Chapter 2: Faithful Encounter

Rain purifies the body

Tears purify the soul

Sweat purifies the mind

Blood purifies the spirit

“The first thing I should do is look around for something actually valuable. I do not think I am smart enough to do anything with barren soil”

Srishta looked around, and he started walking aimlessly. There really was nothing, no bushes close to the floor like you could find in a savannah. There were no trees with barely any leaves. There were no animals. There were no small mouse-like creatures or even insects. There was nothing.

He kept walking around, no longer aimlessly. He thought of something to search for while walking, and that was any sign of ‘life,’ to keep his idle mind busy, he kept thinking to himself.

“Man, what is life really? If I find a floating rock, is that life?”

He kept walking, and thus, as if fate itself heard him, again, he found a floating rock.

“You have to be kidding me.”

It was a simple floating rock in the middle of the barren lands. It wasn’t a giant rock but a rock, big enough to see from a distance. A rock big enough to realise that something was going on here for it to float. Srishta did every test he could do with the stone to be sure that it actually floats.

He pushed it down, and it came back up.

He put his hand under the stone while it was floating to check if there was nothing invisible pushing the stone upwards; there was nothing there.

He checked above the stone to see if there was anything there, pulling it up into the air.

There was nothing.

“There has to be some kind of trick to it,” he said while sitting down, still looking at it. He came up with a million theories in his head: electromagnetic field, some type of magnet, air buoyancy, the material of the rock being of a different mass than the air surrounding it, and so on, and he checked every theory. It was a perfectly normal stone, but it was perfectly floating.

“Hey,” said a female voice behind Srishta. He was so concentrated on the stone and staring at it while sitting down for a solid half an hour that he didn’t even realise there was a group of people walking up on him. He jumped up, absolutely not expecting people to walk up on him.

“You don’t seem to be around here. These are borochi’s; they don’t make any sound running, that’s how we crept up on you”

Srishta was confused, surprised, scared, all at the same time, but he was also happy that he had found a bunch of non-dangerous people…

“What are you doing here? Did Bran Tren send you?” She pulled a sword on him; it was a dull sword, but a sword nonetheless. She was on her ‘borochi’ with two other people standing behind her, also on their borochi. They were wearing a sort of scarf around their face, making it hard to recognise them. All he could see were their eyes. The sword was right under Srishta’s neck, too close for his own liking. He had never been in this sort of situation and thus started having quite the anxiety and stress.

“I SWEAR I DO NOT KNOW WHO THAT IS. I AM NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANYONE. I JUST ARRIVED HERE,” he said, screaming with more honesty than he had ever spoken before.

“Man, I just arrived here, I just got another shot, and I’m going to lose it all already by pure bad luck,” he thought with tears in his eyes.

The woman on the borochi with the dull sword under Srishta’s neck immediately noticed he wasn’t accustomed to this type of welcome and felt pity for him. She also immediately realised he was indeed not affiliated with Bran Tren; she had never seen somebody speak with such honesty before.

“You mentioned you just arrived here, what do you mean by that?” she asked, getting off her borochi and still pointing the sword at his neck. “How did you get here then?” she continued.

His mind has never raced as fast as this very moment. He thought of the thousand possibilities this conversation could go. His conclusion was “it’s too unbelievable, I come from another world”.

“I don’t remember, or I can’t tell you I don’t really know,” he had no clue why he even said those words; it did not seem to help his cause at all, but he still said them. Hoping his assailants would feel pity for his barrage of words.

“So we can slit your throat here and it will be over?” she asked honestly.

“I don’t think it would be easy to slit my throat with that dull sword of yours,” he regretted what he just said immediately after he said it, but his lifetime of taking care of weapons and expertise with his hands had taken over his mouth.

“What do you mean by that? You think I can’t cut you with this sword?” she asked with legitimate curiosity in her voice.

Srishta heard the curiosity in her voice and thought that this could be a way out of the situation.

“You can definitely slit my throat with this sword, but I do not think that it would be very quick or very clean”

Finally, she took the sword off his throat and inspected her own sword.

“Maybe you are right… Can you help me with that?”

This was the particular outcome he wanted this conversation to have.

“Yes, I can.”

“Do you have any experience with weapons?” she asked.

“I have spent quite some time on weapons before, I can promise you that”, he responded.

“So… Now we definitely can’t let you go. If we let you go, maybe some other group will catch you, and we would lose on a great weapon maker and on top of that, another group would gain a great weapon maker.”

He did not think that far ahead; he really had been put in checkmate. He cannot escape, or else they would see it as a win for any other faction they fight against. He could make weapons for them. So, he is really stuck with this group now for the foreseeable future.

“I cannot only make weapons for you, but I’m a maker myself. I can also-”

Suddenly, it struck him, why can he understand them? Why can they understand him? Wasn’t he supposed to be transported to another world? So why do other human-like species from a whole different world understand him, and he can understand them? His curious mind went into overdrive, again.

“What language are we speaking?” He asked very firmly

She was confused by the question.

“Talu, obviously. Do you not know the language that you speak yourself?”

“You can understand me perfectly?” he asked again, very firmly.

“Yes, I mean to a certain extent, I guess you have an accent”, she answered.

“And this rock, how does it float?” he asked again very firmly.

“It’s a prita, really, how did you get so far in Kari, almost in the middle of it, to not know that? You are a strange individual” At this very moment, it was like she was struck by lightning. The man who had tears in his eyes, screaming, trying to explain that he wasn’t an enemy to save his own life, was not there anymore. It was suddenly another man; she looked deeply into his eyes, and there was a hint of curiosity. It was as if a child suddenly appeared before her, but one who could actually do something with that curiosity.

“Please, take me to wherever you are located and tell me more. I want to know more, I need to know more. I will help you. My name is Srishta. I will help.”

A sudden strike of lightning struck her as if she had never seen another person before, and she hadn’t. Somebody like this, you can only find them once in a lifetime.

“I will take you to our encampment and answer whatever questions you want an answer to, strange man, but.”

“What is the deal?” he asked.

“What do you mean by deal?” she answered.

“You give me answers and protection by bringing me to your encampment. What do I have to give?”

“You will help us with our weapons.”

He has barely been transported to another world, and he again gets into the same job as he did before, but this time it’s different. This time, he has direct control over who gets them and what they do with them. If he finds out what they do with them is not aligned with his morality, he will leave. He promised himself that, even if it costs his life.

“Deal.”

She took him on the back of her boroki and started going towards their encampment.