Tim held out his injured hand and looked away. The branch he held between his molars groaned as Randal straightened out Tim’s injured finger.  His eyes were blurry with tears aching to run rampant. Not just from the pain, but from the emotional avalanche kicked off by a thousand cascading stones. Somewhere beside him, McKenzie was using his enchanted knife to carefully slice off the melted copper ring.

Most of the nine were sitting on the side of the toppled carriage. A sea of blood and gore surrounded them.  Huge corpses drifted in and out of view behind the curtains of mist. A small army of screaming squawking birds had descended upon the area to gorge.

With Yuma touch, the melted muscle and skin of Tim’s finger began to knit back together. Pain ached like a ghost underneath the pink flesh as he flexed his hand a few times. Tim spat out the branch and looked off at the foggy distance.

 “I, I can’t do this,” Tim said quietly. He looked down at the pale body of Hayata laying in the middle of the circle. “This isn’t MOBO and we don’t belong here.  We have to get out of here. We must find a way back or we will die.”

Randal opened and closed his mouth but said nothing. Instead, Genzo spoke up from below.

“You’re right. You don’t belong here!” He pointed a large purple crystal like a knife at Tim. “And there is no finding a way back. That’s your fault too. Because of you stupid monkeys, we are in Scenario 69.”

McKenzie giggled.

“The only chance we have is to rape this world raw. It holds no qualms about fucking us over at every turn so we must return the favor. We have to use every ounce of our strength and outside knowledge to claw our way up. And we must pray to god that there is some sort of demon king.”

“Demon King?” muttered everyone almost simultaneously.

Ignoring the questions Genzo tossed the purple crystal up to Ikko. “Can anyone verify that this is a monster’s core?”

 Emi took the crystal from Ikko.

“You’re right,” she paused and looked down at him “Mr. Uchida when did you get so smart?”

“When I realized everything here wanted to kill us.”

Tim felt there was hypocrisy in those words; when Genzo himself looked like an unhinged murder machine. He clothes were shredded and his body was coated with blood, fresh and dried. His ever-present scowl passed over the group like an angry hawk.  Yet Tim found himself surprised at the young man’s capabilities as a leader, despite the shortcomings of his personality. Genzo reminded Tim of a drill sergeant from some movie, the kind you hated fervently, but trusted inherently.

Genzo checked the time on his phone. “We will leave in forty-five. Mr. Nakamura, create a wash station. More scavengers will be here before long. Hopefully, they won’t follow us If we can get the blood off. Meanwhile, those of us who haven’t cleaned up yet should grab anything that looks valuable, don’t miss anything. If you have a question about something you find ask Miss Ito, she seems to know a lot. And Yuma, please stay with Hayata, and take your turn last.”

Tim looked over at the poor boy. He was sprawled out in the middle and slept deeply. The wound on his bare chest oozed with every breath.  Yuma had stabilized him and began the recovery process, but it would take many more treatments to restore the boy too good health.  Tim felt the pain of life so nearly cut short, without regard or warning.

 His mind flashed back to his tiny neuralmechanical lab. He missed the little room, his tools, and Yvonne.  Things were comfortable and familiar there. It was a place he could explore limits and build without risk. But here the system-of-interest was half-formed, and every movement could lead to death. Tim watched Hayata for a few moments while holding back selfish tears. Finally, he crawled down the carriage as if to escape his own feelings.

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The expansive pools of blood were unavoidable as Tim wandered around in a fugue. His feet splashed in the sickening fluid and without much care as his off-world boots were ruined. The dissidence of his comfortable past juxtaposed violently against his present. His mind wandered to strange places. He pondered if he really was dead, or trapped inside some strange version of MOBO. Maybe Yvonne glitched out and trapped him within full-duplex EEG feedback. Maybe the others were just extensions of his own personality quirks acting out independently?

 Instinctually he stuck his hands into the pockets of his favorite leather jacket. He found something he had quickly forgotten of. A ring and necklace of a strange silver metal were in his hand. Beautiful green stones were arranged artfully; succulent leaves and dark green berries over metal vines. Mithril, peridot and emerald Analysis quickly announced.

‘Analysis is now level 2’.

Tim pocketed the jewelry mindlessly as he opened up his menu. To his shock he was level six, he saw that his both his HP and MP had risen, his MP considerably. Sitting off to the left was a flashing plus sign. Tim activated it and discovered he had fifteen unspent ability points. His mind fog started to clear as he investigated. He spent two points to raise his strength attribute to ten.  Tim thought he felt a little lighter, but wasn’t really sure. He spent another two to raise intelligence to 23. His certainty that something changed increased.

He continued to poke around with the menu and discovered he could spend AP on skills as well. Tim put two AP into ‘Enchant’ to raise it to level two. But found it would cost three AP to raise it to the next level. It looked like skills had a one to one AP cost to increase. Except for ‘Precise Mana Manipulation’, that cost double. Maybe it was because that was a subskill? For a moment he was pleased with the separation from reality. But finding little else to explore in the menu, he closed it and returned to the gray world.

The group of nine off-worlders left a little after lunchtime, although none of them ate. Tim was in the middle of the formation again and was helping to carry Hayata. Maybe it was the increase in strength, but Hayata felt a little lighter than Genzo did the day before. Tim considered putting another few points into strength but thought better of it.

They walked in a somber procession for unknown miles, each lost in their own thoughts. But soon the setting sun began to blind them on their way westward. With only a few words they picked a place to stop and set up camp. Before long they were warming themselves around the campfire eating hard tack. Yuma held Hayata’s unconscious head on her lap and stroked his hair like an older sister. Genzo threw hard glares their way frequently.

Nightfall was encroaching quickly when suddenly Emi stood up. Tim stared at her then turned eastward to match her gaze.

“Put out the fire, quick,” she hissed, “something is coming!”

Tim felt the familiar pull of magical energy drawing water out of some unknown space and dousing the fire. Then Katsuki fell backward on the ground panting, he must have spent the last of his MP Tim thought. The others grabbed their weapons and hunkered down in the shadows. Two bowstrings were drawn tight and the group waited in silence.

A low rumble rattling grew in the distance. The sound crept into Tim’s ears and took the shape of hooves beating along the hard road while metal rimmed wooden wheels tore into the track. A cream-colored canopy came into view. It fluttered like a specter in the moonlight, bound to the wagon below. Two chestnut horses clip-clopped along and pulled the load without a sign of strain. And there on the coachman’s seat was a real living person.  

The driver wore a large straw hair and a dark colored tunic tied loosely around their waist. Tim couldn’t make out age or gender at this distance but he felt one thing; relief. He desperately needed information.  He needed to know how this world worked; how to live here and how to escape. And finally, someone had arrived who could save him.

“Get down,” snarled Genzo, but no one moved.  

“Do it,” Randal said with authority to back up Genzo.

Tim obeyed but his heart screamed out as the wagon passed. Tim desperately wanted to shout as the stranger passed by. His fingers dug into the ground and once again tears were ready to escape.  How quickly he had raised false salvation and how quickly it crashed down.  He watched with longing as the covered wagon sprinted on by and passed into the dusk.  With pleading Tim turned to Randal.

Randal, who must have felt similar, could not return the look. But spoke solemnly; “Genzo was right. We don’t know if it is safe, or if they even talk the same language”.

“Thank you, Mr. Nelson,” replied Genzo Uchida, “But once again I urge you to use your pathetic little mind. That wagon came from the same direction we did. They probably saw the carriage and the corpses we left behind. That’s a lot of questions we don’t want to answer. We could end up as slaves or executed just for being there. We need to be careful who we talk to. We must take our time to listen and learn as much as we can. But, that wagon does give us great hope.”           

The others turned to look quizzically at him.

“I doubt they would be spending the night out here alone, so there must be a destination not far off.  Like a farming village or something, one big enough to tend to the horses.”