I watch Itor awake while standing among the mutilated - and now dissected, as well - corpses of the monsters. He looks around himself, and then spots Magna lying next to him. He immediately put his hand under her nose, checking her breathing. I see him visibly sigh in relief.

Then, he spots her leg, which is bent in three separate places. The look of worry immediately encroaches on his face once more.

I approach him with my wooden pole and offer it to him, pointing to Magna’s leg. He seems to understand that I intend to make a splint for her. It’s probably a good idea to take this opportunity to get on their good sides. We use some string to attach the pole to her leg.

Honestly, I’m a bit surprised that Itor knew how to apply the splint correctly and safely. Considering this civilization’s relatively low technological advancement, I’d think their medical abilities would be equally behind. The idea that some random non-medically-trained individual would be familiar with that is strange.

We finish and Itor helps me hoist Magna up into the carriage. Only after Magna is cared for and in the carriage does he fully examine his surroundings. I see him staring at the dead spider monsters.

He limps over to them. Huh, so he isn’t actually fully recovered. As Itor looks confusedly at the mangled bodies of the monsters I killed, he suddenly jumps, as if he was startled by himself.

He rushes over to me and begins examining my body. Excitedly, he pulls off my robe and examines my body, looking underneath my arms, between my legs, and turns me around and examines my back as well. Whatever. I guess it’s just best to let it happen. After a careful inspection, the smile falls from his face and is replaced with a dissatisfied frown. He hands me my robe and I put it back on.

Itor walks back to the monsters. He pulls the stone knife I used to dissect them out of one of their corpses. He shows it to me and points to the blade, then to me. Ahh, I see. I guess he didn’t realize that I just used one of the knives he created. It makes sense that he’d freak out if he thought I could make those.

I guess there’s some way you can tell if someone has their abilities by looking at their body. It has to be something that could be located anywhere on the body, since he so closely examined every square inch of my skin. I should probably answer truthfully. I have no way to prove a lie like that anyway.

It’s pretty interesting that he had to check in the first place. It means that they don’t have any sort of innate signature upon creation, or generally any way to tell who made it. It also means that there’s at least some sort of possibility that I could learn how to create them. If it was completely impossible under normal circumstances for me to gain this ability, he wouldn’t even entertain the idea in the first place.

Honestly, I would love to be able to do what they do. If it really is true that I could gain that ability, I want to make that my priority once I gain a bit more freedom. After I point at the knife and then at Itor to show him that he was the one who made it, he seems to understand.

His look of disappointment is cemented and he trudges back to the carriage, motioning behind his back for me to come along.

He really does trust me, especially after this. He isn’t even looking at me at this point, much less restraining me. I guess it makes sense. He obviously probably feels a bit more kinship with me after I saved his life and helped him take care of Magna, but he also knows I understand how dangerous it is out here now. It would take someone without an even basic understanding of the world around them to try and escape the protection of Itor and Magna at this point.

Itor helps get Magna settled in the carriage, lying her on the floor wrapped in a sleeping bag. He has a clear look of worry on his face. They obviously have a closer relationship than that of just coworkers. Now, whether it’s simply a close friendship or a romantic relationship, I don’t know. I don’t have enough experience with romance to trust my ability at telling the difference.

Itor calms down the skelds, who seem to have gotten a bit spooked from the battle. The ground around where their heads hover has a bunch of holes in it, like someone scooped it up with a shovel. Did the skelds do that? The holes seem to be sized and shaped accordingly with their mouths, so that’s possible.

The carriage takes off down the road. I scan the forest’s edge for any potential threats as we go, but there isn’t any more than the usual shrubbery I’ve seen before. Magna lies beside where I sit, nestled between a few crates.

Hours pass. Soon, the sun begins to set behind the trees of the forest, the four moons moving at different speeds and with different cycles through the sky. Though it’s such a small number, it almost feels like I can barely count them.

Looking up in the air, I see these hunks of rock, these things that seem to represent all that doesn’t make sense. Though they look small from down here, in reality - and in my mind - they take up an enormous amount of space.

I lie down, resting my head on what seems to be a bag of bread. I’m untroubled at the thought of squishing it; ruining some food is the least of my worries. Although my face usually stays pretty stoic, it’s twisted into a scowl at the moment. All the resentment for my current situation seems to finally be bubbling to the surface.

I mean, yeah. Sure. My situation before wasn’t exactly ideal. I was living out on the streets, kicked out of the only place that would take me in. But honestly, I would instantly take that over what’s going on right now. Having to ask yourself the question “What will I eat tonight?” is certainly preferable to the question “How many millennia has it been since I was last conscious?”

I hate having to constantly gamble for my well-being. No matter how much I examine the situation, no matter how many tiny slices of information I can gather, I’ll never actually know what’s going on. For all I know, we’re going to some ritual site where they’ll kill me. The idea that I simply can’t understand anything that’s happening genuinely terrifies me.

Next to me, Magna stirs, her eyes shooting wide open. She seems to have finally woken up.

Magna wakes up. She sits up, panicked, her breathing quick and eyes darting around. She seems to get her bearings shortly after, though, and calms down.

She tries to get up, but winces in pain, only seeming to notice just now that she has a shattered leg. That’s some serious pain tolerance. Itor looks back, seeing that Magna is now awake, stops the carriage. He’s clearly calm, so I’m not too afraid of any sort of threat.

Itor dismounts from the driver’s seat of the carriage and walks around to the back open entrance, where Magna is located. Itor and Magna begin speaking with each other. Itor’s doing most of the speaking, so I’d probably assume he’s explaining what happened in between her being knocked out and waking up. She makes a few interested glances at me during the conversation. What is that emotion she’s looking at me with? Is that… respect?

During the conversation, they begin unpacking a couple of the boxes. Out of it, they take some bread, meat, and a strange-looking vegetable that looks sort of like if corn only had ten or so kernels. The vegetables are kept in a stone box that’s full of water. They distribute the food among us and begin eating. I follow suit.

The food is quite tasty, honestly. I mean, that’s probably only because I haven’t eaten any sort of proper meal in a long time. The vegetable’s really soft, so I think it was boiled beforehand. The meat tastes fine. I honestly don’t have very refined tastes, so I don’t really know what to compare it to. Maybe chicken?

What’s interesting is that meat has been historically considered a luxury in underdeveloped societies, so that all but confirms that these people are higher-ups here.

I deliberately eat the food more slowly than I would like to, and leave a small amount uneaten, despite being famished. I don’t want to let on to Itor and Magna that I’d die if I went without food for a couple days.

I also make sure to treat the corn-like vegetable just like any other type of food. I don’t pick it up and closely examine it or whatever. This was so they don’t know that I come from a different time/reality, or what that time/reality used to be like if they already did know that.

After all, if I was super confused by one type of food, but the meat and bread I ate like normal, that would show them that I have a certain set of information that excludes certain things about their world.

It would also show them that I’m generally unknowledgeable in terms of what all the different types of plants are. This would mean that, for example, if they were hunting me and they chased me into the forest, they could win a battle of attrition by simply outlasting me; I wouldn’t know what plants are safe to eat, and would eventually be poisoned or starve.

I know that these people aren’t directly hostile to me - at this point, I might even consider their attitudes toward me friendly - but in a strange situation like this, you can’t be too careful. They could be trying to decieve me in order to lull me into a false sense of security, for example. And honestly, I’m not too sure how much longer I plan on sticking with them. That could lead to serious conflict.

After we all finish eating Itor gets out of the carriage cargo bed and begins to walk around to the driver’s seat. But in the middle of the walk, he stops. At first I’m confused, but then I hear it too. A stomping sound echoes from the forest, followed by a deep bellowing roar.