My hypothesis was right, 'mark’ could be used to track. More than that, I felt a linkage occur. The knowledge of the Track rune flooded my brain, and instantly, I could feel where Gorn was. Not the normal, someone is in my aura, and I can see them, or even the general sense of where objects are in the environment. This was a direction finder. I rolled and scooted on the ground, and no matter where I turned, I could feel the line from Gorn back to me. I could feel the magic centered in the amulet, still hidden by Ink’s cleverness and judicious application of rare materials. I figured the line would get distracting, and as I thought it, the line disappeared. I was worried that I had broken the magic, but at the desire to feel it, I brought it up again. With the line in place, I could feel the synergy between my abilities and the aspected concepts making it happen. I was excited when Mord first explained magic powers. Now though? I was starting to see what he meant by slowly developing powers and how the powers themselves were shortcuts. There was too much I didn’t know about all of this. I just hoped my mistakes in development were minor. I was so lost in thought that I didn’t notice the ineffectual beating had stopped. Judging by the first question, it must have stopped a minute ago.

  “Is it having a seizure?” Rogan seemed genuinely concerned for my well-being.

  “Nice job, Moo-brain, you broke it.” The cat was concerned for her profits

  “I think he is in shock and just trying to protect himself.” Petior.

  “I'll show him shock!!….where is the collar control?” Gorn. Looks like my theft got noticed. Gorn was searching his belt for the remote that was securely in my grip.

  “I do believe that our aspiring chef may have a talent for theft.” Shy didn’t seem agitated; she sounded amused.

  Gorn was on top of me after a pause to process the fox’s words. He swatted me with his meaty hands in an effort to get me to roll over. I instead coiled tighter. We both had our strengths assessed, but Shy’rone’s demonstration earlier showed that there was still a large chasm between the Awakened and the Ascended. Needless to say, his efforts to get me to unturtle were wasted. Thankfully, the fox intervened before I had to fake react to his kicks. Those at least still actually hurt.

  “Gorn! Enough! Human return Gorn’s remote.”

  “Yes, mistress,” I muttered from the ground.

  I held the little remote up while still in the fetal position. I remained there prepared for the eventual shock after the dumb cow got his hands on it. When it didn’t come for a few seconds, I got up. He hit me with it halfway through standing. I was on the ground again and thrashing again. I was getting good at reacting to the shocks.

  “I said enough. And human…as humorous as we find your joke at our companions' expense, please choose another name.” I suppose she learned that I respond best to flat professionalism.

  “Yes, mistress. Does anyone object to the name ‘Nell’ or ‘Nelly’?” I scanned the five for objections, and when none were heard, I went to address my donkey. Nelly had taken the entire affair with zero concern and barely raised her head as I approached.

  “Ok, Nelly, let’s go.” And I attempted to mount the donkey. There was no saddle, just a rough hemp bridle. So I say attempt liberally. The donkey was shorter than all the horses by a good measure, but that didn’t mean I could just jump up. Consequently, that’s what the others did. It was quite impressive watching a six-foot, five-hundred-pound cow leap into a saddle five feet in the air so perfectly that the horse barely noticed the weight. My first attempt ended on the ground, much to the delight of the others. Their laughter only increased on the second attempt. It was made worse by Nelly joining in. Her bray sounded distinctly amused. I finally mounted her bare back after my fourth try, and a liberal application of my new-ish strength. If she was bothered by my two fifty, she, like the horses, didn’t show it. I grabbed the reins, but remembering how she had followed the other animals in, I just let them hang loose in my hand, trusting pack animals to pack animal.

  Pack animal is precisely what she did. She plodded along, keeping up with the horses but firmly in the rear. I didn't know how far off any ‘main road’ we were, nor what the actual concept of a main road looked like. The trail we were on was worn but still grassy, about the exact width you would want for a horse. The trail was far better than the game trails we had followed from the dungeon. Thinking of the dungeon brought up a distinct sense of direction and a rough idea of distance. That feeling reminded me of the tracking on Gorn. They were similar, but where the dungeon was a good idea, Gorn was a compass needle. This gave me hope for marking the rest.

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  Shy was leading our little convoy instead of the redheaded scout. I was curious as to why, but after a day of learning the true meaning of ‘the dusty trail’ at the back of the train, I knew why. I was still in the basic clothing I had from the dungeon. It was still in pretty good condition, mostly because I had only worn it for a few days. That was good because it was quickly becoming dirty. The weather was pleasant, but you still sweat a little while riding, and sweat and dust mix to become grime. If I were an alchemist, I would have that recipe perfected.

  Despite the grime, I preferred the dust. With my tracker on Gorn, I could follow no matter how little I could see, and Nelly could follow without my guidance anyway, so I wasn't worried about getting lost despite not being able to see. If I couldn’t see, I couldn’t be seen, and that was fine by me. I had practice to do.

  I focused on my marking technique. I needed to be able to do it fast and subtly. With Gorn, I basically created the ink in the pattern I needed in my hand and then transferred the rune to his body, with the ink being the enhancer and the formation. That’s the method I focused on. By the time we reached the actual road, I could create a mark on my hand and transfer it to my other hand in under a second. Ink was kind enough to help me erase the tattoo from my hand. I think he might have been a little offended at the foreign ink marking his canvas. He would get over it. I could still communicate rudimentary thoughts to him, but we were nowhere close to having clandestine conversations. I thought about letting him form sigils or other marks on my arm, but I was still worried about being caught.

  The hand transfer method was good, but it could be better. I wondered if I could do the same with my aura instead of my hand. Even making a simple, coherent line occupied my well into dusk. I was losing the ability to see it, but I just about got a full circle of ink to form and stay stable in mid air right before Shy led us off the road.

  She led us to a series of open-air buildings and lean-tos, in what was obviously a prepared rest stop. The horses and Nelly were unsaddled and let loose in a fenced-in paddock near what looked something like a stable. Gorn and Rogan poured out feed into a trough and water into another. The horses trotted around a little bit and ate and watered themselves. Nelly waited patiently and cleaned up after, a second-class citizen just like her rider. I did ask for tasks to help with the horses, but was met with a scoff. In honesty, it would take longer to show me what to do than it would to do it. I did have to ask about the signs at the camp entrance, though.

  “The little wavy symbols point to water. Usually, a well or a stream. The little house points to the latrine pit, though as long as you do your business where nobody will step in it, and it's away from the water, nobody cares. If you see one with a red ‘X’, it means some kind of danger that way. Understood, meatbag?” Leyla’s explanation was brief, but it got the job done.

  She punctuated her explanation by handing me the consolidated collection of waterskins for the entire group. She was a little rough pushing them into my arms, and I may have had to grab her forearm to stabilize myself. Second mark applied.

  I happily followed the wavy lines to a nice stone well with a rope bucket. I could feel both lines pointing back to my marked captors. It took me a solid half hour to fill the skins. I could have gone slower and used the hand crank to raise and lower the bucket, but my muscles worked just fine.

  I returned to the smell of dinner and a fire, of which I got very little. It didn't matter, though, because as I was handing the skins back out, Shy let us all know that we only had another day and a half on the trail. She mentioned a place that sounded like a larger version of this camp, located at a crossroads. Our destination after that was north to the barrier city of Har’at. The boys balked at the change of destination until Leyla said they were paying up to two hundred gold for male human conscripts. This sounded like it was twice what they were expecting to get for me. I listened as they discussed slaves in general. Apparently, slaves were worth very little to the real slavers who could get them easily. They were assuming the risk of them dying or escaping, and also shouldered the burden of keeping them and training them before they could be sold. I got several hateful looks and smirks when they changed the topic to the ‘breaking’ of slaves. If they thought they would hurt me with those threats, they were wrong. I was a human from Earth. I knew our history. All the little things they were alluding to, we did worse. Hell, right now, someone in my world had it worse than me, was a slave more than me, and knew the horror of what was coming for her next way more than they could ever even dream of except for the cat-girl.

  As soon as they started talking about the horrors of breaking and what masters did to slaves, she got up and left the camp. Later, as they all quieted down for sleep, I could still track her in the woods far from camp, and I swore I could hear, at the very edge of my senses, very catlike sobs punctuated by the sound of angry arrows striking trees.