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	Chapter 4 - The Wanderer
	He felt around the inside of his travelling cloak, looking for the pocket where he’d put his sand-goggles. He hated this cloak. Too uncomfortable, too heavy, too many pockets, too itchy, and on top of it all, it was possibly the most hideous garment he’d ever seen. It was made (Supposedly) from wolf fur, but as far as he could remember, there was no such thing as a brown-furred wolf. He’d heard of grey, black, ginger, and even the legendry Silver wolves, but never brown. There most likely were at one time, but they must have gone extinct at some point in the past 1000 years. He finally found the goggles, and put them on while walking, fighting around his long, dirty hair so that he could tighten them at the back. He was just in time. Only about a minute after he put the goggles on, the wind got heavy, and sand was swept up and blown everywhere. It was hard walking in the sudden wind, but he had to carry on, and at least his eyes were protected, even if his vision was stained orange now. Why the goggles were orange, he didn’t know. It could be in case of the sun, but then again, if they were being used in a sandstorm, the sun wasn’t usually visible anyway. Maybe the person who made them was drunk? In fact, if he remembered right, it was his dad who had made them, so that was most likely true. He continued to brave the sandstorm, moving as quickly as he could with the heavy bag on his back. He checked the distance marker on his wrist. It told him the distance between where he was now and where the second half of the marker was, which he’d left at his home back in Demaleca. The counter said he was 70 miles away. He wasn’t moving fast enough. He needed to travel at least 150 miles a day if he wanted to reach Karamune in time, and the sun was already beginning to set. He tried to quicken his pace, but it was near impossible with the winds how they were. Just to add to it, he had a huge bag on his back, and his boots were ridiculously heavy. They were designed to keep sand out, but he could still feel it between his toes. When or if he got back, he’d have to tell his dad exactly where to shove his inventions. A few more heavy steps, and the wind really started to pick up, it even began to push him backwards. He knew about the sandstorms out here, He’d come into the sandy lands before, but never this far out, and he had no idea that they could get this bad. For some unknown reason, he opened his mouth, and it instantly filled with sand. Great. Now he had a mouthful of sand, and if he spat it out, there was no doubt that more would just come in. He walked a while with the sand in his mouth before it got too irritating, and tried to spit it out, only coming to the result he’d expected. A whole new mouthful of sand replaced the old one. He checked the distance marker again: 74 miles. He was still travelling too slow, and the sun had set now. He couldn’t travel much further through this sandstorm, but he’d have to get out of it if he wanted to set up his tent for the night. He walked for a little while longer and the sandstorm was still going strong. 77 miles, and it was starting to get very dark. If it kept on like this, he’d have to set up tent in the middle of the sandstorm. Maybe if he was lucky the tent would be blown all the way to Karamune. Wait, that was it! He could set his tent up in the middle of all this. He was such an idiot to not have realised it sooner. He pulled the bag from off his back and fumbled around inside for something, or three somethings in this case. He found them and pulled them out. Three small wooden poles, each roughly the same size. One of them had a metal piece on the top, one had a metal piece on both ends, and the last had one on the bottom. He tapped the first pole against the second, and the metal pieces fused together, and then he did the same with the last one. Now he had a fully formed staff, and he held it out in front of him, gripping it tightly with both hands. “I call for the spirits of the loathing. Trust me with the means to create a shield.” Once he’d finished casting the spell, the sand seemed to stop moving around him, and just fell back to the floor, but it was only the section big enough to set up his tent in. He’d set up a shield around the area, which blocked the wind out. He practically ripped the goggles from his eyes, throwing them into any available pocket (there were many to choose from,) and reached back into the backpack and pulled out the things he needed for setting up the tent, and proceeded with the task. After about 15 minutes of fumbling around with “insert pole A into pole C” and so forth, he had what looked like something he could sleep in for the night. He found himself wondering if they’d had to do ridiculous things like that before ‘Judgement day,’ back when Earth had been flowing with powerful inventions. He clambered inside his tent and laid out a sleeping bag. Once that had been done, he removed the last things from his bag: A plate, a metal pot, a bottle of oil, a box of matches and a container holding some strips of bacon. He poured half the bottle of oil into the pot, struck a match and threw it in, but it didn’t work. He’d never been good at this. You had to throw the match in so that the flame hit the oil before the stick, without the flame actually going under the oil. He got it on the third try, and pulled out a strip of bacon, holding it over the flame until it looked cooked. He tossed it onto the plate and got another strip, but ripped this one in half before coking it. Initially, he’d brought four strips, two for each night, but at this rate it would take more than three days to reach Karamune, so he had to conserve what he had. Once the half strip was cooked, he put the remaining bacon back into the container and stuffed it in the bottom of his bag. He left the fire going, so there was some warmth inside the tent, and removed his cloak and boots. His features were more visible now, even though there was nobody around to see them. He was 22 years old, quite tall (about 5’11”), and his long, dirty hair was blonde now that it was in some light. Hiding behind a pair of glasses were his brown eyes, although he preferred the term ‘Chocolate.’ His skin was red and sweaty from where it had been underneath the cloak, but it would normally be slightly tanned, and he had loose clothes on, which he’d worn deliberately because he knew how hot the cloak would have been just by looking at it. He ate the bacon with about as much grace as a pig, somehow managing to get more on his shirt than into his mouth, but he soon picked that off and ate it. It was the only meal he’d had all day, so he might as well eat it all. He reached over for the cloak, and started rummaging through the pockets, a much harder task when the cloak wasn’t actually being worn. It took a while, but he finally found what he was looking for. A cloth. He removed his glasses and cleaned them of the dust and smudges that had built up since he last cleaned them, which was a significant while back. Finally, he wrapped the cloth around his hand and moved the fire to outside of the tent, with his staff resting on the ground beside it. The sandstorm was still keeping up outside, and it was almost pitch black by now, even with the fire. “Spirits of the loathing, I offer you the energy produced by the light of this flame. Please retain my shield.” He recited. Right now that was taken care of, and he could actually get some rest. He crawled back into his tent, lay on top of his sleeping bag, as opposed to inside it, and closed his eyes. * * * * * He woke up from a dream which he couldn’t remember, motioning to throw the covers off himself, before finding that he’d slept on top of a sleeping bag. Why had he done that? Was he at a friend’s house? He slowly started to move around a bit, and as he woke up in more sense of the term, he remembered why he was out here. His mission. He rolled the sleeping bag up as tightly as he could and put it into the bottom of his bag, before taking it out again after realising that his firepot was outside. As he left the tent to get it, he found a small creature sleeping by the door. It was a beautiful little thing, with golden fur and few black patches. He bent down to scratch the behind little animal’s ears, which were quite large considering how small it was. He wasn’t sure if it was an animal though. It could still be a demon. Well, if it was, it was the cutest demon he’d seen for a long time. “Hello there lil’ fella’” said the man as the animal stirred. Its eyes opened, and it jumped away, with its teeth bared and fur on end. An animal’s way of saying, ‘Who are you, and what are you doing?’ “Whoa, calm down lil’ fella’. I’m friendly, see? He held out a hand of his for the animal to inspect. It edged closer to his hand cautiously, starting to sniff around it. Without warning, it bit into one of the man’s fingers, and he had to bite his own lip to avoid shouting and scaring it off. After it was satisfied, the animal let go of the man’s finger, and licked it twice before running further into the tent. He supposed that was the little guy’s way of saying sorry. At least he knew it wasn’t a demon now. Demon bites would kill any human. When he returned to his task and left the tent to fetch his firepot, he found that the sandstorm had subsided. He picked his staff up from beside the fire which was still burning strongly, and dispelled the shield from around him. There was a nice calm breeze blowing. He definitely preferred this to last night. He was about as good at putting the fires out as he was at starting them, so he just whacked the end of his pole into the metal pot, knocking it over and causing the little oil that was left to spill out. He left the pot as it was to give it time to cool down while he dismantled his tent. He dragged his sleeping bag out of the tent, along with his coat and bag. After a while, the tent was in front of him in the form of poles and a cover. Right, now he had to pack his bag. He strolled over to the pot and picked it up, hoping it had cooled down. Luckily it had, and his hand was left un-scalded. He rammed it into the bottom of the bag along with the bacon and oil that were already in there, then rolled the sleeping bag up tightly (again) and stuffed that in also. He tried to put the tent back in some sort of order that would make it easier to set up, but gave up after 5 minutes and just rammed it in anyway it would fit. Finally, he pulled on his cloak and put the bag on his bag before walking again. The first half hour was boring enough, he checked his distance meter, 83 Miles. Then another half hour had passed, 90 Miles. He’d never realised how slow time seemed to go when you didn’t have anything to do but walk. He was the fastest walker in the city, but that was when he had something to do. He’d carried on walking for 10 more minutes, when he felt something move in one of his pockets. He located the pocket in question, and found what was moving. It was his friend from earlier. It had fallen asleep in his cloak. He reached in to rescue it, as it seemed to be trying to get back out again. He managed to pull the animal out and held it out in front of him. It was just sitting in the palm of his hand, staring at him through its bright green eyes. “So, you wanna come with me then ‘eh?” The animal tilted its head to the side, he may as well have just said, ‘Look, I’m cute, take me with you.’ “That’s a yes then, is it lil’ fella’?” The animal started purring. ‘Yes!’ “Right, you’re gonna need a name then.” He put is free hand to his chin. “How ‘bout Goldie?” The animal stuck out his tongue. “Patch?” The same reaction. “Tongues?” No. “Greeneye?” No. “You’re an awkward one ain’t ye’?” He pulled his mind for some more names. Spot, Rex, Mittens, Heidi, Joey, all no. “OK, I’ve got it! What do think to...Fella?” Finally it seemed to find a name that it liked, and jumped up onto the man’s shoulder, licking his cheek. “Well, Fella, I’m glad to meet you, my name’s Khato.” He waited for a moment as the animal jumped down from his shoulder and found a pocket on the outside of the cloak that he could rest in. “I hope you’re not poisonous” he added, rubbing his finger.
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