After another day of hunting I was disappointed that there were no signs of the wolves that I came here for. The whole reason we came this way is so I can gain new shapes for my shapeshifting. This forest is large and even though we have traveled a few days in it, we have barely breached the entrance. Russell must have noticed my impatience. “The Red Wolves and Grey Paws live farther in the trees. The Gray Paws live more to the base of the mountains, and the Red Wolves live near the heart of the forest. We still have a few days of travel before we reach either of those places.” Russell gave me a shy smile and shrugged his shoulders. I gave him a rueful one in response. I know that it is not his fault, he has been very good to me since we met. Probably better than I deserve. I am thankful that he decided to travel with me. “Hey Russell, why did you not go into the entertainment business? With your gift it would have been very easy for you to make a killing doing that.” We had stopped to eat and Russell began to choke on his bite of food. I waited for him to clear his airway and answer. “Why would you even suggest that? My Mother’s people would be horrified to hear you even suggest that.” He shuddered. I am sensing a bit of cultural differences here. “Why is it bad? What is the entertainment industry like here?” Russell looked at the fire darkly “Entertainment troops are mostly run by slavers who use their slaves to put on shows to draw in crowds. It is true that my lineage of Druids have been famous and hunted for our gifts, but since the treatsie with the Wood Elves the poaching and enslavement of our people have gone down significantly. My mother did not want me to leave the trees in fear that my gift would attract the wrong kind of attention.” Wow, I did not know that. His reaction makes a lot of sense now. “Why is the entertainment industry like that? Would it not make more sense to hire your people and the players instead of using slaves?” Russell gave me an odd look “They don’t have to pay slaves.” That is true and makes a kind of horrifying sense. “How rampant is slavery in Darva?” Just what kind of country did that bastard send me to? “Slaves are mostly criminals, people too poor to pay their debts, of those sold to slavers by their families. It is illegal to hunt down citizens to make slaves, but in certain groups they ignore the more suspicious acquisitions. Everyone knows that it happens but the people in power are not going to question where the slave with the lovely voice or the slave who makes the show such a great success comes from. Someone can contest a slave’s status saying that they have been wrongfully enslaved but the trouble that can be brought about proving it makes most people choose not to. It is dangerous to be talented in this world. Never take out a loan unless you know that you are going to be able to pay it back quickly. There are some who give out loans and don’t tell you about the steep interest on the money until it is too late and then sell you to the slavers for a profit. There are some groups of lenders whose goal is to prevent people from falling into slavery this way, but it can be almost impossible to find the real ones and the imposters.” Wow, I will need to be careful. My own gift could be very entertaining to watch. I can see it now ‘Girl transforms into canines’ twenty dollars to see the show. Or whatever kind of money they use in this world. I am a little more worried about Russell though. His gift would make someone rich. It makes me wonder if part of the reason that he wants to be the next Avatar of Verdin is to make some changes to the way the country works. There is still a lot that I don’t know, about this country, this world and about my companion. We eat the rest of the meal in silence.
The third day in the woods and I reach level nineteen. It took a lot more time to reach level nineteen from eighteen than it took from seventeen to eighteen. I asked Russell he nodded “There is a reason that the average adult is level twenty. Reaching level nineteen and twenty takes a lot of effort and the amount needed for each level after level twenty doubles with each level. It is hard to break through to level twenty one. I am level twenty one and I have been for almost three weeks now and I have been devoted to leveling up since I was ten. It took me almost a year to reach level twenty one. You have done really well to reach nineteen as fast as you have. I heard that the Chosen are given help for the first twenty levels to let them catch up with the rest of the population. It must be true. You have been particularly focused on fighting though.” So my grace period is almost up. I shudder to think about what it is going to take to reach level twenty one. “You have been training since you were ten?” Russell nodded “That was when I decided that I wanted to be a part of the trials. I did still have to study and could not immerse myself in the danger like I can now though. I had to pass both of my parent’s tests before they would let me leave home.” His face went a bit dark at the mention of his home and those tests. I wonder how hard it must have been. “Is everything okay?” Russell looked at me, his eyes still distant “Yeah, it is just… I did not follow in the footsteps that I was expected to. Too much of my mother in me.” He shut his mouth after that, and I know better than to push it. No good can come from prying into his past, not when he so obviously does not want to talk about it. He has left my own past alone, the least I can do is to give him the same courtesy. I grab the body of the large Rhabbit that we killed earlier. We left the bodies of the smaller Rhabbits in the base of the trees so they can feed the other predators that live in the woods. We keep only the amount of food that we can handle. If we had taken it it could not only slow us down, but the meat would spoil before we could eat it. It also helps keep us safe at night, the more dangerous predators do not have to hunt us for their meal. While Russell stares at the fire lost in his memories I skin and break down the Rhabbit. After how many times I have done this now, with the help of my scavenger skill, it is easy and does not take so much concentration to complete. Once I have it bled and gutted and the meat in slices on a skin and the fresh fur and skin drying by the fire I hand the metal pan to Russell, bringing him back to the present. He took the pan and grabbed his bag and took over the task of cooking. I am very glad that he takes care of the food prep. I was never the best cook and the exotic ingredients of this world are things that I am not familiar working with. I might learn some cooking later, but for now I am going to just get a taste for all the flavors this world has to offer, I can figure out how they fit together later. Russell moves slowly and methodically as he rubs some herbs on the meat and places a cube of animal fat on the hot pan. He makes the cubes with the melted animal fat and pours them into some molds he carries around and then puts them in a small sack that he puts in his pack. He then places the meat on the sizzling grease in the pan. He waited a few minutes before using a fork to flip the meat in the pan and brought some kind of roots and vegetables that he found while we were heading through the forest today. They are the same as the ones that we ate yesterday and the day before. The same kind of vegetables that grow in this part of the forest. They are a thick brown root called Ruden, a long thin yellow vegetable with a leafy top called Keldrin and dark green round one that almost looks like a cross between a large acorn and a small pumpkin from my old world called a Grumpkin. So far the Ruden and the Grumpkin are really good with Rhabbit meat. The Keldrin is good with the birds, but not so good with the Rhabbit. It is a bit bitter with the taste of the Rhabbit meat. Russell seems to like it, he says that something in the Keldrin reacts with something in the Rhabbit meat to create the taste. I did not really care to listen, I just told him that I did not like the combination and he stopped making it. I do feel a little bad about that. He is giving up a food combination that he likes for me. He really is too kind for his own good. Tonight he soaked slices of the Grumpkin he gathered in the combined juices in the pan and let them cook for a few minutes. Once everything was done he shaved pieces of the Ruden on top and served the meal in the wooden bowls he carried around. As usual the food was delicious. He did not really talk anymore that night, I did not want to send Russell into some more bad memories, and he was focusing very hard on the work of creating more fat cubes and cleaning the pans. I offered to clean the dishes, he handed me his bowl and kept the pan. We found one of the watering holes, a small pond with a stream. Russell told me that there is a large lake somewhere in the trees that all the small ponds and streams are connected to, but we have not gotten far enough into the trees to find it. I used the water from the large skin that I filled earlier and set aside for cooking and washing to clean out the bowls. We will refill our water in the morning before we head off deeper into the trees. We drew lots to see who would take the first shift for the night and I won. As I settled down in my furs to get some sleep, I could swear that I heard a very lovely voice off in the distance singing. I could not hear the words, but the sound of the voice warmed me as I fell asleep. I must have been imagining it.
Comments (0)
See all