Chapter 10: First Time

  Time Remaining; 715 Days, 4 Hours, 33 Minutes…

  "It wasn't exactly a map-quest kinda thing Garret, okay. I don't know how much longer." Alex rolled his eyes and chuckled under his breath.

  Garret and he had been traveling for eight hours or so now, and the scout had been pestering Alex like a kid for half of that time. It was small things, and Alex found it pretty funny if he was being honest. Funny, if just slightly annoying.

  "Are we there yet?" Garret called out from a few feet behind him, and Alex looked back to see that same goofy smile on his face as always.

  "No!" Alex yelled back. "Stop asking me, or so help me, I will turn this car around Garret!" Alex stopped, and stared at the man with dagger eyes.

  Garret's feet froze, and he looked up at Alex with shocked, wide eyes. His lip quivered ever so slightly, a tiny tremor. The wonderful smile on his face gone and Alex just looked at him with a stern glare.

  "But... Are we there yet?" Garret asks once more.

  "I hate you." Alex groaned, and shook his head. He turned around to start walking again before feeling a hand on his shoulder. Garret's grip was stronger than Alex thought it would be. He must have put some experience into his strength. Garret's face was grave as he looked at Alex.

  "But really... are we there yet?"

  Alex had to take a break for a few minutes as he couldn't keep going while laughing that hard.

  They were back at it quickly enough, marching along the forest with the river to their right hand side. Alex remembered Sylvaris saying he should travel for "one cycle of the ascendancy", and he didn't know for certain what that meant, he would bet this second life in this world that it meant one day.

  Once all the joking around was done, for now, the scout asked Alex how long they actually had to travel for. Once he thought about it, Alex wasn't sure. "I'm assuming that a day is still twenty fours hours here as well. It seemed about that much given the last few days, but I haven't been counting seconds exactly."

  "Yeah, we have all been assuming that I think," Garret said, pushing back a few stray branches as he moved.

  "Speaking of days and time though, have you taken a look at the sky past the trees?" Alex looked at his friend. Garret returned Alex’s stare with a look of confusion written on his face. Alex sighed. "I'm guessing that is a no. I recommend looking when you can. Its... something else man."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You'll see. Its like nothing you've experienced before, I won't steal it from you with a crappy description." Alex kept moving, a small smile on his face as he thought about that black circle among the cosmos.

  "Alright fine, if you're pulling my leg though I'm gonna throw a badger into your tent."

  "You wouldn't."

  "Oh hell yeah I would, it is funny as hell seeing you square up with the over-sized rodents." Garret nudged his shoulder, throwing Alex into a stumbled before he regained his balance.

  "They aren't rodents Garret. Those things are as big as dogs and dangerous as all hell. My thigh still stings, and my left side still bleeds sometimes." Alex rubbed his leg, emphasizing his statement.

  "Sounds like a giant rat to me. I lived in New York for awhile as a kid, those things can leave you bleeding and dying before you know it." Garret brought his hand up to his mouth in a strange gesture that Alex could only assume was the guy mimicking the large front teeth of a rat. It looked nothing like any rat Alex had seen in his life.

  "Yeah, I doubt a rat would give fifty experience though." Alex shot back a smirk.

  "Fifty experience? Damn, wish squirrels gave that much." Garret frowned at this point, looking at the spear in his hand. The spear that the captain and Alex had helped him create just yesterday.

  This statement gave Alex pause. He had talked with them about experience points and raising stats; pretty much everything he had learned from the elf. He never really asked how much they had been gaining while he was gone though.

  He would assume it was less than himself, given they weren't out hunting specifically for that reason like he was. They also weren't given the fortuitous badger-ambush encounter of a sudden ambush to boost them. Like that was actually fortuitous, he had almost died fighting those things, again.

  "How much experience have you earned so far?" Alex asked.

  "Uh, around sixty," Garret said after a few seconds of silence. "Only gotta get nine more. Am I right?" He then held up his hand in an attempt to coax a high-five from Alex.

  "We can keep an eye out for some animals while we move then, that way we can progress our stats at the same time."

  "Sounds good to me. I want to get my strength up as fast as possible."

  "We will have your muscles busting through that uniform in no time, don't you worry." Alex looked Garret and himself over, noticing how worn their clothing was at this point. He might need to start worrying about clothes more than experience points soon. "If we find some more deer, then we should be able to make something from their pelts maybe, this camo doesn't help in hiding from the mobs out here, trust me on that."

  "You wanna get all glammed up huh, Alex? If that's the case, you better hope we come across some dye-r wolves!" Garret wiggled his eyebrows at Alex expectantly.

  "You know I hate you right?"

  "Nah, you love my stuff. I give you gold everyt-"

  Garret and Alex both froze mid-stride at the same moment. Two pairs of eyes landing on a bush ten feet from them. It had moved suddenly, a rustle that was most certainly not the wind. Alex's grip on his spear tightened, and the muscles in his core clenched.

  He was ready for another badger to come barreling out of that bush.

  What came out instead, made Alex stumble back a step, nearly dropping his weapon to the dirt. He had barely any time to figure out what was happening before Garret was running forward at it.

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  Alex watched his friend clash with a strange looking humanoid lizard man roughly four and half feet tall.

  The thing held a spear of its own, teeth clacking and eyes darting every which way. It was dressed in leather scrap clothing, primitive by all standards. Garret and the lizard thing started a lethal dance, a lunge here, a faint there. It was a sloppy fight, nothing like the fantasy films with sword and spear combat that he watched back home.

  The lizard-man-thing was small, its movements quick and swift, but Garret seemed to bully it with his size. Meanwhile, Garret’s technique was like a toddler trying to use a stick he made pointy just earlier that day.

  Alex was still in a daze when the second figure came running from the brush. Garret was holding his own, but a two versus one was simply unfair. These things were freaky, alien even, but they were the enemy.

  Heat flared in Alex's blood and mind, a sudden adrenaline spike that got him focused nearly instantly. He wouldn't allow his friend to be in any more danger than he already was. Alex could take on a child sized lizard.

  The impact he felt when he stepped in front of the lizard man was less than Alex was expecting. The thing was small, but fast and he fully expected to get jarred when swinging the shaft of his spear against the shaft of its own. Reality was strange that way, and it showed Alex just how unknowledgeable he was in combat.

  The lizard slanted its weapon when they collided, causing Alex's spear to slide away to his left. He wasn't able to correct in time and stumbled a step. It was a mistake that let the little freaky lizard move inside Alex's guard.

  He felt a stinging thud as he was hit with the butt of the spear in his abdomen. Another half stumble had him pull away just enough to dodge being disemboweled, and catching the blade of the spear across his ribs on the follow-up attack instead. A graze, painful, but not lethal.

  Alex didn't have time to check the damage, his opponent already pressed on him again. The weapon in its tiny clawed hands spun and moved in ways Alex found impressive. Whatever this thing is, it's better than me. I can't just fight it weapon to weapon. His eyes darted to Garret. The scout was still holding his own for now. The guy was bigger than Alex, stronger, and he appeared to be leveraging that in his own fight.

  Okay then, Alex thought. Use what I have. Use what I know. He dodged a blade swipe that was aimed at his face, only to take another spear butt to his left thigh. A grunt came from his mouth as he took the hit, but that's when Alex made his crazy move.

  He dropped his weapon.

  The spear fell to the dirt, and Alex was now bare handed. His opponent paused at the action, which was something that Alex was hoping for. He lunged, falling on the lizard and taking them both to the ground. Alex was in a tug of war for the spear in his opponent's hands while in a tangle of limbs. It would normally be a bad situation, but Alex was used to this. Hand to hand combat was what he did for years, since he was a kid.

  Yes, his brother Adam was better than him. Stop thinking about that in the middle of combat, okay brain? Thanks. Regardless, Alex was good, and he had to use what he knew.

  This wasn't like the badgers. It wasn't a feral quadruped that he had no idea how to handle. So Alex fell back on his training and knowledge in fighting humanoids. With a quick twist, he had the lizard-thing's hand off of the spear in a moment. A small crack resounded from its wrist, followed by a screech of pain. Within the following moments, Alex had his legs wrapped around his opponent’s body and its last good arm extended out.

  The spear was again in Alex's grasp, held just below the spearhead. A swift stab had that blade buried in the lizard's throat. The creature bled quite a lot for having such a small body, but Alex didn't think about that too much.

  He was already dismissing the pop-up screen the system was trying to show him, knowing it was just the experience notification.

  "Garret!" Alex looked over to his friend, seeing he was already bringing his own fight to a close. He had the thing backed against a tree. They both were still swiping and stabbing, doing their dance. The thing had no where to go though, it was a matter of time.

  Alex got to his feet just as he heard another screech behind him.

  "Fucking hell." He cursed, as he watched yet another of these things running from the foliage at him. It was a bit smaller than the first two, maybe younger, but not by much. Admittedly, it was hard for Alex to tell. Either way, it dies.

  A dagger was in its clawed hand, which it whipped around wildly. This one didn't have the same weapon skills as the other. Alex had it disarmed with a quick strike to its elbow. More bones snapped, Alex actually felt a little bad about that. Not enough though.

  Alex picked up the dagger from the ground. The thing was rusty, old, but somehow sturdy. It was basically a short sword in the creature's hands, but a long knife in his own.

  The tip of the dagger was barreling down on the throat of its former owner when Alex heard it. "Ghirzu... No, please!"

  It wasn't Garret's voice. Alex couldn't stop in time. The dagger cut into the scaly flesh and nearly separated the lizard-man’s head from its body. Alex spun before the body even hit the ground, knowing there was only one other “person” that voice could have been, and Garret now had his spear buried in their chest.

  The other lizard man. It had spoken, it was sapient. They were all sapient, but Alex didn't know that until it was too late.

  "Damn it. Damn it." Alex threw the dagger into the dirt and buried his head in his hands.

  Garret didn't know, he couldn't have. Alex had the ring, the one that let him understand other languages. Once it spoke, he could have understood it, and he could have talked to them. Maybe they could have stopped this killing before it even started if he had thought for a second to even try speaking to them, instead of following Garret's lead and just engaging them in a fight to the death.

  "What? You barely got hurt, why are you upset?" Garret was already cleaning his weapon on a small rag from his pocket.

  "At the end, before you killed that one. It spoke." Alex said, pointing at the body now laying under the tree.

  "Spoke? C'mon Alex, it growled and snarled, but that's it." Garret frowned at him.

  He showed the ring on his finger by holding up his hand. Garret looked at him confused for a few more moments before deflating. "Oh yeah, you have that ring." He looked at the body with Alex and let out a long sigh. "Well, nothing we can do about it now. Things were just as keen for a fight as we were. They came at us first after all."

  Alex shook his head slowly. "No, it just stumbled out of the bushes. I don't even think it knew we were here. Then you ran at him and started fighting. The others came at us after that, to defend him I think. " He held up his hand, cutting off the words he knew Garret was going to say. "You didn't know, and it certainly could have been dangerous. There was no way the risk would have been worth it. This is all just in hindsight. Still though…" Alex sighed heavily.

  "Yeah…I hear you Alex… damn," Garret said.

  Digging some shallow graves was easy enough. It was the least that they could do. The two of them didn't even say any words when they were done. What the hell were they going to say anyway, they didn't know them. They killed them, that was it.

  "Let's go then. We have to make it the village still." Alex pulled on his pack and looked to his friend. He got only a nod in return.

  For once Garret was quiet for a while. The two of them simply traveled along the river for the rest of the day. Alex's ribs stung, so did his leg and side from the badger fights. He was collecting wounds like trading cards, and he wasn't sure when he would have to end up scooping the match. For now he could keep putting one foot in front of the other though.

  Just keep going. Get to the village, learn magic, figure out a way back. That was the plan. He would just keep going.