4 Our Ongoing Mission:To Seek Out New Life, and Eat It.

The next morning when they set out Three looked rather heavyset due to all the extra nanites he had padding his suit and compacted into his backpack. Fortunately it was a simple matter to have them supplement his strength, enabling him to transport more of them with a considerable reduction in power consumption. In actuality he would prefer to have been able to create a vehicle to transport all of them and his nanites, but the foliage was much to dense for anything large enough to accomodate them all. Since he wasn't willing to abandon any of the very few people he had found so far, he had few options.

At least the whole 'don't question the super powerful wizard' mentality meant he only got a few strange looks from the others when they saw his new and improved look. They had more of the furry snake for breakfast, and Three reveled in the smoky, gamey flavor it had. So very different from the nutrient packs he had consumed for as long as he could remember. It was different from the big angry hedgehog in flavor and texture, but just as delicious. He found himself wondering what would attack them next, and whether or not it would be as tasty as the first two. He also couldn't wait to try the delicacies an actual established culture produced, it should be even better than their improvised meals made from whatever they had on hand.

His grasp of the language was also improving in leaps and bounds, one of the benefits of having an A.I. housed in his cybernetic implants he supposed. "How much farther to Haven?" He asked between mouthfuls.

Aspen looked to Gaius questioningly, who shook his head as he answered. "Hard to say, we were driven farther south than I've ever been. My best guess is another two or three days if we make good time and I'm not too wrong about our current position. I apologize for not being able to answer more accurately Great One."

Three nodded. "That's fine, and call me Three, not Great One." Aspen opened his mouth then closed it a couple times. "What is it? I'm not going to get upset by any questions you want to ask. If anything, I'll get upset if you don't stop refusing to use my name."

Aspen tentatively asked his question. "Grea… Three, erm, why is your name a number?"

"Ah, that is because I was the third… child made. The first two were not good enough and had to be… removed? I'm afraid I don't know all the right words yet."

It was like he had opened the floodgates. The realization that he was willing to answer questions about himself practically had them falling over themselves to satisfy their curiosity.

"Where are you from?"

"Where did you learn your magic?"

"How old are you?"

"Are all of your people's wizards as strong as you?"

"Can you only use sand? Is that why you are carrying so much of it with you?"

Three laughed and held up a hand to stop them. "I don't know the right words to answer all of those questions yet, and not all of them have an answer. I'm about eighteen years old, the only one left of my people, and I'm not actually a wizard. This," he grabbed a handful of nanites and presented it to them, "isn't really sand, it only looks like it. I think that's the best I can do right now, sorry. I will have to try again after I learn more words." Some things were entirely too complicated to explain at his current level of fluency. How was he supposed to explain that he was biologically eighteen years old, and depending on how you decide to measure it either two days old or negative six and a half thousand years old? He wasn't even going to try to explain how nanites worked with a limited grasp on a primitive society's language.

Hopefully he could find a library or school of some sort when they reached Haven. Speaking of which. "We should get going, as much fun as it is exploring the forest I still want to see this Haven you guy are always talking about sooner rather than later." He stuffed the last bite of food in his mouth and opened a hole in the barrier he had made.

As they made their way through the forest, Three noticed that Kayla was collecting portions of various plants as they passed and stuffing them into the backpack he had made for her before he went to sleep. He had made everyone one, feeling a bit foolish that he hadn't done it sooner, and they would now be able to carry considerably more supplies with them. It was important, because they were already almost out of snake. The others didn't seem worried, having said that they could scavenge edible plants from the forest if they needed to, and that nobody would die even if they were forced to skip a few meals. That was simply unacceptable. He didn't want to miss out on tasty food just because they couldn't carry it with them easily, and the weeks worth of nutrient packs he had in his bag were going to be an extreme last resort.

Unfortunately it was starting to seem as though nothing was going to attack them today, and he was getting a bit bored. So he started asking Kayla questions to pass the time. "Whatcha doin?"

She looked at him strangely for a few seconds. "I used to help our apothecary Grea- Three. I learned a bit about herbs and plants, and thanks to your gift I am able to gather some of these rarer ones to sell later. Most people don't ever come out this far from a town unless they are following a road and this will help me start my life again."

"Why not? Surely there are a lot of people that set out to find new places to live, otherwise there would never be new towns or roads right? Someone has to make the roads after all, and the places they lead to. What does that one do?" He pointed to her newest acquisition, which was a cluster of ruby red berries from a stubby bush with spiky leaves.

"They can be made into a salve that stops bleeding and eases pain. And I said most people, not nobody. Usually when enough people want to start a new village or town they hire a few wizards to make a road to their chosen place first, and soldiers to protect them during the trip. The soldiers and a wizard or two will usually stay until the walls are finished. A lot of the soldier end up staying to protect and live in the new village, but most of the wizards tend to go back to the major towns and cities where it's safer." She anticipated his next question. "This is brewed into a tea that eases cramps." She scraped a fairly large piece of bark off a tree as they passed it.

"I guess that makes sense. All these large monsters would drastically affect the way a society would develop after all." Kayla looked confused, and he realized he had mixed a couple English words in where he didn't know the right one. "Forget it, just thinking out loud." They had started to fall a bit behind the others on account of her frequent stops, and just as he was about to suggest they hurry to catch back up an ear piercing cry caused them all to freeze mid step.

Three spun to face behind them, eagerly anticipating the arrival of a new delicacy. The loud footfalls and snapping foliage that preceded the thing's arrival promised that it would be rather large. When it finally erupted into sight he stared at it, a bit nonplussed. It was nearly a foot taller than his five foot eleven, and clearly a deadly foe, it was just a bit hard for him to really take it seriously at first glance. Size and overall body shape was consistent with the larger species of raptor, and even though dinosaurs should be extinct he had encountered enough weird things to accept their presence here without much surprise.

No what threw him was the bright red comb and wattle, the bright yellow beak, and the mottled brown and white feathers coating the thing. A velocichicken? His A.I. promptly informed him that a velociraptor was considerably smaller, with adults coming to about knee height on average, while this creature was actually slightly larger than the closest known equivalent: the utahraptor. Three didn't much care what his A.I. thought about his choice of comparison, velociraptor was a better name in his opinion, and since this creature didn't exist in his database he was perfectly free to call it whatever he wanted to call it.

Fortunately the velocichicken seemed just as thrown by his lack of reaction to its approach as he was by its appearance and it stopped just out of reach to cock its head and inspect him with a beady red eye. After a brief standoff it decided to see if he was food and pecked at his shoulder. He was caught totally off guard, and the only thing that saved him was the fact that he was wearing a thick layer of nanites supporting his nanoweave suit. It hardened in response to the impact and distributed the force of the blow across his entire body, while the nanites absorbed a bit of it as well simply by being there.

It had still knocked the wind from his lungs and the only thing keeping him on his feet was the fact that the suit had basically turned into a solid object for a moment. He saw its head darting towards him again and raised his hand to try and deflect the blow as best he could, not particularly interested in letting the thing clobber him again. It was just dumb luck that it hadn't hit his head and killed him instantly. He was rescued from trying to fend the thing off and get his breath back at the same time by the arrival of Gaius, who charged in from the side fearlessly and drove his crystalline spear deep into the thing's chest.

The strike was well aimed, and the razor sharp blade slipped between its ribs and sliced its way through vital arteries before lodging deep in its heart. Unfortunately the spear got stuck on a rib when Gaius tried to retract it, and he was force to let go of it and leap away when it shifted its focus to him. It weakened quickly though, and the massive internal hemorrhaging left it disoriented and more interested in trying to escape than attack them. Within a minute it was dead, and they set to the task of butchering it with gusto. Three could practically taste it already, and wanted to find a place to set up camp right away, despite them still having several hours of light left.

He didn't actually push for it though, the close brush with death made the danger of his present circumstances much more apparent. He needed to get somewhere relatively safe where he could learn more about this world and how to survive in it as soon as he possibly could. He would not be killed by a bloody chicken monster. If his fate was to be killed by some crazy monster that shouldn't exist it had better be nothing less than a dragon. Losing to anything less than a mythical creature of unimaginable power would just be too embarrassing considering the massive technological advantage he had.

He was going to have to leverage that particular advantage sooner rather than later it seemed. His database contained schematics for a great many weapons, both new and old, and while he had intended to slowly introduce new concepts and technology in steps that made understanding the more advanced knowledge that followed easier, he was going to need more than just his nanites to ensure he lived long enough to complete his Uplift mission.

When they finally settled down for the night he had made a few selections from his database that he felt would substantially improve his odds for survival while also being relatively easy to fabricate from his available resources. After devouring his evening meal, which turned out to be exceptionally delicious due to Kayla's decision to season it with some of the herbs she had gathered throughout the day, he drifted off into a satisfied sleep.