text: [Themes: fantasy, humor]
  
  "What is the price you are asking?"
  
  Sir Osis figured that if he had the funds there was no point in continuing to suffer like he was. The man born before the mountains chuckled to himself before replying, "For what it is, a bargain. A copper coin should do you just nicely."
  
  The transaction was made, and the peddler tipped his hat. "A pleasant journey to you, sir," he said before hoisting his pack back onto his back.
  
  When Sir Osis received the bottle, he was surprised to see it engraved with some sort of markings. He was not sure what they were, but they looked to him almost like of some sort of script. "Allow me to inquire as to..." he started before trailing off when he realized that he could no longer see the man who had watched the rivers form in his youth. He questioned his sight for a moment before deciding that a ridge had hidden the peddler from view. Then his body ordered his mind to pay attention to the elixir before them. He removed the stopper, being sure to save it in his pocket for later, and held his breath before bringing the mouth of the bottle to his lips. It was to his surprise that the medicine tasted nothing of the wretched concoctions he had been forced to take when sick as a child. It had a strong smell that burned his nostrils slightly, but the flavor was sweet. He took three good draughts of the viscous substance before wiping his mouth. He was no longer in pain, but something else had happened. Overcome by dizziness, Sir Osis dismounted and curled up on the side of the road—feeling unable to go any farther. Then he felt consciousness slip away.
  
  Sir Osis awoke to an overwhelming floral smell. With no hesitation, he jumped up and drew his sword, fearing the worst. However, all he was greeted with was a woman in very strange dress making a rather pissed-off expression. She quickly backed away when he drew his sword but her demeaner became no more pleasant than before. In fact, she began to yell at him in a strange language he had never heard anything like before. Sir Osis sheathed his sword and bowed slightly. "I am afraid that I never did learn any of that Russian. You are Russian?" He had no idea what this strange woman was, but Russian was a very good guess, he thought.
  
  When Sir Osis had sheathed his sword, the woman calmed down considerably, yet she was not any more favorable to Sir Osis's presence in her sight than before, and Sir Osis learned that "Get the hell out of my place" was the same in many languages that day. As relieved as he was that he did not appear to have been enslaved, he was not pleased in the least with this situation. Out on the street, he could here that everybody seemed to speak whatever that woman had been screaming, they all had the same strange look about them, and they all wore those strange clothes. Strangest of all however was that now and then someone would pass by who appeared to be blue. Now, the interplay of light and shadow can have strange effects on the visual perception of man, but no shadow followed around individuals throughout their days, the color of a sunny sky in September all the while. That's right. There were no tricks being played. Some of those people were blue. Now, whether it was natural pigmentation or it was a paint was a mystery to the knight, but either way, it was quite visually shocking, and pondering it distracted him from the strange situation he was in...for a time.
  
  It was five minutes before Sir Osis looked around and came to the full realization that he was certainly not anywhere near home anymore, and he had no idea how he got there or by what transportation he should return. This was fine. He could handle this. He took a deep breath to calm himself and let it out along with a profane deluge. This did not make him feel any more cheerful, but now he could consider his situation with a clearer mind. The clearer mind told him to skedaddle before whatever had brought him to this place came back. As he wandered, he realized that the city he was in was much larger than anything he had been near before and not a single person was speaking his language. He tried to wake up or to change his surroundings, but If this was a dream, he had no control over it. As the sun hung low, he came to the edge of the city and looked out at the landscape before him. The fields and jungle before him were like nothing he had ever before seen.
  
  > leave the City
  It would be stupid to stay in the same area where whoever had brought him here must be. He had no idea what was beyond the flooded field before him, but it was unlikely to be anything he couldn't handle, he figured. He had vanquished a demon platypus just fine, after all. There was no more time for hesitation. He heard a shout before him and sprinted out into the night. He ran for about five minutes before doubling over and gasping for breath. Nobody was following him. Oh well. He needed the cardio exercise anyway. As Sir Osis caught his breath, the fact that he was in a strange place with no idea where home was hit him once again. What was he supposed to do now? Just walk until he found home? Who knew how far that was? Even the air smelled different here. After going through a few minutes of panic and catching his breath, Sir Osis too a good look at the path before him. It snaked through hills and fields before disappearing into forbidding darkness. Perhaps there was a settlement or a home he could stop at not far off. There was only one way to find out. He resumed his trek, this time at a much more manageable pace. In order to occupy his mind with something other than worries, Sir Osis started taking in every detail of the night around him. Some of the sounds of the night were familiar, others, nothing like anything he had ever heard. All sound was unresting, unceasing, endless. It was almost unnerving to hear so much which he could neither identify nor see. Actually, it was very unnerving. He decided he should probably stop concentrating on it, but that only made things worse. The thought crossed his mind that he may never hear a human voice again, and that thought scared him. Lowly, he even started singing to himself some old song his mother used to sing about a lady and her lover that turned into a horse—or was it a horse that was her lover? The details were unimportant. The song had the desired effect, and Sir Osis had hardly realized it before he had entered into the jungle itself. The moon was blocked here, making the surroundings difficult to see, and Sir Osis soon decided that he should stop for the night. First he would need firewood. He wasn't about to go sleeping in some strange forest without a fire. There could be wolves there, after all, and perhaps the ground was colder than was the air.
  
  The leaf litter on the forest floor was damp, and Sir Osis worried that he would be unable to find anything dry enough to light. The intense darkness was not helping matters whatsoever. While he was kicking at the ground in front of him as he walked in search of a log large enough to be worth stripping the inner bark from, he ran into a fallen tree and fell onto his knees. Then he heard a hiss, and something struck him in the hand. Muttering something under his breath, he looked around to see what had bitten him but found nothing. Well this was worrying. Still, he felt no pain beyond the initial bite, which itched a bit, and he figured he would probably be fine. Then he built the fire and settled in for the night. It was only a few short hours before he woke up vomiting and with tightness in his chest. So that bite was something to worry about after all. He decided to wait things out a bit in case they got better. They didn't. By the time he decided he needed to go back to the city to receive help, he was unable to walk. All he could do was lie on the ground until his own lungs refused to draw breath for him any longer. The jackals had a change from the usual fare that night.