Starting up the kingdom.

"Okay. There's going to be some changes." Zi Mishkal stood in front of the town the next day. "We're going to make this ground zero of a new world. A better world...." His speech went on for several minutes and by the end of the day there was a new town council. Not the greatest council, but a start.

At that time there was also a travelling party of priestesses to the south. One of the priestesses caught the eye of my Marshal. "That woman would make a fine wife."
"A what now?"
"A wife. You need an heir."
"I.. and then I remembered what Pal said. "erm. Sure?"  There were several minutes of negotiation and the young woman was somewhat forcibly led off the cart.. "I am Namea", she bowed.
"Zi. Zi Mishkal." Pleased to meet you. She looked confused but said nothing. And that's how, nine days after I arrived I became a husband.

The wedding night (and subsequent nights) were fabulous. In fact, too fabulous and I've become distracted and frankly a little lustful to the point where even the servant girls look pretty good. And apparently, as my diviner Szczesny reminds me, I can take a concubine.. or three. It's apparently good to be the Chief.

They said I had to pick a god. "A what?" but it's apparently tradition and an outward expression of what I wanted to achieve. "A prosperous kingdom", I said so apparently I'm now a follower of Jarilo. I wonder if that means I get another concubine? 

Hey, don't judge. It was alot of lonely nights in the lab.

I asked exactly how many concubines I am allowed to have, by tradition. Three, I'm told.

And women, how male concubines do they get?

Dead silence.

The beginning

Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Ezekiel 'Zi' Mishkal stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator - and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, in a world which is not destined for time travel. His only assistance is from his Personal Data Assistant, Pal, which can remotely access some of the current internet and keep a record of his travels. And so Zi Mishkal finds himself leaping forward from life to life, keeping his dynasty alive and hoping each time that his next leap... will be the leap home.

A flash of light and I could see the blue sky overhead. I was laying on grass. Soft, velvety grass - the kind you always imagine grass to be. The grass was so comfortable the temptation was to lay there forever and sleep.
"Magician! Wizard!" I sat up with a jerk at the sound of these words echoing in my immediate vicinity. More than a dozen burly men, with clubs and spears stood around me in a wide circle. At my feet was a single prone man - middle aged and unmoving. A dagger lay in his open palm, an identical dagger lay next to me. "He killed the chief! Struck him down with the lightning!" The evil glares on some of the crowd filled me with dread while others had the unmistakable look of awe. "He is mighty. He beat the chief with magic! He is... new chief!"

Oboy.

Hi. My name is Zi Mishkal. I'm a scientist from 2068 working on a secret time travel project. My hypothesis was we share a connection through our genetic makeup - a connection that I can ride back in time. I fully intended only to be able to ride the synapses, to be able to see through my ancestor's eyes. But something went wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong and now I'm actually in the past, feeling what my ancestors felt and making decisions that can alter the future.

If you want to know a little more about me, I'm extremely smart and diligent but also stubborn as a mule. And this time travel thing has left me completely stressed out and depressed. 

One of the locals who didn't like the looks of me then stepped forward, club in hand, to move me. halfway towards me, he stopped and looked at the ground.
"What is this?" He asked out loud. "Some metal shape left as part of your witchcraft, Mishkal?" He reached down to retrieve the item.
"No, don't!" I implored, but it was too late. The brute handled my PDA and took the shock meant as an anti-theft deterrent. There was an audible jolt of electricity and he stumbled backwards into line. The rest of the circle took several steps back. From the back of the circle came a chant "chief. Chief. chief." I quickly picked up the PDA. and stood in their center. The whole group dropped to one knee. And that's how I became Chief of the land.

Discreetly I pulled the PDA out from the sleeve of my cloak.
"Pal. Paaal." I spoke softly. We were walking back to the town. At my request the rest of the party gave me a wide berth. "C'mon. Talk to me buddy."
The screen flickered to life. "Battery power at 37 percent. Recommend charging soon."
"I can't for awhile." I flipped over the back of the PDA and noted the solar panels still seemed to be intact. "What am I doing here. For that matter what are you doing here?"
"There appears to have been a miscalculation. I am having difficulty in making contact with the wifi network."
"We're in a FIELD."
"I am having difficulty in making contact with cell network."
"Pal, we're in the PAST. Try and get a fix on when we are."
"Conclusion unlikely, but I will comply. Scanning pulsars." There was a brief moment of silence. "Today is Jan 1, 769 AD."
"Warm for a January."
"Local deviation in weather patterns possibly related to time jump, sir. Shall I calcu-"
"No.", I said a little testily. "What am I doing here? I mean, I'm actually here. You're physically here. How is this possible?"
"I will study all possibilities and return when I have a hypothesis." and then the PDA went dark.
"Hal? HAL?"

Life isn't so bad in 760 AD, if you ignore the intervening 1300 or so years of improvements in technology, science, medicine, fashion, social graces, hygiene.. ok it kinda sucks. But hey, the stars are nice and there are still bison in Europe. What I apparently 'leaped' into was a duel - not to the death, but for honor. My ancestor - Mishkal - was apparently so upset with the current chief that he challenged him to a duel under Slavic law. I'm guessing since there's no record of this in the history books that great great great to the nth degree grandpa got beat bad. It is apparently not cool to kill your opponent, only to draw blood. They're saying I used magic, not once but twice today and that I'm some sort of spirit talker. Regardless, everyone is taking this as a huge sign that our village is meant for great things. I look around at the wood huts, the partially completed wall, the dirt roads and sigh. I was a physicist, not an engineer... I think.

I left Pal upside down in the sun with orders that no one is to touch it unless they wanted to get the same lightning (there's no word for shock yet, apparently). People have been crossing on the other side of the street to avoid it.

"Pal? Pal?" It was late at night. Battery life was at an encouraging 54%. The screen came to life.
"Analysis complete."
"Go on..."
"You're not going to like it."
"Tell me anyway."
The PDA paused. "Analysis confirms situation. Your brainwaves are trapped in the past, in the body of your ancestor. You've effectively been downloaded. Congratulations. You are the first biological transfer. We should have a parade."
"Pal!" I said sharply. "You're dithering. I wish I'd never put those emotions into you."
"Sorry. As I was saying. My connection to you brought me, an inanimate object, back as well."
"Okay. Then how do we get back?"
"We don't. There is no back to get to. The only direction is forward. We need to get forward to a point in time where we can build a machine to undo all this and get back home. So long as you have a living relative I can effect a transfer from this body to a new one. You'll jump from person to person as we move forward in history. They'll still have their feelings and desires, but you'll be able to override them - keep them on the straight and narrow as it were. Just keep me charged and I should make it the millennia."
"Why can't we just make the future happen now? What do we need to build this thing?"
"I don't know. It will take centuries to work out the schematics from scratch and what is in my cache is only a small portion of the internet. I can feel forward to a future - not our future, but a future with my sensors and cull limited amounts of data, but we are largely on our own."

Oboy.