Chuck figured there had to be a town or something from where the wagon had come from so he continued on until noon. He stopped to eat some trail mix, another granola bar, and stretched his legs. He didn’t know how he would communicate when he did reach a town. He wasn’t a very good student and barely remembered anything from the Spanish class he took the previous year. Chuck crossed his fingers and hoped it wasn’t just goblins in whatever town he found. Another thought crossed his mind - he wouldn’t have any money when he did reach a town. Hopefully he could barter or find a job. He was sure something he had would be valuable to a medieval society.

Finally, he saw smoke in the distance and sighed in relief as his gas gauge was now below half a tank. Chuck crested another rise and saw the town or maybe city as it was pretty big. Smoke rose from several chimneys and a river ran between him and the city with a stone bridge over the wide river. He was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a castle in the city but it did look like there was a draw bridge. There were even some boats on the river. He wondered if there were fish as he needed to increase his food supply and did have an old fishing pole and tackle box in the back of his truck.

Chuck decided to park the truck back in the trees, out of site of the road, and covered it in branches so hopefully no one would notice it. He figured it would be a bad idea to drive right up to the gate. He grabbed his binoculars again and went back to the road. Down in the valley the dirt track met two other roads at a crossroads before going to the bridge. The other roads were more substantial than the dirt track and there was a lot of traffic coming and going. The houses of the city looked to be made of wood and mostly one story with the larger made of brick. They had a vaguely European look to them and were very colorful.

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Some of the wagons looked like the covered wagon he had seen but did not have spikes. He wondered if the road he had been on was more dangerous than he thought. Chuck was glad that nothing had tried to make a meal of him. His crappy binoculars didn’t have enough power to see who or what was in the wagons or what the inhabitants of the city looked like. He made up his mind and walked back to the truck and put on his camo colored rain poncho. It had a hood and would help hide his identity. Chuck wasn’t going to take any weapons besides his hunting knife since he didn’t want his guns to be confiscated. If things went bad he couldn’t fight a whole city anyway. He didn’t know if this world had firearms but from what he’d seen he doubted it. He only put the bare necessities into his backpack and at the last minute threw the not so fresh pheasant into a plastic bag to bring along. If this world didn’t have pheasants then its feathers might be worth something at least. He took one last look at his pickup and started walking.