Moriarty remembered little from training, but what he did remember was that his neighboring planet of “Sasquatch” had setup an intergalactic truck stop on Earth in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. More specifically, in an area called Washington. Moriarty wasn’t sure how to pronounce it, but it was spelled in a unique way which helped him remember. He had a hard time recalling all of the ways to spell things, and all of the languages on Earth. If he had to grade himself in Earth languages, he’d give himself a solid D+.
Moriarty had a vague sense of where he was going, since he knew he was in a desert when he landed, and there weren’t too many deserts in the United States. He knew he had to head northwest. So Moriarty continued walking northwest. On foot. Without shoes. Or food. He scrounged some water together every morning from the dew, and occasionally came across a dead animal to eat, some of which were actually enjoyable. Other than that he was pretty hungry. Luckily for him his species could survived 649 years (24 days of human time) without food, but that didn’t mean he wanted to.
Without thinking too much about it, Moriarty continued hiking northwest. Every now and then he’d hear a human noise nearby, and now that he had recovered his energy from his flight, he would shrink into a little ball as a form of defense, and hope for the best. So far he hadn’t been found, so he determined it must have been working. At night he’d sleep a little, but mostly would continue walking. He’d easily get distracted by the trees and wildlife around him. His first encounter with a bear was frightening, and he hoped he could observe one without being chased by it. Bears reminded him of the species from Sasquatch, which he came here to see in the first place, and his mind stopped wandering and he turned his focus back to walking, and Sasquatch.
Sasquatch was a relatively solitary planet, and the species there kept to themselves for the most part. They were nice enough to provide locations for all of their "truck stops” along Moriarty’s route, even though they rarely gave away their locations throughout the galaxy, given their solitary nature. Otherwise they were calm and laid back and generally tried to avoid interactions. Moriarty didn’t understand their mindset, as he loved learning as much as he could, even if he wasn’t very good at it.
Moriarty kept walking with no end goal in sight, until he reached a small stream of water with no fish but lots of rocks. He saw a blurry, fuzzy reflection of himself in the water, and when he looked back up he was standing face-to-face with a 10-foot tall, hairy, beast-like creature he had only seen once before in person, when his family took him on a trip to Sasquatch where they were quickly chased away by a gang of Bigfeet (What the people of Sasquatch called themselves).
“Hi.” Moriarty said, in the language of Sasquatch, which he had also learned for his trip.
“Are you Moriarty?” The Bigfoot asked.
“Yes. They said I could come here if I needed help.”
The Bigfoot nodded.
“I need help.” Moriarty said.
“Follow me.” Bigfoot said.
“What’s your name?” Moriarty asked.
“Dave,” Dave replied.
Moriarty had a hard time keeping up with the Dave, as his strides were much longer and he walked at an incredible pace. He stepped over logs that towered over Moriarty’s head, and walked through branches thicker than the surrounding trees. The crunches of the leaves and pine needles bounced off the ground and every now and then a breeze would blow and twist through the air, sending an unfamiliar scent through Moriarty’s nose holes. He had been told there were numerous smells on earth that he wouldn’t recognize, but this one was particularly wonderful, in a sweet, calming kind of way.
Dave stopped suddenly and Moriarty nearly ran into his lumbering legs.
“We’re here.” Dave said, stepping forward and effortlessly rolling away a giant boulder that Moriarty thought was a mountain.
“You first.” Dave said, still clutching the boulder. “I need to shut this behind us.”
Moriarty didn’t second-guess the request, and went head-first into the dark tunnel. Dave crouched and followed, gliding the rock back to it’s resting spot in front of the hole.