Chapter 3 - Strange Boy

Still recovering, he sat down on the bed. His shirt that barely fit his body a few hours ago was able to serve as a robe now, his shorts felt as if would fall at any movement he did. He looked at his hands, they were smaller than he remembered. - "What is going on here..." he thought confused.

Looking around he could see the room, very rustic, looked like a cabin made from wood planks, a small bed and some linen sheet covered him, there was a stand with water bowl on it, everything on the room was a tone of brown as everything was made of wood.

It didn't take long for a middle aged man with gray hair and beard to walk in, he was wearing strange clothes, seemed out of a medieval fair, he walked with grace and ported himself elegantly, he had curious eyes toward the man in the bed, approaching him while showing a sincere smile.

The older man turned around and talked to the man in armor, a strange and never heard of language came from their mouth. He watched tons of movies, and games from all over the globe, there weren't a major language he didn't hear, still the one they were talking were completely strange to him, he could make no sense of it at all.

The gray man approached his bed and tried to communicate slowly - "Asberah Kham, Mhacss imillihan, khamus et?"

The man laying down understood it was a question directed at him, but all he could do was give back was a confused smile as expressing through his face "Sorry, but I can't understand it".

The older man smiled back to the boy and turned around wavering his hand to him as if saying "I will be right back". After leaving the room, took about five minutes for him to return, in his hands he was holding an amulet, it was made of copper and held its characteristic reddish color, the pendant was smaller than a thumb, and held some kind of rune engraved on it, as the gray haired man approached he hold it tightly for a moment and the rune started to emit a very weak blue glow, he then extended his arm and put it on the boys hand and then spoke

- "Let's try again now.... my name is Maximilian, what is yours?"

His eyes went completely open in surprise - "MAGIC!" he thought to himself completely flabbergasted. He quickly looked the necklace searching for a hidden led light or place to put battery, but there were none, - "Magic..." he said clearly unbelieving what he was holding his hands... Maximilian gently laughed at the honest and amazed boy in front of him;

- "My name is..." he suddenly stopped, his thoughts rushed back in forth of what would be the best approach to this, should he give his real name, should he lie and say he doesn't remember... he understood his situation, he was on a strange place, with medieval characters walking around and there was a frigging magic necklace on his hands... His mind remembered thousands of game and movie worlds he had played, one in particular that came forward stronger than the others... a world where names held power to control the person, also his world names could be strange on this one so he believed he could not risk it so easily and trust someone he just met. He spoke the first name that came to his mind... "Riou... call me, Riou..."

Maximilian face went serious - "Riou hum? Right, my boy, can you tell us from where you are and what were you doing in this remote lands?"

Riou flinched, he could not elaborate anything, his lies would be seen through in an instant - "I don't know... but by the looks of this place I think I'm really far away from home, all I can remember is that I went to bed, and suddenly waked up last night in the woods and walked the majority of the day until..." he remembered then the excruciating effort that was to climb that damn never ending hill, and recalled the last moments falling down the giant cliff... he continued after a moment of silence recovering from the thoughts that still caused pain to him"... until I fell... and woke here"

Maximilian pondered a moment while walked around the room, after a few moments he gave a gently smiled to the boy - "Very interesting..." he said clearly reaching a conclusion.

"Can you get up? come with me boy, lets have a walk, I need to check something if you don't mind... " Maximilian said while gesturing for him to get up and heading to the door. The Knight silently watched while the Mage worked.

Riou put the necklace around his neck and stood up, something was strange, he felt shorter his shorts almost fell to the ground, he quickly held it to avoid showing more skin than he wanted to. He followed Maximilian outside holding his shorts with one hand.

The sun was still shining but his eyes were more used to it now, he could feel that he was still a bit tired, but nothing that would compromise his abilities to walk and talk. He followed Maximilian, they were in some kind of small village, it was hot and there were people returning from some crop fields with seemed to be some kind of corn plants, nobody paid much attention to him.

"You were found near that forest... do you know about it?" Maximilian pointed out the location known as Endher Forest, as casually as possible, Riou felt as it was subtle test, but he payed no mind to it while looking carefully to it for a few seconds - "I don't think so, seem a lot different than the one I was, I don't remember fog or dark trees" he said meaning it, it seemed to be a very different place than he remembered, there were no cliffs or hills as far as he could see, the trees were much darker and evil looking than the one he was, and this one had a strange fog far in the distance, deep on the heart of the forest, despite the hot day...

"There was a strange silence..." he said to himself, almost voiceless, while remembering it, that strange silence and eerie feeling still bothered him when he remembers it.

Maximilian didn't reply, but he was walking differently than when entering the room, his steps were steady and with purpose, he kept going until he reached what seemed to be a camping site, full of tents, many leather armored men moving around, some with pieces of metal carrying swords and spears, sitting in circles chatting, some preparing to move out and others gathering wood, probably to light a fireplace later on.

"An army camp in a small village?" he asked trying to understand why

"Yes my boy, did you not feel the tremor earlier? This army here came investigate what happened" - Said Maximilian while looking curiously to the boy, expecting his answer...

"I did not feel any earthquake... " He answered casually paying no mind to the subtle agenda behind the questioning, he thought it would be better to go with it, it would be better to indulge the old man curiosity as of rewarding the help, an in a sign of trust. "Also... why do you keep calling me boy, do I look like a child?" Riou asked curious to the reason, to him he should be called a man since he was almost 26 already.

Maximilian stopped and went completely quiet, a serious face that kept looking forward, completely still, without looking to Riou, he could feel an uncomfortable silence growing between them, he felt as pushing too hard, the man was clearly bothered by the questioning, perhaps he was uneducated, and was committing a cultural blunder by questioning back the man. Despite the uncomfortable situation, there was nothing he could do now and he was curious, as he already suspected and feared what the answer might be.

After what seemed to be an eternity, Maximilian smile returned - "I'm sorry... Riou wasn't it? It's a force of habit.. I will control it better from now on, but please lets enter this tent here to get some of my belongings, there is something I want to show you..." He said while walking towards a medium size, military tent and entering it.

"Sly old man!" - He thought after hearing the answer he was not expecting and continued his thought- "This Maximilian is smart... too smart it seems, he is analyzing my every move and deflecting my attempts to gain knowledge without direct questioning."

He showed a stool to the young man, while he turned around to grab one of his bags in the back of the tent, near a small bed. while Riou sat down, he brought the bag and another stool near him, and put the bag on top a small table near them and sat down near Riou.

"It seems to me that you are no stranger to magic, am I correct? Despite your surprise to the necklace to help us communicate, I know its a rare artifact but something tells me you know more than you are showing" - Maximilian questioned while pulling a small sized yellow crystal from the bag, it was as big as a toe and fitted the Mage palm easily.

"I don't know magic, I mean, the idea behind it maybe, as a concept perhaps, but it was the first time seeing the real deal..." He said thinking back in his hours playing fantasy games, it was complicated to put into words the knowledge of countless game hours into fantasy games. As well as anime and movies with spell theories so full of fantasy that could break reality, summon gods and destroy whole galaxies. All he had was game theories and concepts, tons of them. But never was this close to real magic.

"You say strange things for a young man..." Said Maximilian calmly analyzing him... "But well, lets see here, this is a yellow crystal, some people call it manatrine because it can measure the magic inside a person, please hold it with both hands and concentrate, focus your energy towards the crystal..." Maximilian explained, and leaned forward waiting for Riou to extend his hand.

Riou extended the right hand, palm up, and as soon as the crystal touched the hand

"BLAST!" - it exploded violently, debris were flying everywhere on the tent, making them both flinch in reflex, Riou looked surprise to the man unknowing if this was normal.

Maximilian went quiet and quickly pulled from the bag a bigger crystal, this time, round, well polished but the same yellow color, but this one was the size of a fist and was difficult to hold it with only one hand.

Without saying any word he extended his arm waiting for the boy to do the same... and as soon as the stone touched the hand

"BLAST!" - Both flinch once more, even expecting the explosion it was too strong to avoid a reflex, more crystal pieces went flying, some even made holes in the tent... Even soldiers came in to see what was going on, but when they saw the Mage they assumed it was expected and returned without bothering the scholar and the boy sited in front of him.

Maximilian only looked, his face was calm as if pondering something very deep, Riou respected and waited patiently, assuming he was studying the results of the test.

A few moments later the Mage rushed to the bags on the ground of the tent by the bed, rushing through them until he found one, from it he took a heavy, rough edged crystal, seemed very heavy as he had to carry it with both hands, it had a reddish tone to it instead of the yellow shown by the other two, it was as big as watermelon, it had dirt still attached to some of the rough edges, clearly no artistic work had been done to it and yet its top edges were rough and clean obelisk shaped. Maximilian hold it with two hands near his chest and seemed to focus on the stone for a while, a faint blue glow started to appeared on the very core, slowly growing and gaining strength, shining brighter every second, filling the whole stone after a few moments. Maximilian let go the stone and the the light quickly vanished, he looked tired afterwards... and extended the stone to Riou to grab once again.

"BA-DOOM!" - With a larger and more violent blast than the others, the same thing happened, as soon as it touched his hand it exploded, creating even larger holes on the tent, but this time the Mage didn't flinch, he was serious looking at the hand of the person in front of him...

Riou was still expecting the next action Maximilian would do, so far he thought the Mage was analyzing the results since he didn't appeared shocked, just pondering intensely.

Maximilian stood up and walked around the tent for a while while Riou watched expectantly.

"Let me try something different now... please sit straight and relax" said the serious Mage approaching vigorously fast the young man, while he took position.

"Stay very still, I will try an older method of measurement... "He said even more serious while extending his hand on top of the young man head" and began to concentrate, Riou stayed still, only looking around with his eyes as he was not feeling a thing, but he did notice that Maximilian was becoming wearier every second it maintained concentration. Suddenly he felt a static shock that seemed to happen between his head and the Mage hand, it was immediate and took less than a second.

Maximilian immediately stepped away and pulled his hand toward his chest in a reflex. He was clearly completely exhausted and very pale, breathing with difficulty he fell down, finding the stool behind him and managing to keep sat down, completely idle, his eyes showed that his mind was far away from that place.

Riou was very surprised, was this what was supposed to happen? Maximilian was so confident and knowing what he was doing, also he was fine... so he was left confused by all the actions of the Mage without proper explanation of what was going on...

The old man started to recover slowly, clearly shaken from the experience, looked directly to Riou...

The tall Knight suddenly waved from outside requesting permission to enter, it seems he needed to talk to the Mage with some urgency.