It was the next day. I was clean and wearing the most comfortable clothes I've ever worn. I even had some smokes, as the Chaira could make paper from trees, and I had collected a good amount of wild tobacco on my way here. This was odd, frankly, as the forest was somewhere between a boreal and temperate forest, and Tobacco is native to more southern climates.

It's an alien planet though, so I shrugged it off.

I blew a ring of smoke as I leaned against a sleeping Jeff, laying in the shade of an external workshop-turned barn. Apparently the Chaira had a workshop like these for the purpose of avoiding 'carbon mono-cide' poisoning. If invisible air could kill you before you could even see it coming, it makes me worry about what kind of weapons these high-tech aliens could make with the right resources.

Luckily they are on my side.

Also lucky that there was an extremely talented tailor in town. His skills were irreplaceable, as his entire workshop was designed to facilitate the fact that he had arms like a roach, though far more dexterous. Watching him knit and stitch was as impressive as it was disturbing. It had only been a day since I joined this little community, and he had already made me an entire damn outfit.

I was wearing nice-looking clothes. Brown pants, white shirt, and a new brown jacket and vest combo with an abundance of internal pockets for storing my various knick-nacks. He even fixed my boots, polished my stirrups, and cleaned and reinforced my holsters and bandoliers. The man even made me a new hat in the image of my old one, brown, and sans bullet-hole. He would be the first one I save in the event of an attack.

So, there I was blowing smoke, hands-on lap, relaxing more than I had in a long time. As much as I enjoy the wilds, it's nice to have some real safety in the form of walls and other people, and have luxuries like soap and smokes.

Everything in moderation, I suppose.

I felt a shadow looming over me. I sighed. "Can I help you?" I asked, not bothering to move the hat out of my eyes.

"Uncle Blas asked me to show you to his workshop! He said, and I quote, 'Bring your cute little toys'."

I had been looking forward to this. Too bad the news was delivered by quite possibly the most annoying creature I've ever met. The voice belonged to Lilia.

She has made it her mission to hound the ever-loving hell out of me, begging me for me to teach her how to shoot. I had barely managed to escape, and it seems Mr. Blas ratted my ass out. I suspect the townsfolk enjoy my suffering via teenage girl. Maybe they were happy to see her energetic, or maybe it was schadenfreude.

"I know the way, girlie. I don't need an escort," I growled, trying to scare her off. I knew it wouldn't work.

"Stop bitchin' and get up!" she said, yanking me out of my comfortable position, waking up Jeff.

"Goddammit girl, take your hands off me!" I said, failing to untangle myself from her many limbs.

"Hahaha!" laughed Jeff, having shaken off the grogginess. "Getting manhandled by a teenager half your age, again!? Leave your man-card at the door, please!"

Lilia laughed too. They got along swimmingly. Of course they did.

I thought about some of the inbred morons I knew, what felt like so long ago. I wondered how they would feel, getting tossed around by a girl. One with very different physical traits.

I smirked a bit.

Jeff caught it, unfortunately. "Oh wow, of all the jokes I've told, this is the one that makes you smile? I'm sorry, buddy, but I'm just not sadistic enough to keep up with your masochistic tendencies. Please keep the whip where I can see it.

"It's a lasso, and it wasn't your joke I found funny."

It was more of a spiteful grimace and less of a smile, but whatever.

"If you two are done being stupid, then c'mon, Buck!" yelled Lilia. As to why she was yelling I did not understand, but I did not like it. Don't like teenagers, don't like people who interrupt my naps, and I really don't like loud people.

I did not like this child one bit.

She dragged me through the streets, though not in the way I was used to. A few of the locals looked up from whatever task they were assigned too, gave me knowing looks, and then went right back to it.

Bastards. Though, to be fair, I wouldn't want to get in between a spoiled brat with ridiculous strength and whatever it was that tickled her fancy.

We found ourselves in Blas's workshop. It was sizeable, like a two-story building with one room. There were forges, anvils, hammers, and a boat-load of other things I couldn't identify. The only common theme was steel. It smelled of sweat and fire and was uncomfortably hot.

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Blas himself didn't fit my stereotype of gun-makers, as I pictured them as mustache-twirling, skinny, too-rich-for-their-own-good men. Blas didn't fit the description. Didn't fit the description of 'human being' or even 'bipedal creature' either, so I guess it didn't matter all that much.

Blas essentially looked like a fat bastard on spider legs. He moved around his workshop quickly, his legs going over and around objects as his body moved straight towards us in an unnervingly straight line. His apron covered his bulbous torso but left his pitch-black, thick arms exposed. They were covered in chitin, and scorch marks.

His face was...round, and very inhuman. As far as the spectrum between insect and human goes, Mr. Blas leaned hard on the former.

"Ah, Young Buck! Finally! Come, come! Show me your weapons!"

I was far from young, but I couldn't exactly pin his age, so I let it lie.

I reached over, squashing my revulsion with extreme force, and handed him my Colt and Shotgun.

"Careful. It's loaded."

He took them with his blackened arms, looking them over, fiddling with every aspect of them. He gave me a pointed look. "You still have one more, don't you?"

"Yup."

"...Can I see it?"

"No."

He stared at me for a moment, saw that I wasn't going to budge, and shrugged. "Your loss. That thing looks ancient"

"It is. It has...sentimental value for me."

He shrugged again. I've noticed that these people do that a lot.

He gave the colt one last look over. He then proceeded to start shooting a target at the opposite end of the room.

Which hurt. A lot. Because we were goddamn indoors and the building was made out of pure metal. I covered my ears in pain in a desperate bid to make the ringing stop, as did Lilia.

"STOP!" I yelled, barely able to hear myself.

Well, he did stop, but only because he ran out of ammo.

Huh. The ringing was already starting to wear off. Wasn't near as bad as it should have been. Must be an effect of the 'Status Screen'.

Blas was frowning, shaking his head disapprovingly. "How primitive is this damn thing? I can't believe you were so much more effective than us with such a puny weapon...shameful."

I could barely hear him, and he didn't have the decency to speak up. Why didn't it affect him anyway? Eh, stupid question, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even have ears.

"Here," he said. "Try this."

He handed me... a large rifle. I'm pretty damn sure it was a rifle, as it had a barrel and a trigger, but it was thicker than any rifle I've ever seen, being almost three times the width of my forearm. Looked like it packed a hell of a punch.

"Now, this beauty has far more firepower than any gun you've ever seen, so be ready to fight the recoil. Also, its full-auto."

"Full-auto?"

He sighed. "If you hold down the trigger you can keep shooting."

Sounds like a pain in the ass, but I'll give it a shot. One thing, though.

"Can we take this outside?"

----------------------------------------

We were just outside the walls, in a makeshift shooting range. There were wooden targets, from any distance from 5 feet to 200, in a variety of sizes in shapes. Lillia watched excitedly and Blas inquisitively as I inspected the rifle, getting a feel for its heft.

I'm glad I'm stronger than I used to be because this girl was chunky.

I shouldered it, aimed, and fired. The resulting report sounded less like a damp explosion and more like something in the air just cracked.

It kicked like an angry mule, and, as I've never used an 'automatic', I made the rookie mistake of holding down the trigger.

The damn thing spewed bullets like a hose, sending the barrel flying into the air, and planting my ass on the ground. The first two shots ripped through the wooden post like a cannon, and the rest probably killed some birds a few miles from here.

"HAHAHA! Nice gunslinging, Buckaroo!" laughed Jeff, as he joined us just in time to watch my embarrassing display.

"Careful there, I can't control this thing worth a damn, might just hit a barn-sized target!" I yelled back.

He laughed harder. Lilia was giggling too, though Blas was all business. "That rifle is standard issue for our military, but our military is genetically engineered to be incredibly big and strong, so...fair's fair."

"Then why give me this useless hunk of junk?!" I yelled, rubbing my sore shoulder. I admit I was embarrassed. Shooting was about the only thing I was good at, and I didn't make a very good showing of it.

"To show you real firepower. You like?"

I took another look at the formerly wood target. It was just splinters now. If I had this gun, I could have shredded that armored monster without having to worry about weakening it first. Assuming I could hit it.

I sighed. I'd feel bad for being so far behind in the knowledge and technology department, but at least I know how to hunt. So hah.

I took to my feet, brushing grass off my pants. "I like the firepower, not so much the gun."

Blas skittered over to me at a speed that was still unsettling. "Good enough. You've got the skills, so with the right guns...well, you can be a damn killing machine."

But I'm already a damn killing machine...

Blas took the rifle back from me and slung it across his back. He looked me over for a moment, pensively. "Can you hold my hand?"

"I'm not looking for that kind of relationship." I deadpanned immediately. Damn, Jeff was seriously rubbing off on me.

Blas rolled his eyes, and Jeff snorted. "Better settle while you still can! Not many chances with that face!" he said.

"I have a skill that allows me to sense your compatibility with certain weapons," explained Blas

"You sound like a fortune-teller. You gonna read my palms?"

"Shut the fuck up and touch me."

Jeff whistled. How the hell does he do that without lips?

I shut the fuck up and touched him, touching palms. Blas looked pensive for a moment, staring at our palms, then looked up at me. "Do you have a skill for single-action weapons?"

"I like to think I'm pretty skilled with single-action weapons."

Blas was started to look genuinely annoyed. "By Kasss, Don't you think that's enough jokes?"

I'm confused. "That wasn't a joke. You just asked me if I'm skilled with single-action weapons, right?"

Now Blas looked just as confused as I was before recognition dawned on him. "Oh, right. Edmundo mentioned this. Skills in this particular context refers to the skills on your status page. Which you can't read. So I guess we're just going to go with 'yes'."

I shrugged. Did I always shrug this much or was I picking up their body language already? "Yes sounds fine."

He nodded to himself. "Alright. I think you're going to enjoy what I have for you tomorrow."

I smiled. What can I say? Getting new guns is one of my favorite things to do.

Tomorrow I take a posse of city-slickers into a forest full of alien creatures in order to learn how to survive.

I'm obviously going to need them.