Yep, a skunk. Okay, not like an animal standing on their hind legs skunk… I mean, her body, underneath her clothing and armor, seemed very human. Pretty nice actually, well-built if a bit shorter than I preferred, but human.


    Not like a skunk-person from one of those fetish comics, or a furry. She didn’t look like an anthropomorphic skunk. But her facial coloring, and what looked like very thin and fine fur, strongly resembled that of an American skunk. Her skin was utterly black… not like African American brown or even the blue-black of recent immigrants, but true black.


    She had a long, thin white diamond that went down the middle of her forehead, stopping at the tip of her slightly wide but upturned nose. Her eyes looked large for her face, with large brilliantly green irises, and she seemed to be about five feet tall. If anything, she looked like some cosplayer in an anime convention, but that wasn’t make-up.


    What tore it though, was the tail that appeared behind her. Once she was out of her crouch, it suddenly puffed up in a glorious wash of fur, black with a rich white stripe on the top. I wasn’t sure exactly how it was attached, but with her hand on the under-stock of the wide-muzzled firearm which was nearly as long as she was tall, she seemed to relax, and the huge fur brush lifted itself behind her back, almost peeking over the top of her hat.


    “Are you a… skunk?” I asked curiously, shocked at her appearance.


    She scowled at me, “Are you a gorilla? No. I am a mephan. That’s very rude. The kind of rude that could get you shot if you aren’t careful.”


    I shook my head, “Sorry, I’ve never met a mephan. I mean, you look like a human, except that you have patterns very similar… I mean, your tail is very attractive.”


    She peered at me closely. “I am surprised you have never met one. We are not exactly a rare type of human. I am still trying to figure out what an Italian is. If you ARE a human, that is… You look more like one of the fey, only huge and muscled.”


    “You’re a human?”


    She laughed, “Of course. Kanten is a human town. It’s rude to call people animals, though. A felan might try to rip your face off for calling her a cat, and an ursan? Ursans have a short temper. You’d be lucky to walk away only missing a limb or two if you called one a bear.”


    “So there are lots of aspects?” I asked curiously. “May I pick up my gear?”


    She shrugged, “If you want. A stick or knife won’t stop a pissed-off wyren or dracowulf, and while there aren’t often greenskin tribes around, they’d just laugh before they started taking off your skin. Are you a patternist? You don’t smell like one.”


    “That depends,” I said, picking up my… well… it was basically a quarterstaff right this minute, and not a very good one. I’d cut the length right, a straight five-foot shaft, and trimmed off the branches, but I hadn’t started stripping the bark yet, and it was completely green. Unless fire-hardened it it was barely useful as a big chunk of wood. “What’s a patternist?”


    She looked at me curiously, “You don’t know what a patternist is? Maybe they call them a different name wherever you come from. You know, the folks that craft a pattern out of essence? They don’t need weapons because they could turn you into a walking inferno?”


    I shook my head, “No, uhh… that sounds like a sorcerer or wizard, I guess?” I said, brushing my knife against the side of my boot to clean off the dirt and sap before tucking it into its sheath. “Are we going to… Kanten?”


    She nodded, “Yes unless you want to wander around in the woods and throw sticks at any spawn or tribes that show up. And no, not a sorcerer, are you a sorcerer?” She suddenly looked on edge, lifting the large weapon so she could hold the stock with her fingers over the odd-looking trigger guard. It looked like the trigger was designed for your entire hand to squeeze, like an old-fashioned crossbow, rather than a single finger.


    I shook my head, “Nope. I don’t even know what that is, or… Okay, I don’t recall much right now. I am definitely not from around here.”


    She looked thoughtful, but seemed to relax a little, “That’s pretty obvious. How did you get here? We are too far from Lakeland for you to have gotten press-ganged as crew. Maybe a settler?” She lifted her chin to the north, clearly indicating that it was the direction we should travel, but she kept her distance, obviously far enough that she could bring her firearm around and unload if I made any threatening moves.


    That was a question I wasn’t sure I could, or should, answer. “Well…” she seemed to be extremely perceptive, so I tried to be as vague as possible. “I got sick and then woke up in a weird place where people shouted at me and made me fight things, and then I guess they got into trouble with their boss about it, and I woke up here, dressed like this.” I indicated my clothing.


    “That sounds like involuntary resettlement. You are in WAY too good a shape to be a slave or a mendicant. Are you a noble or something? I don’t recognize your aspect, but you are clearly trained for… well… something. Maybe you were impressed as a gladiator or breeder and they found out that your family was looking for you?”


    I sighed a little, “My mother wasn’t nobility, just stupid rich. I was her burden.”


    She chuckled, “That sounds like Far East politics. Thank the gods that my folks decided to leave that sort of old-world garbage behind and resettle. You probably got pressed, and when they found out who your family was, they charmed or drugged you and dumped you someplace so they could keep their hands clean for any truthfinder. As long as they didn’t actually INTEND for you to die or be sold into slavery, they could claim that they made a mistake and sent you off to make your name or something. Stupid political games.”


    I shrugged, “That sounds plausible.”


    Yeah, a four hundred pound burden. After cancer started to screw up my organs, I just… gave up, and once my thyroid went crazy, I just got bigger and bigger, even starving myself, simply because exercise became impossible. Rapid weight gain and terrible health from failed chemo and shut down kidneys led to diabetic gangrene, and then eventually I wasn’t a political asset anymore. I was just a big, ugly, crippled pile of useless flesh, living on VA medical benefits and my mother’s occasional, desperate, and expensive attempts to trust con artists with miracle treatments.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    “You were restored? Oh, and I am Wandiramane Cooper, or Wandi for short.”


    I nodded, that sounded about right. “Yep. I got restored and then woke up in a field. Good to meet you, Wandi. Please call me Tony.”


    She sighed. “It sounds like someone used a transfer pattern. A powerful one too, if it sent you cross-continent. Your common sounds colonist, though. I wonder where you came from?”


    “Does the name South Charleston mean anything to you?”


    She shook her head, “Nope. It must be continental. Then again, there are so many little countries and kingdoms out there, that even my folks might not recognize them. You said you were a warrior before you got restored. What stage are you?”


    “Stage?”


    “Maybe word differences… stage, tier, rank?”


    “Oh, I was a sergeant.”


    “Military? Oh, you must be high-tier, then. I mean, probably not higher than iron, or else you have incredible control. How many class masteries?”


    I shrugged, “A few, I guess? I was an Eagle Scout, and when I joined, I became a rifleman, and then a… pathfinder?” I didn’t want to explain what a spotter or a sniper was. They both sounded vaguely criminal to an outsider and to an insider? Well, when you were part of a ‘deniable’ operation, the truth was almost worse. I was an Eagle Scout because the scouts, at the time, instead of just being a breeding ground for sexual predators, was a damned good way to get away from my family. “Or maybe just still working on my first.”


    No, I wasn’t a James Bond or Jason Bourne type. I worked in a tiny little subdivision of an alphabet agency. One where a guy who was an avowed lifer, had flexible ethics without any serious vices like gambling or drugs, and was a decent shot and able to keep his mouth shut could disappear for long periods of time in third-world countries getting pushed to join the supposedly rules-based New World Order with or without their cooperation.


    Did I feel guilty? Not until long afterward, when I had to see, from a civilian point of view, what my actions and the actions of guys like me were actually used for. At the time, though, well, I hunted bad guys.


    They lived short, brutal, violent lives that I made shorter and more brutal, and if it weren’t for the politics behind my bosses, well, I probably would have been more than happy to take most of them out just because they were rotten. It wasn’t until much later that I found out that most of them were replaced by even more brutal and rotten people, but these were backed by the right money and under the right political thumbs.


    Was I evil? I had no idea. Some people would think so, and some thought I was a hero. I certainly took out bad guys, but I didn’t do it for ethics, or morals, or because my dead uncle told me about great power and responsibility. I did it because my bosses told me to… although I guess holding to my oath of service made it sort of honorable. I THOUGHT I was doing it for my country, but even then I had an inkling that my country and my government were two mutually antagonistic foes.


    “That sounds like you were either tin or copper tier, not iron. That’s not bad, but not the sort of ranking that someone wandering around by themselves outside of a town without a weapon would find safe.”


    I nodded, “Yep, I don’t know what a wyren or a dracowulf is, but it doesn’t sound like something I’d want crawling into my tent.”


    She shrugged, “A wyren is a flying, winged lizard that’s about twelve feet long and has a nasty, venom-barbed tail. Usually it avoids going after something as big as a human, but if you get too close to their nests they go crazy. The road is fairly safe, but if you crossed over the brook you might have entered one of their territories.”


    “Dracowulves are like a large canine that was crossed with a rattlesnake, without the rattle. They are like four feet tall and will attack anything when they are hungry… and this far south, they are always hungry. Nasty, venomous fangs, and they travel in packs of two to five. Wyrens, if you are fast enough, you can run out of their threat range, but dracowulves… once they get your scent, they will follow you until they eat you or you kill or lose them.”


    “Spawn can look like just about anything. You won’t know until they try to kill you. They are usually insane and try to destroy everything, although some are crafty enough to hide their intentions. That’s why I am this far out. I am a tin-ranked scout, and one of our oracles detected a serious essence burst about twelve miles south yesterday afternoon. I am thinking that might have been your transfer pattern.”


    I nodded, “That sounds about right.” I wasn’t planning on actually lying, but the phrase ‘that sounds right’ is the great secret keeper. Just agree noncommittally to other people’s ideas of what was going on unless they were suggesting drilling you. That policy had kept me alive more than a few times.


    She nodded, “That’s why I was out here. The town doesn’t often send scouts out to investigate random wanderers, but with the flare… well… the oracle was worried it might be a new rift break, demon incursion, or a wanna-be god-king or necros. Sorry for pointing my gun at you, I didn’t recognize your aspect and you’d be amazed at how many problems can be nipped in the bud if they are caught early enough.”


    I smiled slightly. “I have had guns pointed at me before.”


    She nodded slowly, “You acted like it. You weren’t scared or panicked, you just started looking for someplace to take cover. I’m loaded with white ash, blessed silver, and rock salt. A corrupted patternist would have probably panicked and a necros or demon would have instantly attacked.” We were on the road now. She was still keeping her distance, but I figured the immediate chances of getting shot had dwindled considerably. She was almost… friendly, and a definite information source. Apparently, a necros was some sort of undead thing, like maybe a ghul? Vamp was pretty obvious, and a demon… well, I didn’t know what they considered a demon, but it was probably something bad.


    “What’s a greenskin?”


    She looked a little surprised, “You don’t… oh. I guess you might not. The unaspected spawn that somehow became sentient after a few generations outside of a rift, supposedly. Most of them are savages, but we have a greenskin merchant in town. The little ones can get smart, but you look kind of like one of the big ones, or maybe a distant half-breed. You have the right build, but you don’t have green skin or tusks, and you aren’t ugly like they are.”


    She eyed me warily. “Sorry if I am talking too much. Since I don’t recognize your aspect, I don’t know how to relate. Are all Italians quietly contemplative? Is that what your aspect is based around?”


    I shook my head with a slight smile, “Not traditionally. I am a little confused though. You are a human, is your… uhh… aspect, like a subbreed or something?”


    She shook her head, “You must come from a very strange place. No, our aspect is the spirit that adopts us when we are born and guides us through our advancement. It pretty frequently breeds true, lepans tend to also have lepan children, but it’s an aspect, not a species. My father was an ursan and my mother a lepan, so I am an outlier as a mephan. I’ve heard some places have different aspect spirits, So I was trying to figure out what your guide was.”


    She looked at me skeptically. “I was wondering if you were yanking me around or testing me or something, but you don’t seem to understand some basic knowledge. I think it would probably be best if you talked to the oracle when we got to town. You are cute in an exotic way, but really weird.”


    I just nodded, and she started prattling about the town. A very talkative sort, but she had a sweet voice and I just sort of let the talk roll over me and absorbed it. I was never a big talker, myself, but the occasional nod or agreeable noise seemed to keep her going.


    And being thought of as cute but weird was a huge step up from only attracting damaged girls who were crazy about bad boys.