I tend to view my life as a sequence of events between horrific problems. Like I was dying of thirst so I found a water spring and took care of that, only to run across and anger some kind of godling creature. In resolving one issue I stumbled upon something a lot worse. All of this in the course of trying to resolve my magical impotency (THE ONLY KIND I'VE EVER HAD!), I'm sure if I was so inclined I could go back over this very journal and note that every entry deals with a problem in one way or another. Though thats not entirely fair since I've skipped entire centuries of nothing purely because nothing happened, but look don't devalue my theory because its not always true, accept that I'm right and we'll move on? Ok, ok.
Back to the more immediate situation, that being I still looked like some kind of vagrant gun thug wandering around a world gone to crap by freaky flesh creatures. I did have some water stored up (someone had left a nice canteen near the spring, probably before becoming some horrible creature so I made sure to wash it out thoroughly before taking it with me), which at least resolved the immediate dying of thirst angle. I didn't have much of a lead to go on for my hunt for that blind jerk other than him being around here somewhere, which was of course pretty bad since he was the entire reason I was here in the first place.
I didn't even have a map or general lay of the land. I knew west of me was the coast, all other directions though? No clue! The entire land was a mystery, I couldn't even find a reliable road, either because of the evil in the land or because the area where I landed didn't believe in proper roads! This is just an explination how I managed to stumble through every bush, random plant, and damned spikey pokey thing in the area! I was more cut up from the general vegetation than I'd ever been from getting in fights with actual enemies!
I'll paint you a picture. I was cut up from a bunch of vegetation, my scraggly red beard had grown in thick and disgusting, I had a pair of pistols hanging on my gun belt that was the only not ragged looking part of my attire, and I was unnaturally thin. Is it any surprise the first group of people who weren't flesh creatures took a shot at me?
I had stumbled out of some particularly nasty pricker bushes (more apt a name I'll never know) and was having a reasonable discussion at a normal volume about my displeasure with the bushes when a bullet wizzed by my head (I could tell from the hissing noise and then the bang, see you always hear the miss before you hear the shot, or in some cases feel the pain before you hear the shot). I drew my own pistols in response and I guess that action showed my potential murderer I wasn't some slavering flesh creature.
"Whoa sorry about that." It was that kind of backwoodsy farm folk accent everyone who subsisted off shooting varmints and planting crops have. I don't know how this accent manages to override any regional or political region, but it does. We were a good distance apart, I could see what looked like four specs on the horizon (so even if I could have fired, which I wasn't sold on in the first place with my pistols I probably would have hit a whole lot of nothing).
"You're sorry? You tried to kill me and you're sorry?" I'll admit I was a little outraged. The group quickly started coming in my direction. The specs took shape and I could see farm boy and what looked like his harem, well two barely old enough to form sentences young girls, and one might be about breeding age one, so not exactly a great harem, but in these times I'm sure you took what you could get. For a brief moment I worried I'd stumbled upon another slaver, unfortunatley it was worse they were "heroes".
"Look mister I'm sure you want to shout and yell and all the rest, but this place ain't safe out here, less so if you'll be hollaring." I couldn't argue with that, well I could, and normally do, but in this case wanting to not be some flesh eating creatures dinner I decided it was best to follow the four and voice my displeasure later in a safer circumstance. They lead me from the bloodying pricker bushes to a ruined town that I had some how been close to but not noticed. They also seemed to be following roads I could not see. Damned locals, I tell you its like they hide these things so that foreign invaders like myself would never find a proper path ever!
They had made their camp in the basement of what looked like it had been a store prior to the evil invasion. It made sense to hide in a basement, though since there was a fireplace in the basement and they were using it, they weren't exactly masters of hiding. I could see they were all armed, so that threw out the slavery thing (unless he was keeping them slaves through another means, I have no idea I've never been east before). So I had to ask now that we were safe.
"What are you guys doing out here? Just surviving?" They looked at each other sheepishly like what they were doing was kind of embarrasing, until yokel talked.
"We're heroes, were going to save the world."
"Well," I paused rolling over the all the words in my brain for this particular revelation "Shit."
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