Chapter CCLIII: Telling Time, Counting and Making Friends

Redaz walked down the stairs and promptly stopped at the counter and handed the man standing there the key to room forty-two. "The lock to this room is broken."
        "What's wrong with it?" the proprietor asked without looking up.
Redaz dropped the doorknob onto the counter. "That."
        The man stared at the chunk of door and metal in front of him, then looked up at the young wizard before him, "Oh, it's you. Fine, I'll go get a new one from my doorknob collection, and grab one of my spare doors while I'm at it."
        "Good man," Redaz walked out of the inn as the man rolled his eyes and dropped the worthless lock into the trash can.
        As Redaz strolled through the streets, he took careful notice of the things for sale, most where machine parts, cheap looking jewellery at prices more befitting of things not made of glass, and in a few dark alleys, he heard promises of a good time, both from questionable women and men in trench coats. He'd found the contents of some of the trench coats to be flammable, and make funny smoke and green flames, but otherwise avoided most of the undesirable looking people.
        It wasn't until he'd stood watching his third victim stamping the flames on his former wares and coat that Redaz realized he had no idea what he was looking for. "You haven't seen anything odd around here have you?"
        The man looked up, a frantic expression on his face. "You. Psycho!"
        They stared at each other for a moment. "Your foot's burning."

The man jumped and returned to stamping, while batting his leg at the same time. Redaz walked off thinking as he did. What was he missing? The wares of the marked seemed to fit in the seedy town, none of the inhabitants seemed magically inclined, and he'd found the two Wanderers on this planet...that's it!

* * *

Redaz ran down the street until he came to a stall selling jewellery, time pieces among them.

"I need a watch that works and will continue doing so for more than a week. I have this much." Redaz dropped three coins before the salesman, one was the same as what he had given the inn owner, one was slightly smaller, silver and housed an emerald, and the final one was the size of a nickel, bronze and possessed a shorter ruby.
        The man stared at the coins for a moment, then removed a slightly tarnished watch that appeared to be made of steel from his own wrist and dangled it before Redaz. He took it and looked at the time.

"Why isn't it an hour yet?!" Redaz dropped the watch beside the coins that the "jeweller" was still blankly staring at, and charged down the street again.

        About ten minutes later, Redaz found D'Nel wandering the streets, and ran up to him grabbing his shoulders and very much scaring him out of his wits. It didn't help that the moment they were looking into each others faces, Redaz shouted, "There's only two of you!"
D'Nel quickly recovered his senses and looked at Redaz with a very confused expression across his face. "What are you talking about?"
Redaz let go of D'Nel and turned about ninety degrees, and tapped one hand onto the palm of his other with his index finger extended, "You," he extended his middle finger as well, "and Scilas. That's only two," Redaz waved his finger at D'Nel."
        "What's your point?" D'Nel was beginning to doubt the wisdom in working with Redaz.
        "When the universe got pissed, I got a general feeling for where a few people went, before I came here, and stopped worrying about it. Two came to this world," he pointed at D'Nel for emphasis, "and a few minutes later, another came from a nearby planet."
        It took a few moments for this to sink in. "Did they bounce?" he said, genuinely confused.
Redaz rolled his eyes, "They came here."
D'Nel looked at him, "What if they're a Twilighter?"
        "They'll probably try to kill us, but what if they're not?"
D'Nel paused, "Do you know where they are?" Redaz shook his head, "And you don't know who they are?" again, "So what do you suggest?"
        "I say, we search out the possible threat to our lives, and get Scilas involved if at all possible."
D'Nel didn't like the plan. He didn't really want to refer to it as a plan. Unfortunately, Redaz had just done something that proved he had no choice. He had made a proclamation of absolute insanity, and logic couldn't beat lunacy, no matter how much better it was.

* * *

        Another few minutes later after the two split up again, on a much smaller scale (so as not to confuse anyone) Redaz found D'Nel being beaten by an old woman with a walking stick. He motioned him over and muttered something to the woman once he arrived, that convinced her to begrudgingly give up. Redaz had found an old man covered in rags, he had introduced himself as "The Rag Man" and seemed quite pleased when Redaz went along with it. After introductions, the Rag Man told D'Nel that he was a very important part of the grape-vine. Namely, the bottom.
        He said he had heard of an arrival on the planet outside of the spaceport, and it was very odd indeed, a giant mech that had actually stormed through town and was currently beyond the outskirts. Redaz grinned and shook the Rag Man's thin and lanky hand. D'Nel seemed preoccupied with being shocked, after he heard the mech's description. Redaz wondered if he knew something...