Kepler was freaking out. What the hell was going on. Outwards he tried to appear calm. He had no idea what the reptile people wanted, but he wasn’t going to start a fight. They were primitives in his eyes.

He didn’t feel threatened and was curious, that’s why he had flown in, and surrendered. Even the bars holding him were a joke, they weren’t even made of steel. It was old and rusty iron. He could bend them any time.

But this world, the whole situation was insane. Where the hell was he? Some part of him wanted to believe he had accidentally connected to some VR game or something, but he had checked his memory files. Eight times. He had never gone online. He had never started any software. But it made no sense.

The reptile man named Zosk had gone for the day, and the sun was setting. Kepler was furiously going through the recording of each word to get a better grasp of the language. His memory wasn’t flawless, but because he could quickly check the recording, he never needed the reptile to repeat himself.

There were two guards guarding the stairs up, they had been staring at him with quite some hostility, but seemed more or less bored now. Kepler remembered how they had at first tried to strip of his power suit. He had let them try, but they didn’t understand how it worked, so they had decided to let it on after some frustration from the captain.

Suddenly, he saw that he was back online. He had internet ! What could it mean? Was it really all a fake VR world or something? Or was the bubble back up?

He had to know. He didn’t have any time to lose. Kepler stood up, bent the metal and walked out of the prison. The guards scrambled for their weapons and took position. Pointing their weapons at him. He simply continued to walk, his helmet unfolded around his head, and he ignored one of the guards trying to stab him. The power suit blocked it easily and soon he was out of the prison.

They desperately followed him and chaos ensued in the barracks, they tried to encircle him and stop him, but he simply walked out, ignoring all of them. Once out he took flight and flew as fast as he could back to where the bubble had originally been. It was dark out now, the horizon a reddish hue, it was beautiful, unlike anything on Mars, but Kepler didn’t have time to admire it. Not now.

Far in the distance, he could see a speck of light, the bubble was there ! He could leave this weird place and finally get some answers from his dad !

Kepler was still far away, but he saw that the bubble was unstable yet again. Oh no. At this distance he might not make it. The portal was but a speck in the distance still, only visible to him due to his enhanced vision. He pushed his jetpack to the maximum and dove straight at it, a loud bang was heard over the forest, as he broke the sound barrier. In the forest, animals and monsters froze at the alien sound.

Kepler had put his arms along his body, his legs straight, head first trying to get the least air resistance possible to go faster. Who knew how long the bubble would stay, or when it would appear next time.

He was almost there now, but the bubble didn’t look much bigger. How was that possible? Wait, it was shrinking. Zooming out his vision slightly, he compared it’s size to the surrounding things, it was already fairly small, he wouldn’t make it. He probably couldn’t even go through anymore.

He slowed down, but still continued. Soon he landed where it had been. There was nothing left here except grass. Wait, wasn’t there something earlier ? The robot ! The robot guard was gone! So his dad had opened the thing to retrieve the robot ? If that was the case then he could probably wait until it opened again. Hopefully.

Kepler regretted not having stayed, but the prospect of finding out more about this place had been too appealing. Standing there, he started by marking the spot. Once done he just had to wait. He checked the batteries on the suit and in his body. He should be good for a month at least. Food didn’t feel hard to get here, and he still had reserves.

Kepler was walking back and worth, trying to think of what to do next. Wait, suddenly he felt a lump where his stomach was supposed to be. Dread started to fill him. He was so STUPID ! Kepler could have called his dad ! He had had a connection, why didn’t he think of it before? He had missed a golden opportunity, and he had no idea when the next time would be. Probably within the next few days, a week tops. Right?

Kepler sat on a log, thinking, as time flew by, and soon the first rays of sunshine pierced the horizon. He had run circles in his head all night. This place was so… weird. So chaotic to him, who was used to live in purely man made constructions for his whole life. Of course, he had knowledge of how nature worked, plants and stuff, but in truth it was almost always used as decorations on Mars, or to be aesthetically pleasing, never had he seen nature in its true form.

It was unsettling in a sense. But as he sat there, something he had never experienced happened. At first, he was unable to process what was going on. He looked down at his hands and saw they were getting wet. What in the world was this now. Where did the water even come from? He still had his helmet on and started to hear small impacts on it, almost gentle. There he stood, at the border of a forest, looking up, and shock was written across his face.

Of course, he knew what this was. He had read about it. It was raining. A simple thing for the inhabitants of this world, everybody knew rain. It wasn’t anything special, most people would complain, some farmers might be happy, but it was mundane. So mundane in fact it wasn’t really worth talking about. It just happened.

But for a Martian it was something wonderful. Something so foreign to them, where water was regulated and never, ever, wasted. Now he saw how a resource that was supposed to be scarce, literally raining down from the sky ! And it was glorious.

Kepler let out a laugh, and folded back his helmet into the suit. He felt the rain on his face and laughed even more. He stood up and spun around, taking it all in.

An hour later, he sat there on a log. The novelty of the rain had faded. It was still amazing, but like anything, you got used to it. Kepler was wondering what to do. Finally he decided he might as well build something while waiting. He was curious about how good wood was as building material. Having read about it and trying it out was very different.

It was a luxury on Mars. But here there was enough wood around to buy a big apartment in Elon center.

Kepler didn’t have any tools, and it quickly became obvious he would need something other than the malleable tools inside his hands to work wood. They were simply too small and meant for electronic work. Not woodworking.

Finally with a goal in mind, and something to do, Kepler set out to find something he could use to cut wood. But unbeknownst to him, someone had finally arrived, as was hiding in a bush.

Zosk had volunteered to follow the human, but had been dumbfounded when he had found him here, looking at stones and branches. Just what was the human doing? The rain was a good cover for Zosk and masked all sounds, making it easier to move without being heard.

He wasn’t a [Rogue] or [Scout] or any other stealth class after all. But the green reptile skin helped to blend in. He had cast [Muffle] on himself to dampen all sounds he made, even if it probably wasn’t necessary. But he didn’t want to take any chances. He had no idea what the human was capable of.

Zosk didn’t understand what Kepler was up to, and kept wondering for a while, until Kepler started to tear down big branches and plant them tightly in the semblance of a wall. He was building a shack !? Out here? It didn’t make any sense. There was nothing here.

Kepler kept building, and night was slowly falling. He had worked fast however, and a very crude shack now stood. Made of the straightest branches he had found. He hadn’t found many straight ones, and you could clearly see through the branches. The ‘roof’ was marginally better, with enough leafs to have a full cover. But rain still crept through the leafs and there were several spots where water was coming through.

It wasn’t very big either, Kepler couldn’t stand up straight inside, and there wasn’t much space really. But he had made it. With wood. And that was something. It protected him slightly from the rain, which he had read was what humans on earth used to do. And he was happy with the result. It had passed the time, and had been a fun project.

Zosk on the other hand could barely believe his eyes. What the hell was that human doing ? Why did he build a shack? And a crappy one at that. Didn’t he have a bag of holding or something? He seemed rich to Zosk, with so many artifacts, that he had assumed he would have some sort of artifact or at least a luxury tent to sleep in. Never in his wildest dreams did he expect the human to build a crappy shack to sleep in.

And crappy it was, but the human seemed happy with it too. The shack was the quality of what most children built as their secret bases. So pretty bad. Zosk had to sleep too, luckily he had brought a tent with him, so he took some distance from the human ‘camp’ to find a secluded spot to sleep in.

He soon found a big enough branch for his tent. It wasn’t a traditional one, you hung it under a branch, a mix between hammock and tent. It helped against most animals and monsters out in the wild. But you couldn’t put it close to ground level, as it would be useless.

Finally set up, Zosk turned around to look at his work, when he let out a yelp of surprise. The human stood there, looking at him.

When had he snuck up on him? At least he wasn’t caught actually spying on him.

“Hello.” He tried, feeling nervous. Talking through bars of metal had helped the first time.

“Hello, why here?” The human responded with a broken accent.

Zosk tried to think of all the possible lies he could tell, but ultimately decided to go for the truth. The human might not understand the language very well, but he was far from stupid.

“I followed you. I was curious.” He said, looking for any reaction on the humans face. Contrary to his brethren in the village, he could somewhat read human expressions. He had been around some before.

But this human was unreadable, his face a mask of stone.

“Understand me.” The human said, and it took a second before Zosk understood, he had inverted the order of the words, and had meant to say ‘I understand’. Close enough.

The human looked at him, seeming to consider what to do when something suddenly broke the silence. Dawn was setting in, but there was enough light to see the three heads, each pair of eyes glinting a different color. A Threefox.

The human turned around fast, and regarded the fox. It was bigger than a regular fox, but not by much. No, the danger of this species was its magical capabilities. One head for illusions, one head for direct attacks, and one with restraining magic.

Threefoxes were a low silver rank threat, meaning all silver ranked teams should be able to beat one, even a bronze rank team could. They weren’t very dangerous, to adventurers. They could be really hard to deal with however, and tended to flee at the first sign of trouble.

Zosk walked towards it, waiting for an opening. The human walked towards the fox, fists up in a weird battle stance. The fox shimmered and suddenly, 3 copies of the fox were rushing towards the human.

Zosk was too far away ! He read the creature’s magical signature to try to discern which one was real, but he wouldn’t have the time to warn the human. Just as they were about to clash, he knew the real one was the one on the left.

The human, seemed to know that, and punched the middle head so hard the fox crashed through the air into a distant tree. Maybe his help wasn’t needed? As weird as he was, that human seemed very strong.

The threefox’s middle head was bleeding, but it wasn’t done, not yet. It howled and hurled a lightning bolt straight at the human. Zosk quickly cast a [Ice bolt] towards the fox, who nimbly dodged it before running away.

Turning to the human he was shocked to see that he had collapsed. A weak lightning spell had done what a contingent of guards had failed to do.

Night had fallen now, and Zosk was all alone in the forest, as only company, an unconscious human from another world, but he didn’t know that. Not yet.