Chapter 42

Kyle

It has been approximately 4 months since the Rastians enslaved me.

Life as a slave wasn’t as bad as you would think. Don’t get me wrong, it’s no picnic, but at least the Rastians were humane people. It probably didn’t hurt that I’m apparently a former god, as I demonstrated by use of my Power. The Rastians now called me Ragnok, a word that means “destruction”. They learned it from one of the ancient otherworldly visitors.

Judging by their stories, the “visitors” were Templar knights or Masons.

I guess being a god wasn’t all that great, anyway, because I still had to do all the dirty work.

Every day I woke up at the crack of dawn. The dawn there is the same as any other time of day; the light never changed. It was kind of like mist, only made of a smoky, dim light.

Lum either had me bring him tea or get firewood first, depending on his mood. Lum was the head honcho, I guess. He’s also Fortan’s father. So that makes Fortan a princess, right? Well, if she is, she’s a lot nicer than she has to be.

After I got the fire going (using my “god” powers, of course) and made breakfast, I had to stand in the Rastian marketplace and help whoever needed it. I felt kind of like a juvenile convict sentenced to community service.

Most of the people who “needed help” were teenage-looking girls, who could just as well have carried the single packages they bought by themselves.

Later on, (I don’t know what time it was) I had to go escort Fortan home. I don’t really know what she did before I picked her up. It didn’t look like school or anything. More like some sort of church service. Well, temple service.

The Rastians’ religion is kind of complicated. As far as I can tell, the ancient visitors brought Christianity with them. Some of the Rastians had converted, but a lot of them hadn’t, and still practiced the traditional rituals and stuff.

Lum and his family were obviously part of the second group. When I had first become a slave, he whipped me for returning the Catholic cross gesture that another Rastian had greeted me with.

Then he’d whipped me again when I addressed him first, instead of letting him talk. After that, we were cool with each other. Mostly. He had some anger issues.

The Rastians didn’t really keep a tight leash on me, so there were plenty of times when I could have escaped. The problem was that I had absolutely no idea where my Team was, where the nearest portal was, or even if a portal (provided I found one) would take me back to the School. What if I got dumped in a worse place than Rast?

I had tried to find my Teammates with my Power, but none of them were on Rast. If I remember our geography classes right, Rast is a pretty small world. I think it’s only about 4,000 miles square. I searched the entire world for my teammates. Nothing.

That is, not for four months.

I was carrying crudely wrapped packages for a young woman who kept flirting with me. I was pretty much ignoring her and keeping my eyes down. That didn’t help much because I’m at least a foot taller than the general population.

It wasn’t long before I got fed up with her constant flirting and chatter. I can’t stand you!

EXCUSE ME?!

I tripped and dropped the stuff I was carrying.

“Oh, you poor thing, you must be so tired,” the girl said as she curled her hair on her finger. She didn’t offer to help. “Why don’t you…rest at my house?” she suggested, batting her eyes.

“Um, no, t-thank you,” I stammered. How’d she get into my head? I hurriedly strengthened my mental block.

I don’t know, but quit blocking me! This is hard enough!

Finally, I recognized the voice.

Krystal?! How—

I already answered that!

Her answers were getting harder to hear, so I sapped some Energy from the Rastian girl to keep the connection with Krystal.

Hold on a minute!

I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS! I CONTACT YOU OVER TIME AND SPACE, USING ONLY MY MIND, AND YOU’RE PUTTING ME ON HOLD?!

Good old Krystal.

I quickly finished my job and then got as far away as possible from the Rastian woman.

Are you still there?

Kyle, this is not a phone conversation! Don’t ever put me on hold again!

Kryssi, relax! Where in the worlds are you?

I don’t know!

I took a deep breath. I’m used to dealing with Krystal when she was like that.

Okay, is anyone with you?

I felt a little irritated, and knew that it was just Krystal’s emotions.

Wynn’s here. Where are you?!

Rast.

Like I’m supposed to know what that means.

Have you met anyone there?

Yeah. Some tri-clopses.

Tr?—nevermind. Wait, Tri-clopses? Ask Wynn what they were. The only world I had ever heard of with tri-clopses was Yarco. There were humans too, but some were mutated into tri-clopses. Something about radioactive fallout, I think.

He says he doesn’t know.

I swore softly to myself. If they were in Yarco, maybe they could chance using a portal to come to Rast. From there, we could figure out what to do next.

Why are you taking so long to answer? It’s like, 10 minutes between replies from you.

It’s the Time factor.

I really wanted to ask Wynn if he thought there was a portal nearby. Portals are mostly Shadow, so Shadow Classmen are really good at finding them. But I could feel Krystal straining to keep the connection open. Too much more pressure would probably hurt her. Really bad.

Krys? Are you still there? She’d been quiet for a while.

Yeah. Her voice was getting weaker.

Are you alright? Are you hurt?

No…I…keep…gtg…

Gtg? Huh? Oh, “Got to go”.

The connection evaporated. Once it did, I just felt…empty. Hollow.

It had felt so right to be connected to Krystal again. I hadn’t really noticed how much it hurt when we’d been separated. We’d been connected for almost 8 years. She hadn’t known, but we were. I kind of felt lost without Krystal.

Oh, crap. I’m starting to sound all girly. Ugh.