'Chase the horizon, and pray it ever changes'

– Traveler

By the time I returned to the tavern below, I was calmer.

I'd spent perhaps an hour wallowing in self-pity, and generally not having a great time. But after a certain point, it was hard to muster up the enthusiasm to feel all the negative emotions when that strand of connection between them and myself was cut.

I was more telling myself I should feel the loss than actually feeling it by the end, and eventually, angst gave way to cold, hard pragmatism. I analysed my options, found that they were extremely lacking, and settled on the 'too good to be true' one that had been dangled in front of me.

I activated Heart Of The Hills to help take a more objective look at my circumstances, and it only made the choice all the more obvious. I settled myself, deactivated my Skill, and took a few moments to make sure I wasn't about to break down as soon as I left my room.

Then I returned to the common room below. My stomach lurched as I looked around and didn't see anyone, but I calmed myself and headed to the bar.

Jacklin looked up at my arrival and nodded to me, gesturing to the door while she said, "small fella said you'd be down. They're apparently out back – head half a mile directly that way and you'll bump into them."

I thanked her for the information and headed out the door. It felt good to break into the easy loping run again, feeling the cool breeze on my skin, and I gloried at the almost endless expanse of grassland before me. There was more of a haze in the air than when I'd arrived the day before, and I couldn't make out the shapes of the hills in the distance, but I knew they were there all the same.

It didn't take long before I was cresting the mound of a rise so slight that I hadn't even seen it - only noticed the incline as I ran. In the depression below I found the three figures I was looking for. Jorge was watching the other two spar, and I was surprised to see how natural Nathlan looked with his blade.

The thin, bookish, and acerbic man seemed to have fallen away – at least the bookish aspect. He was still thin but seemed to move with a litheness that I knew had to come with a core of strength behind it – you didn't find weak dancers, after all – and he certainly still seemed to maintain an air of sharpness behind all of his movements. The tall man was advancing on Vera and sending out careful, precise strikes with his sword, a single-edged straight blade, while she shuffled about at the edge of his range, slapping off-target any strikes that she couldn't weave away from.

Jorge called out a phrase that I missed from my position a few dozen meters out, and Nathlan instantly sped up, his probing strikes giving way to an onslaught of lunges and cuts, chained together to drive Vera back without giving her time to move sideways. When her foot passed a seemingly arbitrary point, Jorge called the match, causing both fighters to stop. Vera let out a laugh and Nathlan had an easy grin of his face – perhaps the most relaxed and content expression I'd seen on him since I'd met him.

The old, grey-haired man then turned at my arrival, waving me over, before turning back to Nathlan and presumably giving him feedback. As I wandered down into the subtle depression they sparred within, I caught the tail end of the conversation.

"…Not far off now, lad. Keep that fire banked a little longer and we'll see you burning true soon enough."

As I reached them, he turned with an inscrutable look on his aged face. "You got an answer for me Runt? Or perhaps a few more questions first?"

"I'm in," I said simply, eliciting a smile, and before I could question my choice the shorter man strode over and clasped me by the wrist in a welcoming gesture.

"Welcome to our merry band of adventurers then, lad."

"We'll be heading west, towards the Panyera. It's a journey I expect to take upwards of a month at least, and most of it will be spent trekking through wilderness. There aren't many permanent settlements here, but we'll pass by a few trading caravans, I'd bet. Plenty of opportunities to re-stock."

We were gathered around a small table in Jorge's room, where he had unfurled a blank piece of waxy canvas. A few moments later, ink scrawled its way along the surface, filling in details until a map of the Wandering States was visible. I was appropriately amazed by the minor miracle I was witnessing, but I supposed the others must have been used to magic by this point as they didn't remark on it at all.

"No rush on this, as we can't act till the end of Sabayen anyway, so we'll take it easy."

"Training march, then?" Nathlan asked, and Jorge nodded in response. He then looked over at me and smiled apologetically.

"I know this probably doesn't make much sense right now, Runt. We'll catch you up as we go, though. For now, you and I need to grab some kit for you, aye?" He looked meaningfully at the tattered excuse for clothes I'd donned this morning and chuckled. "Unless it's an intentional look, I suppose? If you want to moon every old lady between here and the Panyera I won't stand in your way, lad."

Vera laughed at my aghast look as I whipped around to check my trousers, finding a large rip down the back from waist to mid-thigh on one side. Even Nathlan let out a chuckle, so I tried to put some of my embarrassment aside.

I nodded at Jorge and agreed, saying, "Sounds good, let's go."

Then I turned on my heel, sticking my nose in the air and flapping my trousers as I went in the most dignified walk I could muster. I heard laughter follow me out the door and considered it a worthy recovery.

My new clothes fit well. I had no idea where Jorge had acquired them from, but they were good quality. He didn't have a spare cloak, but the weather had turned recently, and on the steppes, Jorge was confident that I wouldn't need one.

And he was right. As the sun rose in the sky and noon fast approached, we left Gunthur's Rest and set out into the great grass sea. The weather was balmy, gentle sunlight mixing with a cool breeze to keep the sweat from accumulating as we ran through empty grasslands, occasional patches of shrubbery and stumpy trees marking the odd watering hole here and there.

We travelled at an easy jog, letting the miles fall beneath our feet and the sun warm our hearts. Nathlan, as it turned out, was the slowest member of the group, and so we matched our pace to his. It was a small thing, but I found it reassuring. Not only was I not the weakest member of the group, in some respects at least, but it was clear that even if I was, I wouldn't immediately be abandoned because of it.

I didn't know him well, but it was obvious that Nathlan was the type of person that would rather suffer in silence than complain. Jorge and Vera clearly knew this, because they kept the pace even and steady without any prompting and made a point not to make a point of it. We all knew, but nobody said anything. They were considerate like that, my new companions.

Jorge explained the concept of the training march to me as we travelled. There would be a clear routine to each day; we would wake each morning with the dawn, eat a hearty breakfast and dismantle the camp – an easy job with the storage devices that Jorge and Vera had. We'd run for a fair few hours until noon, at which point we would stop for a light lunch and some training. Then we'd be off again, chasing the sun across the sky, until we found a place to camp.

It sounded surprisingly pleasant. The concept of training didn't scare me – I knew how to work hard, especially so after the last two months of living in the wilderness – and travelling through this idyllic land of waving grasses and gently rolling hills with companions beside me was a dream.

Jorge tried to impress upon me that it would be hard work, but I wasn't convinced. Magic made many of the unenviable tasks of travelling through the wilderness seem trivial. Vera had rune-stones that could light fires and draw water from the earth – though she insisted we space them out to not deplete an area of water – and that made decisions about where to camp trivial. Nathlan's wards ensured we need not fear surprise as we slept, nor even set a watch to ensure our safety. Jorge's expertise would keep us well-fed, as well, and I was assured that their cooking was leagues ahead of my own.

All in all, it sounded like a big step up from my days of sleeping in trees and numbing my loneliness with memories of a life I couldn't hope to reclaim. Obviously, there would be work to be done, despite the minor miracles they all seemed to take for granted. Pots would need scrubbing, clothes washing and food cooking. I committed myself to the tasks immediately, eager to prove that I could be useful, but Jorge laughed it off in that easy way of his.

I was there as a companion, apparently, and not as a servant. We'd all carry our own weight and work together to share the burdens of living off the land. Besides, he wanted each of us to learn self-sufficiency. If only those suited to the task took them on, then nobody would ever learn, so spoke The Shepherd.

It was a lovely thing to say, but while they seemed to be living by those words as well, I would need some time before I could truly trust them.

My companions had opened up immediately as we left the outpost. No longer worried about triggering my sudden memory loss, they were able to answer my questions without diverting my attention away with tangents. That's not to say Nathlan didn't run off on more tangents than a tree has roots, but still, it was nice to learn the basics of who these people I travelled with were. An eclectic group to say the least, and I couldn't decide if I had been lucky to meet them on being transported to this world, or if everyone here was just insanely interesting.

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Vera seemed to be some sort of failed revolutionary, who had fled her homeland and now wandered alongside Jorge, taking contracts and learning to better control her class. Nathlan was tight-lipped about his past. He seemed to be just a privileged noble who was rebelling against his parent's wishes for his future, but I suspected there was more to it based on the respect he seemed to have earned from both Vera and Jorge.

Jorge himself had apparently earned a title – system approved and everything – and was known as 'The Shepherd'. He was vaguely famous, mostly on the other side of the mountains and amongst a certain class of people only, but to be even remotely well-known in a world without instant communication was impressive enough.

I had precious little to share about myself of course, but they managed to tease out a few details about me in the end. They each had different techniques for doing so, though. Nathlan simply asked me anything he wanted to know directly, but seemed satisfied if I didn't have an answer. Some of his questions were quite personal for somebody he barely knew, but it was a refreshing kind of bluntness. I wasn't sure if it came from a lack of awareness of normal social etiquette or just a refusal to play by societies' rules, but either way I happily answered what I could and used the same questions to find out more about him in turn.

I wasn't sure if Vera was actually trying to pry information out of me, or whether she was just using me as a sounding board for her own history, but she would tell me stories of her former friends and comrades as we ran. The good, the bad, and the downright heart-rending. I offered a sympathetic ear, and wondered idly if perhaps she was trying to radicalise me, not that she would have to try particularly hard – from what little I knew about the Sunset Kingdoms, I was fully on her side.

Jorge seemed to have two ways to evaluate me. He used his natural charisma and friendly attitude to pull info out of everyone over meals and during downtime in the evening. I was pretty sure he had an angle, as some of his questions seemed to be leading to something, almost like a subtle interview. I wasn't smart enough to connect the seemingly random questions into a picture that fully meshed together just yet though, so I simply enjoyed the conversations he prompted.

It was his second method of discovery that was quickly becoming a favourite of mine, however.

The first evening on the road, after setting up camp while Nathlan was taking his turn at the cookfire, Jorge had led me a dozen meters from our bedrolls.

"Now Runt, you and I are going to get to know each other, alright?"

I stared back with apprehension before asking, "what do you want to know?"

He laughed and shook his head. "Too easy, lad. I need to know what you're made of before I can start your training."

I nodded at that, realisation dawning. "Oh no, I get it. This is the part where you beat me up for an hour and carefully push my buttons, seeing what gets to me and how I respond to certain things. You'll originally be disappointed by my weakness but then my determination, grit, and resolve will win you over and your disdain will turn to grudging respect before you embrace me as a brother."

He looked surprised at my guess, then shook his head and laughed.

"What the fuck are you on about, Runt? No, we're going to fight and I'm going to take your measure. If I want to know what pisses you off, I'll ask. I'm not expecting anything from you, so you'll struggle to disappoint me."

He shrugged and then continued, "the fact that you're talking to me about resolve and determination tells me you've not got a history of fighting, despite your last few months, and you're just relying on stories."

"Well, you're not wrong there. I don't think I'm much of a fighter… although you never know, right? Perhaps I was worldclass." I looked down at him with a hopeful grin and he shared a smile with me.

"Aye perhaps." He then feinted a jab at my face and kicked my leg out from under me as I jerked backwards. As I sprawled on the floor he gave me a cheeky wink, "Probably not though."

I stared at him in disbelief for a moment before laughing and accepting his hand up. "So that's how it is, hey?"

He grinned again before pushing me gently back into place. "Right, come at me when you're ready. Hands, feet, knees, elbows… whatever works for you. Grappling, striking – however you fancy. I just want to see how you fare without a weapon in your hands."

I did as he asked, and we spent close to an hour fighting. The time was mostly spent resting between brief flurries of activity if I was honest, but nevertheless I was exhausted, enhanced attributes be damned. He didn't seem interested in actually teaching me anything at this stage, instead stating he was just trying to establish a baseline and any hints of a future style.

We moved on to weapons next, and he presented me with first a spear, then sword, then axe, then staff. Unlike my somewhat vain hope earlier, I showed no secret skill with any of the weapons, though the staff was probably the most intuitive to wield.

"Anyway, to get back on topic, we were talking about weapon choices," Jorge said, after indulging me in a brief tangent when I asked about the intricacies of storage devices. "We'll keep running through options another time in case anything jumps out, but for now let's put the spear and shield together – the combination of all the greatest warriors."

At this comment he swelled with fake pride, puffing his chest up and straining for every inch of height. I raised an eyebrow in response, and he shrugged. "Thought that'd get a laugh, to be honest," he muttered.

Then we started sparring again with he chosen combination, though this time it was much more focused. We fought spear to spear and shield to shield. Or more accurately, my spear and shield to mostly air, and his spear and shield to almost always my flesh. He was a surpassing expert with his armaments, to the point that after the first few exchanges where he had managed to keep his spear point an inch from my throat throughout the entire movement of me tripping to the floor, I trusted that he wouldn't harm me even accidentally.

I gave an even poorer showing with weapons than I did without, as there was at least something instinctual about grappling and swinging fists. Not instinctual enough to make me in anyway able to stand up to somebody skilled in that area, but enough that a casual observer wouldn't see me hit myself in the face with my own fist, which is something I managed to do with the rim of my shield a few times throughout our sparring, to Jorge's great delight.

By the time he called an end to the session, my limbs were heavy with fatigue, sweat was running down my back in small rivers, and I seemed unable to catch my breath, regardless of the rest time.

I was surprised at how hard I'd worked, to be perfectly honest. Despite what little I knew about my life in the biographical narrative sense, I knew what I loved. Running was a good example. It fulfilled me in a way that little else could, and I didn't need a reason to enjoy the activity. It was its own reward. I was startled to find that fighting seemed to also fit into that category.

It was fun. There was no other way to describe it really. It was tiring, yes. Painful? Certainly. But there was something infinitely rewarding about slipping just far enough to avoid the swipe of a spear point coming for my face. The feeling of success, of joy almost, when I landed a hit on Jorge, was indescribable. It wasn't magic, of course. It was no more incredible than the flow state achieved sometimes while running along a ridgeline, the wind buffeting you and trying its best to knock you off the knife-edge you balanced your life upon without success. But the feeling was the same, and that was more than enough to make me work hard for it.

Jorge seemed to agree by the time we were finished, saying, "well consider me appropriately impressed with your perseverance, grit, and resolve."

I chuffed a laugh at the call back and made my own comment in return; "So, oh great and wise Shepherd, what is your analysis of this little lamb?"

While I was under no illusions of my martial prowess, I couldn't help but hope for some positive feedback. An even smaller part of me was also holding out hope that he would somehow be able to find out some secrets to my character and help me rediscover who I had been… from a few hours of sparring. Hmmm. Perhaps I was reading too much into this new magical world and needed to reset my expectations.

"Ha! I like that; little lamb. Better than Runt, ain't it?" he asked rhetorically.

"As to what I've learned?" He cocked his head to the side, considering, before taking on a serious look as he leaned forwards. "From what I've seen I think the spear is a good weapon for you, lad. Don't get me wrong, you're atrocious with it, and the shield too, but it's clear you favour a defensive and reactive style. Same with the unarmed fighting. You hold back, testing range and hoping for your opponent to make a mistake. It's not necessarily a bad strategy, but there's some big flaws you'll need to cover up for it to work properly for you."

"I am under no illusions about my skill with or without weapons, Jorge. I know I need more training to even approach competence."

"Nah, you're missing my point, Lamb," he said, smirking again at the new nickname. "Of course you need training, and experience – which a lot o' the high-born forget – but I'm talking about your entire approach to fighting, and probably beyond too."

He sighed, collecting our discarded weapons and vanishing them into his storage device after giving each a wipe down with an old towel. "Being reactive is good. It speaks to a patient mind, and letting your enemies make their own mistakes prevents you from making a whole bunch of unforced errors yourself first. It also means you'll be less likely to start fights you can't win, and people with this approach are generally well-regarded because of that. But it does have some serious downsides that need to be addressed, mitigated or at least understood if they can't be changed."

He looked at me seriously when he spoke, and I got the sense this was a lesson he'd be repeating to me consistently over the next several months of travelling.

"For one, if you're always waiting for opportunities to exploit, you're ceding the initiative to your enemies. They get to decide when, where, and how you fight. They get to strike first, to dictate the rules of engagement, and you're left reacting to them. It narrows your options, makes you predictable. Being defensive can be good in certain situations, but only if you retain the ability and more importantly the willingness for a pre-emptive strike. I can see already that it's something we'll have to work on, but I've dealt with people like you before, and I'm confident we'll get you there."

My face soured. "I'm not the type… I don't want to be the type of person who strikes first," I replied. "I don't want to go around committing pre-emptive attacks on people and creatures if I'm not sure that they are my enemies, Jorge. I'm not a ruthless killer."

Jorge just gazed back at me, a hard look in his eyes. "I'm not going to lecture you, lad. I know from experience that it won't help. You've got your opinions, and I've got mine. I will say two things though. One – you might not think about yourself that way, but the world will see you as a ruthless killer if you get strong enough. How many creatures have you left in the mud just to reach your level? I've no doubt they attacked first, but nobody out there will believe that, especially as you start climbing the ladder higher and higher."

That thought stopped me, the way it echoed with the description of my Indomitable Prey Skill confirming the truth of it. He continued though, and his next point hit home like a hammer.

"And to my second point – It's fine risking your life for the moral high ground when you've got nothing to live for. But at some point, you're going to be fighting for somebody else's future, and that's a different calculation. Ask Vera for her story if you want a real example of that process, and the scars it can leave."

He leaned forwards to give my shoulder a squeeze. His face softened and he spoke slowly, as if willing the words to penetrate my thick skull.

"I'm impressed with what I've seen so far, I really am, lad. I'm not trying to scare you off or break you down. It's a good life if you make it one, and we'll make sure you can make the choices you want. I just want you to know that the decisions you make now about how you approach this world will have consequences."

I digested the words, turned them about in my mind and tried to analyse them without emotion. It didn't work, of course; I was feeling far too defensive and self-conscious after the last few hours to be able to calmly discuss my naivety or idealism. But before I managed to put my foot in my mouth and say something I'd regret later, Vera hollered over the camp that food was ready.

Jorge pranced over to her and started pulling wooden platters from his storage necklace, and I had the suspicion he had somehow managed to time our entire conversation just right to deliver those final words before dinner. Eyes narrowed, I took my place in the circle and the evening meal was joined.

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