---------

As the third presence in the mind-space departed the assassin spoke up again. "Ah, hello? If you two are finished jerking each other off can we get on with this already? My life price should be around 35 id, if you will answer one question Ill pay double. 70 id, not a bad deal right?"

Gray was slightly amused, apparently Jaze wasn't lying. This man hadn't heard the two of them speak or he'd not have bothered with this bluff. "If you pay double, that's fine. Ill answer a question. But I know your worth is at least 70 id, so that would come to 140 all together. Also there is one other condition if your still interested."

There was no hesitation at all in the other mans response. "Whats your condition?"

"You can't ask anything about the Messenger that was just here." Gray replied.

"Done." Again no hesitation, Gray thought maybe he should have asked for triple price. "I know all three Messengers from the continent anyway, he must be some foreigner from across the sea or something. Never even heard his voice before, but hes not what I want to know about anyway."

"Ask away then." Gray said.

The mans voice took on a different tone, like a kid talking about a new toy he wanted. "What was the name of the skill you used? I want to get it, the damage was siiiick."

Gray chuckled, he wasn't in the habit of naming his attacks. Especially not one that consisted of just swinging a log at someone really hard. "Ah.... its called, ah.... Whirlwind of the, um... Wood Demon." Good luck finding someone to teach it since it had just now been made up on the spot Gray thought.

"Aw. Dude. It even sounds bad ass! No hard feelings about trying to kill you and all right? Business is business, ya know."

"Right." Gray replied, talking to this guy was tiring, it reminded him of dealing with his younger cousins who seemed to have almost no attention span. "Just don't be surprised when I stick a sword through your face next time I see you."

The man seems rather cheerful for someone who was just killed, and he says "It comes with this line of work, I'll prolly be trying to gut you as well. Peace out man."

With that his presence also vanished, and as it receded Gray perceived a weakly glowing man shaped outline that quickly folded in onto itself until it was roughly the size of a walnut. As it became smaller the brightness increased slightly, and upon stopping at its final size the mass glowed with about as much light as one might expect from a fire fly. After a brief second or two hovering the mass flew into Gray and merged with him. Physically he felt no immediate difference, but similar to when he had traded with Jaze he felt the accrual of value. It had indeed been 140 id, it was a drop in the bucket compared to his life price, but even the smallest rock would become a hill if you gathered enough of them together. Yes, Gray thought to himself happily, that had sounded pretty profound.

With the trade complete the world came rushing back. A quick glance showed the assassin's corpse was still present, the arm that had been blown off was a distance away, and still clutched the long bladed dagger . Bone fragments and wood splinters were scattered about the bloody scene haphazardly, and the people from Festid had retreated several hundred paces during the fight. With a sigh Gray squatted down near the corpse and stripped off the mans boots, as he finished Eri arrived behind him.

"Um, Gray?" She began, "Why are you taking that mans clothes off, isn't that disrespectful?"

Gray, having just finished wearing the dead man's boots looked at her and replied, "Mmmmm, first of all 'that man' is dead, this right here;" Gray nudges the corpse with his boot and continues, "is just a piece of meat. What use does meat have for a pair of boots? If his armor wouldn't have torn all to hell I'd be taking that as well. Second of all, this guy tried to kill me. So I don't particularly care if its disrespectful or not."

She had a sour look on her face but didn't press any further, instead she nodded slowly and said, "We are returning to Festid, you can see it from here." She points to a few small earthy looking buildings and a large smoking fire pit in the distance and continues. "Grandfather asks that you come speak with him when you are able, but there is a village matter he needs to attend too at once and this will take most of the afternoon. He asks that you come late in the evening, is this alright?"

Gray nods once, "Thats fine, I want to look around the place a bit anyway. I will find him after dark."

As she turns to leave with a nod, Gray walks over to he severed arm while gingerly testing the fit of his new boots. They fit pretty nice; and with a grin proceeds to pry the long knife out of the dead mans hand. It was unremarkable and compared to the stone blade he had broken earlier it was basically weightless. Unfortunately the sheath had been worn underneath the right arm and it was mangled beyond use now, but he picked it anyway figuring it was still better than carrying a naked blade around all the time. With that thought he rammed the blade into the sheath and stuffed the weapon into his waistband near the small of his back mangled straps and all. He then returned to the body and checked it over once again, looking for a purse or wallet. There didn't appear to be anything else though. He thought it slightly odd that the corpse had no money, but perhaps he simply hadn't brought any along in case he failed his assassination attempt. Satisfied with his looting he headed off in the direction Eri had pointed earlier.

----------

After he had arrived in Festid Gray had asked around for a leather worker or tanner, hoping to barter for the repair of the sheath. During the relatively short trip to the hamlet he had discovered that wearing something in your waistband was decidedly uncomfortable and getting it fixed had quickly become his number one priority. After greeting and chatting with a few of the women in the village he had been directed to a particular wedge shaped building with several long poles lashed together outside. On the poles were stretched a few animal hides ranging in size from a rat up to the size of a small dog.

A patchy bearded man who introduced himself as Kirst answered his knock almost immediately. After a brief exchange he agreed to take a look at the straps. Gray removed the mangled mess from his waistband, handing it to Kirst who took it and proceeded to inspect it. After a few moments he spoke up, "I can repair it easily enough, but you'll need to replace the leather and I've precious little here. Hunting has been scarce the last five years or so. We rarely see even fai fox anymore."

Gray considered a moment and then asked, "What about Myrk leather? They were pretty large and there's a few corpses not far off..."

A look of sheer horror passed across the tanner's face as he said, "Hells man, Myrk makes excellent leather, but the folk here won't enter the wood, especially not after today."

"Ah, well if you show me how to do it I can go grab the skin and bring it back for you." Gray offered.

The man shivers visibly and continues. "Well your a Traveler, I guess you can handle yourself, and there ain't much too it really you just..." And for the next thirty minutes Gray gets a crash course in skinning both animals and monsters. "Any questions then?"

Gray responded, "Not really, seems pretty straight forward. Ill be back with whatever I can carry shortly." As he turned to leave Kirst stopped him, handing him a small leather satchel and saying, "Here you can have it, if it'll help bring back more leather to tan its a worthwhile trade." Gray accepted, and slung the satchel across his back took the knife from its sheath and headed back to the woods.

---------

After a rather uneventful morning in the woods up to his elbows in Myrk guts Gray returned to the tanners home. Something had eaten most of two of the corpses in the time he had been outside the woods, but one of the corpses had still been in decent condition and he had done a pretty decent job skinning it if he did say so himself.

"Gods man, this will make excellent leather, look how pliable it is. Its a shame the cut is terrible, it could have been so much nicer." Kirst did not share the same opinion of Gray's work apparently, but as he went through all of the materials Gray had gathered he relented slightly. "Well the last few pieces are serviceable, looks like you finally got the hang of it right at the end. Lets get this stretched and cured, come. With you helping we can get it done before the light is lost."

For the remainder of the afternoon Gray worked to help Kirst tan and cure the leathers. It was pungent work, but it was interesting. He had always enjoyed working with his hands and learning new things. Kirst had also been quite happy with how quickly Gray had picked up the work, and had gifted him a large curved bone needle and showed him how to repair the lightly damaged areas and replace the ones that couldn't be mended. This type of thing could well become an excellent hobby Gray though while he busied himself and shortly before the sun set he had a freshly repaired sheathe strapped to his waist.

The tanner saw him off after he finished with a smile and a thanks for he had left the majority of the leather from the Myrk. After all there was quite a bit and he certainly couldn't carry it all around with him, he had taken just enough to allow for more repairs if his pants or sheathe were damaged again. With perhaps forty five minutes of light remaining Gray headed back to the center of the hamlet. Right now his biggest weakness was that he lacked even the most basic knowledge of this world and he intended to remedy this as soon as possible.

Thinking that, he quickly located the old man eating alone near the fire pit. Upon seeing Gray the old man motioned him over, and quickly after Gray was eating his first meal in his new world. It looked like some kind of fish and a stringy seaweed soup with a side of what appeared to be a rat roasted on a stick. He accepted the soup and passed on the rat, he was hungry, but not that hungry. As they ate Gray started to question the old man, but he was told to wait, and that they would talk in the elder's house after their meal. After polishing off several stone bowls worth of fish soup Gray stood up and followed the elder into his home.

---------

After arriving the elder spoke to Gray about many things, first they spoke the magic the assassin had displayed, the elder suggested that magic was usable by basically everyone but that that particular magic was rare and could be learned only from some shady people. The elder even taught him how to use some very simple magic, a spell called spark. It was basically an extremely weak fire spell really only suited to starting a campfire, and even then it would be useless if the tinder used was not perfectly dry.

From there the conversation drifted to Traveler's and their place in Crucible. The elder suggested that he head to the capital of the empire as the King's chamberlain was supposedly an expert on Travelers and had helped a great many of them at some point. But the little the elder had known about them was that they used to be very common, but after an huge war a dozen or so years ago most of them disappeared. Once they had helped beat back the wilds of this world but now the few that were still running around seemed to just seek each other out and then fight, usually destroying whatever was around the them in the process. In short most people saw them as a dangerous nuisance.

After that the elder provided him with a working knowledge of the areas around Festid, and suggested he head eastward to the village of Harshe. It was a much larger farming and mining community, located on a outlying trade route of the Empire. Once there it should be possible to find work and gather more information. From there he could also follow the road to Ashe, the capital city of the empire. However it was at least a week of travel by foot across the plains, and the last day or so of travel would see the land begin to slope upward to larger foothills. The elder said that once away from Festid there were many beasts and the occasional monster as well, but nothing as threatening as a Myrk. Dangerous for certain to the villagers, but for Gray it should be relatively safe as long as he was careful.

After their chat the elder invited Gray to stay the night, and he gratefully accepted. Smiling with anticipation of his upcoming journey Gray quickly fell asleep.

-----------

Return To Main Page / Forward To Chapter 7

-----------

Kind of a slow chapter, as we needed to get some information down now that things arent life threatening for a moment. As always comments and reviews are appreciated. Also since I proof read myself if you catch some weirdness that I missed I would appreciate if youd bring it to my attention so it can get fixed. And finally, as always: Thanks for the read.