Chapter 3

Samasan bent down, and picked up a twig with green sludge on its end. He inspected it closely. Smelled it and gagged, while dropping the twig. After he caught his breath, Samasan looked at where the trail of green liquid led. It traveled fifteen meters, and stopped suddenly. He looked towards the area, and pondered.

"It's just a large flat area covered in leafs. What could be so dangerous... Oh!..."

A realization overcame him. The flat area was thirty meters across, slightly lower than the ground around it, and well camouflaged. He wouldn't have noticed it, if he hadn't stopped to look at the discarded weapons. Samasan wouldn't believe his eyes a few days ago, and think it was just a coincidence, but this was obvious.

"Trapdoor spider."

Samasan looked at the weapons, and thought about taking them. They were only a few meters in front of him, and the trapdoor was further ahead of them. He was standing at the edge of where the green sludge exploded around the weapons.

"They're usually nocturnal." He told himself.

Samasan crept forward like he was searching for mines. The day was bright, even in the thick forest now. His hand trembled as he leaned over to pick up a crude bow. It lifted slowly. Samasan picked up the three bows first. As he was picking up the last sword, Samasan heard a shriek. He turned around to see a small green creature running towards him while holding a sword. It was ugly, seventy centimeters tall, and suddenly pulled underground by a dark-black creature the size of a house.

"Holy shit. Not nocturnal." Samasan ran the way he came.

He was wheezing when he got to the normal path between the village and the dry creek bed. No one was around to see Samasan in distress. He collapsed on the ground, and stared at the sky while trying to catch his breath.

"That was so idiotic. But the village needs more weapons."

Samasan got back up, and carried the weapons to the square. Everyone there was staring at him. He dropped the items, except for his personal stick on the ground next to the drying pottery, and walked away.

"Urujah." The people muttered around him.

Samasan walked to get more clay. After a few more trips, everyone was saying "urujah" to him as they passed. Samasan felt proud.

"I bet 'urujah' means something good." He thought to himself.

Two of the children were fighting with the damaged swords that Samasan had found. The other villagers paid it no mind. Samasan sat on the ground in the dirt road by the village. He was having a moment of contemplation. It was obvious now that this wasn't just an elaborate dream. This world was real and dangerous, but it was also exciting and new. Samasan steeled his resolve.

"I am a man of science. That is what I will contribute to this new world."

Samasan got up, and saw a cart being pulled by a donkey coming down the dirt road to the village. The person driving the cart was small. Samasan walked back towards the village as the other villagers gathered by the road. They were all speaking among themselves.

"I wish I could understand."

The person with the cart stopped by the crowd of people. She was the same size as the woman Samasan met before travelling back to the village for the second time ever. About half the hieght of most of the other adult villagers. Around one meter tall.

"Another dwarf?"

The two short people greeted each other by stabbing their short-swords into the ground before hugging. Although the greeting was amicable, they talked business-like. They were pointing to their own fingers while talking. Samasan guessed they were counting numbers on their hands. The shortest villager woman took out a leather pouch, and dumped out the contents. The cart driver inspected the coins and marbles, then smiled. She took half of the coins, and all of the marbles.

They both hugged again, and picked up their swords. The stranger left, travelling down the road in the same direction.

"Not a merchant?" Samasan wondered.

All the villagers dispersed back to work. Samasan went out to the fields to help weed. He looked to the sun-ring for the time. It was about eight in the day, as in the eighth star being indented. Samasan had learned some things about the ring of stars. Firstly, it never moved in the sky and was always in the same position; about forty-five degrees from the horizon. Second, each star indents half the radius inwards then moves back to the ring's edge, before the next star clockwise moves the same way. Third, night time is marked by the white stars changing to black one at a time.

Midnight is when all thirteen stars have changed to glowing black, and dawn starts when all the stars in the ring have changed back to shining brightly white; and start indenting during the day. Last is the wind. During the day wind travels away from the sun, and it's warmer in the sunlight. At night, wind travels towards the dark sun, and it's warmer in the shade. The other strange thing that Samasan has noticed is that there is no moon that he can see.

Samasan had many questions about these phenomena and others, such as cultural practices. Being beaten severely before welcomed to join a village seemed to be a gang-like initiation, but also beating a member of the village at the same initiation was strange. Samasan dumped his basket full of weeds into the pile. It moved. He jumped back, and froze. The pile of weeds definitely shifted around. A two meter long centipede crawled out of the pile.

Samasan instinctively held up his pointy stick, but the centipeded paid him no mind. It mindlessly crawled around on the pile. Samasan realized that it was hunting the bugs in the weed pile.

"This must be a baby."

There was a difficult decision to make. Kill it, or let it live. Centipedes on earth would hunt small animals, and inevitably this centipede would grow large enough to hunt human sized prey. However, it is part of the ecosystem, and a more dangerous type of fauna could appear if it was killed. Samasan thought for a moment, then plunged the stick into the centipede's back as it was crawling into the pile. He stabbed it over and over. Samasan didn't stop when the ticking noise started. The other villagers in the field ran up, and started pulling the two meter centipede's carcass out of the weed pile.

They worked diligently together. Samasan stood aside, and watched as they cut off the head and tail of the insect. When they pulled out a green marble with brown splotches from the head, the body stopped writhing, and a gold coin fell to the ground. The dwarf woman of the village approached Samasan as the other villagers were pulling out the centipede's legs. She stabbed her sword into the soil, and Samasan stabbed his stick into the soil.

"Jah" She crossed her arms over her chest.

"Urujah" Samasan did the same movement.

The woman burst out laughing. Samasan was confused.

"Urujah is good, right?" he thought.

They picked up their weapons, and worked with five other villagers to carry the dead centipede back to the village square. Everyone was paying attention. That evening they piled sticks around the body, and cooked it for dinner. Samasan wasn't excited about eating bug, but he also didn't want to have another meal of rocky moon wheat. The texture of the meat was similar to oily fish, and it tasted earthy.

"This isn't terrible." Samasan shrugged.

That night, the house that Samasan slept in was chosen to be on night watch. When he got up to take over, another villager pushed down on his shoulders.

"Jah ohwl"

Samasan laid down, and went back to sleep. The reward for killing a dangerous bug was getting a full night's sleep. He was happy, because his body was very sore. The next morning was focused on collecting wood. Samasan helped dig shallow pits to build fires in. After the fires burned down, dried clay pottery would be added with more wood placed around it. The burning pits were covered with soil, and left to cool for three days.

During those days, Samasan was given a sharpened stone knife for personal use. It's blade was slightly dull, and only suitable for blunt cutting by smashing the rock against the object. He was also given a centipede leg by the shortest woman, whom he has come to consider the village chief. Samasan realized the merits of the leg were in its strength and sharp tip. It wouldn't break or dull easily. It was the lower half of the bug's leg, round with a sharp pointed tip; fifteen millimeters thick at the base, and tapering to a sharp tip after twenty-five centimeters.

"You won't beat me this time."

Samasan stared down a tree, before climbing it. Although the other villagers used centipede legs to make bug-tipped spears, Samasan Da Silva had other plans. He specifically chose a thick branch with a narrow 'Y' at the end. Cutting it down with a dull blade was hard, but his anger sharpened his resolve. He wedged the centipede leg into the 'Y' of the branch, and tied it down snugly with long fiberous weeds. Samasan got strange looks as he walked out of the forest, and entered a field being prepared for replanting.

His arms raised to the sky, and swung down with all his might. The bug leg pierced ten centimeters deep into the ground. Samasan ripped the soil up, and repeated the process. This method of tilling the earth was much easier and faster for Samasan, compared to using a stick by itself. He believed that basic metal farming tools existed, but the village was too poor to afford them. Also there was the disinterest from the other villagers that led to this conclusion.

"Are they mad at me, because I spent two hours in the forest making this tool? How can they not see that this will be faster?"

Samasan's portion of grains for dinner was more broken pottery than moon wheat. He wanted to complain, and cursed the language barrier. He was even given two shifts of night watch, which interrupted his beauty sleep. Samasan was grumpy the next morning, and tasked with helping carry water in the pottery that had finally cooled off. He was given a pot as he was tying the door shut from the outside.

"What's this for?"

The man who handed him the pot walked off without speaking. Samasan saw other people carrying pots into the forest, and followed them. He helped collect water. The person at the shallow stream would have their pot filled to the brim by the next person waiting. The round trip took forty minutes by Samasan's estimation. On the second trip back to the village, he reached the forest edge, and snagged his foot on a tree root.

"No!" Samasan yelled.

He was looking at the broken pot shattered on the ground. Samasan began to cry. He looked around to see if anyone was watching, then covered the broken pieces with leafs in the crook of a tree trunk. Samasan walked back to the village, got an empty pot, and resumed his task as if nothing had happened.

"Urujah."

The children jeered at Samasan, while filling an emptied fire pit with water. Samasan gritted his teeth, and carefully set the clay pot on the ground. Although he wanted to smash it to scare the children, he knew its value. Samasan watched on as the the kids mixed up the water in the pit into a muddy mess. They would add moon wheat straw, and mash it in with their bare feet. The final step was building the mud into crude bricks to dry on the ground.

"Why are they wasting straw on mud?" he asked himself out loud.

A child approached Samasan, and quickly dropped a bundle of straw at his feet before running off. He looked down at it and sighed.

"I don't understand why, but I'll do it..."

Samasan took his rock knife, and smashed the straw into shorter pieces. Before he was finished with the pile, another one was dropped on top of it.

"Are you fucking kidding me."

Samasan stared at the kid who stared back for a moment.

"Zah."

"Ahhh... What doe's that mean?"

Samasan angrily chopped up more straw. More came. More was chopped.

"No. No. There's no way you need this much straw. I don't know what you're thinking, but this is pointless."

He threw up his hands, and walked away. The straw that had gotten jammed under Samasan's nails stung. He wanted to go weeding to relax, but his fingers hurt too much. Samasan relented to making another trip for water. He was much more aware this time, and didn't break any more pots.

"We need that to drink."

Samasan was frustrated by the water being used up to make mud bricks. He was so mad that he drank a liter of water from the four-point-five liter pot, before returning. They didn't care. Dump the pot. Hand it back. Samasan's eye twitched as he grit his teeth into a smile. He brought another pot of water, and sat it down twenty meters away from the people making mud bricks.

"Don't you dare." Samasan pointed at the person who ran over.

"Zah."

They picked up the pot, and ran off to dump it, then brought the empty pot back to Samasan.

"No! I'm done with this stupid game. Get it yourselves."

Samasan stormed off instead of taking the pot. He wanted privacy. Just a chance to get away from the frustration. He found himself climbing into the building that was destroyed by fire. Samasan looked at it. The walls were intact, but the roof, window bars, and wooden door were all destroyed by the fire.

"Why. Are. People. So. Stupid!" Samasan pounded his rock knife against the burnt roof beam.

He took to spending the remaining hours of the day demolishing the collapsed roof. Samasan had created a considerable pile of burnt and partially burnt remains outside. He didn't get any grains for dinner that night.

"Bet you wished we had some water to drink right now." Samasan flipped off the group while making the motion of drinking out of a bowl.

"Zah." They responded.

"Fuck you."

Samasan got up, and grabbed his centipede hoe. He went out to the field to beat out his anger. It was evening now, and all the other villagers were inside the walls of the waddle fence. Samasan was talking to himself when he heard a noise. He saw a large shadow moving in the field. It's eyes glowed yellow.

"You want a piece of me!" Samasan ran towards the shadow while holding the bug-hoe over his head.

The shadow ran away, and he chased after it, but it was faster.

"Coward!"

Samasan walked away backwards. He didn't know what creature it was, and could possibly be an ambush predator. It might attack while his back was turned. Samasan tripped over himself while moving back, and got back up. He got back to the village, and headed towards the house to sleep.

"This is just perfect."

The door was tied shut from the inside. Samasan took up his pointy stick, and took to walking the perimeter of the wooden fence. He wished for some animal to just try him, but none dare came that night. Samasan fell asleep next to the fence at early morning, when nine stars had changed back to white. He woke up at the third star from the top being indented. Samasan isn't sure if there are twenty-four hours in a day cycle, nor for how long each star indents or changes to black, but it seems to be on a specific rhythm. It was very convenient for tracking time, except when it was cloudy.

When Samasan woke up, everyone was already working. His stomach growled.

"Ugh. So hungry."

Samasan weeded the fields for a few hours. He came back to the village to get his centipede-hoe, and found the remnants of it broken. The leg was missing, and the wooden pole was snapped in half. He threw the broken pole into the pile of fire wood by the newly built mud brick oven, then walked to the forest with his pointy stick and an empty pot. All Samasan could think about was eating. He would wander off the main path to the stream, until he couldn't see it anymore, and walk back to it. His stomach was guiding the way.

He finally found what he was looking for; berries.

"How do I know you're safe to eat."

Samasan rubbed a crushed leaf of the plant on his arm, then the berry next to it, and finally the berry juice on his skin in a small spot. Samasan marked the path to the berry bush by clearing a path in the leafs on the ground on the way back to the main path. He reached the stream, and because no one was there to help, Samasan could only fill half the pot. He drank some water directly from the stream, and left.

The birds scavenging the forest ground would fly up into the trees and sky as Samasan approached. He took pleasure in the distraction of bird watching. After Samasan reached the village, he left the half pot of water, and took two empty pots with him. Samasan brought back a total of twelve pots three-quarters full, before dinner with the group. Tonight he got grain with fewer bits of broken pottery. When Samasan took night watch later, he got a bug-legged spear to stand guard with. He kept looking at it for most of the watch. Wondering if that specific leg was stolen from his farming tool.

Samasan was practicing his spear throw technique, when the tall grasses lit up. The light was moving fast. He watched as a glowing giant rat ran into the moon-wheat field, and towards the forest. It almost reached the woods, when a giant shadow crashed down on it from the sky, and flew off with the glowing rat.

"No way. No fucking way. There is no way. Are you kidding me."

A flying lizard stole the rat from the cats. It was seventeen meters long, with a third of it being its tail. It grabbed the glowing animal with its hind claws, and its arms were the thirty meter wide wings.

"That was awesome."

Samasan walked around the village alone. The other two groups were comprised of three people each. He wanted to make conversation with them, but there wasn't much he could say. He isn't sure of the few words that he thinks he knows. Samasan has been trying to learn how to speak numbers, but most of the villagers aren't interested in counting out loud, and the ones who do respond say the same words for different numbers.

Zero is 'three three.' One is 'Seven three three.' Two is 'Five three.' Three is 'three.' Four is 'Seven three.' Five is 'Five.' Six is 'Something five.' Seven is 'Seven.' Eight is 'Something five.' That's is far as Samasan has learned numbers in the native language. He wants to know why they say the same words for different numbers, but can't ask.

"Three. Five. Seven." Samasan repeats the numbers in the local language out loud.

One of the groups on night watch pass Samasan with suspicious looks as he recites 'three, five, seven.'

"What does it mean?"

The night watch was replaced, and Samasan slept til daylight. He got a handful of grain without water to drink for breakfast, then set off to the forest for water. This time more people were going, so he only took one pot.

"That was the leaf." Samasan looked at the red irritation on his arm.

He stopped by the berry bush from yesterday, and rubbed a berry on his lips. It smelled sweet, and looked like a bright pink tomato five millimeters in size. Samasan got more water. He made two more trips with two pots for water, then weeded. Samasan was deep in thought about eating berries. He was tired of eating moon-wheat. He felt his lips for swelling and irritation. None. Samasan made one more trip to the berry bush, before dinner. He rubbed berry juice on his lips, and went back to the village.

On the trip back, Samasan stumbled upon a baby deer laying on the ground in a curled up ball. It looked very young. Their eyes met for a moment, and the deer dashed off. A group of other baby deer sized deer ran off with it.

"Oh." Samasan was surprised.

He wondered if they're not babies, or if they are, and the herd has a high fertility rate, or possibly is exceptionally large. It was too late in the day. Samasan got back to the village.

"Urujah." The elder greeted him.

Samasan smiled, and sat down on the ground with the group. He watched as people talked to each other. The children were walking around, while swatting the ground with sticks. The chief gave Samasan a patchwork shirt to wear. It felt like linen, and was shiny like silk. He knew it came from processing the straw into fabric. He saw the process from start to finish.

Swat out the grains. Dry the bundles. Remove the leafs. Soak the straw in water. Dry the straw in bundles. Beat and smash the straw into long flexible hairs. Make the hairs into string, and the string into cloth.

"Thank you."

"Zah."

More people in the village were given patchwork clothes, and swapped it with their tattered and torn clothing. They really weren't bashful about nudity. The chief and elder took the old clothes back to the elder's home. The elder is the only villager with a private home, and no night watch duty. Samasan didn't have night watch duty that night either. There was no water with the morning grain. Samasan chewed a berry today, and collected more water.

He was tired of eating around broken pottery, and decided to investigate the main building of the village. It looked as expected for a roof collapsed during a fire. Samasan couldn't reach the grain, because it was buried under debris that only small children could navigate through.

"I'm getting to that grain."

He started carrying out pieces of thatch roof, and piling it next to the village oven. It was still being used to cook pottery, and no bread has been made yet in it. Samasan sighed, and kept working on clearing the building. No one was upset, because he was collecting material that can be burned in the oven. It took two stars to clear a meter forward. Samasan worked all day, through dinner, and into the night and next day. He had a blank expression on his face, when he finally reached the grain.

Most of it had been used up, and the rest was deeper into the pile. There was two or three days of grain for the village left in that pile. He was working on spit and spite. Samasan got a bowl, and sat down with the accessible grain.

"Scoop a little, shake the bowl, dump half the grain out to the side, repeat."

Samasan liked talking to himself out loud. It was nice to hear language he recognized and understood. He did a lot more conversing with himself since entering this world. It felt nice for Samasan to think to himself out loud, but also a little bit crazy. The villagers looked at him the same way, when he would talk to himself in front of them. There was just enough grain to fill one pot. Not much for twenty two adults, and six children to share; even if the grain is quite filling. Samasan continued to work until,

*thud*

His legs gave out. He lied on the floor in exhaustion, and fell asleep. When Samasan woke up at the fifth star being black, he found a small pile of grain, and a bowl of water next to him. He let out a grateful sigh, and ate in silence. It was nice to not worry about broken clay in the food. Samasan worked through the night again, and had cleaned out half the main building. In the morning, more people joined him to clean. They finished at the seventh star indenting.

Samasan sat down with the grain, and started panning out the broken pottery. The village elder, and some children also worked on it with him. Samasan felt a strange feeling; belonging. Happiness filled his stomach, and he got teary. When he felt too choked up, he left for the forest. Samasan chewed on a berry, and spit it out. It tasted like artificial cherry flavor with a mint-like cooling effect. He wanted to eat them, but he had to wait. There was one more test left.

"So far so good..."

Samasan came out of the forest, after the first two stars had turned black. The village had turned in for the night. He was walking through the field as a short cut, and felt a familiar feeling rub against his leg. Samasan flung around.

*Stab*

A fatally wounded eyeless-cat flew into the air.

*Stab* *Stab* *Stab*

The ticking noise filled the air around him. More of the cats showed up to meet the tip of his pointy-stick. Samasan was scared. He expected the giant cat to show itself at any moment. Finally, a cat dodged, and Samasan's stick glowed. He punted the eyeless-cat as far as he could, and threw the glowing stick at it. Miss. Samasan ran without looking back.

"This is how I die." He thought to himself.

*Thud!*

Samasan looked back to see that the giant cat had pounced on the glowing stick. This cat was only nine meters long, compared to the thirteen meter long cat from before.

"Of course there's more of them." Samasan whispered.

Samasan backed into the forest, while listening to the giant cat eat its brethren. He started to hear popping noises, and the cats ran off into the tall-grasses. Samasan sat on the leafy ground trembling. He didn't like hunting animals on earth. Was this earth? The rat was self defense, and he didn't get his rage out the other night, but now...

"Did I have to kill them?.. I could have gone back to the village before dark. I would have died if I didn't... I would of died."

Reality brought Samasan into shock. Wild attacks weren't something that happened to hikers once in a while far away. They happened here. This place was the wilderness. It was dangerous to live out here.

"Is it like this everywhere?"

Samasan walked back to the village.

"Hey, it's just me!" A spear landed at Samasan's feet.

"Urujah?"

*sigh*

"Yes, Urujah." Samasan made a sarcastic tone.

The villagers wouldn't untie the gate for him.

"Let me in. Come on. What do you want?" Samasan looked back. "Fine, but next time I'm keeping it."

He brought the spear back to the villagers, and they let him through the gate before tying it shut again.

"You have no idea what I've been through."

Samasan talked while pointing at the villagers. One of them handed him a bug-legged spear.

"Uh huh. Sure. I don't mind at all. Is this my leg you stole."

"Zah..." They groaned.

That night Samasan witnessed a troop of knights pass the village. There were around one hundred by Samasan's estimation. They wore full clad armor that clunk around as they marched, while being led by a knight on horse back. There were banner flags carried at the front, center, and back respectively. One of the knights marching, looked at Samasan, and yelled. Then the leader yelled, and the group stopped. They turned about, and marched to the village.

Samasan was slack-jawed as the army approached. He was fascinated by their armor. The leader trotted up to the village fence.

"Aru wa giba!" the man on horse-back shouted.

"I don't understand. I don't speak the language."

The man shouted again, and two other soldiers came towards him. The first one punched Samasan in his gut, and onto his knees. The other bound his hands with the rope that was being used to tie the gate shut. Samasan was dragged by his wrists to the village square, and everyone was woke up.