The Rokian was still looking up at the tree top, where the big tiger-like creature was evaluating the situation of their encampment while heavily drooling. A Tiganga was a noble beast, usually: sneaky hunter, precise and lethal, but able to keep even the hungriest of rodents and snakes from overpopulating the forests.

This Rokian remembered the many others of his specie he had seen being snatched away at night. When you were a regular Rokian, you were on all sorts of carnivores' menus. This exemplar of Tiganga was about three meters long and one and a half tall, with green and brown fading stripes and a scaly front.

Tigangas normally hunted in packs, but this one was alone, it seemed, making him an omega male. Way less dangerous.

The Rokian liked animals... Yet he didn't dislike Pope enough to allow him to get gnawed upon, even though he smelled a little. The small Rokian, first bore his fangs at the Tiganga, trying to be intimidating. He growled quietly, not wishing to alarm Pope, which could make the cat attack.

It didn't work: the Tiganga was now flat on the branch, almost ready to pounce. The Rokian closed his mouth and sucked in a lot of air, puffing up his cheeks, making his face as large as he could.

All he obtained though was to make the beast lick its whiskers with anticipation: damn ignorant cat, knowing nothing of intimidation tactics!

Seeing the feline was starting to jump, left with no choice, the Rokian croaked as loud as he was able to.

What came out of his mouth was a croak so loud it could have been a cannon salve.

After crashing to the ground, the silly Tiganga finally started running for dear life. The Rokian's tumid face showed hints of pride, but the sudden explosion had woken up the two men as well. Pope jumped up with a scream and a worried look, reaching for a knife. The man didn't know what the heck had just happened, yet he was deaf in both ears. As Pope got up, The Rokian was sent tumbling on his back. He looked at the other one with his still good eye: with the free part of his tail, he pointed in the direction the cat had gone and spelled as slow as possible, sure that Pope couldn't hear him.

-T*I*G*A

The latter still tried to read the Rokian's lips

-What? Tidy up? Yeah, I know I am not clean but... what happened?

The man was yelling out loud.

The Rokian shook his head and pointed again. Looking in the direction he was given, Pope could only see a big scared Tiganga running away from them.

-Wait, did you mean “Tiga”, as in Tiganga, by any chance?

He screamed, trying to unplug his ears.

-Yes.

-Oh, you did...

-Yes.

-Wait, you talk now?

Before they could finish their conversation, Samson had finally shuffled out of the cottage, a ball of plasma in his right hand while hugging his long cane on his left side.

-What the hell is going on here, boy?

Samson looked rather scruffy. His beard grew fast; he was still wearing his night gown and had even oilier and crazier hair than the day before.

The small Rokian didn't look at him at all though: out of thin air something had appeared in front of his face for him to read, even though a stranger's voice was already doing it. Surprisingly, he could actually read.

-Hello and welcome to your awakening interface, or Aw-k for shorter. I am one of the help guides that comes with the awakening spell, a tutorial of sort. To deactivate me, Master, please feel free to go to the option panel by saying “OP open”.

The female pleasing voice continued

-You have one magical unread message, do you want to open it now?

-Y... yes?

Whispered the little man sure enough that no one else could hear the voice, while Pope was, still screaming, giving an explanation about what had happened to Samson

-System message number one: through a special action you have created a new spell!

“Intimidating croak” - Spell minimum duration 45 seconds, max 60 seconds, depending on target's

mental resistance. Spell cooldown 30 seconds. Usable only until the caster's

throat allows it. The recipient of this spell feels shaken to the core by a sense of impending doom, reducing his attack speed, defense and casting speed. Ulterior effects or variants could be unlocked if the spell is charged with magic.

So many questions were swarming into the little man's head, but he was adamant on concentrating on one thing at a time: he was tied up and in trouble. He needed to figure that one out first. Although, while trying to focus, a picture of his dream sparked for a moment in the back of his eyes.

He tried to sum that situation up fast, scared to forget parts of his weird dream. He had dreamed of being a leader of armies, maybe a war-hero, some powerful figure, yet still a Rokian, in a Rokian society.

Also he had been a mindless worm-eater up to the day before: how could that be? It didn't add up at all, considering that his dream, or probably a memory, was hinting to humans having pretty much just arrived on Havenrock. And humans had been on Havenrock for centuries... how did he know that, though?

He deemed those thoughts too complicated and moved on. Aside from that problem, he had no intention of being sold as an item of merchandise, maybe getting into an even worse scenario; but he had really no idea of how to handle that side of his predicament.

He had magic, apparently, but he had no clue on how to use it. Not that he felt like trying something while Samson was around. Showing magic would only convince Samson to ask for a higher price for his skin... So, even magic was of no help to him currently.

He had already tried to attack the rope with his talons, but that thing was seemingly, reinforced with some sort of spell that made it impossible to cut with simple physical means.

All in all, he really couldn't do anything but wait until the balance of the situation would shift in his favor. Maybe, had he not stopped the Tinanga before... No, his freedom wasn't worth Pope's death, he decided. Samnson's maybe, but not Pope's!

When the camp had been lifted and everything reshuffled onto the cart, they started moving towards the town Samson had mentioned the day before: Yeokia.

As they went, the light of the first morning grew stronger, making him close his eye almost entirely: he was tied up salami, but the weather sure was lovely. After a long while, the trees lessened, the road grew more even under the cart and their pace was faster too. The Rokian could smell the sea too...

Reaching Yeokia had taken less than two hours, their good pace motivated by Samson's will of getting patched up and go back to his lazy, comfortable and, more importantly, lucrative devices. Looking at the way these people traveled, one could ask, “Why, in such a place, in the future, with time being of the essence and magic afoot, someone would dream of going around with a cart instead of a magical God-knows-what?”

Because everyone else had the same means and less than nice intentions.

Flying machines were risky and expensive, while magic transportation could be always hijacked, making people risk to lose way more than their cargo at the hands of pirates.

Sadly but surely, the wheel was the safest way. And with no chance of having service stations at regular intervals along the way, an animal pulling the cart was the best choice they could make, as far as engines went.

Regular law officers on Havenrock were so lazy, they would never even dream of searching for Samson's less than honest commerce caravan. And even in the rare eventuality he could get caught, a bribe was still a very effective way of dealing with the problem.

Other planets around the universe rested under the more than vigilant eyes of the big guilds, but here, on this lagged back, laid back hell of a planet, no one had so far taken notice of their businesses, making it still a criminal paradise.

No human of Havenrock was going to be a whistle blower, no matter how much they suffered: the most rich and powerful of them liked the planet just the way it was, which meant the poor people could only nod in silence.

Samson, on one hand, was just a proud representative of a bigger, dirtier system; on the other, he was a damn son of a witch... with a b.

When they finally entered the city, it looked like they had arrived at a bizarre pet resort. Animals were everywhere around humans, instead of just being attached to their fancy cars-lookalike. Weirdly though there was no excremental proof of that on the streets, because of a mass relocation spell which displaced them at the closest power plant to be used as fuel just as soon as the animals “produced” them.

The prevalent color for the houses was white, while the most used housing material was wood, even though Yeokia was a coastal city.

This city was based at the mouth of the river the Rokian had drank from the day before, the Huxtable river. Without slowing down, screaming to people to give him way, Samson pointed them towards his contact, past the local market: a lowlife profiteer woman with her hands in all sorts of pies.

In their society, weird stuff always had a market, but talking Rokians were a forbidden fruit a little too forbidden to be matter of public commerce. Only someone as jaded, arrogant and reckless as Samson would ever dream of trying to sell one. A sentient Rokian was a matter which really would make any sheriff stand up and run like he was chased by the devil. By royal decree, all sentient Rokians were to be taken into custody or reported to the authorities with the minimum amount of fuss possible.

This was in fact the first time Samson had seen one, which made him think: “If the old tree falls while no one is watching... it never happened”.

Samson, as already explained, was not the kind of man to renounce to any source of Thalers, which was their currency, law or no law. The woman he was headed to, was the only one which he knew had ever expressed having a remote curiosity towards owning a thinking Rokian.

While they passed the noble's houses, a little more than a kilometer away from the open-market, Samson couldn't help but frown at their opulence. The envy of those wooden villas always made him sour.

The noble people of Havenrock lived in another world compared to him, Pope and the vast majority of the populace.

Samson was no less vile or eager than a noble, but he was born with less power than any of them, magical or otherwise.

Pope was trying to lighten up the mood and break the heavy silence, chatting with himself about what kind of meal he was going to have once they had Samson's injuries fixed.

As waking up from a daze, Samson winced at a spike of pain in his knee, while he also slowly caressed the bandaged deep cut on his neck.

-Don't worry boy: if things go the way I think, soon there will be Thalers enough for way more than a meal... who knows, maybe could even buy your elemental branding ceremony, huh?

Shocked by the sudden, uncharacteristic kindness, Pope turned too fast to look at Samson, which sent fire up from the nerve on the back of his neck, all the way to his right eye. The young man face was a mix of puzzlement, pain and horror: after having gone through most of the “shiny” part of Yeokia, they could finally see the creepy manor of their buyer.