Immediately Tom jumped to his feet, he reapplied his haste spell and started sprinting in the direction the scream had come from. Bounding and leaping through the underbrush and dodging around the trees, he arrived in a small clearing. Leaning against a tree was the presumed screamer, a youngish boy of approximately seventeen years. He was heavily wounded and seemed to be unconscious. In front of him was a group of about fifteen goblins chattering and jeering while a much larger hobgoblin was winding up for a swing with a solid looking iron mace. Around the boy lay three dead goblins and a copper gladius covered in blood.

Not having time to think, Tom raised his hand and shoved mana into a spell. A black beam ripped through the hobgoblin’s chest leaving a fist sized hole and rapidly spreading necroses. Not wanting the other goblins to have time to react, he took control of the blood in the clearing, turned it into crimson blades and cut them apart. The fight took no longer then ten seconds leaving sixteen goblins dead and having cost him not even a two hundred mana. Quickly he knelt down next to the boy laying a hand on his head and channeled healing magic into him. “Blood loss, shouldn’t be a problem. Punctured kidney, dangerous in the long run but fixable. A mild concussion, I can sooth it but not much more. Besides that, only minor bruises and scrapes.” He quickly closed the open wounds, revived and repaired the kidney to at least some functionality, soothed the bruised brain and supercharged the boys blood production, supplementing it with mana. Additionally, he cast a spell which condensed some water from the air and slowly forced it down the boy’s throat.

While he waited for the boy to wake up, he collected the corpses looking through them for anything useful. They only carried the stuff goblins usually carried: ratty clothes, small idles and figurines carved from wood and bone, wooden spears with bone or stone tips. Nothing useful to him. The hobgoblin however had a small pouch containing a golden figurine Tom recognized as the goblin good of strength. He took the pouch and clothes off of the hobgoblin, cleaning and repairing them somewhat with another spell before putting them on and fastening the iron mace to the belt. Tom stacked the corpses into a pile and cast a spell turning them into overgrown bones.

Just as the spell finished Tom heard a grown from behind himself as the stricken boy woke up. Kneeling down in front of the recently awoken teenager he smiled at him, “Take it easy, you’ve just had a near death experience.” The boy just looked confused, looking up at Tom, “I have no idea what you just said. What even is that language? Sounds european to me.”

A few minutes of gesturing and slowly repeating words later, Tom learned that the boy’s name was Alex and had explained to him that he had taken care of the attacking goblins and Alex’s injuries. Being annoyed at the lack of progress Tom made a decision, gestured to Alex to wait for a moment, before starting to rapidly draw runes into the air and chant at a steadily increasing pace. His hands blurred as more and more runes where formed and the chanting turned into a droning buzz, below the pair a glowing spell circle formed filling with a strange script. Almost two minutes later of Alex watching, Tom clapped his hand and the world outside the circle seemed to freeze. Tom collapsed into a sitting position and gave Alex a winning smile. “You should be able to understand me now.” Alex’s enthusiastic reply confirmed that the spell had indeed worked. “That was so cool, we have a few people who can do magic back at our village but nothing like this! What this spell anyway?” Tom whipped the sweat of his forehead before answering the boy’s question, “It’s a jury-rigged translation spell. It’s based on the only translation spell I know, that works when neither party knows the others language. It’s called ‘Negotiators Sphere’ and is supposed to be cast by three people. But by simply ripping out half the functions, limiting time and applying some ‘mana duct-tape’ I was able to do it. Also, our bodies mostly shut down since I have to shoulder all of the mental processes for both of us. Should be save though.” Alex gapped at him, “You shut down my body?” He tried raising his hand but couldn’t manage to even feel it. “Calm down. It’s one hundred percent save. I think. Anyway, I can heal almost any damage in a human and most certainly any that’s caused by a bit of ‘not working’.”, Tom tried calming the teen down and managed to convince him that there would be no permanent harm down by the spell. “It’s meant for peace talks, of course it’s harmless.” Alex wasn’t quite convinced but decided to drop the topic, “Where did you learn it though? I know that you’re not from around here, I never heard that language before, but we’ve only had magic for like, two and a half years. Dad has one of those old two-way radios he uses to keep in contact with the other settlements and survivors, but we haven’t heard of anything that advanced. Not even in New Sacramento, and they have some really awesome stuff like flaming swords and golems. Anna said she heard they summoned a demon over there and bound it to an amulet so now it boosts the fire magic of the wearer.” “That’s stupid you shouldn’t use demons like that, way to chaotic. If you want magic boosting equipment you need to bind elemental spirits. Anyway, I’m not from around here.” Tom indicated the area with his last sentence. “Oh, you’re a traveler. There are a few of you around. The town next to ours has this elf who really helps with farming. The guy was apparently walking home one night when boom, he found himself in the middle of a highway under attack by giant rabbits.” Alex seemed even more excited by this prospect then by the idea of a magical advanced community. “Yeah that’s what the system called me. I was partying, I think. Woke up in this forest, no idea where I was. I was supposed to start teaching linguistics next month at the university of winterfurt. I was actually kind of excited to start holding lectures but there really isn’t an easy way back in the foreseeable future.” Alex looked at him strangely, “You’re a professor? You look barely older than me, I would have guessed you to be about twenty.” Tom chuckled, amused by the teens confusion, “I’m a bit older than that, I’m forty-seven to be exact. I just happened to be born into a rather powerful clan. My great-great-something-grandparents where powerful people. One of them a chronomancer of considerable prowess, the other a blood mage, who was chosen by the blood god and turned into a true vampire. Additionally, my grandfather on my mother’s side was half high-elf and finally I was gifted an elixir of longevity for my thirtieth birthday. Combining the bloodlines, elven ancestry and elixir my life expectancy is about 500 years, maybe even more. Anyway, back on track, I am indeed a traveler although less confused or out of my depth than this particular elf, wood elf I would guess, seems to be.”

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They talked for a bit more about this and that before the spell collapsed and it was time for Alex to return to his village. Not really having a plan or any idea what he actually wanted to do, Tom decided to tag along with Alex who started teaching him the basics of what he called ‘american-english’.