When I woke up, it was with a feeling of breathlessness, as if I was holding my breath under water. With a massive gasp for air, I quickly tried to feel around my surroundings with my hand. My gasp was then followed by an "Ach!" as I ripped my hand away from the ground and towards my face to investigate. I immediately wanted to cover my hand in another, seeing that it had been pricked by a rock or sharp pebble or something hard and inconvenient to my weak skin.
I wanted to crush my hand into a fist and slam it onto the ground. However, that wouldn't have been very wise. I might be a bit upset, but I could keep it contained.
Thus began my realization that that was not my only complication. In fact, it all came back to me rather rapidly. One of my sides felt cold, and I knew why.
My hand immediately went to where the arrow had struck me, only to find it was not there. Sure, I had a gaping hole in me, but some might call that fixable damage. I am just glad I wasn't awake for the arrow coming ou- What if they just broke off the shaft and left the arrowhead in me? Oh God, I need to get up and find out right now.
Thus came my first attempt at getting back up, only to find an immense, shooting pain through my system as I tried. "Yep," I tell myself, "Should've guessed…" Getting up was going to be a feat.
I tried to feel my legs, to find… They took my pants. They actually took them. They took the sword, too, though that was expected to be honest. At least they left me the rags.
Once again, I gave sitting up my best attempt. Well, it was more like I tried it five or six times before I finally had the strength to just push through, but we'll pretend attempt two was a great success for the sake of my pride, what little of it was intact after getting destroyed by two chicks in the middle of a valley and left for dead.
Well, at least my rags kind of already bandaged the wound. Unintentionally, maybe, but it was stopping the blood from pouring out all over the place. It was already kind of wrapped like a bandage around my torso. So… Good. I'm fine for now. However, I needed to go grab Mu's sword if I was ever to be good in future. I only had one real… I guess 'restart' isn't a great word, but that's kind of what this was.
I clambered to my feet atop the hill I almost died on. I got a good view of the land before me, what little of it wasn't covered by rock outcropping far taller than me. I was still in this craggy hell canyon, but at least it's better than acid hell canyon. Well, actually, I didn't get shot and robbed in acid hell canyon. And I had a friend.
I have to reiterate every single time because it simply keeps going downhill. This sucks. It sucks mega hard. But you know what? I'm beginning to think it could be worse.
So, back to the walk.
However, as I began to walk, I realized something.
I had a sprained ankle. It physically hurts to walk. I can't really do much about that right now, though, because I had to keep moving. Eventually, I'll reach some… Rest spot, I guess. But until then, I have to keep going.
And then I noticed blood dripping down from my wound and down my leg. Fantastic. I'm still bleeding. That means I'm alive, right?
So… Back to the slow walk. Getting beat the shit out of sucks.
At least I made it back to where I stored Mu's sword, finding it still firmly in place. Good fortune had blessed me in the fact that somehow nobody found it. Sure, I have a red trail following me. Sure, I feel like death. But now I have the main objective back.
I quickly examined it for any damage from my rude shoving into the rocks, and…
Wait.
Where's the Mu cut out name?
Where is it.
It's not here.
This is…
This is my sword.
Oh my fucking God.
I'm gonna kill someone.
I'm actually going to have to murder some poor soul.
I thought for sure I had dropped the right one, it was the one on top, right? No, wait… Wait, maybe it was… Oh no, no!
"I'm a damn moron!" I grab my lack of hair, having nothing to pull on and groaning like the dumb buffoon I am.
Oh, but someone is gonna die for this, though. "I've had it up to here with this bullshit!" I shout to nobody in particular, "I've been shafted up and down these damn cliffs! Every bit of water has been acid in disguise, every animal has wanted me dead, humans included, and now I gotta kill a sumbitch for taking my damn friend's last request!" I throw a hand in the air before shouting in rage just to let it all out, "I'm gonna lose it!"
But there was nobody to hear me. Nobody to care. Maybe that's why I liked having Mu around. If I had my rage here, he'd join me in this calling out of the absurd. I bet he would! Dude was a fun guy, at least near the end there.
Shouting just left me… Hollow. I didn't feel like this was accomplishing anything. I usually don't accomplish anything. The one time I tried to do something for somebody I just met, I ended up going in the exact wrong direction and hit the worst location I've been to yet. And yet, in the worst place, there's the best people! WHY?!
Nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing made sense in the beginning! I should have just given up the moment I saw the samurai wearing garbage. But noooo, I have to keep going now. And now, I don't even have what I need to keep going.
I think I'm a little upset.
Well, actually, I think it might be the smallest bit over a little.
But anger won't solve my issue at the moment.
Just at this moment.
This sword is pissing me off, so the less I see it, the better. Across the back it goes. Well, after struggling for a few. This one arm thing is pissing me off, too.
I'm useless on my own, aren't I?
Can't even keep the swords straight.
Whatever. It's go time. With a sprained ankle, a bleeding wound, and the wrong sword, I hobble my way to… Wherever, honestly. Let the winds take me south. I've forgotten which way is which.
It's been several hours of silence, pain, and misery.
As I'm moving on through the wastes around here, trying to orient myself still, I came across a group of guys who seemed to be stalking me. They all had weird helmets and armor akin to the slaver guard guys I previously was around.
Were they hunting me down finally? Is this gonna be my end? Are they gonna drag me around the place until I inevitably die on some plantation or quarry?
They were following behind me faster than I could reasonable walk, and they had what looked like some kind of dog. They were literally pulling out the hounds to come get me. You know, it had to happen sooner or later.
Maybe they're just really well armored dog owners with hearts of gold.
As I thought that, I heard a loud voice shout from behind me, "Hey! You there!"
Yep. Here it comes. I stop and turn around slowly.
"You look rather… Destitute there, friend," I saw their group start to hover around their weapons.
"Don't call me friend, pal," I shout back at him.
He shakes his head, "You look almost like an escaped slave, buddy."
"Don't call me buddy, friend."
His hand grabs the shaft of his mace as he yells, "Let's be real. You're wounded, you're starved, and you're alone. How about you come with us, we can patch you up, and we can even give you back to a new home, huh?"
"Tempting," I lie, "But I'm good! Thanks!"
"Seems you misheard me. I wasn't asking," the man pulls off his club from his belt.
I prepare for my glorious run. I'm gonna end up flat on my face, bleeding out into the sands, but it was the message more than anything else. I'm not just going to give up yet. Mu's sword is still out there. "Seems you misheard me. I'm not interested."
He holds out his club aggressively as he shouts back, "That's too bad!" He points at me, "Get him!"
While the threat of several armed people charging at me was valid, what was more alarming was the dog, which proceeded to burst off ahead of all of them. Directly after me. Now, if I know my wildlife on this planet, it's going to be an absolute bastard. That just meant I needed to be one too.
I went ahead and drew my sword, taking a few steps back while keeping the sword down. It had a mean point on it, and I'm sick and tired of being pushed around.
The dog kept rushing towards me, its eyes on the prize. It wanted to kill me, I could tell, but I was going to flip the script for once in my damn life.
I started making a motion as if I was going to run, keeping the sword down as I did. It was all part of the plan.
The dog fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. It jumped out to try and catch me with a leap, wherein I brought my sword right up to catch it. The dog impaled itself, making a faint whining sound before its body slammed into me.
I… Didn't plan this out fully. Without a second arm, I couldn't stabilize the sword very well, so the dog's body just ended up falling into me, knocking me onto my ass as my sword was now stuck in the animal.
Also, the dog's body was still breathing. My sword is or should be at least half through the dog, and it simply chose to ignore the blow.
In fact, it ignored it so much, the next noise out of it was a snarling noise as it attempting to bite me, now with me on the ground.
I twisted my body to the left, avoid the dog's toothy maw, and instead brought my head back, my sword hand still occupied by said sword. Without a second thought, I slam my forehead into the head of the dog, and it recoils back, as if actually hurt, and proceeds to come off my sword. However, this was a huge ass mistake as my head felt like it had a bell rung on it and a searing pain jutted through it. At least it took away from the pain in my side.
My head was empty of all thought except survival and agony as I scrambled away with a roll, throwing myself away from the dog and the rapidly approaching people who I wanted nothing to do with.
Okay, I can't even kill a dog. A dog that impales itself on my sword. It tried to do the job for me, and I can't even manage that with the biggest handicap I can think of.
Well, at least I can run. I'm a track star, even though I've never ran a track in my life. This, more than anything, was proved by the fact that this dog cannot seem to catch up to me. I even got a decent look at it while it wasn't biting my kneecaps.
It had a shaggy black coat of fur and two floppy ears. Coating its head were plates that looked like bones. The bones also ran around the sides of the top of its body. It was… Not especially cute, but you know what? I could see owning one for a pet. I think those bone plates weren't very ergonomic for petting, but what do I know?
I could finally feel it. The burning. The rippling sensation of my leg tearing as I ran with my twisted ankle. I have made many cardinal errors here, and I won't live to learn from them. I think it's just the spite keeping me going, and that's falling off.
As I was running, I saw what looked like a large-bowl-like canyon with some jutting rocks in the middle. A small town looking place seemed to be sandwiched in the middle. I could see gates guarded by what looked like guards. I know, wild concept for guards to guard, but bear with my simultaneous 'million miles a minute' and 'empty as the void' brain. They had horned helmets, I think, so maybe they're good, maybe they're bad, but taking chances is what I'm about now.
Now or ever, I guess, and I continue to run on towards those guards. They are my only chance, I think.
I can feel some kind of crackle through my leg as I can feel it start to give out.
I cannot let this stop me now. I'm making it so far! I mean, yes, it's a big ol' backtrack trip kind of but I'm really doing it!
Actually, what if these are like the samurai? The ones who just don't care about slavery? Oh man, but at least this'll make them look bad. I mean, I'll take a small W and a fat L over a huge loss alone.
With the town getting closer and closer, I can see plates on the armor of the guards and large handles for weapons sticking out their backs. Their helmets were dark colored and angular, I think, with white streaks on them, but most importantly every single one of them were pretty big. Buff, tall, broad, whatever you wanna call it.
Point is that they looked like fellows you didn't wanna mess with, so I went ahead and charged towards them.
I looked back to see the dog and the crew behind it rapidly approaching. The problem with slowing down due to how painful it is to walk is that I've slowed down.
That's when I realize something dreadful. Just as I'm about to finally close the distance to the gate, perhaps even enter it, my foot catches on something. Something most terribly awful. Something every man on a base level fears.
Stairs.
I crash downwards, tripping upon the comedically placed foe of mine. Well, it's less comedic and more cruel, but I've come to realize this life of mine is no tragedy but instead a comedy.
Why couldn't they make the entrance wheelchair accessible? We could have avoided my folly.
Enough dramatics. I crack my head against the middle step of the entrance in defeat, and my vision beholds the sight of the rock face to the side of the gate. I've been defeated.
I can hear the running dodge slow down as it stops probably just before the stairs. The men in armor slow down too, one shouting, "That's far enough! You're coming with us!"
"Hm," I can hear some gruff male voice audibly grunt, "Flatskin, I am in the middle of a baggage check. Do not interfere." I hear the stomp of a boot above me.
Holy shit, I'm actually being saved. I mean, I had hoped, yeah, but this world loves to shaft me so I just thought, you know, it won't happen, but this is actually happening.
I try to push myself up, weakly holding onto the steps above me and saying meekly, "Yeah, I'm being checked."
"They confirm as much," the voice sternly states.
I check out my would-be captors one last time, and they look almost scared. One is calling his dog back, the hound still bleeding from the impalement. Yeah, that's right. I have back up. Better back up before you get smacked up.
"T-this is a runaway slave! Harboring it will earn the ire of-"
"Such words are unusual in Shek lands. What I see is a flatskin hanging on to their life by a sword's edge, and you seek to rip that struggle away for nought. Remove yourself." Legendary. This dude is 100% not going to find anything on me and I respect his decision to put his foot down.
"He doesn't even have any bags!" the slaver argues.
"Hm," the heroic gateman stands his ground, "He carries a will to live, something you must lack. I will not repeat myself." You know, Mu could walk the walk, but he never talked the talk. This guy talks it like he's swimming in it.
"Yeah, tell 'em," I want to throw a fist in the air for encouragement, but I kind of need that hand for holding onto these stairs.
I can hear the dumbass slavers shuffling behind me before grumbling, "Fine. But you haven't heard the last of us."
The gate guy doesn't even address the whiny babies as they presumably leave, their dog in tow. Yeah, that's right. I won for once. I managed to not really do anything, but I will take what I can get because this world sucks. And you know what? I did it entirely on my own! Kind of.
I finally try to push myself up, feeling like I got hit by a freight truck on my head. The adrenaline's keeping it down, for sure, but the pain later is going to add to the suckiness. At least I'm in a mildly friendly town.
I turn my head on up to my savior to find…
That's not a helmet at all.
That's a face with bones on it. Those horns are actual bones. It's one of those bone guys who got me into this shit to begin with.
"Oh," I mutter sadly without thinking.
"Get up, flatskin. We will be searching your belongings," he orders me with the same stern and vaguely hostile tone he had with the other guys. Oh. This is just a human thing, I think.
"Sure, man," I tell him, getting my ass back up, wincing from standing up on my bad ankle, "But uh… News flash, I ain't got jack."
"What you do not have matters little," he says, examining me. He then holds out a meaty palm, "Your sword."
I try to lift up my sword, only to find it was not in my hand. I look behind me, see it collecting dust on the ground, and point at it meekly, "I gotta… You know, just uh… Give me one second," I smile before going to pick it up from the dusty soil.
Gate guard doesn't respond whatsoever, which makes it even more awkward. It's like he's just judging me this whole time.
I bring over my sword to him, offering it by the handle with the blade pointing outwards. I wasn't going to stab him, but I didn't want him to accidentally stab me. And also, I didn't have another hand to keep the thing steady, so this is the best I can do.
He takes it anyways, and then says, "Scabbard."
I don't… Ah, right, the sheathe. Is that the word for it? I don't know, I know I've flung that word around like I knew the difference, but I sincerely don't. Probably doesn't matter, except to people who are super into like swords or knives and need a social life. Well, actually… Man, maybe they'd do well here since they know how swords work and stuff. I'm getting my ass handed to me at every step, probably because I don't know the first thing about fighting. I tried just holding my thing out, and that didn't work.
As I thought about this, I removed my scabbard and presented it to his other hand, which he took and gazed upon my not so hard earned belonging. He turns it over with a, "Hm," and examines it further. "Acceptable craftsmanship," he tells me before sheathing it and offering it back to me, "You're not hiding anything in your wrappings, correct?"
"I think you'd be able to tell. And no, I don't have anything in my pants either. Yeah, I saw you looking," I slightly point a finger with a sly grin, attempting to lighten the mood here.
"Hm," is all I got as he crossed his arms.
"Yeah, okay, that was bad," I tell myself, focusing on hooking my sheath to my… Rags, I guess. I'm losing spots to put it.
"Enter," he tells me.
I nod, just put off by the boney nature of his face. Look, don't get me wrong, I really do appreciate that he'd go off on a limb and put the entire city in danger of some angry slavers or whatever, but… He reminds me of my first day here. The awful awakening, and the reality that this place is brutally sucky.
I can't really help but feel the aching feeling of my life being towed away from me every time I gaze upon one of these guys. Why? Why does this world just want to keep hurting me?
What did I do to deserve any of this?
No. No, I can't think about that junk right now. They'll call me weird things again, like 'Chumbo' or whatever the fuck that guy called me. I should probably just get right on through this gate here and stop wasting their ti-
I see one of the guards is still large but notably thinner than the rest with an extra set of horns poking out the top of his head. I can see his chest is rather prominent, at least by comparison to the others, and I cannot help but think…
"Are you a chick?" I absent-mindedly ask, pointing slightly as my hand was now free.
"Hm? What do you mean?" the, what I now realize as, female inquires in a tone not unlike the other gate guy's. Her voice, however, was certainly pitched and spoken with human female-esque ways of speech-ines. I think. I don't know, I'm no expert on girls, but if I had to combine the body look, voice, and harsh look I'm getting, I'd say this is a grade A woman.
I give a small thumbs up and keep going, "Thanks, cool."
So there are big, scary bone people on both slaver and not slaver spectrums, and they are basically their own species with men and women. Neat.
Not neat, actually. I could feel goosebumps and my hair raising around those guys. I cannot help but feel like every single one of those five guards could have World Wrestling Federation'd my ass out of existence.
Then again… I'm severely out of my league doing any sort of fighting. Any sort of evaluation of fighting, too. I've proven how useless I am without Mu. I've proven how useless I am to him, both in person and to his memory since I lost his damn swo-
No! Not again! We're in a new place! New thoughts! We'll get it back, and nobody will stop me. Probably. I will do something, I will become good at life, or whatever, and then I'll go south, and it will all be okay!
As I step on through those gates, I can behold some buildings with various signs, but more importantly to me is that several buildings are just ruined and collapsed in. Great signs already. I could see a few horned people roaming the streets, each raising my own tension and increasing my want to get out of there.
Unfortunately, I've run out of options.
At the very least, I've kind of stopped bleeding. I still feel lightheaded and awful and like I'm out of my league in every single way, but I've stopped bleeding. I think that means I get to live. I hope it does. I still have things to do.
Speaking of which, what do I do now?
I feel myself wobble towards one of the ruined buildings, having slightly wandered forwards alongside my thoughts, and rest upon one of them.
That's a good question. I have no clue where to go from here.
I think I see some kind of sign on a building with a backpacked person with a stick. Maybe that's like a place for adventurers? Like real upstanding characters, who go explore the world. That'd be neat. Isn't that like a go-to if you don't know what you're doing?
I launch myself uneasily back off the building and towards the adventurer place. Maybe they'd even have a doctor who could look at me. That's getting my hopes up way too much, but hey, optimism is in droves right now, right?
No. No, I don't think it is.
Every fiber of my being is telling me this is the end of my story. I'll end up homeless, a dreg, or kill myself on some rocks. All this hope I want to have is nothing but a shell. I've probably lost a sizeable chunk of blood, and I've irrevocably fucked up. And the worst part? I can't do jack shit about any of it. I have no direction, fleeting will, and this overhanging feeling of failure.
But at least I can see what I can get up to before I decide it's over. Maybe make myself into someone else's problem once again.
I get up to the door of the place, and I knock on it out of instinct. I then realize how much of a dumbass I look like if I knock on the door of a likely public establishment, and instead open up the door.
Looking in, I can see two bone people in heavy looking armor with large swords as well as a man at a counter with several items displayed across it. Shelves were all over the place, as were racks that had backpacks and what looked like maps and books stacked or displayed neatly.
The human appears to be another one of those very, very dark skinned people. I think she called them Scorchlander, or whatever. Anyways, not too important. They were in some kind of headwrap that covered their neck and their head in a loose way with a rough looking cloth. Hey man, it's dusty out there, so I get that.
"Uh… Hello?"
"Welcome," the human says, bowing slightly, "Here to trade?"
"Um," I try to take in the sights, "Is this an adventuring place?"
"It's a travel gear shop. What, couldn't tell by the sign?" the human leans against the counter.
"Oh," I say, wandering in meekly. I don't have money, and I don't exactly have much to actually trade.
"So, what can I interest you in? We take barter and Cats here, before you ask. You look a bit eh," he points lazily at me, "Perplexed."
I nod, "Yeah, I just… You know, blew into town, had myself a small uh… Scuffle, you know how it is."
"Yes, that's how it is out there," he nods understandably, "I hear all kinds of tales about fights and trials and tribulations, the works, my friend."
I sigh, "Great, yeah. Anyways, uh… What can I get for uh…" I look around my person. I don't even have pants, dude. I guess these rags are dirty? I don't think he'll take them, but maybe. I point at my rags, "How much for this thing?"
The man looks almost surprised, then chuckles, "Going down to your skivvies, huh? Friend, the only thing I'd give for that is this," he puts his hand on a bottle on his counter, "Half drank bottle of cactus rum that tastes like Garru swill."
Rum? I can drown my problems? That's an option? Wait, that requires money. I don't exactly have that. Well, it's not a bad deal. "Deal," I seriously tell him, beginning to remove the rags.
He now looks surprised as he says, "Woah, wait, that there was a joke, and-"
"You made an offer I couldn't refuse," I smile as I get near naked, dropping the rags onto the counter. Thankfully, these underpants have lasted me for this entire journey and somehow haven't ripped or torn or anything. I don't honestly know how, but I do not care.
The guy sighs, and shakes his head, saying, "You know, you're right, you're right. Probably find some way to get a bigger buzz out of these than this," grabbing a cap I hadn't seen behind it, he plugs it up and then he holds up the rum for me, "Don't spill it."
I take the bottle in both my hands- hand, holding it up as thanks and turning around.
"Nothing else, huh?"
"Man, I don't got money, I was just curious what this place was," I quickly leave the establishment, or attempt to, before he can get angry.
"Well, come back when you do," the guy shouts as I leave into the open air.
Huh. Shockingly reasonable. I'm used to most people wanting me dead, robbed, or dying. If they're real interesting, somewhere in between, like being eaten alive. Though that's animals, and those arguably aren't people.
Well, time to get drunk, I guess. Don't really want to just down this stuff in the middle of the street, though. Is there like any place to sit down and have this to myself?
Just as I was trying to contemplate some place to sit down, I felt someone shove their shoulder past me from behind me, almost causing me to drop my newly acquired rum. The shoulder shove was hard, too.
Now looking at his back, it was one of the bonemen with a huge sword on his back. I swear I heard a grunt from him, too, as he bumped right on past me. There was at least like eight or ten feet between me and another building. This guy went out of his way just to bump into me.
"Prick," I say on impulse.
The boneman actually stops in his tracks and turns his head indignantly.
"A human, think to insult me? Hm!" the boneman says, his head drifting downwards, "And all he has is one arm, a sword, and a bottle of rum, no doubt. Hm, hm! Think you a warrior, flatskin, one who can call me as you wish?!" His hand was reaching for his huge sword.
It only gets better, doesn't it?
