Two weeks. That was how long we traveled for on the edge of the forest. We didn’t even reach a road till somewhere in week two and everyone was tired. The only thing keeping the hillsec going was the novelty of the sun on the scales. The first morning after the rescue the ones who had never been outside before had been completely enraptured by it.

  We couldn’t even move on for a few hours as they all basked in the warmth, marveling at the bright light far above them. That was how we started each day now, with the hillsec warming to the sun before moving on.

  I was looking forward to no longer being the only translator. The scanner thankfully only took a few hours to update its Common database to serve as a translator as well but I’d had to show Jace how to use it. The [Tinker] had been very excited when he learned it wasn’t a magical device but a machine. I was worried he was going to try and keep the thing but I knew Raven would make him give it back if it came to it.

  It was a small miracle that we didn’t lose anyone along the path. The children were much smaller than the tall grass, easily hiding among the stalks and oblivious to predators. I had picked up a new bow from one of the disarmed hunters and was often on flier duty, shooting birds and other creatures who might see small hillsec as snacks from the sky. It really helped with the food supplies as well.

  As stressful as the trek was it was far better than being in that temple. I wasn’t being threatened by someone who wanted to control me, I was stressed from protecting others. But I wasn’t alone there. The adventures were on the protection duty as well. Even Mildred and Camphus pitched in where they could, keeping the children safe.

  As we neared the south gate of the city we could see members of the guard and other people waiting out there. Mildred was the first to take off, running at a human man who opened his arms to her. I was willing to bet that was her husband since I knew that the other group had let the city know who had been rescued.

  The only other non guard standing there waiting in the afternoon sun was a white and red hillsec that wore scholarly clothing. This one had an orb in hand, one with translation capabilities I was pretty sure.

  I could hear the woman around me murmuring. “Who is that?” “She looks important.” “An important woman, we really have been delivered to a better land.”

  The scholar woman slithered forward, clearing her throat. “Welcome ladies.” She said with authority, the orb translating so that she could be understood directly. Magic worked different than my scanner which needed someone to speak first before it replayed the message in the desired tongue.

  “The city has been informed of your plight. I am professor Thaliss and am part of a team that will see to it that you are housed and taught skills that can better integrate you into society but at your own pace. For now the farmers on the west side of the city have agreed to put you up in the fallow fields along with our latest immigrants. Thankfully some of them also speak the same language you do.”

  That caught my attention. Immigrants who spoke Alliance Standard?

  “They are as new to our city and culture as you so will be getting some of the same help. Hopefully the groups will get along.” The professor turned her head then, nodding in Raven’s direction. “Pleased to see you were able to rescue your friend and these woman both adventurers.”

  As I stood there, basking in the joy that the woman were expressing at the idea of a new home and the sight of the professor the wind shifted. It pushed in from the west and carried a faint scent that months ago I would have ignored as mere background. The scent of another Zagariean.

  My ears went up high as I suddenly found myself extending upward on my toes to pinpoint where it was coming from. The direction of the farms. The same one that the woman were now headed for. But I couldn’t wait.

  Without a word I took off, caught in the scent my instincts once called home. It grew sharper as I arrived at the farms. The main Hillcock family farm was just ahead, awash in the scents of humans and other animals, far more than the last time I was hear. But with it was the smell of two distinct Zagarieans. No one I knew, not a familiar personal scent, but the species.

  There were a lot of people at the farm today. Humans everywhere with a variety of skin and hair colors. They were all wearing clothing odd clothing to the people of Dacathus and some of them had small animals with them that I hadn’t seen before.

  I skidded to a halt out on the road seeing such a large group. The farmer was there too and when he saw me he turned and waved.

  “Ramjack! Pleased to see you back! I guessing ya heard about all this.” Bart greeted.

  I looked at the gathered humans, most of which were talking to each other in a language I did not know. That’s when I noticed that several held scanners. They were from the Alliance! All these people. Was that the breach that the crystal caused? I had come to the conclusion in my travel that the crystal, in addition to somehow being infectious, also caused me and others to get pulled to this world.

  One of the oddly dressed humans with a scanner turned as well, a smile bright on his flat face. “Ah, you’re the one they cannot wait to meet.” He said in clear alliance.

  “Who?” I asked, looking between the humans, my nose still twitching at the scent I had been chasing all the way here.

  The field I was standing by was littered with tents and small hastily built wooden structures. From around one of the tents bolted two figures covered in orange fur much like mine. One, a male, like me had a head covered in coarse brown fur while the other, a female, had a shorter muzzle and short orange fur with the same black stripes we nearly all carried.

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  “You must be Aness Ramjack Tellathu.” The man greeted in our native vazack, a language I had not heard in months.

  “You saved our lives.” The woman put in, which surprised me.

  “Those trail makers you left. They followed the same path as a very weird and disturbing scent. We wouldn’t have followed that if not for the words.”

  “We knew another of our people must be here to have written vazack on stones, likely appeared here just as we did.”

  “And when we finally got to the city, well, the gate guards directed us this way. Said you were due back to town in a week or so.”

  “My words brought you here?” It was exciting to realize that not only had Raven used my writing to find the quickest path to the temple but two people from my world used it to get to safety as well.

  “Well,” The woman chuckled, “Bart Hillcock over there did say that if we’d gone north we probably would have met a perfectly nice village but it’s unlikely we would have understood each other. The scanners would have probably scared them or gotten us tracked by bandits or something.”

  I laughed too. Things were really going to change around here now that I wasn’t as unique.

  —————

  Raven watched Ramjack take off with more amusement then worry. She had gotten used to his manor, the fact that his hearing and sense of smell were far more acute then her own, or most people really.

  She took her time, walking with Mazen, Jace and the hillsec. The other members of their temporary team had taken the bags with the infected back to the guild. They hoped that they would be able to find someone who could cure them, but until they were sure they would keep them contained.

  Jace was in the lead now, possessing the translating device Ramjack had called a scanner. A strange word, from his Alliance Standard tongue no doubt. She had picked up on a few simple words over the journey with the hillsec, but mostly she had learned to understand their moods. She could tell that they were both nervous and excited as they moved down the road, heading up into the western farmlands.

  Camphus was still with them as well, keeping herself there as an anchor for the woman even when she had the chance to go home. She stayed near the front of the procession with Jace, helping translate what she could understand.

  Eventually they made it to Bart Hillcock’s farm and saw the other immigrants that the professor had spoke of. She had stayed behind in the city, promising to check in on them tomorrow but was letting the adventurers finish the job here. The immigrants as it turned out were a large group of new humans.

  While some of the children on both sides shied away from each other at first by the time the human children saw her and Mazen they were quickly running over and staring up at them in wonder. They spoke in a language that sounded nothing like Alliance Standard but heard words like “Turtle” When they pointed at Mazen, “Owl” when they surrounded Camphus and “Dinosaur” When they looked up at her.

  “Hi.” She told them in common, blinking even as Mazen held still. At least he was wearing a hook hand today instead of a blade. The children seemed most excited as they surrounded him, repeating the word “Turtle” and a few other words she could not make out as they did so. At least after two weeks of dealing with hillsec children using him as a rock he was better adapted to dealing with the young.

  A human man came out of the crowd, waving at the group. “Hello! I am Bill Smith.” He greeted in Alliance which a translator of his own spoke out in common, “You lot must be the hillsec woman who are being offered the same bit of land we are. Heard you speak Alliance Standard too.”

  While most of the woman were shy, one had taken on a more leadership possition in the last two weeks among the others. A younger woman named Ansiss, who had been learning common thanks to Mildred and Camphus. She slid forward now, bowing her head slightly to the human.

  “Yes.” She replied in Alliance Standard, “I am Ansiss and these are my people. The adventurers rescued us and said they would help us have a home.”

  “Well, the people of Dacathus said we were welcome as well, though mostly because we gave some new designs to the Guild of Engineering.” He laughed and put out a hand, “In my culture we shake hands to form a deal. My group here, we were all colonists ready to deploy to a far off land. Here might have less, technology, than where we were going but more space. Space enough to share with others. I was to be their mayor and from what I’ve been told this place not far off the edge of the farms is an excellent place for a village.”

  “My people are new to the sun.” She told him, lifting her face to the sky as she carefully extended a hand to meet his, “I hope if we do make a village that it will be full of sunlight.”

  Raven watched this exchange, hope of her own filling her body. A village would be hard work but if they already had two guilds willing to help pay for it she figured they would do ok here.

  ———————

  It was good to be home. That’s what Dacathus had become, home. Professor Thanolin and even Bibbel were quiet happy to see me when I returned to the townhouse. Part of me had expected the semi-retired professor to rent the room to someone else but hadn’t been able to bear it.

  At the professor’s insistence I brought Raven over for dinner as soon as we could manage it. And he wasn’t the only one. Mildred and her family had us over as well. I finally got to meet the husband and children she had talked about during our captivity.

  Getting back to a work routine was a bit tough. My job was still there waiting. Marigold was happy to see me as well, though she was a bit more brusque about it, saying that I was late and that she could not pay me for lost time. But I know she was relieved to see me safe.

  At night I wrote. Not about my fictional characters, but a translation guide. My first notebook had been the key to help Raven identify vazack writing on rocks. My ability to translate Alliance Standard writing had also been key to understanding the message the cult kept getting. And the new people, only some of them spoke and wrote Alliance Standard, the rest of the humans knew a language called English. I decided the best thing I could do was to make a guide, a survival guide really, for language.

  I brought my notes for the book with me at the first official meetings of the new village. It was an hour out of the city so I could only visit on a day off but I felt good about helping them. I had a class with a few students who knew Alliance Standard to help them learn Common. Hillsec, humans and the two zagarieans.

  My [Insightful Teaching] skill came in handy. The hillsec couldn’t read at all so I taught them the way I taught Hestern and Lemet a while back. I taught them the common letters but for alliance words first, before teaching them their first real common.

  If a few months back a portal had opened back into my bedroom I would have rushed through without a second thought. But now? Now I would send through a message, letting my family know I was alive, that I was safe, but that I had a new life to live.

  I had a place in this world. I had a home to return to. People who would notice when I was gone. People who counted on me. I had a pet in the form of Hoot. I even had a girlfriend. I wasn’t lost and alone any more.