Charging out from the treeline comes a bear-like animal. It’s not nearly as furry or fatty as a bear, though. Instead, it’s body is slimmer, closer to that of a dog. It still has the rounded face of a bear with a tooth-filled maw, but the body itself isn’t round.

It runs on six legs instead of four, but the front pair of legs look different. They have opposable thumbs and sharper claws. The animal also has a scorpion-like tail that reaches around its head and points at Itor.

The tail is thinner in relation to the beast’s body than an actual scorpion’s tail, maybe six inches wide compared to the beast’s gigantic five-foot-tall stature on all six legs. In addition, instead of having a stinger on the end, its tail has a metal-looking serrated blade that’s at least a foot long pointing hovering above its head.

Magna, who’s still sitting up in the sleeping bag we placed her in, reaches over to me and pulls me down, holding two of her fingers horizontally to her mouth, so that they just barely cover her lips. I assume that’s the gesture people here use to tell someone to keep quiet.

I duck down, but manage to keep my head turned toward the action. Itor stands his ground as the behemoth of the animal charges him, up until the last second before it hits him. Right then, he dives out of the way. He dodges the animal itself, but it whips its tail at him as it passes by. Itor immediately materializes a knife in his hand and swings it at the beast’s tail.

Crashing against the serrated blade of the tail, the stone knife cracks and breaks. However, the moment of delay this clash creates is enough time for Itor to duck underneath the appendage as it follows through its arc.

The beast turns around and stands up on its hind legs, reaching out with its other four arms. I wonder if it uses the tail as a counterweight? It seems a bit wobbly on just two legs, but it does have opposable thumbs on the front two, so it obviously uses them for something other than walking. Maybe it only occasionally stands on just the two legs during combat, and will just pick up one or two legs off the ground in other cases.

It steps forward and takes a swipe at Itor with one of its arms. He dodges underneath, then materializes a spike in front of him and shoots it forward at the beast’s face. It reaches one of its arms forward with surprising speed, blocking the spike, but getting its paw impaled in the process.

In retaliation, it immediately swings its other three claws at Itor, who responds by jumping away and shooting two more spikes at the monster. It responds a little too slowly, attempting to dodge but getting impaled in its shoulder and grazed on the neck.

Seeming to understand that it’s been outclassed, the beast drops back on all six legs, holding the metal part of its tail in front of its face as it backs away. Itor doesn’t give chase; he instead stands ready by the carriage as he watches the beast retreat into the forest.

After the monster is out of sight, Itor walks back to the carriage and begins taking some bandaging materials out of a box. Speaking to Magna, he rolls up his sleeve, revealing a large wound on his bicep.

It looks as though a two inch by two inch patch of skin has been neatly removed from his arm. It’s just deep enough that it’s bubbling with blood, but not enough that blood is flowing out.

Strange. I didn’t see him get hit by the monster. And in addition, that isn’t the type of injury a claw strike or a serrated blade would inflict. Magna helps Itor bandage his wound as they speak.

Well, this explains why I’m only on this trip guarded by two people. I felt like it was really weird that they failed to protect me from that pack of spider-wasp monsters, but I guess that was more like a worst-case scenario.

Magna never even attempted to help Itor deal with this thing, and he handled it without getting hit once. Well, maybe he was hit. I don’t know what could have caused that injury. They seem incredibly skilled. I guess we just got unlucky before.

Eventually, Itor’s wound gets patched up and we resume on our trip.

The next few hours pass uneventfully. I’ve been trying to keep track of time since I last saw the sun pass directly above us in the sky. That should have been about noon, back when we first left on our journey.

I don’t have an extremely accurate estimate of time, but it’s definitely been quite a long time since noon - easily nine or ten hours had passed. This means that it should have been nighttime by now, but instead the sun’s just on the verge of setting. Judging by the warm weather and bright green foliage, I can assume it’s probably spring or summer, meaning that the days should be somewhat lengthy, but not this much.

Doing the math in my head, if it’s been nine or ten hours since noon - let’s just say ten to keep the math easy - the days now could be around thirty hours or so. That’s a massive growth. This suggests that we’re on an entirely different planet than before, most likely an entirely separate solar system. The implications of this are too many to even count.

I told myself to not get bogged down by questions like “How did I get here?”, so I’ll try not to think about that, but that does mean that all of my preconceived notions about basic rules of physics need to be challenged. Things like gravity, magnetic poles, and season length - or even existence - could be different here. I need to find time to research these differences.

I also need to re-learn all the different star patterns. I won’t be able to get my bearings if I get lost and don’t know any star patterns to orient myself with. My mind keeps filling with things I need to do. Eventually, after an hour or two, I succumb to my exhaustion and drift off to sleep.

The next day is uneventful. We take three meal breaks over the course of the day, stopping the cart and eating similar food to that of before - and a few bathroom breaks and such as well. Itor has to help Magna hobble into the woods for those. Her leg shows no signs of getting better, becoming swollen and discolored over time, and Itor does no more to help her medically.

The two of them share lots of idle conversation during meals and travel. Some of it seems like it could be serious discussion, but it’s difficult to tell. There are no animal attacks, thankfully, so hopefully the past couple have been anomalies.

There is one strange moment during the day, though. Randomly while driving, Itor stops the cart. He mentions something to Magna, who stirs from her rest, and points at the sun, which has lowered to the point where it just barely touches the horizon.

Magna says something back, and digs into one of the pockets in her cloak. She takes out a small pouch and a bowl. She sets the bowl on the floor of the storage area. She’s made a bit of a home in the storage area where she rests, so there’s ample room to put stuff down.

Itor walks around to the back of the carriage and grabs a tarp from it. He uses it to cover the entrance to the storage area, leaving the only uncovered side as the far end of the long carriage.

Into the bowl Magna empties the contents of the pouch, which seems to be some sort of crushed herb or spice. Itor sits with her and watches idly. Magna reaches into a pocket and brings out what I recognize to be a simple flint and steel - a long strip of flint and a semi-sharp piece of metal.

She scrapes the metal along the flint, creating a bright flash of sparks that light the herbs. She lightly blows on them, feeding the small fire. Itor and Magna each get close to the smoke coming out of the burning herb in the bowl, breathing it in. They then sit and close their eyes in a meditative position. They stay like this for an extended period of time, occasionally breaking their stoic figure to take another breath of the smoke.

I avoid the fumes. This is most likely some sort of drug. It seems associated with a sort of religious ritual they’re currently performing, but it still very well may have mind-altering properties, or just generally be unhealthy to inhale.

They sit, inhaling the fumes for about a half hour, until they stop, clean up, and continue the journey.

So, this tells me a decent amount. I had suspected that my involvement in this is some sort of religious thing, and the fact that they just performed what seems to be a religious ritual right in front of me all but confirms it.

There’s no real reason to attempt to understand exactly why these people are performing the ritual, or why I am involved - religion is an expression of culture and I am unfamiliar with the culture. There’s really no way for an uninitiated person like me to understand.

Eventually, the day ends. I rest again on the cushioned seat of the carriage, trying my best to sleep. Ironically, on this night after a relatively calm day, I have the most trouble sleeping. I’ve been so overwhelmed that today I finally got some mental rest, and all the questions I’ve been struggling with keep coming back to me.

But as I mull them over in my head, achieving nothing, reiterating the conclusions I’ve already drawn, I do eventually tire myself out, and finally begin falling into a state of sleep. As I drift off, I hear the familiar sound of wheels on dirt stop - replaced with that of wheels on stone. We must have arrived somewhere. Oh well. I’ll see where that is when I wake up.