Explore the Great Underground Empire! The first sun rises warmly over the Flathead mountains, spilling a train of golden fire toward the glittering sea on the horizon. Reaper squirrels and corbies awake in the dark forest below scolding and squawking at one another as the nabiz and I stroll boldly west with the gathering dawn. We like this time of day, my sidekick and I, these fresh, exhaultant mornings, the world electric with the buzz of possibility and promise. It's pretty much the only time we operate. The glory of diurnal revival pauses briefly as the nabiz -- a squat, savage confusion of bright black eyes, ruddy fur, and improbably sharp and numerous teeth -- freezes taut to the clatter of rocks in the gulley below suggesting company. The hairs on it's neck rise in the presence of high magic apart from mine. It's nose twitches eagerly. It's eyes dart from me to our quarry then back again several times in simpering earnest. It drools expectantly. I give it a knowing look and draw the rudely fashioned flintlock from it's stowage along my back, take easy aim with both hands, and drill a decidely fat frobgoblin square through the brainpan from a remove of 80 yards. 106% win probability. All shock with literally no time for awe. My sidekick scrabbles eagerly down the stoney slope through the welcoming breeze, it's training to salvage loot and instinctual predilection toward newly minted meat a potato sack race of phrenetic alacrity on it's talis decent. Having been in action for about 10 or so points already, I take a seat on a rock to await it's return. In the interim, I think of Sania, as I'm wont to do on these clarion still hours of waking day. Her dark, Miznian skin, sable, frangrant hair; her meliflous laugh and flashing eyes. I close mine briefly and picture the gentle curves of her shoulders and hips beneath diaphanous sheets and silver moonlight, the innocence and rythm of her breathing as the crickets seranaded our slumber sultry summer nights years ago. Sunbathing in Antharia. Snowball fights in Frostham. Sweet Sania. Sexy Sania. How long has it been now? 10 levels? Seems like 30. How would life be different today had events been otherwise, had the hated machinations of baleful fate not conspired to take her somewhere I couldn't follow, had she zigged when she should have zigged, had she not walked home alone -- had my lover not been eaten by a grue. A raspy snort and tenative chomp wrests me from laconic reverie and reflex channels my itchy aura into a ravenous torrent of flame to engulf a level 34 grotch boss that neither dodges nor weaves and goes more or less instantly from yellow to black to a whimsical whorl of dust before I feel the experience kick in. The nabiz is on the scene almost instantly dropping it's plunder from the earlier fight at my feet and springing to the still smouldering new one to sort for coins. I take the frobgoblin booty and toss it in my bag: a small collection of currency, urns, and an enigmatic ham literred along a spectrum of old, copper, and "tooth". There's also a small cruet of Borpheean whiskey from which I take an apprehensive tug. "Literally worthless" comes definitively to mind as the moonshine swirls burning to my guts and eyesight falters. Oh well, then: more for me. My cranky mammalian cohort finishes his numismatic duties vis-a-vis the sandy remains of the rodent boss and plops down to recover from his recent ascent. I medatively finger a bloody slick seeping through my curias (whatever the fuck that is) where the chalk-mark nee grotch saw fit to assay me as breakfast. A -2 health hit on the outside; there's a pretty good chance I'll pull through. I gaze out over the forests, Fenshire, and a small white house toward the ocean, it's salty titilations bourne subliminally on the gentle mountain breeze blowing East. I listen to the soft, slavering breath of my panting companion, and stroke another shell from my coarse leather belt to load the rifle. Maybe it's the halcyon memory of Sania eternally warm in my heart, the aureate triumph of another unbounded day of adventure at large in the GUE wilderness, or the mephitic Borpheean rot-gut casting a vote, but a wide smile spreads irrepressably across my face in the morning light and I tell myself that regardless of what might have been, this is what is today. And today I'm feeling brave. I think I'll venture to a tougher location.