Capítulo 3: Changing Scenery
Three woke bright and early the next morning, eager to continue learning about the people he had found. The first thing he did was get his nanites started on drilling a well. Regardless of whether they were staying or not, he wanted to experience a bath, and he definitely wanted to introduce the concept of washing to these odor challenged people. He would have to spread more nanites out across the surface to acquire enough power to transfer to the ones digging if he had to go particularly deep, but he didn't think it would be a problem. The nearby vegetation spoke of reasonably accessible water, and true to his expectations it wasn't long before he hit the water table.
When the others woke they found him sitting in an earthen tub full of water, vigorously scrubbing himself clean with a pleased smile. When he was done he climbed out and had a screen of nanites filter much of the dirt out of the water, collecting it and dumping it outside the tub. He gestured for them to try it as best he could, but was finding it difficult to accomplish when three of them refused to look at him, the woman was staring at him and turning pink, and the fire-thrower was keeping his gaze studiously locked on his hairline. After a while he realized what the problem was and stepped back into his suit.
When he turned to face them again he discovered that, to his great pleasure, they were indeed familiar with the concept of a bath and the woman was shooing the others away so that she could wash herself as well. They left readily enough, and she proceeded to stare at Three for a long while as he just stood there waiting before nervously starting to disrobe. He belatedly realized the problem again and went into the forest a short way to get her a gift that his limited information regarding social interaction insisted every woman loved… clothing! Fortunately he had an army of nanites at his beck and call, and their ability to manipulate things at a molecular level made it child's play to fabricate a change of clothing for each of his adopted charges from the available flora.
When he finished and returned he caught her climbing out of the tub and reaching for her rags. He ran over and snatched them away as she recoiled and tried to cover herself. He tossed the rags to the ground and handed the new clothes to her, noticing that she was much more attractive now that she was relatively clean. He also noted that the skin tone of these people was more consistent with what he would expect in a region further north than his A.I. judged them to be. More of an olive than the dark brown that was supposed to be common in equatorial regions.
Then again, two moons. Who was he to guess at what was common or not on a world so clearly different from the one he was supposed to be on? He went to give the others fresh clothing as well, leaving the woman to dress in peace. So many new experiences! So much new information! Sure the giant monsters were a bit problematic, but as long as he prepared properly he could handle them. He found the others a short distance away chatting amongst themselves. They went silent at his approach, which was a little frustrating, because he couldn't build a translation matrix if he didn't have a decently sized sample.
He handed out the clothes, which got some excited chatter and made him smile, then he started peppering the fire-thrower with questions that likely sounded like utter gibberish to the man. If it weren't for his wild gesticulations and constantly repeating whatever the man said in response he doubted he would have gotten anywhere. As they rotated through the bath he made steady progress in learning their language, and managed to acquire a few interesting tidbits. It seemed the fire-thrower was named Aspen, which his database promptly informed him was both a type of tree and a location on a different continent that wouldn't actually exist under that name for at least five thousand years. Assuming the continents were the same.
The woman was introduced as Kayla, and his database informed him that it had Hebrew origins and since the earliest known records of the Hebrew faith were from the bronze age it was actually just about the only thing that fit with his expectations. By the time he got the rest of their names he had given up on figuring out their naming conventions. They were all over the map as far as he could tell. There was the middle aged man that was starting to go bald named Zahir, a younger man around his age named Steve of all things, and an older man named Gaius who was in noticeably better shape than the rest.
Most importantly, he was able to puzzle out that they were refugees from a walled frontier village that had been overrun by large beasties like the one he had killed the night before. Both Aspen and Gaius were apparently members of their nation's armed forces tasked with defending the village, Aspen with his 'magic' and Gaius with more conventional weaponry. Three would have to wait until he had a better understanding of the language before trying to learn more about the 'magic' anomaly, but he was more than capable of crafting a spear for Gaius. If there were enough large aggressive creatures wandering about to threaten established settlements he very much wanted as many people capable of fighting them off as possible nearby.
His nanites swarmed into the sand nearby, mostly black now due to finding a sizable carbon deposit when digging the well, and a crystalline spear started rising steadily from the ground. Three decided that landing in a desert was actually quite fortunate, quartz was an exceptionally useful material when you could manipulate it on such a small scale. He deliberately had the nanites distribute free silica molecules throughout the spear, lending it a dark and smokey appearance that faded to crystal clear as it reached the edges of the bladed spearpoint. Party because it made it look impressive, but mostly because a perfectly see-through spear would probably cause all sorts of problems. Like refracting light during a fight, potentially blinding its wielder at an inopportune time.
Gaius seemed inordinately pleased to receive such a magnificent gift, and it took Three nearly ten minutes to get the man to stop bowing and thanking him. When Steve finally finished with his bath, having had to go last, Three got around to trying to figure out where they were trying to go before nearly dying. "Where you go now?"
Aspen looked at the others before shrugging. "We go to Haven, Great One." Which wasn't particularly helpful to Three since his limited comprehension made it impossible to tell if he meant that they were going to a city or town named Haven, or if they were looking for a safe haven. Hopefully either option meant more people, and Three nodded.
"Okay, let's go! And me tell many times, not Great One, Three." He tapped his chest. "Three" That old adage of sufficiently advanced tech being magic was clearly true, and in a world where actual magic seemed to exist it was going to drive him batty trying to convince people of the truth. All of their behavior around him was based around the belief that he was a powerful wizard, and none of them were willing to risk offending a powerful wizard. Especially one that easily slew a monster their own wizard hadn't been able to harm in the slightest.
As they entered the forest, Gaius leading the way, Three found himself lamenting the loss of easy access to all that silica. Maybe he should just recruit a bunch of people to bring back with him and establish his own city in the desert? Constructing a glittering city of pure quartz, filled with advanced technology and extensive education and research programs had quite the appeal. He tossed around a few ideas in his mind on how to accomplish his mission as they got ever deeper into the woods, but was eventually forced to address a more pressing matter.
Namely, the forty foot long furry snake that launched itself out of a particularly dense clump of trees at them. Three barely had any time to react, let alone time to shape anything solid enough to be a true threat to the monster. He was force to resort to launching a loosely packed fist of sand at it as it tried to sink two foot long fangs into Steve. Fist being relative of course. He thought of it as a fist because it was vaguely shaped like a fist, but the improvised attack was nearly the same size as the snake's head, and it easily threw its strike off course.
The snake didn't seem to appreciate getting a mouthful of sand and breaking one of its fangs off on the tree it had been deflected into and it reared up to try again. Three's sand poured forth in a glittering black wave, turning into tight bands that anchored the snake to the ground as Gaius eagerly tested his new spear against it. The relatively stoic man, when compared to the others at least, roared out in joy when the crystal spear sliced through the snake's tough hide with little effort. He started stabbing the monster in a mad frenzy, not stopping until he was thoroughly exhausted. "What possible use could a snake have for fur?" Three asked idly, not expecting a response since he was speaking English at the moment and not the native tongue.
Steve turned out to have been apprenticing at a butchers, or whatever the local equivalent was, because they made short work of disassembling the corpse and packing away everything they intended to keep. They would start a fire and cook it when they had a chance, but Gaius said it was generally a bad idea to stay anywhere close to such a large source of free food this deep in the forest. Scavengers would show up in short order, and many of them would be nearly as deadly as the snake itself. They hurried onward until they reached an outcropping of stone that had a reasonably easy to defend crevice in it. Three set to work compressing the soil into sturdy walls that obscured them from view and should protect them from most attacks. He winced a bit at the increasingly sluggish performance of his nanites, the sun was starting to set and all the foliage was dramatically affecting how much solar energy they were able to produce.
He took advantage of their stopping for the night to coat the rock in a layer of nanites in hopes of getting more energy, but couldn't help but worry that he might have to leave a large number of them behind. He could carry quite a bit on his person, and could always create more, but it was a little frustrating to have to consider abandoning a part of his most useful tool for survival. He took a deep breath, reveling in the fresh forest air. It was so very different from the hot dry wind of the desert, and he smiled. Just being out in the world was worth any price.
Estado de energía semanal
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