When Escher Bradley first arrived on Durus, he met a few people. They were all
time travelers, though, so they didn’t stick around for long. After his first
harrowing adventure, his rival went away for a little while, and seemingly
left him alone. His battle with that alien enemy resulted in him now
possessing an exorbitant amount of temporal energy. He would come to discover
that he did not exactly possess any time powers of his own. He could absorb
energy that others expelled, and then relocate it somewhere else, but he
generally couldn’t control it. If he held it in too long, it could start
deteriorating his mind and body, though, so he would always have to get rid of
it. In the beginning, the energy itself sustained him, though. He didn’t need
to eat or sleep for the next several days. Not knowing how long this would
last, he knew he had to find a source of water. He wandered the planet for
about a week before he finally found a small pond. He knew the right thing to
do would be to boil the water to make it drinkable, but he didn’t have the
proper resources, so he just drank it up, and hoped for the best. It was hard
to explain, but as he drank, the water seemed to be communicating with the
temporal energy. No, they weren’t communicating. They were harmonizing with
each other. His body and the pond vibrated in sync, and he could just feel
that they were now being drawn towards each other. To see what would happen,
he released a small fraction of the power. It suddenly started raining for a
few seconds. He released some more, and it rained some more. If this was the
only source of water—and there was no way back to Earth—then expanding the
source was the best use of his power. He released the rest all at once, and
started a downpour...which never stopped. He had just created what the Durune
would come to know as Watershed. It would be the only place to get water for
the next two hundred plus years. The rain was heavy enough to alert the
planet’s only other permanent inhabitant, Savitri. She raced over there as
fast as she could, and found Escher walking out of the rain boundary. They
were both shocked to see each other, but then Escher’s surprise wore off when
he assumed it was merely his enemy, Effigy, who was known to alter her
appearance to deceive people. It took Savitri at least two years of proving
herself before he seemed satisfied that her presence was not a trick.
Nonetheless, all the while, Escher was teaching Savitri everything he knew
about everything. He taught her how to speak, and then by drawing in the dirt, how to read and write.
He recalled the few lessons he received in elementary school, though most of
it wasn’t all that useful here. She taught him survival skills, but he was
able to bolster them from his more traditional education. They had about nine
years before Effigy showed back up and started giving them trouble.
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