Letting go of the stone, I returned over to the bear to retrieve the bucket of herbs before returning to the dais and dumping the contents out gently onto the stone floor to fulfill my side of the bargain. While Gaian and I were heading back to the empty warren we had been given, I thought about what the rabbit clan leader had said to me. I had no doubt that he was getting the better end of the bargain, but even with all of the new questions that I had now, I didn’t feel like I had been ripped off.

Sure I was more confused than I had been at the beginning of the conversation, but that is just because it would no doubt take me days of talking to even gain the slightest clue as to how this moon worked. Also, I think there were some problems with the translation software, but as he had stated, that wasn’t the stone’s intended purpose. Sure he could have been lying to me, but with his level of power, there wasn’t really a purpose to it, he could have just as easily taken the flowers from me and left me with nothing.

So unless he knew I was an alien and had zero knowledge of how things worked around here, there wasn’t really much of a point to his lying. Walking back into the small glade, I was grateful to see that everything I had left behind was still there, along with the two additional logs of water and a sizeable pile of salt. Stripping out of my clothes, I gathered up my socks as well and threw them into one of the logs. Wishing for soap, I resolved to at least make a small batch with some of the promised hog fat.

Hanging everything on branches, I hoped that the night breeze would dry them. While being promised a full week to stay here, I realized I hadn’t clarified how long the rabbits thought a week was. I would just have to assume it meant seven days and lowball it to include today in my plans, if I got an additional day, so much the better. But better to be wrong on the low side and prepared to be kicked out, than be surprised at the eviction notice coming a day early.

After eating another couple of the fruits for an evening snack, I got another drink of water from the drinking log and dipped my finger into the water and then the salt, with some of the coarse grains stuck to my finger, I ran it over my teeth in an approximation of a toothbrush. Regretting never having learned how to make baking soda, I could only hope that eventually I would find some other humans and they would have something to substitute for the coarse salt, but until then, this would just have to do for now. Evening absolutions finished, I found a couple of large leaves, grabbed a shovel, and wandered behind a tree to do my business. Nothing like tp, I could only hope that I would soon gain access to the cleansing spells every isekai’d character I’d ever read about seemed to end up with to replace it.

Burying the evil mess, I went back to the log I had washed my clothes in to scrub my hands clean, rub them in some dirt, and wash them a final time, hoping for the best. Wandering over to my pile of grass that I had for a bed, I saw that the bear had finished his dinner and was already snoozing away. Pulling out my wallet, I again retrieved a picture and held it up to the stars.

Some part of myself thought that I might be torturing myself with this ritual, but I knew I wasn’t going to give it up. I focused on remembering the happy times that I had with my kids rather than letting myself fall into depression in my missing them. Again, I constantly had to remind myself that if they were back on earth they were better off, and if they had made the trip here, I would find them eventually. They were smart kids and I was sure they would be able to survive until I got to them. Hell as young as they were, they would no doubt be thriving, unlike their old man who had already been injured multiple times and had lost all of his stuff. Laughing slightly, I thought that maybe I should just sit still and wait for them to rescue me.

Sighing, I knew I wasn’t that passive, putting away the picture, I thought about going over to my pants and pulling out the green core and trying to swallow it down, but in the end decided I wasn’t into choking myself on it and put the task of gaining magic off for tomorrow. Rolling over I looked up at the alien constellations and moons in the distance until I managed to fall asleep.

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Waking up to a face full of planet light coming up over the horizon, I rubbed my eyes groggily. Rolling over, I got up to dip my head into a fresh log of water to jolt myself fully awake. Looking at the logs it was clear they had been rinsed out and replaced while I slept, the one I had done laundry in before was as crystal clear as it had been before my clothes had contaminated it. Even though it looked clean, I still resolved to keep drinking from the one only my mouth had touched. I had no idea how they were cleaning the logs, so until I did, it just seemed like the smarter move for now. I was a little disturbed at their ability to have their maid service freshen everything up without my having any sense of their presence. I was usually a light sleeper, sixteen years of parenthood, does wonders to make sure you are able to wake up at the slightest sign your kid might be sick.

Drinking my fill, I walked over to eat a couple of the fruits, this time picking a red one that didn’t have the complexities of the variety I had yesterday, instead it was cool and crisp, with just a hint of sweetness that lingered for an aftertaste. Rinsing my hands off in the laundry log, I thought about the projects I was going to need to finish before we were kicked out of here. Making a list in my head, the two things I concluded were vital topped it. Food and water, both laying in a supply and having a way to carry it after it was preserved.

With my backpack destroyed, that was really going to hurt my ability to carry supplies, even if I managed to kill and harvest both pigs the elder had promised they could transport back for me, having a way to transport it all when we were forced out was going to be the sticking point. With never having gotten to the point where leatherworking was a hobby, I felt like a week wasn’t long enough to cure the pig hide into something I could work with, let alone have the time to turn said leather into something that could carry supplies.

I was going to have to turn my hand to weaving, while I had the same amount of working knowledge of this craft as I did leatherworking, the technical aspects of it were a lot easier. Was I going to be able to make myself a set of clothes in the week that I had here? No, not a chance. Luckily everything I brought with me for camping was on the rugged side, and the shirt and pants that were bitten into were in my pack that went up instead of the fresher pair on my body.

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Finally, I needed to get my own handle on magic, if my own internal vision of my core was anything to go by I had both marks in the good and bad boxes. For the good, as far as I was able to tell my core was a perfect sphere, most of what I would call the trash cores were flat and imperfect circles. On the other hand with how easily it was swallowing up the storms of energies and how small they looked once they arrived inside of me, I had a feeling that I had messed up badly when I had let the energies expand rampantly.

While I was sure that the core had some kind of dimensional aspect to it and that it was nowhere near as big as it seemed. I really didn’t think that when someone pried it out of my dead body; hopefully many, many years in the future, it would be anywhere close to the size of the trolls. I wasn’t ready to swear to it yet, but I was thinking that in this world smaller was better, or at least more valuable. Deciding that I had a couple more questions that I needed to ask the bear before I tried to chow down on the green rock that I had left, I figured we would go hunting for at least one of the pigs that we were promised, and we could go over the answers on the way.

Calling over to the bear, I got another drink from my log while he slurped down a good half of his, grabbing a couple of fruits, I put them in my pocket, filling up another pocket with the rocks I had gathered yesterday, I wanted to try a range option, now that we had less of a time frame and no escort quest. Leaving the shield behind, I grabbed the spear; and made sure my club, ax, and knife were all secured to my belt.

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For a while we just walked silently side by side through the woods, I had a feeling he was more of the strong silent type, just like I was. I had learned early on as a young child, that people really don’t want to listen to all of the inane thoughts that go spewing from my head, and found talking to myself was the best option. I have always hated bothering people, and love it when I can find someone as thrilled to debate as me. Unfortunately, those kinds of people have been few and far between in my life. The best times were when I was working in a kitchen, servers were all right to talk to; while other cooks and chefs tend to all have a crazy side, and some of the discussions you can find going on in a kitchen leave no doubt that many of them are on some kind of substance.

I remember one time when a fellow chef asked me if I was interested in having a tote with him out back and was surprised when I declined. When he asked me what I had against weed, I said. “Nothing, I’m just crazy enough as it is. Can you imagine what would come out of my mind if I had a couple of tokes of the stronger stuff you are smoking?”

He laughed for a second and then got serious as he actually took the time to think about it. “That’s a good point man, I’ve always thought you were into the good shit… if this is you normal, you probably should stay away from the mind expanding stuff.” Laughing along with him, I told him to go take his break. Thinking back on it, I had to wonder if this world I was finding myself in was all the product of a mental break that I had had.

I would say it wouldn’t surprise me, but that isn’t really a full answer, I don’t really get surprised, I tend to be too accepting of that. Reality is what it is and you just have to survive and do the best you can with what you’ve got. There are people who will drive themselves to drink after a loss, but that just has never been my style. I work and find something to focus on that will distract me. Speaking of work, we were getting to the edge of the woods, and seeing a rabbit of the regular variety off to the side, I shouted over to him. “Hey we are going to get the two pigs your elder promised to transport back for us, if you would pass along the message that we are ready for the services it would be much appreciated.”

The bunny went still for a second before hopping alongside to join us, when I let him know that he didn’t need to come along if he didn’t want to he ignored me and continued bounding along next to the bear. Seeing I wasn’t going to get rid of him, I assumed he was either hoping for protection or trying to gather some herbs of his own while we caused a bigger ruckus. Either that or he could be needed for the elder to know when to transport, or maybe he was being sent along to spy… or maybe it was just a youngster out for an adventure. Realizing I could go all day with coming up with more and more convoluted reasons as to why he was joining us, I decided to leave it alone and just ask.

While playing a game of twenty questions with an interpreter wasn’t the easiest thing in the world we eventually got it down and I learned that like in my own life, it was a combination of everything. He had volunteered as he had never been over to the Goblin’s side himself, he was hoping to get started on his own collection if he could gather anything and our escort was a good chance to safely do so, and the eldest needed a blood relative to be at the site to initiate his transporting.

When I tried to find out how they would be moving the pigs that were so much bigger than even the most massive of the evolved rabbits, it ended up going nowhere slow. Whether it was because it was a state secret and he was sworn to silence, or because he didn’t know himself, he refused to give any indication. Leaving it alone rather than pissing off our benefactors, I decided to focus on some of my other questions I had for my more permanent companion.

Asking first if the rabbit could understand me, and upon being given the negative sign, I felt more inclined to speak freely, than if indeed the rabbit was some kind of spy. While I was somewhat worried at the power the eldest had demonstrated the night before, and had minor concerns that it all could have been a show to get me to let down my guard. At some point, you can’t let your paranoia win. If there was someone always watching me, then they had a power so much greater than mine that I just had to ignore it, or sit down and wait to die. I had to learn to start thinking like an ant, which was most likely the best kind of description for my power level on this world. Ants don’t care how small they are, they ignore everything about the world that is so much bigger than them and just focus on getting the job done. I need to be more like that, there is nothing I could do if the elder was powerful enough to listen in, so for now I just had to focus on my own gains and ignore everything else.

Trying to get out of my head and stop being freaked out by the power of a being smaller than most dogs back on my old world was harder than it sounds. But I released the hold on the hamster in my mind and continued my game of getting yes and no answers from the bear.

I knew that the ursine wasn’t able to feel any of the after battle energies and for now, was limited to the one core. But I still had no idea what he used to power his healing or what the limits to it were. I was sure that he wasn’t hiding it because he was trying to keep secrets from me, but instead, it was just a lack of an ability to communicate the necessary information on his part, which meant that I just had to get more creative with my questioning.

Pulling out some of the purple plums that had such an interesting flavor profile I offered one first to Gaian, and then to the rabbit just to be polite. I’m not going to lie, I was a little disappointed when he accepted, but as he started bounding around excitedly after his first bite, I realized maybe we were more like honored guests as opposed to being the unwanted refugees I had first assumed. Clearly, the food we were being fed was a step above what the common rabbit was allowed to eat.