Christopher’s hands trembled from shock. The adrenaline had fueled him during the battle with the Goblins, but now he came crashing down. He sat on his knees, looking at the dark red blood still sticking to his hands. Around him, the guts and blood from both Human and Goblin alike were everywhere.

When he made the choice to come here, he knew that he would have to likely fight these minions of Entropy eventually, but he had not expected it to be like this. He had imagined himself Heroic slaying the monsters, he had not managed to picture this gory horror of a battlefield. He now fully realized that he had been a naive idiot for imagining such a thing. He had been warned as well.

The small children, a boy and a girl, were still bawling their eyes out. They only appeared to be around five years old, clearly not equipped to handle such a scene, but then no healthy person should be. The smell of blood and death was overwhelming.

The teenage boy was trying to console the young children but he seemed to be making little headway.

Christopher only vaguely managed to follow those proceedings in a daze. After a few deep breaths, he got himself back some semblance of control.

He saw the old man huddled with the young woman. They occasionally glanced his way while discussing something with animated gestures, he was clearly the topic of discussion.

The old man, maybe sensing that he had somewhat recovered walked his way holding a cloak. There was concern in his eyes.

“Young man, please put down that sword, you don’t want to accidentally do something that you might regret.”

When he looked down, he saw that he was still holding that sword with white knuckles, he had not even realized. He threw it away from him, repelled for a moment by the killing tool.

The old man looked at his arm. “Are you hurt, looks like you endured quite the hit there”

“I’m not sure, I think it is broken” he croaked. The old man sympathetically draped a sturdy cloak over his shoulders. Christopher realized that he was still quite cold, so he was thankful for the gesture.

Christopher took his first good look at the man. He looked to be well past his sixties, his face was wrinkled, only a few streaks of silver hair remained. His chin had long stubbles, and although the man looked ragged, he wore pretty fancy clothing. The man had a kindly face.

“although I am sure it hurts, at least it does not look like a life-threatening condition at the moment. We should be able to find a healer capable of fixing you once we reach Lumen. May I ask your name?”

Lumen, was that the closes settlement?

“My name is Christopher, and yours, sir?”

“Please call me Tinos” He then pointed at the young woman and the boy that looked to be around 14 years old. “and those two are my grandchildren” Interesting, so they were a family. “It seems that we owe you a debt of gratitude. If it were not for you, none of us might be alive right now”

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“I was glad to be of some help, although it was mostly luck that got me through it.”

“Nonsense, that merely means that the goddess Avella has blessed you.”

Hmm, clearly there was some kind of religion here. He should be careful, who knew what might offend these people.

“What about the small children, are they also your family?”

Tinos looked thoughtful at the small children, rubbing his chin. “I suppose they are now, I owe their parents at least that much. To my regret, they are newly orphaned. Their father, a good man, lost his life only days ago during the attack on Stonehill.”

So there had been some kind of attack that had forced these people on the run. Christopher would not have minded a few quiet years before things really started to get ugly, but no such luck. Christopher was touched that the old man seemed to be willing to take in those kids, it seemed that there was kindness in this world as well.

Tinos continued “By the way, it looks like you encountered some trouble before you managed to save our hides. May I ask what happened?”

Ah right, how was he going to explain this one? Running through the forest in his birthday suit was probably not normal in this world either. He tried to think up something quickly. And he decided to tell a half-truth.

“I’m not sure myself, my head is fuzzy, It appears I have lost all my memories. I just woke up like this in these woods some distance from here. When I heard screams, I decided to take a look, and well, you know the rest. I’m sorry to hear about the attack on your home”

“Seems you had quite the ordeal,” Tinos said with a thoughtful expression. “Why don’t we travel to Lumen together, we should be safe there from further attacks”

“Lumen, Is that some kind of settlement?”

Tinos looked surprised at his question. “Lumen is the largest city in this outer region of Venaria. It seems you might have truly received quite the blow. Pretty much all people here are familiar with it.”

“I seem to remember very little.” he shrugged apologetically. “You were headed for Lumen from the start?”

“After the attack on Stonehill, we had little choice in the matter. Lumen is the largest and most well-defended town in this region of Venaria. We believed we had successfully escaped, but to think that a horde of goblins had followed us all the way here. This might very well mean that there is more on our trail at this very moment. if something stronger like Orcs were to find us, I can assure you that a quick death would be better than the alternatives.”

Dear God, he now had to worry about Orcs as well. He did not doubt the old man’s words, they would have no chance of winning, they were all weak.

Christopher thought it curious that all these creatures of folklore and fantasy from back home were actual reality here on this world. Could it be that somewhere in the distant past on Earth, humans had been at war with minions of Entropy as well? At least there had been no such problems when he had last been there.

The young woman yelled out in their direction. “Grandpa, we should get a move on” Both she and the boy were busy collecting weapons and other valuables from the bodies. The now exhausted children sat huddled together against one of the massive trees, away from the gore.

Tinos replied to his granddaughter. “Make sure to check all the pockets for coin purses”

The old man gestured for Christopher to follow him. They walked up to one of the corpses, a young man around his age.

“Christopher, quickly put on this guy’s clothes and leather armor, it should fit you well enough, and there is hardly any blood on here.”

Christopher stood over the body with a pained expression. Oh boy, he was going to be looting corpses now. He could see the logic of it though, he could not keep walking around in his current state.

The old man seemed to notice his hesitancy, commenting “This poor lad is in goddess Avella’s embrace now, he won’t have any use for them.”

Good grief, it was turning into quite the day.