He needed space, and time, to think. With a mental flex he tried *unvisualizing* his system. It went effortlessly, this time without the light show.

He tried summoning it again, experimentally. It showed up again undramatically, and left the same way a second time.

Satisfied, Oliver stooped down to pick up his soup with a quick glance around. Nobody was watching him. Most of the soup had been spilled, but he gathered the wooden bowl up regardless and drank the remaining broth down. It was delicious, slightly spicy and with a rich, meaty flavor.

It just made him hungrier, so he got back in line for a second bowl, thinking hard. He had a stats sheet. A system. For some reason, a system that couldn't be detected by others.

The sheet itself had stats on the left of the usual sort -- strength, wisdom, charisma, and the like -- and they seemed to roughly map to D&D allocations. Thus, his strength was a twelve, his intelligence a ten -- nominal -- and so on. This, he found highly suspicious.

For one, Dungeons and Dragons was a game. This, he had concluded, was real life. Games and real life did not, in his experience, mix.

For another, even if they somehow had, the game wasn't particularly well-designed. He'd run into plenty of logistical loop-holes and contradictions in his time playing, and concessions had to be made. For a dungeon master who could temporarily bend the rules for a table in order to keep the game flowing, that was easy. But as the immutable fundaments of reality, those rules made absolutely no sense.

He had a sudden image of traveling at the speed of light via the infamous peasant railgun, and found himself smiling for a moment.

No, for such a system to exist in real life meant that it had to be vastly different.

Either that, or what he was seeing only looked like Dungeons and Dragons on the very surface. And if that were true, it came with its own set of implications -- namely, that the system could read his mind and issue interpretations that mapped to his world-view, in an intelligent fashion.

What exactly was true was unclear, and he wasn't sure which possibility scared him more. Experimentation was needed. The most important thing to establish was whether this system existed within reality -- a manmade creation, possibly? -- or defined it, somehow.

But at the least, one thing was clear. He had access to a system. And with it? Magic. A power to call his own.

He was interrupted in his musings by reaching the front of the line. He handed the bowl back and got a refill from the woman at the counter, who didn't even give him a second look. He supposed there was enough soup to go around.

He took the bowl and stood off to one side. The food stand was near the center of the camp in an area which had largely escaped devastation, so there were enough people milling around that he felt comfortably anonymous.

He drank his soup quickly; having been given no spoon he held the bowl above his mouth and shook the mostly cooked-down vegetables and paltry few chunks of meat to his mouth, eating quickly. He had business to be about.

Oliver needed to understand this system that he had, its capabilities and what it meant for him, but more importantly, he needed to get out of this camp. It held only danger for him, in the form of either another attack, which was likely, or his recapture, which was even likelier.

After all, the tribune had taken special notice of him. He'd likely be looking for him soon, if he hadn't already discovered his absence from the cell.

Since he'd arrived in this world, Oliver had been waiting for the right moment to act, waiting until he knew enough. Well, he was done with waiting. There was always more to learn, but the only thing worse than acting too soon was not acting at all. Fortunately, paralysis analysis was not a condition Oliver suffered from.

Once he was finished with his food, he returned the bowl to the side of the food building, where a large pile of other bowls was being attacked by a mop headed boy with a rag and a couple of large barrels of water.

Then he put his visor down and went wandering through the camp. A handful of times, he was called over to assist with either shifting wreckage or hauling bodies into neat rows on the street.

Each time, he did as he was asked for just long enough to avoid suspicion, then moved on. The bodies were hard. It was nothing he hadn't seen before, but that just made it worse. Still, he know what to expect, so he was able to control his reaction.

It took him a few hours before he found what he was looking for. In the western part of the camp, just before the gate, a caravan was being assembled of some seven or eight wagons.

This part of the camp had been left un-fired, but had seen heavy fighting on foot. There were all too many patches of dried blood on the ground, though the bodies had been removed. Here and there were scattered, at random, enormous craters in the dirt that looked like the explosions of artillery shells.

Many tents were collapsed, some in whole lines, as if something had passed through them moving quickly.

In the midst of this, stood a row of large wagons. Perhaps a dozen soldiers stood watchfully about as a roughly equal number of workers were loading crates onto two of the carts, and badly wounded soldiers and civilians onto the others.

Oliver lingered and watched from a distance, hand on the sword at his belt. The workers were wearing rough clothing that looked like wool, natural colors, leather boots. The chests were closed, nailed shut, being piled up a few paces from the wagons by pairs of soldiers shortly before being moved to the wagons by the workers.

He looked for his target, a man who'd be of the right size and shape. After a minute he decided on one of the tallest workers there, a man with broad shoulders, suntanned, dark bronze skin and short hair. He was manhandling chests to a wagon by himself, grasping them on the sides and carrying them over unhurriedly.

Oliver waited until he came back for another chest, then strode forward confidently.

"You there! Come with me," he said in his best voice of command. The worker glanced over, saw the armor and didn't look past it.

"What can I do for you?" the worker asked, wiping his hands on his trousers as he approached. His voice was a deep rumble, and Oliver felt sudden misgivings spring up as he realized the man had a good couple of inches on him.

"Got another one for the wagon, a special case," said Oliver, ad libbing regardless. "Come over here," he continued, motioning to where he'd been standing between the two tents.

He turned without waiting to see if the worker would follow. When he did, Oliver ducked into one of the standing tents without pausing. It was unoccupied, thankfully. He stepped to the side of the entrance.

The worker ducked into the tent a moment later, looking confused. Without waiting for his reaction, Oliver tackled him from behind and threw his arms around him put him in a headlock, getting an arm around his neck and the other locking with it from behind.

The man staggered forward, then bucked immediately, and Oliver realized he was even stronger than he looked, much stronger than Oliver. Like the boy. And the soldier he'd killed. His plan almost went up in smoke then and there – would have, but for the armor.

The armor's glove contracted and gripped the bracer on his other arm of its own accord. The buckles and straps of the other arm contracted too, bending to Oliver's will, straining to keep the worker contained where his own strength wasn't enough.

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Oliver felt his armor shift about his arms, then immediately realizing what was happening, wrapped his legs around the man's torso and heaved to the side.

They went down hard. There was a quick scuffle on the floor, the big man thrashing. He elbowed Oliver in the face once, twice, landed a blow to his gut.

But this time it was Oliver who was wearing the armor, and the blows rocked but didn't stun him. And with the heavy, enchanted plate assisting him, he was able to keep his grip.

Soon enough, the man was motionless on the floor, chest rising and falling slightly. The struggle had been silent. Oliver lay above him for a moment, breathing hard through his helmet.

He couldn't be sure he hadn't just caused him serious brain damage -- it was extraordinarily hard to bring somebody to the point of unconsciousness without doing so, particularly when they were resisting -- but he didn't have the luxury of worrying further. He got up.

Working quickly, he took removed his armor, then stripped the man down to his smallclothes and exchanged outfits with him. His estimations proved accurate; the man was of a similar build, and the clothes fit well enough, though a little long in the leg.

Another soldier attempting to join the caravan on short notice, without orders descending from the proper chain of command, would likely be noticed. If he was noticed, things would get messy. He wasn't sure what the penalty for desertion was in this world, but he was sure it wouldn't be good.

His hope was that with enough workers moving back and forth, nobody would care about one more joining the caravan.

After all, he didn't have the tattoo that all of the soldiers carried, the markings in unfamiliar symbols on their left arms. He should be able to pass as a worker easily, or at least without undue suspicion.

The man stirred on the floor as Oliver was tugging his new shirt on. With some regret, Oliver used his old Earth-made outfit to tie the man up securely, made sure to gag him. He would be found, soon, without a doubt, but Oliver wanted to delay that for as long as possible.

With any luck, Oliver would be long gone before he was discovered.

Oliver transferred what he could from the pockets of his old, much-soiled lawn care outfit into the rough-sewn pockets of his new clothes -- mainly just the trigger, lighting assembly, and cord of his defunct weed whacker. He wasn't sure what it would be used for, but better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

Then he stepped back out into the daylight, blinking at the sudden brightness, and made his way back to the street where the caravan was nearly done being loaded. The clothes he was wearing were rough, felt strange, smelled like sweat, but served their purpose. He attracted no attention.

He looked around, lingering for a moment on the sidelines. The soldiers were on high alert, but their eyes lingered in the air and the outskirts of the camp. They weren't watching the workers loading up the caravan.

After a moment, he stepped out boldly, assuming an attitude of confidence. Shoulders thrown back, walking quickly, he made his way over to the pile of crates. There were just a few left. He tested the weight of one of the crates stacked on the others gingerly, feeling the rough wood against his palms. Heavy.

He wasn't sure he was strong to lift one by himself, which was a problem since the other man had been, and it seemed most of the workers had paired off to carry crates together.

So he lingered awkwardly while a couple of other men approached, lifted a crate easily between the two of them, and brought it over to the cart.

Any moment, the man in the tent would wake, break loose of his bonds, or be found. Then the jig would be up for Oliver. Anxiety rose within him, and he found himself shifting on his feet, struggling not to look around.

After trying and failing to look nonchalant by the crates for a few moments, struggling against the twin worries of being found out and the man awaking, his hammering heart got the better of him. He decided to try to lift one of the crates by himself. Palms slick with sweat, he squatted and seized one of the crates by the edge and by one of the planks that ran down the side.

It was perhaps three feet to a side, slightly larger than he could comfortably get his arms around, and his grip was awkward. He leaned back, pulling it forward into his arms, and rose to his feet with a grunt. But he'd overextended and was off-balance. For a moment he thought he'd fall. Then adrenaline kicked in and he managed to right himself, taking a step back, balancing the weight.

Then he was off, moving over to the nearest unfilled cart with staggering, small steps. When finally he reached it, it took all of his willpower to muster enough strength to hoist the crate up to the bed of the cart.

As soon as he got it up high enough, he let the crate drop onto the bed of the cart. Another worker took hold of it and began to scoot it back as it far as it would go without a second glance at him.

Oliver took a moment to catch his breath, then went back to do it again, sweat cascading down his back, arms and legs trembling with exertion already. He'd pulled a muscle in his lower back that spasmed painfully as he stood there.

Any moment, he could be be found out, and then he'd never make it back home to Joanna and his child. But he steeled his nerve and carried on. This strategy was still lower than chancing the forest and its unknown inhabitants by himself, especially when he had no idea where he was going.

As he worked, he thought of the couple he'd saved. That could be -- would be -- him, when he got back. Wife, child. He wondered if it would be a boy or a girl. Their hair color. Name.

Some risks had to be taken. He needed to get to the capital, away from the war front, and he couldn't go by himself. This was it. The first real step on his journey home.

Some thirty or forty minutes later, well after the rest of the chests had been loaded and Oliver had been steeping in his anxiety for far too long, horses were brought out and hitched to the wagons.

By now, most of the workers had left, save for a few still lashing crates down in the carts above, and Oliver realized a flaw in his plan: he'd assumed some of the workers would be going with the caravan, but perhaps that had been a mistake. Maybe they'd only been needed to load the wagons.

His worries soon proved unfounded as a handful of the workers he'd seen before returned, bearing knapsacks and other personal effects. Of course -- they'd want to bring their belongings with them if they were leaving the camp. He had no such need.

He climbed up onto one of the two crate-bearing wagons, seating himself on the bench at the front, besides a older man with short white hair and dense salt and pepper scruff. The man was loosely holding the reins to the two enormous horses hitched to the wagon with one hand. He gave him a neutral nod as he climbed up to the seat. Oliver nodded back.

Then they continued to wait, horses stamping restlessly, bright noon sun beating down. Oliver could not keep from fidgeting in his seat, but restrained the urge to look around. There was no need to give himself up to the driver.

Then a new column of some dozen soldiers marched up to the wagons from behind, moving quickly. There were four mounted horsemen with them. Oliver's heart thudded painfully quick in his chest as they approached the caravan.