After the first fight the family moved together, more coordinated but still learning. They moved through the camp, cutting down goblins with growing success as they learned, slowly and sometimes painfully, how to function as a unit. James kept the dogs in support roles. Whenever someone started to get overwhelmed, Luna or Ruby would leap in, breaking pressure and buying time.

  It was rough at first. Coordination didn’t come easily, especially for the three kids, who had spent the better part of fifteen years bickering, competing, and snapping at one another. But they adapted. Their saving grace was a combination of slightly boosted physical stats from growing up without mana; it somehow allowed them to absorb it better and thus grow stronger faster because of that, and the steady presence of the dogs backing them up.

  James and Christine stayed near the rear, collecting goblin ears for the guild while keeping an eye out for anything valuable or salvageable. They hadn’t expected the campgrounds to be this ruined. Most of what they found was beyond use, smashed, torn apart, or burned. The goblins had been breaking and destroying everything since the family fled days earlier.

  At the center of the camp, they reached the site where the knights had built a pyre two days before. Charred remains marked where goblins and humans alike had been burned together. The group paused, heads bowed for a moment of quiet respect, for the fallen, for the fellow Earthlings who hadn’t made it.

  Near the back of the camp stood the host’s cabin. Its door had been bashed in, but the structure itself was more intact than anything else around. They advanced slowly, Jessie leading with her shield raised, James following with a small sphere of fire hovering over his palm.

  Inside, the cabin was in ruins. Hosts usually lived on-site or were at least seasoned campers, but whoever had been here clearly hadn’t expected to be ripped into another world.

  “Oh, sweet,” Luke said.

  Behind the door, half-buried beneath debris, lay a pump-action shotgun.

  James moved instantly, stepping in and pushing the barrel down toward the floor before Luke could do anything stupid. Range time and years of drilled safety reflexes kicked in hard. He took the weapon outside, checked the chamber, then the tube before handing it carefully back to Luke after clearing the shells.

  It was loaded. Almost full.

  Scattered on the ground nearby were spent shells. James picked one up and frowned. The primer was struck; but the casing was otherwise intact, load still held in place.

  “I don’t remember anyone firing a gun that morning,” he muttered. He would have remembered that.

  “That’s odd. Luke; let me see that.”

  He reloaded one of the unfired shells, racked the pump with a satisfying chk-chk, aimed at a goblin shambling in the distance, and pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  The firing pin struck. Nothing else happened. James ejected the shell. The primer was depressed. The shot remained untouched. He exhaled slowly. “I would not put your faith in guns here, Luke.”

  Luke shrugged. “Still keeping it.” He shoved the shotgun into his rucksack anyway. James pocketed the remaining shells.

  “James, get in here,” Christine called.

  He stepped back inside to find everyone gathered around a hole in the floor. Rough stairs descended partway into the dirt, as if someone had started building a basement, then changed their mind and filled it back in halfway. The wood of the step leading into the dirt was a perfect match for the dirt it was sitting in, cut perfectly flat and angled to match where it lay in the dirt.

  “Strange,” James muttered. Questions piled up faster than answers, his head beginning to throb as he tried to compartmentalize everything. This was important; he didn’t know how but he knew it was.

  A locked door on the side wall drew their attention.

  Luke knelt beside it without being asked, already pulling tools from his pack, tools James was fairly certain hadn’t been there yesterday, and which no one had bothered to explain. Metal whispered against metal. After a few tense seconds, a soft, satisfying click echoed through the cabin.

  They stacked up automatically and pushed through. It was a garage. And James nearly wept.

  Taking up most of the space was a trailer; and strapped down securely, sitting on it, gleaming even beneath a light layer of dust, was a motorcycle, a chopper, a hog. Something else he’d been forced to leave behind when they took the trip up the mountain.

  “Oh, we are absolutely taking that with us,” James said, already moving.

  Christine rolled her eyes.

  James ran a quick visual check. The keys hung on a hook beside the garage door. He grabbed them, slotted one into the ignition, and turned it, only realizing a second too late that he might be about to announce their presence to every goblin in the camp.

  Nothing happened; no roar, no crank, not even a cough, just an all too familiar sound of a starter clicking.

  Christine laughed. “Ha. Like there’s anywhere to ride that thing here anyway. You said yourself that kind of bike is garbage off-road.”

  James frowned, popping the battery compartment. Battery present. Gas cap next, fuel sloshed inside. He even pulled a spark plug cover. Everything was there. The lights came on when he turned the key again, glowing softly in the dim garage.

  But the engine didn’t even try.

  “Odd,” he muttered. “I wonder if the gas has gone off.” Another question added itself to the ever-growing pile.

  “Well,” he said, straightening up, “the trailer’s still good. That alone’s worth bringing.” He crouched near the hitch and spotted a thick trailer lock. “Hey, Luke; mind getting this one too?” He grabbed the hitch and tested it, then paused. And lifted.

  The entire trailer came up with ease.

  James blinked, then grinned. “Strength stat paying off,” he mumbled.

  Christine smirked. “Try not to throw out your back showing off.”

  “Let’s leave it here for now,” James said, setting it back down carefully. “We’ll bring the RV around and hook it up. It’s been safe this long.”

  Luke stepped forward, already fishing something thin and metallic from his kit. “Watch this. I saw it on YouTube.” He slid the shim into the lock, gave it a quick flick of the wrist; click.

  The lock fell open.

  James stared, then shook his head. “I’m not even going to ask.”

  Luke grinned.

  Back outside the cabin, they resumed what had turned into a disturbingly one-sided slaughter. Goblins rushed them in ones and twos, only to be cut down just as quickly. The kids gained a few levels along the way, system notifications chiming from their phones with increasing familiarity.

  “I feel like we need more to level than the kids do,” James muttered as he wiped a dagger blade clean after parting another ear from its owner.

  “I mean, this world runs on game logic,” Christine replied. “So that would make the most sense.”

  James frowned, watching another goblin break from the brush and charge without hesitation. “Don’t you find it strange? They keep coming at us a few at a time. No coordination. No tactics. It’s like they’re mindless animals.”

  He planted his boot on a fallen goblin’s chest. The creature shrieked and clawed weakly at his leg, more spit than threat. James shifted his weight, crushed its throat, and ended it.

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  “If they weren’t using tools,” he continued, “I’d think they were zombies. There’s nothing behind their eyes.”

  Christine loosed a glance toward the treeline. “I think it’s stranger that they just… come back.”

  As she spoke, dirt shifted near the roots of a nearby tree. A clawed hand broke through the soil, followed by a goblin dragging itself free, blinking as if newly born.

  “That’s not natural. That’s like respawning.”

  James exhaled slowly. “Let’s ask Kaelith when we get back. We never got a real rundown on how any of this works.”

  Christine nodded. “Yeah, you and Luke did tell him to skip all that noise because you ‘knew’ the shtick. Just stats and monsters.”

  “That’s fair,” James said. “But either we’re missing something obvious; or there’s a whole layer of this world nobody has bothered to explain.”

  They finished sweeping the camp, though it was clear anything truly valuable should have been taken the day they fled.

  After getting the RV into position and forcing the garage door open, they managed to hook the trailer up to the back easily enough. James pulled a protective sheet over the bike and strapped it down securely. Once that was done, they went around the camp gathering discarded cooking utensils, pots, pans, and anything else remotely useful, along with scrap metal scavenged from a few of the other RVs. Everything went into the trailer.

  They were even lucky enough to find a few spare tires for the RV that looked serviceable, and the garage itself contained several decent sets of tools. All of it was the kind of stuff that didn’t look impressive now, but he imagined it was better than what they could find in any store here.

  Most of the goblins’ weapons were useless, amounting to little more than sharpened sticks and heavy branches. A few, however, carried rusted daggers and short swords, which they tossed into the trailer as well. Rust could be dealt with. A pointy end was still a pointy end. Worst case, it could be melted down and another use could be found.

  Once James turned the key and the RV rumbled back to life, a soft chime echoed through the cabin.

  The terminal mounted near the dash flickered, unfamiliar runes resolving into clean, readable text.

  Trailer upgrade detected.

  Syncing storage…

  A progress bar crawled across the screen as the RV rolled forward, tires crunching over broken stone and trampled earth.

  Syncing complete.

  New lines populated the display one after another.

  Basic workbench unlocked.

  Basic toolkit unlocked.

  Spare parts catalog synced.

  100 lbs scrap aluminum added to storage.

  Miscellaneous materials indexed.

  James frowned slightly. “Indexed?”

  He tapped the screen and a collapsed menu expanded, most of the entries greyed out or marked incomplete.

  Bent steel brackets.

  Worn copper wiring.

  Cracked ceramic insulators.

  Assorted fasteners.

  Unidentified composite fragments.

  The list continued; no explanations. No additional instructions. Just names and quantities.

  “Great,” James muttered, equal parts relieved and unsettled. “It knows what this stuff is better than I do.” He started to make a mental note that the motorcycle was not registered in any way.

  Another line appeared at the bottom, dimmer than the rest.

  Advanced functions locked.

  Secondary vehicle: ??????.

  Condition: ??????.

  Whatever this RV really was, it clearly hadn’t shown him everything yet.

  Once they finally rolled out of the camp, the RV literally rolling over a few goblins on the way out, James leaned back in the seat as the goblin zone finally disappeared behind them, trees growing thicker and the air feeling calmer. James had everyone take stock of what they’d gained. They’d collected around seventy goblin ears. At roughly five copper each, that came out to about three hundred and fifty copper total. Not a fortune, but enough to keep them fed for a few days at least.

  Since goblins were considered humanoid, they already knew no one wanted the meat, so the bodies were left behind. As they drove away, they could already see newly spawned goblins tearing into the remains; cannibalistic was all James could think looking back in the side mirror.

  Everyone had gained a few levels. Nothing spectacular, but every little bit helped; and in a world like this, that mattered more than it probably should have.

  They made their way back to the city without further trouble, moving in and out through the gates now that they had proper identification on hand. As much as James disliked the system, he had to admit that it worked.

  When they returned to the area where they’d been parking, they found most of it filled with the carts they’d seen on their way into the city. Cooking fires dotted the space, and tents had been erected across what little open ground remained. It looked less like a parking area now and more like a temporary settlement.

  James maneuvered the RV toward the back, parking it near a wall close to the city’s outer defenses. Once they were in place, he set to work deploying the slide-out extensions and pulling out the awning, the familiar motions bringing a small, comforting sense of normalcy in a world that offered very little of it.

  While James was setting up, a squat man approached him, the same one who had given the RV a once-over on their way into Thalindor.

  “Hello,” the man called, voice warm and lilting. “Strange design your Mage-Cart has there, friend.”

  Mage-Cart. So that’s what they called self-propelled vehicles here; James made the mental note to avoid future conversation mishaps.

  The dwarf moved with an easy confidence, rings glinting in his beard, dark eyes sharp with appraisal. “Bramis Veylan,” he introduced himself, placing a hand briefly over his chest before extending it. The gesture felt older than the city.

  They exchanged pleasantries. Bramis’s Mage-Cart, James learned, was an Aetherwain model.

  It took James a moment to place what felt different.

  They all spoke the same language; the system ensured that. But Bramis’s words carried a rhythm that didn’t quite align with the invisible translation hum James had grown used to. His consonants rolled softer at the edges. His sentences curved rather than struck straight. Now and then he inverted phrasing just enough that James had to listen, not just hear.

  “And this beauty,” Bramis said, gesturing toward the RV, “she is old, yes? Or pretending to be?”

  The translation usually flattened regional differences. This did not feel flattened; it felt deliberate.

  As if Bramis were leaning just slightly outside whatever invisible mechanism handled common speech. Not enough to break comprehension, but enough to remind James that language here still belonged to people, not systems.

  The dwarf asked questions James couldn’t answer about the RV’s construction, probing, curious, circling back with storyteller patience. In the end, James spun a version of the truth, a family heirloom, pulled from an ancient dungeon by a distant relative who preferred discretion over noble attention. Recent troubles had forced them onto the road; it had become their home.

  Bramis listened without interruption, head tilted, expression unreadable.

  When James made it clear the vehicle was not for sale, no matter the offer, the dwarf only nodded slowly.

  “A home,” he said. “Then it is not merchandise. It is memory. I understand.”

  There was no disappointment in his tone. Only calculation shifting direction.

  The conversation drifted to trade roads and nearby towns. As Bramis spoke, James watched his map update, names appearing in the blackened spaces, faint lines sketching possible routes.

  “West road is good in dry weather,” Bramis said. “In rain, she swallows wheels. South is safer, for now. North…” He gave a small shrug. “North listens too closely.”

  James filed that away. When they parted, James made a mental note to find proper paper maps and see if the phone would update on its own.

  But more than that, he noted something else. Bramis hadn’t sounded like the system. He’d sounded like himself.

  Inevitably, the discussion turned to James’s strange slate. Again, he wove a story, distant family experimenting with ancient tech, trying to revive stagnated slate technologies. James was helping them test it, of course. His D-rank charisma was carrying the conversation, because James had never been one to spin convincing half-truths with such finesse.

  Bramis eventually showed James something new about the slates. By pressing his phone to another device, a contacts page appeared within the slate app, displaying Bramis’s name and Rank “E.” He explained that if they were ever in the same area again, the system would alert him with an audible ping, handy for travelers seeking safe places to lodge if a friendly face was nearby. Traditional slates lacked a map function, so its uses were limited, but the concept gave James an idea to explore later.

  After parting with Bramis, James returned to the family, who were experimenting with their new levels and ability points from the recent excursion. James had jumped to 25, Christine to 23, Luke now sat at 5, Nikki at 6, and Jessie, lowest but respectable, at 5. Jessie had unlocked a taunt skill, useful if she wanted to continue as a tank. Luke had a sneak and hide skill, letting him move less detected if he needed to. Nikki, inspired by her father’s elemental magic, unlocked a fire-arrow skill that required only a small amount of mana to add minor destructive force to her shots. She planned to unlock more elements over time.

  James went to Christine and asked her to press her phone to his. Her contact info appeared, just like Bramis’s. One by one, the family connected their devices, unlocking everyone’s contacts pages. Then they got a buzz:

  Achievement Unlocked; Get by with the Help of My Friends.

  Having more than four contacts stored; now enabling calling and chat features on compatible devices.

  “Well, that’s cool,” James muttered, surveying his family. “Still don’t think we should separate too much, but for now, we’ve got this. Location sharing is working, so at least we’ve made ourselves a little safer from getting split up.”

  After that, they made their way to the guild hall to turn in their spoils. Well past noon now, the morning vendors were packing up, while the prepared-food sellers were rolling out fresh wares in the market. A few sturdier buildings housed general stores, but bartering and trade seemed to flourish, especially in the food market. They passed a few delis and cafés as well, offering ready-made meals on a more consistent basis.

  Thanks for reading!

  This is my first time publishing anything publicly. I'm writing this for fun and learning as I go, so feedback is welcome as long as it's constructive.

  And a reminder new chapters set to post Monday / Wednesday / Friday all the way through what would make up a "book 1"