The folks here are nice enough. I’ve learned a bit about my neighbors' backgrounds. Tay was a bullied high schooler. Rick was a Las Vegas businessman. Beef had just joined the special forces and was a general meathead. Jace was a retail manager, Gemma and Leah were retail employees, and Cad was a minister. Most of the group were younger than me.

Is that because they were better able to handle the change? Ray and Cad are in their early thirties, but everyone else is in their twenties or late teens. Were younger folks better able to change? Were folks born before ‘20 just too coddled?None of those can be all the way true. Tom was an older guy. No idea about hell-bitch. Mary and Yulia are unclear as to their ages, and I suspect they're older than twenty-nine.

Besides audiomancy and running, the other thing that this last couple months has given me is actual fighting practice. It’s not the same as fighting against giant animals, but sparring against people is starting to give me the basics of combat instincts.

Flynn is a good instructor. Not only is he an expert martial artist, he’s also a competent teacher. And I learn about different kinds of weapons. My short sticks coupled with my speed are great against longer weapons like the halberd-looking thing that Tanya fights with or Gemma’s or Mary’s spear. On the other hand, I’m all but useless against Victor’s sword and shield, especially with the rest of his metal armor. Zeke and his large axe would be a pretty good matchup for me, if I could hurt him at all, but between his toughness and my lack of strength, even a full strength swing against the fingers holding his axe barely annoys him. Tay likes batons for her hand-to-hand fighting, and my additional speed is super-useful here, since she isn’t made of steel. But she’s got more grit. I win a lot of our spars, but wouldn’t want to fight her for real. Chaim is probably my easiest matchup. He can’t hide from my sonic powah, and his laser turns too slow to hit me.

Yulia is the closest thing I have to a comparable fighter. She’s not as fast as me, but she’s a lot better. That bit about being able to take on an old school earth martial artist because I’m faster...Yeah, no. My three sticks against her two swords. She’s a much much better fighter, plus stronger and tougher. I’ve got three weapons and four times her speed. She wipes the floor with me every time we spar.

On the other hand, fighting with her is getting me a much better idea of how you’re supposed to use more than one weapon. Even Coach P. grudgingly admits that I’m a lot better now.

That’s the good part. And five months in, I’ve made a yellow thaum purely from my time here. Also, life sucks.

I go on hunts with friendly young people. That only half-sucks. The people are cool, and learning how to fight monsters is good. Fighting against monsters in an environment where there’s safety and healing available is making me a lot better. The monsters are very different from fighting the people. They have much more power. Mostly they have more speed too, but a lot less skill.

On the other hand, hunting sucks. I’m almost a vegetarian pacifist at this point. Well, I would be if we ate. I only go out because the others are hunting with or without me, and it really does help my fighting--especially when Cad’s around. Also, working together in a fight is a whole new thing. Regardless, hunting sucks. Drummer not fighter, etc.

More suckiness comes from the general presence of lots of mind-blowingly beautiful women, none of whom seem interested in me. Yeah, sex drive is off and everything, but there are mental habits built in to people, and Ms. Klem from sex ed always used to remind us that sexual reproduction predates multi-cellular life. Two billion years of evolution pushing us towards reproduction does not simply walk off into the sunset. So it's hard around the ladies, who are each hotter than any Victoria Secret model I ever saw.

The real shittiness, though, is that there are no musicians. Like, literally, no one in this whole goddamn town sings or plays a guitar. Rick can carry a tune in a bucket, but he’s not willing to sing with me. I think he’s busy boning Mary in the evenings. I can hear pretty much everything that happens in town. My radar hawk doesn’t only work for sonar.

The least sucky part of no fellow musicians is that I’m a better musician than when I got here. My guitar is better, my singing is quite a bit better, and my three-handed drumming is magnificent. I’m as fluid as I used to be, but now there’s more parts.

I can record sound in thirty second spots, and I can maintain two recordings before releasing them again. I can play fast, while accompanying myself from a recording. I can even record two separate tracks, and mix them live, with volume control. I’m probably the only multi-track musician in this dimension.

My layered-wave thaum production has more or less capped out. I’ve got six waves running, and it’s pretty damn fast, but I don’t seem to have the brains to keep track of the seventh layer of wave. Or maybe I just can’t see well enough. Even so, six layers of thaum-wave, along with second tier moving meditation, and the ability to add a tail into my normal four-limbed rhythms, means I’m so far ahead of the thaum regeneration curve, it’s not funny. I don’t even need an hour of regen a night when going all out. That means I don’t play at max any more, because I’d rather play tunes, and I’m not getting better with drums on the practice.

I’m mostly stuck. What I need is better hearing and maybe a better voice. I can get a lot better hearing with my yellow thaum, if I can get to zone two. And maybe I can find a musician along the way.

I start trying to figure out how to tell the folks I’m leaving. I start playing the blues to help me think. Muddy Waters. John Lee Hooker. And the best blues-rock drummer I can think of: Whipper. He played with Double Trouble, which most folks think of as Stevie Ray Vaugn’s band, and Arc Angels. Blues help soothe the sad soul.