Chapter Three

The sun rise began to brighten the day, a deep purple glow in the east cascading reflected light over the forest where Joe hid, the sun still hidden behind the curve of the planet. The twilight dawn filtering through the trees did hardly more than raise the gloom of the deep forest to anything more than shadows. Despite that, Joe had already arisen, the two long nights and long day of static sitting left him rested but in unpleasant stiffness and aching soreness. Joe quickly but carefully packed everything into the pack, each item in its appropriate place as the pictograms had showed him. He had wanted to pack quite a bit earlier. The mad dash from the cabin while juggling his property running down a game trail was not conducive to a long life. Danger seemed to be much more readily available here and he would have to live prepared to defend himself or run quickly. However, his desire to be as quiet and invisible for as long as possible left packing to much later. When night had fallen, the darkness had ultimately made it almost impossible for him to pack reasonably and he had to wait until the morning sun lit the undercut enough for him to see well.

Throwing the pack across the stream, Joe followed quickly with his harness of weaponry and shield. Most of the weapons were still clean but the spear had been too long to find a place to rest it entirely free from the mud. He spent less than five minutes to quickly strap the weapon harness on, reseat all the weapons, and then the rest of the time to wash off the butt of his spear and to thoroughly clean his feet of mud. His boots were clean and dry, socks buried inside, tied to a strap to dangle on the outside of his pack. He would be traveling upstream hopping from rock to rock to keep his feet mostly clean as well as safe from possible cuts.

After traveling for like this for about ten minutes, he ran out of rocks to leap across safely, and settled to check his feet. He found them mostly dry, and took a minute to pull his feet up into the leg of his pants so he could dry them completely. He then dusted them off quickly with his hands before slipping his socks and shoes on. Standing once more, he continued his journey upstream, further into the forest, hoping to find either a road or village somewhere. Another twenty minutes of travel found him coming into a wide open clearing in the forest with a small village in front of him. He froze for a moment and faded back into the forest’s edge, sitting and watching the people for a moment.

They seemed a relatively simple people, a tech level that he would guess to be about medieval or early enlightenment, although he could only assume that cities would likely show something more. The village was settled encompassing the stream he had followed and butted up against a rather large lake on the other side of the village. It was a loose gathering of several large buildings and a dozen or so smaller huts which seemed to be the housing. There was one large road that seemed to travel from out of the forest to his right, into and through the village, then curve away from him around the other side of the lake into the forest and mountains beyond. Several other smaller roads branched off to feed the various small houses off of main street which then fell to small cart trails or even foot paths to a half dozen or so plots of farm fields that surrounded the village on all sides. He could see various farmers working the fields in a few locations, although most seemed to be well on the way to harvest. So, either the end of spring or the beginning of summer?

Joe settled in to consider the village for at least an hour, eyes roaming over the people and saw that most of them were human. He blinked in some surprise when he saw some decidedly inhuman elements. Where am I? Not Earth, so why are there humans? But… well… His musings ended as there was little he could do at this point and little he could figure out. Without sufficient data, trying to figure out a riddle was an exercise in futility. The people seemed peaceful, and if he seemed a bit tall for the average individual here, he didn’t look outwardly that different. He was very surprised to see some rather strange colorings beyond the typical found on Earth, but he also found a variety that was considered rather normal by Earth standards. It seemed his skin color would fit in well amongst the people here, as well as his hair color. He wasn’t close enough to check eye coloring, but he would need somewhere to begin integrating into society and a place like this would hopefully support his mad dash to develop his ‘commoner’ job. If he didn’t have to worry about a secure sleeping location or food, he might be able to survive once his year was past.

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

When the hour past, he considered his plan of entering the village and found there were several options. He had seen a peddler and several adventurers come in from the far lake side road and a single straggler from the near road on his right. He decided that he really didn't want to struggle through the forest all the way around the left side of the forest clearing when he had a road much closer on his right. He slipped back further into the woods and headed to the right of the clearing, staying deeply hidden in the forest but close enough that flashes of the village and farmland could be seen through the trees. As he moved, he decided coming in with a meal might increase peoples’ acceptance of him, and his travel shifted to a hunt, as his body began sliding through the forest, eyes sliding around the foliage with occasional glimpses towards the village on his left. The bow and an arrow had slipped into his hands, and his eyes furrowed as he felt the bow tremble in his hands, unsettled and uncomfortable. It felt… almost as if he had never held a bow before. He shook the feeling from his mind and firmed his grip, the trembling of the bow fading, but still there as a small vibration felt in his hand.

He had moved for about three quarters of the way there when he finally noticed something he could take into the village with him. It was a deer like creature, but at almost half the size. He sighted down the bow cautiously, breathing turning shallow quickly as he began to slide slowly forward, arrow sighted on the creature at what he could only hope was the heart. The creature stood staring straight ahead with some kind of strange stance, but this was the first time he had ever seen something like this so could only guess that it was the norm for this half deer. When he was close enough that he felt comfortable with the shot, only a few seconds later, he loosed his shot and the arrow sunk deeply into the chest cavity of the half-deer. It shivered once, but did not move before collapsing sideways dead.

Joe stopped and blinked in confusion slightly. This was not typical behavior for any animal he knew of, predator or prey. While he had not hunted much, his life with his family did not leave much time to do so, he had hunted because it had been a part of the training his father and mother had given him. Prey would have leapt in startled fear and run. Predators might have run, but they probably would have turned to face him and posture in preparation of a fight. He cocked his head as he stepped forward quickly. The scent of blood always drew predators and he didn’t want to leave it too long. But as he came upon his kill, he noticed a large bulbous mass jiggling with a strange rock or gem like structure floating inside it making its way towards the half-deer. It was quite slow, and a subtle scent of fear seemed to emanate from it. It felt dangerous, a feeling of great injury or even death settled in his mind even as he noticed what seemed to be an orange-ish glow coming from its skin.

The fear wasn’t enough to incapacitate him in any way, but it left him wary. He fit another arrow into his bow and aimed at the creature, and even as he did so, he felt the bow begin to buck in his hands, even as his arms seemed to vibrate under the strain to hold it steady. The strangeness of it quickly drew his attention, but the strange creature before, which had continued to advance on him, was of much greater concern and he forced his arms to steadiness, expending much more energy than he needed to, and released his shot. The unsteadiness of his stance had the arrow skew to the side, slicing into the bulbous mass without striking the central rock where he'd been aiming. The puncture of the arrow was accompanied by a piercing shrieking cry that was as utterly alien as it was instantly terrifying. The creature seemed to wobble a bit, oozing gooey puss secreted from around the arrow that had pierced it, then it continued forward sliding off the arrow without any seeming damage done.

Joe blinked in surprise and quickly harnessed his bow before pulling out his shield and spear. Even as the two pieces of equipment settled in his hands, he felt a similar vibration that was unpleasant. The two pieces seemed to be rebelling against his use, shaking and fighting from being held. He grunted in frustration but maintained his focus on the jelly monster. He stepped forward quickly with the shield in front of him. The monster still had the arrow stuck in its gelatinous mass but had already ‘walked’ half way through it when it stopped and began quivering and glowing a strange grayish color before it seemed to squat and leap at him. He quickly brought the shield up, even as the shield tried to fight from his grasp, and braced his body for the strike. But no strike came and his eyes shot up in surprise when he noticed the jump seemed to be stalled by his arrow. It had leapt forward slightly but the arrow seemed to have still immobilized it slightly. It quivered several more times, then returned to its slow wobbly movement of ‘walking’ off the arrow shaft, its body seeming to part around the shaft like liquid.