“Reeeeee!” Dale woke up crying out loud with a piercing sound. “I slept well.” He stretched his body after he had jumped out of the dirt. There, Aby and Adrian stood, watching deadpanned the boy who awakened like it was an angry frog marking its territory.

“So, I was saying,” Aby ignored Dale and continued talking with Adrian. “There never was a World War 3, it stayed as a tense time that it’s called the Cold War.”

“So, no nuclear boogaloo?” Adrian asked her.

“No nuclear boogaloo.” She responded.

“Hey! Don’t ignore me!” Dale cried to the pair.

They stared him shortly and Adrian spoke once again. “How did that work out?”

“It became an arms race that never saw war and ended up as a war of espionage and intelligence,” Aby told to the Homo Sapiens Hestia. “That period ended when the USSR fell.”

“That sounds fairly pacific.” Adrian told.

“Or you can just ignore me, fine!” Dale gave up and sat on one of the logs around the campfire, but not before going to the river and taking a sip.

“It really wasn’t.” Aby explained.

“It does seem to me that way.” Adrian started. “World War 3 started when Fascist Spain seek to conquer Portugal, which was under soviet protection at the time. It quickly escalated into a world war. Spain joined the UN and Portugal the Eastern Bloc. The war only lasted two years after the nuclear bombings of St Petersburg and L.A. People reminded the horrors of nuclear warfare and after some hastily-made peace treaties, the war ended with Spain losing its dictator but taking a part of northern Portugal.”

“There were only two nuclear bombings? I recall being hundred of nuclear warheads made in this period.” Aby asked Adrian.

“No, there were more.” He explained. “Those were the ones that ended the war, but I remember places like Vladivostok, Portland, and Oporto being nuked.”

“Where is Vladivostok?” Aby asked as she didn’t know the place of that city.

“It’s near the point where Korean, Chinese, and Soviet frontiers collided. It’s situated at the Sea of Japan.” Adrian added the latter after reminding the details.

“Now that I remember,” Aby started. “You said the first day, when we arrived at Mundompio, that the USA and the USSR arrived on the same day on the Moon. Does this World War 3 have something to do with it?”

“Yeah, now that I think about it.” Adrian while cleaning his glasses. “After WW3, the Soviets, which they didn’t exactly fall as you told, made a treaty with the USA to have a friendly space race. There wouldn’t be any espionage and the rockets would be launch on the same day. It was supposed to be a competition to show who got better technology. In the end, they were close. I think the Soviets landed an hour earlier than the Americans, but it was a scientific probe instead of a manned ship. Hence why the discussion of who landed first. A scout Soviet robot or the manned American Lunar Module.”

“Huh, it’s fascinating how the course of history changed.” Aby sighed. “A peaceful war and an aggressive space race, or an aggressive war and a peaceful space race.”

“It sounds cooler if you put it that way.” Adrian commented.

They stayed talking about the difference between their timelines. Each time going further back the history. As they already told, history was practically the same when they went to times previous to the twentieth century. One thing that was different centuries down the timeline was the fall of Constantinople. Aby said that it was in 1452 while Adrian said 1453, Dale told that he didn’t remember. Two possible theories: history changed or one of the two had a bad memory. Both were probable, and to be fair, both of them could be actually true. They didn’t know the exact day so maybe it fell on January 1 on one world and December 31 at another one. They already spoke about Columbus discovering the Americas in 1492, and it didn’t seem to have any discrepancies between the three. They wanted to analyze more events, but in the end, neither of them was a historian and had forgotten all they learned in school long ago.

The remaining members of the party awaken between 8 and 9 a.m. Kayle being the last one. Then they had their delicious breakfast that consisted of salty jerky, bread without yeast, and river water. A basic one, but it filled their bellies.

“What are we going to do now?” Kayle asked after having her breakfast.

“Questing.” Adrian told as he swayed the quest paper in his hands.

“Only ten mantises?” Axel asked after he read the wavering paper.

“There wasn’t more mantis related quest,” Adrian explained. “So, the question should be: what are we going to do after the quest?”

“I want to explore the city!” Kayle answered with excitement.

“I can enter without problems because I am an adventurer,” Adrian told. “So, I could go with Mike and Kayle to the city to deliver the quest. What do you think, big boy?” Adrian asked about Axel’s opinion as then he would be the only one that hadn’t visited Czecheri.

“No problemo.” The towering brown guy responded.

“So,” Adrian started. “We kill ten mantises and then we do a tour around the town?”

“Sounds good to me.” Mike told.

“Shouldn’t we buy more cloaks?” Aby made a good question.

“We could even buy native clothing,” Adrian said. “I want to have a money margin just in case. I was thinking that we could sleep in an inn after we receive the lair’s reward.”

“That sounds amazing.” Kayle said. “I’m tired of sleeping out in the open.”

Adrian thought about telling her to stop being such a whiner, but he also wasn’t having the best of nights here. Everyone in the party would kill to have a bed, literally. As a matter of fact, that was what they were going to do right now.