His second day started out great. He had some food, he had water nearby, and he even picked up a Goblin that was following him almost aimlessly and obediently. If not for the fact they were running from a herd of what looked like bison.

If bison had metal skin.

The HM Bison — Heavy Metal Bison, as he dubbed them — were found shortly after the forngle change to a more steppe-like terrain and sky sprawled around them. It would’ve been a magnificent sight if he wasn’t running for life, literally.

The Bison — remembering that the plural of bison is actually also bison, and the plural was referred to in this instance — charged at them almost on sight, which led to them trying to retreat into the confines of the forngle that was about a hundred meters away.

He wasn’t sure what he had done wrong, but they apparently knew and were in it for the vengeance of the thousand hooves. He didn’t actually count them, and there were probably only a few dozen at best, but a thunder of hooves didn’t tell the number.

The Goblin managed to run faster and was way ahead of him, and the kitten in his backpack growled hopelessly at their impending doom.

He snapped around, shouted ‘Daze’ at the nearest bunch, hoping it would work on one of them, then turned to run again. It was somewhat hard to move and cast abilities, something he learned just there and then.

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He heard a shimmer behind him and the sound of something slamming against the ground, as well as a distinct sound of metal clashing against metal. He hoped that would buy him more precious seconds.

He snapped back again, quickly noticing that some members of the herd were on the ground or slowed down, probably from his successful spell. The rest were still charging at him, so he shouted for another Daze in their general direction and went back to running.

Another clash of metal and a few seconds later, he had successfully passed the first lone trees of the forngle and had to slow down as he ran out of breath.

He looked behind him and was glad to notice the Bison had decided to leave him alone, at least for the time being.

He slumped down on the dirt floor and gasped for breath, looking to see where his Goblin not-a-guide was.

[Party broken due to distance]

That was wonderful, in the most sarcastic sense of the word. And there he was thinking of naming the Goblin as his first official friend in this wild world. Apparently, friendships lasted for as long as you were not in deadly danger.

After a few minutes of resting, he got up to check what his next move would be. The river went down a small valley, passing next to the herd of HM Bison. To the left, or more notably northeast, was a hill he couldn’t really see past, but would probably have to be a vantage spot for him to realise where he actually is.

The river was already slowly sloping towards the south and away from the objective he was going towards, so that settled the brief dilemma he carried in his mind. To the hill it was.

He filled the flask of water, munched on the sandwich he was given, checked in on the cat that was still securely in the backpack and making very little noise, and left the relative tranquillity of the riverbank.

"So long, Goblin, I hardly knew ye," he mused and started walking again.