We have a long journey home. Along the way, I have time to get to know the people I’m traveling with; the folks who saved me and the others. Goro is pushing the wagon with 50 people in it. He’s not doing it solo, but he’s eight feet tall, and built like one of the new improved NFL centers. When I asked why, he said he might as well help, and that it's good exercise: leg day. I ask him about himself, and like most people, he’s not shy about sharing.

Goro started out as a big, strong guy. He was nearly seven feet tall and solid instead of skinny in our old big and healthy world; about nine inches above average. His parents moved from Miyazaki to Minneapolis when his mom was pregnant, so he grew up playing football instead of Sumo wrestling. Then when the world changed, the plant offered him the option to configure his appearance, and he took it. Much like with me and my tail, he saw an option and he paid for it. He says that that the hardest part of living with the four arms is trying to make all the different parts work together. When he gets past the first gate, he’s going to upgrade his ability to control each of his arms separately. I note how smart that is, and hope to remember to do that myself.

I ask him how soon he’s going past the gate. He said he’d been ready to go, but then Priya asked for help, and he owed a debt. Priya had healed him after a wrestling match he’d had with a fifty foot crocodile. He claims that he’d been kicking its ass when a giant eagle decided to make it a three way match, and he got cut up a bit. Now that he's fulfilled his debt to Priya, he has no reason to stick around, and he really needs better arm control. So a couple days back in town partying it up, and he'll be moving on.

He's pretty beat up about his inability to handle more zombies. He swears that with just a bit more speed plus the ability to split his attention, he could have taken the whole zombie horde by himself. Maybe when he passes the gate, he'll be able to upgrade his fire magic as well, and do something cool like flaming swords. That would've really fucked up the zombies. He admits it might have gotten hairy when they sped up, even with great arm control and fire, if I hadn’t been there to speed him up. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more impressive combatant than Goro, and I make sure to let him know that. I also let him know that I owe him a life-debt. Anything he asks, within my power to fulfill and it’s his.

He’s got a serious answer for me: “I’m going on to zone two. I don’t need anything from you. Pay it forward, and I’ll consider it settled.” He holds out one of the oven mitts he calls hands, and we shake. He gets back to pushing, and I get to playing a pick-me-up march on my toms.

The slaves are only barely starting to realize they don’t have to meditate all the time. They just look around at the world they haven't seen in subjective years as we travel. It's large and empty and picturesque, with lots of grasslands and lots of rolling hills that we try to avoid with our cart. Two of them even get out and walk for a while, before getting back in the cart. They’re all more than a little bit out of shape.

In the first day, we have a monster encouter with a dozen perytons. I demonstrate, for the first time with this group, that I'm not useless in a fight, even when I can't find the time-magic. Getting stunned while flying is frequently fatal. Getting stunned while flying near Goro or Danae is always fatal. The other person who shines in the fight is Carter, who not only flies around playing mace-tag with the scary bitey deer-birds, but he uses his air magic to make sure they sometimes don't turn as well. That's also frequently fatal when diving.

The only times I get to talk to Carter are in the evenings. The rest of the time, he’s scouting. Carter is a strange one. He’s kinda iffy about people, but he likes to fly and to talk about flying. He grew up dreaming of the sky. All he ever wanted to do was fly. When he was little, he flew kites and painted model drones. When he got older, he conned his parents into letting him skydive a couple times, and took hang gliding lessons. He worked in the airport cafeteria to make money to take flying lessons, and spent nights and weekends playing flight simulators. He got his eyes lasik’ed the day he turned eighteen, so he could pass the air force vision exam. It worked out. He not only got into the air force, but he became a pilot.

He didn’t re-up because he didn’t want to lead or command, just to fly. He got a job as a commercial pilot after his stint in the military. On his weekends, after doing cross country flights for Delta, he took his ultralight out and spent hours gliding over the mountains. The man is a maniac about flying and now he has wings. He thinks this world is perfect.

He laughs about six months he spent when he was fourteen, studying everything he could find about lucid dreaming. Why did he do that? So he could fly in his sleep of course. It worked, he tells me, but it’s nothing like real flying. He says that there’s not enough detail in the sensations.

Why did he come to help save me? Because Priya fixed one of his wings, and he owed her: she let him fly again. Also because it was three days of flying on the way here, with folks who would fight off creatures who gave him trouble.

Is there anything I can do for him? Not really. I can’t help him fly better. And anyway, he says we’re already even. He had no idea that aeromancy could tinker around with air pressure. He’d just been using it to fly. So he’s better off having come to help me anyhow. I impress upon him how seriously I think our scales are imbalanced, and that I remain in his debt. He says, “I’ll remember that. If I ever need something, I’ll let you know. And play more flying songs.” He grins, and I make sure I play the Steve Miller Band’s song Fly Like An Eagle later that day.

The third person to have joined in my rescue is Danae. She’s at the front, encouraging her horse to pull. Between Miguel working the metallomancy, Goro pushing, and the horse pulling, they’re able to move the near-40 people on the giant cart. Moving it, though, doesn't imply it's moving terribly quickly.

I hadn’t taken a good look at her until now, what with the other two crazy-modded folks joining us. She’s young, dark skinned, with mostly African features, but longer straighter hair. Is she thirteen? She can’t be thirteen. Alec said that fifteen was the cutoff. Then it’s been two years since then. She looks like one of those 2010s and 20s black gymnastic champions. Wasn’t the most famous one 4’8”?

“I wanted to thank you for coming to save me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Can I ask why? Why’d you come to save me?”

“That’s what knights do. Me and my trusty steed Maximus, we travel the world doing good deeds, slaying monsters and saving dudes in distress.”

“Really?” Is this kid for real?

“Kinda.” She is young, but young like seventeen or eighteen, not like thirteen. She’s just a tiny person, maybe reaching five feet, and if the old world were still here, she’d probably be in high school even now.

“Is there a rest of that? You certainly saved me. And I’ve never seen anyone move a weapon like you do. Is there a story there?”

“Yeah,” she says, “There's a story.”