David Ryan Lutz
~*~*~*~*~ In the road ~*~*~*~*~

I could only giggle at Bryan’s reaction to Kalah as the others began to wake up in various states of shock. My eyes continued to scan the group to try and find him, to try and find Loki, but my attention was drawn to an old lady who waved us toward the sidewalk. “Hurry young ones, I have been told to come here and help you.” She beckoned as the rest of us woke up, running across the street to where she stood and clearing it for traffic again.

“Please follow me to my house, I have money and goods for your journey, as well as the location of the first temple.” She explained, her teeth yellow, skin ragged and stretched, her breasts sagging and almost visible under her rags of shirts. “There are only a few of us that follow the ancient texts, but we believe your journey has already been foretold in the texts.” She explained as we walked.

Some one leaned in whispering the question if we should trust this old woman, as we passed shops after shops of beautiful clothes, and hand crafted goods. My attention was drawn away from them as heavy hands fell on my shoulder, catching my attention as I turned my head to the side, craning it up as far as I could to look at a Half Breed Cat Man. One thing I hated about being little was having to look so far up to look into people’s eyes. “What’s going on?” His voice jumped and shook, understandably nervous at this situation.

I put on my best reassuring smile possible, and drew in a long breath. “This happened with me before, these people need our help and so we have been teleported into these bodies to help them, I take it you signed up to the Pokemasters RPG?” I asked sweetly. He only nodded in response, something in his eyes though, something seemed so familiar. “It’s okay, we will get through this. I’m Ryan by the way, or at least that was my name before I came here.” I bent my hand up and patted his hand on my shoulder. As brave as I was trying to be, as brave as I wanted to sound, deep down there was a voice screaming inside of me just to find Loki.

“Ryan from Texas?” He blinked several times in shock. I nodded and turned back around, shrugging it off as Kalad or some one that I knew online. The real entertainment was happening in front of me.

The old woman, was rubbing her left hand against Bryan’s arm. Speaking about how strong he looked, and if he was interested in staying since she had not been around a strong man for such a long time. “I’m Shonta? Or I used to be!” The boy’s voice spun me around in shock and well, shock.

“Shouta?” I asked, my eyes growing wide in shock, almost on instinct I took a few steps forward and hugged his waist as tightly as I could.

“It’s Shonta, how many times do I have to tell you that?” He laughed a bit choked up with tears dripping down into my golden hair.

For a moment everything felt all right, it felt better than all right. But reality came back with the sound of jingling keys as the woman opened her two story wooden house to us. It smelt musty and the stench of old people, but seemed to be decorated quite nicely despite how poor and weak she looked. “Please make yourself at home. I have food which should be unique to you, please rest as I will return in two hours after prayer and tell you where the first chapel is located.” She instructed us, as we made our way into the house. I slowly moved my hand around Shouta’s and gripped it, his hand feeling twice the size than my tiny hand. Now who else was in our group?