Chapter 20: [Half-baked Time Traveler]

“You're a what?!”

Izzy yells while Demarcus falls off his stump laughing. Mato just slaps his hand to his face.

“You're messing with me, what's your real class? He's messing with us right?”

“God, I hope so.” Mato responds.

Demarcus manages to keep a breath in long enough to chime in with “I don't even know what ‘Half-baked’ means, but I know an insult when I hear one!” Before he falls apart laughing once more.

“I think it means he's either not yet a time traveler, or he's really bad at it.” Mato offers.

“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up. Even half-baked it’s still fucking time travel.” I defend myself.

“Wait, so you, personally, can travel through time? Which kind are we talking about; Back to the Future or Terminator?” Isabella says, surprisingly unsurprised. I think the constant overwhelming situations she’s been in might’ve fried something in her head and nothing will surprise her for a while.

I blink at her, not expecting that from her. “Wait, aren’t you like 17? How have you even seen Back to the Future or Terminator?”

She shrugs. “They’re good movies. But cmon Half-baked, what’re we working with?”

“It’s closer to Terminator, but with a little bit of wiggle room, and apparently— though I have yet to experience this— there are other timelines? Something about branching. Not quite sure on that one, haven’t gotten the lingo down yet.”

“Alright, taking this at face-value and putting a pin in any reasonable skepticism, can you prove it? Time travel right now. Go… I don’t know, leave a sign up ahead that says ‘Pendejo was here.’” She asks.

I sigh. “I can’t time travel— yet. But—” I say, taking the binder from under my arm.

“Aha! So it does mean he can’t do it.” Isabella says, cutting me off, clearly intentionally pushing my buttons.

“Come on Half-baked, Mato said town is a day's hike so, better get going if we wanna make it before dark. Unless you can get us there sooner, Mr. [Half-baked Time Traveler]?”

I open my mouth and hold up a finger to retort, then quickly look back down and begin reading in the journal for any way to get there sooner.

Mato chuckles and Demarcus slaps me on the shoulder.

“Cmon man, she’s got you beat for now. Take the loss. I believe in the time travel stuff, if it helps. I know you’re gonna be powerful as shit man.”

“But— I did time travel! I mean, not me but me from the future… I’m not half-baked, am I?”

“A little bit, but I love that about you. You’re the fun kind of crazy.” Demarcus replies, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

***

Stooping down to examine a log along the side of the muddy dirt path we walk down, I carefully extract a brown mushroom with purple ridges from where the log rots in the mud.

Putting the psychic mudshroom in my pack, I jog to catch up to the group.

Mato and Isabella are chatting quietly. I think Mato had the right approach of acknowledging the trauma but treating things as normal. She might fall apart later if all that shit she’s bottled blows up but, we can burn that bridge when we get there.

Demarcus slides up next to me “What’dya find?”

“Psychic mudshroom. Alchemy ingredient. Read about it during my tutorial. This thing apparently hunts by releasing spores that’ll essentially mind control a small animal into drowning itself in mud, where the mushroom spores will grow off the corpse. Pretty neat right?” I say, and look up from putting it safely away in my bag to find Demarcus now standing a good 10 feet away.

“Don’t worry dude, has a super reduced effect on anything with a complicated brain. It’d just make ya woozy.” I reassure.

Awkwardly, trying to kill time and ignore the various elephants filling the room, I catch up a bit with Demarcus. He tells me that his tutorial was more of a gladiator arena, where he slowly acquired his starting gear as rewards from each fight. I theorize it might be a way to let people specialize in the type of warrior they want to be. He tells me that at the end he fought this big lobster guy, with a sword of all things. He unfortunately didn’t keep the sword so I could see how the hilt was shaped to be held by lobster claws.

Soon enough, our conversation is interrupted by Mato.

“Hold up, I see someone in the field up ahead.”

We all look to the field of what looks to be tall grains and see something humanoid standing out there, facing away from us. Mato cups his hands around his mouth and yells

“Hello there!”

After a moment where the person doesn’t respond, or even move, Isabella jokes “are you sure that’s not a scarecrow?”

Suddenly, stalks of grain deep in the field begin to violently shake as they are flattened or pushed aside. At the same time, that static figure out in the field quickly shifts, snatching tight something they were holding and when they turn I see them drawing back on the bow.

The 4 of us jump into ready stances; Mato takes cover behind a tree while Demarcus stances up and Isabella and I instinctually move to the back to ready our gear. She unslings her guitar and looks slightly uncertain of what she’s supposed to do.

I ready a [Magic Missile] after thinking that a [Firebolt] would burn the field, begin thinking on what [Simultaneous sustain] might do and am almost ready to fire it off into the far off figure when I realize just where that bow is aiming.

The wanna-be scarecrow fires off an arrow and quickly draws another as the first pierces through the skin of one of the somethings trampling through the wheat field with a high-pitched scream. Mato either realizes the same or prioritizes the obscured creatures for their speed as he fires a bolt into another. I follow the zig-zagging lines through the wheat, compensate for speed, try to anticipate, and fire a [Magic Missile] nailing the 3rd. It lets out another scream, but its travel through the wheat only slows, but not stops.

Quietly, I hear Isabella playing a small but crescendoing sound, a growing guitar like a buildup in anticipation. When the creature reaches the edge of the field and the wheat, I watch as a colossal rat, greyish brown with a head more structured like a dog, limpingly races towards us.

Demarcus kicks it hard, then splatters its brains across the dirt.

We look up to see the figure in the field waving back to us and jogging closer. Mato keeps his finger off the trigger, but his crossbow loaded and ready.

“Hello!” The figure says, and as he gets closer I see he is a swarthy central asian man. When he speaks, his mouth again moves out of sync with his words, translated by The Great Work. And though I hear perfect English, it still comes out with an accent, and a few of the quirks that might have come from his mother tongue. The Great Work seems to be weird with translations, or perhaps intuitive, attempting to preserve the ‘soul’ of the words while still translating their meaning.

“Sorry for not saying anything, my friends. These pain-in-ass ratwolves like to stalk the fields. But you, strong man, you handle just fine, eh?” He says, patting Demarcus and slinging the bow over his back.

“We have to take the place of one of the scarecrows every now and then to rebuild their fear. I even got a skill for it, [Waking Scarecrow], every [Farmer] that works this field gets it. 400 year tradition!” He says with a laugh.

Mato steps out from behind his tree and gives a “well, thank you for helpin’ us out with them. Name’s Mato.” And he puts out his hand to shake.

The farmer grips his hands with two of his own and gives an enthusiastic shake, and from the grimace on Mato’s face I can tell he’s getting a taste of his own ‘squeeze too hard to assert dominance’ medicine.

“Samat!” The [Farmer], Samat, says.

I can tell there’s about to be a long friendly conversation, but we have a schedule to keep and there are more important questions, so I interrupt.

“Hold on, there are [Farmers] on this floor?”

“Oh yes! How else would we feed ourselves? How else would there be Gods of the harvest if not for [Farmers]?” Samat replies.

“So, did you pick [Artisan] to start?”

“Actually I was a [Ranger]! But I worked a farm before and when I got here this farm needed a [Farmer], so I stepped up! I’m very happy with it, though it wasn’t what I pictured. I’m almost level 9!”

“That’s nice. And that skill, [Waking Scarecrow]? Is it upgradable by any chance?”

“Yes, it actually is! How did you guess that? The woman who worked here before me, Alicia, she also had the skill and I met her right before she became tier 2. Apparently no one upgrades it before they leave, but I am very excited to see what it does.”

“Cool, thanks for chatting. We gotta get into town before it gets dark though. It was nice meeting you and have a wonderful night, Samat.”

“Of course my friend! Good luck to you!” He says, waving us off.

I hurriedly usher our group along, and Mato looks a little peeved that I steamrolled over his nice little chat. But, we have places to be. Book says we gotta be at a specific inn before nightfall if we want free rooms.

“So, Cy, why’d ya ask that guy about farming?” Demarcus asks.

“You gonna use time travel to instantly grow potatoes or something?” Isabella jokes.

“Nah.” I reply. “It’s just a hunch. The wording of that skill is off.”

Demarcus looks confused, but Isabella goes “ah, got it. Yeah, I see it too.”

“Oh do you now?” I ask, sarcastically.

“Mhmm.” She nods. “The guy replaces a scarecrow, kills the pests, makes the pests scared of the scarecrows again. Makes them fear that they’re real. It’d make sense if he got a skill that made pests scared of his scarecrows. But that skill being called [Waking Scarecrow]? And being upgradable? That means his scarecrows might eventually defend the fields themselves.”

“Huh.” I say aloud. She was right on the money with my exact same thoughts, but she seems much more confident about it. I speak up and ask “yeah that’s what I was thinking too. But why do you think The Great Work gave him a skill like that specifically? Why not one that just makes his scarecrows really scary.”

Isabella scoffs. “Duh, cuz he’s making his scarecrows scary by making them seem alive. So, obviously the skill he’d get would let them actually be alive.”

I nod at that. Bit of a weird logic framework, and it's a bit too early to tell, but that might be how The Great Work decides these things.

And she talked about it like it was obvious.

Okay future me, I see why she might be important— outside of maintaining the timeline. She might be very useful to have in the party.

“Alright! Getting close. Let’s find something to eat, I’m starving. I’ll pay for everyone but him.” Isabella says, pointing a thumb over her shoulder back at me.

“Actually, about that…” I say, causing everyone to turn to look at me.

“We’re not allowed to spend any money.” I remind them. But, I guess this is the first time Isabella is hearing it.

“What?” She says, slowly and indignantly. I can see her head tilt and tense in that familiar way of someone spiteful being told what they can and can’t do.

Yeah, real useful to have in the party. If I can keep from scaring her off.

And keep her from killing me.