As Kayle fell asleep purposefully for the first time, he saw himself back in the woods. A strange tower and small house in front of him. The coble structures seemed to be soaked with a strange substance that shimmered as he tried to focus on the buildings. He felt that his Right eye saw it better and when he closed his left eye, he saw a whole walled complex around him. When he switched eyes, he saw nothing and when he tried to touch it, he was over come with a feeling of dread and hopelessness over the empty space where the building should be. When he opened his replaced eye, the dread washed away. ‘What the fuck’ he said to himself now understanding the rules of the buildings. He walked through the dream with only his right eye open. He walked through agate and a few empty buildings and saw an open courtyard nearby. As he approached, he saw vermillion veins growing out of a small creator and a young boy lying in it. He looked weak and emaciated. As red rock like tendrils covered gasped his body. Pulling him into the ground. Kayle understood then why he was shown this.
He was harshly jolted awake by Vahda. It was bright in the cave by what seemed to be natural sunlight. He could see her for the first time as he was yanked from sleep. She had a harsh face with a small nose and longer sharp eyes of years in the sun and intense focus or maybe it was the panic that she seemed to be in. Her long sleek ear seemed to twitch as she kept looking over her shoulder while waking him.
“Jesus I’m up I’m up.” He said brushing her hands off of him and pushing himself off the ground.
“WE NEED TO GO NOW.” she said in a loud whisper. She had a small pack on with her cold wrapped around her neck. Even the banket that he had while sleeping was gone. His mental alarms started to ring as he noticed, and they were blaring as he heard men shouting outside the cave.
She hadn’t waited for him to understand before she moved deeper into the cave. He followed without hesitation. He knew he wasn’t in caving gear with his 3-year-old sneakers, hard denim jeans and belt, plus his tight white cotton tee that wasn’t made for heavy movement. He envy the woman short stature as he had to move in a permanent crouch.
“Where are we going?” He whispered how much better his body felt but not wanting to deal with anything else unexpected.
“The cave bends and connects to an opening to the bottom of the mountain.” She stated while deftly moving through the tight spaces.
It took 20 minutes of constant effort to get through the cave.
As the sun seeped through the cracks in the cave Kayle slowed down. “Look lady where are we going after this.” He wanted to find the place in his dream, but he couldn’t just leave this person all alone while they were ostensibly being hunted.
“I was going to hunt down the vermillion light since I failed to find the white light.” ‘Well we both want to go to the same place’ Kayle thought.
“When you say hunt down what do you mean?” He asked.
“Well I was hired to track down the cause of the first light and I think the second light was by the same person.”
“Okay that’s… reasonable. Could I join you to find it?”
Her ear perked up and she stopped walking. She turned and he felt like she saw straight through him.
“Who are you?” She demanded.
“Ah well, My name is-“ He started but she interrupted.
“I know you name but who are you to be in this forest?” She demanded once more with her hands getting closer to her belt.
“Okay okay I honestly don’t know why im here I literally was going to the store and then I was here in the forest.”
“You expect me to buy that?” She was getting more annoyed by the second.
“Okay yeah I get it but really I fucking just woke up in this fucking clearing with some fucking statues.”
Her brow wrinkled at that. She was put off her game from the mention of statues.
“Statues? What kind?”
“One big ass knight guy and a small woman with ears like yours. Both in like a black stone or some type of metal.” He confessed quickly
All anger drained from her face and she went pale and turned away and started walking out of the cave.
“You are an honest man. But honesty alone doesn’t get you chosen as herald.” She said looking into the forest. He followed her out and joined in looked through the huge and dense forest.
“Herald, They said that word. What is it.” He asked.
“It’s a savior of legend. Not just legend of those of the empire but it’s the legend.”
“Is it a good legend?” He was worried now.
“Depends, the child understanding of it is that a hero will come to herald in a time of change and peace.-“ Kayle started to feal nervous. “- and the true understanding of it means that the world will be so totally destroyed that a hero of cosmic proportions will need to be the one to save it.”
Kayle stayed quiet. He felt awful all of the second.
“The legend says the world Father and the world Mother will produce a otherworldly hero who wields a shifting metal staff that throws explosions. He will and work with the final true Shepard to lead an army of man against the threat.”
“What threat?” He turned to her but she still stared into the distance.
“THE threat. Its never stated.”
“Oh.”
“Why did they choose you Mr. Herrmann?” She finally chose to face him.
“I don’t know.” He said truthfully.
The both were silent for a long time.
“Lets go.” She said hopping out of the cave and onto the forest floor.
He followed without a second word.
They walked silently for a while until Vahda chose to make the first move.
“What’s your past, herald?” She asked still facing forward and being 4 feet in front of him.
“Um, uh we got the time so I’ll start early. I was born in Colorado and-“ She interrupted him immediately.
“The hells is Colorado? That’s your hometown?”
“What? No that’s my home state.”
“State? You’re from the federation?”
“No. Well a federation in technicality, I think. It’s a Union if we are being pedantic.”
“Ive never heard of a union. Are you from the other side?”
“Uh other side of what.” He asked with true bewilderment.
“The ocean.”
“Well maybe but I think don’t think this is exactly earth.”
“Earth?”
“okay so this isn’t earth, Great. So what is this uh planet.”
“This is Tellus. Wait so you come from a different planet?” She was amazed the gods had authority through the whole universe.
“Uh, well maybe. Any ways I was born in Colorado and was pretty average in school-“
“You have an education?!” She stopped and turned to look at him. She had to look up a considerably bit to meet his eyes.
“Uh yeah? You don’t?” He felt awkward now, her eyes seemed full of surprise for the first time.
“NO? But thank the gods I thought you might be useless!” She turned and Continued walking.
“Wait a fucking second what do you mean you though I was useless?” He hurried to stand next to her while walking.
“Your curse a lot, that’s a sign of low intelligence, and you lost in a fight against me.” She said matter-of-factly.
“Hey now come on, it’s not that bad of a habit and you fought me with a knife after I had already fought some fucking weird ice cayotes.” He defended himself with.
“What?” She stopped again turning her head to look at him.
“Oh fuck don’t tell me that was like the devil or some shit.” He was tired of the god and hero acts already.
“No, did they have extra legs and a core in their head?”
“Yeah I guess.”
“Those are midlevel scout summons. Did you kill them?”
He paused thinking back to that day. “I hope so.” He said feeling a nervous tick run up his spine.
“We need to hurry.”
“Huh.” He said but she was already jogging through the forest.
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‘Damnit I wish she fucking told me more.’ He thought as he trotted with her. He had to keep himself from passing her as her short legs didn’t make for a great runner.
He followed her unreal pace. She seemed so small yet the way she moved and how hard she pushed both gave the impression that she never got tired. He knew she could only from the slightly decaying pace of her trot. He kept up easy being conditioned to such movement, only usually he had 40 pounds or more of gear on his person. The emptiness in his arms and hands made him miss having anything. He thought of his rifle and his personal piece. He thought back to how it had flowed into his hand. Like liquid metal flowing out of the air to form his metal pistol. He had thought hard about how to do that again when he nearly ran into Vahda.
She had dropped to a knee and scanned deeper into the forest. He didn’t know why so he just stayed quiet and got low as well. He saw nothing and heard nothing. He looked to Vahda who was maybe a foot in front of him She held ready a small wooden bow that she had hidden under her cloak. He saw her larger than usual ears. Sharp at the ends, like a spearhead.
‘I bet I can’t hear anything because her big ass ears are hogging all the sound. What a fucking weird person.’ He thought idlily waiting for something to happen.
She let out a soft barely audible whisper that he wouldn’t have heard if he wasn’t already concentrating on her.
“We move slowly, stay on me.”
He liked hearing this. It too felt normal to him. Like a drill.
The duo walked low and slowly from tree to tree. He started to hear something as well as the prodded deeper into the forest. It wasn’t that he heard anything, it’s that he heard the lack of anything. The air had gone silent.
The two of them eventually reached the bottom of a short hill. He followed Vahda as she started up the hill. Alarms started singing in his mind. It was a little past noon, and it was clear skies, and to top it off the top of the kill was more sparkly populated with trees then the rest of the woods. They were going to silhouette hard, and any competent “scout” would see them easily. He grabbed on to Vahda’s arm, jerking her back as she trotted up the hill. She turned to scold and question, but she kept silent when she saw Kayle holding a finger to his mouth. She didn’t hear anything, but she took the hard look about his face as reason enough to at least play along. He took point and led a crouch walk most of the way to the top and laid down and crawled for a few feet before he was able to see over the edge. It was like a haze in the distance. He realized near instantly that he had seen this before. The coble structure from his dream. He whispered out in disbelief, “what the fuck”.
“What is it?” Vahda asked from his left.
He turned his head in confusion. “So, you can’t see it?”
“See what?”
“So no… wait, what about that.?” He pointed to what looked like a foggy area in the denser forest.
“The fog?” she asked out of confusion.
“Yes now look just left of it.” He said
“Nothing?”
“Fucking weird.” He said meaning to just think it.
He was straining to see deeper in the forest and the activity made him miss having a scope or at least binoculars. He thought back to his old four times magnification scope. It was a present from a team member after he broke his last one. The more he reminisced and thought about it he felt it more and more tangibly. He could feel his finger wrapping around a cold steel tube and as he checked his hand for the anomaly he saw a roughly ten-inch tan 1-8×30 optic resting in his hands. He was holding a replacement XM157 Fire Control smart scope; he remembered being handed this for the first time. Even now, six years later, the rather large and overkill optic system still amazes him. System being the key word as this now standard issue optic had a laser rangefinder, ballistic calculator, atmospherics, directional information, digital overlay and all wireless. Completely overkill with and especially without a rifle.
He didn’t react, in fact he simply stared in bewilderment. He would have happy been confused all day but Vahda broke his trance as she asked “What’s that?”
He snapped out and shook his head a little but his head felt attacked to the object, like if he looked away it would cease to exist. “Its uhh, my old scope…” He admitted.
“Your telescope?” She asked obviously bored now.
“Uh yeah I guess it is.”
“Can we stop laying in the grass?” She asked impatiently.
“Huh, oh uhh one sec.” The question fully breaking the strange trance. He moved the scope around examining it before putting it to his eye. It worked. And as he closed his left eye, he saw the entire complex. And as he scanned the area inside of the strange invisible wall, he saw three doglike creatures. He had seemed these things before. Looking at them made his wounds hurt with memory. He did not wish to get close to those things again. He just wanted to shoot them and be done with them. ‘Wait’ He thought and looked back to the scope and thought back to his the pistol. He thought about what is going on here. He connected the dots in him mind and focused on his old rife. The weight and length. What it felt like in his hands. The texture of the plastic knurled grip. He truly Felt it as it seemed to materialize in his hand. Like air solidifying into the tan rifle. The scope had been transferred to his left hand as he imagined the rifle. He now was holding both rife and scope. Both impossibly real. ‘This must be a fucking dream.’ He thought. He started attaching the scope to the rifle.
Vahda had been growing increasingly bored and was looking at a bird’s nest above them but turned with curiosity to the sounds of metal screws coming from Kayle, only to see him on one knee tampering with a tan metal object roughly 3 feet in length. She gasped in surprised. “What in the hells is that?”
“Oh this is my old service rifle, the spear.” He said with an audible grin.
“That doesn’t look like a spear?” She said incredulously getting to a knee as well.
“Just the system name.” He said as he tightened the last bolt on the scope.
“Where did you even get that?”
“I uh don’t really know? I kind of just uhm summoned it? No, I think it was more like a created it.” He said as he pondered the rifle.
“What?” She let out in confusion.
“Look man I don’t really get it either, I mean I do like I can do it but I don’t understand why…” He rambled on, enthralled with his newfound ability. “Whatever doesn’t matter what matters is that I now have a real weapon.”
Vahda was confused. Perhaps more awestruck as she just herd her world’s prophesied hero say he was able to create at will his own otherworldly weapon.
“What is it?” She asked
“It’s a rifle like a said?” He answered now the confused one.
“I know what you said kayle but what is that” She scolded.
The realization that this place doesn’t have projectile weapons other then bows made him both scared and comforted. On one hand that meant when people tried to kill him it was going to be with near exclusively metaled blades which will hurt way more than being shot. But then again. He held a gun in a world with no equivalent.
“Well This is a projectile weapon like your bow there but uh shoots metal using explosions?” He thought how to explain a longer ranged bow and arrow.
“Oh so it shoots explosions like a blastspear.” She said calmer now.
“No it shoots metal not exp- wait what? The fuck is a blast spear?”
She looked at him weird for being the one that doesn’t know what a blast spear is.
“It’s a weapon of armies. Long, wooden, and shoots ball like explosions, about fist sized.”
He just stared. He waved both preconceived notions of this world away at this newly gained knowledge.
“Well shit.” He let out, sighing. ‘That sounds fucking scarry’ He was thinking before being interrupted by howls from deeper in the forest. ‘Oh fuck’ He though remembering the scouts he had forgotten about in favor of the created weapon.