The three days had past and Harlan had done all of the preparation that he needed done before his trip.

He could technically be back in Kor within a minute or less, but he was going to be cutting himself off from going back so he could really focus on the nations he had been asked to help ready for the longcoming war.

But as it was now, he was watching Darrath play with his new pet as it jumped around without a sound.

When Dawn had asked, more than once, Darrath said he wanted something like himself, but fluffy.

With only vague instruction, Harlan made something of his own design.

Harlan called it a Pixie Tiger, It was the size of a house cat, but only a cub, it was supposed to grow to be nearly as tall as Darrath was at the shoulders.

The pelt was white with black chevrons that extended from the tip of its tail to its forehead, like an arrow saying which side was the one with teeth.

The black fur followed down along the length of its ribs, not making it all the way underneath its stomach, with a length around the neck that nearly made a full circle.

Its legs were white chitin up to the joints, same as Darrath, and while it was based on a feline, its snout was a little longer and it had a few more pieces of chitin around where its prehensile whiskers were.

They weren’t sharp, and they weren’t empathic feelers like Darrath had, but they could be used for simple touch magic.

“He’s so soft.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to make you a pet, but since I’m going to be away for a time, now you need something else to keep you company.”

“Why can’t I go with?”

“Because this is business, and I’ll end up so busy that it wouldn’t be much different than you just staying here in the first place. You’ve also got your classes to deal with and you’ve got grandma here.

Now remember what I said about a pet, it is not a toy, it is a responsibility, just like you are.

It will be your job to raise it right, make sure it doesn’t hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it, and make it like you enough that it will protect you. Have you thought of a name?”

Darrath lifted the kitten up and looked at both sides of it.

“Arrow, because it has arrows on its back.”

“Now you make sure Arrow gets food and water and you train it right, because Arrow isn’t going to be taken care of by anyone else, he is your pet, your responsibility, he is a life that you hold in your hands, and you must understand the weight of that and what you shape that life into.”

Harlan felt that Darrath had some understanding of the importance of the message he had been given.

He gave his son one more strong hug before he left.

It was odd to see him grow up so quickly, and a fear crept into his mind that Darrath wasn’t growing up fast, but rather he was missing so much that it seemed too fast.

Harlan made a stop at Joan’s office.

“I was hoping you would see me before you went.”

“I saw everyone else, I saved you for last because I wanted to see how the fox has been and to drop something off.”

“Well, Pepper has been a dear, and the children seem to love having a mascot of sorts for the guard.”

“Pepper?”

“You said the black in her fur was like the peppered hair of a middle aged man.”

“Good good… here is a sword and a gun.”

“Why the awkward feeling?”

“I know I made short mention of how I’m not pursuing you romantically anymore, but it does feel odd to give you these gifts, and I would like to make it clear that this is entirely platonic.”

She just laughed.

“You aren’t the first person who has made an advance on me and then backed away, not even the first I’ve worked with. It shows your age that you are putting more thought behind this than needed. People love shortly and love longly, but what happens after is just as important. So let this be a short awkwardness and not a long one.”

“That was…”

“I have a lot of free time, and Queen Karmine gave me some books to read.”

“Good alright then, let’s move past that. I left a note in the box explaining what spells are on each weapon, and there are about 600 rounds of ammunition for the gun, so train and pick up more rounds from the blacksmiths as needed. I don’t want you shooting yourself or anyone else by accident.”

She slipped the ribbon off of the box and pulled out the heavy saber and then the long barreled revolver.

When she looked up he was already gone.

Harlan made his way a few hundred miles southwest to a free port that wasn’t officially part of any nation, but the three desert nations across the sea from it provided much of its defenses, leading to heavy cannons and 15 foot snakemen standing guard.

All of the royals had their own boats but none of them had set sail just yet.

“King Fomoria, I’m not sure if I should be happy about bein’- being, the first on your tour.”

“Lord Colten, your nation is the farthest north and lacks natural defenses at its borders other than western mountains along the shore. As the closest to the empire you are going to end up as the first line of defense, and while I like you, and you seem to be a decent man, that has nothing to do with why I am going with you first.”

“A pragmatist, no shame in the least for being one.”

“Queen Fang, Prince Jakel, I have something for each of you.”

Harlan had a golem with him that was carrying boxes.

He grabbed three of them, one for each of the royals.

“These boxes contain 20 amulets each, which you are free to distribute among yourselves.

Each of these are also marked with your crests on the back to show they belong to you.”

For the UT it was a ring of five five pointed stars that circled crossed revolvers.

For the Sandsea it was two upright sabers that barely crossed at the tip and had a fire in its center.

For the Wastes it was a reptile eye overtop crossed tridents.

Each royal looked at the boxes and then took three of them out, one for the ruler, one for their wife, and one for the heir, leaving 17 remaining.

“And for you, Ned.”

Harlan pulled out a box that held a revolver, a replication of the one Harlan had crushed out of anger.

“I reacted appropriately, so don’t think I’m saying sorry, but I did destroy something of yours when no harm had yet been done.”

Ned seemed hesitant, but he grabbed it from the box and spun it around a few times, swapping it from finger to finger.

“The weight is just right.”

“It isn’t the first gun I’ve made, but normally I work with ones bigger than that.”

“Rifles?”

Harlan didn’t answer him.

Colten and the others all went to their docks and prepared to cast off.

“We can take a gate over, it will be faster and safer.”

“Oh we're in no rush, and it is a wonderful little trip, just a few hours, and then another few hours by horseback.”

Harlan was becoming notably uncomfortable.

“Got something against boats and horses?”

“I’ve been out on boats before, just, never crossed a sea on one.”

He looked over the edge of the ship.

“How deep does this go?”

“About six miles out there is a cliff the nobody knows has seen the bottom of.”

Harlan tapped on the railing.

“Yeah, no, this is fine. Maybe I’ll like it. Just as long as we don’t run into any dragonoids.”

An hour into the trip Harlan had spent half an hour vomiting over the side of the ship.

Anne was patting his back and comforting him.

“You’ll get your sea legs eventually.”

He dry heaved and looked up from the side of the boat.

“Nope, I doubt it, back when I learned flight I also learned that I get motion sickness sometimes.”

“Could you fly above the ship? Would that help you?”

He lifted about a foot off of the deck and suddenly felt much better.

“Thank you, thank you.”

“Cole, he hated ships at first, he grew up in a saddle, not having solid ground under him wasn’t something he thought he’d ever get used to. So I hope you know I ain’t just wanting to see you sick, but maybe you’ll get used to the sea, and it will help with your flying sickness.”

He hated the idea, but she seemed like such a kind older woman that he wanted to listen to her.

Harlan did not get used to the sea.

When they reached the dock Harlan had the children helping him get down to land.

Once he touched solid stone Harlan laid on his back and spread out.

“Are ya alright, Mister Harlan?”

“I’m alright Phoebe, thank you.”

She was 9, Anne and Colten had tried for many kids, and instead ended up with a few of them with large age gaps instead.

His oldest, who Harlan had only seen and not spoken or heard a single word from yet, Mosley, was 24, then Ned was 16, and finally little Phoebe.

“Are ya gonna ride the horses with us? Mama said you ain’t one for them.”

“Phoebe, stop bothering the man, and talk properly.”

“Yes mama.”

“Harlan, I’m sorry that you are so sick. I really thought that-”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“I know your intent was good. I’ve just got that one weakness, probably always will.”

“I’ve seen you turn into all manner of things, not one of them fixes it?”

“No, I’m guessing it is because I’m from a cursed race, not supposed to leave their lands.”

She was often unsure how to respond to Harlan when he spoke about himself or magic.

“Oh… Well alright now, I’ll be helping get the horses ready, just holler if you need help.”

Harlan decided that he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

So he laid there on the ground with black eyes.

“Did you do this?”

“There is some surprise that you’ve not asked on this a time ago.”

“Why the odd speech today?”

“I’ve a manner, and of when and why that is not your matter.”

“Alright. But am I right?”

“Old curse, half overwritten, an oddity of that which should not have been.”

“So it is because I’m Fomorian. I’ll just obscure the pact like I did for the False Undead.”

The many mouths in the darkness grinned wildly and she laughed.

He was awake under the sun again, deciding that interfering with the pact was very likely to not go well.

Phoebe was the first thing he saw.

“Mama has the horses ready.”

“I don’t like riding horses.”

Harlan got up and his body twisted into the shape of a large horned horse.

“I’ll ride alongside you.”

“Can mama put the saddle on you instead?”

Harlan expected his pitch black appearance and horns would frighten the girl after she saw him shift, and he couldn’t tell if she was too young to understand what should be scary or if she just didn’t feel afraid.

“I… suppose you could ride on me.”

She jumped up, pulling on his mane as she got up on his back.

“Be careful, it’s a long way down.”

“I rode a bull once.”

“You are a bit too little for that, it's dangerous.”

“Papa said danger was beautiful, he met mama when she shot him for the first time.”

“Huh.”

“Go on, giddy up.”

She kicked his sides.

“Don’t do that, I’m not a horse.”

“But you look like one.”

“Looks don’t mean a thing, I’ve met wolves I’d rather leave with my loved ones than some people.”

“Can you get me a gun like my brother?”

“That is a choice for your parents.”

Harlan trotted up to the rest of them.

“Phoebe, where is Harlan?”

She leaned forward on the saddle he made for her out of his armor and patted his neck.

“He’s right here, and he’s a horse now.”

“I don’t like riding animals, and when I transformed she asked to ride me instead of her horse, and I allowed it.”

“Get- I- I don’t rightly know what to say about this, Cole, honey, what do we do?”

“Harlan, she’s safe on your back?”

“There are few safer places in the world.”

“Strange as you are, if you’re wanting to take her for a ride, I’m not gonna tell you no.”

“You’re too soft on that girl, she’ll grow up thinking she can do whatever she wants.”

“She’ll only be a child once, we’ll have her straightened out by the time she is old enough to need it.

Harlan, you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Just follow behind me, it’ll take about an hour to the first town, then we’ll restock and get riding to the capital.”

“You said the other day that this place was empty, but I’ve not seen anything like this outside of The Great Desert back home.”

There were a few times when some other creatures got close, but Harlan growled at them and they cowered back into the arid land.

“This might be the calmest ride we’ve ever had. I haven’t needed to shoot anything or anyone yet.”

“Beasts can be made to quickly understand strength, it is men who cannot understand when they are outmatched. Phoebe, move to the other horse, I’m going to see who the men riding towards us are.”

“You see someone?”

“30, 40 of them, from the south, they’ve been following our tracks for 10 minutes and they came from a cave near the sea.”

“You saw all of that?”

“I try to keep watch over everything around me, and with flat plains, it is far easier. If we were dealing with sand dunes then this would be different.”

She protested, but Harlan telekinetically set Phoebe on another horse and then started riding back, turning to a man and flying to meet their stalkers.

When the first gunshots rang out Colten reared up his horse.

“I gotta go back for him.”

Screams rang out shortly after the shots, and then a great pillar of flames leapt to the sky.

Harlan flew back to them and returned to his horse form.

“Bandits.”

“Did you ask them why?”

Harlan raised an eyebrow, which looked quite odd considering his appearance.

“Why?”

“Why did they become bandits. Sometimes a man just needs another chance.”

“I went through a phase in my youth where I thought I needed to know why evil men do evil things.”

“What answer did you get?”

“Desperate men do terrible things, and good men become desperate faster than I realized.

But evil men do terrible things because they don’t care about the harm they cause. Those men who I just killed were evil, not desperate.”

“How’d you know?”

“I will not repeat what they said they’d do to your wife and daughter, little ears shouldn’t hear these things.

They got a quicker death than they deserved, and when people find the spot of glassed land and charred bones, they will understand me very quickly.”

“I don’t want you sending messages like that.”

“Next time nobody will find bodies then.”

“Harlan, I’m saying to arrest them next time. They’ll be hanged in the town square most certainly, but at least they will be given a chance for a trial.”

“These are your lands, and I am a guest, my apologies.”

Made their way to the first town on their journey, Evade, named so because it started out as a single farm that was made to evade certain regulations, but then the frontier turned to just another part of the territories.

When they got near the high walls of stone the guards opened the gates.

Not a minute later the mayor came out to greet him.

“Colten, you’re a little late, thought something happened and I was getting the men together to look.”

“There were some bandits, but King Fomoria here took care of them.”

He pointed at the dark horned horse that Phoebe was riding.

Harlan used telekinesis to put her on the ground and then he returned to human form.

Everyone who had seen it stopped and went silent, children hid behind walls or adults, people moved their hands near their guns.

Eventually Colten got tired of everyone in a standoff and yelled out.

“THE MAN IS A GUEST, NOT AN ATTRACTION. YA CAN STOP THE STARTING.”

Most of the people were knocked out of their trance and went back to their lives.

“Sorry about that, magic isn’t quite so common.”

“I was an oddity inside of the veil as well, and magic is far more common there.”

Harlan and Colten went with the mayor to get the supplies that they had already requested.

“Any problems cropped up since I’ve left that need handling?”

“Eolgi are restless, waking up late this year, but monsoon season lasted longer than normal.”

“Dammit. Everything out of the ground and ready for them?”

“Mine west of here got hit by ‘em already. Lost a good 20 men before they realized what was happening.”

“Eolgi?”

“Underdwellers, troglodytes, dirtmen. Scales like iron and claws like daggers. Seen them dig through 30 feet of stone in half as many seconds.”

“Are they related to the snakemen I’ve heard of deep in the ground?”

“Maybe, could be that they evolve into them.”

“Did everyone get out of the mine?”

“Well, six men are missing, but we’ve already collapsed the tunnels, either they’re dead or trapped.

Everyone who mines knows the risks.”

“How many miles out? What direction?”

“20, about… that way.”

Harlan left through a gate before anyone could ask anything or warn him.

He stepped out high in the air and looked for signs of a mine, finding them relatively quickly.

Once he hit the ground he saw that everything had been eaten, boards where buildings once stood had bite marks on them but only splitters remained for the most part.

Steel wire had been chewed through, pieces of metal sat on the ground that he realized were once parts of pickaxes.

Harlan divined for human life, finding one man.

He opened a gate to where the man laid and lifted the rubble from him, the shifting of stone sent tremors into the earth and woke them once again.

Harlan returned outside and put the man in his armor, letting the hover keep him safely above ground and start the healing process.

He struck the ground three times, intending to get a look at these monsters.

It wasn’t 30 seconds before they came out, swimming through the dirt as if it was water.

He saw no reptilian traits, making it evolving into a snakeman quite unlikely.

It was hard to even describe them as looking at anything other than stones shaped vaguely like a flat faced person with large claws and teeth that bent in ways that made Harlan believe them somewhat prehensile.

Harlan’s fist met its face and the strike forced the body back, snapping its spine, but it had not destroyed the head, and the creature was still alive.

Harlan would’ve liked to study it more, but he could feel the ground rumbling and his mental senses told him it was time to leave.

He grabbed the survivor, flying higher into the sky to see how many there really were.

A cloud of dust came with them and the one that had been paralyzed by him was devoured in the blink of an eye.

Harlan decided he had seen enough and went through a gate.

As soon as he was back in town, right where he and Colten had been walking, walked into the tavern and set the man on the table, retrieving his armor from him and checking his injuries.

His legs had been crushed, and he barely survived on account of one of the support beams blocking rocks from turning his skull into paste.

The owner hopped the bar with a bottle of whiskey in his hand.

“We’ll need this ta clean the wounds, I’ll get the doctor.”

“No, I’ll be fine to handle this. It wasn’t a clean break, so I’ll remove the legs and grow another set.

Looks like…”

Harlan poked his chest after using making hand signs, a glow ran through the man, highlighting his skeleton, organs, and then veins in white that quickly faded once he examined him.

“Six broken ribs, partial collapse of his lung, he is very lucky that he passed out from the pain, those Eolgi seem sensitive to sounds and I can’t imagine that he would’ve been quiet.”

“Grow his legs back?”

“Yes, I’m a healer. I’ve done it before. I’ll need food for him though.”

Harlan put a gold coin in the man’s hand.

“Breads and meats are best.”

“I don’t have a kitchen here, but I’ll go over and get the restaurant to start making things.”

The man started to walk away.

“Leave the whiskey. I’m going to remove his legs and put him in bed first, I imagine he is going to be upset once he sees that.”

“Why take his legs off first?”

“It will be less taxing on my magic to remove the pain from amputated limbs than from two broken legs and a crushed chest. Oh, and if you happen to see Colten, tell him I’m here but I won’t take long.”

“Course, oh, and that there room is empty, move ‘em in there, and try not to get my floor all red.”

“Not a problem.”

The man returned with a few loaves of bread and some steaks to find the miner drunk, and trying to fight Harlan.

“YOU TOOK MY LEGS, I’LL-”

Harlan put pressure on a few points on his neck, and the lack of blood flow had him quickly asleep and then quickly waking up.

“What… what happened…”

Harlan had covered his legs so he wouldn’t notice quite so quickly this time.

“Sir, do you remember where you were?”

“Huh? The mine, them monsters came and then… those bastards collapsed it on us.”

“I got you out, and you were hurt and now you are recovering in Evade. You need to eat so I can heal you.”

“I don’t have anything to give ya.”

“Remember my generosity next time someone else needs help, that’s all that I ask for.”

The man shrugged and Harlan handed him some bread and meat, cutting both with a signless wind spell.

Harlan finished the healing, but it would take a few hours for the healing to truly settle.

He asked the owner if he needed more money, but his gold coin stretched far here, and the man would be just fine for as long as it took to recover.

He returned to Colten and his family.

“I thought you might’ve been hurt, be a shame to lose you so early on.”

“One miner survived, I had to regrow his legs, fix his chest, and get him room and board in a tavern.”

“We call them saloons around here. And you did all that for him?”

“Power is to help those without it. You were gathering supplies, so I saw no reason not to take a few minutes out of my day to save a man’s life, and I hope he repays that kindness to another in the future.”

Cole slapped him on the back.

“A good thing to live by. Now let’s get going, we’re having a get together soon as we hit Kingdom.”

“Kingdom?”

“We’re the remnants of the people they shipped over to start a new kingdom after the Cast pushed humanity out of our lands. The kingdom died, the king wasn’t fit to rule, but we call the capital Kingdom to remember what came before the territories.”

“What was the name of the kingdom.”

“Well, we remembered to call it kingdom, but we somehow misplaced the name that Kingdom was meant to represent in the last three centuries.”

Harlan and Colten laughed as they got ready to leave.