***Tirnanog, The Forest***

***Magnus***

The next morning brought a pleasant surprise with it. When I awoke in the treetops, I saw what the dimming light had hidden from me the previous day.

Civilization!

In the distance, I could clearly see an impressive wall of at least forty metres in height. Someone had used the enormous trees of this world to build a wooden fort! Something else caught my eye. It was a grove of enormous trees which did a good job at dwarfing redwoods. It looked like it originated directly from within the settlement.

If I had pushed myself a little harder yesterday, I would already be over there and in safety.

Moving quickly, I packed up my rope and got my gear ready. Then I climbed down the tree and watered it as a thank you gift for keeping me safe during the night.

Then I was on my way, moving with vigour through the forest.

Knowing my ultimate goal was so close, I totally overlooked the fact my little saurians were gone until it was almost too late. I realized something was up when the forest turned eerily silent around me. Normally, you could hear the cries of one animal or another, but my surroundings were suddenly quiet.

Then I noticed that my little friends had bidden me farewell.

I activated my second sight and searched my surroundings. Thanks to that, I was already in the process of readying my spear when a white fluffball appeared from the thick brushwood less than twenty meters away from me. The creature was large, but it looked adorable with its huge, round eyes.

Maybe people would call me a monster for trying to kill such an innocent-looking creature, but I was fed up with the flora and fauna of this world. Everything I had met so far had tried to kill me. Except for the saurians, but they didn’t count.

My spear was already flying before the creature had noticed me, landing point-blank in its fluffy chest. The shaft snapped in the middle and was stuck, still quivering from the force of my throw.

The fluffball stared in stunned shock at the wooden stick which had dared to ruffle its fur.

Seeing that wooden sticks were no contest against fluffball fur, I was already running with all my might towards what could only be the Old Camp.

One could say I was a wise person and wanted to avoid a fight in which I was clearly the underdog. Well, maybe that was the case, but several more energy signatures that I had seen wavering behind the fluffball had convinced me this wouldn’t be a fair fight.

The fluffball’s bellow of outrage assured me a few moments later that it was calling for its family.

Since my quick decision to run for the hills had bought me a few seconds worth of a head-start, I dared to throw a look at my pursuers.

More than ten fluffballs were bouncing over hill and dale after me. Their paws had revealed sharp claws which were more than a match for Utah-raptors and their maws had a few more rows of teeth than was biologically necessary in my opinion.

That had me turn my attention back to my goal and run even faster. I wanted to scream for help, but arriving at the Old Camp while screaming like a bitch would have probably ruined my social chances.

So I decided to hide my fear of the creatures with insanity.

“Ha! Hahahaha!” I ran like a madman, laughing about the fact that I could actually run faster than them. Nonetheless, my legs kept pumping like crazy.

Behind me, I heard the frustrated snarls coming from the pack of monsters. They were after me like crazed fluffballs, but couldn’t catch up. Two-meter-sized fluffballs, more fur than creature, with huge claws. And if I had seen correctly, then the leader scratched on the three-meter mark.

The monsters were relentless, showing no sign of getting tired, but the wall was already within sight.

To my great displeasure, the bastards who were manning the wall found my plight to be funny. As soon as they noticed me, they started cheering as if they were watching a race!

I concentrated on breathing correctly and put more effort into moving my legs.

Unfortunately for me, it looked like my muscles weren't built for long-distance sprints. I felt the ache in my feet. My lungs were burning while my heartbeat hammered in my ears, but I had to keep going.

I activated all of my reserves and abandoned my improvised rucksack, figuring my meagre belongings weren’t worth my life.

'More! Just a little more!' I told myself while my body screamed its dissatisfaction.

The wall was so close and I started to get tunnel vision, but there was a ray of hope!

The men on the wall were lowering a rope ladder.

Once I was close enough, I concentrated on charging the muscles in my legs similarly to when I threw something with my arm. Performing the complicated motions necessary for running was currently impossible, but a single jump was well within my capabilities.

I launched myself upwards and smacked flatly against the wooden wall. The force of the impact drove the air out of me, but I grabbed the rope before I could fall while someone else pulled me up from above.

Beneath me, I heard the fluffballs’ yips and snarls of anger when spears with real spearheads came raining down around me. Judging by the yowls, they managed to inflict some damage, but my eyes were on the wall’s parapet.

Then I was finally up and two strong men pulled me over the wall and onto a walkway. “Thhhanks!” I wheezed out on the intake of air between hyperventilating breaths. I was so winded that I had to go to my knees and lie down. My body felt like I had taken a bath in battery acid.

“Hahaha! No problem, Newbie!” One of the men slapped me on the chest. “You won me an evening of as much as I can drink! Are’ya from the first batch they sent this season, or have they sent a second already? You are late. Two nights out there is one night too much if you ask me.”

I wasn’t sure what to answer, but I nodded and shrugged in reply while I tried to breathe normally.

“Right. Just catch your breath.” The man looked at his comrade. “I will bring him to the registration.”

The other guard grunted. “Just don’t get lost prematurely on the way there. I won’t pay if you leave me hanging for the rest of the shift.”

The friendly guard returned his attention to me. That was apparently all the rest I would get because he bent down and pulled me to my feet. “Simmens is the name, lad.”

I allowed him to pull me up but bristled at being addressed as a 'lad'.

“Lad? I am thirty-three!” I complained while I was being shown towards a ladder which led down into the Old Camp. Which turned out to be a wooden village.

“Congratulations!” The guard laughed. “Now you are zero. Zero years of survival in this hell of a world. But what I saw was a good start.” He gestured along the walkway towards the ladder. “That's the way down, lad. Remember for the future, the wall is for the guards alone. If we catch you up here next time, we'll throw you down the other side.”

“Right,” I replied grumpily and did as instructed. The last two metres on my way down, I tested my finger strength to slide down the ladder.

It worked perfectly and left me waiting for the guard.

Following the authorities right after arriving on a supposedly lawless world grated on my nerves, since it simply repeated the same problem I had back on Earth. But there was little choice at the moment. I knew literally nothing about these people.

The guard, Simmens, arrived and pointed down what looked like the main street. “Follow.”

Then he set a brisk pace that left me almost no time to take in my surroundings. The wooden village was a confusing mixture of medieval necessity and modern considerations. The people were mutants, some as horrific as others were beautiful.

But aside from that, the people behaved like I would have expected them to. Some were walking towards some unknown goal, paying us no attention. Others were sitting at open restaurants or perusing a merchant’s wares.

We had gone over fifty metres before I remembered to ask questions. “Could you please tell me what’s going on? Where are we going?”

“No sense in telling you. That's Gurney's job,” the guard replied. “All the newcomers are taken to Gurney to register. That's one of the few rules. He will be interested in someone who can outrun gutters.”

“Gutters?” I asked, dumbfounded.

He gestured for me to move faster. “The creatures that were hunting you. We call them gutters because they like to use their claws to rip the intestines out of people. They eat all the organs and leave the rest for the scavengers. Hence, gutters,” Simmens explained.

Maybe gutter was a better name than fluffball.

I tried to ask a few more questions, but my guide wasn’t very forthcoming with his answers from then on.

At least I learned that the local money system was based purely on trading goods. Or that the law of the strongest ruled. Which meant people did what the clans wanted.

Okay. Maybe Simmens wasn’t to blame for me not learning much. Aside from asking questions, I had my hands full with gawking at the townsfolk and the buildings in general.

Even Simmens had some strange mutation that turned the hair on his head into spikes!

The buildings created a unique log-house town. Everything was built as sturdy as possible with the available natural materials. Nobody paid us any attention as far as I could tell, though I noticed the population was almost exclusively male. There was also nobody younger than twenty as far as I could see.

The few times I saw a woman wandering around, I noticed that she was much better dressed than the rest of the townspeople. It either hinted that these clans got supplies from Earth, or that their technology level was higher than that of the Old Camp.

We eventually reached a plaza.

It had the first building made out of concrete that I encountered in this world. Sensibly enough, it was a bunker.

There was also a pond to my left and a grove of gigantic trees to my right. Looking up at the distant canopy, I figured these were the trees I had seen from afar.

Simmens led me to the grove and I doggedly wandered after him.

Beneath one of the trees, protected by the shade, a well-fed man sat at a desk with a lot of papers to his left and his right. The fact that he was writing with a quill felt quite quaint to me.

Simmens gestured at the man. “Newbie, this is Gurney. Gurney, this is a new exile.”

Having done his job, the guard turned around and jogged back the way we had come.

I looked after him until I was sure he wouldn’t turn back, then turned my attention to this Gurney character.

The rotund man looked at me and gestured at the chair opposite from him. “Please take a seat. Name?”

Instead of doing as told, I hesitated. “Why do you want my name?”

He pulled out a blank sheet of paper and started to write with perfect letters. “I am Gurney. I am something like an unofficial leader of the Old Camp and I am organizing the arena.” He pointed behind himself at the grove. “In reality, I am working for the clans as a lookout for new talents and members. They are paying me well. For that purpose, I keep track of everyone who enters and leaves this place.”

After his obviously rehearsed speech ended, he looked up to me and raised both eyebrows questioningly.

“Why would I want to register?” I kept asking, seeing no point in being hasty about this.

Gurney sighed. “You have seen the Old Camp on your way here. This place is a garbage dump compared to the clans. It’s a dead end. If you ever want to get out of here, you have to throw in with one of the clans. They won’t accept you otherwise.”

I slowly pulled the chair closer and sat down. “Call me Tulkas.” I didn’t want someone to know that Magnus had survived the forest until I was sure my enemies from Earth couldn’t follow me to this place.

“The last of the Valar that came to Arda?” Gurney asked with a doubtful expression and smiled.

I stiffened, cursing my mistake, but I really hadn’t thought someone would have read that old book.

“I have read Lord of the Rings.” He rolled his eyes. “Listen, nobody will blame you for what you did back on Earth. Being here is enough punishment. Think of it as a new chance. Nonetheless, the more honest you are with me, the better is your chance at ending up with a clan you can live with.” He leaned closer and whispered. “I try my best to send each asshole to a fitting place.”

Gurney nonetheless returned his attention to his paper and wrote down Tulkas as my name.

“Reason for being here?”

I pressed my lips together and tried to think of something.

“Listen.” Gurney put his quill down when I took too long. “Lie if you must, but try to come up with something fitting you. The people who will read this will decide whether they want you in their clan or not. Maybe I should have explained the process a little better.”

Gurney waved his hand at the grove, or arena, as he called it. “I am... a matchmaking service. To say it in modern-day terms, the easiest way for you to get a clan invitation is to be an attractive partner for one of the clanswomen. They are searching for partners with fitting mutations to gain more power. The other possibility is to have an ability so absurdly useful that they want you for that alone.”

I closed my mouth. A matchmaking service!?

He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Do you have such an ability? Like, healing others? Laser eyes that burn all the critters out there to a crisp?”

“I don't think so?” I replied questioningly.

“Okay! So, if you paid attention, you have already heard this from the fucked up scientists from Earth, but your evolution and power growth will stagnate pretty soon unless you partner up with a woman. Preferably to make a lot of babies!”

Gurney scoffed. “Don’t look at me like that. I also find their methods abhorrent. It wasn’t me who came up with the system.” Then he frowned. “But how do they say? We are the ones who have to deal with the facts? So, are you in or not? You can turn around and see for yourself how you survive. Nothing convinces a man quicker than being on his own for a winter or two… if you make it. Most of the clanspeople go home during the winter, so there is a time limit on this offer.”

“Fine!” I thought quickly. “As long as I can back out if this gets too awkward. My reason for being here is murder then. Because of revenge. Someone got my loved ones killed and I offed them in return. It's as simple as that.”

“Oh, say no more!” Gurney wrote down what I had said. “The girls love nothing more than a good, old revenge story because of love. Give me some skills, education?”

We went through a rapid session of questions about my mundane abilities.

I had been here and there over the course of my life. The more questionable skills I had acquired during my time with the resistance. I explained them away with military service.

Like my mediocre combat skills. I had received some training, but with my old body, I had never been able to physically keep up with the professional trainers.

The thought struck me that this was no longer the case.

He stopped me when I told him I had studied physics. “You remember anything that helps with getting a real civilisation running? It’s a big bonus point with the clans.”

I pointed out I had read up on ‘How things work’ before I came here.

Gurney's expression was doubtful. “They allowed you to read while you were incarcerated?”

“Revenge murder, remember?” I reminded him. “I had a pretty good idea I would land here if I went through with my plan. So I prepared as much as I could.”

He bought the explanation.

“Okay.” Gurney looked up once he had written everything down. “Now to your mutations, which will be the main reason why a clan would invite you. You know how this works?” He looked at me. “No, you don’t, it’s written all over your face.”

Gurney rolled his eyes while he gathered his thoughts. “The main reason why the clans are even interested in men – there are way too many of us if you have paid attention on the way to me – is because they need people who are compatible for unlocking their full potential.

“You will demonstrate your abilities in the arena and the girls will choose you if you impress them. Please remember winning a fight doesn’t mean you get to choose the girl. This isn’t like a stallion claiming a mare. More like a peacock showing off to attract the hens.”

“There is something seriously wrong with your analogies,” I commented drily. “Are we animals?”

“In this world, we are! Prey animals,” Gurney replied with more cheer than I found warranted.

“Our possible mutations are capped until we team up with a member of the other sex,” Gurney explained. “It’s something those sickos back on Earth did to ensure that we breed. So as long as you haven’t found ‘your other half’ you will forever be weaker than someone who has.”

“Okay,” I replied slowly. “They already hinted at something like that.”

“Let’s start with basic knowledge. One perk of being one of my charges is that you get exclusive access to my experience. I am no scientist, but I can tell you what turns you into a mindless monster under guarantee. I can prevent you from making a grave mistake that kills you outright. Or to stop you from ending up in an evolutionary dead end.”

That reminded me of the bug-mutant I had encountered in the woods. “I think I know what you are talking about.”

I gave him a short recount of the experience.

Maybe trying my luck with Gurney wasn’t the worst of ideas. If I understood correctly, then I didn’t have much freedom for mistakes by ‘testing’ different evolutions. “It would be nice to know what’s safe to eat. On the way here, I refused an easy meal after seeing what it did to that other exile.”

Gurney nodded. “Let’s see. Mind you, I'm no scientist, this is just a personal theory of mine based on what I have seen from all the people I interviewed.”

He quickly drew a table with ten entries onto my paper. “Before we partner up, we have a capability of ten evolution points before our nanotech decides to conk out. Some people have more, some less. But ten points is a safe assumption.”

Gurney placed a hand on a stack of papers. “I have catalogued every mutation I came across and weighed its severity from one to four. There are minor ones like heightened senses, and major ones that do something drastic to your body.” He pinched the fat on his belly, indicating it was something special.

“First, food. If you don’t want an evolution, boil the shit out of everything you eat. An hour at least. That should deteriorate the DNA enough so that the nanotech can’t use it anymore. Or eat stuff that you already ate. It improves the abilities you already have.”

I pulled a face. Boiled meat was the greatest culinary sin I could think of.

“Then, doubling up on evolutions, don’t do that. Ever!” Gurney made a cutting motion with his hand. “To take the example of your eyes, don’t eat anything that adds a heat-vision mutation. Different mutations to the same body part and people go bonkers! If it doesn’t turn you into a mindless beast outright. It’s like trying to write a second piece of code over an existing one and mixing both of them in the process! What you will end up with ninety-nine per cent of the time is something that doesn’t work. At all!”

“How do you mean that?” I asked. “What’s wrong with my eyes?”

“I bet you ate nightstalker. Have seen it before.” Gurney pulled a small mirror from his chest pocket and polished it. Then he showed me.

I looked and froze at what I saw. Thankfully, I didn’t freak out like when I had noticed the additional muscles.

My eyes glowed faintly blue.

And then there was the strange, teardrop-shaped, reddish discolouration of my skin beneath my eyes. Right on my cheekbones, and a thin outlier ran to my temples and disappeared right behind my ears.

Thankfully, it wasn’t as fucked up as many of the other mutations I had seen. Slowly, I raised my hand and touched the reddish spot beneath my right eye. It felt normal, which explained why I hadn’t noticed it up until now. There were few mirrors in the forest. Maybe I could have seen it in the lake’s water, but there had never been the right conditions for it.

I activated my second sight and the spots opened like a second pair of glowing eyes. Only that everything happened beneath my skin! The white of my eyes also slid away to the sides, revealing the faint glow-effect in full!

That caused me to jump out of my chair.

“Fuck!” I exclaimed and switched off my second sight. Then I rubbed at my face, wishing I hadn’t seen that.

“Definitely nightstalker,” Gurney commented and put the mirror away.

I settled back down, doing much better than when I had noticed the muscles. That had me hitting myself as if I desired self-mutilation. “Fine.”

Gurney returned his attention to the paper. “So, going above ten points is a high risk, but possible if you decide to take the chance. The more you add, the higher the risk of fucking up. And if you go higher, you will for sure encounter the cap I spoke about. At least once that happens you won't have to worry about your food. Small things are one point. Stuff that affects the whole body takes two. And there are some mutations I deem as three, but that’s experience-based only. Most first mutations give you a little extra and have to be weighted more heavily. If you tell me what you have, I can go through my lists and check. Together, we will figure this out. No worries.”