The Way of the Future: Age of Machines(Completed)

Runaway Maiden

The rain continued throughout the night. Artemis and the dwarf he had met spent the rest of the evening together. 

The dwarf was by no means an ill-willed person. In fact, he was a kind dwarf who knew a lot about the smithing of weapons and tending of the land he ruled over.

He was also a good farmer, or so he claimed. Artemis made it clear he was not adapted to a life in the fields of crops and so his first job was to cut down some trees to make a clearing. 

It was simple enough for Artemis to accept. He was to start by the break of dawn. If the rain was still not over by then, Artemis would start at any hour after the rain had stopped.

The dwarf went to sleep after eating his share of the soup he had made and snoozed in his bedroom. Artemis was left alone in the living room, ever gazing through the windows into the trees that surrounded the hut. 

The hut was a few meters from the lake. Quite close, if the lake was to ever overflow, the hut would be swallowed by the water. 

The hut was sturdy. Withstanding the ever increasing intensity of the downpour all the while as lightning struck the lake at random intervals.

Artemis didn't need to sleep. He walked around the hut and even ventured out to take a closer look of his surroundings. 

His night vision was working which was more than welcome. His thermal vision also worked along with the night vision, giving him a good look of almost everything around him even in the night.

He saw the fishes that swam at the lowest reaches of the lake. Gathering into several colonies while the big fish, the predators who feasted on the smaller fish, wandered by themselves. 

When he turned to look at the vast forest surrounding the lake. There was nothing but foliage. No animal was present. Maybe because it was the rain? Artemis thought. 

Wart said to him this is the Uncharted forest, he heard about it, a place where travellers didn't step in this place because of large amount of monsters and predators roaming around. Talking about monsters and predators, why they ain't roaming in the lake, and he didn't feel a slight trace of their presence on the forest, was it magic? Or did he kill the remaining ones. He would never know.

Artemis sighed. 

He returned to wooden hut soaked with rain water. He sat again on the chair he was given and tried to force himself to sleep. He could have dreams but those weren't forced so be thought maybe he could trick his body into doing the same exact same thing.

This way, technically, he was skipping time. He was dead bored at this point.

Although he closed his eyes and did not move for an hour. His body refused to enter the state of temporary paralysis. 

He opened his eyes and looked at his right hand. A machine covering with an artificial organic tissue. Streams of red lit up the crevices of his body, his eyes glowed a red hue that could even be visible even in the rain.

"Help!" A muffled voice shouted in the distance. It was the voice of a woman in distress but Artemis had trouble triangulating where exactly the voice was coming from.