It had been the best night they had spent since they had lost Sophie and today she only felt a slight pain at her memory, and not the nagging ache tha... she had gotten so used to feeling. She felt she had connected with her husband again."Happy birthday Sally" she said, as she pulled the cover away from her sleeping daughter's face and kissed her cheek.She felt a warm glow of love churn deep inside her as she watched Sally's eyes force themselves open and focus on her as she returned to the land. Mom looked out thewindow behind me and stared off into the distance. When she looked backat me she still seemed a little lost in a memory. "Son, that was a longtime ago, and I was an adult at the time."I glanced at the glowing route map built into the dashboard and saw Ionly had a few minutes to convince her. "Things have changed a lot sinceyou got it done. There's lots more options now, including completereversal. That's the main reason they lowered the minimum age."Mom drummed her fingernails. Mostly, it was similar enough to the prewar life in Virginia that I had little trouble keeping it straight. The main item of interest was that the male half of the population spent most of their time fighting, either each other or various very dangerous wild animals. Every man endeavored to be as skilled as he could be with bladed weapons, though a few did add the mace to the group. The reason for this hanging on to swordplay was because the firearms were invariably single-shot. They had never. Most monsters had some useful body part that could be sold, like their hides for clothing or their meat as food, but aside from collectors of grotesqueries like skulls and other things to put on display, nothing about the goblin was sellable. However, since they were such a nuisance, their species had an ongoing bounty. The local baron would pay adventurers for every goblin they killed, and their right ears were the proof. The goblins also sometimes carried valuables, such as weapons, candles,.