Banished Pt. 15

Francesca chuckled a little, then shook her head.

"When you plan for the long term, you really plan for the long-long term," she noted, with some amusement, and I rubbed the back of my head nervously.

"Occupational habit," I mused. "Shall we?"

Francesca nodded, and we headed off again, moving south, and following the river's course.

As we moved, however, I tried as best as I could to note places along the river's banks that allowed for easy access to the channel, and other places which looked to be decent enough places to settle.

We continued on our journey for about another hour or so, heading south along the river's bank, but as we continued on, I suddenly heard a voice calling out from somewhere ahead of us, and I froze, as it was one of the last things I expected to hear at that moment:

"Julie!"

The fuck-?

Was it merely my imagination?

I turned to Francesca, but the look on her face told me that she'd heard it too.

"That was your sister's name, wasn't it?"

"Adopted sister; but yeah..."

I shook my head disbelievingly.

Even here, you haunt me in the strangest ways, huh?

"Do you wanna check it out?" she asked, and I nodded nervously.

"Yeah. People shouldn't be in here, and this could really put a dent in our plans to settle down."

"Sounds like they're in trouble though," she said, and I nodded again.

"Let's get a little closer and see what's up," I suggested, and Francesca nodded, following me as I headed carefully for a thick bit of brush, then made my way around it.

There were a lot of leaves on the floor, and we'd need to be careful if we were to move without being heard.

"Julie!" someone called again, and as we settled into our vantage point, a group of what appeared to be ordinary humans came into view, making their way along the river's edge heading north.

"Their clothes," Francesca whispered, and I nodded in response, as I noted that they were wearing the same plain cotton clothes that we were wearing when we first came into this world.

The clothes, however, were quite ragged, and the group too looked fairly miserable.

I counted seven guys and four girls, and as they came nearer, snippets of their conversation began to come to us.

"She's gone, man. You need to let this go before you get us all killed."

"We don't know that, okay?"

"Fucking hell, can one of you girls just touch his penis so he can let this go?"

One of the girls laughed, and the man snapped at them.

"Fuck all of you!" he yelled.

One of the boys shoved another, and as the two began to tussle, the others quickly separated them.

"If one of you went missing, you'd want us to come looking!" he yelled, but the boy who he'd attacked, Wilt, apparently, merely shook his head.

"You heard what that man said. This place is meant to kill us all. We can't afford to waste time playing hero when we don't even know how to protect ourselves!"

"They look like noobs," Francesca said. "Should we go help them?"

I shook my head.

"I dunno," I replied. "I was hoping to stay out of trouble."

"Doesn't seem like if they're armed though," Francesca said, and I frowned.

"I'm still getting a bad feeling," I replied; then just like that, as if on cue, that curious sensation coursed through me, and Francesca's eyes went wide as she felt it too.

Danger sense.

We immediately went on alert, our backs to each other, as we kept an eye on our surroundings looking for signs of some intruder.

"Do you think they're being hunted?" she asked.

"Maybe. But whoever that was probably just got a bit of a shock."

I took one more glance at the group, who continued on northwards, occasionally calling out for 'Julie' again before slipping out of sight.

"What do we do?" Francesca asked, and I thought about it.

"Let's stay put for now. They would have sensed us, and if they were hunting those guys, then they would have been spooked by us too."

What would they have done?

My instinct told me that they would have gone still as well, waiting for some sign of us... unless they had some ability that allowed them to detect where we were.

What were their other options?

The danger sense radius was a mile according to Casey, so they could move a mile east of us, and get past us like that.

Nevertheless, we kept still for what felt like twenty minutes, when I sensed that Francesca was getting impatient.

"What if they continued after those people?" she asked, and I frowned.

"I don't want to leave them to die if they really are newbies, but we're at a serious disadvantage here."

As I placed a hand over Francesca's, she settled down a little, and not a second too soon as we spotted a flash of movement east of our location.

Francesca caught my eye, and in that moment, we darted out towards it.

My mind had just a second to process it all; but it appeared to be a man in full armor, and his eyes went wide as he spotted us, but he was too slow to react, and my halberd caught him in the ribs as I slashed at him, knocking him off his feet, and sending him skidding across the forest floor.

He sprang to his feet, but I was on him again, and just as he lifted an axe to strike, I stabbed him through the unarmored spot on his shoulder, then slashed at the axe, and the thing went flying from his grasp.

"Stay down," I warned, but as I kept an eye on him, another flash of movement drew my eye from the side, and Francesca moved to chase.

"Fuck," I cursed, as the clanging of steel against steel sounded from beyond the trees.

Could she handle it?

I took one look at the man in front of me, then made a judgement call; stabbing through his leg and twisting my halberd wickedly before darting after the sound, and I got there just as an armored man came charging at Francesca from the east while she engaged with yet another man just south of me.

I made a slash, and the man parried the attack, before turning to jab at me, but his attack was sloppy, and I deflected it with my arm guard, before stabbing through his leg, then dragging the point of my halberd out of his leg, and cutting through the extended hand that held the sword.

The man cried out in pain, and I turned just in time to see Francesca yanking her spear point out of the third man, who lying still and lifeless on the floor.

Was that it?

I turned to the man that I'd wounded.

"Do you have any heals?" I asked, but the man was wailing, and seemed unable to comprehend me at all as blood burst gruesomely from his stump of a hand, and the spot on his leg where I'd ripped through him.

I grabbed onto the man, and slapped him.

"Heals?" I called out more urgently, and he shook his head... but as he began to cough up blood, and his body began to spasm, I quickly released him, and he went still as his body slumped to the floor.

"What about the third-?" Francesca began, but her question was cut short as a figure darted out from behind the tree where I'd left the man, and we immediately turned to give chase.

But the pursuit turned out to be a short one, as we spotted another man up ahead, and as our quarry turned and spotted him, the other man raised a sword and slashed across him, and Francesca and I pulled up to a stop as the headless body fell to the ground at the man's feet.

"Fucking hell; how many of you bastards are there?" the man began.

He advanced on us, but as he moved to attack, he paused in his approach.

"Wait... you aren't with them?" the man asked, and I shook my head, even as I kept my muscles tensed, and ready to react at any time.

He shook his head disbelievingly.

"I spend a week crawling through these woods and finding absolutely no-one, and now suddenly I can't seem to stop running into people. Does anyone wanna tell me what's going on?"

"You first," I replied, and the man readied his sword.

"Not the kind of way you talk to someone while refusing to display any emblem of your affiliation. What are you, hunters or something?"

"Just people trying to survive," I replied, and he scoffed.

"I find that hard to believe when you're holding a custom-made weapon."

His eyes flicked between me and Francesca, full of suspicion, though as his eyes rested on Francesca, I noted that his expression seemed to soften a little.

"Now her, I'd believe; you're not accustomed to killing," the man said, and Francesca eyed me, not responding, and the man sighed, then planted his sword into the ground.

"Look, we're not gonna get anywhere unless someone starts talking. I'm fairly certain I could take you both, so maybe try giving me something to work with before I need to resort to something less... diplomatic."

I bit my lip, as I thought about his words, then nodded.

"We're fairly new. The armor came from someone else, but we're only just getting settled in here," I explained, and he arched an eyebrow at me.

"Inside of the forest? How'd you even get in here?" he asked.

"Natives are guiding us," I replied, and he let out a laugh.

"You're serious, aren't you? What kind of natives would have anything to do with us?"

I shook my head.

"I gave you something, and if I'm going to die, I'd rather not reveal something that puts them in danger," I replied, and the man cracked a smile at this.

"Loyalty even in the face of death?" the man asked. "Well, color me impressed. The name's Ethan; and this here thing," he continued, indicating to an emblem that hung on his belt, "this is the emblem of Davion's knights, although I'm guessing that name means nothing to you, huh?"

"Someone I met mentioned them," I said, and at this, his eyes lit up.

"Met? Wait, in here? Please tell me it was Danica!"

I nodded slowly, and he practically leapt into the air with joy.

"She really did it, then! God, I'm sorry, you must not understand any of this; but that's probably the best news I've heard in my entire life!"

As he spoke, I tried to peer into his core as subtly as I could, but while I could make out a lot of skills, I noted with interest that there was no implant in his wrist...

I studied his wrist for some indication of why that might be, when he suddenly shot me a cheeky smile.

"It's not polite to do that without asking someone's permission," he said, and I shook my head.

"Sorry, but- your wrist... where's your implant?" I asked, and the man grinned.

"Don't have one; I'm technically not like you two," he explained. "My parents were, but I was born here."

I stared at him, my mind suddenly going to Cameron and our baby.

Could it one day grow up to be as strong as he was?

I was worried that lacking an implant would seriously hinder my child's development, so knowing that this was possible was a huge relief.

As I studied the man, however, I noted that there seemed to be an interesting smile on his face...

"You... seem pretty happy to see us," I offered, a little uncertainly, and he shook his head.

"Sorry, it's just so nostalgic; seeing two otherworlders like this. So young and innocent to this world. I was born pretty soon after my parents came here, and well, I guess I don't need to tell you that with core acceleration I grew up pretty quickly... but you two kind of remind me of them. Before they started to lose their innocence to all of the brutality that comes with surviving in here, at least."

"I understand," I replied. "I'm Nathan, by the way. And this is Francesca."

Francesca bowed a little, and the man returned the gesture, smiling at her.

"That's a beautiful name," he offered.

He studied her for a second, before quickly shaking his head.

"I'm sorry, I'm getting a little caught up in the moment here. There's a group of new recruits that I was tracking; I think they went up the river that way, and they really need some help. Tell you what, I don't really care for all of the armor on these guys, so you can have what this one was wearing, but... if you don't mind, I'd really like if you'd come meet up with us when you're done looting them over here. Maybe we could chat a little?"

I nodded in response.

"Will do. How do you collect credits without an implant, if you don't mind me asking?" I replied, and he chuckled nervously in response.

"Can't collect them at all, really; although... given what we know about the people that're sending you all over here, there's some of us who prefer to have nothing to do with their credits. Don't let me put you off though, you probably need the stuff just to survive right now, huh?"

I nodded, and he sighed.

"Well; have at it. We're following the river up this way, and we'll probably camp along its bank somewhere for the night... somewhere we can access the water easily. Just follow the way up and you'll find us, okay?"

"Sure thing," I replied.

The man nodded, and he bowed again to Francesca before turning to leave.

"Impressions?" I asked finally, as the man disappeared from our field of view, and Francesca crouched down beside me.

"That was unnerving as fuck," she breathed. "Nate, he's like... your twin. I swear. Everything about him screamed danger, but I could feel myself relaxing despite it. As if the comfort and safety he exuded just... eclipsed my own intuition."

I bit my lip, as I listened to her.

"Logic is telling me we could learn a lot from talking to him, but my instincts are telling me to just run right now," I admitted, and Francesca sighed.

"What do we do?" she asked, and I crouched down to look at her.

"If his intentions aren't bad, then I guess we can learn a lot just from talking to him."

"And if they are?"

"Then we're fucked, because he'll follow us and we'd end up leading him to the others even if we left right this instant."

Francesca breathed nervously into her hands.

"What do we do?" she asked, and I sighed.

"The single only way we protect the group right now is to lead him far away from them, and just... let him murder us," I explained, and Francesca furrowed her brow.

"Maybe we can fight him together with everyone else?" she suggested, and I sighed.

"Then we risk getting everyone killed."

Francesca put her hand over mine, and I looked into her eyes.

"Nate; I'm pretty sure everyone is willing to die for the sake of keeping each other alive. And they aren't going to make it without you... none of us are."

I sighed.

"Let's meet up with him then. Maybe we can work out exactly how strong he is, and what we're up against."

She quickly nodded in agreement, but as I stood up, I took a look at the decapitated corpse ahead of us.

I walked over it and placed the man's implant against my own, transferring two thousand credits over to me, but as I began to strip off the armor from his body, Francesca moved to join me.

"Fuck. I feel sick, doing this. Like we're... grave robbing, or something," she said, and I nodded.

Maybe hunters back on earth would be more used to this sort of thing, although... butchering an animal carcass had to be different from taking armor off of a human corpse.

"Tier two; low-grade," I said, and Francesca nodded.

"They were newbie hunters like Raul then, huh..."

I picked up his axe, then ran my finger along the handle, and watched as the weapon folded away into a small bit of handle, making it easier to stow, but as I examined his leg where I'd wounded him, I noted that his wound seemed to have been healed, and after a quick examination of his body, we found a belt-pack tucked under his shirt, filled with some little metal nuggets and a couple more mid-tier healing vials.

"What're those?" Francesca asked, examining one of the nuggets.

"Native-human currency," I explained.

"Just... bits of metal?" she asked, and I nodded.

"According to Casey, there are very few naturally occurring metals on this planet, and they're all structurally different to the ones used to make our armor and weapons. So, they melt down our stuff and make these. Apparently, it's the primary form of currency in most of the civilizations that interact significantly with us."

"Huh. Is that what all of the blacksmiths back in Saker were about?"

I nodded.

"Apparently the process to melt them down takes a long time for regular smiths, even if the equipment is low-grade t-one."

"The grade affects the time?"

"And tier, apparently. Our weapons function as they do from being super dense; so, the denser the metal, the higher the grade. And the higher the quality of skill it can store. To be honest, I don't really understand all of the physics behind this stuff," I admitted, and Francesca chuckled a little.

"Well, I never paid that much attention in physics classes, but I think I get it; mostly because it follows video game logic," she explained.

"Hn~. Maybe I should have played some in my life, then," I said, and Francesca shot me a surprised look.

"You never played anything? Not even the classics?"

"What, like... 'Super Mario'?" I asked, and she nodded in response. "Sure, but not much more than that."

"What about board games? Or tabletop games."

"Tabletop? Like dungeons and dragons?"

Francesca nodded, and I snickered a little.

"I actually did, but... let's just say in a much more formal way than most people would consider 'playing'," I explained, and she studied me.

"Formal? What, like official games? Adventurer's league, I think it's called?"

I shook my head.

"My father made us play; me and my siblings, I mean. It was sort of like... a training exercise to him. To help us to bond, learn how to work together; that sort of thing."

"Jesus. Training to be an investment banker?" she asked, and I chuckled a little.

"You'd be surprised by how often his unusual life lessons ended up helping me throughout my life."

Francesca studied me, smiling a little.

"You really liked your dad, huh?"

I shrugged.

"He wasn't exactly what one would describe as a doting father, but he was an efficient man, and I appreciated his efforts," I said. "But try telling that to Julie, and all you get is an hour-long rant about how he doesn't love us, and how he's never pleased with anything that we do."

"Now that sounds like my dad," Francesca said, and I studied her, as we moved on from the headless corpse to the other two.

"Was he the overly critical type?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"Just the... perpetually unimpressed type, I think. But overly critical was definitely my mom. She gave me the 'girls who make something of their lives don't play video games all day' speech like twice a week."

I snickered in response.

"How good were you?" I asked, and she shrugged.

"Wouldn't know. To be competitive you need to play a lot. And I mean, a lot. More than you can with parents who berate you constantly about it, even though my grades were never bad."

I ruffled her hair playfully, and she smiled.

"I think my dad would've liked you," I said. "He had a special love for people with natural talent."

Francesca scoffed.

"What natural talents do I have?" she asked, and I shot her a disbelieving look.

"You kick ass like no human I know," I replied. "If you ask me, that Ethan seemed pretty interested in you too."

"Ugh," she replied, as she suppressed a shudder, and I chuckled in response.

In total, we got forty-five hundred credits from the three men, as well as three suits of low-grade tier-two armor, plus two swords, two daggers, a knife and an axe.

"What do we do with the bodies?" Francesca asked, and I sighed.

"Would be pretty irresponsible of us to just leave them lying about, huh?"

I took a look around, as we didn't exactly walk with tools for grave digging.

"Our weapons can loosen up the soil easy enough, but we'll need something to scoop out the earth if we're gonna finish sometime this century."

Francesca smirked a little, while I looked around for something to use.

"What about their helmets?" she asked, and I smiled.