It started with the sound of laughter.

  Caleb had been helping stack firewood behind the long hall — a task given to him by Rael, simple and unspoken. It kept his hands busy and made him feel, for once, useful.

  Then he heard the dice.

  Two men sat at a low table outside the tavern, cups in hand, slamming small bone cubes onto the wood. Their shouts were half in joy, half in mockery. A few coins exchanged hands.

  He paused to watch. The rules were unclear, but the rhythm was familiar — roll, shout, cheer, curse. It reminded him of games in back alleys, of students gambling at bus stops, of people just trying to find moments of thrill in long days.

  But it was simple. Too simple.

  Chance. No strategy. No depth.

  No thought.

  And suddenly, Caleb’s mind sparked.

  If they had dice… if they played…Then they could learn.

  He dropped the last log into place, wiped his hands, and made his way toward the woods. He found a fallen branch — dry, solid, stripped of bark by wind and time. Not ideal, but enough.

  Back near the hall, he sat beneath the shade of the outer wall and began to carve.

  The knife wasn’t sharp, but he worked slowly. Carefully. He started with a pawn — or the closest approximation he could make. Just a rounded figure with a flat base. Then another. Then a taller one — a rook. Then a crude horse-head for the knight.

  They were ugly.

  But they were his.

  He made twelve pieces before his fingers cramped. It wasn’t a full set, but it was a start.

  Then he found a scrap of parchment in the supply room — half-used, with a torn edge. Using charcoal, he drew a rough eight-by-eight grid. The lines weren’t perfect, but the pattern was unmistakable.

  An echiquier.

  A chessboard.

  He placed the pieces on the squares and stared.

  The pieces couldn’t move on their own.The world didn’t understand the rules.But this… this was the beginning of something.

  And for the first time since arriving in this world, Caleb Voss didn’t feel like a stranger.

  He felt like a builder.

  Caleb sat cross-legged in the shade, the makeshift board in front of him, the rough pieces arranged in a line.

  He stared at them, thinking through the rules — how to simplify them. No need for bishops or queens yet. He didn’t even have enough pieces. But the core was there: movement, structure, logic.

  He made two sets from the same wood, carving simple notches in one group to distinguish them. Crude but functional.

  When a shadow fell across the board, he looked up.

  A boy — the same one who’d run for Rael the day he arrived — stood nearby, arms crossed, head tilted. He said something Caleb didn’t understand, but his expression was clear enough.

  What’s that?

  Caleb tapped the board. Then tapped himself. “Game,” he said.

  The boy squinted.

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  Caleb mimed moving a piece forward. Then the other side. Then he made one "capture" the other by knocking it aside. The boy’s eyebrows rose slightly.

  A second shadow joined them — a woman this time. Curious, cautious. Then another man. Soon, three more.

  They gathered around, watching silently as Caleb acted out a sample match against himself.

  It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even chess.But it was a game.

  And games drew people in.

  One of the men crouched beside him and pointed to a pawn. Said something.

  Caleb handed it to him.

  The man smiled faintly and moved it forward.

  Wrong move.

  But still — a move.

  He nodded encouragingly and adjusted the position. Then mimed again: left, right, straight, back. Gesture by gesture, they began to piece together something close to understanding.

  The boy sat beside him. Then a woman joined. Within minutes, the villagers were murmuring to each other, pointing at pieces, trying moves, laughing when Caleb gently corrected them.

  They didn’t know the rules.

  But they wanted to learn.

  She appeared just as the second mock match began.

  Rael stood at the edge of the gathering, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the crude wooden pieces and the odd crowd they had summoned. Caleb noticed her and hesitated — unsure whether to explain, or apologize, or hide the game altogether.

  But she didn’t speak.She didn’t interrupt.

  She simply watched.

  The villagers, now a small cluster of seven or eight, took turns pointing and moving pieces. They argued in their language, laughed, even imitated Caleb’s earlier gestures when someone made a mistake. It was messy, unbalanced, full of misinterpretation.

  But it worked.

  After a while, one of the older men — gray in the beard, eyes sharp — leaned forward and rearranged the board. He mimicked Caleb’s setup and pointed at him. A challenge.

  Caleb smiled.

  He accepted.

  They played slowly. One move at a time. Caleb explained with gestures, correcting gently, offering pieces when needed. And although the game lacked full rules, the tension grew naturally — each turn a breath, each capture a moment of drama.

  Rael stepped closer, her gaze moving between the two players.

  She didn’t smile. But there was something in her eyes — not surprise, not confusion.

  Recognition.

  She was seeing something more than entertainment.

  She was seeing what this meant.

  When the game ended — a close finish — the older man let out a soft grunt, clearly amused at his defeat. He clapped Caleb on the shoulder with a firm, approving hand, then stood and said something to the others, who laughed.

  They began to disperse, still talking, pointing back at the board, miming moves.

  Rael crouched beside him.

  She tapped the board. “Tarnen.”

  Caleb looked at her. “Is that… game?”

  She repeated it. Slower. Then pointed to him. “Tarnen.”

  He frowned. “Me? No, I’m Caleb.”

  She shook her head. Pointed again.

  Not a name.

  A title.

  He exhaled slowly.

  Tarnen. Whatever the word meant, it was clear: they were beginning to call him something more than “foreigner.”

  Something closer to teacher.Or perhaps — game maker.

  After some time, they left slowly, in pairs and murmurs. The village had work to return to — fields, tools, fires to stoke. But some glanced back as they walked away, eyes flicking toward the board as if something sacred had been left behind.

  Caleb remained seated.

  His hands still rested on the edge of the parchment, stained now with charcoal smudges and the oils from a dozen curious fingers. The pieces were scattered, but not forgotten. It felt… heavier than a game.

  It felt like a beginning.

  Rael had not moved. She crouched beside him, silent.

  He looked at her.

  “You don’t know what this is,” he said softly. “But they… they felt it.”

  She said nothing. Just watched him.

  He picked up the pawn he’d carved earlier — lopsided, scarred, but solid. He turned it in his fingers.

  “In my world,” he murmured, “people play to win. To escape. To think. Sometimes just to feel in control of something. I don’t know why I played. I think I just liked the rules. The structure.”

  Rael’s head tilted slightly at the tone of his voice.

  He pointed at the board, then at his chest. “This... might be the only thing I’m good at.”

  She didn’t answer. But after a moment, she took one of the pieces — a rook — and placed it back on the board. Then she tapped it once, gently, with the back of her knuckle.

  A gesture of approval.

  Or encouragement.

  Maybe both.

  Caleb exhaled.

  He began to reset the board again, slower this time. More careful. More deliberate. Each pawn in its place. Rooks, knights — or what passed for them — standing upright. Even the grid itself looked clearer now.

  He was building more than a game.He was building a space for thought. For structure. For meaning.

  The world had taken everything from him.But it hadn’t taken his mind.

  And now, slowly, he was giving that mind back to the world.

  One square at a time.