Chapter XI: Baking bread

I said goodbye to Unicorn Phantom and continued my path to Willie. When I arrived at Willie’s I already saw Willie standing outside. He was cutting wheat, with a scythe, and making bunches of it. He told me that we would need them later for the bread. I offered him my helping hand, but he said he was fine. I washed myself and when I was done I helped Willie with carrying the bunches of wheat inside, to the mill. We putted the wheat between the millstones and then we took breakfast. Willie told me that it could take a while before the bunches where moulded enough. As Willie seems to do every day; we ate baguette, or like he calls it, bread.

After we were finished eating I went to see to the wheat and I saw that it was moulded into floor. We took out the floor and putted it into a bucket. Willie told me the next step was to mingle it with water. The mixed water and floor, dough, was what we needed to bake. We took the lumps of dough and putted them in the oven and after twenty minutes the baguettes where ready.

I thanked Willie for teaching me how to bake bread and he gave me two to take home with me. I told him I was sleeping at Obi’s and eh told me that there were no houses for sale on this island. I informed more to the island, and he told me this island was called Rookgaard. He also told me that if I became strong enough I could go to the big island with many cities, and he said the real adventure started there. I asked him how I knew I was strong enough and he said I would notice, I asked him where I had to go when I was strong enough and he told me to get back to him about that question when I was in the need to know it. I wondered why he was still on Rookgaard, and he told me he was cursed to stay there because of past misbehaviour.

Chapter X: Unicorn Phantom

I threw away my jacket since it took a lot of space in my bag, and since I had a doublet now anyway. After I went back to Obi and asked if I could sleep there again. He told me I could stay there as long as I wanted. I went back upstairs and folded open my bed. I laid myself down and pulled the sheet over me. It just came to my attention that I still didn’t had fifteen golden coins for a shield. I decided to do that the next day, after I went to Willie to learn baking bread. I closed my eyes and felt asleep.

Suddenly everywhere was fire. All around me. There seemed to be no escape so I climbed up the ladder to the roof. For a while I felt safe, but then the roof started burning too. I felt trough it and broke my leg. I caught fire and... Suddenly I woke up. I had a terrible nightmare I preferred not to experience in real, as far as that world was real of course. I left Obi’s show with destination Willie’s mill.

On the way to Willie I met Unicorn Phantom, a strange guy looking like a mummy. He said ‘boooooo’ and I ran away. He ran behind me and yelled that it was okay, that he was just joking. I stood ground and asked me how it came that he looked like a mummy and he told me that the Halloween hare did. I looked to him with eyes that clearly expressed how confused I was, and he started explaining that the Halloween hare was a rabbit appearing around Halloween morphing people into witches, ghosts, vampires, skeletons or mummies. I did not really believe what he said, but I couldn’t find another reason for his extraordinary appearance.

Chapter IX: Doublet

Later that day I went back to the city and wandered around a little. I was thinking about what could possibly have happened to me but I didn’t remember anything of what happened after I felt asleep. I decided to put those thoughts aside for a while and since I didn’t felt like going back into the sewers I explore the city some more. I came across Tom, a creepy person buying rat corpses. He paid two gold coins for every rat corpse you brought to him. I wondered why someone needed rat corpses and so I asked him. He told me he was the local tanner, making leather clothes from dead rats. I found this a strange profession, but everyone has to do where he is good in, right? I told him I would bring him dead rats when I would go to the sewers again.

I continued my path to the north and went into some kind of deserted stable. I saw a ladder to go down, but I didn’t want to face another miserable rat. I putted my head trough the hole to see what was down there. I only saw one small rat, so I went down and killed it. I saw a note pinned on the wall with the words “IRKM DESMET DAEM”. I had no idea what these words mentioned. Anyway I took the rat corpse so I could sell it to Tom as I promised before. Tom paid me the two golden coins as he promised and told me that I could hunt something bigger at the cellar of the stable. He also told me that some adventurer used to store his loot under a loose board close to a strange note on the wall, and that he could have forgotten something.

Could this be the note I saw? I decided to go back to the stable and to look underneath the boards. I tried to lift the board next to the strange note, as Tom said, but it didn’t move. Maybe it was the floor board underneath the note? I tried there and it indeed was a loose floor board. I lifted it and laid it down next to me. I saw something red sitting between the wooden boards. I took it out and it was some kind of jacket. I went to Tom to inform what it was and he told me it was called a doublet. I liked it and turned it on, instead of my jacket.

Chapter VIII: Train accident

Outside I went to sit on the grass between the chickens. I loved animals, but the chicken did not seem to love me. It ran away when it saw me. I was following the chicken with my eyes and then I saw a guy who killed the chicken. As I loved animals I did not found this suiting behaviour and I told that to the guy. The guy took tree chicken feather out of his bag and told me that he needed them. I asked him why and he explained me that if he had a legion helmet, one hundred chicken feathers and fifty honey combs he could get a feather hat. He ran behind another chicken and slayed it. He told me that it had no feather in it, and I thought that he was somewhat possessed by the feathers.

I asked for his name and he replied to me ‘if you tell me who you are, I tell you who I am’. I told him who I was, how I came there and that I was from Belgium. He started telling how he came there too. He told me his name was Thomas Blinx. When he went to a pub with his friends, one of them was drunk and he didn’t felt very well. Even then this friend wanted to drive, but on his way he had to vomit. He stopped in the middle of the train rails and ran outside to the bushes to do what was needed.

Thomas Blinx started to yell to his friend that he was standing on the rails, but his friend didn’t listen. The friend felt in the grass and another one of Thomas his friend went outside the car to help him up. Not even a minute later, they heard the sound of a train. Thomas tried to get out of the car in time, but he wasn’t fast enough and the train drove against him and the car. After that Thomas couldn’t remember a single thing of what happened. I asked him when it happened and he said two days ago. I suddenly thought to the news I saw on the TV of the train accident, and about the boy getting into coma. That must be him! But if he was in coma in his real life, then was I in coma too? Did we have to stay here until we woke up from our deep sleep? My head was filled with questions again.

Chapter VII: Big rat

I was finished washing myself and wanted to go away, but Willie yelled at me asking me if I wanted some bread. Normally I didn’t like bread, but that time I would love to taste bread again because all I ate the day before was cheese and one apple. I was starving, and so I told him that I would love some bread. He gave me bread, but it wasn’t regular bread, it was a baguette. I loved baguette, and he told me I could eat as mush as I wanted. I hated bread, but I did like baguette and rolls. The baguettes weren’t as big as the baguettes I knew, but they were very tasty. I ate 3 of them, and thanked Willie for it. Willie asked me if I wanted to learn how to bake this bread, and I told him I would like that very much. He said that he didn’t had time that day, and that I had to come back tomorrow.

I walked back to the city and purchased a new torch at Obi’s. My torch was almost completely burned, and I threw it in the dustbin. I went to the sewer grate and lighted my torch. I climbed down and went to the rats once more. I saw other people skinning rats so I went more to the east of the cave. I saw a hole to go down and so I did. I climbed down the hole and downstairs there was a rat. A short fight followed, which I won of course. I walked further into the cave and then I suddenly saw a big angry rat.



The rat looked a lot stronger then the rats I was used and I was hoping it didn’t saw me, but it was staring at me, so that was just wishful thinking. It also was a lot bigger then the usual rats. Was it mutated? It faced me and we started to fight. It bate me in my leg and I was hurt badly. I ran away, but I couldn’t run fast with my leg. The giant rat followed me slumbering around trough the sewer. I tried to avoid its attack, but most of the time I couldn’t. I ran like I was half lame, but finally I saw the ladder to go up. I climbed up, and the rat did not follow me. I was happy that also in this world rats weren’t able to climb ladders. I went to the closest stairs and went out of that cave. I did never want to go to that angry rat again.