“Author!” I loudly hear in my hear leading to me opening my eyes slowly “Get up Jackson has something for you and same with you Mark!” Merry yells luckily the sound of the storm quiets the sound a little.
I grab the covers and flip them to the other side of the make shift bed that I had made with my own hands when we had to stay the night here . I cut my hands a lot of times in the creation of this thing. I slide my legs over to dangle of the bed and hope down from my bunk.
Rubbing my eyes for a moment and walking to the general direction of the door. I lower my hands and open my eyes to see both a chuckling old man and very pissed of lady in front of the door to the kitchen in front of me. I yawn and get bumped into by mark “Oh, I have I found the door it seems” I turn to look behind me to see mark still having his eyes closed I walk over to the bathroom to wash up my face.
“Jeez you two are going to have an alarm set up to just wake up soon” I look over merry with disapproving eyes and mark does the same thing, I walk in and turn the faucet on to let water run into my hands like a cup and splash onto my face and repeat this process a few times mark comes into the bathroom as well and some thing as I leave having dried my face with my T-shirt on the way out.
I join the Jackson by the fire and lean back on the wall grabbing a map from a shelf next to me and opening it up and looking at it “we don’t have that far to go now do we” Jackson takes a sip from his cup and lays a book down that he likes to write in “No we do not roughly half of this day will be spent to travel there and onward further South East” I look up from having a look at the map while folding it back up placing back into the shelf.
Now that I think about it, it is my birthday today if I remember the date. I look towards the kitchen entrance to see if a Calendar was there but wasn’t so I got up went over to door to the kitchen to see merry cooking our breakfast “Hey merry do you what day it is” she looks behind her to look at me “No but I do remember the month just not the name of the day but date of it” she says in a quite tone trying to remember things “then what is the date” she goes back to cooking “it is the 5th of November 2747” she said with confidence in her tone.
So, I was right, it is my 18th birthday which means I am old enough to learn from Jackson now! I go back to where I was sitting with a very happy look on my face and grab a book to read that was in the same shelf as the map and began to read with the happy look still on my face.
Mark joins in sitting around the fire that we have set up to keep us warm out of the corner of my eye I saw him looking over at me wondering why I was happier more than usual “So, what has you so happy after getting an earful full my sister” he said with interest, I lower my book and look over at him “What? Don’t tell me that you and my sister have finally started to go out” he said with too much enthusiasm “That will never happen in a thousand years!” we hear Merry yell from the kitchen “If only she knew how you felt Arthor my boy” said Jackson with a sigh at the end.
“As much as I like to happen it is not that but today is my birthday so I get to train under the old man hear” I said with some disappointment but also with some excitement “Oh, yeah I forgot that that means we both get to start with training after we make it to the new place after this little hideout we found” mark said while leaning back on the wall behind him.
The old man out of the corner of my eye looks over at me and smiles a little bit then strengthens up and clears his throat getting both me and mark to look over at him “I will train you after we reach this new location that took us 8 years to get to with an oddly non eventful journey so when we get there I need you both to be on high alert as you two are the only men that can defend both me and marry” he said with his now wise deep voice “I can defend myself I am not like those people living in the city’s old man trust me I had to deal with both arthor and mark being rough with each other while training each other in hand to hand combat” me and mark both look at each other with some embracement about that.
“*Sigh* well eat up we have only little bit to go like the old man said” she walks around the circle to place plate in front of us and receive thanks in return she then goes to head back to the kitchen to get her plate of food “Merry use a lower tone of voice if you want to talk out loud” both me and mark look up to a giant grin on the old man and merry quickly making her way to the kitchen “What did she say gramps” asked mark with a mouth full of food “Trade secret young ones when the time comes I will tell” he replies with a little laugh “Oh, so in the next thousand years” I say with laughter of all 3 of us starting up after what I had said.
Merry comes back into the room with us still laughing a little and sits in between Mark and Jackson “So, do we have what we all need to make the trip Mark?” She looked over to her brother “Alright I get it I did leave my bag couple years back and last month have to cause delays in our trip but this is not those times” snap back mark “Uh huh I will believe it with my own eye once we leave I bet we already failed to walk the earth in this time” merry snaps backs “Wrong we have already walked around almost 2 times now but it was worth it to find this one place where no one lives and people don’t to take over” I chime in correcting merry and giving a little reminder of why we had been doing this.
I lean back on the wall with the twins keeping quiet now after what I had said. It feels like it was yesterday when I first meets these guys and found out about the plot to have me killed by Nathans and the other high lords of my country, last I heard about the empire they were going through public strife from having the high lords being oppressive and that was it, ironically it was also on that day I heard about that I was given information about a city that had no people living in it near both main land Oceania and the Arctaisia empire borders.
So, with the 5 years me and the other had been traveling to escape from the grasp of Nathans heard about this we all made the decision to find it but to think it would take us another 3 years to find it though.
I stand and book mark my page for my book and head to the kitchen to place my plate in the sink and walk back to my room to get ready for the track. My book is on how the frost eclipse happened and made the world all a freezing hellscape and the read I having been having with it make me think if we did not activate that one device to try and archive a higher level of destruction, it is sad that a lot forms of sea life died by freezing to death as the frost eclipse hit that hard it froze all the oceans to the land mass bellow it does not explain how that it is possible or even how humanity survived that kind of release of temperature but rather the event of how everything came to be after and before the eclipse leaving a lot of science out of it to make it a simple read.
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When I eventually open the door that had mine and mark stuff in it I grab the rucksack on the right and helmet and sit in a chair and place the rucksack next to me and grab out boots, a coat, layered pants, a layered T- and a jacket.
I grab the pants and slide them on over my existing pants grab the T-shirt and boots and put on the T-shirt on and slip on my boots, I stand grab the jacket and put that on grab the coat place it over my shoulders grab the two stings and tie it together to make it does not fly away in the wind.
I pack all I need into the ruck sack including the book and some other things.
The helmet I grabbed is similar to Jacksons one but I was not allowed to wear it until I got older and it fit as to not jiggle around while I run, jump, hike and move my head but after waiting for so long to try and wear it and see what it is like inside the thing.
I slip it on to see nothing but darkness I take it off to see if it was broken but it was not so I start walking toward the door and head into the main room and sit back down placing the helmet beside me and letting out a sigh.
Mark gets up next after taking his time and goes to get ready as well, while I was in there getting ready both Jackson and merry must have gone to get ready but Jackson was faster as he is sitting there with his on ready.
He looks over at me then down to my helmet “Ah, that problem I will wait for the other two to get back and show you all how to put it on” he says while chuckling a little and then goes back to staring into fire I don’t blame him for looking into the fire I do it a lot as well to escape reality as having the trust I had worked with for 10 years being broken in an instant so I naturally distrusted these guys as well at first but after 2 years I started to trust them but for anyone else it was going to be hard to earn my trust fully.
This reminds me of when we had settled down for 2 years I was what 15? 16? And we were in a city in the United Scottish Empire at Wick, at this point of time I had fallen in love with Merry for a while now but while we were there she had someone else in mind so I was starting to lose hope in ever being with her when I found out this information I was well broken but wanting to continue on then come later in the day almost night merry was not back she had said she was going to be going on a date with the dude but should be back by the time the sun was going to fall but was not home by then.
So both me and mark got worried for her me out of being in love with her and wanting to help out her brother as I owed him for getting me out of situation not long before this had happened, while we were looking for her we saw the guy walk out of a warehouse near the old docks of the place so we head to the place to find her held captive luckily later found out later that she was not sexually assaulted or anything of the sort but at that time we did not know so me and mark run after the dude hiding our identities with hoods and face masks.
When we got him we kidnapped him a did a little torture to find out how many there were and where we could get in after that he was knocked out and thrown in a ditch no one would question as he would look like a drunk passed out, but we headed over to the place entered it got merry out safely and went back to our home there at the time.
When she woke up I was sitting by her as it was late and someone was needed to keep an eye on her if she woke up the first watch was mark then me which she woke up when I was on watch conveniently, like a romance novel convenient set up in a way that it was set up by the gods but before I knew it I had a crying merry in my arms trying to comfort her. That whole incident led to the reason why I wanted out of that place well one out of many.
Before I could deeper into thought I was snaped out of it by mark who then pointed towards Jackson “Okay now that everyone is physically and mentally here I can begin on how to put on and mange a hunters helmet” he then picks up his and shows us a little sensor at the base of it “This here is a finger print identifier or in some models a located somewhere near the front to scan your eyes while equipping it” the three of us all pick up ours to find that two of us had newer models while one had the old model me “The newer model of hunters helmets have thermal, night vison, distance tracking, track finding capabilities and ways to zoom options” the twin both look at their helmets in aww of what they had “The older model has thermal, night vison and mapping systems that the newer versions don’t have as it was no longer required as wrist maps came into use” he then threw the twin they said wrist maps “now arthor I gave you an older version as judging by how you act what you do this version is better suited for you and the twins the same reason for that version but a way to identify whoever is on your side is through a system in all helmets no matter what model it was” we all look at the old hunter with intrigue “The system is called ‘Friendly tracking systems’ really unimaginative is it not but that system connects to friendly helmets and tracks them on your map weather in view on your helmet or on your wrist how to do it is something we will do when we have you registered into the helmet that only one person can do for each helmet” he then puts his helmet on and gestures for us to do the same so we do.
I change the positions of my hands to the sides and slip it on seeing the darkness “now press that sensor that I had mentioned earlier” I slide my hands around the cusps of my helmet to find the sensor eventually finding and applying force to it.
The inside then turns a bright white forcing me to close my eyes to the blinding light but only to still see darkness then a green light appears “Now that you have done that there should be a green light look at that twins and for arthor slide you finger over the sensor again” with my hand over the sensor still I slide my index finger over it, when I did that the light disappeared and then two green lights “Now, I assume the twins have two lights yes?” after a brief moment of quiet “Good, now for the second light it is the same for both models you say your full name but quite enough so it does not affect the other helmets in the room” as he finished I hear both of the twins whisper their names so I also do that that as well “Arthor Björn Knight” I say in a low whisper then the same process that before happens again both green light disappear then another one is added.
“Now the final step is easy the ‘Call sign’ you wish to go by and appear as when we get to the tracking system in a little I am interested to what you are going to call yourselves” he finishes and a creak on a piece of wood is heard as I presume he has lean back.
What should I call myself even? What would be a way to call myself? Should it be something I like? As the questions ran through my mind a name that fit really well with what I like and what I am going to become later on.
“Snow Hunter” the lights fade away to four and go to each corner of my vison and show me the outside world from the view of the helmet.