DAY SEVEN - Saviours
Yesterday is a bit of a blur to me now. I
think I cried. It must sound ridiculous; the star-hardened
merchant marine sitting in the middle of the rocky desert weeping like a
girl... but the carnage those things unleashed was astonishing.
All I found was splintered wood and a thin paste that used to be
locals. The last time I saw a crewmate was a week ago and
they're all dead. The last time I saw anyone else, they got
turned into a liquid by things I've only ever seen in
nightmares. Throw in that you can't find anywhere to sleep here where sharp rock doesn't poke up your ass at
some point during the night and maybe you can start to see why I
was just about done. I felt like I was going to explode... my
whole body just hurt, hurt, hurt from way deep inside. I'm
not sure exactly what I was doing... playing in the sand or something, I
guess, when they showed up. Again my memory is kind of muzzy,
but what's important is that Merin and Bernoi showed up.
Honestly, when I
saw their silhouettes on the horizon, I didn't much care
anymore. No
fear. No hope. No curiosity. Just another set of shapes passing
by in the distance. But they came at me like they were looking
for me. I still
don't know if they saw me in the distance or if it was fate or just the dumb
luck of a man way out of his element but the pair just walked up and
stood looking down at me. Surprisingly,
I could understand them. It was tough but they
spoke this harsh, twisted language that had a bunch of Brydish
and Bjaki in it. Not quite what the mission training indicated
we should expect but I could at least get by. They
picked me up and brushed me off, checked me for wounds or fleas
or something and then introduced themselves.
"Exemplars" they called themselves. From what I could
gather, they're like a local version of that kitschy simcast
"Defenders of the Core", travelling do-gooders just
looking for dragons to slay and trouble to resolve. Well,
I was in trouble so I can't say that the sappiness of their
lifestyle bothered me one bit. My
paladins of virtue were filthy and kind of smelled a bit. Again,
I'm not complaining... they'd likely say the same about me. They
wore loose, wide-sleeved outfits that had probably been white at some point in the
past, their filthy hair tied back out of their leathery faces.
The one called Merin had a long curved knife hooked on each hip
and the one called Bernoi had a fairly hefty blade hanging from
his belt. Both had short shotguns slung
on their backpacks and these were in considerably better
condition than their clothes. In any
case, what I got from their pidgin language was that Kanduambet
was "that way" and they would take me there. Just grand with
me, folks. So we walked the
rest of the day. Merin and Bernoi seemed pretty much tireless
but were patient in waiting out my occasional rest and
water break. Let's face it, there's not much need to get good at
forced hikes when you make your living on a starship. And so here I sit,
scrawling these words in the light of a respectable little
non-descript campfire... don't even ask me where these two
scrounged up the pile of wood to burn... while the dim figures
of my adoptive guardians stand nearby peering protectively into the growing dim, red night of
my new home. |
