A Dog-Eat-Ed World - Part Two
It was daybreak as Ed, Double-D, and Ruka found themselves in the middle of a slaver caravan. Each of them had recovered from the bandit attack just enough to be able to walk and were now being forced to march at the threat of being beaten unconscious and left to be eaten by wolves. The three of them - as well as the bandits the slavemongers enslaved - each had metal shackles on their ankles, arms, and neck which connected to each other with wires that restricted their movement.
"Where are we going?" Ed asked for the tenth time since he woke up.
"Tell me again why we don't just kill it?" asked one of the slavemongers.
"A dead slave is worth nothing." answered the leader, "Cut out its tongue if it bothers you so much."
"I would have if I had a good enough blade..."
"Ed, please, just be quiet." Double-D told Ed.
Ruka was quiet. They had taken her sword, and she had failed again at being a warrior. But more than that, she knew where these slavemongers were taking them. Thanks to the rising sun, Ruka realized the road they were on was heading north. That would mean they were going to The Holy Nation, and THAT meant they were going to…
"Rebirth…" Ruka barely whispered in a slightly scared tone.
"I'm sorry?" Double-D asked.
The slavemonger behind Double-D tapped him on the shoulder, "It shuts its yap or else it gets the club again." he said.
Double-D turned and gave a defiant glare, "I do believe I am at least owed an explanation to what this 'Rebirth' is!"
This slavemonger was carrying Ruka's sword, and he patted it while grinned wickedly behind his helmet, "Keep pushing it, slave, and you won't live to find out."
Double-D withdrew his rage for now. He would have to keep a cool head if he was going to survive. He wondered where Eddy was. Then he remembered: Eddy had run off when the bandits attacked. Eddy had abandoned them.
"No, you mustn't think that." Double-D told himself, "Eddy may be a coward, bully, cad, and thief, but he wouldn't abandon us. Well, aside from when he did it for free jawbreakers…"
Nobody in the caravan noticed that they were being followed throughout the night.
…
Eddy had a keen talent in the art of not being seen, which was very odd considering his constant need for attention.
"Hey, shut up, you'll blow my cover." Eddy told the narrator.
Thankfully, none of the other characters could hear him as this was a private conversation.
Eddy kept an eye on the caravan, mostly by keeping low and quiet at a good vantage point, usually behind the top of a sand dune, behind a tree, or behind a tree on top of a sand dune. When the caravan started to get too far, Eddy would run after it with his arms back in a V formation to keep silent, practicing the sacred art of Naruto Running.
This is one-hundred percent something that happens in-game when a character has a high enough Stealth stat, and not just something I added for flair.
Eddy wasn't sure how he was going to save his friends yet. In total, Eddy counted eight slavemongers, and all of them were armed to the teeth. Straight up fighting them was a bad idea, and they were too close together to take out one by one. Eddy didn't think he could even take out one, let alone eight. His friends were all surrounded as well so there was no way he could help them slip away.
He mainly figured he'd follow the caravan and wait until there was an opportunity to do something. He noticed a small pack of large animals that seemed to be a mix of a cow and horse.
"Oh man, those things are huge!" Eddy said out loud to himself, wondering if they would attack the slavemongers. Maybe if they did that, he could rush in and lead his friends away.
But these animals didn't do that, they just passed the slavemongers without giving them any mind. Ed seemed interested in them, but one of the slavemongers grabbed him and pulled him back saying, "Don't friggin touch the garru."
"Welp, there goes that plan." Eddy groaned. He passed the garru too and got a closer look at the slavemongers. He noticed one of them was carrying Ruka's sword, and Ruka kept taking glances at it.
Eddy then wondered if Ruka had scammed him, since she sold herself on being a mighty warrior and all but couldn't do anything against the bandits.
Then again, she still did more than he did, but that wasn't important right now.
The only notable thing Eddy had done aside from tailing the caravan was spotting a new settlement when the caravan came to a fork in the road, but there was no time to go exploring that place. The caravan seemed uninterested in going there as well.
…
"Knights!" Ed cried out as he saw a group of nine men in heavy knight-like armor up the road. They were wearing the same outfit and carried similar swords, but their leader's armor was painted red, four of the middle had white armor, and four in the back had black armor.
"Help! We're being held against our will!" Double-D cried out.
The knights ignored the both of them and passed the caravan.
Double-D turned to the knight party and squealed, "YOU CAN'T JUST IGNORE US!"
The slavemonger with Ruka's sword chuckled, "Slave, who do you think is paying for your capture?"
Double-D turned towards the slavemonger, "You can't be serious, those were your employers?"
"Customers. There's a difference, now shut it."
Double-D didn't argue back. He knew this world was barbaric, but never did he think it was downright demented.
"Holy Nation." Ruka told Double-D.
"Pardon?" Double-D asked.
"They worship some god they call Okran, and use it as an excuse to lay claim to shek land and enslave anyone that doesn't look like them or agree with them." Ruka explained.
"Ooh, social commentary!" Ed cheered.
Double-D groaned.
The day went by fast, and the sky became clear. In the heavens Double-D could clearly see two celestial bodies not that far from wherever they were. They looked to be a planet and a moon, respectively, and that was making Double-D anxious.
Wherever they were, they certainly were not on Earth.
…
The following morning, Eddy had noticed the land was looking less like a desert. He was actually touching grass for the first time in a while. While Eddy was happy for less sand, it was making hiding spots harder to come by.
Eddy decided to pass the time during his stakeouts of the caravan to work on the map, he had jotted down the location of the settlement they had passed, along with what looked like a couple of farms and even a military base those knights seemed to have come from. A peculiar thing he noticed was he never seemed to get tired throughout the night, just hungry, and he realized he was running low on food supplies.
"Great, I might starve to death before I save these guys…" Eddy grumbled to himself.
From what he could tell by using the map and the direction the caravan was going, Eddy figured they were heading towards either some mountains or to some marshlands to the north. This perplexed Eddy a bit.
"...why didn't they just take them to those towns and sell them there? What's wrong with this stupid world?" Eddy wondered.
The answers to these questions would have to wait, as the day passed, and night fell again. Eddy still had no plan for what he was going to do to save his crew.
And then, he saw a pack of wolf-like animals scrounging the land, and they attacked the caravan.
"WOLVES! PROTECT THE MERCHANDISE!" yelled the slavemonger leader.
The slavemongers went to fight the wolves, leaving the slaves unattended.
This was Eddy's chance. He ran out of his cover and towards the caravan.
"Ed! Ruka! Over here!" Double-D cried out.
Ed and Ruka followed Double-D away from the carnage.
"Quick! Let's go while they're distracted!" Double-D ordered.
"They have my sword!" Ruka objected.
"Is it more important than your life?" Double-D asked.
Ruka nodded, "Yes."
"Cool!" Ed said.
Double-D blinked a few times, "Why am I always-" he then noticed Eddy running towards them, "Eddy!"
"Anyone call for a rescue?" Eddy asked, trying to look cool.
"Eddy!" Ed snapped the shackles off from his arms and ran up to hug him, "I missed you!"
Double-D saw this and went red in the face, "ED, FOR PETE'S SAKE, YOU COULD HAVE DONE THAT THIS WHOLE TIME?"
"Oh, no, Eddy wasn't around for me to hug before, and those handcuffs got in the way." Ed explained.
Ruka was flabbergasted, "That's no flatskin, that's a monster."
Eddy patted Ed a bit, "Put me down big guy, we got work to do."
Ed put Eddy down, and the two of them unlocked the shackles of Double-D and Ruka.
"The slaves are escaping!" cried out one of the slavemongers who rushed at the four. He was wielding Ruka's sword.
"Let's bail!" Eddy yelled.
"MY SWORD!" Ruka cried out as she lunged at the slavemonger.
"FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" Ed cried as he ran after her.
Eddy wasn't sure what he was doing, but he ended up swinging his club at the slavemonger instead of running off. And the strike actually connected!
"Agh!" the slavemonger cried out.
Eddy kept swinging his club at the slavemonger while Ruka and Ed swung their fists at him. Ed's punches were especially effective.
Edd noticed Eddy had dropped a few bandages he apparently was carrying, and got to work fixing himself up.
Soon enough, the slavemonger was on the ground, knocked out by Ed punching him really hard in the chest. Ruka took this opportunity to get her sword back, and Eddy was breathing heavily.
"Huff…huff… that's what ya get… crap…" Eddy gasped out.
Double-D came over to administer first aid to the three of them and noticed that the slavemonger had quite a bit of bite marks in addition to the brawl that just happened. He decided to not mention them.
Ruka headed over to the wolves the slavemongers had slain, she noticed the rest of the slavemongers decided to cut their losses and continue north.
North to Rebirth.
Ruka shook her head and opted to collect meat from the slain wolves, the long walk had made her hungry, and that meant the others would probably be too.
"The rest of them are leaving us behind." Ruka announced.
"Good, let's make a break for it before they change their mind!" Eddy ordered.
"Agreed, let's go." said Double-D.
"I'm hungry!" Ed cried out.
"Shut it, Ed!" the rest of them told him.
Eddy led the group down the road south, away from the horrors that awaited them in the mountains.
…
"Here big guy, eat up." Eddy told Ed as he tossed him some dried meat. Ed devoured it in a few bites.
The group had wound up at a farm in the Holy Nation, and Eddy had cooked up the meat Ruka got. They were given permission to stay on the property as long as they kept Ed from messing with their bulls and didn't touch their crops. It wasn't the best place for three escaped slaves to hide out in, but it was better than nothing.
Ruka kept staring at Eddy with an unreadable face.
"...did I get some of the meat on my shirt?" Eddy asked her.
Ruka then took her sword, planted the blade into the ground, and got on her knees in front of Eddy while bowing to him.
"Uh…" Eddy wasn't sure what to make of this.
Ruka cleared her throat and began, "Flat- no, Lord Eddy. From this day on, until I breathe my last, I am yours to command."
The three Eds were at a bit of a loss.
"Um, okay? Man, this is weird." Eddy said.
"She's proposing! Eddy, you lucky dog!" Ed teased.
"Wait, what? Uh, no way! No offense, but I'm not ready for that!" Eddy told her.
"I think it's more she's pledging her allegiance to you, Eddy." Double-D told him.
"Truth." Ruka remarked, "You saved me from a fate worse than death. I can't think of any other way to repay this debt than pledging my full allegiance to you."
"I thought you already did that?" Eddy asked.
"Well…that was more until a better opportunity showed itself." Ruka admitted.
Eddy paused a bit, "Huh, I can respect that."
"Ruka, may I ask something?" Double-D asked.
"What is it, flatskin?" Ruka asked.
"What is Rebirth? Is it really that terrible?"
"Yes."
There was a pause.
"Um, would you please elaborate?" Double-D asked.
Ruka looked back to Eddy.
"Just tell him, he'll keep asking." Eddy told her.
Ruka nodded, "In the Shek Kingdom, the rumors of Rebirth tell of a place worse than Hell. It is in the northmost part of the Holy Nation, on a mountain where the Okranites take their sinners, and any so-called demons they capture. There, in Rebirth, they work them to death. Not complying results in losing a leg, an arm, or even your life."
"My word…why would they do such a thing?" Double-D asked.
"The Okranites seem to believe only by working yourself to death in service to them is the only way to atone for 'sins' or for existing as a shek or a bugman. They say that after you die, you will be reborn as a true, pure, Okranite in the Holy Nation." Ruka explained.
There was a heavy silence in the air.
"That is stupid." Ed remarked.
Yeah, that's putting it lightly, Ed.
"Oh my… I take it you being here is a major inconvenience." Double-D summarized.
Ruka nodded, "We have to get out of these lands as fast as possible."
Eddy took out the map, "Right, Double-D, find us the fastest way out."
Double-D looked over the map, "Eddy…you added locations?" he asked.
Eddy shrugged, "Uh, yeah? I had to pass the time somehow."
"...Eddy, I'm sorry I doubted you."
"You what?" Eddy asked.
"Anyway, the fastest way back to the Hub should be to the south." Double-D surmised.
"What about the knights?" Ed asked.
Double-D rubbed his big chin, "Hmm…yes, they would be a problem if we ran into them again…"
Ruka pointed at a white spot on the map directly west of the farm, "Here is the border of the Holy Nation. We should head there."
"What is all that white?" Double-D asked.
"I don't know." Ruka admitted.
"...that's not very reassuring."
Eddy grabbed the map, "I say we give it a shot. It's gotta be less risky than a bunch of armored racists with massive swords."
"On the road again!" Ed cheered.
"I suppose if we are all in agreement…" said Double-D.
And so our heroes headed west towards the mysterious lands of mist. Avoiding one potentially horrible fate, and approaching another.