Onward unto Oblivion

Rowen woke with a start.

He felt very cold and stiff, but his body was covered completely, and he couldn’t see any blood around him.

He tried to work his way loose from his blanket in order to get himself up, but he was wrapped up like a burrito.

He heard a dulcet voice say, “Master, are you awake?”

He turned to see a beautiful Asian woman standing naked by his bed.

She appeared to resemble Karen Kim in most ways as he could remember her except for her hair. Karen had long jet-black hair whereas this woman had very short hair which made her look like a male basic trainee.

His eyes drifted south, and he saw a body like he imagined Karen’s body would look like with her perfect dark tan skin and perfect proportions.

He quickly admonished himself and looked back into her eyes. He was expecting those reptilian eyes he saw in the last moments of his being alive. He couldn’t explain to himself, but he felt disappointed when he saw that she didn’t resemble the woman he saw in his last moments of life.

He said to her, “Yes, I am just now waking. Can you help me get out of this burrito you made of me?”

“Burrito master?”

“Never mind, just help me get these covers off, please.”

“Of course, Master!” she bowed her upper torso sharply then straightened and began to unwrap him.

It took him several minutes, to maybe an hour to get his body moving again like it should. He sat on the edge of the bed for a time before trying to stand.

He used a handheld mirror to examine where he was bit but found his skin was blemish or bite free. There were no scars or other differences in the skin as compared to the skin around it.

His skin was clean, so he looked at his “Protector” and asked, “Did you wash my body up?”

“Yes, Master.”

He looked over at his covers and sheets and realized, although stained, they were clean as well and he asked, “And you cleaned up my bed as well?”

“Yes, Master!”

“Thank you. Please don’t call me master. It makes me feel like you’re my slave.”

“Am I not your possession? I am a mere construct of yours, so thus your property. How would you have me address you?”

“I dunno, anything but master.”

“How about father?”

“No, that’s worse. Just call me Rowen or sir if you wish.”

“Yes, Sir Rowen!”

He just put his palm over his face and shook his head.

He looked at her again, trying but failing to look her in the eyes and face and not look at her perfect body.

He finally decided he needed to dedicate some time to focus his mind and make her some clothes. The next question would be what type of clothes. Part of his mind went down the "maybe a skirt, maybe a dress' route and he quickly discarded it. They weren't going to be practical for any activities. Unbidden his mind went the other way, skintight Lycra and such. That image was plastered in his head now. Dang it! More functional! he told himself again. Shoes. Pants. Shirt. Belt. Underwear. Hell, he had to figure out an effective bra for her which didn't look like something from a stripper catalog! Best to figure it out then spend the time to get it right. It would take too much time to just rush it with trial and error. He would add the appropriate runes for self-repairing which he had worked out for his armor to her clothes, so he wouldn’t have to keep replacing her clothes constantly. Better to start simple and then work on a better, more permanent set when his brain could focus better. Shirt and pants it is. He handed her, her new clothes and said, “Get dressed.”

“Yes, Sir Rowen!”

He said, almost to himself, “Actually it would be Lord Rowen, but that’s neither here nor there. Call me either Sir or Roland, not Sir Roland!”

“Yes…Sir.”

He noticed all three of his guns sitting on the bed next to where he was laying earlier. He picked up the gun which he had fired and opened the breech. He was surprised to see the weapon had been cleaned and reloaded. He motioned towards the gun with his other hand and asked, “You did this?”

“Yes…Sir.”

“Thank you.” He closed the breech and set the pistol down.

He looked around and realized both the wolves’ bodies were missing and whatever blood was washed as well.

He caught himself from asking his protector whether she was the one too have cleaned them up because he realized it couldn’t be anyone other than her.

He thought for a moment and asked, “What shall I call you?”

She shook her head and said, “You have not assigned me a name yet.”

“Well, I can’t call you Karen because that would be just too weird. How about Jade?”

“If you wish…Sir.”

“Okay, now what’s with that pause before you call me sir?!”

“Pause…Sir?”

“You just did it again. Why?”

“I’m not aware of any pause…Sir.”

He shook his head and thought, ‘Well he…He? I mean I said it would be quirky.’

He said out loud, “Never mind. I’ll call you Jade then. Please tell me about your abilities and functions.”

After “Jade” listed her abilities, Rowen was both impressed and perplexed. Many of her abilities were exactly what he was thinking about bestowing on her when he thought that he would be able to. However, there were a group of skills which surprised him because, even though obvious, he hadn’t considered to give her basic skills of cooking and cleaning. Yet she had them.

The last set of skills which she listed totally shocked him. Massage, erotic… well not a set of skills which he would have consciously given her. He, in his mind, shoved his libido into a closet and put a padlock on the door and said, “You will stay there until you learn how to behave yourself.”

Now he had time to wake up and start functioning, he set about making her a better set of clothes for traveling and working. Soon it was coming together. A black ninja gi, lose fitting pants and finally soft fitting boots with straps to wrap them around her calves up to just below her knee.

As an afterthought, he provided her with a cloth ski mask which covered her head and would allow her to cover her face to improve ability to blend into shadows.

Since she had a two-handed short sword fighting skill among her martial arts, he decided to make her a pair of straight bladed two-foot swords. He also made her several throwing stars, and other such equipment.

Since he wasn’t sure about the balance, he spent some time making a runic enchantment to auto balance them to the needs of the wielder. He knew it was cheating but he felt like he didn’t want to waste any time now. He wasn’t sure why, but he suddenly got the feeling that he had to hurry and get ready to head out on his mission.

He decided to make his improved shelter at that time.

The cave he was in was very large, so it had enough room for him to create a large enough shelter.

He wanted to create a “home” for him to settle in when he needed.

He created a cabin of sorts. It was square and measured 20 feet by 20 feet.

He looked at the cabin and thought, “That’s not right.”

“Something was missing… Oh yes! Door and windows.”

He ignored how tired he was and tried to remake the cabin. After three attempts he threw up his hands and said, “I think I’ll try again tomorrow. Kar… I mean Jade, please stand guard while I get myself something to eat and then some sleep.”

“Yes…Sir!”

“Again, with the pause. Let me guess, you don’t want to call me sir?”

“No…Sir. I am your construct so I must do what you desire. I do not want anything but to serve you…Sir.”

He face palmed and shook his head. Then he shrugged and prepared himself some food. He ate about half what was on his plate and got very tired. He heard his last attempt of a cabin collapse behind his back and just hung his head and said, “Jade, keep me safe so I can sleep soundly.”

“Yes…Sir!”

He then laid back down, covered himself and went to sleep.

In his dreams he saw the cabin which he had visualized originally only he could make out more details including load bearing structures joining the walls safely. A deadbolted front door and protective runes around the outside of the structure.

The inside of the cabin was divided into three rooms. A living/kitchen space, a bedroom and bathroom. He saw that the walls had runes which controlled the temperature, humidity and in general would give the room a cozy feel to it.

He saw the kitchen fixtures were enchanted with runes to make them function like fixtures in his world. The stove and oven had heating runes which would set the heating surfaces to the desired temperature for cooking.

The bathroom had a tub, toilet and sink. The tub had a shower head and curtain. The tub had runes in it which would automatically fill the tub with water set to the desired temperature of the user. It would then continually clean the water to allow for someone to soak for a while and not leave their funk behind. The shower head also had runes which allowed the user to choose the temperature of the water flowing out of it. The sink’s faucets worked accordingly as well. He saw the toilet had runes around the bowl which would disintegrate anything which was in the bowl when the lid is closed.

There were also runes in the bathroom which eliminated the smell of one’s shit.

In the bedroom the runes were set to not only keep the room comfortable to the desire of the occupant, but it also had a set of runes which allowed sound to be deadened to better enhance sleep.

He remembered the dream about the shotgun and how much easier the resulting product was and he thought, “Maybe this is some divine intervention on the Guardians’ part.” He shrugged in his dream and thought, “Who cares, I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

He knew it would be a huge leap to try the whole thing in one big lump. He knew from his earlier creations he could do this in parts. This was good since he knew how much time and effort the simpler ones took. This masterpiece he had a vision of would take him forever at his current rate. Good thing he was immortal now.

First and foremost, would be the external structure, followed by the internal parts, starting with the basic furnishings and such, based on his guiding dream. Later, as he got better and more experienced, he could continually upgrade with more features and runes.

The next morning, he was able to construct the main elements of the cabin from his dream and was impressed at what a great structure he was able to create. Him with the carpentry skills of a one armed, one eyed monkey with a hangover. He knew he would be spending a chunk of time and sweat equity outfitting and furnishing this cabin to match his dream.

He then said to himself, “Too bad I can’t take it with me. Then I could Johnny Cash it, make one piece at a time as I get better”

An idea struck him. If he made it fully enclosed with a floor and roof, it was then an object in and of itself. From his earlier trial and error, he could make things bigger and smaller once it was created, which was the saving grace and revelation when he was trying to size parts for the guns. If he was able to shrink the cabin far enough down, he could even put it in his pocket like a board game piece. This would let him have everything still inside! No big backpack of gear to move! Pull his house out of his pocket at the end of the day and poof!

Once he started playing with this, it freed his mind up for his next projects. He would focus on improving his weapons. For this he needed tools.

He spent the next week creating the tools he needed. Most of which were given him in his dreams. He wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he continued to create the dream inspired objects. Of them was a double-barreled rifle that fired 45/70 government ammunition with runes to set the sights automatically to the range of the target. In the breech, there were runes which automatically ejected the spent rounds so he could load the rifle faster.

The ammunition he was guided to create looked like it was custom balanced for high accuracy shooting. Each bullet had runes for accuracy, armor piercing and slay evil. Each bullet was copper jacketed but had a pure silver tip and core.

“Silver? Maybe that’s significant here.” He shrugged in his dream.

The next day he completed the rifle and ammo per his dream but he wasn’t satisfied. He decided to improve on the ammo so he created a bullet and he added runes to increase the speed and impact on the target.

He looked at the bullet and smiled and said, “The Guardians don’t know everything…” but then the bullet started to smoke and he threw it away from himself. It exploded in the air sending shrapnel and bullet fragments all over the cave.

Some of the shrapnel broke the front window of his cabin.

He shook his head and looked over to Jade. He was shocked to see that a fragment of some kind hit her dead center of her forehead.

“Jade, are you okay!?”

She looked at him and said, “No serious damage…Sir. I am at normal functional levels…Sir.”

He looked closer and could see that the bullet fragment had pierced her skin all the way to her metallic skull. He went over to her to try to remove the fragment, but she just reached up and plucked it out of her forehead without hesitation.

“Didn’t that hurt?”

“Hurt? No…Sir. You did not make me with pain receptors. You only made me to have sense of smell, taste, sight, hearing, and touch. I don’t feel pain… only pleasure…Sir.”

“How then do you know you’re taking damage…wait, only pleasure?! Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“Did you want to know how I know when I’m taking damage…Sir?”

“Yes, please enlighten me.”

“There is no such thing as irreparable damage in regard to my body and frame. I feel the pressure of the impact and also I always know the integrity of my skin and frame…Sir.”

“That’s getting old…Okay so you’re pretty hard to disable then?”

“Yes…Sir.”

“Well, that’s good to know. You’re almost the perfect weapon.”

“Thank you Sir.”

“You see you can say it right.”

“Say what…Sir?”

He threw his hands up in the air and looked up and said to no one in particular, “Why?!”

“Why what…Sir?”

On the night which marked the seventh week which he had been there in Twalling Cade, he had another intense dream. In this dream he saw a ring which appeared to be made of silver or platinum. It had runes around the outer and inner circumference of the ring and there was a one Karat sapphire mounted on it. In the dream he was made to look closely at the sapphire, and he saw runes engraved into the surface of the gem. The runes started top center and spiraled out from there all the way to the bottom center.

On the mounting of the sapphire to the ring were twelve smaller sapphires surrounding the base of the main gem. He was made to look closer at the smaller gems and saw similar types of runes engraved in those as well.

The complexity and intricacy of the power or enchantment which these runes endowed the gems and ring with was something which he thought he could spend a lifetime studying.

What he did know about the ring from his feelings in the dream was that it was basically an unlimited warehouse-like space within. It could store anything nonliving which he wanted. The ring essentially broke down the object that he desired to store and would recreate the object later.

“Well, that’s good. I can only fit so much in my cabin. Shoot, I could even put the cabin inside this if I wanted to.”

He realized if he tried to store a living thing in the ring it would kill it. But he also felt like he didn’t have to worry about it, because there were safeties built into the ring to prevent him from accidentally storing a living creature.

“Well damn, that would have made one hell of a weapon.”

“I did not design this for you to use as a weapon.”

He jumped when he realized that this time, he wasn’t alone in his dream, “Who the hell are you?!” as he turned to see the dark skinned, golden eyed woman which he saw when he was dying.

“I am…a friend. My name is Xyarra and you need to come meet me soon.”

“Are you the one who has been… guiding me with my creations this last week?”

“Yes, I am. If you’ll forgive me but I couldn’t wait for you to figure things out for yourself. There are some things which you need to accomplish now or our… your mission will be much more difficult.”

“Thank you for your help up until now but how did you know about my mission?”

“I just do. It is also something I desire to come to pass as well. So, I am committing myself to helping you with our… I mean your mission.”

He felt something was off about her saying, “Our” and then correcting herself but he didn’t feel like it was anything worth worrying about right this moment.

Something about her fascinated him and also attracted him. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt like he could trust her.

“So, pray tell, what are these things which I need to accomplish?”

“You need to leave tomorrow morning and head south. As you continue south, you will meet with the two princesses and their party. You must tell them of your mission and travel with them. From there you must continue south out of these mountains until you reach the southernmost peak on the Dragon’s Jaw ridge…” she turned around and said, “Damn, they found me!” She turned back to him and said urgently, “Just please do as I said, head south, find the princesses then find me at the southern…” there was an explosion of flame behind her and he could see her back and shoulders were on fire.

She turned and began to shift her shape as she said, “Good luck! I’ll see you at Dragon’s Jaw Ridge!” and he was then awake with a start.

His mind recoiled at the final shape which his mentor, guide or whatever you could call her took.

“Reptilian eyes my ass! Those were dragon’s eyes!”

The next morning, he rose early and created the ring which he saw in his last dream. This ring took untold hours of concentrating, focusing powers and mana channeling to finally finish making.

He looked at his ring and he thought, “I hope she’s okay.”

He slipped the ring on his left pinky and it shrunk to fit the finger. This surprised him for a moment. Then he said, “Well I can’t take the time to figure it out. I need to get going here.” As he felt the urgency her final words seemed to engrave on his soul.

He then as quickly as possible packed up his belongings into his cabin. Once it was neat and orderly, it was time to try and put the cabin into the ring. Once he figured the right string of thoughts and images, he was able to shrink the cabin to the size of a walnut. This he picked up and held in his hand.

Once the miniature cabin was in his hands, It seemed to react to being in the same hand as the ring and his thoughts and desire to store it in the ring. When the two touched, the cabin vanished, right into the ring. With this, he knew when it was time to set up the cabin, the tiny figure would appear in the palm of his hand with the ring. All he would need to do would be set the totem on the ground and command it to return to full size.

Part of him knew this was also a way to conceal the power of the ring. If people thought he was just making things bigger and smaller, they wouldn’t question the much more amazing appearance of objects from thin air. Best to not attract too much attention right off of the bat.

“Going to be nice to have my own mobile home. All the comforts but none of the gas or hassles.”

He picked up his rifle and made minor adjustments to his pistols in his belt and his sword and knives to improve his balance.

He then turned to Jade, looked closer at her forehead and he saw it had fully healed in the last couple of days. He shook his head and asked, “Are you ready, Jade?”

“Whenever you are ma…Sir.”

He exited the cave with Jade, and he looked over to the rising sun. He enjoyed the crisp air and the beauty of the sunrise, but he knew he didn’t have time to sightsee for too long. He then turned south and took in a deep breath of the crisp cold air and asked himself, “Now what was it that Captain Halo used to say?”

Captain Halo was one of his favorite comic book characters he used to love to read when he was growing up.

“Oh yes, onward unto oblivion!” and the pair started walking south.