Covered in sweat and exhausted from hours of work, Vex stood back and admired his handiwork. The crude log cabin he had been building, with the occasional assistance of the Shadowlings, was nearly complete. Following the gremlin attack and destruction of most things on the plateau, Vex had rested weirly for a few more weeks before rebuilding. His body forced him to go slowly at first, focusing at first on simply clearing up the shattered remains of his former efforts. Now, each log he placed felt like a small victory, a step towards reclaiming the home he had lost.

  Wanting to make use of the time that he had between consciousness and his body refusing to do as instructed, Vex had decided it was past time he learned his Shadowlings' sign language, Shadow Cant. When he asked the Shadowlings to teach him, the normally excitable summons seemed mostly distressed. The three had frozen and then frantically began communicating between themselves. Vex could only imagine what was signed but eventually decided that the Shadowlings couldn't figure out where to start teaching him. So, to ease the anxiety the little summons were clearly experiencing, Vex offered to start by teaching the three to read and write.

  When the Shadowlings all quickly jumped at the suggestion, nodding in immediate agreement, Vex couldn't help but be amused at his summons and a little proud of his selflessness. Learning new skills, while challenging in its own ways, was still far easier in this new world. Compared to the efforts in his past life, Vex felt like gaining knowledge and abilities in this new life was practically cheating. Even without having invested any points, he was certain the teaching skill would be relatively easy to acquire and use.

  Shortly after beginning his first lesson on the basic written syllables and sounding them out, Vex learned what having zero skill points invested into teaching meant. While he didn't give the Shadowlings any incorrect information or examples, he instead found himself teaching them to read words like gnaw, mnemonic, and faux as their initial introduction to the phonetical alphabet. For what Vex would claim were unrelated reasons, weapons may have been drawn and pointed threateningly midway through his first few lessons.

  Vex's progression in the teaching skill mirrored the Shadowlings' first skill point gains in reading. An advancement in their writing skills followed shortly after, and everyone's skills began progressing relatively quickly. With the complete lack of books, the system menu was an arduous but novel way of grinding out a few skill points. Seeing an opportunity, Vex followed up his initial lesson to his summons with basic mathematics so they could understand their character sheets.

  Staring at the cracks between the final wall of the cabin that Vex had been working to fill made him realize that he was nowhere near mastery of most of the skills in this world. His knowledge was enough in his current environment to make a cob-style mixture using mud, clay, water, and dried plant matter from the bogs. The mud wasn't quite right due to a lack of sand and straw. However, following those intuitive nudges was enough to ensure that he was now building a passable cabin, without any memory of having been competent in construction in his past life, despite vaguely remembering working at a hardware store.

  Even with the flaws in the cabin, Vex was extremely proud of his progress. He had filled the cabin with primitive furniture and even created a living roof using a dimly luminescent moss. The soft, ethereal glow it cast over the plateau created an enchanting atmosphere that seemed to resonate with the magical essence of the shadowy realm. While he still didn't have a bed and was forced to sleep on the hard ground, Vex now had a basic office with a desk and stool. There were log benches for the Shadowlings in the main hall, and the trophy room had a log pedestal holding the skull of the elder gremlin on a pile of teeth and claws.

  While preferring to avoid the macabre, Vex's intuitive nudges had insisted that the trophy room would help the guild hall be recognized as a suitable structure. Even without the trophy room, he was certain that the cabin would be a suitable structure. While it wasn't grand by any means, it met the requirements his intuition told him were necessary. Now, he was just putting on the finishing touches for his own sanity as he slowly coped with the possibilities of what the world outside his guild domain would hold.

  As he continued layering mud between the logs, Vex's thoughts turned to the future. So many possibilities lay before him in this world of magic: Learning how to use magic, exploring unknown lands, finally meeting people from another world, and perhaps even unraveling the mystery of his past. But for now, he was content to enjoy the present moment, basking in the newfound connection that he was working to build with his Shadowlings.

  The change of heart was a complete departure from his mindset from just a couple of months ago. However, Vex assumed it had something to do with the threat of the gremlins being removed, possibly in its entirety. Now, he could focus and had the presence of mind to ensure he didn't act the part of an idiot by rushing head-first into the unknown like he did his first few minutes into this new world.

  For his first planned goal, Vex wanted the Shadowlings to continue grinding out their reading and writing skills. His intuition was telling him that he was on the cusp of something important, and he wanted to ensure that he completed whatever it was before stepping into the next world. That meant he wanted the Shadowlings to brute force the skill levels, even if they were a little bored. While the Shadowlings trained, Vex intended to finish the guild hall, training his skills and adding a few creature comforts in case he found that he was forced back into his realm for any reason.

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  Once he was ready to connect the guild hall and transportation ring to the guild stone, Vex decided he would start by sending Sir Sneaks into the world beyond as a scout. He wanted the little Shadowling to look around for potential dangers, resources, other people, and anything of interest without being spotted. Depending on what the Shadowling found, he would enter the world to explore it himself or send the other Shadowlings to assist Sir Sneaks. While Vex had to admit that it wasn't a great plan, it would at least increase his odds of survival if the world beyond turned out to be a savage hellscape.

  While pondering if the definition of a savage hellscape was more closely aligned to a post-apocalyptic society of gun-wielding dinosaurs or a mile-long black Friday line at the mall, Vex had managed to zone out completely. After deciding that the black Friday line was clearly the scarier savage hellscape because the individuals didn't care if grandma got trampled so they could save five dollars on useless junk, Vex realized that he had just finished filling in the last of the cracks in the cabin and was now staring blankly into a corner. Quickly adding the last of the makeshift cob to the guild inventory, Vex stood back and admired the completed cabin while resting his muddy hands on his hips.

  The structure would never win any design awards, nor was it even remotely cozy. All of the logs in the cabin were roughly hewn with stone tools. Due to the tools and construction techniques, the building was almost entirely without amenities, except for some extremely rough seating. However, Vex was proud of his work, as he had put in a lot of time and effort to make the building functional.

  Deciding to take a break, Vex left the cabin to check on the Shadowlings. While working, he had tasked his companions with practicing their writing skills by tracing characters and phrases into the dirt.

  Upon stepping outside the cabin, Vex was immediately met with the site of the Shadowlings circling each other with their weapons drawn. The little creatures were in a standoff, with blood in their eyes, until one of them spotted Vex. Then, their weapons instantly disappeared, and the three stood staring at Vex innocently.

  Looking skeptically at the three, Vex slowly walked toward them, looking down at the dirt to confirm they had been writing. There, he saw the tiny little scribbles that started out innocent enough.

  "The sword is a deterrent."

  The handwriting was poor, and the spelling was a bit off, but the intent was clearly there. However, immediately below that, Vex could see where the problems began.

  "Your face is the real deterrent."

  "The dumb one can bite!"

  "You think I'm the dumb one?"

  "Not anymore. Clearly, they are dumber."

  After the last insult, the writing devolved into illegibility due to footprints and a lack of attention to detail. Realizing that he had to at least say something, Vex held in his laughter at the absurdity of the situation and turned to face the Shadowlings with his arms crossed. As he was about to playfully chide the Shadowlings for having used their practice time to write insults, a system message forced its way into his vision.

  Congratulations! You have survived another cycle in the world of Eloria!

  You are now 27 years of age.

  Your advancement in age returned some of your previous knowledge.

  Your perception skill has met the requisite training threshold, and the skill has been unlocked.

  Before Vex could digest the system messages, he felt bombarded with his past. For the most part, the influx of memories was little more than vague impressions. The sense of contentment that Vex remembered feeling at twenty-six slowly turned to boredom. There was a hint of jealousy, perhaps at meeting someone. Juxtaposed between these senses, Vex could vaguely remember a few mental flashes of places he thought he may have been. He could sort of remember a park, maybe a petting zoo, and a restaurant. Nothing overly sensible.

  Then, one of the more salient memories Vex had experienced began to flood in. He was at a New Year's party with a lot of people. The general details were a complete blur. He couldn't remember names, faces, or even whose party it was. There was a vague impression that this may have been an invitation through work, but the thought was followed by a lot ofuncertainty.

  Then, there was a moment of clarity as Vex remembered leaning up against a wall away from the crowd, just observing as someone approached him. Some words were exchanged, then an invitation followed by a complete blank.

  The next moment, Vex found himself sitting on a couch with a controller. He wasn't certain if this was still part of the party, but the same person he had just spoken with had some sort of plastic gun. They were shooting at ducks on a TV that Vex was somehow controlling. There was laughing, some of it mocking, some genuine.

  Then, there was the sound of a countdown from the other room. Vex remembered turning from the TV to ask a question, and he found himself in the middle of an unexpected kiss. He could very vividly remember the feeling of soft lips pressed in against his. A hand was on his cheek as the lips firmly pressed into his.

  A mix of emotions whirled in Vex's mind, drawing out the sounds of people shouting, "1, 0…"

  Then, the entire memory cut off completely, leaving Vex staring out at the starlight sky. Despite not remembering a name, a face, or other details, it felt like he had just regained a core memory. And in a moment that he probably should have felt more complete, his entire being felt hollowed out.

  The three Shadowlings, having been staring quizzically at Vex, slowly turned their gazes away as Chaser motioned at their summoner incredulously.

  "How often does he freeze up and stop working?" Chaser signed in Shadow Cant.

  Looking back and forth at each other, Sir Sneaks and Strikesies both excitedly signed, "Too often!"

  "I think he's either broken or crazy," Sir Sneaks continued signing.

  "Both," signed Chaser as all three Shadowlings continued to stare in befuddlement as Vex slowly teared up.

  Turning their backs on Vex, the three Shadowlings went back to reviewing the group's character sheets.