^^ Frogman ^^

There was no one in the way, and no danger at all, but it was ridiculously irritating to see the plans we had go right to shit, as if to spite us, as the train car landed back on its wheels, rocking gently and shedding even more broken glass all around.

I sighed deeply, then took a breath. "Well!... that is certainly... interesting! At least we can move it where we want now, I suppose?"

"How do you plan to move that... monstrosity?" Luna asked, hurrying to soothe the scared horses.

"It's on wheels; I'll just pull it. It's not that difficult to move, really, it's more difficult to stop." I shrugged, unconcerned. Slick Stone was good for going, but not for stopping, so I'd need to make some blocks to throw under the wheels to slow it, or perhaps access to the brakes? If they even work anymore, that is. Or the horses could be on the other side, and pull a yoke? That would work as an emergency brake, I suppose.

A loud croaking sound behind us on the mountainside had me turning, confused, only to see a tall frog/man/thing wearing a metal breastplate and clothes, currently wielding a sword and shield.

"What... in all creation... the fuck is that?" I asked Luna slowly, reaching for my hammer, which laid on the ground nearby.

The creature reacted instantly, bunching its legs under itself and launching towards me with incredible speed, covering the fifty-foot gap before I could blink. It seemed capable of just as much agility as speed, as it was already slashing downwards as it reached me.

I blocked with my forearms, and grunted in pain as the sword cracked my forearms, going all the way to the bone in one slash. "God fucking damn you you piece of-!!! Ow!!!" I hissed at it, and rolled towards my hammer, swinging at its chest as fast as I could. Instead, I hit open air, as it had flipped over me with unnatural dexterity, and was now swinging at my neck from behind.

A black blade embedded with a glowing fist-sized pearl intercepted, while Luna frowned at me severely. "Language, please!" She chided me, and then swung the sword casually at the retreating Frogman. She seemed to miss, barely scratching the edge of the creature's shoulder, but contrary to my expectations he keeled over almost instantly. A tangled web of black lines became visible, tracing his veins back from the wound to his heart and brain, clearly some sort of forced necrosis.

"Ouch. Nasty stuff, huh?" I grinned as she healed my arms swiftly with a hand-wave and some blue light; healing magic would need to be something we learned, soon. It seemed very useful, and in high demand.

"Necrotic Magic? Yes, quite an unpleasant application of healing magic... but indisputably effective." She nodded at the corpse as it slowly turned into a featureless grey blob, and began slinking off towards the edge of the cliff.

"Whoa hey no!!!" I snatched at a small golf-ball-sized crystal in the center, and ripped it out of the creature, making the slime melt and dissipate into a disgusting fog that Luna waved away. "Why'd you let him get away?" I asked her curiously,

"That's a Crystal Core; all monsters that come from dungeons have them, and all of them melt like that after death. I planned on tracking it back to its Dungeon home so I could destroy the dungeon itself." She answered dryly.

"Ah... Sorry." I held out the crystal, and she nodded, placing it in her pocket.

"There's no need to apologize, you did right... I didn't explain, and that was because I wished to be dramatic; a failing of mine, not yours." She patted a horse that'd come up to her carefully, sensing the danger had passed, and it nearly unbalanced her as it nuzzled under her arm happily.

"Still, weird to think that monsters from these 'dungeons' are just Slimes in the shapes of other monsters... even the weapons turned into slime." I hummed curiously, and poked at the disappearing pile of slime as it finished smoking and left nothing behind.

"Slimes? Do you think so? There's plenty of theories about them, but that's the first I've heard that one." She contemplated it for a moment, then pet the horse who was now headbutting her shoulder even more stubbornly.

"I might be wrong, that was just my first impression... but this isn't going to do itself, so might as well get to it, I guess." I shrugged and grabbed the front of the train car, setting my feet and beginning to slowly move it over to the cliff wall; it was heavy, for sure, but on wheels it only took maybe .05% of the force to move, so all in all it was about 2 tons, the same weight as a heavy tow-truck. It took a few moments for it to try to move, as it had cracked the ground a bit when it landed on its wheels, but eventually it began to inch forward.

Johann set his shoulder against the back side, pushing forward and preparing to stop, as I thanked my lucky stars I'd been wearing my work boots today, with their extra-strong traction that even holds on to oil-slicked metallic surfaces, and not some flimsy pair of sandals.

Even as strong as I was, and with Johann, moving the car was slow, and unwieldy. Luckily, we didn't really care about it getting damaged, so it bumped into the wall a few times while we caught our breaths. About four hours of solid labor later, it was in place, and the electronic portion of the coupling was reconnected, so that we could send electricity from one to the other.

But, now that it was upright, my plan for the generator was toast. "Alright... new plans, anyone?"

"There's a lot of wind up on top of the mountain?" Helen hummed, looking up.

"And a waterfall right below us with no animals in it?" Clark added as he came back from brushing one of the horses, all of them having been set to graze on the grassy part of the top of the mountain.

"The Waterfall is more constant than wind, and harder-hitting, which will be important... and the steel we have is stainless and rust-proof, so it's perfect... are the brakes magnetic?" I asked Helen hopefully, as she was the one taking all the electronics apart.

"Yup. And I finished the first one!" She grinned, and held up a copper and iron coil/thing that I hoped was what a generator was supposed to look like.

"Uhm... awesome work!!! Let's go ahead and hook it up to a Hand-Crank, and see if we can get the Heaters working, yeah?" I asked, patting her head gently and congratulating her as best I could.

She nodded and ran off quickly, grinning like a fool, while Luna looked at all of us like we were crazy. "What was that... thing? And why did she look so proud of it?" She asked quietly.

"It's incredibly difficult to make, even with the right tools, and she's made one out of scrap metal and with tools never meant for it; it's an achievement with celebrating, if it works... also, she felt a little useless, coming to this world without electricity, and now she has a purpose, because she's the only one here who really understands this stuff. It's giving her something to hold on to, in this time of uncertainty and fear, and we are being supportive, like decent human beings should be to one another." I explained as best as I could, and she looked at Helen as she sat amidst the pile of materials and computer guts, building a hand-crank and rotor out of an old fan and suitcase handle.

"I see... this is something of a rare skill amongst your group, and valuable, so she feels... Important?"

"Yes." I nodded, relieved I'd gotten it across so well.

"But what does it do?" She insisted, looking at it curiously and then nearly spasming out of her skin when Helen turned the handle and sparks flew, then a solid arc. "Five Be Praised... it harnesses the Gods' Own Lightning?!?"

"In very small amounts, yes. We've learned to harness it, you see, to a degree. It powers the Train/Carriage we came here on, though it's useless for transportation now." I shrugged, feeling no reason to hide it; seeing as they didn't have to deal with the Coal Age first, and they believed it was a Divine Lightning, I doubted it would be used Improperly, nor would they destroy their environment with it. "Now, who are these 'Five'? Your Pantheon's Main Deities?"

She nodded slowly, still glancing at Helen, but focused on my question, seemingly successfully distracted for now."Yes... the Patron Deities, the ones who give their Blessings and Laws upon this world... there's Bikess, Goddess of War, and her Laws of Combat, then her twin Tenin, God of Peace, and his Blessing of Loquaciousness. He's the patron of Politicians, Scholars, and Festivals. Next is Dream, God of, Well... Dreams, as well as Healing, and his Laws of Proper Medicine, and his twin, Yeera, the Goddess of Death, and her Blessing of Afterlife. Lastly, there's Savor, Deity of Law, and their Enforcement of the Laws of the other gods; they have no Twin, as there is no opposite of Law. They can be both good and evil, from two perspectives, and so they are both sides of their own coin. There are other gods, and they deserve respect at the very least, but they are not powerful enough to have true Blessings or Laws."

I hummed, thinking about the voice I'd heard. "I see... and the Law of Medicine? Is that like Hippocrates' Oath?" I asked curiously.

"I'm unfamiliar?"

"It's an Oath all Doctors have to swear when they receive their Medicine Licenses, which basically says they will never refuse to heal a patient within their ability to save, to treat every patient to the very best of their abilities, and to do no harm. There's more to it, but that's the core element, I think." I shrugged, and her face lit up happily.

"Ah! You know of the Law already, then! That sounds very close, yes!" She nodded almost giddily.

"Vets have a similar oath, about treating every animal with the dignity that is owed it as a living creature, and healing every wound that is healable." Clark spoke up as he was walking past us towards the horses with a new brush he'd pulled from the pile of bathroom products and some of his vet supplies.

"Indeed, the Laws of your world, be they Combat or Healing, seem quite agreeable!" She grinned happily at the thought, and then paused, tilting her head as if she was listening to something. "Oh... your laws are not Enforced with the Word of a God... that is a sad thing, then."

"We don't have gods, we're we come from, my dear. Or rather, there are legends of many gods, but none have ever spoken to us like yours do. Perhaps they do not have the strength to do so, or perhaps they do not exist at all. Who knows?" I shook my head at her statement.

She nodded. "True, who knows? I must depart, but I will return... when I do, if you would like to learn the ways of Magical Healing, Sir Clark, I would be happy to guide you through the basics of communion."

He perked up, grinning happily at the offer, (and the pretty lady making it,) and nodded fervently. "I'd be much obliged, Miss Luna!"

I watched her disappear, and sighed at the loss of her presence, which was so... soothing. She healed souls just as much as wounds, I didn't doubt that at all, and it was a very welcome feeling, after all of... this. But, there was still more work to do, and taking a break would mean I'd have to think about long-term things, -things I was avoiding, currently,- so I walked into the Sleeping Car to find a broom and mop, as well as a bucket and some cleaning supplies.

I enlisted James to help me with the sweeping, after Johann had gone back to sleep, and it got knocked out in just a few solid minutes, followed by the mopping, which took slightly longer because blood spread, when you poured water on it. I had never cleaned this much blood off of something, so I hadn't considered that.

James was set to gathering all the glass he could find, and piling it in one place so that we could maybe melt them down at some point, and repair the windows properly. For now, though, Sam was putting clear plastic, -taken from the shower curtains,- over the windows and glueing them down, which would at least reseal the interior, for when the heaters turned on. Seeing that project started, I went up to the top car, and completed the cleaning of that one as well. The glass was carried down in a sheet off one of the beds of the sleeper car, and poured into the pile to await its next use.

Helen cheered suddenly, and I watched lights start to flicker dimly in the sleeper car, and the others cheered as well, patting her back and congratulating her as they felt the warm air coming from the induction heaters; they were very simple machines, so I wasn't worried they'd been broken in the crash, and the wires appeared undamaged, which was what was important. A few seconds later, lights flickered on in the passenger car as well, and Sam resumed putting up the seals on the windows.

We had power. For as long as she cranked that little lever, we had heat. We had enough food for a little while from the Wyverns, and a lake full of fish to catch and eat, and now a proper freezer room and kitchen to keep future food in, as well. (I was kind of miffed that my work on my cauldron would go to waste, but all in all it was better this way, and we could still use it for stew and stuff.) All that was left was to remove the need for the Hand-Crank, and then situate the water, and then we could relax a bit. The temperature at the top of this mountain wasn't arctic by any means, maybe 40 degrees constant, but it was harsh enough that the wind drove the temperature down at least twenty degrees, every time it gusted. Tiny flecks of Ice were already growing on the patches of mud where I'd thrown out the bloody water from the mop bucket.

Clark, who has lived in the northern states long enough to know an oncoming blizzard when he felt one, informed us all immediately, and we huddled up inside the heated sleeper car, taking turns sleeping and turning the hand-crank.

—

I dreamed of clay, irritatingly enough, but it was a pleasant dream, otherwise; I sat in a studio, molding a statue of a man with a greatsword from a peculiar red clay with silver dust in it, the same that made up the entire mountain we were now living on. The interior rock, the part our cars were parked on, was a dull granite, but the rest of the surface of the mountain wasn't dirt, it was clay. Ungodly amounts of it.

Still, this was one of my best works; the details were immaculate, the muscles and hair and even the eyebrows carefully sculpted to be ultra-realistic. Someone hummed appreciatively, to my left, and I now realized Luna was there. She was smiling, watching me work and petting a silver animal in her arms, a curious little scaled thing that looked like a miniature dragon.

The sculpture, now finished down to the last detail, suddenly moved. It's body swayed naturally, the hair and eyes moving freely as if they were flesh, not clay, and I stared at it in wonder as it took up its sword, and marched outside, before planting its sword between its feet and standing guard of the entrance.

Seemingly unfazed by this development, I began another Golem, from more clay and steel. The steel was in the shape of bones, a proper skeleton to mold the clay to, which I did. This one looked reminiscent of the other, but with slight differences; the hair was shorter, rougher, and the cheekbones were squared with the jaw, creating a stoic expression.

This sculpture, this Golem, also moved, the moment it was finished, and took its steel greatsword from the pile, heading outside to defend the village.

"To think, you would be a Golem Mage... a rare magic indeed." A soft voice exited Luna's mouth, a voice not her own.

"Who are you?" I asked, now capable of talking and moving, it seemed.

She tilted her head a little, and smiled. "I am Yeera, Goddess of Death and Afterlife, Patroness of Art, and all other Immortal things... you and your... shall we say 'Clan', you came from a different land, a different Cycle of Life and Death."

"Oh... okay, sure, I guess..." I hummed suspiciously, finding no difference between her and Luna, physically... except the dragon.

The dragons mouth opened, confirming my suspicions. "Well deduced, young one... now, to be clear, I cannot return you to your home, but I also cannot allow you to die, and have your spirit wander and despair and waste away in my domain. So I offer you as I do all your Clan, my blessings. You are all Artists of some kind, -besides that Healer, whom I believe Dream is currently speaking to,- and so it is within my power to bless you, so that when you die, I may guide you to the next life, whichever you earn. A rather simple, clean arrangement, really."

"And what do we pay, for this Gift?" I asked calmly, imagining several reasons she'd want control over my soul.

"None of those, no... rude thoughts, all, but I do understand your point of view... No, I simply wish to guide you; you will have a greater gift for the Arts, and in return, you will use those gifts to Create things. I do love when people create things in my name and image, instead of just destroying things." She shrugged.

I nodded slowly, and thought of the Athena Parthenos, but carved into the side of the mountain; a 200 foot tall shrine to Art, and its Mistress.

The dragon's eyes lit up brightly, apparently expressing joy. "Oh! Yes, dear, that idea wins you a Boon, I'd say... enough for an increase in the potency of the Golem Magic you now possess... enjoy!"

The dream started fading, and I growled out a question. "What do I make it look like, ya Idjit?!?"