Chapter 3: Chapter 3.

Sun’s light winked out. Darkness set in and it freaked me out. At one moment it was still above horizon and then it was blocked out. At first I thought it went behind the clouds, but then the stars popped up in the sky. A solar eclipse? It had to be. Not wasting a moment, I climbed up the wall, stood tall and surveyed the area again.

This time, I saw exactly what I hoped to see. A fire. A glimmer of red between the rotting trees, out in the distance. It was in the same direction of the wisps of smoke that I had spotted earlier. To the west. It gave me hope. Now I was certain about the direction to take.

A minute later the sun returned. First a little, then more and more as the moon moved past and out of the way. I was right, I thought, it was a solar eclipse. Still, it was strange that it would happen to occur right now. What were the chances?

I returned to putting all the steel from the chain to good use. I needed simple tools and weapons, but they all required handles of some sort. I didn’t have wood and time to carve them out. I needed to get moving, to find civilization.

For the time being, I went with a simple machete, thick and heavy. About the length of my arm. It took the whole length of the chain to make it. The steel flowed into a liquid, then I reshaped it using my mind into the desired shape. Instead of a wooden handle, I made the handle out of steel to fit the contour of my grip to near perfection. I gave it a sandpaper like surface so it wouldn’t slip out of my hand.

My stomach growled again. I looked at the charred bodies of lizards lying on the ground. I was hungry, but was I hungry enough to cook and eat them? They looked like lizards and fish at the same time. And while I considered both types to be edible, these things smelled something awful.

The fire that I saw to the west couldn’t have been more than a few miles away. Why eat this, when I could find proper food and water? That was my hope anyways. Maybe it was a small camp there, a village perhaps? From there I’d find me a town, maybe a city.

Despite being eager to leave, I took my time to comb through the status screen. I wanted to learn as much as it was willing to tell me. I focused in on the single profession in my status screen, Bounty Hunter. ‘Track and find killers and missing people,’ was the only the description it gave and nothing more. However, there was nobody here. It was a problem for future Jack at the city.

Before leaving, I climbed up on the wall one last time, got a good look around. The turtles laid dormant, lizard eyes poked up over the water’s surface, but didn’t move closer. I took a mental image of the path ruins I would need to follow.

Shield in one hand, machete in other, I set out west in the direction of the sun. But sneaky like, cautious steps, scanning and listening. I didn’t want to end up as a snack for these giant turtles, or whatever else lurked in these dark waters.

The ground was soggy wet, a bit muddy. I removed my sneakers, tied the shoelaces together, then hung them over my shoulder to dry.

I didn’t make a few yards before the lizards caught sight of me. They came out of the water behind me. I turned and looked them directly in their wobbly eyes. The bastards froze, looked from side to side as if trying to muster up the courage. None was found. I brandished my machete at them. One by one they slipped back into the growth.

“Yeah, that’s right, get back in the water,” I told them.

Maybe I should have taken the opportunity to kill them too for more Essence. But, I didn’t want to attract the attention of the giant turtles.

Once they ran off, I moved on. Keeping an eye on the sun, I moved from ruins to ruins, zigzagging west. I’d stop and look for anything I could use inside the ruins, but wasn’t as lucky as the first time. No steel, no treasure, no nothing. Just rocks, rubble and snakes. None got close enough to bite me. I had to veer around more than a few to get by.

One ruin contained an enclosed armory, just big enough for a small garrison. Inside I found four short-swords, a few pieces of plate armor and three shields. Everything was covered in rust and all the leather straps had gone to crap. Nonetheless, most of the steel was still there.

After some fiddling around with the plate armor, I came away with a breastplate for my chest and back. The fit was wobbly over my t-shirt, but it was much better than nothing. Most importantly, I had made greaves to fit over my lower legs and down over the top of my sneakers. It was just what I needed against snakes.

I merged all the shields into a single tower shield. Four-feet tall, two feet wide. To the front I added three-inch spikes. Now I could attack by defending.

I liked the machete I had already made. So, for the swords, I melded them at the handles to create a four-bladed star. I reshaped the blades to be shorter, and sharpened the edges. The remaining scraps of steel were added as weight to the center. Why lug it around when my minion could do it for me?

I animated the three-foot wide star, and spun it up until it whistled. To test it out, I used it on a nearby tree. It sliced through a thick branch without stopping, but wasn’t strong enough to cut the tree down. Instead, it got stuck in the tree trunk when I tried. Still, I was more than happy with it. If I ran into more lizards they’d be in a world of hurt. I kept it floating out to the side of me, and set out for the next ruins.

I sloshed through knee deep water, peeled off leeches off my legs, swatted mosquitoes away. Trekking through a swamp was tiresome, and I was getting thirsty. To make matters worse, fresh water was within easy reach. Problem was, it had to be filled with bacteria, and I would need to boil it first.

At least the smoke was getting closer. Another turn in the path and something other than rotting tree trunks, reeds and water came into view. I could see huts! The sight put a kick in my step.

I came out to a clearing, and stopped a good distance from huts standing on stilts. A smoke trail rose up lazily out from the center. I could barely make out a few green creatures sitting around the fire. More lizards? Strange, I thought. The ones I had ran into before didn’t have any huts near by.

I took another step, and heads rose up out of the reeds a few yards out in front of me. I brought my shield forward for cover. Fearing that I was surrounded on all sides, I jerked my head from side to side, but didn’t see any more.

They must have seen me coming and were waiting in hiding. The olive green of their skin made for perfect camouflage. They were no lizards though, but more like frogs. Tall and scrawny, they stood upright on both feet. Clam-shell necklaces, bone-tipped spears, green-scaled loincloths.

“Oi mate, what’cha doin in our swamp, ey?” said the one in the middle with a leather eye-patch. He was chewing on a thin reed. His big eyes were yellow like the yolk of a chicken egg. Three fingers on each hand, webbed feet. No ears. His smiled really wide, near splitting his face in half, from one side to the other.

I scoffed. “You can talk?”

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“Of course, mate. Whadya think we was?” He laughed, looked to his buddies at the sides.

I took a step forward, and they pointed their spears at me.

“Woah there,” I said. “I come in peace.”

“You didn’t answer me, did ya?”

“I’m lost, alright? Is there a … village, a town or something near by?”

“Lost, eh? Yeah, you look it.” He pointed at my machete. “Do you often come in peace with that?”

I chuckled. “Good point. It’s dangerous out here.”

And I could understand their fear. I would also protect my place from anyone coming armed with a weapon, and a machete of all things. Never mind the spiked tower shield and the three-bladed star. I stabbed the point of the machete into the soft ground before me and lowered the star, but kept the shield at my side.

Standing a good head taller than them, I must have looked intimidating. Yet, their leader didn’t appear to show any fear, unlike the other six at his sides. I liked him already.

“M’name’s Dandee,” he said. “And what’cha be?”

“You can call me Jack,” I said. “Do you have anything to drink? I’m real thirsty.”

Dandee pointed to the side, to the swamp. “Plenty of water ‘ere.”

“Yeah, there is, but it’ll make me sick, won’t it?”

He spat out a thin reed out of his mouth. “You want some water? Food? We got it. How about a trade, eh?”

“Alright.” I didn’t have much to trade except for steel. “I can make a steel spear-head. Sharp as a razor. Better than that … bone thingy you got going on there.”

Dandee narrowed his single eye. “Let’s see it.”

I sliced off a bit of spare steel from the center of the star. I reshaped the metal into a decent enough of a spear-head. Nothing too fancy. Dandee blinked, leaned in to watch me work. It looked like they had never seen this sort of magic before.

I raised the finished product up high so he could see it. “Sharp as a razor.”

Dandee smiled, lowered his spear and walked up closer. He grabbed at the spear-head like he thought it was a spoon or something.

“Carefu-” I started to say.

He yelped, and jerked his hand back. The spear head fell to the ground. Blood trickled out of a thin cut on his hand.

He winced. “Bloody ‘ell. The damn thing is sharp.”

“I told you so!”

Dandee picked it up gingerly this time, held it between his fingers as if admiring a masterwork. “This be shiny, yeah. C’mon lets get some grub, mate.”

I smiled. This wasn’t quite the civilization I had in mind, but it was better than nothing.

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