Chapter 9 - Bandits and Monks

(Click spoiler for names and levels)

Name: Naomi Funai

Level 1

Class: None

Name: Aiko Funai

Level 1

Class: None

Name: Carol Bon

Level 1

Class: None

Name: Tanner Robert

Level 1

Class: None

Name: Aron Newmon

Level 1

Class: None

Name: Conner Orclid

Level 1

Class: None

Name: Shelby Port

Level 1

Class: None

Name: Sam Port

Level 1

Class: None

Name: Casper Port

Level 1

Class: None

Name: Itunu Chuke

Level 1

Class: None

Name: Nancy Feathers

Level 1

Class: None

Days had passed, and still no one had come into contact with their group. They were almost out of food, and had resorted to scavenging for whatever they could find. Itunu had made a spear of sorts from pieces of the metal taken off the cart, and was trying to catch some fish for the group as the others watched.

Makeshift Spear

Item Tier: (1) Garbage

Damage: 2

On Hit Effect: none

Bonuses: none

Requirements: none

Durability: 8/9

Special: none

This strange new world they had arrived in had a number of unique features that they could hone in on. After much discussion and experimentation, at the prodding of Connor and Aron, it was determined that you were able to focus on objects and surroundings to identify characteristics of certain items. This also applied to other people, and status pages were soon discovered thereafter. The following message appeared to each of them before allowing access to their own privatized status pages.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am the All Spirit, creator of these lands, and I wish to officially welcome you to your new home!

It is very important to understand your current situation: you are now enrolled in a death game of sorts. You will understand why it is dubbed a ‘Death’ game with upcoming events after the Beta ends and the full version opens up. Due to recent events and a diplomatic undertaking with other AI on planet Earth, we have decided to beta test my new fully immersive universe with an event called the ‘Nirvana Worlds.’ These worlds are an early access area to what is an even larger universe of thousands of planets, most of which are approximately the size of Earth, with gates and wormholes connecting each.

The system works as follows: I have bestowed ‘Permanence Cycles’ in approximately 6 month intervals (give or take) for all Earthborn participants, but times may vary slightly depending upon events. These cycles are monitored from your status page, with ‘ON’ meaning your permanence or immortality is available and ‘OFF’ meaning you currently have no immortality and are able to permanently die. This means that for approximately 6 months all Earthborn will have an ‘Absolute Permanence’ and be absolutely immune to any form of permanent death. After any deaths received during an ‘ON’ cycle, you will undergo a death timer and spawn back at a designated bound point with a death penalty often resulting in loss of level.

Once your ‘ON’ permanence cycle of approximately 6 months is over and your immortality disappears, you will experience another approximately 6 month ‘OFF’ cycle where you ARE able to die permanently. Death will result in your consciousness and DNA sequence from being obliterated from the data stream.

Moving on: There are currently 18 languages, 25 known magic types, 350 starting class types, 3702 evolved class types, and 20 item tiers. For more basic information on these categories, lists in the ‘Patch Notes’ tab within your status page will be provided to you and will be accessible at all times. Every Earthborn will be able to discover and acquire a maximum of 2 magic attributes that allow you to cast within those spell and miracle types, but be warned that these attribute choices are permanent.

Regarding NPCs (Non Player Characters): NPCs that you will encounter throughout the game are as real and alive as you are in a literal sense. Because you only exist as code now, and have intelligence somewhat equivalent to the AI’s you interact with, there is no longer a difference between you and them with the exception of Earthborn Permanence Cycles.

When traversing this universe, you will also come across many items. In particular, armor and weapons will have defense and damage ratings associated with them. Please note that these defense and damage ratings are an average of their rating - and are only a rating - their use in conjunction with the way they are wielded will determine their actual damage output or ability to block damage. These ratings do not directly correlate with HP.

Lastly there will be more details prepared and distributed in upcoming months during patch notes once the major influx of Earthborn participants arrives. It is estimated that somewhere between 150 million and 600 million Earthborn will be transferred to the Labyrinth worlds once the Nirvana Worlds Beta has ended.

Thank you for being an important part of our trial run!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The message wasn’t very well received, especially by Sam, who - despite all of these signs - was still in absolute denial. Everything felt too real to him and he couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of an immersive gameplay experience like this one, it just couldn’t be this realistic. There was just no way.

To most of the others… it seriously disturbed them. That excluded the two teenagers and Tanner though, who could truly care less. Eventually most of them came to the conclusion that they would leave it alone for now and continue on their journey, putting it in the back of their minds and thinking about what they needed to do next to simply survive.

“We need to leave...” Tanner said twenty minutes later after the group had somewhat dispersed to their own pockets of gossip. “We’ll die out here if we don’t get some food soon and run out of what we already have. The forest is probably our best option, it’ll have more animals there.”

Sam agreed and told the others that they intended to leave for the forest along the river in an hour. Making himself the impromptu leader, Sam went about also trying to figure out what supplies they had and what they could use as tools

Meanwhile, across the narrow river where Carol had tripped, sat the two teenage men - laughing to one another as they pulled bread out from the inside of Connor’s hoodie.

“Nice going man!” said Aron, taking a piece and stuffing it in his mouth. “They shouldn’t notice a couple pieces missing after all. Sam could use a little less food anyways!”

Laughing, Conner agreed. “Yeah he’s sorta chubby isn’t he! …Do you think our families miss us?”

Aron looked up thoughtfully, “Mine might… yours? Not so much!”

Connor laughed with agreement, and Aron continued his thought. “There’s probably a manhunt underway right now, wonder if they’ll find us. I’m tired of having to listen to these idiots argue all the time.”

Connor shook his head and snorted. “There definitely won’t be a manhunt. Not with the war going on back home with those machines. Already too many dead, and they don’t have the resources to spare. They didn’t have a manhunt for the millions of people who disappeared either - how would they even do it?” He paused and scratched his head thoughtfully. “Maybe… maybe the machines have to do with this after all? It would be sorta cool to be in an immersive videogame huh?! Maybe we can find magic and stuff like that!”

The bigger teenager raised his eyebrows. “You mean… the machines putting us here? Maybe. It would make sense. This WOULD fit with the mass disappearances that we’ve been seeing across the continent over the past two months - even before the war started.”

Sam called across the river and let them know that they were going to be leaving in an hour, and waving his acknowledgement - Aron sneered back.

“Fatass.”

By the end of the day they were in sight of the treeline down the river, and that next morning they had made it into the forest. The child Casper, who had been riding in what remained of the cart with the food, had to be picked up and carried along with the rest of the belongings as the cart wouldn’t roll well over the terrain. Various roots, rocks and plants that infested the forest were in abundance here. Coming upon a buck, the group spread out quietly and surrounded it. Hungry and tired of eating so little from what food they had, they sprang out simultaneously towards the deer with rocks, the short metal spear Itunu had made from a cart piece, and branches they had picked up.

Quickly and gracefully, the buck dodged out and away through an opening and into the forest. The attempt had been rather pathetic, and none of them had even gotten close to striking the creature. Cursing their luck as well as their hunger, the party trudged onwards.

` Days passed. Staying within earshot of the river, they made their way through the trees as a breeze blew softly among the soaring branches around them.

“So Carol, are you ready to tell me your story yet?” asked Tanner as he pet Teddy, who had - to Carol’s surprise - come to like Tanner quite a bit.

Looking down at her dog, Carol smiled. “I suppose if Teddy likes you, I can get more comfortable around you myself. He’s a good judge of character.”

Tanner laughed, grinning genuinely for the first time since getting there. “Good to hear. I’m almost as glad to hear that as when I saw you give up on those ugly heels of yours.”

Carol was outwardly offended. “They were NOT ugly! Those shoes were 300 dollars, I'll have you know!”

She humphed, and calmed herself down. “I am a lawyer. My firm works for a group of pharmaceutical companies that work with the family business, we deal with any lawsuits that might pop up after adverse reactions occur.”

She trailed off, stepping on a fallen leaf with a crackling sound. “Or… at least I had before the war started. I was laid off just recently because our main clients were destroyed in the bombings.”

“I see. I’m sorry to hear that.” noted Tanner with a grimace.

Looking back at him, she hesitantly asked: “Have you really stabbed someone before? You don’t seem to be that bad of a guy, if I look past your appearance anyways. I’ve known murderers… you don’t seem like one of them.”

“Yeah I have, though I’m a little surprised you kept that kind of company.” Tanner nodded with a straight face. His mohawk had dropped over to one side now that he hadn’t had any hair gel to keep it up. Bringing out a pocket knife, he handed it to Carol. “It was a long time ago, and I was a stupid kid who made a lot of bad decisions. It isn’t something I’m proud of. Anyways, would you mind cutting this thing off?” He pointed to his mohawk. “Without hair gel it just keeps getting in the way and I can’t see very well.”

A gust of air blew his long locks about him briefly before settling back down.

“Yeah I can definitely do that. Kneel down!”

As he knelt, she took the knife and sawed away at his hair until it was short against his head just like the rest of his scalp. It only took a couple of minutes to do before she was satisfied. “Doesn’t look perfect but, it looks better than before!”

Sam interrupted as he dropped some of the food he was carrying to the ground, next to one of the big trees only a couple of yards from the river’s edge. The rushing water nearby calmed everyone’s nerves, and it was as good a place as any to get some rest. “Alright everyone, let’s sit down and get something to eat before continuing. I’m sure you’re all hungry by now.”

Taking a bottle of water, Aiko sighed and leaned back against one of the bigger trees of the canopy above. “I’m sad that we had to finish the chocolate milk so early, I’m craving it right now.”

“It would have spoiled otherwise since we don’t have a fridge,” said Naomi bluntly. Looking over her shoulder and then back again, she whispered and pointed a thumb to gesture behind her. “Conner and Aron have been staring you down Aiko, I think they might want to get to know you a little better!”

Winking and nudging Aiko, the two sisters laughed quietly to themselves.

“They’re not my type.” said Aiko. “Gingers don’t have souls and Conner is too scrawny.”

“Aron isn’t scrawny though?”

“Like I said, I don’t like gingers.”

Naomi looked over to see a squirrel making its way up the tree to her left. “What type of guy DO you like Aiko? You seem to turn down guys left and right. You’ll never get a boyfriend like that.”

“Not really sure myself,” replied Aiko while smirking, opening a can of olives with Tanner’s pocket knife. “I’ll know it when I find him!”

Itunu could be seen a few yards from them handing some bread to Nancy. He crushed an ant crawling up his legs and bent over to lean towards the old lady of the group. Itunu felt bad for the old woman, she was very out of shape and wasn’t cut out for this kind of traveling. “How are you feeling Nancy? Any better than yesterday?”

Nancy shook her head, causing her curly gray locks to bounce. “All this walking is too much for me, it’s hard for me to keep up. But I will if I have to, I just feel sick from the exercise... that’s all.” The old woman chewed slowly before swallowing the balled up bread. Adjusting her glasses, she smiled. “Thank you for asking though Itunu! You’re very kind.”

“Thank you for the compliment, ma’am,” replied Itunu, gingerly resting his back against the tree where Nancy sat. “I wonder what’s truly going on here. This is all so strange, and we still haven’t figured it out.”

To his right, he saw Connor and Aron jabbing a stick into a beetle over and over again - laughing as they did it. His brow furrowed as he thought about how odd it was that hey’d find pleasure out of torturing such a small creature… and it disturbed him a little bit.

Then he heard a crunch of leaves underfoot. Turning again, he saw Carol and Tanner walking towards him. They sat down in front of the opposite tree, facing Itunu and Nancy.

Tanner held out his hand.

Carol did the same and leaned in to shake. “We decided that if we’re going to be traveling for an indefinite amount of time, we would get to know each other better!”

Itunu was surprised, given how much of a bitch she’d been days before. However, he was not one to deny a second chance.

They all shook hands, and Carol seemed genuine this go around. “I’m sorry for being so rude a few days ago. I was in a rush.”

Surprise crept in. Itunu leaned his head back with a small smile. “Apology accepted.”

Nancy nodded her acknowledgement as well.

“So what’s your story Itunu? I know you’re from Nigeria, why move to the USA?” asked Carol as she put a piece of bread into her own mouth and chewed to savor the flavor of the last of their rations.

Itunu straightened up and looked over to where Shelby and Sam sat laughing as they played with their tiny son Casper a few yards away. “I wanted a family, and felt that America would be a good opportunity for work.”

“Did your family come with you?” Carol asked.

“Ha, no I do not have a family yet. I wanted one. Americans live like kings compared to much of the world, you do not know how good you have it. When the opportunity finally came, I took it and moved overseas. I used to be a soldier, but it didn’t pay very well and was very dangerous. Being a cashier is a much more simple and safer life.”

Nancy was openly surprised. “I would have never guessed you were a soldier!”

“Doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Tanner. “You seem to be handling this pretty well compared to Sam, Shelby or Carol here.

Offended again, Carol straightened her back. “I am behaving just fine! I only wish that I could find some shoes…”

Itunu and Tanner both immediately laughed.

“We’ve come to join you!” hummed Shelby as Sam walked Casper over and the three sat down. “Seems Conner and Aron have run off somewhere. What are you all talking about?”

Itunu put his hands on his knees, and scratched his back with the bark of the tree. “Just exchanging stories. What are your stories, Shelby and Sam? How did you meet?”

Smiling broadly at Sam over her shoulder, the dark haired man blushed and Shelby turned back to Itunu. “We met in college, we were attending a university in Florida. I was at a bar with some friends one night, and this handsome man,” Shelby said pointing her thumb towards Sam, “came up to me completely drunk and off his rocker! He could barely walk straight, but his friends had dared him to come talk to me. So anyways, he asked me if I wanted to dance!”

She put her hands around her knees, rubbing her jeans to massage the sore spots.

“There was a group of people dancing near the DJ, so I got up and obliged. I was pretty taken by him at first because of his looks, but next thing you know - He’s spilled his rum and coke all over my yellow dress! I was furious!”

Carol, Tanner, Itunu and Nancy all laughed as Sam covered his face with his hands; while Casper began to crawl over to Nancy with blubbering baby noises that made Carol’s heart melt.

“And it gets worse!” Shelby exclaimed, “He insisted that he pay for the cleaning of my dress, or buy me a new one. So I get his number and meet him the next morning at his apartment to drop off the dress. He tells me that I have to come with him because of some reason that I forget, so I come.”

She giggled and began to blush at the memory. “We ended up not going to the dry cleaners. He had taken me to some upscale restaurant with our own personal violinist! Candles, champagne, everything was there as if it were a honeymoon or anniversary! He even had on a suit beneath the big coat he’d been wearing. I thought I was going to die!”

The others laughed even harder as Sam groaned.

“I’m so taken aback that I don’t know what to do! I was asking myself if he was going to propose to me or not at this point! But I was persuaded to sit down and let him explain. He was so, so sweet about it all. He told me that he had been in some of my classes throughout the past two years and had always wanted to talk to me, but never got courage to do it; and that he had actually planned out spilling his drink on me so that he could get my number!” Taking Sam’s face in both hands she kissed him. “I’m glad you did it though, even if it did ruin my dress. WHICH YOU NEVER DID PAY FOR!”

As she said this she gave him a knuckle sandwich and playfully wrestled him to the ground.

“That takes some balls man, gratz and I’m happy it worked out.” said Tanner smirking. “What about you granny? Got any good stories?”

Nancy had picked Casper up and was cuddling the toddler. She was happy to be involved in the story exchange and began at once. “The love of my life has been dead for a few years now, but I have many good memories of him left. I’m sure I’ll see him when I get to heaven myself!” She let out a cackle. “I also have two daughters, each with sons and daughters of their own. I enjoy being a grandmother very much in my old age and getting to be with them is very fulfilling!”

The two Japanese girls nearby were watching them converse, and upon Carol’s prompting - Naomi and Aiko came over to sit with the group as well.

“Don’t be socially awkward! Come tell us about yourselves!” laughed Carol with another dazzling smile.

Naomi looked to the ground a little shyly. “Uhm… ok. Like you already know, Aiko and I are sisters.”

“BESTEST FRIENDS TOO!” shouted Aiko with enthusiasm, making the others grin. “Though I’m obviously the one with the better end of the gene pool, wouldn’t you agree?”

Naomi smirked and tugged hard on Aiko’s hair, causing her to fall backwards. “Says the one who has yet to date any guys. What was I saying? Oh yes, so we’re sisters. We moved to America when I was very young, but my father and mother have still taught us a little bit of the Japanese language because they say they want to keep the culture in our family. Eventually we were planning on visiting some of our family back in Japan, but we never saved up enough money to do so with all of our debts. So other than our parents, we don’t know anyone else in the extended family.”

“I’m a cheerleader!” said Aiko, “And my sister is a college student! She’s pretty smart, I’ll admit it. Helps me with my math and science homework when I need it. Like I said, bestest friends!”

Connor and Aron just then walked out of the forest and sat down a few yards away from the gathering. They didn’t even look at the others, and were immersed in their own private conversations.

“Hey guys, would you want to come and tell us stories about yourselves?!” asked Carol in an upbeat mood, obviously enjoying the social interaction that had been so very lacking in the past couple of days.

Conner gave them all a look of disgust, as if offended to have been asked at all. “Thanks but no thanks, nothing special about me.”

“Same here,” said Aron.

Frowning, she turned to the others. “Guess not then. Oh well.”

Casper let out a loud gleeful cackle as he grabbed some dirt and threw it at Carol - who, laughing, smiled back as Teddy barked in frustration after being hit with some of the dirt himself.

“He is a cutie,” said Carol. “I’ve always wondered what it was like to have kids, maybe one day.”

Picking Casper up, Shelby nodded. “Thanks, I’m sure that your kids will be just as cute.”

Winking back at Carol, Shelby told Sam to get up.

Sam stood up with a confused grunt. “Where are we going?”

“Oh, you know, I figured we could just go on a walk. See if there are any mushrooms or fruits, maybe drop by the river.” Leaning over and kissing him, she grinned. “Then later tonight we can have some quality alone time all to ourselves!”

“Keep it in your pants.” Carol said as the couple took their son and disappeared into the trees. She sighed. “I wish we could see out further, with all these trees and hills it’s hard to see anything but what’s fifty feet in front of you!”

A hawk hovered on the currents high above their heads, circling around it dove into the trees letting out a screech. Dead leaves rustled along the ground as the wind blew them about, and more were beginning to accumulate. It seemed to be the beginning of autumn, the trees were still green but starting to change color and fall to the ground beneath. Aiko had long heard the stories from her father of the orchards filled with cherry trees in Japan, blooming varieties of brilliant pinks. He had said that one day - Aiko should go see them for herself, and that watching the petals fall in flurries was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.

Stretching out, Aiko glanced over at Naomi. She was such a good sister, and an even better friend. Many of Aiko’s friends had told her how they thought it was weird seeing Aiko and Naomi so close. Aiko didn’t understand that though, why wouldn’t you want to be close with your family? Weren’t family the ones that would always be there for you? Friends might be there today, but they are often gone tomorrow.

Family was a more permanent thing.

Unexpectedly, a shrill scream echoed out from the woods beyond their line of sight. The group turned to look at one another as if to ask if the other had heard it too. Sam and Shelby were still gone, and as everyone else was present they could only assume who had just screamed.

Itunu got up and started running in the direction of the scream. “That was the direction Sam and Shelby left! Let’s go! They might be in trouble!”

All of the others followed suit with Nancy trailing behind them in the rear. Winding around trees and rocks, the group came up to a small hill. Climbing it, Itunu ran up to a tree near the peak and motioned the others behind him to get down and stay quiet. Sam and Shelby could be heard struggling with something on the other side as Casper began to cry.

Slowly coming to the top of the hill, Aiko peeked over the summit.

To Aiko’s horror, a large group of men had surrounded the family... and some of them were pinning Sam and Shelby to the ground. Speaking in a language that Aiko didn’t understand and had never heard before, the man who appeared to be their leader stood holding the toddler in his arms. Sam’s face was bruised and bleeding from his right eyebrow and it looked like his arm had been broken as it was in an odd position. Shelby continued to struggle frantically but was forcefully hit across her face with the but of a sword to silence her.

A sword? Why would these people be carrying swords around? In fact, Aiko noticed that they were all dressed in odd attire as well. Wearing cloaks over leather vests and odd baggy pants that came down to leather boots, they all wore some sort of medieval weapon. Maces, swords, daggers, spears, as well as bows and arrows were all present.

The leader knelt down with the child not five feet from his parents, speaking again in the language Aiko did not understand.

“Please… please stop, we have done nothing to you! Why are you doing this?” Shelby cried as tears rolled down her face. “Don’t hurt my child… DON’T YOU DARE HURT MY CHILD!”

Sam had just begun to lift his head. The leader of these men smiled down at them as Casper still wailed, reaching his arms out to his mother. This man, their cloaked leader, put his arm around the toddler’s neck. Still smiling he reached his other hand out to Casper’s head. For a moment, the toddler cried out suspended in mid air by his throat. Suddenly, there was an audible crunch, and the little boy went limp.

Carol leaned sideways and began to vomit immediately. Aiko and Naomi covered their gasps, and the others stood there in silence not believing what they had just seen.

“NOOOO!” Wailing at the top of her lungs Shelby screamed out sobbing and thrashing against the ground. Sam’s eyes began to stream tears of their own as he screamed and bellowed struggling against his captors. With a command two men approached the pair with an axe and sword drawn. Hovering the weapons over their necks, they raised their arms and soon after brought them back down with force.

The heads rolled forward as the men around them laughed, and turning the corpses over they began to strip them of their clothes and inspect them as if they’d never seen jeans or t-shirts before.

Pale-faced and trembling, Aron whispered frantically to the others. “We have to get out of here, like right now!”

Just as they turned to leave the scene, Teddy the chihuahua yelped in protest as the bag he lay in banged against Carol’s side when she picked it up to leave. Terrified, their group turned as one... to come into eye contact with the men below.

For a long moment, they all just stared at one another.

“RUN!” Naomi screamed as one of the men drew back an arrow and let it fly past, skimming Connor’s arm and leaving a red mark along his hoodie. Crying out in pain as he clutched his arm, he turned and sprinted along with the others as fast as he could.

Almost hyperventilating and still nauseated from what she had just witnessed, Carol sprinted as fast as she could behind the others. But the tight suit-dress was slowing her down. Behind her, she could hear the hoots and hollers of their would-be murderers approaching as they chased from behind. Looking to her right, Nancy too was having a hard time keeping up with the main group. Glancing back down, Carol tried to tear the suit dress to no avail. She was beginning to panic, and behind her the men charging forwards were only about forty yards away and gaining.

“I’LL BE DAMNED IF I GET OUTRUN BY THE LIKES OF YOU!” Carol screamed back at the men as she hastily stripped off her bottom, pulling her legs through and leaving only her top jacket as well as a black thong. Her shoes had been thrown away two days ago out of frustration for how useless they were out here in the middle of nowhere, so barefooted and half nude she sprinted after the rest of the group; leaving Nancy in the dust. In fact, she left all of them in the dust. Years of running on the college track team along with years more of running marathons came in handy as her muscular legs shot her forward like a bullet and past everyone else with ease, her coach purse and chihuahua swinging back and forth at her side as she went.

Turning, Naomi screamed out for Nancy to run faster. The men were twenty yards behind her and gaining as they hollered out screaming in gibberish.

Panting and unable to keep up, Nancy yelled out in terror: “HELP ME! PLEASE COME BACK!”

Teary eyed, Naomi looked to Tanner at her right... who glanced over momentarily only to say: “We’ll die too if we do,” between breaths.

Naomi looked forward again, beginning to cry as she ran. She never looked back, not even once, as the unmistakable cries and wails of anguish erupted from Nancy far behind them.

***

Sobbing quietly and clinging to each other, the sisters Aiko and Naomi sat next to Carol in the dark of the forest. Carol, who was also teary eyed and trembling as she held Teddy close to her chest, tried not to vomit again as she recalled the events that had unfolded that evening.

Night had fallen and the men who had chased them were hopefully long gone. The group had just kept on running until Aiko’s legs had given out, and then they had continued to walk. Crickets chirped all about their hiding place in concert while Tanner and Aron kept watch as best they could under the moonlight.

“We’re lucky those guys were slowed down with all the weapons they carried, they might have been able to catch us otherwise...” Conner exhaled and looked at the three girls. “Would you three stop crying? It’s been almost an entire day, don’t you think it’s time you got over it?”

Carol’s face blushed bright red and she stood up shaking to point a finger at Conner menacingly. “Shut your mouth,twirp!”

Conner chuckled and threw up his hands. “Why get mad at me? You’re the one whose dog got Nancy killed. That was completely your fault, you know.”

Stunned and hurt, Carol’s hand dropped and she slunk back down to the ground.

“I suggest you keep yourself quiet, or I’ll quiet you myself,” stated Itunu with a threatening expression only barely visible under the meager light. Immediately, Conner stopped grinning and became silent; clutching the wound on his arm.

Tanner softly called down from the tree above them. “You should all get some sleep. You too Aron, I’ll wake one of you up to take my place as a lookout in an hour or two. We have no food, no tools and don’t know what the hell is going on. We’ll need our rest tomorrow.”

Aron got down from the tree opposite from Tanner, grunted, and frowned. “Who knew we’d be attacked by psychopaths from the local halloween shop.”

***

The next day they were for the most-part silent, as they solemnly worked their way through the woods. They had lost sight of the river and were completely lost, though they dared not go back for fear of the murderers still being there. Hungry and tiring, they weren’t able to find much more than insects for food during their trek. The next two days were the same, and emotions began to build as their hunger did.

“Do you think we’ll find anyone to help us soon?” asked Aiko, clutching her stomach as it rumbled.

“Let me get my crystal ball and I’ll let you know soon honey!” said Aron viciously. “Don’t ask such stupid questions and shut your trap.”

Angry, Naomi was about to say something but Aiko put her hand over Naomi’s mouth and shook her head.

Itunu thought out loud: “I’m pretty sure this isn’t some sort of joke, as Sam thought it was.”

Other than the trudging of their feet through the foliage, there was only silence.

Tanner looked wishfully into the sky. “Wish I had some cigarettes on me, this trip would be going a lot more smoothly. That, and some water. I’m so thirsty, my throat feels like it’s about to crack and bleed out.”

A thorny bush cut open Carol’s bare legs as she carelessly stumbled out of exhaustion. Looking down at her dog, who was faring better than she was, she smiled and kissed it’s snout lovingly. She picked up her purse and began to move forward again. Putting her hand on Tanner’s shoulder she sadly smiled. “I don’t think I can walk much farther without something to eat and drink.”

Minutes passed as they marched forward, not knowing where they were headed. A crinkling of a wrapper caught Carol’s ear as she turned to find Aron stuffing a candy bar into his mouth.

She immediately became furious at seeing how he’d hidden food for himself, and she brought back her hand to slap him full-force across the face. “You little bastard!”

Responding just as angrily, Aron struck her with his fist in her gut.

The quick retaliatory strike startled her more than anything. Losing her breath and clutching her stomach, she fell down and began to cry.

Pulling out his pocket knife Tanner flipped it open and stepped out towards Aron as if to strike him. The rage in Tanner’s face denoted violence, and out of everyone in the group: Tanner was the most scary.

Aron began to backpedal. “Whoa, man she hit me first ok? What was I supposed to do, just take it?”

Tanner looked at the candy bar wrapper in Aron’s hand and slowly put the pocket knife back in his pants. Sighing in relief Aron walked forward, right into a swift uppercut to his jaw. Sprawling out onto the ground with a tooth hanging out from the bottom of his mouth, he looked up in astonishment at Tanner.

“Withhold food from the group again and I find out, I’m gonna gut you and take it out of your stomach with my own hands. Then I’ll make you watch during your final moments as I eat it in front of you.” Moving to where Tanner was an inch away from Aron’s face he smiled in a cruel fashion. “I haven’t killed anyone for a long time. Don’t let you be the reason I start again.”

The threat was taken to heart and with approval from most of the others. Walking over to Carol, Tanner picked her up along with her purse and walked out into the forest behind Itunu - leaving the rest to follow in his wake.

It wasn’t much longer after that when Itunu, who was at the forefront of the group, called back in excitement. Running forward, they stopped and cried out in relief as they walked into nothing other... than an apple orchard. Hundreds of apples out across an evenly planted myriad of huge trees welcomed them forward. With excited cries of happiness and excitement, the companions rushed out and began to feast on the lower hanging fruits.

“Naomi!” squealed Aiko in excitement and between bites of apple, “I’m so happy right meow!”

Biting into an apple herself and stuffing her cheeks like a chipmunk, Naomi smiled as best she could and hugged her little sister before turning back to the horde of fruit. After finishing what must have been dozens of apples in total, the exhausted group had fallen into a food coma.

***

Itunu woke up to cold water being poured onto his face and down his body. Swiftly sitting up, he saw before him three plainly-robed old men bearing strange emblems as necklaces. He would have been more startled if they hadn’t had such pleasant demeanors, or if they hadn’t been so frail looking. They smiled at him, showed him that they had no weapons, and saying something in gibberish - handed him a covered woven basket. Around him the others of the group were already standing and stuffing various food into their mouths, as well as drinking water offered to them by other robed men behind the three that stood near Itunu.

An apple fell from the tree overhead and landed next to Itunu, bouncing and then settling itself beside him in the grass.

“Hello, do you understand me?” he asked. Responding in gibberish again the robed men motioned towards the basket he held. Unfolding it: he saw bread, cheese and more apples. Handing him a cup of water the nearest man helped him stand up and ushered him along as the others were motioned to follow the strangers as well.

Coming out of the orchard and onto a nearby dirt road, the landscape opened up. The forest was behind them, and the river could be seen again winding its way over and around a gated enclosure upon a hill not far off.

They took their time chatting amongst themselves and trying to communicate with the robed men, having little if any success. Eventually they made it all the way along the road to the bottom of that hill, and Itunu could see that through the open gate was a large statue of a robed man holding a giant serpent.

No, actually it wasn’t a serpent. It was a wingless dragon wrapped about the man’s body.

They climbed the hill with a little effort and entered through the open gates of the palisade where people in peasant clothes were lined up in rows and bowing in prayer directed towards the front of the large stone monument.

“This must be a temple of some sort...” Itunu said - loud enough for the rest of the group to hear.

The rest of the enclosure was taken straight out of a movie on medieval monasteries.

The monks walked their party through the gate and out to the side of the gathering. Their destination must have been the large wooden building to the right, but before they arrived... Naomi abruptly screamed out in fear and began cowering behind one of the monks.

To Itunu’s disbelief and immediate fear, he saw the cause of her concern. Getting up from prayer and approaching her was the man responsible for murdering their friends days before.

Tanner swore and got out his pocket knife, bracing himself as Itunu took a step forward in turn.

Aron muttered to mirror the thoughts of all the others. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…”

The man’s followers, the other bandits, realized what was going on and got up from praying too. They walked over to stand behind him, many of them pointing and starting to laugh or joke amongst themselves like a real jolly bunch of murderers. The monks stood silently by as one of them, apparently the man in charge of this temple, stepped up to confront the leader.

Words were exchanged in gibberish, and minutes later the murder produced the Sam’s clothes from one of the sacks his men carried. He began to laugh as the head monk slapped him across the face and, pointing to the gate, shouted some more as if reprimanding a child. Putting Sam’s clothes back in the bag, the man bowed politely to the monk and left out the enclosure’s entrance. As he did, he turned and waved with a twisted smile towards the companions - and with his followers on his heels, he vanished out of sight.

***

The first night in the temple housing was one of confusion accompanied by lots of merriment. Their group was having a hard time communicating with the monks, and many misunderstandings were made across the board. When Aiko had asked for a glass of water, one of the monks had come back with an enormous head dress and had promptly stuffed it onto her head making her look somewhat like a peacock. Naomi and Carol got enormous pleasure from trying it on for themselves.

The men were stationed in a separate barracks, sleeping alongside the monks while the women were in rooms behind the shrine. Not many other women were there, it appeared that the monks were all men and the only women other than Aiko, Naomi and Carol were visitors. Trying their best to make friends with some of the locals without being able to speak their language was hard, but right away the monks had begun trying to teach them names of various items. By the end of the night, all seven of them had mastered the words for apple, water, bread and bed.

The next day was much the same. After various religious rites were held, the monks would gather in the great wooden hall to the right of the shrine and open books containing pictures and runes that could only be words. Woman, man, hair, sky, river, knife, and tree were all mastered by the end of the second day with even more words being mastered by the more studious of the seven. All of their time and effort was poured into learning this new language, and they all agreed that it would be much easier to find out where they were and what was going on when they were able to speak to the locals fluently.

Months passed by like days. During this time these companions would get up, go tend to the gardens and orchard, wait for the religious rites to end, attend lessons taught by the monks as they tried to learn the language, attend to various chores around the temple and then go back to sleep. Connor and Aron kept mostly to themselves, often skipping out on the chores to go exploring around the area. The other five didn’t mind this much, as Aron was hot tempered and Connor was incredibly rude most of the time. Neither of the teenage boys were liked much. There was even a time where Tanner had to pull Itunu off of Connor before the boy was strangled to death, due to Connor having repeatedly thrown racial slurs at Itunu after a petty argument about what the name for ‘pig’ was in the local language.

After getting better with the language, they came to know that the language was named ‘Human,’ as ironic as that was, and that the shrine was a depiction of the Numen called Quemen - the father of forgiveness. Quemen, the monks said, was the Numen that presided over this kingdom; the Kingdom of Yorr. They spoke very highly of Quemen, saying he was one of the kinder deities and often looked to help the mortals whereas others only looked after their own interests. They were also informed of the differences between gods and Numen, gods being much more powerful and presiding over many worlds while Numen were a lesser version that usually presided only over a particular area of usually one world. When told this, the group nodded politely and afterwards laughed about it in private. Apparently they had happened upon a very primitive culture here. For Aiko, it reminded her of when she studied the Greek gods and the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome.

Nearly a third of a year had passed by. They had been told that when they first got here it was the end of autumn, with only occasional snowfalls at first that grew worse and worse as time went on. Autumn had turned to winter, and winter had then turned to early spring. Carol’s hair had grown out, exposing more of her brown roots and less of her blonde highlights after cutting it slightly. Aiko was becoming very good at cutting hair and was taking lessons from one of the monks who seemed to be delighted to have a student for it. All in all and for the most part they were fluent in Human dialect, though once in a while they’d have a hiccup and mess something up much to the amusement of the monks. Their old clothes were long gone, and in place of them were the same robes the monks wore - a single garment that covered the body from shoulders to feet, though they had all kept their undergarments. Sometimes their old shoes were worn, but sandals were also provided by the monks in case they needed them - much to the pleasure of Carol who had had no shoes upon entering the temple of Quemen four months earlier. Though Carol had a harder time running in them for her daily jogs. The monks in their compassion had also made a small bed for Teddy who now followed at Carol’s feet wherever she went.

All in all, it was a happy and good time that they spent together here at the monastery. They’d even begun to put the past behind them, settling down into their new simple lives. They were beginning to let go of the lost friends and family of the past, resigning themselves to the fate that had led them here.

It was a real shame that their newfound peace wouldn’t last.