“So,” Najam began, having sat us down in the largest building in the camp: the inn. Which I felt spoke to something about the kind of people they were, but I wisely kept that thought to myself. “About my earlier question. Who are you?”
I smiled at the direct question. Ren had wordlessly given me full discretion over our answers, and I'd decided to hold nothing back. “As I’ve said, I am Ruby, and this is my friend, Ren. We come from Earth.”
Najam and his company looked confused at that. “Say that last part again?” Najam asked.
“We come from Earth,” I repeated.
Once again, no one present aside from Ren seemed to understand what I was saying. “Huh. It seems our language does not have a word that translates that name,” Najam concluded. “Strange.”
I nodded in understanding. “Ah, that makes sense. I doubt Earth is a name you’ve ever heard before.”
“Where is it?” Najam asked. “I’ve never taken much of an interest in geology, but I believe I would have at least heard of anything this far into the Border Forest. Are you perhaps from a continent past the beach?”
“Oh no, I think you misunderstand,” I said, shaking my head. “We aren’t from this planet at all.”
That information seemed to catch their attention. Najam’s people, who sat scattered around us on various tables and chairs, all leaned forward in interest then. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I follow," Najam said. "Where are you from, then?”
I took in a breath, collecting my thoughts. “Well, everything I know is gathered from what the Grand Order people told us, and I have to say, a lot of what they did tell me kinda went over my head. But I’ll tell you exactly what they told me.”
The words ‘Grand Order,’ seemed to register with the people, which I took to be good news. “The planet that we’re from, Earth, from what I understand, was separated from the rest of the universe by something called…the something Seal, I think?” I turned to Ren, who filled in for me.
“The Planet Seal, I believe it was called,” he said.
I snapped my fingers in recognition. “Yup, that’s it. The Planet Seal. That’s what she called it. Not that we have any idea what that is. Speaking of which, do you?”
Najam nodded, a clear fire of intrigue burning in his eye. “You’re from the other side of the Planet Seal? That’s amazing. I never thought a universal wonder like that would be revealed in my lifetime. I heard that the rune work on the Seal was so powerful that it even cut off the Flux of the universe. Is that true?”
“Uh, yeah, I think? I mean, all I know is that Flux only reached Earth about a hundred years ago. But I wasn’t alive at the time, I don’t really know what it was like before Flux. Also, you still haven’t explained what the Planet Seal is.”
“Ah, my apologies. It’s just that it’s odd having to explain such a thing, you know. The Planet Seal is one of the universe’s most famous mysteries. It’s been around far longer than even most Immortals, and no one really knows what its purpose is – or was, I suppose. All we could tell was that it was made by an incredibly advanced group of people, as its rune work was far, far beyond what even the best research mages of today are capable of. There have been many theories of what lay on the other side, but no one could really provide any proof. Honestly, it is an honor to be able to speak to people on the other side.”
Ren and I were silent for a moment, digesting the interesting knowledge. “I guess that explains why the universe seemed almost impossibly empty from our side,” Ren remarked eventually. “Turns out we were just in jail.”
“Impossibly empty?” Najam echoed in confusion.
“Well, given how massive the universe that we could see was, it just seemed statistically unlikely that Earth was the only planet to develop life. But as far as we could tell, that was the case,” Ren explained.
Understanding lit up Najam’s face. “Ah, I see. That’s fascinating. So tell me, how did the Planet Seal fall apart?”
I shrugged at the question. “We have no idea. That’s all beyond anything we know. All we know is…” I went on, detailing everything that Ren and I had learned about the situation – which, admittedly, was a very small amount – before going over the sequence of events that led to us ending up on Argonis. The story seemed to enrapture the men and women gathered, and I could feel the tense environment begin to fade away as I regaled them with our tale. More than a few of the warriors even grabbed their own drinks as they began to relax.
“...and that’s pretty much how we spent the past three months before we ran into this little village,” I concluded, bringing my story to a close.
“I must say, that is a splendid story,” Najam said, leaning back in his chair, a wide smile splitting his face. “You’ve had quite the adventure getting here, huh?”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Not to mention impressive,” the golden-haired man finally spoke, a grin curling his lips. “I have to commend your survivability. The fact that the both of you are still alive and well after everything is amazing.”
I flushed a little at the praise. “I mean, there was a healthy dose of luck involved, so we can’t take all the credit for it.”
The big man waved away my point. “Luck only sets the stage. It’s up to the individual to act with strength and tenacity.”
“Ah, I just realized,” Najam cut in then. “I don’t believe I’ve introduced my men to the both of you, have I? Where are my manners,” he said, almost as if chastising himself. Getting up from his seat, the boy went around and quickly introduced his people.
“This here is Gyda,” Najam said, beginning with the tall woman with the battle ax. “She’s our resident berserker, a Battle Mage whose main job is, as you can imagine, to rush into the enemy line with her massive ax swinging.” As he spoke, Gyda flashed us a great big grin – the exact grin I imagined she would sport as she decimated her enemies.
“Nice ta meetcha,” the woman said, putting her hand out and gripping mine and Ren’s hands with a firm shake.
Moving on to the golden-haired man beside her, Najam spoke again. “This is Lionel, our Paladin/Guardian – he hasn’t decided yet. Whatever he chooses will change his job a little, but essentially, he’s in charge of tanking and a little healing.”
The man, following Gyda’s lead, also stuck out his hand, giving us a charming grin as we shook hands. “It’s a pleasure,” the man said.
“Likewise,” I responded, matching the man’s grin as best I could.
“This here is Galas,” Najam continued, gesturing to the biggest of the men gathered. I realized then that I’d missed a strange feature of the man in my initial inspection of him. The man’s earlobes were long, far longer than any human’s should be. They fell almost to his shoulders, but despite their strangeness, it looked oddly right for his style.
“He’s our Shaman, which means he can communicate with and tame spirits and spirit beasts, although I doubt you know what those are at the moment. Essentially, his job is mainly to heal, but he can also summon apparitions of animals to assist with offense.”
The giant man nodded to us, his wide, kind smile and closed eyes giving him a gentle look.
“And last, but not least,” Najam said, moving on to the short woman with a wand, “we have Tara, our rune specialist.” Najam looked at the girl then, a teasing smile on his face. “Don't let her tiny figure fool you,” he said, making the girl bristle, “she’s by far the oldest person here.”
“And don’t forget,” Tara added, her words dripping with irritation, “also the most destructive of you lot.”
Najam chuckled nervously in response. “Of course, of course, I would never forget,” he responded, before turning back to us. “Tara here is responsible for the damage output of our group, thanks to her wide arsenal of destructive Artes.”
I put up my hand then, catching Najam’s attention. “I’ve got questions,” I said.
Najam smiled. “Shoot,” he responded.
“Ok, first. These roles that everyone has, what’s up with that? Are you guys soldiers or something, and if so, who or what are you guys fighting? And, more generally, what are you guys doing living here in the middle of the forest?” I fired off, making my way through the list that had been building up in my head.
“Ah, I see I forgot to explain what we are to you. My apologies,” Najam said. “To begin with, we don’t actually live here. This little camp was set up as a temporary base for our exploration team. We, here,” Najam gestured to all the people gathered, “are adventurers. Which means we work for the Adventurers Guild. Our jobs include a massive range of things, enough that I couldn’t possibly go over all of them with you today, but at the most basic level, we essentially fight stuff. Usually beasts, and usually in dungeons, but that’s not a hard-and-fast rule.”
“Dungeons?” I asked.
Najam nodded. “Yeah, dungeons.”
I waited a beat, but it was clear Najam wasn’t going to explain beyond that, so I prompted him again. “And what are these ‘dungeons’ you speak of?”
Confusion colored Najam’s face again. “Did your home planet not have dungeons?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I mean, we had man-made prison dungeons and stuff, but something tells me that's not what we’re talking about here.”
“Huh. Well, that’s interesting. But, ultimately, beyond my pay grade. Anyway, dungeons. They are…” Najam trailed off there, trying to find the words. “Well, they’re a little hard to explain if you’ve never seen them before. The magical theory behind them is very complex, but most people don’t care for that. Essentially, all you need to know about them is that they randomly spawn little portals anywhere in the world. And those portals take you into these strange new dimensions that are rich with powerful monsters and incredibly valuable resources. As such, adventurers make teams and go into these dungeons, kill all the monsters, and plunder all the resources. And the most valuable of all those resources are the Dungeon Cores. And once those are destroyed or otherwise removed from their spots, the dimension will simply fold in on itself and be destroyed.”
“And so long as the Core isn’t removed,” added Tara, “the dungeon will repeatedly form the monsters within over and over again, using the ambient Flux of the surroundings to do so.”
Najam nodded in agreement. “And that’s exactly why adventurers are needed to go in and clear these dungeons. Dungeons have specific capacities to them, and if one is left alone for too long, it’ll make more monsters than it can handle, and end up spewing them out of the portal. As you can imagine, that can be a problem for a number of reasons.”
“Is that why you guys are here?” Ren asked.
Najam nodded. “Kinda. We are an exploration team – about a hundred and fifty adventurers strong – with the mission to investigate and document the surrounding dungeons, and wildlife, too. Ideally, we want to get an accurate report of every dungeon nearby, with their strength levels, types, and other details that the Adventurer's Guild can add to their database. And, even more ideally, we're hoping to find some kind of untapped resource vein, since we're so far from most human activity.”