Chapter 23: Toothless Old Man

Trip and Alex cautiously walked towards the camp. They did not want to accidentally waltz into an enemy camp so they decided to observe the camp from the side before they would approach the people there. They walked towards the camp and hid in the shrubbery surrounding it. They made sure they weren’t seen as they looked to see how the camp looked like.

What they saw thoroughly surprised them. Alex had expected a semi-professional group of soldiers that would have good organisation; however what they were hundreds of women and children, with all the men seemingly being simple farmers or other working class peasants. Trip and Alex couldn’t help but be disappointed by what they saw. They wanted to get to the other side of the wall, but now they saw that their chances where definitely going to be burdened by these people. However they realised that they could not get past the wall, and seeing the state of these people Trip and Alex kind of wanted to help them. It was dangerous to stay in such an environment, especially for women and children. Trip realised that with power came responsibility, his strength could truly help these people so he could not simply walk away from them, they were people from his country after all.

Trip and Alex approached the camp and simply walked in without there being any guards or security; it was fully open for anyone to just walk in. After a couple of minutes of wandering around they started to be noticed by other people. Trip and Alex really looked out of place in this environment. Even with their dirty clothes they kept a refined and determined look on their face, which was unlike anyone else there. Trip was naturally an incredibly cute and refined child, and Alex had been raised as a rich child.

Unfortunately for Trip and Alex this caused many dirty looks as most people hated the rich people of the country. They believed that the reason that they lived this way was because of the rich people, so there would undoubtedly be a lot of hatred when thinking of the people you believe ruined your life. Trip and Alex completely ignored the looks of people, they were confident that they would not be attacked, they were only children after all. They walked forward to the centre of the camp where there appeared to be the largest tent of all. They immediately walked inside where they saw an old man with a beard. He looked repulsive with horrible dental hygiene and he seemed as if he hadn’t had a bath in about ten years.

Trip ignored the horrible appearance of the man and immediately introduced himself “Hello sir! My name is Trip and this is my friend Alex. We want to help you break through the wall.”

The repulsive old man looked up at the two as he smiled with only one tooth left in his disgusting mouth. “How are you planning of doing that young man?” He said. His voice was raspy and even though he didn’t curse everything he said just seemed dirty and disgusting.

Trip was unsure whether or not he wanted to reveal his magic power so he decided to withhold that specific fact until he could trust the people. Thus he replied “You’re just going to have to trust us.”

The old man looked at the two of them in disbelief. These kids just expected everyone to trust them. The old man was fairly sure that these children came from rich families who had lost everything. This was a fairly common occurrence during wars. However this man had no respect for the rich, especially those that acted so arrogantly with such a sense of entitlement. Trips words had been arrogant, and so he got angry.

He grabbed Trip and Alex by the scruff of their neck and threw them out of the tent before they could react. Trip remained calm, but Alex got increasingly angry. He jumped and punched the old man, causing the only tooth left in his mouth to fall out.

The man shrieked as he screamed “NOOOO! That was the only one left!” Tears streamed down the hysterical man’s face.

Everyone in the area immediately surrounded Trip and Alex. Realising that they were in quite a pickle Trip immediately grabbed Alex’s arm and ran off. At first people were chasing after them, but eventually they managed to make it out of the camp. The people there were not that passionate about anything, so they gave up the chase quite quickly.

After they had made it to a safe distance Alex just screamed into the sky “AAAAAH! WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE SO STUPID!? We were trying to help and that old man offended us, it isn’t my fault that I retaliated!”

Trip thought about the situation and was shocked by the attitude of the people, but it reminded him of how many people were back at the orphanage. People generally didn’t really listen much and they really only brainlessly followed the leader. It was very clear that all these people were very uneducated. After the entire situation had occurred Trip no longer wanted to do anything with those people anymore.

They left the area and slept the night in a small cave. When they woke up they were ready to come up with an idea for how to cross the wall. They walked up to the wall and tried to find out some sort of weakness. After investigating for a while they realised that it would be difficult for a country to keep up constant 24 hour patrolling on a massive and long wall. They decided to analyse when they had guards in certain positions.

After analysing for a week they found out the daily schedule of the guards. At midnight they would scale the wall. They could do this quite simply by digging into the wall with special stone picks that they had built after meticulous planning and a lot of work. They managed to make it to the wall at exactly the right time. With the moon at the perfect angle to ensure that their ascent up the wall would not be seen by the light from the moon. They managed to scale the wall and get over the other side within ten minutes. It was a perfectly executed plan and they were incredibly satisfied by the way things went.

When they made it to the other side they could not see much so they quickly ran off blindly, afraid of being caught by anyone.

After several hours of running the sun rose in the east sky. When they looked around they saw that the environment was not much different to East Hrior. Except now they were not in a country which was being invaded from all sides.

Inhaling the fresh air Trip walked around the forest aimlessly for a while, before hearing Alex call him over.

“Trip! Trip!” Alex shouted, trying to get Trip’s attention

“What is it?” Trip asked

“Look over there, it’s a camp. Doesn’t it look eerily similar to the one that we saw yesterday?” Alex said

Trip laughed at the idea that those people had made it over to the other side. However when he looked at the camp he saw that it was virtually the same as the one on the other side of the border. Trip was intrigued by the whole situation so he went closer to investigate. Alex followed him.

When they looked closer they saw faces that they had seen before. Everyone looked the exact same, except they looked slightly happier than before. Trip ran through the camp and jumped into the large tent in the centre. Sure enough there stood the repulsive old man. When he saw Trip run in his mouth opened widely, showing a fully toothless mouth.

“You… How did you get to this side?” The man said

“I should be asking the same of you.” Trip replied

The man closely inspected Trip until Alex walked in. The man refused to even acknowledge the presence of Alex, he was clearly still angry about the incident a week ago.

“I will tell you how we did it if he leaves the tent.” The man said.

Trip couldn’t help but giggle a little, before he looked a Trip with a resigned look on his face. Alex sighed as he exited the tent.

“Ahh, now that little rascal is gone. Anyway, come look here.” The man pointed to a carpet in the middle of the tent.

Trip walked forward and raised the carpet, revealing a massive hole in the floor. He jumped in and saw that it was incredibly long.

Amazed he asked “How long did this take you to make?”

The man proudly said “We’ve been here for weeks. At first we were stuck, but then I took charge and we started to work on this tunnel.”

Trip was surprised, not just any old man could have organised something like this. It was quite interesting to think that such a thing had happened. Trip suddenly gained a much higher level of respect for the man. He jumped out of the tunnel and he was immediately greeted by the maniacal grin of the man.

The man then said “So then kid. What’s your story?”