chapter 2

chapter 2 of the book and is further chronicling steins travels to find out what is happening to his friends

Chapter 2

Journey to Karta

 

 

 

 

 

The dark Transylvanian mornings started as normally as any other places in the world, the lazing moisture of night time clouds landed on the grass creating the morning dew, The sun was the same, the same size, the same shine, and the same heat, even in the winter. I came out of my castle and looked out on to the cemetery, the city was looking for a place to put the new graveyard after the outbreak of the black death as the humans called it, I had told the city that they were welcome to use my land but for each person that was buried there the city had to pay 1000 crem to me, given their situation the city official accepted without a second thought. I looked out on to the road and saw Jedeiah and Venikane standing there, with my regular, slow, wavering pace I walked back into my castle and grabbed my scythe and traveling sack that consisted of medicine, food, a change of clothes, blanket, glasses repair kit, and a suture to fix any torn clothes on the way. I walked back out of the extremely large front door and walked down the road, some of the villagers gave me the usual “cowering in fear” type thing, so just to screw with them as I walked by I started wildly chanting strange things that were actually gibberish but they sounded like some sort of witchcraft so the villagers ran off into the sunrise. I continued walking and met Jedeiah and Venikane at the top of the hill.

“You enjoy taking your time, it’s not like we looking for a lost immortal. I was about to throw a rock at you just so you would hurry the hell up.” Venikane said as he took another drag of his cigar.

“Is that the same cigar from last night?” I asked with a blank expression on my face.

“Yes, it is, unlike you I do not like to waste certain things that I find pleasurable.” He said as he took another drag of his cigar, he enjoyed the extremely large Arabian cigars, it still puzzles me how he acquires them. He breathed out and a large puff of smoke came along and hit me in the face, it smelt like someone’s body was decomposing in the ditch. I waved my hand in front of my face to try and get some of the smoke out of my face, it didn’t help very much because Jedeiah started to cough, and he waved away the smoke, the smoke then disappeared.

“Please, refrain from doing that as much as possible.” Jedeiah said, as he adjusted the straps on his sword’s scabbard and shield that was on his back. His sword was war prize that was awarded to him for helping to kill Vlad Tapes or Vlad the impaler as he was more commonly known. Venikane took the cigar out of his mouth and put it out on the side of his leather quiver, which was full of iron arrows, which were an amenity as iron was very hard to find, the cigar leaving a dark and smelly burn mark. Venikane started to walk and Jedeiah and I followed. The birds chirping was a pleasant change from the regular death threats that I got from the village people on a daily basis, a small bird which is one that I basically raised from an egg because its mother had abandoned it at a very young age flew up, sat on my shoulder and started to sing, based on his actions I take it that Venikane didn’t like that singing, he clapped his hands and the bird flew just as quickly as it came. We all continued to walk and eventually came up to the city gate, when he saw Venikane and I the guard put his spear to block our path but he let Jedeiah pass, you see the story behind this is when the Transylvanian government learned that there were immortals living inside it borders they started to make the immortals carry licenses, each license had a certain number of travel visas, mine still had 5 of the 10, all of my travels save for this one was to acquire ingredients for my experiments, and the best part is, all of the travel visas are renewed at the end of the year, in this year of 1481 I would have expected the humans to have a less evolved system of government, just goes to show me what the so called human intuition can do. I opened my lab coat to show my license which I had sewn onto the inside of my lab coat because, being a scientist I had a tendency to lose things very easily. I showed him my license and he let me through, Venikane had a little more trouble because this was his second to last travel visa and the guard had to tell him the regular stuff, I do not like to get into that, the your taking too many trips speech is the most pointless waste of time in this plane of existence. Venikane walked out of the complex and he did not say a word he just kept walking. The sun was just coming out when we left my castle and it was now in the right angle to be blinding the group and me, I am glad that I had chemically altered my glasses lenses so that they change to a darker shade when the sun was shining on them. We came to a small creek and decided to stop for a couple minutes; little did we know we were being watched. I and Jedeiah sat down on two rocks that were side by side, Venikane stayed standing, I guess that he had the same being watched feeling. We all knew that traveling was dangerous but we were all well equipped for any opposition that we ran into, Venikane must have noticed something in the forest because he had his hand on the hilt of his sword and was ready to draw. I looked over to Jedeiah and he was looking at the stream of water, I looked over to the water and the stream was a rose color in the rose colored stream was a reflection of someone, it was the person or thing that was spying on us, I picked up a rock and chucked it toward the steam, I threw it was enough force for the stone to bounce off the bottom and fly towards the person, the stone struck the thing and the reflection disappeared.

“Ow, damn Frankenstein that really hurt. Good lord, I thought you asked me to keep watch on you guys on your journey.” Joshua said as he walked out of the bushes while rubbing his head, he took his hand away and there was a large red welt. I adjusted my glasses and stood up to greet him but Venikane already him pressed up against an oak tree, Venikane’s claymore was pressed up against Joshua’s throat.

“Why were you following us, who are you, who hired you?” Venikane yelled at Joshua.

“Hey, Frankenstein can you call off your guard dog?” Joshua said

“Trust me Joshua, I wish I had guard dogs like him, but sadly I can’t seem to find one. Venikane you can let him go, I hired him to follow us and to scout ahead of us. Did you find anything?” I asked Joshua as Venikane set him down on to his feet. Joshua was of average height, 5 feet, 6 inches. He was of average weight, around one hundred thirty five pounds. I did not know much about Joshua except for his skills and some of his background, he was a talented hunter and tracker. Rumor has it that he was raised by animals and strangely I can believe it because he acts really weird. I set my glasses to where they sat in the middle of my nose. Jedeiah stood up, walked over and shook Joshua’s hand; Venikane remained his usual withdrawn self, he only looked back at the rose colored water and sheathed his sword. Joshua and Jedeiah talked as if they have known each other for their entire lives, I walked over by Venikane and looked down at the water to try and figure out what was making the water turn that rose like color, without any further conversation we all continued to trek to Karta, it seemed like Venikane didn’t like Joshua coming along with us, in all honesty I couldn’t blame him because I still didn’t know everything that I would like to know. The journey to Karta should take about 3 days and we are on the first day and we are well over a quarter of the way there, I just hope that Daraous is still there. The sun was in the middle of the sky when we decided to stop and eat; I chopped down a tree with my scythe so we all didn’t have to sit on the ground. I was the third person to sit down the two before me were Joshua and Jedeiah they were still taking like two teenage girls between classes, I swung my bag around and pulled out a small sack filled with berries and nuts, I mostly liked cashews but I had bought the bag from the shop before we left town so I had no idea what kind of nuts were in it, I opened the bag and to my surprise it was full of cashews and sunflower seeds, not even a peanut, the berries that were in it were strawberries, blueberries, pieces of dried cantaloupe, dried apples, and raspberries. Venikane sat down next to me, cracked his neck and back, brought his backpack around and from it pulled a couple berries and a leg of something thankfully it was cooked because if it smelled this bad cooked I can’t even imagine what it smells like raw. In the distance I heard sounds of horses and the sounds of metal clanking, I stood up and walked out on to the road to see what was going on, it was a caravan of gypsy’s being attacked by raiders. I grabbed my scythe and sprinted to help them, to get their attention I picked up and threw a stone at them, the stone struck one of them on the head and in retaliation the raider shot a arrow at me, the arrow was going fast but I was going faster as the arrow went by I grabbed it and threw it back at the archer. The arrow pieced the archer’s body and the archer went down. I picked up my speed and I was there in seconds, one of the raiders swung his sword at me, I stopped his attack and punched him in a couple pressure points and he went limp, I swung my scythe at one of them and it went through him like a knife through margarine, one of the raiders had a scythe and swung at me, we both locked blades, an arrow came flying from nowhere and killed the other warrior. The raiders were gone save for the one whom was immobilized and the battle was over, a little girl ran up and hugged my leg, in seconds I was surrounded by women and men dressed in robes of blue, green, and red, all of them praising me as if I was a god, Venikane, Joshua, and Jedeiah walked up to me.

“I thought you didn’t like being praised.” Venikane said as he crossed his arms crossed his chest; I could sense a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“I don’t but I don’t know what language that they speak so I can tell them.” I said as I slowly backed away from them, they continued to come closer until Joshua walked up and spoke to them in some other language. I had no idea what they were saying and I only walked over to Jedeiah and Venikane both standing back and watching Joshua as he spoke to the gypsies in what seemed to be their native tongue because they were all nodding as he spoke. One of the young children walked up and pulled down they cloth that was covering her mouth.

“Thank you for saving us mister Frankenstein, I don’t know what we would do if they stole all our food.” She said as she looked me in the eyes, I looked back at her and I noticed that she had the same mismatched eye colors just Nominus, one blue and the other yellow. Other gypsy came up to me this time it was a man. The young girl ran away giggling back to her mother.

“Thank you, if there is anything we can do to repay you just say so and it is done.” He said as he bowed to me, must be some kind of respect thing. I bowed in return, my glasses fell off of my face and he reached down and grabbed them, he handed them back.

“Wait, that mark, you are an immortal like Memuos.” He said as I put my glasses back on, the mark he is talking about is, a number in the roman numeric system is printed as a birthmark, for me since I am the 7^th immortal it is XII conveniently placed in the middle of my forehead covered by my long hair. I always kept my hair long so that I could cover up the strange birthmark, don’t get me wrong I am not ashamed that I am an immortal but it is a rather avid conversation piece. I adjusted my glasses so I could get a good look at what was going on with Joshua and the other gypsies, they were handing him food and drink and blankets and pillows.

Well, is there a chance that you could take us to Karta?” I asked as I placed my scythe onto my back into the sheath, I swung my bag around my back and it smacked me in the back of the head.

“It is not matter of chance, you saved us so we are in debt to you, so yes without question we can take you to Karta, and with meeting you I feel that my luck has increased greatly that this journey will be a mighty success for both of us. Do you know of the immortal  blacksmith?” he asked as he walked me, Jedeiah, and Venikane over to caravan and welcomed along with introduced us to all the others that were on this trip, it is true Daraous has fame that precedes even me and I am very up to date in the events of the world. I sat down in the back part of the caravan and the horses started to pull the carriage again, slowly reaching cruising speed. I fell asleep with the quite sounds and the birds that were all held in cages chirping, creating a lullaby. The same dream occurred as it did one night before only with one severe difference, lying in the background while the figure was approaching me Jedeiah laid in the dirt, dead as a door nail

Author's Note

second chapter of my first writing project