounded the corner they saw all 5 still standing there not moving. A small river around 7 feet across separating the two groups. Bjorn and Meira walked almost exactly opposite of the other group. They finally got a good look at those standing there.

  The young girl and the boy were both humans, their skin a dark shade of tan, giving them a more Mediterranean skin tone. Their facial features were just similar enough that it was a safe assumption that the pair were siblings. The man that had called out was tall and had the same skin tone, as similar facial features to the boy making him likely their father. The other two were both elves. One had the same tall, thin grace that Meira had. The other was shorter and had the same Mediterranean look about her. This made Bjorn guess that she was a half-elf. Based on her more stocky appearance that wasn't common amongst the full blooded elves.

  The father stepped forward raising his hand. “Hello there. My name is Aiden. We are here representing Leefside. My kids here informed us that someone was on this land. We had to come check to see if what they told us was true. Who are you and state your business here.”

  Meira was there non-de facto ‘party face’ as she was both better looking, and ultimately nicer when dealing with hostilities. The humans' words were anything but kind. Smiling, she replied. “My name is Meira and the man standing next to me is Bjorn. We have obtained the deed to this land from the previous occupant and plan on making a living out here. I have a question of my own, where is this Leefside?”

  “The previous owner? That is doubtful, he hasn't been seen around here for quite some time. A number of years based on what I've been told. As to where leefside is, why do you want to know?” He replied with a suspicious tone.

  “As to the previous owner, I am assuming you are talking about Duke Dornan the gnome.” When he heard the name the man's face took on a look of surprise momentarily before he schooled his expression. “As to why we want to know where Leefside is, that one is simple. We are looking to do some trading, we have some coins and find ourselves lacking the tools necessary to establish a livable house out here. We also plan on making a farm, so we will need those tools as well as seed and livestock come the spring. That is if anyone is able to part with them.”

  The man's face turned from almost hostile to curious. “When you say Duke Dornan you are telling me that the small rambunctious youth that used to live here actually managed to become a duke?”

  Bjorn was the one to reply this time. “That is exactly what we are telling you. He somehow managed to become the duke of Blackrock Bay of all places. And the last time we saw him and spoke to him he had managed to become a professed mage.”

  Aiden let out a surprised laugh at hearing that, as well as the other two adults exchanging glances. “I have my doubts about the validity of your statements, that seems a bit far-fetched to me. But by all means we will gladly trade with you. Leefside is just past those trees over there.” He pointed to the way that they had come from. “It's about a half an hour walk that way. Shall we expect you in town soon for some trade? We can get to know each other a little better at that time.”

  Meira shook her head. “You can expect us eventually, but not for now. We will probably make our way into town at some point once the first snow hits for the year. Until then we have some more preparations that we would like to do.”

  The half elf nodded her head. “That is fair, we shall expect you in a few days. We will spread the word and I am sure the craftspeople in town would like a head start. What do you have in the way for building a house?”

  “Not much.” Bjorn said truthfully. “At least not much that could be called useful. We do currently have two shovels and a pickaxe. We have a hammer that is entirely way too big to be useful for construction. So we will likely need a bunch of woodworking tools.”

  Aiden nodded his head as if it was what he expected. “That we can help with. As well as a few other useful tools. That sounds good to us, we will see you in due time then.” He raised his hand in farewell and turned to leave.

  Bjorn and Meira bid them farewell and watched as their backs retreated into the woods once again.