《Jack of it All》


 Chapter 1

    Chapter One


    With a sigh, I pushed my hiking poles into the sand and swung my pack down next to them as I looked out over the cove. It was a breathtaking vista, filled with rocky, black tidal pools. Chock full of mussles, seaweed and plenty of monkey-faced eels that were sure to just jump onto my pole. With an amazing emerald green just beyond the breakers, it was sure to have plenty of rockfish, scallops and abalone to dive for. Four hours of hiking to get to this oasis and it was beautiful, completely worth the six hour drive and three am wake up to get away from civilization!


    Taking a deep breath, now that I was unencumbered by my pack, I let the salt of the ocean air meld with the sound of the waves to continue working the magic that my four hours of hiking had prepared my overstressed body for. Another deep breath and I could feel the stress continue to melt out of my neck and shoulders. Or, maybe that was just the weight of my ninety pound pack coming off my back. That''s right, I''m not much into the ultralight model of backpacking. I believe that if I''m only going to get three days off of work, and half of that time is going to be spent driving, I may as well be comfortable. Well comfortable in the camp, hiking with this beast on is, while not yet to the point of getting harder every year, certainly isn¡¯t getting easier. Another deep breath, and I unzip my light, fleece windbreaker that has been keeping the damp mist of the morning fog off of me. The day was just starting to warm up to its projected high of seventy and with the offshore breeze scattering the morning fog it was feeling just about perfect.


    Another deep breath while I reveled in feeling the salty air on my face and I got down on one knee to start going through my pack¡¯s bottom pouch for the small collapsible cooler, filled with ice cold local IPA, while it added to the weight I thought it was an acceptable sacrifice to make to highlight the seafood I was planning on enjoying. I had only brought six, so I was going to have to ration them out over the next forty-eight hours. Planning on making sure to finish them before I began the awful trudge back to civilization, or perhaps more importantly, before the ice melted and they warned up. Feeling the ice slush around heavily still I figured it had a good chance of lasting until dinner tomorrow. Either way the high I was chasing this trip wasn''t oblivion by alcohol, nope a nice simple catch and cook for forty-eight hours kid free, tech light and most importantly other people free. Standing back up with another deep breath in through the nose I let more stress out with the exhale and pulled my Bowie knife from my right hip, and while it''s long ten inch signature blade was impressive, my focus was instead on the bottle opener that came with it on the hilt, a gift from my kids, it was one of my favorite backpacking accessories. With a quick pull and a quiet little snick, my ambrosia was free, and with that and a long pull from the bottle my me time had officially started.


    Another deep breath and another pull from the bottle and I started going through the checklist in my head of every thing I needed to get done before I could get into the water. As always trying to keep my loose plan at the forefront of my thick skull, before entropy took effect and everything went off the rails. The closer I could keep everything to the list before the inevitable universe stirring the pot, the better I would come out of its mischief. Taking another slug of the slightly bitter IPA, I surveyed the area trying to remember where I had placed my tent last year. I thought I had picked out the perfect spot the year before, and I still maintain it would have been great if not for the storm higher up in the hills. What was a picturesque view from a sandbar overlooking the mouth of the stream quickly turned into a near disaster as the headwater from the storm cut away the sandwall my camp was atop of. With it nearly taking my camp out to sea in the middle of the night. I had quite the scare in the morning as I stepped out of my tent almost tumbling down into the torrent still streaming out into the ocean.


    This year I''m going to do better, definitely not as far back as the grasslands. I don''t want to hike that much for my fishing and diving and besides sand makes a much better under mattress the rock or compact dirt. However, I''m certainly not going to make the view main point that I''m going to build my camp around this time. I can bring my plate over with a camp stool and beer to have a nice dinner, so something within walking distance is a must. Putting my tent on the edge however, and giving the universe a second shot at sending me on a short trip out into the middle of the ocean is out for this year. Nope, I don''t know how the universe is going to mess with me on this trip. I''m sure it will be a doozy, every time I have made the trip something crazy has happened, but the view and fishing is divine so I keep coming back. I''m enough of a pack rat that I am sure I have got enough stuff in my giant pack that I''ll make it back to pick up my kids on Sunday. But if I''m going to have sushi ready when we get back to the house, that means catching the fish now. And that starts with finishing the beer, then taking five minutes to wander around and find the perfect dune that is close enough to the ocean so I can rinse my catch, near enough to the stream for fresh water, high enough create a small bit of a wind break and with enough driftwood to make a nice fire for tonight and tomorrow. Should be simple, another deep inhale and exhale, another long slug of that beautifully golden amber liquid. When the thought hits me, you know what you need, self? You need some fresh uni to help finish off this beer, a little more of a break before you set up camp isn''t going to hurt anything.


    So, pushing my glass bottle back into the sand from which it sprang, as I pour a little bit of water around it to help keep the beer cold from the hose of the water bladder in my back, the weight from all of my gear driving it out of the hose. I unstrapped my diving knife from where it hung on the side of my pack and quickly redid it around the inside of my right leg. Unclipping one of my collapsible buckets that was hanging off the bottom of my pack, beneath my folding kayak was next and with a quick flick of my wrist I opened it up. I decided to mosey on down to the tidal pools to see what I could see, see, sea. I swear having kids turns your brain to mush and while they grow older that merely means I delight more and more in embarrassing them and talking to them in front of their friends like they are still six and four. Fortunately for me, while they are still teenagers and hate my guts half the time, I¡¯ve got a couple of things going for me. One, I got them out in the wild early enough that they still love the outdoors somewhat. Yeah, they want to hang out with their friends and my daughter is loving having her first car and the beginnings of freedom that come with that. But, we still have our quarterly trips to completely disconnect, and they say they still love it. Two, not to be immodest, I''m a halfway decent cook and in this day and age even halfway decent, still is plenty better than the fast food and ready made meals that most people stick with. So, we are always the hangout spot with plenty of friends wanting to stick around and mooch off snacks and dinner. Three, apparently their friends think I''m cool, hip, or as the kids are saying it now, and I only really use it when I want to see them cringe, fire. You see I got lucky, yup that''s right lucky, lucky to be dumb enough to buy a couple of hundred bitcoin when it wasn''t even worth a dollar, and dumb enough to hold onto them for years until they became worth something without managing to throw the hard drive away or lose the password after so many years. And then I sold out rather than holding on before the big crash and it all went back to ones and zeros. That money got me a decent house free and clear and more importantly for me a small plot of land not too far away so I could build a warehouse off the grid for my hobbies¡­ Nope, no, nothing that dark, currently so far I''ve got a woodworking shop, a small smithy, and a little glass forge, and hopefully if the market continues to go right I''ll be adding a kiln and pottery wheel next year. I¡¯ve never been good at just having one hobby and I was lucky enough that I got out in time that I have the means to indulge in many. Apparently in the days of infinite short videos being a huge time sink, getting to actually make videos of yourself learning from a Renaissance Man is quite the pull for my kids friend groups. Which brings us to Four, and honestly it''s the biggest one, the one I pull out when I get too ¡°cringe¡± for them with my dad jokes or when I embarrass them to much with an early curfew, or when my daughter hates me so much and says in that way that only a teenage girl can after you take their car away, to ¡°just die¡±. Well when they''ve been pushed to their limits the way only teenagers can get to by having to deal with their out of touch parents who could never have possibly been through anything near as bad as they¡¯ve gone through, I''ve got to bring out the big card. Card number four, the one to really remind them that no matter how embarrassing they think I am they are stuck with me. I just look them straight in the eye and remind them that, well the judge says I''ve got fifty/fifty custody and you''re stuck with me, unless you want to file for emancipation. Yup, so far good old option Four has been coming up a lot lately, now that my daughter has her car. She has been really pushing up against the boundaries her mother and I''ve set, but fortunately, no matter how heated our arguments have gotten so far she hasn''t called me on it... yet. My son is younger so he''s a little easier, the shine hasn''t been rubbed out of his eyes all the way. In his case, for him I''m still the one that has the solution to all of his problems and if he gets so annoyed that I don''t give him the answer and instead make him work for it, the most it gets me is a ¡°God! Dad, you are the worst¡± with maybe a slammed door behind him. I''ll take that any day of the week and twice on Sundays over worrying that my baby girl is going to not come home, just to prove the point to me that I can''t set limits on her. I mean I know I''ve got to trust that the lessons I''ve taught to them, and especially her, will always be there in the back of their minds to stop them from doing anything to stupid. Of course, the scariest part of being a parent for me is knowing just exactly how many stupid things I''ve done in my life to prove a point.


    All of that is why I love having these weekends away. Yeah, the divorce meant I still need a part time job to have some money coming in. I could try selling all of my projects, but I''m not enough into the online scene anymore and a craft tent at a fair somewhere would be even more time intesive, so it is better just to give them away as gifts. That means a part time job, but coming from being a cook and then a truck driver, an easy 4 day work week with a measly twenty-eight hours a week is nothing. On the weeks I don''t have my kids I get to go hone my crafts, go out hunting and fishing to fill the freezer, bbq up what I have in the freezer, or when I''m feeling my most ambitious I make the trip up here to the middle of nowhere on the coast of California, days from anyone. I get to destress, unwind and meditate in the middle of nature with the freshest seafood, a few pretty cold beers, majestic views, and some of the best diving (in my humble opinion) anywhere in northern Cali.


    My side quest accomplished, I left my endless worrying to my hindbrain and started making my way out of the tidal pool with the seven purple urchins I had just popped off of the tidal pool walls and into my bucket. I slid my diving blade back into its rubber sheath still strapped onto the inside of my right calf and quickly made my way through the wet sand over to the mouth of the river and freshwater where I had left my pack. Reaching into the top pouch I pull out a large plastic ziplock with my smaller collapsible bucket and water filter in it. Grabbing yet another ziplock with my feeder hose in it, I quickly set up my filter and filled my bucket that was strictly for potable water up. Another minute filled with swift practice moves had everything disassembled and back into their proper bags minus the bucket of fresh water. Making sure to take care of my diving knife and sheath first. I quickly unstrap it from my leg and give it a quick rinse with a small pour of water before strapping it back to my pack for later. Taking my long fixed blade out I swiftly cracked the urchins shells and using half of the remaining filtered water, I gave them a fast rinse. Looking inside I can see I''ve hit the jackpot, these urchin gonads are filled to bursting. So sticking my blade in, I scrape out some of the uni and with a small toss of my head, I slurp it off the knife before it can fall to the ground. Slowly chewing to savor the umomi of it I reach down and pull out my still cold beer to wash it down with. After putting my beer back down into its sand cooler, I set my knife gently down onto a small rock next to it and sit down (criss cross applesauce as I would say to the annoyance of my daughter had she been here). I take another deep Breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth.


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    Another Breath.


    And another.


    I''ve never formally studied yoga or any of the other eastern practices of meditation, or for that matter any western forms of meditation. But, sitting there on that beach, Breathing in and out, letting the beauty of the wilderness wash over and through me taking the stress of teenagers, a lifetime of hard work and a frustrating marriage where both of us were convinced we were right, but more than likely neither of us had the proper answer. I thought about maybe changing my next hobby to learning how to meditate as a better project instead of pottery. But, as always when I was meditating on my own, something told me it just wasn''t for me. I know some basic stretches, a couple of the simple breathing patterns and that was good enough in my mind. A simple foundation that relieved my stress and kept me somewhat flexible.


    As an avid reader of many of the fictional genres from historical fiction to high fantasy, and xianxia to isekai, I''ve always wondered if the yogi''s and boudda¡¯s where the path to magical powers on this planet of ours. My brain, which always enjoyed arguing with itself when no one else was around to fill the role of opposition, quickly picked out its two stances. The whimsical part of my brain always brought up that it was certainly not the lack of mystical energy in our world that is stopping people from becoming cultivators able to walk on the air and hurl fireballs¡­ no that can¡¯t be it. It must be that they aren''t meditating properly to gather the energy. Therefore I shouldn''t let myself be sucked down their dead end path of peace and fulfillment. Standing on the shoulders of giants only works if they haven''t taken a wrong turn and ended up at a dead end. I will always choose to forge my own path, my failures no one''s fault but my own. The other counterpoint to that being my successes are all the sweeter.


    ¡°Hah¡± I said quietly, Of course it''s that. Forty-five years on this planet and I¡¯m sure that this will be the trip to do it, I thought with a grin.


    ¡°Forty-five years¡± I murmured to myself, ¡°and still dreaming of magical powers¡±.


    With a quick shake of my head my logical side didn''t even bother countering such a weak argument. With a small laugh I agreed with him and I picked up my knife and scooped out some more of the uni. A couple of sips of beer and scoops later I emptied the last of the shells. Tipping the bottle high I waited for the last drop to drip onto my tongue, and with the nectar sadly gone I once again had the same thought I had every time I came out here, ¡°If I just chuck the bottle out into the ocean, all I¡¯m really doing is just returning the sand back to its source. Also maybe the bottle would make a good home for some fish or crustaceans that are just scared and looking for protection from some sea monsters swimming out there.¡± But no, silencing the devil on my shoulder I quickly rinsed the bottle out in the salt bucket and then poured a little of the fresh over it before packing it into one of my packs'' many side pockets. Brushing off my pants I sighed, I told myself I''d give myself five minutes to relax before I found a campsite and began to set up and instead I¡¯ve probably gone closer to thirty minutes.


    ¡°Come ON!¡± I said to myself while giving my head a couple of swift raps with my knuckles. ¡°Work before play, if you want to have the time to dive for dinner tonight you got to stop daydreaming. If you want to get to the catch part of the catch and cook. Just stop wasting your time and get your chores done before you relax. If you would get on your kids about it you''ve got no excuses for doing it yourself.¡±


    Quickly dumping my saltwater bucket out I gave it a quick rinse with the fresh before clipping it onto my pack, another small pour of the water onto my bowie and a swipe on my fleece sleeve to dry it, and back into its home on my hip it goes. Looking into my water bucket I see there is not much left, so I decided to tilt it up to my mouth only for it to splash all over my face as the loudest and most violent thunder I''ve ever heard or felt ripples through my body. Looking up I stare in awe as I see the sky rips in half above me, my body stays frozen while my mind shoots into overdrive. Quickly throwing out possibilities one after another. A lifetime of reading fuels my imagination and I try to figure out what''s going on. Quickly discarding the basic I must be dreaming; Either it is and I''ll wake up from the nightmare soon; Or it''s not a dream, and willfully ignoring reality however strange will undoubtedly be a quick nomination and acceptance speech at the Darwin Awards. While I may like to think that I am clever, Ricky Gervaise I am not, so let''s just go ahead and skip that hollywood dinner shall we. With the decision to go ahead and treat this nightmare as real for the foreseeable future I decided to move onto my next decision to stay or run. Looking up at the blackness of the void slowly ripping down I realize that looking hard enough I can see clouds on the other side, by now it has ripped down to ten and two respectively with the twelve being straight up. Some quick WAG''s thrown out in my brain I decide that maybe I can dash quickly enough to get out of the bubble that seems to be coming down around me. Two more thoughts flash through my brain as I feel the sweat start to bead at my brow from the overclocking my processes are going through my thoughts. Or, maybe it''s just terror. I''ve heard it both ways. The first being, that whatever this is and however small of a chance I have of getting out of here, I''ve got to go all out to take it. I''m not abandoning my kids for whatever this nightmare egg that seems to be forming is (yeah when you say it like that it seems like an easy decision), even if I¡¯m maimed or killed going through the black wall. Better to know that I died giving it my all to get back home, than abandon them. The second thought being that as big of a PIMA that it''s going to be to get back to my car (assuming it still works). I''m going to have to abandon my pack, there''s no way I¡¯m going to be able to swing it on or carry it football style and make it out of this giant ball of doom that is closing in the distance. With that, the third thought quickly replaces it, by noticing that I don''t seem to be in the middle of this nightmare stadium. Instead it seems like I am closer to standing in left field if I stretch my imagination to overlay the incoming nightmare as a professional stadium. And with that last thought, my brain tells my body to kick its butt into gear, turn and let''s book it for the cheap seats. I.E. the woods beyond the grass that I had hiked out of, just a short forty minutes ago.


    And then, with the thought trying to force my body to turn and run for both the metaphorical and literal hills, I felt despair. Such a true despair that I had only ever felt twice before in this life. With all of the worst moments in my life flashing through my head only two had been greater than this, but both of those had quickly been fleeting as the universe backed off of its sick joking. This nightmare seemed unlikely to reverse course as quickly. No, apparently the third time''s the charm and the universe was done playing games. Neither, seeing my baby boy turn blue in front of my eyes, just two days home from the hospital before the miracle of cpr brought back the color to his cheeks again. Nor, seeing my daughter fall backwards off the jungle gym, crashing to the ground, while I dashed towards her, before she jolted back upright miraculously okay. No, always before there had been some hope, some other card left to play, some sign from the universe that the absolute worst hadn''t come to pass, that it was just a dick not an asshole.


    NOOOOOOOO! My mind screamed silently, as it tried to force my body to turn, but nothing came out of my mouth and my body refused to move. An immense pressure seemed to radiate off the blackness that slowly crept creeping down the sides of the sky. That pressure had me held perfectly in its grasp. Immobile like a mosquito, trapped in amber, yet still held alive seeing the lumberjacks ax coming straight for it. Nooooooo! My mind screamed again, slightly softer this time. This isn''t how this ends! I refuse to accept it! No, my mind said firmly there is always hope, Hope the last, the smallest, the most powerful and the absolute worst of the evils of pandora. Quickly more thoughts flashed in my head. This might not be the end, maybe this is a transformation cocoon and I will spring forth from it forever changed for the better. My mind, always the optimistic pessimist that it was, quickly ran through all of the books that I had read searching for the best scenarios to keep me with my family while simultaneously throwing out awful ones too horrible to delve into.


    BREATHE! The main part of my brain said to silence out all of the terror and hope running rampant through my overly fertile brain. BREATHE and remember your touchstone. The thing you think of first, both in all of your bad times and all of your good. With a metaphorical breath, as my lungs were still locked by the god-like pressure holding me still. I thought back to my grandma who passed away when I was a child. The most amazingly loving woman with so many grandkids that she managed to spread her love to as close to equally as humanly possible. I remember her telling me to ¡°Always remember, God grant me the Courage to change the things that you can, the Serenity to accept the things that I cannot and the Wisdom to know the difference. Now Grandson, it¡¯s not the way the official prayer goes.¡± She said while shaking her finger at me. ¡°But that''s the way we say it in this family. Err on the side of Courage and be Serene in your failings, knowing that Wisdom only comes through many failings.¡± With a couple of raps of knuckles to the top of my head, she continued with a small smile. ¡°And with as smart and stubborn as you are, young grandson. Wisdom will undoubtedly be a long time coming. So know, I will always continue to pray for you. I will be praying that you have the Serenity that you need, until Wisdom finds you.¡± She said with a hug and kiss onto the top of my head.


    Another metaphorical Breath and I let go of the fear and anger that was raging through my mind, trying my best to focus on everything I saw the walls of doom reach nine and three as they continue to stretch from the zenith inexorably closer to the ground and water like the world''s most terrifying Tezla slowly shutting its doors on my time left on this world. Continuing to push the fear out of my mind, I slowly went through my peripheral vision, looking for any possible clue to help me escape this nightmare forming around me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a tern slowly flapping its wings outside the walls of shadow. Slowly, like it was stuck in glue, its wings moved the slightest fraction of a span in its downstroke. Telling me I was clearly delusional in my that I would have been able to escape by running. With that final nail in the coffin, I took another deep metaphorical breath, and with as much willpower as I could bend to the task, abandoned courage and strove for serenity. Unable to move the slightest twitch, I accepted that this was happening, and there was nothing I would be able to do to change it. As the peace of mind inevitably started to take effect, I took another Breath and instead did my best to relax into the pressure. Like a small five year old, going completely limp in your hands, in an effort to stay at the playground just ten more minutes. I tried to see if I could overpower the pressure, by forcing it to hold, my certainly not that overweight, two hundred and thirty (ish) pounds. Unfortunately, whatever was holding me in place, as the blackness reached down to eight and four respectively. It was completely unphased by my flawless rendition of my son¡¯s toddler jiu jitsu, which he had used on me with great success when he was younger. Giving up on that tactic, and with the small amount of time I had left, before the shadow of doom reached the ground. I decided to switch it up and see if there was any possibility that I could feel whatever energy that was holding me in place. Like gluing a strong magnet to my finger and holding over a wire to feel the current. If I decided that if this ball of darkness was going to take me, then maybe while I wouldn¡¯t get the meal, at least I could get a nibble. Focusing all of my thoughts into my left hand, I did my best to again, metaphorically close my eyes. As the pressure wouldn''t even grant me that small favor, I focused all of my attention into my index finger. Not trying to force it to move, I instead bent my mind to trying to understand this force holding me in place. Neither feeling hot nor cold. It was instead, what I could only imagine, as being in a cross between a sensory deprivation chamber and encased in resin, would have felt like. Perfectly absorbing whatever energy I was putting out, while giving no tactile feedback, it continued to hold me in place. With one last Breath in my mind, I strove with all of my might to feel something. Anything that would give me, even the smallest insight into this force, that defied reality as I knew it. As the walls of shadow finally reached down to touch the ground, trapping me into what will forever ruin any of the fond memories I had, of a certain show from my childhood. I felt something in my mind snapped and with the last of the light of earth reaching through the crack on the bottom¡­


    My left index finger moved, just the slightest quarter of an inch.

 Chapter 2

    Chapter Two


    The slightest quarter of an inch, that is all I could manage. Babies in their mother''s wombs are looking at me in shame. Kicking their way around they are laughing at me, with the luxurious freedom they have to swim around, in their palatial accommodations. Able to hear their parents'' voices and see the slightest bit of light, through the skin and placenta, they can interact with the world more than I can at this point. But that quarter of an inch will hopefully be what saves my sanity. As the nightmare ball of darkness finally closed around me, I hated ever liking that show as a child. They make it all seem so sweet and wholesome, as a kid and his best friend go around finding other friends, and battling to become more powerful. Who wouldn''t want that life, a dream that sold billions. Well, being stuck on the other side of that equation now, I completely understood why that quisling little, yellow rat would be happy to beat up other ¡®friends¡¯, to capture them for his evil master. Already I was shouting in my mind the names of others I would be willing to help capture and swap places with. With the walls hitting the ground I was cut off from my last major sensation, worse than any sensory chamber I had ever tried. There was absolutely no sensation anywhere¡­ except the very tip of my left index finger. That small quarter of an inch of movement is all that is keeping me sane, as all other signs of existence disappeared. Still, Hope, the most powerful of all evils, unleashed on the world by pandora, continued to beat in my heart. Another Imaginary Breath and I leaned into that feeling. Desperately trying to seek out that energy sensation anywhere else on my body, so that I might know that I am still real. Screaming wordlessly, into the void that I had been encased in. I took another Breath in my mind and tried to bring back the calm that I had been seeking, when I embarked on this vacation, turned nightmare.


    Breathe, in and out.


    Calm your mind, quiet down the little hamster running on his wheel at warp speed, spinning out nightmarish thoughts, about what was soon to come. You still have a touchstone to reach and know you are not dead. You are still real. Thought after thought went flying through my brain at the speed of light. This is it, the end¡­ No wait, this isn''t the end, you actually never were. What are you? Are you your memories, or instead were they just made up ones and zeros on a computer. Were you ever real? Are you just being deleted from the world like a computer virus¡­


    In and out.


    In and out.


    In and out¡­


    Breathe¡­


    My actual lungs still refused to work, and without even being able to feel my own heartbeat, I had no frame of reference for anything that was happening. Time became meaningless quickly or slowly, with no frame of reference, it was impossible to know. All I had was a small feeling in my index fingertip. The smallest of touchstones letting me know I am still real. Screw Descartes and his ¡°I think therefore I am¡±. Clearly he had never been locked in a deathball before, with no input from the outside world, outside of the top of one of his smallest digits. No, that idiot has obviously been deluding the world for centuries, with his ¡®profound¡¯ quote. Doubtless a line he merely threw out once to pick up some girl, the ridiculous french bastard. The one phrase he is most known for with his pretended brilliance. I too, had once been taken in by his sham thoughts, no more. Removed from every sensation, and left alone with nothing but my mind. A mind that was more and more rapidly turning its wheels, like a demented hamster on meth. Only having the slightest sensation, on the tip of my finger, to let me know I am still here. Clearly, it is the outside world acting on us that tells us we are real, for without that world to push against and make our mark upon, we are just an illusion of sparks in the aether. Touch, that small quarter of an inch, is all that is holding me together.


    Breath, in and out.


    In and out¡­ over and over again, imaginary breaths with make-believe lungs. Slowly center yourself, try to meditate. What should ironically be the perfect conditions for finding one''s true self, is instead a nightmarish hell, when entered involuntarily. No feedback, but the slight feeling of energy surrounding the tip of my finger. No feedback at all, how long has it been, a millisecond, a minute, an hour, a day, years¡­ centuries¡­an eternity. Even with the sensation around my finger still telling me I''m real. Yet that touch is still providing none of the other contexts that humans need to stay sane, and my mind is starting to lose it. What possible way could I have prepared for this? The brain can only ever help you against events you can envision. Sure I''ve seen the trope before time and time again in books. Such an obvious thing to take seriously, I should have prepared for this eventuality. But no¡­ Like an idiot I had to worry about stupid, ridiculous things happening. Like banks collapsing, world war three and the U.S. losing its hyper dominance. The world being bombed into oblivion, by everyone who was angry at not getting a bigger slice of a new pie. Years of prepping, rotating out supplies; always having a go bag and a map with backwoods trails on it, to hike to my hunting spots in northern Cali. Instead, I get hit with nothingness. It''s always the bat you don''t see coming, that puts you in the ground, and I was finding this one to be a doozy. Even just an hour ago, if asked for what disasters I had higher than this on my list that I thought I would be able to get through. I would have replied with sharknado and alien invasion, as much more likely, than trapped in the black emptiness of a nightmare ball, from the late nineties. Kicking my nonexistent butt, I started trying to relive my past and think about what I could have done to fix this, definitely getting that membership at the sensory deprivation therapy office was one thing...


    No¡­


    STOP¡­


    FOCUS¡­


    IN and OUT¡­


    BREATHE¡­


    Stop letting the hamster win¡­ Regrets are anchors holding you back, focus on the here and now. Coulda, woulda, shoulda never solved any equation in real time. Focus first on bringing some sanity back into this dearth of feeling. Think about your kids, they have always been what has pulled you through the bad times before. Losing a job, changing careers, the jump in your heart when you see them doing something that can go horribly wrong. Now, switch to the good times, the birthdays, the camping trips, each of them catching their first fish, having kids is the greatest grounding point a person can have. Everything you do, you have to keep them at the forefront of your thoughts. So, remember your daughter, sixteen and ready to take on the world. Think about your son, fourteen and starting to prepare for the adventure that is highschool. Feel the warmth as you hold them tight; duck their swings, as they try to get you to go away so they can sleep just a little longer. Go back further to the beginning and remember the way they felt the first time you picked them up when they were born. So fragile and helpless, small and pink, barely larger than the palm of your hand. Focus on them growing up, how quickly it happens. First one day they are mewling for their bottle, even their loudest cries for help still like the nicest lullaby compared to what is to come later. Next they start rolling, shaking their hands and looking around¡­ remember the first time you looked into their eyes and could tell that they could actually see you. That look in their eyes as they understand you are theirs, someone who will be there for them, someone they could trust. The person who will comfort them, the person who will make them giggle, the person who will help feed them when they are hungry, burp them when they are restless, change them when they are soiled, and most importantly hold them and let them know they are safe, so safe they will fall asleep in your arms.


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    Okay, now switch, those memories only prove to yourself that you did exist, that you once mattered to someone, now focus on the feeling in the tip of your finger, it is not in your imagination.


    YOU ARE NOT YET DEAD!!!


    This is not a trip to the underworld, there is no ferryman here, slowly bringing you down the river Styx. To be dropped off into Lethe to forget your previous life and children.


    I DO NOT ACCEPT THAT!!!


    Whatever is happening with this journey I am embarking on, this is not the end for me. Whatever it takes, I will get through this! I will make it back to my kids¡­ I will be there for them as they continue to grow older and enter adulthood. I will be there for them as they go through the trials of parenthood themselves. I will help raise my grandkids, unlike my father before me.


    I STILL EXIST!!!


    I can feel the sensation of energy, and if I can feel it pulsing there, then I can feel its pressure. Trying to move against it is hard, it takes effort, but it is not in my imagination. There is a pulse to the barrier that the rest of your body just can not feel yet. You have made a connection to it, you are real, and it is real. Focus on the here and now, focus on growing that connection and interacting with it. This is your world now, the world you have to conquer to get back to the world of your children. Stay sane! Your world may have shrunk to the size of a baseball stadium, your town the size of your body. Your commute to work is now a quarter of an inch, forward and backward that is your route. How long is it, this drive you are taking twice a day, back and forth¡­ seconds, minutes, hours¡­? How long have you been working there? How long are you there before you can build up the energy to come back home? This is your world for now.


    Accept this!


    Accepting this is your reality, isn''t abandoning your old world! This is adapting to overcome this new one, so you can return. The universe is always changing, and you need to do what you must to get through this experience. Become Serene in this¡­ what your world has shrunk too.


    This is your existence!


    But it won''t always be this, you will escape this hell hole and see your kids again. Keep your love for them in the back of your mind for now.


    Have Courage!


    The Courage to go another day without them¡­ to keep on making this ¡®commute¡¯. That is what you can change, you don''t have the power to escape this ball, don''t focus on that. You need to have courage, focus on what you can change. Focus on your commute and what you can do differently. Think smaller, your courage can''t affect the outside world yet, so ignore it, and focus on the miniature. That is your path back to them. Search for Wisdom. It is said that it would take one hundred and eighty-four doublings of a sheet of paper to stretch it wide enough to cover the known universe. Yet it would take over two hundred and twenty-four halfings, of that same sheet of paper, to reach down to where that smallest half would cover a planck length. Our current smallest known unit of measurement. The building block of everything. Which means that we have more to discover in the sands of knowledge, by going smaller rather than larger.


    Calm your mind.


    BREATHE your imagingery breaths, center yourself and focus your mind on going smaller. Have the Courage to affect what you can¡­ no your world isn''t the size of a stadium, that is outside your control. Reduce it down by half and yet half again. Going smaller and smaller every time. You can not affect that¡­ let it go. Your world is now your body. Do what you have to to survive. Any path back to your family, lies first in your surviving this ordeal. Accept that! Deal with your fear.


    ¡°I must not fear.


    Fear is the mindkiller.


    ¡°Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.¡±


    Remember reading the series as a teen for the first time. How profoundly those stanza''s of Frank Herbert changed you.


    ¡°We stand on the shoulders of Giants¡­¡± Sir Issac Newton. You are not alone in this abyss, you have many great works to lean on to get you through this. Humanity has laid the foundation for you to survive. You have to choose to! Courage is not the absence of fear, Courage is instead taking another step when all of reality is telling you to lay down and huddle in a ball. To give up and let outside forces dictate what happens to you. Courage is making the choice, deciding to continue to struggle. Your steps lay in that quarter inch. Focus down smaller and smaller into the parts of the universe where you are free to move around again.


    ¡°I will face my fear.


    I will permit it to pass over and through me.¡±


    Face your fears. You know what they are¡­ Your kids are tapped in these nightmare fueled balls too. They either are or they aren''t, you can not affect that. Face that fear and let it pass through you. You don''t know what happened, maybe they are in one and then you have to trust that you taught them enough to survive it. Maybe they aren''t, Maybe this is the only one, and they are blissfully unaware of what you are going through. You don''t know what caused this event and you can not affect it. Let it pass through you, become Serene in this. Have the Courage to continue on, in spite of your fears that bad things are happening to your children right now. Those are your only two choices. Face your Fear and continue down smaller, or give into the little death. Ignore that quarter inch, and give into the insanity of torturing yourself with visions of what could be. Let the hamster run wild in your mind, spinning out webs of endless possibilities. You can lose yourself in the endless what if''s, like a teen endlessly scrolling away on their phone, flicking from video to video. Or, you can force yourself to act like the adult you are, set down the proverbial phone, and escape this madness. Have Courage to affect the things you can control. You know your fear¡­ this ball is taking you away from them¡­ you will never see them again¡­ that is your little death!


    ¡°And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.


    Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.


    Only I will Remain.¡±


    You know your options.


    You only have two.


    You can give up. You can spend this time remembering your children, and just live in your memories. It''s easy, you can make yourself feel better and just let go. Dream about the past and think about what you did great, tell yourself what could have done better. Spend this eternity of darkness reliving your time with your kids. Maybe this will be a reincarnation story, and the constant reliving of your previous life will be a benefit. Be passive and live in your memories. It is a valid choice. No one will ever know. You are the only one that will ever know how you spend this eternity. Or, Two you can choose to ignore them. Bundle all of those memories up into a ball, and tuck it away. Hide the ball deep in your mind, and forget about your children while this is going on. Focus only on this reality, and give it your all, just trusting that when this hell ends, you will still have those memories on the other side.


    You know your fear and it is legitimate!


    When you focus on something to the point you cut everything out, there is a chance it never comes back. You have no idea how long you will be stuck here. If it is subjectively centuries, will your Forty-Five actual years have any context when you get out of here? You understand what you are asking of yourself. Now move past it. Fear is ignorance. Trust in yourself and your love for your children. Trust yourself, and know that nothing can ever make you forget them. You did not choose to enter this ball! You were taken. This was done to you and you can not control that. Focus on what you can control, you can control yourself and your fears, that is all. You have no control over anything else that happens to you. You know your fear. You¡¯ve seen its path inside of you. Your fear is that letting go of them even the smallest bit will make you a bad father. Your fear is that focusing on a job, instead of thinking about them, is the easier thing to do. Your fear is that if you are doing the easier task, then you are taking the easy way out.Stop thinking like that.


    Let your fear pass through you.


    There are no easy paths.


    There are many paths up to the top of the steepest mountain. They cannot all be hard all of the time.


    You cannot know how all of these paths will end up, what is easy now might be hard later. What is hard in the beginning might be easy later. You do not know what is coming!


    Stop being indecisive.


    You will never have enough knowledge.


    You must make an imperfect choice!


    Choose!


    Lay down with your memories, travel through this hell, arm in arm with your kids. You can stay static, and focus on your memories, secure in the knowledge that when this hell ends, you will have the memories of your children with you.


    Or, Instead focus on the quarter inch. Trust that you can bundle your memories up, and tuck them into the farthest reaches of your mind. Trust that your mind will protect them, and keep them safe, no matter how long this takes. Trust that whatever new memories you build, in this timeless abyss, will not overwrite your children.


    Courage or Fear¡­


    Choose one to live with, and know that until this ball opens, you will not know if you made the correct choice. That is Wisdom


    MAKE


    YOUR


    CHOICE!

 Chapter 3

    Chapter Three


    BREATHE¡­ focus on the tip of your finger.


    Feel the buzzing surrounding it.


    Experiment with it. This is your world now so let''s dive down into it. Go smaller by halves until this becomes the entirety of your existence, nothing else. It''s not a quarter of an inch. It''s an entire world and a Breath is now an hour. Focus your mind on you, send your focus so deep into your finger that the rest of you ceases to exist. You have an entire world to explore. Feel the energy in the air above you, as your new world makes its trip through the abyss. Around its sun it goes and back it comes. See its eddies, in the sky, swirling back up into space. See the waves of it crashing down. See them hitting the shield that seems to be projecting forth protecting your world. See the energy raining down through the cracks in the shield, falling down into the ground. Walk the path of your world, stop again at the wall that seems to be solid. Stopping your world, reversing its course and sending it back on its path, before it rebounds yet again.


    Back to my mind. Take another BREATH.


    Focus back down into the path, your whole world is rotating through this small path through space, this path that is a quarter of an inch long. Back and forth your planet is traveling, down the path of that quarter of an inch, all the while as you stare up into the lights flickering in the sky. Feel as your world makes its way, to and fro, in a system that would make any flat earther proud. Feel the energy, pressing down from the sky, trying to push you off of this plane you are moving on, it is your only sensation, ignore everything else for now. Let the feeling wash over you and try to understand it, that is your purpose now on this trip. This is your existence, time has no more meaning to you, leave that abstract concept behind. All that is here is your thoughts, this energy, and the little bit of your finger that you are bound up into. Go to where you are rebounding from, where your world hits this new universal boundary. Before bouncing back, try to feel how you are interacting with that impenetrable shield. How is it sending you back? Are you rebounding  from it as it sends you back across the universe to its twin on the other side; or are you retreating from it, running to and fro in an effort to escape? Are you a rabbit bounding here and there, in an effort to escape? Or are you a wolf, sniffing out the secrets of this new universe you find yourself in, howling your challenge to the moon? Are you making any headway at all? Look at how it is locked down, see the frozen eddies in the sky. An interlocking formation that you are gliding through. Focus further into the energy between your world, and ignore the stagnant ice hanging above you. Focus more on the water your plane is floating on. Put to rest all the insanity of the globies, you have entered a new existence. Floating back and forth on a river, bouncing endlessly between the two ends of your new universe.


    See the upcoming mountain, look on as it awaits you, reaching up until it combines with the sky. Move on the raft, that makes up your finger, feel every nuance as you bounce back and forth, up and down on these rapids. Reach up as you bounce higher, touching the stone ceiling above you. Touch the walls of the universe, feel what is holding you down, feel what is stopping you from reaching out as far as you want to. Feel the movement of you bouncing up and down, going this way and that way, as you travel back and forth endlessly. Try to measure these feelings, anticipate how the river will move under you. You have floated back and forth, a hundred times over through this endlessness, and yet every trip is different. Similar in the whole, yet every trip is different enough you still can''t map the ups and downs, each one still a surprise to you.


    Back and forth I continue to float, feeling the answer is close. Knowing it is on the tip of my mind, I don''t rush it, I just wait for it to come to me. I just float up and down, moving back and forth between unmoving walls, with an equally still sky above them. Oceans moving up and down, crashing endlessly into unmoving mountains, slowly grinding them down. Imperceptibly on the scale of humans, but I am no longer living on that scale. If you drop back to the scale of a universe, it looks like they are melting, like ice in a glass on a warm summer day.


    Time. The concept resonates in my mind, but that isn''t the secret out of here. I see no way to turn back time until I am in my car, where I can drive back home, to avoid this frozen hell.


    Time. Why is it still pulsing in my thoughts? What phrase had I read before, that my subconscious is screaming to me is the key to my freedom?


    Time. Entropy¡¯s arrow always points in one direction. That can''t be it, unless it is telling me just to be patient and wait for the energy to end, unfreezing and melting those mountains back into the ocean.


    Wait¡­ that can''t be right, mountains don''t melt. Or do they. Technically everything has a melting point. Lava flows, Iron can drip down into the mold of a sword. Who¡¯s to say what these mountains are even made up of? Early I had thought of them as Ice. Was my subconscious shouting at me to form a fire, melting down the mountains and adding them into the river I was floating on? No, that felt off, like I was moving away from what my mind is screaming out to me is the truth.


    Look. Back towards the edge of your known universe, see the river flow into it, crashing into the wall. Look smaller, and follow the energy as it crashes down into the mountain. See, as it grinds the tiniest bit of it off. See how it floats down to the bottom. Wait, that''s not it, it isn¡¯t settling down on the oceans floor. Watch as the bits of mountain swirl back up again, hitting its apex of the water before it falls back down yet again, unwilling to settle into the ground. See it flow along the hard bottom, swirling around unwilling to rejoin what it has been separated from, swirling back up as it mixes into the water. See it swirl around before billowing back up once again, reaching towards the ceiling, and once again crashing back down in an endless cycle slowly breaking down and mixing ever more finely into the water.


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    Time. Am I being told by my subconscious to wait? Am I supposed to float endlessly on this ocean, over and over, back and forth, as the mountains are slowly ground down to nothingness. Do I even have that long?


    No! Go back to melting the mountains. At one point, you sent your will into the walls, and did something to form this never ending flow of water. Why is Time still ringing in my thoughts? You decided that is a dead end. Time only marches in one direction.


    Time marches to the heat death of the known universe.


    TIME¡¯S ARROW!


    ENTROPY


    ORDER and CHAOS


    Finally everything combines down into one coherent thought. Cascading into a eureka moment, each new realization flows onward into the next, as the concepts keep coalescing. Time marches forward, order becomes chaos, until eventually all of the universe will collapse. Collapsing into its heat death, as the last speck of order is converted into chaos. Somehow, right before I had been trapped in this amber, I had connected with that most basic concept. Somehow, on the smallest level, I had untwisted the least bit of Order that was locking a tiny piece of me into place. I had turned it into this wave of Chaos, which let my finger bounce back and forth between the walls of Order that I hadn''t unlocked. Slowly grinding them down, as time passed by. Entropy in action, the walls lost bits of their Order, as it slowly unlocked into motes of Chaos. Following time¡¯s arrow, entropy continued to grow. My path to freedom lay in finding my connection to the concept of Chaos and Entropy, breaking down the bonds that held me trapped in this place.


    Slowly, I floated back out of the world I had brought myself down into. How long had I been stuck floating back and forth on that river? How many years had passed for my mind to begin to grasp the most basic of secret building blocks of the universe. Order and Chaos are the bases of so many books that you have read, both from western and eastern cultures, and yet going from knowing that to understanding that seems to have taken you lifetimes.


    NO! Stop! Do not travel down that path. Regrets are human and to escape this order prison you must connect with chaos and entropy. Both concepts are fundamental truths of the universe, they know nothing of regret, as they move endlessly forward in time, never looking back. Focus back onto the river as it moves back and forth, endlessly trapped in Order, bouncing again and again, endlessly between the mountains. Entropy doesn''t care, all will become water in the end.


    Why does this still ring wrong to me? I am not meant to be trapped here, encased by Order. Chaos must march on¡­ following time''s arrow. Further connecting to that concept, my brain tries to continue gelling with that understanding.


    Twitch, my finger moves again, down the river that has become my existence. This time it crashes forward into the mountain, consuming it as it drives forward, and now two knuckles are able to move an inch backwards. Into my body I return, as I catapult back out to observe my success. Looking down in my mind''s eye, I see that they are able to move back and forth a couple of times. Then both my fingers seem to lose strength, without my focus down there, they go back to their frozen state, like the rest of its brethren.


    BREATHE¡­ Focus on your fingers again this time, connect back to entropy¡¯s drive, and consume even more of the mountain holding you back. Continuing to progress forward as both of them move slowly, but more fully¡­ Like a man at the bar, signaling he''s ready for another round, two fingers pop up. Before once again, getting stuck back into the ballistic gel that has surrounded me, this glue that is maintaining the nightmare that my existence has turned into.


    Another BREATH¡­ again how long has it been on the outside? Five seconds, ten minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years¡­ the human mind wasn''t meant to be shut away like this. No wonder that little, yellow rat blew up the lab as soon as he got out¡­


    No, ignore the thoughts holding you onto your humanity and go back to your connection to eternity and time''s arrow. Another twitch and this time I feel my whole hand rotate, like an old man¡¯s, telling you these are not the robots you are looking for. My fingers follow, one along the other, before exhausting themselves, and freezing back into the amber again.


    BREATHE¡­ In and out. Give yourself some time to remember their faces, before diving back into the endlessness that lets you connect with the Chaos. Use that memory to drive you forward. How long has it been now? Surely it''s been years, what do they think happened to you? Was this the only ball to come down out of the sky? Was I the only one taken? Were they taken as well? The hamster starts running on his wheel again, twitchy, looking for his stash. Disjointed, my mind fracturing, as I bounced back and forth between the timelessness of chaos, and back out into my body, where I still remembered hugging my kids the weekend before. Sending them off to their mom''s for the week, before coming on this march to hell.


    I took another BREATH¡­ forcing the hopped up little rat back into his slumber, and as I connected back with the timeless entropy. Marched even farther forward this time, my whole left arm moved. Up, like it was getting ready to catch a softball, thrown while playing catch with my daughter¡­ Down, like I was getting ready to scoop my son up into a hug, before again freezing in its place, by my side. The errant thoughts, again kicked me back away from my connection. As my mind strove to maintain its humanity, while using such a primordial power.


    BREATHE


    In and out¡­ Maybe Descartes had it right after all. Maybe my thoughts are proving all I need to know, to prove that I still exist. BREATHE in, and pray for the Courage to keep trying to understand this existence that I have been trapped in. Surely it''s been centuries by now, do I have generations of great grandkids thinking the worst of me? Am I a cautionary legend, being told to new fathers? Warning them about the horrors that befall the children when their fathers abandon them. BREATHE out and pray for more of the Serenity that is keeping me going. Staying sane, in this black hell is the only hope I have left for, and that is clearly going to be a lost cause. Hope for sanity, and that someday, I will be let out of this hell. And when I am out, I will reign down a thousand fold of tortures on those who have captured me in this hell. I raged as my connection to chaos charged forth. BREATHE, and pray for the Wisdom to be able to pull off my revenge, on those whose power clearly dwarfs mine. Dwarfs it by so many levels of magnitude, that they are the sun to my pebble.


    Breathe¡­Uh oh¡­ that was a real breath¡­

 Chapter 4

    Chapter Four


    As I felt the molten energy pour into my lungs, my body began arching in agony. Neck bent with my eyes facing straight up into the sky, my mouth was frozen ajar. I could feel that every part of my limbs were being stretched out to the fullest they could go. It felt like what I could only imagine it was to accidentally grab onto a live wire or have lightning go coursing through one''s body, jolting your muscles into paralysis. For with the reality of that all to real, non metaphorical breath, time suddenly seemed to start flowing naturally for me again. No more, could I dive into the Order and Chaos. No more, was I able to see the energy as mountains and oceans. No more rivers bouncing back and forth endlessly with my finger raft floating along. Instead I''m back in my body, everything around me is still covered in darkness, but now I seem to have awoken another sense. Either that, or I have maintained a connection to the Order and everything which the Order has trapped in it. Can I now feel everything as part of me and is my mind now reinterpreting as sight? Despite the pain, I can see or feel the energy all around me. Like how I imagine a bat or a dolphin must feel with echolocation, I can now see everything my new found sight focuses on. Pulsing out from me, I can sense the sand beneath my feet. A few feet further away, and I feel my pack laying on the ground in front of my walking sticks. Yet another pulse goes out from my mind, and I look even further to where I sense the rocks of the tidal flats, the waves frozen in their iconic motion. All of the sea life is motionless within, like a small child¡¯s science fair diorama. Everything else is still encased in Order.


    It¡¯s not like the top down view of some video game. Instead this is like a coned, strobe light, greyscale flashing into the fog. My mind is picking something out and focusing on it. Like bullets out of a machine gun, more and more pulses continue to erupt from my forehead and my prison begins to illuminate in further and greater detail. Seemingly unphased by the permeability restrictions that light must face, water and ground both become like open books before me. Focusing my thoughts downward, I send my senses below me, past the sand and into the bedrock. That too poses no resistance to my mind, and I continue to reach down until I run into a wall in the middle of the bedrock. I''m guessing I''ve found part of the orb that has captured me, and with no escape from the energy that way. I begin to truly understand that it is a ball that I am trapped in. What before, I had said as a joke seems to now have come true in my newfound sight. Giving up on looking down, I send my thoughts into the forest instead. The same woods that had seemed so opaque when I had hiked through it so many lifetimes ago. Now I pass by all of the numerous species of birds, still frozen in flight; I see the squirrels stuck, glued to the trees. Continuing on, I can see jack rabbits and deer likewise frozen in a variety of poses, all waiting for this nightmare to end. Further my mind races, passing by an adult black bear, brown in coat, claws stuck in the process of sharpening themselves on a scrub oak. Normally I would be nervous that it had been this close to me without my knowing it, but having spent lifetimes trapped here, escape is all that is on my mind. Finally I get there, my mind sees it, about quarter of a mile from where my body still stands. The wall of darkness absorbs everything my mind is sending out, it alone remains impervious to my new sight. Finally I''ve found it, an edge to the energy that has been pressing down on me. Clearly, this is where the dome has cut me off from the world, and my family beyond. Despite the pain pouring into my chest, I manage the smallest bit of smile, with the edge of my mouth. It worked! Multiple eternities spent staring into the smallest parts of the universe. Trapped, looking up at Order and Chaos, and I still managed to remember my son and daughter. With a second non metaphorical breath, I feel even more molten energy of chaos pouring into my lungs, replacing the oxygen, and entering my bloodstream¡­ and with unspeakable pain, I feel my heart finally take a beat again.


    Thud! Thud!


    Thud! Thud!


    As my heart begins beating with an intensity I had never felt before. I feel my body begin to vibrate, it feels like more and more energy is coming down, coursing through my body. With my mouth wide open and pointing to the sky, I want to exhale. No screw that, I want to scream in pain. Feeling like I have Ten Thousand volts, running wild through my body with every beat of my heart, all I want to do is shout in agony, but I can''t. I have a world of chaotic energy that is trying to force its way down into my lungs, and all I want to do is get rid of it. I want to take a breath of real air. I don''t know why past me decided that messing with this power was a good thing, but all I want to do is reach back into time and slap him silly.


    My mind races back from the wall that has me cut off from the rest of the world, drawn back to my body by the pain I am feeling. I return and focus my next pulses inward, back into my body. While I am still unable to resume whatever thought process were sending my focus into the smallest parts of the universe. I can still however manage to use my new sense to see into my body.


    Thud! Thud!


    With the third beat of my heart, I feel the pain in my chest ratchet itself up to a new level. The new heights of ten, had me wishing with all my heart, that I could go back to the old pain threshold of three from a second ago. Like drinking an ice cold beer, on a hot summer day. When you can measure the chill going down your mouth and throat, all the way to your stomach, feeling every delightful inch as the refreshing cold makes its way down.


    I have the opposite problem. Mine is a river of molten lava, pouring into my lungs, threatening to boil my insides alive. I can feel the energy, drilling deeper and deeper into my body; inch by inch it continues its way in. It seems to be following my arteries out of my heart, drilling its way through my blood that seems to remain frozen in place despite the beating of my heart. I see my ventricles widen the slightest bit, and I realize the energy pouring into me isn''t just metaphysical. It has a presence in this world, a real physical weight and volume. I alone, seem to be the only outlet for it to go, in this hell ball reject from the early two thousands. Like a diver on the bottom of the ocean, who has mistakenly opened his mouth and feels the water pouring in. I too realize, I am now in an impossible situation; unable to force the energy out of my lungs and shut off the spicket, I will soon be filled to the bursting point where I will then undoubtedly go pop. Spraying my pack, and everything around me in a lovely shade of red. With no option of shutting the flow off, I know I only have one choice left. When faced with a binary equation and one option is impossible, you are left with only its opposite, no matter how improbable. So with no other option, I bend my mind to try and force the energy faster through my circulatory system.


    Thud! Thud!


    Thud! Thud!


    A fourth and fifth beat of my heart echo through my body, I continue to feel the energy like an ocean above me trying to pour its way into my lungs. But though the pain has ratcheted up yet again, I managed to hold off on expanding my lungs anymore. Furiously, I quickly search my mind, going through every cultivation novel I have ever read. Searching for an answer to my predicament that I had never put actual serious thought to before. Sure, what adult has never dreamed of gaining magical powers as a kid? But how many have ever actually thought about what would happen when the building blocks of the universe come knocking on one''s innards? Trying to draw on the forethought of every author that had created a world I loved, and dreamed of finding myself in, I looked for some similarities to my current predicament. Emotionally, I am ecstatic, knowing this must be some kind of heaven sent opportunity. This will undoubtedly give me the magical powers I need to break out of here and make my way back to my children. There has always been that part of my brain that is still stuck in my teens and twenties, and it is now rejoicing with the confident stupidity that only the truly young and immortal can have. But I''m older now, older and slightly wiser, so intellectually I know there is no such thing as a free lunch. Finding a ring and putting it on won¡¯t make you invisible, waving a stick and saying a couple of words won''t summon a broom to fly on, and radioactive spiders don''t bite you and turn you into super heroes. No¡­ Marie Curie died when she exposed herself to enormous amounts of energy. But all I have left is to try, armed with the knowledge of multiple cultivation series. I know the only thing I can try to do is pull the energy through my body faster, and then I can either infuse my muscles with it or build my core.


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    Thud! Thud!


    Thud! Thud!


    A Sixth and Seventh beat of my heart, and I can see and feel the energy pushing its way farther into my circulatory system. I can feel my lungs tensing, getting ready to expand even more with the weight of the world above me. Desperate, I am frantic, my thoughts racing here and there. I can feel the hamster spinning on its wheel, clearly being given a fresh hit by the pressure of the situation. I force my mind to take a metaphorical BREATH! Stop! Slow down, you won''t get a second try at this, you spent an eternity understanding this, feeling this, you know this down to the smallest, chaotic particle. BREATHE! In and out. No, not with your lungs, with your spirit. And with another metaphorical BREATH, I manage to throw myself partially back down into the universe of Order and Chaos. I can immediately tell I have not been able to fully subsume myself in it. The pain has been reduced into a dull ache, like heartburn. But compared to the river of molten iron it was before, this is now like the kiss of a supermodel. Also, I can see the energy which was racing like an overfull river through a narrow gorge. It is now more like a spilt jar of molasses, slowly trying to drip off the edge of a table. Getting smaller and going closer to where the leading edge of Chaos is hitting blood, I pick an artery and pull my mind into it. I see the wave front hitting the wall of blood, the blood though seems to be sending out its own shields blocking the incoming Chaos. My blood is obstructing the rampant energy''s way, and the force is causing the arterial walls to expand as the metaphysical meets the real and begins to force its way through. This is undoubtedly what is causing the heart attack like pain I am feeling. Again I go through every cultivation novel I have ever read. I realize I now have three options: One, I can attempt body cultivation, first forcing my blood to evolve and grow in power and then using that blood, I can improve my muscles. I.E. Body Cultivation or the Strong Superhuman route. Two: I can force the energy into the walls of my arteries and veins, tempering them and then sending the energy around and around in my circulatory system, breaking through my meridian''s and eventually forming a self-sustaining core in my center. Some systems say the core is metaphysical and remains in a spirit body superimposed in your body with others being an actual physical gem in your body that will cycle energy you take in. Taking it to and from the outside world like a magical stomach before using it to cast the cultivator¡¯s will out into the world. I.E. A Core Cultivator or if I want to piss off the purists, basically a Magician. Third: I can combine the two and use the energy for both processes at the same time. I. E. The Limit Breaker path, The path every hero takes to surpass the heavens and turn the tides against all of the arrogant young masters that eagerly throw themselves into his path. Delivering up unto him the resources he could never manage to find on his own, to propel him further upon his path to defy the heavens. Technically I guess there is the fourth path of soul cultivation and while that might be the path of inner reflection, that has sent me down into seeing the interactions of Order and Chaos. However, I don''t see a way to use the energy to improve that, therefore I am left with deciding between three options.


    The clever answer is to choose both, because a clever man would understand that only by strengthening both your body and core at the same time, can you truly become strong. One immense leg, and one weak leg, quickly lead to a man falling over. But I understand that I am not a hero in a story, I am just a father, trying to make his way home. Obviously the universe is setting a trap for me, so all I have to do is divine how the universe plans to torture me more. Now a clever man seeing as he can not have both, would choose to strengthen his body. Because when we go back to our caveman ancestors, we understand that the only true strength we have is that of one''s own arm. But the universe knows this, and only a great fool would knowingly step into the universe''s trap. Because, clearly after getting me all juiced up in here, it will let me out of this hell ball, back into a world now devoid of this energy, where I will surely starve. Muscles, quickly atrophying, without this power jolting through me. I am not a great fool, so clearly I cannot choose the path laid out so enticingly in front of me. I, being not a great fool, must obviously choose the path the universe makes look less appealing. The path of the great brain in the body of a wimp. A glass cannon, armed with spells that will make the mountains shake, in the body that a feather can knock over. The path only an idiot, or someone confident in multiple reincarnations, completely unafraid of death takes. And I, being a clever man, seeing through the universe''s trap; must obviously take the chalice of the fool, and strengthen my channels and meridians, building a core with the output of chernobyl. While having the body that a ten year old could knock over, well probably not a ten year old. Hopefully I can keep my somewhat in shape dad bod, which will no doubt, only seem like a ten years old to an immortal body cultivator.


    ¡°You''ve made your decision then?¡± I can imagine the universe sitting across me asking, black mask over its eyes.


    ¡°Not remotely,¡± I reply back with a smirk on my face, ¡°Because I am an American, and as any good American knows, energy is an endless source that will never run out. If we ever need more, it is simple to open up the reserves, buy it, or when all else fails just take it from someone else. So, clearly I can not choose the glass of strong mind and weak body. For how can I take from others with a weak arm?¡±


    ¡°Truly you have quite the brain.¡± The universe said with a cross of his legs and a rub of his chin.


    ¡°Wait until I get going! Now where was I?¡± I asked back.


    ¡°America.¡± The universe spoke back in my imagination.


    ¡°Ah yes, America.¡± I continued the bit, really getting into it. ¡°America is the land of the guns and the country with more patents than any other one in the world. Clearly the path of the brute is the poisoned chalice and the path of the mind is the safe one to drink, only a fool would think otherwise. But, as any nerd in high school will tell you, without the arm to back it up the meat head will always take your homework.¡±


    Thud! Thud!


    Thud! Thud!


    More heartbeats, and even in my slowed down state, I can feel the pain increase again exponentially. I can tell now without words the universe is letting me know, it understands I''m stalling. Yes, I reply, wordlessly ending the bit, I know I am. Because unlike my fellow Sicilian, I understood immediately, the universe isn''t fair. Like in the movie, the poison is in both cups, and I''m afraid. I''m not young anymore. I don''t have the endless optimism of a hero in his late teens, whisked away from his world leaving only his tormentors behind. Greedily chasing after every powerup he can, confident that plot armor will see him through. I don''t want the life of a hero, I have enough problems with the worship that is still barely in my son''s eyes and is already almost certainly gone from my daughters. I¡¯ve seen how fragile it is, I know not everyone makes it to old age, with grandkids dangling on my knee. My father didn''t, and I have to wonder if I am destined to follow the same path as him. But I know I''m out of time and left with no choice. So with that in mind I abandon my ancestry, look the dread pirate dead in his eyes, pour the cups together and with a quick prayer for Courage, stop stalling and get to work.

 Chapter 5

    Chapter Five


    I''ve got to get back to basics, I have been pushing too many random buttons, just hoping for the best. I need to understand what is happening, formulate a plan that is going to work, and then execute it properly. I''m going to have to be sure of what I''m doing before I start, because you don''t get second chances in the stories when you form your core. Maybe they got it wrong, but I would rather bet on the side of not ending up a cripple. If whatever process I start with is the one I''m going to end up with, I need to set a goal that I can live with. Throughout my life I have been okay with failing the first time, for that matter failing many times has never been a problem. It took me fifteen tries before I had my first satisfactory bread board, and blowing my first vase, I must have shattered the glass over twenty. I have yet to find anything that I have picked up expecting a perfect run on the first try. And I''ve always thought that is okay, failure isn''t an F word, success is never guaranteed! All failure means is you have learned what doesn''t work, you can cross it off of your list and go onto the next thing. You learn more from failure than from success and while I would rather be observing someone else''s failure normally, I''ve had plenty of opportunities to pick myself up out of the dust and go again. But, I had also never tried free soloing a mountain before. Zero points of failure wasn''t an option I was happy with. I preferred to get down and dirty, trying the same thing multiple times with miniscule tweaks was my happy spot, but it looks like the universe didn''t care about me being happy.


    With that in mind I need to go back to the basic view of the body, the energy is forcing its way through my bloodstream and I have two options. Strengthen the blood cells, and use them to infuse and power up my muscles, making my body stronger first. Or, I can strengthen my arteries, veins and capillaries and bring the energy back into a core first. In this analogy, the blood is a truck and the circulatory system is the highway. Well, when I look at the problem like this, the solution is obvious. Fifteen years of driving a fully loaded, Eighty Thousand pound, truck over the garbage that are California highways. The best truck in the world will still send you bouncing around all over the place, breaking your back and butt, when you hit endless potholes.


    The beginnings of a proper plan in mind, I marshal my thoughts towards buckling down, and starting the execution of it. I look back into my body, and get to the edge of where the energy is pushing its way through my arteries. I see how the blood is getting forced back, their individual shields locking together like the Spartans at Thermopylae. Unfortunately it seems that these Spartans have found another opponent, instead of coming up against the Persians; my blood seems to be set up against the future Romans legions, now in their prime. The avalanche of energy is forming a shield wall of its own, but instead of being locked into the slow hoplite formation, close together with unwieldy spears, making every step an exercise for the entire group. The Romans are marching its Cohorts around, breaking up first into Centuries, and then from there breaking up further again into smaller sections. Before diving in jaggedly and sawing up their enemies. Thankfully not many cells are getting destroyed, but they are still getting pushed inexorably back, while the stragglers are getting surrounded and left behind. Order and Chaos mixed together, the invading energy is chewing up the lower order of energy that my blood has holding it together. Abandoned in my blood¡¯s slow and steady retreat, this is starting to increase my blood pressure higher and higher; as more and more blood is slowly getting stacked up with the blood behind it.


    Ignoring the plight of the abandoned blood for now, I have to focus further back, in the parts of the blood stream that they have made their orderly retreat from. Examining the walls closer, I look at them, with their own energy tightly locked together, forming an impenetrable wall. Letting neither the energy of the invaders nor defenders through, with nowhere to go the blood is forced back farther in its retreat. This new energy is undoubtedly hoping to force my own blood to break through the walls for it, so it can continue its rampage through the rest of my body. Looking closer, I recognise the way the shield looks from my first trip into the river of entropy. While similar to the metaphysical walls I saw and broke down, which turned out to be the stupid action that eventually got me into the situation I am in now. I realized that these metaphysical walls were partially linked into my real world artery walls. Overlaying and strengthening them. So instead of breaking them down completely like I had when I first started slowly learning to move, I was instead going to have to find another solution.


    With a thought, I sent my consciousness back to that fateful quarter inch. My savior, the tiny little part of me that kept me awake as I was getting trapped in this hell. Oh, how stupid are instincts that betray us. In trying for freedom, I awoke something I was not intended to receive. Instead of being frozen in time, propped up, oblivious; like every other blissfully, ignorant, living organism in this lightless hell. I was instead awake and fighting for my life. Forcing my brain away from that fruitless dead end, I instead started working on a solution. The energy had also been entering my body here, but instead of building up pressure and exploding my finger off my hand, like a bottle rocket on the fourth of July. That hadn''t happened and now I needed to figure out why, come to think of it, why hadn''t my finger shot off? For that matter why hadn''t my arm and face exploded. It just didn''t make any sense¡­ At the very least shouldn¡¯t my body have started to absorb this power to grow, and get stronger?


    As I take a metaphorical step back, and look at my arm in its entirety, I see that it is still fully extended, with all of its fingers locked up. Vibrating, outstretched in pain. With it clearly no longer moving, this line of thought doesn''t seem to be helpful¡­ wait, that''s not completely true, now is it? Vibration is a motion, so it still has some ability to move through the molten lava, now pouring into my lungs. Zooming out a little, I move back over to my right side, which I had not gotten to yet, in my disastrous bid for freedom. Yes! That part of my body is still completely stuck, its arms and fingers motionless. The pain is there, but it is locked, frozen in place . Okay, Now we are getting somewhere, something is different between the two and I can only hope I have both the Intelligence to figure it out, and the Wisdom to correctly use it. To save myself from the situation, my Haste and Ignorance has currently gotten me stuck in.


    With a quick zoom down, to make sure I fully remembered how everything was the way before I meddled. I confirmed that I had a rigid wall surrounding my skin, with the energy pressed tight up against it. Bowed slightly back, the interlocking blocks were holding up admirably to the pressure, not giving the slightest bit. Yup, that all checks out, as I start heading back over on my left side I freeze metaphorically. Wait¡­ no, that isn''t what was happening when I first started freeing myself, ages ago. Where is the avalanche of energy pouring through? Crashing down, through a hole in the sky, before rebounding off the wall and being sent back out to rejoin its brethren.


    Okay, before I meddle anymore, taking small steps into the unknown. Paving the way to hell, let''s go back and think everything through. I still had a nagging feeling that I would only get one shot at this, and with the energy continuing to roll in I can''t afford to go with instinct just hoping I will get everything right. As instinct is clearly what has gotten me into this situation, and I could feel myself inching closer and closer to hell.


    First of all, I''ve got to get into the right mind, science isn''t going to hold the answers for you. Or if it does, well you''ve got no degree, and all you have are the street smarts of a blue collar trucker. So, let''s stop calling it energy for one thing. It is, but that is flavoring your thoughts to the scientific and this is clearly more mystical. Yes, I know the trite phrase, magic is just science you don¡¯t understand yet. And sufficiently advanced technology is magic to the uninitiated primitive, I tell myself. Well, guess what stupid, you clearly don''t understand this, so that makes it magic. So that bit of logic out of the way, let''s begin the process of understanding what we got in front of us. We only likely have one real shot at this, I tell my body, so let''s make it the best one we can. After all, even a broken watch is right twice a day¡­ Well an expensive one, not the cell phone clock I lazilly use.


    This is magic, and I have already clearly decided that this is analogous to a cultivator novel. So from now on, in my own head, at least I am going to refer to it as Qi.


    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    And with that thought, the pressure building up in me, noticeably lessened.


    ¡°Okay,¡± I thought to myself. ¡°That was unexpectedly easy, where is the other shoe?¡± Pausing a beat to let the universe drop its next hammer, when nothing happens, I think, ¡°Okay, now we are getting somewhere. Let''s dive more into the why of that.¡±


    Once again, with nothing in reality to go on, I can only fall back on sci-fi and fantasy. I still used them to religiously escape the concrete jungle I lived my day to day life in. I used them when I was unable to escape to where the wilderness meets the ocean¡­ like the spot I had been captured in.


    Sci-fi being out, as the only possible technology around that I didn''t understand might be the giant ball that had captured me and several square acres of ocean and beach. Seeing that I was still unable to interact with that, even if it was technology and not metaphysical, that left only the fantasy genre to help me. With Qi invading my body, I clearly needed to continue my dive into the cultivation sub genre to look for more guidance. I thought about trying to rename it Mana, Rage, or any of the multitude of names people use when they are creating something. Not feeling anymore lacking of pressure, I decided to not reinvent the wheel and continue with recognizing it as QI. So if naming it had lessened the pressure, why and how did that happen? The first and obvious answer that sprang to my mind was that by naming it I was claiming ownership of it. I both liked and hated that answer. Liked it because it was an easy answer and hated it because all of the novels I had read told me it was a high level technique that only geniuses and century old masters truly understood. And with the pressure lessened and not completely shut off. My non-genius monkey, button mashing, butt; that had two strikes on it, would undoubtedly whiff on this third chance. Leaving me with the Big K in more ways than one. Seeing as how I was no Kvothe, able to understand concepts at the drop of a hat. I decided to leave my right arm and go back to my center, where the pressure was still noticeable, even though it had lessened.


    Back to the center, I dove down deeper into my bloodstream. Upon arriving there, where once before I had found the Roman invaders driving my hoplite armies back. Instead of Romans, I now found the Germanic hordes, flinging themselves onto the spears of my Spartans. Despite the individual bits of energy beings, flinging themselves to their death on my spartan spears. The press of bodies was still forcing them back, just instead of with the swiftness of an avalanche cutting through a mountain. It was now, the inevitable pressure of the rising tide. Clearly naming the energy didn''t seem to have given me the control that I had thought.


    Doubting I had the centuries needed by the old masters in my books to fully understand this Qi to the point of being able to command it with just my thoughts. And without the genius of the ones who sprinted up the mountain, quickly consuming their rivals, I needed a new plan. Or maybe not a new plan¡­ Instead maybe I needed to go back to my old plan¡­ the one that started this mess. Before I had used the Qi of my own body to slowly undulate itself back and forth giving me the slightest bit of freedom in the morass of outside Qi that was pressing down on me. If I can''t command, then that only leaves suborning the foreign energy. Whatever was empowering it on the outside, had clearly lost its advantage once it had entered me and I had started the process of making it my own by naming it. And if I hadn''t fully been able to take control of it, I had at least freed it for my own possible consumption.


    My original plan was to strengthen my circulatory system, and that seemed more likely now that I seemed to have cut the Order from the Qi, leaving it the chaotic mess that it now was. Diving down into my blood, I quickly started maneuvering it. I started at where it was meeting the foreign Qi, and slowly started the process of driving my blood forward through the center of the tunnel. As it drove forward, it began to leave room along the edges of the walls of my circulatory system. Immediately, I felt a lessening of the pressure as the blood that had formed from the build up was able to go forward again. Confident I was on the right track, I let the pressure force my blood back to its starting point at my heart, all the while centering it in the middle of the road, that was my circulatory system. As the Chaotic Qi continued its flow on the outside of my blood, yet inside the walls that penned it in it, eventually made the full circuit around and back to my lungs, where it met its still Ordered brethren forcing its way inside of me. With nowhere to go but out, it drove a channel straight up through the middle of the Order iceberg. Flowing back out into the ocean of power outside of me, like a rip current back out into the ocean. All the while more of the Order Qi continued to force itself farther inside of me to become Chaos as it lost its connection to whatever was empowering it on the outside.


    Now, with the Qi having a safe path out of me, and the Order that had been the ferocious Roman legions was gone. With the leaving of only the Chaos of milling peasants in there place, I only felt a small bit of pain as my veins and arteries bulged, but nothing like the impending heart attack I had felt coming on before. With safety assured for now, I had to make a decision to gamble or not.


    My original idea had been to strengthen my circulatory system, but the pain told me that that wasn''t happening. All that was going on currently, was the outside Qi was forcing its way inside, being depowered like a magnet erasing a computer, and being forced back outside into the environment. I still didn''t seem to be gaining anything through this. Now, on one hand that was fine and a big part of me was still okay with that. After all, my goal was always to survive this. But there was another huge part of me that was greedy. Greedy for the power coursing through me!


    Metaphorically sitting down, I took the time to look deep inside myself, and really go over my reasons for being willing to grab at this chance. I first found myself in this situation through blind panic, desperate to avoid being trapped in nothingness. I somehow maintained the slightest bit of control over the smallest part of me. That led to a crisis of sanity, choosing the path of self determination, I slowly crawled my way back into control over part of my body. That choice triggered the current crisis that I managed to survive, and now it seemed I finally had the time to actually make an informed decision, before mashing any more buttons and getting me back into the hot water bath.


    Do nothing, and be as close to certain that you can, that you will be there when this nothingness finally ends; or gamble, gamble and try to consume and use this Qi to power yourself up. A simple choice with an easy decision, Right? Unfortunately, when you are always able to look at both sides of any problem, it is incredibly easy to argue with yourself and almost impossible to be happy with any decision you can make. My mind then seemed to split itself into two to argue it out.


    The side that still maintained its youth and freedom immediately shouted out. ¡°This is it, the moment you can finally give yourself magical powers! You have always wanted magic and now you can have it! What can you possibly be waiting for? You have to take it!¡±


    The older Father in me simply replied. ¡°Nothing is ever simple. And having some power doesn''t make you invincible, oftentimes it merely paints a target on your back. Having something that other people want, even if they aren¡¯t able to take it, just means they will resort to other ways of forcing you to then work for them. The most likely way would be using the kids as hostages. The tallest grass is quickly cut down.¡±


    Taking a beat, my opposite shot back. ¡°Okay, that might be true. But not having any power means that if they think you have it and are unable to give it to them. You won''t have any recourse when they go for our kids.¡± With a sigh, he seemed to age and become the other one''s twin. ¡°You know what it is like to be powerless. We both remember the feeling of those handcuffs closing over your wrists, and being stuffed into the back of that police car. You know you can still feel both the fear of imprisonment even though you had done nothing wrong. You remember the glee and elation you felt, when the officer was pulled back by his partner and they had to let you go. You remember the resentment at having to let him do that to you. What would have happened if his partner hadn''t pulled him back? Would the worst have happened? Would you not be here in this moment? Would your children never have been born? You have always hated having to deal with other idiots rules, always you have been a barbarian getting by in the civilized world. Hating the bonds that others seem to revel in. If the worst comes to it, you can''t depend on law, order and reason to defend your family¡­ If civilization breaks down all that you have is yourself and the individual bonds you hold with others. You know you can''t take the chance this isn¡¯t some kind of world ending disaster. Any chance at all you have to consume this power to protect the kids, and you have to take it. We will always choose the path that gives us the ability to protect our own, rather than rely on others.¡±


    Nodding back, my older self let out a sigh and as they started to merge back together said. ¡°It might end up being the wrong choice, but we will always pick the option that leaves us able to defend our family. Ok, let''s get down to it.¡±

 Chapter 6

    Chapter 6


    All I have to go on is the lore from cultivation novels, and the biggest problem with that is; well if I am just being honest, they are fictional creations based on an author''s imagination. While I am, however, am not living in a novel, a trope which I had always hated upon reading. I now found myself having to hope that it was true, because if I am a character in a novel my life will no doubt continue to get worse. The amount of hell that I will have to deal with for the rest of my life will no doubt be close to pushing me to the edge of what a human can deal with both in body and mind, all for the author''s sick enjoyment.  The only upside will be that I will no doubt find myself exiting this hellball with an amazing build. As he has no doubt a complete understanding of how to deal with the energy of this world, which is now flowing through me. In real life, everything is completely different from what the ivory tower academics get the time to leisurely write about. They get to craft every aspect to perfectly power up their chosen hero, going over every little detail of his journey, so they can push him to the bounds of his abilities before driving him past it. I wonder, just for a moment, if I should wait and see. Force the universe to act and illuminate the path I should take. It has crossed my mind before when things have been too hard or too easy in my life. Do I really have free agency or am I just a puppet for some greater being, shoved around for their amusement. Stopping the hamster once again I pause it before he can start pulling up bits of my life to confirm or deny one of my most thought queries.


    Getting back to my current predicament I think back to my favorite novels. While most cultivator series have had some things in common, they also all had their unique aspects. So trying to figure out my way through this without crippling myself was going to be hard. Honestly the only thing worse, would have been finding myself in a system universe, and using those thousand of assumptions out there to try and come up with the perfect character sheet!


    I had already decided that I wanted to upgrade my Qi channels and meridians. But how? That was going to be the hardest part. Most cultivation systems either had the Qi channels as something physically cutting through the cultivators body, with the core being a physical gem in their center. This core held the Qi ocean, holding on to the energy to either contain it; or aspecting it for the cultivators use of casting techniques, or spells if I want to be crass. Alternatively if the cultivator was a body cultivator, he would use the energy to level up his blood, muscles, tendons, bones and skin to be able to hold greater energy and perform superhuman feats, before eventually reaching god like abilities.


    The other cultivator system would have the same functions but the Qi channels, meridians and core would be metaphysical, not actually part of the body but overlaying it in another dimension.


    Having gone on a tour of my body multiple times now, having to move along with the Chaos before sending it rocketing back out of my mouth. I still had yet to see any place that I would consider the core. Focusing on my center diaphragm area, I followed the Chaos around everywhere, but was only able to interact with it minimally, mostly indirectly by controlling my blood to force it around it. Making another circuit around my body I just let my conscience float through around and through, not thinking, floating like I was on a lazy river. Trying to keep my mind as blank as possible I stopped trying to interact and ¡®see¡¯ what was going on and just floated and felt the beat of my heart.


    THUMP!


    THUMP!


    As my heart continued its pounding, I felt the speck of Qi that my conscience had latched onto, like an intertube. I felt it continue to make its way through me, pushed along through my blood by the incoming energy behind it. Floating along to where I was sending the Chaos back out, I put all of my effort into nudging it to stay in and taking another circuit. I was just barely able to keep it from vomiting out in the torrent that was leaving me. As I continued on my next circuit, I realized most of the pressure, that was forcing the Qi around the blood flow, was coming from the incoming Order Qi that I was breaking down. So, if I had any hope of finding my core, I was going to have to shut off the tap for a bit, and just work with my own internal energy. There was too much external movement clouding everything up. Letting go of my little chaos raft, I did my best to try and zoom back out slightly, like when you go from focusing on a single letter on a page, to looking at the whole paragraph.


    Looking at my body, I focused on the point the Order was entering my lungs. Looking where it was breaking down into Chaos, before it was then propelled through a river of my blood to its ending. Where it was driving back up through the center of the Order, drilling a hole right through its middle. It was like looking up at an iceberg falling into the ocean that is me. Only as the iceberg is hitting the ocean, it is melting after making it only partly in; and instead of splashing down in a tsunami, it is sending a jet right up the middle. Perhaps a horrible analogy, but I don''t have a better explanation for what my mind is interpreting.


    How do I stop an iceberg from falling? It seemed like an impossible task, yet at one point I had obviously done it. Otherwise, I wouldn''t have found myself now in the position I was in, had I not started meddling and randomly poking buttons looking to eliciting a reaction.


    Everything started with the first moment of intense desperation that opened up that quarter inch. If I hadn''t had the desperation that had broken through the walls holding me. I would either be trapped with my mind either aware and insane; or I would be blissfully ignorant, missing out on this lovely vacation that was lasting lifetimes. Waiting to pop out when the ball opened back up. Either way this shouldn''t be happening, and if I was going to go back to the status quo. Then I needed to be careful to keep some Chaos inside of me, lest I find myself in what should have been instead of in what now was.


    What should have been was stasis, trapped in amber waiting to pop out (hopefully) when the ball opened once again, either transformed like a butterfly or more likely, just popping out as myself. If I was going to transform into a beautiful butterfly, then I was going to have to go back to the status quo and instead of poking buttons randomly I was going to have to manipulate them with understanding. Most novels had your body and soul as inviolable to external forces, so if I operated on that logic first, I must have been able to send out the tiniest external force to unlock the first bit of Order, breaking it down into Chaos. Following that thread of thought along, either I had continued to move the Chaos around myself, using it to continue to break down the Order, snowballing it until it had reached my open mouth. Finally allowing the Order a channel into me, or the Chaos had broken down the order on its own without my help. Either way, I was going to have to close off the opening above me, locking it back into the original order barrier, at least temporarily, so that it stopped washing the Chaos out.


    Going closer to the monstrous iceberg that was crashing into me, I tried to put myself right where it was breaking down, and hold myself there. At first, I kept getting kicked out in the Chaos wash, but I kept focusing on my need to be there, this was my body and I was all of it. This was my body! This energy had no right to move me around in it.


    No that wasn''t it, it''s not a matter of right or wrong. Because at the end of the day, might and force will always win; and if I use that argument, then I would need to become mightier than the iceberg crashing in. That couldn''t be how I broke my finger free originally. Before, there was desperation and I had reached a realization unknowingly. That realization had to have been along the lines that I was incapable of being held. So I just need to focus on thoughts like that and feel and believe them.


    This is my BODY! Nothing else matters, focus on that concept. Hold it in your head. You are lord and master here. You aren''t being invaded by this Iceberg, you have torn it free from the universe and you are consuming it, breaking it down and spewing it forth when you are done with it.


    A slight shudder.


    So again I roar it forth unto the universe: ¡°THIS IS MY BODY! I WILL CONSUME YOU AND TAKE WHAT I NEED!¡±


    Again the monster continues to crash back into me. Again I shout it forth, trying to capture the emotion that got that slight reverberation, again and again I shout forth my defiance to the heavens. Isn''t that supposed to be how it goes? The MC is supposed to defy the heavens until he conquers them, and makes them his own. Focusing on that, I continue to feel myself getting brushed back farther into my blood.


    Latching onto a different bit of Chaos, I let it take me around and around again, as I pondered what I felt. Confused as to why my demands were being unmet, yet the Order was still being turned into Chaos, breaking down and continuing to be released into my body. Coming back to the beginning, I sent the mote around again, mindlessly, while I continued to ponder. Around, around and around again, each time as I got back to the beginning, the mote tried to fly out on its momentum and I nudged it back into the river as I tried to understand. I had felt something, I was sure of it. So why as I screamed out my defiance. Did it seem like the universe pushed back worse?


    Again I came back to the beginning and as I started to send it back around again effortlessly it hit me. Power doesn''t come from volume. The scariest people aren¡¯t the loudest. The scariest beings are the ones most certain in their superiority. Little dogs are the uncontrollable yappers, big dogs are calmer, for the most part. They don''t yip and yap, they don''t have to. A whisper from an emperor can move armies. A whisper from a conspirator, certain of their power, can remove an emperor. You can shout at the ocean to stop all you want to, it will ignore you. And yet if you walk out into the surf it will flow around you.


    ¡°stop¡±


    Just that simple statement was all I needed. This was my body and here, at least, I was me, nothing else mattered. Maybe I couldn''t control the world, I couldn''t escape this prison. But here, in this body, nothing else mattered. I was in charge.


    ¡°stop¡±


    And it did, the Order remained outside my mouth but the Chaos still continued on its circuit.


    ¡°stop¡± I commanded once again and the Chaos shuddered once before then continuing on its path once more, and I found that I had run up against the limits of my power rather quickly. When you go out too far into the surf, the waves will knock you under. The Order started crashing back down but again I focused on it slightly and said again. ¡°Stop.¡± And it did. Okay well baby steps are still forward momentum.


    Focusing on the Chaos. I decided to experiment just a little bit. ¡°Speed up.¡± This it did effortlessly, no longer being forced through by the Order. The Chaos doubled its speed, now spewing back forth out into the Order. As my veins began emptying of the energy, instead of sending it out into the mountain holding still above me. I started to circulate it, having it go around again, holding on to it, keeping it contained in my body.


    With no more pressure pushing into it, the Chaos bounced around, now contained by my own internal Order barriers. Circling through my circulatory system effortlessly, not because it was forced onward, but merely because that seemed to be the nature of the energy. This perhaps might have been why I was able to stop the Order hanging above me, as it was in line with its nature. While I remained unable to stop the Chaos with my current understanding, only able contain the energetic Qi, not lock it back into Order.


    Around and around I went. Searching for anything that might indicate I had found my core.


    Around and around endlessly. Bouncing.


    Bouncing through again.


    Opening my mouth, I let another half of the Chaos out, feeling even less pressure internally.


    Around and around, the mote I had attached my thoughts to went, still bouncing along.


    Opening again, I let the remaining Chaos go, only holding onto a singular mote. Yet I still couldn''t find anything. Confused, I decided to try something else. As I came back around once again to the beginning. I looked at the iceberg still hanging down over me unmoving. ¡°Come.¡± I stated, and a mote broke off, this mote was bigger, however it seemed like Order Qi was more like a brick at its most basic point, compared to a pea size bit, that the Chaos I was attached to remained. It floated over to me and as it grew nearer, it suddenly shot towards the Chaos, which itself in turn bulleted into the Order. Continuing the rest of the way over to me, the Order brick turned into a globe. As the Chaos sent itself around the interior of the Order brick, bouncing around the interior, punching it out until it smoothed over the interior, giving it equal space to move in any direction.


    Letting this new, dual mote, of singular order and chaos loose into my bloodstream. I attached myself to it, and let my heart pump it around as it would, giving it no direction. It went around fully until it made it back to my heart. There it seemed to catch itself in an eddy, where it swirled around the heart a couple of times, before being sent out again. Again it made its way around my bloodstream, before once again being caught in the eddy in my heart, where it swirled around before again being kicked out randomly. This time I let it go while trying to maintain my focus where it was. Eventually the mote once again made its way around, and while it circulated in the same point like there was a whirlpool there, before it again eventually got kicked back out to make another trip around the body.


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    I sent my conscience floating over to where the invisible whirlpool was. It didn''t seem to be affecting my blood, so I waited for the mote to reappear on its journey again. This time I tried to compress my thoughts down to a smaller entity than the globe, I needed to figure out where this whirlpool was pointing. This seemed to be the only way I could find what I figured was either my core or a meridian, depending on lore. As the Order mote¡¯s new house-size beach ball came hurtling towards me, with its baseball mote of Chaos bouncing around inside of it. I saw the baseball hit a point on the house size ball, and like a magnet, that point stayed facing a singular point in my body, despite the ball rotating around the tornado-like vortex.


    Immediately I dove for that point. Diving through the heart I went underneath it, where I ran into a speck of blackness. Overjoyed at the progress I had made, I tried to dive into it, looking to examine it closer, only to find myself repelled as I got near it. Again I dove for it, only to once again bounce off as I grew close to it. Pushing slower this time, instead of trying to use speed to force myself closer, I started feeling a force repelling me. Deeper I forced myself down, with the force seeming to grow exponentially stronger the closer I got. Inching deeper and deeper, I did my best to force my way close enough to touch it, but as I got closer the force continued to increase until eventually I shot away.


    Flummoxed, I tried calling the Order and Chaos mote back over to me, to see if it would react differently. Gasping, I felt a sharp pain in my heart, as I felt it try to break through to get to me. Stopping my pull on it, I went back to it instead. Effortlessly sliding through the wall of my heart I focused on the point where the combined mote was hovering at, ignoring the blood rushing around it with my command to maintain its place. I tried telling it to go through again. Again I felt the pain in my heart and I stopped once again.


    Getting closer to the globe, I focused on my heart walls and slowly sent the mote towards them. This time trying to send as slowly as I could, and as it started trying to push its way through the walls of the artery. I saw the barriers that had been containing the Qi earlier start to stretch, and as I saw it stretching, I felt the pain pulse in intensity with me.


    Backing off, I realized I was coming quickly to a point of no return. Before I had pressed random buttons, desperate to escape. Then like many long running tv series, I had been finding myself forced to constantly fix the mistakes I caused with my own desperate flailing. Now I was going to either have to deliberately do something stupid, in the belief that I would gain power from it; or I was going to have to leave it alone forever. No longer theoretical, I had found the button I believed I needed to push to gain actual power over the cosmos. It''s easy to say you want power. Now I was finding that I might need to risk my life for it. The pain was telling me that I was risking destroying my heart in my experiments to understand. At this point, with my level of understanding, I could maintain the status quo and wait for release. Or I could risk death and continue on.


    Wavering, I chose to back off. Taking the mote with me, I sent myself around the circulatory system until I arrived at the little toe of my right foot. As the least important part of my body, I decided if I was going to experiment, it should probably be here. Pushing the mote into the capillary wall, I felt a speck of pain and pulled it back. Wanting to try just using the Chaos, I tried commanding it out of the Order it had been locked into and found that I couldn''t anymore.


    So instead I called out to the mountain hanging above me. I called a handful of Chaos into my system, and waited patiently until it had made its way over.


    When they arrived, I focused on keeping them in the area. While they moved around as energetically as toddlers, I was unable to force them to focus on a singular spot, no matter how hard I tried. No matter what happened, they kept bouncing off of the internal Order walls of my cells. Sending them on, I called on some Order bricks to come down to replace them. When the bricks, which had not yet turned into globes by an internal chaos source arrived. I sent them into the capillary wall, this time once again feeling a pain that the Chaos had been unable to cause on its own. Pausing again, I held the Order bricks steady, blood flowing around them, until the Chaos motes made their way back. Immediately upon coming up, they were drawn to each other like magnets, until each brick became a globe, with the excess chaos bouncing around endlessly.


    Hmmmm¡¯ing to myself I tried pushing two of the globes together¡­ and nothing happened.


    Unperturbed, I held an orb out and sent a second Chaos mote into it¡­ it entered and the globe promptly shattered into jagged pieces, yet only a single chaos mote remained. As the pieces fell down, I felt a sharp pain in my toe, as they cut effortlessly through the capillary wall. Fortunately the cut seemed small enough that the blood cells weren''t able to get out. Although the walls began bulging out with their integrity somewhat compromised. Sending the remaining Chaos motes on except for one I decided to try the inverse of the experiment. Calling down two motes of Order, while I waited for them to arrive, I moved slightly farther down, instead of remaining in the tip of the toe. Upon their arrival the Chaos mote immediately zoomed together with an Order brick and formed a globe after a beat. Forcing the other Order brick to combine with it, it felt similar as to when I had tried to approach the black hole, however this time I was able to eventually overpower the pressure and force them together. At first it tried to maintain its globe shape, but eventually it compressed back down into a brick and something oozed out, covering it. Dripping off, it fell onto the capillary wall and again I felt pain; this time a burning sensation sprang up from my toe, as little circles appeared in the capillary walls instead of jagged tears.


    While I had no doubt come up with two novel new ways to get through the walls of my heart. I still had yet to figure out any way to empower myself with these forces. Neither one on their own, was able to force through the walls of my circulatory system. When I combined them, it seemed like I would be able to force the new greater entity through, and tear a section open. When I tried using one force against the other party to overpower and destroy the other I ended up with secondary substances devoid of energy that could make holes in me like I was butter.


    Well, with only one last logical experiment to go, I moved down to the base of my toe and prepared to kiss it goodbye if things went the inverse of what I had planned. Calling down three motes of Order and Chaos I first formed two Globes and while keeping the remaining individual motes separated from the other. First, sending the excess Order into a globe, as the liquid came out, I used my new command over my body to hold it steady, separate from everything. Repeating the process with the excess Chaos mote, I held the jagged pieces of broken order together and when I was sure I had them all. I mixed the broken down Chaos and Order together to form a paste.


    Expecting it to glow, grow together, or at the worst explode and blow my toe off. I grew confused when they just mixed easily together, but did nothing else except float there in my bloodstream. Holding it motionless with my will was easy as it showed no sign of wanting to do anything else. Letting it drop into my capillary wall, I lightly smiled, as I finally found what I hoped was success. The capillary walls absorbed the paste and I didn''t feel any pain as it disappeared into the walls. Calling the remaining Order and Chaos mote over, I quickly let them combine and pushed the globe into the newly empowered wall. It stretched out slightly before rebounding and sending the globe rocketing through the other wall in a burst of pain.


    Smiling at the success, despite the pain from the unintended consequences. I quickly got to work on the long process ahead of me, and reinforced all of the blood walls in my toe. Knowing that blood needed a way to get nutrients to the muscles, I held off on moving on to the rest of the body. Going back to the tip where the jagged cuts were now healed up I called a combined orb over and sent it rocketing into the wall pushing as hard as I could I couldn''t break through.


    ¡°You see, this is why you double check, before applying experiments to all of your body." I told myself. Quickly forming the respective acid and knives I sent a speck of each into the walls, this time I had to strain myself, but I was able to break through and while the knife left a tiny slit that would let nutrients through without letting the wall burst; the acid instead chewed through a tunnel that the walls pressure was able to keep closed. Confident now that I wasn¡¯t going to cripple myself I set to work repeating the process all throughout my body.


    Ending up back at my heart, I left off empowering the rest of my muscles while only focusing on the circulatory system. Still nervous that I would find out that upon escaping this ball that the world hadn''t been upgraded with this higher energy source, I didn''t want to leave myself crippled upon exit. Your veins and arteries are just glorified rubber hoses, containing the blood as it moves through you. But with my heart I was considering upgrading the tissue, I was worried that the arteries would tear off, when I wasn''t being held motionless.


    Decisions, decisions.


    Tapping an imaginary toe, I decided that having to eat more was probably a better problem to have, than possibly having the arteries and veins rip off of one''s heart, in an explosion of internal bleeding. So I got back to mixing the paste and started empowering the cells of my heart.


    With one last cell to go I hovered right over the spot that had started it all. I had built my channels and strengthened my heart. Now I had to decide if that speck I had found was a meridian, a core or something else. Also if I was willing to put a hole in my heart to send energy through to it¡­


    Remembering my resolve, and knowing that a core needed to be expanded as far as possible, while meridians usually needed an endless stream of energy to break through. Either way I was going to need loads of energy, so I let the mountain begin collapsing once more into me, sending the Chaos Qi flying back through in a torrent. Taking a moment, I shot over to the mountain where I saw that the Chaos was flying back up through the center. Looking to where it was recombining with the Order to once again fall back down, in an effort to form a never ending mountain constantly falling down into me. One mystery solved. I focused on taking some of that stream of Order and driving it inwards, not wanting to unbalance myself with a single energy. I rotated it around keeping the Chaos separate from the Order, twisting it around like a rope with my blood as the center. Refusing to let it combine, as I completely filled my system almost to bursting. Then I cut off the mountain again temporarily while keeping the braided energy flowing around through me.


    Calling over a singular brick of Order, I took a deep breath and sent out a quick prayer into the universe. Then I stepped over the line that only hindsight would determine was the difference between Wisdom and Foolishness. I sent the brick hurtling into the single remaining, unempowered cell, directly over the black dot I had found previously.


    It destroyed the cell utterly.


    Immediately, the two types of Qi started getting sucked through the heart wall in a vortex. Following them in, I thought I would be seeing them be sucked into the speck, but instead I was seeing them combining to form an ever increasing globe. With the Chaos motes being pressed deeper into the center around the speck but not entering it. I immediately deduced that I was forming my core, not breaking through a meridian. Looking closer, it seemed like two motes of Order would combine with one Chaos mote and form a globe. Confused as my experiments seemed to indicate this would cause them to break down and create an acid. The globes were spinning around joining with other Order globes. The individual Chaos specks continued bouncing around in the center. This seemed to be maintaining the balance, stopping the globes from breaking down their interior Chaos into an acid, by giving the Order a secondary force to act upon. The Order globes continued to join together as more and more energy came pouring in. The individual globes were joining together into what I was assuming was my core, forming a bubble of two part Order, one part Chaos in the individual cellular globe and One part Chaos surrounding the black speck bouncing around in the center pushing the combination globe out. Surprised at the lack of pain I was feeling, I could only open back up the source of Order and Chaos, as EVERY series I had ever read agreed that the largest core you could build was the ABSOLUTE most important part of any aspiring cultivators foundation. Apparently the universe was finally throwing me a bone, having everything happen on autopilot instead of needing imput from me.


    As the mountain of Order continued to break down and pour in, the new combined globe just kept growing bigger and bigger. At first it looked like a balloon blowing up, and as it continued to grow I grew more nervous that I was about to explode my chest. Yet, I still wasn''t feeling any pain, I grew confused as most authors agreed that increasing one''s power to the next level should be painful. Also, I was blowing up a balloon in my chest, before when I sent a single globe intowards my heart, pressing on it slightly, made me think I was having a heart attack. As the globe started reaching the size of an actual balloon and I still didn''t feel any pain. I could only conclude that upon breaching that last cell I had entered the metaphysical spot in my center that was my inner world.


    With a mountain above me eagerly breaking down to its separate parts in its anxiousness to be consumed, and armed with the knowledge that bigger is better in the cores as with life, I smiled and got to work, sending more of the energy right on in.


    More and more of the mountain was consumed outside yet it never seemed to diminish as I continued to feed the endless appetite of the black speck. Although none of the Chaos was pushed into it, instead the motes continued to rotate around it, bouncing out again and again, forcing my core to expand continuously. Now of a size able to surround my actual body, if I had been able to bring it in from regular space, I rubbed my metaphorical hands together in glee, as I wondered if I was creating a pocket dimension I would be able to carry my pack in upon exiting this hell ball.


    Bigger and bigger it continued to grow until it reached the size of a car.


    Now a truck.


    Now closing in on the size of a city block, part of me started having doubts. But too many series that I had read, had an inner world as normally a midgame or endgame point for cultivation. So no doubt starting off with it would be something I would have to hide, lest I rouse the jealousy that would get me killed before I could become a threat.


    Now the size of a small town, I continued to let it build marveling at the perfect roundness it was forming.


    As it grew to the size of a decent sized mountain, I finally felt a shudder. Cutting off the flow from the exterior. I watch the walls slowly harden as the interior chaos flew out of the center in an explosion finding its matching globe. Every speck entered a globe and flew around with its twin, faster and faster until one speck from each globe flew into an adjoining one all at the same time. Faster and faster the leaving specks rocketed through the globes forming a mountain of blindness that would have no doubt have burned out my eyes, had I been looking at them in my my physical body. Eventually it grew dim and I looked on at what had been created inside of me.


    Apparently locking itself into a matrix, it looked like the excess Chaos had combined with the secondary Order mote of the globes. They now formed interlocking tubes between all of the globes, while the remaining Chaos motes now moved through the tubes, surrounding my core in a soft glow of light, keeping the walls of Order stable while being able to bounce endlessly throughout the entirety of the core wall.


    Again I felt a shudder. Yet looking around everything seemed to be stable here.


    Turning the mountain back on, I let the energy flow into me, not wanting to fill up the mountain with tiny marbles of the combined energy, I kept the flows separate as they entered. Again as my core began filling up, I felt another shudder.


    Oh! That''s right, for too long I had been stuck in my inner world. I forgot the whole reason I was anxious to power up, was that there was a hell ball imprisoning me.


    Either I had finally drained too much energy or it had decided to open on its own.

 Chapter 7

    Chapter Seven


    With what seemed to be an inverse of agonizing slowness, as opposed to the lightning fast closing that locked me into this shadow hell, the walls slowly inched higher. Kneeling down like a toddler trying to peek under a door to spy on their parents. I tried staring under the walls to get some idea of my surroundings. Was I still on the California coast? How much time has passed? Desperate for answers I narrowed my eyes, silently urgering the walls to retreat faster. A ridiculous move, like staring into the sun after being trapped in a cave for days, I see nothing. Immediately I try shutting my eyes to prevent myself from going blind. Standing back up slowly, I try taking another tack and I decide to go with the superhuman instead, sending my senses out. I notice that everything else is still trapped, frozen like a mosquito in amber, seemingly lifeless. I make a quick guess that it will remain like that until the walls finish their march to the sky, retreating back to whatever merciless hell that they came from. As I move my mind past the small herd of mule deers, still stuck in various poses of grazing. I see waves of chaotic Qi swirling over and around them, like a snowglobe being shaken furiously by a toddler, until my thoughts reach the wall. I see the Qi of the dark walls, with its symmetrical channels still jagged like lightning, despite their removal from the ground and start to begin observing what is happening underneath.


    What I see worries me immensely, the turbulent Qi of our hell ball is staying completely separate from its counterpart beyond the gate that is slowly rising beyond my spectral head. Sending my Qi sense closer, I try to observe this new foreign Qi, anxious to gain any ideas as to what is waiting for me now that escape is finally within my grasp. Frantically my mind churned, how long has it been? Everything else in here has been frozen, and while my body hasn¡¯t seemed to have aged, is that because no time has actually passed, and my thoughts have just been magically speeded up? Or is it because despite the freedom of my mind and the slightest movement I have been able to grant myself; the chaotic Qi of the ball is still surrounding and running through me, preserving me like a honey from the pharaoh''s tomb, still edible thousands of years later? More questions that I had put off continue to shoot through my head. As the specter of freedom finally begins to become real, with more and more of the wall continues lighting up, as the gates of freedom continue to retreat higher into the sky. Finally unleashed, the hamster in my mind seems to make a mad dash for the corner of its cage. Where from underneath its pile of ¡®dirt¡¯,  it pulls from its emergency stash and with a giant snort, it leaps back to its wheel. Where with only the frantic energy that someone with ADHD can know, it starts shooting out a stream of unending questions, some repeating themselves as it spirals in its junky madness that it had been kept from for so long.


    How long has it been? Am I still in California? Will there be Qi on the other side of these walls when I get out? Was I captured for a  purpose? Or was I just caught up in a bid to catch something else? Was this ball sent out on purpose? Or, was it instead just a hazard floating through the universal space or time, looking for something to trigger its closure? Did I do something to cause it to close, like a greedy rat, stepping into a trap searching for cheese? Or do I merely have supremely bad luck? Or, instead do I have supremely divine luck? Is it an immense good fortune that has struck me, to make up for the pain and suffering of this eternity that I have been trapped in here, learning to manipulate this chaotic Qi? Will I, when these walls open, be able to use my new (what I can only assume to be) God-like powers to quickly consolidate power? To rule the world with my children by my side, using my powers to create some fantastical utopia where everyone is amazingly happy while all hunger and greed are wiped out by threat of my wrath? With an imaginary snort, I shake my head and quickly give a blast of narcan to the crazy gerbil running wild. As I see that the wall is nearing its halfway point to the apex. I quickly conclude that I don''t have time for the fantastical delusion that an outside force can impose happiness and selfishness on the entirety, or even the minority of the world. I have only a short time left remaining to try and experiment, looking for any clues to help me in my bid for survival and returning to my family.


    Getting my vision self as close as I can to the event horizon, I stare more deeply into it, trying to find the exact border between light and darkness. I quickly realize that I am lucky that I had no time to come here physically as my true eyes would have undoubtedly caused me to waste time that I seem to finally be growing short on. Unable to be blinded by physical light I soon realize that my initial analogy was spot on, although inverted. Unlike a black hole, sucking down and trapping light into its center, expelling it from our universe like a toilet swirling its disgusting mess away. The event horizon here, is much like how I imagine it would have looked to an observer when I sent my consciousness towards the tiny black speck in the center of my core. As I grew closer, the harder it pushed me away.


    With an inner glare at my hamster, I indicate to it that it can step back onto the wheel for a couple of seconds to spin out a few more questions, but not to over do it. Will this new barrier remain after the wall is gone? Forever keeping us trapped in this chaos Qi removed from the world like a ghostly snowglobe paradigm shifted to be slightly out of phase with the rest of time? Not worth wasting the energy on going down that road until I know for sure what is happening. I will find out for sure once the dark walls finally reach their apex above us and leave us surrounded by light for good. With a tightening of my eyes, I indicate to the hamster it quickly better send out something useful or the wheel would quickly become locked once again. Instantly the wheel shoots out: Can you interact with the barrier without being hurt? Finally, a useful question from that despicable little rodent, whose only real purpose before had been to test the bounds of my ability to pretend sanity in a world of normal people.


    Reaching my hand closer to the invisible barrier that was keeping the Chaos Qi from the light. I quickly realized that I had never tried to manipulate the Chaos without my mind being bound in my body before. With no time like the present to begin learning a new skill, I quickly think back to my experiments with Order and Chaos. I quickly settled my astral body into the lotus position, where I began trying to sink into my core and the apparent time dilation that came with it. Trying to greedily snag one last benefit before the gates finally opened. Where I finally will break into the next phase of what awaited me, finally finding out if I am being released into a dream or nightmare.


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    Going instead of to the center of my body, where every cultivation novel told me I should have been able to condense a core. I went to my heart chamber and the small asteroid--sized globe I had formed, with this Chaos and Order Qi still running through the middle of it. I tried to feel the rest of my imaginary body around it while keeping my mind, in the cavernous mountain, that held that black speck in the center of my core. Doing my best to picture the superimposition of the channels running through my body. I focused on feeling the energy running through my astral body. Squeezing my spectral chest tight while tightening my bowels. I did my best to mimic what I had done with my physical body, projecting Order onto the Chaos and trying to braid the river of duel energies through the channels. Slowly¡­ glacially slow like molasses, the rivers began to flow through my astral body. At first, just the main channels of my arteries and veins were flowing. But as the first of the headwaters reentered my heart chamber and were sent right back out again. The flow gradually began to increase and the capillaries got into the action as well, sending their stagnant energy flowing back into the rivers as fresh Qi replaced it. Years or seconds, I still found it impossible to tell while maintaining my consciousness at the level it could manipulate the Qi. With the Chaos Qi flow being relegated to my subconscious, I sent my active focus to the capillaries of my right index finger. While common sense would say to go back to my left index finger. As that had been where I had initially gained the freedom, that had led to the circumstances where I had first started gaining magical powers. I instead chose my right index finger. I Made the choice for several reasons, not the least of which being that I was right handed, so I hoped to have more conscious control over what I was attempting. I am also willing to abandon the finger that had a) gotten me into this mess and b) was part of the demon hand that was primarily used by those awful beings. The ones that had consumed their twins in utero, infiltrating true humanity with their disgusting otherworldliness.


    Reaching my mind into the furthest tip of the capillary running through my main index finger. I began the slow experimentation of trying to push the silvery channels that mirrored the circulatory system of my physical body, through the barrier that remained even though the walls had retreated. Still unsure whether I was interacting with the soul of my body and if this was truly a good idea. I searched, once again through all the cultivation novels I still enjoyed as an adult, for any hint of the best way to go about this. Unfortunately, most fell into one of two categories: Either the cultivator had two systems one of body cultivation and one of mystical which he would somehow find a way bring both to the apex through the generosity of the many young masters he would run across who couldn''t wait to give multitudes of spacial rings stuffed with the exact unique resource that our mc would happen to need. Further setting up an enmity for their families to come along later with a more powerful member who will undoubtedly decide to bring with them to donate once again exactly what our mc needed. Or while the second version would usually include both a body and magic cultivation system (and would definitely include the much needed idiot young masters with even more overbearing families who can not wait to fund the mc''s meteoric rise to the heavens) it would also involve soul cultivation.  The Soul cultivator would undoubtedly be the most difficult path to growing stronger but the mc would pass through the rapids with the ease of a salmon swimming up rivers, sometimes struggling, but undoubtedly easier than every other person of his universe, part way through gaining the ability to split his soul in twain to either bringing twice the power in two bodies or having multiple bodies that could each control a singular resource exquisitely without having to struggle to maintain both that mere mortals following him would have to. I hoped that this extended trip outside my body was indicating that I would be following the later path, but several things were telling me that it might just be a pipe dream.


    First and most importantly, the exactness in which the chaos Qi was moving throughout my spectral channels, After I had got the Qi going fully and before projecting myself smaller  into my index finger,I had first glance back at my physical body and saw the chaos Qi moving in the exact, same pattern. This, instead of indicating that my soul was actually splitting off of my body, made me think that it was more likely this chaos had a quantum mechanic to it and that I had somehow tapped into it. That I was using the Qi to see and maintain it remotely instead of actually having my soul be metaphysically seperated from my body. Secondly and slightly less important was the fact that I was seeing light on the other side of this barrier. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this had to be a construct of my imagination. I was thinking of the barrier like glass because my mind was seeing the Chaos walls retreating back to the sky. My mind was telling me that if darkness was retreating then obviously its opposite must be driving it back. It was an easy assumption to make but there were two problems to that as well. One being, that if the light was driving the darkness away, then the entire ball should be lighting up like a Christmas light, with the wall of black not keeping it out. Two, and the biggest reason, is that light is a wave, similar to sound. If I had ¡®observed¡¯ there was a barrier keeping the Chaos Qi one hundred percently separate from whatever its counterpart energy was on the other side, then it would be impossible for me to be seeing any actual light. As the wall was keeping all energy, including light waves out, regardless of the edge of the Chaos Qi retreating.  If I follow that thought along that I was imagining the light out there, then it was also much more likely that the astral body I was seeing was just a translation of the quantum signal I was sending out through the Chaos, like the return wave of the sonar a sub sends out, my mind was just translating the signal and throwing it up on a monitor in my subconscious.


    One puzzle figured out and either confirmed with the ¡®light¡¯ from outside the barrier disappearing as my mind realized it was generating an illusion; or not actually confirmed and my mind was blocking it out in an effort to wrap me in the delusion I was asking of it. I finally turned my mind to breaking through the capillaries and manifesting energy movement outside my body¡­ I''m an idiot. So focused on the problem that I completely didn¡¯t realize I had run past the solution in my effort to do things the hard way. I already had a way to use the chaos Qi outside of my body! If, as I suspected, that my close up view of the barrier and my subsequent vision of my spectral body churning up my Qi was a construct I was using to interpret my remote manipulation then all I had to do was raise my hand up and ¡­ Pop!


    ¡°This is why you need a proper plan, stupid¡±, I muttered to myself. Not taking the time I really, really wanted to. Wanting to slam my knuckles into my head, to try for another one of countless times, to knock the stupid out of my brain. I dove onto my pack, clutching it for dear life, as the wall disappeared with the suddenness of a balloon in a three-year olds sharp fingernails. I felt the chaos being ripped out of my mouth as it shot up into the sky with all of the fury of a nuclear bomb.

 Chapter 8

    Chapter Eight


    ¡°God damn it stupid!¡± I yelled to myself in my head. ¡°When will you learn to not just go with whatever brilliant thought pops into your head! Why do you have to be so sure of yourself all of the time. Stop blanking up because you ¡®know¡¯ you figured crap out. All of that energy just got wasted because you had to test the first god damn thought that popped into your head instead of taking the time to finish experimenting.¡± I continued berating myself in my head.


    Looking around, I saw that instead of spraying out of the hole I poked, like a rocket shooting forth into the sky. The barrier had instead completely evaporated, and all of the Chaos and Order Qi were streaming out to the sides, before heading off into the sky in a wave of darkness. Looking down and seeing the energy also soak up out of the ground, like a reverse rain puddle, before continuing on its journey away from me. I quickly looked back inside of me to see the Chaos and Order braid continue its circuits through my channels, it at least seemed to show no intention of leaving my body. With a small, thoughtful sigh of relief, my flip flopping emotions once again found themselves quickly turned to horror. As I felt with that small tiny sigh, a noticeable amount of braided energy left me, to flee and try to join back up with their brethren farther ahead up into the sky. Quickly closing my mouth, I was determined to keep the rest of my Qi internalized. While I undoubtedly only hastened this process only a quick minute, as it would have certainly also happened had I waited for the wall to continue its inexorable rise. As the last of the Qi streamed its way up from the ground and its suppressing pressure started to wear off I tried to tell myself comfortingly that it was okay and I hadn''t actually hurried the process along. Hearing the crash of a wave for the first time in ages I quickly began noticing several other facts, letting my mind quickly forget the catastrophe it had just caused.


    Firstly, the rising Qi wasn''t taking anything with it, like hydrophobic sand being pulled out of an aquarium, it was leaving everything that was part of my world behind. Two, there wasn''t a rush of air coming back in, like if it was a fuel air bomb going off. No, instead of a rush of air bombarding myself and the rest of my former roommates. It was like a tank slowly being pumped full of water from the bottom, gently rising up, and resuming its former place. As the pressure from the chaos Qi removed itself, I began to see the birds in the air beating their wings again. It seemed that the advent of wind moving as well had been what returned sound to my ears, as the waves of the ocean continued their crashing. With a light feeling in my stomach that I at first thought was my body turning nauseous, instead I saw when I looked down that my body was slowly rising from my pack. As the Chaos and Order in my channels wanted to rejoin its friends in the cloud of darkness, that was already starting to quickly disappear into the boundaries of sky and space.


    Already screwed by my lack of planning, I had no choice but to double down and make some quick final decisions before hoping for the best. Doing my best to swiftly run through options in my mind, I went down the decision trees as fast as I could:


    Try to keep the Qi in my body or let it go? Stupid question, not taking that risk. Already I have messed up twice, so let''s not go for the trifecta. Whatever the possible benefits there might be to retaining my internal Qi, it is not worth the risks of being dragged off to space and living the rest of my short life in the coldness of vacuum.


    First decision easily made, and with my future multitudes of descendants no doubt cursing my choice to give up power so easily. I next moved on to deciding both how to get rid of it and if I wanted to use it on the way out to make any final last minute changes to my channels. I had never been completely happy with what I ended up with. It always seemed incomplete to me. Yes, they had amazing flexibility and toughness, tempered as they were with broken Chaos and Order. But what use is there with a highway with the only exit being where the entrance is? I need more ways to get off!


    Continuing to maintain circulation. I focus on my capillaris, going around my body to all of the spots I had skipped before in my effort to make circulation easier without submerging and tempering my body in broken energy. I quickly worked on drilling into the end of them so they could go back to their original function of providing nutrients to the muscles, organs and bones. In essence, now that I had an exquisite highway system and amazing surface roads, I wanted to pour billions of driveways to match, so the blood was able to go to their home and smoothly roll down hill into their garages.


    Carefully, I pulled the Qi back into my circulatory system after creating each exit at the end of the capillary. I still didn''t want to take a risk of tempering any actual parts of my body. Possibly upping the energy requirements, and leaving me desperate for sustenance or worse unable to move. With my being miles from civilization weighing hugely on my mind. As long as I still had an empty core, contrary to what every cultivation novel told me should exist in my body. I was not going to upgrade the energy requirements of the engine, without having assured my fuel supply. Even though I had an amazing power grid, without the energy to run through it, I had no desire to shut down in a blackout so far from another human being. Becoming a bear''s lunch, because I was unable to move, made the thought on gambling with another possible upgrade to my body completely unpalatable. Forget a bear eating me, if I fell to the ground here, unable to move, the crabs would no doubt get to me first. Okay, that is enough nightmare fuel for now, shivering I gave myself another second to envision the horror of slowly being swarmed by crabs, being eaten alive, frozen in gridlock. Going to nope myself right out of that! Definitely not worth the risk. The upgrade to my circulatory system was fine, and only upgrading my heart was enough of a risk as it was. That just was infrastructure, with no energy requirements necessary to maintain it currently, it seemed to be several tiers above my still mortal blood.


    With my internal cultivation future assured for when I ever figured out how to fill my core. I opened my eyes to see my pack floating on the ground about five feet away¡­Nope scratch that, the ground wasn¡¯t floating away from me, clearly I was floating away from the ground. As the abandoned braided Qi that remained in my body, desperately fought to rejoin its brethren disappearing over the horizon. With all that I could think of being left was outlets for my future cultivator powers or spells. Depending on whatever had happened to the rest of the world while I was away. Too many apocalypse books went through my head, was this an invasion? Or, was it a system universe taking over, removing us from the planet while it was remade around me? With a decision needing to quickly be made I chose to give myself a broad base for the future. Deciding to swiftly kill two birds with one stone, I chose to use the effort of releasing Qi to rejoin its friends to cut the apertures I would undoubtedly need in the future to power my skills.


    Swiftly running through my option of cookie cutter builds for cultivators, I started venting Qi. While knowing that the apex of techniques to learn is healing, I didn''t have any good thoughts on a way I could quickly create something to cast spells like that with channels externally. I would have to hope I could find the means to internally heal myself later. Next on the list of must have spells, has to be a movement spell. Flight is normally prized, but if given the option I would choose to have a quicker step; rather than hang in the air, waiting to be shot like a glorified balloon. So casting down into my feet, I started to slowly cut microscopic holes. Being sure to get the bottoms of all of my toes and the soles of my feet. I cut a bigger opening into both of my heels in case I wanted a channel for a kick strike as well. Being parallel to the ground from hugging my pack, the venting luckily pushed me forward, instead of up into the sky. Working my way up I put holes into my knees, for the possible knee strikes I would need when my eventual master chose to finally come find me and take me on a training arc that would make any Chosen proud.  One at a time, I cut them, so that the venting would start to flip me over. Continuing to spin, I moved onto my upper extremities and counter acted the spin by cutting the holes into the tips of my elbows in the reverse order. As I made my way perpendicular to the ground. I wanted to finally be done with this, so I can begin my trek home to the kids. I raised my hands above my head, facing them up to the sky, so as not to amplify my stupidity. I pointed my hands toward the retreating energy and began venting out my finger tips the channels I would undoubtedly need to write runes in the air later. Sending it out in lines of power. Feet hitting the ground in a crouch, I moved onto the palms of my hands, where the exiting Qi then combined into one giant beam which shot forth into the sky.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    With the majority of the Qi, I had kept back from its friends, sent on its journey to catch back up. I looked up and sent some of the last little bit out through my eyes, in the effort to prepare myself for the future for gaining the third leg of every successful cultivators repertoire, an eye technique. Feeling pretty good about the quick choices I had made for my future powers. I had the evil part of my brain whispering quietly that I had undoubtedly f''d up bad. Shutting down the doubters'' voice, I lifted my mouth to the sky and with a giant exhale, vented the last of the braided Qi out. To finally escape, now that its dastardly mission was finished. As I inhaled my first real breath in ages, I felt some of the chaos get tangled up and dragged back into my cavern along with a lighter energy in the air. As it was a miniscule amount, it didn''t seem to affect me, so I ignored it in my efforts to move around again for the first time in centuries. Feeling a heaviness slowly start to come back to me, as gravity began reasserting itself. The last of the braided Qi made its way back up to the sky, chasing after its brethren in a stream of golden black rope.


    Looking into my core, I had some hope that the exodus of braided Qi leaving would have caused a vacuum to suck in the natural energy of the world. Starting the process that I needed to use to be able to compress and ignite it. The first of many steps most writers agree was the beginning of the journey I needed to continue my growth. Returning to my center, disappointment quickly began to grow, as I swiftly observed that it was now an empty cavern. A small few Chaos Qi particles still in the center, bouncing chaotically around in a randomness that had prompted my naming them such.


    Leaving them alone, with no good way to force them out. I focused on taking more real breaths, now that I was finally returned to Terra Firma. The emptiness in my lungs was starting to weigh heavily on me. As I started to breathe in, my mind quickly started spinning out possible scenarios wanting to be ready for all possibilities that the universe would choose to throw into my path. The top likely scenarios for me, based on all of the apocalypse lit I have read, seemed to be:


    Everyone had found themselves in either their own ball or groups of people had been taken, I leaned more to the second option, seeing as all of the wildlife that got taken with me. With everyone removed, the planet was free to be upgraded, seeded with new resources and challenges to promote our growth. Leading to our eventual harvesting or exploitation from a greater power.


    Parts of the world got ripped away and upgraded, while the rest remained the same. This being more likely due something natural that happened in the universe, rather than an outside power finding us and choosing to invest in our growth.


    Or, all of the world had been ripped apart by the shadow balls and we were dragged somewhere else to be combined with either another world or several. Where humanity would either have to unite for survival or a champion would emerge to lead us.


    Options one and three seemed like the most likely options in mind, which led me to think that with the departure of the chaos Qi there should be something coming in to replace it. But the only thing that was troubling me was that I didn''t see it with my chaos vision, which itself seemed to be getting weaker with the energy''s departure from my body.


    Steeling myself to be ready for anything, with my lungs feeling like empty bags, I finally inhaled deeply¡­ I felt my lungs reinflating and my heart began pumping blood alone in my circulation. Starting to feel disappointed, I quickly took another breath, then another¡­ stopping before I began to hyperventilate, I sat down to pause and take a beat. This was getting me nowhere. You can''t live off of hope and what if''s. All you have is reality. Crossing my legs I began to try and meditate. With the higher energy gone, I didn''t seem to be able to get back to my central core. Breathing slowed down, I tried to focus on finding my center, by trying to remember my previous path there now that I no longer had the Chaos Qi to light my way.


    With my legs crossed into a lotus pose, I took a deep breath and sent my consciousness with it, following it down into my lungs and from there I lost it. Again I took a breath and sent my consciousness spiraling down into my lungs, searching for the core that I had found so easily before. This time I stayed down longer, going from my lungs to my heart and straining to see the massive mountain that I had helped build there, but once again I found nothing. I started into my circulatory system and made it part of the way through before once more being dragged back out by my body. I need to take a breath. It seems that I no longer can maintain myself in my body endlessly. Whether this is because I no longer have the massive amounts of Qi running through me to power possible energy requirements, or because I am no longer being frozen in time by the ball from hell. Either way it doesn''t really matter.


    Glancing up at the sky, I focus on the braid of Qi retreating over the horizon, focusing on it and trying to remember the way it looked and felt moving through me. I take another deep breath and dive in, this time I don''t try to follow it down. I just ignore it and try to go straight to my core itself. Rather than trying to maintain logic and follow a guide through my physical body, I turn to memory and try to not focus. I had spent several lifetimes growing my energy pathways and building the cavernous globe that was my core. So I stop trying to find my way there and instead just go home. Such a simple concept, part of me is surprised when it manages to work. Finding myself inside the asteroid that is my core, I see several Chaos Qi particles floating in the center. Confused because the last time I was here they were bouncing off of the walls, I moved in closer.


    The core still seems empty, but something is now holding the Chaos Qi in the center around the black speck. It seems from my vantage like the tiny dot in the center is now glowing even brighter than the Chaos that surrounds it. The speck is a blackness that seems to glow dark despite being surrounded by the light of the Qi around it. Like an inverse of the sun in an empty solar system, the black maintained itself dead center, while trying to gobble up the light which was furiously trying to escape its grasp. Sending myself as close as I could before I was repelled, I look more closely and see that the darkness alone is not maintaining its hold on the Qi particles. Instead the Chaos seems to have the energy to get away, but in their attempt to escape, they were running into an invisible wall about a third of the way out from the black dot. This invisible globe only seemed able to affect the Chaos that was trying to escape being consumed by the glow of the black dot. Although there doesn''t seem to be any direction to its actions, the particles of energy are bouncing around the speck and off the walls energetically. With the complete randomness that got them their name, they seem to be hitting an invisible barrier, rebounding off the wall at a different angle everytime with boundless energy. They reminded me of the representations of an electron that I had learned about in school myself and more recently had to help my kids understand with their homework. Using that analogy I zoomed out, while I wasn''t able to see this barrier, which I assumed was the neutron force. I should be able to see an opposing force on the other side of the barrier.  The more stable protons should be rotating around holding an equal number of electrons in. It appeared that the analogy wasn''t the best, as the cavern still seemed to be empty. As I moved out I couldn''t even sense the barrier anymore, all I saw was a glowing light in the middle. Before I could continue my search for the anomaly,  I found myself being dragged out by the need to take another breath.


    Coming back to my physical body, I gasp for air, clearly I need to work on my meditation. Although to be fair, when I was standing here before this kidnapping so long ago, all I was trying for before was calm and inner peace. I wasn''t searching for magical powers in my possible metaphysical center. Taking several deep breaths, like I was coming up from a dive where I had pushed myself just a little too far. I started calming my body back down. Trying to bring myself back to calm and focus, I look up at the retreating Qi for any clues as to what might be holding it inside of me. As I do, since I am no longer focused just on the energy, my jaw drops. Unable to fathom how I missed it before, I find myself staring at a giant planet in the sky. Not a giant mountain on the horizon.


    A


    GIANT


    PLANET


    HANGING


    ABOVE


    ME

 Chapter 9

    Chapter Nine


    Staring up into the planetscape above me I was frozen in awe. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. I had read that parts of Earths atmosphere goes out past the moon and that it is just at such miniscule amounts that it can only be detected by instruments. Here I could see that wasn''t the case. I wanted to say it was like I imagine looking up on Jupiter from one of its moons must be like, but I can only thing that would be similar from a matter of perspective. There were some swirling storms that I could see, but they entire surface of this massive planet looked to be very similar to pictures of Terra that I had seen from space. Not as much ocean that I could see and no polar caps on either pole, also there seemed to be towering clouds billowing out into space and going out and enveloping two of the other moons that I saw on the horizon. One of these other moons looked to be a dull red while the other one almost looked to be a burnished gold or bronze color. Both of these moons were of a size that I would think was similar in size to the moon I had grown up looking at and dreaming of visiting in my childhood. Staring back at the planet above that seemed to be taking up a full one third of the horizon I couldn''t help but marvel at its magnifificence and wonder how big it actually was. Everything about size is a matter of perspective and how you are viewing it. If our own moon was smaller, but closer to us, it would still look bigger, while as massive as our sun and jupiter are they both appear to be smaller than the much more tiny moon. As I stood looking up at the new sky above me I found my self growing sad with the realiztion of what this likely meant. Standing frozen, staring at this awesome new reality, looking at the Chaos and Order streaming up to the planet above I realized I was very likely never to see my children again.


    Forcing myself to turn slowly around, not being willing to deal with that aweful thought yet, I saw that I was no longer on an ocean shore. Instead, the contents of the ball seemed to have been transported into the side of a ridgeline. Now, no longer flat, the ocean water was driving its way down over a cliff in a roar of force that could no doubt be heard for miles around. I could only thank luck that the ball hadn''t rejoined this new reality in reverse. As I would no doubt be plummeting over the edge myself, unconsciously falling to my death. As no doubt many of the fish I had hoped to catch, were doing themselves.


    I made sure to carefully look around at the edges of the little bit of Terra that came with me, our ball had clearly been jammed into the surrounding grassy landscape half hazardly. Seeing nothing that seemed to be a threat, just a few fish flopping on the now bare, sea floor. I tried to look further out into the demarcation line between the ball of seaside and the not-so-alien landscape, that the ocean water removed from its fuller self, seemed to have swept through on its way down the cliff face. Clearing it in a tidal wave of salty force, trees lay broken and flung around further down the cliff face. I can only breathe out a sigh of thanks once again to the new lucky stars above me. If that ball had oriented any number of other degrees other than the way it had before opening, I would have found myself being battered and torn as gravity tore the water up and over me. I might have even found myself on the underside, with the entire spanse of bedrock closing off the sky to me forever!


    Continuing to turn, I looked up the hillside, looking past the beach and to the native grassland farther up. I pushed my gaze to where I remembered the black bear was, from my Chaos vision. Actually able to see it now, as the orientation seemed to have tilted to keep the ground at the same angle as the former ground of the mountainside we had replaced. I saw it running, not content to deal with its emotions from being ripped from Terra like I was. It was galloping uphill towards the new world we had found ourselves on, in that terrifying charge of a bear that I can only be happy was leaving me in its dust. Quickly going to my pack, I pulled the bear spray off of it and clipped it to my belt. Regret came cutting through the sadness, I could only hate the part myself that didn''t want to deal with the hassles of bringing my rifle with me. Legally allowed to carry if you are going fishing, I just hadn¡¯t wanted to deal with the annoyance that might have happened had I been pulled over or gotten into an accident. I could only hope that if this was a case of the entire earth being pulled apart and jammed into another planet that my kids would have been taken from close enough to my house, they could make it there and arm themselves in an effort to stay safe.


    Finishing the circuit with my gaze, and not seeing anything that I could recognize as a threat, I let myself sit down in grief. It came up through me quickly, as reality settled in. I was almost certain to never see them again. Tears welled up into the corners of my eyes and I let them fall freely. Tumbling down my cheeks, they were soon joined by a river of their brethren. Breathing deeply, I laid back onto my pack and stared at the planet soaring majestically above me in the sky. Cursing in my mind, I could only scream silently in my head. If I had had my kids here with me, this would be the most amazing experience, completely unreal and only possibly envisioned by cgi in Hollywood. I was now having to deal with the reality that my kids being, if not dead of old age back on earth, were almost certainly scattered far enough away from me, that I was almost positive I would never see them again. A part of me screamed that this can''t be real, this isn¡¯t how the story goes. You have been through so many unlikely scenarios in your life, that this can''t be how you lose them. You have to fight, you have to use what you have been given to get stronger, do whatever you must to gain the power you need to tear yourself through time and space to be with them again. Tears continue to come forth, I let my mind take itself down that path. It was easy, I had the steps written by so many authors whom I love and many more who I didn''t. I could become an anti-hero, a murderhobo. It would be easier to justify to myself, I was already a hunter and fisherman. All I had to do was start with the weak non-sentient life around me and kill them indiscriminately, then I would take those gains and move onto stronger beings.


    I know myself, I am not a good person. I have always known this about myself. I wouldn''t say I am evil either, but if I ever was put into the position of choosing between a random stranger and my kids, it wouldn''t even be a flicker of thought. It sounds trite and almost everyone I''ve ever known would agree, but no one ever thinks about that statement in terms of good and evil. Choosing your children over the greater good is selfish. I don''t think telling others about this would ever make it change their minds, I''ve always known it wouldn''t change mine. If I had to do something that philosophy would consider evil to do, I wouldn''t hesitate; and I don''t think any other parent out there back on either, the whole of Terra Firma or the fragments of it scattered here, would do anything differently. I have just been okay walking that path knowingly.


    Taking another heaving breath, I felt my tears starting to dry up. Reality has set in. I know myself, I might not be good, but I''m also not evil. If I was certain that slaughtering millions would save my children, I don''t know if I could do it. One or two people,I could probably justify killing¡­ if I was one hundred percent certain I could save them. I would deal with the occasional nightmare. Knocking down an old lady and breaking her hip to save my kids from an impending disaster, I wouldn''t even bat an eye. But I wasn''t looking at that future. I was looking at three major unknowns and countless smaller ones. The biggest three being that one, I don''t know if they had made the trip over¡­ I didn''t even know the fate of the rest of the world, if it had broken up and been transported over here, I had no idea where on this world they might be, if they were even here and hadn''t been sent on to the main planet or other moons. Two, maybe Earth hadn''t broken up, they could be back on home blissfully unaware of what happened to me for now. Three, if they were back on earth, who is to say that time stood still for them, just because I was frozen in order before I broke it down into chaos doesn''t mean that time stood still for them as well. I have never liked time travel as an author trope, but with this trip that I had found myself unwillingly taken on, while it had expanded my horizons of what was possible, didn''t do anything to convince me that time travel was part of that realm. If it wasn''t and I slaughtered worlds in a quest for power searching for it. Then I had no doubt that the me I am currently, wouldn''t be able to live with the person I would have to become to make that future happen. While I was sure that future me who followed that path would be okay with the steps taken as he grew more and more callus. I couldn''t stomach it right now, so I strangled that future off in its cradle.


    I have lived a lifetime or two in that ball of energy, all that had been keeping me going was knowing I would see my kids again. Now, that hope was gone, I didn''t see a path that was going to get me there. Not a path I could happily take the first step on. Getting back to my feet, I realized I was going to just start having to start putting one foot in front of the other. I know intellectually that I am going to get through this. Well maybe not the living through being trapped on another world part, that was certainly going to be iffy. But, I have lost my grandparents, my dad and a sibling before this, and while with them I knew that they were gone. Here at least I had uncertainty propping myself up. I could buoy myself with the notion that they had lived full lives and I had a multitude of descendants back on Terra. Or maybe they had been brought to this new world as well. As long as I kept those thoughts in the back of my mind, they would make it much easier to keep the sadness at bay, because following along on that thought chain meant that any of the paths I could be wishing for.. would be worse for them. If given the choice, I certainly wouldn''t want them to be standing next to me. Despite what I thought before about how amazing it would be to have them standing on a new world with me. Looking around at the bareness all about me, I had no doubt that if there was even a civilization around to find here, it would be miserable keeping myself alive while trying to get there. With no magic readily available, as the Order and Chaos had finished disappearing into the sky, on their run to the planet above me. With only the meager supplies in my pack that were supposed to last a day or two, them being castaways here in the unknown with me just upped the chance of them dying in front of me, skinny as they were. With only two options ahead and never being one for the Big S, that only left putting one foot in front of the other until I got through it. I would never forget them but I was going to have to tuck them back away in my mind, like the few now treasured photos left in my wallet, compared to the multide on my phone which had no guarantee of lasting in this new environment. I would only bring those memories out when I have less pressing issues such as starvation, and death by exposure, on the horizon. Hope is such a bastard of pandora''s, but as they say who knows, maybe the horse will learn to sing and I will see them again. But to get to that point I needed to be alive for that to happen


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    I am not obsessed enough with the genre to know if I have been Isekai''d. On one hand, I wasn''t hit by a truck, nor was I reborn into a baby¡¯s body. On the other hand, I still remember Terra and I seem to be on another planet. Unfortunately, instead of being brought into a town or village, I seem to be in the middle of nowhere. Being an avid hiker and just beginning a fishing trip, I had a good idea of the struggle I was looking forward to. Most authors think that if they drop their MC into the middle of nowhere that they would have no trouble surviving for a short amount of time and then use plot armor to back it up. They look at hikers that go from Canada to Mexico on the Pacific Coast Trail and think that if they can hike over a thousand miles in a couple of months, then it isn''t that hard. That''s not reality, it''s not so simple, they are part of a team and have helpers and groups placing supplies for them. Even then the weather can go against them and they can still die. They spend thousands of dollars on ultralight equipment to keep the weight down, so that they can maintain an insane pace that had no chance of being maintained if they weren''t one hundred percent certain that they had supplies waiting for them. I couldn''t rely on an author scripting the perfect scenario to get me through this. I might gain powers in the future, but with no sign of civilization anywhere nearby, I wasn''t confident I would last that long.


    Looking down at the fish still flopping around on a now, waterless, ocean floor, I realized that I had managed to properly stuff my feelings down rather quickly. I was sure they would spring back up again, but for now I needed to ensure they had a body to take over later. Even if all of the fish died immediately, with the coolness of the mountain air that I had now flowing around me, the fish would take a day or two before they started rotting. Leaving my most likely source of food alone for now, I decided to unpack and quickly get rid of everything that wasn''t going to be one hundred percent necessary for the immediate future. For a three day, round trip hiking and fishing expedition I was set and happy with the extra weight. With my future looking more like a trapper from the eighteen hundreds, I was going to have to ruthlessly get rid of a lot of accessories.


    Pulling everything out, I started putting everything into two piles to keep or to leave. Taking out the biggest things first, I pull the tent, hammock, and sleeping bag, which go straight into the keep pile. Despite their non ultralight nature, there was no way I would be willing to get rid of them, with shelter always being the most important thing in any survival situation. The foldable kayak I had brought for the purpose of setting out my crab trap, I had to take a beat on. Eighteen pounds was a lot of weight, it was also a lot of bulk strapped to the back of my pack, but ultimately I decided on keeping it. If I found a river, it could be invaluable for saving days or weeks off of finding civilization. Building a raft out of driftwood is never as easy as literature makes it seem. The paddle I quickly toss to the otherside in what would soon be the trash pile. Pulling my knife out, I cut off the ropes that make up the trap, taking the biggest pieces while leaving the rest. Next I pull out the solar panel and battery pack. This one is hard, I have a couple of offline apps on my phone that describe plant life, camping and knots not to mention the thousands of photos and videos of my kids on it. I know from being here that I''ve already hit the lottery in that the atmosphere hasn''t killed me. If you go statistically looking out at the universe, I shouldn''t be able to breathe here or I should be burned to a crisp, so maybe there might be plantlife further out in this new world that might still be analogous to Terran life. Looking up though, I wasn''t even sure if the panel would even work, with whatever sun this system has, being swallowed by the glow of this giant that was taking up most of the horizon.


    Knowing exactly how bad it is when a lithium battery explodes, I walk a good fifty yards away downwind before hooking everything up to begin my experiment. After taking a couple of steps back toward my pack, I quickly reverse course and turn around to place my smart watch, earbud headphones and gps on the pile, no sense taking a chance. Walking back to the pack and piles, I quickly return to my winnowing. My freediving fins I look at slowly. I loved them, but I just couldn''t justify the space or weight with no ocean in sight, while my wetsuit, hood, gloves and wet boots were also a lot of bulk. I doubted I would have a use for them and I was already bringing the kayak. The fins I slowly place into the leave pile, while my diving mask and case I send into the bring, my neoprene also goes into the take pile as they can double as cold weather gear if I get to the point of needing it. They mask is small and light enough that I justify the weight, it could still be useful in a creek or river in conjunction with the three collapsible fishing spears I had brought with me, which I promply send to join everything in the keep pile. Pulling out my small camping stove and propane fuel supply, I move to place it in the keep pile, but stop upon noticing something strange. Something strange is never good in a survival situation, I don''t want strange, I want predictable. Feeling the propane canister, it seems to be much warmer. Propane coming out of a pack especially in cooler weather normally feels cold. This felt warm, unsure if it was my imagination, I decided to not take a chance and threw it down the hill decisively. It wasn''t worth the possibility of an explosion, at most I would get four or five meals worth of heat out of it and I still had my back up matches and cotton wax balls which I left alone in their survival pouch after putting stove bottom into the discard pile.


    Next was my combination hatchet with its saw blade in the handle, definitely a keep. I didn''t even put it in the pile, leaving it next to the bag to put on my belt when I was done packing. Water bladder and water filter as well are no-brainers, I wrap them in my spare shirts and pants for extra protection. The amount of trouble that it would cause if those were damaged would be life threatening. Charcoal and sand filters, while are theoretically known to me, the amount of pain it would be setting them up would only be useful in a stationary camp. Disposable bag with a roll of tp again is an easy choice, wishing I had brought ten times as much, I am sure I would make the decision to keep those as well if given the option. Same with the two bigger collapsible buckets, no chance I am leaving them behind. Collapsible fishing pole goes next to the spears with its tackle binder next to it. I think about taking out the weights, but in the end decide to leave it trading the weight for convenience. The sewing kit is another easy take, I''m so glad I just tossed in my full kit. I had used my normal smaller baggie that held a needle and several lengths of thread after ripping my pants while tripping on some rocks on my last trip and had forgotten to replace it when I had arrived home. When I had remembered the gaff upon going through and packing my backpack last night, I had lazily just tossed in my normal binder, rather than taking the time to separate out a smaller amount. While some future repairs would undoubtedly look peculiar with mismatched thread, but with no more overnight deliveries, I can only be sad I left my needlepoint hoops at home as well.


    Thanking my lucky stars that my paternal grandmother had beaten it out of me that there were no such things as male or womanly skills. I could once again be grateful as this might keep me clothed and warm as opposed to just being a useful hobby. With most of the pack empty, I don¡¯t even bother taking out the paracord bundles I left in the back. Instead, as I reached for the ropes I had taken from the collapsible crab pot to add to them, my body ducks and covers reflexively, as an explosion come ringing out from where I had thrown the propane canister downhill. Getting back up and brushing myself off unharmed, I continue to pack away the last of the rope as I resolve to ignore my electronics. Nothing on my phone was valuable enough to be worth the risk of it going the way of the propane later. While I would miss the photos, most of their lives were stored on hard drives and the cloud at home anyway, and I still had a few physical photos in my wallet. With the main pack now fully empty except for rope on the bottom, I leave the side pockets alone. Everything stored in my side pockets, with the exception of the now empty pocket that held my electronics, were all useful items. Which was why they held the easy access spots.


    Repacking my pack in a slightly more deliberate order than I had thrown things in the night before my fateful hike. I left out the waterproof bag that I had brought along for the purpose of keeping the fish I had been planning on catching. Wanting to keep them seperate from my gear on the hike back to my ice chest, which had been left back at my car. Buckling the ax onto my belt next to where I have the bear spray clipped on, I quickly put one of the spears together while tucking the pouch with the other two into the former electronics side pocket. I thought about building all three, but there seems to be enough open space that if I were to run into anything that the initial spear, my ax, the bear spray and my knife can''t take care of¡­ I doubt the other two would do any good either. So rather than risking them breaking them prematurely, better to leave them tucked away where they would hopefully be safe. Clipping the kayak, buckets and fish bag onto the outside of my pack, I look at the cooler with its five beers left. With a sigh I zip it up and add it to the outside of my pack. I am undoubtedly going to be spending a day or two trying to smoke as many fish here as possible, so hopefully the ice will last long enough to finish them off while they are still cold.


    I hate warm beer¡­

 Chapter 10

    Chapter Ten


    Grabbing my collapsible shovel, I dug a small hole and then pulled out my wallet. I don''t know what the future has for me in this new moon, but I was sure the paper bills and plastic strips I had would be useless here. Taking everything out except the three pictures behind my license, I buried every other trace of the old me from Terra in the last little bit of it I had access to. Keeping only the pictures, I left my license in the hole as well. I don''t know if the fae are a real thing but until I find out for sure, the name I had been born with wouldn''t leave my lips, I can only hope that the cards that were now being buried here wouldn''t give my name out into the aether. With my final housekeeping task accomplished, I started heading downhill towards what remained of the cove, now that the water had disappeared down the mountainside. I had to remind myself to take my time, take my time and be careful, I no longer have a backup plan I told myself. While I had never thought of myself as reckless, I have always been able to see the path I needed to take and then follow through on it. That being said, there are several people out there who have been on hikes with me that would call me crazy, with my off trail detours that may or not have sometimes ended in having to repel down a cliff, that''s why you learn to carry paracord. Not my kids, they were worse than me, not being tempered by age and as many incidents that I have had. But part of following through on things has always included knowing that on the times that I needed to push myself to one hundred percent, was that if I did fail I had modern medicine to pick up the slack. It is easy to go bouldering with a couple of friends when a broken leg means months recovering in a cast, not starving to death. I didn''t mind breaking the golden rule of diving alone, because I wasn''t going out into the middle of the ocean and I had an emergency air supply (discard pile along with its pump to refill it).  I was confident in pulling myself out of any emergency I could imagine happening. The same thought process was why I didn''t mind hiking for hours alone with no one around, I had an emergency satellite phone (now smoldering with rest of my electronics) and I carried insurance. So on the very narrow chance I needed it, I could call for a medevac and it wouldn''t put me into bankruptcy. All of that was gone now, with the only saving grace being that I was here alone. So a stupid mistake wouldn''t get my kids killed along with me, it would just be me starving to death or ending up in the bellies of this world''s version of wolves.


    Reaching the tidal pools, a few of which still managed to hold a tiny bit of the Pacific still inside of them, despite the tilt that they now had, I gave myself a quick grin. The lack of water had sent all of the bigger monkey-faced eels to start circling the bottom of the pools, rather than hiding deep in the crevices which were their normal lairs. Not a true eel, these fish nevertheless, if grilled and basted properly, still managed to serve the same purpose for me when I turned them into sushi and nigiri at home. So for the next several days it looked like I would at least be in no danger of going on a starvation diet. Taking off my pack, I again looked around for any dangers that this new world had in store for me, before being willing to take my spear and literally go shoot a bunch of fish in a barrel.


    Down the mountain side facing what had once been the mighty pacific on my old world, there was about four hundred yards of pretty flat, sand and rock radiating out in a half circle from where I was. But it was easy to tell where the wall of Order and Chaos Qi had ended upon bringing us here. Cut, like with a knife of the gods, or perhaps a space laser, the sand ended immediately. It maintained such a perfect half circle that I had no doubt that if I went to the edge and started digging. It would not be a circle, but instead I would find that what came with me from Terra, was the globe I had seen with the strange vision powers that I had gained and then lost. Part of me was already beginning to doubt what had happened. Not that I had been taken from earth, the demarcation line from sand to grass and scrub would have made that clear enough. Even without the Jupiteresk like planet, hovering above like the moon. No, I was not ¡®delusional¡¯ enough to think I still remained on earth. But I was beginning to question what happened on the trip here. Had I really been trapped in a ball of magic, siphoning it off to give myself the ultimate channels and meridians, or was that just a delusion my mind sent myself into to maintain its sanity. Unfortunately, it didn''t seem like I would be finding that out anytime soon. Looking out, past the line downhill, I didn''t see any large creatures at all. Either they weren''t there or they had been swept away by the gravity induced tsunami. Out of sight when the remnants of the once mighty pacific drove over the cliff, disappearing into the scrub at the bottom. Or conversely, the mountain I was on didn''t have any large prey or predators. With an inward growl at my crazy hamster I sent him crashing off his wheel, as I tried to maintain my focus on the task at hand.


    Continuing with my gaze going through its circuit to look uphill, past the pile of my trash and debris lay on the still smoking ground. Where it seemed like that my electronics had, if not gone up with a blaze, were at least in the process of destroying themselves of poisonous smoke. I thought about what it meant that I was still able to walk and move about. Did the fact that I was walking around like normal, mean that the planetoid slash moon that I now found myself on was the same size as earth? Or, was it bigger and the Giant above me was exerting enough gravity that it was pulling me up just the right amount to offset a bigger moon''s size, making it feel like the gravity here was still the same.


    Shaking my head, I once again forced the hamster off the wheel before he could really get going. I promised him that I would let him have a good run tonight before I fell asleep, but for now I was really going to have to start working on harvesting these fish before they died and went bad. While I had gone on cleanses in my past life back on Earth, once voluntarily not eating for ninety-six hours before, just to see if I could kick start a diet. That had been done more as a test of will power and desire to lose weight, not because it was forced upon me. With grocery stores and fast food off the menu, I was not looking forward to the time that started happening because the universe imposed it on me instead of by my own insane choices. Looking past the smoldering pile of electronics and the smoke that it was giving off, I saw the scrub oak and undergrowth that had come with me from earth. It disappeared into some grass and what looked to be the occasional pine grove before cutting off out of sight with only a snow covered mountain top farther off into the distance. Despite knowing that was where the bear had gone charging off to, I resolved to also go that way myself after I gathered as much fish as I could carry. I would smoke them higher up so that I could use the greater heights to gain more information on the small slice of the new world that I had found myself on.


    Finishing my circuit with nothing alarming in sight, I sighed. The unfortunate thing being that I was going to have to force myself to just be prepared to react to everything without focusing on having an answer for each  individual worry. For all I knew I could be dead tomorrow from microscopic toxins in the air. Worrying about everything, and trying to spend too much time preparing for dangers I couldn''t possibly know about, with this being a new world. This would just end up with me being exhausted and getting nothing done constantly staying paralyzed with anxiety. Taking a deep breath I prayed to my grandmother''s spirit and did my best to focus on serenity and putting the hamster down for a nap. ¡°I know you always said to pray for Courage Grams, but right now I feel like I need Serenity a whole lot more. Otherwise I am just going to spend all day making plans for every eventuality. I know I didn''t get along with God as well as you had hoped for me. And I have no doubt, if I let the hamster in my mind run wild, I would starve thinking of endless possibilities and get nothing done. So please put the Courage on hold and send more Serenity my way.¡± I let myself pray out loud for the first time in decades, and with another deep breath to put the rodent farther into a daze, I resolved to actually get to work.


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Taking off my pack, I pulled out the tarp for my tent, along with some of the small D-rings I kept in one of the pockets. I laid down my hiking poles out into a triangle and quickly clicked the D-rings through the grommets in the tarp to attach them to poles making a quick and dirty traviose. Pulling out several pieces of rope I had cut from my crab trap and one of the bundles of paracord from the bottom access point in my pack. I wrapped the trap rope tightly around the tarp and handles of my walking sticks, while taking the paracord and wrapping the middle of it around the point of the triangle I had made. Putting a bowline on each of the ends of the paracord to make a harness that wouldn''t tighten up on me. I Wanted something that I would be able to use to pull the load easier up to the crest of the hill, while still maintaining the ability to drop quickly if I needed to leave it and my pack. Hopefully there were more trees up on the ridgeline where I could find some dry wood to smoke and dry the fish before they started turning. Unrolling and unzipping the fish bag I had left out in my repack, I laid it on top of my makeshift sleigh, before grabbing both of my buckets and spear.


    Climbing up onto the now bare tidal pools, I had to be careful. It hadn''t been that long since the transition and the rocks were still wet and covered with seaweed. While I was normally a fan of drying and eating it as both chips and as part of a salad, right now I needed to get to the fish as a better source of calories. Ripping entire stalks out of the sand and off the wall, in a move that would have me screaming at my kids, I dragged them over next to my new sled. Cutting off a few of the bigger leaves to help keep the fish cooler, I placed them in my buckets while leaving the rest to rot on the ground leaving me with a cleaner path to the top. Now that it was now less slippery with the removal of the kelp, I was able to pick my way carefully past the rocks covered with mussles and urchins, having no desire to fall and cut myself on them, with infection sure to swifty follow and the venom on the urchins spines that would no doubt be debilitating. While I had a tiny amount of iodine and rubbing alcohol in my small first aid kit, It was only enough for maybe one good sized gash. So although it took me a couple of minutes longer than I would have gone back on earth. I eventually made it over to where one of the small pools of seawater still remained. Looking in I smiled, as several of the monkey-faced eels were swimming around on the bottom, tightly coiling around each other. I quickly speared one, and pulled it up next to me, before taking my knife out next. Setting the fish down and I picked my knife up by the blade before bashing the handle onto the eel''s head to kill it and put it out of its misery. On earth I would have thought nothing about taking my knife by the handle and giving it a quick flick to catch it by the blade, but here caution was reigning king. With all of my heavy files gone forever, and no hunting stores or online shopping to turn to if I nicked the blade because I dropped it. I had no desire to risk breaking one of what was sure to be my primary survival tools, because I was showing off for this new universe. Setting my knife gently back down on the rock, I picked up the spear and jabbed it back into the pool, it was still crowded enough that I didn''t have to risk a full-hearted swing, or using the elastic band it came with to shoot it forward. Both of those actions brought with them the possibility of cracking the spears tines on the rocks making up the bottom of the pool. Another hit, and I repeated the process, with three lying beside me now there was more room for the remaining five to swim around, with a sure strike no longer guaranteed I tried a couple of slower jabs, still being careful not to strike the rock and break the spearhead. Missing every time I sighed, not wanting to waste too much time on one pool. I quickly cut off the heads and gutted the three I had on the ground next to me. I then dumped the kelp leaves out and placed them in the bucket alternating leaves and slabs of fish. Dipping the bucket carefully, I let a little bit of saltwater into the bucket to help keep them fresh before I headed off to another pool. As I started walking away, I sighed with annoyance at myself. I don''t have to worry about fish and game wardens anymore. Also even if they had been around, this was now a survival situation instead of a fishing trip. I would be willing to risk the ticket knowing that even if I had to pay it, the ticket giver would be able to get me back to my car. Opening my backup bucket I stepped into the pool and started bucketing it out quickly, while still making sure I left the fish alone. Around five minutes and a couple hundred gallons of seawater later, the remaining eels flopped around on the rock laying on their sides, twisting around, desperately trying to keep water on their gills. Grabbing my knife by the blade I walked around to each one, quickly clubbing them over the head and putting them out of their suffering. I then again cut off the rest of their heads and gutted them before filling both buckets with both kelp and fish. Pulling one of the spare rags that I had brought from my pack out of my pockets, I dipped it into the salt water. Wetting it to wipe down my knife before drying the blade on my shoulder and sheathing it. Wiping down my spear from the eel blood the same way, I forgo drying the spear tines and instead bent down to pick up a bucket in my left hand, while my right reached down while holding my spear to grab the second slightly smaller one. I then made my way slowly back over the sharp uni and mussel shells, to the sand where my makeshift sled lay.


    Working quickly but deliberately, instead of just dumping the buckets, I took the time to lay down kelp, then layer the fish and place more kelp on top of them. Then dumping the remaining seawater on top, to help keep them cool, before I again picked up my spear and buckets and went back to go through the remaining pools. Making three more trips, I also collected some of the smaller rockfish, along with more of the eels. Ignoring several of the crabs I had found, content to know they would live for several days. I also left the mussels and uni alone, unwilling to risk the slightly higher risk of food poisoning as they were harder to preserve and would go bad faster. I would probably be okay, but with the large amount of fish I had available, it wasn¡¯t worth the risk. Looking at my sled and the fortyish pounds of seaweed and fish I had gathered. I decided that was probably all I could risk trying to haul on the ramshackle, wheeless cart. With no desire to risk tearing through the bottom and waste the time and energy of making several extra trips up and down the hill.


    With no watch or any way of telling time according to hours or minutes I once had used, I could only guess that about half the day was gone. While there was no sun to judge by, with the massive planet that was drowning it out with its own glow, it now only took up about half of the sky with the edge just starting to hit the horizon. Although I wasn''t seeing darkness creeping in yet, I really didn''t want to push my luck and have to set up a camp and start a fire in the moonlight or whatever passed for night here. So carefully pushing my spear handle into the sand until it could support itself I let it go, and I then put the rope loops to my sleigh on top of it. I stood up, shouldered my pack, and then I placed the ropes around my shoulders in the crude imitation of a harness. I picked my spear slowly back up and carefully picked my course up to the top of the hill, anxious to look for a good spot to start a camp and smoke my catch.

 Chapter 11

    Chapter Eleven


    With a couple of weeks of food now partially secure, I was much more willing to make my own charge out past the remains of Terra Firma. Venturing out past the line onto the surprisingly earth-like grass, although considering I wasn''t laying wasting on the ground lungs on fire from a burning atmosphere I guess not really that unusual. If the grass is going to be able to produce air for me to breathe then it makes sense it is something I can recognize. Having made my way further up what was once, flat coastal grass with the occasional lonely scrub oak, that had made the journey with me. I stared at the line between my alien earth and the native grass. It was remarkable, the knife-like cut rang truer in my mind than the space laser I had jokingly thought before. As I knelt down to look closer, I again corrected myself. Perhaps scalpel cut was the best term, the tops of both the old Terran and new native grass, that should have been waving over the line, were sliced uniformly instead of leaning over the boundary to the otherside.


    With no welcoming party here for me, it was looking more and more like a rare natural phenomenon had dragged me to this new world. Instead of an entity trying to either kidnap me specifically or just grab some random human for probing. Looking down from my now greater vantage point, to where my pile of scrap still lay. I saw that where I had been standing when upon arrival, was not in fact the center of the globe that had transported me here. If I had to guess I would say I was much more likely to be in the outer third of it, further confirming for now, in my mind that I wasn''t targeted. And, if that wasn''t the case then I could only be glad I hadn''t been a little further out and standing on edge when the walls came down. Before my brain could send me spiraling down that thought sequence of whether or not I would have been pulled in, left behind, or cut in half. I quickly strangled those thoughts in their crib, not willing to waste the time on more pointless thoughts before I found a good place to make my camp. I had passed a couple of spots so far on this new hillside but I wanted to look at what was on the other side of the hill crest before I made my decision.


    Berating myself to stop stalling, I slowly waved my hand over the line cut between the grasses. With nothing happening to my fingers I slowly stretched a foot over and stepped my first step onto this alien ground. Pressing down more firmly with my foot, I tried to use my new senses to examine the air around me, superstitiously trying to see if I could sense alien bacteria seeping its way into my skin through my boots and socks. I again failed to enter the mindset that let me go smaller into my body. Shaking my head at my own stupidity I sighed, either I was going to die or I wasn''t, I couldn''t keep worrying about all of this ridiculousness that was out of my control. Taking another breath for Serenity, I grimmly warned the hamster to stay off his wheel unless something I could actually affect came up. With him firmly put into his place I took my final step to fully place myself onto the other side. With another, much quicker pause, to once again see if anything would happen. I took a deep breath, although knowing I had been breathing alien air from the time the walls came up, it seemed more real in my mind now, knowing that I was now doing what few humans throughout history could ever truly say they had done. I had stepped foot where, while perhaps not where any sentient being, but most assuredly where no Terran human (I covered my basis carefully) had ever stepped foot before. Seeing as how I had made sure to go a slightly different way up the hill than that bear, I could probably add Terran mammal to that list. While knowing the speed at which ants and beetles can move, I unfortunately thought I couldn''t lay claim to being the first Terran entity that had made it this far yet.


    Taking a couple of more steps with my sled coming along behind me I strode out onto the alien grass, before once more pausing to give whatever supernatural forces that might have been blocked by Earth''s last lingering will, a chance to sense me and teleport me to them. Or failing that, for them to come to me now that I and everything connected to me was firmly in their realm¡­ Despite the flag I had thrown up it seems like the Gods of this new realm either hadn''t noticed the ball of Chaos and Order that had invaded their kingdom and left me behind. Or, they just couldn''t bring themselves to care. With that in mind, a stray thought that had apparently been itching to get out, made its way from the dreams I had forced the hamster into, and into my brain. Kicking myself for not doing it before now, I said in a firm voice without shouting as I had still no idea what was on the other side of the crest about two hundred yards away.


    ¡°System.¡± With no notifications going off in my head I tried a few more.


    ¡°Menu.¡±


    ¡°Inventory.¡±


    ¡°Character Sheet¡­¡±


    Throwing out several more gaming terms with no response I gave a small sigh. Well it seemed like there was no fantasy rpg system in my future, with easy power ups on the horizon. With my precautions taken, knowing I was still throwing up flags for the universe, I said to myself. ¡°Well at least I can be pretty sure I''m not going to be teleported away from my stuff.¡± Shrugging my way out of my makeshift harness and pack, I waited for the universe''s response, again I found myself ignored. Really this was getting quite annoying, I had food and supplies, so at the very least the universe could stop keeping me in suspense, and let the other shoe drop. Once again, the universe wasn''t courteous enough to take the bait, and with no other good excuses left in my mind, I sent a quick prayer out for courage and picked up my fishing spear and made my way softly up to the crest, leaving my supplies behind so I could focus on moving quietly until I was more sure what was around. Getting most of the way to the top and with a few body lengths left to go, I lowered myself to the ground and crawled the rest of the way to the top to peak over without silhouetting myself to whatever might be on the other side.


    As I peaked over, I realized it wasn''t quite a ridge line, instead it was fairly flat for a couple hundred yards before it dropped away into some sparse treetops. With my rangefinder smoldering with the rest of my battery powered equipment I could only make a rough guess, but with the ridgeline being so wide and not seeing anything on top to give me pause. I quickly turned in a circle scanning everything, and still not seeing anything large animal life to give me pause, I decided to continue on without my stuff. Planning on just a quick look into the next valley to see if there was an easier water source to get to. If so, I would make camp there rather than trying to make my way down the cliff to the creek that the abortive Terran pacific invasion had nearly wiped out. Walking at a steady pace with my head scanning from side to side slowly, looking for any movement, I counted off the paces in my head out of habit, so I wouldn¡¯t lose my gear accidentally. At a hundred paces and about a third of the way across. I paused and crouched down for a few minutes to listen. While I was waiting for any animal life that might have been scared into silence by me to go back to being active. I looked across the remainder of the flat ridge to the mountain top pointing its snow-covered crest at the sky. I realized that I was most likely a lot farther away from it than I had initially thought. Now I was thinking it was more likely that I would have a couple smaller foothills heading down into a long valley with that monstrosity on the other side instead of more foothills just leading straight up to it.


    The biggest reason I had for thinking that was the ridgeline in front of me, it was cutting off the part of the mountain covered in snow. If all I could see was the snow peak from here. There was no way that mountain was anywhere within a hundred miles of where I crouched now. Looking out at the immensity of it sticking up into the sky, I started figuring that in addition to upping the distance to it in my head. I was also going to have to start upping the height. Initially I was thinking it was going to be around Seven to Eight thousand feet, something comparable to looking at the Sierra peaks from the Sacramento basin. But, I started revising my thoughts to thinking it was much more like looking at Mount Fuji or Mount Kilimanjaro (both of which were on my bucket list to climb), so if the height was similar to something like that, then that percentage of was more reasonable than if the peak was closer.


    Stolen story; please report.


    As I was trying to pretend that I could accurately do the calculations to guess the height of the mountain in my mind that was weeks of travel away at best, like it would make some kind of difference. I heard a massive roar ring out from across the ridgeline.


    Taking a guess, I assumed the bear that was with me had run into trouble with something local. Picking my spear up from where I laid it to rest on the ground, I started jogging softly, over to the opposing edge, anxious to get a first glance at the native life forms while their attention was on something other than me. Moving in as quietly as I could, I paused about half a football field away from what looked to be the ridgeline and started walking, for several reasons. First, I didn''t want to make any noise or draw attention to myself before I knew what was going on. Second, I didn''t want to actually be going so fast that I accidently found myself going over the ridge announcing myself with a roll into the middle of the two fighting groups. Lastly, I wanted to catch my breath so I was in the best shape possible if I needed to get the hell out of dodge, although I wasn''t to worried as the bear''s roar seemed angry not scared, so unless it was a dragon toying with it I shouldn''t be in to much trouble, I thought to myself that I really needed to stop sending flags out so recklessly.


    Slowly walking forward, I began taking slow, deep breaths rather than panting to try to get myself back down to a resting heart rate. I crouched lower as I neared the edge, setting my spear down before getting onto the ground myself. I began inching forward slowly, so that I might leave as small of a silhouette as possible when I reached the edge and also taking care to not make any sudden moves that might give me away as I crested.


    Looking over the ridge, I saw that I was massively underestimating how far away and therefore how large the mountain ahead was. The foothills after the ridge I was on looked to descend for at least another ten or fifteen miles. But they did so in a slow rolling way, that didn''t look too awful for getting down. The only major source of worry for me being that the nearest large water source looked to be about a fifty miles to my right, as I looked down into the valley and saw a large river, that no doubt came from the mountain cutting its way across the flatlands and through the foothills on to the right, as it made its way to the presumably down to an ocean of this world. With only three quarts of pure water left in my pack I wasn''t looking forward to the trek that was going to be to get to it. Especially if I was going to take the time to cook the fish, but securing my foodsource was also important and I had a couple of ways to get small amounts of water until I could get to the only running source I could see at the moment. While I had a water filter in my pack, if I didn''t come across any other moving water sources I would have to take the time to try and either dig for water, or use some of the clear plastic I had in my survival pouch to make a quick and dirty transpiration bag or evaporation catch. Both of which would also slow me down and increase the amount of food I needed.


    While at first glance I knew this was going to be annoying, but with the view out in front of me I couldn''t bring myself to care about it at the moment. As I stared out over the magnificent vista, that humbled my previous first place memory that was the amazing view of Yosemite valley. I was instead stuck by how much this was like looking out over the pacific. Except here instead of an endless blue stretching out until I saw the sky, I was looking down at an endless sea of green in all shades. From the lighter grasslands to the darker hues that made up the forest-like islands that dotted a valley that was so immense that I couldn''t see across to even the beginning. Looking out at what I would only forevermore refer to as Mount Tai in my mind. Not even the pictures I had seen of Kilimanjaro, could even carry a candle to the immensity of the mountain that was sticking up in what was clearly at least a thousand miles in the distance. With the wooded areas in between the only river I could see and myself, I could at least be assured of finding some small bits of water and the amount of fish I had. If my food hopefully lasted the week or maybe ten days it would take me to get there. If not, I would have to make the choice of breaking into my sealed emergency food packs, or go hungry and hold them for a more desperate time.


    Another roar rang out from my left, and I shook myself away from my future plans on crossing the magnificent vista in front of me. Looking down to see what could be upsetting a black bear this much because while they weren''t their cousins the grizzlys, they were still apex predator''s. This last roar seemed to have an element of pain to it, not just the challenging roar of one of the top predators of Terra, that only humanities brains and thumbs had stopped from being the absolute peak of the food chain in North America. Looking down to my left, I saw something that immediately had me again trying to call out for the system in my head, only to again be left with silence, no blue boxes answered my call. So with a heavy heart I decided to quietly sneak closer to the encounter because if no blue boxes were showing up in my mind, that could only mean that instead of being transported into a world of easy experience and power ups, then it seemed much more likely that I had entered a realm that Tolkien had visited in his dreams. For in front of me, trying to swarm the bear in an effort to drown it with their numbers stood, not the little gray men that flew on space ships. No instead, I beheld nearly twenty green and red goblins, half of which still held crude spears in an effort to ward the the bear off. The other half, had either lost theirs into the bear, or had them broken apart, as the bear had crushed them with swipes of its massive paws. While I would have normally been content to let the bear and goblins fight it out on their own. With no idea if these were perhaps the if not good creatures that made up the part of the horde of a certain game I had spent way too much time on in my twenties, instead of the stereotypical monsters that spewed forth from Tolkien''s mind. With no dog in the hunt, it shouldn''t have mattered to me how many goblins died before they took out the bear. With no system to light my way, issuing a quest telling me to either defend the goblins from the bear or the bear from the evil goblins. It should have been an easy choice. I had hunted bears myself in Alaska a couple of years ago. I didn''t have a problem with the little fellows defending themselves from one or killing it to put food on the table. As small as they were, the goblinoid-like creatures were undoubtedly just defending their tribe and lands. I should have been willing to at the very least let them wipe each other out. But as another four goblins came forward with their spears to stab the bear, and with another roar the bear swiped his paw across them and sent two of the four tumbling back limply. I ignored all of that. None of it mattered, because farther past the immense black bear, who stood up towering over the small waves of green creatures assaulting it. There stood a singular being slightly larger than its brethren, this entity exuded what I could only call an evil presence that had me retching in the back of my throat. While having always taught my children growing up, that looks aren''t the end all and be all of judging someone, only their actions can ever tell you who a person really is. This horrid monstrosity gave a lie to that saying, as I grew closer I was able to make out more of its features, each demanding from me that I help the bear from my native world end this evil thing''s existence. From the jagged teeth to bone necklaces, from wicked jagged black tattoos to shit stained pants, all of which humanity has had in its past and were not the reason I had started running forward unconsciously, teeth bared in determination to wipe out this evil from my sight. No, all of that could be cultural understanding. No, as I drew closer, still unnoticed and breaking into a sprint in an effort to more quickly remove this horrid thing from my sight and mind, was the ball that was forming in front of its body. Black, gray and red light all streamed from his hands as he waved them around, in what were undoubtedly mystical formations. As he sent his energy streaming into growing the speck into a ball while his men held the bear off from him. Not even this sight, evil though it was in my mind, was enough to send me hurtling the last thirty yards at a full sprint now that I was finally in range. Because I had made enough poor assumptions in my life that had turned out to be wrong. No, as I reached the final twenty yards and arrived at a range I felt sure of hitting the shaman, with my still being unnoticed as they were occupied with the larger threat in front of them. No, as I released the spear in my effort to abort this evil, it seemed to finish what it was saying with its foreign tongue. As the mystics'' hands stopped glowing, it ripped a knife from what I could on hope was a rope belt and drove it down into a small glowing, blue goblinoid creature. A being that the shaman''s two largest subordinates were holding still in front of the caster. Just as my spear started its dive home into the center of the shaman¡¯s back, as I followed the rule to always aim for the center of mass. The glowing blue light that had been coming from the captive goblin''s body was dragged into waiting the hell ball as the knife was driven into its heart, seeming to sever the light that had been streaming forward. The ball of light that had been gathering, now slowly began moving forward, inexorably towards the bear, after having collected the rest of the sacrifice¡¯s life force into its center. But, while the captive''s body was dropping to the ground, I didn''t curse in disappointment. Because while my spear flew true, right into the middle of the shaman''s back, saving the captive goblin hadn''t been my purpose. No, for I had seen the smile on the glowing blue goblins face, it knew its purpose and was happy to give its life to help cast that hellball into the bear. No, ending the evil that would use another''s life force for magic, however willing, was enough to put a slight smile to my face as the shaman tumbled forward to the ground, hitting right into the center of its own fireball.

 Chapter 12

    Pulling my ax from its holster on the left side of my belt, my right hand reached for its own weapon, forgoing the bear spray for now as I had no desire to end up in its mists myself. I kept reaching past it and drew my knife as I began crouching down to avoid the impending explosion from the Shaman immolating himself in his own horrible casting. Ducking my head I placed my weapons on the ground so that I could switch up my handling of them without fumbling the exchange. Before I picked them back up, I glanced back to the shaman in confusion, fortunately for me all of the remaining Goblins were staring at where their shaman was as well. The evil caster was now suspended in the air, now glowing with three to four times the intensity that the previous sacrifice had shown with. Instead of rushing towards me as I knelt on the ground, they stood motionless as the ball of hellfire began doubling and then tripling in size. Even the bear stopped swiping down Goblins as we all stared into the evil, glowing red and black lights that were consuming the blue energy, that I could only assume for now was the life force or soul of for now. Although glancing at the previously consumed sacrifice, it wasn''t an aged shriveled ball, so maybe I could cross off life force, but I didn''t want to get rid of any possibilities until I had more data. As the light coming from the goblin shaman started dimming down, I gave myself a little shake to stop my pondering and get out of the stupor I found myself in trying to contemplate these new forces. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, I got up to run away, but stopped as I worried that the shaman''s inner light was dimming too fast. I left my weapons on the ground and took a quick five steps to the nearest Goblin that stood frozen unaware of my approach, still watching his leader be consumed. Grabbing it by the back of the neck with my left hand, I forced my right hand down into a position that even adrenaline couldn''t stop my inner disgust. With a quick step past him, I twisted my body in a move that had I still been on earth and under the never ending cameras, the footage would no doubt soon have been posted on the internet and begun the great canceling vendetta against me. For as my right hand released from what I was now certain was, a Goblins shit covered loin cloth, I dwarf tossed the filthy creature into the fireball to join its leader.


    Two more steps brought me over to the next closest goblin, this one starting to shake itself back into reality and was already turning to meet me with its rusty-tipped spear. Too late, as I had already closed the distance, this time with how I was face to face with it. Or perhaps, with its height, I had better say crotch to face. Wanting to avoid getting my bits within striking distance of its jagged yellow teeth. I leaned down slightly and reached out to grab it by its vest. With a spin of my body to disorient it, wanting to avoid being stabbed by its spear, I sent it flying into the ball of hellfire to join its friends. With both of the new goblins lighting up with that eerie light, I decided that I had now added enough gas to the impending explosion.


    Dashing back to where I had started, I took a second to bend down and pick up my ax and knife, this time taking them in their proper hands without fully stopping. Task accomplished without fumbling, I kept moving, going from the bent crouch that I snatched up my weapons with to a proper sprint. As I heard a roar behind me that sounded closer than it should have been, I discovered I still had another higher gear to reach. Unsure whether the bear was chasing me because its predator instinct saw that I was running away, other  than the diminutive goblins that still had their spears that I had left behind. Or, if it recognized the evil in the ball like I had, and had no desire to be around when it went off. Either way, I decided I didn''t want to take the time to look, so pumping my arms and legs as fast as I could, I continued my sprint. I was glad I had taken it easy on the way down the hill, so that my body wasn''t yet exhausted by the sprint it found itself in now. While I had no doubt that the roll around my waist would come in handy in the next couple of weeks in helping to stave off starvation. I could only curse in my mind, unwilling to waste the oxygen to do it out loud, how much I hated my past self for not being more strict in its diet phases, in trying to get rid of this dad bod of mine.


    Nearing the summit, I started hearing a panting coming from my right side, and could only be grateful that one thing seemed to be going right in my reckless plan. It seemed that the bear had either recognized me as being the one to help it in its fight, or was just so caught up in its own escape that it was leaving me alone as it continued charging past me in its race for the summit. With the top of the ridge still a good twenty to thirty yards away, I had to force my ever curious brain, not take a second to spin my body around and look at what was happening behind me. Because although I was certain the evil, little green creatures had no chance of catching me, I had no idea what the magical forces would do when they were done draining their victims. I should be fine as the pack of goblins hadn''t seemed to be too scared with only one victim, so quadrupling it shouldn''t take out the hill, but I couldn''t be sure about how bad that explosion was going to be. So wanting the hillside and a berm of earth between me before I risked anything, I continued sprinting up the hill, arms and legs pumping furiously. Being careful not to stab or cut my legs with my weapons I thought about dropping them, but couldn''t bring myself to do it. I knew I would regret it in the afterlife if I died in an explosion, not yet having reached the top of the hill. But I was sure I would be even less happy if I survived the explosion only to die to the goblins claws and teeth because I was unarmed. Trapped and eaten, sounding so much worse than drying broken in an explosion in my mind. Still smelling the disgusting stench coming from my right hand despite the speed I was going. I had a lot of doubts as to whether the bear spray, that would be my only remaining deterrent if I dropped the two edged weapons, would do anything to hold the goblins back.


    With relief that I finally made it to the summit alive I quickly dove up and over the edge of the ridge, rolling onto my side to slow myself down and getting low, wanting to avoid any flying debris. I held my arms out above my head in the roll, to avoid stabbing or cutting myself. Finally shedding all of my momentum, I desperately wanted to lay on my back and suck air to recover. But, I was unwilling to meet any possibly following enemies in such a prone position. So, I forced myself to get back up into a crouch. Staying low to the ground, still not wanting to stick my head up high enough that it would be blown off, now that I had finally made it to safety, I crept back towards the edge to look over again in movements identical to those I had used only a short time before. With adrenaline still pounding through my body as my heart beat furiously, I forced myself to ignore the gasping breaths my hormones were demanding I take and slowed down to several deep breaths instead while I remained in my crouched position. Setting my weapons down near the edge to free my hands yet leave the blades easily accessible should I hear the remnants of the goblin horde, come chittering this way.


    Getting as close to the edge as I could, before laying down to give as small of a profile as possible. Feeling the grit of the dirt and the pricks from the grass blades on my cheeks, I also had to ignore a stick poking into my stomach. I left it all alone for the moment, and used my toes to inch slightly farther so that I could peer back down over the edge of the hill. Forcing myself to stare back into the abyss of those awful energies, so unlike the ones I had dealt with on my trip to this moon. Looking back over the edge, I saw all of the little green terrors now standing frozen, glowing blue. Not in fear, but being held motionless, as tendrils of reddish black lightning reaching out to each of them, from what was once a pinprick speck, in the middle of a ball of raging hellfire. Now it seemed like it had reversed itself by reaching out and draining the remaining Goblins in sight, and judging from the two lines of energy reaching out and into the grass beyond what I could see, there were two more Goblins out of my sight as well that hadn''t been able to escape it either. It was slowly turning into what looked like a portal. Now up to the size of a beach ball, it no longer seemed to be a demonic fireball, instead it had turned into an abysmal mirror of blackness, a black hole of energy darker than anything that was inside the ball that had brought me here. The red and black lightning was still there, but now they were braided together surrounding the abyss, pulling the blackness larger with every pulse of life force it dragged out of its captive goblins. With another pulse, I saw a tendril shoot out, in what looked to be an effort to drain me in its mission to get bigger. I reflexively pushed myself back and rolled over just in time to see it shoot straight out past me in a line before disappearing into the sky. Moving as unscientifically, as the beams that laser rifles fired in certain movies, rather than at the invisible speeds of light that science had taught me was real. It all served to further solidify in my mind the mystical nature of these forces. If what I had come into contact with before was Order and Chaos Qi, then this new energy I cataloged in my mind was certain to be Hell or Demonic.


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    Rolling back over onto my stomach, I inched my way back to my previous position. Face pushed even deeper into the dirt, my heart pounded even harder, seeming to try its best to jump out of my chest. While knowing it was a stupid decision to look back over the ridge again, I was buoyed by the fact that I had avoided the previous disaster. With all the stupidity of a cat, confident in its extra lives, I inched my head back up to stare down at the still forming portal. Staring at it as the energy from the remaining Goblins pulsed into it again, it seemed that it had shrunk the tiniest bit in its effort to capture me. Unsure if that was actually true, but with the confidence that every gambler holds right before the house sends them crying to the atm again. I pushed my head farther into the air, in an effort to see if I could undo the disaster I had a hand in starting. But whether I would have won my desperate gamble or not, it seemed like the portal either wasn''t willing to waste the energy or possibly it was only allowed one shot at capturing a beings life force. For now it ignored me and continued to pulse, growing slightly bigger with every beat.


    Pushing myself a little farther up in an effort to get a better look, I remained ready to drop down at the slightest sign that the evil little globe was the one baiting me. With another pulse that further drained the remaining Goblins and dropped a few of the smaller ones empty and lifeless onto the ground. I quickly rolled over onto my back while grabbing for my knife and ax, holding them crossed over my chest, as I stared into the eyes of an enormous bear. Heart pounding in my chest I pulled my feet closer to my butt, in an effort to get them a little farther away from the giant nose and mouth that had just pushed up against my right foot. Unable to inch my way any further backwards and risk rolling down the hill and into the portal''s grasp, I could only stare into its eyes and hope that our implied truce remained in effect. As it brought its massive maw over my chest I felt myself coming to a pivotal moment. I could risk it all and stab up with my knife, hoping that despite my awful leverage position I could brute force it up through its palate, and manage to drive it into its brain. Or, I could take the risk that it was willing to not end my life and do nothing. Cursing in my head, I chose the path of passivity, which I would normally never take, although this was undoubtedly why I found myself in the situation I was now in, so maybe I could use a little more of it now that I was in a new universe. As I slowly moved my hands away from my chest let them fall to my sides in an effort to seem less threatening, although seeing as how he was double my weight I doubt the bear was delusional enough to be threatened by me.


    I said as softly as I could, ¡°Hey buddy, you remember me, I was the one that helped you out against the little green bastards.¡± As it leaned its nose down into my chest, and gave such a giant wet huff. I instantly knew this bad boy had definitely had a seal for breakfast in the last day or two. I felt better that I was going to live through the next couple of seconds when he backed off without having taken a nibble from me.


    ¡°That¡¯s right Yogi, you know me. I''m your friend.¡± I said, as I reached up without my ax and with such an enormous amount of stupid confidence, that had to be coming from my adrenaline high. Reaching up and scratching its cheeks a couple of times and as it leaned closer down to me, I could only continue to hope that I was doing the right thing. I reached farther up onto its head and started scratching the base of its left ear, like it was a giant dog. Apparently, not insulted, it leaned a little closer to me and gave my neck and face a giant lick with its incredibly rough and smelly tongue. Forcing myself to be still and not wretch, I pulled my hand back down and patted its muzzle.


    ¡°Alright, big boy.¡± I said quietly with another couple of pats, ¡°As much as I would like to stretch this bonding ceremony out and become blood brothers with you. We''ve got bigger fish to worry about.¡±


    Rolling slowly back over onto my stomach, once again being careful not to stab myself. I cocked my head to the side and looked once again into the bear¡¯s eyes to see him looking back at me before it crouched down itself. Clearly the bear either saw itself as the alpha or was just willing to let the crazy monkey satisfy its own curiosity while having no desire to give the hellfire another shot at it. With a quick shake of my head at my willingness to accept such a large, dangerous creature near me when just a couple of short hours before I would have been going for my bear spray. I marveled at the willingness of humans to be able to compromise when pushed up against something that was clearly the worse of two evils.


    Inching my head back toward the edge, I looked down and over. Part of my mind continued to stare on in amazement as the rest of me was willing to continue on in this insanity. Ignoring the massive five hundred pound specimen crouched right next to me, I looked back down into the abyss that I had run from just a short few minutes before. Looking down, I saw that the portal hadn''t grown much bigger, it seemed to have finished up the rest of the goblins while I had bonding time with my new friend. With only one remaining, glowing weakly in the air despite the light coming down from the massive giant still hanging in the sky. With a final pulse, that goblin too went lifeless and dropped limply to the ground. No longer being supported by the energy being dragged out of it, the final Goblin collapsed, like a puppet with its string cut. With all of the energy around it having been consumed I got ready to duck back down, in case it shot out another tendril out towards me, however no such tendril was forthcoming.


    Instead it began to pulse, somehow getting darker and blacker in an inexplicable way, how could emptiness become more empty? With a final pulse it suddenly lit up bright yellow, like tainted gold. Even though it remained frozen in place, some inner instinct seemed to tell me it knew I was here and was focused on me. I felt a tugging on my consciousness telling me to walk down to it, unsure if the calling was merely weak because it had not consumed enough energy, I was far enough away to ignore it, or if my time spent conscious while I was transported here had tempered my willpower. Whatever the cause might be, I found it remarkably easy to ignore the pull calling me down to be consumed. After reaching that conclusion, part of me immediately began to tell myself that as weak as the call was, there was nothing to fear and I should have no problem going down there and investigating this new power closer. Shaking my head with a quick chuckle at the quickness in which the portal tried to switch tactics, I resolved to myself that I was close enough, an Idiot I might be, but at least I could be happy I wasn''t dumb.


    I felt the bear start shifting beside me in an effort to climb to its feet, I worried that it might have fallen for the portal¡¯s trap. So I left my knife on the ground and my left hand reached up and clamped itself firmly down on its muzzle. Thinking back to how I had just remarked in my mind that I wasn''t dumb, the crazy part of my head that seemed to be in charge now replied that I was only dumb if the bear decided to take offense. With a sigh of relief on my part when I felt the bear settle back down onto the ground, I softly let go of its face and set my hand back onto my knife, in an effort to be ready for whatever was to come when the force behind the portal realized its lunch wasn''t serving itself up on a silver platter. Looking back down into the sickly golden light it seemed to be darting back and forth, searching for anything it could call closer to it and consume. Seemingly finding nothing, I felt it settle its invisible gaze back onto me.


    Unable to coerce my new friend and me down, it sparked viciously, going darker before lightening up again in a disturbing cycle, pulsing faster and faster. I saw what looked to be two scaled hands, with claws for fingers, reaching out of the event horizon and grabbing onto the edges of the portal. Pushing with what I could only guess was an effort to open it further. With a massive explosion of energy off the sides of the portal, I thanked my lucky stars that it failed in its efforts to stretch it any farther open. Staring into the center I saw a head seem to bend down and appear on the other side to look at me.


    Covered in scales, it had a massive mouth of teeth sticking inward, forming a circle like a lamprey¡¯s mouth. I had no doubt that for whatever this horrible creature clamped its jaws down upon, escape would be impossible without leaving behind whatever part of your body was stuck in its maw. Screeching out sounds that sounded, like steroid nails on a chalkboard from hell, it screamed at me. Unable to actually understand the words coming from its mouth, I was sure it was just some version of imperiously ordering me down, to either be consumed by it or become its slave. I ignored it and continued to look on with the stupid confidence of a patron at a zoo, knowing that I was safely beyond its reach. With a malevolent look it stared at me, the head pulled back up out of sight and with another crash of sparks from the lightning surrounding the portal. I figured it had given up widening the portal as its last shot at consuming me failed. Looking at the lightning, it seemed to have lost about half of its intensity. I''m assuming the life force of its Goblin batteries was starting to dwindle as it was continuously used up connecting the two points in space. Leaning back down, the head once more appeared before me, on its opposing side of the glowing hole in reality. Once more I resisted the urge to show weakness and cover my ears in an effort to stop the unholy sound from getting through, as it shouted more commands at me. As I focused once more on the edges and saw the lightning getting dimmer and pulsing faster. When the hands disappeared back to the other side and the screeching stopped, I let myself laugh in relief and triumph, happy that the danger seemed to be almost over. With the lightning pulsing faster and faster, now almost like a strobe light at a rave. I started getting to my feet, like a spectator at a blowout event leaving before the last couple of minutes in an effort to beat traffic. I wanted to give myself a little bit of space from the bear, in case it decided to end our truce, now that the bigger threat was gone.


    Looking back over my shoulder, I could only curse my stupidity and dive for the ground, as the one of the flags I kept seeming to send out seemed to have finally caught the universe''s attention.

 Chapter 13

    Chapter Thirteen


    Hitting the deck hard and from the woof coming next to me, this clearly startled my new friend. I could only hope that he wasn''t upset enough to snatch a quick bite out of me. I ducked and covered in anticipation of the round ball,  that I had seen the demon force through the opening, exploding. Head tucked into my knees, I saw the sky light up in a shower of brilliance despite the light coming from the planet above, one last brilliant pulse lit the sky before the portal collapsed. Hugging myself tightly, I got as low as possible and cursed at my mind for its willingness to not just let certain thoughts go. Never having learned the ability to stop myself from thinking about zebras. I just seemed to be incapable of stopping my brain from sending out invitations for the universe to come and have a little bit of fun at my expense. As I further pondered my inability to invite chaos down upon myself, I heard the bear woof again beside me. As I felt its wet nose snuff across the back of my neck, I realized that the explosion I had been preparing for had never come.


    Uncurling, I opened my eyes and looked up at the bear''s concerned gaze just inches from my own. All I could do was give a slight shrug as I rolled back over. Taking my weapons back up, I once again slowly inched up to the edge, to see what had become of the watermelon sized ball that the demon had managed to get through the portal. Looking back over the edge, I saw what I had assumed to be a bomb, was instead some kind of egg or seed. Having graciously waited for me to get a good view, it slowly started to open up. I could only hate it, for its first step in its campaign to crush my will, for with what seemed to be a claw, that apparently all of the native life on this moon was required to have. It stuck its way out and started cutting through the edge of the egg. As the claw worked its way around the circle, slime started oozing its way out, trailing behind the claw until it had made its way almost completely around the pumpkinesk like object. With its circuit almost complete, the slime splattered to the ground, gushing out as the creature the claw belonged to stood up, breaking itself the rest of the way out. Covered in an oozing mess, I looked on as it unfolded itself to what looked to be at least another foot taller than my own Six feet even (definitely not five eleven and a half). I wondered how it had managed to contort itself into the egg, but seeing how far the slime had splattered as it burst out, I realized it had to have been an incredibly tight fit. Green like its goblin brethren, it maintained several other similarities that I was able to pick out now that I had the time to look. Not inclined to start another charge down the hill at the moment, with no furry creature from home to save or hellfire to interrupt. I wanted to wait and try and gather as much information as possible in an effort to have an actual plan and prepare this time.


    Hearing a low growl beside me, I reached out and grabbed the muzzle unthinkingly, like I would my old dog''s when I needed it to be still. Keeping the horror that was running through my mind from showing on my face, I maintained a look of utter boredom as I turned to the bear. Giving its muzzle a small shake I looked into its eyes and indicated that it should remain silent. Looking back at me, with what I can only project was amazement the bear fortunately chose to stay still and didn''t bite off the offending limb. Apparently content to follow my lead he crouched back down beside me and didn''t start back up with its rumbling.


    Turning back to face the creature I noted the differences between it and its goblin brethren. It had almost three times the height of the little ones while being almost double the shaman''s size. However it seemed even skinnier than them, I could see that it was mostly skin and bones, no doubt how it was able to fit itself in the egg. While at first I had thought it was hairless unlike its smaller cousins, as it shook off a torrent of slime a black mohawk unfurled from where it had been pressed against its skull. With two tusks jutting out from its jawline, it opened its mouth and showed an impressive amount of teeth for something only a couple of seconds old.


    Bending down, apparently unwilling to waste the energy it needed to lift one of its smaller cousins up. It buried its mouth into the shaman stomach and started going to town. Hearing its disgusting slurping all the way up here I could see it start to add muscles definition on with a speed that indicated it was magical in nature. Seeing the way it was quickly growing in size, I started getting to my feet. We clearly didn''t have any time to sit and gather information to be sure of what we were facing. If it was allowed to continue feeding, it would only continue to multiply its strength until we would have no hope of defeating it. Starting the march down, once again forced by circumstances before I was ready. I could only pray that the bear would follow me down to put an end to this horror before it gained enough strength to kick us around, like a toddler with toy soldiers.


    As I moved down the hill at a deliberate pace, so as to avoid a tumble that would undoubtedly end with my own belly being feasted upon, without the blessedness of death that the shaman currently enjoyed. I ran through the mythologies in my head. My best guess just based on the similarities was that if the smaller ones really were goblins, then that meant, if this taller being was a juvenile, it was most likely to be an orc or a troll.


    Wishing I had an actual bestiary in hand to refer to. I could only hope and pray that what held true in the books that I had read, held true in this new reality that I had now found myself in. If it was an orc and lore held true, then if the bear came to help me out we would be in okay shape, merely having to beat it to death. With the lack of muscles it had yet to grow, I might have even been able to take it myself. But for sure I would take the five hundred pound, black bear over the buck fifty that the green string bean seemed to be at despite still chowing down. The rub of the problem seemed to be that I was going to bet it was a Troll, for several reasons. One, the being wouldn''t have sent it through unless it thought it could take us out, if it could be beaten so easily what would have been the point? Two, most sources of fiction had Orcs being bulky while Trolls had a lean litheness to them, and with no other information sources to go by I could only make assumptions. Three, a Troll based on everything human consciousness had dreamed up, was the worst opponent. And I liked to think if you are going to have any type of plan against the unknown, making the situation as bad as possible, in an effort to be as close to the truth, when the universe decides to let loose. I differed from the wise man in this, with his saying of: ¡°Never try to think of the worst thing that can happen. It''s bound to be worse than that anyway.¡± I personally felt that, when the shit got worse, he would feel good enough about being right he wouldn''t rub it in and he would forget to keep dumping on me.


    Basing my assumptions on the worst possible outcome that this was a troll, I could only hope that mythology had it wrong and we weren''t utterly screwed. Taking my eyes off the Troll for a second, I looked behind me to see that the bear was managing, with surprising deftness, to quietly follow me down the hill. Going back to my thoughts, while continuing to make my way down, I quickly started making a checklist in my head of everything you needed in a troll fight. Long, metal, boar spears to maintain distance so that it can''t bury its jaws in your tender parts, Check, don''t have that. I had a fishing spear and two were unmade back in my pack and the third had been broken off when the Troll went for his meal. I could only hope it didn''t have the intelligence to use it and quickly take me out of the fight. Giant axes or Greatswords with the weight, heft, and reach to chop off limbs of the troll once you have the spears stabbed into it and holding it in its place. Check once again, I found myself with only a tiny little hatchet and while it was a large knife¡­ it was still just a knife. A mob of people to wield said weapons and help soak up the blows, Checkity check, check, check, and although in this case a black bear wasn''t such a bad replacement, that still brought the total party to a grand total of two. Fire or acid to cauterize the limbs and nuggets you managed to remove so they don''t grow back. Check once again for finding yourself without. But I was unwilling to take the time to run back to my back and grab my remaining fire making supplies that hadn''t exploded. As liquid fuel was apparently not able to remain uncombusted in this new environment I found myself in.


    Unwilling to take the time and let it continue to grow in size, also doubting I could even make a fire hot enough or large enough to be useful. I could only hope that the bear could keep it knocked down, while I was able to keep removing its limbs, until it ran out of energy and suffered a true death. With a plan in mind and reaching the bottom of the hill, I banged the back of my knife on my ax handle and gave a small shout, ¡°Hah!¡± Hoping to startle the Troll and stop its feeding that was causing it to continuously grow before my eyes. It rose up to its full height and turned to face us. Now, normally I always hated when Hollywood would send in the MC screaming in rage before attacking a monster. I would have been content to quietly ambush it had I given myself even an ice cube''s chance in hell of pulling off a successful killing blow. But I needed the bear to be the main gladiator in this match up. So I had waited until I reached the bottom before saying anything, so that in the event of a quick charge by the Troll, I would better be able to dive out of the way. ¡°Best man for the right job,¡± as the wise man says and in this I agreed with him. And with no tough hide and only my thin human skin that I had no doubt the monster would claw through like tissue paper. I was going to have to rely on the bear to hold its attention while I hopefully slowly worked my way up its vitals.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Evidently the Bear agreed with me, standing up it stretched to an impressive height for a black bear, rivaling the trolls gangliness, but with all of the bulk that came from eating seal and sea lion blubber. Roaring out a challenge, it waved its arms menacingly. Taking my cue, I quickly retreated at an angle. Backing away so that the bear was closer to the troll, while never taking my eyes off of the green monstrosity, so that I wouldn''t be surprised if it ignored the challenge and instead made the smarter call of taking me out. The hairless, much more fragile, monkey.


    Either the Troll was playing the long con, with an impressive amount of deviousness that it was hiding behind its blank stare, or it decided that the bear was going to make a better meal. Whatever its decision tree was, it clearly judged me as not worth the bite or two it would take to scarf down my vitals and went after my new friend instead. Dropping to all fours like a skinny green gorilla, it started charging at the bear. While I wished for a way to communicate with the bear, in order to let it know my place in the battle plan. My new, brown furred, friend clearly had no problems with my hanging back, as it too dropped to all fours and started charging. Clearly not wanting to give up a momentum advantage to its dripping green adversary.


    With the ground both audibly and visibly shaking, the two met with equally loud, eardrum bursting roars, as they both rose up onto their back legs, pawing and moving their mouths around. Both looking to gain a purchase on the other''s neck, fortunately at first glance it seemed like the bear was going to hold its own, with neither creature unable to gain an advantage over the other. Unfortunately, the troll''s height advantage and magical strength was letting it hold its own despite the massive weight advantage that the Terran fighters held, so it didn''t seem like Yogi was going to be able to win this on his own either. Doing my best to stay out of the troll''s eyeline, I slowly started to circle behind it so I could add the tiny bit of human technology I still had with me, heat tempered steel. Quietly, like a cowardly rat, I crept around its back slowly switching my weapons once again in my hands. I slid the knife down into the sheath, bumping up against my right leg, not wanting to risk using anything but my full strength on my first blow. I had no doubt that whatever I did would remind the jolly green giant that the ¡®little¡¯ monkey was still around just waiting to be gobbled up, so I might as well make it a debilitating one. Grabbing my little hatchet, that desperately wanted to be a real ax, in both hands. I choked down to the bottom and with all of the energy I could silently bring to bare, swung it down into the Troll''s ankle, where I hoped to sever its own version of our achilles tendon. I thought about sending the swing into the hamstring, but in the end just didn''t want to take the chance that it was too large or strong to fully get a debilitating strike through.


    Clearly this was the right move as I dodged to the side. The bear quickly toppled the Troll over with the mystical beast unable to maintain its leverage now that one of its legs was out of commision. As the bear pressed down onto its advisery''s chest in an effort to hold it down while it went for its neck. The monster clearly wasn''t willing to go quietly off into the night, meeting the bear''s jaws with its own; it tried its best to dig its claws into the bear''s arms in an effort to dislodge them. Seeing another opening, I dropped my ax to the ground and redrew my knife. Holding its hilt with both hands, I trusted the bear to keep the troll''s jaws from my neck as I drove it with all of my weight, down into the jolly green giant''s shoulder in an effort to sever the muscles that were letting it use it. As the monster''s arm went limp I started sawing the knife back and forth furiously trying to remove the arm before the troll could get around the bear''s mouth and sink its fangs into me.


    Working my way around as quickly as I could, part of my mind couldn''t help but curse that the blade wasn''t serrated, as that would have hastened the task immensely. Halfway through, I felt myself hit bone, so I started working the tip around in an effort to avoid getting my knife stuck on it. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, but was in actuality was more likely only a minute at best. I managed to completely sever the arm and toss it away, stumbling backwards. I looked at the two hulking titans still laying on the ground to decide my next move. Whether because it just had the perfect mind of a predator or because something was telling it my game plan, either way Yogi was performing almost perfectly. Both of its legs were crushing the Troll down as the full weight of the bear was holding the smaller being on its back, with one of the bear''s paw pushing down on the troll''s chest the other one pinned the Troll''s remaining arm to the ground. Not even bothering to spar with his jaws anymore, Yogi gave me a look that asked what the hold up was and if I didn''t want to do my part he was more than willing to switch jobs with me. Not wanting to try my hand at holding a monster motionless, I quickly got back to helping out.


    Clearing my throat for attention, I gestured at the troll''s mouth and the bear responded by sending its jaw down to keep it busy. Deciding to get back to it myself, I drove my knife into the shoulder joint of the remaining arm, working my way around to separate it from its body like its twin on the other side. Leaving the head alone for right now I decided to go the methodical route and be thorough. No use letting an accident happen like say, the beast getting loose in a fit of rage and grabbing hold of me to chow down for energy to regenerate. Continuing to saw through the beast with a blade unsuited for the tast, I worked my around until I finally popped the other arm off as well. Tossing it carefully away, I made sure it landed close to the other one but not right on top of it. With several conflicting stories floating around in my head, I was unsure what kind of regeneration I was dealing with. I hoped for the basic kind where the main body just kept regrowing until it ran out of energy. But I wasn''t willing to risk my life on that and risk letting the arms grow either back into each other. Or have them starting to grow a new body from the ground, or even worse, have it turn out to be like a hydra, growing into separate bodies to ambush us while we were fighting its main body.


    Glancing at the first limb, I didn''t notice any changes in it yet that might signify it growing into its own being. Looking back over to the chest where the opening still remained of the first arm I had mangled off. It, on the other hand, looked like it was starting to close itself off to stop the blood loss. Unable to risk a bite while trying to take out its head with my ax, I stabbed down into the front of its skull to take out an eye, as the Troll roared in pain for the first time, despite remaining silent throughout my removal of its limbs earlier. I gave up on the small hope I had that a knife into the brain pan would have ended its existence. Pulling my blade out, I backed out of the remaining eye''s vision to wait for my chance to remove it as well. Not willing to be sporting, I didn''t want to take any chances before I went to remove the vermin''s head. When I saw it turn back to focusing on the bear, I seized the moment, quickly driving my weapon into its remaining eye. Eliciting yet another scream of rage, mixed with pain.


    Pulling my blade back out, I quickly rolled away while the bear continued to hold the armless threat down. Content that I seemed to know what I was doing, my fur covered companion looked like it had no desire to feast on the trolls'' unnatural flesh itself. As I placed my knife on the ground and went back for my hatchet, unwilling to get the trolls green blood in my sheath. I jumped back around as I heard my new friend Yogi roar loudly out in pain. It seemed that unbeknownst to either of us, the Troll had grown a spike onto each of his knees and had driven them up, penetrating into the fur over the bear''s stomach. Rearing up in pain and anger the bear slammed its paws down into the monster''s chest. Backing up, it bent down and clamped its jaws down on one of the offending legs, before whipping the Troll back and forth. Flinging it around until the troll ended up rolled over onto its stomach. Pressing its legs down onto the trolls back, it barked what was clearly a command to me. Going back for my knife I sprinted back over to the Troll and started the process of cutting through the legs and around the hip bone. While the bear maintained pressure on its back, while coughing out the slime and Troll blood, which was apparently as appetizing as it sounded, that had gotten into its mouth as it had played with the skinnier being like a rag doll. With both legs removed and tossed over to the limb pile, I patted the bear on the back and gestured to the side indicating that he should go lay down and rest. I hoped that the knee spurs hadn''t gotten anything too bad, knowing that on a human gut wounds are the most dangerous thing, other than something that would instantly kill you, and having no hope that it would be better for a bear.


    Setting down my knife and picking my hatchet back up, like I intended the first time. I made my way back over to the troll and began chopping through the gristle that made up its neck until the head was separated. Picking the head up by its slimy mohawk let it spin slowly around until it was facing me. Unfortunately it seemed that while the head was dead, the chest still had some life to it. The stomach continued to move up and down, despite blood not spurting out of where the appendages were removed. Going back for my knife, I tried multiple times to get through the chest walls to find a way to get to the heart, but everytime was met by thick bone, rolling the abdomen over onto its back, I found the front to be exactly the same.

 Chapter 14

    Chapter Fourteen


    Looking over at the pile of chopped off limbs, I was grateful that they didn''t seem to be growing into their own new monster, or making any effort to recombine with the main body. With one good thing going for us, that still left us with a load of problems to dig through. The first big one being, all of my stuff was a little over half a mile away, and I was getting more nervous that the dead goblins weren''t the only creatures around that would love to steal my stuff. Looking up into the sky I sent a quick thought out to the universe, that is not an invitation to send some Fiends after my remaining equipment. Second, the bear and I were both covered in the blood and slime of that freak; not to mention the previous goblin ¡®dirt¡¯ and blood. None of that could be that great for the wounds that we, well mostly he, had. Thirdly, we had a Troll torso that was doing its best to grow back all of its extremities, seriously what kind of BS evolutionary lottery win lets you grow back a head!


    My ally was still laying down, either it had gotten cut up worse than I thought by the troll''s knee spikes, or it was just content to let the monkey keep playing with the puzzle while it rested. The good news was that the limbless chest didn''t seem to be able to grow back its appendages instantly. It had been close to five minutes now I guess and it had only made major progress on its right arm, which had grown about halfway back to its elbow.


    Everything else was only closed up and had slightly bigger or smaller nubs on them that indicated the growing back process had begun. God what I wouldn''t give for a working clock, I really hated myself for always being content with a cell phone and never caring enough about the status symbol, I had always considered it an expensive timepiece. Had it really only been five minutes since I had taken off that first arm or was that just the come down? Was the adrenaline spike just messing with my head?


    Making a decision, I realized that I wasn''t willing to lose all of my supplies. This was going to be bad enough with them, and without them I might as well just take a long walk off of a short cliff. Decision made, I dragged the torso over to the bear before walking back to grab my ax. Quickly chopping through what had regrown for the right arm and all the nubs that had left. Luckily the bones hadn''t seemed to solidify yet, so it was easier to take the limbs off than the first time. I told the bear on the off chance it had any ability to understand me. ¡°Alright big boy, I¡¯ve got to leave this here with you. Don''t try to eat it, but if any of the limbs get too big before I get back, you are going to have to gnaw them off yourself.¡±


    Seeing some confusion in its eyes and worried that it might think I wasn''t coming back, I reached over to scratch its ears and said. ¡°Don''t worry, I''ll be back.¡± In the obligatory Schwarzenegger voice that dads must use with that phrase, ¡°I''ve got better things to eat anyway, just keep this guy immobile until I get back and we can figure things out.¡± Cursing myself in my head for a fool, I set down my ax next to the bear in an effort to show him that I would return. Walking over to where my knife lay I picked the blade back up, still all covered in monster viscera. I wasn''t willing to return it to its sheath, so I just held it in my hand as I took off back up the hill once again at a gentle jogging pace.


    Quickly making it to the top, I turned around and saw that the bear was content to maintain its vigil over the still active torso. With a small wave of my hand, I sucked in some more air, and continued my jog across the wide ridgeline. Running back to where I had left my pack and sledge, what seemed like days ago, but in reality was probably less than half of an hour. Looking around once I was there, I was relieved to see that everything was still where I left it. Unwilling to give myself one more thing to clean, I picked up my pack as gingerly as I could and gently tried to set it down on top of the seaweed that covered the fish. Picking up and putting the ropes around my shoulders, I did my best to move quickly, while still being careful enough not to tear the canvas that made up the bottom of my makeshift sled. Maintaining a steady pace back towards the other ridgeline, I still kept up the scanning of my surroundings. Not wanting to be surprised by anything while I was encumbered. Not that I wanted to be surprised by any more mythological creatures at any time, I would just prefer to face them without one hundred plus pounds of supplies tied to me.


    Making my way back yet another time to the ridge that overlooked the immense valley, I had to stop myself from taking in the majestic view. Looking down to the first bit of flatland I saw that the bear was standing up and gnawing on the body. Apparently it had either gotten hungry, or more likely based on how I was smelling right now something on it had grown to a worrisome size. Unwilling to leave my pack, even if it was technically now within sight of where I would be going, I picked it up and slung it onto my shoulders after quickly shrugging out of the ropes.


    Knife still in hand, I did my best to make my way down the hillside, to wear the demon spawn lay. Having made it down, managing not to faceplant, I quickly made my way over to where the two titans were, and upon closer examination I saw that things weren''t as bad as I had thought. Just the right arm had gotten to a worrisome size, and the bear seemed to have gnawed most of it off, with what was left only hanging on by a few strings. As I went to take my pack off, before I got started finishing off what Yogi had started. The bear''s stomach finally revolted at the task that had been asked of it. Jumping back, I managed to avoid getting hit with the torrent of bile that shot out of the bear''s mouth, and washed over the troll. Apparently despite being able to eat old fish, week long dead whales, sea lions and whatever else bears managed to come across. Not to mention all of the garbage they were happy to dig through, troll meat was where it drew the line!


    As he backed up, continuing to cough and gag, I backed away as well. As bad as the smell of troll was, mixing it with the bear bile caused it to combine into a truly terrible concoction. Between being a chef and a dad, I had smelled some truly awful scents in my life. From messy blown out diapers, being vomited on, or in the case of restaurants which held the previous number one spot. Finding a container of chicken hearts and livers that had been found forgotten in a corner of the walk-in. With no label on it, I had no idea of how long it had been there, or what it was. So I, in my infinite wisdom, had cracked it open. I truly cannot use words to describe how bad that smelled, but crushing the lid back down, did nothing to get it out of my head.


    Somehow managing to combine sweet and cloying, with the sour of old rancid roadkill. I now found myself looking back at that as a fond memory as I began dry heaving myself. Stumbling back a safe distance, I maneuvered myself downwind to remove my pack, while glaring at the bear. He looked back at me unapologetically as if to say, ¡°Hey stupid, I had to taste it! You, you hairless monkey, can use tools.¡±


    Acknowledging how big of an ask I had made I looked back at the torso, the legs hadn''t even gotten to regrowing the hamstrings yet. The left arm was still a nub, and the neck had only just managed to close itself up. So shrugging out of my pack, I set it down a safe distance away from the pile of gore that had only gotten more disgusting, as the bile mixed down into the slime and blood.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    Unencumbered, with only my knife in hand, I started up the hill for the third time in the last hour. I don''t know if it was the adrenaline or if the energy of this world was seeping into me, but I felt that I was moving at a brisker pace than I would have normally expected after the day''s activities. Or maybe it was just my overactive imagination. Making it to the top, I just pulled on the ropes to my travois once more, instead of putting the ropes on with so little left in its trip, before beginning my final trek back down the hillside. Dragging it down the gentle hillside over to where my pack was, I removed the ropes and reached into the sea weed to pull out one of the bigger fish I had there, tossing it over to where the bear lay. I bent down once more to pull a second one, walking over to the bear I said, ¡°Thank you, Brother. You did a good job, and you don¡¯t have to worry anymore. I''ll figure this thing out¡­ Just sit back and use the fish to get the taste of that out of your mouth. I''m well aware that without you that monster would be chowing down on me right now.¡±


    Laying the eel down in front of him, I went back to my pack once again and began stripping out of my boots and clothes. Getting down to my boxers I took a minute and decided that with only the bear around I cared a lot more about keeping them blood, gore and most importantly smell free than my modesty. I quickly removed them as well, clothing safety now assured. I picked up my knife, walked back over the surprisingly spongy turf like grass to get my ax. Doing my best to breathe from my mouth I went back to hacking the legs and remaining arm off of the troll.


    Tossing the nubbins into my growing pile of limbs, I set my knife and ax down and started looking to find a spot on the grass clean of blood and gore. First wiping my hands clean on it before then cupping my own nubbin and eggs. I then proceeded to roll around in the dirt and grass, willing to trade that for gore. Standing up somewhat clean, I could only hope that when the remaining bits of bloody mud on me dried, it would be easier to brush off. At least most of the smell was now gone. Walking back over to my pack I gingerly pulled a fresh pair of boxers on, careful to keep them free of the remaining mud and gore. With my feet being mostly clean as well, I pulled on my socks and boots, unwilling to risk a fight barefoot if more goblins showed up. I left the gaiters in the dirty pile to deal with later.


    Going over to my pack, I pulled the rag I had used earlier out of the bag that held it to protect the rest of my gear. Walking over to the sled I picked out a couple of the larger leaves of kelp that looked tougher than the rest. Taking them with me I went over to my knife and ax and started the process of slowly cleaning them of the blood and guts that covered them. Fortunately, they hadn''t begun to dry yet, further impressing on me both the reality of how adrenaline can compress time.


    Also how insane the magic that the troll possessed that allowed it to grow so much of its body back this quickly. I was now much happier in my decision to leave my gear behind before starting the big fight. I was sure that had I taken the time to go back for it, the little green giant would have quickly filled out to the point where Yogi and I would have been even now finding out just how bad the inside of a monster''s stomach smelled.


    Using the wet kelp to scrub the blades of my ax and knife clean of all of the blood and gore, I tossed the now inedible pieces over to the pile of limbs before drying the blades with my rag. Examining them closely I was happy to see that they didn''t seem to be damaged, despite my taking so long to clean them off. Some stories had the goblinoid genus of blood as being acidic and I was grateful to scratch that myth off of my growing checklist of what was true or not in this new universe. Finally all clean and shiny again I finally returned them to their homes, now grateful that I could have them with me, instead of being forced to leave them on the ground when I needed my hands.


    Not being happy with my previous setup, I removed the belt from my pants on the ground. Belting it with no pants, not being willing to dirty one of my two final remaining clean pairs, I moved the ax sheath to my right hip in front of the bear spray before putting my knife sheath on my left side.


    Armed if not armored, I walked back over to the bear to check and see how he was doing. He seemed to be happily enjoying his fish and not being willing to test how far our truce was going. I decided to graciously leave him to enjoy his meal alone. With a quick glance to tell me that it wasn''t yet time to reprune the troll again, I decided to quickly check on all of the goblin corpses to see if they had anything of use. Walking first over to the shaman, as gamer logic, book lore and just plain common sense all told me that the most powerful creature was my best chance of finding out what the creatures of this world found useful.


    Looking down on the monster, you wouldn''t have been able to tell that its soul had been drained from it¡¯s body. Suck dry to slowly power the spell that it had been looking to send towards the bear. I was still confused as to what happened. It had looked to be what I would have basically called a fireball, only instead of fire it had seemed to have been empowered by the evil draining of the small goblin''s soul. What drove such a creature to happily give its life and soul to cast such a horrible spell, I couldn''t begin to understand. While I am familiar with cults on earth and how even normal people could self-destruct their lives in different ways, my disconnect with them was nowhere near what it was with the tiny little goblin.


    I had seen its face and while I know you are not supposed to subscribe human emotions onto other beings, the only thing that I could see radiating out of its eyes as its soul was removed, was happiness. How can you feel your soul being ripped away and be happy? Even if you were willing to kamikaze yourself to take out your tribe''s enemies, this didn''t seem to be that kind of situation. There was no rest of the tribe here that you were protecting. Who sacrificed their life and soul to hunt a bear? And if it was forced into it, I would have expected fear and pain to mar its features, not happiness.


    Before I could further get lost of what drove goblins to happily suicide themselves to empower their betters¡¯ spells, I let it go. I decided to just keep that in mind for the future encounters every story I had ever read, assured me was coming. What was more important, was trying to figure out what would turn a fireball into a portal to hell. That couldn''t have been the shaman''s intent. I was still convinced that the purpose of that spell had to have been to kill the bear. Either through draining it, which still rang wrong in my mind, or immolating it in fire. There is no way that the shaman intended a chain reaction that would wipe out it and the rest of the hunting pack.


    They might have been willing to sacrifice one if they thought the bear was worth it, but even insects won¡¯t sacrifice an entire group to kill something unless the nest was in danger. And if they thought the nest was close enough to be in danger, then we should have been swarmed by even more goblins by now in an effort to keep that nest safe. Convinced I was right about that, I continued that train of thought. So if it wasn¡¯t supposed to be changed into a portal, then it must have gone wild when the shaman started losing its own soul to it. Either the shaman hadn''t fully cut it off, it was intended to drain just the bear''s energies to possibly open a portal and garner support from the demons. Or it had been summoning the fire from the other dimension and turned into a portal after the massive influx of life from all of the remaining goblins.


    I loved solving puzzles and I really wished to declare this one solved, but even though my gut was telling me it knew the right answer. I didn''t want to lock myself into a wrong assumption and use that to base my future decisions. So for now I would just keep those two guesses in the back of my mind as being a higher probability, without letting me get locked into a mindset that I knew how the world worked.


    I really didn''t want to send myself down the wrong path.

 Chapter 15

    Chapter Fifteen


    Giving myself a couple of quick raps to the top of my head with knuckles. I shook myself out of my stupor and told myself to get on with it. I still had a lot of work to do and it looked like I was going to have to get camp set up here. Looking up to the ridgeline I saw the giant above us continue to creep down into the hillside. It seemed unlikely now that I would finish everything I hoped for with the light of the planet and I didn''t want a large fire that would broadcast my position from anyone looking up from the valley. I resolved to begin setting up my tent soon, wanting to at least be sure of shelter before I experienced my first night here. No longer having a head lamp, I needed to make sure the tent was set up before the last of the planet light faded away, despite numerous times of setting it up trying to make camp in the dark by firelight is never a fun time.


    Looking at the Goblin shaman I decided that if it had the best clothes then it wasn''t even worth trying to salvage the cloth for anything else. I wasn''t even willing to try to use them to replace the base of my makeshift sled, the smell was that bad. Picking up my fishing spear that the Troll had knocked out while it fed. I unscrewed the tines from the shaft as they at least seemed salvagble.


    Looking at the three pieces that made up the pole, the top one bent so badly I was going to have to let it go. Unscrewing it from the bottom two, I tossed it off to the side. Willing to litter now that survival was on the line and I was sure I would be leaving here over burdened as it was. Cleaning the tines off on the ground, I returned it and the two straight parts to their brothers in my pack, before going back to my looting.


    Quickly grabbing the jagged knife that had been used to sacrifice the smallest goblin. I used it to cut through the shaman¡¯s belt so I could easily remove the pouch on its side, which looked to be from some smaller creature''s now unused stomach. Unwilling to risk my hands on a pat down, I used the back of the knife to scrape down the vest and pants looking for any hidden pockets. Not finding any I sighed in relief at not having to figure out the best way to get it open and remain clean. Ignoring the bone jewelry it had stuck in its face, neck and ears, I set down the knife and grabbed it by its hands and dragged it over to the Troll limb pile.


    Leaving a couple of yards of space on the off chance that I was wrong and they were just waiting for their own powersource to consume. I dropped the body down and walked back to grab the knife and continue the fun, fun, happy times of corpse robbing. Fortunately most of the remaining ones only had on loincloths making it painfully obvious that they didn''t have anything worth searching for. Most of the loincloths and vests broke apart on the way to dragging them, to what I was now going to be referring to unimaginatively, as the corpse pile¡­ I really hope zombies aren''t a thing here, but now that I sent that flag out there I was going to have to figure out a way to get a bonfire going tonight because there was no chance I was going to be sleeping with that thought running through my head.


    Fun Fact! I could now state that I was sure goblins were natural creatures in that they had the ¡®equipment¡¯ to propagate naturally. While I could only be glad that the trolls either gained that equipment later in their development or they were more magical creatures that didn''t need it. Either way I was thankful that I didn¡¯t have to deal with that third leg in my face while removing the other two.


    Twenty-three corpses, Fifty-eight spears (six of which had actual metal heads), and three more pouches later. I had finished the first task I had given myself. With only having to stop one time to remove more troll parts I was figuring it had taken about twenty minutes. Looking over to the bear still laying on its side, I was worried that the troll had hit something vital in its efforts to get loose as Yogi wasn''t looking so hot.


    Tongue sticking out and panting, he had only eaten a small part of the fish I had given him. Going over to my pack I pulled out my water bladder and one of my two collection pails. Taking a beat to drain some of the water down my throat myself, I poured a third of it into the bucket and walked it over to the bear. That left me with about two quarts of fresh water for the future.


    While the cold-hearted, logical part of my brain told me that I was only wasting it and that I should be happy that another threat to my life was gone. The stupid part of me that had always dreamed of adventure even though I knew better told the ivory tower bastard to shut its mouth. The bear had fought face to face with the troll so I wouldn''t have to, and yes, while maybe it was only returning the favor from saving him from the fireball earlier. Comrades don''t count favors, I''d been there for him, and he''d been there for me, that was enough. We had fought side by side, so the obnoxious prick could go stuff it''s stupid opinions where the sun don''t shine. We had bled for each other, well the bear had bled for me, and if he was going to go. I was going to do my best to ease his suffering, regardless of the later cost to myself. Bending down to offer him the water, I looked into his eyes and at least they seemed clear and that they recognized me.


    Rubbing my hand on his side I said, ¡°Hey Yogi, you mind letting me check out where the troll got you? If you let me see how bad it is, maybe I can come up with something to help.¡±


    As he gave me a growl and didn''t move I said ¡°What, you don''t like that name? Okay, well how about I give you something more noble?¡±


    When he rolled more onto his side and moved his paws to give me more room to look. I wondered if the trip here had increased his intelligence to the point where he could actually understand me or if I was still just projecting. Continuing to talk to him softly I got closer so that I could look closer into its belly area, in a classic good news, bad news situation. It seemed like he had a doozy. ¡°If you don''t like Yogi, how about a couple of other famous bear names, I asked? Smokey? Baloo? Teddy?¡±


    With a growl he denied them all.


    ¡°Okay, how about Corduroy, that was a favorite of my kids when they were little?¡±


    With a snuff he put the nix on that as well. Looking closer at his lower abdomen, the good news seemed to be that only one of the spikes had broken through his thick hide. With the bad news being that the one that did looked to have broken off part of it and it seemed deep.


    ¡°Okay, well fine if you refuse to help, I''ll just keep spouting off more names.¡± I told him as I started to stand up and brush myself off. ¡°We''re going to have to leave that alone for right now. I don''t want to pull it and risk causing more problems until I have camp and a fire. Worse case scenario means I¡¯m going to want to cauterize it and that means getting a fire pretty hot.¡±


    With a whine that I took to mean agreement, the bear settled back down. As I finished getting up and went to start setting up my tent, he snuffed at me questioningly.


    ¡°What?¡± I replied, ¡°I promise I''ll get back to you.¡± As he snuffed at me again I took a different guess. ¡°What¡¯s my name?" I asked, As he seemed to nod in agreement I spoke my thoughts out loud. ¡°Well if trolls and goblins are real here, then until I am assured otherwise I have no reason not to think that the Fae might be a thing as well.¡± I pondered out loud while thinking back on the limited time that I had been here. ¡°I don''t think I have even thought about it and I know I haven''t uttered it, so let''s do our best to keep our true names out of this world, on the off chance that the old tales about names having power over us turns out to be true.¡± I continued softly, almost to myself. ¡°I have always loved the name Gaian... you know I always dreamt of being a druid when I was younger.¡± Rubbing his head some more, I continued on. ¡°I wondered what it would be like to transform into a bear like you or maybe into a mountain lion.¡± I quickly turned my laugh into a cough at his woof of derision.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    ¡°Hey, better them than a wolf, those dogs are useless without their friends and I''m too much of a loner for a pack.¡± He settled his maw down on his paws as if to concede the point. ¡°Being able to send my thoughts out to talk with animals, hurl bolts on energy and transform all while living in nature has always been a dream of mine. I''ve always believed in duality. So I figured if Gaia was the loving, nurturing, and healing side of nature. Then Gaian must be the male defender, representing power, protection and an eagerness to push back on the encroaching civilizations! Whenever I played a druid in any kind of game, that was always my name for him.¡±


    With a little yip the bear called for my attention. ¡°What?¡± I exclaimed. ¡°You want my handle? A name I have literally spent years of my life turning real?¡±


    With another yip my new friend indicated that he had no shame. ¡°Okay, well you definitely lived up to the defending aspect of him in your willingness to throw yourself into the fight with the beast. So I guess it''s the least I can do. I bequeath the name unto you.¡± I said formally as I set my hand on his brow.


    The bear¡­ no scratch that Gaian, seemed to have a shiver run through him as he accepted his new name. Or maybe my mind was just overimagingin again. With another questioning yip he seemed to ask me again what I would choose for myself.


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t think I will go with any of my alt''s names.¡± I replied to the implied question. ¡°I think that I would also like to go with a descriptive pseudonym, I have always liked to putter around learning different new things. Seeing as how we both have a whole new world to explore, I really have always thought being a generalist is the better option than specializing into something and running up against a bad fit. It''s the whole reason I loved playing druids and shamans really.¡± I continued to monolog. ¡°In that vein let''s go with Jack.¡± And as I made my declaration out into the world, I thought I might have felt a shiver run through my own body at this new universe''s acceptance of the new me. Who had been born anew today on this planet. ¡°Yes,¡± I said as I clapped my hands together and stood up. ¡°Just Jack will be enough for me.¡± I said again with a small, sad smile as I tried to accept all that I had lost yet still refused to believe was gone completely.


    ¡°Okay, well now that we have figured out what to call each other, I need to get back to work.¡± I said out loud to Gaian as I took another look at the troll¡¯s center. Not looking like it was ready for a trim yet, I moved over to my pack and pulled the tent from where it hung from the bottom. Small and light, it was easy to set up, with full light even though most of the planet had disappeared into the ridge above. With practiced motions, I staked it into the ground. I ignored the footprint which was part of my travois, but staked down the overcover and vestibule as well. It wasn''t looking like rain, with such a clear sky, and I didn''t want to get dirt all over the fish taking the sled apart. So I decided to just take a chance and resolved to just quickly carve a channel around the edges if it started to look like a storm was coming.


    Going back to carefully trim down the troll again and throwing the nubbins in the growing pile, I really hoped it would run out of life source soon. Otherwise trying to get any sleep was going to be impossible, as I had no desire for the wakeup call I would receive, with no alarm to remind me of the bihourly trimming I needed to continuously do.


    With a frown, something odd tugged at my brain, something was wrong. Going back over everything with my mind and taking a quick count. I quickly confirmed the number of corpses hadn''t changed and that the corpse pile didn''t look any different. The troll was shaved back down so that wasn''t it. Looking at the limb and nubbin pile it didn¡¯t look like anything was growing or out of place there. Wishing I still had access to the phone on my camera, so I could compare and contrast it later as I did my next cutting. I looked over to Gaian to see if he had noticed anything wrong, but he just stared back at me like I was crazy. Shaking my head I resolved to perform my next shaving more carefully to try and figure out what my subconscious was trying to shout out to me so unsuccessfully.


    Walking back over to my pack, I used the shaman''s sacrificial dagger to loosen up the three pouches and turn them over with the tip of the blade to dump the contents out onto the ground. I really wanted to see what the little monsters used as currency, or just thought was important enough to be the only thing they carried with them other than weapons. I really thought it strange that none of them had anything like I would have considered to be a backpack, or even anything smaller like a bladder filled with water. Either they had been planning on drinking the bear''s blood before carving it up and using the hide to cart back the meat to their nest. Or, perhaps they just planned on gorging themselves on the bear once it was dead and were okay with just leaving the rest to rot.


    As I turned the pouches over one by one several stones rolled out of each of them. Using the blade to fling the pouches over to the corpse pile to burn later with their owners, I used the knife to tap them gently. There were eight glowing rocks. Three had come from the shaman¡¯s pouch, while the other three and two from the ones that had held the sacrifice for him to slaughter. They all had different colors to them, three seemed to glow green, three had a brown glow, while the remaining two glowed blue and gold. They hadn''t seemed to be divided up by color, with the shaman who I could only presume was the most powerful and had received first pick. Instead they seem to have been separated by how round they were. With the flattest ones belonging to the lieutenant that was slightly smaller and also had a more dubious looking spear.


    None could be considered fully round, and they ranged from the size of a quarter, down to one barely bigger than a dime that was clearly the smallest one. But again the dime sized one was the closest one to being globe like and so that had been in the shaman''s pouch. It was very confusing. They also seemed to be covered in bits of dried blood, but whether that was because they had been won in a fight or just were the goblins'' poor housekeeping habits I really wasn¡¯t able to guess at this point.


    Scooping them up with the rag I had dried my knife and ax head off with. I gave them a quick rub and then tucked them all back into the baggy and put it in a side pocket on my pack for easy access to ponder over later when I had time.


    Not wanting to walk around in just my boxers for my next task, I brushed my legs off as best I could. Then after removing my belt and boots, quickly redressed my lower half. After pulling my boots back on and lacing them up I decided against adding the gaiters and tossed them into my pile of soiled laundry. Again not wanting to dirty up the fish I left them on their little sled and grabbed a second bundle of paracord from the bottom access flap. Unclipping my pack from its separate metal frame, I was left with something much more barebones. Normally I used this method to pack out caribou or elk meat after a hunt, but today I was going after something much simpler but still just as necessary for maintaining life.


    After asking Gaian to keep an eye on the troll, I shouldered the frame and picked up the strongest two goblin spears, one of which was definitely not like the others. One clearly hadn''t been made by goblin hands, it was sturdy, with a pole a little taller than me before running up to a foot long hilt riveted into the top. The hilt had a crosspiece like a boar spear and was topped with a beautiful looking two foot long leaf blade, which looked to carry a decent edge. This was all at total odds for every other piece of equipment the rest of the little rats had carried. With one spear for throwing and another to defend myself if I ran into anything else, I felt this was as good as I was going to get. So I started off jogging farther along the flatter part of the hilltop, heading to the small copse of trees about a quarter mile in the distance. Not wanting to get too far, with the bear in bad shape and still having the neverending troll to worry about. I figured this was safe enough, as if I really needed to, I could drop the pack and sprint back in about a minute.


    Getting there quickly while still being just slightly out of breath. I placed the frame on the ground next to the spears. I quickly began gathering up whatever dead branches I could find from the ground and placing them on the frame. After gathering a decent amount, I took the paracord and looped it around the top of the frame. Then throwing it over the branches, I ran it back up through the bottom and pulled it tight. Cinching it down, before gathering the spears to lean against a tree for easy access once I managed to get the pack up on my back. Heaving it up I quickly settled it on my shoulders, and grabbed the spears. Walking at a steady pace, I wanted to get back but didn''t want to trip and end up in a worse situation than the bear.


    It had to be closing in on the fifteen minute mark by now and that was a lot longer than I wanted to be away from the troll. With no optimum scenario and a pit starting to grow in my stomach, I picked up the pace to a brisk walk as the weight of the branches kept me from jogging. Despite the camp still being in sight and nothing that seemed to be going on there. I told myself that it was just nerves, and nothing too bad could possibly be going wrong. Rapping my forehead with the knuckles of my free hand, I don''t understand how I am able to keep the name I was born with out of my thoughts, but was unable to stop taunting the universe.

 Chapter 16

    Chapter Sixteen


    Walking back over to my tent, I let go of the rope I was holding with my left hand. With the release of tension running over the bottom bar the rope slid out, dumping the branches onto the ground in a loose pile landing on top of all of the junk spears only good for kindling. Setting the two goblin spears I had taken with me down next to their usable brothers, I swung the frame off and set it next to the pack on the opposite side of the tent.


    Looking over at the big lug, I saw that he was still laying down next to the bucket I had left him and worrying the remaining fish without eating. Looking at him I started to shake my head, I have always been able to see both sides in any argument and that part of me was really starting to rear its ugly head right now. A small but vocal part of me was trying to say that as much as I was okay in wanting to help him. He was just a bear and I couldn''t even guarantee my own survival for more than two weeks, just based on food alone. If I started trying to keep him fed as well then I had no doubt the fish that were on my sled wouldn''t last more than a couple of days at best. I had already done my good deed by running down and stopping the shaman from casting the fireball onto him. Yes, while he had done the more dangerous part and been injured while we killed the troll together. The troll wouldn''t have been summoned if I hadn''t interfered with and helped the Shaman sacrifice its tribemates saving the bear already.


    The rest of me quickly shut the pragmatic side down before he could get too far on his rant. You help family, teammates, and friends. In that order, no questions asked, it doesn''t matter what it costs you. That has been your ethos, and while there have been times in your life that you hadn''t lived up to those expectations. They have always been followed by bouts of depression, so if you need to be pragmatic, then ask yourself how long you expect to survive in this world while fighting off the sadness from missing your family while all of the time hating yourself for not being able to save a companion in arms. One is out of your control¡­ but this second one lays squarely in the realm of things you can do something about¡­ so shut up and fix your friend.


    Gratified that I had gotten both sides of my brain on the same page. I walked over to the troll''s body, where upon arriving I stared down in shock as what my subconscious had been screaming about before finally was clear enough for my dumb forebrain to finally catch up!


    For, while yes the neck had almost fully formed, and the top of the head that was starting to crown its way out was indeed worrying. Even the legs that had started pushing out past the knees and were trying to flail around to push over could be considered nerve-wracking. That wasn''t what had my jaw reaching for the ground. No, not even the right arm pushing out fingers through the bit of forearm that stuck out past the elbow, which was gag worthy enough on its own, didn''t shock me that much. Staring at the left shoulder, all I could see was just ugly red open meat. It wasn''t bleeding, but it had never closed itself up!


    What could have caused that! Seeing the beginnings of eye''s starting to grow into the tiny part of the head that was popping out of the neck, I had to put a hold on my amazement. Picking up the jagged sacrificial blade the shaman had donated to my cause. I immediately began sawing back and forth around the neck, being careful to keep my boots and pants out of the goop still constantly coming out of the abdomen. While my arms moved mechanically at their disgusting task, my brain continued to work on the problem. I crossed off the blade being magical, that had been my first guess¡­ as one, I had used it to cut off other limbs. So unless it had run out of power, which seemed unlikely, that wasn''t it. Two, maybe the body was starting to run out of power, but wouldn''t the rest of the regeneration have started slowing down instead of just shutting one arm off?


    My mind started wandering as no immediate answer called out to me. I had never felt any energy coming from the dagger. While on the other hand, I was almost positive I had felt evil emanating from both the ball of fire and the portal. I was somewhat sure that I hadn''t imagined it. Because the fireball had a different flavor than the portal to my senses.


    While a big part of me was wanting to doubt what I remembered from the trip in the nightmare ball. Either from my brain just not being able to handle subjective lifetimes it had lived trying to understand and survive the power crushing it. Or the human brain just wasn''t able to handle the amount of memories that had been created despite being physically frozen in time. Or perhaps being frozen in time had prevented my brain from permanently forming the connections it had used.


    ¡°STOP IT!¡± I screamed out loud at the hamster in my mind, as it started ramping up to full speed. ¡°One God damn problem at a time. As fun as magic might be, let''s focus on the immediate problem that will eat us if we fall asleep!¡±


    At Gaian''s startled movement, I sheepishly said. ¡°Sorry, I''m too used to being on my own and being free to yell at my brain when it gets manic.¡± He laid back down as he had no choice but to accept my peculiar habits or eat me. With a troll bone still sticking out of his stomach, he seemed to know he was stuck with me for now. I guess the truth would be more forthcoming when he was all healed up.


    Moving on to the left arm. My body continued its mechanical movements, as I did my best to just focus my brain on a singular problem and not let it wander where it pleased. Okay the dagger isn''t magic, or if it was the magic in it had been used up before I liberated it.


    I had planned on building a fire next and then burning the troll, but if I could figure out how I had stopped the right arm from growing back¡­ Then I could start cooking the fish now without needing to use the fire for cauterizing a troll. This will save a lot of trips on fetching wood, which means saving on energy, which means the food lasts longer which means longer until you starve¡­ So let''s really figure this out.


    Tossing the arm to the parts pile, I tried to think back what I had done differently the last time. Now that the left arm was off, I moved down to the legs, still being both careful of the gore and watching out for the legs trying to gut me. I didn''t have the thick hide to stop most of the blow like the bear had done. Also I needed to get a fire going to help him out, so maybe I should just give up and get to him before he started getting just as sick as when he took a bite out of the monster.


    Freezing in realization, it hit me in a flash. As two disjointed thoughts rammed into each other while multiple other parts of my thought processes started colliding in their effort to cross the finish line of solving the problem first. Dodging a movement by the leg to get me despite being sightless. I continued my cut on the hip with a grin on my face, that belayed the fact that I was wrist deep in monster slime and viscera. The bear had chewed off the right arm when I had gone to fetch the fish and the rest of my supplies. I remembered coming back down the hill to him chucking up his guts onto the arm it was tearing off. Well more I remembered the smell while dragging the torso out of it.


    As bad as troll blood and slime smelled, adding bear bile to the mix was almost too much for my cast iron stomach. The stomach acid from the bile must have been strong enough to stop the arm from being able to reform. Switching to the last remaining leg. I smiled at finally having an answer to the big problem of finding a way to end the gruesome task that was taking up so much of my time. Only for it to fall when I realized that with the shape my furry friend was in, the task of producing bile was going to have to be left to me.


    With a sigh, I tossed the last leg onto the hopefully no longer growing pile of troll pieces, cursing vigorously to myself. The problem with having a cast iron stomach that had been tempered with years of being a cook and father was that there weren''t a lot of things that could make me blow chucks anymore. And while I was glad that I hadn''t had anything to eat since coming to this world as I hadn''t wanted to risk food poisoning even though I had had ocean fresh sushi many times before back home.


    The problem was I still didn''t want to risk food poisoning. Laying up a day or two crippled in agony just to avoid having to waste firewood on the troll didn''t strike me as a good trade. On the other hand, the time it was going to take me to get a fire hot enough to cauterize the troll''s limbs was probably going to mean having to waste the time cutting them off another three or four times. Decisions, decisions.


    Trite little phrases like haste makes waste, and measure twice cut once ran through my head, but at the end of the day I was just tired of cutting this body up endlessly. Butchering a dead animal had never been a problem for me. I had always been taught growing up and had made sure to pass along the lesson to my children, Don''t waste food, if an animal had given up its life for you, respect it. Make sure to not prolong its suffering, nor waste the essence that it gave up for you. So having to butcher this green wiggling hunk was really starting to wear on my soul. Despite it having no mouth to scream. I could tell that I was causing it to suffer and only the fact that I knew it would hunt me down and kill me in turn was keeping me going in this depraved act. So the part of me that just wanted this task to end won out.


    Moving back up to the neck, I used the dagger to scrape it clean so that fresh flesh could be exposed. Jagged meat that was red and oozing blood, despite the green skin covering it. I dipped my knife into the ooze on its chest, mixing it in with bits of blood and flesh. Taking a step back in an effort to avoid getting any splash back on me, I leaned my upper body closer to try and be sure of hitting my target. Forcing myself to keep my eyes open, I watched my hand raising the blade closer to my mouth in horror. Hoping that it was enough to take a big whiff of it in an effort to trigger my gag reflex, without having to taste the horrod concoction. No such luck, I had apparently become inured to the smell with all of my previous butchering sessions.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    Looking down and seeing the neck start to grow together again, I forced my hand to quit stalling and bent down and licked the blade. Finally, my stomach reacted sending out a torrent of bile in an effort to burn my tongue off as before the taste could even officially hit my brain pan. No such luck. However long I manage to live on this hell hole of a planet, I will no doubt have that sour, rotten taste burned into my skull. I am sure I will be darting up awake tonight, rubbing dirt in my mouth, in an effort to remove the specter of that taste from my memories.


    With plenty of bile heading into the neck hole and with a huge reluctance to have to repeat my actions more than necessary I shifted my aim over to the left shoulder, who''s flap had grown most of the way over. After sending the necessary stream of acid shooting forth. I started dipping the dagger down into it and cutting back into the meat while my brain tried to calm my stomach. Repeating the process on the neck, I did my best to mix as much acid into the flesh as possible.


    Standing back up while trying to control my drive heaving, I moved around the torso. Heading over to its bottom half, I sliced both of the hips back open. I tried to reignite the eruption of my stomach, but nothing came forth. Wanting to just end this nightmare I started raising the dagger back up to my mouth, but fortunately that small little motion was enough and I erupted again, aiming for the giant open wounds. Several sour heaves later I hoped I had enough, because I was done with this horrid act. Quickly jabbing the dagger back and forth into both legs in an effort to mix the acid into the meat so I can get on with trying to survive. Despite my best efforts to try and not think about what I was doing, my mind was still horrified.


    Dropping the dagger I stumbled over to some clean grass I began to vigorously rub my arms on it, after the initial pass getting most of my arms clear. I started tearing handfuls out to rub at them vigorously using the motions cathartically while trying to pretend I was scrubbing the last several minutes out of my brain.


    With a Whuff, Gaian clearly asked what my problem was. Staring back at him, I said out loud. ¡°Hey us monkeys grew thumbs for a reason. Our brains needed them to bring forth our ideas so we wouldn''t have to live the lives of throwing shit around like the rest of our cousins. As we''ve progressed through the era''s are tongue''s are no longer used to this crap. Plus, I didn''t see you managing any better.¡±


    Snorting the giant, cinnamon colored rug clearly thought I was being a prima donna and went back to lapping the little bit of water that was left in the bucket. Walking over to him I sat my butt down and scratched his ears as he laid his head down next to me sadly.


    Rubbing his head, I told him. ¡° I know, I know. We are going to take care of you next. I need to clear a big enough spot out of the turf to build a fire. I''ll get it hot enough to get a spear head heated up for you and then after we get that bone spike out of you, we''ll get the fish cooking for me and then start working on our water problem.¡±


    As the bear''s muzzle reached up and licked my face, as if to say he appreciated my continued willingness to help him. Or maybe he was just planning on what he wanted to pair me with when I lost my useless and he chowed down on me to stave off starvation.


    I patted his head again and then stood back up, brushing my pants clear of the bear¡¯s hair, reflexively. Walking back over to the shaman''s dagger, I held it up to examine the edge critically. It had some nicks to it that it had probably come from before I had taken over ownership, but otherwise it seemed to be in remarkably good shape. That really didn¡¯t seem to jibe with the tribe''s barbaric clothing choices.


    Also, while most of the spears were just pointy sticks, the ones that did have metal heads were covered in rust. With the sole exception being the boar spear I had noted early which was probably even better maintained than the knife I was holding.


    Heading over to my pack I pulled on one of the two, clean long sleeve shirts I had left. Happy to finally be done with the gruesome butchery and not having to risk getting it covered in gore anymore. I dug into the pocket of my pack that held my fishing tackle and pulled out a small file out of my set of five that I kept for hooks and minor repairs around the campsite that I wanted to take care of, instead of waiting for home where I kept my bigger sharpening stones. Rubbing the file up and down the edge to bend the nicks back into the proper shape, I took note that the sound of my steel on it indicated that it had been tempered properly in oil. Shoving that puzzle aside for now with way to many other tasks on my plate, I put the file back in its proper pouch and then picked out where I wanted my fire to be.


    Glancing up at the sky, the giant planet''s trailing edge had started to hit the ridgeline above. But, as large as it was, I figured I still had at least an hour till I found out how dark nightfall was on this moon. Marveling at how, despite the lifetimes I had of working with Order and Chaos, it had subjectively been less than a day since I had woken up to start my vacation.


    Picking a spot in between my tent and the big lug, I started cutting a line in the turf. Fortunately the damp earth made it easier to cut through than I was expecting. If there were regular storms I might have to rethink my tents footprint and try to hook up the extra plastic sheet in my emergency kit into a funnel for catching rainwater later.


    Pacing it out to be about three yards, I started cutting another on another line perpendicularly, looking to get one more going after to make three sides of a square. Finishing the second line I quickly started in on the third as I was starting to get hungry. I could have chosen to go small and just started cooking one of the fish, but I really didn''t want to spend the extra energy redoing work later. Better to suffer a little in the beginning doing things properly than have to waste the calories redoing the work.


    Finishing the third line, I looked down at the dagger, still in good shape as there didn''t seem to be many rocks in the soil. Walking over to my pack I placed it down next to it, as the shaman hadn''t seemed to have had a sheath I could commandeer.


    Pulling my small collapsible shovel out, I unfolded its blade and walked back over to the middle cut. Starting at a corner I worked my shovel into the damp soil under the grass, prying it up and rolling the grass back onto itself. I started working my way down the line rolling it up. Looking into the dirt I was happy to see plenty of ants, grubs and worms scurrying for cover. While not my first choice I was confident that I wouldn''t starve anymore, debating in my head just popping a grub or two into my mouth to remove the lingering taste of troll offal. I skipped it for now, being willing to wait for the eel later. Working my way up and down the line I got into that timeless groove that was my brain''s normal defense against boredom.


    Thinking more about the troll I tried putting more thought on how it kept managing to produce an endless amount of limbs. It didn''t fit in with my experience in the shadow lands that brought me here. Yes, I had been able to temper my Qi channels to such a degree that they were all equally flexible and could stretch an insane amount when put under pressure with a Qi globe.


    I didn''t think it was possible to do anything that they wouldn''t immediately bounce back from. Also, yes I had broken down a mountain of the Chaos Qi to build myself a planet size core who''s walls with the dynamic Chaos bouncing through them should be even stronger than my channels.


    Despite all of that I hadn''t been making something from nothing. I had been breaking the Chaos down and locking it into my channels with the help of the Order that had moved us through dimensions. I had just been stuck with a never ending supply of Chaos until we had made it here. But once I had arrived here, the energy that brought me seemed to have high tailed it away. With no raw Chaos and Order, what else could that monster have been using to replenish its parts so easily. It even started regrowing its head for christ''s sake.


    ¡°Roarrrrrrrrr!¡± Looking up at Gaian, I saw that he was screaming for my attention. Most of the way done with rolling the turf, with my inner musings keeping my brain distracted while my body worked on autopilot. I sprang to my feet, dropping my shovel while pulling my ax and Bowie.


    Sprinting over to the bear, I turned and dove for the troll''s body as I saw what had caused him to stress his injury in alarm. The body was starting to glow bright green, while pulsing with the yellow that I was coming to associate with the evil feeling that the portal gave off. It shown through the body even more brightly than the green that seemed to fill every piece still connected. The yellow looked to be shining through causing cracks to begin to form in the skin, pulsing brightly it made me think that it was a bomb ready to go off.


    It seemed that the acid had done its job a little too well, as I found the answer to my earlier musings. There was indeed a power source that had provided the energy for the troll to keep throwing out endless limbs for me to cut off. With no other source to send that energy to, it seemed like it was building up in the chest cavity like a runaway nuclear reaction. Not wanting to find out what happened when it reached critical mass, I thought about running away.


    Looking over at Gaian, I didn''t think that he was going to get up to anything more than a walk, and if this pulsing speeding up was any indication, he wouldn''t be able to get very far by the time the body went critical. I doubted I could get the body far enough away from him and then make my own escape for the same reason. Choosing option three, I still first took the second I needed to pull my shirt off and toss it aside before diving onto the body and driving my knife as deep into the neck muscles as I could. Pushing my whole arm in as I used my knife as a spear point to get my arm through the muscles in the way. I pushed as hard as I could to get the blade past the center of the glowing.


    Letting go of the blade, I began moving my hand around searching for the troll¡¯s version of the globe, that I now suspected was what the goblins had been carrying around in pouches. The core or power source, unsure what the locals called it here. I made the guess that removing it would power it down into a version similar to what they thought was valuable. Or if that didn''t work it would be easier to throw away before it blew. Feeling something that gave my hand a jolt like a nine volt battery, I grabbed it and pulled it out. As I removed it from the troll''s chest cavity, my own arm was now completely covered in gore. Holding the small marble up, the runaway train of energy seemed to stop and the glow coming from it dimmed down to the light of a small LED.


    Holding it up to look at, I felt a pulsing from my own center. For the first time since the Chaos had disappeared over the horizon, I had a sense of where my own center was again. With the evil yellow glow woven throughout the full green globe I was holding, I had no desire to put the evil little thing inside of me, despite what my core might want. Looking back down at the body of the troll that was still glowing I knew I had to dig back in to get my knife back.


    With another shock from the core I dropped it to the ground, and as the marble size globe gently rolled several feet away from the body. I paused making sure it didn''t have some way of self propulsion. As I stuck my arm back into the neck cavity, I apparently triggered the residual energy still in the troll and like a bubble struck with a pin¡­


    The abdomen burst in a small explosion of gore and viscera and I was completely covered in offal.

 Chapter 17

    Chapter Seventeen


    Opening my eyes, I could only stand frozen, my brain unable to process the calamity that had befallen me. I wanted to wipe my face off, but honestly didn''t see the point, as my whole front was now covered in red and green gore that was slowly dripping down off of me. Wanting to scrub my face I could only stand still in horror as I started to feel more energy building up off of the troll''s body.


    Looking down at the broken body, I started to dive for the ground, but held off as I didn''t see any glowing like before. But, there was definitely something there billowing up off of the torso. It felt like an ethereal stream of anger was streaming up out of the broken and bloody hole in the center of the troll''s abdomen. Swirling up higher and higher into the air to form a tornado of hate and hunger that kept circling wider and wider. There was no colored glow to this like I had seen before with the green and yellow pulsing that was still coming from the glowing core on the ground. This seemed like a completely different kind of energy, invisible and ethereal it nevertheless felt even more dangerous, like a thousand spirits waiting to devour me.


    As the last of it swarmed up into the swirling cloud hovering that seemed to be hovering around ten feet in the air. It felt like I should be able to see lightning crashing through a dark cloud but as I stared at the spot in the air it was completely clear. Not even the slightest distortion in the air changed the view of the giant hanging in the sky.


    Glancing over at the bear to see what he thought about it, he seemed oblivious as he was just removing his paws from covering his eyes, apparently unconcerned now that blood was no longer flying through the air. As I felt the energy build to a crescendo, two funnels reached out from the storm. The larger one heading towards me, with a smaller one veering off to the side to go after the bear. I tried moving in front of him to tank it, as he had faced the troll for me. But as they both reached my chest the smaller one snaked around me unphased. Unable to do anything to protect him, I could only try to focus on repelling the larger portion from myself.


    It seemed like it was trying to dive into the center of my body where I had last felt my core when it was hungrily trying to devour the marble I had pulled out of the troll. My first instinct was to try and break it down like how I had turned the Order into Chaos to fuel my advancements. But this energy was alive and feeling as opposed to the static Qi that I first encountered. With no time to think I chose to focus all of my effort on swirling the nascent energy of my core to repelling it.


    Maybe it was a mistake, but with no time to reconsider, I focused on trying to bring up anything to defend myself from the tendrils of hate that were already starting to dig into my chest. As I tried again, I found myself unable to move my core at all, it was frozen like a pit of lead in the bottom of my stomach. Part of my mind immediately resigned itself to tanking the hit instead, if I wasn''t going to be able to master the energy in my center to actively fight the tendrils off like a rapieriest from the middle ages. Then I was just going to have to take the hits as they came.


    Abandoning my efforts of trying to motivate my core. I fell to the ground and curled up into a ball like I was back in grade school and protecting my face. Feeling the tendrils dig into my chest in an agony reminiscent from my time in the hell ball. I focused back onto what got me through that lifetime of agony. First I maintained an unwavering image of myself, warts and all. A dad anxious to be strong enough for his children, wanting to be strong enough to lead them down a path that will help them succeed in life¡­ Without being so strong that I crushed their will, leaving them driftless once they were on their own.


    After that strong center was the part of me that loved learning. I didn''t have any particular interest that I favored one over the other, any new subject was a cornucopia on Thanksgiving, filled with plenty of delightful treats to sample lightly on. Surrounding that layer of self was the part of me that focused on the lessons I had best learned from my grandparents. Family first, next extended family and friends, then the rest of the world, but always make sure you leave a little bit to keep yourself going. If you give everything out to the world, it will burn you down to the quick. Holding everything to yourself like a miser is selfish and evil, but giving everything away is equally bad. Leave the extremes alone and focus on the middle ground.


    Lastly I focused on the most important lesson that my grandma had taught me as a child: ¡°Always remember, God grant me the Courage to change the things that I can, the Serenity to accept the things that I cannot and the Wisdom to know the difference. Now Grandson, it¡¯s not the way the official prayer goes.¡± She said while shaking her finger at me. ¡°But that''s the way we say it in this family. Err on the side of Courage and be Serene in your failings knowing that Wisdom only comes through many failings.¡± I might have fallen off of believing in God so long ago I couldn''t exactly remember when, but that didn''t mean I had ever thought the lesson was useless.


    Just because I didn''t believe in an omnipotent being that counted every sparrow''s fall didn''t mean the underlying lesson was wrong. Feeling the tendrils of hate and anger drilling down into my core I focused on Serenity. There were no tricks left in the bag, this was going to happen, so all I could do was accept it and get through it. Feeling the tendrils reach my core, I crunched down harder as I anticipated the attack. But although the outside barrier was still there, I didn''t feel anything from it, no I didn¡¯t lose any Qi from my core. The wall of Order and Chaos seemed to just be completely ignoring the invading energy as it continued its march across the gigantic cavern towards my center.


    Perplexed as I had thought that it would have been anxious to attack my core and take it over or destroy it based on a lifetime of reading cultivation novels and watching anime. I was still hunched over in agony from the pain of it drilling into my body, but my mind continued to operate  on two levels, the widest outer level that focused on just getting through this while maintaining my sense of self and the second detached part of my brain that analyzed everything.


    It seemed to take ages but eventually the tendrils made their way to the very center of the core. Where the little bit of Chaos I still had remaining seemed to just float there in its random pattern, held back by the ambient energy that looked to be sending it back into the middle. Hope crushed and confusion ran rampant through the second part of my brain as the Chaos Qi took no notice of the tendrils that continued their dive towards the very center of my core. Hope from the fact that I was sure the Chaos would annihilate the overreaching tendrils to confusion that the tendrils were equally ignoring everything in its march to the middle.


    Quickly reaching the center, the hate and anger seemed to try to dive into a speck that maintained its position at the exact middle of everything. There where it finally encountered something that gave it pause. The Serenity, the outer part of my brain was trying to maintain, held its calm, despite the endless volts of energy that I felt running through me. Visibly rebounding, at least to my inner sight, they curled back up for another strike all the while gathering more of the energy up for another attack. Again I felt a shudder run through me as my soul seemed to rebuff the attack with its calmness.


    More tendrils gathered, as it seemed like a quarter of the storm of anger had made its way into my inner world. No longer content with its scouting skirmishes, the enemy energy began martialing its tendrils into bigger cords that twisted in upon themselves to strengthen the attacks that kept coming endlessly upon my sense of self.


    Here and there some of these stronger attacks began breaking through the outer shield that seemed to be made up of calm that my soul was trying to maintain around myself. Fractured into splinters I could feel them trying to wiggle their way into me, trying to implant a rage into my very essence like seeds scattered onto a field by a farmer. Forcing myself to breath both body and mind, I strove to maintain my calm, knowing that getting angry would only be throwing fuel onto the fire. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    Having trained and failed endlessly at this with my broken marriage, I could only be thankful for another good thing to come from that painful time in my life. Now no longer would I only have my children to have come from that pain. Getting over that anger and pain had been one of my hardest accomplishments, it took years of working on myself after we had gone our separate ways. It took a long time for me to come to face my part in the hate and anger that had consumed the love we had for each other in the beginning. Never being able to walk away from a comment, I was always quick to lash back. Despite having learned those lessons far too late in life for my marriage, I strove to apply them now in this struggle to maintain my soul.


    Knowing that once you take that first step of engaging in the back and forth hateful comments it is infinitely harder to turn back and unbreak that egg. I focused on maintaining that shell of peacefulness around me despite the holes that were being driven through it. My serenity hadn''t been destroyed, so it quickly flowed back to snap off the tendrils that made its way through and defend from further incursions. While my sense of self worked to fight off the anger and hate that started trying to bond with parts of my sense of being. Insidious, it wanted to first try and corrupt my Courage. Trying to use that emotion now that it was past my Serenity. Wanting to infiltrate it, I felt a calling speaking out to me. Saying that it could be useful, I should stride forth and conquer these weak goblin tribes. To use my rage as a shield and blow past this incoming energy and consume whatever I found in front of me. Stamping out those tendrils before they could grow into full thoughts, my mind laughed in response. Charging forth blindly is never the right thing to do, and if a charge was called for then, I still wanted to do it thoughtfully, applying the proper amount of force to where it needed to go.


    Another wave of anger and hunger struck through the Serenity shield my soul was maintaining. This time striking out at the another layer of myself, trying to infect the part of me that wanted to help and protect my family and friends. Looking to prey on my fears of inadequacy, telling me that my being here was proof enough that I hadn''t been strong enough to stay on earth to protect my family. This one hit harder, but I forced myself to continue maintaining my calm. Wanting to rage out that no one could have escaped that ball of blackness.


    I instead focused on breathing, telling myself that letting myself get sucked into this fight was pointless. Yes, I hadn¡¯t been strong enough to stop myself from being taken, but that anger and hate wasn''t going to get me home. I didn''t want to be a murderhobo endlessly killing and consuming to get stronger. For there is always someone stronger and eventually everyone misses a step and falls to another. With a strength that I had never found in my marriage. I continued my breathing patterns, let the argument go, and the tendrils having nothing to engage with soon quickly withered and died.


    Looking out it seemed as if more than half of the storm of energy had made its way down to the cavern that was my core. While it had looked to be an immense storm on the outside, here in my core that it had forced itself into the storm seemed miniscule. Not even taking up one percent of the space of the massive center I had built up in the ages I had lived in coming to this world. Despite how small it seemed in the core at large, as it continued to build up, enveloping around my center. It was a massive hurricane in comparison to the speck in the center that seemed to lead to my soul.


    Endless waves continued to crash down, poking me and prodding for my weak points. Tears streamed down my face, as I looked into my fears of inadequacy, that sense of never being good enough that the anger and hatred was doing its best to force its way to bond with. All I could do was focus inward to that tiny point and continue to breathe in and out, maintaining my calm. Unwilling to let the anger and hunger connect with who I was at my core sense of self.


    Not trying to delude myself that I would never experience anger again. I was sure that I would, but anger like fear was an emotion that needed to be acknowledged and then allowed to pass through. It wasn''t part of who I was and I had done too much work to get past that. The endless hunger for power was so easy to ignore that a few stray specks almost made their way by unnoticed. But when they latched on and started pulsing in an effort to grow further into my soul it was comic in their simplicity. The way they started telling me that only by rapidly gaining strength would I be able to find my kids quickly here, almost made me laugh out loud. Rapidly searching for things to kill would undoubtedly send me running too fast into a challenge that I couldn''t handle, and the consumer would no doubt quickly end up the meal.


    What seemed like endless waves crashed through the speck in the center of my core. Driving into my shield of calm, with drips and drabs continuing to make it through to test my sense of self. As the storm blew itself out, wasting its power on my shield that had been tempered by years of fighting, it began to lack cohesion and slowly started dissipating out of the core back into the world above. Unwilling to take any of the energy into my sense of self, I maintained my consciousness there until the last of the energy was gone and my serenity floated around the speck in the center like a bubble protecting my soul. With nothing holding me here I found myself back in my body, with apparently no time having passed by in my war to defend myself.


    Back out in my body I saw the energy I associated with the anger and hatred streaming off into the sky, seemingly making a run for the planet above. While the body left behind continued to glow with a soft green pulsing that seemed to be more ethereal than the beating of the core that still glowed brightly off to the side where it had fallen earlier. Feeling a presence pressing down from above, I felt it start pulling the softer calmer energy up into itself. Even though I was exhausted from the fight to maintain my sense of self, my first instinct was to reach out and claim this gentler energy as my rightful conquest. Worried that some part of the hunger had managed to invade me, I clamped down on that thought and focused on breathing. Unwilling to be baited into taking a poison pill willingly into my body, I forgo the possible powerup as I was wrung out and not ready for a fight if I was wrong.


    While no doubt all of the heroes of my stories would be screaming at me that I was letting the chance to level myself up get away. I ignored the shouting from the cheap seats and just focused on not falling over. Working on maintaining my breathing steady, I felt like I had run a marathon.


    Suddenly from behind me came a giant ROAR!


    With my ears ringing it seemed in my struggle I had forgotten about my new friend. It looked like my ally had lost himself in the hunger and anger that had laid siege to him. Turning around I saw the bear that I had named Gaian was standing up on hind legs while his fore were pawing into the sky.


    No longer could I see the intelligence that I had come to associate in his eyes, so I reached down for my bear spray. Although I had only known him a scant couple of hours. Killing and retching on the taste of troll had bonded us, so I was unwilling to abandon him easily. My Left hand, nonetheless hovered over my knife. I was also unwilling to abandon my stuff in the event I found he had been changed forever. Knowing that the proper thing to do with a wild black bear is get tall to scare it, I snorted in derision. As I had no doubt that if this rage conquered his spirit, I would be in a tough fight.


    The being unwilling to back down from a troll, was unlikely to run from me. As he roared again loudly he came back down on his paws and turned to faced me. I saw a spark of recognition flash for an instant in his eyes before disappearing back into mindless rage. While part of me screamed that it was all in my imagination and to hurry up and spray him, the crazier part told me to give him time. He was injured and unlikely to be able to dart at full speed to take me out.


    Stupidly, I continued to give him more time to come back to himself. Gaian began pacing back and forth while staring at me every couple of seconds, shaking his head violently. I remained frozen, not moving a muscle, unwilling to agitate him further. I spoke to him softly, yet with my right hand ready to spray the second he passed the imaginary line my mind had drawn on the ground. Continuing to shake his head, he started sneezing as I continued my soft talking. I was looking to remind him of our short acquaintance, our fighting of the troll, our shared brotherhood in the tasting of troll slime, and how I had fed him a fish while I myself had yet to take my own first bite on this world. Slowing down, he started limping, either the pain started reaching through to him or my words had finally broken through to reignite our new bond. As sanity came back into his eyes he looked up at me as if to say he was sorry and with a small woof, lumbered gingerly back to the little bit of water and half an eel on the ground where he previously had lay.


    Crisis averted through Gaian''s strength of will, I let my hands fall to my sides and returned the spray to my hip, as I looked down at the core I wondered what those two new energies were that ignored everything but my soul so effortlessly. I stared at the glowing rock on the ground while my face continued to drip troll entrails as though only a few relative seconds had passed.

 Chapter 18

    Chapter Eighteen


    As I was staring down at the core laying on the ground, I began feeling a ravenous hunger building up inside of me. Stupidly I felt myself reaching out, my hand seemingly of its own volition, grabbing and scratching into the dirt I found myself grasping for it. As soon as I felt my fingers brush against the hard surface, I quickly picked the glowing core back up and upon acquiring it, the Chaos Qi in my center blazed back up into life.


    As it started bouncing around faster and faster, I felt a warmth start growing in my center. I desperately grabbed for that pulsing hunger coming from the rock in my hand. I found it to be both incredibly different and yet strangely similar to the death energy that had flown up from the troll and attacked Gaian and I just scant moments before. As my rational mind started rousing itself and trying to regain control of the insanity that seemed to have taken over my body. I tried to use the connection that was forming to the rock in my hand, to try and gain some control over the Chaos Qi that I hadn''t been able to rouse in my defense with the previous attack.


    It seemed like my core was a runaway nuclear explosion waiting to happen as the Chaos began to vibrate even harder as it started to answer my call. Yet it still seemed to remain in the center of my core. As I started to feel an ache in the back of my heart I wanted to go to a knee as the energy in my center continued to grow even more violently in its desire to escape and consume the energy pulsing out of my hand.


    As hungry as the Chaos in my center felt, it seemed like it was so eager for this new energy to make its way into my core so it could feed. Part of me felt that it would be easy meat and I would have a huge power up when it finally made its way to the center and my Chaos was finally able to devour it and grow. I could feel myself becoming more and more desperate for it to reach my center, where I could rend it from its previous source and consume the troll essence to grow even more powerful. As I felt a connection starting to form between me and the glowing rock, I heard my subconscious screaming that this was a trap.


    I concentrated on the connection that I was feeling starting to form. Beyond the soothing green energy that tasted of life and renewal I could feel something waiting. As if it recognized being caught out, I felt it start to charge forth in an attack, though this time my Qi seemed up to the challenge. I felt pain, rage and a will start to push past the green energy as the evil yellow Qi that was hidden behind it began its assault.


    At first I was feeling confident, whether this was from my recent fight, or my own Qi was infecting me in its desire to feed and grow stronger, I don''t know. But as I could feel it creep into me, that instinct to rend, kill and consume; my cautious side grew more worried. I could feel an alien rage begin building in my mind, trying to close in and lock out every other emotion in its bid to take over. I felt the urge to shout out my challenge to the waiting universe, screaming that it was just meat waiting for me to consume.


    Clamping my mouth shut and refusing to give into my instincts. I began trying to spin the pulse of the invading energy like I had once spun Chaos and Order Qi around my bloodstream, before breaking them down and using it to empower my channels and core.  Feeling an echo from my time in the hell ball, the subjective life times I had spent there breaking down and empowering myself seemed to take back over as I felt regret at what my lack of self control had caused. Feeling the invading evil began to make its detour from its drive towards my core as I spun it around like a rocket around the moon, slingshotting it out to make a circuit through my channels I had formed. I felt it trying to burrow into me, but tempered as my channels were by the broken down building blocks of the very universed, they rebuffed the attacks effortlessly. Feeling more of the evil continue to stream into me, I forced my fingers to open and let the core drop once again to the ground.


    Immediately I felt some relief, as the evil seemed to lose the will that was driving it on. With the remaining energy making its way around my system I felt it bunching up upon finally entering  my core. It started making its way across the massive space that I had built inside of me as it continued heading toward the speck in the center. Looking closer I saw that it wasn''t heading straight at my center, instead it looked like it had started forming a circuit around the Chaos like a comet streaming through the solar system. Continuing to wrap around the center it began elongating more and more until it formed a ring as thin as a thread around the bouncing Chaos ball in the center, like it was now a ring around Saturn. It seemed as if the two sources of Qi were working to form some kind of equilibrium. With the sickly yellow Qi using the ball of Chaos as a source of energy to continue its orbit whereas the Chaos Qi in turn used the compression of the ring to bounce faster and faster.


    Unwilling to let the status quo continue if it meant keeping that evil inside of me like a trojan horse, I focused my mind on the Chaos. With no wish to end up mindlessly consuming like the previous holder of the core that I had foolishly picked up, and unwilling to risk letting the evil infect my core with its sickly yellow energy. My mind worked frantically on solutions I could use to fight it off. If I was going to treat it as a source of Order Qi then logically I should be able to use the Chaos to either break it apart and consume it; or churn into it empowering it, having it grow stronger and more solid. Knowing which was the only palatable option, I started working out how to try and bring my thoughts to fruition. Focusing on the Chaos, I started trying to agitate it and encouraging it to act, while another part of me concentrated on the ambient barrier that was pinning the Chaos in place above the speck trying to weaken or expand it to let the Chaos loose.


    As time passed on and the impasse ensued, I grew worried that I had invited something inside of me that was going to sit and wait to take me over. Unwilling to become a puppet, I grew more and more determined that I was going to remove the ring of yellow before it could set up shop permanently in my core. As I grew more certain in my determination a pulse shot out of the black speck in the center and dragged two of the bits of Chaos with it. Shooting past the invisible barrier, it dragged the Chaos into the ring of yellow.


    As the two Chaos motes hit the yellow ring, it did as it was wont to do and started to infect it in turn randomly. Some bigger parts turning to energy and some smaller seeming to turn solid with no rhyme or reason that I could discern. As the ring broke apart and started shooting randomly around the cavern that was my core the pulse gathered back up the original two motes of chaos and several of the new other motes as well, returning them back to the center before retreating further itself, back down to the speck that I was starting to consider to be my soul.


    All cohesion gone, the remaining energy continued bouncing its way across the cavernous core that held it until it started streaming its way back into my channels. This time as it made its way around I focused on opening up the hole I had carved into the wrist of my right hand, expelling the energy back out into the troll. Which upon hitting it, sprouted back out in a fresh explosion of blood and organ bits, rebathing me in offal.


    Looking down, at the second small explosion that had gone off in the center of the troll''s abdomen in only a couple of minutes. I was fortunate that it didn''t seem to have the force to shatter the bones or I would no doubt be dead instead of just disgusted as the bone fragments would have torn into me like shrapnel from a grenade. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Rib cage sticking up jaggedly out of the chest cavity, I saw a glint of metal in the middle. Kneeling down, I quickly reached into the cavity to gingerly pick up the blade before my repulsion fully set in. Being careful not to cut myself on it, as I had no desire to increase my chances of catching somekind of magical cross species disease. Already I was thinking I was sure to catch something out of this and with antibiotics now a thing of the past for me. I was only going to be able to rely on my immune system, which was sure to be unpleasant.


    Setting my knife on the ground I took several stumbling paces in search of clean grass, finding some I dove into it and proceeded to rub first my face into it and then wriggling my body around like a worm making a snow angel. Hands semi clean, I grabbed handfuls of clean new grass and ripping it out I began to desperately scrub my face as my lungs felt ready to burst, as I had been unwilling to open my mouth and receive another taste that would no doubt set off a second round of violent dry heaving. With my lungs near to bursting, I still thought I could feel some troll viscera on my face and not willing to risk it, I grabbed more fresh grass and continued scrubbing my face until I didn''t feel anything wet. Finally willing to take a chance, I let loose a giant exhale, which was immediately followed by heaving gasps. As if I had surfaced from a dive that went just a little too long.


    Looking down at my hands that were no longer dripping red, I sprinted over to my sled and carefully leaned over to grab some of the still damp seaweed. Making sure not to drip anything onto my future food, I carefully backed away and began using the seaweed like a washcloth. Scrubbing at my face and beard desperate to remove every last bit of the troll. Opening my mouth I risked a somewhat more normal breath, and when nothing dripped in, I started scrubbing my arms with the sea weed, until I was sure all of the red and green bits had finally disappeared.


    No longer frantic and now breathing easier, I looked over to the bear who with his surprisingly human amount of intelligence returned, was doing his best to look anywhere but at me. Either at embarrassment at his previous lack of control or more likely in an effort to hold back the laughter that would only hurt his stomach worse.


    Calling over to him I said, ¡°It''s fine, yak it up big boy, you still got the worst of the encounter. Although if any more of that beast had made it into my mouth, I might be willing to trade places with you.¡±


    With my acknowledgment of his situation, he looked back over at me before laying his head back down and snuffling at the bit of fish left in front of him. Walking over to my pack I reached into the pouch that had my fishing tackle box and grabbed from underneath it to the small wallet size emergency kit. Ignoring the foil space blanket, I instead pulled out the signal mirror and looked into it to see if I had missed any troll bits, or worse had any cuts that might have gotten troll into them that my adrenaline was keeping me from feeling.


    Looking into the mirror, I started at the top, there was a little bit of blood in my curly black hair that surrounded my bald pate. Quickly dabbing it out with a fresh bit of seaweed, I checked my ears next and they were cleaner than I had thought they would be with just a little bit of blood in some of the crevices of my right ear. Thick, without being bushy, eyebrows were cleared next, with the hooked nose my italian ancestors had given me being equally clean as well from all of the previous scrubbing.


    Half mutt and half guinea, I had a roundish face that my, for now trim beard, gave a square cast to. The beard mostly covered up the small scar that ran up my right cheek from playing around in a sword fight that my son caused when swinging just a little too enthusiastically. He had broken his plastic sword on the table behind him with a tremendous backswing and I didn¡¯t notice the then jagged edge, until he cut across my face in a victory I let him have when he was five. Putting the mirror back now that I was sure I was clear of cuts and scrapes, I went back to clearing my torso and then pants of the blood and offal. For the first time ever, I wished I was the kind of man that wore cologne, as had I been carrying a bottle in my pack. I would have gladly doused myself in the entirety of it, in an effort to drown my brain and scrub the smell out of my memory.


    Walking over to my pack, I dug into the food pocket that I had been previously planning on leaving untouched, for when times got truly desperate. As everything in that pocket was dried or shelf stable enough to last for months. But a face full of troll blood meant that plans changed, and I was just going to have to be willing to adapt. My body needed a treat, something I could call a legitimate win before I started back into my chores. Pulling out a baggy of dried papaya, I reached into it and picked out four pieces.


    Tucking the baggy back away before I could overpower my willpower and stuff the remaining pieces into my mouth. I walked over to Gaian and sat down for a second. Putting the first piece of my share into my mouth I started chewing while I held out his two to him, outstretched in the palm of my left hand. Feeling his rough tongue swiping them gently out of my hand, I reached up and scratched his ears while just taking a moment to pause and lean into his bulk. Having been going nonstop, I need to take a quick five minutes to just pause and take everything in. I had been making too many quick decisions, and while I was still confident I had made the correct ones based on the information I had at the time. With the lone exception being picking that stupid core back up. Unwilling to let any mistake go, I went over in my mind how you don''t touch strange shiny things, no matter how tasty they look. Speaking of tasty, I put the last bit of sweet fruit into my mouth and chewed it down, all the while slamming my impulsiveness one more time to really set the point in.


    Patting his head again I told the giant mass of muscle, ¡°Okay bud, I''m going to get a fire started and then we are fixing you up next.¡±


    The hulking brown monstrosity gave a small dog-like whine in reply. Scratching his ears I stood back up. Walking over to where I had let the marble-sized core from the troll fall, easy to pick out from the background green grass with the sickly yellow glow that was shining through its green exterior. As I bent down and looked at it I could still feel the hunger from the yellow parts of the core reaching out to me. Making no effort to hide now that it had been found out, it was screaming out for me to pick it up and take it into me, so that we might rend and consume all that stand in our path. Growing stronger and stronger until even the mountains are stepping stones in fro¡­ yeah that enough of that.


    Shaking my head to clear the invading thoughts, I pulled the mental equivalent of a toddler sticking his fingers into his ears and humming mindlessly to ignore his parents. Placing the ruined seaweed down, I used my knife to cautiously scrape the orb onto it. Rolling the seaweed around it several times I picked it up and I was once again able to feel my own core, giving a small pulse like it was trying to send out something trying to grab it. Not being willing to go for round two or possibly round three depending on your outlook. I quickly brought it over to my pack, thinking about it carefully, I put it on the opposite side of the pocket that had the cores the goblins carried.


    Those weren''t glowing a second color and I didn''t know why, so until I had a better idea of what was causing the differences. I had no desire to possibly empower them and then let them go off in a runaway chain reaction. After putting the trolls in its own separate pocket, I pulled out the goblins'' little treasures, to make sure they were still unchanged. Groaning audibly I realized I was going to have to dig around and cut into the remaining goblins to find out if cores on this moon were something every being had inside them. Putting that off as a tomorrow task, I instead went back to the turf I had nearly finished rolling up three fights ago.


    Sighing that I was too old for this crap, I picked up my shovel. I debated putting my shirt back on but in the end decided against it, it was still free of troll innards. I may as well leave it off and keep it clean for now, while I finish up the dirty part of my chores. I only had one more back up outfit in my pack and with this being my first day here, I wasn''t happy to have gone through most of my clothes already. Bending back down, I continued using the blade of the shovel to pry up the turf, rolling the tough green grass into a cylinder that I could set back down when we left this campsite, in an effort to leave nature untouched by my presence. While the troll and goblin bodies would no doubt leave such a much bigger mess that made this effort seem pointless. I still kept to the habits I had learned in my youth and had passed onto my kids.

 Chapter 19

    Chapter Nineteen


    Pushing back the last of the turf, I quickly dug a small hole about a foot and a half off of center. With the deep soft blackness of the earth, so unlike the hard red clay that I was used to dealing with, I managed to accomplish it quickly enough. Moving over about half a foot I dug a narrow trench about three feet long to a slightly shallower depth with a slight incline going away from the hole. Sighing I realized that the hiking pole I normally used to poke through and connect the trench to the hole was already in use. Unwilling to risk damaging my own knife, I turned back to go grab the shamans dagger.


    Even though I hadn''t encountered any rocks with my shovel, I was sure that if I used my knife, with my luck so far, I would no doubt break the tip off of the only stone buried in the nearest square mile. Picking up the knife I walked back to the smaller hole and kneeling down to stick my arm into the bottom of it, I started stabbing through the bottom. Pushing the dirt out into the trench to form a small tunnel. The hole would give the bottom of the trench access to air and would use the heat of the fire to drag more oxygen through in a cycle that would only increase as the fire grew hotter. Continuously sending more air through as the heat forces it to rise, this would quickly have even green wood burning, not to mention help keep the smoke to a minimum. So hopefully more of the goblin tribes friends wouldn¡¯t come calling.


    Picking up the driest branch I could find, I started shaving strips down its length, using my own Terran made blade this time. I stripped the wood down as thinly as I could manage until the outer strips started going progressively higher until the branch started to resemble a christmas tree and ending in a point.


    I leaned down into the trench and carefully placed the branch through the tunnel being careful not to dislodge the dirt onto it. Pushing it farther in until the end with shavings reached through to poke out into the bottom of the hole on the other side. Breaking off small, dry twigs from the dead branches I had found, I built them into a small pyramid in the bottom of the trench right next to the tunnel I had dug, being sure it lay on the end of the branch. Not wanting to put any more wood into the trench until I was sure I had something started, I walked back to my pack and pulled out a small tin with six small coin size buttons of wax covered cotton balls I had soaked in lighter fluid.


    Fortunately it seemed like the wax had kept them from erupting the way my lighter and small propane tank. Whether it was because the fuel was covered in wax and didn''t allow access to air or because it was just too small of an amount to spontaneously combust. I was looking forward to finding a friendly native that I could ask questions of instead of them trying to eat me.


    Pulling out the tube of waterproof matches that were next to them I hesitated and then returned it to the pack. I have the time now and while I''m willing to sacrifice one of the fire buttons for convenience, I decided on saving the matches for a time when I was more desperate. Grabbing the ferro rod instead I placed the button down on a flat plank with my knife and the ferro rod next to it before snapping my fingers and heading back to my pack. Digging down into the pack where I kept my pot and pan bundle I pulled out my long metal cooking tweezers out of the mess bag that held the rest of my kit. I used them both as a substitute for tongs and to save my fingers from burns now that I wasn''t in the kitchen every day.


    Walking back to my firemaking supplies, I picked the knife up and replaced it with the tweezers. Scraping away some of the wax to expose the cotton fibers to air. I paused for a moment to see if it would self ignite in the air of this new world. When nothing happened after thirty seconds, I grabbed the ferro rod, stropping it down the back of the knife to send a shower of sparks onto the wax button of cotton and wax.


    Quickly the lighter fluid allowed the cotton to spark up, while the wax stopped it from perishing into a quick puff of smoke. Setting down the knife and rod I quickly grabbed the long tweezers and pinched up the tiny blaze and immediately placed it down into the trench on the christmas tree of scrapings. Blowing down into it, I quickly helped the little pile blaze up and share the warmth with the rest of the larger branch. As the fire started making its way down the tunnel to the small pile of twigs they quickly caught as well and really started a draft of air going the way I wanted. I started feeding the trench larger twigs before progressing to placing heavier, greener branches down the length of the trench.


    While I knew the vortex wouldn''t continue down its length, the heat from the fire would still work on drying the wetter branches out so they would eventually blaze up when I moved embers over from the start of the trench where the fire was beginning to burn hotter, starting to flicker up past the edge. Wanting to give the fire a chance to burn up the bigger branches and break down into smaller embers before I tried heating up a spear head to cauterize the hole in the bear''s stomach. I decided to make a trip back over to the small copse of trees to grab another load of firewood. Quickly picking up before I left, I returned my knife to its sheath and the firestarter to its place in the pack next to the matches and tin of wax buttons. Deciding I would need the tweezers soon enough for dinner I went over and unzipped a small bit of the tent so that I could slide them in before zipping it back closed.


    Standing back up, I forgo brushing the dirt off my pants, as they were still covered in troll gore despite my best efforts and the dirt mixing into it was actually starting to help with the smell. Despite that I had no desire for that mess to get anywhere near my fingers so I just rubbed them vigorously together to remove the dirt, not wanting to waste any more of my dwindling seaweed or small supply of freshwater that I had left. Picking up the frame and settling it on my shoulders I bundled up the paracord before leaning down to my pack to snag my water bladder''s tube and take a long draught of water. Adding that dwindling source to my growing supply problems, I stood back up and began making my way back to the copse of native trees that I had harvested my earlier woodpile from.


    Marching across the fields of grass between my camp and the nearest trees again I really looked at it this time. Not that I was an expert on american grasses to easily discern the differences between my old world and this new native specimen. The first thing that stood out to me though was how green everything was. At five feet and chest high on me this would have been gold and straw like back home, here it was heavy with seeds, and bending away rather than breaking apart. While I didn''t think the seeds were heavy enough to try and harvest for flour they did seem more substantial than the regular grass back home.


    Upon arriving at the small grove of trees, I took the time to give them a once over while slinging down my pack frame and gathering up what I could from the ground. They looked to be hardwoods, similar to an oak. Looking up at the branches I got my first hint that I was looking at a late spring if I was going to guess the seasons from this info. Small leaves that didn''t look fully formed and no seeds or fruit being born yet. This was amazing news as I wasn''t going to have to immediately start trying to hunker down and prepare for winter.


    I had time to try and find civilization or failing that go farther down to the grasslands and try to make for the river where I could supplement hunting with fishing and have easier access to water. As I  began picking up what dry branches I could find I looked at the brambles that were preventing me from going deeper into the grove, they looked very similar to blackberries. When I heard a loud coughing echoing across the hill from my camp I quickly got distracted.


    Hoping that Gaian wasn''t having problems or under attack I turned back to look at camp. Not seeing anything other than a small bit of smoke I quickly started throwing more wood onto the frame. Unfortunately it seemed I had gotten most of the usable ones on my first trip, so drawing my ax. I quickly started going after a few low hanging branches of green wood to use as a grate to dry the fish on. When my hatchet blade started rebounding off as it was really to small for the task I quickly switched gears and pulled out the saw blade from the handle.


    Quickly cutting through five small branches rich in offshoots and leaves, I held off stripping them as I was anxious to get back to camp. Piling the greener branches on top of the drier dead ones I had stacked earlier. I wrapped everything onto the frame and wrapped around it again with the paracord. Looking down annoyed with myself, I realized that I hadn''t brought anything to clean the saw blade or ax head with.  Not wanting to get dirt or sap into either of the sheaths which would be a pain with my normal tools that I would use to get any gunk out were back on another world or in another universe. I frowned at my forgetfulness. I was making too many little mistakes.


    Swinging the frame onto my back, I felt the branches start poking through into my bare back and again frowned while inwardly berating myself. I really wanted to scream at my self to get it together and let loose my frustrations, but I didn''t want to compound my mistake and alert any goblins that might be in the neighborhood. I was both annoyed at my forgetfulness and how many rookie mistakes I was making now I had to make the return trip being careful not to get any cuts or gashes on my back that I wouldn¡¯t be able to reach to treat.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Smacking myself in the head with my knuckles I dropped the pack to the ground and made a quick harness with the rope. With my pack back at camp the frame should be fine for a short drag over the long grass, Yeah I was going to leave a trail this way but no doubt the smell of fish on the fire would no doubt be a greater draw than a singular trail through the grass. I was too used to hiking across sand and rocks which would quickly destroy an aluminum frame if I had tried doing this back on the California coastline.


    Upon arriving back at the camp I waved over to Gaian, who didn''t even raise his head to greet me. Apparently the coughing was either just to let me know he was lonely or he had a hairball. Dumping the harness I had tied to the pack frame I also set down my saw and ax that I had to carry by hand. I quickly seperated out the branches that were dead while leaving the green off to the side.


    Heading over to my pack I my second cleaning cloth from the package, leaving four fresh ones still in my bag. I wasn''t willing to just use seaweed, I realized I was going to have to maintain this cloth separate from the rest of everything and just use it to keep my blades in good shape. I had no desire to let them go to rust, as no longer was it a small purchase online to replace them.


    Not that I was ever one to mistreat his tools, but I couldn''t allow myself to make any more basic mistakes. I had too many unknowns that were sure to be ahead of me. While I was sure that I would make missteps in the future, I really wanted to try and keep them from being basic ones that the tiniest bit of forethought would stop. If I''m going to f''up, I prefer to go big and do something unique. Tiny mistakes everyone can make are so boring and just not my style.


    Wetting the fabric slightly with a small amount of spit, I didn''t want to waste any more of the water I had brought from Terra. While I was sure that my filter would get anything harmful from a water source when I found one, the problem was there didn''t look to be any nearby. So I used the wet end of the cloth to work into the sap of the saw. Cleaning the blade slowly, both because of the effort of clearing the dried sap, also because I needed to not risk cutting up my fingers. Or more importantly the cloth, as my fingers would no doubt scab over quicker than my finding a store to take my singular credit card that I had buried back in the sand.


    Finally, clearing all of the sap off, I tucked the saw back up into the ax handle before cleaning that blade as well, this one much easier as I hadn''t used it that much before giving up. Quickly finishing up I placed it back into its sheath on my right side.


    I looked down into the fire and seeing a deep pile of glowing whitish red coals, I decided to try to accomplish the beginnings of my next two tasks at the same time. I started by laying more dead branches along the first half of the trench. Next, picking up my shovel, I took scoops of the coals and spread them out onto the wood. When the initial pile was just a fraction of what it had started with, I added some of the fireharded spears that the goblins had gifted me.


    When all of the dead wood in the middle began to smoke with the addition of a heat source to the oxygen and fuel that made up the other two parts of the fire pyramid. I began working on rebuilding the initial pile at the beginning of the tunnel. That was where I planned on the fire being the hottest. I would use that to heat the spearhead that would hopefully get Gaian back onto his feet.


    Watching that pile begin to blaze up, sucking more and more oxygen into the bottom as the heat drew even more air into it. I left it alone for a moment to  walk over to the sled and pick out the biggest eel filet and the sea weed that had wrapped it. Wanting to save the tiny bit of salt and pepper I had brought with me, and mostly just needing fuel, I left it plain as it was. Just skinless filets with the soft bones still holding the meat together. Walking over to the end of the trench where there were just a few coals, I stuck a couple of green branches into the dirt to hold the bundle above the coals, so that my meal wouldn¡¯t catch fire while it steamed.


    Walking over to the six metal spears, I looked them over. Five were simple plugs with a point on the end, not much better than the pointy sticks I had put in the fire or the few that had bone tips that most of the goblins had wielded. Just slightly sharper and more likely to make a bit of a hole before snapping the garbage wood that made up the haft.


    But one of those things was not like the others. It seemed to have been looted from another civilization in its entirety. Most likely in the not too distant past as it only had a small bit of rust on the blade. Making a note in the back of my head to go back and get some of the sand that made the trip with me for future cleanings. I walked over to the sled that held the grub and looked into the bottom of the tarp. Seeing a small handful at the bottom, I sighed in relief.


    Grabbing yet another piece of kelp, I dipped it into the sand, getting a decent amount stuck onto it. Rubbing it up and down the blade carefully, I worked at getting all of the remaining rust off. While not the sandpaper from my workshop, it was the best impression of one outside of building a small sand barrel here. I had neither the time, energy for that task, tools to accomplish it, nor to be honest the need for it; as this substitute was doing its job well enough.


    The tough kelp held up long enough to scour one side clean of the rust. Setting down the tools for this job, I headed over to the tent to grab my tweezers for the next. Closing the tent back up, though I had yet to feel any biting insects on my skin. I had no doubt they were out there somewhere. There was no doubt in my mind that something as disgusting as those Goblins had been, didn''t have something from the insect kingdom that feasted upon them. Walking over to the fish I had placed above the coals, I could smell it cooking and my mouth began to water. Using the skinny tongs I flipped it over  being careful not to break open the kelp and spill any of the fish out onto the coals.


    Not wanting to set the tongs down, when I was just going to need them in a quick minute. I clicked the ends together twice, before flippin them up into the air, to catch them by their head and slide it into my bowie sheath, handle first over the top of my knife blade. Walking back to the sled I dipped my improvised paper back down into the sand and began cleaning the other side of the spear. Being careful not to miss any specks of rust in my eagerness to finally put some actual food in my belly.


    Foregoing the accompaniments to the meal that I had left alone in the pack, as I was certain at this point that hunger would be enough of a sauce that I would eat the filet''s in their entirety. I would probably swallow a bone or two in my haste to get something real into my furnace. Before I set the kelp down so I could get to eating, I brought the spear blade closer to my face to be sure that all of the rust that had been inching up the blade was gone.


    Rubbing the last little speck of rust away, I dropped the kelp to the ground, not having another use for it. The haft of this spear was solid and heavy, while the pointy end had a very nice leaf blade that was a little longer than two feet, behind which was a boar brace that was integral to  the cone hilt. It had three brass nails that were being used to secure the blade to the haft.


    No doubt Gaian was grateful that the owner of this beauty had been one of the two goblins holding the sacrifice out to the shaman. As this fine piece would have done some real damage to him. Going over to the tunnel portion of the trench, I saw it blazing up at the fire''s eagerness to devour the fuel that it was being given. Wanting to let it get back down to coals before sticking it in, I set the spear down beside the fire and went back over to my meal.


    Pulling my tongs back out once more I paused  before I risked grabbing the package out and watching the fish dump into the fire, as the kelp was starting to turn to charcoal. I instead went to grab my shovel as a backup. Pulling the kelp carefully onto the blade it managed to hold together and not dump my food into the coals. Not taking a risk, I slowly stood up and backed away from the fire. Setting the shovel down to use as a plate, I used the tongs to open up the intact pieces of kelp, letting the fish steam up into the air.


    Leaving the fish one last time, I walked back over to the spear and saw the flame had finally died down to coals. Carefully putting most of the two foot blade into the white coals so that it would get hot enough to cauterize and sear out any infection when I removed the bone sticking into the bear''s belly. Leaving the blade to heat, I went over to my pack and digging into the bottom cooler, I removed my second beer.


    Quickly zipping the cooler back up to save the ice, I tucked it back into the bottom of my pack. With a quick flick of my knife I removed the cap and saved it in one of the cargo pockets on my pants. Walking back over to the shovel, I returned the blade to its home and removed the interloper again. Sitting down, I took a sip of my first IPA on this new world before using the tongs to take a taste of the fish. Staring up into the sky that the giant planet had finally retreated from, I saw a third moon in the distance. Looking to be the size halfway between seeing Jupiter through a backyard telescope and staring at the moon with your naked eye. I wondered if it was the distance or if it was just smaller than the other two I had seen so far.


    Taking a second bite of fish and washing it down, I hated to use the term heavenly, as with my existence being turned to hell. But the depths to which I had plummeted, was no doubt what elevated the mediocrity of my cooking to its mouth watering taste. With only a few minutes before the blade became hot enough, with the amount of oxygen that was getting pulled into the bottom of the fire. I had nowhere near enough time to properly savor my first meal on this moon. But time and tide wait for no man, and if I was going to risk my life trying to save my new friend I wanted to do it on a non empty stomach. As I was hungry enough to eat a¡­ well not a bear, this small amount of fish would have to do.

 Chapter 20

    Chapter Twenty


    Slowly picking the meat out of the bones I pinched some more of it up and considered how sure I was that I wanted to attempt what I was considering. This had so much potential to go wrong. This was a wild bear, how much did he really understand? I was planning on pulling a bone out of his stomach and putting a piece of white, hot metal in to replace it, which would then sear everything shut.


    Forget a wild bear, I wouldn''t have done this to a human to who I had articulated everything without strapping them down. Shoving some more of the fish into my mouth, I washed it down with about half of the remaining beer. Part of my mind, as always, started spinning out more options, right now he trusted me at least a little bit, it would be remarkably simple to instead of trying to help I could just drive the spear into him and end it.


    Taking another bite of fish I thought about it some more. This isn''t the novels you have read¡­ you haven''t formed a bond with him other than the one in your head. He almost certainly doesn''t know what you are doing. Downing the rest of my beer I continued down that line. The chances of this even working are slim to none, if the bone got into the stomach or bowels he is almost certain to die anyway so why should I risk my life on a long shot?


    You''ve eaten bear before, the amount of meat on this guy will set you up for months if you can smoke it all. You can build a base camp here and slowly work your way outward, figuring this planet out. Shaking my head I kicked the cowardly hamster off his wheel and downed the rest of my beer. All of it doesn''t matter, at the end of the day he was on your team, you fought side by side, no questions asked and everyone did their job. You know you aren''t going to abandon him now. It doesn''t matter if he lashes out and hits you. He risked his life for you tanking that troll. So stop looking for reasons to back out and get this done.


    Stuffing some more fish that managed to maintain a decent amount of umami, despite not getting any seasonings, into my face. I stood back up and walked over to my pack. Digging into it I pulled out the cooler again as well as beer''s number three and four. Opening them both up I headed over to the big lug and sat down. Looking down at the bucket that still had a good amount of water in it, I sighed. Not willing to drink it myself I hated to waste it, but if my upcoming gesture was going to be worth it, I wasn''t willing to water down the beer either.


    Taking it over to the grass, I dumped it out and walked back to sit down next to the giant carpet. Popping both beers open I poured one into the bucket and then clunking my bottle onto it I put the bottle to my lips as I brought the bucket up to his. Under no illusion that either of us would be getting drunk off of this. I spoke to him softly. ¡°Hey big boy, I hope this works, but I can''t guarantee it. I''m not a doctor or vet, the closest I''ve come is gluing up my own gashes when I didn''t want to deal with the ER.¡±


    Looking into his eyes as he lapped up his part of the beer, I continued talking softly as I rubbed his right ear. ¡°This is a long shot but I¡¯ve got nothing better. I can¡¯t think of any other options, this is the only thing I can think to do, that might have a chance of helping you. So please don¡¯t bite my head off, but the only thing I can guarantee you is that this is going to hurt.¡± I said emphatically.


    Knocking back half of my bottle I dumped the rest into his bucket and walked over to the remaining wood not in the fire, finding the thickest branch I picked it up and went over to grab the spear as well. Pulling it out of the fire I saw that I hadn''t managed to get it to a white glow, instead, it was still orange with a cherry red farther down its sockets, starting to cause the hardened shaft to smoke just a little bit.


    Sighing and hoping for the best I walked quickly back up to Gaian, putting the length of green wood up to his muzzle. As he looked into my eyes questioningly I said. ¡°I would appreciate you biting down on this instead of me. Quickly if you will, the hotter the spear is the better chance we have of this working.¡±


    Looking at me he begrudgingly opened his mouth and I once again wondered if he had gained some ability to understand my speech or if what I wanted him to do was so blindingly obvious that¡­ shaking my head I stopped myself, no more wasting time, you are going to have to go for it.


    Reaching out with my off hand I placed it on the buried troll bone and yanked it out in a spurt of red blood. As the bear moaned loudly he managed to remain somewhat still and instead of marveling in amazement at his self-control I buried the spearhead against his stomach in the worst possible reward for great behavior ever.


    ROOOAAARRR! He yelled out before crunching through the branch like it was a twig, but other than that he managed to keep his lower body still, in a truly superhuman effort, I was sure I wasn''t capable of doing unstrapped down. Holding the spear in as it continued to hiss and cook the flesh close I could see the heat rapidly leaving the hilt of the spear.


    Giving it a few more seconds as the hilt went back to a blackish gray and when the blade dropped down to a cherry red I ripped it away. Fortunately, no flesh came with it. Tossing the spear to the side, I added to my stupidity got down on a knee, and leaned in to examine what I had accomplished. The harsh smell of burning hair wafted up into my nose as my face got to within inches of the wood. As I looked at the flesh beneath, it was already starting to bubble up, as fluid rushed over to try and begin the healing process, but I seemed to have succeeded in my task as no more blood was shooting out.


    Rolling back onto my heels, I stood up and looked over at the massive maw that had turned the three-inch branch into kindling. Standing completely still I waited for his verdict. Nothing I was going to do from this point was going to change my fate, I was completely in his power. While not in swiping distance, I had no doubt that even as injured as he was he could be on his feet and have me under his paws before I got more than five steps into a run.


    Rolling onto his feet, he glared over at me and then ignoring me for a second, brought his nose around to sniff at the wound. Licking it a couple of times, he once again looked at me with indecipherable eyes. As he rolled back onto his side and went back to lapping up the last of the beer from the bucket, I sighed in relief at the reprieve.


    Some dark part of my mind was sure that he was going to kill me and was welcoming it on. Shaking my head to clear the darker impulses out. I wondered how much of charging down the hill to fight first the goblins, and then the troll after, was just the part of me that didn''t want to go on helping throw me into a fight, in an effort not to walk away.


    Shaking my head again, I tried to put the darker thoughts out of my mind. I have always had a reckless side, but that was usually when pushing up against the environment. This was the first life-and-death actual hand-to-hand fight I had ever been in. Sure I had been in a couple of fights in high school, but the most that had ever happened there, was someone walking away with a black eye. No one had been trying to kill the other.


    Here, I had charged down a hill and thrown a spear into another thinking being. If you wanted to argue the point, this was a being that could use magic. So it could easily be said that I was the lower life form, as I had just started fumbling with mystic forces and couldn''t begin to replicate what it was doing.


    After throwing a spear into his back, I had immediately turned and tossed two more goblins into a ball of fire before running away. While the running away gave me some hope that I wasn''t turning suicidal in my grief. Looking at a future without my children staring into my face, I knew the smart calculating part of me, would have normally let the bear and goblins wipe each other out.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    I had no connection to him before the fight with the goblins and troll. Hell, had we been back on earth and in the right season, I would happily be feasting on him right now. Well probably not happily feasting, he had been eating a lot of seals before the trip, I was much happier when going after a berry bear. I doubt I would have wasted a tag on him back in California.


    Looking over to the fire, and then up at the sky, I realized if I wanted to get as much moisture out of the fish as possible before I went to sleep, I was going to have to get started. Walking over to the green branches, I started laying them across the trench, pushing them slightly down into the damp dirt.


    I was looking to run them down the trench a couple of inches apart from each other. Finishing that task, I got my shovel to move some more coals down the line from the pile at the air vent. Shaking my head at the quick and dirty effort I had managed, I wished for the smoker I had built behind my house at home a world away.


    Snorting, I dragged the travois over closer to the fire and started unpacking the fish. Giving them the sniff test, I was happy when I got the whiff of ocean rather that any sign that they were starting to turn. Hopefully as high up and early in the year as the trees had indicated, whatever fish was left over at the arrival point would still be good tomorrow.


    Rather than wrapping the fish like I had when I had steamed the fish I had eaten for dinner. For these, I wanted as much moisture out as I could get to help the meat keep as long as possible. So first I wanted to lay down the seaweed that would be keeping any broken bits that would be falling into the fire. Then I planned on putting the filets down on top of the still-damp leaves.


    While that would slow down the moisture from getting cooked out of the eel flanks, it would also stop the bits of flesh from falling off the bones and into the fire. Eel being incredibly flaky, I wanted to preserve as much of the meat as possible and that meant going slow and getting all of the moisture out. Without having a large pan to put over the trench that would catch anything that dropped I just had to improvise.


    With the last of the fish being placed onto the improvised grill, I had to make a decision about the rice I had brought along. Was it worth using about half of the water I had remaining, to cook it now or did I want to save it for later? Only enough for a couple of meals, once I cooked it, it also would only be good for maybe about two days before I needed to add some more water to freshen it up. Not that I really thought it would make it that long.


    Sitting down next to the fish I had cooked earlier I started picking the remaining meat off while figuring out the remainder of what I needed to get done. Going back to my survival manuals I went to the rule of threes: Three minutes without air, while I had trained myself with free diving to go slightly past those limits, that didn''t really seem to apply right now with the ocean gone.


    Three hours without shelter. Again still having clothes, a tent, and a sleeping bag; I could check that box. The next ones were the big two, three days without water and three weeks without food. With the river from home gone over the cliff, and only about a quart left in my pack that would seem to be the greater fear.


    But I still had a clear plastic tarp in my pack and I was confident with how damp the ground was I could build an evaporation trap to take care of my needs. The rub was going to be if Gaian could get back up onto his feet soon enough to take care of his own water needs. I had no plans to make this a permanent camp, but I wanted to be set up with a greater supply of food before started making forays into the surrounding wilderness.


    With the cliffs over the ridge behind us, I could be relatively confident I had nothing to fear coming from that direction. Which left only the foothills heading into the valley as both a source of danger and running water. Not seeing any smoke on the horizon, I didn''t let that be a source of comfort as lore had goblins about 50/50 in cooking their food. Also, I was pretty confident they weren''t the source of the metal that they carried based on how few had access to it.


    If any of the metal spear wielders had been involved in the fight, it would have doubtlessly had a different conclusion before I had gotten involved. I also had to consider why the fight had happened: Were they drawn over to the release of Chaos and Order, or they had just been in the area and stumbled into Gaian as a lucky encounter?


    Shaking my head I once again kicked the hamster off his wheel. I''ve got about three hours until the beginning of planetfall and probably another hour, hour fifteen until it fully disappears over the horizon and I get to see what night is like on this new world of mine. I doubt enough heat is going to remain to make water gathering worth the effort, so I may as well gather the sled back up and go get some more fish before they start to go bad.


    As cool as it is on the top of these foothills I think I can probably make at least one more trip again in the morning before they start to go bad. Decision made, I pick up the spear that I had just unstuck from the giant bear a couple of minutes before. Tapping the head with the hilt of my knife, I could tell the temper had taken a big hit, but it was the best hope I had for a ranged weapon so I still decided to bring it with me.


    Tossing it onto the sled, I took another bite of my earliest attempt at quick sustenance, but with daylight burning, I wasn''t willing to waste any more time, so I brought the remaining bits of the fish I had been picking at over to the bear. I asked him if he would mind watching over the camp, but to please refrain from gorging himself as I would generously have some more sushi for him while I would suck it up and stick with the unseasoned, soon-to-be overcooked and dry fish.


    Grabbing some more rope and a couple of the trash spears from the pile and putting everything on the canvas sled. As I picked up the rope, I wished I had more tarps but before I could let the hamster out from the run. I started dragging it all back to the little bit of Terra Firma that had made the trip with me.


    Making the trip up and down the ridgeline without any incidents, I unwrapped the first sled I had made. Putting down the four trash spears I quickly assembled two separate sleds from the extra rope I had brought with me. Taking one with me I marched out to the open sand of the now waterless inlet, picking my way across the now-drained sand, I watched for patches of mud that would bog me down, as I went to each fish I could find.


    Quickly gutting them, I tossed the guts to the side before laying the fish on the sled, setting my knife down. I picked up the rope and looked out for another fish to head to before beginning the process all over again. Skipping over anything that would be too small I kept to anything that was over a foot long.


    A lot of fish was going to go to waste and while I didn''t see any of this world''s equivalent of vultures in the sky circling yet. I had no doubt they would be here eventually, so I wanted to get as much as I could back to the camp before leaving them to their feast. Filling this sled I brought it back to where the first one lay before taking the empty one out to the now sand ocean floor looking for any big fish that managed to avoid the quick death of falling over a cliff to instead slowly suffocate as a reward for their quick reactions.


    Hoping it wasn''t a foreshadowing of my own future, I walked the sands until I hit the grass that marked where my new world met my old. Searching for the few Lingcod and Halibut that were worth taking back. I found six of the latter, including one monster thirty incher. The flat fish had probably been lucky in that they had no doubt been able to get under the sand and avoid the gravity-induced tidal wave. Although I guess seeing as how they probably died of suffocation, I guess it was more like I was the lucky one.


    I also found one Lingcod that had managed to avoid the cliffs. Testing the rope holding the sled together, I was a little nervous at the weight. So shoving the spearhead through the gills of the massive halibut and lingcod. I rested the haft on my shoulders. Then I settled the rope around my waist and started marching my way back over to my first sled. Looking down at it, I abandoned my plan to drag both at once. So I quickly passed it by as I brought the second one over the path I was slowly carving into the hillside with my passing.


    Making it back to camp, I quickly dropped the rope and shook the two monsters onto the tarp. Looking over at Gaian, I saw he was panting a bit. Hopefully, it was just his way of dealing with the residual pain from our operation and not him starting to get an infection. Thinking about it I dug the cooler out and poured the water that had melted out into his bucket while keeping the remaining ice back for now.


    Checking on the fish, that had been living their best life just a short twelve hours, or multiple lifetimes ago, depending on the perspective one picked. Either way back on Planet Earth, I would have already considered this overcooked, and while I still would have eaten it so as not to have wasted it. I wouldn''t have been happy with myself. Now I could only let it continue to cook as much of the moisture out as possible while I headed back for the remaining sled using the now slightly warped spear as a walking stick.

 Chapter 21

    Chapter Twenty-One


    Making my way back to the remaining sled I looked up to the sky where the planet was now halfway through its descent into the mountains on the other side of the gorge that had swallowed up the bit of Terran ocean that had made the trip with me. Shouldering the rope, I had planned on making one more trip back, but I hadn''t been quick enough in my gathering. So, I was now going to wait until the morning to harvest anything that was still swimming around the small tidal pools. Hopefully, they wouldn''t run out of oxygen until I made it back.


    Trudging slowly back onto the path my previous trips had carved through the grass, I wondered if I was making a mistake leaving such a clear path to my camp, but as I climbed and debated the problem in my mind, I decided the benefits of the smother path that I was already sure wouldn''t rip the tarp I was dragging outweighed the possibility I was leading something back to my overnight accommodations.


    Also, all that anything that was hunting me had to do, was cross the ridge, look down, and see the glow from the fire cooking my future rations. That would no doubt tell anything with the slightest bit of intelligence where I was camping. Hopefully, the sight of the five-hundred pound bear would scare them off, as while the extra thirty pounds I was packing would no doubt help stave off starvation in the upcoming days and weeks. I doubted a pack of goblins or any of the scarier creatures of lore would find me intimidating in the slightest. No doubt my juicy flanks would just send them coming to dinner.


    Wishing I had actually gotten into HEMA, rather than just dead scrolling through the shorts on my phone. I was confident enough in holding my ground against a charging boar, but anything that had any actual fighting experience was going to make short work of me.


    Walking down into the camp, I dragged the sled over next to where I had left the first one, and dropping the ropes, I set the spear down next to it. Gauging the sky, I decided I didn''t have enough light left for a third trip for firewood. Poking one of the fish and feeling it crumble I decided this round was done. Grabbing my shovel I slid it under the charred kelp, gently so as not to tear it I moved the makeshift pans over to some fresh grass that was free of troll gore or blood.


    Repeating the process until my stick grate was clear I flicked them to see how they were doing. While noticeably drier I figured the small branches would hold another round. So laying about half of the remaining kelp over the top, I laid out the smaller fish on the grate for this round, putting them as close together as I could manage. Leaving the big fish on their tarp for now I piled the remaining kelp over them to help keep them cool. Wanting fresh coals and green wood for the grate, I decided I would wait for the morning before drying them out.


    Pulling out my Bowie knife, I walked over to the tallest grass that had not been trampled by the fighting, and grabbing a handful I cut it as close to the turf as I could. Repeating the process several times, I soon had a pile of the four to five feet stalks next to my tent. Doubting I was going to get any sleep tonight, with the adrenaline from the fights, mixing with the excitement of being on a different planet, and the sorrow that was leaking through the wall I had piled my feelings of missing my children.


    Shaking my head I quickly shut that train of thoughts off, tightening down on that pressure cooker. I set it off to the side and ignored it in an effort to focus on the next couple of tasks. Picking up my shovel, I moved more coals down the line and scooped some out onto the dirt near the front of my tent to provide the light that my now abandoned headlamp would normally be used for. Granted the small glow coming from the coals couldn¡¯t hold a candle to the former electronics, but beggars can¡¯t be choosers.


    Pulling out my small camp stool I quickly assembled it. Only weighing three pounds, I had thought about abandoning it, but the usefulness of being able to sit, without looking for a log and possibly being covered by the bugs inhabiting it, kept it from being left behind like the aforementioned headlamp. Drinking a small amount of my remaining water. I pulled out the small amount of seasonings I had brought with me. Not willing to cook the rice yet until I found a better source of water, I still wanted something that would actually taste good, not just willing to settle on the hunger sauce I had used to eat the previous fish.


    Cutting out the cheeks of all of the halibut and the couple of Lingcod, I poured about a couple drops from the small bottle of oil I had brought into my small two liter pot that had been nested in the rest of my cookware. Setting it on the coals to warm, I ground out a little bit of salt and pepper onto the fish cheeks that were still sitting on their seaweed, before rewrapping the pyrex grinders in the cloth I kept them in to prevent them from cracking.


    Returning them to my pack, I grabbed the small plastic resealable bag that had the minuscule mixture of other seasonings that I had brought. I sighed, while I no doubt had enough salt and pepper to season all of the fish I was drying. That would use most of it up, and the little bit of flavoring it would add, would no doubt be a waste on the dried survival food I was turning most of the fish into. Better to save the salt and pepper for when I actually had the time for cooking and need for a pick me up¡­ like now. Not just for mass producing survival chow, I thought to myself as I slid the basics back into my pack.


    Sprinkling a little bit of the garlic salt and cayenne mixture I had from a plastic baggie onto the fish cheeks. I could only bemoan the fact that I had just barely enough for one more meal and resolve to be on the lookout for anything that resembled the plants I knew from my old world. At least garlic, I had no idea what a cayenne pepper plant might look like unless it had the ripe fruit on it.


    With had no hope of replacing my pepper supply but seeing how the sap from the wood and grass wasn''t causing any reactions I could only hope for more future analogs to find to stave off culinary starvation I would soon be forced into with bland travel food. As the pan started sizzling I started placing the cheeks down gently into the oil, wishing for some cream and wine to add to the oil to simmer them in. I had to quickly ignore the ungrateful thoughts that had started creeping into my head. I had enough future depression to deal without adding b.s. wishes to the heap.


    I might as well wish for my kitchen set up while I was sending this ingratitude up to the sky, and if I was going to wish for that, I may as well wish to be home in my house sitting down to dinner for my kids. With no flash of light taking me back, I could only use my tongs to flip the fish cheeks over to cook on the other side. Removing the pan from the coals to let it finish on the residual heat, I thought about breaking out one of the remaining beers to deglaze the pan. But without a starch to soak up the sauce, I held off, besides I wanted another toast later with Gaian to celebrate his recovery.


    Letting the pan cool off on the ground, I looked up into the now dark sky. Staring up I could see what looked to be several moons in the distance, only one or two seemed to be the size of our moon back home. But I had no idea if this was due to the distance all of them needed to maintain a stable orbit around the massive giant that had finally disappeared over the horizon. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    Part of me wished that perhaps it had been Jupiter hanging in the sky, but while the size might have been something one would have seen while standing on Europa. There were no swirling storms, instead, it had the blue green of an Earth equivalent. Despite having a size that either dwarfed old Terra. Either that or the moon I was standing on was much closer in its orbit than the barren wasteland that hung over my old home.


    Letting a few more tears drop from my eyes before I shook my head, without the endlessness of time that the globe had maintained for me, I couldn''t afford to keep daydreaming. Figuring out this new universe would have to wait until I had a steadier source of supplies, seeing as how Gaian and I still needed to find a source of water before we could even think of building a more temporary camp. I needed to hurry up, stuff my face, and get back to work.


    With the cheap nonstick aluminum now cooled down, not being able to retain heat like its cast iron and steel cousins. I used the tweezer tongs to pick up the pieces and swirling the first one through the oil brought it up to my mouth. Closing my eyes, I savored the little bit of heat the spice brought and the tang of the garlic that undercut it. Not letting my mind wander down the path of wishing for more, I slowly ate it, bite after bite until I heard the metal of the tongs scraping on the now empty pan.


    Not wanting to waste the calories, I brought the pan up to my face and licked it clean. While I wouldn''t have even considered it a meal back home, with my stomach full, I set the pan down and gave out a sigh of contentment. Walking back down the trench line I pressed into the smaller fish with my fingers, checking their doneness, with still with some give to them. I let them continue on over the coals to let the juices continue to evaporate off of them. Wanting them to be the equivalent of jerky, without the seasonings or longer fibers. They would be broken down into little shards that I could chew for calories while walking or working in camp.


    Leaving them for now I continued onto my pack where I drained the rest of the water. Pulling out the clear plastic tarp I kept with my emergency supplies. Grabbing the shovel I walked over to the edge of grass and dirt and dug out a small, wide hole for my plastic to cover. Digging down the center deep enough to keep the smaller bucket, before I placed the bucket into the bottom of the hole I emptied my bladder into the surrounding divvet.


    Making sure all of the excess liquid was soaked into the ground so it wouldn''t accidentally get into contaminate the freshwater I was hoping for later tomorrow. I covered the hole with the plastic, covering the edges with some of the dirt I had excavated to make room for the bucket. Heading back to my pack I pulled out one of the two heaviest, four ounce weights I had brought for casting out past the surf.


    Heading back to the hole I set the weight gently into the middle of the plastic, wanting to give the evaporated water a path to head down into the bucket. With my bladder now empty, I only had the last little bit of ice and two beers that I was saving for the morning. Hopefully, the survival shows I had watched were correct and this would work. The theory was sound, but I had never taken the time to check it myself in a nonemergency situation. Unfortunately, that was true of a lot of things that I half remembered, wishing I had packed one of the several books I had, I never considered I wouldn¡¯t be without my phone and the offline apps that had all the information I had needed.


    Not willing to travel down the paths of what ifs with my mind hamster. I shut him up with a quick rap to the head with my knuckles, jarring him off of his wheel. I went over to use the shovel to move more coals down the short trench line. Putting the last of the dry wood in the pile by the air hole I added a little bit of the smaller green wood. Doubting it would get me through the night with air being introduced by the hole. I resolved not to get too involved in my next project before dumping some dirt back in to cut off the oxygen flow once the green wood had caught fire.


    If the worst came and I needed to, I would bury the coals until morning when I could see well enough to get more fuel. Unfortunately, the brother and sister moons to this world weren''t big enough to provide the light of a full moon back home, I just had to content myself with being thankful that the moon I was standing on wasn''t tidally locked like the moon of Terra.


    Looking over at Gaian I saw him slumbering, either content that I would wake him at the first sign of danger, or more likely in an effort to let his body heal. I noticed that he had finished off the first fish I had cooked so plainly in my effort to get a bit of calories in me. Not wanting to wake him and interrupt his healing, I left the bucket alone, he had either finished the beer off or not, regardless I wasn''t at the point where I thought I could force myself to drink the dregs if he had left any.


    Moving my stool over to where I left the pile of grass next to my tent, I wanted to try weaving a couple of baskets with the grass in the glow of my fire. Part of me knew that I was just refusing to try to go to sleep, where no doubt my brain would work overtime pulling up all of the memories of my children. I knew I had no chance of making the baskets watertight, and without any clay around to cover for my less than nimble fingers clumsiness, I wasn¡¯t deterred.


    I nevertheless thought that I could get a couple of containers worth from the grass I had collected earlier. While they would no doubt not be tight enough to hold any kind of liquid, I wasn¡¯t worried. All they needed to do was hold the fish and with enough kelp, it just had to be sturdy enough it wouldn¡¯t collapse under the weight. With the dehydration process going on most of the weight should be evaporating off right now so if I made enough baskets, even my amateur skills should be fine for the task.


    Circular and straw like, the grass still had a good bend to it. So without any major bladelike pieces, I was going to have to go with a looser weave and layer the inside with kelp before adding the shredded fish pieces in the morning. Separating out ten of the sturdier grass pieces for the ribs. I tied them together at the bottom, not wanting to run them from one side to the other with the short pieces I had. Taking more pieces I began running them around over and under, endlessly going around, with my mind turned off. After I had a couple of pieces beginning to form the bottom of the basket, I set it down to kick some dirt into the hole. Wanting to cut off the airflow that was feeding the fire. Picking my project back up, I sat down carefully once again, not wanting to break the chair being slightly over the recommended weight for it.


    Going back to my task, I left my ears on autopilot. Trying to listen for any noise that wasn''t the small crackling from the wood not yet turned to coals. Having spent too much time sharing the apex spot with my brother across the fire. Without access to the weapon that stole the top spot from him, I could only hope that his senses were more able to pick out threats coming from the dark and that we wouldn''t be surprised by a flight of spears coming out of the dark.


    As I continued my weaving, I could only focus on losing myself into the mindless motions of over and under, not being willing to open up the box holding my feelings tightly locked down. Finishing one lopsided basket, I got my shovel, used it to remove the fish from their makeshift grate, and then added them over the ground where their brothers lay cooling down. Taking up the now dry sticks, I dropped them onto the fire to give it a little more fuel, while I went back to creating more baskets and trying my best to find Serenity to hold off the grief I could feel pulsing more in my chest. As the coals in the pile dropped down from their bright yellow to lower orange and red, I finished my second and third baskets.


    Not having found the Serenity I had searched for, I started feeling the tears continue to drop down off of my cheeks, as the emotions I had put on hold started making their prison break. Walking over to the trench line, I mindlessly kicked some dirt down over the end to cover the coals there. With a source of fire guaranteed for the morning, I headed over to my pack and pulled out my wallet.


    Walking over to my tent, I set the warped spear across the threshold with its size being too long for the tent. Pulling the knife, ax, and bear spray off of my belt I set them down into the interior before taking off my pants not wanting to contaminate the tent with the last bit of troll gore that still hadn''t dried. Knowing I would no doubt be less fastidious in the future I wasn''t there yet.


    Unzipping my sleeping bag, I crawled inside feet first, leaving my head just inside of the entryway. Not wanting to find myself stuck inside the bag in case of an emergency or attack. I wrapped it around myself without zipping it up, leaving an arm free. I rolled onto my side and reached into my wallet, pulled out one of three pictures I had remaining of my children. The one of the both of them hugging, obviously staged but with still genuine smiles. I stared into it with the dying orange glow from the coals. Letting my tears flow freely, I sent the hamster to run endlessly on his wheel, spinning out his theories nonstop. I found myself dreaming of the possible lives they had lived on Earth, without me their with them, until the blackness took me into its cold grasp. I could only be thankful that I''m not the kind of person that dreams.

 Chapter 22

    Chapter Twenty-two


    It would have been nice if oblivion had taken me fully into its grasp, but my nerves had me waking with every little sound. Every time I heard Gaian shifting throughout the night, I would pop back up and reach for my knife. So to say I was well rested when planetrise happened would be laughable. Groaning out loud, I got out of my sleeping bag and walked barefoot over to my pack as carefully as I could and pulled out one of my two last sets of clean clothes. Getting dressed quickly, I also got one of the few remaining clean squares of cloth I had tucked away. Normally reserved for cleaning equipment, this morning I was hoping that I could use it to quench my thirst before my evaporator got to work later on in the heat of the day.


    Stopping at my tent, I took a second to return my knife, ax, and spray to my belt before picking up the fire-warped spear. Heading off a short distance away from camp to grass that was untouched by either of the fights, I started running the cloth over the dew laden fields until it was soaking wet, then ringing it out for a mouthful of water. Collecting dew wasn''t my favorite way to gather water but at this altitude, it was going to be my best bet until I could find a source of running water.


    Continuing on for a good thirty minutes, I tried to keep going until my stomach was full. I didn¡¯t have any other options for water other than the ice in my cooler which would only net me a couple of cups worth. I was really hoping that the light the planet was reflecting would get the same greenhouse effect as the sun back home.


    Moseying back to the camp just a short hundred yards away I started my morning stretching routine to work out the kinks from sleeping on the ground. After about fifteen minutes of loosening up, I got to work and started knocking out several of the chores on my checklist. Stirring up and rekindling the fire, redoing the grate, and getting the rest of the uncooked fish onto the fire was just the beginning.


    Then I moved on to making another firewood run (this one I hoped would be much more comfortable fully clothed). Looking at my clothes from the previous day I desperately wanted to bury them forever, but that was the old me who was way too used to just being able to pull up an app and have replacements over the next day. With no more one day orders to rely on, I was going to have to figure something out.


    Both the shirt and pants were still slightly damp, so I took them over to the dirt I had excavated and rubbed the clothes into the drier dust as best I could. My plan was to leave them lying out during the day to dry and when I made my firewood run tonight at planetfall, I would bring them with me and beat them to get the dirt off. Hopefully, this would remove most of the gore with it with the dust. I had no hope of getting rid of the bloodstains, but if I could get rid of the smell and ick, packing them away until I could find water would be a lot more palatable. If that didn''t work, I would just keep them to use as butchering clothes.


    Checking on the fish I had cooked the night before I was happy to find that the dried kelp covering them had absorbed most of the dew, leaving the fish dry underneath. Picking the meat off the bones I, shredded it into the baskets I had woven the night before making sure to dry them first with my dew cloth. Taking the halibut I had held back from the coals, I walked over to the massive beast that was lying on his side, still in pretty bad shape despite my attempt at surgery, watching me work.


    Rubbing his ears, I set the fish down in front of him, but he just nosed at it. Clearly, my attempt at helping the day before hadn''t done as much to help him as I had wanted. Reaching down his belly I kept my eyes on his giant muzzle. Feeling as gently as I could, I placed my hand on the burn tissue that had bubbled up. It felt really warm, glancing quickly down at it I saw red lines spiking out from it before disappearing under his fur. Because I had never picked up a vet degree with my many hobbies, I had no idea how bears handled infections. Sighing I rubbed his ears in thanks for putting up with my slight ability at ministrations. Sitting down next to him I pondered out loud our choices.


    ¡°Well big guy, I need to head back over the hill and try and get any remaining fish that might be still alive in the pools and work on drying them. After that, I need to go through the goblins and see if they have any cores like the troll had. If they were using them as a source of wealth or status, then there is a good chance maybe they will be worth taking them with us.¡± I looked over at him, ¡°Any chance I can count on you to do the excavating while I handle the fishing?¡±


    With the slight growl emitting out of him which I took for a no, I replied back. ¡°Fair enough. You killed most of them, so it''s only fair that I dig out the money while you continue to recover.¡±


    Walking back over to my two sleds I shouldered the ropes and called back out to him. ¡°Okay, food first and then money, you guard the camp and I''ll get to work.¡± Using the spear as a walking stick, I headed back to where we had first arrived on this moon. With nothing of interest until I made it to the crest overlooking the remains of my landing spot. Looking out over the sand and rocks, I saw the first signs of native life since the goblins. I refuse to count trolls as native until I see one in the wild, not just popping out of a portal egg. Gagging a little in the back of my throat as the taste of Troll goop tried to make its way back into my mind.


    Looking out onto the remains of the once mighty Pacific, I could see about thirty to forty buzzards and eagles feasting on the dead fish that I hadn''t managed to harvest yesterday. Unconcerned because I was sticking to the tidal pools today, I decided to ignore them. Part of me wanted to try and kill one to see what differences I could learn from its corpse, but without a gun, I didn¡¯t want to risk kicking off a fight and having them all come after me. Also without a gun, I was unlikely to kill one before it flew off and the potential rewards just weren''t worth the risk or time sink.


    Sticking to harvesting tidal pools and kelp, I used a bucket to empty out the remaining pools, before killing what gathered in the remaining small amount of water. Unfortunately, I had gathered most of the fish up yesterday, So I was only able to collect about half of a sled¡¯s worth of weight. It seemed like most of the crabs were hiding from the birds in the rocks, and from the smell, the rotting mussels definitely were going to be passed on now. Looking at the empty sled, I once again considered the birds on the ground.


    Shaking my head, I forced myself to pick up the ropes instead and head back to camp. I hated dragging an empty sled, too much of my head thought if I was going to go back I might as well gather everything I could. But even with having to feed Gaian on my own, I still had plenty of food for the near future. Also, these birds weren''t going to die from suffocation in a day or two. So, without my own life truly being at risk yet, I wasn''t going to just go on a killing spree for no reason. Unlike the Goblins and Troll, they had left me alone, so I was going to do the same.


    The trip back to camp was as uneventful as the trip out, walking down the ridge everything looked peaceful. Evidently, the goblins were either an isolated group or their tribe just hadn''t realized they had gone missing yet. With my tank still down for the count, all I could do was hope that my luck continued. Making my way back down to camp I checked the sky, only to find that the day was about halfway through already.


    Heading over to the fire, I took off all of the fish that had finished dehydrating and set them aside to cool. Next, I replaced the coals with fresh ones from the main fire and restocked the wood to bring the blaze back up. After putting all of the fish I had gathered onto the grill, I went over to sit down next to Gaian. He still had most of the fish I had brought over this morning in front of him. Looking at his eyes they didn¡¯t seem as clear as they had this morning, I started to worry he might be feverish and not recognize me, so I backed away slowly.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Walking over to my evaporation catcher, I looked in, it had maybe two cups of water in it, barely covering the bottom of the bucket. While the day hadn''t really started getting warm yet, I had hoped for more. Leaving the water alone for now for now, I sat down next to it to go over all of my options, however unpalatable they might be. Calling out the hamster from his nap, I gave him strict instructions to focus on the problem of the immediate future and leave off spinning out any wilder theories for now.


    First and most obvious, just pack up everything, take the fish when they are done, and leave the bear behind. I had saved his life from the fireball and he had saved me from the troll. He might recover on his own or he might die, either way, our karma was even, and from a technical viewpoint, I didn''t owe him anything else.


    Second, I could keep everything here as a base camp and scout around the foothills looking for water sources before packing everything up and moving on, this would give Gaian a chance to recover on his own, and if I found any water I could bring it back to him.


    Third, and more unpalatable in my mind. Kill him, spend the next couple of days turning him into a massive amount of jerky, while scouting for water and figuring out which direction I wanted to head when I had gotten all I could from his corpse.


    Fourth, try to treat his infection with the small amount of supplies I have with me. I could try putting the rubbing alcohol onto some cloth and make a small compress out of it. That would hopefully be enough to try and kill the infection off while feeding him the last bit of ice, in a hail mary to help with the fever.


    Fifth, called for trying to use the Troll''s core, pulling it out of the body had stopped its former host¡¯s regeneration, which told me it had to be the source of its powers. So either I could feed it to Gaian and risk him becoming a monster, or I could try to use it on myself and put the risk all on me, hoping I could figure out a way to heal the bear afterward. Risking myself also had the added complication, that even if I managed to not become a monster, I had no guarantee that I could figure out a way to channel the regeneration power over to him and he might be doomed anyway.


    Three, I crossed off immediately in my mind, we had fought together and eaten together, and that just wasn''t something I would do unless all other options were exhausted. Likewise one was off the board as well, for most of the same reasons. Abandoning him was such a small step away from killing him. I really disliked the analytical side that came with having such an overactive imagination.


    I knew in my heart it was going to be some combination of two and four. Yeah, he was bad now, but bears got into fights all of the time in the wild and recovered. Sure they didn''t fight trolls back on earth and have their slime and blood shoved into their stomach. But they had to have better recovery powers than humanity''s weak over pampered bodies. I doubted the ice would do anything, but we could finish off the beers together and I had no other use for it other than drinking water for myself.


    While it wouldn''t be pleasant I could survive off of morning dew and whatever I could reclaim from evaporation. So if it had the slightest chance of helping, it was better I give it to him. The rubbing alcohol was going to be the sticking point between the two plans, that was something I had no easy way to recover and while it had the best potential to help, I wasn''t sure if I had enough to do any good. And if it wasn''t going to work, then I was sure I was going to need it for myself later. Decisions, decisions.


    I knew in my heart that a huge part of me wanting to help the bear through this was just my own way of fighting off the helplessness I was feeling. No matter how much I knew it wasn¡¯t true that I hadn¡¯t abandoned my children, in this kind of thing, intellect loses to emotion every time. And my emotions were telling me I was the worst dad in the world for not being with them right now. So if I needed to help the bear to fight the self-loathing I was feeling then we¡¯ll just call it a win-win.


    I also considered option five. I don''t know if there was some lingering bit of that yellow Qi still flowing around in me, trying to influence me into stepping into a trap. Or if it was just that inner voice that had always believed in something greater than Earth. Worse for me, I now had proof that it was possible for creatures to command the impossible.


    When I was back on Terra it was just a daydream, now I had seen two impossibilities become real, and there was a huge part of me that wanted to do anything to try and claim some of that for myself. I had lost my children, and while I would never have traded them for anything. I hadn''t given them away, they had been taken from me. I needed to make something good come from this! I couldn''t lose them for no reason, if they were going to be gone I would have the magic I had dreamed of since early childhood as compensation!


    Finding myself on my feet and halfway to my pack I froze in my tracks. I don''t know if this was grief, the Troll core calling to me, or some lingering bit of that foreign Qi inside of me but this isn''t me. First of all, all hope isn''t gone, there is still the minute chance they were taken, dragged to this moon as well. You have the slightest hope you can find them.


    Secondly, if you want to continue trying for magic powers now that you find yourself removed from the power that dragged you here. You can''t let all of that anger and resentment from being taken from your family color your search for it. That wasn''t how you made the gains you had started to in that hell ball and going down that path is very likely to turn you into someone you don''t want to be. It is the path of every comic book villain. You have lectured your children enough on the importance of not letting the bad times determine how they acted out. Now you have to live up to the expectations you put on them. No double standards.


    Carefully approaching my pack, I made sure to stay in control of my faculties, in case it had been the troll core trying to snare me into taking it back up. Getting the cooler out I walked over to the bucket I had given over to Gaian for his use, dumping the remaining ice water out into it, I opened a bottle and poured it in as well. Setting it into my small trash heap, I opened mine and headed over to the fire to check on the fish. Taking one off that was sizzling nicely, I decided on having a juicy bit for lunch, while letting the rest of them continue cooking to remove the rest of their moisture.


    Popping open the last Terran beer on this moon, I held the bottle up to the planet and let the glow shine through the brown glass. After taking a bite of the fish, I followed it up with a swig of my IPA, using the bitterness to add the slightest bit of flavor to the blandness of the unseasoned filet. Continuing that way until I finished them both off. I put my last bottle down on the ground with its five brothers to dry. While it would no doubt be a pain to clean once I found water, the glass was likely to prove too valuable later to leave behind.


    With no point in delaying any longer, I decided that I was going to combine all of my remaining plans. Using the alcohol in my med kit to try and draw out the infection, I would give Gaian three days to recover while I scouted for water and finalized my plans for how I was going to live my life in this new world. I would try to meditate and harness energy on my own at first, to see if I could awaken any powers on my own. But if at the end of those three days, Gaian wasn''t better, only then would I try and take on the troll core again.


    Planning to leave the meditation for tonight, when I didn''t have the light to do anything else. I again carefully approached my pack, still wary of the core reaching out for me until I could prove otherwise it was safe. Removing my water filter and water bladder; I also took out the med kit, snagging the bottle of rubbing alcohol, some of the cotton pads, and the tape from inside.


    Putting the filter bag and bladder in my remaining gathering bucket, I wished I had brought my smaller daypack with me. But when I had left home, I had already thought the foldable kayak was overkill. For once I had listened to the sane part of my brain that said clipping a second empty pack on would be a pain and pointless. Cursing in my mind at how I had let inconvenience overcome my inner pack rat, I left the bucket alone next to the spear and brought the healing supplies over to use on the bear who had managed to rouse enough to drink the watered down beer.


    Looking into his eyes and seeing that he recognized me, I felt better about trying to put the alcohol onto the infection. He hadn''t taken a swipe at me when I stuck a burning spear into his side so hopefully, he would continue to realize I was trying to help and let me live. Murmuring softly to him, I gently began applying the wetted cotton bandages and started taping them down, and although he let out a small whine, he managed to stay still and keep his claws to himself.


    With the small bottle half full, I decided to save it for a bandage change tonight, rather than dump it over the top of the makeshift compress and possibly waste the last of the high proof liquid. Returning my supplies to my pack, I picked up my new spear in my right hand and took up the water gathering supplies in my left. I decided to leave my evaporator for tonight before bed, and head off further into the world to see what I could find.

 Chapter 23

    Chapter Twenty-Three


    As I started walking off into the foothills, even though I had brought a bucket with me, I didn''t actually have a lot of hope of finding a ready water source in the couple of hours I was giving myself. Still better to have it and bring some back for the bear to drink than not and have to try and make another trip in the dark.


    Maintaining a steady pace, I kept it to a slow walk to keep my heart rate down and conserve calories. While the reserves I held around my belly alone would probably give me two weeks, and despite having even more food back at the camp. I really needed to work on getting my mindset out of that of a first worlder. Even if I had my credit cards and cash, They would be worthless on this new world even assuming I found a civilization out there. And unfortunately, the small bit of gold and silver I had saved with my prepping supplies was either back on Earth or scattered somewhere else.


    With nothing to trade other than some dubious goblin cores and with how easy the goblins were to kill for someone with no actual combat experience, I wasn¡¯t exactly expecting a fortune for them. With no accurate way to tell time, I also wasn¡¯t able to tell if the days were getting longer or shorter. So I had no idea if winter was coming or if it had passed.


    That wasn''t even considering if this moon had an axial tilt. Also, we were circling a larger planet, so while the year of the moon I was standing on was no doubt an important part of the calendar I had to figure out. It would be the planet¡¯s elliptical orbit around its primary that would be the main determiner of the season.


    Currently, the light we seemed to be getting was being reflected from the planet above, which told me the sun of this system was currently mostly on the other side of the planet and we were soon either coming out of the eclipse or heading into one and I had just missed the sun in the greater glow of planet in the morning or evening. Either  that or there were magical shenanigans going on that would completely invalidate everything I knew about how the universe worked.


    For all I knew, we could be in a universe where the sun was actually pulled across the sky like they believed in the ancient days when Apollo pulled the sun across the sky in his chariot. But until I was told otherwise I would have to assume an eclipse was coming and it would drop the temperatures dramatically for either several days or anywhere up to a true winter of several months.


    However, with how close the planet above seemed to be, I doubted the rotation around it was the full year that Earth''s trip around Sol was. With the greater size of the planet above, I was probably looking at two to three days of full darkness, with the same of full light, and around two ish months going between the two extremes. While I doubted that the full dark period was going to be enough to cause an actual winter, that would probably still be caused by the main planet¡¯s orbit, both extremes would probably still cause a dramatic change in temperature.


    So if I started seeing the next week or two start getting darker faster I was going to have to up my plans for creating a more permanent shelter. I was probably going to have to make for the large river I could see cutting through the valley, instead of heading straight through to the mountain that was the largest landmark around.


    With the woods lining it for shelter, wood for a fire, and plants I could test for their edibleness, the river also would be another good source of food, while guaranteeing I didn''t die of thirst. Also if there was any source of intelligence on this world greater than the goblins, and with the spear I was holding was a good indicator that this was true. I had a better chance of finding them by following the water than wandering the plains in a straight line heading for the largest mountain on the moon. I highly doubted there could be a mountain to rival the one that took up a good part of the horizon anywhere else on this continent.


    Reaching the next copse of trees past my firewood gathering spot, I slowed down. I had seen small birds flitting about through the grass as they no doubt searched for insects and seeds, but nothing had let me get close enough to get a good look at them. It was concerning that they were so wary of me.


    That told me that they associated me with both danger and something that was able to take them out from a distance. Most birds aren''t afraid of large animals, they know that they aren''t worth the effort of catching them for the most part. Unless something is truly starving, the expenditure of calories to catch a single sparrow isn''t going to be recouped upon consuming it.


    So either something was able to take them out en masse and regularly, or there was something around that was just bloodthirsty and killed for the pure joy of killing. And again it had a way of taking them out at a range judging by the space that they were leaving around me. None of them had come within fifty yards of me.


    I could walk up to within several feet of wild ducks and geese back on Earth and those are still hunted by humans and provide a substantial meal. Pigeons will land on a branch and drop their load right in front of you with absolutely no concern for how you will react, while Seagulls will literally steal the food out of your hands.


    With the trees still about a hundred yards off I decided to pause and wait. Sinking down to one knee, I dropped my silhouette beneath the tops of the grass. No doubt if something intelligent had been observing me from the treeline, this wouldn''t fool them. But if instead, it was a mindless animal that the birdlife was afraid of, maybe this would draw it out.


    Also, it would let me find out if perhaps it was just my movement that was frightening the birds off or if it was my bipedal walking. Forcing myself to remember, even though I could no doubt beat a couple of the smaller goblins off on my own, a pack the size Gaian had run into yesterday would no doubt have me on a spit in a couple of minutes if I was lucky, and raw in the bellies if I wasn''t.


    I''m no longer the apex being and I have to stop walking around upright like I am.


    Deciding to give it as close to fifteen minutes as I could, to let the wildlife decide to settle down before I much more carefully snuck into the woods. I looked at the leading edge of the planet above. Still about a handspan from the horizon, I settled on waiting for it to move a finger width more before moving again. While I had no idea what the actual rotational speed of this moon was, it was the greatest hope I had for any kind of accurate timekeeping here.


    Sinking down into a half lotus seat, not wanting to try for full lotus and get tangled up if I had to rush to get up. I set my bucket and spear down and focused on slowly breathing and trying to listen for any noises that would give me a clue as to what was around me. Too often it is easy to get wrapped up in using one¡¯s eyes to maintain awareness around them.


    I am guilty of it just as often as anyone else. If I had been on a hunting trip instead of a leisurely stroll, I wouldn''t have fallen back into this bad habit as easily. Slow and steady movement with an ear out for anything out of place is the way to move if you don''t have a tree stand or blind to wait in.


    Sinking into a slow breathing pattern I just let the sounds of life on this new planet wash over me. The soft tweets of birds in the distance are the first thing that breaks through the quiet around me. But slowly I hear the softer rustling of grass I can only assume is coming from smaller rodents emboldened by my lack of movement. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Keeping my eyes on the treeline, I leave my eyes unfocused so I can quickly locate any movements. I maintain a stillness while I look on through the grass, continuing to breathe slowly and listening.


    My eyes are unfocused with the treeline slightly blurred in the distance, I breathe in and out slowly. I find myself replicating the pattern I maintained in the otherness where the Order and Chaos had held me captive. Where they in turn had been the fuel for my own growth in a reversal of fortune. Slowly in and slightly faster out while I continue watching the treeline.


    I start to feel a warmth running through me, startled, my breathing changes, and then I wonder if it was all in my imagination. Slowly I try to consciously get back in my breathing pattern when something catches my eye in the treeline. Hearing some crashing, I see three Goblins break out of the woods chasing what looks to be on all accounts, to be a rabbit.


    Only catching a quick glimpse of it, I don''t know if I am relieved or disappointed that I don''t see a horn on its head. With no time to process my feelings, I can only curse my luck as it runs straight at me. I don''t know if it was the energy I had managed to gather in my imagination that made it pick my direction or just awful luck. But either way it seems to be making its way directly at me with its three goblins in tow.


    Reaching out and grasping my spear, I move as smoothly as I can, slightly forward to get into a better position to ambush the Goblins. Raising myself up to my left, my right knee remains on the ground as I keep my head below the grass line so that I can drive forward if they come into range.


    Either the rabbit has plans to avoid me at the last second or it is as clueless as the Goblins that are focused on their next meal. About half of the distance between the woods and me remains.


    I don''t know if these chittering menaces are either better equipped than the pack or less. None of them have a spear which has me confident that I can take them. Two are armed with what look to be short swords or possibly daggers as long as my own knife without the heft, while the third has a rock strapped to a club. They seem to be of the size of the smaller ones in the pack that Gaian had run into.


    This has me confused, as the Goblins that size in the pack were armed with pointy sticks, and while the club feels in line with that for what I can only assume is that level of hierarchy, the two with metal weapons don''t match up with the previous pack''s level of wealth. With no time to dig more into the wealth distributions of goblinoid society, I considered briefly if I wanted to treat these a different tribe and give them the chance to run away as they hadn''t actually attacked me or a fellow Terran.


    Perhaps these little green men charging toward me are part of the goblin society that condemns using one''s fellows sapients as a sacrifice to empower spells, and if I attack them I might be forever cutting myself off from a peaceful coexistence with my better neighbors.


    Maybe I missed the signs that claimed this land as their own, after all in the wilderness and state parks in America, I had no doubt that I could have gone an equal distance with no sign that humans claimed the land. If I stood up while thrusting the spear at them that could only be construed as an attack and with most international law that I had no actual knowledge of, and could only make up in my mind, would probably indemnify me as being in the wrong and give the Goblins the right to defend themselves from me.


    Although to be fair as a western male of mixed descent, I would no doubt be placed in the wrong for anything short of laying down to have my throat cut in an apology for trespassing against my will on their pristine lands.


    While no doubt being speciesist, I really couldn''t help but associate these with the ones I had run into before. I had no desire to have them run away and call on more friends to come hunt me down like the rabbit that was currently running from them. With no ability to retreat, no big guns to hide behind, and no special forces to be called in to save my ass if I was wrong in treating them civilly and ended up on a spit.


    I could only give them a split second to react and surrender before making my move. Part of me wasn''t happy with the decision, but like some of my ancestral cousins on the wrong side of the law used to say, ¡°Why take a chance?¡±


    Deciding to be okay with being a hypocrite with only myself to call me out on it, I readied my spear. They were coming quickly in an arrow formation, as the rabbit burst through the grass and with a startled cry cut ninety degrees to the right, telling me that it hadn''t sensed any magic I might have been generating.


    This told me absolutely nothing in regards to my own power generation, as it could either have no magic sense and I could have been a bonfire, or it could have amazing senses and everything I thought I was producing could have been in my imagination. Shaking off my random thoughts I started to stand driving forward as I made eye contact with the lead goblin.


    Driving my spear toward his stomach in an effort to avoid having it getting stuck in the little, green rat''s ribcage. I could only associate the look his eyes gave me with hunger, despite the spear heading for his center, he screamed loudly and if anything adjusted his trajectory to climb up it after it entered him. Driving it deep into him with a combination of both of our forward momentums, the spearhead continued out his back as he continued to pump his legs forward in an effort to walk up the spear and club me.


    Continuing my thrust, I lifted up to bring him off the ground and taking another step forward brought the spear around slightly to spit one of his knife wielding brothers. Half of the blade making its way into the second goblin, I twisted at my waist bringing the spear around to throw them onto the ground.


    With a high pitched roar, reminiscent of what a toddler sounds like when asked what sound a lion makes, only this was filled with madness and hunger. Screaming the third one came at me, sharpened teeth opened wide as if planning on killing me with them rather than the knife that was pumping up and down as his arms moved in his running pace.


    Grabbing up my own knife with my left hand, I could only flick it at him swiftly, to take him off pace and give me time to draw my ax. Hitting it in the chest lengthwise and doing no more damage than if I had thrown a rock at it. The goblin nevertheless was knocked spinning to the ground, as its small stature and lack of any kind of stabilizing stance was hit by the force of my throw.


    Not giving him any chance to recover, I finished drawing my ax and dove forward driving the hatchet blade through his spine. Leaving him there, arms still scrambling, trying to roll itself over either to escape or continue its attack on me. Picking up the dagger it had dropped, I grabbed the cleanest part of his hair I could find and after pulling its head back, drove the blade into the side of its neck.


    Having to use a surprising amount of force, due to what I assumed was the dullness of the blade, I twisted it out the front, leaving a fountain of blood to splash out away from me. Turning back to the two I had managed to spit only due to their willingness to accommodate me in a chance to get their teeth into me. I could see that the front one was no longer moving, either collapsing in shock or already dead from the trauma.


    While the rear Goblin was still trying to push itself off in, what I could only assume was an effort to continue its assault on me, judging by the glare on its face and the way its jaws moved up and down.


    Walking slowly around, being careful to stay out of its reach. I picked up the end of the spear and with a heave, lifted it up and drove the blade into the soft turf. The small twenty to thirty pound creatures caused the shaft to creak, but fortunately, not splinter under their weight. As the forward one crashed down into the back goblin, it also slowly stopped moving.


    Not wanting to risk it if it was playing possum, I left the spear blade holding them into the ground and thrust my captured blade into the bottom one''s neck. The lack of arterial spray told me that I had stopped its heart with my second move. But wanting to be sure of the first one as well despite logic telling me it had to be dead was never a bad move in my opinion. I removed the dagger and thrust once again with a drive of my right arm, buried the blade into the top ones neck as well.

 Chapter 24

    Chapter Twenty-Four


    Breathing heavily despite the fight only lasting thirty seconds, tops. I looked over to the treeline, checking to see if the Goblins had any friends following them as backup. Seeing that the coast was clear for the minute, I started taking huge, sucking breaths to get rid of the tension. Despite the fact that everything going my way, and while I had managed to stay wound free, I could feel my heart pounding inside of me as my body, as my mind tried to process the first actual life or death fight I had been in on my own.


    I didn''t count the fight with the troll as one. While I was actually no doubt in more danger during that fight, I never really felt it, as Gaian had always held the giant string beans'' attention. Also, that had felt much more like butchery, whereas in this last fight, I had no doubt if I had any missteps, the goblins would have buried their teeth into me in a second. Pulling up on my spear, I ripped it free from the bodies before lowering myself back to the ground in an effort to stay unnoticed if any more of their friends came along the treeline.


    Before I could start to gather up either any of my own weapons or claim the spoils that the goblins had dropped, I felt the charging up of energy that I recognized from before when the Troll had died. Seeing the streams of angry energy coming up off the three dead goblins building up and swirling in the sky. I immediately sat down in a lotus position and started breathing slowly and easily.


    Praying for Serenity as I watched it gather up into a circle in the middle of the three bodies. Seeing the amount that gathered could only be compared to a rainstorm up against the Troll''s hurricane, I felt more confident as tendrils came out of the rotating energy and dove down towards my chest. Closing my eyes I focused on my breathing as I felt the pinpricks of pain enter my chest and dive to the point I remembered my core being at. As it streamed straight toward it ignoring all of the channels I had empowered, and dove down through my heart into the extradimensional space of my core, I felt my mind being drawn along with it.


    As I entered, I saw all of the energy pouring through the walls of locked Order and Chaos like it wasn''t even there. Again part of it swirled into a storm as if it was consciously controlled while sending a quarter of its forces to make its initial attack to soften up my defenses for the main attack that was sure to come. More prepared and confident from having survived the hurricane that was the troll''s energy, I maintained my calm and continued breathing. While I was waiting for the storm¡¯s advance attack to hit, I noticed that as I continued my breathing patterns, the Chaos that was locked in the Order panes was pulsing from pane to pane in time with my breathing.


    Wishing I had more time to dig into that, I could only maintain my calm as the energy dove past the free Chaos rotating around the speck that was at the center of my core. As it dove down I could feel it trying to get inside of who I was. It wanted to infect me with its rage, its anger, its need to go forth and rend and consume. Part of me wanted to laugh in its face, but I refrained. I continued my calm breathing in time, giving the anger and hatred no part to grab onto and infect me with their monstrous feelings. With none of the troll¡¯s massive waves of hatred coming at me and being steadier from the knowledge that I had survived worse. The first attack began streaming out of me, giving up, not even to make the slightest hole into the calm aura. I kept imagining that the way I was able to project out that aura was from the black speck, which I was now starting to think might be a representation of my soul. The epitome of who I was as a person.


    More and more anger and hatred came diving down at me, only to be rebuffed by the stillness emanating from my center. With nothing to latch onto while I was maintaining my calm, I forced myself to remain focused despite the pricks of pain that were coming through. Letting my soul''s jujitsu send everything that came crashing down into I,t back out into the greater universe outside of my center. As the storm swirled around one last time and sent everything down in its last ditch effort to invade and infect me with its madness. I laughed as it was repelled, feeling nothing like my last battle when I was wrung out and exhausted after fighting off the hatred. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to maintain my focus in my center as the last of the anger and hatred came pouring back out of me bringing my consciousness back out in their wake.


    Coming back to my body, I looked out as I saw the dark forces that were previously in me take off into the sky. Wondering where they might be heading, I ignored that problem for now content to leave it to someone else. I glanced down at the bodies of the goblins, where I saw the same green energy pooling over the bodies calmly as the scene from the Troll¡¯s death repeated itself.


    Feeling a hunger coming from the speck that was in my core, I knew this time it was actually coming from me, as I had left the contaminated core back at camp. As I felt the presence start to build its energy to reach down and claim the pools that hovered over the goblins, I reached out my arm to claim part of it for myself. As the soothing liquid-like substance started streaming up and around my arm, at my supposed command. The energy then entered my mouth and lungs in a move reminiscent of the Order and Chaos from the hell ball. I was confused as the kill energy went directly through my body aiming for my soul. Also, this new energy didn¡¯t bring pain, instead, it went smoothly down my throat, like a cool drink of refreshing sweet tea on the hottest summer day.


    This calmer cleansing energy made its way through my channels instead of heading straight for my core. The gentle soothing liquid made its way through me on its trip to my center, but I soon noticed tiny bits and specks of it were dropping off into my body through the slight tears and holes I had made in my channels. Initially nervous, I tried expelling it, but it didn''t seem to respond to my conscious thoughts. As the majority of the gentle essence was dragged along in its march towards my core. After a bit I began to grow calmer as I felt my physical body responding to the energy being injected into it. Like an energy drink after an all nighter my body was almost vibrating, I felt like I could run a hundred miles without stopping, jump off the cliff where I had come into this world, and land at the bottom unharmed. As the rest of it entered my mountainous globe of a core I was anxious to see what happened when this new empowering energy hit my soul.


    Only to stare in amazement at it, despite the hunger I could feel coming from the black speck, the green energy stayed glued to part of the wall of order, a small round green spot the size of a putting green inside of a globe that Mount Everest could fit into with room to spare. I tried everything I could think of to call it over to the center but it only continued to rotate around the outer wall. I was soon only able to tell where it was because the dot that was my soul would always have itself focused in that direction, but the minuscule size of the puddle meant that it was soon lost in the immensity of the chamber.


    With nothing to continue holding my mind in that space, I soon felt myself drawn back out into my outer body where I could still feel the remnants of the green power empowering my body. As the vibrating seemed to die down with my body processing the energy. I felt like I was the tiniest bit stronger and more alive, but how much of that was my imagination, and how much was real? It seemed like I had no way of knowing at this time without any meaningful way of testing it.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Looking back out in the world, I felt the gathering super presence pull back as if in confusion, unable to sense the power I had consumed before it got there. As it pulled back into the sky, I wondered if I had made a mistake in taking something that an entity that powerful considered worth its attention, mindless though it seemed to be. With the vortex disappearing into the sky, rather than picking me up by my heels and shaking its due out of me, or worse killing me and taking the energy from my core that way. I could only conclude that either it was an automatic reflex like a finger twitch or blinking. Either that or I was too small of an entity to focus on and my core chamber blocked whatever signal the green energy sent out to call the presence down from the sky.


    As my focus once again grew outward to look at the actual world around me, rather than the metaphysical one that seemed to be layered over it. I realized that I could hear the rabbit still crashing away in its effort to escape. It seemed like no actual time had passed during my inner battle and subsequent feast. Picking up my spear I had dropped when the energy invaded me, I  first cleaned the blade on the grass next to me, looking at it carefully before setting it back down. With no cracks or nicks in the blade, I was happy. Despite knowing I had weakened it in my effort to help Gaian, the spear was still the best weapon I had to keep the swarming critters off of me.


    Gathering up my own knife next, I wiped the little bit of, what I was just going to call dirt, off onto the grass. Digging into my pocket for my last remaining clean rack, I gave it another wipe to make sure there was nothing on it that was going to corrode the blade, before returning the steel to its home on my left hip. It took me a little more time to clean the ax that had been buried into the goblins'' back. While I was able to get most of the gore off in the grass, I had to dirty my rag more than I would have liked getting the last bits of blood the turf wouldn¡¯t remove.


    Cursing under my breath as I noticed that the edge of the blade had been nicked, doubtlessly on the Goblin''s spine. Returning it to my right hip, I resolved to remember to file it out when I got back to camp. Not as good as my larger files back on Terra, my smaller fishing tools would just have to do. Moving on to the goblin¡¯s weapons, at first, I was content to clean them off on the grass, but after tapping the straight blades against each other and hearing them ring true, I focused on doing a better job of scrubbing them clean.


    I hoped when I got back to my camp I could get the small bits of rust off with more sand, and that after sharpening them, I would either have two more backup weapons. Or, perhaps I could kludge together a better spear to replace the one I had ruined the temper of. Maybe even trying to make a second backup spear, or perhaps just using it to replace one of the smaller tools that I had brought from home that were for camp work, not combat. Looking at the club, my first instinct was to throw it away, feeling it was not worth the weight of bringing it back with me, but on closer examination, I noticed it actually wasn''t poorly made at all.


    The rock fitted well into the curve of the wood, it seemed to be held in place with a thick resin or glue. Pulling my knife and tapping the stone with the handle of my own weapon progressively harder, I wasn''t able to dislodge it at all. While the handle had some small nicks and gouges from its former owner¡¯s claws, it wasn''t a bad weapon at all. If I could smooth it out and clean it up, it might make a nice weapon to throw for a first strike. Or, maybe it might just be a good idea to have something that wasn''t going to get stuck in an enemy. Who knows, there might be some goblins out there with full armor that my weapons wouldn¡¯t work against.


    With more deaths seen in the last two days than I had ever experienced back on Earth I was quickly losing hope that I would be able to make my way to any kind of safehold, without a massive amount of luck, Gaian''s strong paws and a lot more killing than I wanted to participate in. But if it was a choice between killing or being eaten, I knew what side of the equation I wanted to be on.


    No pouches on these small goblins, I took the cleanest vest I could find off of the one that I had chopped into with my ax. Dragging it along the ground, I did my best to wipe off the ¡®dirt¡¯ from it before I began to roll up the two straight daggers and club I had claimed for spoils. With a start, I remembered what I had been wanting to check on with my bigger pile of goblins back at camp.


    Picking out the dagger with the sharpest edge, I rolled up my sleeve and headed back to the goblin I had got my ax into. Rolling him onto his back I stomped my foot down onto him turning his ribs into kindling. Digging the blade into his chest I sawed it back and forth, reaching my hand slowly in and gagging a little at the stench. I really hoped I never grew so hungry here that I had the need to cook and eat goblin.


    Digging around and under the heart, moving my hand slowly, so as to not squirt any of the gunk out onto my clothes. I felt around to where I imagined my own core was, feeling around until I felt something round, I grabbed onto it and pulled it out. Walking gingerly over to a clean patch of grass I swiped my arm back and forth on it until it was as clean as it was going to get. With the dirty dagger I had confiscated from my attacker, I cut into the turf to get to some nice clean dirt underneath. Grabbing out a handful I rubbed it onto my arm to mix the remaining blood into it until it disappeared and once again did my best to rub it clean on some more fresh grass. Picking up another handful of dirt I plopped it down onto the bit I had pulled out of the Goblin''s chest, mixing it up until most of the blood was gone as well. I rubbed it onto the grass until the dirt disappeared.


    What remained was a green disc slightly smaller than a dime, this core differed from both what had been in the Troll''s body and what the shaman and his lieutenants had carried on them. In the case of the currency, this disc had a slight green glow to it, although this green was a much deeper green than what I had consumed earlier that the vortex had been searching for, it did give off the same feeling to me. In the case of the Troll''s core, it didn''t have a secondary color running through it and it didn''t have emotions emanating out of me telling me to try and consume it.


    Sighing softly at my new conundrum, my pack rat mentality wasn''t going to let me leave behind a possible resource, especially not something so small. But I really didn¡¯t want to go digging through the little rats'' innards. Groaning in my head, the little bastard won, and I picked back up the dirty blade and got back to work digging into the other two to retrieve their cores, before once again cleaning everything back up. Dropping the now clean cores into a pocket, I rolled both daggers and the club up into the vest I had commandeered before adding my now filthy rag to the outside of it.


    Stealing what I could now indeed confirm was a rope belt, from one of my dead attackers. I bundled everything together and tied it onto the end of my spear. With one last dirt bath to clean the last bits of blood and gore off of me, I picked back up my bucket. With no desire to explore possible goblin infested woods with nightfall about an hour away.


    I decided instead to start heading back to camp, crouching while I walked to stay below the tops of the tall grass. I held my spear out in front of me to not advertise my presence, like the mast of a ship, just in case there were watchers from the tree line. The mentality of my three attackers didn''t lead me to believe they would be content to watch, but again, why take a chance?


    Continuing my awkward walking for a couple of hundred yards, before standing back up and putting my spear over my shoulder to carry it easier. I once again sighed at the image I was putting out. Covered in filth and with a bag tied to the pole, I had fulfilled the hobo part I hadn''t wanted to become. The murder part was still up for debate, at least in my mind...


    The Goblins might have a different opinion.

 Chapter 25

    Chapter Twenty-Five


    Making my way back into camp, I went straight over to the bear right after dropping my spear and the rest of the loot off in the now growing pile of weapons and leaving the still empty bucket next to my pack. Rubbing his head as he looked up at me, I thought his eyes looked clearer, but that might just be wistful thinking on my part, as it hadn''t been that long since I had treated his wound.


    Checking on the bucket I had left for him, it seemed that he had regained his thirst as it had been licked clean. While half of the halibut I had left him had been gnawed off as well. Looking down at his belly I could see he had managed to leave the bandage alone, happy I wasn''t going to have to figure out some kind of cone for him to wear next, I left to let him go back to sleep. Walking over to the fire and my makeshift grill, I saw that the coals had mostly died down, but one of the kelp pans had broken through the stick grate to fall into the ash. Fortunately, it seemed like the kelp was still intact, keeping the fish from burning up in coals. Judging by the black specks on the fish there had been some ash that had sprayed up to land on both it and the two portions to either side that hadn''t managed to collapse in. But as we used to say in the restaurant, that''s just extra flavor.


    Looking down at my hands, I could still see blood under the nails from digging into goblin innards, also I had plenty of dirt that had been worked into the skin with my dirt bath from earlier. While not the most fastidious of men, I still didn''t want any of that nastiness in my food, which meant this called for a sacrifice. So picking up my shovel, I walked over to my condenser. I was grateful to see that the planet overhead had performed as an adequate substitute for the sun back home. Beads of water were still dripping down, running underneath the plastic to stream down from the point underneath the weight, before landing into the bucket which was now closing in on half full.


    I was a little surprised at how much this hole had managed to bring in, I was expecting much less. If I had gotten a quart I would have been ecstatic, but this was over three! Gently removing the tungsten weight from the middle, I pocketed it and started carefully brushing all of the dirt off of the edges with my shovel. Grabbing the edges of the plastic sheet by two of its corners, I brought it over to my tent and laid it over the top. Waterside up, careful to not let any of the dirt slide down and mix into the water that would turn to mud and contaminate what looked to be my main way to bring in water.


    Going back to the bucket, I wanted to bury my face down into it, not having anything to drink since the dew this morning. Holding back, I brought Gaian his share first, pouring two-thirds of it into his buckets and leaving myself with the rest. Walking over to the unlucky pail that I had brought with me on my abortive trip, I poured in about a cup''s worth of the precious liquid. Sighing as I saw that it just barely covered the bottom, I thought about adding some more, but my thirst won out. Lifting the smaller one that I had dedicated to pure water up to my mouth, I carefully began drinking the remaining ambrosia down.


    Taking my time, I let the warm water run down my throat. Lukewarm and with a slight plastic taste, I still looked into the bottom remorsefully before I tilted it back up and waited for the last couple of drops to slip into my mouth. With the planet about halfway down the horizon, I figured that there wasn''t any point in starting a new hole until the morning. So I set my smallest container just inside of my tent flap, before heading to my pack to grab my small bottle of condensed soap. Dripping two small drops into the bucket still in my hands, I sent it swirling around a couple of times to foam it up before I brought it and two of my cleaner rags over to my camp chair. Sitting down, I placed one of the rags by my side, before soaking the other one and scrubbing my hands vigorously with it.


    Leaning the bucket backward in my lap to get as big of a puddle as possible, I started ringing the rag out into it, before soaking it back down and repeating the process. Over and over again until the water turned into a dark brown sludge, I guess hoping to get two of my rags cleaned was a little bit of a stretch. Well, at least I had managed to get my hands to a point where they could touch food and not leave Essence de Goblin behind. The rag I had chosen was also much lighter and nearly back to the tan it had started out as, with all of the blood that had encrusted it before seeming to have made it into the bucket. Hanging the rag over a tent rope to dry, I set the bucket of filth down and wiped my hands off on a cleanish spot of my shirt.


    Looking down at my now blood free hands, I went on to my next task of transferring all of the fish over to the remaining baskets. Wobbly and lopsided like the others, I lined the bottom of it with more of the dried kelp, before shredding the still warm fish. Taking some of halibut and chewing on it mechanically to help fill my belly. I found it to be dry and flavorless with all of the water and oil cooked out of it, but it was still calories, so I just tried to keep my mind off the blandness as I continued to work. Trying to achieve a mindless state, I let my body do its thing on autopilot until I finished getting everything off the top of the grill.


    Reaching down into the coals, I picked up the last piece and gingerly pulled it apart as well. Leaving the baskets uncovered for now, as I didn''t want to trap any of the steam coming off the top and accidentally rehydrate some of the fish. Looking up to the ridge line, I saw that the planet was on its last legs as it continued to dive down to leave me with just the two visible moons for light. With darkness closing in fast and still more to get done, I quickly moved on to building up the fire in the trench, first transferring more coals up to the dirt in front of my chair to give me a soft glow to work with until the branches I added managed to the trench below managed to blaze up.


    Grabbing three gore covered rags I had left alone I tossed them into the bucket of liquid, before adding the one I had left back by the chair. I slowly started working them through the already filthy water. While I was under no illusion that this would actually get them clean, I had some hope that at the very least, I could get rid of all of the dried blood and guts. Taking them over to one of the back tent ropes I hung them up as well and would see what progress I had made with them in the morning. Heading over to my corpse pile, I dumped the sludge out over the bodies, before walking into the grass to scrub it as clean as I could with my having to use grass for a sponge.


    As I headed back into camp the stench of the dead bodies started making me wretch just a little bit. While intellectually this should have made sense, I really hadn¡¯t thought that the aroma of the dead Troll and goblins could get worse. But apparently, as they started to decompose, a rancidness was starting to cut into the excrement that they had smelled of before. No longer debating on whether I wanted to spend the energy to bury them, now the only thought going through my mind was if I was still going to have to go through the bodies to look for cores tomorrow.


    If all went well and my friend was up for it, then I would hopefully be moving my campsite to the first copse of trees where I had gotten the firewood from earlier. Hopefully, I wouldn''t have to convince the bear to drag himself along with me, as I didn''t think I had any way to force him if he didn''t want to come on his own. Surprised that we hadn''t had any avian visitors here yet, I guessed they were either still busy with the feast a hill away. Either that or the goblinoid species were just so awful smelling that scavengers couldn''t tell the difference between dead and live ones until the decomposition got much further along.


    Looking in at my campsite about a hundred yards away. I thought it wasn''t bad for the amount of time I had put into it, and it was going to be a shame to move on. But this pile of bodies being so close was bound to attract attention the wrong kind of attention soon. I had no doubt that after the carrion birds started circling, that would be enough of an indicator to the remaining goblins around that something was here to eat.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Yeah, it was going to be a shame to leave the campsite, wishing I still had a camera to make a memento of what I hoped to be the first of many campgrounds on this new world. I settled with taking a mental snapshot of it with my Mount Tai in the background it really was an amazing look. My path to the ¡®beach¡¯ was on the northwest side, heading up the ridgeline, while my tent was placed just to the side of it, almost due west of the beginning of the path. Then there is the ten foot square patch of earth with the turf roll along the southside that, while small enough for me to step over, would hopefully force any invading Goblins to take a second or two to clamber over it.


    The fire trench was running on a diagonal from southwest to northeast in the middle of the square. With Gaian lying in the grass along the east side of camp where his hopefully greater senses were my ward against Goblins coming through the tall grass unnoticed. I had covered a good piece of the north part of the square with the branches I had brought over from the woods, most of which I still hadn''t used in the fire yet.


    With them lying on the ground, while they didn¡¯t make any kind of a barrier, I hoped in the dark they wouldn''t be seen and would give enough of an alert that when stepped on I could get out of my tent. No doubt I would still die, but at least this way I would be able to take some of the buggers with me. Also, I would much rather force them to kill me, rather than give them a chance to bundle me up and bring me back to their camp alive. Pack and baskets of food were along the south side of my tent with my two makeshift sleds, while the growing pile of weapons was left in a heap to the north.


    Heading back to my chair, I wanted to get started on the last task I had planned for the night before I tried once again for some sleep. Stopping by my pack first, I pulled out the cores the Goblin pack had been carrying. Sitting down with the fire in front of me, I started comparing them with my fresh ones. Looking for differences, both to see if there was anything I could find that would help me unlock my own core, and also to try and figure out why they would be carrying them around themselves.


    Every bit of lore told me that Goblins were insatiable so one would think that they would have also had some choice (for them) bits of food, but all they had besides weapons were these cores. While the three I had killed had better weapons, they had even less to show for wealth, if that was indeed what these cores represented. While I did want to get started examining the cores, I made a mental note that I was going to have to take care to explore tomorrow more thoroughly before setting up a new camp.


    The lack of food being carried was worrying, they had to have a bigger camp around and if they had any kind of organization to it they would no doubt be looking for the first group soon. Hopefully, the sloppy way I had dug around for the cores of the three I had killed would be mistaken for an animal attack. Although I still had yet to see any sign of predators or prey other than the green menaces that I had run up against twice. They had to be living off of something. Before I could get too caught up in pondering the food chain of this world, I cut the hamster in my head off with a better puzzle by holding up the shinier stones to interest him.


    The first thing I noticed after sitting down and pulling my three new additions out of my pocket, was that two of my three new cores had the same hew to them as the previous green ones, but these fresh ones had a stronger glow. While not bright enough to use as a make-shift flashlight, these were instead much more like a two day old glowstick. The rocks that the troop had carried, on the other hand, were more like the luminosity of the year¡¯s old glow in the dark stickers of stars, that still adorned my son''s ceiling back home. The third one however was a bright red, and while it looked like it should be warm to the touch, it was instead quite cool to feel, while still smooth like a glass pebble just like all of the others.


    Looking at the pile of eight that I had salvaged from the pouches of the goblin troop, I knew I could mix them together with my new ones and still be able to sort them out based on where they had come from should I not unlock their secrets tonight. Well, not which cores the two lieutenants had held, but I remembered Shaman had the only blue and gold cores, and I was pretty sure he had the smallest green one, or was it the brown? I was really starting to miss my phone and being able to leave myself notes.


    Holding up the smaller of the green ones that I had collected, I compared it to the other one whose providence I was sure of. They both were the same thickness, looking as if you had cut the center section out of the globe, just leaving off the rounded top and bottom. One seemed to be close in size to a dime, while the other was closer to that of a nickel.


    Holding them first up to the firelight, I hoped to use it to see the inside, but all that seemed to do was overwhelm the glowing light coming from within them, almost washing it out completely. Closing my eyes to get my darksight back, I then held them up to the black backdrop that was the night sky. Taking care to face away from the moons on the horizon, in case they had enough illumination to force me to reset again. I held the little rocks up to the backdrop of stars and this finally seemed to be dark enough for my purpose.


    Looking from one to the other, it was easy to start picking out differences, the larger of the two seemed to have a glowing that started in the center before pulsing out in an explosion that looped out to the edges before collecting back into the middle. While the smaller seemed to be like a river of energy looping around the outsides of the globe, starting at the top. The energy seemed to be driving through partitions, pooling up in places before moving onto the next blockage spot and eventually ending up in the center where it took a straight shot back to the top, although there was a duller line heading down to the bottom.


    Picking up the red one next from the pile in my lap, I immediately noticed that while the light that came off of it, and the size of the stone was comparable to the bigger green rock, only this one was much flatter. Much more in line with an excellent skipping stone in shape if not size. Holding this one up to the night sky, I could see that the energy instead of moving around in loops and whirls was completely different, It seemed to not have any pathways at all, instead, the entirety of the light seemed to gather on one side before dimming and then flowing quickly to the other side where it would brighten once again.


    Pulling out the blue and gold ones next, I wanted to see if their inner glow also had its own unique movements to them. Not that this would guarantee anything with such a small sample size, but any data points at this point were better than nothing. Holding up the blue one first, I saw that it was much more in line with a flat soccer ball, round with just slight indentations on the top and bottom. Of size with the smallest green one, I wondered if that was why the shaman had chosen it, or was it because of the difference in color, or perhaps was the fact that it was rounder give it more value?


    I remembered the green one that was closer in size to a half dollar had been carried by the smaller lieutenant. That seemed to indicate that the larger one should be less valuable, but again with such a small sample size I didn''t want to jump to conclusions. Looking into the blue one I saw that even though the light was dimmer, it was similar in movement to the red one in that it didn''t have pathways it followed. Instead this one seemed to radiate out from the center, looping around like tentacles writhing around each other. The light moved from the center outward before coming back, the tentacles themselves however continued moving around with no pattern that was readily available to my novice eyes.


    Moving onto the gold core, which I still held with a little apprehension to touching with its similar hue to the core of the troll. Holding it up to the sky, it looked much like the blue one in shape except for being half again as large. The golden energy inside this one however was more in line with the green, as opposed to that of the red and blue. However, this one instead of having any kind of winding pathways, was instead like looking at the fractals in a kaleidoscope, all with very straight edges and the slight glow was moving along the edge of the fractal making a path around the entirety of the core. The light seemed to brighten on the edge of each splinter before moving onto the next, eventually ending back up to where it started.


    Dropping the ones I was holding back into the pile on my lap, I debated picking up the largest core I had found, before eventually deciding to finish off looking at the last of the colors I hadn¡¯t seen yet. Picking up the bigger of the three brown ones I had looted, this one was closer to the size of a quarter but was again flat, like a good skipping stone. Holding it up to the ridge line, I started to try and decipher the pattern of energy that was glowing in it, when I was blinded by a flash of light coming from over the hillside.

 Chapter 26

    As the crash of thunder hit me several seconds later, I realized that my water problems were soon to be solved. Feeling the cooler breeze hit my skin, I smiled as I looked up and saw the impending storm clouds that were starting to block out the stars. Dumping all of the cores into one of my cargo pockets. I quickly began readying my camp for both the impending harvest and to secure the things I needed to keep dry. Taking care of my food first I began moving the baskets as quickly as I could into the tent while still taking care not to let them break or spill the dried fish out. Once that was taken care of I picked up my pack, taking a couple of D-ring clips out of the side pocket, I also unclipped the kayak off the back and grabbed a few more essentials from the side pockets, before moving it inside the tent as well.


    Quickly unfolding the kayak, I left it on the ridge side of my tent, as that was the side that the wind was blowing from, making it more likely that rainwater would be hitting that side of the tent. Taking three of the D-rings, I quickly snapped them through the grommets on the top of the plastic sheet and clipped them to the top of my tent before taking the final two and clipping them to the bottom of the seat in the middle of the kayak. Grabbing my previous wash bucket, I moved it to sit next to the watercraft. While I highly doubted that I would get enough water to fill up the kayak, I didn''t want to take a chance at missing out on any water supply. Better to have too much and dump it, then run out and have to waste time gathering it later.


    With the water and food storage taken care of, the next thing that was on the checklist that I had quickly formulated. I had to decide between protecting the camp or planning how I was going to get clean while not getting hypothermia. As the first of the drops started hitting my face. I decided on protection first. Getting my shovel, I started digging a shallow trench on the ridge side of my tent, just on the other side of the kayak. While it may have been more useful, right up against the tent. I was going to have to go with the second best option rather than taking the tarp down so I could get closer. Once I had dug out a line the length of the tent, I started digging a second line down through the slope on the other side.


    Hearing more thunder crashing in the distance, while I worked with the small glow of the coals I had moved topside while trying not to be blinded by the brief flashes of lightning. Cursing softly, I thought about the coals, I didn''t want to completely start again once the storm had passed. It looked like I was going to be in for a wet night as I needed to prioritize my supplies and whatever dry firewood I had before me. Stopping my work on the trench slit, I reached into my tent and opened my pack to quickly pull out my cookware. Taking the smallest pan and its matching lid, I moved a small shovelful of coals into the pan before shoveling some dirt on top of it to bury it and remove it from oxygen. Placing the lid back on top I snapped the clips around it to keep it tightly sealed. I then moved it into the higher back corner of my tent, before carefully wrapping my sleeping bag around it to keep as much of the heat in, so it would hopefully reignite after being introduced back to oxygen after the storm.


    Pulling my fleece back on as I left the tent, I started gathering up all of the dry wood I had left including a bunch of the tipless spears that had been so generously donated by our goblin attackers. I left the club out of my future kindling as it was more useful as a backup weapon than in the fire, at least in my not so expert opinion.


    Stepping back out of the tent I looked over at the bear lying on his side still as lightning lit up the surrounding area once again. He didn''t seem to be moving around much, whether that was because he didn''t care about the soaking he was about to get or that he still wasn''t feeling up to the movement, it didn''t much matter. As I was finding out what most zookeepers already know when asked the important question of how do you get five hundred pound animals to do something¡­ You wait for them to want to do it. I chuckled humorlessly, at least they have power equipment to move animals around when they need help. I was down to feeding him the troll core and hoping it didn''t turn him into a monster or walking off and leaving him behind.


    As more rain hit my face and another stream of lightning lit up the sky I found myself looking over Gaian out into the long grass between the camp and the copse of trees I had visited earlier. Most of the grass was bending at a diagonal away from either of the two, but there were several lines that seemed to be running towards us. ¡°Blank me,¡± I said softly as the years of self-censoring still weren''t yet broken despite the situation. Abandoning all of my efforts to get my camp storm ready, I instead dashed over to the weapon pile in an effort to go through my options before I tried to disappear into the grass and set up a counter ambush.


    As bad off as he was, the bear was just going to have to take care of himself for this attack. Because while I had taken three on earlier and two in our initial introduction to life on this Moon, all of those were by surprise, and if I was left to a standup fight I was much more likely to become goblin chow. Leaving honor for those who liked to pretend we were still Brits, I had no problem stabbing them in the back if it kept my supple skin off of the spit.


    Shaking my head at the terrifying thought, part of my mind couldn''t help but wonder if I would receive any culinary treatment. Like being basted in herbs or force fed a concoction to fatten me up before getting tied to the spit. Shaking my head to clear the disturbing image I pulled the shaman''s sacrificial dagger and the club I had kept from the kindling supply while leaving the rest of the knives and spears. I thought about bringing some of the spears along with me, but at seven feet long I worried the metal on the tips would be caught reflecting in a flash of lightning and give me away. Tucking the shaman''s piece into the back of my belt, my hands moved to brush against my own longer knife and ax making sure they were still secured to me.


    My mind wasted a couple of seconds regretting that the other blade that I had the ability to strap to myself, was really more of a tool than a weapon. With its snub nose and only a short cutting edge, it really wasn''t worth trying to attach to my leg, as it had a tendency to slide down with too much movement. While fine for the long slow kicks of diving, I was always having to pull it back up over my calf when I was walking back to my stuff on the beach. Shaking my head at my mind''s attempts to distract me from the possibility of being eaten, I quickly backed up into the darkness as I disappeared from the soft glow that infused the small area surrounding the coals in the center of my camp.


    Moving the club to my left hand gave me the option to quickly draw my ax or cross-draw my longer blade depending on what the situation called for. Circling around away from my tent in the dark, I paused to dig down into the soil and grab a couple of handfuls to rub onto my hands and face. While it would undoubtedly be washed off soon in the upcoming deluge, anything I could do to keep the lightning from reflecting off me and giving away where I was seemed worth it to me in the moment. While I did feel a little bad at Gaian having to play bait again, he had three hundred pounds on me and a much thicker hide, so practicality won out as I left him to gather the focus of the invading pests while I prepared to counter ambush.


    With the next flash of lightning, I tried to count how many trails were coming towards us but only got to eight before the darkness stopped me from counting higher. Seeing as how they were still several football fields away, I decided to quickly move to a point in between our camp and the copse of trees that they were coming from. While still trying to stay off of their line so they could stay focused on the camp giving me a path to come in from behind them unseen. Not sure if they had tracked me, seen the glow in the distance, or were following my scent. I tried keeping track of the wind so it wouldn''t give away where I planned on stopping. But with as bad as it was gusting around me, I quickly gave up as I didn''t think they would be able to tell I wasn''t still in the camp. I just had to hope for the best as that variable didn''t seem to be something I could control.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    Circling around and finally reaching a point some thirty yards on the other side of the camp, I stopped and started working on slowing my breathing and controlling my pounding heart. Listening to the wind sweeping around me I didn''t have much fear that they would hear the heart that seemed to be doing its best to beat out of my chest.


    Keeping my head down, I focused on just trying to listen for the approaching group, so that if the lightning came again the shine of my eyes wouldn''t give me away. I had no doubt that the bigger eyes they had confirmed everything the lore said about them having the better night sight than humans. But if I stayed crouched under the grassline, with nothing to reflect the light that was flashing across the sky, I hoped I had a good chance of being ignored as the single mindedness they had shown in both encounters should keep them focused on the camp. While they probably wouldn''t just charge in like the three I had met, unfortunately, I hadn''t seen the first group initial meeting with my furry friend, but they had to have been quick to attack, so all I could do was hope the heavy monstrosity would hold their attention despite his injured status.


    Hearing their chittering voices and the rustling of the grass as the attackers finally started closing in on the camp, I kept my head down, even though it seemed like I had picked a good enough spot and had indeed stayed off of their line. It seemed like the group wasn''t too concerned with being unheard as it seemed like a couple of them seemed to be arguing amongst themselves and I heard several thunks that seemed to be like blows coming from the group. With the amount of noise that seemed to be coming from them just guessing from that lack of discipline that they weren''t paying attention to their surroundings, I lifted my face sooner than I had planned. Initially, I had wanted to wait until the sound had faded, but with the noise I was hearing, I was surprised Gaian hadn''t gotten to his feet already and charged out.


    Either he was playing along and trying to lull them in or he was bad into a fever dream. Standing up I drew my ax before I started following in behind them. I initially had wanted to start with my short blade and club, but was worried about having to try and draw the ax in the middle of the fight with its flap possibly making me fumble and drop the snatch. Deciding that going for the cross draw or pulling from my back would have me less likely to drop a weapon I made sure of my grip and then started after them. I''m not going to pretend like I am some master of stealth whose only reason for not being in special forces was that I had never bothered applying myself. But I am an accomplished hunter who''s gone after Elk, Caribou, and Moose in Alaska, not to mention a multitude of deer and pig hunts back in the lower forty-eight, so I know how to walk quietly.


    As I followed along behind them I started to wonder how these Goblins normally managed to hunt for food. The amount of noise they were making had made it impossible for them to catch prey normally unless they just managed to stumble across small animals shivering in fear, the only option that made sense with their approach was that their main method of hunting was going up against larger creatures that had no fear of them and burying them in numbers while racking up massive casualties. While that did seem to fit with lore, that didn''t make much sense from an evolutionary standpoint, but before I could let the hamster in my head spin out any more questions, I quickly shut him up. Now was not the time for distraction, even if I was able to kill several before I was noticed and Gaian managed to take care of a few despite his injured state. There was still more than enough to if not overwhelm me, I was almost certain to end up crippled unless I stayed as close to perfect as possible.


    As I got to within twenty yards of the tramped down grass surrounding the camp, Gaian rose to his feet as the first goblin stepped out from the long grass. Tiny when compared to the smallest of North American bears, the little monster seemed to show no fear as several of his compatriots stepped out to join him. Looking at their markings and weaponry, I still couldn''t determine if these goblins belonged to the same tribe that had been sacrificed to the portal or the three I had run into earlier, if they were even part of a separate tribe, or had merely been of a different social status and were then left with inferior weaponry. These small goblins seemed to be akin to the first group in that they were holding sharpened sticks rather than being blessed with metal weapons, as more goblins began stepping out of the grass and shoving the smaller ones forward I still had yet to see metal as my count increased to ten.


    As the smallest five started charging forth and hurling their pointy sticks in a wave at Gaian. The bear merely ducked his head and weathered the wooded storm, before roaring in a volume to match the thunder that still was ringing over our heads from the impending natural storm that still had yet to break open. As the first five saw that their thrown weapons were ineffective, they held onto their remaining sticks and began to spread to the sides while it seemed like they were waiting for their larger fellows to take their turn at it.


    I closed to within fifteen yards and wished I had brought a couple of spears of my own to throw, the rest of the pack came walking out of the long grass. While much larger than the little ones that had shot their wad, these new ones still only probably came up to the height of my belly button for the tallest. Still lacking any bulk, I doubted the heaviest one would even manage to hit fifty pounds if I still had my electronic scale to tie him to. Fortunately, it seemed like this group was lacking either a magic user or a sacrificial volunteer. Unless the first volunteer I had seen before, had merely been the first of the smaller goblins to lose their weapons and was shoved into the spot of soul kindling as punishment. Whether it was because they lacked a magic user or the first group had been understaffed, this party had a group of five that had both size and weapons to indicate they were a step above the normal rabble that were stuck wielding pointy sticks.


    Two of the upper class goblins had clubs nearly identical to the one I held in my left hand, but unlike the ones I had ambushed earlier, these also had the first armor that I had seen. I took this to indicate these creatures might value their own skin somewhat. Nothing like the plate or scale that I had previously only seen in Hollywood productions or in a museum. The barely tanned leather which still looked to be rotting in patches was barely covering their torsos. But despite the holes in it, the defensive nature of it made it obvious that the chest pieces weren''t just poorly made cloaks. Also holding crudely hewn shields that lacked any kind of banding, they would be easily splintered apart with the swing of a greatsword.


    Unfortunately for me, I had left all of my own swords, which would no doubt be incredibly useful right now, unpurchased on another world. Looking at the two bruiser''s three remaining friends, I counted two archers and a spearman that looked to provide the remaining offense for the group. Neither of those three had any kind of armor other than the ubiquitous loincloth and ratty tunic that seemed to be the required raiment of their smaller brethren. But the archers had several metal tipped arrows that they carried in their hands alongside the bows, seeming to lack either the intelligence or funds to have a quiver to go along with them. While the spearman carried the twin to the spear whose blade I ruined when I used it to cauterize my friend''s belly.


    Banging their clubs on their shields the two tanks shouted at the smaller goblins and another wave of five ran to toss their spears for the bear to once more shrug off. As the remaining five small goblins charged forth to throw their extra sticks uselessly at the bear, he shouted forth his challenge and anger that these shrimps were having the audacity to annoy him. As his roar rang out and seemed to shake the small ones the slightest bit, the skies seemed to answer the Ursoid with a deluge that drowned the fire and killed what remaining light there was.

 Chapter 27

    Immediately I charged for the spot where the spearman stood, swinging my left arm to club down one of the archers on the way, before burying my ax into the back of the spear wielder with my right. As the spear started to fall from his now limp claws towards the ground, I continued on past him and ripped it from his now paralyzed fingers, leaving my hatchet buried deep in his lower back in payment for the larger weapon. Continuing to run forward, I could only hope that Gaian could tell the difference between me and the feral little green munchkins in the darkness that now enveloped us.


    Hearing his labored breathing, I continued to head towards him while angling to leave a little bit of space so he would hopefully not charge at me. Calling out quickly, I said. ¡°It''s just me!¡± Before quickly shutting back up, I didn''t want to take a chance that the remaining archer¡¯s bowstring hadn''t been ruined yet by the rain sheeting down. Not wanting to make myself a target by speaking further, I could only hope that their eyes wouldn''t adjust quickly with the lightning still flashing through the sky.


    With a count going on in my head of fifteen smaller ones and three remaining true threats, part of me regretted making myself known. I would have loved to have taken out more before making my presence known, but the chance to cripple their ability to fight at range was more than I could pass up. I could only hope that their last ranged threat would quickly be taken out of the fight by the torrent of water falling from the sky. As another lightning strike flashed through the sky lighting the camp for an instant, I could see that they still hadn''t seemed to process what had happened. The two brutes seemed to be shouting to the small ones to gather up and charge forth, but while the little ones had seemed to be happy enough to sacrifice themselves in the earlier portal fight. These smaller ones seemed to have been startled enough by my appearance that they were going to need more encouragement before throwing their lives away as a distraction for their larger fellows.


    The remaining archer had dropped all of his arrows but one, and was drawing it back as he pulled a bead on me. Deciding speed was more important than accuracy, I used an underhand toss to quickly hurl my club into the darkness that so quickly followed the flash of light that let me have a quick glimpse of the battlefield. Hoping I had spoiled his aim, the thunder that followed drowned out any chance I had of hearing a thunk from my club that would have indicated I had hit him. Not wanting to rely on the luck that a left handed toss needed to connect, I dropped to the ground and held the spear to my chest parallel with me. I rolled several times to give myself more separation from my friend. Hoping the little mongrels would still see the bear as the greater threat so that I could pick off them from behind when they rushed him.


    Not wanting to risk the greater night sight that lore told me the greenskins had. I reached into my right cargo pocket for the emergency glow stick that I had pulled from my pack when I was readying the camp for the coming storm. Standing back up and leaving the spear resting in the crook of my now empty left arm, I quickly cracked it with closed eyes and after shaking it a couple of times, tossed it towards the gibbering monsters before opening my eyes to look out into the pouring rain. The green glow showed me that I had managed to crack the remaining archer''s bow with my incredibly lucky toss, but he was already scrambling for a replacement from his fallen twin. Still hoping I could count on the fallen water to take that threat away, I looked to the goblin I had relieved of the only metal threat.


    He stared back at me with a feral hatred in his eyes while his arms seemed to be the only things that worked, as he slowly but continuously tried clawing his way forward to get me. Unsure what his plans were other than to gnaw on my ankles if he even made it this far, I turned my gaze instead to his two shield bearing brothers, who still seemed to be in the process of corralling the smaller fifteen little ones. As they only had three and four-foot, long pointy sticks in their hands, none of them seemed anxious to charge forward, but neither were they running away either. Part of me had hoped that the lighting of the glowstick would have been frightening enough in the unknown that they would have scattered from it. But it seems like when you''ve seen fireballs flying through the air by magicians on your side, a glowing green stick lying on the ground just isn''t that scary.


    With only four sticks remaining in my pack, I still didn''t count the one I had thrown as a waste, as the two club wielders seemed to have finally been able to corral the littles into regrouping for another attack, which started to confirm the lore in my mind that Goblins could see in the dark. The light I had thrown out hopefully was enough to bring the playing field closer to even. I gripped my new seven-foot spear in a slightly loose grip in both hands, holding it across my chest at an angle, letting the base of the spear rest on the ground for now, while the green little buggers decided on their next move. I wasn''t happy giving up the initiative, but I wasn''t going to charge at eighteen monsters no matter how small or poorly armed they might be. I was much more inclined to keep falling back and hold them at range with the only longarm still in the fight.


    Looking over to the archer as he put one of the few metal-tipped arrows he had to the string of his newly claimed bow. I got ready to dodge as he pulled the string back. But after he released his shot, I saw the arrow fall limply to the ground after only traveling two-thirds of the way to me. I could only wonder whether it was the sloppy construction or the falling water to blame. Either way, I laughed as he threw the bow after the arrow, not even bothering to dodge, as I saw it wasn¡¯t even going to make it close to me. The laugh seemed to have angered him as the feral creature snarled angrily and walked over to his wounded comrade still trying to crawl towards me. Grabbing my old ax in both hands, he ripped it out, despite the fact that it was still buried deep in his companion''s back. I couldn¡¯t believe that with no concern for his fellow¡¯s life, he just put his foot onto the neck of his brother to hold him still and ripped my former camp tool out in a torrent of blood.


    This seemed to finally have caused enough damage to my new weapon''s owner that he expired, his long snake-like tongue limply rolling out of his mouth to lay motionlessly in the muddy water that was starting to pool on the ground. Seeming to shout encouragement or threats at the smaller ones and his two shield holders behind them, he had no problem leaving his back to me while he continued to scream at them, for what I could only guess was their lack of courage. Not wanting to let the opportunity pass me by, I quickly charged forward several paces and drove my longer weapon into his center of mass. The blade burst through his abdomen, driving forward until the crosspiece driving into his back made him stumble forward, the tip sticking out through the front of his stomach. I could only thank the sturdy construction that seemed so incongruous with the rest of the shoddy equipment the goblins had, and stepping back I flung the former archer¡¯s now lifeless body off the spear. Taking a second to watch the body roll several feet in the direction of the camp to end up in a crumpled ball on its side.


    Leaving my hatchet still clenched in his hands, as my stabbing him in the back seemed to anger those still alive, leaving me no time to reclaim my former tool. His death, rather than sending the now gathering horde scattering like I had assumed it would, did the opposite. All it managed to do was cause them to gather up and start screaming at me angrily in high pitch voices that had a volume to rival the thunder still crashing in the sky. The tiny goblins either had a concept of honor and my stabbing their champion in the back had upset them, or the now dead bow wielder was a goblin beloved by the masses. Either way, the result was the same and I was about to be swarmed by the little buggers. The remaining six little goblins that had brought three spears instead of two, all took several steps forward and threw their last extra one at me, before following the sticks still flying through the air and charging at me themselves.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Their sharp pointed teeth were bared in screams of rage, as they made it clear the sticks were just to knock me down while their teeth and claws would be the main killers, joyfully rending my juicy bits from my bones. The remaining nine smaller ones were only a step or two behind, while the biggest two banged on the shields in encouragement, before beginning a slower walk to follow on their own to follow behind at a safe distance. They were either content to let the little ones let loose to vent their hatred on me, or they had maintained a little bit of sanity and wanted to wait for my new friend to be knocked from my hands before they got within reach. Backing up, I brought the spear across my body to knock away the two cousins of his that had the air to reach me. Feeling my feet squish in mud I looked down to see I was closing in on the small trench I had dug, that formally held my fire. Trying to be unobtrusive so as not to draw attention to it, I carefully stepped back over it in my retreat.


    Gaian, apparently not wanting to leave me on my own, still seemed to be too injured to move, as he roared loudly to try and frighten the horde of midgets off rather than charge his bulk forward to bowl them over. Unphased, the mass of fifteen continued streaming forward at me, ignoring him completely. While not being willing to turn my back in case they wanted to try throwing their remaining sticks, I instead kept backing away slowly and watched in anticipation as they closed in.


    Water pouring down my face, I wished I had taken the time to pull out my diving gloves when I had grabbed the glow stick from my pack, the bumpy surface of the neoprene would have let me be sure of my grip on my last weapon that gave me distance to avoid the claws and teeth. Smiling as the first six hit the trench unnoticed in the soft green glow of chemical light, they were so small that two of them actually fell in and disappeared in an explosion of wet ash as they hit the angle wrong. The remaining four face-planted on the ground stunned, as the nine that were charging a couple of yards behind them slipped and fell in the mud, in their desire to avoid the obstacle that suddenly seemed to appear in front of them. I quickly took advantage of the chaos and stepped forward swiftly with several small well placed jabs, drove part of my spear''s blade into their backs or stomachs depending on how they fell, quickly ending the threat from the ones on the ground. As the two that fell completely into the trench popped back up, I swept the blade of my spear low to the ground, taking them one after the other in the neck. Nearly decapitating both of them, as I used all of my strength so the blade wouldn''t catch on their spines.


    Continuing all the way around as I overextended putting everything into that swing, I tried to stop as I faced the nine still unwounded littles. But unfortunately, I couldn''t keep my footing and slid forward, stumbling down to a knee until I was able to drive the butt of the spear into the ground to catch myself. My first obvious mistake, this had the side effect of bringing my forward-planted foot in range of one of the ungrateful little bastards that I had gutted but had yet to expire. Not liking my gift of steel to his belly he reached out with both of his claws, latched onto my boot and pulled himself with his dying strength up to bury his teeth in my calf. While I tried standing as quickly as possible, rather than letting him just have a free meal, I wasn''t quick enough to regain my feet before the teeth drove into my muscles. As the pain shot through me and tried to paralyze me in agony, I groaned with teeth clenched as I slammed the butt of the spear down into the offending Goblin''s skull, not wanting to risk more damage to my leg trying to shake him off.


    A small chunk of my calf now missing in the dead offender''s mouth, I could only thank the stars above me that the little bugger wasn''t as big as the two club bearers behind it. Painful and probably infected, at least the bite hadn¡¯t been able to cripple me, I thought, as I retreated a couple of steps back away from the three goblins still dying and yet all managing to nevertheless keep clawing their way towards me. The nine behind the trench decided to split up and go around to encircle me, rather than risk falling in and making a target of themselves for the quick stabs of the spear, that years of spearfishing had left me somewhat proficient in. Three headed around in the direction of my tent while six dared to go closer to my friendly brown furred forest creature.


    As both groups made it around their respective edges, but before they could start their charge. In a coordinated move that made me think we were linked by our experience in the hell ball, each of us charged toward our respective groups. As I started driving towards my three goblins, I saw the six spin back towards the charging behemoth. Warned by a growl from the two, not quite, completely useless shield bearers that were still bringing up the back.


    Unsure why they weren''t leading from the front, I could only be happy at the gift they were giving us. I charged my own three, running towards them with the plan to angle across the group. Despite the shooting pain coming from my left leg, I was able to soldier on with barely a hitch to my step. With my new spear blade not long enough to run through all three of the little terrors, I knocked the center one''s pointy little stick aside before lunging forward, running the blade in through his abdomen and driving him into the one on his left. Leaving them both joined together with my spear, my left foot which was now planted deep in the mud let me push off towards the still unphased goblin on the right.


    As his stick came up at my eyes, my now empty right arm swept across and knocked it out of line, no doubt he was expecting this maneuver as he instantly dropped his stick and jumped towards me, claws and teeth out. Only to gasp and collapse as my left drove the shaman''s jagged rusty instrument into his throat. It was a move I stole from the previous user who had used the blade to kill his fellow. Fortunately, the blade didn''t seem to care who was wielding it and ended the last threat''s life without bringing forth another portal. Looking back over to my four-legged companion, I saw that the six that had taken the path closer to him were all bowled over and he was smashing his paws down, crushing their chests in moves sure to finish them off, he also apparently didn''t like taking chances either.


    With only two left to go and from the fact that they had hung back the entire time, I looked up expecting to see the remaining two dropping their shields and fleeing unencumbered into the darkness. Only to be shocked as their images were silhouetted midair above the trench from the green glow coming on the ground behind them. Both shields were indeed on the ground, but instead of fleeing, the little bastards seemed to be content to sell their lives taking me out. Standing up, my left hand tore the dagger out of the now dead goblin¡¯s throat. As he fell to the ground, blood mixing in the rain as the blade was bared to the falling water, my right hand reached across to draw Bowie''s signature blade as both of my remaining threats landed in the mud in superhero poses, clubs held in the air in unison.


    Not wanting to give the smaller creatures time to set themselves or come up with any other surprises, I charged at the closer one with just the slightest limb slowing me down as adrenaline continued to pound through my veins. As he stood up and turned towards me, his friend seemed content to let him take the brunt of my rush. While he did turn towards me, he stood his ground, rather than stepping next to his companion. Unknowing being sacrificed by his fellow, as the lamb had his eyes locked onto my own, club raised and howling his monstrous battle cry. He swung down only for my longer blade to catch it. Leaving me free to drive my nicked and cruelly serrated blade into his chest. I shouted in pain as he ignored everything to bite down on my right arm in a final act of vengeance, making no effort to save his own life as he sought to cripple me.


    Again and again, I stabbed into him with the cruelly jagged blade in my left, as the pain in my right forearm caused me to block out every thought but removing the horrible creature now clamped down onto me. When the dagger finally seemed to hit something painful enough to cause the mouth to come howling off of me in a pain filled scream of his own, he still managed to stay latched on to me with his claws. Awareness flooded back into me as I realized how big of a mistake I had made, looking past his dying smile, I saw the Goblin that I had forgotten in that brief moment of agony, already in motion. Seeing the club coming at my face I could only duck my head into my newest friend''s chest and try to ride out the blow. Starbursts blazed into my eyes, telling me I failed, as I slowly collapsed to the ground and the darkness claimed my now limp body.

 Chapter 28

    Starting back awake as a rough tongue came dragging across my face, I looked around frantically as the previous moments of terror came crashing back into me in waves. Gasping I sucked in air as I looked into the brown eyes of an incredibly furry face and a wet black nose inches from my eyes.


    Shoving the dead goblin that lay on top of me away, I looked around to see that the one who had knocked me out was now lying several feet away with his chest caved in. Reaching up and rubbing the ears of the bear who was still sniffing at me I said, ¡°I''m okay, thanks for the save brother.¡± Grabbing onto the back of his neck, I used his bulk to help lever me up, wincing with a start, as a sharp pain in my right side told me that the one who had managed to come close to ending my time on this moon, had managed to get a second swing in lower on my body before Gaian had crushed the Goblins own ribs in turn.


    Taking a long breath, I slowly kept inhaling past the point the pain tried to stop me at, as I kept going the sharpness of the ache soon turned dull. Smiling grimly, I thought that he had only managed to bruise my ribs, not that I had anything along that I could wrap my ribs in if they were broken, but I was pretty sure I wasn''t crippled yet. Holding my head as the stars threatened to take me back to dreamland, I slowed down my turn as I tried to take in the carnage around us.


    Looking around slowly, I could only groan out loud as I saw the energy start streaming up off of all of the corpses lying around. Smaller bits from the fifteen than what I had gained from the three I had met earlier, but those were dwarfed by the amount coming over from the four that lay dead both in front of me and where I had ambushed them at the beginning of the fight. Looking up at the whirlpool glowing in the sky, I could see that all of the energy put together wasn''t going to equal what the Troll had sent at us. Shaking my head as my subconscious screamed something up at me turned out to be a mistake as my head continued its pounding from the smacking I had encountered earlier.


    Rubbing the top of my head I could already feel a knot starting to form on the top of my pate as the water falling from the sky continued to run down my face. I could only limply try to pull myself into a lotus position as I prepared for the invasion coming at me, wondering all the while what my smarter half was trying to warn me of.


    Looking up into the darkness above, I saw three funnels separate out from the cloud whose glowing intensity to my eyes wasn''t reflected in the soft glow that the chem stick lit up for my companion. As I saw the larger funnel coming down towards me, I tried to call the one aiming for Gaian over to me as well, but whether it was because of the pounding headache or my own lack of aptitude, I still wasn''t able to change its trajectory. As I saw the third funnel, equal in size to the one heading for the bear, start heading toward the archer I had struck with my club at the beginning of the fight.  I realized three things that my smarter subconscious had been trying to warn me of. One, the death energy didn''t seem to be related to who killed what or which group you belonged to. Two, either the greater portion was being drawn to me because of my relatively higher sentience or something else was unique about me. And Three, one of the little buggers was still alive¡­


    As my focus was drawn down into my inner world, I could only hope that the monster had as much trouble fighting off the effects of the death energy as I did and wasn''t about to kill me now that I had lost the agency to my body. Finding myself once more in my core, I saw the funnel already halfway in, driving past the Order and Chaos edges like they were nothing more than a screen door. Emptying my mind of all the pain and anger I was feeling, I tried regulating the breathing of my core space by focusing on the simplest pattern that I could remember, the box pattern. In four beats, hold four, out for four beats before holding once again for four and repeating.


    Unsure at first if I was able to actually control my body while my mind was trapped inside the mountain, I saw the Chaos start rotating both through the Order and pulsing in the center along with the pattern I imagined I was breathing to in the real world. Inside the Order panels, the Chaos motes were bouncing steadily for four beats before moving through the tunnels during the next four beats, repeating the process over again as the simple pattern restarted. The inner cycle of Chaos had an even simpler movement that had them rotating as tightly around the black speck in the first four beats before moving out to rotate around as far out as it could with the following four.


    Once again my mind couldn''t help but wonder if this was all some delusion in my head or if this was actually doing any good, but as the trapped inner Chaos continued rotating tightly before expanding I saw that the green energy that had previously been stuck to the outer wall was drawn over by the motion the inner motes were making. Faster than the funnel, the pale glowing energy was dragged around the inner boundary that seemed to be the repository of the free Chaos that I had managed to hold onto when the ball had deposited me here.


    Rotating around the invisible boundary when the Chaos was in the inner cycle, the green energy fell back but continued its rotation, as the Chaos charged forth to the limit of its tether. God, I needed to come up with something to call the energy I had stolen earlier, but I had way too literal of a mind to come up with anything clever as it hadn''t displayed any unique characteristics yet. As the funnel of hatred came streaming down through my inner core, it started running into the bits of green that seemed to be controlled by my free Chaos. As I was preparing my mind for the upcoming onslaught of emotion, I was expecting invading emotions to ignore it like they had done everything else on their way to my black speck that was the target.


    Instead, I was pleasantly surprised, which slightly caused me to let the pattern lapse, as the green glow tore into the invading funnel, ripping parts of it away. Quickly resuming my pattern of breathing to hold my new defender in place, I noticed it didn''t take much, but I resolved to quickly drain every last bit I found from the dead goblins outside, once I had dealt with their funnel of anger and hatred. Blanking my mind I started feeling the emotions coming towards me, as they reached the last inner barrier that my black speck seemed to be sending out on its own.


    Again I was able to deal with the invading emotions easily, as the introduction I had from the Troll was so much worse than this. With nothing making it through the last barrier to tear into the speck and hurt me, I saw most of the raw emotional energy again streaming back out of my core, seemingly giving up and retreating. Looking back to what was happening with the green energy that had gathered up some of the invading torrent. It looked like from the green spots that were flying in their circles that each of my motes of Chaos seemed to be controlling a small section of the whole. If that was true, then I must have ten motes of Chaos that I had managed to keep behind when I was deposited on this moon. I had never managed to count them before, as they had always been bouncing randomly around my center, preventing an accurate tally. But now with their rotation controlling separate puddles of the green energy, I was counting ten small circles flowing around my center.


    Looking closely at one of the puddles, I saw that the energy it had torn out of the tornado was violently trying to escape from the center where the puddle had encapsulated it. Tendrils of the puddle came streaming up out of the side before diving back into the center and ripping bits off of the morsel it had gobbled up. As more of the tendrils grew out at first I was reminded of a wiggling octopus, but soon I began to feel that analogy was wrong.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    More and more I was getting a feeling that screamed out to me of the rampant growth cycle of nature. Consuming, growing, dying, and being reborn in an endless cycle, it looked so much like I was looking at carnivorous vines growing out to dive in and take a bite out of what they had caught. Eventually, I was shocked to see that when all of the energy was gone, a green brick popped out of the top of the puddle of energy while a colorless speck of Chaos was sent streaming into the center to join its fellows. Looking back into the center I was again unable to count anything with how fast they were moving about, but as I looked back to the pale green puddles that were continuing to circle around my center, I saw that they had divided again and now there were twenty smaller ones. Four of which themselves looked to have managed to rip meals of their own from the last of the funnel cloud before it started streaming out of my core.


    Apparently consuming the emotional energy hadn''t increased the amount of green liquid in my core but instead, the energy had managed to increase the amount of Order and Chaos in my core, surprised that the twin primordial energies hadn''t combined as that had been their natural inclination in the hell ball, I wasn''t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead, I would just add it to the growing list of mysteries I had to solve before I could have my own magical powers. Looking around the massive expanse that was my center I wasn''t able to see where the green bricks of Order had disappeared too, but as I wasn''t feeling any pain in my center, I left that mystery as well for another day while I tried to leave the energy to its meal and return to my outer body before the Goblin I hadn''t managed to kill managed to brain me while I was afk.


    Coming back to myself with another gasp, I saw that the Goblin still hadn''t woken up yet from the blow I had given him. Unsure how any creature managed to sleep through the inner turmoil that the hatred wrecked on oneself, I looked over to the bear to see how he was managing to take the influx of evil. I saw his brown eyes staring straight at me as his muzzle was baring his teeth in a snarl, my hands immediately went for the two blades I had dropped when the bruiser had nearly brained me. Slowly I started backing away so as not to startle him when I realized his gaze seemed to be looking through me instead of planning his next meal.


    As I saw the conduit begin to appear out of the sky, I really didn''t want to let it get anything, now that I saw how useful this gentle energy was. Shuffling from Goblin to Goblin, I slapped my hand to the small pool that had formed over each of their chests. Doing my best to ignore the pain pounding in my head and the stitch that was threatening to rip my side in two, I couldn''t even feel the bites in my calf or my arm anymore with the pounding headache taking most of my focus to ignore. As I gathered up what was hovering over the two bruisers, before moving on to the smaller ones, I was disappointed when I felt the energy moving through me.


    The soothing green energy didn''t seem to be miraculously healing my wounds or doing anything to lessen the pain that had me seeing spots. With no easy button for healing appearing, part of me was disappointed that this new universe didn''t make increased regeneration a given. Scoffing at myself for being greedy, I continued on to harvest what I could before it was taken from me by the slow forming funnel from the sky. Heading over to the two smaller goblins that had been shish-kabobed with my spear, I reclaimed the weapon at the same time as I took the small pool hanging above them.


    With a weapon in hand, I instead used it to help me hobble around to the rest of the smaller goblins. When I got to the ones in the trench, I tried using the channel I had carved into my right leg to absorb the lower pools, so that I wouldn''t aggravate my chest bending down. Feeling the soothing calm moving up my leg, part of me wanted to stop and meditate on how it was moving through me, but I wasn''t willing to give up any of the harvests to the invisible tube that had nearly finished being generated above me.


    Circling around to the left, away from my friend and his struggles, I focused on stepping as carefully as possible, with the rain continuing to fall in sheets down from the sky that was still being lit by streaks of lightning. The ground was quickly turning to mud and I didn''t want to slip, fall, and further aggravate my ribs. Making my way over to the elites that had fallen in the beginning, as I gathered up the energy they had left behind, I thought about ending the life of the goblin that was still breathing.


    Whether it was because it was a native and used to the kill energy entering him or if it was just because the goblin was a monster of lore either way, the violent energy didn''t seem to be affecting it at all. Thinking about just driving my spear into its chest and ending it, too big a part of me wasn''t ready to cross the line yet. Sure they had attacked me in the middle of the night, but for all I knew they were just tracking someone that had murdered three of their tribe members. While I was doubtful I could figure out a way to communicate with the greenskins, I thought I owed it to myself to try before I started killing in cold blood.


    While I might consider them monsters, they were still tool users and for my mentality, that put them on the wrong side of the do not eat line. Sighing I realized that I didn''t have anything to tie him up with, also I wasn''t willing to track a bunch of water into my tent and soak everything that I was trying to keep dry. Glancing around the camp, I looked over to the makeshift sled that I had made. Hobbling over I quickly unraveled the harness and went back to securing the little green monster, bending down to gingerly pick up my chem light on the way. Looking at it carefully for the first time, I realized I wasn''t just going to be able to tie up its hands and stake it down to the ground and hope for the best.


    I¡¯ve been joking with myself about them being little green monsters this entire time, no doubt to help me sleep at night, but as I actually took the time to look at them closely I saw that was true. While they had a bipedal stance every time I had seen them, I had to wonder if that just wasn''t because they had weapons in their upper hands. Their upper arms were longer in proportion than mine, which made me think that it came from running more like a primate using their front limbs to propel them forward. Looking at its hands the claws seemed to be more than just long fingernails like a bear or a dog. They looked like they were partially retractable and sharpened so I was going to have to make sure they didn''t reach whatever rope I used to restrain it.


    Glancing over to the fallen archer I realized I was being an idiot, while part of me was happy to lay the blame on the pounding headache. I also realized a good part of it was just the nonstop pace I had been pushing myself at to try and survive this insane new universe I was finding myself in. Looking at the fallen warrior I realized I had two crappy bows that I could cannibalize, as I certainly wasn''t going to use them for anything other than firewood. Waving my little light around I finally spotted where the broken one had been flung to, walking over I collected it before repeating the process to find the one that had been thrown at me.


    As the tube finally finished forming and started hovering over the Goblins still lying next to the bear I started shaking my head to try and clear it, but stopped as the pounding just grew worse. Hobbling over to the six pools of energy I had ignored in my efforts to secure my prisoner, I made it over before the tube in the sky had managed to get even half of what had been there to start. Not quite concussed enough to be dumb enough to try sticking a limb into the tube and fighting to drag what it had taken back out.


    I instead forced my inner treasure hog to be content to just sip from the pools still available. Placing my hand into an individual pool, I looked at the streams that the tube was collecting trying to figure out how it was able to pull from them all simultaneously. As my head continued to pound, I left off shaking it in frustration at its seemingly frozen state and continuing inability to think.


    Moving my hand to the next pool as soon as the first was emptied, I took a deep breath and told myself it was going to be okay, yeah I was probably only going to get a third of the energy from these dead Goblins, but I had managed to get all of the pools that the elites and the other nine smaller ones had left. Don''t be greedy I thought, always remember pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.


    In the future, I was going to have to make sure greed didn¡¯t foolishly have me consuming everything. If whatever was spawning these tubes kept coming up with zilch, it would eventually no doubt send off some kind of alert, and I didn''t want anything that was powerful enough to make something like the funnel paying any attention to little old me. So yeah, maybe whatever minion they sent down would rescue me, on the other hand maybe they would be insulted at my presumption to sup on something that they considered entirely of their purview.


    I had no idea how this world worked so I was willing to put off fighting any young masters or old monsters for their resources yet. Moving onto the third pool as I told myself I was still in pig territory, I took my last little sip as the tube finished gathering the rest of what it had formed for. As it started dissipating into the atmosphere I heard a scrabbling to my left. Looking over, I saw the last of the Goblins getting unsteadily to its feet. Cursing myself for a hog I started to turn fully towards it while trying to keep a grip on my wet spear.


    As the little rat looked over to me with unsteady eyes, I spun my spear around and hurled the weapon at the monster, not willing to let it go for reinforcements. Only needing to throw it a short fifteen yards, I still fell into the mud as my leg gave out in pain, continuing my slide forward in the slippery mess, I looked up to see the instrument of death miss the center of mass I had been aiming for...


    and slam into the monster''s green head.

 Chapter 29

    As the horizon started brightening in the distance, I was exhausted and just wanted to get to sleep, but I still had so much more work ahead of me. I was soaked to the bone and shivering. While the rain had slowed down to a light drizzle, but that just seemed to make the morning worse. When it had been pouring down I could at least delude myself that I was being cleansed by the torrent of water. A drizzle was just miserable, enough water to keep you cold and unhappy, but not enough to do anything useful. I doubted the next hour would even add more than a quart to my supplies.


    I had not gotten any sleep in the ensuing hours past the attack, between gathering up all of the bodies and moving them over through the mud to the growing corpse pile after taking the cores from them. I also took the time to go through the goblins that the portal had drained seeing as how I doubted I was going to get any dirtier. They too had cores, but every single one of them was lacking even the slightest bit of glow that the ones I had personally cut down seemed to have. Okay, even in my head I couldn''t ignore the bear''s contributions, Gaian had saved my life twice, both by taking out the six as they had been trying to come at me from behind while I was dealing with the smaller three. They would no doubt have drowned me in claws and teeth while I was distracted. Not to mention managing to get over in time to save me before I was finished off by the one who had managed to club me into unconsciousness.


    I owed him my life and would never forget it, no longer were any parts of my brain clambering for me to leave him behind. No doubt the ruthless practical part of me was at least content to have him along as a bodyguard for our next inevitable encounter. While the normal side had already considered him a brother in circumstance and was ready to use everything at our disposal to get him better.


    Speaking of which, with all of the camp finally cleaned up from the aftermath of the attack, it was time to get myself patched up before starting on laundry. With a seemingly never ending list of tasks in front of me, I could only be happy that the threat of concussion from the goblin basher left me too afraid to sleep. I had thought to leave all of the bodies where they lay, but my neurosis wouldn''t let me leave everything so untidy, and used the justification that if I moved the bodies after harvesting their cores I could both clean up the campground and be sure that I wasn''t wasting any time digging through bodies I had forgotten I had gone through earlier.


    Stripping down to my birthday suit, I tossed all of the clothes I was wearing onto some of the stamped down grass where I had placed the rest of my previously dirty laundry earlier. Despite their already filthy state, I didn''t want the mud to make them any worse. I had thought to take them off early to stop them from getting covered in more gore from my corpse mutilation habits that I seemed to be forming. But with two open wounds and their rugged stain-free composition, I thought that keeping bits of goblins out of my bloodstream was a better use for them.


    Going over to my tent, I unzipped it part way and started carefully going through my pack for what I would need while doing my best to let as little water in as I could. Part of me was desperate to pull out some wood and the coals I had saved, but I held off, determined to keep everything dry as long as I could. Pulling out my med pack, I opened it up and pulled out the rest of the alcohol, iodine, four suture strips, and super glue. Reaching into two other pockets I pulled out my shammy, a bar of soap, and the tiny bottle of concentrated soap I had brought along for my dishes. I thought about grabbing my water filter but held off for now as my pounding headache was keeping me from thinking straight and I wanted to keep from being distracted. I thought about grabbing some of my ibuprofen that I had added to the kit back on earth, but couldn''t remember if that helped or hurt in a concussed situation.


    Unsure if it would kill me or not, I left them alone for now. I was sure I would use them eventually and as I only had ten pills it wasn''t worth wasting them and making the situation worse because I hadn''t memorized what was allowed when you are concussed back when I had no idea I would lose access to the internet forever. Leaving the sutures and glue just inside of the tent, closed the flap most of the way to keep the damp away from the food I had spent the previous day drying. Hanging everything else in the pouch that was integral to the vestibule door, I kept the bar of soap and stepped back out into the mud and rain.


    Starting from my head I scrubbed myself down as best as I could, going over everything multiple times rather than miss a spot. With limited amounts of soap, I may as well make the best use of what I had and get totally clean rather than do a poor job of it. I knew the basics of soap making, it was a fun science experiment I had done with my kids when they were younger. Afterward, I had continued the hobby on my own, I liked how simple and easy it was to do if you have the know-how. Unfortunately, that know-how also needs the right tools to go with it¡­ If you are just ordering sodium hydroxide and olive oil off the internet all you need is a stainless steel pot, a mold and time and presto soap appears. With aluminum campware, no commercial lye, and goblins for a fat source, I was going to have a much harder time getting clean in the future.


    With no immediate plans for making a permanent camp that I could try to jerry-rig a lye barrel up for. I was going to just have to try to make a weak soap in a dedicated pan and just hope for the best that the basic solution wouldn''t melt through my cheap campware before saponification set in. Continuing on to my lower body parts I winced as I was scrubbing my right arm. Fortunately, the goblin had only punctured me and hadn''t managed to tear any small bits away. After a rinse with the alcohol to hopefully prevent any infection I should be able to just cover the cuts up with superglue and with a little bit of luck I doubted I would even end up with any scars.


    Scrubbing down to my leg was another story. I was missing a good six-inch chunk from the lower limb, always looking for any silver lining, my inner optimist tried pointing out to me that with the meat being ripped away and open to the world I was much less likely to develop an infection, so at least I had that going for me. I would have agreed with the voice in my head if he could show me his MD, but as I had skipped out on those eight years of school, and only dealt with small, self inflicted knife wounds. A bigger part of my hopefulness was just going to be praying that the little rats weren''t just permanently infected with a species-wide rabies, that was what filled them with the mass insanity that led to charging larger creatures to try and drown them in numbers.


    Gritting my teeth as I scrubbed all of the dirt out of the still oozing wound, I made sure to pick out any bits of cloth that were still stuck to the open flesh, not wanting to leave anything in it that might cause an infection when I closed it up. Scrubbing everything thoroughly was incredibly painful and I had to pause several times to wait for my eyes to regain focus. A huge part of me wanted to risk blindness and just chug the couple ounces of rubbing alcohol I had set aside, but self-control won out in the end as I needed the liquid to help ward off gangrene.


    Stepping back out into the falling water, I started trying to wipe the soap away as it mixed with the blood that started welling up again from the scrubbing bar. As it slowly cleared up, I bent down one last time in an effort to get it as clean as possible. After I once more washed the soap away gently, I went back to the tent to hopefully get this sealed up. Stepping back under the outer doorway''s cover, I laid the soap back into its hard container and sat down on the wet grass, wiping my hands on my chest to get the rest of the residue off before dealing with the bandages. Reaching up to grab my shammy once my hands were merely damp instead of slippery from the soap. I dried them off before slowly patting my leg dry.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    Dumping the iodine into the wound next, I hissed in pain but held still and waited for it to get to work. Wishing I had brought along some hydrogen peroxide as well I told my inner thoughts to shut up, as depression was sure to be a short path away as the days here continued and I constantly thought of things that I owned that would be helpful here in this new world instead of back in my house on Terra. With a sharp gasp, that I couldn''t help but let out as I dumped most of the remaining alcohol onto my leg. I quickly dumped the rest of it onto my arm to give myself another source of agony to deal with. I had learned a long time ago while working in kitchens that if you have a burn or cut on one hand, when you eventually cut or knicked yourself again that the pain actually lessened, as you couldn''t focus on both injuries at once. After discovering that, I had a habit where when I got a burn or cut, I would stub my toe or punch a wall to give myself something to distract my brain from the more painful injury.


    As I waited for the alcohol to cleanse and evaporate, I thought about everything I had cut out from the goblins in the dark of the storm. First I had finally gone through all of the two-day, old goblins. That task had actually been easier than I had thought it would be because I had waited long enough that rigor had left the bodies. I had needed to bring the chem lite over because while I hadn''t managed to find anything in the shaman, his own bruisers, or two of the smaller goblins. I had at first assumed that was just because the portal had drained them completely causing the glowing rocks to dissipate. But after going through the rest of his small cannon fodder, I had found the cores where I had expected, only without the glow I had come to associate with the ones I had gathered personally or looted from the pouches.


    Heading back to the fresher bodies that had attacked me, I had had to toss the chemlite aside after several false starts where the light actually drowned out the glow coming from the cores. I grew fed up with it and left it back over by my tent so I could try and focus on the soft light coming from the inside of the goblins once I had gotten their chests open enough for the glow to shine through. Once I started doing that, all of the small goblins had gotten remarkably quicker to process, but there had been one where I hadn''t managed to find anything beneath his heart.


    With the lightning having disappeared into the distance, I covered up the glow stick with some of my wet dirty clothes to kill the light¡¯s glow entirely. Eventually, after I went and covered the light completely, I finally noticed a small glow that seemed to be coming from his eyes. Taking the shaman''s old blade and removing the head, I dug around, coming up through the skull''s bottom to eventually pull a glowing rock from the fore of his brain. I assumed it was resting between his eyes and against his frontal brain which let me see the slight glow when the camp was in pitch darkness.


    So I had went back to the shaman, and after I removed his head as well with the blade he had so generously donated to the cause. I finally found after a bit of digging around the ball that I had just assumed the portal had devoured. When I went to remove the heads of his two larger subordinates whom I had also come up empty upon, after digging around in their brains I still wasn''t able to find anything, which seemed to invalidate my research. With only the few advanced goblins of the attacking party left to search I went to the two bruisers first to see if they also had a third possible place for their cores.


    With the rain still sheeting down, I had taken the time to remove their hardened leather vests and scrape them clean of the mud and well let''s call it mud before tossing them into the grass behind my tent. I had hoped that when the rain stopped they would still be salvageable for something. At the very least they would make a decent bottom for my sleds letting me save my canvas from being torn up.


    Taking their belts and pouches off, I had tossed them into my own dirty clothes pile to examine later after I finished my laundry. When I had dug into their hearts again I came up empty, so next I had removed their heads, assuming the placement of the core there might be what separated them from the rabble. When I came up with goose eggs, I was legitimately confused and didn''t know what to think. Closing my eyes for a minute, despite how dark it had been, the lightning had still occasionally been flashing out over the plains in the distance, and I had wanted to get my eyes as sensitive as possible for one last look before giving up. When I opened them I immediately noticed a slight glow coming from lower in their abdomens, and when I had dug behind their stomach I finally found what I was looking for. Picking the chem lite up I went back to the two bigger bodyguards that the shaman had and quickly found their dull cores.


    Not able to remember which of the small goblins in the pile I hadn''t found anything in, I just took the loss rather than digging through all of the bodies again. The spearman and archer I had taken out had pouches of their own which went to the loot pile, while I had ignored the clothes as not even being scrap worthy. The search of their bodies had shown that the spear carrier had a core behind his stomach while the archer''s had been under his heart which seemed to be a minor anomaly, but as the archers were closest in size to the smaller rabble, it might just be that they had just slowly grown big enough to use a bow while the other bigger ones were more specialized.


    With the alcohol on my arm finally drying up I came back from my musings about the previous after action. Unscrewing the super glue I started brushing it over the teeth punctures. While it was somewhat painful, after the alcohol bath, it seemed like a mild burning which was easy enough to ignore. As I had used most of the alcohol on my leg it was taking longer to dry but after tending to all of the smaller nicks on my right arm I found that it looked to be ready. Resisting the urge to tap it to be sure, I applied a layer of glue over the open wound while gasping at the greater pain. Taking two of the suture bandages I applied them in turn over the larger wound before pulling the straps closed to tighten it, alternating between straps to slowly inch it closed.


    Yes, the instructions for the bandages made the glue seem unnecessary, but I quickly shouted the miser in me down. I couldn''t risk my leg becoming infected and crippling me, I had left a small part of the bottom of the bite unglued so hopefully that would be good enough for drainage. Pulling the small straps of the bandage closed all of the way I used the small scissors in the med kit to trim them off. Giving the leg a couple of minutes for the glue to dry completely I then wrapped it around several times with gauze to hopefully keep everything dry in the damp weather. Looking out at the sky, with the light shining through the clouds, the last of the water coming down seemed to finally be disappearing. Putting the two unused suture strips that my arm hadn''t ended up needing back into the med kit I closed up the glue, emptied bottles of iodine and alcohol, and returned everything back to the tent.


    With no more water coming down from the sky to rinse them off, I left off doing my laundry for now. Taking out the mesh bag that had previously held my mess kit, I decided a better use for it now was to hold all of the cores both looted and harvested. I also pulled my long tweezers out that I had used for cooking the night before. Opening the pouch of my pack that held the troll core I carefully used the kitchen tongs to remove it, holding my breath and concentrating, ready to drop it the second I felt any energy coming up to attack me. I guess the steel of the utensils was unconducive to soul energy and I seemed to be safe enough holding it this way for now. The troll core also didn¡¯t seem to be trying to reach out and infect my new harvest either, but to be safe I still didn''t add it to the group, being content to hold it away from everything.


    Walking naked, but for my belt and the two blades I had sheaths for over to the grass the bear was lying in, I was finally ready to experiment and get some answers.

 Chapter 30

    Heading over to Gaian, I still had a small hitch in my stride, while holding the the troll core far away from me as I didn''t want its evil glowing energy to get any more ideas about jumping back into me. Looking over at the bear, last night''s exertions seemed to have caused him to take a turn for the worse. Yeah, his brown pelt being matted down by the rain certainly didn''t give him an upbeat look, but his laying on his side and panting was much more worrisome to me. It didn''t look like he had ripped open the skin that had been seared back together but I had no idea how his internals were doing. I feared that the troll core was his only hope. If I could find a way to transfer the regeneration energy over to him, even if it only worked at a ten percent efficiency on what it had done for the monster it came from, it should have him back up on his feet in moments.


    Of course, if the evil of the little marble managed to take him over then his being healed would no doubt quickly end up with my journey to find answers about what happened to the rest of my old world strangled in its cradle. So how fortunate I was to have a native guide that had generously agreed to help me find a solution to our problems.


    Looking at the smaller green monster staked into the ground next to the bear, his eyes looked to be darting between me and the bear as I approached. No, I wouldn''t say they were looking at me¡­ They seemed to be focusing on the green and yellow core that I was holding away from me before darting back to the muzzle sitting two feet from its face. The canines of the bear that were exposed looked to be almost as long as the goblin¡¯s face. The naked threat of ending up in the bear¡¯s belly should have been holding the entirety of the monster¡¯s attention, but still, he would tear his face away from the jaws just mere feet away to stare hungrily at the core I was holding.


    Looking down at the broken bows that were holding the monster to the ground, I could only be thankful that they had brought enough material that I hadn''t had to dirty my own supplies to hold him down. While the bow staves may have been crap, the sinew that made up the string seemed to be remarkably strong. When the butt of my spear had hit him and sent him off to dreamland for the second time in such a short while, I was worried I might have killed him, but when no tempest formed above his body I realized he had survived the blow to the skull. I quickly started restraining him, but before I started cutting the rope I had brought with me, I luckily glanced over at one of the bows and had a flash of inspiration. It had already been broken in half when the club I had thrown had hit it while it had been under tension from his fellow trying to shoot me. Cutting the string in the middle had garnered me both two stakes and the rope to restrain the monster all at once.


    After tying the ropes to each of his wrists while he was still unconscious, I had hammered the broken half of the bow stave into the ground with my spear haft, before pulling his other arm out to full extension and repeating the process. Hobbling over to the second bow that his fellow archer had thrown at me I had then snapped the small bow in two and then again after cutting the string. I restrained his legs at full extension leaving no slack in any of the ropes for him to gain any leverage to work the stakes out of the wet ground. I had a nervous moment when the rain woke him up and while I had secured the rope to the leg I hadn''t staked it down yet.


    Luckily Gaian had been standing right there and seemed to understand that leaving him alive was more beneficial than ending its life. With more intelligence than I would have given a bear credit for before my journey to this new world, he laid his massive paw onto the goblin¡¯s chest and lowered his muzzle to growl threateningly. Whether it was from the paw or the massive canines inches from its eyes the goblin had immediately gone limp again and I had hammered the last stake into the ground.


    With the lines then taunt and no slack for the goblin to pull up either the bear wasn''t as trusting in my work as I was. Or his injuries had finally caught up and overcome the adrenaline that was keeping him going and he had walked a few steps into the grass and laid down on his side staring at the goblin while continuing to softly panting. With the dark of night just getting started and the rain continuing to pour down. I had left him between the goblin and the path to freedom and focused on harvesting and cleaning up the campgrounds. Now that light was coming through the clouds and I had finally gotten myself patched up, it was time to finally see what I could get out of a living native.


    If you had asked me just three days ago my thoughts on torture I would have said I was against it except for the most extreme circumstances. I wasn''t a bleeding heart who thought that it wouldn''t work because the media had been pushing down that narrative for ages now. The examples they used for it not working were ridiculous. My main opposition to it was that I thought we needed to be better than it and I thought giving the government that kind of tool was just asking for it to be turned on you. So while the father in me would no doubt want to forgive a cop for beating up a child rapist to find where he had hidden the kid. The intellectual knew that letting it go was just braiding the noose that would eventually be placed on everyone¡¯s necks.


    Every time I hear the trite phrase that torture doesn''t work because a person being tortured will say anything to get it to stop, I want to laugh and reply that yes, yes it will. The problem is that what most people use for examples of why it doesn''t work, is the person wasn''t looking for answers but to confirm what they were asking. Yes, if you don''t ask the right questions then no torture won''t get you any reliable information. As I looked down at the being staked into the ground in front of me, I had to wonder if as I continued to explore this new world that I wouldn''t someday eventually find myself in this same exact position. There have been very few times in my old world¡¯s history that limits had been placed on one¡¯s leaders, and even then they had only ever been used to protect the citizens of the country while ignoring spies and other unregulated combatants.


    I had very little hope that if there was some source of governance other than the monsters that had been sending attacks my way, that there would be little I could do to convince them I was a native. My only hope was that when I got to that point, I knew enough to either make myself unremarkable or ignored, while I found my way around. Or perhaps I could find a way to stand out and be recruited, looking to find a powerful backer to work for. Either way, that was a problem for the future, and for right now I needed to try and find some answers.


    The first thing I needed to establish was if there was any way to communicate verbally with the monster held in front of me. I doubted there were any languages from my home on this planet. But if asked a week ago I would have laughed at the thought of actually being able to stand on another planet and breathe without some kind of tool or interface, and yet here I am. So let¡¯s not leave an easy button unpressed just because it''s unlikely.


    ¡°Do you speak English?¡± I asked with only the slightest bit of hope in my heart. At its blank stare, I followed it up with several phrases I had still memorized in high school.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ¡°Parlez vous Fran?ais?


    ¡°Habla Espa?ol?¡±


    ¡°Sprechen Sie Deutsch?¡± Striking out on any of the three languages I had the barest grasp of I still decided to try other random phrases to see if I could get even a glimpse of recognition in the monster¡¯s eyes, that might tell me if a universal language existed.


    ¡°Otearai wa doko?¡±


    ¡°Zh¨¨ ge du¨­sh¨£o qi¨¢n?¡± With no glimmer from the two eastern phrases, I could recall from past trips. I was left with just two phrases left to go in my lexicon


    ¡°Civic offic dignus.¡± When I hadn''t gotten anything for the few European phrases in my lexicon, I knew trying the little bit of Latin that I knew probably wasn''t going to work either. Also, I thought that while saying that I came, and saw might be true¡­ saying I had conquered might just be a little bit hubristic and too inviting for the universe to come smack me back down to size. So I left that alone and chose a phrase from one of the parts of philosophy I had learned in my younger years. The citizen¡¯s duty is to his dignity. A profound thought that flew right over the head of the loin cloth wearing savage in front of me.


    I thought about the companion phrase of ¡°barbaris libertas ethos¡± but didn''t waste my breath on it. I far was more interested in finding answers than showing off my scholastic knowledge to something that would most likely be dead shortly. Placing the troll core on the ground a short distance away I noticed how the monster''s eyes stayed glued to it except for quick darts over to look at the bear. While a part of me felt that I should be insulted as my body count so far was much higher than the hulking giant lying on its side. I again kept the thought to myself as every time I had managed to come out on top when going up against a crowd I had the bear as the more obvious threat to pull attention away from me.


    Shaking my mesh bag over the prone creature''s face, I called for its attention, but the monster just continued to ignore me while maintaining its constant stare at the greater prize. Annoyed, I thought about kicking him but held off on violence for the moment. Enhanced questioning only works if questions and answers can be actually understood. Not wanting to lose track of my most valuable asset, I thought about covering it up with some dirt, as I planned more experiments with it later and didn''t want to constantly be walking back and forth through the camp every time I needed the monster''s attention.


    Taking another tack for the moment I picked up the spear that I had left lying next to Gaian after I had restrained the attacker last night. Lowering the blade slowly to the goblin''s face I waited for its eyes to focus on the weapon. When I was sure I had its attention, I tried jangling the bag again over its face. As the goblin finally glanced over to the multitude of regular cores that I was dangling, finally having gotten his attention I was glad to get to a starting point. Setting the longer weapon down, I pulled a core out of the bag, held it out to the captive, and stated ¡°Core.¡± Repeating my word for the object several times, I was hoping to elicit a sound that would let me know these creatures had some kind of language. The creature had carried a pouch with two of these in it and if it had some value to it surely it had a name for the object.


    After several minutes of futility, I finally gave up on the process. Either the creature didn''t have a language, which belayed everything that I thought I knew about how the universe might work. Even mushrooms can communicate, if these creatures are going to order others about and work together they must have words. If they are going to carry something around in a bag then you would think it has to be important enough to have a name! As I ended my rant in my head, I let no sign of my frustrations show on my face. I didn''t know if the goblin just came from such a violent society that my gentle questioning had yet to cause any reaction or if it truly had no word for the object in my hand.


    Skipping to my next experiment as actually learning goblinoid was fairly low on my list of tasks, I had just hoped having a word would make my next couple of tests slightly easier. Setting the mesh bag down I picked up my tongs and pulled out a basic core to hold with them. For my next inquiry, I had picked one of the flattest green ones, as the color seemed to be the most common. Both for being carried as currency and being found in their chests; and judging from who had carried what, the flatter cores were the least valuable.


    Taking a hold of the rock with my tongs, I lowered it down above the goblins face to see what kind of response I could elicit. Again I was ignored, but at least it hadn''t gone back to staring at the more valuable troll core, for now it seemed I still had its attention. Waving the core slowly over the monster''s face it still continued to ignore the rock while staring straight into my face, giving no hint as to why the greenskins might think the little glowing rock was valuable. I thought about dropping it into the creature''s mouth to get a reaction. As an incredible book I had once read had said, every Idiot eventually finds his melty rock and has to taste it. Now maybe these cores were mine, but while I definitely resembled the type that was chosen to be Idiots, I had no desire to be dumb. I was going to get as much information as I could from a disposable source before trying anything with my friend¡¯s or my own body.


    Reaching down to touch the stone to his forehead, again nothing happened. So I moved it over to its left claw, with no indication on whether it had a strong or weak hand as it had been taken out of the fight before it had been able to draw its weapons. I went with the left just based on humanity with nothing better to go on. When it kept its claws closed into a fist to refuse grasping the stone, I picked the spear back up with my left hand and pressed the blade into the meat of its forearm slowly until blood started to well up. When it finally opened up its claws I dropped the core in and removed the spear again waiting for any kind of response.


    Yet again nothing was forthcoming. This was starting to get annoying. Picking the stupid glowing rock up with my tongs so as not to give the monster a chance to dig into my flesh I moved it over to its heart and pressed it down. Looking to see if I could get a resonance with the probable location of the creature''s own core. When again nothing happened, I tried moving it to its forehead, and the center of its torso. Only to once again find myself striking out, knowing absolutely nothing more than I had before I came over.


    Looking at the creature glaring at me, I moved on to my next test. Moving the rock to hover over its mouth, I had to wave the spear threateningly when it kept its maw closed. It seemed to have a base intelligence as it opened up without me having to poke it again. As he swallowed it and looked at me with disdain I waited several minutes to see if I would get any sign that it had caused any changes.


    When no glowing apparitions appeared and with the small cut on its arm still dripping blood I gave the core up for loss and was glad I had plenty more on hand. Taking my mesh bag back up I started shaking it above its face and then dumped everything out in a spot the monster''s eyes could see to see if it would focus on anyone so I might try to get anything out of it before I resorted to my last choice. It seemed somewhat interested as its eyes ran over the gathered loot but it didn''t look at anything specifically so I was forced to gather everything back up into the bag and set it aside. Out of options, I was left with one last experiment before I got down to trying the rocks on myself.


    Before I picked the troll core up, I made sure both my ax and bowie knife were loose in their sheaths, while the shaman''s dagger was sitting a few feet away. I picked up the spear and held it in my left hand. I thought about getting dressed, but as I was sure my clothes wouldn''t be a barrier if the monster got loose from a powerup, so in the end I decided against getting dressed. I would either die or find answers.


    Either way, I would rather save my clothes for later.

 Chapter 31

    Taking up the evil core with my tongs, I started by holding the core above the restrained creature. I watched as his eyes followed greedily the glowing rock, unblinking and never breaking their hold on it. Determined not to waste the opportunity, I tried to elicit emotions from the captive, as I moved the orb over different points over his body. I knew of three places where the core could grow now and I wanted to find out if that was just the common ones or if there were other spots the orb could be found.


    This was a bit of a flawed experiment as a negative reaction wouldn''t necessarily mean my operating theory was wrong, it might just mean the goblin savage didn''t know any better. Or it could mean that once you have one core you are stuck with it forever and not able to change how it interacts with you or grow another one.


    I knew my chances of finding any meaningful answers were basically nil. But I was determined not to waste the chance to gain the slightest bit of knowledge that could help me survive to gain the more important answers about why I had been ripped away from my world. Looking down at the goblin¡¯s face, all I could see was naked hunger as drool dripped down out of its mouth, with its unwavering focus on the magical rock.


    Part of me reflected that my actions were that of a villain and that my morality could be compared to a mad scientist. As the thought came through, another one followed that gave me pause. I didn''t know the laws of this world. What if they had rules regarding the mutating of monsters? As the hamster started getting ginned up more queries flew from the back of my mind.


    What if this was a feudal society and I was in some noble''s private hunting ground where goblins were kept weak for his children to grow strong hunting? Was the demon portal throwing through the troll egg a warning to me? A test to see what I was made of? Or was it the ruler of this land or his underling just trying to get rid of what it saw as vermin at a cheap price?


    As more questions came flying out, I tried to focus the hamster''s mad ramblings on questions that involved the immediate next few moments rather than vague musing on things out of my control. Was this morally okay? I asked myself, Probably not, but like every paver to hell has said to justify doing something wrong. I need this knowledge to survive and I¡¯m okay with the ends justifying the means.


    ¡°Was I going to get in trouble doing this or would it come back to haunt me later?¡± With a whine from Gaian, I realized that I had asked this question out loud. So I replied to his query. ¡°Just going over possible consequences one last time before I do something irrevocable.¡±


    With a snuff that I took for him asking me to expand on possible consequences, I replied. ¡°I mean the worst that happens is we power the midget up and he kills us. I don''t plan on taking it that far but my knowledge is minimal at best.¡± Continuing on I said. ¡°Anything powerful enough to look back in time and see what we are doing probably has the ability to stop me before I act. They definitely would be able to stomp me out, no questions asked. Really all I''m doing is giving the voices in my head the ammunition to laugh at me later and tell me they told me so.¡±


    As the bear rolled his eyes and indicated I should stop stalling and just get on with it. I stopped projecting and just rolled my neck while I got ready for my first serious attempt at monster testing. After all, it wouldn''t do to start testing on some poor little bunny when I had a perfectly fine specimen of evil right here in front of me.


    Hovering the core over the goblin¡¯s forehead, I waited for any response, resonance, or any indication that there might be something there to respond to the Qi. When I didn''t get a visible response from the goblin or feel any tugging from my tongs, I moved down to the area over the stomach where I had found the cores of the bruisers. Once again there was nothing to indicate I was on the right track.


    I moved to the most likely location to provoke the goblin or core and held the rock over the heart of the goblin. Where I was surprised to once again find nothing happening. Lowering it down slowly, ready to pull back the second I got a response, I eventually reached the skin. As it touched down, I reflexively jerked back up hastily.


    Chuckling at my nervous reaction, I again pressed it down into the skin. Again I found nothing seemed to be happening. I wanted to sit down and ponder why it was going this way, but I still needed to have so much to do and my head was starting to pound. So I forced myself to continue on with the next steps I had already planned out. Looking at the creature''s eyes I saw that it was raising its head up in an effort to continue staring at the power source. Again it might be projecting, but all I saw was naked hunger. While not an expert by any means on goblin behavior, if asked later I would honestly say it was wanting me to continue.


    Confused because the second I had touched the orb the energy had seemed to dive right into me in an effort to reach my core. I wondered if it wasn''t just skin touch and it needed to be grasped in one''s hand. Debating internally if I should touch it to my own chest or place it in the goblin''s hand. I ended up voting for the goblin again. Yeah the last time I went up against the yellow energy I got a tiny bit of a power up, but I hadn''t had parts of me bitten off, had a pounding headache, or was missing a night''s sleep.


    Looking into the goblin¡¯s eyes as I moved it over to its hands, it seemed both as greedy as ever and also indifferent as if it knew it wouldn''t work. Touching it to the green palm that it helpfully left open, I was ready to drop the tongs and stab down with the spear the instant it looked like the monster was trying to hold onto the core and yet again, I got no response from the yellow energy.


    Wondering if perhaps the creatures of this world had the same access to the Order and Chaos that I had encountered in my kidnapping that my fellow native Terrans did¡­ that is to say none. If that was true then maybe they weren''t able to cut channels into their body. If there were no external channels other than the original one that I had found before I started meddling with the building blocks of the universe, then that meant I was going to have to feed the core to the monster.


    I was not happy, to say the least. This represented the best chance for a power up that I had found since I had arrived on this moon. Everyone knows healing is the op magic of any game if you want to go solo. I never understood those who played warriors or rogues and needed to bandage or rest before getting back to it. My favorite characters were druids or shamans, those able to fight toe to toe while having the resources to keep going rather than sit around and wait after every fight. I wanted this healing power and if it was going to go to anyone other than me it would be the bear who had saved my life on multiple occasions.


    A tank with unstoppable regeneration would let me snipe and strike down while keeping my own skin in place. While I wouldn''t be happy with someone else having the responsibility and being the focus of the pain that came with being hit while controlling the crowd. Gaian had shown that he could discharge those duties admirably, so I would manage to be okay if the regeneration powers had to go to him. But the goblin definitely wasn''t going to be getting it.


    Wanting to scream and curse my frustrations, I decided on two courses of action that I thought I might have left before trying to dissipate the yellow energy myself. One, I could hold it above the monster''s mouth and see if that was close enough to the channels that even my unimproved self had. Two, if that didn''t work I could drop it into the monster''s mouth, and then the second I saw any change or one minute later, whichever came first. I would just kill it with the spear and retrieve the core from the monster''s body. I had already done it once so I had some confidence that I would be successful.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    The only thing that might go bad would be if the entire core dissipated into energy when consumed so it could be integrated into a new shape in its future home. With two probable good outcomes and one possible bad, I decided to ignore what I might not know and just continue my experiments and go for it. The worst that would happen was that I might be destroying a priceless, life saving treasure by wasting it on a perfectly healthy and soon to be dead, basic monster.


    Sighing at my last thought, I maneuvered the core over the goblin¡¯s jaws and prayed for some response so I wouldn''t have to risk losing the treasure to goblin bile. Looking into its eyes as the monster''s jaws reflexively started snapping in their effort to reach the glowing globe. I finally saw the reaction I had been waiting for. The energy in the middle of the core seemed to start streaming off out of it, through cracks in the outer green shell. As it started diving down into the goblin¡¯s mouth the yellow parts of it started to dim and when the glow seemed to have diminished by about a third, I withdrew it to wait and see what would happen, rather than giving the monster the full dose of power that the troll had been granted.


    Turning to set the tongs to the side, I found myself being flung head over heels as a massive force bowled into me. Holding onto my spear, I twisted in the air so I wouldn''t accidentally break it by jamming the blade into the ground and rolling over it. As I rolled to a stop and found my feet I saw the bear snarling where I once stood and biting at its side.


    Looking over to the goblin''s hands, I saw that they were free from their bonds, severed by elongated claws two of which it seemed to have launched at me and if it hadn''t been for Gaian''s quick reaction I would no doubt have a new hole or two in me. Grabbing the spear as I saw the goblin start to sit up in an effort to cut its legs free. I ran forward, driving the spear into the neck of the goblin with such force that I severed the spine and removed the entire thing as the boar stop continued to drive through the body rather than halting my forward momentum.


    Stepping back I was prepared for the limbs to keep moving while the body tried to regrow its head, but after a couple of minutes of the blood no longer spurting I concluded that the goblin hadn''t gained the troll''s regeneration. Whether that was because the regeneration was part of the green energy or because I just hadn''t fed the whole core to the goblin. I still didn''t have enough info yet to come to a conclusion on that.


    Quickly enough the small storm of energy came up off the body. As the majority of it flew into me I didn''t even feel the need to try and enter my core to fight it off. I just started my basic breathing pattern and tried to blank my mind. Looking at the small stream to enter the bear, he seemed to be handling it just fine, not even having the urge to roar. As I felt the familiar pressure of the tube that only I seemed to be able to see descended from the sky, I waited for it to start gathering up its part before I swiped a good portion for myself.


    Wondering about the logistics of it, it didn''t make any sense to me. The amount of power the force from the sky was using to collect this small bit of energy had to be immense. I couldn''t even see where it was disappearing off to, creating a tube that long every time something died was insane. Hmmmm I thought to myself, that¡¯s not exactly true when I killed the Terran fish I hadn''t felt anything. Not conclusive because maybe they just hadn''t been here long enough to acquire what the tubes were looking for.


    Wondering what had happened to the mule deer, jackrabbits, and squirrels I had seen as I could only hope that they hadn''t become goblin food. I might try going after some squirrel later but part of me doubted it was worth trying to head back to the circle of earth. My future was going to be off in the massive valley ahead and it wasn''t worth wasting the calories to just go back and test a theory. Also without a gun, it wasn''t going to be as easy to quickly kill a squirrel or rabbit. A deer I may as well forget about it, unless I came across a much better form of bow.


    Looking over at the bear I saw that the claw the goblin had shot out had only grazed him and didn''t seem to actually cut through his tough hide. Thankful for small favors I walked over to give it a closer look. As I got near him and he turned to face me I said. ¡°Thank you, brother, I don''t know why I was dumb enough to turn my back on the little monster for even a second after juicing it up. But thank you for having my back.¡±


    As he turned and pressed his head into my side in what I could only assume was an acknowledgment of my giving him his rightful due. I found myself being hit with a feeling of repulsion. I don''t like the position I am finding myself in. When you are a father, you are the one supposed to be taking the hits so your family doesn''t. When problems come up you deal with them quietly, never letting the family know how bad things are because it''s your job to shield them from the ugly and let them be happy. If you need to work an extra day or pick up a second job to make ends meet, that''s just what you do. I didn''t like being the one not picking up the check for the choices I was making.


    I thought about it some more while I was rubbing his ears. I really didn''t like the fact that he kept getting hurt, but he also wasn''t my child. He made that choice on his own, either because he felt he owed me for helping him because he felt I was the best choice he had of making it in this world, or just because he was a pure soul and felt it was his duty. Speaking to him like an equal, I straight up asked him. ¡°Did you do that because you felt you owed me? Because if that''s the case, you¡¯ve more than paid your debt.¡±


    With a gentle backward swipe of his paw, he sent me tumbling backward. Rolling over and picking myself back up I looked back at him. He wasn''t snarling or acting mad, so apparently, he had just seen all of the times I had rapped myself on the head and this was just his way of trying to knock the stupid out of me.


    ¡°Okay, okay, I¡¯ll stop bringing it up.¡± I backpedaled from my previous statement with the alacrity of a politician. ¡°You''re the bear, you''re the tank, you take the hits. I¡¯ve got it¡­ I''m just not used to being the useless dps that constantly needs to be rescued. After we get you the regeneration, we''re going to have to look for a healing skill for me. I can''t have my brain atrophy from the lack of exercise, with being reduced to poking monsters with pointy objects.¡± I said as a way of apology for questioning his ability to do the job he had chosen for himself.


    Looking down at the dead body, I rolled it with the tip of my spear. Finally clean and not wanting to waste more soap if I didn''t have to, I sliced a vertical cut through the sternum with the blade of my spear. Maneuvering the blade under the heart, I cut it free and flicked it out, happy when I saw a brown glow shining up from the body. With a flick of my spear, I sent it into the grass still wet from the rain, bending down I quickly wiped it clear of the sticky red blood with some grass that I had torn out.


    Not feeling a hunger coming from it, I risked picking it up with my fingers, holding it up to the light of the sky. I examined it more closely. It seemed to be made up of layers with the lights of it running around in a corkscrew before returning back to the middle. As I looked at a part that I was calling the top of the flattish stone, it looked like that, near the apex of the corkscrew, before it started heading back down was a small bur coming off.


    Whether this was from the yellow power infecting it or what it used to send its claws shooting out and it had always been there, just biding its time I still didn''t have enough information to lock myself into a theory yet. I was glad to see that whatever power that it had drained from the yellow Qi wasn¡¯t enough to infect this core, either it was because it hadn¡¯t drawn enough into it or because it hadn¡¯t been formed with it as the base. Either way, I was going to take the win and the loot.


    Setting my spear down for now I added the brown core to the now half-full bag of loot and left the troll core where it lay for the moment. Trusting that Gaian wasn''t dumb enough to eat it. Dragging the goblin¡¯s body over to the pile of corpses I tossed it on, grateful that they hadn''t come to life to attack me again. I knew I had plans to burn the original corpses, but with the amount of flesh sitting in front of me, it would take several mid-sized trees to burn it all to ash. Especially after the amount of water that had dumped down on us last night.


    Sighing, I thought about heading back to my tent and just letting myself fall down and let the blissfulness of unconsciousness take over for a little bit. But with the lingering chance of concussion and the pounding source of responsibility urging me to take care of the rest of my camp chores, I just couldn''t bring myself to do it. Knowing that I wasn''t going to be able to keep a camp here. I started working on my list of crap that I needed to take care of before nightfall came again.


    Securing the drinking water was the most important task, while cleaning all of my clothes that had been damaged and covered in blood, was probably going to be the most annoying. I had no idea how much a bear needed to drink in a given day, but I was going to need three to four quarts. While the kayak had gathered a lot into the bottom of it, in reality, it was probably only a week''s worth, and while I had no idea how regular those storms were. I only had the ability to save a total of nine gallons for later use, and I was going to continue to need some of it for cooking and cleaning purposes as well.


    After I took care of those basic housekeeping tasks I was going to have to decide if I was moving¡­ or hunting for more goblins to drain the yellow Qi into.

 Chapter 32

    Heading back to my tent, I got my filter from my pack and also grabbed both my bucket for pure water and my water bladder for storage. Shaking the bucket open, I headed over to the kayak and assembled the feeder and output hoses. Filling the small bucket first, I screwed the lid on to keep it pure before filling the bladder, drinking my fill, and then topping it back off. With four gallons safe for drinking, I put all of the parts of the filter away and moved everything back to the safety of my tent.


    Dipping the clean bucket in I got another three gallons from the bottom. Lifting up the kayak, I awkwardly poured enough water in to top that bucket off, while managing to only spill a little bit. Screwing the lid onto that bucket, I moved the forty pounds of water over to an out of the way spot for safekeeping. I poured a little bit of the remaining water into my second bucket, rinsed the gore out, and then filled it halfway for Gaian to have for later. With only a gallon or two left in the bottom of the kayak, I gathered up all of my dirty clothes and dumped them into the kayak along with half of my concentrated liquid soap.


    Fortunately, everything I wore for hiking was stain resistant and pretty rugged. So except for a couple of small holes in the arm of my fleece and one pair of pants that had a hole in the left leg, everything was quickly freshened up and ready to dry. Taking three of the cheap spears, I walked them about thirty feet away from the tent and drove them into the ground, putting the ends together to form a stable tripod.


    Going to my paracord on the ground that I had abandoned in favor of the broken bow staves last night, I quickly shook it loose and wrapped one end around the tripod point a couple of times before running it to the tent and tying the other end off. Quickly hanging everything up to dry, I left my repairs for the next day.


    With the basic housekeeping done, shelter, water, and food were all secure for at least a week. I had everything I needed to survive so I put off starting a fire for now and got dressed with my last set of outerwear that had yet to be worn on this planet. Buckling my belt, I still had my ax on my right side, with the bear spray right behind it, and my bowie knife on my left side for easy access, this time tying the bottom of the sheath onto my thigh for security. Heading over to the bear, I picked up the bag of cores on the ground and used the tongs to snag the trolls. Putting both of them into my pack, I left everything in the tent for Gaian to guard while I was away.


    Grabbing some of the longer scraps of rope that I had cut from the crab trap, I bundled them up and put them into the cargo pockets of my pants, along with one of the rags that I had just finished washing. Picking up my spear, I thought about bringing the shaman''s dagger or a club but didn''t have a good way to carry them. So in the end, I just left everything in the tent vestibule but picked up one of the two basic shields that the bruisers had dropped in their attack.


    Walking the half filled bucket over to the bear, I scratched his ears before telling him I would be back shortly. I was really considering bringing along a couple of the basic iron spears for throwing, but with the shield on my arm, I was already starting to feel a little weighed down. Without a way to swing them onto my back, I just didn''t want to be fumbling and drop anything in the event of a surprise attack. So I told my inner packrat to just shut up and soldier on.


    Heading to the initial copse of trees that I had gathered firewood from, I wanted to double check the area and make sure there weren¡¯t any surprises waiting there, before heading over to where I had my own original encounter with the goblins. With it being such a short distance away, it only took me about ten minutes to walk the distance over to the smaller grove of trees. I thought about just walking in to explore it, but from where I was standing there were a lot of brambles and undergrowth that would slow me down and announce my presence to anything that might be in the small forest.


    Circling around instead, I tried to stay quiet and listen for clues that there might be anything larger than a rabbit in there. Halfway around and all of the gaps between the trees were still covered by brambles. Taking a second to go closer to them, I would have sworn that it was like looking at a blackberry bush back home, only instead of blackberries, they were covered in small bulbs the shape of a blueberry but the size of a strawberry. Also, they were bright purple and seemed to glow with an inner light.


    Staring at the first real flora I had seen so far that was truly different from something back home. I think for the first time I really felt in my bones that I was on an alien world and not just somewhere else on earth with a different sky superimposed on it. I wondered if I should risk trying to take one to see if Gaian had a better instinct on whether it was edible or not. With my once again leaving the only kind of gloves that I had back in my pack, I was reluctant and so I decided against it for now. The last thing I needed was for it to explode when I was picking one and for me to find that it was filled with a poisonous face melting acid. Which with my ongoing fantastic luck seemed to be just the kind of results I could expect on this new world.


    Continuing my circuit, I paused when I saw a couple of rabbits in the brambles before they saw me. Crouching down, I took a knee and just waited, observing them to see how something that wasn''t ravenous on this planet acted.


    They looked like the typical cottontail rabbits, with small floppy ears rather than the longer jack rabbit ears I was used to seeing in California. They looked to be about five or six pounds which put them a fair size heavier than I would find back home. So it definitely looked like it was worth trying to come back here and rig a couple of snares after I established a new camp and had gotten Gaian healed up. I was somewhat disappointed not to see the horn that most isekai novels would agree that any off world version should have, but I was willing to take the win where I could find one.


    Watching them carefully they didn''t seem to be paying any attention to the berries, instead focusing on the grass underneath the brambles. With their hesitation to leave the safety of the brambles, I wondered if the goblins were just that frequent of hunters or if there was another predator nearby that had them too worried to leave the safety.


    After watching for five minutes and not seeing anything other than a typical rabbit behavior. I stood up quickly and slammed the butt of my spear into the ground to see how they would react when startled. Rather than darting deeper into the wood, they instead both looked straight at me and started loudly screaming. Faster than I would have thought possible there were soon forty or fifty rabbits all standing in the brambles screaming at me.


    It was the most unnerving and creepiest moment in my life, it felt like I was in a horror movie. Only instead of a creepy child or two that under normal circumstances should have no business scaring you, it was fifty rabbits screaming in unison. Seriously, who gets scared of rabbits, doing some quick math in my head, I realized that there was actually between two hundred and three hundred fifty, pounds of rabbits over there screaming at me. With them both outweighing me and having the number advantage I had no intention of starting a fight. Maybe I would have felt a little better if Gaian had been along for the ride. But numbers don''t lie and I started walking softly backward into the grass while not taking my eye off the horde of rabbits.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Just as I started turning I saw a faint glow start building behind the wall of rabbit flesh that was yelling at me. Behind all of the semi normal rabbits, I saw a massive lepenoid, easily two or three times the size of the already gigantic cotton ears. This rabbit had glowing purple eyes, I guess in case its weight and size weren¡¯t enough to differentiate it from the regular ones. Almost the size of a chocolate lab, the purple eyed boss was staring straight at me without making a sound. Its silence was all the more worrying behind the backdrop of ear shattering noise its minions were making. Already nervous at the fluffle¡¯s weight advantage, when you started throwing unknown magic into the mix, I had no desire to stick around, so I went back to beating a hasty retreat. I was after goblins for the moment anyway.


    With all of the times I had been here before to gather wood, I was glad I hadn''t needed to go farther into the woods where I might have been surrounded before I knew about the danger. I decided to abandon this small wood for now and head over to where I had found the goblins last time. Walking for between forty-five minutes to an hour to reach the next set of trees that was a decent distance away, no doubt why we had only had one night''s worth of sleep interrupted so far. Granted we had been here two nights, so it actually wasn''t that good of odds. Hopefully, by moving camp once I got back, we could get another break from the attacks.


    Heading across the rolling downhill stretch of chest high grass, I walked at a decent pace that wouldn¡¯t cause any strain or exertion. Heading downhill to the next set of woods, I continued to try to walk quietly. Keeping an ear out for any goblin sound, as they were so short that it would be easy for them to come upon me unawares.


    Again I stopped a good forty to fifty yards short of the woodline waiting to see if any would serve themselves up on a platter for me again. Part of me was really regretting leaving the troll core back at camp. But the only way I could bring it and keep a decent enough separation from my own skin so it didn¡¯t try to take me over, was by bringing my whole pack. Carrying that much weight would have me way too encumbered to fight, and trying to drop it every time I saw some goblins would make ambushing them impossible. Also, there was a risk that the yellow energy was something the goblins could sense. I didn''t know for sure that it wasn''t what called down the troop on our camp last night. I hadn''t had it on me when I went out for my counter ambush, so they might have scented it and been homing in on my tent.


    Wishing I had a wiki for this new world, I could only be thankful I seemed to have been dropped off in a noob zone with the low level goblins and rabbits. With the exception of the troll encounter, this was a remarkably lucky start to my time on this world. Realizing if I was going to be wishing for anything I should probably start praying for a god level fighting style recorded on a jade I could just press to my head and level up my fighting ability. Or just a tracking stone to lead me to my children.


    I held back a snort, tired of waiting for goblins to sprint out of their woods straight into my arms again I decided to head in to find them myself.


    Heading into the woods with my head constantly scanning back and forth, the first thing I noticed was there was practically no undergrowth, which was very strange for virgin woods. I wondered if it was just the constant movement of goblins moving around, or if there was a different kind of animal that was keeping the grounds bare.


    Looking at the trees, these looked to be evergreen, so the needles they were dropping were no doubt a big part of what was helping keep the undergrowth down. Thinking back to earlier, this seemed strange, the other set of woods had looked to be of a hardwood variety. I thought I recognized both oaks and maples when I wasn''t stuck staring at the horde of rabbits screaming eerily. Two separate small sections of woods with this little separation between them were only this diverse back on earth if there was human interference.


    Hearing some noise coming from ahead of me I quickly stopped my musings and put a tree in between the noises and myself. Stepping into the branches of a giant pine, I used the spear to hold a branch down so I could see what was approaching. Out of the distance came a set of six goblins, two of which were riding on giant boar, both of which had a nasty set of two-foot long tusks and looked to be a good three hundred pounds of pure muscle.


    On one hand, while I could be happy that at least they weren''t riding wolves, I definitely wasn''t going to try and ambush this group. Looking over to my spear, I imagined it would be perfect for killing off these boars, while both keeping out of range of their tusks and the goblin on the hog¡¯s back. I had to wonder if this was salvaged from a fight that the goblins had won with their enemies. If so, hopefully, I had civilization closer nearby than the lack of smoke in the air would indicate.


    Wondering what they might be using for shelter, I started debating if maybe there were dwarves in the foothills nearby or perhaps elves in the woods. As the patrol started walking by the pine analog whose branches I was hiding behind. One of the hogs started snuffing in my direction. Cursing in my head as I didn¡¯t want to give any sounds that might give away the game if I actually wasn¡¯t the reason for the signal. As the boar wandered closer, the part of my brain that was enamored with hindsight and loved to second guess past me started its litany of complaints.


    ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have come into the woods...¡±


    ¡°I should have been more patient. It probably smells the blood still dripping from your leg...¡±


    ¡°You are an idiot, you shouldn¡¯t be trying to help the bear or gain superpowers for yourself...¡±


    ¡°All of this is ridiculous, you aren¡¯t the hero of the story...¡±


    ¡°You need to be looking out for yourself. It was fun to dream big on the trip here but you are too old for this...¡±


    ¡°If this is proving anything, it''s letting you know that without a gun or a bear to hide behind you are useless.¡±


    Shutting the useless nattering of my critical side up, I focused on just breathing softly. In and out just like I was facing the kill energy, calming myself, I let the grip on my spear loosen up, not wanting a tight grip if I was going to have to be thrusting it shortly. My shield was the opposite, even though I was resting it on the ground I still felt my left hand clenching the grip tighter as the hog closed within fifteen feet of where I was hiding. I finally looked up from the muddy tusks to see the goblin on its back smacking the hog''s head with a club and just doing everything it could to turn the beast.


    ¡°Huh,¡± I said silently in my head. ¡°You might be okay after all, I don¡¯t think the goblins have a clue that you are here.¡± As the thought crossed my mind, I couldn¡¯t help but curse again. I don¡¯t know why I can¡¯t help tempting fate, but if I am going to survive in a world filled with monsters, then I really need to learn to control my thoughts.


    The hog continued to ignore its master and snuff in the ground for what I could only assume would be truffles with no acorns around. Wondering how the little beasts were able to subdue the larger creatures, my mind left its wandering on my inadequacies and started wondering again about the dynamics of this new world I had found myself trying to survive.


    I could only assume that they raised them from babies, but hogs were smart, they had no problems trying to take down something bigger than themselves. Heck, when they were hungry enough they had no problems disposing of a body. I wondered if this was instead a skill linked to a core or something else. Maybe the goblin was new to his job, the other one certainly didn¡¯t seem to have any problems controlling its beast.


    As the hog finally realized it wasn¡¯t going to find anything and started wandering back to the group I let out an internal sigh and focused on keeping my mind blank, not willing to send up any more flags to the universe. As they wandered out of view with the smaller goblin still cursing its beast I decided to give it a fifteen minute wait before I tried my luck elsewhere in the woods.


    Before long though I saw another group wandering along the same path that the previous patrol had been taking. For the first time in a while, I thought that my luck might be turning. Despite the ache in my leg and arm, this group of goblins looked like they might be contenders. There were only three of them so unless more appeared in the five minutes it would take them to wander close enough to my hiding spot, I might be going back¡­..


    ¡°Nope, I cut that thought right off, not a chance in hell I am giving the universe another excuse to make my life more interesting.¡±

 Chapter 33

    Looking at the new goblins it was clear they were not warriors. Or I guess that¡¯s not true, they might be off duty and trying to enjoy their free time by gathering up a snack. I don¡¯t really know I¡¯m not an expert on goblin tribal dynamics. However, if I want to survive this world, I have no doubt I am going to have to try and study them later. While it might be true that the only good goblin is a dead one, I can¡¯t go around making those kinds of assumptions until I know more. Also if that is a true statement then it will be best if I study up on them so that when I face them and continue to survive.


    Looking at them, they were all armed, but they were the shoddy wooden spears that most of the fodder goblins carried in the previous attacks. None of the three approaching me carried the backups that the previous attackers had brought to use after they launched the first round. As they wandered from tree to tree, picking at the ground, the front two finally moved away enough for me to finally see that the rear one was carrying a bag. No doubt this was to facilitate this to make collecting easier, but this was the first time that I got any indication that they used other than small pouches that held cores.


    Speaking of the bag, judging by the way they ran to a group of flowers and started gibbering they evidently had found something useful. Watching them hop around like excited little green gorillas, was so very like a game I had spent way too much time on before children had made my priorities change. My mind had to wonder if there was some kind of connection. Seeing them picking only half of the flowers for the bag and leaving the rest caused more confusion to start forming in my brain. Those weren¡¯t the actions of a ravenous horde that most literature agreed goblins were a part of, and while the bite marks on my arm and leg would have had me agreeing with the books, this behavior had me questioning it a little.


    As they continued to move towards me, I thought about letting them go, but the bear back at camp had definitely taken a turn for the worse last night. His having to get up to save me from the transformed goblin couldn¡¯t have made things better. So like any good panderer, I made a choice. It was us or them and I was choosing us. For all I knew, after I dragged them back to camp when I waved the troll core in front of their eyes, they might actually try to thank me for my generosity.


    I mean, right up until I drove the spear into their throats, but the point is they would no doubt thank me for my offering. Also as they no doubt would try and kill me in turn, so my conscious would be clear. Or, at the very least my sleep would be so troubled by my missing children that I doubt I would have any additional trouble from what I was about to do.


    As they wandered by my tree, I let them pass untroubled as the angel on my right chose that moment to voice his indignant righteousness that attacking them was wrong.


    Letting them get an additional five feet away from my hiding spot, I slowly stood up so as not to make any noise that might startle them. Resisting the urge to stretch my back, as this would no doubt crack horribly and waste the opportunity I had let happen. Charging out of the branches I shut the yammering bird on my shoulder up, as I got down to business.


    Leaving the goblin carrying the sack alone for the moment, I charged at the right one first, my spear pointed straight at his center of mass. Before he could even fully register my presence, I drove it fully into its back. As he went sprawling, I used the moment of the butt of the spear knocking him over, to rebound and spin around. Sweeping the polearm around to swipe the other two off their feet.


    With the first one out of the fight with the wind knocked out of him, the other two were slow to get up as well. Not wanting to give them any kind of sporting chance, I walked over to the one without the bag and struck him in the back of the head with the rim of my shield.


    As the goblin that had been carrying the sack, whose contents were now sprawled onto the ground, tried to scramble to his feet, I charged at him. Taking the last step of my charge at a low scoot, I shouldered my shield into his head, sending him sprawling unconscious.


    Taking a second to catch my breath from the sudden exertion, I did my best to listen for any sign that my actions had been noticed by anything else that might be out of sight in the woods. Not hearing a hue and cry raised in the distance, I set my spear and shield down, and quickly got to work securing the green buggers. Pulling out lengths of scrap rope, I quickly bound all of their hands behind their backs. Being careful to make sure their claws wouldn¡¯t be able to reach the rope.


    Looking at the sack the second goblin had dropped, I saw that in falling on it it had completely torn out the bottom. Poking it with my spear and lifting it closer to me, I started to smell the horrid odor of the goblins that seemed to infuse everything they touched I dropped it to the ground, unwilling to claim it as a prize. Looking at the flowers scattered, there seemed to be several varieties that they had gathered. Picking up two or three of each one, I cursed again at my lack of ability to carry things. I thought again if I wanted to try and salvage the goblin scrap, but in the end just settled for putting the nine flowers into one of my cargo pockets. One flower looked to be solo, so with the assumed rarity to it, I could only hope it had some kind of value and hadn¡¯t just been picked for its vibrant colors.


    I thought about how I was going to get them back to my camp. With these being the smaller variety, I figured I would probably be okay to carry them, but the problem would be if they woke up while I had them slung on my shoulders. I would just be delivering them a mouthful. Sure it would be easy to kill them afterwards, but if I wanted to kill them I could just do it now¡­ Dead I couldn¡¯t drain that vicious yellow Qi into their own cores to hopefully make the trolls safer to use.


    Dropping the shield, I was prepared to abandon it when a sudden thought hit me, not sure if it was brilliant or stupid, I wouldn¡¯t be able to be sure until I made it back to camp. Stringing the three goblins¡¯ arms through the spear handle, I let them slide down until they hit the boar brace. Pushing my shield¡¯s handle through after them, I then tried to pick the whole contraption up. Heavy and awkward, the solidness of the construction of this fine weapon, meant the pole managed to hold up to the weight of the three monsters.


    Slinging the whole thing onto my shoulder, I shuddered as I felt the three come sliding down into me. Fortunately, the shield stopped them before they got into teeth or toe claw range. But as the wooden rim slammed into my neck, I realized I probably could have done that better. Oh well, I would still score it a win in the books.


    Turning around I started marching to camp, one slow step at a time, praying all the while that nothing would see me. Not because I looked ridiculous, but because with my main weapon and defense taken up like this, I would likely soon find my position reversed with these unfortunate fellows.


    Exiting the woods with no incidents I started making my way across the grasslands in the direction of my camp. Looking at the hill in front of me, I realized that trying to climb it with these monsters on my back was going to be a pain in the A. After reaching the hill and beginning the climb it was of course at that moment that one of the buggers woke up and started kicking and screaming which soon woke up his friends and started a chain reaction.


    Scooting out from under the pole I let it drop to the ground and watched all three of them suddenly collapse as they were caught unaware. Picking the spear back up, I braced the end under my left arm as they scrambled to their feet to try and get loose. I Gave it a quick shake and held my end high enough that their only hope was jumping up to get over the crosspiece of the spear.


    With the shield still lengthwise along the back end of the spear I wasn¡¯t worried about them charging to get me. Drawing my Bowie blade in a cross draw I started waving at them doing my best to get the point across that they had best be following orders. Looking at the blade as long as their arms, they quieted down. Swinging the spear gently I indicated they should start leading the way.


    Carrying their end of the spear above their heads they started marching in front of me, heading in whatever direction I pointed my spear. Now that they were awake and helping I decided that it might not be the best idea to leave a scent trail heading straight back to my camp. So changing directions slightly I headed back to see the rabbits again.


    Walking slowly, while trying to corral the difficult creatures that seemed to want to constantly be heading in different directions like they were part of a comedy sketch, was just as hard as it sounds. But it required very little in the way of brain power, so as we continued our way over there, I thought about it for a second, did I really want to do this?


    On the one hand, if the goblin horde did pick up my trail, hopefully, they would either think that these three got hungry for a snack and went to find some rabbits and just weren¡¯t good enough. Maybe even abandoning the three forever. Or they might pick up might scent too and think I was working with the rabbits or sheltering there instead.


    Conversely, they could just be familiar enough with the shrieking horrors that they know these three noobs wouldn¡¯t try for it. I could very well just be wasting the time that I might need in the future to get the bear healed, pack up camp, and make our escape. I often wonder what it must be like for people to just make a decision and be okay with it, never second guessing themselves. It had to be the most boringly wonderful existence. Just make a decision and go with it, no second thoughts or time spent coming up with equally plausible scenarios. How much extra bandwidth do they have to have free to just look and wonder at the world?Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    Giving the spear a hard shake to prevent an attempt to either take it over or just the three idiots doing their own thing unable to coordinate to literally save their own lives, I would probably never know. As we started approaching the hardwoods in the distance, I tried examining my captives for any indication that they might give off that they had any clue what was up ahead.


    With my basically following the same path that I had come from this morning, I knew that the brambles with the brilliantly named purpleberries that were at some stage of their existence. Frowning in my mind I wished for a wiki or a farmer¡¯s almanac, resisting the urge to kick the supposedly illiterate savages that hadn¡¯t had any books in their possession that I could use to understand this world better. As much as I love a good puzzle, when starvation is on the line not to mention my lovely skin. I am perfectly okay with flipping to the back for the answers.


    As we approached close enough to see the glow of the berries that were shining brightly enough to illuminate the shadows of the briar patch despite it being in the early afternoon. I looked to the three captives for any indication that this had any value.


    Not seeing any rabbits in the brambles, I doubted that they had been scared off by our approach. With their willingness to assemble hundreds to drive me off earlier, I doubted they would be afraid now that I had brought along my three little captives. So I assumed they were sleeping or there had been a call to action at another part of their woods. Approaching the brambles, the three little buggers started going ballistic. Driving forward on the spear, trying to reach the purple glowing fruits.


    Glad that I had an answer to one of my questions, I just now had to figure out if what was good for the goblin was good for the human. Repeating my mantra in my mind that there was no such thing as useless information, only information one doesn¡¯t have a use for yet. I sighed and gripped the spear even tighter, as yet another tug almost got it free from my hands. Swinging it to the side violently enough that I almost took them off their feet, I left off gathering a sample as I still didn¡¯t know if the berry would splatter its juices when picked. I wasn¡¯t willing to resist a reaction at the moment when I had more important tests to run.


    Resolving to never forget my neoprene diving gloves in the future, even if they were too hot to wear every second of the day. They would certainly be useful in situations like this where I wanted to protect my pours until I could be sure that I was only getting what I wanted on my skin in a safer setting.


    Swinging the spear again, I shook the goblins to get them in line and started marching them back to my camp, hoping that I wouldn¡¯t find a horde of goblins waiting for me there.


    Walking up to the camp, I saw Gaian still lying on his side panting. With the coolness of the mountain air, I didn¡¯t think it was because the rug was overheating. Flipping the spear up and driving the blade into the softer ground as deep as I could, my movement knocked all three of the goblins off their feet, and with the height of the pole, they had no easy way to free themselves. Dropping the shield to the ground now that I didn¡¯t need it any longer. I drew my ax.


    While the little rats were scratching at the dirt with their bound hands, trying to dig up the blade to free themselves, took three swift swings and watched them collapse. Looking at their chests continue to move up and down I was happy that I hadn¡¯t managed to break their skulls and kill them as I had a feeling that if they were dead I wouldn¡¯t be able to drain the troll Qi into them.


    Heading over my bag, anxious to get this over with both before the bear got any worse or before the captives woke up again and I had to test their skulls¡¯ hardness with the dull end of my ax a second time. Grabbing my tongs as I got to my tent I went to the open pocket and pulled out the glowing rock. Picking up one of the clubs I had plundered earlier headed over to the three unconscious prisoners. Touching the core to the head of the first one I saw that once again the glowing piece of excrement didn¡¯t react. I had hoped that with the captive being asleep at the moment, whatever internal barriers might be keeping out the cores Qi might be relaxed and I wouldn¡¯t have to get near the mouths of the filthy things.


    Pondering if I wanted to restrain the little bugger better, but in the end, I just didn¡¯t want to waste the time. Also, it hadn¡¯t done much good the last time. So for now, I just figure as soon as a third of the remaining light in the contaminated core was gone, I would just strike and end the little bugger before it could get me first.


    I took a second, to again consider if I wanted to do this. Was this the first step on the path of turning into a being that would horrify my children if I ever met them again? Killing a sentient captive is a pretty big no-no no matter where you were back in the old world and I had no doubt if there were races of light on this world, this step next step of mine would be something at the very least, they would profess to be horrified over.


    As I was waffling again in my mind one of the buggers helpfully woke up and lunged for my foot, only to be brought up short by his hands still being bound to the spear. I took the action as a cue that he wanted to volunteer first. I held the rock out to the lunging beast, leaving it just out of its reach. In its frenzy to get the object of its newest obsession, it started running its feet through the dirt doing anything it could to get loose. Moving it to within inches of the farthest extreme it had reached its head too, the goblin helpfully extended its long purple tongue to get the slightest taste of the little rock.


    Touching it to the tip of the forked tongue, I watched as the slimy thing stuck to the rock like a magnet, and finally started draining off some of the energy. Again I was amazed to see that only the yellow Qi was drawn off and the vibrancy of the green never faded in the slightest.


    Watching both the glowing rock and my captive at the same time. I saw the yellow continue to dim, but didn¡¯t see any corresponding increase in attribute display for my captive. Confused as my last one had attacked me instantly, this one continued to just try and scamper with his legs seeming to blur as he tried to pull his hands free of the spear.


    Not taking a chance that he was breaking free I swung the club at full power, and with his tongue glued to the core. He didn¡¯t react at all as the stone that was fused to the clubhead shattered his temple.


    When the monster collapsed to the ground a tiny bit of kill energy streamed up off of the tiny creature and split into four streams, while the slightly larger stream headed to me, and the other three split up for the other living beings. With such a tiny amount heading for my core, part of me disdained dropping into a breathing pattern, but I quickly kicked that idiot in the head and brought up the defenses I had learned to stop myself from being infected by the anger.


    While I continued my breathing soft breathing pattern, I quickly got onto infecting the next goblin. With as little energy that had come off of the first one, I didn¡¯t want to try and steal anything from the funnel that I knew would soon be incoming. I didn¡¯t want to find out what would happen if it formed only to bring back nothing. That kind of error might be something that got kicked up to a higher power that wasn¡¯t automated, and until I knew more about what that might be, I was fine staying off its radar.


    As the yellow Qi drained into the second one, it too started lunging for the outheld core. Pulling it back quickly, I broke the connection. Waiting until the goblin was fully extended, I repeated the process of the first one. Touching it to its tongue, anxious to get this process over, before the final one woke up and started trying for his share. Keeping one eye on the goblin¡¯s hands, I also tried watching the rest of the body, with no clue what power might be enhanced with this guy. So far it seemed that the first goblin had grown claws it could shoot out while the second one had gained the beginnings of super speed.


    I was so busy watching the body, I almost missed it as the little bugger¡¯s tongue extended to wrap around the troll core and start to snatch it into its mouth. Quickly swinging my club I again shattered this one¡¯s head. Again a tiny amount of the kill energy pooled up, and once again I didn¡¯t wait for it to get to me, I just maintained my breathing and started in on the third goblin.


    When this one woke up and started lunging for me, I was quick to pull back the core after the embarrassment of almost losing it last time to the strange ability to increase tongue size. Part of my mind wondered if that was why it got the easier duty of flower picking.


    Ready for anything after the surprise of the last one, I watched as all of the yellow Qi drained into the last monster. When it stopped without any visual indication of a change in my captive I was confused. The goblin was still scrambling for the outheld core. But no more energy seemed to be pouring into my prisoner. Apparently, the goblins wanted the troll core for a different purpose than the yellow energy. Part of me wondered if they had even wanted the evil Qi, or if they just accepted it as the price to pay to gain the troll¡¯s power. Wishing for the first time ever in my life that I spoke goblin so that I could vigorously question the little monster and get some actual answers to the countless questions that I had generated in the short time I was here.


    Not wanting to be surprised by what power this last one might have increased, and refusing to let him go so that he could bring a party of his friends back to visit. I swung the club for a third time to put the final goblin out of its misery. Watching it collapse to the ground, I went over to the spear, all the while wondering what power it might have had and if there had just been too little of the yellow Qi to enhance it. Pulling the spear from the ground, I held the troll core up to the light of the planet above. Looking into its center to see that it was finally free of the yellow influence that had infected it.


    While I was examining the whirls of greens growing out of the center before contracting, I couldn¡¯t help but think about the other green cores I had examined so far, it had a similar look to the other one, but even going by memory I could tell the growing lines of this was some much more complicated and intricate.


    Nearly dropping the core in surprise, I heard the goblin whose skull I had crushed roll over and try to get up. With a start, I realized in my anxiousness to examine the now clean core that I had never felt the kill energy come up off the little bastard. Cursing under my breath I looked down to see its skull slowly reforming before my eyes. Unwilling to look at the silver lining right now, I dropped the core into my pocket, while I let the tweezers fall to the ground. Swinging the club again into its head I again watched it fall. When no kill energy again appeared, I snatched up the spear, cursing at my luck.


    At least time the bad came with a possible solution to my dilemma. I¡¯m always happy to look for the silver lining¡­ after I stomped this cockroach out.

 Chapter 34

    Stomping was of course a figure of speech, thrusting my spear, I drove into the still stumbling goblin whose skull had only partially reformed. As the blade burst through his back and the boar stop made contact, I lifted the haft up and continued to drive forward until I pinned it to the ground.


    Taking up my ax I swung it as hard as I could into the neck of the pinned monster. Although it was a good strike, it still took two more swings until the little green man was fully decapitated. Pulling my spear up out of its back, I used the blade to lever it over. Then driving the blade into the chest, I gouged open a hole until I started seeing the green glow that indicated I had finally found the core.


    Using the tip of the spear to flip the glowing rock out of the chest cavity, I managed to keep my final set of clothes blood free for the moment. When I felt the kill energy start to appear I breathed a small sigh of relief. Even though this new cloud of kill energy was only being divided into two, it felt much smaller than the previous two. If I had to measure it I would say that the total amount before division was equal to the part I had gained from killing the first of the three. I had to wonder if it was diminishing returns from killing them or if this goblin just didn¡¯t have the experience to be worth as much.


    Looking over to the bear I saw he was panting and struggling to reach his feet. ¡°Easy boy,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s okay, I managed this one on my own, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but let¡¯s get you healed up before you go back to stomping down goblins.¡±


    As he fell back to his side with a moan, I realized I wasn¡¯t going to have much more time to go hunting for answers on how to use the cores to solve our problem. I mean the simple answer is just to swallow the damn thing, but the first goblin I gave a junk core to didn¡¯t so any signs of changing. Also if swallowing the core was the answer, why did I find the goblins carrying some of the cores around, shouldn¡¯t they just have immediately eaten them?


    Picking up the new cockroach core, I held it up to the light. Feeling relieved when I didn¡¯t sense any of the yellow Qi trying to find a way to make the jump inside of me. I tried looking for similarities and differences that I might find to give me any hints at what to do before I made an attempt at using them to gain power.


    The original bad boy, which was now finally cleared of its yellow parasite, was much smaller than the new one. Almost a quarter of the size, it was almost a perfect sphere with just a small amount of flattening on the top and bottom. The new one on the other hand was almost as flat as a perfect skipping stone and much larger, almost the size of a half dollar. I actually had no idea how anyone would manage to swallow something this large.


    Holding them both up to the light, I saw that they both had darker green energy flowing up from the center before coming back but it was clear that despite the smaller size, the troll¡¯s core had ten times the pathways coming out of the center and they were much more intricate in their swirls and whorls.


    Putting the troll core into my pants pocket, I focused on learning about the goblin regeneration for now. While I really wanted the troll one for myself, in the end, I knew I was going to have to leave that for Gaian. If we were going to team up, I knew that he was going to be on the front lines of any fight which meant he needed the better healing. Ideally, I would be behind him sniping anything with thrusts of a spear, or sneaking around to the rear once he had managed to pull aggro, so my chances of getting hurt were going to be much slimmer.


    Yeah, the selfish part of my mind said that he had thicker skin so he shouldn¡¯t need to heal as much, so on that logic, the faster healing should go to the one whose wounds would be worse. But I just couldn¡¯t bring myself to take it from him. Yes maybe he would eventually wander off or even turn on me, but I never like living a life where I couldn¡¯t trust the people, or in this case beings around me.


    Looking at the slightly thicker half-dollar more closely, one of the first things I noticed was that it wasn¡¯t perfectly round, it had a lot of indents on the edge and also some bulging to one side like it hadn¡¯t been formed properly. There were maybe eight pathways coming out of the center reservoir, all of them were thick lines with minimal looping to them as they made their way to the edges but as I looked closer, two of the lines had much smaller loops coming out of them and running to the edges.


    These smaller lines had much more intricate looping and turning and as I looked at the third center line next to the two anomalies, it looked like it was in the process of growing its own smaller feeder lines before it had been cut off abruptly. Whether that was because I had killed it at that point or it had been using the yellow Qi to supercharge its growth, and the evil juice had run out, I doubt I will be able to figure that mystery out for now until I find another portal monster to take out. Because that was the farthest thing away from what I wanted, I was sure the universe would be sending one my way in the next couple of days.


    Holding the core in my hands, I tried to get a feel for it, I wanted to send my energy into it and see if I could command it. So I went back to my basic breathing pattern that I stumbled upon in my efforts to fight off the kill energy. I focused on trying to either send some of my energy into the core to activate it or pull the energy out of it to use for myself. As I started to sit down and get into a meditative posture I quickly jumped to my feet and grabbed my spear dropping the goblin core in my haste to arm myself.


    Swinging my spear around in a circle I looked for any signs that I was missing something. Despite not seeing anything, I turned around in a circle slowly, ignoring the looks the bear was giving me, wondering if I was crazy and going to attack him next. Another circuit where I didn¡¯t see anything in front of me I wondered why the funnel hadn¡¯t come down from the sky. Looking at the goblins on the ground, I saw that they didn¡¯t have any green energy pooling up out of them for me to harvest.


    Sure that I hadn¡¯t felt any vortex come from the sky to take it away, I again felt the urge to swing my spear around to see if I could hit any invisible creatures that might have stolen the energy from the gods in the sky.


    Not feeling any contact, I wondered if I had gone crazy, was I imagining that I hadn¡¯t felt the vortex? Or, conversely was I imagining that I had ever seen a green energy above creatures that had died? Apparently, I was wrong in my years when I wished I had been taken to a fantasy world. All of the years I had spent yelling the answers into book at foolish MCs and I am here swinging a spear around looking for invisible creatures.


    I know the problem is that I don¡¯t know the rules, where before reading books the rules were all laid out for me, nice and simple. Here I have no idea what the rules are and my paranoid side is having a field day thinking up impossible scenarios to torture me with. No sleep and a brain full of crazy is just a recipe for disaster. Thinking back that these kills had all resulted in an incredibly low amount of kill energy, I had to wonder if that correlated to a lack of green aftermath.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    Looking up to the sky and seeing only about three to four hours of daylight left I realized I was going to have to camp here another night. Even if I figured out the core problem right now, packing everything up would take more than an hour. Forget trying to find another camp. Also, I¡¯ve got sixty plus pounds of water and another ten to fifteen of dried fish I¡¯ve got to find some way to transport.


    Needing a break to let my mind relax and stop pushing me in multiple directions at once I wanted to get a drink. If there was an invisible creature here, it was obviously to smart to be hit by me, so I needed to ignore it and focus on what I could for now and get something to kill the rumbling in my belly. But my fastidious side wouldn¡¯t let me go for it until I had cleaned up the camp first. Picking up the tongs and the core that I had dropped, I put them in my pockets for now.


    Taking up my spear, I again used it to dig the cores out of the other two goblins before dragging them off to the body pile that was starting to get an additional odor to it. Apparently, dead goblins will start to smell worse than live ones, I had thought it would be the case, but hadn¡¯t been able to see how the smell would get worse. Shaking my head, I undid the knots, put the rope back into my pockets, and headed back to camp to get a drink of water.


    Checking on Gaian¡¯s bucket, I saw that it was empty, walking it over to the five gallons of reserve water, I poured about a gallon in while managing only to spill a little out on the ground. Replacing the lid, I brought it back to him and scratched his ears before going to get my own and sit down with some dry fish.


    Sitting down with the poorly made basket to my right and holding my water, I alternated handfuls of the bland meat with sips of water so I wouldn¡¯t start coughing with how dry it was.


    Needing to take some time to clear my mind and stop just going from task to task, I was burning myself down and it was taking a toll on my ability to process and understand what was happening. ¡°Everything has a solution, some stuff has multiple solutions, all you have to do is take the time to think about it. All running yourself ragged is going to do will just make sure you die exhausted,¡± I told myself.


    Of course, the counterpoint was, that if you sit too long trying to figure out a solution to important problems, people can die or bombs can go off if you spend too long working out the solution. Identifying the type of problem you¡¯ve got and deciding how long you can give yourself to work on it should always be a key in your decision process.


    Chewing some more on the bland flakes of fish, I wished I had added a little bit of salt, but held with my determination to save it for later. Picking up one of the other two cores I had harvested, I saw that this one seemed to be of the blue variety. I thought this one came from the goblin that had tried to snatch the core from my hand with its tongue. Which meant the red one still on the ground was from the one that started running faster.


    Comparing them both they were also flat, but these two both looked rounder and somewhat smaller than one that had the regen ability. Holding them up to the light I saw that they also had a small amount of large lines with minimum twists and turns running through them, with the red one looking more like it was swirling with a purpose as opposed to the blue ones that seemed to be flowing from one side to the other, neither seemed able to stay still like the green one¡¯s had done.


    Several of the lines seemed to have smaller finer ones coming off of them which seemed to confirm that is what the yellow Qi had focused on building and improving. Sliding them into my pocket for now as I needed to focus more on the ones I thought would induce healing powers. I started feeling the ache coming from my leg wound, I don¡¯t know if it was trying to carry multiple goblins or just all the walking around I had done today. Either way, it couldn¡¯t have been good for me.


    Undoing the bandage, I looked down to see that the wound was starting to look red and inflamed. Cursing I could only hope my constitution was enough to fight it off, I thought about adding the flowers I had collected to the bandage before rewrapping it. But without knowing what the goblins had needed them for I wasn¡¯t anxious to just add anything random to the equation. Tucking the end of the bandage in to secure it I looked at the holes I had glued shut on my arm. These at least seemed to be healing on their own, rewrapping them to be safe, I brought out the two green cores again now that I wasn¡¯t being distracted by my hunger.


    Holding them in my hands I ignored the urge to look at them and try and divine their secrets. Sitting still and just focusing on my breathing I tried to clear my mind and repeat what was quickly becoming a mantra for me. Courage and Serenity we all have those virtues inside of us and yet so few of us are able to have the wisdom to accurately choose which one of them to show to the world. I know I have been overrun with courage for the moment.


    I continued to breathe slowly and listen to that inner voice in my head, trying to understand what I should be doing. Was going out into the world the wrong answer? Should I have meditated and tried to destroy or use the yellow Qi myself? What was wisdom? Unfortunately, the situation wasn¡¯t far enough in the past for me to easily recognize the answer as hindsight also didn¡¯t have enough information yet to crow forth how brilliant future me was in comparison to present Jack.


    Looking down at the two cores I knew I wasn¡¯t going to figure out the answers just by holding them, the goblins had shown me that they needed to be swallowed, but I just really didn¡¯t want to do that. I don¡¯t know if I was against it on principle or because some part of my brain just didn¡¯t want to have any kind of connection with the little green horrors. But either way, I was going to have to get over it and get mine down as this was getting me nowhere, and judging by my leg I would soon be in the same position as Gaian.


    Sighing, I got up from my stool and went over to the bear who was lapping up his water. ¡°Alright brother, here¡¯s the situation,¡± I said as I sat down next to him and leaned against his bulk. ¡°We are both fucked.¡± I cursed, letting out the word without my normal filters that had been built up after years of being around my kids.


    ¡°We are looking at long painful deaths from infections and I don¡¯t have anything in my bag of tricks that will do anything about it.¡± I continued on. ¡°The only option that I am seeing is the two cores from the monsters that seemed to have conquered death. I have no idea how they work, but all of the little green buggers seemed keen to eat this little bit of magic. So if you want to try it and see if it gets you better, it¡¯s all yours.¡± Rubbing his ears again, I set down the smaller troll core in front of him and walked back to my stool to ponder the one still in my hand.


    Looking at the bigger core I was really hoping that I shouldn¡¯t worry about the fact that it was so much bigger than the more powerful core. When I was in the ball I had basically let the energy run around and build to its heart¡¯s content, thinking I was getting the OP treatment. Now I was getting a nagging thought that I might have made a mistake. Shaking my head, I forced myself to look down at the core I planned on trying to swallow. One impossible problem at a time.


    Sitting down in my chair again, I looked over to the bear and saw that he had rolled over to sit up and was staring at his glowing green rock. Watching him focus on it, I got distracted looking at his paws, they seemed to be swiping at the air in front of him. Looking like he was trying to kill an invisible mosquito, my first thought was he had finally sensed whatever got the after death energy from earlier. But looking back at his face I didn¡¯t see any indication that he was upset or angry.


    Wondering if the infection had made its way to the brain and was causing him to hallucinate, I kept my seat as I didn¡¯t have a chance of doing anything to help a hallucinating bear. After a while, he stopped swiping at the air, lowered himself down until his chin was on the ground, looked me dead in the eyes, and sticking out his tongue¡­ he lapped up the glowing stone.

 Chapter 35

    I don¡¯t know if I was expecting crashes of thunder or lightning to accompany the momentous act, but at the very least I thought that he might start to recover even the slightest bit. Instantly leaping to his feet and galloping around the camp might have been a little unrealistic in my expectations, but I had hoped he could show off some of his new vitality and let me know I could sleep easy tonight, that he would be there to keep watch while I tried to gain my own magic powers.


    Either way, I felt gypped as he instead rolled back to his side, and closing his eyes went to sleep.


    Looking down at the stone in my own hands, I thought about putting it into my mouth. Shuddering, I gagged a little as I raised my hand, after a couple of seconds of holding it in front of my mouth I had to drop my hand and instead tried to work on my meditation some more to see if I could absorb the core that way. If it was just the ick factor of trying to eat something that came out of a goblin¡¯s body, I could probably eventually force myself to do it. But this thing was almost as big as the palm of my hand, I had no idea how I was supposed to choke the thing down.


    After about half an hour of trying and not making any progress, I sighed. I put the rock back in my pocket and decided to work on building a fire. For multiple reasons like to clear out my tent for my own slumbers, so that I could make some tea to help clear my mind, and to put myself in a more introspective mood. Not wanting to clear out the trench of all the wet ash, I simply kicked a little bit of dirt down the length to give the wood a bed to separate the two. I knew the proper camp procedure would be to shovel it out and save the ash for leaching lye or using it as a deodorizer over one¡¯s waste, but with my being determined to leave in the morning, I just didn¡¯t have it in me to go the extra mile. My leg was still continuing to pulse in pain, which had me picturing the infection getting worse by the second.


    Pulling all of the wood out of my tent, I just put a small pile in the trench and took my knife out to quickly strip a branch down for another fire starter. Pulling out the covered pot, I dug my long tongs out of my pocket to shift through the dirt for the still warm coal. Adding it to the waiting fuel, I bent down to add the third leg of the formula to my waiting setup. After a couple of minutes of blowing, the fire eventually started to blaze up. Giving it a moment before I put some more branches on, I went to the tent to pull out the kettle that came with my mess kit. Returning the pan I had wiped clean, I pulled out the kettle and added enough water to fill it from my water bladder. Setting it down on the fire I let it heat up while I pulled a couple of tea bags and the two collapsible cups that came with the kit.


    Despite not having anyone to share it with I decided on making both now so I wouldn¡¯t be stuck trying to remake the second after it grew darker. With my setup ready I pulled the flowers I had gathered from the goblins I had captured. Looking at them, they didn¡¯t look like much. They didn¡¯t have any inner glow like the cores did and I wondered why they might be gathering them. Sure I know poppies make opium and saffron comes from the stamen of a flower. But in all of those cases, it takes an insane amount of flowers to produce any workable amount of product, and it just didn¡¯t make sense that the little savages could be operating on that kind of scale. Sniffing one of the smaller yellow ones, it had a fewer number of petals than a dandelion but otherwise looked fairly similar. Not getting much of the oder I, I moved on to the pink one that looked very much like a tulip. This one definitely had a perfume to it that smell felt relaxing and seemed to help ease my mind the slightest bit.


    Hearing my kettle whistle I held off my examination of the last three and poured the water over my tea. Holding one cup in my hand, I let the liquid warm them while slowly inhaling the steam as I searched for the traces of perfume that continued to grow stronger as the tea continued brewing. Eventually, it got to a point where I was satisfied it was strong enough and I pulled the bags from both cups and set them on top of the plate I had grabbed with the kettle to save for a second run. Leaving the liquid to cool, I got back to my flora examination.


    Picking up the flower that had alternating blue and purple leaves, I brought it up to my face to smell, and as I gave it a big whiff I started to grow dizzy and dropped it to the ground next to me. Feeling my body grow limp in my chair, a part of my mind knew I should be concerned, but I couldn¡¯t bring the rest of me to care. The next thing I knew, I was having an out of body experience, watching over my body as it leaned even farther back into the camp stool. I saw more than felt myself collapse over the back of it and then a blackness came up over me and there was nothing.


    <hr>


    Waking with a start I felt a rough tongue dragging itself over my bandaged ankle. Staring up at the bright sky I fought to clear the fog from my thoughts. As I felt another lick on my leg, my mind cleared instantly, and jumped to my feet. Okay, that¡¯s a lie, I rolled over and pushed my overweight body up. Looking around I saw the bear standing in front of me, giving me a concerned look.


    Grateful that it was him licking me awake and not a goblin, giving me a speculative taste so it could decide on the best way to season me. I gave the bear a small wave of apology, too embarrassed at the stupid mistake that had put me out. Lucky to be alive, I looked over at the bear, noticing that he wasn¡¯t breathing hard anymore and that he seemed to be doing a lot better in general. As I took a step over to him I noticed my ankle wasn¡¯t hurting anymore either, taking a knee to undo the bandage when I looked under it I was shocked.


    All of the angry red lines that had been coming off of the suture strips had disappeared and it had closed most of the way up, looking more like it had happened weeks ago instead of last night. I looked at the bite wound in amazement. Moving my gaze to focus on my arm, I hoped the flower had done something similar. But after I unwrapped my arm I saw that wound was still looking the same. Leaving my arm unwrapped for the moment, I started taking the suture bandages off my leg as it was closed up enough that I didn¡¯t think they were needed anymore. When I was done, I rewrapped both of the injuries, deciding I wanted some protection as they weren¡¯t completely healed all of the way. Looking over to the bear who seemed to be giving off a proud aura, I asked the question. ¡°Did you do this?¡± I pointed to indicate the leg.


    At his nod of affirmation, the little kid in me grew giddy at how he seemed to be growing in intelligence. I didn¡¯t have any doubts that he was able to understand me. While the older cynical part of my mind thought that might be hope instead of logic, the rest of me told him to stuff it. I could only guess that the flower had knocked me out and in my sleep, Gaian had managed to gain some control over the core that he had absorbed. Upon waking and healing himself he must have seen the state I was in and decided to help my leg out. Wondering how much he understood, I decided to start playing twenty questions with him. Reaching over for one of my cups of tea, I forgo trying to get a fire started for now and instead just went with drinking it cold.


    ¡°Okay, for now, let¡¯s go with a right paw for yes,¡± I pointed to the paw to get rid of any confusion as to whether I meant my right or his. ¡°And left paw for no. Do you understand?¡± I said pointing to the opposite limb.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    As he lifted his right paw, I smiled broadly. Seeing how he had figured out some of the magic already I was happy to have someone who I could run the thousands of questions that were spinning out of my head.


    Sipping on my tea, I asked the obvious one first. ¡°Do you feel like you remember any of your time in the ball that brought us here?¡± When the bear raised his left paw, I tried again with my next query. ¡°How about our planet that we were born on, do you remember any of that life, or do your memories start here?¡±


    When he raised up both of his paws, I took it as a maybe or that he was unsure. Moving on to questions about magic, I asked. ¡°Is your healing weaker than the troll¡¯s was or are you consciously saving your energy for an emergency?¡±


    This time Gaian raised up his right paw to my first while following it up with a second right and then both which I took to mean yes it was weaker and that yes he was saving energy but I was on the wrong track as to how it worked. Realizing that with only being able to get yes-no answers I was going to have to make a lot of guesses and end up with some bad assumptions, I went ahead and asked the question I probably should have started out with. ¡°Do you have any way to talk to me?¡±


    As he raised his left paw, my heart fell just a little bit, I didn¡¯t realize until now just how much I missed having someone to talk to. Yes, this one sided conversation was an improvement, and yes I had always prided myself on my ability to get by on my own. One of the reasons I loved going on camping trips was to get away from everything. But at this moment, all of the subjective lifetimes I had spent trying to figure out the Order and Chaos that had been holding me hostage really started hitting me hard. Bending my head down to sip at my cold tea, I did my best to compose myself so that the bear wouldn¡¯t think I was disappointed in him. Breathing slowly to keep the tears from coming, I tried to find that amazement I had been feeling before that I had a talking bear for a companion.


    Taking another long drink, I finished off the small cup and reached for the second one I had made. Realizing I was being rude, I spoke up quickly. ¡°Do you need anything? Food, more water? The last of the beer is gone, but if you want I can try and get the fire going to make some more tea if you need some flavor to your water.¡±


    With two left paws being raised in succession I took them to mean, that he was fine for now. Deciding to ask the bigger questions first before moving on to juicier magic ones, I asked them nervously. ¡°Do you want to continue on with me, or do you plan on going your own way?¡± When he raised up his right followed by a quick left, I felt a smile growing on my face. As he came forward and licked my cheeks, I didn¡¯t even feel the need to flinch away from his breath!


    Following up, I clarified the pecking order, as he had the weight and magic now, it was going to be his decision and I would just have to be good with it if I didn¡¯t want to lose my tank, and apparently now healer. ¡°Do you want to be in charge?¡± When I got a left paw, I asked again just to clarify. ¡°So you are okay with me being in charge and making the decisions?¡± When he raised his right paw, I decided to take the win and just go with it for now. I wouldn¡¯t say I am a natural leader, I make a better NCO than a General. I am happiest when I have someone else setting the ending point and I can be left to my own devices and deal with all of the logistics of making someone else¡¯s orders happen. But if he was happy with taking orders, I guess I was going to just work on solving the puzzles for now.


    Moving on I decided to interrogate him on what he had figured out about magic. ¡°Are you doing the healing, or is it mostly the core you swallowed?¡± I started off for my first query on how the magic of this world worked. He raised his left, followed by a quick right. I was somewhat disappointed at the response as it meant that he was much less likely to be able to help me figure things out if he was letting the core do all of the work. Trying something else other than a yes-no, I went on to try another tack.


    ¡°Can you feel the energy build up when the goblins die? Do you feel the emotions of anger and hate invading you feeling like they are trying to take you over?¡± As the bear again raised his left paw, set it down, and again raised it up, I felt a little more frustration growing inside of me. Taking a larger breath I focused on not letting it take hold, calming myself down I took another couple of slow breaths. ¡°It¡¯s not his fault he doesn¡¯t have answers, he can only tell you what he knows. If he lied or made up his responses you wouldn¡¯t be in a better position. Obviously, your time in the ball affected you in different ways. Take a beat and accept that, be grateful he is going to continue on this journey with you and is willing to be your meat shield. Stop getting frustrated he doesn¡¯t have any good answers for you¡­ you also don¡¯t have anything you can tell him. He is not responsible for calming the rabid hamster in your head. Only you can deal with that monster. Be grateful he helped heal your leg.¡±


    Finishing up my lecture to the part of me that relentlessly wanted to find more answers, I forced myself to calm down. Trying another tack, I asked the bear a more straightforward line of questions. ¡°Do you think you could regrow your head or limbs like the troll managed to?¡± When he raised his left paw again, I continued on trying to get a reason.


    ¡°Did you see the yellow energy in the core?¡± This time I finally got a right paw from him. Continuing on the line I asked, ¡°Do you think that was what was responsible for the troll¡¯s greater regeneration or do you think it was because the troll was the original owner of the core and had better insights into how to work it?¡±


    This time he was much less sure of his answers, raising both paws, but keeping his right higher than the left. Taking it to mean he was hesitantly giving me a yes, but didn¡¯t want to commit to it. I followed it up by asking, ¡°Do you think you will continue to improve and eventually be able to get better, or is it a static ability and what you have is what you got?¡± This time he seemed more confident as he started off with a right and then returned to his left.


    Continuing on I asked, ¡°Are you limited in how much healing you can do?¡± When I got a right paw in response, I followed up with. ¡°Does it recharge slowly or do you have to empty it out and wait for it to refill completely?¡± When I got a right paw for the first part, followed by a left with the second. I was happy that this world went with more of a gaming mana system rather than following the major dice adventure games system of long and short rests.


    Moving on to another thought I queried the bear again, ¡°If I feed you more cores, do you think you will continue to gain more powers?¡± When I got a left paw in response, I followed up with some clarifying questions.


    ¡°Does that mean you can only have the one core?¡± This got a hesitant right paw in response. Taking that to mean he thought so but wasn¡¯t sure, I moved on. ¡°Do you only have a healing power?¡± As I got a right paw from him, I went to more of a rapid fire, as the questions just started spilling out of my mouth.


    ¡°Do you have only one?¡± Left paw.


    ¡°Two?¡± Right paw.


    ¡°Is one the regen for you while the second is what you used on me?¡± Again another right paw.


    ¡°Do you think these will continue to improve as you use them or will you need more cores in the future.¡± This question had him raising both paws, I guess he didn¡¯t have as many answers as I had hoped.


    Trying again I asked, ¡°Do you think you will get any other abilities or is it just healing?¡± This one got more of a shrug, sensing I was running up against the depths of his knowledge on the subject, I started finishing off my tea, while I continued to think if there were any other questions I wanted to ask. Picking up the core I had been thinking about trying to ingest before the purple flower knocked me out, I held off on consuming it for now. If we were limited to only one power then while doubling up on healing might make me feel better in general, I might need to go for a combat power and just trust in my partner to have my back. If all we were able to do was keep ourselves healed we would no doubt end up like the troll when we ran up against something we weren¡¯t able to take out.


    Leaving the decision for now, I felt my stomach starting to rumble, either from how long I had been unconscious or because the healing the bear had bestowed upon me had used up a bunch of calories and my stomach wanted a refill. Putting the core into the pocket that held the other two the trolls secondary energy had started improving, I pulled a basket of dried fish out of my tent. Putting a piece into my mouth I offered some to the bear, sure that he needed to recharge as well.

 Chapter 36

    By the time we were both done eating, the basket was licked clean. Obviously, that was the bear, as while I was fine with licking my fingers clean, I was going to draw the line at the bear¡¯s plate. Tossing the basket out into the grass, I was fine with leaving it behind when we broke camp, it had only taken me about twenty minutes to make and there was plenty of grass out there if I needed another one.


    Taking a minute to savor the feeling of a full stomach, I could only stomp on the ungrateful part of my mind that was wishing the food had been more tasty. I really needed to get rid of the first world mindset that was used to everything being on my terms. Full stomachs would no doubt be few and far between in the upcoming days.


    Upon taking a deep breath to relax and clear my mind, I was definitely finding that I was noticing the underlying smell from the rotting bodies starting to creep in. Knowing we had overstayed our welcome at this particular campground, we really needed to get a move on. Standing up, I picked up the flowers, including the one that had knocked me out, and put them back into the pocket I had pulled them out of the day before. Then I started emptying everything out of the tent and packing it away.


    Moving all of the food baskets to one of the sleds I had made, I started putting all of the weapons I had gathered from my goblin benefactors on the other one. Putting five of the smaller basic metal tip spears onto the sled for possible throwing weapons. I also added the spear I had damaged, both of the goblin short swords, and the three clubs that I had found so far.


    Putting the bag full of cores into my pack, I thought about adding the three cores that the troll¡¯s empowering energy had enhanced but held off on second thought. With over forty of the glowing rocks in there now, it seemed like it would be harder to find them again and I wanted to keep them separate. If I was going to choose something to add to my body, I wanted it to be as strong as possible. I was already regretting that I had put away the original core that had given me the idea of how to get rid of the evil from the trolls, making it safe for Gaian to consume, maybe if I looked hard enough after the next camp I could figure out which one it was.


    While part of me wanted to go and look for it now, just to make sure I had it safely separated. I held off, searching for the original was sure to be more time consuming than I was okay with and I didn¡¯t want to end up staying another night with all of the dead bodies nearby. Leaving that task for tonight, I took my now dry clothes down from where they were hanging and packed them away. I did take the time to change and add my dirty clothes to the large pocket in the back of my pack. Happy for once it was just the normal sweat and dirt contaminating them this time rather than blood and other unmentionables. Rolling up my sleeping bag and taking down my tent I added them to my pack, putting everything together reasonably close as to how it had been packed when I came to this world.


    Snapping the now folded up kayak to the back of the pack, I thought about adding the bucket of water to the bottom. But after reconsidering the weight, I took the lid off, dumped a couple of quarts into the second bucket for Gaian to drink, and moved it to the weapon sled after twisting the lid back on. Adding my smaller sealed bucket of filtered water to the sled as I wanted to keep the weight of my pack somewhat manageable and didn¡¯t want to break the bucket if I was forced to quickly drop the pack if I was ambushed.


    With everything packed away, I took out my shovel and filled in the fire trench before rolling the grass back down over the dirt, somewhat sad I hadn¡¯t been able to keep an ember from the fire, but it had gone out when I was unconscious and I was just going to have to use another button tonight when we made camp or maybe just go old school and use a fire starter. It probably would be better to get into the practice as I was sure this wouldn¡¯t be the last time a fire went out without me being able to save a coal. It had been ages since I had tried just using a flint and steel, or a fire bow to start a fire; I was getting tired of being forced into situations by circumstance. If I kept up the practice now while I had backup supplies to cover my failures, when I needed the skills in the future I would be much more sure of them. With everything back to the way we had found it, minus the giant pile of bodies and a small pile of dry wood, I was ready to start trying to find civilization.


    While I had been packing up the camp, I had been having a conversation with the bear. We had decided we wanted to try and make a base camp in the rabbit¡¯s wood. That would give us the ability to make forays out into the world and get a better sense of our surroundings while giving us and our supplies a safe harbor from the goblins. Gaian seemed to be pretty sure he could communicate with them and work out some kind of trade. He seemed to think from my finding a rabbit in the goblin¡¯s forest they needed something that grew there and that we would be able to offer some kind of trade of our services for temporary shelter.


    Laughing to myself that my first quest on this world might be a flower gathering quest for the natives, I couldn¡¯t help but be cheered by the fact that this world was starting to resemble something of a game. If I could keep that mindset, I would just set my overarching quest to that of finding my children safe and sound, and no doubt I would eventually get there. Knowing I was probably just whistling in the dark, I let myself have the delusion for now since that was probably all that was keeping me from having a breakdown.


    There is nothing better than ignoring your eventual problems, pretending they don¡¯t exist is always much better for your state of mind, rather than dealing with them upfront. Sighing to myself, I looked at the state of the steel weapons on their sled, I remembered I wanted to get some sand from our entry point. Feeling that it was better to go now before we got farther away, I hypocritically picked up my third bucket that the bear had been using as a drinking bowl. Getting the assent that he would watch over our stuff while I went on my own fetch and gathering quest before we tried to make a deal with some rabbits.


    Putting my shovel into the bucket, I picked up a shield and one of the clubs with my left hand. Standing my undamaged spear up, I added the bucket to the end of it, resting the handle on the crosspiece. Taking a beat, I set it back down and grabbed my baggie of dried fruit, adding it to my pocket before gathering the spear back up and marching off to go back to my beginnings for the last time.


    Making my way back up and over the hill seemed to be getting easier, whether that was because I was starting to lose weight, I was getting used to all of the walking or because that green energy was improving my body, I couldn¡¯t begin to guess. Either way, I quickly made it back to the sands without breaking a sweat. Quickly shoveling the bucket half full, I debated filling it all of the way, but in the end went with leaving it where it was. I already had plenty of weight on the sleds and if we added too much, it was more than likely to rip open, with no materials to make a third one other than my tent or sleeping bag. I was reluctant to use those sources as I didn¡¯t want to take a chance at ruining my shelter.


    Heading back up the hill towards camp, I started feeling like I getting winded. It was a strange feeling because I wasn¡¯t like I was over exerting myself from carrying the extra weight. Instead, it was like something was sapping the energy from me directly. Feeling the slightest of tugs coming from the cliffs behind me, I turned around to look behind me. At first, I wasn¡¯t able to see anything, but then I looked up into the sky. Staring in disbelief, I dropped everything I was holding and turned and started running.


    I hated leaving my stuff behind, I was really coming to love that spear. But when a dragon is flying in your direction, somehow managing to suck the very energy from your body even though you are miles away, you do everything you can to get to cover and hide your ass away. Stumbling at the ridge line and tumbling over the side, I did my best to quickly regain my feet with minimum losses to my momentum. Screaming down the hill to my furry friend, I pointed and yelled for him to make for the rabbit woods. While it might seem counterintuitive to head for a giant source of kindling while there is a dragon coming at you, I could only think that staying out in the open would be worse.


    The size of that flying fortress was insane, I could tell it was miles away still but it was already starting to fill my view. I don¡¯t know what hollywood was smoking when they made movies, but they didn¡¯t even come close to doing that monstrosity justice. Looking more eastern than the dragons of the western variety, it had to be magic that was keeping it aloft, as the undulating body had no wings to carry it through the air. A vibrant green, it seemed to have every shade of that particular color flashing through its scales.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    I wasn¡¯t so hubristic as to think it was coming for me personally, but when something is so big, it literally makes you feel like the term ant-sized is being generous in your favor, you just don¡¯t want to give it the chance to crush you out of existence. Taking a second to look back over my shoulder while my feet continued their insane pace, it had to be high up in the sky as I could still see it in the air without the hillside blocking it from view. Hoping I had the ten minutes I was going to need to get to the woods that were filled with the crazy rabbits. I didn¡¯t even have any time to be worried they might decline to let us in.


    Not sure if the terror I was feeling was just the primal urge any creature feels when they come up against a power so much greater than them or if instead, it was a side effect that was coming from the energy the dragon was dragging out of me.


    Looking ahead at the bear trying to drag my pack along with him, I screamed down at him to leave it. Looking back at me, the apex predator of the lower forty-eight looked up into the sky to get his own first good look at something that truly defined the word apex. He then promptly dropped the pack and started galloping away himself, leaving me behind in his desire to be undercover. I was sure that he was just anxious to start to negotiate a truce with the rabbits that held dominion over the woods we were heading to.


    Not that I was going to blame him for leaving me behind if he wasn¡¯t. If the situation were reversed, you could be sure I wouldn¡¯t be sticking around for him. I am not a coward, and I would never leave a friend in the lurch. But when there is a force of nature coming for you and nothing you could do would change the outcome in the slightest. You look to your own safety first, so you can be there to help after the disaster is over.


    Sucking wind and feeling a stitch start to form in my side, I thought about dropping to the ground and trying to hide in the grass. But despite the rain from last night wetting it down and the green color of it, I had no doubt that if it was not able to conceal my presence, I would soon be a toasty bit of ash ready to help nourish the recovering grasslands.


    While a part of my brain was shouting out that something that size would have no interest in me as small as I was and I was better off just hiding. The sane part of me had no interest in testing that theory personally, that seemed like a job for a goblin volunteer. Unfortunately, all of mine had been used up in my last experiment. Not that I was hoping dragon flyovers were a regular thing here, but with my short experience in this world, it was not giving me much to go on.


    I began wondering if this was why despite my high vantage point, I hadn¡¯t seen any cities or smoke out on the plains below. When you have a lizard bigger than some storms flying overhead, I had to imagine the natives of this moon were reluctant to build giant targets to attract the attention of what I could only hope was the apex being. If that monstrosity was prey to something else, I lacked the capacity to imagine what that could possibly be. With my brain starting to take a back seat in receiving its oxygen delivery, while my legs constantly screamed for more to continue their bigger contribution to getting me to safety, I started to feel myself go lightheaded.


    Seeing the edge of the trees only a few hundred yards away, I clamped down on the hope that I might survive this encounter, not wanting to give any fuel out to the universe that might come back to bite me. Continuing to take in giant gulps of air, I could feel my left leg start aching as my partially healed bite wound, started leaking with the exertion finally getting to it. With just the final stretch ahead of me, I did my best to ignore the pain as I started falling into a running hobble that was all I could maintain.


    Aiming for the point in the brambles that Gaian had helpfully cleared a path through with his massive bulk, I couldn¡¯t help but wonder if he had just been willing to take thorns in his paws knowing he would be able to heal through it. Finally making it to the barrier of the trees that would hopefully keep me out of the flying fortress¡¯s sight, I continued on deeper not being willing to stop at the edge and look out. For possibly the first time in my life, my curiosity took a back seat to safety.


    Growing up in the Midwest, I thought nothing of standing outside to look for tornados when the sirens came. But no part of me had the urge to replicate that feat today. Tornados don¡¯t get angry at an ant¡¯s impudence and come back around to torch them. While I had no idea if the incoming monster was that petty, for once in my life I was willing to leave a question happily in the unknown category. Continuing to barrel through the undergrowth, I followed the path my friend had carved out with his bulk.


    Hearing a crashing boom behind me I felt the ground tremble and the resulting shockwave knocked me to my feet. Looking at the trees swaying above me, I realized this was as far as I was going to make it. Rolling over I looked up into the branches where I started to see the first parts of the dragon begin to fly overhead. Unsure of what it had done to cause the rolling wave of force, I continued to lay on my back and just stare up in awe at the magnificence flying above me.


    As I was looking up, I continued to feel a power being drawn out of me. This wasn¡¯t the Order or Chaos from the orb that brought me here. Nor did it have the angry feeling of the kill energy, or the softness of the green after-battle refresher that the sky gods loved to fight over with me. This especially didn¡¯t have the evil feeling of the yellow qi that had empowered the troll. This was lighter¡­ it had an airy, almost insubstantial feeling to it. Part of me was thinking that I was almost imagining the feeling of loss. Those other energies were so much more real and had substance to them that I could manipulate, this felt like the difference between losing a breath of air and having a pint of blood taken from you.


    When I had originally let go of the Order and Chaos upon finally being released onto this world I had literally fallen out of the sky with the loss. This was nothing in comparison, but at the same time, it was worrying that I hadn¡¯t encountered this energy that was being removed from me. Maybe encounter is the wrong word, noticed might be better. I had yet to notice the energy that the dragon was removing from me. Even now that I know it was being removed from me, I couldn¡¯t begin to tell you its characteristics. It had no feeling to it, no emotion that I could connect to.


    Laying there, staring up at something I don¡¯t even think a nuke could take out I started having an epiphany. If Order and Chaos are the basic building blocks of the universe, then that made sense that they had the heaviest feeling to them. Most stories had them as the primordial forces that were the original from which all others sprang. Taoism says the Dao begets one, one begets two, two begets three, and three begets all things. Now maybe that isn¡¯t exactly how this world works, but it was something to think about later.


    Continuing on with that analogy, I started wondering if the evil energy might just be an order lower than the originals. If that were true then there was probably a second energy on that level that was the opposite of it, probably holy or good and I just hadn¡¯t run across the source of it yet. Finding it strange that evil was able to empower healing, I was sure I still had yet to find all of the pieces to the puzzle.


    Unsure where the two after death energies came from, they didn¡¯t seem to fit into the puzzle. They both seemed stronger than the airiness that was being dragged out of me, but while one seemed to have an emotion to it that resembled the evil of the second tier power, it also felt different, rawer and more tortured in its desire to take over, rather than the hunger that came from the troll¡¯s core.


    Trying to clarify my thoughts to myself, I realized that the trolls seemed more like it was trying to convert me, whereas the after death energy always felt like it was trying to take me over and replace me.


    Continuing to feel the lightest power stream out of me, I started to think I should consider it the lowest tier I had encountered. I thought about trying to use my core to hold it back but only considered it for the slightest second. It wasn¡¯t something I had even known I had possessed an hour ago, so it couldn¡¯t be that important. I didn¡¯t feel like losing it was doing me any permanent harm. If I could get it back afterward then I would consider the loss of it a tax I was happy to pay to keep the attention of a flying snake, the size of a major city, away from me. I had been staring at the body of the monster flying above me for five minutes now and it still was continuing on. Only now were its hind claws starting to come into view.


    Waiting and looking on, I was somewhat sad that no more epiphanies were incoming. As the tail of it finally passed overhead and started disappearing into the distance, I rolled to my feet and continued following the trail that my friend had blazed through the undergrowth.


    Coming around a massive oak tree, I almost ran into the furry butt of the bear. I called out to him excitedly, ¡°Did you see the sight of that monster!? I can¡¯t believe something like that can actually exist, can you!?¡±


    When he didn¡¯t turn to acknowledge me, as I stepped up even with him, I saw a horde of rabbits staring back at us forming a semi-circle. Wishing for the first time that I had my spear and shield with me, I settled my hands down onto my knife and ax while asking the bear.


    ¡°Okay, so how are negotiations going?¡±

 Chapter 37

    Looking at the horde gathered in front of us, I slowly removed my hands from the weapons that they had impulsively darted to. While my first instinct is almost always to be ready for anything, having just rolled over for a dragon, I was able to keep that humble feeling for now. Yes, while they were just rabbits, there were so many purple glowing eyes in front of us, I did not doubt that while Gaian might be able to survive with his thicker hide and regen powers¡­ I wouldn¡¯t be getting out of here if a fight kicked off.


    Looking over to my brown friend, I again repeated my earlier question, ¡°So how are the negotiations going?¡± When he raised his left paw, I thought about it and tried to clarify. ¡°So have they not gotten started because of the force of nature that just departed, Or, have they already declined our offer of mutual aid?¡±


    With his raising the right paw, following it up with a left. I breathed a little easier. ¡°Can they understand me?¡± I asked the bear, getting a left paw in response.


    ¡°Damn,¡± I replied, I had hoped that I would be able to communicate our intentions to them myself. While I never would have made a good car salesman, as I was much too earnest and enjoyed being actually helpful. While the salesman¡¯s personality might have been able to have gotten a better deal from the beasts, I thought my method and personality might be more useful in getting us, well me really, out of here with skin still intact.


    ¡°Can you ask them if they mind if we sit down?¡± I asked the bear, at his growl of derision. I countered with, ¡°Hey, they hold the cards and we need their help. If we are going to be allies we have to be willing to sit and trust them. Either this will help us prove are good intentions, or they make the choice to stab us in the back and we will have learned something. Either way, we will have learned something. They have the numbers, if they want to take us out, they can accomplish the task if they are willing to take the losses. So let¡¯s bury our pride for now and ask for help.¡±


    When the bear gave me another look that indicated his unhappiness, I replied to him, ¡°Hey, you put me in charge, if you want to take over be my guest.¡± When he looked away and growled a question over to the rabbit horde, one of the ones in the back screeched out a reply. When the furry rug¡¯s butt hit the ground, I followed him down at a slightly slower pace in deference to my stiffer joints.


    As I was settling down onto the ground, I looked over at our hosts, really taking the time to examine them in more detail than I had yesterday. Grey and brown fur that would easily have blended into the undergrowth had their numbers not been so massive. They looked to be about two or three times the size of a normal earth cotton tail. Other than their size, the only alien thing that stood out about them was the glowing purple eyes that a third of the bigger ones seemed to have. Looking deeper into one of them, the glow reminded me of the purpleberries I had seen on the brambles. I wanted to ask the obvious question but held off on the off chance it would seem like I was trying to gain proprietary information.


    Looking back to my friend sitting next to me, I asked him softly, ¡°Do you think they know we are from a different planet?¡± When I got both paws up in reply, I said in return. ¡°Okay, well let¡¯s assume they don¡¯t for now and try and keep it that way. I doubt they would care, but we have no idea how the info might spread and I don¡¯t want to end up some guinea pig locked in a cage somewhere because we couldn¡¯t keep our mouths shut.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s ask about something basic first.¡± I continued, ¡°Tell them we are from far away and got separated from our companions. We have had several fights with the goblins and have come out the better every time. Ask them if they might be able to use our services in what seem to be their natural enemies.¡± At the bear¡¯s questioning soft growl, I replied quickly. ¡°What! It¡¯s all true. We are from very far away, and we had plenty of other creatures make the trip with us, and we have no idea where they are. Just ask them already!¡±


    As the growls and screeches went back and forth between the rabbits and my friend, I started getting a mild headache at the high pitch of the rabbit¡¯s screech. Similar in pitch to their terrestrial cousins, there is a reason I never minded killing them off when they got into my garden. Rabbits back home are pure evil, they have no problem eating their own young and getting into the worst kinds of fights. Between their evil red beady eyes and a voice that rivaled hellspawn, I had no idea why children thought they were cute. Plus they had an amazing taste and were great diet food.


    These rabbits I was willing to give a chance that I never would have offered to the terrestrial version for two reasons. One, while they had a similar screech to their evil cousins, the eyes that weren¡¯t glowing seemed to have a multitude of colors rather, and none of them were red, which was the calling card of several varieties back home. While the glowing purple might have been worrisome to others, to me, it just seemed like a natural adaptation to their environment.


    Two, there were easily five hundred rabbits in the clearing, with more having hopped in while the discussions were ongoing. The massive amount meant to me that these rabbits didn¡¯t devour their own young, which also was a plus in my book. Also, they had the numbers to just take the two of us out, so in the might makes right world that we were living in now, it seemed like these guys were in charge for the time being. Their being willing to negotiate with us was just bonus points in my book.


    When the bear finally raised his right paw as the cacophony finally quieted down, I breathed a sigh of relief. Pulling all of the varieties of flowers out of my pockets, I told the bear to ask them if anything was useful to the leporids. When the spokeshare sent one of the younger ones out to point to both the purple one and the bundle that had red clusters that I hadn¡¯t been able to examine before I had been knocked out the night before.


    Speaking softly to the bear I said, ¡°Ask them if we can shelter here, offer to either have us kill goblins or gather some flowers for them. Or mention we have cores we can trade as well.¡± While I didn¡¯t plan on selling the cores in my pocket, I had a whole bag back in my pack and if we were going to be hunting goblins anyway it seemed like we would still end up with plenty.


    As the symphony of discord started back up, I resisted the urge to plug my ears with my fingers. When a group of about fifty of the smaller plain eyed rabbits stepped out when the voices quieted back down, I asked the bear. ¡°Do we need to escort them or is that the number of flowers we need to gather?¡± When he raised his right paw first and followed it with my left, I cursed under my breath. Fuck escort quests, I thought to myself, not bothering to censor the thoughts that were in my head.


    ¡°Tell him okay, but that gets us a couple of days of shelter and they have to provide us with some food and water. Also if any of them wander off on their own then their deaths aren¡¯t on us.¡± At his questing growl and the rabbits bunching up, I shouted out. ¡°No, I¡¯m not saying they have to feed themselves to us. Just that they need to give us some fruits or vegetables that we can eat.¡±


    When they settled back down as the bear translated for me, I relaxed from the near disaster that the omnivore had almost caused. When another twenty-five rabbits jumped out to join the ones that had already stepped forward, I took it to mean that they had agreed to our negotiations but were upping the price.


    ¡°Tell them, that if that many want to come, we will fight the goblins for them, but we can¡¯t guarantee everyone will find what they need. Also, they get one expedition, but as soon as we draw down more heat than we can handle we¡¯re going to have to book it, and it¡¯s everyone for themselves.¡± I said, not willing to take the L if some idiot hopped off on his own and got himself killed. Escort quests were always a pain in games and I¡¯ve dealt with too many groups to think there ever would exist one without several idiots looking to make things worse, whatever the species.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    As the bear sent over my counteroffer, I waited to see if they would accept or if there would be more negotiations. When the main speaker hopped over to me, I looked at the massive specimen. It was easily twenty pounds and looked to be on the larger end of three feet long, its ears came up past my knees as I hastily stood up at his approach.


    When it bit its paw and held it out to me with several drops of blood dripping down from the self-inflicted wound, I didn¡¯t hesitate. Whipping out my knife with my left hand, I pulled it across the palm of my right paw and held my hand out to the intelligent creature. Shaking his hand, I felt something settle around my core. It felt like someone was laying the thinnest thread around the massive structure that surrounded my soul. I felt like I would have no trouble bursting through the lighter touch, but let it settle down onto me. I was unsure if the beast would be able to tell I hadn¡¯t let our treaty take hold of me and didn¡¯t want to alarm it as I had every intention of following through on my part.


    As it looked up at me with what seemed to be surprise in its deep purple eyes, it looked like it wanted to say something, but then thought better of it, and instead turned around and went back to his group, which quickly then dispersed through the surrounding woods. Leaving us with only of few of the purple-eyed variety and our group of volunteers.


    Talking to Gaian I asked him to explain that we needed to go back out and get our supplies and bring them back. Telling him to let them know that we would need to execute our raid tomorrow and to ask what time would be best to depart, dawn, noon, or evening. When the bear raised his right paw indicating dawn, I grimaced. But if that¡¯s what the clients wanted then that¡¯s what they were going to get.


    Speaking up again, I said. ¡°Ask about the dragon, tell them our part of the world sees the creatures once in a generation, and ask them how often the flyovers tend to happen here.¡±


    When the rest of the normal rabbits disappeared following their friends I took it as an assent that the raid would be fine happening tomorrow, turning to walk out of the woods with the bear to retrieve our (my) belongings we played twenty questions as I tried to decipher what he had found out about the dragon.


    ¡°What do you mean you don¡¯t know what a year is?¡± I exclaimed, ¡°Every time it gets cold and snows, that¡¯s a year.¡± As he growled back to me, I remembered we had been taken from the coast and the milder weather meant that he probably didn¡¯t even hibernate, I thought about it some more and came up with a better explanation.


    ¡°You know how every once in a while you find baby whales that wash up on the beach?¡± At his question again, ¡°The giant fish that end up on the beach that are as big as twenty sea lions.¡± When he finally seemed to get it, I said. ¡°Well every time you find the babies on the beach, that is the whales migrating in the spring, so that would be a year.¡±


    Several more back and forths later we finally agreed that the dragon appears overhead about once every five years, and we had just been horribly unlucky about the timing. With several more back and forths, I was able to find out that it had been due and didn¡¯t seem to have been summoned by our arrival. Also, there was only one of the creatures on the moon. I was somewhat surprised that the rabbits knew that they were on the moon and were so well versed in the greater dynamics of the surrounding world, but just took it at face value for now.


    On the other hand, when that flying disaster is the epitome of the worst case scenario, I can only imagine that everything on this moon tried to find out everything they could about it. Speaking of which, I asked the bear. ¡°Did you feel the dragon pulling any energy out of you?¡± I didn¡¯t have a lot of hope for a positive answer as the only energy the bear had been able to identify so far was the hell energy from the troll core. So when he raised his paw I almost missed my step and nearly fell over in shock.


    ¡°Wait, you actually felt that? What can you tell me about it, that is the first time I have noticed it since the ball closed on us back on Terra?¡±


    As he growled back at me, another round of twenty questions started. As we approached the border of the trees and grass, I felt that I was starting to gain some understanding from him. He didn¡¯t think it was anything like the primal energies I had dealt with. He seemed to indicate it was what he used to power his healing as the dragon had left him mostly drained.


    He hadn¡¯t been weakened physically, but he had been brought down to a bare minimum of the energy he needed to keep his regeneration going. Stepping out of the woods, I looked in the direction of our camp to see a hazy cloud of smoke coming from that general area. Even though there wasn¡¯t any definite proof that the camp was gone yet, with my luck, I wasn¡¯t holding out much hope. I could only conclude that something from the area had angered the dragon. Despite the massive destruction, I had no doubt that it had been magnanimous in its judgment, only sending out enough flames to destroy a couple of acres instead of laying waste to the entire valley. I could only be thankful for the rain the day before, the water from the sky no doubt being all that kept the fire from spreading. I didn¡¯t have much hope that our stuff was still going to be there, but the supplies were too valuable to us, not to take the time and head back to make sure.


    As we continued our way back to the ruined campsite, I went back to questioning the bear about the energy that had been dragged out of him. Fortunately, we had a long walk ahead of us, because with my not being able to understand his growls, confirming the smallest bits of information seemed to take forever.


    So far I had found out that the weakest energy that I had encountered in our time on this moon, was what the bear used to power his spells. He didn¡¯t think it affected him in any other way, the only thing that had happened when he had been drained was he had gotten some pain in his head. When I asked if that was where he felt his core was located, wondering if he was more like the shaman rather than the troll, he gave me the negative signal. After more questions, I was able to find out that he felt that his core was located in his heart area just like my own.


    The energy seemed to be something that was running through him and when he sent it to his core it collected the healing into it and he was then able to send it out. He wasn¡¯t able to cast it out past his body, but he had found he had some leeway, and that¡¯s why he had been licking my leg. Realizing he had the equivalent of a healing touch, I was more grateful I had left the better core to the bear rather than trying to take it myself. If the other component to the spell was touch, I doubted it would be very useful to me if I was trying to stay a range fighter.


    As we came up to the ruins of where our camp was located, we could feel the heat still coming up from the ground. Looking at the crater that formed the center of the disaster zone, I concluded that the impact of whatever the flying god sent down was what had caused the shockwave that knocked me over.


    Looking around it seemed like everything was vaporized, with the crater as deep as it was and the surrounding splash of whatever had it burning the grass back several acres, I couldn¡¯t even use the path I had made to triangulate whether the impact had been the destruction had been the pile of troll bodies or our off world equipment.


    Heading up the mountainside to collect the small bit of stuff I had dropped, I continued to question Gaian while going over in my mind the events. Hindsight was working in overdrive, I couldn¡¯t tell if I had been lucky or unlucky. If I hadn¡¯t gone for the sand would we have been closer to the rabbit wood and have been able to make it there with our stuff? Or would we not have noticed the dragon until too late with the hills in the way and would I have been off to see what happens in death and finally find out what had happened to my children?


    Unsure which answer would have made me happier, I could feel that I regretted the loss of my things, but still being raw from missing my family, I couldn¡¯t bring myself to care. Climbing to the point where I had dropped my burden, I thought about dumping the sand, but if I was going to be liberating more weapons from the goblins on the morrow, I was probably going to need it to repair the loot.


    Heading back down the hill with my spear over my shoulder I could feel the bear leaning in to me. Thankful for the encouragement, I spent the hour walking back to the woods telling him stories about my kid¡¯s childhood. Grateful for the bear¡¯s ability to listen and understand, I asked him if he had any cubs of his own. When he indicated that he had a couple, I asked him if he wished they were here or back on earth. When he indicated Earth, I agreed with him. I hadn¡¯t raised my kids to be hard enough for what looked to be necessary to survive on this planet. I thought to myself. I wasn¡¯t sure I had been raised hard enough either¡­


    But at least I knew that I might be missing what it takes. Sometimes the knowing of what you lack, is all you need to make the gains necessary to get you through your trials until you find that you have grown what you needed inside of you.

 Chapter 38

    By the time we made it back down the hill and to the Rabbit Woods, as I had so eloquently named it in my head, the sky was already starting to turn dark. My shoulder was starting to get sore from the weight of the bucket dragging on the spear, but I kept it to myself. As we had been walking down the hill, Gaian had kept bumping up against my side, not in a hard way like he was trying to shove me around. More like he was trying to just be there for me, I¡¯m sure as a bear he is used to being without, but with his newfound intelligence, I¡¯m guessing he is recognizing that humans don¡¯t have it so easy. I think he is doing his best to comfort me while doing his best to not make it obvious, so as to let me have my pride. I appreciated the gesture, while I was never one to care about face, I could appreciate the fact that he wanted to look out for me.


    Finally, we arrive back at the edge of the woods, and there is one of the regular rabbits standing guard. Apparently, it was waiting for us and as we crossed into the woods, it began to hop along in front of us. Taking this to be our escort we began to follow him along. As we do so, I can hear a crowd of rabbits hopping along the undergrowth around us. The one in front seems to have been the one to have drawn the short straw and I¡¯m guessing he is supposed to be the sacrificial lamb for them, on the off chance that we had been trying to sucker them. Smiling at their attempt to be subtle, I make no indication that I am aware of the horde of rabbits following around us unseen.


    The bunny leads us farther into the woods to a giant Oak tree on the edge of a meadow. At the base of the oak are several tunnels, none of them are big enough for us to actually try to go into. But it seems that while we were gone, the rabbits had been busy trying to fulfill their part of the bargain.


    They had a log that was filled with crystal clear water in the hollow of its center. There are two massive beds of grass for us to lay on, and in another log, there are a variety of root vegetables and some fruits that look to be an analog of apples or pears. The ground that everything is lying on seems to be a tough turf that the rabbits had nibbled close enough to the ground so that it resembles a putting green.


    I was sure that this had all been done recently as most rabbit warrens are normally hidden. Guessing that they had abandoned this one to us, I was nonetheless grateful for the hospitality. Setting my stuff down next to the log, I laid out the spear and shield next to each other, as they would be the first thing I was going for if I was started awake at night. I set the club down next to the spear to grab instead, for if the whole setup was actually a double cross by the little rodents. I didn¡¯t think so, but as the stick was twice as long as my knife and ax; it was almost certainly going to be my weapon of second choice for the foreseeable future.


    Dumping the sand out in a pile next to the bed of grass I was claiming for myself, I carefully dipped the bucket into the water, swirling the little bit of water I had gotten into it, I gave it a good rinse and dumped it off to the side, before refilling it two thirds of the way full. I thought about trying to make a fire to boil it for safety, but was having trouble bringing myself to care at this point.


    I was trying to be okay with the fact that all of my stuff had been destroyed, but the ups and downs were getting hard to handle. As Gaian came over and nosed me in the side and put his head up into my hand, I started scratching his ears and when he lay down, I sat down next to him and leaned against his warm bulk. Closing my eyes I continued to scratch his ears while I just breathed and tried to process. I had been running nonstop since getting here. Hell the last time I had fallen asleep, I had to be knocked out by a flower for heaven¡¯s sake.


    I had been pretending that I was okay because that is what I knew to do when things got tough. When the world is crashing down on you, all you can do is shove your feelings to the side and put one foot in front of the other, keep going because if you stop that is when the weight gets too much to bear. When you work in a kitchen, sometimes you get asked to work a lot of hours, the longest shift I have ever worked has been twenty-nine hours straight. I had been asked many times back on earth, how you can do something like that, and I have always had two answers. One, be young. Two, don¡¯t stop moving, the second you stop is when you stiffen up and you can¡¯t get started again.


    I don¡¯t have youth going for me anymore and the tank was starting to run dry so I was going to have to start processing my feelings and coming up with an actual plan. It is all well and good to say I want to find my kids, but just because this is a moon we are on doesn¡¯t mean I have a small area to search from and that is even if they were transported here in the first place. What if they weren¡¯t taken, what am I going to do with my life then? I liked to pretend that I was achieving Serenity or failing that, that I had been having the courage to continue on in the face of constant adversity. Realizing I was not okay and running myself so ragged was bound to end up with my having a breakdown, I decided to see if we could get an additional day before the raid on the goblin wood.


    Asking Gaian to talk to our hosts, our rabbit concierge bounded off, not having the authority to agree to it on his own. While he was gone, I took off my boots and socks. Wiggling my toes in the air to help them dry off, I undid the laces and pulled the tongue of the boots out as far as it would go to help them dry while laying my socks out to dry as well. I was sure I would be missing all of the extra pairs I had packed shortly. Hopefully, the bear¡¯s healing spell worked on blistery feet.


    When he came bounding back and screeched a couple of quick sounds out before jumping quickly back to the edge of the glen, I knew before the bear had even raised his left paw that the answer was no. Sighing softly I found I actually wasn¡¯t that disappointed. It made sense from their point of view, they had two dangerous predators in their territory. While we hadn¡¯t made any moves against them, neither had we done anything to help them yet. Already they had provided some payment before collecting anything on their part. While I would have liked a day to gather myself I was going to just have to do my best to keep putting one foot in front of the other for a little while longer.


    Taking a deep drink from the bucket, it was so cool and fresh, that I wondered if it had been created by magic instead of just being prepared in some way by them. Not wanting to seem to pry more, after already having one request denied, I didn¡¯t want them to get in the habit of saying no to me. Also, the thought of drinking magic water was so much more palatable than the alternative, on second thought maybe I really didn¡¯t want to know how it had got there for now.


    Picking up one of the fruits, I bit into it. As the juice sprayed out of the flesh into my mouth, it quickly went through a range of flavors, first I was hit with a clean fresh feeling, before having that almost sticky sweetness hit my tongue. After that, it seemed to have waves that almost went from between sour and bitter, and then back to sweet. As I chewed the bite I had and felt the waves of taste going through me I pulled it back and saw that the meat of the fruit had purple cast to it, almost like a plum. Continuing to chew and swallow, I found that the aftertaste landed on a light sweetness instead of the overpowering taste I got while chewing.


    Picking a second one up, I held it out in my palm for Gaian to take a bite of. As he sneezed it out, I laughed a little as he seemed to dart over to the log of water to rinse the taste out of his mouth. Happy to take the fruits for myself and leave him to the tubers as it meant I wouldn¡¯t have to start a fire tonight. I picked up another couple to eat, setting them down next to the bucket, I walked off to the woodline to find a small stick. Taking my time in my hunt, I was looking for something straight and about half of an inch thick, while being between one and two feet long. Finally finding one that I thought would be suitable, I walked back to my seat, stopping to grab some of the root vegetables and toss them over to the bear who had laid back down.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Picking up my club, I sat down leaning my back against the bear. Pulling my knife out I tapered one end of my chosen stick to a point, before putting a small notch in the middle of the club handle. Dribbling some sand onto the notch, I took a small mouthful of water and swallowing most of it, spit onto the sand to wet it. After everything was finally ready, I started spinning the stick in my hands like I was trying to start a fire. Continually adding more sand and water so as to not actually start a fire, I eventually managed to drill a hole through the handle of the club.


    Running the sand covered stick around all of the edges of the hole, I took off most of the burs and smoothed it out as best I could. While not as pretty as if I would have used specialized tools back home, it wasn¡¯t a bad job for the conditions and it was serviceable, which was all that really mattered in the end.


    Reaching into my pocket for the small bit of paracord that I hadn¡¯t returned to my pack, I pushed it through the hole and tied it off so I ended up with a loop of cord I could tuck through my belt so it was more accessible in tomorrow¡¯s fight. Also if I needed to wield it in the event I had lost my spear tomorrow which judging by the past fights seemed more likely than not, I could leave it around my wrists for both better strikes and security.


    For once, my clothes weren¡¯t filthy and covered in blood and dirt, so I held off washing them for the moment and continued to eat the fruit that the rabbits had provided while occasionally washing it down with sips of water from the bucket. Gaian had no problem finishing off the tubers, and when I asked if he thought we should request more, he held his left paw. Whether it was because he was full or just didn¡¯t want to trouble our hosts, I didn¡¯t press


    Running out of tasks to keep me busy, I thought about trying to bring out one of the three cores I had left and trying to absorb one, but in the end, decided against it. While gaining a healing power might have been useful, at the end of the day these were only from basic goblins, and if I was only going to get one ability, I might want to wait until I could trade for something better or get more information. More and more I was beginning to wonder if the way I had formed my core on the trip here might have been a mistake.


    Pulling out my small baggie of dried fruit, the sole food I had left for earth, I really should keep it for a rainy day. But I had already tried to save so much and look what had happened. Maybe I need to stop trying so hard to make the perfect plan and just live a little. So I shook the bag to mix it up and then poured a small handful out onto my palm for the bear. As he licked up the tropical fruit I sat up straighter and put myself into a lotus position. I thought about trying to enter my core again but realized all I was doing was trying to continue pushing off dealing with my feelings and emotions.


    I have been running myself forward in an effort not to deal, and I couldn¡¯t hope to keep going. Eventually, I was going to run out of steam, and then I would stumble or fall. And if I did either of those two things in front of the goblins tomorrow, it was likely that I would either end up with more bites taken from me or I would literally be in the hot seat.


    Breathing in and out I did my best to just process and let everything flow through me. I had to keep thinking about how happy I was that my children weren¡¯t here with me. Despite the amazing things I was experiencing, I had been fed dinner by rabbits with glowing purple eyes for god¡¯s sake. If I thought my daughter wouldn¡¯t have loved that I was just trying to fool myself. But the counterpoint to that was the goblins, they had been just fine before we had arrived. And while I was sure they might be fine with using us for now, I was also sure that the rabbits wouldn¡¯t be willing to support us full time.


    Also, I wanted answers, I wasn¡¯t delusional enough to think that I might be sent home. It was looking more and more like whatever brought me here was some kind of cosmic accident rather than something bringing me here to fulfill some purpose. The only chance I had of seeing them again was if they were brought here as well, and wishing for that seemed like an incredibly selfish thing to impose on them. But some part of me couldn¡¯t help but want that.


    How do you reconcile those conflicting feelings? I was almost certainly never going to be able to leave this moon. Think about how few people have traveled beyond the borders of our own planet, and their we were at the top of the food chain. Here there be dragons! Not the silly hollywood dragons either. These were dragons the size of mountains, Not a mountain, Mountainssss plural. I couldn¡¯t even begin to conceive how it had been able to limit the damage it had rained down to the size of a city block. Something that would be like a missile barrage for us humans was for that monster like spitting and only managing to take out a single ant in the middle of a hill broiling over with them.


    Thinking about it some more I wondered why it had even bothered with restraining itself. Was it an energy limit, or was instead the god-like being showing its magnanimous restraint? I hated not knowing the answers to important questions, not having access to the internet to swiftly look something up was really starting to cause my brain to itch.


    No, breathe. I told myself, You have to deal with your feelings, you can¡¯t just keep burying them in puzzles hoping they go away. It¡¯s okay to be sad, it¡¯s okay to be angry. Feel your feelings, let them wash over you. This is neither going to be easy nor quick. You aren¡¯t going to be better tomorrow, this will come up many times, loss doesn¡¯t go away, it just dulls with time. Feel your losses and grieve. Then get up tomorrow and kill some goblins and protect some rabbits. It¡¯s not the healthiest way to deal but it is the only way you¡¯ve got for now. As I finished my monologue to myself in my head, I continued to breathe slowly, in and out while leaning back into the warmth of the bear.


    Closing my eyes I let myself go back in my thoughts to relive experiences with my kids until I finally drifted off to sleep, this time with drier cheeks.


    <hr>


    Waking up in the pre-dawn of my fifth day on this moon, I couldn¡¯t believe that it had only been five days. It seemed like way too short of a time for everything that had happened to me. Getting up off of the bear I was grateful for the warmth he had shared with me. I actually had managed to sleep through the night and was feeling well rested for once. Part of me was wondering if I still had a little bit of the pollen from that purple flower in my system, but either way, I was willing to take whatever wins I could get. As the light of the planet started filtering its way down through the trees, I pulled out my wallet to look at the three pictures I still had of my kids. While I looked down at their smiling faces, I resolved to always keep the leather container on me, I never wanted to wake up in this world without some kind of reminder of what I had to search for. Until I had better answers on what had happened to the rest of Terra, I would pretend they were alive, at least in part of my heart.


    Putting them away for now I secured them back into my thigh pocket and pulled my socks and boots back on, tightening the laces securely. Nudging the bear awake, I said. ¡°Hey, call our liason over.¡±


    A few seconds after he sent a growl out into the woods around us, a bunny came hopping up. Whether it was the same one from the night before or it was a different one, I wasn¡¯t going to pretend I could tell the difference. With the bear as my translator, decided to adjust the plan a little to get us some more bargaining power.


    ¡°Are you going with us on this raid later?¡± I asked. When Gaian raised his right paw, I tapped the bucket beside me and offered our help. ¡°Well the deal your boss made with us was for us to escort you and protect you and your friends from the goblins. So if you and some of your friends want to bring back extra, I can offer you the use of the bucket if you split your take with us.¡±


    When the rabbit started to get indignant and turn away, I spoke back up again. ¡°If you don¡¯t agree, then we¡¯ll just ask others that are going on the raid with us, I am sure eventually one will see the wisdom in making the deal, you aren¡¯t losing out on anything, you are gaining. It¡¯s only right you share a little bit with the person sharing the means with you.¡± As it paused to reconsider, it finally sent back a screech of assent. ¡°Good,¡± I said. ¡°Let¡¯s go gather up your friends and hop along to visit our neighbors for breakfast.¡± Snatching up one of the remaining fruits, I gave lie to my words, after finishing it off, I drained the bucket from the remaining water.


    Pulling the bear spray off my belt, I left it in the sand with my shovel. I didn¡¯t think it would be of any use against the goblins and going on multiple marches where we might have to run for our lives, every ounce might make a difference in the end. Finding my kitchen tweezers in my pocket, I wondered how I had missed them before, taking them out, I added them to the pile of sand the spray was sitting on. Looping the club around my belt, I checked to make sure the knife and ax weren¡¯t caching on anything before picking up my shield and spear. I looped the now empty bucket around the end of the spear again. With Gaian following along behind me, I let the rabbit lead us to where his fellow bunnies were gathering for their foray.

 Chapter 39

    Following our guide, we were soon led to their border of the woods that was facing our mutual friends. Seventy-four rabbits were bouncing here and there, nibbling at the grass while waiting for us. I thought about counting them to make sure that they weren¡¯t trying to add any, but quickly realized the thought was ridiculous as I had no good way to tell them apart.


    As we started walking in the direction of the Goblin Wood, God I am amazing at naming things, I thought to myself. We were followed by around fifteen of the larger purple-eyed hares. Thinking at first it might have been a double cross, I spoke up. ¡°Hey, Gaian, do you know what that is all about?¡± Waving my spear I indicated our followers.


    When he grunted in response, it took a couple of more questions to indicate that yes, he did know. They were just back up in case the goblins killed us. A grunt meant yes, and a whine meant no if his paws were busy, like in the case of walking to go invade a forest filled with horrifying monsters while protecting a bunch of enlarged rabbits. I refuse to use the word adorable to describe the fuzzy little rodents.


    Feeling slightly insulted at the need for backup as so far we had never even tried to take on the rabid monsters with both of us in top shape, and yet every time we had pulled off the W. On the other hand, the rabbits had no idea of our record, and in every fight I had picked so far I had made sure the odds were in my favor. Here we were playing King of the Hill, with civies to defend and we had no idea what the goblins might be sending out to greet us. Speaking of which¡­


    ¡°Hey, buddy, if you see any goblins riding giant pigs, you better let me take the lead on them. Also any metal spears like this,¡± I tapped my own for an example. ¡°You should probably leave it to me.¡± When he grunted again, I continued, ¡°If you can take care of the smaller rabble and any archers they might have, I think that might be the best division of resources.¡±


    Looking over to the rabbit that was hopping next to me, I hoped it was the one I made our deal with earlier. With the bear translating, I asked him if he had any friends in mind to share our deal with. When the bear indicated no, I chuckled, but replied. ¡°Do you think that you can fill it up, I don¡¯t want to leave anything behind because you are overestimating yourself.¡± When he still refused to go get any of his friends, I left it alone for now.


    As we continued on, I soon noticed we weren¡¯t taking the most direct route, instead, we were detouring more to the east instead of going straight south to the closest parts that I had been to before. Trying to keep everything straight in my head, I looked to the west, we were almost dead even with where the former camp was still smoldering higher on the hillside. Trying to picture the top-down view in my head, I looked farther into the valley to the east to see MT. Tai in all of its glory. Clouds surrounded the middle of it as the magnificent mountain reached out to touch the stars.


    If the ball we had come in on was the second to the top floor, followed by a step up to the ridge, then there were perhaps three or four steps down to reach the camp. From there if you were looking straight east, the rabbit woods were another two steps down and to the north. While the goblins held the bigger woods that seemed to cross some of the levels of hills while being to the south. We were continuing lower into the valley to the east instead of heading straight across the rolling hills.


    As we continued going lower into the valley, I looked farther south at the river far in the distance past the Goblin Wood. Asking the bear to see if the rabbits had any idea what might be there, he whined back a no. It was a long shot, but I hated not asking questions and risking looking stupid later because I was scared to ask. I would always take the path of an inquisitive idiot rather than look foolish after the fact.


    Thinking along those lines, I asked if there were any other unnatural disasters roaming around like the dragon from yesterday. As the rabbit let out a litany of soft screeches, I realized I might not be asking the best source, as a prey creature probably had a lot more fears than Gaian and I did.


    Continuing to make our way past the leading edge of the woods, I saw that the planet was starting to reach into the sky as the world started lighting up in a true dawn. Continuing on for close to another thirty minutes, I started to realize that the size of the woods that the goblins held was much bigger than I had originally thought. It wasn¡¯t even close to the size of the park that the rabbits maintained. This was much more likely to be a state park back home or perhaps a large nature reserve. Rather than be discouraged I was actually happier when I saw it. Hopefully, that meant that any conflict that we might cause wouldn¡¯t be able to summon the entirety of the goblin forces as they no doubt needed to keep patrols to the other sides to ward off any other enemies.


    ¡°Are we going this far out of the way so we run into fewer goblins, or is there a specific part of the woods you guys need to get to?¡± I asked our new friend to confirm my thinking. When he indicated the latter, I was somewhat disappointed. Regretting the lack of reliable communication wasn¡¯t able to let us know what might be waiting for us, I continued going over in my mind how I might ask about what kind or how many goblins might be waiting for us.


    I doubted that they were leading us into an ambush, as there were only two of us and I had already told them we weren¡¯t making any suicidal last stands for them. While I knew that they would be able to beat us in a sprint, in the long run, we would be able to run them down. Also, I had been picking up some decent size rocks here and there and filling my pockets. So far I had found a good twenty or so that had enough heft to give me more range on whatever goblins we found. And if I needed to take some revenge on some of the rabbits for betraying us, then I would no doubt be inviting some of them along to the pot with me.


    As we approached closer to the woods ahead, I quickly noticed that the rest of the rabbits that had been hopping ahead and nibbling on the grass here and there were now falling behind us, leaving me alone with our guide. It wasn¡¯t that I could see them with how tall the grass was, but I wasn¡¯t hearing anything in front of us anymore. Asking Gaian if he was worried about betrayal, he stopped and raised a paw to indicate no.


    Taking that to mean I should keep my mouth shut and not alert any goblins that might be around, I lowered my spear to keep the point underneath the waving grass so it wouldn¡¯t catch the light and signal our arrival. As we made our way into the mostly pine woods, I started noticing some oaks scattered around, I wondered if they were brought into drop acorns for the hogs to eat or if I was just making too much of things and this was just how this forest had grown together.


    Now that we were out of the taller grass I started seeing bunches of rabbits coming up from behind us. Heading deeper into the woods with our guide out in front, I kept an ear out for any incoming enemies, happy that every time I had encountered them the gibbering creatures had never managed to keep their mouths shut. I was counting on their incessant chattering to alert us when we might be in danger of running into a patrol.


    Continuing on I soon heard something ahead, motioning for the bear to stay where he was, I moved on ahead and found a pine to hide in. As the group came into sight I saw that it was nearly identical to the ones I had let go before. Two goblins were on hogs, but this group had six of the small variety of goblins with wooden spears surrounding them. They looked like they were going to be passing right by the tree I was hiding in. I had a little bit of time until they got to me so I could have retreated. But I thought a better idea would be to stay here and try and take out one of the calvary before high tailing it back to my friend. If I could leave them with only one of the three-hundred pound beasts to follow along behind I could hopefully set my spear and take it out, leaving the bear to mop up the small fry.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    As they grew closer I was really starting to regret my impulsiveness. Having to face down a charging hog with two massive tusks that looked like they would absolutely destroy my belly was completely different than having to take on the toddler-sized goblins I had been taking care of business with before.


    Too late to back out, all I could do was go with my previous plan and hope for the best¡­ and that I didn¡¯t have a sudden reversal in courage at having to face something more my size. As they drew within ten feet of the tree, I decided I wanted a better grip on my spear. So I set down my shield to hold my stick, which was looking more and more inadequate by the minute, in both hands. As the lead goblins went by and the riders started to pass, I charged out of the heavy low branches, closing my eyes as I couldn¡¯t risk raising my arms to protect them with my already being lined up on my target.


    When the branches stopped slapping against my face I opened them back up to see that I was slightly off where I wanted to be. With my spear¡¯s blade perpendicular to the ground, so that it could slide between the rips of the pig easier, I shifted back to where I thought its heart would be. As the spear blade started driving through the tough hide, I felt it just scrape by one of the bones that made up the ribcage. Continuing to drive forward until the crosspiece started to hit into the tough hide of the pig¡¯s side, I could hear as the pig let out an awful scream letting me know I had struck something vital. Not taking the time to wait and see what their response was going to be, I pulled the blade back out and started booking it for safety. Whiping my spear around to knock down the two that appeared in front of me, I was careful to make sure that the blade wouldn¡¯t get caught on anything to slow me down.


    As I started running to get to my much bigger backup, I began to hear the hoofs of the other pig pounding into the soft ground that was covered in pine needles, digging up the soft turf, much faster off the mark than I had been hoping. With nothing in front of me for several yards, I angled for a tree to my right, deciding I wasn¡¯t going to be able to make a straight shot for safety. Instead, I was going to have to try and be more agile than the charging train behind me.


    Aiming straight for the pine in front of me, I dodged back to the left at the last second, hoping that the pig would get tangled in its branches. From the crashing coming behind me, it sounded like I had succeeded, But as a spear came flying in at me punching into my back, I remembered that there was more to worry about than the pig. Luckily the wooden stick only seemed to have managed to bruise me. Shoving my spear haft into the ground to maintain balance, I used it to push off and continue running back to my allies.


    Well, ally as I doubted the rabbits planned on fighting at all. Hearing the pounding hoofbeats coming at me again, I didn¡¯t see any handy trees to use to brush off. Realizing I was going to have to start the second part of my plan early, I turned and lowered the spear, bracing the back of it with my foot. Looking up, it seemed that the tree had knocked the rider from his steed, but apparently, the mount was pissed that I killed his friend and had no problem continuing on without the encouragement of his rider. Aiming the tip for the center of mass knowing that the boar¡¯s pore eyesight was unlikely to see the blade while being focused on me. I remembered too late that medieval hunters normally used a tree to brace the spear. As the blade of my spear drove into the hog¡¯s chest up to the boar stop, I found out why the hard way as the end in the ground whipped up and slammed into my chest.


    Trying to roll with the blow, I was mostly unsuccessful as I felt that at least two of my ribs on my right side were cracked when I slammed back down into the soft ground. Using the adrenaline that was pounding through me, I tried to use my momentum to continue rolling despite the pain. As I heard the hoofs pound past my head, only missing by a few short feet, I was horrified to think I might not have struck true. Fortunately, it seemed as if I was mistaken as I saw the beast fall to his side rather than make the turn to gut me with his tusks.


    Happy that I had managed to accomplish my part of the fight, I tried levering myself up to my feet to retreat to safety. But when my arms gave out on me from the sharp pain I was feeling in my chest, I instead fell to the floor of the woods to let my cheek rest on the soft pine needle carpet. As I started to hear the screams of the goblins getting closer, I began to feel the ground start to shake again, thinking I hadn¡¯t managed to end the hog threat after all, I again tried to lever myself up to my feet to complete the task that was assigned to me. Feeling the pounding getting closer I tried to blink the tears that were filling my eyes so that I could aim my spear at the coming threat.


    When it was only a few yards away, I managed to clear my eyes enough to see the pig still lying on the ground ahead of me. As my pain numbed mind finally realized what was happening, I managed to drop my spear just in time, following it to the ground myself without the sturdy haft to support me. I finally figured out that the noise I had been hearing had been my friend coming to the rescue. Judging from the screams I started hearing behind me, the bear was making short work of the rest of the goblins.


    Laying my head back down on the ground, I continued to try to breathe shallowly through the pain. Wishing we had gone over the specifics of his healing spell, I had no idea if it would be able to work on my ribs or how long it might take. Pushing down onto the ground, I did my best to get to my knees, then with a struggle, I managed to eventually stand back up and turn around to see the bear chasing the last of the fleeing goblins down.


    Turning and heading to the downed hog, I could see it still pawing weakly at the ground. Falling into it more than actually making a decent strike, I ended the poor beast¡¯s suffering, it wasn¡¯t his fault that he had been born on a goblin farm. Continuing to try to walk past it, I started to pull the spear out as I went but ended up falling to my knees as a sharp spike of pain went shooting up my right side. Rather than trying to get back up, I managed to drag out the blade and use the pole of the spear to help me get back to my feet. Leaning on my weapon heavily, I started using it as a cane to help me walk over to the bear that was lumbering back toward me.


    After taking a couple of steps, I found myself falling to the ground as the expected death energy started streaming into me. I gave up trying to stand, I knew I wouldn¡¯t be able to make it to collect any of the after death special as I was sure the sky gods would have it all sucked up by the time I was feeling better. So I decided to save myself the pain and just wait for the bear to arrive. Lifting up my shirt to give him access to treat me, I saw that I was already starting to form a massive bruise. As he started licking my side, I noticed immediately that the pain started to go away. By the time he finished, the swelling had mostly retreated and I was only feeling slightly sore. When I asked him if he was out of mana or if his spell had just stopped working, he used his paws to indicate it was the second one.


    Frowning, I wished he was able to provide more info, but I couldn¡¯t think of a good way to find out if he was only able to heal a specific amount of damage, certain types, or if there was any cooldown to the healing. But wishing for the impossible was just going to be a waste of time and just leave me frustrated so I did my best to leave the ungrateful thoughts out of my head and get back into the game. With most of my mobility back, I went to the tree where I had left the shield and bucket and we continued following our guide. I kept a sharp ear out for any more patrols, hoping we would arrive at our destination soon.


    Thinking back to the dead hogs we had left behind, I wondered about the ethics of eating them,, were they normal creatures like the fish I had harvested that had made the trip over from Earth with me? Or, were they on the level of my friendly bear and the rabbits? If they were on that level were they off limits, or was it okay to eat them. Wondering if wanting to eat them was dropping me down to the level of the goblins, I was quick to cut off those lines of thoughts as I was not okay with trying to go vegan.


    But I couldn¡¯t help myself, continuing on with that ethical dilemma, I thought about how I was going to have to adjust to this new world where there might be creatures that used magic. Going over it in my head, I thought about the line I might draw and decided to simplify it. I would only dine on the creatures that attacked me. If they treated me as a friend I would return the favor, and if they tried to dine on me then I would dine on them in turn. Bumping into the bear in front of me, I realized we had finally found our destination, and it was just a short distance away. Looking out into the wildflower covered glade, it was surprisingly clear of goblins. Wondering why and suspecting some kind of trap, I gestured to our guide saying, ¡°Okay, well we got you here, you go get your treasures and we¡¯ll stand guard here.¡±

 Chapter 40

    As the horde of rabbits started diving into the meadow to plunder it, I brought the bucket closer to the edge to help my guy out. I watched them, expecting them to dive into the center for the biggest flowers, but instead, they stayed out towards the periphery and nibbled at the edges. Each rabbit seemed to dash in, take a flower of their choice, and then dash back out to the woods, where they would leave their plunder in an individual pile while returning for more. I immediately started feeling an itch in the back of my head.


    I love a good puzzle or mystery and I had a feeling that there had to be something going on here that was causing so many of these flowers which two groups of natives seemed to find value in. The first thought that seemed obvious to me was that it was something dangerous, the center of the glade was practically overgrown with specimens that were ten times the size of the ones that the rabbits were going after, and yet not a single one had the slightest inclination to try to even get close. Secondly, despite being in the goblin territory, there were goblins wandering around the forest looking for flowers that were growing outside of this special glade.


    This led me to the blinding obvious conclusion that there was something dangerous in the middle. And it was either off limits to the normal goblins because either too many had died here, or that the powerhouses of the tribe used this for their own special little club and kept the runts away. Most probable of all though was it was some combination of the two. Seeing my little guy dashing back and forth, filling the bucket for all he was worth, I was tempted to head towards the middle and find out. I have basically all the equipment I had left in this world, so I was probably as prepared as I was going to be. But caution won out in the end, my ribs were still hurting and I didn¡¯t think I could take on whatever the goblin elites had left to trap their goodies.


    Thinking that there still had to be a bunch of rabbits with the remainder of the tribe and if they weren¡¯t willing to take on whatever guarded the middle, then the likelihood of me coming out on top was probably not as high as my pride would have me believe. I still was having trouble believing that I was needed for this escort quest, and I kept waiting for the other shoe to fall. So until it did I was going to keep my nose out of any possible traps and stick to my job. I know that isn¡¯t the answer that is expected of someone who has been Isekaied. The correct thing to do is dive head first into the middle, outsmart the guardian, and plunder for all I was worth. No doubt there is a spacial ring just waiting for me to find, and my cowardice is going to leave it on the table. But until I had figured out even the smallest part of how magic worked in this new universe of mine, I was leaving the questionable powerups alone for now.


    I already had half of what was in the bucket coming to me and I had no idea what to use it for other than to take a long nap. Getting myself seriously killed or injured for rabbit food seemed like a foolish chance to take. Looking around it seemed like most of the rabbits had gathered up their piles, while mine was still working away at filling the bucket. Seeing them nervously stand around, I told Gaian to tell him to recruit a helper or two because we were leaving in the next couple of minutes. We had already run into one patrol and I doubted I had it in me to take out any more of the calvary, while I was sure the bear and I would have no trouble destroying the fodder goblins. They were called that for a reason. If the next patrol had an elite or two with it, the situation would no doubt be much more dire.


    Our guide started screeching indignantly at the bear, despite being outmassed by a factor of a hundred, it seemed he had no intention of leaving money on the table. Refusing to be held hostage by an overgrown rodent, and getting more and more nervous that my earlier greed was just inviting the universe to throw a bunch of complications my way I said. ¡°Blank it, we¡¯re leaving!¡±


    Picking up the bucket, I called over my shoulder to the bear, ¡°Come on Gaian, if he wants to stay he¡¯s more than welcome to it.¡± As the Ursoid didn¡¯t seem to care one way or the other, he shrugged and started following along behind me. Screeching shrilly the rabbit bounded up to me, I could only assume demanding that I stop and uphold my end of the bargain.


    Lowering my spear to emphasize my seriousness had the intended effect of shutting him up and causing him to freeze. ¡°The deal was you get half of whatever ended up in the bucket, I told you to recruit friends, but you got greedy. Well, the bucket is going back now, and if you keep calling out to the goblins, then you can be here to answer them, but the rest of us sure as blank won¡¯t be.¡± As my companion translated, I continued to walk off, in the direction I knew would leave the woods. I was making a straight shot for the nearest section of grassland as I would be much happier if we could see what was coming at us, rather than possibly walk into an ambush on enemy turf.


    I heard one abortive squeak, and looking back I saw that apparently, the bear¡¯s raised paw had cut him off before he could continue. All of the rest of the rabbits had already gathered up their piles of loot in their mouths and were following along behind me. So the one I had made a deal with made a mad dash back to the edge of the glen to harvest a few more of his own before sprinting to catch up to the rest of us. It was easier than it sounded as with my ribs, I wasn¡¯t really up for jogging anymore today.


    When he came up even with me, he started to head back the way we came, when I made no move to follow him he started to loudly demand I follow his instructions, only to once more be cut off by a lowered spear. ¡°I¡¯m getting a bad feeling,¡± I said in way of explanation. ¡°We¡¯re heading out to where we can see what is coming at us.¡± Despite his insisting, I ignored him as the heaviness in my stomach only seemed to be increasing. Picking up the pace to the fastest walk I could manage, the rabbit army had no problem keeping up, but the bear had to break into a trot to keep in front of me.


    I didn¡¯t have any rational explanation for the feeling coming from my gut, but sticking around for a single entity¡¯s greed just to prove to myself I wasn¡¯t superstitious struck me as foolish. I have had hunches pay off in the past and I have also been made to look foolish. I couldn¡¯t even begin to scratch the surface of how this world worked, so for now I had no problem letting my gut lead the way. My previous examination of the cores gave me a slight clue, but nothing I was willing to go out on a limb yet with such a small sample size. The worst thing you can ever do when trying to figure out a problem is decide you¡¯ve figured out the starting point, all that does is prejudice you to a certain line and cut out an infinite line of other possibilities.


    I very well could be making a mistake by not following the natives, my stomach was certainly screaming at me that we were going to be missing out on a huge harvest of meat if we went this way, while my inner loot hoarder kept babbling that we were leaving cores behind as well. All of that was true but I continued on my path despite all of their arguments. Yes, there was a good chance that almost being taken out by a dragon the day before was heavily influencing my choices, so what? It didn¡¯t look like this forest was going to start running out of goblins anytime soon. I had already negotiated for three more days of room and board, so if I wanted to come back again, there wasn¡¯t anything stopping me. But if I got my charges wiped out because I was being greedy, however, then that shelter and three days¡¯ grace to figure things out would no doubt dissipate.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    So much of my time in this world had just been spent reacting and trying to gather the means to be sure of my survival and how had that worked out for me? I thought to myself, On one hand, half the team had gotten a major powerup, but on the other everything that I had planned on using to ensure we had what we needed to live had been taken from us by a power I couldn¡¯t even begin to fathom. All of this was leaving me with even more questions that I continued to have no answers for. So far all I had been able to infer from the rabbit¡¯s willingness to treat with us was that there was some form of humanity on this world and they all weren¡¯t bad in the rabbit¡¯s book. While I doubted the same could be said of the greenskins.


    Ten minutes into our retreat, I was starting to feel a slight stitch start building up in my side, slowing down to a walk I began to try to breathe deep and slowly to keep myself from hyperventilating. As the rabbits and the bear also slowed down, I continued to hear a crashing coming from the woods. It seemed to be coming from an angle between where we had encountered the patrol and the glen. Not wanting to stick around for round two, I ignored the stitch and started jogging again. Quickly followed by the horde of rabbits, I soon found myself overtaken. As the horde of vegetarians flew by me, I was guessing they had no desire to help me face the music for our raid.


    It didn¡¯t seem like loyalty or group tactics were something that was a specialty of the purple-eyed variety of bunnies, or at least not at the level my escortees were at. Happy I had stated that if any abandoned the group I couldn¡¯t be held responsible for their safety, I focused on keeping up my own pace to make it out myself. With no end to the wood in sight, I realized that at the pace the sound was catching up, it wasn¡¯t looking good that I would make it. Gasping out to the bear, I said. ¡°You go ahead, I know you¡¯ve got another gear in you!¡±


    When it seemed like he wasn¡¯t inclined to listen, I told him not to be stupid while looking for another good pine to hide in. ¡°The best thing you can do for me is make a lot of noise as you make your run for it! Most likely they will follow you and have no idea I am still back here.¡±


    With some obvious unhappiness, the bear seemed to realize that by staying he was just painting a bigger target on the both of us. I held out the bucket to him in case the herbs had a fragrance that the goblins could track. Taking it in his jaw he turned and started dashing away. I knew bears were fast intellectually, but having never seen one charge at a sprint before, seeing it for the first time really hit home how outclassed I was, and lucky to have him on my team. There was no doubt in my mind that the only thing I had going for me was my supposed intelligence, and his being able to figure out magic before me was really calling that into question.


    As I heard him crashing through the woods in his sprint, I realized he was being almost obnoxiously loud most likely to help the enemy zero in on him and draw them away from me. Finding a pine to hide in, I did my best to slow my breathing down so my gasping for air wouldn¡¯t give away the game.


    As I crouched in the pine bows, with my spear leaning up against the trunk so its gleaming blade wouldn¡¯t catch the light and signal where my hiding spot was. I could feel the ground start to pound as our pursuers started to race by. The first to go by was a cluster of eight riders and their tusked mounts, followed quickly by what looked to be twenty of the bashers sans shields, no doubt they had been left behind to save weight so they could keep up with the trotting trotters.


    It took several more minutes and I thought about leaving several times, but my patience paid off in the end as eventually another group started past my hiding spot. Counting quickly, I made out ten spear goblins, an equal number of archers, three of which even had quivers. Capping off the group, there were two of the shamans, neither of which seemed to be accompanied by the sacrifice that the previous one I had encountered had used. I had to add another to the count as something I could only take to be the leader came jogging in slightly behind the rest of his fellows.


    This guy was definitely part of the ruling class of goblins, standing at what looked to be a massive four-foot eight. This monstrous example of goblin kind looked like he would make it to shoulder height on me, even without his red-plumed helmet that kept threatening to bounce off of his head. Wearing steel plated leather with only the slightest hint of rust, he carried what looked to be a well used short sword at his belt. A short sword for me, for him it would almost certainly need two hands to wield properly.


    Seeming to disdain to carry a shield, I had to wonder if it was because the greenskins considered it cowardly for their leaders, or because it was too heavy for a chase on foot. Also, I wondered why he was on foot rather than mounted. Quieting the idiot in the back of my mind who wanted me to jump out and ask him. I instead went with holding my breath, as the group lumbered past at a trot the softer magic users were clearly unhappy with.


    After they had disappeared from both sight and sound, I still decided to wait, not wanting to make the fatal mistake of leaving my spot just to look up and see my fated adversary appear out of the bush from relieving himself. Continuing to listen carefully, I waited until I was sure no more of the greenskins were coming before grabbing my spear and taking a different angle back to the grasslands. When I eventually made it to the edge, I again paused before leaving cover to be sure there was nothing close by. When I felt I was safe, I left the cover of the woods at a crouching walk, keeping my spearhead low so that nothing was above the grassline. Heading straight out into the grasslands, I kept on that heading for at least a mile before turning and aiming for the Rabbit Wood.


    <hr>


    Finally arriving back at the Rabbit Wood with the planet nearly at its apex in the sky, I was feeling, dusty, worn out, and ready for a drink. With alcohol a thing of the past I was just going to have to settle for some of the clear, no doubt lukewarm water that was waiting for me back at the burrow the rabbits had cleared out for us. But when I saw the crowd of purple eyed elders that were waiting just in the interior of the wood, I had a feeling my refreshments were going to have to wait.


    Still, I felt I was going to have to try and put them on the back foot. It wouldn¡¯t do to think that the little buggers could shove me around. So despite the fact that they started trying to herd me to where the meeting had gone down yesterday. I instead started walking in the direction of the abandoned burrows and my anticipated drink.


    As several of the medium rabbits with purple eyes leaped to bar my way, I called out to the bear to let him know I was back. ¡°Hey buddy, I hope they didn¡¯t give you the same welcome party they are giving me?¡±


    Lowering my spear at the offending hares, I left the threat there while being content to wait for backup. As one of them started gathering his paws beneath his body, I pointed my spear into the space in front of it, wondering if I was about to get a demonstration of the magic their eye color portended their holding.


    As a haze started forming in front of its face, it abruptly cut off when a massive twenty-pound monster hopped out in front of it and screeched an order. With several more screeches, it sent the rest of the Fluffle running for cover. Staring me down, I quickly raised my spear, not willing to try intimidating the rabbit version of an old master. Speaking softly I said, ¡°I¡¯m just looking to freshen up, but you will have my report directly after that. I was promised food and shelter for fulfilling my part in protecting your herd and would hate to find out that rabbit kind would so easily renege on a deal.¡±


    Continuing on the path to my resting spot with all the outward signs of being unperturbed, I could only hope that Gaian had made it back so I had his bulk to lean on in the upcoming meeting. I know it is ridiculous to say, but I found that bunny to be quite intimidating.

 Chapter 41

    Following the trail to the emptied warren, I saw that I had a multitude of regular rabbits following me in the shadows. Some of them would occasionally hop out in front of me and glare. I assumed they were looking to intimidate me, but none of them even came close to giving off the presence of the regular purple eyed rabbits, let alone that old monster. One of the best examples I have ever come across of how size doesn¡¯t matter, I really don¡¯t think even Gaian and I together could take him in a fight. So all I could do was be grateful he seemed to recognize guest rights, and that he was okay with letting me get freshened up before our meeting instead of slapping me down and dragging me off by the ear.


    I could only think that he, both needed us omnivores for some other task and was hoping that trading for the flowers was his way of buttering us up to help him, rather than simply claiming them as fait accompli through strength of arms. My son had gotten into martial arts, as he had started getting into his teen years. At first, when he was younger it had been a chore to make him go. We ended up joining several mcdojo¡¯s before finally finding one that seemed to stick. The sensei in charge had a presence like that of the old rabbit. He had only been a little older than me, but he was a retired navy seal, and you could just tell that absolutely nothing you could do would matter if you started a fight with him¡­ not that I ever had the slightest inclination to do so.


    I had been pleased at the time by the increase in my son¡¯s discipline and now was really regretting not joining the adult classes. I had been too embarrassed at the time with my overweight status and had always kept telling myself that as soon as I had gotten into better shape on my own, that would be the time that I would join. Now that I was finding myself in a fantasy world armed with Iron Age weapons, all I could do was double down and focus on trying to improve as swiftly as possible. Which meant that I was going to have to try and make a deal for my share of the herbs that Gaian had hopefully brought back.


    Getting closer to where the bunnies let us camp, I could hear a rabbit¡¯s shrill screaming coming from that direction. Trusting in the bear to handle the situation without my help, I just continued on at my sedate pace rather than rushing to his defense. When I came to the clearing, I saw that all of the rabbits that we had escorted on our herb heist were gathered in a semi-circle behind their chosen spokeshare. Most of them were lying down with their own piles of herbs in front of them, while a few were behind the ringleader as he confronted the massive bear who had my bucket sitting on the ground in front of him.


    Looking at the picture in front of me, I couldn¡¯t help but laugh at the absurdity of an eight-pound rabbit screaming at a five-hundred pound black bear. Although looking at him more closely, I couldn¡¯t help but wonder if he had put on some more weight himself. Not in a bad way, if anything he was looking a little leaner than he had before, but part of me was wondering if he was hitting another growth spurt in this new environment. Before I could follow up on that thought and look down to examine my own self, the indignant rabbit was in front of me in a flash and screaming at me, with his back up just a short few hops behind him.


    Ignoring him for the moment, I went over to the log that had been replenished with water in our absence, while giving the bear a wave of acknowledgment. I was happy that he had made a clean escape from the ensuing goblins. Lying my shield and spear down, I was anxious to get a drink. With my bucket in use, I was stuck with dipping my head into the crisp, cool water. Just lowering my mouth in at first, I drank until I was full. Once my stomach was full, I dipped my whole head in, scrubbing my face, and rinsing my hair with my hands feeling a pain of regret at my lost soap. I didn¡¯t know how they did it, but I could only assume that Gaian had his own drink since he had returned, and yet the water was cool and clear and gave no indication that he had fouled the water.


    Taking my boots and socks off next, I thought about rinsing them out in the log but decided to hold off until I had a better idea of how they were refreshing the water. Laying my socks over my boots, I looked at my feet, checking them for any damage that my lacking replacement socks might have caused. Finding them just wrinkled, but unbloodied, I resolved to go the rest of the day barefoot to let them dry out. Lifting up my shirt next, I saw that my right side still had a sizeable bruise, but at least the pain was still muted and my ribs weren¡¯t feeling like they wanted to poke out of my skin.


    After checking myself over, I thought about addressing the increasingly shrill monster that was hopping circles around me in an effort to force me to acknowledge him. But instead, I ignored him and focused on feeding my hunger to further cement his place in the upcoming negotiations. I ignored the root vegetables and instead started picking up a couple of the spicy pear plums. I slowly savored the way they continuously moved from the different taste profiles before ending up with that last bit of clean sweetness at the end. Wondering if they would taste the same if I dried them for later, I resolved to spend the next couple of days laying in a supply for after our eviction.


    With no other tasks to use to continue putting off the annoying rabbit, I finally turned to look at him and said, ¡°What do you want short stuff?¡±


    Apparently able to grasp my insult without the bear¡¯s translating services. He hopped over to where the bucket was and stared at it intently, in an obvious gesture that he wanted his share. Never one to welch on a debt, I had no problem with giving him his due, I had merely taken my time so that I could impress upon him that I wasn¡¯t one to be taken advantage of either.


    Taking the bucket from in front of the bear, I sat down and gestured for the hare to stand across from me. Dumping the bucket out in front of us, I had my knife out in a flash as he jumped forward in an eagerness to make off with the loot. At his quick dart back, I asked the bear to make sure he knew we would be dividing everything evenly. ¡°You are going to divide the herbs into two piles,¡± I told the rabbit. ¡°And then I am going to pick which pile I want, so your best bet is to make them as even as possible so you don¡¯t lose out.¡±


    I could tell he was unhappy with my offer, no doubt he had been hoping to screw the ignorant monkey by giving me the trash while taking the treasure for himself. Watching him add to one pile and then the other, it looked like he was too afraid that I might accidentally figure out the valuable pile, taking two similar herbs he would split them between the two piles before going back for more.


    When he finished, I let my hand hover over one pile before switching to holding it over its opposite, hoping to elicit a reaction from my opponent as to which one might have a slightly higher value. The bunny was no poker player, as he started vibrating excitedly when I switched to the second pile. Going back to the first I claimed it for my own to the leporidae¡¯s ears drooping in disappointment. Taking a second so that he could understand I had gotten the better of him, I pushed it forward instead. Asking the bear to tell him that I would always reward my allies well and to keep it in mind for if we needed to plan another adventure before our time here was done.


    Pulling back my own pile, the rabbit started jumping around excitedly, doing flips in the air. Asking him if he needed my help to transport the massive amount of goods he had just gained, he instead declined. Calling over some of the gathered crowd of regular rabbits that hadn¡¯t gone on the raid, they quickly gathered everything up and disappeared into the surrounding woods. Gathering up my share into the empty bucket, I sat down cross legged and waited for the inevitable summons to my upcoming confrontation with the rabbit elders. I doubted it would go anywhere near as smoothly.


    I was surprised when the summons didn¡¯t come for several hours. Looking up to where the edges of the planet started diving into the horizon I had been thinking that they would be putting the meeting off until tomorrow. As big as the celestial body was, we no doubt still had around two hours until true nightfall, but the waiting hadn¡¯t done anything to calm my nerves. Wondering if this was retaliation for how I had treated the younger generation, I did my best to keep my worries from my mind as I walked next to the softly padding bear as a purple eyed rabbit escorted us to our meeting.


    I considered the fact that maybe the exalted beast was doing me an honor by admitting me into his presence. I decided that on going in, I was going to do my best to negotiate on more information. Starting with trying to gain my own magic, I would settle with a basic understanding of how the world worked as a secondary prize. As we came to a clearing that was surrounded by elders. They all looked to be channeling their power into a round stone globe in the center of the clearing.


    Surrounding the stone globe that was glowing with a haze of purple energy that was being driven into it, compressing into several of the runes that were carved into the stone dais that the pedestal was the center of. They were glowing a softer version of the same shade of purple, but getting brighter by the minute. Deciding that perhaps thinking they needed to play power games with me was a lot of hubris on my part. I realized that instead, they had just been too busy preparing this ritual. With no sign on their part that they were ready to address me right now, I gave a shallow bow in a martial style to the head elder, who ignored me while maintaining his focus on the task at hand.


    Not feeling insulted in the slightest, I merely stepped to the side and knelt down on the ground, sitting back on my heels, while the bear lowered his bulk down beside me. After sitting still for what I estimated to be fifteen minutes, I regretted taking the position I had started in, as I began to feel my feet and calves going numb. Trying to shift myself subtly, I started moving into a lotus position when the low humming that was accompanying the power transfer came to an abrupt ending.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    Seeing the Head hare staring at me, I realized they were waiting for me. With no other helpful indicators forthcoming, I stood up slowly and approached the dais, looking out for any indication I was about to cause a scene by breaking one of their taboos. I hoped that they would stop me before I kicked off an interspecies war with some unknowing transgression.


    After I reached the stonework, I waited for more instructions, rather than risk doing something stupid. Finally fed up with the monkey not falling into his trap, the head rabbit, bounded up in two giant leaps and pointed one of his front paws to the glowing stone before jumping back to his original spot. Finally receiving some clear orders, I still couldn¡¯t help but hesitate before slowly reaching out to lay my palm on the glowing stone.


    Expecting to be shocked, I was surprised when my palm made contact and I only felt the smooth coolness of a regular stone. Looking back up to the rabbit elder to gain a better understanding of what I might be doing wrong, I couldn¡¯t help but let out a gasp as I saw that the surrounding grass and woods had disappeared. Instead, I found myself standing in an endless purple fog. Intellectually, I doubted that this was some kind of nefarious plan to capture me. But with my being trapped for ages frozen in the ball that brought me here still so fresh of a wound, I had to stop myself from starting to hyperventilate. Focusing on my breathing, I told myself over and over that everything was going to be okay and I wasn¡¯t being taken on another adventure.


    Saying the serenity prayer in my mind on repeat, I focused on trying to drop into the breathing pattern that I had found so useful. But for once I found that I couldn¡¯t get into it. I was either going too fast on one part or too slow on the next, but whatever my problem I couldn¡¯t keep my breathing steady. I kept wanting to hyperventilate as I felt myself having to force my body not to start panicking. After what seemed to be an eternity, but in reality was more likely only a couple of minutes, the rabbit elder eventually appeared in front of me.


    ¡°Hello young human,¡± he greeted me softly in English. ¡°We are grateful for your help in raiding the monster faction. We will of course honor the remainder of our truce, but need to have a better understanding of what you intend to do here. Before deciding on how we will continue to deal with you.¡±


    Mouth agape, and mind frozen, I couldn¡¯t help but blurt out my question, despite knowing the answer in my heart. ¡°How are you speaking English!?¡± I asked loudly.


    When he gave a confused look he replied, ¡°I do not know of this English that you refer to. But no, I am not speaking in the common ally tongue. This globe, while a specialty of the illusion rabbits, the lesser versions are fairly common out in the wilder world, have you truly never used one before?¡±


    Not wanting to give away my extraterrestrial origins, I instead decided to plead poverty, while trying to say as little as possible that might give away my lie. ¡°No, I grew up in a small village away from here. It was wiped out in a goblin raid last year while I was out gathering in the forest. When I returned, everyone I had ever known was gone. I have been traveling and scrounging on my own ever since. I met my friend just a short time ago when we ran across a troll at the same time. We had to ally to defeat it and have decided to stick together for the time being.¡± I quickly came up with a basic lie that mixed in mostly truth so I hoped would pass muster.


    ¡°Hmmmmm, yes.¡± He replied, ¡°The goblins are one of the worst scourges of monster kind, their ravenous hunger and ability to endlessly propagate more than make up for their weak stature.¡± Continuing he added. ¡°They¡¯re having a home territory here merely added to the problem. Luckily for us, they don¡¯t have any of the stronger versions of their kind spawning at this location. Even the weakest tribe has kept us in a rough stalemate for ages since the Home came into being there.¡±


    Hearing an emphasis on the word home both times, I wondered if that was the word he meant to be using. Trying to give away as little of my lack of knowledge as I could, I probed carefully. ¡°How is this allowing us to communicate, I fear that I might be misunderstanding some of what you are trying to tell me.¡±


    ¡°I feared that would be the case,¡± The elder said in reply, ¡°We normally use this as a method of training our younger generations before they are inducted into the clan¡¯s signature powers. It is supposed to be for showing and letting them try to experiment before they undergo the transformation ritual to augment their cores.¡± The rabbit stated before adding on, ¡°When we are able to power it, it normally doubles the success rate.¡±


    Sensing he was about to have a big ask coming for the expenditure of power, I sought to preempt him. ¡°I was hoping to gift my share of the gathered herbs to you in exchange for instruction in magic. I am coming to find more and more that my elders wanted nothing to do with it. I am not even sure that I know anything of the basics.¡± I continued on with my deception, ¡°I was told we were exiled several generations ago for some sin of our founder. As our elder generations continued to pass, we have continuously lost knowledge, so much so that I had almost nothing to pass on to my own children.


    Trying to focus on the fact that everything I had just said was true if you just stretched the statement out far enough. With all of the stories of shamanistic magic among of forefathers on earth which we indeed had very little knowledge of anymore. I tried my best to give off an earnest and honest energy.


    Whether it was because it was a common story or he instead that he believed my words, he nodded along. ¡°A shame, but I¡¯ve heard that it happens sometimes. He must have been fairly weak if he had passed after only a couple of generations. I myself have made the circuit of the moons. But when my contracted partner died in battle, I was given the choice by an Eldar to continue on to the Greatest or return here to raise up and train subsequent generations to battle for knowledge and eventually join the battle in the outer reaches. I can only assume from the lack of rewards I was promised, that of all the offspring I have spawned and sent out so far, none have made it to the great defense yet.¡±


    Confused, I thought about trying to stay silent and hope for him to continue, but my inner nature got the best of me and my hamster shot out a question hoping to return to the nature of magic. ¡°All of that is beyond me, I was only ever a simple carpenter without even the most basic of magic spells to my name. Never having been told anything, I didn¡¯t even know the reason that we retreated to the caves for a couple of weeks every five years. I can only assume that some knowledge of the dragon was maintained by the elders and hidden from us.¡±


    ¡°Shameful,¡± the rabbit spat out. ¡°That the great protector should be hidden from those he guards.¡±


    ¡°Great protector?¡± I said as I wasn¡¯t able to keep confusion out of my tone. ¡°Then why did he send down the rain of fire to destroy my camp?¡±


    ¡°He was no doubt offended by the waste, you had gathered many cores, and rather than using them or offering them back up to the world, you continued to hold on to them. I know the races of light tend towards avarice, but really, most know to send them back to their home when the dragon times come.¡± The elder said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.


    Sighing, I again tried to direct our conversation back towards helping me gain a magical power of my own. ¡°It truly was a crime what our elders did to us. I would happily give up my share of the spoils so you can increase the power of your clan, if you would be able to share with me any scraps that you might have to increase my own meager power.¡± I offered shamelessly.


    ¡°Would that I could young human, but the ways of the neutral animal factions are completely different from both the factions of allies and monsters. My own contract was to an elf and I couldn¡¯t begin to tell you how he might have differed in growing as compared to a human.¡± The elder stated. ¡°And I fear our time in this illusion is growing short.¡±


    Cursing in my mind as to how I had only gained more questions than answers, I decided to throw myself on his mercy. ¡°I will give up all the herbs for whatever answers you can give me. I feel like I am a newborn on this world, despite my apparent age. If you want me to take one of your offspring with me, I would be happy to do that if that is your demand.¡± I begged.


    ¡°I would have given you the information anyway, for the favor you did in dealing fairly with my many time¡¯s great grandson. But you can only have one contracted companion and you have already chosen yours. As I have stated the races of neutral beasts are different from yours and the monster breeds. We grow by consuming natural energies, we are placed onto our chosen level by the Eldar, and except for a chosen few allowed to protect our warrens, once you have consumed enough natural energies, you have to move on or starve when you outgrow your home.¡±


    Continuing on he continued to explain. ¡°From what my bond told me, you and the monster races grow through combat and conquering the homes of your enemies. How he gained his initial magic he never shared with me. But as I was bound to him, we both grew from our slaughter of the monster races. I would gladly have bound my grandson to you, but you are already bound to the ursid and you may only have one unless you have specialized in bonds, have you?¡±


    With no idea and not wanting to be found out, I replied. ¡°No, I have no idea how we became bonded, but I don¡¯t think that I have specialized in that.¡± As a question shot into my mind, I had to ask. ¡°So are the hogs bonded to the goblins then, why would the pigs choose to do that?¡±


    ¡°Maybe one or two of them,¡± the elder explained. ¡°But it is most likely they have a farm and train them up from the infant stage to obey them. I really have never looked into it as it is beyond the purview I am permitted on this level. While our neighbors are rather noisy and occasionally manage to kill one of the younger generations. Overall they are one of the easiest of the monster races to have been stationed by, and certainly dumber than the races of light, I¡¯m sure I would have a much smaller herd had I been gifted a home of them for a neighbor.¡±


    ¡°I thought you would have been happy to bond one of your younger generation to me?¡± I exclaimed.


    ¡°Yes, you. You have proven your friendship and not hunted us. Do you really think if a village of humans was placed nearby they wouldn¡¯t try hunting us for food?¡± The rabbit asked. ¡°It is the way of the world, and we would feed the bones of the fallen to strengthen the warren, but there would no doubt be many more lost if we were given a stronger whetstone than goblins to blood ourselves on.¡±


    As the purple fog around us started flashing, the rabbit stated to me. ¡°In return for your share of the herbs, you can stay here a week. We have strong reeds that we can give you so that weave another container to carry your supplies, and I will also send one of my elders with you if you want to venture on another foray into the Goblin Woods. He can bring back two of the swine for you to harvest for supplies so that you don¡¯t get caught dragging them back on your return trip. But he can¡¯t interfere in your fights, your life and death are in your own hands. That is the best deal I can offer you.¡±


    Convinced I wasn¡¯t going to get a better offer even if I might be getting robbed blind. I had no way of using the flowers and being able to harvest two pigs for food would put me in a fairly safe spot for when they kicked me out. Nodding I nevertheless felt the need to add. ¡°Okay, but I will need a supply of salt and two more logs of water.¡± At the elder¡¯s nod of agreement, the mist faded away and I found myself standing once again with my palm on a now gray rock.

 Chapter 42

    Letting go of the stone, I returned over to the bear to retrieve the bucket of herbs before returning to the dais and dumping the contents out gently onto the stone floor to fulfill my side of the bargain. While Gaian and I were heading back to the empty warren we had been given, I thought about what the rabbit clan leader had said to me. I had no doubt that he was getting the better end of the bargain, but even with all of the new questions that I had now, I didn¡¯t feel like I had been ripped off.


    Sure I was more confused than I had been at the beginning of the conversation, but that is just because it would no doubt take me days of talking to even gain the slightest clue as to how this moon worked. Also, I think there were some problems with the translation software, but as he had stated, that wasn¡¯t the stone¡¯s intended purpose. Sure he could have been lying to me, but with his level of power, there wasn¡¯t really a purpose to it, he could have just as easily taken the flowers from me and left me with nothing.


    So unless he knew I was an alien and had zero knowledge of how things worked around here, there wasn¡¯t really much of a point to his lying. Walking back into the small glade, I was grateful to see that everything I had left behind was still there, along with the two additional logs of water and a sizeable pile of salt. Stripping out of my clothes, I gathered up my socks as well and threw them into one of the logs. Wishing for soap, I resolved to at least make a small batch with some of the promised hog fat.


    Hanging everything on branches, I hoped that the night breeze would dry them. While being promised a full week to stay here, I realized I hadn¡¯t clarified how long the rabbits thought a week was. I would just have to assume it meant seven days and lowball it to include today in my plans, if I got an additional day, so much the better. But better to be wrong on the low side and prepared to be kicked out, than be surprised at the eviction notice coming a day early.


    After eating another couple of the fruits for an evening snack, I got another drink of water from the drinking log and dipped my finger into the water and then the salt, with some of the coarse grains stuck to my finger, I ran it over my teeth in an approximation of a toothbrush. Regretting never having learned how to make baking soda, I could only hope that eventually I would find some other humans and they would have something to substitute for the coarse salt, but until then, this would just have to do for now. Evening absolutions finished, I found a couple of large leaves, grabbed a shovel, and wandered behind a tree to do my business. Nothing like tp, I could only hope that I would soon gain access to the cleansing spells every isekai¡¯d character I¡¯d ever read about seemed to end up with to replace it.


    Burying the evil mess, I went back to the log I had washed my clothes in to scrub my hands clean, rub them in some dirt, and wash them a final time, hoping for the best. Wandering over to my pile of grass that I had for a bed, I saw that the bear had finished his dinner and was already snoozing away. Pulling out my wallet, I again retrieved a picture and held it up to the stars.


    Some part of myself thought that I might be torturing myself with this ritual, but I knew I wasn¡¯t going to give it up. I focused on remembering the happy times that I had with my kids rather than letting myself fall into depression in my missing them. Again, I constantly had to remind myself that if they were back on earth they were better off, and if they had made the trip here, I would find them eventually. They were smart kids and I was sure they would be able to survive until I got to them. Hell as young as they were, they would no doubt be thriving, unlike their old man who had already been injured multiple times and had lost all of his stuff. Laughing slightly, I thought that maybe I should just sit still and wait for them to rescue me.


    Sighing, I knew I wasn¡¯t that passive, putting away the picture, I thought about going over to my pants and pulling out the green core and trying to swallow it down, but in the end decided I wasn¡¯t into choking myself on it and put the task of gaining magic off for tomorrow. Rolling over I looked up at the alien constellations and moons in the distance until I managed to fall asleep.


    <hr>


    Waking up to a face full of planet light coming up over the horizon, I rubbed my eyes groggily. Rolling over, I got up to dip my head into a fresh log of water to jolt myself fully awake. Looking at the logs it was clear they had been rinsed out and replaced while I slept, the one I had done laundry in before was as crystal clear as it had been before my clothes had contaminated it. Even though it looked clean, I still resolved to keep drinking from the one only my mouth had touched. I had no idea how they were cleaning the logs, so until I did, it just seemed like the smarter move for now. I was a little disturbed at their ability to have their maid service freshen everything up without my having any sense of their presence. I was usually a light sleeper, sixteen years of parenthood, does wonders to make sure you are able to wake up at the slightest sign your kid might be sick.


    Drinking my fill, I walked over to eat a couple of the fruits, this time picking a red one that didn¡¯t have the complexities of the variety I had yesterday, instead it was cool and crisp, with just a hint of sweetness that lingered for an aftertaste. Rinsing my hands off in the laundry log, I thought about the projects I was going to need to finish before we were kicked out of here. Making a list in my head, the two things I concluded were vital topped it. Food and water, both laying in a supply and having a way to carry it after it was preserved.


    With my backpack destroyed, that was really going to hurt my ability to carry supplies, even if I managed to kill and harvest both pigs the elder had promised they could transport back for me, having a way to transport it all when we were forced out was going to be the sticking point. With never having gotten to the point where leatherworking was a hobby, I felt like a week wasn¡¯t long enough to cure the pig hide into something I could work with, let alone have the time to turn said leather into something that could carry supplies.


    I was going to have to turn my hand to weaving, while I had the same amount of working knowledge of this craft as I did leatherworking, the technical aspects of it were a lot easier. Was I going to be able to make myself a set of clothes in the week that I had here? No, not a chance. Luckily everything I brought with me for camping was on the rugged side, and the shirt and pants that were bitten into were in my pack that went up instead of the fresher pair on my body.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    Finally, I needed to get my own handle on magic, if my own internal vision of my core was anything to go by I had both marks in the good and bad boxes. For the good, as far as I was able to tell my core was a perfect sphere, most of what I would call the trash cores were flat and imperfect circles. On the other hand with how easily it was swallowing up the storms of energies and how small they looked once they arrived inside of me, I had a feeling that I had messed up badly when I had let the energies expand rampantly.


    While I was sure that the core had some kind of dimensional aspect to it and that it was nowhere near as big as it seemed. I really didn¡¯t think that when someone pried it out of my dead body; hopefully many, many years in the future, it would be anywhere close to the size of the trolls. I wasn¡¯t ready to swear to it yet, but I was thinking that in this world smaller was better, or at least more valuable. Deciding that I had a couple more questions that I needed to ask the bear before I tried to chow down on the green rock that I had left, I figured we would go hunting for at least one of the pigs that we were promised, and we could go over the answers on the way.


    Calling over to the bear, I got another drink from my log while he slurped down a good half of his, grabbing a couple of fruits, I put them in my pocket, filling up another pocket with the rocks I had gathered yesterday, I wanted to try a range option, now that we had less of a time frame and no escort quest. Leaving the shield behind, I grabbed the spear; and made sure my club, ax, and knife were all secured to my belt.


    <hr>


    For a while we just walked silently side by side through the woods, I had a feeling he was more of the strong silent type, just like I was. I had learned early on as a young child, that people really don¡¯t want to listen to all of the inane thoughts that go spewing from my head, and found talking to myself was the best option. I have always hated bothering people, and love it when I can find someone as thrilled to debate as me. Unfortunately, those kinds of people have been few and far between in my life. The best times were when I was working in a kitchen, servers were all right to talk to; while other cooks and chefs tend to all have a crazy side, and some of the discussions you can find going on in a kitchen leave no doubt that many of them are on some kind of substance.


    I remember one time when a fellow chef asked me if I was interested in having a tote with him out back and was surprised when I declined. When he asked me what I had against weed, I said. ¡°Nothing, I¡¯m just crazy enough as it is. Can you imagine what would come out of my mind if I had a couple of tokes of the stronger stuff you are smoking?¡±


    He laughed for a second and then got serious as he actually took the time to think about it. ¡°That¡¯s a good point man, I¡¯ve always thought you were into the good shit¡­ if this is you normal, you probably should stay away from the mind expanding stuff.¡± Laughing along with him, I told him to go take his break. Thinking back on it, I had to wonder if this world I was finding myself in was all the product of a mental break that I had had.


    I would say it wouldn¡¯t surprise me, but that isn¡¯t really a full answer, I don¡¯t really get surprised, I tend to be too accepting of that. Reality is what it is and you just have to survive and do the best you can with what you¡¯ve got. There are people who will drive themselves to drink after a loss, but that just has never been my style. I work and find something to focus on that will distract me. Speaking of work, we were getting to the edge of the woods, and seeing a rabbit of the regular variety off to the side, I shouted over to him. ¡°Hey we are going to get the two pigs your elder promised to transport back for us, if you would pass along the message that we are ready for the services it would be much appreciated.¡±


    The bunny went still for a second before hopping alongside to join us, when I let him know that he didn¡¯t need to come along if he didn¡¯t want to he ignored me and continued bounding along next to the bear. Seeing I wasn¡¯t going to get rid of him, I assumed he was either hoping for protection or trying to gather some herbs of his own while we caused a bigger ruckus. Either that or he could be needed for the elder to know when to transport, or maybe he was being sent along to spy¡­ or maybe it was just a youngster out for an adventure. Realizing I could go all day with coming up with more and more convoluted reasons as to why he was joining us, I decided to leave it alone and just ask.


    While playing a game of twenty questions with an interpreter wasn¡¯t the easiest thing in the world we eventually got it down and I learned that like in my own life, it was a combination of everything. He had volunteered as he had never been over to the Goblin¡¯s side himself, he was hoping to get started on his own collection if he could gather anything and our escort was a good chance to safely do so, and the eldest needed a blood relative to be at the site to initiate his transporting.


    When I tried to find out how they would be moving the pigs that were so much bigger than even the most massive of the evolved rabbits, it ended up going nowhere slow. Whether it was because it was a state secret and he was sworn to silence, or because he didn¡¯t know himself, he refused to give any indication. Leaving it alone rather than pissing off our benefactors, I decided to focus on some of my other questions I had for my more permanent companion.


    Asking first if the rabbit could understand me, and upon being given the negative sign, I felt more inclined to speak freely, than if indeed the rabbit was some kind of spy. While I was somewhat worried at the power the eldest had demonstrated the night before, and had minor concerns that it all could have been a show to get me to let down my guard. At some point, you can¡¯t let your paranoia win. If there was someone always watching me, then they had a power so much greater than mine that I just had to ignore it, or sit down and wait to die. I had to learn to start thinking like an ant, which was most likely the best kind of description for my power level on this world. Ants don¡¯t care how small they are, they ignore everything about the world that is so much bigger than them and just focus on getting the job done. I need to be more like that, there is nothing I could do if the elder was powerful enough to listen in, so for now I just had to focus on my own gains and ignore everything else.


    Trying to get out of my head and stop being freaked out by the power of a being smaller than most dogs back on my old world was harder than it sounds. But I released the hold on the hamster in my mind and continued my game of getting yes and no answers from the bear.


    I knew that the ursine wasn¡¯t able to feel any of the after battle energies and for now, was limited to the one core. But I still had no idea what he used to power his healing or what the limits to it were. I was sure that he wasn¡¯t hiding it because he was trying to keep secrets from me, but instead, it was just a lack of an ability to communicate the necessary information on his part, which meant that I just had to get more creative with my questioning.


    Pulling out some of the purple plums that had such an interesting flavor profile I offered one first to Gaian, and then to the rabbit just to be polite. I¡¯m not going to lie, I was a little disappointed when he accepted, but as he started bounding around excitedly after his first bite, I realized maybe we were more like honored guests as opposed to being the unwanted refugees I had first assumed. Clearly, the food we were being fed was a step above what the common rabbit was allowed to eat.

 Chapter 43

    With our mid morning snack out of the way and the Woods still about a mile ahead, I thought about how we wanted to enter it. I hadn¡¯t realized how much I had been in my own thoughts. Between that and my interrogation of the bunny, it had eaten up a lot of the time I had thought I might be learning from my companion. Putting it off for now, I hoped I would remember most of what I had been wanting to ask him. But with as scatterbrained as I could be sometimes, I was just going to have to settle for questions of a similar vein.


    Without having a compass, and only the planet¡¯s overhead trajectory to go by, I was putting the Rabbit Woods due north of the goblin¡¯s forest, while my camp would be to the northwest and Mt Tai would be due east. There was also the major river that I had noticed on my first day here, and to get to the closest point of water, it looked like the best bet would be to skip the goblin¡¯s land and continue in a southeasterly direction for maybe a week at a decent walking pace. I am sure there are some ultra marathon runners that could make it there in a day but those guys are insane. Even if I was sure there would be food and water waiting for me, and that I wasn¡¯t going to run into any trouble, I had no doubt I still couldn¡¯t make the trip in the shape I was currently in.


    Always before when I had come on my own to these woods, I had come in through the northernmost tip closest to the rabbits. Yesterday on our escort quest we had instead gone down the eastern side of the forest and come back up after getting around the southern corner. From there the herb glade hadn¡¯t been more than half of a mile into the woods. I was guessing that the woods were more of a pentagon shape rather than having the squarish cast to them that the rabbit¡¯s home had to it.


    If I put my own encounters at the northern tip and then there was the patrol we had encountered yesterday at the herb field, still had most of the middle area and the southwestern side to explore, not that exploration was a good word for what had happened in all of my previous encounters. I am way too used to having satellite maps where I can just take out my phone and zoom in on the problem. I had probably actually seen only a tenth of a percent of the enemy¡¯s home grounds. Trying to pretend otherwise was just foolish.


    This time I thought we would cut down the opposite sides of the woods and see what we might find over there. Asking Gaian if the rabbit had any ideas about what we might face, after several squeaks and grunts, he raised his left paw up. I guess the only thing they cared about was their supply of herbs, either that or he was just too low on the totem pole to know anything.


    Keeping about a half of a mile between us and the woods, we slowly made our way down the western side of the forest. After about thirty minutes of walking quietly, I started hearing a gurgling off in the distance and soon we came upon a small stream flowing in the direction of the woods along a small gully in the grasslands. Following it back it looked to run into the cliffs south of my old camp. Cursing my luck, as I now had a supply of water from the rabbits, I wondered at the steady source, any waterfall from the storm a couple of nights ago should have run out by now. Wondering if it was coming from a spring or an underground stream. I rapped myself on my head a couple of times to force myself to stay on task. With goblins only a short distance away this was no time to let the hamster distract me.


    It looked like the stream was running into the woods, deciding to follow it along, I hoped if we were careful we could get an idea of how the goblin¡¯s living situation was. Unless all logic was being thrown out the window they would need a source of water to live off of even if they refused to use it for bathing purposes, so this might give me a clue as to how the monster half lived.


    Following it along, it didn¡¯t look like there were any fish in it, leading me to believe, it was either a temporary stream and only was around for several days after a storm. Alternatively, it didn¡¯t connect to any larger body of water, or the goblins had hunted it dry, exterminating any of the species that might have been here before they had arrived. The hopping of what I could only assume were frogs into the grass beside the water, seemed to indicate there was some life around, but with goblins for neighbors, they seemed to have an amazing danger sense. All of them disappearing before we could catch more than a glimpse.


    As we approached the woodline, I had a thought and decided that maybe staying right by the water might not be the best idea. I really didn¡¯t want to come up upon a group of goblins unaware. While I would like to surprise them¡­ I just didn¡¯t want the surprise to be for me as well. Angling a couple of degrees to the eastern side of the river, if things went wrong I didn¡¯t want to take a chance at one of us getting bogged down trying to flee from a following horde.


    Motioning to Gaian to fall back a little, I thought that I would range ahead while leaving him for backup, as I had a better chance of hiding in the trees and I had already managed to do a couple of times before. Looking around at the undergrowth, it looked remarkably bare of anything useful, only a few patches of grass were around, but for the most part, it was just needles and trees. Even on the ground, there were very few pinecones lying about. Wondering if the goblins were the ones to collect them, I noticed I had never heard any chittering or rustling that would indicate there were some kind of squirrels around. Leaving me to believe if they had been here before the goblins had been brought in, they had probably been hunted out. Although I also hadn¡¯t heard any sign of them in the rabbit woods either. I wondered if the leporids didn¡¯t want any competition, maybe they weren¡¯t as friendly to everything else as they were to me.


    Keeping that in mind, I hope they didn¡¯t have some kind of double cross planned for when I was no longer useful. With the bear and the rabbit out of sight behind me, I looked over to the creek on my right and was surprised to see a small bridge coming up. It was only a couple of yards long, but it spanned a wider spot of the creek. Looking at the ends of it, it was harder to see with no grass around, but it looked like there might be a path that was formed in the pine needles.


    Heading back to warn my friends to stop, I went back to where I had first spotted the bridge and found a tree to hide in. Waiting for any indication that they had regular patrols, I worked on my breathing patterns. Wishing I didn¡¯t need the kill energy to be able to drag my mind down to examine my core, I focused my thoughts on trying to recreate that sense and try to form that ability on my own without the external stimuli.


    Eventually, I saw what was looking to be the standard six goblin two pig patrol go by. Staying still even after they disappeared in the distance, I continued to wait to get an idea of what kind of pattern they used. I had no doubt that they didn¡¯t keep to anything like military timing in their patrols, but I was willing to waste a little time to see if there was any pattern at all. Hoping that my companions weren¡¯t getting bored with my experiment, I could only be glad I hadn¡¯t heard any commotion coming from the direction I had left them.


    After a while I saw several goblins coming along with a bag, they were followed by another group after maybe fifteen minutes. Two more groups of gathering goblins went along the path before I saw another combat patrol. I wondered if there were other groups wandering the forest not sticking to the path, but decided we would just have to risk it. Heading back to get my companions, I was really starting to miss having phones and the short range radios that I would bring when I had my kids on camping trips with me. My daughter had the worst sense of direction and the number of times I had needed to use them to find her after she had wandered off was unreal.


    Upon gathering up my companions and once again heading back the the tree I had used as a lookout post, we waited for the next group to pass, gave them a couple of minutes to wander out of sight, and continued on our way along the stream, declining to use the goblin construction to cross. I had no doubt the rabbit would be able to make it, but I wasn¡¯t too sure about myself and I was certain the bear would crush it into kindling.


    I thought about taking a course parallel to the ¡®road¡¯ the goblins seemed to be using, but they were so small they weren¡¯t leaving much of a trail through the forest, also if we were going to be going counter to their patrol path, then we would no doubt be spending too much time dodging patrols and we would never get anywhere. Continuing our way along the streamside I again left my companions behind while I scouted ahead. When I started seeing the trees begin to thin out ahead, I found a particularly bushy pine to hide in so I could sit still and focus on listening to see if I could hear anything.


    Trying to listen intently I could hear lots of animal sounds coming from that direction along with the occasional thudding and slamming together of large bodies. Going from tree to tree, I paused at everyone and took in my surroundings carefully, determined to be the ambusher instead of the ambushee. Eventually, I made it to within a couple of trees of the clearing. Leaving my spear in the branches, I started working my way higher up the tree. Leveraging my weight up the pine, wasn¡¯t anywhere as easy as I remembered doing in my childhood years, and by the time I had made it a good forty feet up and found a vantage point to look out of, I was just grateful I hadn¡¯t broken any branches and found myself tumbling out of the tree.


    Half of the clearing looked to be matted down grass that had small groups of pigs lying in it. While the other half looked to be a training field that had the stream running through it and a long strip of mud to either side. There was a small damn on the far side of the clearing that looked to be how the goblins had backed up the water to get the needed mud. On a little stretch of grass along the border of the mud, there was a group of goblins standing around laughing. Between them were several groups of piglets and the goblins were sending them running between them and crashing into each other. No doubt this was some kind of training, and goblins were conditioning them while they were little, to listen to the then bigger monsters. So that when they grew older they would have it ingrained in them that the goblins were in charge.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    As I was watching one of the little ones decided not to charge with the rest of his fellows. One of the goblins swiftly walked over to him and clubbed him over the head dropping the animal to the ground instantly. Pulling it behind him by its rear legs, it walked back to the group of goblins and dropped its burden to the ground. Two of the smaller ones in that group immediately pulled out a couple of knives and began butchering the fifty pound creature that looked to be twice their size. As soon as they got it down to the primal pieces, they each picked up one of the hunks of meat and began running almost directly south.


    Taking that to be the direction of the goblin encampment, I kept it in mind for later explorations, keeping my perch for now, I wanted to make sure I had a better lay of the land before I got back to our rabbit companion for answers before we tried our ambush. The meadow was mostly grass, it was just that small corner where they were training the younglings that had the mud field, looking out into the grasslands, I saw there were several groups of the larger hogs lying around. Also scattered around the field there were several sows with herds of babies following them around as they walked around nosing into the grass, I could only assume they were looking for food.


    Deciding that trying to pull a larger hog from the field into the woods was going to be my best bet. I started to begin my careful climb down from my perch when I saw a goblin patrol coming out of the woods on the far side. They walked up to the group of goblins who were training the piglets and got off their hogs. The two bigger pigs started moseying into the field while the six goblins started heading south following the direction the two food bearers had gone. Eventually, another group of six came out of the woods and called over two mounts of their own, saddled up and the patrol started heading northward. Somewhat surprised I hadn¡¯t seen any of the gathering goblins start out, I guessed they were being dispatched from the goblin¡¯s base and this was just a detour that the combat patrols had to go on to get their mounts.


    Climbing down from the tree to longer than I would have liked and forced me to face several unpleasent facts that I would have liked to ignore about the shape I was in. Eventually, I was able to make it down to the bottom without causing enough of a commotion to find myself set upon by the green men in the field. Heading back I had to wander a little bit before I found my companions, laying behind a tree waiting for me.


    With another round of interpretive twenty questions, I was able to find out that all we had to do was kill either one or two of the pigs and then book it, the rabbit elder would take care of the rest. We didn¡¯t have to play king of the hill, or defend the flag for a set amount of time before the teleportation could happen. So if we got two quick kills we should be able to disappear into the woods before we could be spotted by the greenskins. I was a little disappointed that we couldn¡¯t hitch a ride back with our loot, but again was unwilling to look a gift horse that closely into the mouth.


    Granted if we got back to our encampment and there weren¡¯t two pigs waiting for us I was going to be upset, but somehow I doubted if the rabbits planned on double crossing us this early, they would let us back anyway. Either they were hoping for the goblins to take us out and for us to kill as many of them as possible before we were overwhelmed or they had the powers they claimed to have had and I needed to stop wasting time and get to it.


    After asking Gaian if he thought that he would be able to take out one of the pigs, he gave his assent. With only needing to take out one myself the big problem looked to be finding a way to only get two of them to come to us so we didn¡¯t have to enter the field and risk being spotted before the screaming started. I had no doubt that while I would be able to kill a hog on my own, I wouldn¡¯t be able to do it silently enough not to call every goblin in the field down on me. Even if the pigs decided to ignore their fellows being cut down and not come after us with their masters.


    Looking around a minute for anything we might be able to use as bait, I nearly slapped my head at my own stupidity. I still had several of the plums in my pocket that I had been planning on sharing on the way back. If how the rabbit had acted upon eating them was anything to go by the only thing I would have to worry about was not dragging too many out and causing a train to occur. Having accidentally caused a few myself in my time as a gamer, I had no desire to find out how it worked when anything other than pixels and a quick run back from the graveyard were on the line. Setting my spear down I cut the purple fruits into several segments each, tossing the center pits to the side. Five of the small fruits into six equal pieces quickly left me with enough bait to enact my plan.


    Starting about two hundred yards into the woods, I left my spear with my friends and started dropping a piece every several steps, as I made my way over to the grass line. Stopping about fifteen yards away I looked out from my cover at the pigs wandering around. I was willing to settle for one if I had to, but would rather get both kills now so I wouldn¡¯t have to repeat the stunt if the goblins decided to up their patrols after two consecutive raids. Several times groups of three or four wandered by the edge and one time a mama sow walked by with her brood, but I stayed patient. The planet was just reaching its apex overhead, leaving us with many hours until nightfall, so we had plenty of time.


    I think most laypeople think hunting is easy, you just go out with your gun, find something to shoot and bing, bang, boom you kill the innocent creature, bring it back to your camp, butcher it, and start drinking. The number of times I have frozen my ass off waiting in a blind for nothing to show up and eventually go back hungry would astound them. I¡¯ve had entire trips go by where I have been skunked with nothing to show for the effort other than a frozen behind.


    Continuing to wait, I eventually saw a large hog with a slightly younger one following behind. Every time it looked like the larger specimen had found something, the smaller one would come charging up to challenge him for it, only for the larger one to shoulder him aside. Not letting myself run down the rabbit hole and get distracted by what might be causing the behavior. I threw my last couple of pieces out near the edge, waiting for them to get closer and their competitiveness to cause them to come running along for the subsequent pieces.


    Running quietly back to my spear, the last piece was just past a group of three large trees that the bear and I would be hiding behind. Picking up my spear I leaned against it and began trying to suck down air to catch my breath as quickly as possible, so I could quiet down and not warn them that we were here.


    If this didn¡¯t work the way I had hoped I would just have to go back to the field with my spear and risk trying to kill a single hog before booking it back to my friends and then making a run for the hills. As minutes passed without my hearing anything I began to worry that I had miscalculated. Then finally I heard it off in the distance, there was the sounds of crashing and slamming coming from the direction of the fields. Guessing that the two were following the trail and fighting over each piece. I lowered my spearhead to be ready for when they made that fateful last dash for the final piece. Whispering to Gaian to take the smaller one, I planned on going for a lung shot and not letting my target have a chance to charge at me. My ribs were still sore from the day before and I had no desire to wind up even more hurt.


    As the two pigs came flying around the trees in their efforts to get the last piece of fruit, they didn¡¯t take any notice of us. As the larger one slammed his shoulder to knock the smaller one of course and made his final swoop down with his head to gain his prize, the bear was already moving forward with me being just a short step behind. Because of the longer reach of my spear, even though Gaian started first, I was able to claim first blood as my blade drove in deep. Keeping the blade perpendicular to the ground, I was able avoid getting it caught on the ribs of the pig as the blade started sliding into the lungs like they were butter. Continuing to drive forward, I pushed up on the haft of the spear, hoping to lever the pig off his feet and onto his side. With a huge strain on my back, I eventually managed to accomplished it. I must have punctured the lungs because although the pig¡¯s mouth was open attempting to scream, no noise was coming from the dying beast.


    Looking over to the bear who had completed his charge, he had his jaws clamped around the smaller creature¡¯s neck. With even the smaller hog looking to have over a hundred pounds on me, it was a sobering sight and I could only be happy he was on my side. Pushing his paws against the pig¡¯s side, he turned his head and ripped the throat out of his prey with a torrent of blood, again achieving a silent kill. Ripping my own spear out, and stepping back to avoid my own spurts, I waited silently for the animals to stop thrashing about and succumb to the blood loss. Smiling at the way we had accomplished all parts of our task they way I wanted, I didn¡¯t lower my guard while we waited for the pigs to die, no way anything goes this smoothly without the universe sending something along to f¡¯it up.


    Silent kill was a misnomer as there was still plenty of noise as they both crashed to the ground several times, trying to regain their feet in desperate struggles before losing enough blood to expire. But the thrashing wasn¡¯t traveling far enough to reach the field several football fields away. Or if it was, without accompanying screams of pain or panic it wasn¡¯t causing any alarms to ring out in the distance. Unless the goblins were a lot craftier than I was giving them credit for and they had plans of coming up upon us silently to counter ambush our party.


    Looking over to the rabbit, I said. ¡°Okay, do your thing, and let¡¯s get out of here.¡± As the small rabbit put his paws onto the biggest hog and pointed his face to the sky, I realized I had never asked how he would signal the more powerful rabbit to initiate his pickup¡­


    When he let out an eardrum shattering screech that left me somewhat deaf in my right ear. I saw the clan leader appear in a flash of purple light. Just as quickly the Elder blinked back out and the pigs were no longer in front of us. Looking around I saw that the rabbit that had accompanied us had disappeared as well. Glancing over at the bear who was shaking his own head in discomfort, I realized that between the screaming and flash of light, the goblins definitely knew something had here now. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I kept myself from striking my forehead with the heel of my hand in exasperation. Glancing back to the bear, I said loudly. ¡°Okay, it looks like we are making another run for it.¡±


    Unsure whether his ears were intact enough to hear me, I shouldered my spear and started trotting directly to the north, sure that the faster bear would soon catch me.

 Chapter 44

    For now, my friend seemed content to just trot alongside of me without leaving me in the dust like he did the day before with our escort quest. Whether it was because he didn¡¯t feel like playing bait himself, or he was worried about me being attacked on my own I wasn¡¯t sure, but I was grateful for the company. Already I had stumbled several times, the ringing in my head was still throwing me off and I was starting to wonder if my eardrum had burst.


    Falling to my knees when my foot hit a loose rock I hadn¡¯t noticed, I let go of my weapon and went with the fall. I tried to roll so I wouldn¡¯t end up twisting my ankle. Years of injuries playing sports in high school and as a young adult before I had kids, had left me well trained in how to avoid making the damage worse. Pulling my pant leg up, I saw that I had started bleeding through the bandage covering up my earlier goblin bite. Apparently, I had bumped into something in my fall and the adrenaline just wasn¡¯t letting it register yet.


    The bear was right by my side in an instant, again I felt a weird sensation as he started licking at the wound, tingles were shooting up and down my leg as he applied his healing power to me. Amazed at how quickly I started feeling better, I left off unwrapping the bandage to look at how much healing had occurred, anxious to continue our flight to safety. With our having been jogging for around fifteen minutes now I was estimating we were a third of the way to the northern point of the forest. I had thought about heading to the east originally, anxious to leave the tree line and get out into the grasslands.


    I had thought better of it after a couple of steps and turned north instead. All getting out of the woods meant was that more parties of goblins had a better chance of seeing us as we made our way north along the tree line. If we cut straight north it was less distance to travel and after we were out of the woods, there was only the risk of being overtaken, and I didn¡¯t think the midgets had it in them to accomplish that. Even unencumbered pigs weren¡¯t the fastest of animals, usually preferring to use their greater bulk and numbers to fight, rather than flee.


    Taking a minute to rest after standing and regaining my weapon. I stood up straight and forced myself not to pant to regain my breath. Hearing the commotion coming from the south of us I was grateful not to hear anything that might be some kind of signal to whatever patrols might be in front of us. As the thought went flashing through my head, I almost reached out physically to pull it back from the aether. What was amusing back in a world without life and death struggles was hell in this new environment. Too often had my foolishness called down disasters that could have been avoided had I managed to keep my mind blank and avoided pissing off the gods of this world that seemed to be reading my every taunt just waiting to capitalize on my hubris.


    With my breath finally being caught and my leg having been patched up by my friendly bear, I picked up my spear and continued my loping pace to freedom. Not even ten feet into my new pace, I started hearing horns blast out behind us. Not wanting to waste my breath, I held myself back from cursing out at the unfairness of a world that took every thought I had so seriously. Wondering if we should cut out in a different direction I instead decided again to hold our course. Without knowing what the signals meant, I had no idea if that would get us to miss any of the patrols, for all I knew there weren¡¯t any goblins directly in front of us on their patrol, and swerving in a different direction might just give them enough time to send some of their people directly at the direction of the rabbit woods.


    After all, between the scream and the flashes of purple they had to know that the rabbits were involved, and even if they couldn¡¯t invade the wood there was only one place for us to go to escape. ¡°No, better to keep going with a straight shot and plow through any groups we might run into.¡± As the bear looked over at me, I realized I had said the last thought out loud.


    ¡°Just talking to myself,¡± I said to reassure him that I wasn¡¯t going crazy. As we continued to head north I had a nagging feeling that I was missing something running through my head, but with no time to stop and think I just had to hope that it wasn¡¯t anything too important. I really wished the hamster in my head had some kind of filter or way to signal to me whether or not something was important or not. The number of times he had nagged for my attention only to tell me he had new ideas for rubs or brines was insane.


    Not that I didn¡¯t appreciate the effort he went in for new ideas, but having to stop myself from jumping up and shouting in the middle of one of my kid¡¯s games just because he wanted to flip around and change the ratio of spicy ingredients was incredibly annoying. But conversely, the number of times he had saved me money by reminding me I had a credit card payment due was also well worth the effort of keeping him happy. I just had to hope that for now he was coming up with plans for the pigs that were hopefully waiting for us, and he wasn¡¯t holding back info on our incoming doom.


    As the bear and I split up to dodge around a larger specimen of pine tree in our way, we ran into four of the harvester goblins coming our way. Two had spears, while one carried a club and the last was left weaponless but for what he had been born with. Unfortunately for me, that still left him as a danger to my supple hide, while I was sure the bear wasn¡¯t worried. It looked like all of them realized that I was the only threat they had the slightest chance of taking out. The two with spears sent them flying through the air at me, while the two melee fighters also looked to be trying to avoid the bear in their effort to claim me for an opponent. Grateful that they hadn¡¯t kept the spears for when I was more distracted, I waved my own longer weapon through the air to knock the flying toothpicks from the sky.


    Knowing we didn¡¯t have a lot of time to waste on the vermin, the bear hadn¡¯t stopped running at all, lowering his head he plowed into them, sending the club and bag wielder sprawling. Not willing to be undone, as the two former spear wielders started charging at me, I lowered the point of my weapon and drove forward aiming for the right hand one. Telegraphing the move, I hoped to bait the two of them into trying to work together to counter me. As I got within striking distance of them I pivoted and thrust at the left handed one¡¯s chest, driving it in until the stop lifted the smaller creature up off of his feet.


    Cursing when the right one didn¡¯t stop, I had hoped my aiming for him would cause him to stop and try to grab at the spear, entangling it to give his fellow attacker a better chance at getting to me. Apparently, the monster had just been happy to suicidally use his body for the task and hadn¡¯t paused in the slightest, and now that the path in front of him was free of obstruction he was smiling in glee at the meal that was waiting for him.


    The crash of the spear into the first goblin had stopped most of my momentum, with my left foot forward, I tried for the briefest of instants to pivot back and use the haft of the spear to knock the lone attacker off of his feet, but couldn¡¯t manage to get it around in time. Giving up as soon as I felt it wasn¡¯t going to work, I instead backed to the left and threw the haft forward into the charging goblins¡¯ way. Continuing to back up, I left the club alone as I didn¡¯t have the time to untie it, instead, I pulled out my ax and knife, holding the latter in a reverse grip.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Walking backward, I held the blade out across my forearm to ward off any claw strikes from the monster that had only paused an instant, before dodging around my abandoned spear to keep coming at me. A swipe from my ax finally forced him to pause for a second and jump back in the first sign of self preservation I had yet to see from any of the fodder goblins. Previously I had only ever seen those kinds of instincts from the shield bearing types.


    Waving my ax another time in an obvious threat to keep its attention on me, I planned on bringing my longer blade around, flipping it in my hand to drive into his abdomen. Apparently, my partner wasn¡¯t content to wait for me to set up the perfect kill shot. The bear charged up behind the goblin, skidding to a stop he bit straight through its neck, and popped the head completely off, spraying me in a shower of arterial blood. Wiping my face off with my arm, I gave the bear a look that indicated that might have been a little excessive, but seeing as he had no doubt saved me from the several claw wounds that I would have suffered getting the job done myself, I let the matter go without saying anything.


    As I felt the build-up of kill energy forming, we didn¡¯t have time to stick around and wait for the ensuing aftermath of the green energy to appear, let alone take any time to dig out the cores. With the horns still blaring behind us, I found myself wondering if we would be able to outrun the incoming energy as I had yet to try that particular maneuver. We continued our steady pace to the north. Realizing what the hamster had been calling out to me earlier, our earlier two kills of the pigs hadn¡¯t caused either of the two forces to appear.


    For the first time on this world, we had killed some kind of native and not been assaulted by angry forces trying to rip our sense of self apart. Ignoring that revelation for now as I had to deal with the kill energy that was still forming. I did my best to turn my breathing to the pattern that I had discovered would form a shield earlier, Unfortunately, my lack of practice at moving meditation was looking to be coming back to bite me in the butt. Fortunately, these were only fodder goblins so it should be nothing for me to ignore them. With how often this was happening, I was becoming quite inured to the invading energy.


    Thinking back to other anomalies that I had encountered I remembered that when I was drawing out the evil energy that was empowering the troll core, the final goblin I had killed had none of the green after energy, but even it had still sent out the angry precursor. Wondering if they were related, I had to pause my musing as the first of the incoming death energy started diving into my center. Gasping at the sudden hit of pain it seemed to cause, I forced my focus to stay with my body rather than diving into my core to defend.


    As a roar rang out from my right, I could see the bear looking concerned that I wasn¡¯t keeping up. Wishing I knew how he was able to deal with the funnels so easily now I wondered if I still had the larger amount of energy being sent towards me. This was the first time both of us had been uninjured and the bear had a higher kill count than me and I was curious to see if he had the larger funnel for once. Being able to nail down a variable that would mean the amount received was based on one¡¯s actions and not implied sapience would be a real boon. I really wanted to turn around and look but was able to stuff down my curiosity and keep going. I was sure I would get my answers eventually as the elder seemed to have indicated in our conversations that the only way for us to continue growing stronger was fighting enemies of the opposing faction.


    While I wasn¡¯t sure if as a nonnative to this world had a faction I belonged to, the greenskins chasing us seemed content to think I was their enemy. While they may have some point to those thoughts with the constant raiding I had done. They had no way of knowing all of those troubles had been caused by me, as I, for now, had yet to leave any witnesses behind.


    Still feeling the aching in my chest, I tried to force myself to continue dropping into my breathing pattern while continuing to charge to the north and our eventual escape. I was really coming to regret any of my previous negative thoughts toward MCs who never bothered to learn how to meditate and regain mana on the move. Clearly, that was a much higher level skill than I had thought from the comfort of my couch, and I needed to work on leveling up my own version of it. Again I felt a wave of agony shooting through me and I stumbled to a stop and forced myself to breathe carefully.


    As the pain in my center began to slowly lessen, I forced myself to stay focused on watching my surroundings instead of diving into my core and trying to control the fight against the invading emotions. As Gaian came back to stand next to me and nuzzled my hand, I nearly jumped out of my skin. The sudden resumption of pain had me quickly trying to calm my heart again which was beating in overdrive. I was surprised to see him clear eyed and friendly, every other encounter had him lost in a rage at this point.


    Well, that¡¯s not true, I thought to myself. I don¡¯t remember how he reacted when we had the goblin fight when my ribs had been bruised. I had been lying in agony on the ground when the invading energy had hit me and I had been in no condition to check in on my companion until he had taken the time to heal my ribs. At that point, I had just assumed he had already dealt with his problems.


    Shaking myself out of my musings, I realized that the invading energy had finally disappeared out of me. Hoping that I had made some gains with my breathing exercises, I rubbed the bear¡¯s ears and said, ¡°Okay, all better now, let¡¯s keep going.¡± Taking my own advice, I started jogging to the north again and was quickly caught up to and overtaken by my self-appointed bodyguard.


    Ten more minutes of running and I knew we had to be getting close to the edge of the woods. Suddenly I heard a horn going off to our right. Cursing as it sounded incredibly close, I tried to up my pace from the light jog I was currently at, to something that more resembled running. Holding the pace for two minutes, I eventually had to drop back down to a fast walk as my lungs were heaving so hard I thought they would burst. Hearing the horns still closing in, I was worried that this was going to be it. Soon enough, I would finally learn what it was like to be in the shoes of all of those animals that I had ever been forced to track down after my first shot hadn¡¯t been good enough to end their lives instantly.


    To be fair there had been very few times that that had happened. I¡¯m not trying to imply that I am some kind of amazing shot. Instead, I would be happier saying that I know when I¡¯m not sure and I refuse to take a shot I am not sure will end the animal¡¯s life instantly. I have always regretted the times I had overestimated my abilities. I really feel like that is the worst kind of sin a person can have the arrogance to not be capable of accurately judging how well you can do a task. Every time I have ever failed to live up to what I have committed to I have been ruthless in my self-criticism.


    As I continued to hobble along at a fast walk while doing my best to suck down air. I could only hope that the goblins would be nice enough to kill me here instead of bringing me back to prolong my misery. Hearing the horns continue to close in, I told the bear. ¡°Alright, you better get out of here. No use getting caught with me, it seems like we really kicked the hornet¡¯s nest this time.¡±


    The bear turned to me with a look of disgust on his face. He instead crouched down to the ground in an obvious invitation. I would like to say I fought with him for several minutes because I was too proud to risk slowing him down and was properly heroic and manly in my insistence that I stay behind and make a last stand so he could escape. Instead, I hopped on without saying a word, if he was willing to offer, I wasn¡¯t going to let myself be eaten out of some kind of misplaced pride.


    The bear broke into a sprint that forced me to hold on tightly with my knees and grab onto the ruff of his neck with my free hand while my right did its best to maintain its grip on my favorite weapon. I¡¯m sure if this was a story we would have been ducking and weaving through the trees dodging thrown spears and just barely making it to the grasslands ahead of our pursuers. Maybe if I had hesitated and argued with him for a bit that is what would have happened. Instead, I think we both breathed a sigh of relief when we made it to the edge of the woods and left the horns behind, without catching the slightest glimpse of the monsters blowing them.

 Chapter 45

    As the bear continued to gallop across the plain, while the horns faded into the distance, I could only be thankful that he hadn¡¯t abandoned me to a horrible fate. I¡¯m not going to pretend like I would have left him behind had the situation been reversed, but it is an indescribable feeling you get when you find out that you can trust another being to have your back at the same level you have theirs. For me, it has always made me want to try harder to not be a drag on the ticket. I have always hated being the person who needs to depend on someone else, it has always caused me to feel like I owe the person a debt and that is not a comfortable feeling for me. I hate having that feeling of indebtedness to anyone.


    The funny thing is that I have absolutely no problems helping other people and expect them to be fine with my waving away any implications of a debt between us. But when the situations are reversed, I always try to even the scales as soon as possible. As the bear slowed his gallop several hundred yards away from the tree line, I turned and used the greater vantage point to look back and see if they were continuing to pursue us. With the tall grass of the plains, it wasn¡¯t easy to tell, but it looked like there was a line of spears sticking up through the grass, waving around as their owners chased after us.


    Sliding off his back I rubbed his ears and said, ¡°Thank you brother, but it looks like we need to keep going, the rats are continuing to follow us.¡±


    As he shoved his head into my side almost knocking me off my feet, I took the show of strength to mean it was nothing to it, but not to get used to it. He wasn¡¯t a horse, but he wasn¡¯t going to let me die for his pride either. Or he just liked rough housing, not, being able to talk in anything but yes or no questions was really a drag on the nuances of interspecies communication.


    Speeding up to a jogging pace, I worked on keeping my breathing pattern, I needed to focus on keeping it going at all times. With only having a party of two, this experience was showing me I couldn¡¯t count on being able to process the kill energy for gains without worrying about another attack taking place, and I needed to be able to fight on in the future if the worst happened. Thinking about the implications, I thought about how large scales battles might work on this planet. I had to wonder how many people died trying to process the invading energy and weren¡¯t able to learn to deal with it in time to intercept an incoming blow.


    Feeling like I was having a eureka moment coming on I tried to continue the line of thought until my slower consciousness caught up to what my rabid hamster was trying to shout through the fog of gray matter that separated the two of us.


    Killing energy needs to be processed, it feels like the anger and emotions are trying to rip into me and take me over.


    Chaos can rip it apart and form more of the green energy. Along with some sort of flavored Order that I really need to look into. No, I thought, that feels like I am getting farther away again.


    Processing the killing energy down to the green energy. When I absorb the green energy, I feel like I¡¯m getting stronger.


    ¡­


    ¡°Son of a Bitch!¡± I shouted out, my disgust at my slowness overwriting my inner censorship that I kept out of habit more than any actual problems with vulgarity. ¡°It¡¯s fucking EXP! Mother Fucker!¡± I cursed while keeping my pace. Seeing the bear look over at me, I asked him. ¡°Hey after every fight, do you get any kind of power up or start to feel stronger?¡±


    Seeing him pause, I stopped as well as he got onto his hind legs and gave a pretty fair imitation of holding both paws level and moving them up and down like a scale to indicate, a maybe sort of.


    Trying again I tried to clarify, ¡°If you kill a certain number of goblins do you think you will get an increase in power or better magic?¡± This got a right paw and reply and I again cursed vividly, feeling the need to cut loose in the Arabic fashion that I had grown a fondness of from many novels in my youth. They have such a more vivid way of getting their point across that I tended to save it for times when I really needed to express my unhappiness with myself for a lack of ability to think.


    Starting back up with my running, I gave up on trying to stay calm and keep to my breathing pattern. Instead, I let loose a string of expletives that I was sure had my friend questioning my sanity, and the wisdom in not leaving me behind.


    ¡°Son of a syphilitic donkey! You idiotic fuck, may your father be cursed with the fleas of ten thousand rabid dogs, you moronic idiot! How stupid could you have been not to have seen this earlier? It literally looks like a leftover experience pool that you have been sucking down. Seriously! You are the son of a diseased camel who has mated with a mongrel horde of patchy furred monkeys with missing teeth.¡± I started winding down both because I was starting to run out of breath and I doubted that the bear would let me back on him after this display of temporary insanity at my stupidity. Deciding to end my tantrum with a big one I was sure I would be lamenting this lack of observation for years to come.


    ¡°You are the king of idiots, from an illustrious line of dumbasses going back ten thousand generations to the dawn of time, every first son dumber than the last. For on the day they are born it is the day the father dies. It is a miracle that you can even tie your shoes! Surely the only reason you continue to breathe is that your line has had two angels of heaven being punished with guarding you. Sitting on your shoulders, one continuously speaks the words telling you to breathe in, while the other must utter the opposing phrase telling you to breathe out. On the day that they are passed onto your offspring, that will most certainly be the day you die. Red-faced and unable to recall the next step that even the simplest of babies know how to do!¡± Beginning to take heaving breaths I managed to get it all out before having to stop and recover. I was raised to be hardest on myself and whenever I miss something obvious it takes me a while to recover.


    Also despite my sudden epiphany, I had a feeling that I needed to dive more into it, as the bear had never gained any of the green pool. He had always had to deal with only the invading energy and before he had absorbed the core he had always seemed to be driven mad by the invading energy.


    Vowing not to let this thought train disappear, I focused on regaining my breathing pattern, determined not to let my anger at my own stupidity cause even more issues. I refused to let the satisfaction of venting at myself compound the issues by getting so focused on what I had missed that I ignored fixing a separate weakness that I had already identified.


    <hr>


    As we finally trotted up to the rabbit wood, we found a hole in the brambles waiting for us and a line of rabbits, thumping their back paws in unison, causing the ground to shake. Or, maybe it was just in my head, but after the week I had been having here I wasn¡¯t willing to rule anything out as impossible at this point. As Gaian and I walked through the opening they left for us, two of the smaller Purple-eyed elders began to hum I watched in awe as the brambles behind us closed back up, leaving an unbroken barrier between us and the retaliating army.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    It is one thing to see a dragon bigger than most cities flying overhead, sucking out energy from every living being to power its flight. That is something so massive that the human brain can¡¯t comprehend it so it is actually easier to accept. Even the troll¡¯s ungodly regeneration was less awe inspiring than this. It was a monster, it was supposed to be a freak. But these are rabbits, I had killed and eaten their cousins back home and two of them whose ears barely came up to my knees were forming a barrier out of nothing.


    As the brambles finished growing out their thorns to a foot long, both of the rabbits finished their humming, and their eyes grew dimmer, while the one on the right actually collapsed. So I guess saying they were forming it out of nothing wasn¡¯t the best description of what happened. Clearly, there was a cost to pay, and I wasn¡¯t surprised when four of the regular rabbits stopped their stomping and leaped over to drag their evolved elder away. I couldn¡¯t help but wonder if they were favored sons being shown an honor or despised wretches, forced to perform the menial task and miss the big showdown.


    As I saw a horde of spear points waving over the grass in the distance, I was sure that the issue would be settled soon. Hoping the elder could live up to his promise, I wondered if it would be better for the bear and me to disappear. As of yet, we haven¡¯t left any witnesses behind, and if we needed to lead another offensive of our own. Alternatively, the goblins didn¡¯t seem like the type to discriminate, I was sure they were happy adding whatever they could find to the pot, so it wasn¡¯t like their ignorance regarding our presence would lessen the penalties if we were ever caught in their territory.


    Asking my friend if he thought we should leave, he gave me a look that I took to mean I could do what I wanted, but as his butt hit the ground, I guessed that he was staying for the show. Soon enough the goblins started to assemble, as usual, there was a horde of fodder goblins in the front, most carrying two spears, but it looked like about a third of them either had the wealth or forethought to bring a third spear along. With their inability to stand still and the constant shifting and shoving of their fellows, it was impossible for me to get an accurate count, but I was estimating that there had to be at least two hundred of the weaker creatures.


    Behind them were the cavalry, twenty tusked hogs with their smaller riders on top of them. I wondered why they didn¡¯t have spears of their own as their ability to cause damage seemed to be entirely dependent on their mounts. Guessing that with only a single strap of leather around the hog¡¯s bellies to hold onto instead of an actual saddle, they required both hands to keep their seats.


    With the calvary foolishly lined up in the center behind the fodder goblins, I saw to either side them were some of what I was now taking to be the evolved version of the basic goblin. Although my brief conversation with the elder last night indicated that they followed a different path to power than the rabbits, I still couldn¡¯t help but wonder at the similarities of having weaker and stronger classes.


    On both sides of the pigs were twin formations composed of five bruisers with shields and clubs. Behind them were another five spear holders carrying cousins to the one I held myself. Following them were a group of fifteen archers on each side. I couldn¡¯t help but wonder again if that was the next stage after the fodder, or if they were merely fodder goblins with access to better weaponry as they didn¡¯t look much bigger than the basic monster and seemed to have the same level of discipline. As I had that thought, one of the archers knocked the one next to him down and stabbed him in the leg with an arrow before scampering off to the other side.


    While the horde waited, three more finally showed up and took their place in the center behind the calvary. Two of the shamans, both of them carrying crooked staffs with a glowing crystal in the head. One was colored with a green glow, while the second one had the same evil yellow glow that had accompanied the troll core the bear had eaten. He alone had a dagger that looked to be the cousin of the shaman whose spell I had interrupted so disastrously.


    In the center and slightly behind the two of them the leader finally made his appearance. Wishing I had a better way of differentiating between goblins, I was not well enough acquainted with their features to tell if this was the one that I had seen chasing after the rabbits on our raid. He had the same style of helmet and armor; but instead of being on foot, this one was mounted on a gray furred wolf. Whether it was a status symbol or a declaration of wealth the boss declined to use the strap that the goblins needed for their pigs. Instead, the wolf had a full saddle complete with stirrups on it.


    Waving around a straight sword rather than carrying a longer spear or curved cavalry blade that would be more sensible, the goblin leader shouted out words of encouragement to the horde in front of him, apparently trying to build up their enthusiasm for a charge at the waiting rabbits. I¡¯m guessing that he wasn¡¯t the best orator as the fodder goblins were looking decidedly unenthusiastic about having to run at a barrier of brambles both taller than them and deeper than the length of their spears. Some of the thorns on the branches looked to be between six and eight inches long.


    Those monsters would do damage even to the bear beside me, I shuddered a little to think how the daintier goblins would be ripped apart. I wasn¡¯t a fan of them, but that didn¡¯t mean I wanted to see them tortured for no reason. Even I hadn¡¯t been that cruel to the ones I had captured, I had merely given them what they desired before eventually ending them when they attacked me in a show of intense ungratefulness for my generous gift to them.


    Laughing silently at my ability to describe poor behavior I had rationalized away, I waited to see what would happen when the mounted boss finished his speech. Speaking softly to the bear beside me, I said. ¡°Okay, I¡¯m sure you could take the wolf in a fight, but what do you think the outcome would be if he had his pack with him? How many do you think you could take?¡±


    ¡°Four? Five? Six?¡± When the bear finally raised his right paw I wondered to myself if he might be overestimating his abilities, but decided with the regeneration he had gained he might be able to take them on. Hoping we never had to find out, I was getting less inclined to head back on another excursion into the Goblin Woods. I think after processing the pigs and getting our supplies together, we might start heading for the river instead. Hopefully, either on the way there or upon our arrival we would find signs of the Allied civilization the rabbit had told me about in our conversation inside of their training device.


    It seemed like the goblin Chief was finally wrapping up and I was anxious to see how the rabbits held up, yeah the barrier looked to be sturdy, but there were only around a hundred of the regular rabbits stomping in unison while being backed up by twenty or so of the glowing eye variety. Well, nineteen now that the one had collapsed had been dragged back to his burrow. I looked around but couldn¡¯t see any sign of the elder who had guaranteed our protection.


    As the fodder goblins started charging forth to hurl their spears over the brambles and into the fluffle of rabbits. The pounding of the rabbit¡¯s right legs grew to a crescendo and with a massive stomp a visible rolling of the earth grew out from that point and was sent forth out to knock the goblins off their feet. The timing looked to be perfect and the smaller goblins were either too focused on their tasks or just didn¡¯t have the necessary brain wattage to understand what was happening, but right before they were ready to release their volley, the rolling hill hit them and knocked their feet out from under them. As they collapsed to the ground, many spears were gripped too tightly and as they spun around they were stabbed into their fellows.


    As the boss goblin screeched out commands angrily, those that could stand back up retreated back, while a good quarter of their number lay dying on the ground. As individuals started to expire, I started seeing the exp stream up angrily into the sky, separating out into numerous smaller streams as it tried to divide itself up before running out of energy to form enough streams for everyone present. I saw that it headed back into the goblins for the most part while the occasional stream found its way to me or the bear. But all of the rabbits were left alone undisturbed by any of the energy that wanted to devour and take over its recipients. As I was already maintaining my breathing pattern and the actual amount that was making its way over to me was minimal, I wasn¡¯t too worried about being taken over this time.


    Instead, I focused on what was happening to the bear beside me. While not a perfect test as it was such a low amount, I wanted to see if he had any unfocusing of his eyes or anger problems that I remembered him having back in camp when creatures had died and sent out their souls to be devoured.

 Chapter 46

    When he noticed me staring at his eyes intently the bear gave me a look like he was seriously reconsidering our partnership. When it didn¡¯t look like he was being affected at all I leaned back to look at how the goblins were handling the setback.


    Slowly the fodder goblins were reforming their ¡®ranks¡¯ and retreating. It looked like the Chief was realizing they were in the way and ordering them to the side to clear the way for his more elite forces. Half of the surviving basic mobs went to the right flank, while the remaining ones streamed over to guard the horde¡¯s left side.


    I don¡¯t know if he thought taunting would work on the leporids, but the goblin boss sent his bruisers out to bang on their shields with their clubs while the spear holders shook their polearms and screamed out insults at the now silent and frozen rabbits. When all of that proved useless, they were called back and the archers were sent forth to see what they could do. As the one with the wounded leg finally hobbled forward to join the rest of the group, they all pulled back their arrows in a very loose semblance of synchronization and held the arrows back until their leader screamed an order to loose.


    As the thirty arrows were released into the air, I wasn¡¯t sure if the poorly made bows even had the strength to fling the arrows over the barrier. Either the rabbits weren¡¯t willing to take the chance or they just wanted to show off their superiority. At a chirp of command from one of the elder evolved bunnies all of the normal ones let out a simultaneous shriek that cut through the air and had me happy the bear had posted up behind them.


    Rubbing my still ringing ears, I was amazed to see the thirty arrows blown out of the sky in random directions, I felt like I should be seeing a blade of wind like those depicted in animae, but instead, it was an invisible force that knocked them from the sky. It didn¡¯t seem to stop there as many of the archers were knocked to the ground and some of the bows shattered in their hands. Whether it was their weaker constitutions or the fact that the rabbits had directed the sound wave at them, only twenty-five of the archers regained their feet to scamper back behind their sturdier kin.


    As five more larger funnels of exp rose into the air, I watched as they broke into smaller streams, this time all of them headed back to the goblins, who ignored it like it was all something that I was imagining. Wondering at the lack of buildup from the sky gods and why they hadn¡¯t descended to collect their due, I guessed that they had some kind of system to determine if there was a battle so they only had to send out a single column to collect the gentler version that I loved to partake in. Happy at the apparent frugality, I hoped that meant when the rabbits had carried the day I might be able to get another fix of the good stuff.


    Looking at the goblins it seemed that most of the streaks of exp were diving into the already evolved monsters, who like the bear beside me showed no sign that they had gained anything or had been affected in any way. Six of the smaller braids of energy were flying into the fodder goblins, and while four of them showed no sign that they were being affected, two on the other hand were clearly having different experiences.


    Both looked to be growing bigger, each one doubling in height before my very eyes. I found it was reminding me of how the troll had managed to regrow his limbs. But this, believe it or not, was happening at even more of a rapid pace. One of the two was bulking up and looked to have turned into a bruiser, the second one while gaining the same height, looked to be growing skinnier instead. While they were in the process of transforming the rest of the fodder around them seemed to be having one of two reactions. Either they were fearful and backing away; or they were staring at them greedily, clenching their wooden spears tightly in their hands.


    None of them attacked while the change was happening which I found to be surprising. I would have assumed that the best time to gain an advantage would be when your opponent was clearly not in control of his faculties. The bruiser finished his transformation first, both of the evolving goblins were part of the right flank. It looked like about a little more than half of the ones on that side were backing away in fear and wanted nothing to do with the upcoming brawl. The bruiser had been surrounded by a larger amount of hopefuls. Twenty looked ready to jump him as soon as he finished evolving.


    As soon as he stopped screaming in pain from the agony and looked around at the waiting circle of now smaller former colleagues. HE leaped at one of the smaller ones, eschewing the spear he dropped from his hands. Instead, he scooped up his chosen target and buried his fangs into its neck, ripping out a bite and killing it instantly. After taking his bite of flesh, he gripped it by the legs and began to swing it around wildly, using the body of his former comrade as a club on the rest of his challengers.


    Looking over to the other ten that were still waiting for the skinnier target to finish his evolution, I wondered what would happen, as he didn¡¯t seem to have the bulk to defend himself as abily as his bigger partner. As more streams of exp made their way into the sky I looked back to the first fight to see most of the challengers lying dead on the ground. As the bruiser used his makeshift club to crush the ribs of the last two he seemed to have run out of energy. Dropping the smaller goblin he was using as a club, he lept to the largest of his kills and dove fang first into the stomach of his victim to begin feeding sloppily, no doubt to harvest the needed calories to support his increase in bulk.


    I was about to turn back to the crowd that was still surrounding the still evolving goblin, when I saw some movement behind the feeding bruiser. Apparently, he hadn¡¯t managed to kill all of his challengers and one had hidden underneath the bodies of his fellows. Standing and gripping his spear, he charged at the feeding monster and sent the pointy wooden stick into its neck with all of the weight that the smaller monster could put into the thrust. As the bruiser tried to stand in shock, the stick came out of his throat, spraying out blood in a vicious stream that doused his attacker.


    The evolved monster took two unsteady steps towards his attacker before collapsing to the ground in front of him. Immediately the majority of the streams of energy that had been driving into his body changed focus for his killer. A veritable tornado rose up out of the now dead champion and rather than splitting into smaller streams, the entirety of it started streaming into his slayer. As the body of this new recipient began to shake and change as well, I wondered if he would find a new group of challengers that would attack him in turn. Or could it be he was safe as the rest of the group had already picked out their own target or retreated from the fight unwilling to risk their lives on a slim chance at increasing their power?


    Looking back to the smaller crowd, it looked like that evolution was finally being completed, as the changed goblin stood up straight and tall rather than being hunched over. Rather than instantly attack like his now dead brother, he held his hands in front of him and looked at them intently like he couldn¡¯t believe what was happening. I couldn¡¯t either, as I saw an honest to god fireball start to appear in the monster¡¯s hands, this one had a different look than the only other fireball I had ever seen on this world.


    While the former one had been formed of primarily black and red energy, even from the beginning it had a hint of the yellow that I would find in the troll core or the gem that the other shaman next to the leader seemed to have harnessed in his staff. This ball of fire, while it indeed had a red cast to its edges, didn¡¯t seem to be formed in the same process as the evil that had brought my first view of magic into existence. There was no sacrifice in front of him waiting to have his life force dragged into an awaiting cage to be consumed as fuel for the spell. This fire seemed to be created entirely by the magical monster¡¯s will and had me considering it more like a pure force of nature, rather than an impending evil that had me instinctually wanting to stop it.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    As the surrounding fodder started charging forward in an effort to end the newly created magic user¡¯s life and harvest its luck for themselves I thought we would swiftly see the newly born mage quickly stuffed out. Without bigger bodyguards, most mages are quick to fall to the melee if they ever make the mistake of ending up in their reach. With ten of his former friends around him, I doubted his fireball would be able to take them all out. As he threw it forward and the ball landed in an explosion that took out three of his charging enemies, I imagined that was it for him and that we would soon see another transformation. When to my surprise I saw seven spears of wood thrust out of the ground and impale the rest of the charging horde.


    At the newly minted mage¡¯s yelp of surprise, I was easily able to tell he wasn¡¯t the cause of the change in circumstances. As he looked over to the leader and his two magic users, my gaze followed as well, looking over to see the shaman with the green tipped staff sag a little and lean into it. Apparently, he had been forced to push himself to save his fellow magic user. I had to guess from the numbers that while the melee evolutions were more normal and they didn¡¯t mind how many of the fodder died in their creation, once a magician was created they were off limits. No doubt they weren¡¯t willing to double down on the roulette wheel and see if the secondary killer gained the same class as the former evolved. The saved shaman dove into one of his now crispy kills and started feeding with the same alacrity as his now dead former compatriot. I looked back over to that one¡¯s killer to see what would happen when he finally finished his own change.


    This new evolving goblin looked to be growing to an even greater height than the other two before him, taller but with a bulk that was midway between the other two chosen. As the evolution continued I looked back to the assembled rabbits, I didn¡¯t know why they were allowing this to happen unchallenged. Sure a mass of the fodder had been taken out by their own companions, but from everything I had encountered it didn¡¯t seem like the goblins had lost much of the actual power of their force, even I could take out the fodder goblins en masse. Prior to this week, the only time I had ever killed anything had been with a gun from a distance.


    I could tell when the evolution finished as the monster immediately dove into the corpse of the goblin he had ended to achieve his new greater status. As the freshly minted magical goblin had finished his meal and joined his two compatriots, the rest of the field was remarkably still while the monster worked on sating his fill. So still, that I had no problem hearing the noises the sloppy eater was making, letting me know what was in store for me, should the rabbits not uphold their end of the bargain.


    Looking out at the assembled army, I had to wonder if this was some sort of double cross, or if the goblins and rabbits had some kind of weird symbiosis going on. It didn¡¯t make sense that such a large gathering had been assembled to go after the slayer of just two pigs. Yeah, maybe we had also led the rabbits to steal some flowers the day before and taken out a patrol on the way, but there wasn¡¯t really anything to tie the two acts together. Also, the actual amount of herbs that were taken couldn¡¯t even be considered a rounding error as to what was left in the field.


    Looking at the way the rabbits were just standing there, stock still, waiting for the goblin¡¯s next action. I couldn¡¯t quite wrap my head around why they weren¡¯t attacking or doing anything to disrupt the creation of two new powerhouses for the goblin army. A couple more of the wind blades sent out into the fodder while the transformation was going on would have ended the threats in their cradle. I know I am incredibly pragmatic, but the elder didn¡¯t strike me as the bleeding heart type. I had to wonder if there was something else going on here. Asking the bear beside me as softly as I could, so as not to disturb the fragile silence, he merely raised his left paw a fraction of an inch before settling it back down. Apparently, he also got the feeling that something hinky was going on and had no intention of being a lightning rod.


    Following his lead, I shut my mouth and resolved not to move until I was given the okay by my friend. I was too impulsive and sure of myself to be left to devine the all clear in this case.


    The newly evolved monster finally finished feeding and standing to his full height started searching through the best of the spears beside him, apparently finding one he liked, he twirled it around and joined the rest of the spear holders standing behind the shield bearing brutes. I had to wonder if that was a better evolution granted by the excess energy or if it was all just random chance.


    As he took his place, the goblin leader finally broke the silence, and started shouting out orders in the high pitch screaming that sounded to me like nails on a chalkboard. A lighter and more pleasant scratching than the demon I had seen beyond the portal, but I had to wonder if the languages were connected. The fodder goblin reassembled into a straight line in front of the elites, with the shield bearers standing directly behind them, as they all started to approach, the group stopped about fifteen yards away from the bramble barrier. As they held their positions rather than trying for another volley, the three magic users slowly approached to take up a position a couple of body lengths behind them.


    As they huddled together talking for a couple of minutes I couldn¡¯t understand why the rabbits were just letting them plan their attack rather than sending out more wind blades or rolling earth waves. Either one would mess up the basics mobs at the very least, if not also having the chance to take out one of the elites as well. As the three magic users apparently made up their minds, they each called over one of the fodder goblins to stand in front of them. They formed a triangle with the green staff and the newly minted standing behind their evil staff leader.


    As they started chanting, a blue glow I recognized started rising off of the three fodder goblins. As the first two started gathering it in their hands, I soon saw that they were redirecting it to the yellow staff that the main mage was holding up. It seemed like that was where the energy he was collecting from his feeder goblin was being directed as well. Or at least that is what I assumed as I didn¡¯t see anything forming anywhere else.


    More and more energy began to gather around the staff and I saw it start turning the same black and red that I remembered from my initial meeting with my companion. As the ball started forming, the braiding of the black and red energies soon gave way to the evil yellow that I was quickly becoming familiar with. It started forming into a ball shape similar to the one I had encountered on my first day. Only instead of having a pinprick at the end, it was already up to the size of a baseball that I could see clearly, despite being a hundred yards away from it.


    As more energy continued to pour into the rite, it seemed like they had finally crossed whatever line the bunnies had needed them to step over before they acted. Out of nowhere, with a crashing like thunder, the elder I had met appeared in between the brambles and the army of monsters. As my ears continued the ringing, that the rabbit shrieking had started. I could only be thankful that the majority of the force seemed to be directed away from us. Goblins collapsed to the ground and the ball of fire vanished like it never was. Clearly hit by the backlash, the head shaman started clutching his head screaming uncontrollably; as I looked into his face, I could see blood pouring from his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. I could only imagine it was coming from other orifices that I couldn¡¯t see as well.


    The goblin leader had been knocked from his wolf and was clearly shaken. Trying to stand up back up, he was eventually able to get one foot underneath him but seemed to lack the strength to press down and force his way past the pressure that the leader of the rabbits was exerting on the goblin forces. I could only imagine him pointing a finger and screaming out, ¡°YOU DARE!¡± Clearly, the boss rabbit had read his share of anime and knew how to act the part of an offended master. Leaving them on the ground screaming for several minutes he eventually grew tired of his game and turned to hop back through the briar barrier rather than teleporting back the way he came. Whether that was because he was more tired than he let on from his dramatic entrance or he just knew how to make an exit. I was sure I lacked the courage to ask him.


    Finally, the goblins regained their feet and to the screaming of their leader, they began to gather up their fallen weapons and started marching away. As the spear¡¯s tips started disappearing into the rolling hills of grass, I looked up to the sky and finally saw the expected funnel I had been missing begin to form.

 Chapter 47

    I wanted to dash out there immediately, with all of the deaths from the rabbit¡¯s overpowered defense, I was sure there was a massive haul to gain. Even if all of the goblins that were killed by the rabbits were just from the fodder class it was still a resource that I hadn¡¯t had to risk my own tender skin to gain, and that green energy was the only actual defense I had found from the evil exp that seemed to want to try and take over my body.


    When I saw the funnel touch down, I looked into the distance and saw that I couldn¡¯t see any more of the waving spears. Asking the bear if it was okay that I went out to gather some resources it growled a question to the rabbits and one of the purple eyed ones turned to look at me. Not bothering to reply he just hummed lightly and when I turned to look a path had appeared among the thorns.


    Dashing out, I headed for the body of the fallen evolved goblin, I was sure that would be the richest source and I wanted to claim it before the funnel gathered it all up. Reaching him, I saw that there was already a thread that had attached itself to the green pool over his heart. Slapping both of my hands onto the insubstantial resources, I used my larger channels to begin sucking it dry before looking around to plan where I was heading next.


    I noticed that all of the dead goblins that had fought the champion looked to have pools that were two or three times as big as the smaller ones over the goblins that had died in the rabbit¡¯s strike. Sure here or there in the mass casualties, there was the anomaly that was as big as this, but for the most part, they were centered here. That couldn¡¯t be a coincidence! These goblins had to know they were close to being able to evolve which was why they were so easy for that last little power up to push them over the top.


    That was insane, if they were so close then the smart thing to do would have been to wait eventually, they would gain the exp they needed to evolve so why not just do it that way? I pondered to myself. With this pool almost drained to the last, I moved over to where two had died right next to each other. The smaller threads coming from the funnel had probably only managed to take ten percent from both of them. Trying to take a page from the sky gods, I put a hand into each of the pools and started trying to collect from both at the same time.


    In the beginning, I was only able to focus on one or the other, but as I fell back into my trusty breathing pattern, I found that I still could only take from one of the pools at a time. Apparently that life hack wasn¡¯t good for everything. Focusing on the energy that was coming in through my channels and being drawn into my core, I put my thoughts to increasing the flow. When it got to my core I tried to swing it around the entrance and keep it moving in the outer channels.


    At first, it didn¡¯t seem to work, the only thing I noticed was I was gaining less of a soothing feeling in my muscles. I¡¯m guessing that speeding up the movement was letting a smaller amount of it fall off and it was interacting even less with my body. You know I really hope this was improving me, it felt like it was, but that would really be an extra kick in the nuts if I found out later all I was doing was giving myself alien cancer. I found myself thinking.


    Eventually, I was able to get it to loop past the core and continue rotating around my body, faster and faster. Finally making progress, I noticed that the pool I hadn¡¯t been able to draw from was beginning to get drawn in by the vortex that was forming in my channels. As the two pools began to run dry, I took a deep breath and focused on continuing to spin the energy as I moved on to my next spot, two pools that were half empty. Shoving my hands into them I gasped for breath as I had kept all of my focus on keeping the spinning going.


    Immediately both of them started draining down even faster as I began to claim my share. But quickly I found that between my increased pace and the smaller fodder pools being drained, the sky gods were able to increase their gathering speed as well. Looking around, I saw one more pool that had a little bit left, and after shoving my arm into it I was able to snatch the last little bit. As the funnel began drawing back up into the sky, I released my focus and let the energy continue with its natural inclination and get drawn up into my core.


    Thinking to myself, I really needed to figure out a way to measure my strength, it was probably a good idea to confirm that the energy was actually improving me, not just causing me to randomly mutate. Well, I will at that to the ever growing list of things I¡¯m trying to remember, god I really need to invent paper! Of course, then I would just be hauling around pounds of paper, which will no doubt swiftly become wet and ruined with my no longer having any kind of shelter thanks to our monstrous overlord of the skies.


    Giving up on that train of thought before I began to get depressed, I really did need to start having some kind of list that I could use to keep track of the important things I could learn. I would hate to make a mistake later on just because I had misremembered what had happened in one of my eureka moments. As I let the hamster go for a second I pondered how I might go about it. Perhaps if I took some of the pig skin and burned some letters into it. Hopefully, that wouldn¡¯t look bad when I eventually found civilization. I would hate to be thrown in jail or summarily executed because they thought I was a warlock and had a skin bound grimoire written in some strange evil language because they can¡¯t read English¡­ You know what on second thought, maybe I will avoid the note taking for now.


    ¡°God damn it,¡± I said out loud under my breath before thinking to myself. I left my spear over with the bear in my anxiousness to get out here. I¡¯m guessing that the rabbits are being kind enough to keep it open for me, but they will most likely close their barrier back up once I get back, so if I want to gather any of the cores, I need to do it now before I go back. Pulling my knife I walked back over to the evolved monster, and working my way up using the holes in the abdomen that had been eaten out of him, I was quickly able to find the glowing core with minimal gore splattered on me.


    Again I found another green core, it seemed like they were the most prevalent of the colors and I wondered if that was because I had only been collecting them from goblins or if there was some other reason. So far I had found five main colors with the outlier being the yellow energy that I had been forced to drain from the troll¡¯s core, but even that had an original hue of green. I knew the main thing that my brain wanted to jump to was the obvious answer for me and I kept having to consider if the fact that I didn¡¯t want to say it out loud was merely because it was the obvious answer. Obvious answers always felt like a trap to me. Nothing in my life has ever come easy, always it has been multiple failures that have led to my successes.


    On the other hand, if I ignored the obvious answer while continuing to hunt for something more convoluted, how much farther behind would I find myself? Most cultivation novels agree that cultivating is for the young and that if you aren¡¯t able to quickly move through the stages you will find that you stagnate before too long. At forty-five years of objective age, I am certain I am already past the golden years as they are termed and I would hate to find out that I had wasted even more of my time because I was too pigheaded to accept the obvious answers.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    Leaving my arms dripping in monster blood now, I wanted to get two other cores to compare and contrast things with before I got myself cleaned up. Going to one of the other failed attackers that were nearby, I dug into one of the ambusher¡¯s bodies and this time pulled out a red core. While I was wishing for another gold or brown, I wasn¡¯t going to dig through a multitude of bodies looking for them. I was more planning on looking at the shapes and comparing them with the evolved monster¡¯s core. I needed to compare and contrast them to see if the evolution did anything to the core and while three cores weren¡¯t going to be anything conclusive, I also wasn¡¯t going to spend hours taking up the rabbit¡¯s time while they held the door for me.


    Going over to the smallest goblin that I could find that had died from the tremor that the rabbits had produced, I pulled out yet another green core. Wiping all of the cores, my knife, and my arms off on the surrounding grass, I cleaned up as best as I could before adding the cores to the three I still had and returning my blade to its sheath. Rolling down my sleeves, I headed back to join my companion. I was unsurprised when as soon as I had passed through the barrier, it was quickly reformed by several of the rabbits working in unison. Reclaiming my spear, I found myself wondering why the initial barrier had only been grown by two of the magic users, I guessed that it was either a test for them or they had been preserving their strength, and now that the attackers had departed were feeling a little more generous.


    As Gaian and I followed a guide back to our designated area I found myself looking up to the sky. It looked like we had a good two or three hours before nightfall and there was still a lot of work to be done before we could get some sleep. As soon as the rabbit led us onto the soft turf where the few supplies we had been left behind, I was happy to see that the two pigs we had killed were lying there waiting for us.


    Going through my mental list, I decided to empty my pockets and pull off my belt first. Dropping the cores off next to the bucket I left them in a pile that hopefully wouldn¡¯t be taken in the night. While I left my belt and weapons next to the shield. Judging by the fact that the rabbits had left the multitude of dead alone, they were happier with the flowers and didn¡¯t need the gemstones I had dug out of such disgusting creatures. Thinking back to earth at how poorly people were exploited to gain control of diamonds and other minerals. I had no doubt that had a monster population had made it back home, they would soon enough find themselves in cages, bred and harvested for the shiny rocks¡­


    Wondering if I would put myself on that level, I pulled out the ammunition I had still been carrying around that I hadn¡¯t found a use for yet. Dropping the rocks, next to the bucket, I figured I would at least use them to make dinner for tonight¡­ Looking up to the sky, I put a pin in that, rock soup took way too long to make, so I guess that was a tomorrow project. Fortunately, it was looking like I finally had enough work to do that I wasn¡¯t going to have to make another trip to the goblin woods to gather supplies, so hopefully, I could start making some progress on travel supplies and stop waiting so much time walking between here and there.


    So far all of my time had been spent wandering between my camp, the goblin¡¯s area, and the rabbits. Finding myself constantly going in circles I realized that my actions had been mirroring my thoughts. I need to stop being so indecisive! Come up with a plan, stick to it, and stop getting so distracted by shiny little puzzles. Who is in charge, you or the hamster in your head?


    Deciding on my tasks for the rest of the night I was determined to stick to them for once and not get distracted no matter what! ¡°Build a fire, make some rope, hang the hogs, and clean my clothes.¡± Saying it out loud, I repeated it multiple times to really get it stuck into my head. Stripping out of my clothes and boots, I dumped the clothes into the wash log to soak for a bit. Examining my feet I was happy to see that they still were blister free, although all the exertion did have them a little wrinkled. Hating the fact that I had lost every other pair of socks, I started to think of how I was going to replace them. I had no desire to find myself wandering the woods barefoot, that was not a trope I wanted to find myself following.


    ¡°No, no, no! Bad jack!¡± I exclaimed. ¡°I literally just got done telling myself that I wasn¡¯t going to get distracted and here you are planning out something else¡­¡± Trailing off I rapped myself on the head a couple of times and walked to the edge of the glade to gather some branches for the night fire. After gathering up several almost log sized branches and dragging them over to near the salt, I luxuriated in the feeling of the turf on my bare toes. Feeling brave, I decided to brave the woods barefoot just to try out the trope to see if it was feasible for me, but after stepping on several sticks and other assorted pointy objects hidden under a carpet of leaves, I found myself quickly heading back to put on my boots.


    Finally having gathered enough wood in the minefield that was the forest, I removed my boots to resume airing my feet out. Moving on to my next task, I had to make a decision. The easiest way to butcher the hogs was going to be to hang them from a frame or the branches of a stout tree. Unfortunately, all of my cordage had gone up in smoke when the dragon took offense to my leaving man-made objects where he could see them. Knowing the bare bones of the theory I had never had the opportunity to roll my own ropes before, so I was sure this was going to go swimmingly.


    Sitting down next to the pile the rabbits had gathered for me, I was pleased to see that all of it was several feet in length. While I would have been happier with the full length grasses from the plains this was bladed and I¡¯m not sure if the stalk like, seed laden grass, would work as well for rope making. Taking three of the blades in each hand, I ripped the tips off to give me varying lengths for the start. Pinching the end together I worked on twisting them first one way for several twists before pinching it and twisting it back the other way.


    As I continued on I quickly found it unraveling and breaking apart. Taking a breath, I worked on trying to make several different starts of it, varying them in small ways while I tried to remember the relevant articles I had once read when I was bored. I knew the method shouldn¡¯t be that hard, humans had been doing this crap for thousands of years, and I should be able to figure this out. After several more false starts, I eventually thought to myself, Screw this, I¡¯m just going to braid it! While it might be slower, I have braided my daughter¡¯s hair enough I can make it work, Braid three ropes first, and then braid those together and I should have something strong enough to hold the hogs.


    Grabbing a new set of three blades, I again made sure to vary the length and quickly pushed a small twig through the ends of all three to join them together, I quickly started going through the over under motion braiding them together, adding a new blade of grass to the end of one when it was down to a couple of inches left. After several minutes, I had a good four feet of braid. Taking the small branch out, I tucked the ends back down into the braid to keep it from unraveling. Making another eleven of the ropes the same length only took me about another twenty minutes as I got faster with the task. I know that actual rope making wasn¡¯t supposed to take that long. Wishing I could remember the trick of it I was sure that I would eventually get it, but for now, this longer way would just have to do.


    Taking three of the smaller versions, I quickly was able to braid them to form a slightly shorter rope. Repeating the process three more times, I soon found myself holding four pieces of braid about three feet long. Hoping it was enough and I wouldn¡¯t have to repeat the process tonight, I picked up my knife and headed over to the hogs.

 Chapter 48

    Dropping the ropes and my knife next to the pigs, I thought about how I wanted to do this. Only ever having dealt with yearlings before in the kitchen where I had normally had most of the beginning steps already taken care of for me. While with bigger animals in Alaska, you had to butcher them right away to pack them back to the plane. Seeing as how I planned to be here for the next several days I was thinking the best option was going to be the former and let them hang for a couple of days until rigour had passed.


    Taking my knife and putting a couple of slits into their rear legs, I went off to find some branches I thought would hold them. Not finding anything on the ground that could even bear my weight, I headed back to get the saw blade in my ax to cut down something suitable. Hanging onto a branch to make sure it would hold my weight without sagging too much, I used my blade to remove it from the tree and then cut off two four-foot lengths.


    Bringing that back to the pigs I pushed one through each pig¡¯s rear legs joining them together. As I tied the ropes to every end of the branches I realized that I was still missing some longer rope to hoist the bastards up. Tired of being tired and forgetting something so basic, I realized I was going to need to make something a lot thicker if I planned on pulling it over a tree branch. It would have to be a lot longer as well. Not to mention needing a pully if I wasn¡¯t able to figure out a harness for the bear. Seeing the project continue to grow, I kept finding myself getting more and more frustrated with both myself and the situation. So I said fuck it, let¡¯s scrap that plan and just start butchering. While the meat wasn¡¯t going to end up as good as it could be if I took the time to exsanguinate them and let them rest before I finally broke them down. I was just going to have to settle for good enough.


    In the end, I was mostly going to turn them into jerky by cooking out all of the moisture so that bacteria wouldn¡¯t be able to grow and probably use the fat to further the shelf life by making it into pemmican. Also with these being basically wild, I was sure that the goblin hordes weren¡¯t feeding them any antibiotics or anything else to get rid of parasites. I had no desire to end up making myself sick by risking cooking something to a modern standard medium rare. I might be willing to try curing one of the hams as an experiment, but I wanted to make sure the salt really had a chance to get into the meat and do its work before I took a chance on eating it, which meant years before it was ready to consume so that was out for now as well.


    Gently sliding my knife up under the sternum, I was careful not to push it too far in and damage any of the organs. With my taking mine in the lungs and Gaian ripping the throat out of his, there shouldn¡¯t have been any damage to contaminate the meat, so as long as I was careful, most of it should be usable. Drawing the blade down carefully, I found myself jumping out of the way as the organs came spilling out in a mess. Reaching inside to cut them off, I pulled most of them away, only setting the stomach aside. Asking the bear if he was interested in any of the richer organs, I didn¡¯t find myself up for eating them myself. My plan was to roast off some of the tenderloin from myself tonight.


    As the bear wandered over and picked out the liver and the heart, I went to repeat the process on the other kill. When I had finished, I removed one of the loins, leaving the rest to fall into rigor I would finish the butchery after I had made a quick and dirty smoke house tomorrow. Dropping the loin onto the pile of salt that I had bargained for, I went back to the wash log to remove my clothes. Wiping my hands off on the grass, I used a stick to pull them out and hang them on some branches before getting elbow deep in the water and washing off all of the blood. Going back to wring out my clothes now that I was cleaner, I left them hanging to finish the drying process.


    With all that was left of my goals for the night being to build a fire I really hoped I still remembered how to use a firebow. It had been years, I had always been meaning to teach my son how to do it to keep the knowledge alive and so he would never be without in an emergency, but had never ended up getting around to it. I hadn¡¯t done it since I was a child myself. I had been into survival books at the time and on on one of our family camping trips I had snuck away to practice.


    With my being ten at the time and it being the eighties, it had been easy enough to get away and find a secluded area in the woods nearby. After nearly an hour of trying I finally managed to make a coal¡­ Fifteen minutes after that I was screaming for help as several piles of old leaves and a fallen log were going up in smoke. As my dad came running, he quickly turned around to grab the ten gallon cooler of water he had brought for the weekend, and dumping it all over the various blazes, he managed to put everything out.


    My butt will never forget the tanning I got that night after we had driven back an hour to the nearest town to get a refill on our water. I had never been brave enough to ask if he was madder about the drive or my nearly taking out the forest. As I child, I had always thought it was because I inconvenienced him and he had to waste two hours of driving and buy a bunch of water he had gotten from our hose. But as I grew to an adult, I realized now he might have just been terrified of all of his kids burning up. It hadn¡¯t rained in days and as quickly as the leaves went up, I think if it had got to the grass of the campgrounds it would have blazed up even faster. Even if the fire hadn¡¯t gotten to us, there was a good chance the smoke could have finished the job.


    The possibility of losing a child is scary enough for a parent, but actually seeing it seconds from happening is infinitely worse. While not knowing their situation is the worst feeling of all¡­


    Sitting with the fire bow I had made from my shoelace, for what had to be half an hour, I just couldn¡¯t bring myself to move and try to figure the process out. I know constantly shoving down my feelings would get to me eventually, but I hadn¡¯t thought it would be some random memory from my childhood that would prick the damn enough to let the flood of emotions come pouring out. All I wanted to do was pick up my club and go find some goblins to smash the shit out of.


    Part of me wondered if I had been infected by the troll¡¯s energy after all, or if some of the anger from the exp had managed to sneak past my shields and been able to infect me. But I knew in my heart this was all me. Before I had kids, almost every sentence I would use had multiple curse words in it. Growing up I thought it made me seem more manly but as I had kids and grew older, I came to realize that having control of what you say and how you act is a much greater testament to internal strength than blusteringly forcing your opinions on people. True neutral by natural temperament, I found that it was almost impossible to stay there and throughout my life, I had found myself drifting towards chaotic or lawful depending on the situation.


    Right now all I wanted to do was let the chaos take over and just destroy, go out in a blaze of anger attacking and causing as much pain and suffering as I could to see if I could build a blaze big enough to match the one that was burning in my heart. Neutral enough not to betray those who had treated me fairly I had no problems with trying to inflict enough suffering on the goblins that I would be placed into the tribe¡¯s pantheon as the boogie man goblin moms warned their children of.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    Continuing to breathe I found myself falling into the pattern I had used to control my core and I found myself gripping the branch I had made a bow from. As I continued to squeeze into the wood, I looked down to find it splintering apart in my hands. Forcing myself by dint of will not to get up, grab my club and shield, and not take off into the falling night to fuck up some goblins was taking up all of my focus and I couldn¡¯t even bring myself to marvel at the fact that I had just powdered some of the hardwood.


    I knew there was a huge part of me that loved this world I had found myself in, I had only been here a week but not having rules and laws stifling me was so incredibly freeing words can not describe it. Being able to choose to kill or let something live isn¡¯t something you get to experience in the modern world. Yeah, we all have that anger spark up that tells us we want to cause pain to another being, but we quickly suppress it, if not because it¡¯s the right thing to do, then because we don¡¯t want to go to jail. We are constrained by more and more laws that wrap around us, trying to suffocate us every year the politicians add more to the burden never taking any away. No one is allowed to be good, they are forced into molds as we slowly start to transition down from a civilized society to something more tribal.


    Finding myself starting to shake and scream with rage as my love of this newfound freedom came into conflict with also wanting to return to the cage of earth to be with my children. As I continued to scream out my anger I found my breathing had started to devolve into panting as I let another shout ring out through the surrounding woods. Feeling exhausted from my outburst I let out one last mighty shout and sat down to recover. As I sat down I could feel a pain start to build up in my chest.


    Concerned I started to force myself to breathe slower, while forty-five would be young for a heart attack, it wasn¡¯t unheard of and I didn¡¯t have the best diet. Continuing to try and fall back into my breathing pattern, I rolled myself over to where I had left the cores, picking them all up I started holding them up to the sky¡¯s last dying light to try and find the one that represented healing. No more did I have the time to cherry pick the best one for myself, I was afraid I was going to have to try and access its power now.


    Feeling like a balloon was blowing up in my chest, this was starting to feel like I had imagined building up the core should have felt like when it was growing so big in the ball that brought me here. As I continued to try my breathing pattern it only seemed to make things worse as the pressure continued to grow stronger and stronger, almost to the point of wanting me to try and find my knife and suicidally dig my own core out of my chest.


    As my teeth started the chatter in pain, while my body began to vibrate in turn. I kept trying to breathe in the only pattern I had found to work I was doing anything I could to try and lessen the burning in my chest as screams of pain began to ring out through the woods that had just moments before been echoing with my rage.


    I saw my friend who had been content to leave me alone to deal with my anger come dashing over after he detected the change in my tone. As he stood over me staring down, he tried licking my chest, no doubt hoping to heal whatever was wrong. But it seemed to have no effect, so sitting down he could only stare at me helplessly. Waiting for any part of the equation to change so he could do something else.


    Unable to focus, I managed to take the biggest of the green cores which I thought was the one that held the key to regeneration, and shove it into my mouth, but whether it was the size or the agony, I soon found myself spitting it back out into my hands to join his friends. Holding the cores in my hands, I found myself trying to rotate the energy inside of me like I had earlier today when I had formed a vortex to draw the after death energy into me even faster. Trying to let go of the other cores, I found my hands clenching even tighter, as the waves of pain grew even stronger. Despite my best efforts, it felt like I was continuing to blow up like a balloon. With no exp around to drag me along with it to see what was happening in my core I had no idea what could be causing the problems.


    Falling to my back, I began twitching on the ground as the pain started to overwhelm my nervous system. All thoughts were driven from my mind and all I could do was scream out in agony as the build up continued. Finally, just when I felt like I couldn¡¯t begin to deal with the pain anymore I felt a popping in my chest, and a wave of energy rushed out as the balloon I had been blowing up finally managed to decompress, sending out a wave of force through every channel I had cut into my body during my first few seconds on this world. Heels, knees, elbows, eyes, mouth, and hands. All of them felt a rush of energy deploying through them while I barely had the presence of mind to make sure none of the outlets were pointing toward the bear.


    This felt like nothing else I had felt since entering this world, it had none of the anger or hatred of the death energy; nor the slippery, connivingness of the yellow energy that wanted to corrupt me and have me take over the world. It certainly didn¡¯t have the soothing qualities of the energy I loved to collect after every battle. It was closest in feeling to the Order and Chaos I had first encountered. But while the Qi of those two forces had a certainty to them that nothing could change them from their nature, this felt almost like air as opposed to their solidness. It had an ethereal nature to it, almost like I could tell it how to be or what to do, and that is what it would turn into.


    Feeling my hands finally begin to unclench, I looked down to see the cores that I had held had all been blasted to pieces by the outpouring of power. Before I could even begin to lament the loss or figure out how bad the popping in my chest was going to turn out to be. I felt a recoiling of the energy as the vortex I had started began pulling it back into me, taking all of the chips of the destroyed cores along with it back into my channels to drag them along with the recaptured power back to my core.


    As I felt my core filling back up with this newest energy, it didn¡¯t fill back to the point it was bursting again. Instead, I began for the first time to feel a constant movement through the channels I had carved. Whereas before everything I had ever taken in had felt like water moving through me, this was so much more insubstantial, part of me began to wonder if I was imagining it. It was so insubstantial there were times that I wasn¡¯t feeling anything at all.


    It seemed that for the moment I had very little control over the rotating energy as I was only noticing it when it started speeding up or slowing down. I tried to dive back down into my center to see if I could observe what was happening more directly, but apparently, this new energy wasn¡¯t substantial enough to drag my consciousness down into its movements. I had hoped this new energy could manage to be a substitute for the Order and Chaos that had introduced me to my insides, but it was a no go and it seemed like I was going to need to find another way or stick to diving in with the exp.


    Reaching up to feel my chest, I still felt a little bit of pain, but as I looked down at my uncovered skin, I couldn¡¯t see any sign of bruising that would have accompanied any of my veins or arteries actually bursting. As the bear again tried to nose me to either detect if anything was wrong or send his healing touch to help fix me back up. It appeared that everything was okay as the pain in my chest only improved a marginal amount. But I also noticed that the cuts that had formed from clenching the imperfect cores so tightly began healing as well which told me his spell was working.


    Using his bulk to help pull me to my feet, I looked around. It seemed like most of the damage had been sent straight up into the air. With only the holes in my elbows pointing at the ground. Looking at what had been carved into the ground I was surprised to see only two shallow gouges in the soft turf. It had felt so much stronger and with enough energy to break apart the gemstone quality of the cores I had been holding I would have thought the damage would be greater. Instead, it only managed to dig into the ground a few short inches.


    As I tried to force the energy to swirl faster in my channels and push it out of one of the holes in my palms, I found that it was refusing to listen to my commands.


    Just what I needed, another mystery in my life.

 Chapter 49

    I really wanted to dig right into what was happening, but as my stomach started to rumble, I put a pause on it right now. Without a way to send my consciousness down into my core and ¡®visually¡¯ poke around to see what had happened, there wasn¡¯t much I could do right now. Too many times I had allowed myself to be distracted and we only had five or six days of shelter depending on how the rabbits wanted to calculate things.


    Judging by the army that the goblins had been able to summon so easily, I had been incredibly lucky on my previous raids, and we couldn¡¯t keep counting on sticking around and whittling them down to get stronger. Which meant we were going to have to depart for parts unknown, meaning that supplies had to come first. As much as I loved a good puzzle I had to stick to my here and now problems and only when I had gotten a handle on those, gamble on pie in the sky solutions. Magic might be real on this world, but I seemed to be missing the memo that everything else seemed to have gotten. Leading me to believe that forming my core before I had arrived here might have been a mistake.


    But I was just going to have to deal with that later, I assumed that figuring out temporal manipulation so that I could go undo said mistake would be much harder than just finding a way to make things work. With my only known way to send my mind down into my core currently being to use the exp or the after death energy to drag it along, I was at a loss for what to do next. The only options I saw were to either kill a rabbit, and void the truce; or going on yet another goblin hunt, and I couldn¡¯t waste half of another day on something that might not pan out. Maybe I could try meditating again before bed and at the same time, I might try to address my anger issues.


    Snorting as I tried to hold back a laugh, I said. ¡°Who am I kidding?¡±


    At the bear¡¯s grunting question, I replied back. ¡°Just laughing at the thought of me being willing to deal instead of taking the time and fix the problem at the source. I only do that with physical projects, not my emotional ones. Thanks again for the help brother, sorry I constantly seem to be having issues.¡± As the bear padded back over to his dinner, I looked up to the sky. With just a few dying rays of light until twilight, I needed to find another stick to use as a fire bow quickly.


    Hurrying up, I ran over the soft turf to the edge of the woods, grabbing the first long branch I could find, I booked it back to the supplies I had gathered together before my episode. Making sure I had a pile of kindling next to the bigger branch of a softer wood I had hacked a notch out of with my ax. I picked up the smaller stick of the harder wood that had been able to resist my pushing a nail into it. Quickly undoing the knots of the lace from the pulverized stick I had previously planned on using, I had to retie it by feel, as the light of the stars and our fellow moons wasn¡¯t strong enough to break through the light cloud cover above us.


    Hoping we weren¡¯t in for another storm, I reached over to feel around for the smaller circle of flat wood I had cut another notch into to help hold the stick and save my hands. Before I looped the string around the stick, I rubbed the end I wasn¡¯t planning on turning into a coal against my nose. Making sure to get a decent amount of oil on it so it wouldn¡¯t start a fire in my hands, instead of on the board under my foot. Pulling the string farther down the end of my bow so it would tighten up somewhat, I used the board I had greased to press the fire stick down into the board with a notch and began to pull the bow back and forth. Aiming to go at a steady pace rather than give into the desire to let myself give into the frantic energy that told me to just go as fast as I could go.


    Pushing down with steady pressure I did my best to fight off those feelings. The worst thing that could happen was I went hungry tonight and with the fruits lying on the ground nearby that really wasn¡¯t that big of a concern either. Several false starts happened where I thought I had formed a coal and stopped my movements to blow on it. After several times thinking that it was ready for the additional oxygen, only for no red glow to appear, I was ready to throw in the towel.


    But my stubborn side refused to let me give up, so I gave it another go. I continued to pull on the bow long after I knew that it was ready, refusing to let my anxiousness stop me short again. When I finally stopped and blew onto the waiting coal, I was relieved to see it light up in a yellow orange glow. Transferring the board over to the waiting kindling I had shaved off a branch when there was still light above me. I continued to send oxygen gently over the fire, slowly increasing the intensity as more and more of the shaved wood began to blaze up.


    Moving back on the dirt patch I had cut out, I began to add larger branches over the pile, going with the tipi formation rather than trying to set up a log cabin style fire pit. When I had a large enough blaze to see the bear lying down a few feet away. I saw that he was watching intently, apparently still in awe that I was able to bring forth fire with such primitive tools. I took a second to walk over and rub his ears again; before heading over to get a drink of water, and give the fire a minute to settle down, before I tried roasting off my own dinner.


    After a refreshing drink of the cool water, I picked out a few of the tubers that the rabbits had provided for us, giving them a quick rinse in the bear¡¯s drinking log, I figured that was the cleaner option than my wash tub and I didn¡¯t want to muddy up my own drinking water. Setting them down on a flat board I sawed off of a log earlier in my preparations. Grabbing my ax, I used the light of the blaze to pick out a couple of likely branches that looked to be good to use for skewers. A few quick swings got me the tools that I would need. I thought about trying to build a spit, but in the end, my stomach rumbling convinced me that roasting smaller pieces was the better way to go.


    Using my knife to peel away the bark and trim off any smaller twigs, I started slicing the loin into pieces about to inch thick. When I had five slices, I stacked them on top of each other to make quartering them easier. Pushing one onto the end of each of the branches, I dipped them into the salt to give it a slight crust and held the two branches over the fire, slowly rotating them like I was roasting a marshmallow. After a few minutes, I began to see the grease start dripping out of the meat and begin to fall down onto the coals, causing them to hiss out steam and send a pleasant smell out into the air.


    If I were back on earth, with pigs fed a steady diet of antibiotics, this would probably be the time I would pull them away from the heat and put them on the board to rest. But as I wasn¡¯t anxious to invite any parasites to begin taking up a residence inside of me, I was going to have to cook them way past the point that would be enjoyable to eat. As the juices finally stopped coming out of the meat, I took that as a signal to pull it away from the flames and used my knife to scrape the pieces off onto a second board I had waiting. With the meat too hot to eat I wanted to give it a couple of minutes to rest and cool off, so refilled the skewers and then stabbed the root vegetables with my knife a couple of times so the steam had a way to escape. I then added the tubers to the coals and returned to holding the meat back over the flames.


    After a couple of more cycles of roasting off the pork, I was chewing on the meat that was tougher than I would have liked from my cooking it for so long. The salt definitely helped add to the flavor, along with the acorn diet that most commercial pigs back home never got to receive. Hopefully, that was all they were eating and this guy hadn¡¯t dined on any sentients in his time. Forcing my brain away from topics I really didn¡¯t know about, I found myself ducking as an explosion of sparks shot up in front of me. As I rolled back to my feet, I started to rub my cheek. It would seem I hadn¡¯t been quick enough to avoid the piece of flying vegetable that came shooting through the air to hit me.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    As luck would have it, it didn¡¯t seem like there was enough starch in them for it to stick to my face and burn me any further. Although, from the little bit of swelling, I was lucky it hadn¡¯t hit my eye instead. Grabbing my tongs, I quickly pulled the rest of them out of the fire before the moisture in them caused any more of them to explode.


    Going over to my drinking water I dipped my face in to help cool off the burn before going back to cut open the finished vegetables and add some salt. Tossing another bit of meat into my mouth while I waited for them to cool off enough to consume. Staring into the flames, part of me couldn¡¯t help but wonder if Gaian would have been able to regrow an eye for me if I had been just a little slower. Thinking about what happened to the roots, I couldn¡¯t help but wonder about the similarities to what had happened to me. I could still feel the occasional gusting through my channels and it was a disturbing feeling.


    Holding my hand out to the sky I focused on trying to send a burst out, but it still refused to listen to my call. I had to wonder if it had been my intense anger that had caused the explosion earlier or if it had been the vortexes I had formed to steal more of the soothing energy from the sky funnels.


    Sadly I doubted I was going to be able to figure out the answers tonight as I was exhausted and doubted I would be able to summon up the rage I had felt for both myself for enjoying my time in this world and the unfairness I couldn¡¯t help but feel at the universe for putting me in a situation. Now I could already tell I was moving to a low point, I knew the solution was to throw myself into a project, but I couldn¡¯t bring myself to care. Sometimes all you want to do is wallow and not even the prospect of figuring out my own magical powers seemed to be enough to drag me out of the waiting funk. Tossing another of the cooked chunks of meat to the bear, he snatched it out of the air with gusto as he showed signs of a quick conversion to the wonders of the extra flavor that came from rendering fat and adding salt to your meal.


    Happy that one of us was having a good time, I had no desire to rain on his parade and tell him how much better the meal could be with a few more tools or an actual variety of spices. Adding the last two pieces of raw meat to the skewer, I sprinkled an additional bit of salt on one of the vegetables before trying a bit of one myself. It had an earthy taste to it, missing a lot of the sweetness that had been bred into the terran varieties after countless generations of selective breeding, but overall it was certainly edible and the lack of sweetness made it possible for other more subtle flavors to play around that might have been overcome by commercial harvests.


    As I felt my stomach reach a state of fullness, I started tossing some of the rest of the meat to the bear who happily snatched them out of the air showing a dexterity that was surprising in an animal with his bulk. Setting both my plate and cutting board in the flames. I had thought about keeping them, but they had just taken a few slight minutes to form, and rather than try to sanitize them I thought it would just be easier to make new ones tomorrow. Taking my equipment over to the wash log, I quickly cleaned them of all the residue they had gained before drying them off on the turf to prevent the chance of rust, Feeling along the edge of my knife blade, I realized I was going to have to figure out an option for sharpening in it soon, as all of the projects I had been using it on was starting to dull the blade.


    With two more projects to take care of before I was ready for bed, I took my blade over to where I had left the organs and cut the stomachs away from the intestines. Dumping out the contents in the woods at the farthest point from where I would be sleeping, I brought them back over to the wash log to rinse out all of the acid from them. Pulling them out, I used my blade to slice into the lining, before pulling it off away from the organ itself. When I had removed the outer covering, I started pushing it through the top branch the esophagus had connected to, as it was slightly larger than the bottom opening, not having been able to remove all of the contents this wasn¡¯t the most pleasant of tasks.


    Unable to remember the proper steps to turn them into containers, I decided to leave them soaking overnight, hoping that would keep them supple until morning when I might have some better ideas. I was pretty sure I needed to either tan them or boil them out, but without the proper equipment that was going to be a task for the next day. Leaving them for now I decided to check on my clothes next.


    Walking over to the branches that held my clothes I could feel that they were still damp which meant I was in for an uncomfortable night if I couldn¡¯t figure out a way to dry them off. Taking the two branches I hadn¡¯t used to cook the meat, I put my socks over them first before holding them high above the coals, I had no desire to accidentally melt the polyester that had been added to them when they were made. With no more sewing kit and backup pairs, I was sure that these would be the first of my clothes to wear out, and I didn¡¯t yet have a good plan as to how I would replace them. I guess I could try to make some moccasins with the hide of a furry creature. But as of yet, the only natives I had found that met the requirements I would need were my hosts, and I doubted trying to acquire the necessary materials from them would go well for me.


    Moving on to the rest of my clothes, I slowly started to dry them while making sure to keep them far enough from the flames I didn¡¯t put any holes in them. As I finished and dressed for the night, I started to feel the breeze pick up and the air around me started growing colder. Hearing a rumbling of thunder coming from the distance, I realized that my string of bad luck was continuing and I was in for another wet night.


    It seemed like the universe was just looking to undo all of my hard work, had I known this was coming I wouldn¡¯t have bothered washing or drying my clothes. Picking my wallet up from the ground, I thought about what I could do to keep it safe. Part of me wished I was in the pine forest where the goblins made their homes, as they were so much better at keeping the water away from their base. They made amazing living shelters and it would have been easy just to hide under the branches.


    But with their woods being both several miles away and their inhabitants having a clearly unwarranted animosity towards me. I didn¡¯t think they would be willing to form any sort of agreement that would let me stay there. So I went with option two, going over to the pile of grass, I started weaving some quickly together in the low light of the dying coals. Quickly adding more blades of grass, I had to be careful not to pull them too tightly so they wouldn¡¯t break apart.


    After about ten minutes, just when I started to feel the first of the drops start raining down, I had a square about two feet by one. While it had plenty of loose ends it would just have to do. Grabbing my ax I chopped a small hole into the side of one of the trees, angling it up into it so any water that made it in would just as quickly be pulled out by gravity. Putting my wallet into the hole, I notched a line in above it and using a stick started shoving in the ends of the woven grass.


    I was sure that if I wasn¡¯t so panicked I could think of a better solution, but in my anxiousness to save my last memories of my children. I was frantic and this was the only thing that had come to mind. Notching another line below the small hole I had made I used the same twig to push the loose ends in and hopefully with it being on the leeward side it should stay safe.


    With my memories protected, I burrowed into the pile of grass myself, I was sure I would be wet and was unlikely to get any sleep, but hopefully, the heavy blades would keep some of the heat in. I thought about trying to pull one of the corpses over me but as this wasn¡¯t a snowstorm on an ice planet, I figured the grass would be enough and it wasn¡¯t worth the bloody clothes. As I had the thought, I felt the bulk of my friend burrowing into the pile next to me, rolling over to huddle next to his back, I was happy to steal some of the heat radiating off of him.

 Chapter 50

    Despite the warmth of my friend heating up our little nest, it was just as miserable of a night as I imagined it was going to be. So I decided in between the small bouts of unconsciousness I managed to find that I was going to make weaving a tent the second thing on my list of projects for the day. It should be light enough that when it was rolled up it wouldn¡¯t be that inconvenient to carry and as I made plans in my head, I knew it wasn¡¯t going to be that big of a deal. Hopefully, if I could make one tarp like sheet, I could use it to reinforce whatever I planned on using to carry my supplies.


    As the rain tapered away to a drizzle, and the clouds started to show beams of light streaming through, I got up to gather and hunt for some wood dry enough to start a fire, I also had to build a smokehouse and skinning the pigs and trying to gather enough acorns or oak to try my hand at tanning them. I doubted I was going to be able to do a professional job, but with enough luck, I could increase the lifespan to make it usable enough to last until I found civilization. I knew you could use brains to help as well, so I would try adding them to the mix and just see where I ended up.


    I had plenty of survival books back home and a couple of good apps on my phone, so like an idiot I had just assumed I would always have access if the world ever went to shit and I needed to hide out in the backwoods for a while. I had been way too interested in learning and making videos of harder skills. To be honest, even my glass blowing wasn¡¯t something that I would easily be able to recreate, as I had always gotten rods of different colors off the internet rather than trying to melt them from sand myself. I knew that you couldn¡¯t just use basic sand that came from the beach as it had too many impurities, but I had never taken the time to learn what to do if I got sent back into the Stone Age.


    Unfortunately, the same was true with iron. I could work decently enough for the most part, but without my power hammers, I doubted I would be able to form anything without using a massive amount of coal. As to finding iron ore and being able to turn it into spring steel that too was going to be way out of my comfort zone. All I knew was that it was red, even making my own flux was going to be a stretch. Any chance I had of forming tools was going to be capturing more metal from the goblins, but aside from the elites, there was no metal to be found.


    My best bet at a trade was going to be woodworking, I knew how to make a couple of homemade stains and I was pretty sure I could manage to form some kind of pully system with enough work to help with sanding and sharpening. But again that meant coming up with enough loot to trade or by said tools or converting them from captured weaponry.


    I thought about cooking, but in small villages, it was doubtful that there would be any excess income for people to waste on frivolities, and if I managed to find a large town or city, I faced the same problems that modern day entrepreneurs had¡­ financing. There is a reason ninety percent of all new restaurants fail in the first year and rarely is it because the food isn¡¯t good enough to eat.


    Other than that my only other hope for a trade was to turn mercenary. But even with that, I had both my age and lack of experience against me. Yeah, I could stick a spear in some goblins, but seeing as how they weren¡¯t even able to take out a bunch of bunnies, I doubted they were considered to be anything other than pests on this world which meant mercenary work would most likely any group would laugh me away if I was lucky while a drubbing wouldn¡¯t be out of the question.


    I was really beginning to grow depressed at the future I was looking at. As I looked to the future, I wasn¡¯t seeing a lot of hope. Breathing deeply I tried to focus on the positives, I was alive and I had a magical healing bear with me, somehow I had managed to ingest several cores last night and there had to be an upside to that, I was sure I wouldn¡¯t be having my insides torn apart as I tried to pass them. Feeling the depression start to worm its way back into me. I screamed out in frustration!


    ¡°Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!¡± Walking over to a tree, I began to punch it, over and over again. As my fingers started to grow bloody, I continued to punch, not even bothering to worry that my friend might not be able to put me together. Sinking into a depression was the best way for me to end up dead. I couldn¡¯t afford to lay around and wait for things to get better, I needed to keep pushing forward and do everything I could to make things better, not wallow around lamenting the things I couldn¡¯t change. With one more strike and one last scream of frustration. I forced myself to stop lashing out at the world, sat down to focus on my breathing, and made myself confront everything that was stewing inside of me.


    Going back to the mantra I had depended on in the ball on my trip over. I continued to repeat it over and over again in my mind, while I closed my eyes to shut out the rest of the world. Have the courage to change the things that you can! Have the Serenity to accept the things you cannot! Have the Wisdom to know the difference! Over and over I kept repeating the saying, building it up in my mind, until eventually I was screaming it out to the universe! Forcing it to accept that it would not break me and I would figure out a way to keep going no matter what obstacles it threw in front of me.


    Opening my eyes, I saw the bear in front of me, taking his nose away from my hands, looking down I saw that the skin over them had been regrown and noticed I couldn¡¯t feel any of the pain. Putting my arm around his neck I pressed my forehead to his and thanked him. ¡°Sorry for that bud. Everything was just getting to be too much. Too much thinking about the future that I couldn¡¯t possibly know about, and not enough time in the present. Fuck, for all I know maybe this universe actually managed to come up with a working socialism, and as soon as I find humans they will shower me with comforts.¡±


    As the bear snorted in reply, I continued on. ¡°Yeah I know it¡¯s stupid, but if you are going to dream, you may as well dream big right?¡±


    Heading over to the tree I had hollowed out a bit last night, I recovered my wallet, taking another moment to deal with the wave of emotions as I saw the three pictures were still dry. Grabbing my ax, I began the process of cutting down a number of branches that were about as long as my spear. Using five of them, I made a basic tent frame, tying them using two of the pieces of rope that I had made before I realized I was an idiot the night before.


    Feeling the pigs when I had reclaimed them I could tell that rigor had fully set in. With probably another day until they loosened back up due to the cooler weather, I decided to focus on the tent first and then work on the smokehouse afterward. Going to the pile of grass I began the process of weaving once again.


    <hr>


    Packing away the last of the wrapped packages of pemmican I had made in the pannier that Gaian had consented to wear, I looked out over the small meadow. Once I rolled down the grass to cover up the fire pit I had made, it wouldn¡¯t look that much different from how I had been introduced to it a week ago.


    Yeah, I hadn¡¯t managed to fulfill my wish list, but what we had accomplished had been more than I could have dreamed of that first night in the rain. Two panniers for the bear that were packed with jerky, pemmican, and slices of dried fruits; all of it wrapped securely in grass pouches woven tightly enough it would keep out water for a minute or two if given a quick dunking. It is amazing how quickly you can improve at something when you spend all day doing it nonstop. Sure plenty of mistakes had been burned in the firepit, but grass is cheap and the finished products were worth the extra effort.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    Rendering the fat for the pemmican had been a bit of a process, in the end, I had to sacrifice one of the pig bladders to use as a container, finding the proper height to hold it over the fire had taken a while and it had ended up so scorched that I had tossed it away when the process had finished. The backpack I had woven and stiffened with several branches held one of the two pig stomachs filled with water, while Gaian¡¯s had the second. Likewise, we had split up all of the grass mats I had woven tightly enough to keep out rainwater. I was however bearing the sole burden of both of the pig skins that I had managed to tan. While they were nothing like the processed leather I was used to, and I was sure I had missed a step somewhere; but they weren¡¯t rotting yet, so I would take what I could get. I had thought about making a chest piece or using it for a pack, but in the end, I had spent so much time improving my weaving I decided to just go with that and save the leather for later.


    The branches holding up the baskets my friend was carrying were long enough to make a tent big enough for both of us to shelter in. So far the storms seem to come regularly enough every four or five days and with my last bucket from home filled with water, I might have to supplement with dew every odd day or so, but I had enough baskets folded up and made to collect enough rainwater it might not be necessary.


    I was leaving the shield behind, in the end, it was nothing more than a large sheet of wood, without banding I doubted it would even last through a serious fight and I had never ended up using it. Instead, I had used the sinews of the pigs to make a number of bolos, most of which were lying coiled on the top of my pack for easy access. I had spent a decent enough time relearning how to throw them well enough to wrap up a target forty to fifty paces away. I had three on my belt and seeing as I would be shrugging out of my pack if I needed to throw them anyway I had another easy access to fifteen more.


    Although we were loaded down, it was easy enough to remove everything the instant we got wind of any attack. All Gaian needed to do to free himself from his load was crouch down until the long baskets touched down, scooting forward he would be ready to help take out any enemies that made it passed my barrage. With him in front to gather the focus on our enemies, I would be free to use my spear at range, or failing that I had also made a couple more smaller clubs. None of them were as nice as what I had confiscated from the goblins, I still couldn¡¯t figure out how they had managed to fuse the stone to the wood. I thought it had to be some kind of glue. But I hadn¡¯t even bothered to recreate it. Wrapping them tightly with grass, they would be good enough for a couple of throws, and if I needed to be sure of a strike I had the original hanging where my ax use to be.


    The tool was needed for camp life and its use as a weapon was limited, so I had packed it away next to my shovel, and tongs near the bottom of my pack, safe for the next time we made camp. I did keep the bear spray on my belt, and while I didn¡¯t think it would do much to the goblins, I was sure there were other threats out in this world, and maybe it would counter one of them.


    As the bear nosed my hand gently I reached into my pocket where I had hidden one of the pouches of fruit that I had dried, pulling out a couple of pieces, I returned it to my pocket before handing over his share. Once dried, the spiciness of the plum analogs had an even more intense front of mouth flavor, but it was countered swiftly by its lingering sweetness and the bear had eventually come around to enjoy them as much as I did. I had tried to sunbake some of the tubers, but even with adding more salt to them than I should, they still never dried to anything that was pleasant to eat. I had about twenty of them in the baskets for cooking if we found a safe enough place for camping with access to wood. But for the next few days, we planned on camping out in the grasslands.


    Gaian had confirmed that most of the patches of woods around here either had a dominant species that claimed it, or there were also several other goblin tribes around. The rabbits claimed not to know where any of the species of lights had settlements, but I still didn¡¯t know if I fully trusted him. Either he had gotten a steal from me he was happy to give out some scraps of knowledge, or he had been uncommonly generous and I just didn¡¯t know which it was.


    Talking to the rabbits they had told me without going into specifics that most species were of the ¡®dumb¡¯ variety, only when they got access to certain resources did they evolve into something else. I had tried to find out what they meant by that but again the translation either wasn¡¯t going through, or they didn¡¯t trust me enough to tell. After they had a leader that transformed, the next several generations would have an added intelligence, gradually working its way back to the original animal if something wasn¡¯t done to strengthen the bloodline before the children were conceived.


    I was guessing that was both what the flowers were for and that there was a small population of regular rabbits running around the woods here, I hadn¡¯t asked as I didn¡¯t want to come across like I might kill them. I wasn¡¯t sure how they would feel about it and didn¡¯t want to take the chance it might sound offensive. I had no interest in hunting them, but I know if someone told me that I would have a hard time believing them as well. So in the spirit of parting amicably, I had left it alone.


    I hadn¡¯t made any more progress on accessing the cores I had absorbed or even managed to reliably move around the air like energy I found my channels filled with. I had tried the naming conventions that had managed my first control of the Qi lifetimes ago, but nothing had been working. When talking to the bear, he had indicated he wasn¡¯t able to feel his resource moving in his body, instead, he seemed to just know instinctively how many spells he could cast. Or he had a list that kept him updated¡­ it was really hard to know what he meant when I was the one asking the question. I did find out through a mind numbing amount of questions, that he had some kind of sense of how he could grow stronger. He thought judging by what had happened in the woods, he would need to kill around ninety more goblins to gain another increase to his skill.


    While I was all for increasing his healing power I didn¡¯t know if we could stick around and try to take out that many goblins without the protection of the rabbits. While it was up tomorrow and technically we could stay another day, I didn¡¯t think they would be happy if we dragged another army to their doorsteps. We hadn¡¯t done any hunting, instead I had been content to focus on my weaving and preparing travel supplies. I have felt the emptiness and need for answers really start to wear on me. I have always thought that I would thrive if the worst ever happened and I was forced to retreat to the wilderness, leaving humanity behind. But I think that I always imagined I would have my kids with me in that event that came to pass.


    While the bear was proving to be a true friend, and there was nobody I would rather have at my back in a fight, I was ready to head out into the world and try to find some answers.


    Picking up my spear, I scratched the bear¡¯s ears one last time and we started following the path out of the woods. We planned on skirting the goblin woods, I still was considering going in for a quick hunt to take out one or two, just to see if the incoming exp would drag me down to my core so I could figure out what had happened to those cores. But I was really afraid they were on high alert after our last couple of hijinks, I had no idea what kind of long term memories they had, and with not even a week having gone by since the larger battle I didn¡¯t want to underestimate their intelligence and wind up being counter ambushed. I was sure in this more brutal world there would be plenty of more killing and exp to be gained, there was no need to go looking for it.


    I was somewhat afraid that this world was changing me into something I didn¡¯t want to be, torture and killing should always be a last resort. I still was having trouble recognizing the part of me that had been so willing to go find some goblins and knowingly drain evil into them. All the while happily knowing I was going to exterminate them when they had fulfilled their purpose. That wasn¡¯t the person I had grown into back on Earth and had my children told me the story, I would have been properly horrified. Maybe I needed to be that hard to survive this world, but I was worried if I just dove into it I would go past what I needed and change into something my kids wouldn¡¯t recognize.


    It was a fine line to walk, but that just meant it needed care and precision, not a head long flight into danger, so for now I would take my time and skip the woods. If what the rabbit elder told me was true, then I was sure the killing would come, and with my friend beside me, I would be ready for whatever the world threw at us¡­


    <hr>


    Unless it was a dragon, screw that monster, hopefully, we won¡¯t encounter him for another five years and even then I plan on finding a hole the size of Mount Everest to hide in.

 Chapter 51

    Thinking about taking my shirt off for maybe the twentieth time since leaving the bunnies, I set my pack down again for another break. Despite being a third of the weight of the backpack that had been destroyed this one was continuing to rub my shoulders raw. I kept thinking that if I bunched up my shirt to use as padding then maybe we could make it farther with fewer breaks. But whenever I had that thought my back would scream out in protest that it would just find itself scrapped up by the dried grass and branches that were used to help it hold its shape.


    As I started stretching, pulling my arms this way and that in an effort to loosen up my tense muscles. Gaian took the time to crawl out from under his own burden and roll around on the grass, I¡¯m assuming in an effort to relieve his chafing. As he growled his unhappiness to me, I said. ¡°I know, I know. We should have done more testing, but the only other thing I could think of was trying to make some kind of cart or wagon and that would have been so much harder. Between trying to design a harness for you and figuring out how to make wheels. It just wasn¡¯t worth the effort.¡±


    As he came up and nosed my pocket, demanding some more of the dried fruit, I told him. ¡°It¡¯s only the first day brother, we can¡¯t keep snacking all day otherwise we are going to be out before we know it with only the travel food to eat.¡± As he continued to insist, I eventually gave in and pulled out several pieces for both of us. Handing him his pieces, I put my own into my mouth and walked over to one of his baskets to pull out the pig¡¯s stomach I had turned into an erstwhile water container.


    Untieing the neck of it, I held it up to my mouth and tilted it back to get a drink of the warm tepid water. I had never managed to catch the rabbits refilling the logs despite several nights where I had pretended to sleep to try and learn their secrets, but every time I saw and heard nothing. Nevertheless, every morning when I went to check it, all three were filled with cool refreshingly clear water that had never given me any problems after drinking. Taking another drink to help moisten the fruit and make chewing it a little easier, I retied the neck and set it back down for later. With not even having hit two weeks on this world, I couldn¡¯t swear to the fact that a storm would be coming in sometime in the next two days, but so far they were staying fairly regular. The third one had hit two days ago which put the next one coming in somewhere in the next day or two.


    Laughing to myself, I tried to tell myself that three times doesn¡¯t make a pattern and despite how green the shoulder high grass was, it could just be the season. Looking up to the sky I saw that it was just getting to midday and we had plenty of time left to continue hiking. The plan was to head to the river as the closest major landmark. In every part of the world I had come from water meant civilization and with a river that huge I was hoping that would be the case here as well. While the easiest way to get there would have been to cut straight through the goblin woods, for obvious reasons the bear and I had decided to take a detour. We had walked due east towards Mt. Tai for at least an hour before turning south to continue our march to the water.


    So far the initial walk had brought us down two elevations of hills. We still had three more to go before the valley leveled out. I thought about continuing down to the bottom but in the end, I decided against it. My thinking was that even if we had a slight climb every once in a while, gaining a vantage point to look down and see what was coming would be worth the extra effort. Also, water runs downhill, so the more dips and valleys we come across, the better chance of finding both game to supplement the pemmican and also additional water so we didn¡¯t have to rely on dew in the mornings. Sure more than five gallons would last me a week if I was sparing in what I drank and didn¡¯t exert myself too hard, but the bear was going to have to drink a lot more than me.


    I had brought along a small package of sand and ash wrapped tightly in one of the baskets, but I knew without the ability to activate the charcoal it wasn¡¯t a hundred percent guarantee that it would keep me safe. I had spent a decent amount of time staring up at the night sky and I had yet to see any movements of satellites or planes that might indicate the natives had a technological presence on this world. That didn¡¯t mean they had found their own way to contaminate the water, not to mention all the way it was easily fouled by wildlife, which isn¡¯t even taking into account any tricks monster kind might have tried to pull.


    Before I heaved my pack on I carefully moved aside my assorted clubs and bolos to pull out one of the pig skins. Unfurling it and laying it across the bear¡¯s back I told him to try using that to see if it would help with the chaffing. Pulling out the other I hung it over my neck like a rolled up towel. Squatting to put my arms through the grass ropes I had used for straps I gently lifted up to test out how well it worked for me. Nope, I thought to myself. That is definitely worse. While it did offer limited padding, the way the leather was pulling at my neck hairs, I could tell it was only going to get first as we continued walking.


    Squatting back down and shrugging my way out of the burden, I again carefully moved the leather back down towards the bottom to maintain an easy access to my supply of throwing weapons. Looking over to the bear to see how the change was for him, he raised up his right paw before I even had a chance to ask the question. So I put my pack back on before gathering back up my spear and the bucket of water. Shrugging my shoulders, I got everything adjusted as well as possible, looking over to the bear to make sure that was ready, we continued our way south.


    <hr>


    Between frequent breaks as one of us grew uncomfortable, and trying to keep to an easy pace so as not to exert ourselves, we didn¡¯t make it as far as I had hoped when we left the rabbits. But I didn¡¯t want to leave ourselves tired and vulnerable in case of another goblin patrol found us. So as we stopped to make camp for the night in the growing twilight, we decided on pitching our tent at the ridgeline so that hopefully we could hear anything coming from either side. Looking up the elevations it looked like we had just made it past the southernmost tip of the goblin¡¯s forest, which meant they were only a short mile or two away right now. Part of me wanted to go on, but despite the clear night we were looking to have I didn¡¯t want to take the risk. The chances of injury were much higher walking around in the dark and while I might have a walking health potion as a partner, if we stumbled and broke open one of the bags, it would take a day or two to dry the grass to make another one.


    Quickly pulling the sticks away from the panniers, I used the cordage I had wrapped from the pig sinew to tie them together, using a hitch instead of a knot to join them so it would be easier to take apart in the morning. Taking out grass mats from both of our packs, I laid them across the frame letting the weight hold them down rather than try to attach them more permanently. If we had a storm tonight I would probably regret it, but so far every storm had been preceded by rolling thunder and it had taken a while for a breeze to build up. With several of the thicker grass ropes lying curled up on the top of one of Gaian¡¯s panniers, I was pretty sure I would be able to tie them down before they were blown away.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Pulling out one of the pouches of the travel food I had made from my pack, I pulled out one of the rolled up baskets and flipped it over the opening to keep out any dew that would form overnight. Picking up my spear and leaning it against my pack so that it would be easy to grab if I needed to dart outside, I bent down and shouldered my way in next to the bear that was already lying down under cover. Sitting down I pulled out my knife and cut off a third of the package. Unwrapping the larger half I set it down in front of the bear before wiping the blade off on the floor and restoring it to its home.


    Using the grass to keep the fat from my fingers, I slowly started gnawing on my piece. Each of the packages was pretty small, weighing in somewhere between a pound or two, with accurate weights and measurements a thing of the past along with everything else I was having to use a lot more guesswork. With as much fat as there was in these, I wasn¡¯t even sure if I was going to be able to finish mine. With only a knife for equipment, the meat and dried fruit were in much bigger chunks than a modern recipe would have called for. Scrapping off another piece with my teeth I continued to chew on it before I was interrupted by several grunts by the bear.


    Sighing when I saw him licking his lips, I replied. ¡°Yeah it would have been smarter to get out some water before I sat down, but I wanted to take a load off too.¡± Setting my package down I got up and pulled out another basket. This one was one of the tightest weaves I had managed on the last day. Unscrewing the lid from the top of the bucket, I carefully poured out a couple of quarts for the bear, before replacing the lid and getting out my own drink. Sitting back down, I took off my socks and boots, laying the socks out straight to dry. Checking my feet for blisters, it looked like we hadn¡¯t exerted ourselves enough today for enough sweat to soak through the socks which would have caused my feet to wrinkle up.


    Picking up the rest of my meal, I continued to chew through it while taking small sips of water to help it go down easier. When I started to feel full, I still had a small bit of it left, so I tossed it over to the bear before taking one last sip and standing up to return the water to my pack. Digging through the pack for my shovel I also pulled out one of the strips of woven grass that I had made and wondering about twenty yards away from camp along our back trail I dug a small hole before doing my business and refilling to keep the smell down. Heading back to the tent to put my shovel away, I pulled out the roll of pigskin to use as a pillow. Pulling out my wallet, I opened it up so that I could settle down and look up at the night sky with my kids, as I leaned into the bear¡¯s bulk to use him as a heating blanket. Before slowly drifting off to sleep, staring up at the strange constellation and distant moons that looked to be about half the size of our own.


    <hr>


    Waking up to the chill of the predawn I got up to check my socks, fortunately, the low tent and heat from the bear had kept the moisture away. Pulling them on I quickly laced up my boots after them, before getting up to start my short stretching and meditation session. I had started doing this more seriously every morning after I was forced to ride away from trouble on my friend¡¯s back. I was slowly trying to work my way into maintaining my breathing pattern while I moved seeing if I could force my way back into my core on my own.


    While I hadn¡¯t been successful in diving back into my core, I was feeling like I was getting the very beginnings of controlling the rotation of my mana. I had decided on the term with some trepidation. I didn¡¯t want to get stuck on it, but it kept popping up in my mind. From my one sided conversations with the bear, I thought this was the source that he used for his healing powers, but he didn¡¯t have to do anything for it to regenerate. For that matter, he didn¡¯t have to do anything to start his power up. From numerous questions, I was able to finally figure out that all he did was touch the wound and will it to get better.


    That would explain how the troll had managed to regrow his head without having a brain to focus the power, it was an incredibly unsatisfactory answer for me and seemed to leave a lot of other questions on the table. The biggest one was why didn¡¯t I have magic and where was my easy button! Halfway through my session, I could feel the mana start to speed up its rotation, and I found myself transferring from a yoga pose to more of a tia chi kata, that was totally being made up on the spot and only loosely resembling anything that might have been real back on earth. I thought to myself as I started to rotate and throw an open handed palm strike, doing my best to channel the force out into the world.


    I may have managed a puff of wind but nothing that would do anything more than make a goblin howl with laughter before burying his fangs into me in reply.


    Sighing, I refused to let it get to me. After my outburst the night I had killed the pigs, I was starting to realize that I might have been more damaged by my trip here than I had thought. I have been trying to remember my time in there, but more and more it is becoming a blur. I remember forming my core and learning how to combine Order and Chaos, but much of the remainder is a blur. I don¡¯t know if it is because I was being held in stasis and my brain just didn¡¯t actually form the memories, or that my time there was so long that human brains just don¡¯t have enough space and can¡¯t deal with that amount of time.


    I¡¯ve searched my thoughts and I remember my time on earth much more vividly than everything that happened on the trip over. More and more I am trying to convince myself that the eternity I had spent there was real, but now I am starting to wonder if it was all in my imagination. Is my mind broken and am I imagining the exp streaming through the air? I just don¡¯t know, I seem to be the only one seeing and feeling it. Was it really affecting the bear when we first arrived? It doesn¡¯t anymore and every time I ask him about it or the funnel from the sky gods he keeps answering in the negative and looking at me like I¡¯m crazy. It¡¯s getting to the point that I don¡¯t dare talk about it anymore for fear he will abandon me.


    Speak of the devil, he came pondering up to me. Nodding at the unasked question, I went back to our packs to grab another pouch of food. Breaking it open, I cut off a slightly larger piece. Rewrapping and sticking mine in my pocket, I grabbed several of the smaller grass mats I had and another tight weave basket. Walking through the long grass I would drag the mats to collect water before bringing it to the basket and wringing the water out.


    After about an hour when daylight was starting to get into full swing, I had nearly filled the basket. Walking it over to the bucket, I first dumped half out for the bear before filling the bucket back up. Tightening the lid down, I began packing up the camp and rebuilding the harness for the bear. Putting the pig skin back on his back, I watched as he crawled into the system and standing back up he gave it a little shake to settle it in place.


    Tying my spear to one of the baskets, I pulled out the water skin that was still half full and hung it from my belt. Crouching down to put my own pack on, I pulled out the food I had saved and had my breakfast on the move.


    <hr>


    Halfway through the day, we were climbing another small hill, I planned on taking another break for a snack when we made it to the top. As we crested the hill, I realized two things. First, there was a road along the low points of this small valley. Not much more than a wagon trail, there were just two lines running from east to west. One pointed to Mt Tai, while the other aimed for a break in the ridge to the west. It seemed we had a better path to follow than just wandering along in the direction of the river.


    At least we would if the universe had decided that we weren¡¯t done with the goblins just yet. Looking down at the burned out wagons, I saw there were a number of bodies of both the smaller greenskins and humans of all sizes lying scattered around the ground. That while horrible enough, wouldn¡¯t have me ready to go back to face them. No, at my feet, in a direct line between the wagons and the goblin¡¯s woods was a small homemade doll.


    The goblins had captives and one of them was a little girl.

 Chapter 52

    I felt my heart drop into my stomach and as I clenched my spear so hard I thought I might shatter it, I could swear that for a moment I was actually seeing red. I know that is not my daughter that was captured, I repeated to myself in my head. She was much too old for dolls now. No, music, makeup, and ignoring her old man were much more to her style.


    But none of that mattered, I continued as I felt myself start to hyperventilate, this was a small human girl¡­ and she had been captured by monsters. The best I could hope for was that she was being saved for the goblin leaders to eat in a feast because that was the only hope there was that we would be able to get to her in time. Even then the chances of rescue were pretty much going to be nonexistent.


    The best we could realistically hope for was to give her a swift, clean death before eventually being overwhelmed by a horde of greenskins, hopefully forcing them to kill us ourselves rather than being taken alive in turn. The intellectual part of my brain was screaming at me that it didn¡¯t matter. She was already dead, going after her and the rest of the captives was just dooming ourselves. If we die doing this, there is no way that we would ever be able to rescue my own kids from whatever danger they might be in. The smart play was to ignore it, salvage what we could from the wagons, and move on.


    Every day back on Terra thousands of kids were killed or put into situations so horrible that it makes you physically sick if you were ever to spend more than a couple of seconds actually physically thinking about it with any sort of true focus. Child soldiers, trafficking for sex, mutilation for ideology, starvation¡­ all of these things are happening on a scale one can¡¯t even conceptualize, and because it wasn¡¯t right in front of me it was always easy to ignore.


    Sure to save my conscious I had given to charities, but how much of that money actually ever gets to the root of the problem? This was something else entirely. This¡­ this was right there in front of my face. Humans were not the apex species on this moon. Some of my fellows had been taken¡­ some of our young were soon to be consumed.


    As I turned towards the woods in the distance and started walking mechanically. I heard my companion make a small whine and felt him stick his wet nose into the palm of my left hand. I could almost feel the concern emanating out of him as he knew something was wrong with me but couldn¡¯t understand why I would be so troubled. As I left the doll behind and continued walking to my doom, I was conflicted. There was no need for the bear to die with me on my pointless quest. My colder, more intellectual side was almost certainly right. The chances of me even making it to her to grant her a swifter release were almost certainly nil. While having the bear along might grant me an extra few percentage points it wasn¡¯t worth him dying in my quixotic quest.


    Speaking up, with tears streaming down my face I chokingly rubbed his ears while I slowly uttered the words telling him it was okay to go along without me. ¡°It¡¯s okay brother, this is something I have to do, you don¡¯t have to come with me. We had a good run, but this isn¡¯t the smart move. There is no way either of us are walking out of this hell. The best I am hoping for is to kill enough of the monsters that I weaken them enough that something else is able to come along and finish them off later.¡±


    As the bear began walking beside me, leaving his head in range of my hand so that I could continue to give him scritches, I stopped trying to talk him out of coming. In truth, I didn¡¯t really want to. Having a friend beside you as you march toward hell makes taking every next step a little easier. As my intellectual side came around and made its peace that this was happening, I slowly ran through different scenarios in my mind on anything we could do to give us a better edge.


    I¡¯m not suicidal, or at least I didn¡¯t think I was. Maybe a part of me did want to end it all and was just looking for whatever excuses it could to send me running into something that I couldn¡¯t make it out of. If so then the universe was on his side and had picked a dandy of a bait to hang in front of me. A growling question from the bear interrupted my melancholic thoughts. As he pointed at the smoldering wagons, I took it to mean that he thought we should go look for anything among them that might give us an edge.


    Thinking it over in my mind I continued walking as I told him. ¡°You¡¯re not wrong, I¡¯m sure they have some better weapons for me. But trying to head down there, repack, and unpack would take time. And I can only imagine that they hit the wagon train around first light. So they already have a big enough lean on us.¡±


    As the bear slowly began to crouch down to remove his burden, I tightened my grip on his scruff. Not that I thought it would hurt him, I just wanted to stop him before he got started. ¡°No, we may as well keep what we have, we can make a good enough pace that with the prisoners they have we should catch up to them before nightfall. And all sprinting after them is going to do is have us catch them tired and unarmed. Well, unarmed for me, but if it was a big enough group to take out that convoy, I think they could take you on your own as well.¡±


    As Gaian continued walking along beside me, grunting out his disagreement vehemently I let a smile break through my somber facade. ¡°Maybe you¡¯re right, maybe you could take them out, but us being tired and exhausted makes it a whole lot less likely. I think a better chance is to try an attack in the dark. I can¡¯t imagine they are going to have any kind of discipline, they just don¡¯t strike me as the type. And I¡¯m guessing that with the rabbits already pulling off two raids as far as the goblins know that has to be more action than they¡¯ve seen in years so I doubt they are thinking that a third attack might be coming. Certainly not on their camp! Between the dark and whatever distraction we can cause, I¡¯m not ruling out getting the captives free. I just want to go into this with realistic thoughts and not dreams of the impossible. If we go in too fast and assume things are going to fall in our favor then we will most likely end up howling on the spit beside them.¡±


    As I fell silent again slowly getting depressed at how unlikely the scenarios were that we needed for even minimal success, my pragmatic side took another shot at talking me away from the windmill. As it told me that if I did this then whatever slim shot I might have had of saving my own children was certainly going to be going up in smoke, but I ignored it all the same.


    I ignored him for the same reasons I would hope that if my own daughter was in danger, someone else sent to save her would ignore the misgivings coming from their own subconscious. Sometimes you need men who will walk into the fire and right now I was all there was. Hopefully, this would generate enough good karma that they will be protected from whatever troubles they might encounter. But right now, I¡¯m sure if this girl¡¯s father is alive he is praying to whatever pantheon might exist in this universe that a miracle is coming to help his little girl.


    <hr>


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    As night began to fall and we were still a good eight to ten miles away from the woods we had so diligently skirted the previous two days, I thought about pressing on into the darkness. I couldn¡¯t believe we hadn¡¯t caught up to them yet. But as I saw a bonfire sprout up halfway between us and the woods I realized any chance we had of getting there would have us in the same conditions that I had explained to the bear earlier would have us failing in our assault. Add in the darkness and our knowing nothing of the surrounding terrain, there was too great a chance of making some kind of mistake that would alert the raiders. Out on the plains as small as they were, they had to be nervous about being hunted in turn, I thought to myself. That was the only thing that explained the much larger attacking parties as to what normally patrolled the woods. While I had yet to see anything around that would justify the larger groups there had to be something else out there.


    Although I guess the burned out wagon train was something, I just didn¡¯t think that was a normal occurrence. If it happened often enough I can¡¯t imagine the humans in charge just letting it go. Even the worst regimes protected their own peasants from outside forces, if for no other reason than that they were their toys and to let an outsider break them would demand a response. Not for moral reasons but to merely show they weren¡¯t to be messed with and try and grab whatever compensation they could get.


    Not wanting to waste the time to set up camp, I quickly set down my burdens, broke out another pouch of food, and poured Gaian his water, while grabbing my own skin to drink. After I had mechanically filled my belly, I took off my socks to dry and dug into the bottom of my pack for the one flower I had held back. Initially, I had wanted to save it for when things got too bad and I needed to wait for the bear to recover his mana until he was able to save me. Being able to wait unconscious seemed like the better option than dealing with the pain. But I knew there was absolutely no chance I was falling asleep tonight. So I pulled out the one flower I had kept back from the bunnies.


    I was sure the elder knew that I still had it, and I was glad that he hadn¡¯t considered it a breach of our agreement. Staring at the flower that looked so much like a tulip, I couldn¡¯t help but wonder if there was some other previous connection with Earth, or if there was just in reality only so many shapes that a flower could grow into. Starting at the petals that shimmered and alternated colors, I looked into the specks of white that dotted the insides of the petals like stars across the milky way. Asking the bear if he was good for the night, and getting a grunt in reply. I leaned down into it, taking a deep breath before setting it aside and leaning back into the bear¡¯s bulk to have my slumber enforced on me.


    <hr>


    I woke up with a start as the bear gently removed his jaws from my shoulder, stopping his shaking now that I was awake. I looked around to see that the sky was just starting to lighten. Standing up I stretched out fully while forgoing my usual routine. Drinking deeply from my second skin I poured half the remaining water into the basket I had reserved for my companion. Pouring the rest of the bucket into my own basket, I folded it to more easily refill my two two pig stomachs. With still another quart or show I wasn¡¯t able to fit in, I drank what I could myself before giving the rest to the bear.


    Collapsing the bucket, I added it to my pack while pulling out yet another package of dried meat and fruit, all glued together by fat that wasn¡¯t much tastier than candle wax. Splitting it, I added share to my pocket, leaving the bear to eat his while I put away his bowl and got my socks and shoes back on. Shouldering our packs we started off in the morning gloom, anxious to make up some distance. It may be speciesist, but I doubt the monsters were anywhere near as diligent in getting started themselves this morning.


    Even if it was the maximum ten miles I thought it might be to the woods, if we only stopped a few minutes for lunch we had a good chance of catching them before they made it back to safety. So I wanted to close the gap enough to have the option of attacking early if I thought that we could get away with it. I was of two minds on what would work best. On one hand, there would obviously be a lot less of them if we caught them out in the plains, but if it was a big enough group on guard I doubted it would make much of a difference.


    On the other hand, a surprise attack on their stronghold while they were celebrating the windfall just seemed much more likely to work in my mind, and if it didn¡¯t maybe I would at least be able to go out in flames striking a much more devastating blow to this tribes population. I also had something floating in the back of my mind that I was hoping would coalesce before we had to make a decision. Something was telling me that I could use the exp gains of a battle to evolve several of the fodder goblins to set up a distraction. They had been eager to turn on their own kind in the battle of Rabbit Wood that they had lost nearly a week ago and maybe they would be greedy enough to ignore me for a chance at increasing their power yet again.


    I could be wrong and maybe the Merchants had taken out enough of the goblin pack that it was feasible to attack them, hopefully, we would be able to find out soon enough. Shaking my head to stop cycling through scenarios endlessly, I instead focused on trying to maintain my breathing pattern while walking. I should have been doing this yesterday as well, but since seeing that doll I had been in a fog. Now that I had slept on it and my mind was clearer, I was just as determined to free the captives one way or another. But I wanted to do it the smart way if I could. Which meant giving myself any advantage that I could. If I could find a way to utilize the cores that were inside of me, I wanted to be able to send them the mana as quickly as I could.


    I hadn¡¯t been able to figure out any way to replicate the effects that cores managed to use to turn mana into a technique. I could only imagine that it had to do with the way the lines moved throughout the center of the glowing rocks. All of the colors that I had found so far had their own unique way of having the lines run out from the center before coming back to start. This was leading more and more to consider that this world ran on the principles of wuxing, but with such a tiny sample size from just one variety of monsters, I was really trying to stop myself from getting locked in on it.


    With my own preference for wuxing I couldn¡¯t help but just second guess that was what was happening instead of something else. I was already beginning to think that I had been making a huge mistake when I let my core grow so rampantly that I didn¡¯t want to compound it by guessing early and following the path for so long I found myself refusing to reconsider.


    As I continued breathing and rotating the energy around my body to exit my fist in a small puff of air, I couldn¡¯t help but think I was still missing something. From how I had tested it against the ground it was a minimal amount of force. I thought about asking my friend if I could test it on him but held off as I didn¡¯t know if maybe it was just more of a soul attack and that the ground being soulless was just more likely to resist. Better to try it out on a goblin than accidentally cripple my tank right before a boss fight.


    I wasn¡¯t planning on having it as any sort of trump card, I just wanted to be ready to capitalize on it if it turned out to be one. Also as I lacked the defenses that every other sentient on this moon seemed to have to the invading exp, if I could use the rotating energy to defend myself from it, so much the better.


    Continuing my practice as we moved at a brisk pace, we eventually made it to the hill that the goblins had stopped on the night before. Staring at the pit that had contained their fire I could feel my heart begin to beat faster as I fought to stop the rage that was building from taking over. I could see from the amount of trash scattered around that they hadn¡¯t only taken captives the night before. But I ignored all of it as I could only stare at the blackened bones littered around the camp. Cracked by the jaws of the monsters, all of the bones were scattered about so without spending more time than I had, I couldn¡¯t even determine if they had consumed one person or two. Everything was scattered as the individual goblins had fed more like wolves than sentient beings.


    As I continued to breathe and settle myself down I focused on the thought that at least all of the bones looked too large to be that of a child.

 Chapter 53

    I don¡¯t know if there is anything that can really prepare one for such a horrific reality, sure hollywood can do a decent enough job for it, I guess. But with everything they do, you still know you are suspending your disbelief. You know when you turn off the screen or walk out of the theater that none of it was real and all of the actors are either home with their families, doing copious amounts of drugs, or both depending on their lifestyles.


    In front of me were the remains of two or three real humans who would never see their families again and the only prayers I could utter for them was that I hoped they hadn¡¯t been consumed alive. I would like to think that if there was a God on this world he would be merciful enough to end their suffering early, but from everything I had experienced that was unlikely to be true.


    This wasn¡¯t hunting for sustenance, making sure you took the old that hadn¡¯t much longer to live. This wasn¡¯t the pruning back of the younger generation that had multiplied beyond the ability of the region¡¯s resources. Maybe I was being hypocritical, as I am sure there had to be humans out there killing goblins wholesale. But I was also equally sure that they weren¡¯t consuming them alive as well, taking delight in their screams, as they cracked the marrow from their bones.


    Shaking, I gripped the haft of my spear and turned resolutely to continue my quest to catch up to the raiding party, with my disgust and rage fighting for supremacy as I looked to wipe them from the face of this awful moon. From the beginning, I had been thinking of this like this was a book or game. A grand adventure that I was on to discover magic and be reunited with my family after experiencing all that this new reality had to over. Too often had I glossed over the nagging in the back of my head telling me the words that so many veterans know all so well. Adventures are something horrible happening to someone else far away, if it is happening to you it is a living nightmare you are doing your best to survive.


    Well, now I had nightmare fuel to last for ages. Hoping that the flower was good for multiple uses, I was sure I wouldn¡¯t be falling asleep on my own ever again.


    Continuing on, with the bear a few short paces behind me, leaving me to stew in my rage on my own. I continued my practice sending out another punch every couple of minutes, whenever I felt the momentum of the mana was high enough. As much as I tried, I was unable to drive my focus down into my body without the external stimuli I had every time I had managed to before. But as I tried to focus on the feeling of the mana leaving my palm I came to realize that part of the reason it wasn¡¯t getting far was I was sucking it back in as soon as it left my body.


    Pondering what I could do to let go, I began different experiments without much success to my chagrin. I have always thought of myself as quick witted, although the endless centuries I spent traveling through the void before I had conquered the Chaos and Order may put a lie to my beliefs. How much time does a mortal need to understand the fundamental forces of the universe? As I continued my punching with no more success in getting the energy to explode out of me, I tried varying the exit point to see if I could at least make some progress with my control if I wasn¡¯t able to easily increase my strength.


    As we walked I swapped my spear to my other hand and then tried the easiest adjustment of swapping focus with my palms. This at least had me believing once again in my ease of being able to at least pick up the beginning stages of a new hobby. As my friend wandered back to even with me at my newfound focus, I tucked the haft of my spear in the ropes across his back and focused on trying to alternate hands before moving on to releasing the energy from both palms at once.


    I thought about trying to point both palms together to build up feedback to power up that way, but without the ability to test it on a live subject, I didn¡¯t want to risk injury to myself. Instead, as the sun reached its apex I started trying to send it out both my elbows and my knees, making sure that nothing was pointing at the bear. While for now it was still not projecting at any force stronger than the lightest of breezes. I would hate for my first success to be the one that would wipe out my companion, so for now I made sure of my target, while keeping to range discipline.


    I left off trying the exit point in my eyes for now, as I don¡¯t know what I had been thinking when I cut out that exit. I must have been high on power and the recent escape to even attempt something that messed with my vision. Finding myself suddenly not able to see seemed like a poor way to start this assault and while nothing happened at any of the other exit points, I still had way too many of the heebie jeebies to attempt it.


    Instead, I started trying to send the power out through my heels for my final attempts at mastering what little power I had come to possess. First sending it out when my feet were in the air, but after mistiming a step and only gaining the barest of boosts to my upward motion. I started trying to time it for when my feet were in contact with the earth. I liked to imagine that this was helping me increase my speed, but it was a long way from even the beginnings of Qing Gong.


    I don¡¯t know if it was a loose stone or if I managed to find a sweet spot, but after one particular step, I found myself stumbling, doing my best not to send myself head over heels and spill everything out of my sack. Hopping on my left foot, because when I tried putting my right down I felt a shooting pain driving up my leg that told me I had sprained my ankle. Before I could even begin getting into any suitable curses for the rank stupidity that had me injuring myself for such a stupid idea, Gaian was there. Wet nose pressing against me, I immediately felt a difference as he applied his spell. After he moved his head away, I pressed down gently, before setting my whole foot down when there was no initial pain.


    Taking a few halting steps, I slowly started increasing my pace back to what it was. Rubbing the bear¡¯s ears I thanked him and told him I would stop with the ridiculous experiments. I don¡¯t know what possessed me to think this was a good idea and I wondered if my pragmatic side was sneaking in some reasonable suggestions in an effort to injure me, so we wouldn¡¯t be able to throw ourselves into the assault.


    Looking up to the sky as we crested the next hill, I saw that we still had several hours of daylight left. Looking ahead it looked like we only had two ridgelines to cross before we got to the final elevation that was home to the two offsetting woods. I thought about trying to sprint over to the rabbits and see if I could bargain again for some backup, but the feeling I got from my one conversation with their leader told me it would be futile.


    Even if I could convince him, I doubted it would be an easy conversation, which meant we would have trouble being in time even if he agreed. I was surprised that we hadn¡¯t caught up to the raiding party, as I would have thought the captives would be doing everything they could to delay their arrival at their final destination, but on second thought wondered if the dinner the night before had lessened their desire to slow down the monsters. If the meal for the monsters last night had been the two slowest of the captives, that would no doubt be a huge modifier to the prisoner¡¯s desire to resist.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    With only a couple of miles to go until the woods, I decided to take this next set of hills at a trot to see if we could catch a glimpse of the raiders, so I could decide if it was worth trying to attack them out in the open instead of trying to surprise them. As awkward as the pack was without any kind of the auxiliary straps of my old pack the dragon had burned up, I still managed to double my pace, while the bear had no trouble at all keeping up.


    Part of me still wanted to try to convince him not to come, I felt like in general, he couldn¡¯t care less if some humans lived or died, but in the end decided to leave it alone and respect his decision. I tried searching my soul, but wasn¡¯t able to tell if it was because I was respecting his decision, or if instead I just didn¡¯t have the courage to face the goblins on my own, and wanted a meatier backup to help me brave stepping into hell.


    <hr>


    As we arrived at the next ridge, we slowed to a stop and I slowly crested it in a crawl. I left my pack and the bear a few feet back so as not to give away that they were being followed in case they had any scouts watching their trail. With again only the line through the grass that the mass of bodies had left to show the way in front of us. I quickly retrieved my pack and we set out once again to see if we could make it to the final ridge before they disappeared into the woods. I really couldn¡¯t believe the pace they were making to keep so far ahead of us. I would have thought with their shorter stature and a line of captives that we would have managed to catch them by now.


    Perhaps they were just anxious to make it back to their Home, as the rabbit elder had called it, so they could share the rest of their provisions with their fellow monsters. Gagging a little at the thought really wanted to smack the irreverent side of me for making such an awful comparison. As the bear continued to stay even with me and showed no sign of exhaustion, I once again had to drop back down to a walk and catch my breath. I had to wonder if it was just because he was a bear and naturally in better shape than me or if instead, he was tapping into the core I had given him. Either way, I had to stop myself any time I found myself getting annoyed as he waited for me expectantly. Showing no discomfort as I needed to take the time to catch my breath.


    Approaching the final ridge line between us and the woods, I once more shed my pack and companion to make the final approach myself. Again crouching low so as not to silhouette myself to any of the pack that might be watching their trail. Slowly raising my head up, I kept low as I finally saw the signs I had been expecting the last two ridges.


    It was way worse than I was expecting, I couldn¡¯t see the fodder goblins, but from the number of spears sticking up through the grass, there had to be at least a hundred of them. Accompanying them were probably between twenty and thirty archers, I wasn¡¯t able to get a decent count as they were also small enough to stay below the grass line and they might have been just fodder goblins that had lost their spears.


    The evolved spearmen and shield carrying bruisers were tall enough that their heads were sticking up, making them easier to count and it seemed like there were slightly more of the shield carriers, who numbered ten as opposed to the eight longer spears that were glinting in the afternoon light. It seemed that the magic users had no desire to walk on their own two feet and that for this expedition they had commandeered hogs of their own. Whether this was because they didn¡¯t have the stamina to keep pace or these users of the occult had a higher status, I had no idea.


    Surrounding the group I could see trails circling them as the hog trotting calvary seemed to actually be doing a decent job of screening them. From what, I didn¡¯t know, but there would be no ambush that we would be able to set up. Even if we were able to teleport in front of them. Either that or they were just out looking for food, judging by the occasional line that was pausing before resuming its circle, that might be the better answer.


    Trotting behind the line of captives, and no doubt the reason that they were moving so swiftly was the boss of the attack on the rabbits. Either that or there were more of the goblins on his level. Riding his wolf he had it snapping at the trailing captives heels. Speaking of which it seemed like they had made a good haul I thought I left the analytical part of my mind in charge to keep me from shouting out a challenge and drawing their attention in an attempt to stop them from entering the woods.


    It looked like they had managed to capture twenty adults, although some of them might have been teenagers, it was impossible to tell from this distance. Along with that, there were two children that were being carried. One seemed to be slightly older as they were holding on to what I could only assume was one of his parent¡¯s backs while the other one looked to be even smaller and was being carried in their parent¡¯s arms. I couldn¡¯t tell if they were one family or two as they were in different parts of the line. But with them all being connected by the neck, it might just have been the order the goblins had roped them together.


    Telling myself I had to wait, I forced down the part of me that shared the horror these parents must be feeling, I couldn¡¯t begin to understand how they were carrying their children to such an awful fate, but with the snapping jaws of the large, silver furred wolf behind them I also didn¡¯t see what option they had.


    It didn¡¯t seem that any of them were looking backward and I wasn¡¯t anxious to let them keep getting farther away from me. Even though the humans were only moving at a fast walk with their longer legs able to easily move twice the distance of the smaller goblins. So slowly moving back to recover my pack I had a feeling we were going to need all of the makeshift weapons I had cobbled together.


    Shouldering my burden, we took a chance and took the ridge at a dash, anxious to get lower and have the grass as cover for our own quicker pace for the woods. As we followed behind I couldn¡¯t help but find myself trying to put myself in the parent¡¯s shoes as they were forced to carry their kids to such a waiting horror. How could they continue on knowing what was to come? I couldn¡¯t help but think of the parable that had a prisoner dragged before his king to be executed.


    Begging his liege for mercy he extolled how it would be a shame for a man of his talents to be taken so early from this world. When the king took the bait and asked what the scoundrel could possibly be of use for, the man said proudly that he was the sole surviving practitioner of a magic that would allow horses to sing. He asked the king that if only he might be granted a brief reprieve from his sentence, he might work his magic on the king¡¯s own horse so that his majesty might be serenaded on his hunts.


    When the king asked what kind of guarantee the prisoner offered, he proudly replied that the king could take his head for his mantle if in five years he hadn¡¯t managed to teach the horse any songs, but if he did manage such a magnificent trick then he would be rewarded the horse¡¯s weight in gold. The king intrigued asked if he needed anything else to work such a fine miracle, and the prisoner who had befriended a small orphan in his time in prison, asked if he could take the youth as an apprentice so that his magnificent skills wouldn¡¯t be lost to all time when he finally passed from this mortal coil.


    The king with nothing to lose and such a marvel to gain, agreed to the man¡¯s deal. He assigned the two to his stables, where they would be fed and housed, and given a space to practice their art in secret. As they were led away the youth asked why the scoundrel had made such a ridiculous bargain with the king. The conman replied to the youth saying that they now had five more years that they wouldn¡¯t have had before and that who knows what might happen in the ensuing five years.


    The orphan scoffing asked what could possibly happen in such a short time. To which the older man replied, ¡°Why many things can happen? The king might die, he could grow senile and forget about us. Perhaps he might be overthrown by his courtiers, or god might grant him a grandson and we might all be pardoned. The possibilities are endless as long as you still have beats left in your heart. As long as there is life there is hope. For now, we have food, shelter, and a horse to train. Who knows? Maybe in the end the horse will even have learned to sing and we will be rich! So let us be off my lad, for we have a horse to teach.


    Wondering if these parents might be praying for that same miracle, I decided for once the horse would indeed sing and that these children would not know the horror of being devoured by goblins.

 Chapter 54

    As the grass disappeared into the tree line, I was able to see the goblin more clearly with us having managed to close the distance to less than a quarter of a mile. Watching some of the fodder poke the prisoners with their makeshift spears, I could only once again tamp down on the anger that had me wanting to burst forth and take the fight to them now. Closing the distance let me see that if they were indeed allowed to keep their clothes instead of being forced to change they were unlikely to be merchants. Clothed in sturdy cloth or leather it looked to be colored simply, most likely undyed and dirty as I was only seeing browns and greys, nothing with any frills that a merchant might wear to seem more prosperous.


    Seeing everyone be forced to turn, rather than continue north, I concluded that they must be following the patrol path I had run across once or twice. Deciding if they were going to be adding this number to the rest of the goblins that had stayed behind a distraction was going to have to be in order, I decided to go with the most likely option that I had come up with.


    Not being a master tactician, I could only go with the simplest of Sun Tzu¡¯s teachings, If your enemy is strong, retreat. If he is weak, attack, and in all times be the one who chooses the ground you fight on. The main camp was where they were most likely to be strong leaving the pig grounds where they would be weak. If we attack there and cause a big enough ruckus, hopefully only the weakest ones will be sent from the upcoming feast. This would give us a chance to defeat some of them in detail before hiding so we could either attack the follow up forces or bypass them and strike for the main camp.


    Knowing that any competent general would be screaming at me that it had too many moving parts and didn¡¯t follow the KISS principle. I could only shut the professional up, when two are attacking hundreds, only the luckiest of attackers would win. Deciding to use the open ground to bypass the wooded patrols cutting to the east. I decided to avoid the river and instead go closer to the herb glade before heading back to the west to try and find the main camp once we were in the woods.


    Picking up the pace, we jogged for close to a mile, before finally turning back to the north and entering the woods. Continuing to move at a decent pace while remaining quiet enough so that we could hear the undisciplined patrols, we slowly worked our way north passed the patrol path that was helpfully marked by pig scat. Crossing over and avoiding the mess, we continued working our way north until we hit a stream.


    At first, I was confused as I thought we were closer to where we raided the herbs, but upon looking at the water, it was muddy and obviously fouled by the hogs. Deciding not to cross it for the moment, we followed the stream north hoping to eventually run into the pig farm and reorient from there. We almost got bogged down when we ran into some lowlands, but Gaian seemed to recognize the problem and stopped me with a gentle grab of his teeth. Circling around the muddy area we picked up again when we found the stream.


    Hearing the grunting and slamming of bodies in the distance, we approached the field with caution, knowing the path between here and the main camp had to be somewhere close by. I guess even goblins have a line at how disgusting their camp is allowed to get, and don¡¯t allow the pigs in. Following the line of trees that bordered the pig meadow, we left ourselves a couple hundred yards of space, to keep from being spotted. Looking up to the sky I saw that we were down to maybe two hours of daylight left. Hearing my inner rodent start spinning up his wheel, I shut him down knowing this wasn¡¯t the time for distractions. I was hoping the goblins were waiting for nightfall to celebrate their latest victory.


    Turning south when we ran into the stream, it looked like it split into two at the hog field. I wondered if the stream we had run across earlier was being sent to the herb garden and if it was a deliberate done by the goblins as a primitive attempt at farming. Again I kicked the hamster off his wheel before he could distract me and get me killed. Hearing horns start sounding off from the south at first I thought we might have been caught, but they were too far away and we hadn¡¯t killed anything on this trip that would give us away. Realizing with a start that this was probably the hunting party getting back to the camp. We started jogging in the direction of the horns. It might be taking a bit of a chance, but I figured the announcement of captives would probably have the attention of all of the goblins, and they had never struck me as the most disciplined of creatures so hopefully, this would give us a better chance to spy on the camp unobserved.


    Seeing the trees break and start to thin out, we slowed our approach, and I again found another pine to climb so that I could get the lay of the land. When about halfway up I felt the branches start to bend dangerously, so I decided that was high enough, and looked out over the clearing to come up with a plan. With maybe a mile between here and the hog camp, it might be too much of a challenge making a large enough ruckus to draw out a contingent of the goblins, but looking at the sprawling camp it was clear that we were going to need to figure something out.


    The first thing I noticed was a series of cages sitting in the middle of the camp near the largest log building, which I could only take to be the leader¡¯s lodge. There looked to be several humans already inside of them. Covered in mud and filth, with matted hair, it looked like they had been there for weeks. Or maybe the time there was just that awful. As the monsters started adding their new captives to the cages, I was happy to see that they didn¡¯t immediately pull the children away from their parents. Unfortunately neither did they remove the ropes tying everyone together, no doubt as an extra security measure as the cages had a half-hazard construction to them. Wondering if they had had any escapes before, I realized by the crowd of fodder goblins staring anxiously at the cage that may be just what the weakest goblins were waiting for¡­ no doubt that was their only hope of getting a bite of sentient flesh, with how many of the rest of the goblins were down there.


    There had to be at least a thousand of the monsters wandering around the camp, yeah most of them looked to be of the smallest variety, but there still had to be a couple hundred of the different evolved monsters as well. There was no way we were going to be able to make a frontal assault to free the captives. Instead, the plan was going to have to involve multiple lines of distractions. Hoping that they wouldn¡¯t begin their feast until after nightfall, I hurried back to the bear after taking note of several possible things we could attempt to cause said distraction.


    Finding him, I motioned and led him over to a set of trees nearest to the point of camp that was closest to the middle of the forest. As that seemed both the lightest on goblins and had the worst of the huts, I assumed this was where the archers or fodder goblins bedded down. Leaving our packs under a tree for later, I also left my spear behind. For now, I was taking the four clubs I had made with me, as well as the two weapons in my belt, there would be time to come back for our stuff later. While I had practiced throwing them back during our stay with the rabbits, I wouldn¡¯t swear by their killing ability. Which was just fine for right now. I didn¡¯t want to accidentally send up a stream of kill exp that might find its way to any random goblin who might sound the alarm preemptively.


    Working our way around the edges of the camp slowly, I was looking for any of the goblins that looked to be carrying any of the alarm horns. After making a quarter of a circute we finally found one, the problem being he was in the midst of four other elites. There were two spear wielders, two shield bruisers, and the magic user who actually held the horn. Wondering if this was a standard group, part of me wanted to keep looking but with our only having a little more than an hour left until the darkness overtook the light, I decided this was going to have to be the one.Stolen story; please report.


    Talking it over with the bear, I decided I would be going in after the spear users while he would charge through the bruisers to get to the magic user and take him out before he could raise the alarm. The camp was noisy and there were constant sounds of arguments and fights going on. The goblins not being the most peaceful creatures, I didn¡¯t doubt we would make some noise accomplishing the task. But I was pretty sure if we were quick and didn¡¯t allow him to sound the horn, it would be lost in the rest of the normal camp bustle. Making sure that Gaian understood not to kill him, I held the four clubs I had made, ready to grab my better weapons after I had thrown them. I hoped to put the odds even more in our favor before I was in range of any of the sharp pointy bits.


    Separating a bit to the side of the spear users as I wanted them to focus on me, giving the bear a straight charge at the shield bearers and magic user. Even if all I did was distract them until the bear managed to take the other three, I would count that as a win, as two on two seemed much more manageable for us when I had the bear on my side. For once our timing went swimmingly, as they recognized the two threats at the same time, and each of our targets focused on the charging hero that we had hoped for. When the magic user didn¡¯t even attempt to pull his horn and instead laid his hand on the back of one of the shield goblins I couldn¡¯t believe our luck. Stopping a few feet back from the leveled spears, I waved my clubs threateningly, while waiting for the bear to finish his charge, and send the whole group rolling.


    When the bear hit the shield and was stopped in his tracks, I don¡¯t know who was more shocked, me or him. I can tell you the goblins weren¡¯t surprised when as one, in what had to have been a practiced maneuver, my speciesist mind just could not credit them with coming up with it in the spur of the moment. The spear wielders both wheeled around and started charging at the bear, with their sharp tips lowered.


    Giving up on being the distractions, I started pumping my longer legs to catch them. All the while throwing the clubs as quickly as I could, to stop them before they perforated the stunned bear. The first thrown club uselessly clattered off the back of the one closest to me, while the second club managed to connect to his partner¡¯s head sending him stumbling forward. As I saw the magic user start to grab for his horn, I abandoned my target and sent the last two flying toward him. Hoping for the best I continued after the spear carriers while drawing my larger goblin made club, and the one of the two bolo¡¯s I had made myself. Winding the bolo around my head I sent it flying at the lead goblin¡¯s legs.


    Striking the stumbling goblin in the back of his head as I passed him with my club. I saw the two thrown clubs hit somewhat ineffectually against the shaman. They didn¡¯t do any damage but did manage to send the horn flying. I ignored the two shield goblins that were banging on the body of the bear, trying to get to the remaining spear user before he reached his target. Cursing silently as the bolo missed one of his legs while managing to wrap around his other one. Apparently, I hadn¡¯t managed to make the ropes long enough to make up for my poor accuracy. Only to let out a silent cheer in my head as the weight of the rocks was enough to cause him to stumble and the swinging ropes entangled his second leg.


    My happiness was short lived as he either in a feat of tremendous athleticism or he had the luck of all his ancestors bestowed upon him. Tumbling over in a fall he sent his spear flying through the air to drive into the bear¡¯s rear leg. Cursing I turned to continue my charge towards the magic user. The spear seemed to wake the bear from whatever stupor had been knocked into him and he managed to rear up despite the large blade sticking in his back leg. Thankful that the pain hadn¡¯t managed to make him forget the need for silence, as he held back his roar of pain while his paws came slamming down onto the shield of the annoying gnats that were battering him with clubs. Slamming his paws into the shields, they were shattered into pieces, as he drove through them and smashed their carriers into the ground.


    I held my breath for a second, but when no exp exploded out of them, I focused on making it to the shaman, who had fallen to the ground scrambling to bring the mud covered horn to his lips. A step too late, I was just starting my swing as he raised it to the sky, and blew for all he was worth. Swinging down my club I hit him in the back of his head and stared with amazement at the lack of sound that had come from the horn. Walking back over to the goblin who had managed to get a spear into my friend, I knocked him unconscious while he was still trying to work at the ropes that had tied his legs together.


    Heading over to my friend, I pulled the blade from his leg and watched on as he applied his healing powers to himself. It was obvious from the way the skin pulled itself together, that what he was able to do for himself was much more potent than he could bestow on others. Dragging all of the goblins farther into the woods, the bear relished stomping on their limbs to leave everything broken. Breaking their jaws so they couldn¡¯t scream for help even if they managed to awaken. We took the risk of not taking the time to tie them up as I hadn¡¯t noticed any healing powers and we were getting shorter on time.


    It might have been smarter to kill them, but I didn¡¯t want to risk that any exp wouldn¡¯t go straight to us and might alert the goblin camp to intruders before I was ready. I hadn¡¯t seen any exp go up when I was spying on them, so while there was casual violence throughout the camp, it was obvious that they stopped before killing each other. So while I really wanted to use one of them to get a better look at my core, time and circumstances just made it a poor choice for now.


    Heading back to our packs with all of the gathered weapons, we stopped to disable any goblins we saw on their own. Our favorite tactic was to leave the purple flower I had held back from the rabbits on the ground near the trees. They couldn¡¯t help but be drawn to it, not believing their luck at the find. Not giving them a chance to realize their mistakes we were quick to disable them and leave the monsters broken in the boughs of the pine trees. We had managed to acquire another ten clubs, six new spears, and several daggers from the goblins we disabled. Knowing that none of the shields would fit in the pack we had left them with the broken bodies that we had hidden.


    Again we left our packs behind, stuffed with the captured weapons. I hoped that if we could make it to the captives later they would be able to put them to good use. But for now, it was time to return to the pigs after gathering up the supplies I hoped would be useful for the first set of distractions. With the light getting dimmer with every passing minute, we didn¡¯t have a lot of time until the woods got too dark to pass through quickly. While that would help us with avoiding the goblins I hoped to summon. It was also putting the prisoners on a clock as we had heard the sounds from the center of the camp slowly getting louder. I don¡¯t know if the monsters had managed to make any sort of alcohol, or if they had other greenskins they traded with for it, but there was definitely a celebration on the calendar tonight.


    Making our way to the edge of the forest that marked where the pigs were left to their own devices, we almost stumbled onto them before we realized how far we had gotten. Without the noise of the practice combat, the goblin trainers seemed to have gone back to the camp for the night leaving the pigs to their own devices.


    Quickly setting up my trap, I stood next to my companion asking him one last time if he wanted to go his own way instead of gambling on my ability to get us through this. I was honest with him and told him that despite everything I was seeing with the sloppiness of the goblins, even if we could arm the prisoners there wasn¡¯t a good chance of our making it out of this. When he licked my cheek encouragingly I couldn¡¯t help but feel my heart get a little lighter. Maybe we would be charging into hell in a few minutes but with a companion like this beside me, I could still see the slightest way through to the other side. It might be driving a camel through the eye of a needle but it still gave us a chance.


    Raising the horn I had captured to my lips, I blew through it as hard as I could. Only to feel the pressure on my lungs as no sound came out of it. Holding it up to the dying light I saw that when it had been knocked from the goblin¡¯s hands I had liberated it from, it seemed to have had mud driven into the blow hole. This no doubt being what had kept him from sounding the alarm earlier. Finding a twig to clear it out. I held it back up to my lips for take two and let out a ringing noise that alerted everything in the forest to where we were.


    Seeing how quickly several of the boars started to charge at us. It seemed they were indeed willing allies of the goblins. Despite the eight large beasts bearing down on us I continued to blow for all I was worth as I tried to alert the camp to our attack.

 Chapter 55

    With none of the pigs closer than a hundred yards when I started blowing, it was going to take them some time to charge across the field to reach us. Leaving me plenty of time to continue sounding the alarm, hopefully drawing a response from the goblin camp.


    With my friend a few feet in front of me, I was sure that his larger presence would draw more of the charging swine to him. Looking over the field that was starting to gather a light fog in the twilight gloom, I could see that only the largest of the boars were making the charge across the field to confront us, while the rest looked to be retreating back to safety.


    Unfortunately for us, only the largest boars still meant there were fifteen attacking. Trusting the bear to do his part to keep them off of me I continued to blow the horn, while the bear sounded off with a challenging roar that by all rights should have sent the pigs flying with the shockwave alone.


    He succeeded in scaring off two of the smaller tusked monstrosities pounding toward us, but that still left us with thirteen to deal with. Or to put it another way we still had between three and four thousand pounds of angry muscle charging towards us.


    When they made it to within a hundred yards, I tossed the horn aside and pulled out two of my bolos. Taking one, I started to whirl it over my head so I was ready to toss it as soon as they closed the range a little more. Sending my first one out to the right side of the charging pack, I quickly sent my second one flying to the opposite side. My first one had the greatest impact, wrapping around two different hogs¡¯ legs. It tangled them up so much that their rolling bodies took out a third separate hog. My second was more of a failure and only managed to cause one to go rolling, leaving us with nine still coming.


    At twenty-five yards left to go and no chance of all that weight stopping, I quickly bent down to pull on the rope I had left by my feet. As the seven spears, that were braced against the log Gaian had his paws pressing down on came up. I held the tips of them chest high while the pigs pressed on unaware of the danger that had suddenly appeared in front of them. Between the poor lighting and their even worse eyesight, they continued on unaware. The spears had a small log tied to them at the cross braces, but even with the extra weight holding them steady, when the mass of all of those pigs slammed into the makeshift barrier it was still driven several feet back despite the bear¡¯s weight holding our end down.


    But in the end, the sharp blades pointing away from us made all of the difference, as the bellies were ripped out of the center of the charging horde. Two of them managed to avoid the blades by dint of crashing into the bodies of pigs that were already impaled but the whole pack still came to a crashing halt as the bear continued to press down on the rear log that was bracing our crazy contraption.


    The two pigs that hadn¡¯t had blades driven into them started to stand up shakily only for the bear to charge forward and rip out both of their throats to remove the last of the danger that was here in this field for us. Taking my knife out I quickly cut the ropes holding the spears together before pulling them out and bundling them back up together for ease of transport. As I started hearing horns begin to blow from the direction of the goblin camp, I picked up the captured horn before sending it ringing again in answer. Blowing into it for another minute, I ignored the hogs that were still alive, pawing at the bloody ground their intestines had spilled out onto squealing in agony, asking to be put out of their misery.


    It killed me to leave them suffering, but right now I wasn¡¯t a hunter who had made a poor shot and was anxious to fix his mistake. Right now I was someone desperate to try and free his fellow humans and up against impossible odds, so I needed every distraction I could get. If I had to leave these swine alive longer than I wanted to, then that was the price I needed to pay and I had made my piece with it.


    Hearing the horns starting to grow closer, I tossed my own aside again and gathered up the weapons we had used to take out the pigs. We started heading back to the goblin camp on an angle so as to avoid the goblins we had drawn out. Seeing the torches blinking through the woods it seemed that even though they were on their home ground, they weren¡¯t content to use their night vision when they had the means to light their way. Or maybe they had some other reason, I don¡¯t know, either way, I was going to take the W wherever I could find it.


    Hiding in trees whenever the lights got closer, I was happy they were so eager to announce their presence, as made it easier to avoid the patrols charging to rescue the pigs. Although I did my best not to become complacent, we did end up stumbling into a couple of solo goblins who had gotten left behind by the lighted parties sent to investigate. Gaian was on top of it though and he grew adept at knowing how hard to hit them over the head to send them off to dreamland. So far he had managed to leave all of them alive judging from the lack of energy that was streaming up out of them.


    Making our way back to where we had left our packs, I added the spears to Gaian¡¯s packs as they were deep enough to hold them. Shouldering them on, we started making our way through the shoddiest parts of camp. From the noises, we could hear most of the goblins were still in the main part of camp screaming and yelling in celebration. Knowing we needed to thin the numbers out even more, I set down my pack to pull out a number of pine branches I had gathered when making my plans. Dipping them into abandoned fires I started tossing them into the grass roofs of the goblin shelters, watching as the dead grass started blazing up. Declining to sound the alarm for now, I started circling the outer edge until around a third of the camp had at least one hovel starting to catch fire.


    With not much time before it was noticed, I pulled off my bear spray that I had carried for so long. Rolling it into an abandoned fire, we quickly made our way forward to hide in one of the hovels closest to the center of the camp. We barely made it inside before the canister finally sent a booming explosion ringing through the camp. Hearing the monsters go silent, the monsters finally seemed to realize that their homes were in danger of being destroyed. Hoping that they didn¡¯t have an easy magical fix for the fires I had started, I peeked through the branches that made up the goblin home we were hiding in to get a better idea of the chaos we had caused.


    The fodder goblins that had remained were running wild. It seemed they were not the brightest of tools when not under the direct orders of a higher evolved boss, they looked to have all of the intelligence of a doorknob, some of them even colliding into each other in the confusion. The archers and spear goblins weren¡¯t much better as they went charging out to save their homes, but none of them managed to impale each other in the confusion which I found to be a little disappointing. The shield bearers seemed to be the most steady as they held their ground after a couple of shouts from the goblin leaders who had mounted their wolves. The three of them gathered up the ten or so shamans and half of the hundred shield bearing goblins to serve as their bodyguards, or at least that was what I was assuming, while leaving the remainder to guard the prisoners.


    Giving them a couple of minutes to fully become engaged in fighting the fires I pulled out the second spear I had captured on this moon, the first being destroyed by the dragon after I had ruined its blade. Holding onto it with my left hand I made sure both my bowie knife and club were loose in their sheaths before pulling out several of the bolos and holding them in my hand with my spear. Breathing slowly to try and get myself into as meditative of a state as I could, I tried to pick out the cage that held the children. Spotting them it looked like I was mistaken, either there was a third girl who I hadn¡¯t noticed or they had left the mother to care for them, pointing them out for the bear. I took another couple of slow breaths to steady myself before letting the bear lead the charge. This time we wouldn¡¯t be holding back!


    Twirling the bolo in my right hand, we stayed silent while trying to get as close as we could before announcing our presence. As soon as I saw the first of the guards begin to point excitedly in our direction, I began to let the ancient weapons fly. I was aiming low to entangle as many of the monsters as I could while staying close to the charging bear who lowered his head and ran through four of the goblins who had thought to join forces to stop him. These were lacking whatever magic that the shaman had bestowed upon their two fellows that had managed to give the bear pause earlier in the night, and he blew right through them, driving them straight through the wooden walls of the cage that held the children we aimed to free... One way or another.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Avoiding the frightened children, he continued his charge until he had blasted out a hole on the opposite side before stopping and turning to trot back to join me. I, having some idea of what he had meant to do, continued behind him. I only turned when I had the walls of the cage to guard my flanks. Spear out I thought to hold off the following goblins but it seemed like my companion¡¯s display of strength had them all frozen for the moment. As he returned to guard the hole he had made, I started to feel the exp of his kills streaming into me, fortunately with the large crowd around us it was the smallest of streams and barely shook me as I wasn¡¯t able to maintain my meditation in all of the excitement.


    Letting my spear fall, I quickly removed my pack and began passing the weapons we had gathered to the clambering adults. Starting with the spears Gaian carried before moving to the captured knives in my own pack so they could begin to cut themselves free. After passing out the bladed weapons, I moved onto the blunt, only holding back two of the clubs for the older kids. Now that I was closer I could see the girl looked to be around fourteen, while the boy was slightly younger, maybe twelve as he had yet to grow even the slightest of peach fuzz on his cheeks. Handing them their clubs, I was grateful that they didn¡¯t show any fear of me, as I pulled my Earth made knife and began cutting the ropes from their necks. Freeing the smaller girl who I assumed was their sister, I set her on the bear¡¯s back for safekeeping before finally picking my own spear back up.


    Looking over to the other cages, all of the captives seemed to have freed themselves from their ropes. The ones with spears were threatening any of the goblins that looked to get too close, while the ones with knives cut everyone free, before turning those blades to the ropes that held the bars together. As the walls started coming down, I called to my friend and tossed up the boy behind his sister. While grabbing the eldest teen¡¯s hand and pushing it to the bear¡¯s side, directing her to stay with them despite the language barrier. As the bear turned to retreat through the other hole he had made and started lumbering to the deepest part of the camp. I lowered my spear as several shields dove forward to take advantage of our blocking force leaving.


    With none of the mass of my companion. I instead aimed low, stabbing swiftly at their legs before quickly pulling the blade back so they couldn¡¯t trap it. As the bear led the way towards the steep path that went to the cave I had spotted earlier from the trees, I hoped that the goblins weren¡¯t able to quickly organize any archers to rain down arrows. It would be child¡¯s play for them to hit us from the higher walls that they dug out of the forest floor to reach the opening in the ground. Wondering what would have caused them to make such a setup in the middle of their camp I could only hope that the majority of the tribe was still outside. Organizing the rest of the adults to follow the bear was hard. Wishing I could speak their language, I appointed the eldest of them as a leader and had him organize the rest of the ones holding spears to set up a wall to defend the narrow path that led deeper into the ground.


    Several of the ones I had armed with clubs and knives, didn¡¯t trust my plan and started to make a run for it. With too many to do anything about, I had to let them go and hoped they could cause enough confusion to keep the mob of goblins from organizing against us. Hopefully, their cowardice would at least be good for something, and they could buy us a little bit of time to get organized once we made it down far enough we had overhead cover. One of the spear wielders looked to join them, but those weapons were essential for my plan. So I quickly cut him down from behind before he made it even a couple of feet away from us. Pointing to another man to pick up the spear, I counted who we had left. Four women and sixteen men had decided to stay with the group, the women had the daggers and were at the back of the group while the men held the clubs and spears.


    None of the dirtier prisoners that had been here before the latest group had left us. It had been all of the more recent arrivals. Wondering if that was because they knew how unlikely it was to make it into the forest it seemed like there was a fatalistic look in their eyes, like they were making peace that this was going to be their end and they were going to do everything they could to not be taken alive again. Two of them held spears, while one had a club, the final one was a feral looking woman holding a dagger, continuously testing the edge with her thumb, not even caring when she seemed to press too hard and began bleeding.


    Retreating down the narrow pathway that had been hewn out of walls of earth, they soon rose high enough that we were no longer able to see the forest above. Several switchbacks later, we started to see it would soon open up to a large floor before narrowing back down to the opening of a cave.


    As we slowly retreated down the path, we had to repulse several charges by the goblins but managed it easily enough. The narrow path only allowed four of them to come down abreast of each other with their larger shields out in front of them to hold off our blades. I had our spear holders at tail end Charlie in two rows, covering each other with the longer blades. With them facing the goblins, I had to have two of the club holders behind them, guiding them down with hands on their shoulders. As we retreated slowly down the hill they had carved the winding path down I heard Gaian roar from the bottom. I had told him to signal if he thought the air in the cave was good. My plan was to use the narrow confines of the cave to limit our front so we could whittle the goblins down with stone around us. Hopefully, that would keep them from overwhelming us.


    At his signal, several of the rescuees turned to look at where I had us heading. As we saw him pass into the cave with the children, it looked like a shimmer of light had covered them as they crossed the threshold into the darkness. Immediately a muttering began to occur from all of the recent captives. The ones that had been there longer didn¡¯t seem to care at all, they just continued caressing the weapons that they had received. The rest of them started to talk louder amongst themselves before one of the women shouted loudly at them. Coming up to me, I could see a mix of emotions crossing through her eyes, fear and sadness seemed to be the most visible, but I got flashes of anger although it didn¡¯t seem to be directed at me.


    She could tell I couldn¡¯t understand what she was saying, and after a couple of more tries, she gave up. Holding out the dagger I had given her, she seemed to want me to take it. Two of the men added clubs to my pack while my back was to them and one of the men weakened the wall to give me an additional spear. I felt hands pushing me gently down towards where my companion had disappeared. I couldn''t help but wonder at their strange insistence. I thought that maybe there might be a danger ahead that they needed me to clear out, but couldn¡¯t figure out why they weren¡¯t joining me unless they wanted the majority of the numbers to hold the goblins back. Were they just freeing up their hands to pick up weapons after one of their fellows had fallen?


    Hearing shouting coming from farther up the path, it seemed like the goblin leadership had finally gotten the fires under control, and were not happy to see what I had done to their planned sacrifices. Screaming at me the woman began shoving me harder in the direction of the cave. When I didn¡¯t move fast enough for them, it seemed like one of the unarmed men was going to start running down instead only to hesitate as the leader shouted at him.


    I could see the unarmed man¡¯s eyes growing wider as the goblins began to shout louder and the weight of their numbers began driving more of the bashers down onto our spears. When he couldn¡¯t take it anymore and started sprinting for the cave, I was shocked to see the wild-eyed woman jump onto his back and ride him to the ground, driving her dagger into his neck and torso in an orgy of blood. As I began to see the killing energy rising up from him, I could tell it was on another level from anything I received from the goblins. Feeling a hand press on my shoulder, I ignored my small share that began burning a hole inside of me.


    Looking into the sad eyes of what I could only take to be the children¡¯s father. He spoke a few more words quietly to me and then pushed me down the hill. I stumbled a couple of times before finally taking the hint. Passing the woman who had seemed to come to life killing the fleeing man, I half expected to get a blade into my own back. But when I partially turned all I saw was her wave a farewell to me, before turning herself and rejoining the rest of the women. All of them were resolutely standing behind the wall of spears that were still punching into any goblins that were pushed too far by their fellows.


    Turning and crossing the threshold into darkness, I felt a tingle run through me that let me know this wasn¡¯t an ordinary cave.

 Chapter 56

    As soon as the tingling wore off, I looked around and saw that the bear and the children were staring deeper into a tunnel that led deeper into the cave, but it didn¡¯t look like we had any threats coming from that direction. The older girl was hugging the smaller child who was crying, trying to quiet her down. Ignoring the commotion for now I saw that the room had opened into a large cavern before tapering down to a tunnel farther back where the other arrivals were. So I turned to call back to the former prisoners, letting them know that there was plenty of room and it was okay to join us.


    I tried to step outside the cave to call to them, but found myself I running into an invisible barrier at the entrance. Fortunately, I was still holding the spears in front of me, as the resistance stopped them before I had a chance to test it with my face. Setting the weapons down I pushed on the substance with my hands, it was smooth as glass and gave no feedback to me whatsoever. Taking one of the clubs, I started banging on it, but it was like hitting a brick wall, only no noise was reverberating off of it which made it seem all the stranger.


    Looking out, I could see the refugees were completely ignoring any option of retreat as they fought with a blind fatalism. The goblins had gotten archers into the mix and two of the spear holders were down. I saw that they had been dragged back out of the way and two more men had stepped up to take their place. Looking at the wounded men, I saw the woman who had stopped the man who had tried to run away, squatting down and talking to them. After saying a few words she placed her hand on one of the men¡¯s shoulders before driving her dagger up into his throat, looking into his eyes the entire time. This didn¡¯t look anywhere near as vicious as when she had killed the coward, instead, she held his hand and waited for the blood to stop spurting before reaching out and closing his eyes.


    Letting him slump down, she moved on to the second man with an arrow sticking out of his arm. After talking to him for a little bit she instead reached down to rip the arrow out before removing his shirt and tying it tightly around the wound to stop the bleeding. I could see that the man was screaming in pain, but whatever the barrier was made out of was stopping all sound from getting through. Pulling the wounded man to his feet, she helped him get back into the line where another man who was waiting behind a spearholder turned and gave him his club.


    Looking forward I saw that more of the goblin bashers were being pulled back and replaced by their own spearmen as they looked to try and counter the longer reach of the former prisoners. Already I could see blood flowing down the trail and start turning the ground beneath the human¡¯s feet to mud. Despite the weight of their brethren pushing them down into the barrier of steel, the goblins weren¡¯t able to make much progress. I could see continuous black funnels of exp forming and splitting between the two species. Seeing how furiously the humans were fighting I didn¡¯t understand how the goblins had been able to take so many prisoners in the first place. Although looking at how the sides of the earth walls were forcing the goblins onto such a narrow front, it was a completely different battlefront than an ambush in the grasslands. There the goblins would have been able to swarm over the larger humans. Also after last night, the humans knew their eventual fate, so surrender was no longer on the table.


    Another wave of arrows came down and another spearman fell, this time struck in the throat. He collapsed instantly and as the humans retreated several steps, the goblins started charging forward to take advantage of the confusion. Immediately the man I took to be the father who had talked to me shouted something out and the spears were raised while three of the club holders dashed forward smacking the goblin¡¯s spears away before closing quickly once they were past the blades. They were followed by three of their fellow men who were unarmed. The club holders started laying into the goblins, quickly killing as many of them as they could before they were eventually cut down by numerous thrusts coming from ranks farther back.


    But their sacrifice wasn¡¯t in vain, as the unarmed three were able to gather up a bunch of spears and drag them back to the group. Quickly the spears of the line were dropped to cover the looter¡¯s retreat as the kamakazis did their best to give them time to make it back. None of them faltered and all took multiple stabbings before the goblins were finally able to push past them to be met with a new wall of blades holding them back. Every man had a spear now and there were several spares leaning up against the wall. They had picked a good stopping point to make their last stand, as they were partially covered by the wall leaning out over them stopping any arrows that were coming from above. Three lines of men had their spears pointed out like a formation of hoplites, and with their longer arms they had no problems killing any of the goblins that got too close.


    There was only one man currently not wielding a weapon. He was the leader who had sent me down, he eschewed a weapon and instead stood right behind the wall of men. Holding one of them by the shoulder, he was shouting out orders and having them rotate back every minute so that none of them would get tired. I could see the constant streams of exp flowing into them, every once in a while you could tell that one of them was gaining some kind of increase as they would shudder slightly and stab forth with a renewed strength, shouting their rage at the attackers.


    A stalemate was forming with the only ones dying being the goblins. I wondered why they didn¡¯t try to retreat to the cave. Surely even if we weren¡¯t able to get out past the barrier it was better to try and find an escape this way because, despite the small increases in strength, there was no way they were going to make it past the goblins.


    Jumping in surprise, I felt the bear¡¯s nose push me slightly forward as he touched my back. Turning around slightly, I saw that the three children were standing next to him. The older girl was hugging the smaller one to her, as she held her on her hip with one hand while still holding onto the club I had given her with her other. They stepped up next to me to look at their friends and family¡¯s last stand. Not thinking they should have to witness the depravity that was soon to come, I motioned to the older girl, indicating they should follow the bear back deeper into the cave. But she shook her head at me, put her club arm over the boy¡¯s shoulder, and held him closer while they continued their vigil. Asking the bear to cover the cave I thought we should start retreating, but the kids refused to move. So I stood there with them, determined to witness the final moments of their loved ones and give them what support I could.


    Turning back to watch the fight I saw that another arrow had made it through, but it had only hit one of the men in the arm and he was now permanently in the back row shaking off one of the women who looked to be trying to pull it out. Watching as the goblins seemed to stop pressing forward, I wondered what the next thing they would try might be, as it seemed the larger humans were going to continue to hold their own now that they had found the perfect stopping point. As the front rows were rotated back again, I saw them immediately start taking heaving breaths, trying to recover before getting back in line to be ready for whatever would happen next.


    Wishing I had left them some food and water, I regretted not leaving them more supplies. But I had thought they would have followed me down to the cave. As good as their holding point was I couldn¡¯t believe it wouldn¡¯t be better than retreating back into the cave. Watching as the goblin spearman started to retreat, the humans refused to be baited out of their overhead cover. Instead, they continued to wait and try to recover.


    Looking out, I saw the leader shout in alarm and all of the spears snapped down. Even the women got to their feet, holding their clubs or daggers tightly in their hands. As waves of fodder goblins came streaming down the path, throwing themselves onto the spears as they tried to claw their way down the blades. They were using the weight of their swarm to try and push the weapons out of their way. Swiftly they died as the humans thrust the blades forward before pulling them back so the long weapons wouldn¡¯t get weighted down by the dying bodies. Slowly a wall of bodies began to form as the goblin wave melted into the spears like snow thrown into a fire. On they came, uncaring that they were taking losses that no human army could have stomached. Unfortunately unlike snow, their dead bodies didn¡¯t melt away and the barrier they formed lessened the pressure initially. As it grew higher, the smaller goblins started climbing their former comrades, before launching themselves off the wall in their desire to reach the humans who had stopped them.


    Finally one of them made it past the wall of blades landing on one of the men the monster managed to get his claws into him. But the leader managed to rip the feral goblin away from him before he could sink his teeth into his victim. Flinging him back, the goblin was quickly fallen upon by the women, who beat its body into a boneless lump with an excessive amount of swings. Finally finding one of the hated enemies that had captured them in their grasp, they unleashed their hatred on that unworthy ambassador. None of them showed any delicacy that the fairer sex was known for, as they screamed out their rage and hatred while destroying the monster.


    Turning my attention back to the main fight, I saw that finally, enough exp had made it back to some of the fodder goblins that some of them were starting to evolve. Only this time none of the others were waiting for them to finish to attack them in turn. Instead, any that weren¡¯t evolving continued to try and clamber the wall to attack on their own. As more of the goblins continued to make the leap one of the spear wall was finally killed before they were able to have the monster torn off of them and thrown back to the women. The leader called out another command and they retreated farther back out of cover to increase the space between them and the wall of bodies.


    I was surprised when a wave of arrows wasn¡¯t immediately forthcoming from the monsters. Instead, bodies were pulled away and dragged up the hill while the endless waves of fodder continued their attack. Looking at where the first of the smaller goblins were finishing their evolutions. They immediately headed back up the trail, rather than continue forward to help their former brethren attack. Realizing the leaders were using the humans to force some evolutions through. It seemed the smaller goblins had no value to them, as over a hundred had fallen to the humans so that only five could evolve to retreat back to safety.


    This was insanity, no human army would stomach those kinds of losses in the modern world. Only having a five percent chance at coming out alive and improved were horrible odds, and yet the monsters continuing to pour down the hill were only slowing when the wall of bodies grew too large to pass easily.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    While the majority of the exp was streaming to the humans, perhaps because of their older age, the number of times they seemed to gain an increase was minimal, with the leader never having an episode at all that I could see. Finally, the tide of smaller goblins slowed and the remaining ones were called back.


    Down to replace them came three rows of bashers, they seemed to have brought out larger shields than they regularly carried. Nearly the size of a tower shield when they grounded them down, overlapping the edges you weren¡¯t even able to see the tops of their heads sticking out. Behind them was a row of spear holders, holding their blades out over the wall of wood so that none of the humans would be able to throw their bodies on the makeshift wall to tear a hole into it.


    Finally, a leader of the greenskins deigned to come down now that his safety was assured, it was one of the goblin leaders on his wolf. He started screaming at the humans, pointing back uphill. I could only assume he was ordering them back to their cages. None of the humans looked to have any desire to take him up on his offers as they held their spears resolutely down, not wavering in the least despite their weight. I don¡¯t know if they were able to understand each other, but as the goblin leader turned back uphill to say something to the goblins behind him, the human leader took up one of the spare spears and hurled it over fifty yards. Just missing the leader as the distance turned out to be too great for his aim. But as the weapon slammed down into the side of the wolf, the leader was sent tumbling as his mount collapsed in pain.


    As he jumped to his feet screaming what I could only take to be obscenities, the magic users he had called down hurried faster to his side. As he threw one of them down next to the wolf, the monster¡¯s hands started to glow green. When the humiliated leader pulled the spear out, I saw the magic user press the green light to the wolf¡¯s side and hold it there, while the mount howled his agony out to the sky. Eventually, the shaman collapsed. But apparently it was enough, as the wolf regained his feet, shaking the blood from his coat.


    The goblin leader remounted his wolf and pointed his sword at the humans still standing. One of the mages began to chant and form a ball of fire in his hands. This seemed to be a ball of true fire rather than the evil that had involved sacrificing the soul of another goblin. Wondering if the shaman that could summon that evil was still recovering from the backlash the rabbits had caused. I watched as the humans stared at the mage, just waiting and watching as the ball of fire continued to grow larger.


    When it finally grew so big I could see that the mage was struggling to contain its power. It seemed like he agreed with me as with a final shot, he flung it forward in a motion in a move that was just as likely to be found on a basketball court. The ball arced over the heads of the goblin wall that was separating the important goblins from their escaped captives. Finally, the leader of the humans acted. Shouting a command, every human dropped to lie flat on the ground as one, and the ball that would have passed into them at chest height, exploding in the middle of the group, instead flew over, leaving them unharmed. The kids beside me finally reacted and let out a cheer at the apparent victory of the humans in surviving such a crisis. I however saw the trajectory of the vicious blob.


    Tackling them, I dove to the ground, placing my body on top of them to mitigate the explosion as best I could. When no burning sensation ensued, I eventually climbed back to my feet. Looking out past the barrier that had apparently kept us safe, I saw that the ground before us was still burning. But whatever was trapping us inside seemed to be keeping the heat of the blaze out as well. The kids looked at me like I was crazy, but all I could do was shrug and begin pulling them to their feet.


    Looking back up the hill to the current standoff, I saw that the goblin leader wasn¡¯t happy with his subordinate¡¯s poor aim. Leaping from his mount, he started to rain down blows upon the cowering magic user¡¯s head with his fists. This uncontrollable rage must be typical for the greenskins, because the humans that had already stood back up seemed to have anticipated it and started charging forward with no signal, in a move they must have discussed beforehand. While the first rank started trying to drive their spears over the wall of shields, the second and third ranks hurled their weapons at the magic users that were now closer in range.


    Surprisingly it seemed like the healer was the one they wanted to kill most of all, as three of the spears slammed into his body, which almost instantly sent a cloud of exp up into the air. The rest of the contingent wasn¡¯t ignored, as most of them suffered from the falling blades, but none of them faced the onslaught that the healer had. The men accomplishing their task started driving themselves onto the blades pointed at them, forcing the goblins to kill them. Despite their unarmed state they still managed to take out two or three of their hated foes before finally falling themselves. The leader of the humans alone held himself back, taking one of the spare spears he was talking to the women. One of them shook her head, and the crazed former prisoner ignored his offer before holding her own dagger to the sky and let out a primal yell. Then with a running leap, she sent herself flying over the shields and spears to fling herself bodily upon the goblins. She started stabbing with the wild abandonment of someone who knew they were dead and just wanted to take as large of an accompaniment with them to the afterlife as they could. She managed to take out nine of the evolved goblins in a series of moves that I knew even with years of practice, I had no hope of matching.


    Aware of how quickly the time that was being bought for him was being used up the leader drove his spear quickly into the chest of two of the women, one after the other. Part of me was sure that the task had to be wearing on his soul, but his face showed no sign of it as he took the woman I assumed to be his wife by the hand, and they both came running over to the cave¡¯s opening. Pressing their hand against the barrier, it was clear that there must be a limit to this dungeon as they were refused entry. The children held their own hands even with their parents. They stayed silent, refusing to cry out at the impending loss. While the parents mouthed what I could only assume were words of love and encouragement, I again tried to hide their eyes from what was coming, but the older daughter said something to me sharply. So I dropped my hand to my side and watched as more of the goblins came streaming down with no more humans left to hold them back.


    Looking at his wife, the leader took the dagger from her hands and drove it into her neck. Leaving her to fall lifeless to the ground, he dropped the smaller blade to get a better hold on his weapon. As several of the goblins charged forth, he managed to drive them back with long swipes of the spear. Suddenly all of the attackers took several steps back. I don¡¯t know who initiated it, but it seemed like the leader of the goblins was agreeing to fight the last of the humans in a duel. Walking down the ramp to the bottom level he quickly moved past his lackeys and faced off with the last of the humans on the wrong side of the barrier.


    The horde of goblins closed ranks behind him, and he and his wolf separated so the man couldn¡¯t focus on both of them together. Forced to wave his spear from one to the other, it was easy to see that the monsters had the upper hand as one would dash forward, only to retreat when they had gained his attention. Finally, it seemed like the man had enough of being toyed with. Lowering his spear, he charged at the goblin leader who just managed to dive to the side and avoid the massive blow, as the blade drove through the space he vacated it only managed to scrape off his armor instead of gutting him like the human must have planned for it to do. Overextended the man tried to recover, but it was too late. The wolf had dashed in behind him and closed its vicious jaws on his hamstrings, crippling him. As he fell to the ground, you could see him try to maintain a grip on the heavy weapon. Desperately he tried to use the have of the spear to try and prop his body up.


    Continuing my vigil I watched as the wolf retreated and saw the goblin getting back to his feet to walk slowly toward his doomed foe. As the man tried a weak thrust, he wasn¡¯t able to maintain his balance and instead fell to his back, where he continued to try and use the longer weapon. The leader of the monsters contemptuously knocked the blade of the weapon away with his sword, before grabbing the haft and ripping it from the downed man¡¯s hands. Throwing it away, all of his attention was on the cave¡¯s entrance. It was as if he knew we were standing there watching. Walking over to the children¡¯s father, he dove down onto him and lowering his wicked jaws, ripped out the man¡¯s throat in an explosion of blood that soon covered the monster¡¯s face.


    Finally, I heard the smaller girl break her silence and let out a wail of agony only to be quieted by a sharp word from the older girl. Looking over to them I saw her holding onto the little one, forcing her to watch what was happening. I again wanted to intervene, as there was no way I would want my children watching what was happening. But something caused me to hold back my first world instincts. I remembered how I thought that there was no way I raised my children hard enough to survive this world. This right here is how you make sure they grow hard enough to do what they must to survive. I knew at that moment this world wasn¡¯t like ours. There we could eventually forgive and forget as generations passed and we learned to forgive old wrongs, here it was different.


    So I turned back and watched as the leader walked over to the entrance laughing, covered in the blood of their fallen leader. He pointed deeper into the cave and I saw as he continued to speak, bits of the children¡¯s father flying from his jaws only to bounce off the screen that was separating us. Without a translation, I could only imagine that he was telling us our doom was what awaited us farther into the blackness. Turning back to the fallen corpse, he screamed out to the sky, before burying his jaws in the softer belly. While his wolf pulled off an arm as its share, before laying down to eat as well.


    Finally having enough, I pulled on the older girl¡¯s arm and pointed over to the bear, telling her it was time to leave and join our companion farther in where we could ignore what was going on beyond the barrier. As we joined the bear, I continued to think back to Earth. It¡¯s easy to say that peace is always better, that someone needs to forgive and take the first step so that the healing can begin. I had always preached that to my children and told them sometimes you just had to be the bigger person and let it go¡­


    Anyone who has ever said that, has never seen a father eaten in front of their kids. I don¡¯t know why they chose me to accompany their children instead of one of them. Maybe they thought I was more powerful than I am. It might have seemed that way to them with the way we broke past thousands of monsters to free them and rescue their children. Or maybe they just thought Gaian was my bonded monster and that he would be released upon my death. Either way, it was obvious that they knew there was a limit on the dungeon and that none of them would be able to accompany their kids. So they had left them for me to protect, giving arms they could have used to help take out more of their foes. Swearing a vow under my breath, I felt it settle around my core. This time I didn¡¯t even consider breaking the chains as they settled around my center, binding my intent to see these kids to safety.


    My life before theirs, I will do everything I can to see your children to safety and make sure they are able to live the lives they wanted. No matter what it takes. I will burn every goblin to the ground before I let one of the monsters harm these kids. The goblins thought that they were the monsters. They had no idea the depths of depravity a man with something to protect would be willing to stoop to, in his efforts to protect his charges.

 Chapter 57

    I went back to get the spears I had left on the ground as I had urged the kids away from that barbaric scene. Pushing at the invisible wall, I couldn¡¯t help but relate to the forces that had me frozen when I was brought here. Part of me couldn¡¯t help but wonder if I could break down the barrier, but as it was the only thing keeping the goblins from swarming us, I managed to hold off on assuaging my curiosity. The barrier also managed to prevent any of the exp from getting through, having a lot of trouble believing what was happening I again started to wonder if I had entered a lit RPG world instead of Wuxian. The barrier stopping after five had me questioning exactly what might be going on here. But when calling out a number of gaming terms still didn¡¯t manage to bring forth any blue boxes, I decided there had to be another reason the wall sprang up after the five of us entered.


    Giving up on my experiments, I looked over to the kids who were staring at me like I was insane, so I decided to try and break the language barrier in the most basic way possible. Pointing to my chest I said Jack multiple times, poking at each repetition before pointing to the bear and saying Gaian. After several tries the eldest finally seemed to catch on before giving her own name which I mangled as Sienna. While she named her brother and sister¡¯s best approximations I could come up with were Aspen and Lotus respectively.


    They were either siblings or cousins as they all bore a strong family resemblance. Blond, the two older ones had their hair falling below the shoulders, well I¡¯m assuming the boy¡¯s would have if it wasn¡¯t tied up. The younger girl had it cut to just below her ears. None of them had an ounce of fat on them, telling me they hadn¡¯t led rich lives with full diets. But their clothes seemed sturdy, everything looked to be leather and decently cared for, forcing me to assume the dirt and mud were from the last two days. They all wore long sleeve shirts and pants that could only be in deference to the cooler mountain air, and I could see the fur that lined their thick boots.


    Holding out the second spear to Sienna, I pointed to her sister indicating to pass the club on to her. Before when I thought this was just a cave, I figured that we would be able to leave here with her mother to take care of. Now that I understood this was a dungeon, that most likely would be trying to consume us, I didn¡¯t think any of us should be unarmed. Hoping that it was a starting dungeon, I wondered at the mechanics of this world that would have such a thing. Trying to think back on my conversation with the rabbit leader I realized that the home he had been referring to was this, I hoped it was filled with the fodder type and that was why the goblins had no problem sacrificing the endless tiny monsters. If they were all that was produced by this cave, we were going to have a much easier time surviving this curveball.


    Calling Gaian back to the group, I made sure he never entered the tunnel. I didn¡¯t want to violate the supposed sanctity of the entry room by crossing the threshold and signaling we were ready to begin our trials. Or I was just making it up in my mind and the hordes were gathering ready to charge as soon as the bear turned his back. Wishing I had a better way to speak with the kids I was sure they had more knowledge on the subject than I did. But I couldn¡¯t even play twenty questions with them like I could with the bear. Speaking of which I called out. ¡°Hey, can the kids understand you?¡± When I got a left paw raised, I sighed to myself. No, because that would be too easy¡­ Raising two middle fingers to the sky to let the rulers of this world no my displeasure at how hard they were making this for me. Did they not know how isekai¡¯s were supposed to work?


    At a barking question from Sienna, I waved to the dungeon and replied, ¡°It¡¯s nothing, just a pregame ritual from where I¡¯m from.¡± No doubt it sounded like nonsense to them but they got the gist of my meaning and all of them raised their fingers up to salute the rulers themselves. I found myself laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of it and I soon found them joining in with me. Whether it was because they found the situation equally ridiculous, or because they were in a cave with a crazy man and didn¡¯t want to upset him, I didn¡¯t really want to know. As the little girl¡¯s laughter turned to tears, I picked her up and rocked her gently, patting her head with my hand while trying to soothe her. I had no doubt after the horror of what she had witnessed, even if she could understand me, the nonsense I was saying would be a cold comfort to her in the wake of having to watch her parents be consumed by monsters.


    Looking over to her sister I could see that she was conflicted. It was obvious that part of her wanted to rip her sister out of my arms, but locked in a cave with a stranger they also didn¡¯t want to upset me and have me abandon them in a pique of anger. Her brother also seemed to be gripping the club I had given him more tightly. Not wanting them to think I had evil designs on their little sister, I quickly past her back to Sienna who laid down the spear to take her. Deciding to take the time to check on the supplies while they calmed her down I walked over to the bear and leaned my own spear up against the wall next to him. Slipping out of my own pack so I could go over the three containers that had made it into the dungeon with us.


    Taking into account the weapons we were carrying we had the two spears, while the smaller children were armed with the better made goblin clubs. I had a club that I had slipped into my ax¡¯s old sheath for easy access, it still had the bit of paracord I had attached to it so I could put my wrist through it making it harder to lose. On the other side was my Bowie knife, with the bear spray having been sacrificed to cause a distraction. Two more goblin made clubs had been added to my pack along with one of the daggers. The ax and shovel that had made the journey with me were also in mine. Between the two of us, we had nearly a hundred pounds of calorie dense food, along with another ten to fifteen separate packages of dried fruit.


    We still had the grass mats that had made up our tent and several of the baskets I had made to hold water, along with the now empty bucket I had tucked away rather than leave behind. One of the tightly wrapped packages held the two pounds of salt and I also had kept my kitchen tweezers as they would always be useful if we ever had fresh meat to grill up. Water was going to be our sticking point as we had only the two pigs¡¯ stomachs, which between the two of them had maybe a gallon or two of water left.


    Deciding the best thing to do was rest, as we had all had a long day. I hoped the dungeon would continue to respect the sanctity of the starting room. Pulling the tent poles out from their secondary function of holding the bear¡¯s burden together, I quickly assembled the pieces and laid down some of the mats for bedding. Calling the children over I indicated they should go into the smaller tent. The boy made a small protest which was quickly cut off by his older sister. As she passed Lotus to Aspen and walked up to me while starting to pull down her top, only to stop as rage began to spread across my face.


    Horrified at what she thought I was demanding of her, I quickly grabbed her by the wrists before she could expose herself to me. Cursing in my head at a world where children¡¯s first thought would be to let an adult have their way with them. For the first time since I had stepped foot out of the hell ball, I truly prayed that I would never find my children, better they remain on earth than be transported to this awful hell of a world.


    Thinking that my actions would reassure her, if anything her face seemed to fall even more into a mask. Snapping out an order she said something to her brother, who protested at first before dropping his club and started pulling off his own shirt. As I screamed out in anger, he quickly pulled back on and snatched up his club while his sister grabbed her spear and they both jumped in front of the littlest girl, not willing to let me have her.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    As horrified as I was that they thought the worst of me, I consoled myself that they didn¡¯t know me from Adam and the way they were willing to throw themselves in front of their sister should be applauded. Calming my face down so they wouldn¡¯t think my anger was directed at them, I backed up, holding onto the bear¡¯s neck so we could give them their space. Making circular motions with my arms I tried to tell them that the tent was for them and they should use it to rest.


    Staring at me like it was a trap they finally took the hint and started going into the tent. Stopping when I called them back, I pulled out one of the packages of dried meat and fruit, and cut it into three pieces. I held the larger one out to Sienna, taking a small bite of it to prove it was okay before passing out the two smaller pieces to the younger children. Pulling out one of the water bottles I pointed to a point a third of the way down, hopefully indicating that they should only drink part of it. Backing away again I moved off to the center of the cavern to stand guard with my friend. As they entered the tent I hoped they would get some sleep. Talking to the bear I told him to lie down and I would take the first watch.


    Heading back to the entrance with my spear, I once again tapped on the invisible barrier with it, marveling at how securely we were trapped. I was hoping the dungeon was counting on starvation to force us to progress and we could at least get one night¡¯s sleep before being forced to once again fight for our lives. It seemed like the monsters were content to feast up above, as all of the bodies of the fallen had been carried away. Leaving only the mud churned ground as the remaining indicator of the battle that had happened.


    Turning back to face the dark tunnel that led away from the room we were in. I continued to pace back and forth as silently as I could so the rest of the party could get some sleep. As the last of the dying rays disappeared from the entrance the barrier started to glow with a pale green light that was reminiscent of the energy I could gather after the battles. Wondering if it was the same, I wandered over and put my hand on it trying to pull it into me, but I guess it was just similar in look, as it refused to be consumed.


    Looking deeper into the tunnel I thought I saw a faint glow coming from around the corner, hoping for a magical lighting system, I would settle for glowing lichen, as the few pine branches I had left would only give us at most fifteen minutes of light. Eventually, I woke the bear up and laid against his side to get some sleep myself. Despite the minimal light I still pulled out the pictures of my kids to modify my prayer, now hoping that they were still back on earth.


    Waking with a start, I saw the children standing over me. Grateful they weren¡¯t poking me with the weapons I had given them, I still wished they had found another way to pass the time they had been up. On the other hand at least they had let me sleep so I would be fully rested when we ran into the trials I was sure the dungeon had in store for us.


    Tucking my wallet away in my pocket I went to pass out the breakfast. I handed out some of the dried fruit as a morning snack before putting the tent away and reassembling Gaian¡¯s pack. Wishing I had a better way to communicate with the natives, as I had too many different ideas on how the dungeon might work and it would be nice not to go into a trial blind for once. Did rooms slam shut after you left them, stopping you from retreating? Were monsters tethered to a room forcing them to attack as soon as you entered their aggro range? Or were they free to run and gather reinforcements?


    Praying for easy mode, I pulled my own pack onto one shoulder so it would be easier to drop while telling the bear to grab his own. ¡°We are going to have to drop them every time we change rooms, but until we know better I don¡¯t want us getting separated from our supplies and backup weapons.¡± When I got his grunt of agreement, I put the older girl in the back of the group with Lotus directly in front of her while I had Aspen standing behind me as I followed the bear forward into the tunnel.


    Telling him to make sure and cover the right while I went left. We would both have to keep an eye on the center while covering our own zones of responsibility. I added, ¡°Don¡¯t go too far into the room before dropping your pack, I don¡¯t know if traps are a thing here.¡± Hoping for the best, I doubted we would get lucky enough to be confronting the nonlethal variety. Not after seeing the boss¡¯s blood-soaked face laughing at us before he went back to his meal.


    Gripping my spear tightly, I followed the bear closely behind as he entered the tunnel. We went a short distance straight ahead that was followed by two quick dog legs, first one to the right and then back to the left as the elevation slowly lowered. After traveling close to a hundred yards the light seemed to glow brighter ahead, which I took to mean our first challenge was swiftly approaching after the next turn.


    Taking the corner at a jog, the bear moved to the right before ducking out of his harness quickly, while I followed right behind me, clearing the path for the kids behind me. Dropping my pack to the ground I started scanning from side to side, blinking away the tears the sudden light had brought to my eyes.


    With nothing to the side, I started waving my spear to the center of the room in big sweeps forcing several blurry figures to jump back to avoid the blade. Taking a second the space had bought me I quickly wiped my eyes with my sleeve as I fought to ignore the glowing scenery while I tried to keep my focus on the charging monsters. Leading the way were two shield bashers armed with clubs, who were followed by a singular larger goblin armed with a spear. So much for this being a starter dungeon, I thought. To the sides were numerous fodder goblins I had hoped would be the sole residents of the cave. I wasn¡¯t able to get a count on them as my attention was immediately drawn to the monster standing in the back. It was a shaman who already seemed to be summoning a ball of fire into his hands. At least this one looked to be true fire instead of the evil hellfire the monsters sometimes liked to play with.


    Not willing to play that game, I sent my spear hurling through the air that separated us while pulling my club and knife to replace it. Charging to the side, I looked to take out some of the fodder while the bear moved to the bashers. As they held their ground with the spear poking over them, Gaian was content with tying them up, pawing the blade away anytime it got too close to him. Feeling the beginnings of the energy funnel fight its way inside of me, I was able to tell that my throw had been successful without having to take my attention off the smaller goblins that came swarming towards me.


    Taking a quick glance to the side, I saw four of the fodder work their way around Gaian and as he turned to try and get their attention, the blade snaked its way into his shoulder. Taking a second to scream at him to worry about the elites, I looked to my own horde. The kids were just going to have to look to their own defenses for now. The goblins were as big as Lotus, so hopefully their parents had taught the two older ones enough to hold their own. I know if I had to raise my children in a monster-filled world, that would be high on my priority list.


    Swinging the club around in long sweeping strokes, I held off the ones trying to surround me, before darting to the side and driving my blade down into the side of one. Punching the blade into his torso before flinging him off, I managed to take out a group of three that had bunched together. Two of the ones I missed then took the chance to jump onto my back digging their claws into my thin shirt. Spinning wildly, I threw them off of me happily taking the scratches for my trouble. Charging at the last group of three fodder still standing, I heard the bear to my side roar loudly, but couldn¡¯t spare the second to glance his way.


    Slamming my club into the head of one that got a little eager, I forced myself to focus on the last two as he collapsed into a heap. I slammed my knife into the ribs of the second while kicking the third in the chest sending him rolling away. He had foolishly dove forward, thinking I had shot my wad with the two attacks that killed his fellows. Shaking the smaller one off my knife, I turned back to face the group of three I had bowled over, before whirling back to stare at the entrance as I heard Lotus let out a blood curdling scream.

 Chapter 58

    Looking back horrified, I expected to see that the kids were being torn apart, but instead, I saw that Sienna was making excellent use of the spear I had given her. Already one of the small goblins was gutted and dying on the ground and while she waved the longer polearm from side to side keeping the other three at bay. Just as I had the thought, two darted to her right while the remaining one went left. Like they had planned it in advance, the two older siblings split. The girl drove the spear into one of the duo¡¯s abdomen before quickly pulling it out to swing the haft to knock the other one back. While Aspen lept forward, bringing down the club on his opponent¡¯s head, cracking it open with the first blow. He ignored the monster¡¯s death and continued to rain down more blows, screaming in rage as he released his furry on the cousins of those who had killed his parents.


    Looking over to Gaian I saw that he was also doing fine, already he had hooked one of the shields away and he was forcing the three elites back with massive swipes of his front paws. Turning back to my own fight I couldn¡¯t tell what the problem was, the littlest one wasn¡¯t bleeding, maybe she was just scared for her siblings.


    Both groups of goblins that I had knocked down used my distraction to regain their feet and charged toward me, once again unpleasantly skewing the odds in their favor. Anxious to get them as close to in my favor as possible, I charged at the one I had kicked, slamming the stone in the club¡¯s face into his head to take him out before he could rise. Spinning wildly I swung hard, threatening the five that had grouped up, forcing them to take a couple of steps back to avoid a similar outcome.


    As they tried circling around me I glanced around to see if there was anything nearby I could use to split them up. The ground was remarkably flat for a cave, with only the body of the shaman lying on the ground a short distance of the way. Taking a chance, I turned and hurled my club at the spearman whose sole focus was on the bear. Sprinting for the body, I quickly reclaimed my spear that had ended the magic user¡¯s life. The bear quick on the uptake, charged forward and started ripping the bashers apart now that he was no longer being threatened by the blade. Continuing forward he slammed his paws down onto the fallen spear holder, finishing him off on the chance my club to the head hadn¡¯t caused him to expire on the spot.


    Spinning while I pulled the spear out of the shaman¡¯s body, I sent the blade swinging around in a low swing, taking out two of the fodder that had followed too close behind me. While their three slower companions skidded to a halt. Stepping over my knife that I had dropped to the ground so I could put my full weight into the swing, I started making quick small thrusts driving the other three back. Taking a second to look over at the kids, Sienna had managed to take out the last of her goblins, had picked up her sister, and was trying to quiet her down while her brother continued to smash his kill into jam.


    Dashing forward I continued to make small thrusts, herding the three of them toward a wall, as they continued to retreat rather than face the blade. Lunging, I surprised them and managed to take out another one driving the blade low into his belly. As the blade got stuck in the other two turned and began running for two of the exits splitting up in their bid to get away. Not wanting them to get out and bring back any of their friends. I put my foot on the body and with a massive heave, pulled the spear out. Rearing back I threw it at one of the retreating monsters before taking off after the other one.


    With my longer legs, I managed to catch up to him. Diving forward, I tackled him to the ground. Pushing on his back so he couldn¡¯t turn and use his natural weapons against me, I grabbed his mohawk with my right hand and started slamming his head into the ground several times until I felt him go limp. Getting up I turned to go retrieve my spear so I could make sure he was finished off. Staring in horror as the goblin I had only knocked down was just finished getting back to his own feet. I felt my stomach starting to fall as I realized I had nothing to throw at him and he was too far away for me to reach before he made it to the tunnel.


    Only to breathe a sigh of relief a few moments later as the bear finished his charge and ripped off the monster¡¯s head. It seemed he had noticed the same problem as I had. Looking around to make sure there weren¡¯t any more obvious threats, I finally followed the invasion down to my core to finally see what had happened since the explosion of energy that had destroyed the cores over a week ago.


    Following the energy down, I was dragged straight to my core. Feeling the energy attacking my center, I settled down and forced myself into my meditative state, spinning up my defenses. Seeing the walls begin to pulse in time with my breathing I looked to see the soothing green energy flying towards my center to set up the familiar barrier. It seemed that between defending myself from the exp and any I had managed it siphon away from the sky gods, my share had gone from several floating shields to a ribbon that surrounded my center.


    Spinning the ribbon around faster, I felt the pain in my center I had been ignoring begin to lessen. Leaving my defense on autopilot I looked around the massive cavern expecting to see the broken cores floating around. But as I continued my search I wasn¡¯t able to find them. I did see a small hole opposite of the entry I had made when I first broke in here. Sending my consciousness over to the edge I saw it leading back out into my bloodstream, I¡¯m guessing whatever I had been dragging into me hadn¡¯t been able to escape and had forced my core to try and expand until it was able to force a way out. Looking at the edges I expected them to be ragged and torn but instead, they had seamlessly grown into my channels.


    Looking closer at it I tried to discern what was entering and exiting my core, to flow through my body, but whatever it was continued to manage to evade my senses. Not wanting to disrupt my Chaos from directing my defenses I declined to try to spin the invisible energy faster in an attempt to identify it. Instead, I continued to move my focus around searching for the cores I knew had to be here. Sending my focus flying around I continued to search only to find nothing. Looking back to the center I saw another of the green order bricks drop away after I had claimed it. Taking the chance to solve another of the mysteries on my list, I followed it as it continued to fall toward the edge.


    Incredibly small, when compared to my core as a whole, it was like holding up my wallet and comparing it to Mount Everest. Or maybe Mt. Tai, when things are that large it can be hard to be sure of the scale. Losing track of it, I held my focus where it was and soon enough another brick came hurtling down the same invisible path. Resuming my chase, I followed it even closer to the edge before again having to wait for another one to come along so I could continue to follow. This one seemed to be the lucky fellow and I managed to shadow it down to the surface of the core¡¯s walls.


    Looking at the pile of order bricks, it seemed my defenses had been busy as there was a decent size pile sitting there. Laying amongst them were the broken pieces of the cores I had shattered. Staring down I couldn¡¯t believe how small they were, there looked to be about forty pieces of shattered glass, and seeing as all of it was green that meant the other cores had disappeared to somewhere else in this massive cavern and unless I figured out how to gather a mountain of them and absorb them I doubted I would be finding them anytime soon. All together the shattered pieces measured about the size of three of the bricks.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    Looking back to the center I saw that all of the invading energy had either been devoured or had departed, taking a chance I stopped my breathing pattern and looked out to see the pool of green energy start hurtling this way. As it crashed down into the area I was in, I half expected it to scatter everything else away, but instead, I saw that just flowed over it leaving it alone. Focusing on the cores for now I started trying to put the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, between the jagged edges and the lines running through them I quickly found two that would go together.


    Pressing them close, I saw the green energy begin to glow for a second as the two pieces fused together. Quickly identifying different pieces of the puzzle I started adding to it. I saw from the way it was shaping to be more like a globe shape that I had found the core from Bruiser I had taken after the rabbit showdown. As it was smaller than the other two it only took three more pieces until it was whole again. Feeling it pull on my hand I let it go, anxious to see what it would do. Watching it fly back towards the center where my Chaos motes were being stored I followed it up, expecting that to be where I ended up. Instead, it only ended up going halfway there, hovering between the two suspended in nothing. Looking down I realized I wasn¡¯t able to see where the other two cores were anymore.


    Maintaining my position I tried activating it to see what it could do. Mentally poking and prodding it, it refused to listen to my commands. With two options I tried the one that might help me identify the invisible energy that had destroyed them to begin with. Spinning it up like I was trying to send it out in a punch I focused on my breathing. Watching the green energy pour back to my center I saw it spinning around it. Feeling the invisible energy begin to flow faster, I still was unable to see it. However, the core began to glow with a slight light. As it started to glow green it continued to get brighter until it reached a tipping point and sent out a blast of green energy flying out to the new exit hole that had been torn into my core.


    Following it out, I watched as it went streaming through my channels breaking pieces of itself off and sending them into my muscles. Feeling a strength begin to build in my arms, I suddenly felt myself being pulled back to my body, out of the dimension that my core maintained around me.


    Looking around at the hovering pools of energy over the goblins, I saw that Sienna was still comforting Lotus who was still continuing to sob. Taking that to mean that time passed on a different level in my out of body experiences. I continued to feel the strength build in my body and I realized I didn¡¯t have an outlet for it. Not wanting to punch a brick wall and hurt my hand, I instead punched the body of the monster whose head I had pulverized. I stared in shock at the explosion of gore I caused. Looking over to the head that was rolling away, I stared down at the smear of blood and flesh that was mixed in with the dirt of the cave floor. Pulling out some shards of bones from the ground, I looked at my hand in amazement. There was nothing left of the goblin¡¯s torso while the limbs had also been flung several feet away. When I heard the bear questioning growl to me, I realized I had splattered him with some of the blood and guts.


    Calling out a quick. ¡°Sorry!¡± I held back a laugh, he was already covered with plenty of blood from his own kills so it wasn¡¯t like my experiment made much of a difference, but I understood it was the principle of the matter. I¡¯m sure I wouldn¡¯t have been happy if he sprayed me with goblin innards. Walking over and reclaiming my spear from where it lay I felt happier with a weapon in hand. Heading over to where Sienna was trying to comfort Lotus, I paused and stepped up to the boy, grabbing his arm on the backswing.


    As he turned toward me, I noticed his eyes were unfocused in rage. When he started swinging his free arm at me, I gripped his arm with the club tighter and dropping my spear, pulled him into a hug. Letting his unarmed hand pound ineffectively on my back. I spoke gently to him, knowing the words didn¡¯t matter but hoping my calm voice would eventually get through to him. Finally, he stopped swinging and I let him stumble back from me. Only reaching out to steady him when it looked like he would fall. As he stared at me with now clear eyes I pulled him back in for another hug as I saw tears start forming in the corners.


    Hugging him tightly as he began to sob, I looked over his shoulder as his older sister started forward. Waving her back, I was sure if he was like me when I was younger, he was doing his best to be the man of the family and didn¡¯t want his sister seeing his moment of weakness, however deserved it might be. After a couple of minutes, he calmed down and started breathing easier. As he started to pull himself back together and try to move away, I held him by the shoulders and looked down into his eyes. When he started to duck his head down to avoid eye contact I reached out to hold his chin until he was willing to look me in the eyes. Holding out my right hand, I waited for him to reach out and grab it. With my hand still on his shoulder stopping him from pulling away, he eventually figured it out and reached out his own hand to grab mine. Shaking it firmly, I finally let him go to head over to his sisters.


    As he dashed over them I could tell I had freaked him out a little, but if they were going to travel with me after we finally escaped these caves, I was going to treat them like equals, whether they liked it or not. I had a feeling that the outside world was a whole lot worse in that regard, but if they wanted to stay with me that meant learning to hold their heads high come what may. Giving them a second to settle each other down, I decided to go collect more of the green after battle energy. Looking around with a start I saw that all of it was gone, sure that I would have felt the sky god¡¯s vortices had they been sent down. I wondered if the dungeon had a way to absorb the energy, taking it back to form more monsters. After the next battle, I was sure would be coming, I would have to keep a better eye on the surroundings and be quicker so I could get my share.


    Picking my spear back up, I went to collect the rest of my weapons and see what I could loot. Not bothering with the fodder goblins as we were already loaded down as it was, I went first to the mage. None of the rags he was wearing seemed to be worth anything so I ignored them and instead cut out his core which ended up being the expected red. Nearly a full globe, it was the size of a nickel. Which I pegged to be one of the more valuable ones I had found in my time on this world, at least if you take the troll¡¯s out of the equation. The two bruisers had a brown and a green one, while the spear holder had a yellow one. Finding four of the five colors in a room was a little suspect, but I figured if I dug through all of the fodder there would be more of the green variety and a blue might be sprinkled in the mix.


    Temporarily calling it for now, I was prepared to just start calling the cores by their elements while being willing to take it back if I found evidence to counter my prevailing theory. Green the color of wood, or life seemed to be the most prevalent, but there didn¡¯t seem to be any rhyme or reason to how the rest were found. Picking up the additional spear I started bringing the weapons over to the pack. Grabbing one of the shields I decided to bring it along for me while I thought the second one would be too heavy for the kids, so I left it behind. I did take the armor they were wearing. While It was too small for me I thought it would give some more protection to the older children. If this was the first room there was no way Gaian and I would be able to keep them out of the upcoming fights. Gathering up the two clubs, I added them to the basket, leaving us with four of them for back up weapons.


    Heading back to the children I planned to offer them their pick of the cores to see if I could learn how the humans of this world used them and get some ideas for finally having magic of my own.

 Chapter 59

    Looking down at my arms and hands, I realized I was covered in blood from my impromptu butchery, so I started looking around the room for a way to get cleaned up. Giving it a once over the first thing I noticed was that there were three possible exits (or avenues of attack from anyone who might have heard the commotion), not two. In addition to the two I had seen the last goblins had split up to make there escape, there was also another tunnel maybe fifteen feet to the right of where are packs lay.


    Now that my eyes were better adjusted I saw that the glow was coming from both spores coming off of some mushrooms hanging on the wall, and a slightly luminecent short grass or lichen that was growing along the edges of the room. I¡¯m guessing the reason it wasn¡¯t everywhere was because the gobin¡¯s kept churning up the middle of the room while waiting for their next victims. I wondered if that was something they did while they weren¡¯t waiting for intrepid adventures to wander in or if this was like a dungeon from a game where they were just following a script to give us a better chance.


    Looking to the wall between the two tunnels that had been fleeing too directly across from where our packs lay I saw water streaming down the side to slowly flow down both of the tunnels. Not even an inch deep, it seemed like the caves had good drainage lower down. Heading over I dug my arms into the water and started scrubbing them, noting it was cool, but without the frigidness that would indicate it was coming from snow melt. Staring up the wall to the seam it was coming out of I hoped that meant it was being filtered by the earth, but decided to run it through my own before adding it to our drinking supply just to be on the safe side. At least it was crystal clear which meant I knew goblins hadn¡¯t managed to foul it.


    Watching the water flow down the tunnels now red with blood, I hoped I wasn¡¯t alerting any goblins further on to our presence. As often as they seemed to fight amongst themselves, hopefully any further down would just think it was from a if they even noticed it at all. Scrubbing my blades as clean as I could, I found a cleanish spot on my shirt to dry them off on so they wouldn¡¯t rust before returning my knife and club to their respective spots on my belt. Washing off the cores I had gathered I started walking back over to the children to see what I could learn.


    Walking past the bear I saw that he was taking a moment to rest in the middle of the room, recovering from several wounds the spear wielding goblin had managed to inflict. There were a couple of deep gashes in his left flank that were still oozing blood, but they were slowly closing. Asking him if he was able to heal himself, I was surprised when he indicated yes. That was followed up by several questions as to why he was letting his regeneration do the work, I¡¯m not sure I was able to understand all of his reasoning, but the gist of it was. He was a) saving mana in case we were attacked, b) improving his regeneration skill, and c) he seemed to think it was making him stronger, or encouraging his hide to get thicker. The last one took several questions to figure out so I¡¯m not sure if that was really what he was going for, but after talking it over with him, I decided to hold off on having him heal the scratches on my back.


    They were bothering me, but nothing that was going to be debilitating, and I could feel that the bleeding had already stopped. Although I was going to need to try and repair the shirt later, part of me wondered if I should try and figure out a way to combine the two leather chest pieces the bashers had been wearing. No, I was better off giving them to the kids. While they had handled themselves well enough, they had only had to face four of the easiest goblins and until I had a better idea of their capabilities I should armor them up first. I would see what I could do with the next batch we ran into. Somehow I was sure there would be another batch of enemies in here.


    Looking over to the three kids, I could see the two older ones were still trying to calm Lotus down. She wasn¡¯t screaming anymore but even though Sienna was still trying to hold onto her tightly, she had managed to get an arm loose and was swinging it wildly around. Walking over to them swiftly, I took the younger one from her and wrapped her in a bear hug while slowly humming a lullaby, rocking her back and forth. While she tried to do everything she could to bite, kick, and scratch me. I wasn¡¯t so far removed from the toddler years when I had to calm my own kids down from a tantrum when they tried their best to disfigure me.


    With one hand holding her head so she couldn¡¯t get her teeth into me, the other important part was just holding her close enough she couldn¡¯t get the leverage for a big enough kick. Rocking her back and forth, it was important to hold her firmly enough she couldn¡¯t get loose to hurt herself or me, while at the same time loosely enough she didn¡¯t feel trapped. Looking at her sister, she was looking wild in the eyes but seemed happy enough to have someone else dealing with the problem for now. Remembering how I had felt every time I had been invaded by the killing exp, I wondered if they were experiencing the same problems. Gesturing to her I started to exaggerate my breathing pattern, indicating she should follow along. It took her a while to get the picture, eventually, she started following along and began to calm down. Whether that was because it was actually solving the problem or if it just distracted her enough from the problems her sister was having until I figured out a better way to communicate I doubted I would ever know.


    Noticing her brother was following along with the breathing exercises I was happy when the frantic looks finally left the older one¡¯s eyes. When both of them had calmed down enough, I gestured to the Sienna to go into my pack. Miming eating and pointing to Lotus, I eventually managed to get the point across and she pulled out several packages until I saw she had managed to find the dry fruit. Nodding to that one, she pulled out a piece and eventually we managed to get it into her mouth without anyone being bit. That finally seemed to do the trick as the intense flavor of it finally broke through her tantrum enough to calm her down. As she started chewing, I set her down gently and let her run back to her sister so she could escape the embrace of the strange man she had only met less than a day ago.


    Taking a piece for myself, I slowly began to chew it before offering some to each of the older siblings, hesitantly they both took their own pieces. I held back a laugh after I noticed their eyes widen as they first tasted it before quickly stuffing the whole piece into their mouths. Putting the pouch away to their obvious disappointment, I promised they could have some later. I only managed to dry about fifteen pounds that I hadn¡¯t mixed into the pemmican, it sounds like a lot, but between the five of us it would be easy to eat a pound a day and I had no idea how long we were going to be in this dungeon. Sure if this was a video game with the graveyard a short distance away I would have no problem throwing our bodies endlessly into the fight, and while we might have a healer we weren¡¯t going to be running from room to room chaining kills to get to the boss as fast as we could. Having wiped more times than I could count even with friends I could trust, with the PUG nature of our group, and no respawns available; I had no desire to go faster than we had to.


    Speaking of which, with Lotus calmed down it was time to see what some native humans thought of the magical little rocks that goblins seemed to think were so special. Holding out the four I had gathered, I saw the children¡¯s eyes open wide in shock. At first, I took it to mean they thought I was just showing them to brag, but after several gestures, I finally managed to get the point across that they could take them. This set off a flurry of discussions between the older two, with even little Lotus chiming in every once in a while. As they continued to grow more and more intense in their debates, I let them go for the most part, only bothering to shush them whenever their voices grew louder enough I feared they might start echoing down the caves and announce our presence to the rest of the monsters.


    Eventually Gaian wandered over to lay down and watch the excitement, taking the opportunity to sit down myself, I leaned back against him gently so as not to break open the scabs on my back. As it continued to go on I wondered at how long it was taking for them to discuss it, there were only four to choose from¡­ But thinking back to how I had agonized over my own builds when it was only gaming, I settled in for the long haul. I wasn¡¯t going to rush them, this was real life and I had no idea how this worked. Maybe they had been expecting their parents to make the choice for them, or maybe they were expected to try and gain their own. Perhaps the cores were reserved for the nobility and they never expected to receive one. With no idea how their culture treated magic, I hoped I wasn¡¯t making a mistake and putting them on a KoS list. It would suck to finally escape the dungeon only to be killed or imprisoned the first time we finally made it back to civilization.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Not that I didn¡¯t think we needed the power up to survive, but if cores were strictly regulated on the outside world then that was just a new can of worms we were going to have to deal with after we survived this tribulation. It would make sense, I thought to myself as I continued along that line the hamster had spun out. After all, what kind of leaders would actually want children with superpowers running around his city? While it might make sense in a tv series, as strictly as we try to regulate law abiding citizens¡¯ ability to defend themselves, there is no way a leader back home would trust a child with the ability to form a fireball out of nothing. I have to wonder if they even allow adults to run around with powers here. However with monsters everywhere, maybe they are more sensible about the population having the ability to defend themselves.


    Snorting slightly at the thought of a sensible politician, I had to hold myself back from laughing out loud as the thought just seemed too foreign of a concept to take seriously.


    It took about an hour for the conversations to finally wind down and they walked back over to me. Several times I thought to go start filtering water, but every time I made a move to get up, they had stopped talking and stared at me. Not wanting to rush them into a decision they weren¡¯t sure of, I eventually just gave up and focused on my meditations, trying to get back to my soul vision without having to follow the invading exp down. Several times I thought I might have had it, only to find myself staring at my navel when I opened my eyes. I thought I was feeling the goblin core I had glued back together powered up and ready to go, but I was hesitant to activate it without an outlet to unleash it on.


    Taking it to be some version of mighty blow, I had only managed one tremendous punch when I had first put it together. But I had no desire to explode another corpse for no purpose, right no I was figuring I would just have to try and unleash it at the start of the next battle, then go from there. I hadn¡¯t exhausted myself the first time, so that seemed like a safe enough experiment. After talking it over with the bear, he seemed to agree. He said even after the dragon had taken all of his mana he hadn¡¯t been weakened to the point he couldn¡¯t use his natural strength to fight. Also, healing had to be way more mana intensive than a mighty blow, so he doubted I only had one of them in me before going OOM, what kind of damage it might cause to my unenhanced body from multiple uses was another question entirely, but he thought he would be able to heal me up when it became necessary.


    Watching them line up in front of me, I stood up. This seemed to be incredibly important to them and I was willing to be as formal as they needed me to be. I had to force myself to remember they had lost their parents or guardians less than twenty-four hours before. I was a strange man who was now the only adult in their lives and I was apparently offering them something thousands of times better than candy so if you looked at it from that point¡­ well I didn¡¯t come off looking good. Ignoring that for now, only the two older children stepped forward, leaving Lotus a couple of steps behind.


    As I held out the cores again, both of them looked me straight in the eyes, before getting onto their knees and kowtowing to me three times, repeating a phrase in their own language each time their head touched the floor. My first instinct as an American was to stop them, anything that stank of fealty or them swearing their lives to me seemed like something I should be stopping. But something in their eyes told me this was important to them and the only way they would be willing to take these cores from me was if I let them continue the ceremony.


    As they looked expectantly to me I thought about calling over Lotus to have her tell me what to say, but instead decided against it. I would finish the ceremony, but I couldn¡¯t bring myself to accept them swearing their lives to me. I would reply in English so they wouldn¡¯t understand, but if this was something the world was going to accept formally like when I had made the deal with the rabbits, then I was going to leave them a way out. Thinking it over carefully I thought about how I wanted to phrase it before I responded. Despite me taking several minutes to respond, neither of the two children on their knees even so much as fidgeted.


    ¡°Sienna and Aspen,¡± I said speaking as formally as I could, taking a beat so my brain wouldn¡¯t run away faster than my mouth and leave me stammering. ¡°You are welcome to anything of mine you need to grow stronger so you can protect your family. I promised to the world and your parents I would see you safe. The best way I know to do that is to make sure you have the strength you need so that you never have to depend on anyone else. But until you reach that point, know that I will be there for you to lean on. Be it for advice, wealth, or knowledge, I will do my best to provide for you. While I may not have much at the moment, what I have is yours. Take these gifts freely so you may grow in strength and fight against these monsters who would feast on our bones and see your siblings devour your siblings.¡±


    Giving myself a four out of five for dramatic effect, it didn¡¯t seem to be enough, as I had yet to feel anything from the world settle onto me like it had when I had sworn my pack with the rabbits. Remembering that the rabbits had needed blood to seal the other oath, I thought about the ethics of binding children to an agreement sealed in blood. Part of me was revolted as the eldest here was maybe the age of my youngest, but I continued to think about it and finally managed to overcome my self-righteousness. They had already been forced to defend their lives on my watch and this was only the first room. How much worse was this going to get? If they don¡¯t take the magic due to my refusing to complete the ceremony because I find it morally wrong and they end up dead, how was that the better outcome? Are my values really worth more than their lives?


    Holding back a sigh, I set the cores gently onto the ground and pulled out my knife. Slicing along my right palm, I flipped the blade around, catching it and holding the handle out to Sienna first. Standing she took the blade and spoke out firmly several lines before slicing her own palm. Passing the blade to her brother she pressed her hand to mine firmly and I finally felt the oath settle on my core. This one was much firmer, but I again felt that if I needed to I could break the chains without suffering any backlash. But I ignored that feeling and let the oath settle around my soul.


    Turning to Aspen I watched as he sliced into his hand. I was forced to hold myself back as in his determination to complete the ceremony he went much deeper than a superficial wound. Looking at the way he stared at the flap of skin hanging off I could tell he knew he had made a mistake. But as he held on tightly to the knife I knew he wasn¡¯t going to stop until the ceremony was over. Holding his hand tighter than I did his sister, I did my best to ignore the blood flowing through my fingers as the extra pressure I was exerting didn¡¯t do much to stop the flow of blood.


    After he spoke his words and I felt the chain settle down onto my core, I waited until I felt it fully take hold before I released him and called over to the bear to fix the kid¡¯s nervous mistake. At first, he wanted to grab his core but I held him back, if they wanted me to be in charge I was going to make sure that he didn¡¯t pass out when healing was easily available. While the bear stuck his nose into the bloody palm I watched as the flap of skin slowly glued itself back onto his hand. Eventually, the bleeding stopped and he was left without a scar. Hoping he wasn¡¯t disappointed and we would be forced to redo the ceremony, he ignored all of that and practically dove onto the ground to pick up the gold core, while his sister more sedately went after the red one.


    But judging from the beaming smile on her face, she was no less happy with what she had received. Getting one of the pouches of dried fruit in lieu of popcorn I settled back into the bear that had returned to his spot to watch the show. I was excited to find out what I could learn when I watched them activate the glowing gems.

 Not a Chapter

    Sorry for the absence, my kids finally took me down with the second to the last of the illness they managed to acquire last year. After that it was winter break, another round of fevers, Christmas and then I had to go back to work. Chapters are going to continue, but now that I am back to my paying job it is going to be at a reduced pace. I am going to do my best to keep everything on a monday, wednesday, friday schedule, but real life and family comes first. I am happy to see that we picked up a couple more followers and favorites in my absence and am going to do my best to keep the words flowing so the story can continue to grow. For now, I am leaving aside any thoughts of trying to monetize and am just going to work on improving my skills as a writer and am going to try to go back and fix the begining of the story while continuing to let the MC progress. I''ve been putting a little bit of thought into how I want to do that as I don''t want to take several more weeks off to just rewrite everything up to here. Nothing lore wise will be changing, I just want to work on the readability of it and also try to tap into the emotional side more. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    I hope everyone continues to follow along Jack''s story and time and circumstances allow me to get another book or two''s worth of material out in the coming year!

 Chapter 60

    I was happy when Sienna grabbed the red core and hoped it would offer her the same fireball that the goblin had thrown. Both because it would keep her to the back lines and out of danger and also because it would be a major upgrade in our firepower. Aspen had chosen the gold core, and I had to wonder how good of a fit it was going to be for him. Typically in the wuxing system; metal represents discipline, order, and focus and how much was a twelve year old boy really going to exhibit those attributes? I thought about trying to stop him but decided that in the end, it wasn¡¯t my place to say. To be fair he had just been through a horribly traumatic experience, so If those cores are more likely to help strengthen those feelings then maybe it would be good for him.


    In that case, do I need to worry instead about Sienna taking a fire core? If that was going to encourage destructive tendencies how might that go? Forcing myself to stop my instinctive desire to interfere and make sure they were making the right choice, I instead sat back and let them continue on. I just don¡¯t have enough information to bring myself to question their choices. Forcing myself not to butt in and ¡®help¡¯ with their selection was hard, but I managed to keep my mouth shut, it was helpful knowing that they wouldn¡¯t be able to understand what I was saying anyway.


    I watched as they picked up their chosen stones was almost mesmerizing as they moved with so much care. They picked them up so gently, almost like they thought if they did the slightest movement wrong the cores would shatter. After retrieving their selections they both sat cross legged on the ground and held them up to eye level, seeming to examine them in detail before staring off into the distance. With nothing but walls and glowing mushrooms around us, I found myself wondering what they were doing. Having no idea what I looked like when at the times I found myself disappearing into my core, I had to consider that maybe I looked just as distracted.


    Fortunately, I continued to watch them instead of glancing around to see what they might be looking at, or I would have missed it when the cores dissolved into light and melted into their bodies. All I could do was hope that was what was supposed to happen as the light disappeared so quickly I had no chance to prevent it, not that I would have done that. It just goes against a parent¡¯s instinct to see a rock melt into a child and not try to stop it.


    I noticed that the red light dove into Sierra¡¯s head, while Aspen¡¯s golden light went into his navel area. Taking that to mean the girl was going to follow the mage¡¯s path, I wondered if the boy would be seeing an increase in size. The Wood and Earth cores I had found in the bruiser¡¯s had both been in the stomach area, while the spear holder¡¯s metal core had been underneath the heart, which had me wondering if the boy was making a mistake. Wishing I had a wiki I could dive into, I hated that events weren¡¯t letting me speak to them before they were making life altering decisions.


    I was too used to my own kids acting like idiots every chance they could. That isn¡¯t to say they weren¡¯t smart as a whip, but I¡¯ve always found that the smarter someone is, the bigger of a mistake they will make when they are blindsided because they were sure they knew all of the answers.


    Watching them collapse to the ground, I was about to jump forward and shake them awake. But when I looked at their sister standing there like nothing was wrong, I had to assume that this was what was supposed to happen. Sighing I looked over to her and held out a piece of the dried fruit which she eagerly took and immediately stuffed into her mouth, quickly holding her hand out for another bite. Hearing the bear get up behind me, I pulled out another couple of pieces for him as well, already knowing he was going to ask. Taking a piece for myself, I tucked the rest of the package away in my pocket for later. Looking at the two bodies slumped over, I wondered if I was supposed to move them to be more comfortable but in the end decided against it. I would hate to mess up their gains because I was being stupid. The most that they would get laying like that was a sore neck and that sounded better to me than a broken core so I left them alone for now.


    Not knowing how long they were going to be out, I decided to leave Lotus to her vigil and refill our water reserves while I had the time. So I got out both the bucket and filter baskets I had made in the rabbit glade. Turning to bring them across the room to the water that was dribbling down from the ceiling I found myself stopping in shock. All of the bodies had disappeared! I was positive I hadn¡¯t heard anything come in and take them, and besides anyone coming into the room almost certainly would have attacked us based on everything I had observed in monster behavior so far. Dropping the implements for now, I felt Gaian bounding to my side as he picked up on my alarm. Grabbing my spear I started walking around the perimeter of the room, looking out through all of the tunnels but not seeing any drag marks to indicate the bodies had been taken that way. Part of me wanted to stick my spear through the openings to see if they were an illusion, but I was hesitant to do so while the kids were still out. If that was something that started a wave of monsters I wanted us to be at full strength when they attacked.


    Walking over to the center of the room, I could still see where the blood was still puddled on the ground indicating this was where I had butchered the elites. I jumped up and down several times but didn¡¯t even get the slightest feeling that something might be wrong with the floor. Running the point of the spear¡¯s blade through the dirt certainly had me thinking it was solid and that there weren¡¯t any trapped doors.


    Running over to our packs, I had to check that the weapons and shield I had looted were still there, as everything else the goblins had been carrying and wearing had disappeared with the bodies. I was relieved to see the weapons I had appropriated were still all where I had left them. Sighing at yet another mystery, I resolved not to put my spear anywhere it might be grabbed. Looking at the bear¡¯s and my packs I thought about putting mine on, but they hadn¡¯t been taken yet and there was no way I was going to be able to wear it every second of our time here.


    Going back to my plan I placed the baskets so it was pulling some of the water from the wall and put the bucket underneath to hold it. With four layers of baskets woven together, there were three chambers, holding everything together. First, there was moss to catch most of the particulates, followed by charcoal and sand to help filter out everything else. Only having charcoal from the fire I was sure it wasn¡¯t as good as activated charcoal. But that was impossible to make on your own so I was just trusting this to do the best it could. I was sure the earth was already doing a good enough job already but I figured if I spent the time making it, I might as well use it.


    As the basket started filling up, I moved it backward a bit until it seemed like the level of incoming to draining started holding even. Leaving it alone for now I headed back over to Lotus who was sitting next to her siblings apparently happy to ignore my strange behavior. Deciding to work on my dexterity with nothing better going on, I picked up three rocks and started juggling. Not having done it in ages I was constantly dropping one to the little girl¡¯s delight. Every dropped rock elicited a small giggle, so I was happy to keep going for now. I really wished I hadn¡¯t knocked myself unconscious with that flower when Gaian absorbed his own core so I had a better idea of how long this would take. Although he had swallowed his, instead of turning into light and absorbing it, so I wasn¡¯t sure how good of a metric that was for understanding.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    After about a couple of hours, I could feel myself getting hungry, but I just didn¡¯t want the magic to stop. I had found that the more I practiced the more I was improving, and while that was true of most things in life, the rate I was finding I was improving at was bordering on insane. I was up to six rocks now, and they had been in the air for almost fifteen minutes now, on earth the best I had ever managed had only been four, and that had lasted all of fifteen seconds before I lost track and they all came clattering down.


    Calling out to Lotus, she took her cue and tossed up another rock to add to the difficulty, and despite almost losing the whole group I managed to keep everything going. I don¡¯t know for sure if I was getting stronger but I could now say with some certainty that whatever the green stuff was I was taking in, it was definitely doing something to improve my body. Or it was the results of my time in the ball¡­ or it was my newfound cores inside of me. I hated not having definitive answers! No matter what was going on I knew I was improving, but without a way to isolate the factors I feared I would never have definite answers.


    At a sudden scream from Lotus, all the rocks came clattering down as I quickly dove for my spear, only to stand up sheepishly as I realized she had just noticed her sister waking up. Looking at the amazement that was starting to form in Sienna¡¯s eyes, I could see what was coming a mile away. I was sure if I had awoken magical powers when I was a kid the first thing I would have done was test them out. Not wanting to summon any more enemies until we were ready for them, I called out her name, waving my arm across me to signal not to do it right now. I was surprised when she dropped her hands without any of the belligerence my own kids would have shown at not being able to throw fire around, or myself for that matter¡­


    When it seemed like her brother wasn¡¯t going to immediately awaken as well, I decided to break out some food. Pulling out more of the jerky and dried fruit, I also grabbed one of the water skins I had recently refilled. Handing everything out, I wondered if Sienna would be able to have any kind of control over her magic or if it was one size fits all. Trying to mime it took a little bit of time, but eventually, I got my point across. She seemed to once again be accessing her core area as she started staring off into space. It was a little odd to me that it took so long because every time I had gone into mine, it seemed like everything was happening instantaneously and I would step back out with no one else being the wiser. But I also had spent subjective millennia building it, so maybe I just learned to ignore the perception of time in that space.


    When she came back out she waved her hands no and I wondered if it was worth the hassle of suggesting she try to modify it on her own. In the end, I held off. With the lack of clarity in all of our conversations and the devotion they seemed to show to me, there was too much room for a misunderstanding. If she were to take it as some kind of order from her boss, there was too much of a chance of her hurting herself in her enthusiasm to succeed for me. In the end, it was just an idle thought and when playing with fireballs, fourteen year olds perhaps weren¡¯t the best ones to be doing said experiments. Whatever a misspent childhood playing with fireworks unsupervised might tell me to the contrary.


    As Aspen finally woke up and joined us, he and his siblings began to talk excitedly, when they asked for my spear I was a little hesitant, but in the end passed it over as I still had a second one on the off chance things went wrong and he destroyed it. I was hesitant at first, especially after denying Sienna the chance to show off her spell, but after several attempts at charades, it seemed like they didn¡¯t think this would cause a commotion. Handing the weapon over, the boy held it in his hands for a second with his eyes closed and I watched in awe as the blade seemed to grow bigger. Not much, it only added on maybe another six inches, while widening the blade by an inch, but in a fight with identical weapons that could make all the difference.


    Taking it out of his hands to examine I was disappointed to see the modifications didn¡¯t stick once he relinquished the weapon. Guessing it to be some kind of energy field he was overlaying, it looked like the spell would only be usable by him. He hadn¡¯t seemed to have gained any height or weight with the absorption by the core, but maybe that was just how humans were supposed to react. I guess we didn¡¯t get an instant evolution and power up. When I handed him a club to try it on, it refused to activate, so it looked like he would be trading up and inheriting the newly acquired spear. I handed him the shield to hold as well as he was about the same size as the evolved bashers. Holding it for a couple of minutes he seemed to be okay but after around five he had to set it down as the weight grew too much for him.


    Telling him to put it away for now, I made a mental note to work on increasing his endurance later. For now, it was time to figure out where we wanted to go next in this labyrinth we had entered. The room had three exits, two were across the room from where we had come from while the third tunnel was maybe ten feet to the right of our entrance. The two across the room had a downhill cant to them that the water was running out of while it seemed like the one to the right looked to be pretty level. Taking that as the best way to escape, I decided we would go that way to start. Taking a right also seemed to agree with all the lore I had ever read so maybe the collective wisdom of Terra would hold true here as well. The quicker we got out of here before we ran into something we couldn¡¯t handle the better.


    Pulling my pack on, I held the bear¡¯s pack to steady it as he shrugged it on, and we continued our journey walking in the same order we had entered this room. Only I swapped the older two kids around as it seemed better for the mage to be in the middle. Aspen had already lengthened the blade of his new spear, and he seemed pretty confident he could hold the spell for an extended period of time. Trusting him that it wasn¡¯t too much of a burden, we headed into the tunnel. Without the water coming this way, the glow started to diminish, while there were still mushrooms shooting out the occasional glowing spore that had me slightly worried, the lichen the goblins hadn¡¯t trampled around the edges didn¡¯t seem to extend to this tunnel.


    As we moved with a silence that wouldn¡¯t have been possible had we brought along any kids of their age that I knew, I soon started hearing noises that indicated our next test was up ahead. Leaning slowly around the next corner, I saw that there was another room about a hundred yards further down the corridor. The tunnel seemed to be opening up directly into the room which would leave us with no cover as we approached it. But from the sounds coming from the room, it didn¡¯t seem like the goblins were paying any attention to our tunnel despite the sounds of the previous struggle that had to have reached here. Either our long break had confused them or they weren¡¯t the best creatures to have standing guard for long periods of time.


    In true dungeon fashion, it looked like the difficulty of this was going to be a little harder than our first fight, but it wasn¡¯t ramping up at an obscene rate. Two more elites had been added to this group while four of the fodder goblins had been removed leaving us with a total of fifteen to deal with in the upcoming room. The two added elites were another mage and another spear holder which gave them two of everything. From what I saw there was a group of four and a group of five fodder to either side of the room and they looked to be cheering on their favorite basher who had their shields pressed together and were having a shoving contest.


    With the kids updated gear and spells this was going to be difficult, but if we could capitalize on the surprise we should be able to do this without too much trouble. Part of me was really wishing I had let Sienna practice her spell so we knew exactly how it was going to react. Heading to each of them, I first whispered to the bear his assignments before playing a quick game of charades with the kids to give them theirs. I had tried to find out from Sienna if we left the bags behind and if the dungeon could claim them while we were gone, but apparently, she wasn¡¯t of the right class of people to know. Either that or she wasn¡¯t willing to tell me something she was uncertain of and risk being wrong.


    I appreciated her willingness to be honest rather than try to lie even if it meant we were going to have to take a bigger risk and rush to the room to drop our stuff. Sticking my spear into one of the bear¡¯s bags for now, I held two of the extra goblin clubs we had found in one hand, while my right had hold of the dagger that had been passed to us by an incredibly brave woman. I was determined to see that it spilled its share of goblin blood.

 Chapter 61

    Looking over at Sienna I nodded to her and watched as she started forming a fireball in her hands for the first time while switching my hold on my dagger to grab it by the blade so it was ready to throw. I was hoping she could take out the spear goblins in one shot before there was any sign to alert them. If this were a game and I was leading the party, I would be throwing everything at the mages to burn them down as fast as possible. But these goblins don¡¯t have an aggro meter, we didn¡¯t have any CC and I couldn¡¯t afford for three of my team to get focused on. So that meant taking out the spear men in the first strike, siccing Gaian on the magicians hoping he could tank their strikes, and hoping Aspen could keep the goblin tanks at range with his spear while I rounded up the fodder before they could get to the girls.


    I was sure it was going to be a shit show, but all of my other plans seemed worse in my head, and anything more complicated would snowball fast. We were already violating the KISSS principle way too much for me to be happy. But to be fair I¡¯m leading three children and a bear to attack a numerically superior force that can¡¯t wait to sink their fangs into us. So comfortable had left the building a long time ago.


    Watching the enemy mages carefully, I was ready to act the second it looked like they sensed our own was forming a spell. We had about twenty-five yards left to run before we entered the room, which meant Gaian and I needed to make it through the entryway before the bashers blocked it off. I was sure the bear would be able to force them back eventually, but by that time the enemy casters would probably be able to get their own first strikes out, and we couldn¡¯t afford for that to hit anyone but the bear. Not that he would be happy to tank the strikes, but he has the healing spell and can regen without it taking him out of the fight. Thankfully he understood when I explained it to him and seemed happy enough to take care of business.


    Speaking of the bear, Gaian was softly padding forward as with his paws he was the quietest. While the rest of us had to continue to wait as Sienna finished charging up her spell. I wanted to look over and see how the fire looked in her hands, the hamster in my brain was anxious to know if the spell would look different than when it did in its former master¡¯s hands. But I forced myself to leave it alone. I know how the universe works and the second I turn my head to look, that will be the moment a goblin notices something and it all goes pear shaped. But if I continue to stare straight ahead, the universe will let her finish building her spell to full power and launch it.


    Once she gave me a nod to let me know it was ready to go, I started counting to five in my head slowly as we had agreed that after she was ready to cast she would give me the time to get closer. I was moving as soon as I hit the fifth beat, but I hadn¡¯t even managed a full step into my sprint when the glowing orange and yellow ball came flying over my shoulder. Part of me was amazed, I could feel the heat blistering my face as it passed letting me know that friendly fire was a thing in this world. I was still having trouble getting my brain to accept this was part of reality despite everything I had seen so far. Forcing myself to ignore that for now, I continued running awkwardly with my pack in my left hand, debating in my head, what would be the optimal time to throw my dagger.


    While I debated on when I should throw the blade I could only watch in horror as the fireball that looked to be perfectly aimed at the spearman, burst into its explosion early. One of the bashers picked the worst time to finally overpower the other and sent him into the dangerous magic¡¯s path. I cursed as the universe got back at me for refusing to give it an opportunity to mess with my plans earlier. Sending the dagger flying through the air at one of the spearmen, I was quickly reaching into the pack I was carrying for one of the three backup clubs. Throwing it at the other before I could even see if the dagger had any effect I only had one more step to go before I broke the threshold of the room.


    Gaian had already made it in, had scooted out from his packs, and was charging for the mages who had their own hands already moving in front of them. Grabbing a second club, I set my bag down on the opposite side of the entryway to hopefully give the kids some additional cover once they made it in. It would suck if the bags got destroyed, but while I might be willing to sacrifice part of my own body to protect the bags knowing it could be healed. I wasn¡¯t willing to extend that same offer to the children, even though I was getting the feeling that they would happily volunteer. They were so eager to prove that they could manage an adult¡¯s burden that I feared they thought I would leave them behind the second they weren¡¯t able to pull their weight.


    Choosing to throw the club at the spearman my dagger had only managed to scratch, I hoped this one would do more damage. The fodder goblins were already charging ahead, and I needed to clear the path for the kids to get in the room. Throwing the last of the extra clubs sidearm into the path of the larger group of fodder who were on my side of the room, I skipped it off the hard ground so it went spinning into their legs. While it only connected with two of the smaller goblin¡¯s legs, all five went down in a heap as they got tangled up in the confusion.


    Crossing over to the side of the entryway that Gaian¡¯s packs were on, I was doing my best to grab the two backup spears and clear the way for the kids. I wanted Sienna to start working on another spell as quickly as possible. Taking in the whole room as I did so, I couldn¡¯t help but curse in my head. Gaian had just managed to reach the magic users and had gotten his jaws around one of their wrists, but the shaman had managed to cover himself in a brown shield that seemed to be holding off the massive jaws for now. It looked like the other user was some kind of nature caster, judging by the vines coming from the ground that were wrapping around the bear, pulling at his fur, and trying to entangle him.


    The spear holders were both unsteady on their feet, but still retained their weapons and were slowly moving forward, while one of the bashers was down and smoking. But the victor who had caused the snafu was already recovering from the explosion that had knocked him down. Standing back up, club and shield in hand; he made his way in front of the spear users. He apparently was happy to abandon the magicians to their fate with the bear and join his fellow knuckledraggers in attacking the kids. Having to make a difficult decision I scrapped the plan and sent my two spears hurtling through the air while yelling my changes to the bear. Hoping for the best I pulled my last two weapons and went charging at the four fodder to the left of the room, having to just hope the children could manage to defend themselves against the mess I had left for them.


    It seemed they were just as eager to get to me as they were charging to meet me, fangs open in eager smiles in their desire to sink them into me. With my right hand through the loop of the paracord I had fixed into this club so long ago. I let the club drop and use the cord to whip the club around my head. Lowering my arm so my follow through would go swinging through the group, the monsters paid no attention to my attempt at cleverness.


    Pushing and shoving, the pack came charging forward, but I had managed to time my swing perfectly. I felt a smile start to creep across my face as I watched my club crush the skull of one, before continuing on to the next. This one was only knocked out as the club unfortunately had lost enough momentum killing the first that it wasn¡¯t even able to stun the third. Driving my left arm forward, I met the outermost¡¯s leap with sharpened steel to his throat, accepting that one of them was going to get its teeth into me. Screaming out wordlessly in pain, I pulled out my blade as quickly as I could, before burying it multiple times into the final goblin who was ripping chunks out of my belly. The only saving grace was that I still had a dad bod with all of the high calories food I had been eating. So he only managed to rip out some chunks of fat, leaving my more delicate organs untouched for now.


    I was screaming again in pain, this time from having to pull away the dead goblin¡¯s body with his teeth still clenched in a death grip on my side. Turning back to see where I needed to help out next, I took a second to survey as I dropped the body of the rabid monster. Gaian had finished his charge at the woozy spear goblins and already one of them was down with his throat ripped out. The second one however had managed to bury his blade into the bear¡¯s stomach and was doing his best to maintain his grip on the haft as the bear continued to try charging forward to get to him. It was apparent the bear had lost any sense of reason and was counting on his regeneration as he continued to charge forward into the weapon in his effort to get his jaws around the tiny creature that had wounded him.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    The nature shaman was down with the spear I had thrown in his chest. I had sent the weapon through the air before I had taken my fight to the fodder hoping to free the bear so he could switch targets and it seemed like that part of my idea had managed to work. Unfortunately, my second throw hadn¡¯t been as effective as the other mage seemed to have managed to block it and already his hands were glowing again as he continued to gather the power for another spell.


    Aspen was doing a miraculous job as he managed to hold off the three remaining fodder goblins and the basher that was trying to reach him and his sisters. He was sending his spear sweeping through the air with surprising control and had apparently yet to overreach. I watched in awe as he managed to hold the attention of the four monsters, giving his sister time to charge up another fireball. It was looking like she had just finished as she sent it winging out toward the three undamaged fodder.


    I started feeling the experience from the kills streaming into me and with nothing around me, I let it drag me into my core for a second so I could see if I could power up my own spell so we could end this fight with only the bear and I sustaining injuries. Diving in, I did my best to focus on the mana I felt moving through my channels. I believed that I was getting closer to seeing something where I could feel it moving heavily, but it also could just have easily been wishful thinking on my part. Trying to focus on sending it around the area I knew the goblin core I had fixed to be. I saw a tiny speck begin to glow in the darkness of my massive core. I focused on sending more mana flowing through that area until it began to glow with the intensity of a small star.


    Before I could even begin to try and get back to my body on my own, I felt an intense pain in the back of my legs, that ripped me out of my coresight. I came back to my body as it was falling to the ground now that my legs were no longer able to support me with chunks of my hamstrings ripped out. Rolling on the ground with agony, I managed to shake loose the three scrabbling fodder goblins that had somehow gone unnoticed when I had made my plans. Swinging my club from my back I focused on activating the spell as they all jumped for my vulnerable belly that their compatriot had already gotten a meal from.


    I could feel it as the spell activated, my club seemed to fly across the side of my body, crushing through the skulls of all three of them. It was obvious I had managed to activate the spell, as I managed to not only kill all three of them, compared to the two I had managed before from a superior leverage point. No, I didn¡¯t just kill these, I obliterated them turning one¡¯s head to mist. The second one was almost as bad, as there were only fragments of skull and hair left of his missing head. While the third goblin¡¯s face looked like a smushed lump of clay as the club broke every bone in his face, even his fangs were shattered and sent scattering across the room.


    But they had succeeded in taking me out of the fight as I found myself unable to do anything other than flop around on the ground. I knew I was out for the fight. I could only look on and trust the rest of my team to handle the rest. From my spot on the ground, I could see that the other three fodder Sienna had shot the fireball into were in even worse condition than the ones I had taken out. It looked like she was in the process of trying to summon up another spell, but it was obvious that even if she managed to finish forming it, this would be her last one of the fight. Her face showed her exhaustion clearly, but she was carrying on with her teeth pinching her bottom lip as she scrapped from the bottom of the barrel for one last spell to save her siblings.


    Aspen had managed to get his spear around the basher¡¯s shield, putting a big gash into its right leg. Now he was dancing around it, forcing it to try and spin without collapsing in the pain I knew it had to be feeling. The smallest part of me felt a bond with the evil monster as I now knew what it was like to have your legs no longer able to support you when you needed to fight for your life.


    Lotus was screaming in rage again. Dashing forward, she was running with her club raised as she targeted the two fodder whose legs I had broken at the start of the fight.


    Gaian had finally managed to knock the spear from his chest and despite the blood streaming forth, he was battering his opponent down. But it seemed like the remaining shaman had chosen the final spearman for his target, a brown shield was stopping the bear from completing his attacks and venting his anger on his target. Reaching up, the bear was standing to his full height before bringing both paws crashing down in his effort to break through the shield that was between him and the object of his fury. I could see the mage shudder every time the paws hit, but he managed to keep his focus and maintain the shield.


    With everything too close to call for now as the spearman used the opportunity given to him to dive down and pick up his spear. I found myself racking my brain for anything I could do to tip the scales in our favor. Feeling the exp bite into me, I focused on my breathing to stop it from invading my soul. Looking at the green energy forming as well, I held out my hands and started pulling it into me while I wasn¡¯t able to move. Thinking about the broken cores inside of me I knew another one I had absorbed was the healing core. Taking a moment to gather up the willpower I needed, I forced myself to trust my team to continue the fight that I was out of. I let myself be pulled away from the situation I was no longer able to contribute to into my center, where I hoped to find the means to fix me back up so I could charge forth to save the day!


    Diving in, I looked at the green energy coming up my channels. If I looked close enough I was able to see that there was something moving through the more substantial energy. Finally, I was able to get a hint at what this world used to power spells. I wasn¡¯t able to see much, but if I focused hard enough on the green energy I could see that there were swirls and eddies as it flowed around something that was invisible. Trying to focus on finding the mana caused me to notice something about the green energy that was coming up through my channels. I had already noticed that it was dropping small motes off into my muscles. Now I could see that there were smaller amounts entering my bones and nervous system as well. Part of me thought that I needed to figure out a way to keep the green energy circulating through my channels until it was fully absorbed into my body. But I put off that thought for now, as I needed to focus on sorting out my own healing spell so I could get back into the fight.


    Looking at the channels that were being carved through the thicker green energy, at first I thought there was nothing there, but as I looked deeper I was able to see the tiniest glowing specks in the nothingness. As I felt myself getting dragged deeper into my core, I managed to focus on one of the specks long enough to see that it wasn¡¯t just one mote. Instead, it was made up of five smaller parts, one of which resonated with the energy it was passing through, causing it to glow the slightest bit brighter than the other four, which was what had drawn my attention to it in the first place. Noting it for later, as I took it to finally confirm my earlier theories, I let myself get fully dragged to the core.


    Once I was there I was happy to see that despite my pain, I had managed to fully integrate my chaos pulse that was dragging around the ribbons of the energy I had captured. It was continuing to chew up the exp into its baser parts, sending what it couldn¡¯t devour back out into the universe. Following one of the green-tinted order bricks back to the spot they always seemed drawn to, I saw the remains of the two other cores. Neither of which hadn¡¯t anywhere near the fullness of the Mighty Blow¡¯s core. Instead, they both had the flatness of a skipping stone and I could tell it was going to be a much more difficult job finding out which pieces went together. Apparently, they also had nowhere near the strength of the first one I had managed to fix, as there were about forty pieces between the two. While the globe-like core only had five much larger, and rounder pieces. Which explained why it was so much easier to reform.


    Looking for pieces that had lines running through the middle. I quickly began separating out all of the pieces that looked to have been upgraded by the evil I had dragged out of the troll¡¯s core. Eventually, I found fifteen that I thought went together, which I took to indicate that this one must have been slightly stronger. The other core I had came from one of the smaller goblins so maybe that explained why it had broken into more pieces. Before I started putting the healing core together I noticed that the other pieces I had put to the side only had a couple of small lines running through it and my energetic hamster was telling me that it was something important. But I couldn¡¯t figure out why my subconscious thought that it mattered. Forcing myself to focus on putting the healing core back together, I found two pieces that looked like they went together.


    Picking them up, I pressed them together only to have them fall back apart, refusing to stick.

 Chapter 62

    I continued to try to force the two pieces together, but they refused to fit. Looking at all of the lines on the inside, I knew these two pieces had to go together and I started racking my brain for any changes that were happening this time around that were different from when I gained my first spell. Setting the two down on top of one of the handy order bricks, I tried to take a moment to focus my mind and calm my center, wondering if it might be my state of mind that was causing the disconnect. Before I could take a breath, I was instantly trying to snatch them back. It was to no avail as I saw the pieces start melting away and I could only look on in horror as the dust started disappearing into my core space in pieces too small for me to see.


    Horrified that I might have destroyed my best chance I had of getting myself back into the fight, I took a breath and tried to calm myself before I moved on to the weakest core so at least my trip into here wouldn¡¯t be a complete waste. But before I did I saw something that caught my attention soI picked up the Order brick that had melted the pieces down. Looking deep inside I saw that there seemed to be two wires in it now and they looked remarkably similar to the channels that made up the interior of the puzzle. So I started putting several more pieces on the brick and watched as they all started melting away, all the while leaving their channels imprinted on the brick. Eventually, I filled that brick up and it wouldn¡¯t dissolve any of the pieces. But I still had five pieces of the puzzle left over so I started adding them to another brick until they had all dissolved as well. With nothing left to add to the bricks I started trying to combine the two so that I could finally get my healing spell, but they just didn¡¯t want to join. Having formed a spell already, I knew there had to be a way to make it work but I just couldn¡¯t figure it out. The only other force I had easy access to was the green energy¡­


    Mentally snapping my fingers I remembered that had been what had glued the pieces together of my last spell. The kill energy was still streaming into me so I didn¡¯t want to let down my defenses against it which meant I had to take the spell to it. Taking up the two bricks I had imprinted, I was forced to dodge one of the incoming blank ones that was on its way to add itself to the pile and took off through the empty mountain inside of me to see if I could fix what I broke.


    Finding a vector the exp wasn¡¯t taking to attack my soul, wasn¡¯t that hard. Despite the greater amount of elites, they were still only goblins so the amount of exp I was taking in wasn¡¯t even close to being needed to fill my core. All together I doubted my share of this exp could even equa what I had managed to take in from the troll. Happy that I had the barrier in place so I wasn¡¯t having to deal with the pain and anger ripping into me anymore, I tried to send my astral body dipping into one of the ribbons that were circling my soul, defending it from the pain and anger that wanted to rip into me.


    Whatever this stuff was, it wasn¡¯t something I seemed to be able to interact with other than in the most general of terms. Somehow I had to be swirling it around to protect myself but I couldn¡¯t seem to manipulate it more directly like I could the broken cores or Order bricks. I couldn¡¯t tell if it was because I wasn¡¯t focusing enough and hadn¡¯t figured out the trick of it; or because it was just impossible for anything to move the liquid other than with the strange connection it had with the Chaos swirling through the center zone of my core.


    Every time I tried to dive into the rivers, I felt something emanating from it that scared me. Something was telling me that this was a force that I didn¡¯t want to mess with. I had the feeling that if I sent my conscience streaming into it I would be torn up and spat out just like the exp was being destroyed. Flying back a short ways I continued to ponder the problem, debating if I should just drop the bricks and escape back out into the world to see if there was anything I could contribute despite my crippled state. Unfortunately, the goblins didn¡¯t seem to be the type to be distracted by my witty repartee.


    Time seemed to be slowed down here, but it didn¡¯t stop completely judging from the way the fodder I had missed had managed to get the jump on me and rip out parts of my hamstrings while I had been in here the first time. I decided to give myself a little more time to figure out the problem. I really needed to start using the exp funnels to start marking where enemies might be hiding. I had seen the multiples moving past me, but had just ignored it as I was ¡®sure¡¯ I had all of the enemies accounted for. Cursing my overconfident early self for a fool. Part of me just wanted to engage in a lengthy round of self-flagellation, but as refreshing as it might have been for my soul to have a pity party, that wouldn¡¯t do anything to improve the situation for the rest of the group.


    After several more tries trying to approach and being repelled, I had one last idea that I thought would either go amazingly well or horribly wrong. My thought was just to throw the bricks into the current. Simple not something my micromanaging brain was at all happy with doing. Maybe they would get destroyed or maybe they would be flung out at high speed, but either possibility should be survivable for me, just one option would result in the loss of the healing spell that I desperately needed. Deciding that I needed it now and that it was worth the risk. I knew I needed to get a move on as the longer I stayed in here and debated things, the better the chance was that something would happen to the kids. Or another group of fodder I missed might decide to finish off the job the first ones started. So I decided to just go for it and sent the two bricks hurling out when an approaching ribbon rotated by.


    As the Order dove into the ribbon of liquid power, I watched as that ribbon stopped it journey and sat frozen for a minute, before the rotating Chaos of the core managed to overpowered the nature of the fewer Order and sent it continuing to spiral around the central area, leaving the two bricks behind but now glowing and frozen in space. Sending my core self over to them I tried to bring the glowing bricks away but they were stuck there frozen in space, connected to nothing. It seemed I had just fixed one problem only to exchange it for another. The bricks were stacked on top of each other now and I couldn¡¯t even see a line from where they had been fused together. Grabbing hold of the newly joined brick I found I wasn¡¯t able to move it either, but I noticed I was starting to feel a growing connection to it.


    After several tries, I quickly realized this wasn¡¯t going to be a puzzle I could force. Leaning my mind into the breathing my body was doing, I tried slipping into the meditation while keeping myself in the core space next to the enlarged Order brick. Keeping an insubstantial finger on the bricks I focused on connecting to the meditation, letting my mind slowly clear until I almost lost focus entirely as a peace I had never known started to envelop me. I could almost smell the freshness of a field of blooming flowers after the rain had come. The vividness of it was so real it jolted me out for a second, almost sending me out of the core and back to my body.


    But the Order seemed to have grounded me and I was able to hold on to the frozen bricks until I was able to regain that feeling of a gentle spring day. At first, I could continue to smell the freshness of the field and the intermingling of scents that the different flowers were sending out in their efforts to attract pollinators. But I had a small feeling that this wasn¡¯t the feeling I needed to connect the spell too. As that started going away, I almost started gagging at the rotting smell that seemed to take over in its place. Worse than the vileness I had tasted when I had made myself hurl to shut off the troll¡¯s regeneration, the smell of death had me wanting to vent my stomach. It took every part of my willpower not to release the brick and let myself go flying back out to my body.


    The smell of death began slowly transforming into the smell of rotting, which was marginally better. So I managed to hold on and ride out through it until that in turn began to transition into a neutral smell. Unfortunately for me, it wasn¡¯t actually a neutral that meant nothingness. This instead seemed to be a middle ground between the points of freshness and growth; to rotting and death.


    As awful as those smells were I started getting a feeling that this was closer to where I needed to be. Feeling between the cycles a sense of belonging and resonance I started noticing all of the wires the puzzle pieces had left inside the two bricks start to vibrate in the resin like center that was the Order. It was almost like the green energy had moistened it the slightest bit and as I was coming closer to a core concept that was drawing the broken bits of the spells channels back together.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    But wasn¡¯t healing about bringing everything closer, knitting wounds back together, and having the body grow back stronger? Why was I getting so much death and rot from the block?


    I found myself pondering the concepts. If this was indeed a world governed by the concepts of Wuxing then the green cores represented wood energy which I had always associated with growth and healing. So it made sense that that was why the healing core was green and the might blow spell I had glued back together could be associated with a temporary growing of the muscles¡­ no, damn it, Jack stay on target. What does death and decay have to do with healing?


    Talking it over with the voices in my head that loved to play devil¡¯s advocate. The obvious answer was that healing and life was the opposite of death. Life is always constantly fighting to hold the certain force off, but that also didn¡¯t resonate with the spell.


    This was all intuition, but I was feeling that the closer I came to connecting with the concept, the more the pieces resonated with it, and the closer the spell was to being healed. If that was the case then currently I was ice cold. Taking a breath and talking it over with my inner hamster; I began to question in what other ways death and decay have to do with healing; and I eventually had another thought.


    What if you don¡¯t think of it as a healing spell? After all, what is healing but the growing of new cells and having them reconnect with their fellows. So what if this isn¡¯t a healing spell but instead what if I think of it as regrowth? Watching the tubes in the bricks start to quiver stronger I began to become more certain that I was on the right path. Continuing to throw out ideas some I followed along, while others were quickly rejected.


    If you are regrowing part of your body then that means by the very definition parts of you must have died, there for you have to clear out the old stuff that died and rebuild.


    No, that can¡¯t be it, but there was something there! Nature doesn¡¯t waste. Eventually whenever there is excess something will come along to the banquet and feast. That will in turn generate a new glut of waste which will in turn cause new organisms to form and mutate until they can consume the glut.


    No, stop going down that path¡­ you had something in the beginning, but then you started going off track.


    What was it in the beginning that caused the resonance? Thinking back the blocks had been vibrating pretty hard when I was thinking about regrowth and death but when I started thinking about clearing out the excess it stopped.


    What if instead of clearing it away you instead think about it like a closed cycle? Death and decay bring nutrients to the soil, which bring new growth sprouting forth. Some of the best ways to start a garden are with bone and blood in the bottom of the compost. I would assume if you added meat to it it would be even better, but I¡¯ve never really tried it as it always seemed like a waste.


    As I continued to grow closer to the truth the green energy that had infused the Order was looking for, I could almost feel the bricks begin quivering as if the tubes in it wanted to spring together on there own. Just as I started to have a breakthrough some of the Chaos I was ripping free from the exp came shooting by on its trip to my inner area that seemed to trap the excited particles.


    As it passed by the Order, the opposite force was sucked into the blocks. Immediately it began to bounce around violently, banging it around like I remembered back in the hell ball. You would think that would have distracted me but if anything I felt even more energized and my brain started getting inundated with a storm of sensations that had me loosing my humanity for a moment until I forced myself to remember who I was. I felt like I was a tree after a storm tore off some of my branches. Eventually, the dead branches decay and the nutrients are reabsorbed back into the ground and given back to the tree which recycles it for later growth.


    On a larger scale, I was a field. Plants sprang forth and grew to be consumed by animals whose waste grew to nourish the next cycle of plants as it continued on through the generations. Only ending when one species grew to dominance and choked its competition out. Then either it found something with which it could grow in partnership with or it died out only to be replaced later with something new that could consume its dead bones so that life was able to spring forth yet again.


    As the cascade of ideas hit me, I found that I was pulling in more of the green energy which was finally reacting to the emotions and ideas that were flowing through me and mixing with the Order and Chaos. I saw more Order bricks flying up to join with the original two and more of the Chaos motes that were being harvested came flying into the growing spell instead of making their way to the inner core. But it seemed that I was light on Chaos. I could see the Chaos straining to get out from the inner area it was being held hostage in.


    As if it felt it as well, the morphing blob my realization was becoming started pulling me towards the inner zone that had rejected me and held the Chaos prisoner. Faster and faster we went and I realized this was either going to cause a massive crash that might shake my soul to its very foundations or we were going to have an explosion.


    In the end, neither of my conclusions ended up being true. Instead the spell and I passed through the zone going so fast everything became a blur. Stripping off some of the Chaos as we passed by, I can only imagine they were like magnets, only pulling the required amount in as we moved through the cloud that now formed the inner area. As we were on course for the black dot in the middle I expected the immanent collision to be violent and I braced my insubstantial body as best I could. But I had forgotten how hungry my soul had been for that energy. Thinking back to the first time, I remembered how hungrily it had acted whenever the energy had gotten close enough for my soul to get a whiff of it.


    As I struggled to jump off the train when I saw that it wasn¡¯t going to stop panic was shoved down as my mind when cold and I tried anything I could think of to halt the process, but it was to no avail. I was stuck and whatever this new adventure that was staring me in the face looked to be, it seemed like I was on the express train and we were charging full steam ahead. Sighing I accepted the inevitable as at last my soul consumed the energy it was so hungry for, sucking my ego and id along with it.


    Vastness was the only word that seemed appropriate as I begin to try and comprehend the size of the space that my ego and id were sucked into. It seemed like on this size of the dot my soul was the size of the entire universe. I could feel myself disappearing as tiny parts of me were broken down into smaller and smaller pieces. I watched while the individual bits of them were sent to the farthest corners of this immense space. A single thought or idea had the space of a galaxy to roam around in, alone with nothing to bother it. I felt myself disappearing into the emptiness. But eventually something started gathering the pieces of me back together. I found myself being pulled back to the Order and Chaos that had stuck together despite every effort this universe had made to rip the spell apart.


    While it felt that there was some kind of conscious effort to collect all of the bits of me, the part of the universe that seemed to be trying to break apart the spell seemed to be operating on more of an autopilot. As the primal powers continued to gather up the fragments of my ego and id, I started again feeling the parts of the wood energy that I had been attuning to when the disaster had happened. Regrowth, life through death. Harvest and consumption so you have the energy to grow and build later.


    As it continued to pull everything that was me back together, I felt myself being bathed in the green energy that had been pulled into the spell, and it was imparting its very understanding on the vastness that was my internal soul. As my understanding increased, I felt the hold on the Primal energy structure start to lessen, and I begin to notice as my id and ego started to wake up and realize they weren¡¯t supposed to be on this side of the dimensional wall. Everything slowly started getting pushed out towards the real universe.


    Now we were driving at another hole, this time a white one that shined with a brightness that would have been blinding had I brought my physical eyes along for the ride. Faster and faster we dove for the hole, but as the eternal part of my soul was still greedy for the impartment it continued to pull at the crystallization of Order and Chaos, causing it to rotate as it traveled through the vastness all the while continuing to harden while the realizations slowly started to solidify in my mind as well.


    Diving through the hole, the spell was no longer flat like the skipping stone it had been when I had found it. Nor was it a globe like the better cores I had found. This was turning into a structure that resembled hollywood¡¯s best special effects. It was a modern art version of roots spiraling into the soil like some kind of wooden drill or vines twisting and climbing up an invisible tree. Whatever this was it wasn¡¯t some kind of basic healing spell anymore. As it went shooting through the hole like a kayak through the rapids, I realized that it was no wonder I had always been so hungry for that leftover green energy.


    Someone on this world had found a way to harvest souls and turn them into a liquid version of the Dao.

 Chapter 63

    As the improved spell came flying back into my core area, rocketing out of the black hole that housed my immortal soul. It was further ejected from the inner zone that was now down to just a few stray motes of Chaos continuing to drag my consciousness along with it. I expected it to end up in the middle zone where the Mighty Blow core had taken up it¡¯s orbit, but we rocketed through that area as well. I could see we were on a course that was set to slam into the core wall and I mentally braced myself for the pain that I was sure this was going to cause my body. Doing everything I could to try to improve my chances of staying here and not getting kicked out of the core space before I figured out how to activate my new healing spell.


    As the tangled strips that seemed to be the roots of the spell approached the walls of the core, I saw them stopping at the very last second before impact before being drawn down further and the ends of the spell form actually entered the wall of the core. I watched as the Order of the spell drove into the Order of the walls and was partially absorbed into them. As they balanced out and we now stood like an elven skyscraper that was fused onto the side of the wall. I could see that the Chaos that had been bound into the spell was starting to rotate into the core walls while being continuously replaced by Chaos I had thought had been locked into the honeycombed walls of my core.


    While I watched the mesmerizing motes rotate into and out of the spell, I felt something start to click into place. Breathing deeply I could feel the mana start to swirl through my core and I could almost see it as it started being dragged in through the vines that were swirling upward from the wall. Dropping into the meditative state I tried to focus on bringing more mana into my core. Trying to focus on pulling it in through my lungs and rotating it through my channels. But as I did that I lost the feeling of connectivity that I had with the spell.


    Letting go of the feeling of pulling in the mana, I realized I had lost touch with the spell and I was back in the middle orbit of my core, just outside the Chaos repulsion zone. Searching around I looked for the massive structure I had just attached to the walls of my core and I found that there was nothing to see. Searching around the walls I finally began to comprehend just how big this core actually was. I know I have compared it to a mountain before but we really don¡¯t understand as humans how immense of an object that is on the inside. We see a skyscraper from far away and think the reason it looks so small is because it¡¯s far, all the while ignoring the fact that if you put a building on a mountain it will disappear miles before the mountain vanishes from your sight.


    As I searched around for the immense spell that I had formed I was swiftly coming to realize that I may have lost it. I mean I knew it was still part of me, so there had to be a way to find it, but I couldn¡¯t afford to fly around for days looking for it. As I was thinking that I started feeling the pain that I had been ignoring was starting to lessen, so I let myself finally be pulled back into my body.


    As the improved spell came flying back into my core area, rocketing out of the black hole that housed my immortal soul. It was further ejected from the inner zone that was now down to just a few stray motes of Chaos continuing to drag my consciousness along with it. I expected it to end up in the middle zone where the Mighty Blow core had taken up it¡¯s orbit, but we rocketed through that area as well. I could see we were on a course that was set to slam into the core wall and I mentally braced myself for the pain that I was sure this was going to cause my body. Doing everything I could to try to improve my chances of staying here and not getting kicked out of the core space before I figured out how to activate my new healing spell.


    As the tangled strips that seemed to be the roots of the spell approached the walls of the core, I saw them stopping at the very last second before impact before being drawn down further and the ends of the spell form actually entered the wall of the core. I watched as the Order of the spell drove into the Order of the walls and was partially absorbed into them. As they balanced out and we now stood like an elven skyscraper that was fused onto the side of the wall. I could see that the Chaos that had been bound into the spell was starting to rotate into the core walls while being continuously replaced by Chaos I had thought had been locked into the honeycombed walls of my core.


    While I watched the mesmerizing motes rotate into and out of the spell, I felt something start to click into place. Breathing deeply I could feel the mana start to swirl through my core and I could almost see it as it started being dragged in through the vines that were swirling upward from the wall. Dropping into the meditative state I tried to focus on bringing more mana into my core. Trying to focus on pulling it in through my lungs and rotating it through my channels. But as I did that I lost the feeling of connectivity that I had with the spell.


    Letting go of the feeling of pulling in the mana, I realized I had lost touch with the spell and I was back in the middle orbit of my core, just outside the Chaos repulsion zone. Searching around I looked for the massive structure I had just attached to the walls of my core and I found that there was nothing to see. Searching around the walls I finally began to comprehend just how big this core actually was. I know I have compared it to a mountain before but we really don¡¯t understand as humans how immense of an object that is on the inside. We see a skyscraper from far away and think the reason it looks so small is because it¡¯s far, all the while ignoring the fact that if you put a building on a mountain it will disappear miles before the mountain vanishes from your sight.


    As I searched around for the immense spell that I had formed I was swiftly coming to realize that I may have lost it. I mean I knew it was still part of me, so there had to be a way to find it, but I couldn¡¯t afford to fly around for days looking for it. As I was thinking that I started feeling the pain that I had been ignoring was starting to lessen, so I let myself finally be pulled back into my body.


    Opening my eyes I found myself laying on my belly, nose pressed into the ground, feeling several bodies holding me down while a long rough tongue scraped along my hamstrings. Panicking I rolled hard to the right, flipping the bodies off of me while I started grabbing around my my knife and club that I had with me. When my hand managed to grab onto the hilt of something I swung it in a wild arc to clear the space around me before sitting up and trying to take stock of what had been trying to eat me.


    Looking around I saw the older kids picking themselves up from the dirt, while Gaian was turning his head to look at me like I was an idiot. As I looked around the room, it was obvious I had been out of it for a while, either my time in the soul dimension had taken an extraordinary amount of time, or it wasn¡¯t subject to the same time slow that my core space was. I¡¯m guessing it was the former as it couldn¡¯t have been easy to reform my id and ego.


    I saw that all of the bodies of our enemies had already been reclaimed by the dungeon, I can only hope that the kids had managed to get some of the loot to safety before it had also been taken. As Gaian started to nose me back down so he could treat my legs, I patted him on the muzzle saying. ¡°Give me a sec, I managed to finally absorb that healing spell and I want to see if I can activate it on my own first.¡±


    The older two were walking back over and I could only make an exaggerated shrug to indicate I was sorry for the tumble, but before I could start making excuses I was hit in the back by a flying tackle of a fifty pound little girl. Despite the immense pain that started jabbing me in the legs, I pulled her around into a hug, patting her on the back while I did my best to calm her tears, trying to tell her without words that I was okay and going to live.


    As her little fists started pounding into my shoulders as she expressed her displeasure at my having scared her, I just tucked myself closer into the blows and rode them out until she was eventually pulled off of me by her older sister. As she looked to transfer her anger and start attacking her sister I clapped sharply and put an angry look on my face while shaking my finger at her. Looking closely at her face, I could see her eyes were still a little wild and the hamster in my brain started trying to spin the wheel I had locked in place, trying to get my attention.


    I ignored him for a minute while I gestured to Lotus to come closer. Holding her hands I started taking exaggerated breaths and holding them until she eventually caught on and followed along with me. After about a minute, she started to get to the point where she was almost hyperventilating, so I slowed down and let her go. Looking into her eyes as she resumed her normal breathing, I was happy to see that most of the wildness had departed. I gestured back to her sister and the little girl ran over to give her a hug and start babbling to her, in what I could only assume was her trying to apologize for getting ready to take a swing at her.


    Leaving the kids to sort themselves out for the moment, I closed my eyes and tried to focus on anything that might give me an idea of how to activate the healing spell. Going back to my trusty breathing pattern as my first step, I started sending the mana rocketing around my channels. Drawing more of it in and trying to send it into my core, I began to feel it expand slightly, and it gave me a tiny jolt of pain in my chest. But when I compared it to the shooting agony coming from my legs, it was easy enough to ignore. After a couple of minutes of focus, I really started feeling it though and I had to stop and let it go. Holding my hand up towards the ceiling a light blast of the gathered power shot through the palm of my hand and if I used my imagination to its fullest, I thought if I had aimed it perfectly I might just have been able to use it to take out a butterfly.


    Laughing to myself despite the pain coming from my legs, I started to think how I might go about it. I think the trick would be that I would need to aim the gust so it brushed by one of its wing quadrants, but it would have to be when it was over water, otherwise, it would no doubt easily recover on the ground and take flight again. The water was the key, it could soak the wings and cause it to drown. As my rules lawyering hamster chimed in, stating that it would be the water taking out the insect and not me, I just ignored him and gave him an imaginary middle finger.


    Rolling back onto my stomach, I called out to the bear. ¡°Okay, I¡¯m out of ideas, I don¡¯t know why my stuff is so much harder to figure out. Must be nice to have an easy button.¡±


    Snorting and putting his nose back on my legs, the bear started up with his healing spell that I had been nice enough to donate to him. I had an insane itching feeling that I had to force myself to ignore as I started to feel the muscles stitching themselves back up before the skin stretched itself back into place. It was a very eerie feeling and almost enough to distract me from the resonance I started feeling coming from my core. I tried to dive back into it, but without the exp or dao to guide me I still couldn¡¯t manage it on my own.


    Closing my eyes I tried to ignore what my legs were signaling to me as they continued to heal and focus on connecting with the energy that was building a resonance with my core. I tried to imagine it as green energy causing my legs to regrow, but that didn¡¯t end up getting me anywhere. I started thinking back on how I felt when the spell started to form in the core. My sense of smell had been the first thing to categorize the different layers that made up a healing spell.


    Trying to focus on memories that had vivid smells in them I started thinking back to different experiences with my kids. Running the gambit from Camping in a wet field to teaching my son to cut the grass, nothing seemed to be working until my mind flitted to a memory of my dad, my brothers, and me. We had been burning a small field on our farm, rather than taking the longer time that cutting the grass with a mower would have needed.


    It had been wet enough that it hadn¡¯t been that big of a blaze, only slowly had the line of fire been able to eat away at the grass, leaving us time to walk around the edges with shovels, slowly tamping it out when it go to the area¡¯s we were content to let grow free. It wasn¡¯t the burning that was calling to me though. Instead, the part of the memory that was calling to me was waking up the next morning after the storm that had passed by had mixed the ash into the ground.


    It seemed to my young mind that the grass had already regrown a tremendous amount and was filling the air with the most remarkable scent of freshness. Similar to what you get after you cut your grass, but cleaner, fresher, and more full of life. Looking back on it now, I could tell that this wasn¡¯t the exact memory, but some part of the Dao that I had used to fuse the spell together was calling out to me, changing it slightly to influence me.


    It was calling out its strengths, life will always go on no matter how far back it is burned, the fire will sputter out and wood will spring back stronger than ever. I had always thought if nature had a personality it would be either indifferent or caring, but this was rank arrogance coming from it. One thing that had always drawn me towards Eastern philosophies was the need for balance. A glut of anything can be just as bad as having nothing although many people don¡¯t like to see it that way.


    I had to stop for a second and really think about what it was trying to tell me, rather than reject it out of hand. Too easy is it to go with something that you know because it sounds better and you have already come to accept it as truth. Maybe it was wrong and I was right, but I couldn¡¯t just reject it out of hand because my philosophy was more palatable to me.


    It was only true to me in the contexts I have tested it in. Diving deeper into the feelings the Dao was sending to me, I started resonating with the spell on a higher level than just memories and smells. I began to lose myself in the feelings it was sending my way. I know from my studies that despite the fact that it is shown as a circle, wood has interaction with all of the elements. But what the dao was trying to point out to me right now was specifically its interactions with fire.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Going back to my memory, the fire had consumed the life force turning it to ash which belongs to the earth, but not fully. Ash is a great source of minerals and nutrients that the water distributes so that life can come back even stronger than before, keeping in balance.


    All of that I agreed with, but what the Dao started sending to me next was images of times when fire wasn¡¯t able to consume the wood, Rainforests where it is almost impossible to start a fire, and if you do manage it, it certainly couldn¡¯t do much more than smolder. Rampant growth that choked out water sources. Roots that dug deep into the earth, stealing the minerals it had hidden and consuming them to empower its growth.


    I again started to reject the idea as not being in balance, I could swear I felt a huff of exasperation as it reached out to slap me across the face and tell me to stop being an idiot. Going back to my original memory it kept replaying over and over again in my mind. The grass being burned, the rain coming down and melting the ash into the earth, and the grass coming back even faster and more full than before.


    I felt it practically shouting at me, making me feel like I was a worthless idiot for not being able to grasp such a simple concept. Feeling the bear¡¯s healing spell regrow my legs, it suddenly hit me. There weren¡¯t any scars coming back, they were being perfectly put back together. In fact with the influence of the small bits of dao energy that had been imparted to my body so far, it could be said they were coming back even stronger than before.


    I could feel the impartment from nature telling me that this was partially right, but that I wasn¡¯t fully there yet. I tried to think about what it was telling me. I questioned my prejudices telling me that being out of balance was bad. Trying to listen to the Dao and understand what it was telling me rather than just going with what I knew was better. As I felt the bear¡¯s spell continue to do its work I realized that it was pulling from my body to help add the materials it needed to grow my legs back better. It wasn¡¯t just taking the energy it needed from the spell.


    That¡¯s when it hit me! For a healing spell to work it needed to be out of balance! Balance was taking the time to heal naturally, letting scar tissue form, and maybe never walking again if the muscle didn¡¯t regrow properly and there was too much scarring. This was clearing out the dead tissue, consuming it, and replacing it by rampantly providing energy for the live cells to come back even stronger.


    Out of balance cycles were bad in the long term but nothing was ever to stay perfectly in balance at all times. Everything needed to ebb and flow, going from the creation cycle to the destruction depending on the circumstances. A cycle staying perfectly in balance was stasis, and stasis was just a different version of the Order bricks. Life needed Chaos in it as well. Chaos is just another word for entropy or energy and that was what my body needed right now!


    It needed an excess of the entropy so I could continue to grow and heal. I could feel the Dao as it seemed to sigh as I had finally managed to grasp such a basic concept. Part of me had never been so insulted, but most of me understood. This was the distillation of one of the secondary forces of the universe and my little monkey brain wasn¡¯t qualified to even see a part of it, let alone the whole thing. But somehow I had been able to gain access to it. It wasn¡¯t a repository like a library, it was part of reality itself, any imperfections in my understanding were mine and mine alone.


    It could highlight certain aspects it felt I needed to learn, but it was on such a different level than my pathetically small brain, that even my finally grasping that simple concept was like a monkey learning to add two plus two. That monkey might be a genius and worthy of recognition by humans as the Einstein of monkey science, but when compared to physicists and theoretical mathematicians, there wasn¡¯t much difference between it and a mushroom.


    There is no insulting in reality, either it is or it isn¡¯t. I shouldn¡¯t be feeling anything other than happy that I had managed to finally grasp a concept so far above me. I hadn¡¯t just memorized some words, I had felt the concept take hold in me!


    Opening my eyes I found myself laying on my belly, nose pressed into the ground, feeling several bodies holding me down while a long rough tongue scraped along my hamstrings. Panicking I rolled hard to the right, flipping the bodies off of me while I started grabbing around my my knife and club that I had with me. When my hand managed to grab onto the hilt of something I swung it in a wild arc to clear the space around me before sitting up and trying to take stock of what had been trying to eat me.


    Looking around I saw the older kids picking themselves up from the dirt, while Gaian was turning his head to look at me like I was an idiot. As I looked around the room, it was obvious I had been out of it for a while, either my time in the soul dimension had taken an extraordinary amount of time, or it wasn¡¯t subject to the same time slow that my core space was. I¡¯m guessing it was the former as it couldn¡¯t have been easy to reform my id and ego.


    I saw that all of the bodies of our enemies had already been reclaimed by the dungeon, I can only hope that the kids had managed to get some of the loot to safety before it had also been taken. As Gaian started to nose me back down so he could treat my legs, I patted him on the muzzle saying. ¡°Give me a sec, I managed to finally absorb that healing spell and I want to see if I can activate it on my own first.¡±


    The older two were walking back over and I could only make an exaggerated shrug to indicate I was sorry for the tumble, but before I could start making excuses I was hit in the back by a flying tackle of a fifty pound little girl. Despite the immense pain that started jabbing me in the legs, I pulled her around into a hug, patting her on the back while I did my best to calm her tears, trying to tell her without words that I was okay and going to live.


    As her little fists started pounding into my shoulders as she expressed her displeasure at my having scared her, I just tucked myself closer into the blows and rode them out until she was eventually pulled off of me by her older sister. As she looked to transfer her anger and start attacking her sister I clapped sharply and put an angry look on my face while shaking my finger at her. Looking closely at her face, I could see her eyes were still a little wild and the hamster in my brain started trying to spin the wheel I had locked in place, trying to get my attention.


    I ignored him for a minute while I gestured to Lotus to come closer. Holding her hands I started taking exaggerated breaths and holding them until she eventually caught on and followed along with me. After about a minute, she started to get to the point where she was almost hyperventilating, so I slowed down and let her go. Looking into her eyes as she resumed her normal breathing, I was happy to see that most of the wildness had departed. I gestured back to her sister and the little girl ran over to give her a hug and start babbling to her, in what I could only assume was her trying to apologize for getting ready to take a swing at her.


    Leaving the kids to sort themselves out for the moment, I closed my eyes and tried to focus on anything that might give me an idea of how to activate the healing spell. Going back to my trusty breathing pattern as my first step, I started sending the mana rocketing around my channels. Drawing more of it in and trying to send it into my core, I began to feel it expand slightly, and it gave me a tiny jolt of pain in my chest. But when I compared it to the shooting agony coming from my legs, it was easy enough to ignore. After a couple of minutes of focus, I really started feeling it though and I had to stop and let it go. Holding my hand up towards the ceiling a light blast of the gathered power shot through the palm of my hand and if I used my imagination to its fullest, I thought if I had aimed it perfectly I might just have been able to use it to take out a butterfly.


    Laughing to myself despite the pain coming from my legs, I started to think how I might go about it. I think the trick would be that I would need to aim the gust so it brushed by one of its wing quadrants, but it would have to be when it was over water, otherwise, it would no doubt easily recover on the ground and take flight again. The water was the key, it could soak the wings and cause it to drown. As my rules lawyering hamster chimed in, stating that it would be the water taking out the insect and not me, I just ignored him and gave him an imaginary middle finger.


    Rolling back onto my stomach, I called out to the bear. ¡°Okay, I¡¯m out of ideas, I don¡¯t know why my stuff is so much harder to figure out. Must be nice to have an easy button.¡±


    Snorting and putting his nose back on my legs, the bear started up with his healing spell that I had been nice enough to donate to him. I had an insane itching feeling that I had to force myself to ignore as I started to feel the muscles stitching themselves back up before the skin stretched itself back into place. It was a very eerie feeling and almost enough to distract me from the resonance I started feeling coming from my core. I tried to dive back into it, but without the exp or dao to guide me I still couldn¡¯t manage it on my own.


    Closing my eyes I tried to ignore what my legs were signaling to me as they continued to heal and focus on connecting with the energy that was building a resonance with my core. I tried to imagine it as green energy causing my legs to regrow, but that didn¡¯t end up getting me anywhere. I started thinking back on how I felt when the spell started to form in the core. My sense of smell had been the first thing to categorize the different layers that made up a healing spell.


    Trying to focus on memories that had vivid smells in them I started thinking back to different experiences with my kids. Running the gambit from Camping in a wet field to teaching my son to cut the grass, nothing seemed to be working until my mind flitted to a memory of my dad, my brothers, and me. We had been burning a small field on our farm, rather than taking the longer time that cutting the grass with a mower would have needed.


    It had been wet enough that it hadn¡¯t been that big of a blaze, only slowly had the line of fire been able to eat away at the grass, leaving us time to walk around the edges with shovels, slowly tamping it out when it go to the area¡¯s we were content to let grow free. It wasn¡¯t the burning that was calling to me though. Instead, the part of the memory that was calling to me was waking up the next morning after the storm that had passed by had mixed the ash into the ground.


    It seemed to my young mind that the grass had already regrown a tremendous amount and was filling the air with the most remarkable scent of freshness. Similar to what you get after you cut your grass, but cleaner, fresher, and more full of life. Looking back on it now, I could tell that this wasn¡¯t the exact memory, but some part of the Dao that I had used to fuse the spell together was calling out to me, changing it slightly to influence me.


    It was calling out its strengths, life will always go on no matter how far back it is burned, the fire will sputter out and wood will spring back stronger than ever. I had always thought if nature had a personality it would be either indifferent or caring, but this was rank arrogance coming from it. One thing that had always drawn me towards Eastern philosophies was the need for balance. A glut of anything can be just as bad as having nothing although many people don¡¯t like to see it that way.


    I had to stop for a second and really think about what it was trying to tell me, rather than reject it out of hand. Too easy is it to go with something that you know because it sounds better and you have already come to accept it as truth. Maybe it was wrong and I was right, but I couldn¡¯t just reject it out of hand because my philosophy was more palatable to me.


    It was only true to me in the contexts I have tested it in. Diving deeper into the feelings the Dao was sending to me, I started resonating with the spell on a higher level than just memories and smells. I began to lose myself in the feelings it was sending my way. I know from my studies that despite the fact that it is shown as a circle, wood has interaction with all of the elements. But what the dao was trying to point out to me right now was specifically its interactions with fire.


    Going back to my memory, the fire had consumed the life force turning it to ash which belongs to the earth, but not fully. Ash is a great source of minerals and nutrients that the water distributes so that life can come back even stronger than before, keeping in balance.


    All of that I agreed with, but what the Dao started sending to me next was images of times when fire wasn¡¯t able to consume the wood, Rainforests where it is almost impossible to start a fire, and if you do manage it, it certainly couldn¡¯t do much more than smolder. Rampant growth that choked out water sources. Roots that dug deep into the earth, stealing the minerals it had hidden and consuming them to empower its growth.


    I again started to reject the idea as not being in balance, I could swear I felt a huff of exasperation as it reached out to slap me across the face and tell me to stop being an idiot. Going back to my original memory it kept replaying over and over again in my mind. The grass being burned, the rain coming down and melting the ash into the earth, and the grass coming back even faster and more full than before.


    I felt it practically shouting at me, making me feel like I was a worthless idiot for not being able to grasp such a simple concept. Feeling the bear¡¯s healing spell regrow my legs, it suddenly hit me. There weren¡¯t any scars coming back, they were being perfectly put back together. In fact with the influence of the small bits of dao energy that had been imparted to my body so far, it could be said they were coming back even stronger than before.


    I could feel the impartment from nature telling me that this was partially right, but that I wasn¡¯t fully there yet. I tried to think about what it was telling me. I questioned my prejudices telling me that being out of balance was bad. Trying to listen to the Dao and understand what it was telling me rather than just going with what I knew was better. As I felt the bear¡¯s spell continue to do its work I realized that it was pulling from my body to help add the materials it needed to grow my legs back better. It wasn¡¯t just taking the energy it needed from the spell.


    That¡¯s when it hit me! For a healing spell to work it needed to be out of balance! Balance was taking the time to heal naturally, letting scar tissue form, and maybe never walking again if the muscle didn¡¯t regrow properly and there was too much scarring. This was clearing out the dead tissue, consuming it, and replacing it by rampantly providing energy for the live cells to come back even stronger.


    Out of balance cycles were bad in the long term but nothing was ever to stay perfectly in balance at all times. Everything needed to ebb and flow, going from the creation cycle to the destruction depending on the circumstances. A cycle staying perfectly in balance was stasis, and stasis was just a different version of the Order bricks. Life needed Chaos in it as well. Chaos is just another word for entropy or energy and that was what my body needed right now!


    It needed an excess of the entropy so I could continue to grow and heal. I could feel the Dao as it seemed to sigh as I had finally managed to grasp such a basic concept. Part of me had never been so insulted, but most of me understood. This was the distillation of one of the secondary forces of the universe and my little monkey brain wasn¡¯t qualified to even see a part of it, let alone the whole thing. But somehow I had been able to gain access to it. It wasn¡¯t a repository like a library, it was part of reality itself, any imperfections in my understanding were mine and mine alone.


    It could highlight certain aspects it felt I needed to learn, but it was on such a different level than my pathetically small brain, that even my finally grasping that simple concept was like a monkey learning to add two plus two. That monkey might be a genius and worthy of recognition by humans as the Einstein of monkey science, but when compared to physicists and theoretical mathematicians, there wasn¡¯t much difference between it and a mushroom.


    There is no insulting in reality, either it is or it isn¡¯t. I shouldn¡¯t be feeling anything other than happy that I had managed to finally grasp a concept so far above me. I hadn¡¯t just memorized some words, I had felt the concept take hold in me!

 Chapter 64

    Feeling that realization ingrain itself into my very core I felt my entire being shake at a fundamental level as I began to feel the structure pull in mana for the first time. Dropping back into my breathing pattern, I started to pull the ethereal energy in at a faster pace, cycling it through my core and back out into the world. The structure I had built; or rather that had been formed by my intent, and understanding; and then finished off by the impartment of Dao; was acting like coral. It was filtering out the parts of the mana it needed to perform and leaving everything else alone and I found myself forced to eject the parts I didn¡¯t need before it started building up an imbalance inside of me. It was a strange feeling because I wasn¡¯t being drawn into my corespace. Instead, it was almost like I was starting to feel bloated and my exhales were becoming longer and longer as more of the excess came shooting out of me.


    The first part of the mana the spell frame stripped off was the wood energy that formed the base of the spell. I could feel this almost like a hardwood that was almost as strong as metal that worked at forming the base before sending out softer vines and grasses that it let parts of the fire mana consume. Breaking it down further into earth and metal which then pulled a little bit of the parts of mana that was water before springing forth rampintly shooting out wood energy into my core that I sucked into my channels and sent rocketing around my body. Part of me couldn¡¯t help but wonder why it wasn¡¯t just pulling off the necessary elements out of the mana to empower the spell rather than mainly using wood with the slight addition of fire and water.


    Slowly the wood energy being sent out of my core began to be pulled from my channels and I noticed that not only was the bear¡¯s spell slowly being overtaken by my own, but little imperfections that had never been fully healed were also slowly being taken care of. My ankles which I had sprained so many times as a young adult playing sports, were slowly strengthened and put back together while some of the scars that were still on my hands from my years in the kitchen slowly began to melt away. As I felt the scar on my face begin to disappear, I stopped the spell in horror.


    Sure I had been angry at the time, but it had grown to be a part of me in the last eight years and was one of the last mementos I had from him, good or bad. So I was determined to keep it. Feeling that my legs were almost finished healing, I let the spell die down and stopped my internal focus, going back to the real world. Looking at the bear staring at me with laughter in his eyes. I ignored him and started to stand, before falling back on my ass as a wave of weakness came over me. Too late I remembered my spell wasn¡¯t just based on the ambient mana, it also took energy from my reserves.


    Giving myself a second to recover, I could hear Lotus laughing at me while her siblings tried to shut her up. Looking over at the three. I could see the horror in the older sibling¡¯s eyes as they were no doubt afraid that I would take offense at their younger sibling. Which had me growing sad as I realized what it meant about the universe I had entered. They were looking at me like I might actually kill her because she had the temerity to laugh at my falling down.


    Putting an exaggerated smile on my face to let them know it was okay and I had thicker skin than that I let my own booming laugh ring out. Maybe it wasn¡¯t what was best for the little girl, as she would eventually leave this dungeon and go back to the real world where apparently little girls could be attacked for laughing at their elders.


    Keeping the frown from forming on my face I realized I was going to have to start keeping my own mentality in line with my new reality. I am American down to the smallest fibers of my being. I have no problem talking to anyone as an equal and for me, respect is something that has to be earned and was never automatically given. Rubbing my hand through my hair at the thought of having to kowtow to some young master who demanded it for laughs forced me to wonder if I had it in me to kiss the ground to save my life.


    Before I was able to start going that road I had a sudden realization that it might not have been my falling down that Lotus had been laughing at. My hair and beard seemed to have undergone a massive growth of their own. Spiking out in all directions it looked like I had been struck by lightning. Patting it down I estimated that I had gained at least four inches of hair growth in those couple of seconds my spell had been active.


    Feeling the weakness pass, I took another stab at standing and this time managed to make it fully to my feet, even if I did need to reach out to the bear to steady myself. Looking around the room, I saw that all of the bodies were gone. Hobbling over to my pack I quickly broke open one of the pemmican bars and started to eat ravenishly, grabbing the waterskin to take long pulls to help wash down bigger chucks so I could stuff my face even faster. Finishing off the whole bar in what must have been a minute, I tossed the wrapper to the ground, before draining several large gulps of water to wash everything down.


    Gasping for air, I looked at the kids who were staring at me in disbelief. Putting the water away, I put my fingers into my mouth and pulled my face in weird directions while making funny noises which caused Lotus to giggle again.


    Looking on the ground I saw a small pile of weapons on the ground which told me the kids had managed to get some more loot while I was out. It was starting to look like I was going to have to make some choices on what to carry as a couple of more fights like this and I doubted we would be able to continue packing everything away. Coughing to get my attention Sienna slowly walked up to me before Kowtowing and holding up several new cores in her hands.


    Embarrassed by having someone I viewed as a child to be protected act in such a way towards me, I hurridly pulled her to her feet. She looked surprised but continued to hold out the cores for me. Looking at her bloodstained arms, I realized she had been the one to harvest them when I was out. On one hand, I wanted to take them, but the greedy hoarder inside of me was quick to point out this was just them paying me back for what I had already given them and if there was a couple more for interest then that was just good business.


    I quickly shut him up as without them I would have died when I was unconscious. Closing her hand over the stones I did my best to indicate they were theirs to keep. As much as I felt there had to be a way to absorb them into my core, I understood that there would surely be more cores coming later and I could claim some later when I hadn¡¯t spent the end of the fight unconscious. But when I let go of her hands she continued to push them towards me insistently speaking quickly and more urgently despite knowing I wasn¡¯t going to understand her.


    As she seemed to be getting more upset by the second, I quickly took them from her hand. I had to wonder if they weren¡¯t allowed to have them or if they were just grateful that I had freed them, either way, I couldn¡¯t force them to keep them. While I had no intention of abandoning them once we made it out of there, I would keep it in mind if I did manage to absorb them and figure out a way to make sure they received the value in some other way later on.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Taking them from her I saw that there were almost two perfect globes of green and brown while there was a blue one that was somewhere in between the flat stones I tended to get from the fodder and the globes that the mages tended to drop.


    After putting them into my pocket with the others, I spent a couple of minutes playing charades with them, finally getting the point across that I wanted to know what happened after I had gone into my core space. Of course to them, they no doubt thought I had just collapsed from blood loss, but I didn¡¯t have a way to let them know what I had been doing. Even if I could I wasn¡¯t sure I would.


    It was becoming clear to me that I definitely had something that if it wasn¡¯t unique, it was something that someone of my power level shouldn¡¯t have. The way they had been willing to acquiesce when they thought I was demanding sexual favors had really put a chill in my soul. Clearly, there wasn¡¯t a rule of law in this world as I knew it, and I could only imagine if there were laws they would be firmly on the side of those with power. Not having the power to even stand up to lowly goblins without help I was sure if my core was deemed valuable by those in power they would have no problems taking it from my corpse.


    Not to mention my ability to absorb Dao, so far nothing else seemed to have any hint that it was there, but something had to be generating the sky funnels and if they knew there was an ant running around down here sipping from their private stash there would no doubt soon be an exterminator to follow.


    There wasn¡¯t any benefit to telling them and I had no doubt if my secret was ever discovered, they would soon find themselves captured so they could be used as leverage against me. So for now I would be keeping it to myself. Unless I managed to find a powerful backer I could trust not to strap me to a table and experiment on me I would just keep continuing on as I had.


    Looking as the kids reenacted their fight with the goblins, I saw that rather than helping her brother finish off the goblin basher, she had trusted him to take care of it and sent her fireball winging over to the earth shaman that had been buffing the spearman. It hadn¡¯t killed him but had forced him to move his spell to himself.


    Gaian had been quick to capitalize and ripped his foe¡¯s throat out. Apparently, he had determined that it would be better to keep pressure on the mage and give him time to let his regeneration work on recovering the grievous wounds he had taken from the protected spear wielder. While he had kept the mage from buffing the basher, Aspen had finally managed to get a strike past the goblin tank¡¯s shield and cripple him. After dancing around him for a while the goblin had finally stumbled and he had finished him off. It seemed that three fireballs was Sienna¡¯s current limit and after casting her third she hadn¡¯t been able to do much until she recovered a decent amount of her mana, which had me wondering if she had overdrawn herself.


    When the dragon had ripped the mana from Gaian he had indicated that while it had brought him down to almost empty he hadn¡¯t actually felt any ill effects. But from how Sienna was describing she felt after casting her final spell, I was forced to wonder if his time in the hell ball had changed him enough the dragon wasn¡¯t actually able to fully drain him. Alternatively, it could be something else entirely that I hadn¡¯t thought of and I was just trying to make sense of something with limited information. As my hamster wound himself up to spin out some more theories I realized that I should probably leave it alone when I had no chance of actually being able to test them. I certainly wasn¡¯t going to chase down the dragon just to try and find out.


    Shaking my head to clear my musings, I watched as Aspen showed how he had finally finished off his opponent with a massive strike of his spear that almost sent him sprawling with no goblin there to receive it now. He quickly joined the bear and they eventually overpowered the shield mage. After that Gaian started trying to heal me, but he had almost drained himself dry constantly trying to recover from his own wounds. He had needed to recover mana before he started so Aspen had started collecting the weapons while Sienna had taken one of the daggers the enemy mages had on them to cut out the two mage cores and the core from Aspen¡¯s kill. Everything else had been reclaimed by the dungeon before they could get to it.


    I tried to ask about Lotus¡¯s apparent madness, and why she would run out to attack the goblins like that, but they just shrugged. I could tell they looked concerned but they were just as clueless as me. I would have to try and keep an eye on her in the next fight and look to see if my unique way of looking at the world could see anything that might be happening to prompt her episodes to see if we could stop them.


    She was lucky the goblins she had gone after were already crippled, as I¡¯m sure if she had chosen something else the outcome would have been completely different.


    Going over the rest of the gains they had managed to collect all of the weapons I had thrown along with everything the goblins had dropped. They were quite the efficient scavengers. When I indicated they should take anything they thought they might need from the pile. Aspen was quick to grab a club and a dagger. Sticking them into his belt, I managed to hold back a small chuckle when I saw that he had put them on the same sides as me.


    It was flattering to be so well thought of, thinking back to the times my own son had loved to imitate me brought tears to my eyes that I was quick to blink away so they wouldn¡¯t think that I was upset with them. Ruffling his hair, I saw Sienna was happy enough keeping the dagger she had previously claimed along with the club she already had.


    When Lotus started trying to pick up a spear, I don¡¯t know which of us was quicker to stop her, but it quickly made clear that none of us thought she should have one of the bladed weapons.


    With the constant glow coming from the mushrooms it was hard to tell how long we had been down here, but after having the muscles in my legs regrown I thought it was a good time to take a break. While I wasn¡¯t ready to try and absorb any more cores for now, I did think it was a good time to figure out my own armor situation, so hopefully, in our next fight, I could manage to skip the healing afterward. Although I had my own spell, I could already tell that it was going to be something I needed to be focused on rather than the point and click method the bear seemed to have lucked out with.


    Setting up the tent was quick enough, and after I had moved the three containers to the center, I set up the tent behind them so that anything coming from the two branches that led to the room would be slowed down slightly. While either the bear or I would constantly be on watch it would hopefully give whichever one of us was sleeping some time to join the fight. Pulling out some food for the rest of them, I poured some water into a basket for the bear while handing the second skin to the kids.


    Digging into my pack I had to go through several packages of food before I finally saw the small bundle I had been looking for. Opening it carefully I started pulling out the couple of bone needles I had whittled from some twigs. I had at first thought to use the bones of the pig, but they were to hard for my knife and I hadn¡¯t wanted to dull the blade.


    Pulling out some of the sinews I had twisted and dried, I removed my pants, wanting to take care of the two gaping holes in the back of my legs before I did anything else. Cutting some of the bottom of my right pant leg off with my knife, I quickly formed two patches as the holes that were bitten into the legs were too large to just sew together. After threading the needle, I slowly started to stitch the first patch on only to be interrupted by Sienna. Looking down to make sure my boxers were still intact and my modesty was preserved, I looked at her expectantly to see what she needed.


    She seemed hesitant at first but then she came to a decision and I guess just trusted I wouldn¡¯t be insulted. Taking my project from me she much more confidantly sewed the patch on in a matter of minutes. Handing the pants back to me so I could examine her work I saw the stitching was much better than anything I was going to manage. Never one to let pride get in the way of superior results I, decided not to stand on circumstances and pulled off my shirt so she could fix the holes in the sleeves as well.


    Grabbing the remaining dagger and the two goblin jerkins I decided my time would be better spent kludging something together that would protect my insides.

 Chapter 65

    Pride was the farthest thing from my mind looking at the finished piece. It looked like shit, but it was definitely an improvement over my shirt and skin for stopping blades¡­ so I was still going to wear it. Tossing the dagger to the side of the room as it wasn¡¯t good for anything anymore unless I managed to find a forge down here to smelt it back down to an ingot. While the metal might still be worth something, the way this dungeon was going we were already going to find more than we could carry out so I may as well start pruning now despite the howling my inner pack rat was putting up.


    All together it had taken me, maybe three hours to make the jerkin, and part of that had been because I needed to stay quiet so I wouldn¡¯t wake my companions. Sienna had finished my shirt in short order, only having to stitch together the slashes. It looked like she was going to offer to help me with my project as well, but I waved her off and told her to get some sleep. Hacking through both of the chest pieces in half hadn¡¯t taken me that long. It was trying to use the dagger as a hole punch that had been the biggest problem.


    My original plan had been to use a rock as a hammer but rather than wake everyone up I just slowly kept pushing through the hardened hide. Finally, I had taken one of the goblin shirts they had salvaged, cut it into strips, and tied everything together so I had protection on all four sides down to my mid belly. I would see how this iteration helped in the next fight and go from there. I was thinking about trying to cut the shoulder pieces down so I could lower it protect my midriff better but didn¡¯t want to weaken it too much.


    Wanting to give the bear another hour before I woke him up for his watch, I decided to walk the room and figure out what I missed, so I would be more ready for the next fight. Also, I needed to figure out why the goblins were sticking to their rooms. I mean I knew the obvious answer was they were bound there by the dungeon, but that was just where my mind immediately went. I didn¡¯t want to stick with that assumption and then we all wind up eaten because someone¡¯s replacements wandered in while we were asleep trusting in the inviolability of the room.


    Walking to the start of the room, careful not to break the plane that separated the room from the hall, I pondered what had gone wrong with this attack. It was obvious that the first thing that had gone wrong was the fireball hitting the bashers rather than the intendant target. That was just Murphy at work though and nothing was going to stop the demon of mischief from having fun at our expense. We had handled the change easily enough. The bigger problem had been not being able to burn down the targets fast enough because I hadn¡¯t thought one of the shamans would turn out to be defensive in nature, which was stupid. After all, our preliminary fight at the camp had a protection shaman involved and that was another fight that almost didn¡¯t end in our favor.


    It was a habit of mine that I really needed to break myself of. I enjoyed playing chess back on earth, but I was only ever a middling player. One of the things holding me back was I was too aggressive and always tended to think the games were going to continue to go along the lines I had planned out only to have my legs taken out from under me when I missed something and wasn¡¯t able to recover adequately. Now I remained middling because I was excellent at dancing on my feet and coming up with quick fixes. The shorter the clock, the better I tended to do. But this wasn¡¯t a chess game anymore, lives were depending on me and I had to stop making dumb mistakes.


    The biggest mistake I made was assuming I had counted all of the goblins. I knew the room had blind spots, but I had just assumed that everyone was going to be watching the fight. So when Murphy made his appearance I had gotten so involved in changing the plan I hadn¡¯t swept the room for anything that might have been out of place.


    Standing where I had confronted the smaller group of fodder goblins before it all went to hell for me, I closed my eyes and tried to remember everything that happened in detail for any clues I had missed that should have warned me I was about to be counter ambushed. Breathing slowly and dropping into a half meditation I played over the encounter in my mind. I had been so focused on the charging four goblins I hadn¡¯t even noticed any of the exp funnels charging past me, I had just assumed when they hit me the exp was only heading for me and the four fodder. Breathing in I noticed something else, there was the slightest smell of burnt pork in the air. It was unmistakable as soon as I noticed it. No other meat has that sweet smell to it, opening my eyes I turned around and followed the wall back to an alcove that was nearly hidden between how the walls ran together and the dim shifting light that was coming from the spores of the mushrooms floating through the air.


    Part of the problem that had helped it stay so hidden was that there didn¡¯t seem to be any mushrooms in the room which might have lit it enough for me to notice. Walking back to the remains of the shirt I had cut open, I grabbed it and the dagger I had tossed earlier. Grabbing a mushroom with the shirt, I gently pried it up with the dagger so I wouldn¡¯t disturb it too much. I didn¡¯t think that it was poisonous due to all of the spores floating through the air giving us the lovely green cast to everything that let us stay on even footing with the monsters. But when it came to mushrooms I always erred on the side of caution. I can identify three or four wild ones back on earth with some confidence. By that I mean I can say I think that is a morrel, or that is an oyster, but I certainly wouldn¡¯t validate my guess by picking it up by eating it.


    Mycology is like electricity for me, I know just enough to know how bad things would go when I overlook a tiny thing as unimportant. With how often I do that, I leave it to the experts as it isn¡¯t something for a hobbyist with too many other things on his plate. Bringing my makeshift flashlight around the corner of the alcove to me, I saw what the three monsters had been doing before they ambushed me. I also realized why there were still prisoners in the cage.


    I had assumed the goblins were just rationing them for later. But while they certainly were doing that, it wasn¡¯t so that they could eat them. They were sending them into the dungeon. I now had to assume that dungeons worked the way they did in the stories back home. Feeding on the life force of those slain in them, the goblins were trying to power their¡¯s up by sending their prisoners in to die.


    There were the bones of two adult humans here, broken and gnawed on; and I also saw the remains of a fire. Looking up I could see there was a small crack in the ceiling so apparently even dungeon formed goblins were smart enough to have an outlet for smoke. There wasn¡¯t any meat on the bones which explains why there were fodder goblins in here instead of some of the elites. I can only be thankful for that as had it been an elite or two that I had missed, the goblins of this room would no doubt be feasting in celebration right now. I also saw the remains of some roasted mushrooms, so maybe this was just their dining room, which made me wonder why the dungeon hadn¡¯t yet absorbed the bones to clean it up. Maybe it was trying to horrify me or the kids, hoping to play psychological games with us. Or maybe it is only given a certain amount of time after a fight to take something back in and after that it has to remain.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Too much remained unknown and I was really wishing I had a way to talk with the kids, although how much three kids who looked to be part of a refugee or resettlement train would actually know about dungeons that were accurate and not hearsay was another problem altogether. I don¡¯t know how long I stared at the bones while I really let it crystalize inside of me what would happen the next time I wasn¡¯t able to pull a rabbit out of my hat when I overlooked something. This time I had been saved by the kids and Gaian. That wasn¡¯t something I was comfortable counting on so I need to get better. I can¡¯t keep relying on assumptions going forward.


    Shaking myself with a start, I realized I needed to get some sleep, as we had more rooms to examine tomorrow¡­ tomorrow being a loose term with no more cycling of lights to mark the days. Waking the bear quietly, I continued to let the kids sleep. When I was sure he was going to stay awake, I laid up against him and pulled out my wallet so I could drift to sleep to some pleasant memories of my time before all this madness. I found as I drifted off to sleep I wasn¡¯t wishing this nightmare had never happened anymore though. Seeing the bones from the alcove intrude into my thoughts I knew that if I hadn¡¯t come here and done everything the way that I did that sometime in the next week or two the bones of the kids I had come to care about would have been being worked over by their own goblin killers.


    While I hadn¡¯t guaranteed their survival yet, the outcome was looking a hell of a lot better than it would have been had I stayed on Earth. Looking at the picture I silently continued to talk to my memories of my children telling them about my time here. Finally accepting that something good had come from the eternity I had spent in the ball of Order and Chaos.


    Waking up with a start I realized the picture I had been holding was gone. Standing up and looking around where I had been laying I saw the kids huddled together a short distance away. Realizing what had probably happened, I tamped down on the spike of anger that had started to form. Yeah, they had one of the irreplaceable memories that were frozen in time and not subject to manipulation by my imperfect mind. But they were just children and if they had woken and seen it, it was only natural that they would be curious about me. I was a strange man that they had only met a day or two ago and judging by how they had reacted the first day, the kindness of strangers wasn¡¯t something that would even cross their minds.


    Coughing softly to let them know I was awake, the three of them spun guiltily. Waving them over with a small smile on my face to let them know they weren¡¯t in trouble, I was sure my own kids would be shocked right now. If they had taken something important from me, there most certainly would have been screaming, grounding and all manner of hell raining down on them. Maybe that wasn¡¯t guaranteed, but it probably would have been a fifty-fifty shot depending on my mood that day. I¡¯m not going to pretend like I was a saint of a father and handled every interaction with my kids perfectly.


    This was different, whatever society these kids grew up in told them that I was going to rape and brutalize them and they hadn¡¯t even been ready to protest until they thought I was going to do it to there eight year old sister. Until they knew I was safe to be around and truly knew down to the deepest core of their bones that I wasn¡¯t going to hurt them, I needed to treat them with the gentlest of kid gloves. Yeah, when they do something wrong I would need to talk to them about it, but until they trusted that there was nothing to be afraid of I needed to let them know I wasn¡¯t just the best choice of monsters they were stuck in here with.


    Lotus was holding her hands behind her back, like wasn¡¯t going to notice what was going on. Sitting back down crosslegged, I waved them over to me again. As they slowly came over I continued to pat the ground next to me telling them that everything was fine and I wasn¡¯t mad. As they slowly sat down I held out my hand to the little girl. At first, she started looking at her siblings for help and Sienna stepped in, babbling to me quickly. I could only assume she was throwing herself in front of the train she thought my anger was going to be. Holding up a hand to indicate she should stop I saw her cut off immediately. I was a little disappointed at the fear I saw flash across her eyes, but I had to remind myself they had no idea who I was and it was perfectly understandable for a fourteen year old girl to be afraid of a strange man, despite the fact that I had saved them from a horrible death, at least temporarily.


    Looking back to Lotus I again held my hand out and calmly said, ¡°It¡¯s okay, I¡¯m not angry, would you like me to tell you about them?¡± As she carefully pulled her hands from behind her back I saw that the picture had become slightly crinkled from how hard she was gripping it. Again I had to tamp down on the surge of anger that threatened to wash over me. Part of my mind was screaming out, How dare this ungrateful little whelp ruin a treasured memory that was never coming back? But I tamped down on it before it could even begin to manifest. Not even letting myself take a deep breath that might indicate I was holding back an explosion.


    Treating them like wild rabbits that might spook at the slightest indication I might send an attack in their direction. I continued to smile and again said. ¡°It¡¯s Okay. It¡¯s okay, everything is okay, I¡¯m not mad. Can I have the picture back please?¡± I know they weren¡¯t able to understand my words but sometimes tone can be enough. After she gently placed both into my outstretched hand, she immediately jumped back, afraid that I might grab her.


    I held still, not making a move, certainly not grasping my treasures to my chest like I wanted to. Setting my wallet down on the ground, I smoothed the picture out and then turned it around to show them. Pointing to my daughter first, I hesitated for a second. I still knew so little about this world and I was hesitant to say too much. If the Fae are a real force here, who knows what whispers they might be able to pull out of the past? And then there is also the fact that something seems to be controlling this dungeon. Maybe there are rules they follow, or maybe it is just being automated for now, but if it is automated maybe they have a recording going which means if my kids were transported here then I really didn¡¯t want to use their actual names. Paranoia isn¡¯t a vice when there are actually monsters under the bed.


    Keeping to general terms even if I knew that they wouldn¡¯t understand, I continued to tell them stories about the hijinks my kids had gotten into and different ways they had scared years from my life. Eventually, they started to scoot closer as I continued to slowly speak softer. Giving it about thirty minutes of story time I could almost hear Lotus wanting to say ¡°More, More!¡± But she held it back, I guess happy that I wasn¡¯t upset with her for damaging my precious keepsake.


    Gently smoothing it out one last time, I slowly put it back into my wallet for now and I started pulling out two packages of food. One for the kids to split and another the second one for the bear and I. Letting Sienna take care of her families, I quickly tossed Gaian the bigger part of ours and took to chewing on pieces of mine while I packed up the camp. Pouring out part of the water into the bear¡¯s bucket, I drained my own skin before refilling it and topping off the one I had set aside for the children. Keeping most of the extra weapons on top of my pack I left the bits of goblin scrap on the floor as I had no desire to haul it with us.


    We had two exits leading from this room, and I was inclined to take the one to the right. Not only was it the traditional way to go through labyrinths it also was in line with how we left the first room. Sure that time it had been because it had been because the passage was going uphill, and I thought it might lead to the exit, but this time they were both level which meant having to choose another way, so when in doubt go with tradition. Before all of that though it was time to start building the wiki!