The forest was damp and wet from last night's rain. In the distance I could spot various mountains that looked over the three of us, beyond them the sun was beginning to fade away. I was lagging behind Damian and Kael despite carrying the least out of all three of us. In all honesty I thought Kael would've made one of us carry his stuff instead of trudging along with us. The two of them were talking about whatever people like them talked about, meanwhile I was doing something at least slightly entertaining.

  In my hands I fidgeted with some of the things the gunsmith had given me yesterday. Gears, springs, screws, nails, bullets, wood, all kinds of things that could keep anyone preoccupied while walking through a marsh of a forest. I wasn't even sure what Kael wanted me to do, all he'd done was throw a backpack at me and told me he had another job that he needed done. I could only hope that this was the last job he needed me to do.

  Suddenly my thoughts were stopped as I ran into the bag of metal Damian was hauling around. The crash into the bagged armor nearly made me fall into the grass below me before I somehow regained my balance.

  “Watch it Damian!” I yelled up at Damian as he had suddenly stopped for some reason, but all I got was a confused stare from him and an annoyed one from Kael.

  “Kid, I already told you we were stopping here for tonight.” The annoyance in Kael’s voice was nearly palpable. “Just go find some firewood with Damian, and leave your stuff here, I'll start setting up camp.”

  On the ground near Kael was both his and Damian's stuff, I added my stuff to the pile before Damian pulled me away to go find sticks. Despite being in the middle of a forest I could barely find any sticks that were big enough to actually fuel a fire, so instead I just grabbed any I could find. Peering at Damian I realized he'd barely picked up anything yet and only had a literal handful of sticks.

  “Hey Damian. I think I have more than enough sticks, let's go back.” I called out to him but the moment he saw the pile of sticks I was carrying he sighed.

  “Did you check how damp they are?” Double checking my sticks I realized most of them were damp and were completely useless for a fire.

  “Oh…” I sorted through the branches and twigs before only coming up with two sticks that were dry enough to be usable. Ignoring my plight Damian just kept looking for sticks before asking me a question I thought he'd ask me sooner.

  “So, Michael… Where exactly did you get that gun?”

  “Oh this old thing? Well yesterday Kael asked me to go pick up his new revolver and the gunsmith let me make it for free!” I flaunted the shiny new weapon and even spun it with my fingers successfully.

  “The gunsmith? You mean that strange elf in the market?” Damian gave me a stare of disbelief, maybe even awe for some reason.

  “Yeah, though he was a little strange, he talked all weird.” I remembered the unusual formal tone that the gunsmith used with me.

  “Usually a fae would want something but if he said it was free then I suppose it's free. Anyways, it's starting to get dark. We should head back now." Fae? I'd never heard that word before, but before I could ask Damian what it meant he'd already started walking back.

  Turning to Damian I saw that he had as many sticks as I did before I dropped them all while I still only had two. As we reached camp it became more and more apparent to me that Kael had done absolutely nothing while we were gone. There were a few rocks in a circle that were probably for the fire but there was only a single small tent up with Kael inside skinning two decently sized rabbits.

  “Kael, didn't you say you were gonna set up camp?” I said as I dropped my sticks into the firepit and walked towards him.

  “What do you think I'm doing? I set up the fire pit, my tent, and got us some good food.” He held up a furless rabbit like it was some kind of prize.

  “What about my tent? Or Damian's?” I gestured to the empty plots of land around the firepit.

  “Kid, do you understand how expensive my tent is? We're lucky I had a spare sleeping bag and it's his tent, he's gotta set it up himself.”

  “Then why even bring me if supplies are so expensive? You haven't even told me what we're even doing out here!”

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  “We're out here because the inn’s running out of money. There's a cave half a days walk from here where there have been rumors of gems growing inside. I kill any monsters inside and you help me carry anything valuable.” He told me his plan so matter of factly in that patronizing tone my mother always used.

  “Monsters like those giant rats in the sewers that nearly killed me?” I nearly shouted the words at Kael

  “I wouldn't call those rats monsters but that's the gist of it.” He gave me an annoying chuckle before getting up from his tent and going to the firepit with the rabbits in tow.

  Just then I began to smell the waft of burning meat around me. Turning around I realized Damian had already started a fire and was roasting the rabbits over it with a stick through its body. My mouth couldn't help but water, meat, actual meat after so long. Kael didn't seem as interested and returned to his tent. I knew the rabbits weren't anywhere close to being cooked so I pulled out my bag from earlier and began fiddling with the stuff inside.

  “What exactly are you going to do with all those parts?” Damian asked the question with curiosity in his eyes.

  “Honestly I'm not sure. Even though I was a mechanic back on Silt I have no idea what I can make.” The moment I said I was a mechanic Damian's eyes shot wide open.

  “You were a mechanic? You- you worked on cars right? Metal carriages that moved on their own, you must know what I'm talking about. How do engines work? I've only ever read books on them. Please tell me-” Damian nearly dropped the rabbit as he berated me with questions before I interrupted him.

  “Whoa, just wait a minute. How do you know what a car is?”

  “The wayfarers before you from over a hundred years ago. One of them from this world named Earth wrote about their life before Ennath. I even have a copy of their biography back at the inn.” Damian's voice lit up with excitement that felt contagious.

  “Alright I'll tell you about being a mechanic, just keep roasting those bunnies.” I contemplated how to describe a car's engine to somebody who's only ever read about them before an idea popped into my head.

  “So you know how carriages need to be pulled by something to move?” That got me a nod from Damian. “Well cars need that too, they use these boxes called engines, it's just a hell of a lot more complicated. It's a lot like shooting a gun really.”

  Using my gun I made a thread on the star but didn't load any bullets in. I didn't actually dry fire the gun but I did imitate shooting it.

  “Imagine that's what's going on inside of an engine whenever you're driving. It transfers force from the engine to the wheel which makes them spin and…” Just then I had a moment of inspiration, I knew what I was going to make with what the gunsmith gave me.

  From the bag I pulled out gears of various sizes, most were way too small, until I found one slightly bigger than my thumb. Then I kept sifting through the bag looking for any parts I’d need, axels, rods, springs, and most of all a wind up key. Damian tried asking me about cars again but I put my hands up to shush him, I needed to concentrate on this.

  Using my gem I welded a flat spring to the large gear I found and began cutting some of the wood inside by burning through it. I made a total of three wooden pieces, the first was a giant box that would hold all the parts and the other two wouldn't be legs. By cutting one of the ends of a rod I was able to create two small disks which I was able to weld to two slightly larger disks which were already welded to a rod with a gear built into it. Now all I needed to do was weld the wind up key to the spring, then connect the two gears together and…

  “Damian look!” Damian, who had now gone back to focusing on the rabbit, turned back to me holding my creation with pride.

  “What exactly is that supposed to be?” He looked at the burnt, amateurishly welded construct as if it wasn't something amazing.

  “It's a robot! Well it doesn't look like a robot now but if I keep working on the wood it'll be perfect. It even moves!” I wound up the key and watched as the legs began to move. It moved like those wind up toys did, except there was nothing stable for it to walk on so I just held it in my hand.

  “Oh it's one of those toys, I had one as a child.” With that sentence all the enthusiasm in Damian's voice disappeared. “By the way, the food's done.”

  Damian broke off one of the hind legs and handed it to me before Kael came out of the tent to take some for himself. Despite the awkwardness in the air I prepared myself to finally eat some meat. Biting into the flesh I couldn't help but grin, even without any seasoning or spice just eating anything besides that horrible porridge was euphoric. When I was done with my leg I tried to paw at a rabbit for more before Damian grabbed my hand and tore off another leg for me to eat.

  By the time I'd eaten half a dozen legs and some belly my stomach began to feel full for the first time in weeks. While Kael and Damian talked by the fire I snuggled into my sleeping bag and worked on the robot's appearance. I ended up making an entirely new body for the main mechanism and spent way too long making intricate details with fake buttons. After finishing I realized I'd spent hours just perfecting the design, Damian and Kael had probably fallen asleep long ago.

  I could only hope tomorrow went well.

  —

  We were laying down on a small hill just a few dozen feet away from our goal, but my mind kept nodding in and out of consciousness. My brain was groggy even after being awake for hours by now. Thirty minutes ago we finally reached the cave that Kael was talking about last night, although there was one hitch. Just sitting in the front of the cave was a large striped bear looking for any unforeseen idiots trying to steal gems from it. Kael was rambling on about his plan while I tried my best to listen to him, though I felt like I only understood half of what he was saying.

  “Alright, so that's the plan. Got it?” All of a sudden Kael stopped talking and looked at Damian in his armor and me in my half awake state.

  I nodded out of instinct before realizing how bad of an idea that was, but before I could catch myself Damian and Kael had both disappeared. Where Kael went I have no idea but I watched as Damian descended from the hill with his sword in hand and- and was about to fight the bear?

  Damian swung his blade at the bear before it parried the blow with one of its oversized paws. Then in quick succession it clawed at his breastplate with its other paw. I could hear the metal scraping as Damian fell to the ground as the beast loomed over him. Despite my instincts telling me to stay put and do nothing my body did otherwise and began running down the hill to save Damian.

  Just then a loud bang came from the trees as a bullet landed squarely into the right eye of the bear. It groaned and fell to its side, but it was too late, my momentum was too great. I tumbled down the hill and stumbled into the cave where the very much alive bear greeted me. Besides the bear was Damian in his somehow completely intact armor that had nothing more than three distinct scratches on it.

  “Run Michael!” From behind the bear Damian yelled at me to run, but my body couldn't move.

  I was frozen as my legs gave way and fell forward as the bear's massive claws narrowly missed me and I was hit by the sheer force of a bear slapping me. In a moment I was knocked into the cave wall and heard the crunching of some of my bones before I began to fall. Somehow I hadn't noticed the child sized hole in the ground before I entered the cave, but now it threatened to swallow me whole. The last thing I saw before I fell was the sight of a bullet piercing the bear's other eye before the darkness engulfed me.

  There was water, so much water. I struggled to keep breathing as the water pushed and pulled at me. One moment I was able to touch the bottom and get a pocket of water, but the next I was underwater and struggling to breathe. My arms flailed around searching for anything to grip, anything to keep me from being pulled any further.

  I just needed air.

  Just some more air…