Welcome to the Galaxy

Some Things are to Good to Last

Helion appear again after his last stay. The humans had advanced. His popularity and people’s faith in his blankets had wained. Their currency had also changed. They had begun using paper. This was of no use for filling his need. He still had his pack filled with metals, gemstones and pearls. Gold wasn’t much help to him now. Unless he could find some other materials to transmute it into something of value.

Over the three hundred years the two families had worked together to turn the cave into something of a holy sanctuary. It was a Spartan space, setup for a nun’s usage. It did have many secret hiding places all of them were well sealed and latched In manners that made accident discovery impossible. These were used for storing his treasures. 

The space had a small stone bed and table. It had a wooden chair and bench. There was a raised stone fireplace in the center that doubled as his forge. There was also a large door that locked from the inside to secure it between his visits. It was thick heavy stone. Helion found this to be the most desirable addition. It was designed to blend in with the walls. Only people that had been in the cave would know the new walls made the cave much smaller.

It added to the mystery and legend. It looked like the cave wall opened up and the holy lady walked out. She would stay for one month every ten years. Aging only a month at time made it seem to the villagers she was ageless and timeless. They called the place The Shrine of the Vanishing Lady. People had made holy pilgrimages to make donations at the height of religious times in this region.

Helion’s people had encountered deities in their travels. They were powerful beings and not to be trifled  with. He had transgressed one in taking the cross and coins during last rights. The people who came to visit this site were of the same faith as that God. This was his penance for that transgression. Whether he believed in that faith or not wasn’t important. These people did and he did nothing to discourage their beliefs.

Helion walked to the town with his blankets. Even after their popularity waned he could still sell them. That gave him enough money for food and supplies. This time however things had changed drastically. The area had been the site of a battle. The city had been burned and looted. A small portion of people remained. What had been home to over fifty thousand or more people at its zenith, now only held a few hundred survivors.

Helga slowly entered the town. This hadn’t just happened. It had been done between the last visit and this one. She gave the blankets away this time. It wasn’t much but these people had done much for her over the years. She searched for survivors of the two families that had kept her fed and sheltered as she slipped through time.

Helion found a son of the goldsmith first. Their wealth had been taken and their shop destroyed. He had the knowledge but not the means to restore his family business. “I will provide you gemstones. I will need a few things in return. You will have ten years to get me what I require in return. I will need ten pounds of silver and copper. If you cannot get those, I would except a breaker of Mercury and ten pounds of tin. I can give you some gold jewelry to get started with besides the gems.” He told the man.

“You truly are a Blessed being. I didn’t believe it until now. Our family’s guardian angel, I had been told you were but I didn’t believe it myself. I beg your pardon. How will I get the materials from you and return what you require from me?” The young man asked wiping tears from his eyes.

“You will follow me to the shrine and wait outside. I will enter and return the items to you. The items you will deliver to me can be stored in a secret stash. It’s a place to leave offerings. I will show it to you, you will show it to no one.” Helga replied plainly.

“I will do it.” The young man agreed.

The two walked back to the cave. The young man followed a few feet behind. The shrine was well know by the local residents. As a sacred site no one had disclosed it to their attackers. They reached the cave half hour later. Helga went inside and collected the promised goods. She collected a small sack of gemstones and close to a pound of gold jewelry. Then handed it to him. “Here is my end of the bargain. Remember in ten years you need to return the materials to me.” 

Helga pulled a stone out of the cave wall to reveal a small slot about the size of a large safe deposit box. “At any time during those ten years you can place the goods here. What I have given you could easily have purchased what I require. Your family’s services to me in the past have earned you this gift in return.” Helga stated calmly.

“Thank you blessed Sister. I will not forget your kindness.” The young man said. He left quickly afterward.

Helga went away from the town. She knew Gerald’s descendants had farms outside of the city area. If she was to find one of his descendants it would likely be there. The farm was on the other side of the hill the cave shrine was built into. She walked up the hill and down into the valley beyond. It was surrounded on all sides by hills. An entire town had grown up here and had gone completely unnoticed by the army that had attacked the city.

Gerald’s descendants were still doing well. They did not get attacked but were swallowed up in the land grab. Their town was under the control of a new government. The town folk saw her walking into town and stopped her before she was seen by the guards. “You have to go Sister. The soldiers here do not look kindly on religious people. They burned down the church and killed the clergy. Return to your place. We will send food.” They warned and rushed her away. 

Helga took off the habit hood and quickly walked away again. The return trip to the cave went without issue. She went inside and made a meal. The safety of the sanctuary provided comfort. With his current supply of Silanium he could jump another hundred years easy enough. But he might have to rebuild the device soon. Some of the parts were showing wear from the previous uses.

He was hoping the goldsmith would get him the Mercury and tin. He could transmute gold with those into Electurnum. It was superior fuel and might enable him to move through time faster. It was guess work, it wasn’t like time travel was a well known science. He was already in uncharted waters. No one had successfully time traveled and returned to tell their stories.

The supplies waiting the next day were not much. Some meats, cheeses and bread waited just outside his door. Helion collected them and went back inside. There was nothing more to do here and now. Without supplies for crafting new blankets there was no reason to delay either. He activated the time traveling device in the belt once more. Reality shifted again.

 He saw the front door cracked and broken by men. They didn’t seem to know this place was here. Scholarly looking men in robes entered and left. It was like everything was happening at warp speed as he traveled through time. Even more strange they rebuilt the wall and cleared away all the debris of the old one.

Helion had been worried they might wreck the place and find his hidden wealth but they didn’t. A few more seconds passed then time and reality solidified again. He was nervous someone would be waiting outside the door. He was relieved when the cave door opened, he had also worried it had been bricked up solid. It wouldn’t matter how much time passed if he was sealed inside. He didn’t have enough food to last long at all.

The secret stash was filled too. He collected those materials first. Then returned behind the door. He withdrew the contents of the bag. It was a mixed bag. There were five pounds of silver and copper. A small vial of Mercury and five pounds of tin. It was an unexpected development. If he had two transmuting boxes he could make two different metals at the same time. He decided to make he Electurnum first. It took a month for it and he already had extra Silanium.

He went to load the device with another dose of Silanium. It had become his custom to keep it loaded so he could time travel at any moment if things went bad. This time however, he had a burnout. One of the rods leading to the fuel chamber had melted. It wasn’t a surprise but he didn’t have replacements ready.

He spent the next couple of weeks making spares and rebuilding the devices inner workings. Then he ran out of food. His dresses were long out of date too. The habit had remained the same throughout the years. Now he couldn’t rely on that. He quickly tried to fashion a new dress from the old material. He modeled it after the ones he had seen the girls wearing in the farming town. When it was finished he walked into town.

The burnt out town had been completely abandoned. It was just a ghost town and had been for some time. There was nothing to find here. It was another five mile walk to the farming town and it was dark by the time he arrived. He always arrived in the springtime. It was still getting dark in the early evening.

She made her way to the store. It was a gamble if it would still be open and another they would take what she had in exchange for food. The paper money she was carrying might not be any good. She brought a single gold charm just in case.

One issue he was quickly discovering with time travel was, it was hard to know what to expect when you arrived. He considered himself lucky he hadn’t had to turn to trading his female body for s*x yet. The nun’s habit had kept him from being r***d on several occasions. Now he hoped, he would find that the religion that had provided shelter for him in the past had come back in favor in the area.

The store was open. There wasn’t much inside. Some grain, eggs, milk and chicken were available. They also had potatoes and yams. Those were the staples he needed. They had materials for making blankets and dresses too. The first thing he needed to figure out is how much he could get with what he had.

“Hello.” Helga greeted the owner.

“Hello young lady. I haven’t seen you around here before. What can I help you with?” The merchant replied.

“I need to purchase some supplies. I need to know if you accept this currency.” Helga inquired as she pulled out the paper money.

“No, we haven’t taken that since the uprising.” The merchant responded.

“What uprising? I live in the woods far east of here. I’m just traveling to visit family. I hope my family is safe.” Helga said trying to sound worried and look shocked at the same time.

“The one where we killed the Turks and kicked them out of our area. They broke into the Holy Sanctuary and upset everyone. People didn’t like the religion they were trying to force us to learn after they killed the priests. When they invaded the Sanctuary it was too far. Everyone rose up and killed them while they slept. Then we repaired the damages. It set off a chain reaction of killing that pushed them back hundreds of miles. We are part of a new nation now.” The merchant explained.

“What can I get for this?” Helga asked as she pulled out the gold charm.

He took it and set it on a scale. It’s weight was only barely noticeable on the indicator of the scale. Helion guess it was half an ounce of gold. The the merchant replied “What do you need?”

“A quart of milk, a half dozen eggs, a couple potatoes and a small bag of grain. If there is enough, a few yards of fabric and some thread.” Helga replied meekly.

“Sure I can make that trade.” The merchant said as he started gathering up the goods.

“So did the priests return?” Helga asked making small talk while waiting for the merchant.

“No, religion is low on people’s priorities right now. They had the backing of the King before. Between paying the King’s taxes and the church taxes people aren’t eager to return to that again. Most people are focused on nationalism now. It wouldn’t surprise me some people return to their faith when times get hard again. Right now things are pretty good.” He merchant chatted away. Helion just listened. His easy life seemed to have reached its end.