The palisade door swung open slowly, revealing an entire party of a welcoming group. It was an intimidating troupe of about fifteen men and women, including the guards from before. Each of them was armed, with weapons ranging from bows to longswords to battleaxes.
There were five among them that immediately caught my eye. I was quite proud of my eye for strength – the product of years of experience – and I immediately clocked the five as exceptional.
There was the tall, built woman wielding a massive battleax with a blade larger than my head, and beside her the gallant man dressed in a full body of armor save the helmet, showing off his flowing blond hair. He also wielded a massive broadsword that he’d stabbed into the ground and was leaning on.
Opposite that pair stood another eye-catching duo. The first of them was an absolute hulk of a man, easily the largest of the people gathered. He was draped in brown robes reminiscent of what I imagined a tribal priest would wear. The man’s eyes were closed in a way similar to Ren and his face was brightened by a kindly smile. He wore around his neck a necklace of six massive pearls, each one the size of my fist. But on his neck, they seemed like pebbles.
Standing beside the man was a much smaller woman, probably a few inches shorter than me. She was also dressed in flowing robes, though they were less priestly and more fashionable in design and color. In her hands, she loosely held a straight wand, which I would have assumed to be a toy if I were still on Earth. Here, it was in my best interests to assume that thing was as dangerous as any weapon.
Lastly, there was the boy in the middle, who seemed to be about my age. He was dressed in simple and unassuming red leather armor, and he held in his hands a simple wooden bow. He had the tanned skin you would expect of a person living in such a sun-rich environment, and straight dark brown hair that was parted in the middle and fell just past his eyes.
All in all, he was the most unassuming and unremarkable of the bunch, except for the fact that he seemed to be the leader of the group. At least, that was the impression I got, judging by the way everyone else had positioned themselves to his sides.
Both parties studied each other in a long moment of tense silence. I wasn’t even sure where the tension was coming from, but I could feel it steadily rising as the silence stretched on. The other side hadn’t seemed hostile at first, but they seemed to grow more and more ready to fight as the seconds ticked by.
In response, I also began to subtly ready myself for a fight, my hand inching towards the pole strapped to my back. Ren also shifted into a position I’d come to recognize as his ‘seconds away from slitting something’s throat’ pose.
Although I was confident in our abilities, I was hoping that things wouldn’t come to a fight. The ten or so people behind the five looked like they could be dealt with pretty easily, but the five people themselves seemed like dangerous opponents. That was what had drawn my eye to them in the first place.
I was sure I could take any of them in a one-on-one, but the odds for a five-on-two were stacked quite high against us. And there was the slight problem that was the fact that I had yet to kill a human, and I really wasn’t looking forward to having to do so anytime soon.
The other party looked surprised that Ren and I were also gearing up for a fight, but that seemed only to make them want to fight even more. Then, just as it seemed like the tension of the clearing was about to boil over, the boy in the middle raised his hand and immediately dispelled it all. In an instant, the four at his side dropped their hostile act, their faces returning to passivity – although the battle ax woman kept her eyes trained on mine with a battlelust I all too happily returned.
The boy in the middle walked forward then, stepping into the middle of the clearing with his bow held down. “$%#$,” he said with a polite smile on his face. “$%##$ $#^#$% #$^^$# ^%#%.”
I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my lips then, as the sight of a seemingly normal person speaking in utter gibberish with a completely straight face was comical. But the strangeness of the scene aside, I decided to let the boy know that he was wasting his time trying to communicate with us. Putting up a hand to stop him, I shook my head and spoke to him. “Sorry, but I’ve got no clue what you’re saying. I don’t speak your language.”
Once again, I watched as confusion rippled through the faces of the man’s party, their reactions shifting from amusement to disbelief to curiosity. But my speech had done its purpose, which was getting the boy to stop speaking to us like we understood what he was saying. Instead, the boy simply stood in front of us for a moment, studying us with the eyes of a child given a new toy.
An awkward silence settled over the clearing – or at least, awkward for everyone except the boy in front of me. And Ren, for that matter, since he still seemed to be enjoying the spectacle, as if he had no stake in what was happening.
Finally, after almost two minutes that felt like days of silence, the boy suddenly came to a conclusion. With a face of brightened interest, the boy pointed to me before lifting his finger to the side of his head, tapping the right side of his forehead and asking me something.
I stared at the boy in confusion, having no idea what he wanted from me. Seeing that, the boy seemed to grow even more interested. He dropped his bow then and raised his hands, before slowly stepping closer to me. I raised an eyebrow in confusion, but I didn’t stop him. At this range, I was more than confident in Ren’s ability to end the boy’s life before he could pull anything.
But the boy’s intentions seemed to be harmless, albeit more than a little strange. With a gentle touch, he turned my head to the side with his gloved hand and studied the side of my forehead, the same place he’d been tapping a second ago.
Not finding whatever it was that he was looking for, he turned my head the other way and studied the other side, before backing away and nodding to himself, like a doctor who'd figured out what the problem was.
Turning back to his people, he issued out a short string of noises that I assumed were commands, as one of the men in the back of his party promptly turned and sprinted back into the village, only to return within the minute. He returned with a brown leather pouch, with a drawstring pulled tight at its opening. The thing was small, probably just big enough to fit my fist inside, but the man handled the unassuming bag with as much care as he would a diamond of the same size.
He came over quickly and placed it into the waiting hand of the boy before making his way back to the party. The boy, with a muttered word of what I assumed was thanks, opened the bag and placed his hand inside. I looked on in curiosity, wondering what it was that warranted such care from the deliverer.
And to my surprise, the absolute last thing I could have imagined to be within the bag was what he pulled out. As his fingers retreated from the bag, I saw that he had pulled out an identical bag from inside of it. The sight would have been comical had it not been so utterly strange.
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But things only proceeded to get stranger, as the boy considered the second bag for a moment before tossing it aside and reaching his hand back into the original bag, pulling out yet another identical bag. Once again, he considered the thing for a second before tossing it to the ground again before repeating the process again. And again.
I would have been convinced by that point that I had officially gone insane, were it not for the fact that everyone around me – Ren included – was acting like it was the most perfectly normal thing in the world. The others at least made sense – this was their world, after all – but I had no clue how Ren was totally unfazed by the magic trick the boy was pulling right in front of our eyes. But no matter how much I stared at Ren, he ignored me and just stood there, eyes closed and a calm smile on his face.
Making a note to ask him about it later, I turned back to the boy just as he finally found the bag he was looking for. By then, he’d made a small pile of identical leather bags on the ground that had all originated from the first bag. I didn’t know how he knew which bag was the one he was looking for, since they all looked exactly the same, but at that point, that was very low on my list of mysteries to unravel.
With his target acquired, the boy dropped the original bag and began to rifle through the new one – which, once again, seemed to have far more space within than should have been physically possible.
This bag, however, did not have more bags inside of it. What the boy pulled far too much of out of the bag this time were little trinkets of – as best I could tell – technology. Not any kind of technology I’d ever seen, but they were all little bits of metal welded into weird, different shapes, with multicolored wires and lights decorating them in different ways. And, like the bags, they all went down to the floor to create yet another pile of discarded items until, finally, the boy pulled what it was that he was looking for: two little disks.
They were gray and metal, with a blinking blue light in their centers. And they were incredibly small, about the size and shape of a contact lens. And they looked about as delicate, too.
The boy handed the little disks over to me and Ren, speaking to us while gesturing to the side of his head.
Ren and I looked to each other, before looking down at the disk in our hands, before looking back at each other. I could read Ren’s face pretty easily, and I knew he was saying that he’d go with whatever I did. So, the decision to trust the boy or not was entirely up to me.
I looked at the face of the boy again, searching his happy face for any signs of treachery or malice. But I found none, and I wasn’t getting any gut feelings against him, either, so I eventually decided to go with it. Life was all about taking risks, after all.
With my decision made, I slowly lifted it to the side of my head. The boy, delighted that I was trusting him, mimed touching the disk to his head, prompting me to do the same.
Bringing the thing up, I touched the cool gray surface of the disk to the right side of my forehead. The instant I did, a sharp pain shot through my brain, like a bolt of lightning running from where the disk was to the other side. The sudden and intense pain wrenched out a surprised yelp from me as I fell to the ground, my vision darkening as sleep threatened to claim me.
In the haze of disorientation and pain, I felt a slight gust of wind as someone moved suddenly at my side, followed by a few shouts of alarm. I knew immediately what had happened, and I knew that losing consciousness then would be terrible for everyone involved, so I fought off the heavy blanket that was settling over me and forced my eyes open.
I found, as the light of the world flooded back in, Ren standing right next to the boy, the silver length of his dagger pressed against the tan skin of the boy’s neck. The blade had drawn blood, but thankfully, not enough for it to be fatal. Behind the pair, the boy’s entourage was up in arms, each of them practically brimming with the desire to jump forward. Yet, somehow, they managed to restrain themselves, leaving the clearing at yet another standstill. But this time, we decidedly had the upper hand.
The boy, to his credit, had not a shred of fear in his eyes, despite the fact that his life was a simple push away from ending. He stood tall, his face calm and his palms raised.
“#$*lm d#w% p%$#s#,” the boy said, his words beginning to sound strangely normal. “I pro%#$# it’s ^#$ th# bet%$#. The ch#p do#$ no harm.”
“Ren, it’s fine,” I called out from where I sat. “I’m fine. I think.”
Both Ren and the boy looked over to me, and I could tell that they both understood me. Which confirmed my suspicions.
Seeing that I was more or less fine, Ren quickly backed off, letting the boy breathe normally again. With a quick movement, Ren’s dagger disappeared from sight once again, vanishing into whatever hidden sheath Ren kept it in.
Turning to the boy, I tried addressing him again. “Can you understand me now?” I asked.
The boy nodded. “Mostly. I don’t think the ch#$ has fully sync&$%ornized with you yet, but I can under%$and you enough.”
“That chip, what is it?” I asked, noting with some small amusement that Ren seemed utterly confused at what was happening now.
“It’s a Nexus Chip,” the boy said and stopped, as if that explained everything I needed to know.
“Annnd?” I prompted.
The boy looked confused. “You don’t know what a Nexus Chip is?” he asked. I would have been annoyed at the question, but it seemed to be coming from a place of genuine surprise. As if he couldn’t believe that someone would not know of a Nexus Chip.
“Nope,” I responded. “Never heard of it.”
The boy narrowed his eyes then, as if trying to see if I was messing with him. Under his scrutiny, all I could offer him was a shrug.
“Where are you from?” the boy asked finally. “And on that point, where are you com%ng from anyway?”
I paused for a moment, not sure if I should divulge the information without consulting Ren. “Before I answer that, these ‘Nexus Chips,’ are they perfectly safe?” Admittedly, the person who gave it to me probably wasn't the best person to ask, but it was the best option I had.
The boy nodded at my question. “Practically every sentient being in the universe has one, so I’d hope so.”
As best as I could tell, the boy didn’t seem to be lying, so I turned to Ren and gestured to the disk in his hands. “Put that on, Ren. It should be fine.”
Ren considered my words for a moment, before shrugging and placing the disk against his head, like I had. And exactly like I had, he doubled over in pain – though, unlike me, he didn’t let out a sound – clutching his head as he did. As he did, I pushed myself up to my feet and walked over to the boy, extending my hand for a handshake. “I’m Ruby, by the way. Ruby Redthorn. Who’re you?”
The boy smiled at my introduction, taking my hand in a firm shake. “Formally, I am Najam von Shay, of the Bow Hawk Saint’s lineage. But please, call me Najam.”
“Well, Najam, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Apologies for my friend trying to kill you there. We’re both very on edge, as I’m sure you can imagine. And having to spend months in a monster-infested forest hasn’t helped either.”
The boy waved my apology away. “Of course, I understand. I would have warned you of the pain if I could have. And I must say, that was an impressive show of speed there. I was sure when I approached that I would be able to safely retreat if I needed to, but I see now how wrong I was.”
“Nah, I just had the element of surprise on my side,” Ren’s voice came from behind me. “I doubt I would’ve gotten you otherwise.”
Najam shrugged. “Maybe, but I’m not confident enough in those odds to bet my life on it. But that’s enough of that. Now that we can speak properly, allow me to fulfill my responsibility as a host and invite you to our humble camp. I am quite curious about you two, I must say. And I’m sure you have plenty of questions as well. I’d be more than happy to answer anything I am able to.”
I smiled at his invitation. For someone living in the middle of a jungle, surrounded by a bunch of rough, warrior-looking people, the boy had the manners of a Victorian noble. “Sounds good to me,” I said. “Let’s go.”