I led the way, spear in hand, while behind me Billisha wore my backpack and Aluali carried my bow. We followed the stream east of Ikfael’s waterfall, down onto the flatlands below.
The trek up to this point had taken about an hour, the trees around us much the same as elsewhere in the forest—a mix of pine, maple, red cedar, bilkelet, and horotonei. I knew the names of the latter two thanks to my Status camera.
The bilkelet had black, furry bark and reddish pods hanging from its branches, while the horotonei was striped yellow, and its leaves smelled like cardamom. Both trees were unique to this world, but they’d grown familiar after being around them for a couple of months. The weeks are ten days long, so that’d be just about six weeks according to the way they measure things here. Another two weeks and it’ll be a season—a full eighty days since I woke up on a hillside just below the town we’re headed to.
There hadn’t been any dangerous encounters so far, but we were all being careful just in case. The kids were deep in Meliune’s Blessing, the weird gift from the Goddess of Compassion that helped everyone under Level 1 suppress their fears. Well, all emotions really, but in the middle of the wilderness, fear was the most urgent.
There were dangerous creatures in these woods: carnivorous plants disguised as young children, chliapp lions with sharp-clawed tentacles, kalihchi bears who played in lightning like splashing in a stream, and stranger things too that I’d only caught glimpses of.
Fortunately, the Glen that was our home had been calm since the children’s arrival. It’d been about three weeks since I’d saved the children from slavers, and there hadn’t been any animal invasions after that. Better yet, Ikfael, the spirit of the land who was effectively our landlord, had grown to accept the children. It didn’t hurt that the kids were immensely respectful of her, and often provided her with food well and beyond what was expected from the agreement made to let them stay in the Glen.
They’d charmed Ikfael—and me as well—with their hard work, their songs and dances, and the quiet ways they supported each other’s grief. Against my better judgment, I’d started thinking of them as my own kids, and it was becoming harder and harder to imagine the Glen without them. We were becoming a family, Ikfael included, and the Glen was slowly turning into a real home.
Our life was simple but satisfying: we’d fished and hunted small game, and gathered wild onions, blueberries, cranberries, beans, and squash. We’d also rebuilt the refrigerator—based on a unideer’s cold-air-magic antler—and it had been a real treat to see the surprise on the kids’ faces when the air had begun to chill for the first time. Plus, a larder full of meat and produce didn’t hurt. Not one bit.
The children and I had also assembled beds and built wooden walls to protect our cave from view. There was no chance—or not much of one, anyway—for anything to spot a campfire behind our waterfall.
It hadn’t all been manual labor either. In our downtime, the children taught me their songs, dances, and language. Billisha knew how to read and write, and she had started teaching Aluali and me the basics. And because I was so new at everything—the children had a weird theory about me being some kind of escaped kid from a possessive family—they’d also explained how the villages they were from had been set up: the families, the leadership, and so on.
As time had passed, the days grew hotter and more humid, but the waterfall kept the Glen cool; not to mention there was Ikfael’s Blessing, which moderated the temperature while we were inside the boundary of her territory.
We had entertained each other with skits and stories. The children were fans of someone named Aku the Wild Child, while I relied on the Brothers Grimm. Ikfael, though, had surprised us by letting us watch her practice making water sculptures move. Eventually, she’d taken to animating our stories.
My favorite was Little Red Riding Hood—especially the scene when the woodsman chopped open the wolf’s belly to free Red and her grandmother. For that, Ikfael had added cranberry juice to the water, and the ‘blood’ sprayed everywhere. Such a clever otter. Er… spirit.
As for the uekisheile, the sapient lichen living inside me, they’d been content to fiddle with my meridians and dantians. My qi was their playground, and while I’d often felt them paying attention to outside events—they could listen and sense qi via the tendrils they sprouted along my scalp and kept hidden under my hair—they seemed happy to spend most of their time tinkering.
All in all, life had started to settle down. The only hiccup was that Billisha and Aluali still didn’t know about either my origin or the uekisheile.
I’d thought long and hard about telling them about both, but had decided that stability was more important for the time being. The children didn’t need shocks or surprises, and I certainly didn’t want them to be afraid of me.
The uekisheile had wanted to be introduced, as soon and joyfully as possible, but I’d asked them to wait until… well, I wasn’t sure. It would just have to be some unspecified ‘later’ when the kids’ mental and emotional equilibrium wasn’t so precarious. The process of making a home had helped with that, and I felt like it would continue to do so.
We’d all still be in the Glen if it hadn’t been for Ikfael’s ever-growing demand for donuts. She’d gotten some as souvenirs from Diriktot, the Fallen God of Order, who was responsible for my presence in this world, and apparently it had been a case of love at first taste.
Anyway, I’d finally decided to humor Ikfael for three reasons. One, I owed it to her, both for saving my life on multiple occasions and letting the kids and me stay in the Glen. Two, I felt that the presence of native guides—Billisha and Aluali—should make navigating contact with civilization easier. They were originally from far south of the Glen, but at least they’d been born in this world and were a hell of a lot more familiar with the social structures, economics, and expectations than I was. And finally, three… we were out of salt.
That last reason may or may not have been the deciding factor. One thing I’d say for sure, though, salt made everything taste so much better.
About another hour’s careful travel after hitting the flatlands, we came across an area cleared of trees, with only stumps left behind. A meadow lay on the other side, and the grass rustled yellow gold in the summer sun.
A group of people swung scythes in tandem to cut the long, dry grass. Behind them, children gathered it and tied it into bundles, while a man and woman stood watch nearby. One held a bow, the other a spear.
Past the meadow was farmland, with only about a third sown with crops. The grain looked like corn, and together with the vegetables being grown they made a patchwork of the cultivated land. The rest appeared to have been left fallow.
Beyond the meadow and farmland, the ground sloped up into a hill topped by a walled village. I couldn’t see much over the wall, just a point that looked like the top of a pyramid. That surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. Pyramids were a common historical feature back in my old world. Why wouldn’t they be here?
Don’t get distracted, I thought to myself. First things first, let’s check the guards. Both looked young, maybe in their late teens or early twenties. When I used the Status camera on them, I saw:
Haoleise Kiielegsson (Human) Talents: Keen-Eyed, Natural Archer |
Mulallamu the Hunter (Human) Talents: Scout-Born, Tracker, Wild Sense |
When I examined the farmers being protected, I saw they had a mix of talents: things like Green Thumb, Strong Arm, Weather Wise, Corn Whisperer, and so on. Most had two talents; only Mulallamu had three, and one person had four.
Koda the Village Head (Human, Dawn) Talents: People-Wise, Earth-Loved, Deep Thinker, Touch of Abundance |
Koda was a man in his early fifties. He stood about five foot ten inches and had a short, bushy beard. His hair was dark, streaked with gray. He looked like me and all the other people—a mix of half Hispanic and half Chinese.
The people’s clothes were more diverse though. I saw trousers and shirts, tunics and medieval hosiery, dresses, robes, kilts, and hats and hoods of varying shapes and sizes. The material looked light and airy. Cotton maybe?
The exceptions were the guards; both wore thick jackets and simple metal helmets. Haoleise had a thin shirt under his, while Mulallamu looked to be wearing buckskin. How she handled the heat, I had no idea. I was sweating up a storm just hiding in the shade of the trees.
Come on, Ollie, no more dawdling. It’s time to meet the neighbors.
I took a breath to steady my nerves, then stepped out into the open. The guards immediately spotted me, and the workers stopped their scything to look in my direction. The rustling behind me let me know that Billisha and Aluali followed me.
None of the villagers panicked, but even at a distance I could read the caution in their postures. The children working to bundle hay dropped their burdens, then quickly gathered together in neat lines. The adults held their scythes at the ready, like weapons. The two guards moved toward us. Haoleise the archer hung back, with an arrow already nocked on his bow, while Mulallamu approached us with her spear.
Billisha tapped me on the shoulder. “Time to say the words.”
Aluali looked worried, which was good. It meant that he’d let go of Meliune’s Blessing so he could talk. The three of us yelled together in Diaksh, the language spoken by—if Bilisha was to be believed—everyone in this world capable of speaking.
Yeah, apparently that’s the reality when a System helps spread skills and information. But this really wasn’t the time to think about the intricacies being in a world with role-playing-game mechanics baked into it.
The three of us said together, “I am a human striving.” Then we readied our knives and prepared to cut our forearms to show that we bled red—to prove we weren’t false ones, carnivorous plant creatures disguised as human children.
Mulallamu stopped ten yards away to look us over. Her eyes lingered on the patchwork chain shirt I wore, though her expression didn’t provide any clues to what she was thinking. “Talk for me,” she said.
I began the speech I’d rehearsed when we’d been preparing for this trip: “We are human children living to the west. We come to trade for supplies. May we speak to the village head?”
Originally, Billisha had wanted to be the one to introduce us to the guards, and then hand the discussion with the village’s leaders to me. But in my mind, that was ass backward. She knew the language and etiquette much better than me. Plus, this way I could keep an eye on things without distraction.
We must’ve convinced Mulallamu of our humanity, because she gestured for us to put away our knives, then waved to the people behind her. The villagers’ postures relaxed, their scythes resting on the ground, while the man named Koda walked forward.
Mulallamu continued to look us over, curiosity evident in her eyes. “What west? There are no villages there. All wilderness for three days. Your family is traveling? Hurt? We go get them.” She’d said more, but that was what I was able to pick out.
I had a list of prepared responses ready to go. “We are only three, and had escaped bandits to live in a cave an eighth-day west.”
Mulallamu’s face went from curiosity to shock in a blink. Before she could ask more questions, though, Koda walked up.
“This is Koda, our village head,” Mulallamu said.
“This is Billisha. She will speak for us,” I said.
Billisha stepped forward to talk to Koda. She kept her hands balled, a trick to hide her nervousness I’d shown her during one of the practice sessions for the expedition. There was a tremor in her voice too, but she kept her chin up and looked at the adults head on.
Good girl. I hid my proud smile and kept my eyes roving over the surroundings: the forest, the people who’d gone back to haying, and the farms.
According to the kids, the village head—ashaxua in Diaksh—was one of three leadership positions in any village, town, or city. They ensured the villagers were upholding their responsibilities to farm, craft, repair, and do anything else required of everyday life.
The village head reported to the aweikdu, which translated into something like land knight or warrior. In turn, the land knight enforced laws, collected taxes, and protected the people from invasions, human or otherwise. It was a high-status position, and the land knights usually had agents in the villages or towns under them to represent their interests.
Finally, there was the ahpeilliade, the world speaker. This person was responsible for the village’s spiritual life. That usually meant religious ceremonies and interpreting the World Spirit for people—aka the System. Every village had to have at least one world speaker, and towns and cities required more.
We were lucky to have run into the village head right away, since he was the perfect person to talk to about trading. The kids and I had brought a bishkawi hide with us as a sample.
Billisha was asking Aluali to unroll the hide when I spotted the most enormous dog running toward us. He had to have been the size of a horse with gray fur, a big meaty head, and thick chest. A small man rode him. He clung to a saddle with one hand, and in the other he held a spear.
Jeseidatchei (Animal) Talents: Fighting Spirit, Neckbreaker, Never Gonna Give You Up |
Musastacha Dog Rider (Human) Talents: Featherweight, Dog Lover, Teamwork Makes the Dream Work |
I put myself between the approaching dog and my kids, but no one else seemed concerned.
If anything, Billisha’s eyes shone. “It is good. We do not fight. This is a dog village, a rich village. Dogs eat a lot of food. People here will have money to buy our bishkawi hides.”
I hadn’t known the word for dog before then, but Billisha and I had worked out a system for times like this: whenever an unfamiliar word came up, she’d point to the relevant object, act out the action, and mime the concept to me on the fly. Sometimes that made for an amusing sight, but the girl was willing, and it really did help. I was much less likely to miss anything important in the rush of discussions.
In the meantime, Mulallamu ran toward the dog and rider to let them know there was no danger. The pair continued onward, though, to talk to Koda. I watched in fascination as slobber fell from the dog’s mouth in rivers. His hot, stinky breath blew all over us.
The rider’s discussion with Koda went on for some time, and the more they talked, the more Billisha frowned. Then her brows furrowed, and she interjected. I heard the words for adult and Level 3, which caused Musastacha’s jaw to drop. Then I heard Ikfael mentioned, and it was the village head’s turn to be shocked.
It was weird not being the one negotiating, but the words were spoken too fast for me to follow. Billisha was so focused on arguing with Koda and Musastacha, she couldn’t translate for me, so I read the tone and body language as best I could, ensuring I had at least some context. Both men were skeptical about the information Billisha shared with them. However, her fists were no longer balled in fear. She waved her hands in anger and demanded something, to which they reluctantly nodded.
She turned to me. “This village’s name is Voorhei. Farther east is a city named Albei. This village is rich, but they are stupid. They do not believe me when I speak of my Zasha, my benefactor. They also do not believe you are an adult. We will go to meet with the world speaker to show them.”
