Space is the sphere we use to sense distances, teleport, and most importantly target things further away. - Anthony Ravnos

Adrian

When I open my eyes its past dawn. I can see sunlight coming through the eastern windows. It’s still morning.

“About time you woke up sleeping beauty, I think we are all packed.” Bryan is behind me, shit he had first watch. Who took over my watch? I guess it doesn’t matter. I turn around Bryan has six hiking backpacks stuffed to the brim.

“Sorry for not waking up. I guess there was no luck with the nearby cars?”

“None, but you were right about getting that weird dream to do stuff.”

“Good, you’ll have to tell me about it later.”

I get up, and grab one of the six packs. I don't want to make the others wait longer than I already have and surely whoever packed it would have done a good job. The others each take a pack. And we start walking, Tomas’s house should be about an hour’s walk to the north. I don’t see Jason anywhere so I guess he really did leave.

As we were about to head out the trio gives Abagail, Bryan and me a patchwork chain shirt.

“Use it to not die.” That’s it Talia? At least she doesn’t want me to die; I think she is mad about last night. They were good sports to my perving but maybe I went too far?

“Thank you.”

“It’s armor to help us stay alive.”

Bryan is looking at the shirt a bit confused. “I know what it is but why give it to us?”

“So, we are less likely to die”

Abagail asks, “Do you think they have any that are less patchy?”

“Other than the ones they are wearing? No, I think they piece these together from the dead last night.”

Abagail looks down at the armor in her arms.

“It means they want you to stay alive, use it they want to be friends. If you don’t like the appearance just put a regular shirt on top.”

I don’t actually know if that is true, but they are friendly with us. Since everyone was ready before I woke up I think some communication must have gone on.

The shirt is really light, it’s about as thick as heavy shirt and weighs twice as much. The chain sleeves hang out under my shirt but the rest of it is covered. Abagail left to put on her’s but Bryan and me just put them on here.

The trio gave us weird looks for placing it under our clothing.

“So, others don’t see the glint of the sun off it.”

And they scramble away towards what little clothing Outdoor World has for women. I guess they thought that as a good reason? The armor is shiny, I don’t want to get caught because of that. After Abagail and the trio return we leave Outdoor World and head north

After about twenty minutes we stop; down the street somebody is fighting. I am not really sure who, but it is not really my problem. I have five people to keep alive, whoever those are they are not part of that.

“Any idea how to make the detour?”

“Not without going out of the way.”

I frown, I don’t want to get involved in a large-scale fight. Too easy to die. Going around will take a long time, and I doubt that we will continue to keep running into nothing.

“Do you think we should wait?”

“There is I fight ahead, I don’t think we can get around it.”

Bryan and Abagail nod. I hope either they pick up elvish or the trio learns English. Should I offer to teach them? I am the only one able to, better than having to translate everything. Talia responds to my not quite a question.

“Are we going to fight or wait it out?”

“What do you three think?”

“If we fight some of us will die, unless we cannot win against whatever wins we should wait.”

I nod, “we are going to wait.”

“I am going to show the others how to look for water in the houses. We have some time and hopefully some of the showers will work.”

I don’t think Abagail heard me, she is watching the battle in the distance through a scope. A good idea, too bad my rifle doesn’t have one.

“Good idea. We can fill the water bottles too.”

He’s right, without air conditioning I’ve sweated like a pig both of these nights, and most of our water was drunk. Outdoor World while it had plenty of containers they did not have many full bottles. The water fountains stopped working only a few hours after we arrived. My guess is that someone or something broke open a main water line for the town.

“We are running low on water. Follow me I’ll show you how to see if any of these homes have water.”

As luck would have it, the first one I brought them to had water. I also explained how the bathroom worked. They asked where the water was held, but I couldn’t find it in that house. I then left them to clean and gather water themselves.

The next house did not have any water in the tank, but the water tank on the toilet was full. Clean enough to bathe with anyways. I might have bottled it but it had one of those toilet cleaner things meant to prevent a yellow ring from forming.

It worked but there was a blue ring in the bowl and tank. I didn’t manage to wash my hair though, I’ll do that at the next house.

Most of the houses only had water in the toilet tank, and all of those either had some cleaner in it or was rusted. I should have grabbed bottles with filters. Wait I didn’t pack, I’ll ask who packed and complain to them. I did find some canned fruit though, that was a good breakfast after a day of burgers. There was also a book by an author I liked I hadn’t read yet. I ditched some flashlights for it. Who packs regular water bottles and a half dozen bulky flashlights?

“That fight is dying down, where are you?”

I look around, nobody is nearby. Who showed them how to use it? There must be a walkie talky in the backpack, I dig through the exterior pouches and find it.

“I’m still looking for water. Did you find enough?”

“We did.”

“I’ll meet you where we first saw the fight.”

Now to call Bryan and Abagail, “The fight is apparently dying down, lets meet where we separated.”

“Everyone else is already here.”

Well, that’s convenient. I rush over to them, and we all look better. Bryan and Abagail give me a weird look.

“What?”

“You look different.”

“What do you mean?” I saw myself in the mirror, I look just like before. Just like I did in the weird mental dream crap. Do I still count as crazy? I still talk to voices in my dreams. Not important; I know what is real.

Abagail answers the question, “your skin looks cleaner, and your face is more symmetric.”

“What that is just silly. Anyways who packed the backpacks I have a complaint.”

“Your new friends.”

I release a sigh. No wonder the quantities of items are all weird. They don’t know what half this stuff is. Do they even know what half of it is? Abagail looks through here scope at the battle again.

“That fight is over, I think the winners were human. Either way the winners are coming this way. They are on horses.”

Where did they get horses? I hope they are friendly, and that either they speak elvish or the trio can translate to me. They were worrying a lot about protection, will they ditch us for this larger group? I guess I’ll get to find out soon.

We just wait as the horsemen surround us. Each of them are holding a long spear in hand and have a sword belted to their waists. They aren’t pointing their weapons at me so not a fight. The trio are shouting something at the men, but they seem to be laughing. The soldiers are not who is important, whoever their leader will show up.

Bryan and Abagail both have a pistol ready to fire. They are ready to fight, Kythia is too. After a minute or so the revolving circle of horsemen stop and a man in a breastplate rides in. The others are in some sort of leather, so he must be either their leader or close to it. He is the only one without a helmet and aside from his current dress could easily pass for someone of European decent.

The trio frown when he arrives. They know him. Good news translations should be possible, bad news they may have a feud. The man says something and the sisters reply, they talk for a bit and Talia points at me a few times.

“What is going on?”

The man looks at me in surprise. He recognized the language, but he doesn’t know what I said. I think. Kythia responds to my question.

“This man does not believe you to be a lord or that we are now under you house.”

“Did the sisters tell him that?”

“They did, multiple times.”

“How can this be resolved?”

“By declaring that they are yours. He will challenge for possession of them. He will name a champion from his followers and you, or a champion you name, fight and win.”

“How does that solve the we are surrounded by horsemen problem.”

“You show that you are a noble by using magic against his champion. Then they cannot take us as slaves.”

“Slaves?”

“Yes, a houseless is free to be claimed by any noble. That is why the sisters and I were surprised by your offer of hospitality.”

“What comes after the fight?”

“He will want us to go to the Althaen camp nearby.”

“And we have to go there?”

“Unless you want to offend him. Then he can call you a demon and his men can attack legally.”

“This is a bunch of . . .” Dammit elvish doesn’t have that swear word. “. . . Fine just set up whatever challenge has to be done. I said you could travel with me as friends and if this is how we can all stay alive and free so be it.”

Kythia looks a little puzzled after my last sentence, whatever I’m not sure how all these Althaen rules and laws work. I said they could travel with me as friends and that means defending them from what I can. The sisters were also staring at me as Kythia and me spoke.

Kythia and the man on the horse talk for a bit. Talia starts talking to me during this.

“Do you know what you just told Kythia to do?”

“Something that it takes for the three of you to not be his slaves. Beyond that no, you respected and helped me so whatever it is I’ll just have to deal with it.”

She and her sister smile a bit. I guess I should get ready for a fight. The noble on the horse dismounts and the circle of horsemen expand the circle. Am I to fight the noble himself?

“He wants to fight you himself. Don’t kill him though, he is not as strong as you. Just cut off a limb or knock him out.”

Its KO or dismemberment to win? This is some brutal crap, whatever I don’t care about his quality of life.

I take off my pack. Should I just shoot the fool? No, K said I should use magic. He has metal armor on, I’ll just shock him then. No, electricity flows on the outside of metal. . . He has a long sword, so parry his blade with an electrified knife?

Bryan and Abagail look at me, “he wants some sort of duel. If I win there won’t be a fight afterwards.” They look relieved. They put too much trust in me. I can’t even get up on time.

I walk to the open space so that it’s just me and him, he immediately charges at me. He opens with a lunge and I side step, from there he twists the blade into an arc at my neck. I can block that, and I’m going to make it hurt. I thought this was to stop a maiming not death.

I mutter some nonsense word and sparks start to shower off my knife just before it blocks the path of his sword. The force of his swing pushes my knife out of the way, but not before he drops the blade yelping in pain. I can feel a shallow cut on my right side, not near the jugular I’ll be fine.

I abandon creating electricity on the knife, I want fire now. I open my left hand at him and say another nonsense word, fire spills out of my palm, dousing him in flame. It’s not that strong, he won’t catch fire from this, but his armor will be ruined and forget about salvaging the clothes or his hair.

I stop willing the fire into being, and the flames stop. I shouldn’t suffer any backlash from this; tier one wizard spells can do this much, and I even did a verbal thing that is pointless. The horsemen are now talking to each other, is this enough?

“Kythia, ask him if he will continue.”

She said something to the man, but he just pulled a knife from his boots and tried to tackle me. Idiot I was just burning you alive and now you want to tackle me? I say tried because he quickly gave up after I lit myself on fire. Well, made a fire surrounded me, my clothes are singed and so much for the scented soap smell but hey the idiot didn’t actually reach me.

The fire wraps around the knife following my will and I throw it at the idiot noble. I missed, right I only ever hit things by cheating with throwing. Fuck it, I draw the pistol from on my right side and aim for his knees as he once more decides charging is a good idea. He has also been saying things the whole time, by the look of the trio’s faces they weren’t nice things either.

I shoot the gun. And take out a knee, he falls to the ground his balanced disrupted and I shoot the other knee for good measure. Now he is just screaming in pain, and bleeding, lots of bleeding. Should I make sure he doesn’t bleed out?