Jacob
20th day of Silvershine, Year 1011 of the Custorian Calendar
My eyes kept going from the swordsman to the corpse on the ground and back again. This person just saved our lives. Hearing voices behind me, I turned around. A part of me wished I hadn't, because now that I wasn’t running for my life, I caught some details about the person on top of the truck that I'd missed a minute ago.
He was maybe eighteen years old, with a lean build and short grey hair. The kid wore what looked like a black military uniform with red and white trim. What stood out about him, though, were the pointy doglike ears on top of his head. Those and the bushy grey tail that was slowly moving side to side behind him.
“Uh… Ash?”
Below, three people had exited the vehicle. They all wore the same military uniform as the cosplay kid. The first person was a short woman with glasses and black hair that barely reached her shoulders. She was carrying a thick, wooden walking stick that had a large purple diamond embedded at the top.
The next person out was a beefy, annoyed-looking dwarf. He was maybe four feet tall, rocking a dark-brown, braided beard that hung almost down to his chest. Resting on his shoulder was a massive warhammer.
The last person was a very dark-skinned Black man with a shaved head. He was about the same height as Ash and me, so that would put him at about six feet tall. A large white rifle was slung over his back. He looked to the top of the truck and said something I couldn't hear. A moment later, the kid up top took one step and launched himself into the air. He landed about ten feet in front of the truck and walked it off like it was nothing.
There's absolutely no way he just did that.
Ash exhaled a “Woah...” It was barely a whisper, but I'd heard it.
“I know, I can’t believe that kid just stuck the landing.” I turned to look at Ash. He wasn’t talking about the kid back at the RV. He was still looking at the person who killed the things that had been chasing us.
I turned the rest of the way around and saw the person behind us had removed her helmet. When she'd run by us a minute ago, I hadn’t noticed much about her physique. My focus had been on not dying. Ash's "woah" statement had been the correct one to make.
The woman was beautiful. She was probably in her late twenties, and in that tight riding suit, I could tell that she had a thin, athletic build like a ballerina. Fiery red hair spilled down to her upper back in messy waves. Ash was transfixed.
He hasn’t looked at someone like that since Tess.
The redhead took a step towards us, and Ash snapped back to reality. We both backed away from her. I pivoted so I could keep the other people in her party where I could see them. Ash did the same. She halted where she was, about fifteen feet away, and put her swords into their scabbards over her shoulders, where they rested in an X-pattern. Then she put her hands up in a show of peace.
“We mean no harm to you,” she said calmly, in an accent that sounded British with maybe a dash of Scottish.
All her comrades remained where they were, except for the dark-skinned man. He had climbed to the top of the truck and was watching the forest. The rifle was now in his hands.
Probably keeping an eye out for more nightmare fuel.
Her hands were still held up as she slowly proceeded forward. She looked like she genuinely harbored no ill intentions. The people by the RV all looked tense, but not aggressive. The dog kid looked stupidly excited for some reason.
This woman had just saved our lives only moments before, but I wasn’t ready to trust any of these people just yet. There were too many unknowns, and my mind was racing to formulate strategies for both escape and how to fight them if it came down to it. Our odds of winning were slim, especially when I factored in the man with a rifle, but I had already come up with two paths. The only problem was how to let Ash know the strategy without them finding-
“How did you know where we were?” Ash asked.
“You have been upwind of us, so it was quite easy for Baylor to track you.”
The kid smiled and raised a hand.
Track us? Wait, are these the people that brought us to this shitty place?
“More importantly," she pointed at us, “there are two of you.” She looked flustered by this. “The summoning was only supposed to bring the Guardian to this world. Innocent bystanders should have been left alone.”
“It was you assholes that abducted us!” I shouted at her and marched in her direction.
She didn’t budge, but there was a commotion behind me. I turned to see that the dwarf had readied his hammer and took a few steps, shouting something in a strange language.
I pointed to him and shouted, “Back off Gimli, or I'll punt you back to the fucking Lollipop Guild!”
The Dwarf started yelling as the girl with the glasses held him back.
Ash put his hand on my shoulder, and his grip was tense. He was pissed off too, but as usual, he was doing a better job keeping that in check.
The motorcycle rider yelled something in the same foreign language that the Dwarf had been using. A moment later, he took a step back and lowered his weapon, but his eyes stayed fixed on me.
I guess Red's in charge here.
"Hey, so when that–" Ash began, but the woman held up a hand to stop him.
She gave another command that I couldn't understand, and the dog-kid nodded. He ran toward the dead creatures.
"Just one moment, I need to ascertain if there are more nearby."
Ash and I watched as the kid knelt by one of the corpses and started sniffing the air just above them. He looked our way and shook his head.
The red-haired woman let out a breath and turned back to us. "Okay, we aren't in immediate danger. What were you saying?"
“When that circle formed around us, we couldn’t get out of it, but our father was thrown from it,” Ash said.
She placed a hand on her chin, and she seemed to be deep in thought. “Yes... that sounds as though the command glyphs were formed correctly. But even a brother should have been safely and gently removed. The circle should have been programmed to seek out and only bring back the one who bears the Guardian’s Soul… so why would it have brought both of you?” she mumbled the last part to herself, looking down slightly.
“We’re fraternal twins, so maybe your stupid circle thought we were the same person,” I responded curtly.
A few seconds later, she looked back at us. Her eyes were wide, and the expression on her face suggested something important had just clicked in her head.
“My turn to ask a question,” I took my right arm out of my hoodie and raised my shirt sleeve. “Why was our family tattoo one of the symbols in your kidnapping portal?”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Thena froze. Her eyes practically bored a hole in the black ink that encompassed my entire deltoid. The tattoo was of a fragmented black circle with three triangles surrounding a smaller circle at the center. Small tribal-style markings and tiny glyphs were scattered throughout. She took a steadying breath, choosing her response very carefully.
“That,” she began, finally making eye contact with me again, “is the mark of the Guardian.”
Her comrades began to speak excitedly amongst one another. The girl with the staff and glasses mumbled something to herself and traced a line from her forehead to her chest with her free hand and then, without releasing the staff, placed her hands together in front of her chest as if in prayer as she bowed her head slightly. Baylor had done the same hand motion.
“Okay, that doesn’t answer my question at all, but I can see you’re struggling right now so I guess we can just circle back to this.” I wasn’t even trying to hide how angry I was.
Ash whispered, “You should probably smoke a joint after this whole situation calms down.”
“Already planning on it.”
My brother slowly walked over to the woman. A short distance away, the bearded hammer-hobbit tensed up but stayed where he was. Ash slowly extended his hand to her. “I’m Ash. Ash Owens. That back there is my brother Jacob.”
She stared at his hand for a moment and then at him. She suddenly put a hand over her mouth. “Gods, I have completely forgotten my manners. I am incredibly sorry, please forgive my rudeness.” She took his hand. “I am Thena. The Captain of this team.”
He gently shook her hand. “Thena, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Though I wish it could have been under different circumstances.”
She nodded as she took her hand back and brushed her hair behind her ear. Ash stiffened up a little. Then I saw why. Her ear was probably about two inches longer than a human's should have been, and it ended in a fine point. I could barely keep a straight face when my mind flashed to the sexy anime elf figurine Ash had on his computer desk. The poor guy was probably trying not to have a stroke after seeing what had been hiding behind her hair.
I think she noticed his reaction, as subtle as it was, but she chose to act like she hadn’t. I started walking up to join them. The kid with the fuzzy ears, Baylor, walked over to Thena and Ash as well. Funny enough, he almost looked starstruck as he said something to Ash, but it was in a language I had never heard before.
Ash looked from Baylor to Thena as he said, “I’m sorry, but I have no idea what he’s saying.”
Thena’s eyebrows shot up. “I apologize again. We are just a military aid and scouting unit. We weren’t supposed to be the ones who welcomed you, so I am a bit unprepared for all of this. You were supposed to arrive in the capital amid a grand reception and have everything properly conveyed to you there. Unfortunately, it was relayed to us that things did not go as planned…”
Ash and I exchanged a look, hearing that last part.
“As to the matter of what Baylor is saying, one of the things our world has that yours lacks is a Translation Glyph. Baylor, would you be so kind?”
The kid rolled up his right sleeve and turned his hand palm up. There on his forearm was a small circular tattoo. It was maybe two inches in diameter. Just a blue circle that contained a geometric shape and some very tiny writing.
“These glyphs are powered by our body’s natural supply of mana. It allows us to understand any evolved spoken language. Unfortunately, it can only help with auditory translation. Reading and writing other languages are things we must still learn for ourselves.”
I raised my hand. “What’s mana? I’m new here, so I have no clue what the hell you're talking about.”
She seemed to relax, seeing that I might be calming down a bit.
Jokes on you lady, I’m still pissed!
“That is something that can be explained in detail a bit later, once we are all in a safer location. For now, just think of it as your body’s natural energy supply.”
“Okay, so until we get one of these tattoos, are you the only person we can communicate with?” Ash asked her.
“Correct, I am the only one here who has been trained to speak the English language.”
She motioned to the nervous girl in glasses, waving her forward. The girl meekly raised a hand to say hello and started to walk over.
“While I am the only one you can understand, everyone here can understand both of you.”
Hearing this, I glanced back at the dwarf and saw him glaring at me. His gloved little hands gripped the hammer a little tighter.
“Luckily, Daria is a very talented mage and can imprint a translation glyph on each of you. It only takes a few seconds,” Thena said.
I was highly skeptical and about to voice my opinion on the matter when Ash spoke up.
“Alright... I’ll do it.”
Thena looked optimistic, but I wasn’t on board. “Excuse us one second,” I said, holding a finger up to her as I pulled Ash aside.
“Bro, I’m coming from a place of love when I say this...what the fuck are you doing?” I whispered. “These people, or at least the people they work for, abducted us. They hurt Dad.”
“Yeah, I’m not thrilled with the situation either, but we’re pretty far up shit creek right now and they’re offering us a paddle. If this stupid tattoo does what she claims, then it’s going to be invaluable to us here. We need to understand what the hell people are saying if we’re going to get out of this situation. Besides, if they wanted to kill us, I think they would have already tried to.” His chin lifted in the direction of the guy on top of the truck. The one with the rifle. His voice dropped further. “But, if for any reason this turns out to be something other than what they’re selling it as, or they turn out to be some kind of interplanetary slave traders, we go down swinging. ”
I nodded as we bumped fists. Normally, I’d never in a million years consider hitting women, but these weren’t normal circumstances. If what they were about to do hurt my brother, then I wouldn't hesitate. These hands were now rated E, for everyone.
“I swear to you on the Nine, that we are on your side and mean no harm to either of you. There will be no need for ‘swinging’, as you put it,” Thena assured us.
Ash and I looked at each other in surprise. How the hell had she heard us?
Daria stepped up to Ash. Now that she was closer, I got a better look at her. She looked a few years younger than Thena and was kind of cute, in a Velma from Scooby-Doo kind of way. Her demeanor wasn't that of someone with sinister intentions, but like the singer Johnny Rivers once said, “A pretty face can hide an evil mind.”
She brushed aside the shoulder-length black hair that covered half of her timid face and looked up at Ash. A nervous smile formed.
Jesus, she looks almost as starstruck as the dog-kid.
"Does it matter which arm?"
She opened her mouth to speak and closed it again, bringing her staff close to her chest as she turned to Thena.
"It's alright, Daria," Thena said. "It doesn't matter which arm you choose."
Ash nodded and rolled up the sleeve on his right arm for Daria. He gave her a reassuring smile.
“I’m trusting you, Daria. Will this hurt?”
She shrugged and indicated with her thumb and index finger that it would be a tiny bit painful.
Slowly, the head of her staff lowered so the crystal hovered an inch above Ash’s skin. She closed her eyes and focused. She mumbled in that weird foreign language, and the crystal began to glow, as did a small space on his forearm. The air between the crystal and his arm seemed to fuzz and blur, like someone had rubbed Vaseline on a window.
After a few more seconds, she opened her eyes and said a final word, this time more forcefully. As soon as she did, both the crystal and the new circular tattoo on Ash’s forearm flashed. He gritted his teeth and hissed as a small wisp of blue smoke left his arm.
Daria let out a sigh of relief when she saw the symbol on his forearm. It made me wonder if Thena had exaggerated when she told us how skilled this woman was.
Ash shook his arm and opened and closed his hand a few times. His eyes moved to the new marking on his forearm. The skin around it was reddened from the assault.
It's a little late to regret getting a new tattoo, buddy.
“I’m good. It only stung for a second. The pain's completely gone now.” Ash said to me as he pulled down his sleeve. He looked over at the kid named Baylor. “Okay, now what were you trying to tell me earlier?”
Baylor stood up straighter and smiled. He said something to Ash and reached his hand out to him.
Ash turned to me, wide-eyed.
“Holy shit, it worked.”
He reached out and shook the young man’s hand. “I appreciate you saying as much, Baylor. It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.”
Ash looked back at me. “Bro, this is such a trip. I still hear that foreign language when he talks, but in my head it’s in English.” There was excitement in his voice and a beaming smile on his face.
“Are you ready to receive one as well?” Thena asked.
“Look, I’m glad to see he’s alive so far, but I’m not sure I want to get branded like cattle.”
Ash put a hand on my shoulder. “Think about all the hot, foreign women you’ll be able to understand once we get back to Earth.”
I hated to admit it, but the man presented a convincing argument. I quickly pulled up my sleeve and offered my forearm to Daria as she tried not to laugh.
While she placed her staff over my left forearm, I noticed Thena turn and watch the forest. She was tense, maybe even scared, but she was trying hard not to show it.
A minute later, I could understand what everyone was saying.
Ash was right, this is a total mind-job.
The dwarf, Thovin, didn’t seem to like me much. Admittedly, that was my fault, but I didn’t care. Given everything that was going on, I still felt justified in telling him off earlier. That and he reminded me of a lawn gnome.
“We should keep moving,” Thena said to us, looking quite serious. “There is no telling how many more of them are in the area, and the sun will soon be setting. We need to find a safe location to rest for the night, and there is still quite a distance to cover before we can get you back to the royal capital.”
“Can you explain to us what the hell is going on? Like, why we were abducted?” Ash asked her.
“Yes. I will explain what I can once we are in a safer location. Honestly, being stationary here and exposed for as long as we have been has been quite nerve-wracking,” she said very matter-of-factly.
“Baylor, tell Oren that it’s time to move out. Also, please show our guests where we keep the food and drink in the Hauler. My guess is that they have not consumed anything in quite some time,” she said.
Baylor placed a fist over his heart and then ran off to the truck. As soon as he left, she let out a sigh and began walking with us to the vehicles.
"Hey, so what were those things that tried to kill us?" I asked, pointing behind me with my thumb.
"Those disgusting creatures are called the Brax. They are the ones who interfered with your summoning. They tried to abduct you during the transit from your world to ours. It is our mission to protect you, because your deaths are what the Brax desire more than anything else in this world."
HOST STATUS: LORD CRESTFALL (ERROR)
[BREEDING SCHEME ABORTED] Su Ian Hoo woke up male, uninjured, and infinitely more spiteful.
[FOREKNOWLEDGE ACTIVE] She knows exactly who holds the hammer.
[OBJECTIVE] Dismantle the Chancellor's plot using pure, unadulterated chaos.
Cursed into a useless peacock, then murdered and reset—Lord Crestfall is done with destiny. This time, the "Immortal Scam" is taking no prisoners, only grubs, and certainly no breeding partners.