After sleeping the night before on a hard, tilted wood platform, the sleeping bag felt like heaven. Some guys I camped with complained about two things, regarding sleeping bags, that they were too heavy for the padding and the bags are not very practical for a couple. I can attest to the latter but never had problems with the former. The amount of padding on my sleeping bag coupled with the thermal mat is just fine for me.

I got out and did my stretches. The mare I bonded with came to ask for some oats, I could sense her wishes, and I still couldn't figure out a good name for her. Some people can name things and pets on a whim but not me. I need to think of the best name. Nothing had come to mind yet. I gave her some oats in the feed bag and brushed her fur.

Better look after myself too. I ate some dried meat with water.

I studied my surroundings. The trees around me seemed oddly familiar. Elongated leaves and a tiny round and elongated fruit smaller than my thumb. Looked like olives. They were unripe though. I've never been to Greece but I've been in an olive orchard in Tuscany. This gave me a good grasp of the month. I took my laptop and confirmed my hunch. It was late August or early September, assuming I was in the northern hemisphere.

Assuming the year here had the same length and these olive trees were similar to the ones on Earth.

I checked the gloves I used to drag the bodies. They were completely repaired. That meant that as long as I kept a piece of an object, that object would be entirely restored over time. The only way to lose an object was to lose it entirely. Consumables don't seem to follow this rule, however. The burrito I ate yesterday is still M.I.A. I kept the foil packaging and no burrito reappeared. Add utterly destroyed to the list to fit consumables then. The next test is the timelessness of the extradimensional storage. I took my phone and iPod. They had different times now since I used the phone yesterday.

That was enough time wasted. My plans for today were to travel south, reach some settlement I was sure that road connected to and find a place to stay. If I found a good body of water, take a bath. I was sure I was stinking but I wasn't going to check. Some things are best left unknown. And it was better to be on the road. I got on my mare and imagined her riding south. She went out of the grove back on the road.

She wanted to run. I was afraid I'd fall from the saddle as I had nowhere to hold on because my horse had no reins. After emotionally arguing back and forth, we settled on a canter. It was my third time riding a horse and I had no confidence I'd be able to hold in even gripping hard on the saddle's horn.

After a couple hours, we left the sparse forest and entered the grasslands. On the distance, I could see some hills to the west but the area was mostly plain, covered by a carpet of green undergrowth dotted by some brave trees here and there. I looked around, searching for places where the vegetation was greener. It would indicate a body of water. The road there was straight as an arrow and I could see it would climb a hill a couple kilometers ahead. It would be a good place to scout.

Reaching the top of the hill I take my binoculars and look around. I can see smoke rising far to the south. Probably a town as it is too organized to be a fire. The weather is so dry a fire would burn through this undergrowth like it was paper soaked in gasoline. I find what I wanted though. Two of the things I wanted. I see a figure clothed in colorful clothes moving through the grassy plains, probably crouched and a river coming down from the western hills. It seems this is a plateau. We should be far from the sea, I guess. I can see some places where trees line up but they are not bright lively green like the ones near the river bank. Probably rivers that dry in this season. The terrain gets rougher to the south, with some tall stone spikes, hills, and rises. It is actually lower than where I am now.

I'm definitely on a plateau. The river I saw is going straight to that town. The open terrain is good for agriculture but bad for settlement defense. With monsters on the prowl like the Kongs, it is the safe choice. The fact I don't see a single village in this plateau speaks on how dangerous this region is.

To the north I can see the forest I 'spawned' in and where the merchant caravan met its demise. It is a thicker forest and it seems it goes down and off the plateau. It is odd that a single road, well-traveled by how packed the dirt is and how free of grass the road is. I can see some birds flying to the west and south. Maybe they are huge birds and the apex predators of the region. A human city in the middle of these plains would be fair game for them.

That is all theory though. I had no idea how this world works and what is considered a big bird around these parts. I know that I've seen a human and I'm going to meet them.

We leave the road and ride through the grass. I'm less than a kilometer away from the person moving slowly through the grass as if they're searching for something. In this idyllic morning, there's almost no sound. The grass rustling, blown by the weak breeze that runs over the plateau is the background noise. This grass should have deep roots. The upper layer is still fine gravel and the blades of grass grow through this layer. I think it actually protects the moisture in the softer lower layer from the sun. The grass is not entirely dry or dead. The hairy blades actually help them save water.

Two hundred meters away, I halt my mare and shout.

"Hello there! Hey, you! I'm friendly and mean no harm!"

The person stands up and looks my way. I can see it is an old woman. The clothes she is wearing resemble the ones the dead merchants had. She has a shawl thrown over her head, probably to protect her from the scorching sun.

"Sinnistu rada atti ba annanu minu!" She shouts back at me.

Aww, frag. I didn't see that coming. I did hear the solders speaking and I didn't understand them but during the tension of the fight, I didn't connect the dots. I don't know the language of this place. I can't talk to people. I'm pretty sure I don't even recognize the language. The way she speaks sounds like Arabic or even Aramaic but it is weird-sounding. Like listening to the speech of ancient English and not understanding a thing.

The only Asiatic language I speak is Japanese. All the others are European in origin. I'm upriver without a paddle with this one.

I wave my hands, showing my open and unarmed palms. I have the longsword at my back though. I hope she gets my message.

"I come in peace!"

She scratched her head.

"Ekâme enen lipissati?"

I nodded.

The woman got angry, waved her arm at me and then pointed at her crotch. "Lipissati!" She shouted. And then broke into a cackle. At least her body language I could understand. Did I offend her? She pointed again at her crotch and shouted "Lipissati!"

Then she pointed at me, still laughing. "Lipissati ekâme enem?"

I pointed at my own crotch. "Lipissati?"

Her mirth doubled. "Lipissati!"

The first word I learned in Akkadian was the word for female genitalia. I wish I was making that up. I really wish.

She waved her arm, signaling that I should approach her. I got down from the mare and walked. I felt it wasn't good to approach on horseback.

She smiled. Then she asked, "Sinnistu halaqu?" pointing a finger at me.

I sighed. Language barriers suck. I remembered she used the word 'sinnistu' earlier when asking something of me. Given that 'lipissati' was at the start of the sentence when she asked me back the question she misheard from my English sentence and that 'lipissati' was a substantive, I guess that Akkadian puts the subject first just like Japanese. So 'sinnistu' is a subject and she used it to refer to me. It might mean 'woman' or 'girl'. Time to test it.

I pointed at her since pointing didn't seem like a rude gesture in their culture. "Sinnistu?" I asked. I pointed at me. "Sinnistu?" I repeated the question.

She clapped her hands and chortled. "Sinnistu!" She repeated the same word for both me and her. It meant 'woman' then.

Now that I had a good look at her, I noticed what she was doing. Picking herbs. She had a sickle and several bunches of herbs hanging from her belt. This old lady was out here in the morning picking herbs in her colorful clothes. I didn't have trouble spotting her and neither would any predators. This meant the grasslands were safe during the day or at least the morning. I also didn't see any kind of residence and it meant she came here from wherever she lives, probably not too far away.

The old lady had a spring to her feet and felt full of energy. When I say 'not too far away', I meant a few kilometers. I checked the sun's position, it was one or two hours before noon. She didn't speak neither did I. We stood there in the field of grass, stealing glances at each other. My mare was happy grazing. I noticed she avoided the grass and looked for the herbs growing between the blades. Sometimes a large rock broke the uniform grass and it gave other plants a chance to get some sunlight.

She reached for my hand, I let her. She took it and handled with care, taking a good look at my fingers, the back of my hand and my palm. I had no idea why. Then she let go of my hand and stared at my eyes.

"Tarhun?" She asked, saying the name of the God that put me in this mess.

"Yeah, it was Tarhun that brought me here," I told her with a sigh and a shrug.

To my surprise, she shook her head as if to agree with me. "Tarhun..." She clicked her tongue.

I could be imagining things but I felt she didn't have Tarhun in high esteem.

The old lady checked the bundles of herbs hanging from her waist, looked around and pointed south. At the plume of smoke rising almost straight up. Definitely a town. A fire would've spread out by now even without wind. Distracted I didn't notice what she was doing until she clapped my shoulder. She pointed in the direction of the smoke.

"Alu," She said.

Probably meant home or town. I nodded.

We walked through the grass. I thought she would take the road but she didn't. The old lady glanced behind her at the horse and noticed it was following us. Two hours of trekking through grassy fields I understood why. A group of men was posted on the road, watching it. They were talking but too far away to make any sense. The old lady pointed at a copse of trees and we went there. She pointed at the mare and a tree and made a motion like tying up some rope.

I nodded and took the feed bag. It was the only thing I had that fit over the horse's head. I gave her some oats and left her there with the straps of the feed bag. I sent her the mental image of staying safe in the trees. I didn't get a reply. She moved and waved her hand for me to follow. We crossed the grass crouched, very slowly. We moved until we were about fifty meters from the men. I could hear what they were saying but it was all Akkadian to me.

The old lady took a pouch from her tunic and took a pinch of something from it. She then spoke a few words and sprinkled the dust. It swirled and reflected the sunlight, carried by a breeze in the direction of the men. I was sure there was no wind blowing that way. The dust reached them and soon they started to yawn. A few minutes later they were all sleeping. My jaw dropped. Did she just use magic? Like, real magic? My mind didn't want to admit but even I had supernatural powers. Why wouldn't an old witch use magic? Yeah. She was a witch, wasn't she? There's nothing that can spread through the air and knock out those men without affecting us. The dust...

Yeah. Totally witch. I won't even need to check as Terry Jones did. And I didn't have a duck.

She pointed back at the trees. "Sissu bussuru."

"Sissu?" I neighed. She nodded. "Bussuru?" I waved my hand in a calling or come here motion. She nodded again. Call your horse, she said. I did and the mare came, angry at being left with the feed bag slung over her head. While I was stowing the feed bag, I missed the old lady. Looking back at the road, she was picking the sleeping men's pockets and giggling. I approached to take a good look at them. The men were rugged, poorly dressed and well-armed. Their weapons screamed 'I need maintenance'. If this were one of those point and click games, I bet the tooltip would say "thugs" if I hovered over them. But with the cackling granny robbing them, I had my doubts on who were the bad guys.

At least she wasn't murdering them.

I decided that was a good time to take care of one thing I was delaying for too long. I looked around and found a pretty nice patch of tall grass to crouch in.

After both of us were done with our tasks, we went on our way. And no, she didn't scribble on their faces. That would be silly. Were these guys on the lookout for her? It seemed so. But why send a half-dozen thugs after an old lady? I don't know and I couldn't ask, language barrier and stuff. We kept going on the road and one hour after midday we reached the gates of a town. Or a city-state. Hard to tell. The town had stone walls rising seven or eight meters up. There was sparse pedestrian traffic going in through the gate, people with farming implements, people with pack beasts pulling a small cart, and people just going on with their days.

The old lady turned around and covered her mouth with her hand then pointed at me. Keep my mouth shut, okay. The three of us then moved toward the gate, the old lady taking point and the equine lady taking care of the rearguard. At the gate, she exchanged a few words with the guards, pointed north in the direction of the road and put a large reddish metal coin on his hand. The guard snickered and we entered the town.

My first impression was that the town smelled. Bad. A mix of urine and sweat, of moldy feet and greasy kitchens. Those with really old grease that never saw soap. The buildings in the north sector were wattle and daub, with the wooden frame clearly visible. Some of the houses looked like they'd crumble and fall at any moment. The street was wide enough to move two wagons side-by-side and still let pedestrian traffic flow on the sides. The ground was packed earth with a lot of straw embedded in the soil. Trampled by hundreds of people every day. The street wasn't straight. Instead, it snaked back and forth as the buildings weren't even erected straight. Some of them had clearly newer logs placed to support them.

The houses that had doors were all well-maintained and seemed posh compared to the drab habitations around them. They concentrated mostly around the central marketplace. The other houses had heavy linen curtains blocking the entrance. If I had to guess, this is not a place that sees much cold in winter. The position of the sun in the sky puts this place in the subtropics or inside the tropics themselves. Another hint was the lack of large chimneys. They have chimneys but mostly in the back of the buildings, where one would expect the kitchen.

I was getting a huge amount of stares. My explorer's outfit was not that fashionable but I endured the mental pressure and just moved on. We walked for twenty minutes and reached what looked like a huge market. We went around some stalls and she bought a bundle of candles, grilled meat for us, and a leash. She pointed at the horse and I begrudgingly tied the mare so I could give the impression that I was pulling her.

We moved south past the market and it seemed we were crossing the town all the way to the southern sector. There we reached a walled building inside the town and I could hear the sounds of pack animals, donkeys, mules, horses. Maybe camels too. Chickens clucking, and an ox moaning. Manure joined the bouquet of odors and we came before a gate. Inside, a wide patio and several wagons parked, most of them with some kind of booth at the back. Merchants peddled their wares, while people moved from booth to booth checking what was available.

This was a caravanserai. Some tents were leaning against the inner walls. The inside had an elevated walkway supported by arches. I could see some wealthy men talking under the shade of the roof while guards patrolled everywhere in search of pickpockets, I guess.

I kept one pace behind the old lady. She took me to a corner where a pen made of logs kept some horses from wandering everywhere. She called a man that was at the fence gate and started a conversation.

She pointed at me and at the horse.

The man scratched his chin. He tilted his head and widened his eyes as he recognized the horse. "Penny-gu?" He moved his head sideways, leaning his torso to get a better look at my horse. I took a step aside and he repeated. "Penny-gu!"

The witch patted my back. "Penny-gu sarussu!" She said.

My horse already had a name. Penny. Quite nice. Penny it was. I patted her neck and scrubbed her fur. I should buy some horse care implements. I only noticed they wanted to talk to me when the old lady pulled my arm. She tried to talk to me and the man was now frowning. If Penny came from here, it meant the caravan that was destroyed departed from this caravanserai. There was no other destination on the road anyway. They at least passed through here.

What I could piece together was that they were asking me about the caravan Penny was part of. I sighed and shook my head. The man became agitated and Penny was annoyed at him. I held her back out of fear she'd bite him. They insisted and I picked up the words for caravan and merchant. I had to learn their language, fast. Without much choice, I summoned my GoPro and replayed the footage of the combat.

The old lady and the horse merchant watched the video. I paused after the last guard died and went fast-forward to when I found the merchant's bodies.

The horse merchant lowered his head and whispered, "Balthazar..." He earned a pat on the back from the old lady.

I stored the GoPro before people had ideas. Since there was always someone staring at me, I saw some people poking other people and pointing at me after I started to show the video.

Balthazar should be the name of the late caravan master. Either he was a native or he needed a fresh horse and took Penny with him. I still had their personal belongings and now I had someone I could ask about giving the things back to their family.

If I could learn their language, that is. There was also the problem of too much blood.

The old lady gave the man another huge copper coin and pointed at Penny. The man nodded and went to take the leather strap from my hand. I didn't let him. I had no idea what he would do with her in there. After the witch spoke to me with a soothing voice and I could understand Penny would be safe in there, I gave up. Penny returned to her horse pen and I had to carry the saddle and saddlebags. We went to one of the tents leaning against the pillars of the caravanserai. A kid of about eight to ten years old was sitting in front and he seemed eager and happy at the arrival or return of the old lady.

I've seen a few doors on the way here but not too few. None of them had a lock. It meant security around these parts is made by either barring doors from the inside or keeping eyeballs watching the valuables. The tent the kid was watching probably belonged to the witch I was tagging after. My suspicion was confirmed when he took a bunch of tiny bronze chips and handed them to the kid, that happily ran on his way.

I knew I had some coins on me from the personal belongings of the merchants and guards. But before I found the rightful owners of the items, I needed to learn the language of this place. That should be my number two priority. Number one was finding a safe place to stay. The witch's tent did not feel safe. Unless people are so scared of magic their socks would pop just from hearing a spell's chant. I doubted that because everything in the old lady's tent screamed 'witch' and people dealt with her normally.

We entered the tent past some charms hung on the frame and she pointed an empty space on a corner. When she did a motion as if lifting a weight from her shoulder I understood and dumped the saddle there. I took a good look at the witch's tent. There were racks of drying and dried herbs everywhere. Glass jars with animal parts floating in a murky liquid. Clay bottles with cork stopper on a crate on another corner. A blanket rolled on another corner over some furs. Probably her bed.

After she dumped the bundles of herbs she had on her on a table, she pointed to some cushions laid on a carpet and we sat on them. The old lady started to talk. A lot. With my improved memory, I could remember the words' phonetics but I didn't have to rely on my own mind. I took my phone and twisted it, sending the gyroscope the signal to start recording video. I pressed the screen against the fabric of my pants to hide the light and pressed the power button. I knew the phone would keep recording even with the screen off. She stopped to see me play with the device but I just held it in my hand, camera facing her. She shrugged and resumed speaking. She pointed at several things in her tent and I gesticulated at the objects, like a child that asks what each thing was. She kept talking. One of the main reasons I was recording a video was to allow me to see what she was pointing at and the movements of her mouth.

Akkadian sounded at times like Turkish, Arabic, or Hebrew like Latin sounded like Italian, French, Spanish, or Portuguese. But the language evolved in all these centuries. I've seen some written signs and it looked like the Cuneiform version of Kanji. The ideograms were made of straight strokes. I kept her talking as much as I could. After a while, she paused, went for a jug and drank some. She offered it to me and I thought it might be rude to refuse. I took a swig of the liquid and it felt like earth-tasting water.

She didn't go back to talking and instead started to go through the herbs. She took some pieces of cured hide and spread the herbs on it, arranging the leaves and preparing them for drying. I felt I should pay back her hospitality. I pointed at a single leaf and made a plucking motion. She nodded and I took the leaf. Drying meant removing the water. While I could force all the water in the leaf to go away, I knew Decompose acted on an atomic level. I had the strong feeling that my power would yank all atoms of oxygen and hydrogen from other compounds into water molecules to remove.

It was an intuitive feeling. I closed my eyes and tried to remove only the water already present. Fortunately, my familiarity with the liquid couldn't be better. I was over fifty percent water anyway. I went slowly as to not damage the rest of the leaf. The mental image was like a timelapse video of a leaf drying. Softly. Push the water away carefully. I could feel the mental tingle of water, its special resonance.

I opened my eyes and I had a dry leaf in my hand. The witch stopped working to look at me. She clapped her hands and took the leaf from my hand. She smelled it, nibbled the tip. She opened a broad smile and pointed at the herbs spread on her table.

I pointed at the herbs and at me. She nodded. I just got a job. And forgot to discuss wages. Silly me.

I spent the afternoon drying the herbs. The witch went away several times, returning with some odd item or taking something away from her tent. Maybe doing her business as everyone here in the caravanserai was a merchant in one way or another. I felt the call of the wild and stopped the witch in one of her frequent errands. After an awkward mimicry session, she pointed me to a spot on the far corner where some wooden outhouses were waiting for someone to use them. I steeled myself and went on my way. The merchants were still looking at me and one of them even stood up from his booth to approach. His coworker pulled the sleeve of his tunic and pointed at the witch's tent. I watched carefully their exchange, committing the words to memory.

The outhouse was... I don't want to write about them but for the sake of being thorough, I will. It was made of wood and was used by people I was sure hadn't even a word for hygiene in their language. I went around and behind the outhouses. Once I noticed no eyes on me, I summoned the trash bag with the looted pelts from the merchant wagon and took one out. With my knife, I carved a hole of adequate size and used that to cover the thing. I left the pelt there.

On my way back, I focused and sensed Penny's state. She was well fed and groomed, although annoyed for being penned with the other horses. She wanted to run wild in the grass. My mare was a speed junkie. Back at the tent, the witch had a new linen blanket and a bundle of furs. I was almost done with her herbs when she called me. Another sleeping spot was made next to hers and she was beaming at me.

I nodded and bowed, clapping my hands. I learned that clapping hands was a sign that you were satisfied with something or in agreement at what was happening. She moved outside with a cast iron pot and I joined her after I finished drying the herbs. She was cooking a stew.

Yum, witch stew. What could go wrong? Not like she is putting people in it, right?

No. Shut up, paranoid Sandra.

The stew was not human but bird meat. Chicken or duck, I didn't know. We ate the stew and returned to the tent. She put the herbs away and we laid on our fur beds to sleep.