John awoke peacefully, his stomach announcing his hunger with a loud growl. He stood and stretched, gathered up his belongings and retracted a doorway from the side of the pod he placed himself in. The forest was still dark, however the shafts of light that broke through the canopy illuminated enough to safely travel. He set off walking in the same direction he had before, there was no way to know which way he should be heading, he had run so far from the camp and paid so little attention that he didn't think he'd be able to find his way back so forward was as good a direction as any.

After an hour of walking his stomach began growling louder than it had before and John started to worry, he had no desire to lose his mind once more. After another half hour, he was getting more and more worried when he stumbled out into a clearing. A group of 3 deer like creatures the size of horses were eating something towards the centre of the clearing so John activated stealth and started to creep in their direction, he slowly made his way behind them and as he grew closer he was able to see what they were eating. They were tearing into the carcass of a rabbit about the size of a large dog. John had a moment of pause at the unexpected scene of huge carnivorous deer before he directed stone spikes to erupt from the ground into their chests and skewering their hearts and lungs. A surprised bleet came from each of them as they struggled weakly before eventually going still. He immediately sprang on one of the corpses as soon as it went still, devouring its flesh and gulping down as much of its blood as it could. The clearing was filled with the squelching smacks and sickening snaps of flesh and bone being stripped and chewed. By the time he had completely devoured the first deer he was so full he felt sick but a grotesque smile spread up his face in satisfaction. He moved onto the next deer and rather than just taking a leg this time, John took the time to carve choice pieces of meat from it and placed them in his inventory. When he had filled it with as much meat as he could comfortably carry he proceeded to use assimilate on the corpses. The rabbit and the one he had eaten were so damaged it would not even activate and the skill failed on both of the others.

John let out a satisfied burping sound as he used the crass to wipe the worst of the blood from himself. Looking around the clearing once more to make sure nothing had been attracted by the sounds and smells coming from him, he left the corpses and headed off back through the forest. It took 3 days for John to find a road, he had managed to hunt for food and there wasn't anything that gave him much trouble with magic at his disposal, he was surprised that he didn't run into anything big but wasn't about to complain about his good fortune. Surprisingly the trecking through the wilderness had earned him 2 points in endurance and 1 in strength. His Earth Manipulation was halfway through level 9 but he hadn't really messed around with runes. He didn't want to risk experimenting out in the wilds in case something had gone wrong and left him injured and vulnerable but he intended to try it our when he could.

He managed to wash off the worst of the blood covering him in a nearby brook and assumed his gnomish form, then set off down the road, hopefully towards civilisation. It was a full 2 days before he met anyone else, a vehicle was headed down the road towards him so putting on his best impression of a scared young lady he flagged down the vehicle. It was a large, iron metal box, more akin to a carriage than a car and was hovering about a foot off of the ground. It was sparsely decorated with odd filigree made of copper around the doors and the front. The front had a green tinted glass windshield that he could not see into. Finally, a soft blue glow emitted from the underside of the carriage, presumably from the mana that powered it. As it drew closer it slowed to a stop and one of the doors opened, inside was a couple of old wiry gnomes, one male, one female. The old man had a rather long grey beard, silvery white hair that went past his elbows and he was wearing some kind of deep blue robe. The woman was similarly attired but had shorter, curly grey hair and a lack of facial hair that revealed a weathered face full of laughter lines. John immediately started talking.

"Oh thank goodness you stopped, I've been lost out here for days, I was kidnapped from the road by a group of goblins and after I escaped I had no idea where I was so I just kept running and... please... please help me"

The couple shared a glance between each other and there seemed to be some kind of silent conversation between them, he wasn't sure if magic was being used and they were actually talking or if they were just communicating with looks but eventually the old woman turned back to John.

"Of course, child please, get in we're rather full so you'll have to squeeze in though"

Nodding and thanking the woman she approached the back of the vehicle and climbed in once the door popped open. It was a little awkward climbing up since he was so short but he managed and managed to sit on a cushioned seat that was in the back, true to what she had said the back was full of luggage and he had to shuffle in past some things but still managed. As soon as he was settled they were off again, the ride extremely smooth, the only way he knew they were moving was by looking outside of the windshield and the brief acceleration as they got up to speed.

"Are you injured at all? Where is it you were headed when you were kidnapped? Why was it that you were walking rather than travelling by mana-cart?"

The old lady rattled off questions to John, clearly a little excitable but also showing some concern as well. Presumably, a mana-cart was what they called the thing they were riding in.

"No, I managed to escape before they did anything to me but there was a big explosion after I got out so I think I'm pretty lucky to have gotten out of there. I was outside of Tinkerton before it vanished, along with pretty much all of my belongings, including my mana-cart, I was just going to head down the road until I found somebody when they got me...."

John trailed off and made sure to sound timid towards the end, giving the impression that he was scared and didn't really want to go into detail about the event. The couple just had another silent conversation again, several minutes later the old man nodded and the lady turned back to John.

"We're heading home to Yarrin, you're welcome to stay with us in the city for a little while if you'd like? Just until you get yourself back on your feet, this whole thing has hit a lot of people hard and we'd be happy to help, we have room to spare anyway since our kids left so you'd be no bother. I'm Mary Drizzletek and this is my husband Jax. What's your name?"

"I'm Kelly Steambink and if you're sure I wouldn't be a problem I'd really appreciate that."

That was the name that he had decided on whilst walking down the road, it wasn't weird as far as he could tell from Tilly's memories and the couple didn't seem to pause at all. They simply nodded and the carried on driving down the road. They made idle chatter as they went, John slowly learning how best to interact with gnomes as they talked. Jax didn't speak a word the entire time but seemed content to just listen. John learned that they were both water mages but they were nowhere near as strong as they were when they were younger but even then they were barely above average, however, their ability to manipulate mana had made them reasonably wealthy as most mages were. As they talked a city began to grow from the horizon and John saw for the first time what gnomish civilisation looked like.