Before the monsters arrived, people did. A group of robed bureaucrats by the look of them, all bowing low to Tyr, some of them even had tears in their eyes. He grimaced, thankful that they couldn't see the look on his face. They all appeared from gates and made themselves scarce through the yawning maw of swirling energies that denoted the exit. Next, were a wide array of adventurers and paladins working in cooperation, runes of a quickstep enchantment marking their feet. Tyr held his auronite blade in his right hand, and an hatchet in another. Girshan and the others paused, staring at him with conflicted expressions before disappearing through the portal behind the others.

Are they angry with me? He thought. Tyr had expected them to leave, but to say nothing at all felt a little rude. Ultimately, he accepted it for what it was. It made sense. He'd disappeared again, as he had from the perspective of his one-time friends. Naturally, they'd probably all be angry. Even Iscari, which made his heart hurt. But if anything could sooth his spirit, it was the taste of money. So much money that he could build a kingdom, not that he wanted to, but it was all heading straight towards him. A lifetime supply of oakenshot and all the meat he could eat was good enough for him.

Come on... Tyr's hands were twitching. Not with fear. He'd grown so confident in his ability to remain effectively untouchable that he didn't fear the smaller creatures. It was lust. A lust for blood and gold that he hadn't known lay so close to his core. COME ON!

Not with fear, at first, until a tremendous mana signature made itself known. And another, and then no mana at all – but a man with an incredibly dense spira. Tyr turned, infusing himself with the elements of fire and earth, as far as he could take it. A cold sweat bursting from his back. Primus'. They had to be, except...

“Who the fuck are you?” He asked. He turned, expecting to see three of his fathers peers, only to peer at three doppelgangers of himself. At least in the armor. They all wore the black cloaks and leathers, with shockingly similar masks on their faces. Except for the rendition of emotion carved within them. One of sad, one happy, and the other was the face he'd have given to Jura in a time that seemed so long ago when she went on about 'breeding' and making him 'her bi--

“No time. Through the portal you go.” Happy face said. “Now.” There was a hard line to his voice, leaving Tyr with a furrowed brow. It sounded exactly like the monologue within him. As if he was listening to himself.

“Causality effect is in another thirty seconds.” Poker face grabbed him by the scruff of his cardigan, on the opposite end of the gorget capping his breastplate. “Sorry, kid.”

“Fu--” He wanted to extrapolate. Wanted to swing about and clonk the man on the head for grabbing him. That man in particular had such a fearsome spira, but he was frozen by the unmasked face of a woman that looked shockingly similar to his mother. Like twins – so alike in appearance, and she stared at him with a conflicted look. His words freezing in his throat. “Mom...?”

“Not your mom. Jesus. You were right when you said 'tribal'.” She said, looking down at him with disdain on her face. “Toss him.”

They were him. It wasn't his mother. It was him. Tyr didn't have much time to consider the fact, among other things he'd heard, before he was effortlessly pulled from his feet and launched through the rapidly closing dimensional gate face first.

Poker face sighed. “Fucking hell. You just had to go about saving people. Now look at us! We're stuck here!” He whine, but didn't seem overworked despite the facts presented.

Sad face, also known as 'fourteen' shrugged. “What's another century to us? I've yet to cap my alchemy and this space is pretty good for it. Lots of plants all around and those tribals have no idea what they're worth.”

Happy face, seventy two, chuckled. “Well, whatever. Beats all the fetch quests.”

Poker face frowned beneath his mask. “At what point do you guys start saying something that makes sense to me? You know my world is different than yours...”

–

Hard steel was the first thing he felt. Clashing against a shield before tumbled about the cavernous tunnel and being lifted to his feet by a strong pair of arms. Tyr's head rung, landing unceremoniously on top of somebody else.

“Is this ours, or...?” Someone said.

“I've no clue.” Another replied. “This whole experience has been a total nightmare.”

“Aye. To think that somewhere in the cosmos there's more than one of him running around is more than I can handle.”

It wasn't a strong pair of hands at all, but a strong pair of pincers. Kirk turned Tyr around before ascertaining that he was still healthy and alive, just suffering from the affects of an unexpected ejection through an astral gate.

“How many pincers am I holding up?” He asked.

“...Two?” Tyr replied. “Wait... Would it be one? Or is each articulating part of the claw an independent unit in this quantification?”

“Not ours.” Kirk 'frowned'. It was hard to tell, given his parts, maxilla and mandibles... Arthropods had so many unique, delicate components of a mouth. Was it racist to say 'mouth'? They stared at him while the man they were discussing lurched on his feet, feeling like he might vomit. “Our Tyr would never use such big words.”

“Throw him back!” Benny cried, a desperate edge to his voice. Abe had hastily explained multiverse theory to them. He was no dimensional mage, but he'd always found it interesting. The concept that every living organism had an infinite number of twins throughout the cosmos was simply too much for any academic to ignore. His knowledge regarding it was rudimentary, but it was there. If he was correct, two copies of one person located in the physical world could have terrifying effects – the least of all being their respective deaths.

Kirk clicked his free pincer. “I cannot. The gate is closed. Look” They all did, with the others showing no small amount of concern. That swirling mass of energy having been an azure color was now dull and red. Operating on some approximate to the spectrum of light. Blue was closer to white, and so on and so forth. Heat and available energy coming from 'the bridge'. “I'll throw him, if you want, but he'll just hit the wall on the other side.”

“Fuck!” Benny cried, grabbing Tyr from Kirk's grasp and violently shaking him. “You bastard! Go back from whence you came!”

Tyr felt his body jerked around so many times, he no longer knew where he was. “Plea.... Please s-stop, oh fuck. I'm gonna be sick. Stop! Benny!”

“...”

Benny paused, holding him aloft by his collar. “You know who I am?”

“What the hell is the matter with you?” Tyr asked, groaning. “Of course I know who you are. Kirk, please answer the question regarding the pincers.”

“Two would be an appropriate answer.” Kirk responded. “I suppose I'd accept either, though. In all honesty, I hadn't very well thought it out... Great question. For future reference, let's go with two!”

“Oh... He knows who Kirk is as well!” Tyr recognized the half-orcs face, but had never bothered to learn his name. Thankfully, most of the nameless adventurers around Amistad had some kind of complex regarding his rapid ascent to his 'official' silver rank. Practically instant, which was something that never happened. Even the 'ash bringer' Kael himself had ground through years of effort to gain his position as a platinum ranker. Tyr had always figured it was a perk of being a 'prince'. At least at the time. One small bit of corruption that he was more than happy to accept in order to make his life easier.

“Looks like it's our Tyr.” Benny cleared his throat, giving Tyr an awkward half smile before dusting off his robe apologetically. Despite the fact that the robe was so black as to seem alien to any particulate attempting to make itself at home in the folds. It was always clean, not in need of much in the way of maintenance. “This armor is so bad ass...”

“Ah.” Tyr sighed. “You've met the other me's.”

“So there are other versions of you? They weren't haemonculi, or skin changers? I toyed with the idea that they were chimera, but according to the watch captain – chimera cannot freely enter without anchor runes binding them to their creator. You didn't...” Abe paused, looking about shiftily. Thankfully, the paladins seemed concerned with leaving as soon as humanly possible, only one of their number remained. The captain, speaking to the sentinel at the furthest checkpoint in hushed tones. “You didn't create chimeras, did you? Or worse, breed with one!? Oh gods... Never breed with a chimera!” Abe hissed.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Tyr gave him a hard look, an easy one to read. Of course he hadn't. To create a true chimera was to be the equal of a mage that simply had no equals. Even in thousands of years of magical history, no other being had achieved a similar feat. Not even a primus, and some had almost certainly tried. “Apparently...” He frowned. Deciding that keeping any undue secrets was tantamount to lying to them. He didn't want to do that. “There isn't one universe. There are, like... Thousands of them? Infinity... Of... Them? I have no idea, but there are a lot. And in each one, there is a different version of all of us. They all have different universal laws and rules. Different gods, lifestyles, languages. And the world...” Tyr paused again.

He glared, steely and resolute. “What I am about to tell you must absolutely never leave our confidence. Swear on it. Give me your oath.”

Even Abe gulped at that. Tyr was a dark and brooding type of lad, but he'd never seen the boy so incredibly serious. They all did as they were asked. Some more sacred that others, but it was the thought that counted.

“The world.” Tyr grit his teeth, half unable to come to grips with the shock revelation himself. Something that had literally turned his world upside down. “It's round... Like a sphere! It's not flat!”

“...”

“You swear?” Jura asked, looking uncomfortable. Almost nauseous. Tyr nodded, explaining that he had no idea how it was possible. They barraged him with questions, all of which he answered with a 'no idea'. Why things didn't simply fall off the surface of a marble shaped mass, or why the seas remained in place despite the spin.

“That's...” Girshan's face screwed up in discomfort. He was well aware the world was 'round', the idiocy of the boy was beyond measure. But there was one question on his mind after all their encounters. “Multiple versions of us all around the cosmos? Fairly daunting...”

“No.” Tyr shook his head, feeling a overtaxed. Mentally, he hadn't gotten a real chance to stretch his legs which was unfortunate. “I'd say it's the exact opposite.”

He had felt the pressure of 'duty' his entire life. Whether he actually bent to it, which he rarely had, or cared about it was another story. It was like complaining about waking up early for work. Whether they did it or not was irrelevant. It still sucked. Sometimes, in his case, it felt like his refusal to participate was going against the cosmic order. He was him, and when 'he' was the only 'Tyr', it was a burden, no small one at that.

But now, knowing that he had a near infinite amount of timelines that he was a part of. Maybe the visions he'd been shown were done so to show him at his worst. He'd always been filled with glorious purpose in those visions. A life goal that stuck heavy in his mind. Even if he couldn't remember the specific goals, he could remember the feeling. The need to live and abide by them. Now? What did duty matter in the face of a cosmic truth? Tyr was more resolved than ever to simply do whatever he wanted without care of consequence. It didn't wipe away all his regrets, but if there with an infinite amount of Tyr's, statistically, it was impossible that they were all failures!

“Are you going to stay with us?” Yana asked nervously. She had read Jura's demeanor and followed the older woman's lead. Promising to strike Tyr about the head with a hammer didn't seem to concern either of them anymore, despite their oaths just days ago to do such a thing. They'd thought he was dead, the relay stations had given them some rather ambiguous replies and told them to 'evacuate as soon as possible'.

Tyr shrugged. “You don't belong to me, and by the same turn, I do not belong to you – you can go ahead and report me a bondsman derelict in his duties if you'd like. I will do as I always have. Do whatever I want. You?”

He looked to Girshan and Abe in particular. Well aware that the others would follow them until they eventually settled down somewhere. If they settled down somewhere.

“You pay.” Girshan nodded. “We'll fight for you. As free men, but we have no homes. Unless you've a mind to escort us personally all the way south to Saorsa.”

Tyr chuckled. “I don't. But if free passage through Varia is what you're after, I have a friend.” And a writ of safe conduct that he'd been squirreling away for years in the event that his father somehow failed to kill him. Another mark as well, the silver eagle of Varia. A medallion given to him by Iscari that was worth more than a hundred times his weight in gold or silver. Something he could show anyone in that particular empire and make them kneel, even forgiving him in the event of a capital crime, anything less than sexual assault and he was as free of the bird the mark was stamped into.

Abe shook his head, amused. “I like that laugh. We'll stay. Live, and when the time comes, perhaps we shall leave. It has been three decades since I have been a free man. Or, in this case, telurian. Your noun's are so... Never mind. I am content to follow.”

“What about your family?” Tyr asked. He knew Abe had a wife and two children, and spoke of them on occasion.

Abe shrugged. “Wife remarried. Children are adults. While I love them, they have cut all ties with me. One day I will see them again, but there is no rush. This business with our master must be concluded first. If I can count on your oath to do anything to free us, I have no worries.”

Tyr nodded, he would do as he'd said. No matter how inconvenient it was, even if it meant walking them there himself. Saorsa didn't seem so bad. He'd never go back on his word, whatever the context.

All of the others agreed. Even Jura, something Tyr had not expected. She was such a wild and free spirit that he'd figured she'd disappear at the earliest chance she got. Something that he wouldn't mind, personally. Talented or not, they were both a present and now future pain in his backside. They had no idea how to take care of themselves. Girshan and Abe had been adults before being taken, but the others had communicated their reticence regarding freedom. Xavier, in particular, looked like he'd forgotten the simply act of breathing. As if knowing that he had nobody to give him commands, feed him, clothe him, etcetera, was like being born again. A baby bird kicked from the nest, they might chirp for it but when it came time for them to go off sailing toward the ground...

Tyr had seen men like that. Older men, usually. Fresh from the army or legions, unable to live a normal life without a regimented schedule. Without being told how to live. He could empathize with it himself. The first thing he'd done after being 'freed' from his own duty was run away and drown in a bottle and piles of narcotics. He'd still be there, if Daito hadn't pulled him out of it.

“Daito...” Tyr mumbled, looking around and removing his mask. It wasn't something he 'took off', he thought it – and the mask disappeared. Bizarrely, he could still feel it on his face. Poking at the barrier there and noticing it was just as hard as before. Miraculous...

There were many guilds represented in the tunnel. An anomaly was no small thing, but mostly – the pay associated with it was simply incredible. Many had come, a motley of diverse adventurers and the more uniformly human guards behind them. Tyr made eye contact with the first Hunter he saw. A dwarf with a mustache stretching beyond the length of his face, a double strung crossbow held tight in his massive digits. “Where is Daito?”

Not just the dwarf, but all of the Hunter's looked at him. As if he'd done them some offense, hard eyes and all glares. Until those same eyes traced the lines of his armor down to the medallion at his belt, the skull of the Hunter's guild. Many of them were from other regions, not having witnessed the mess that Tyr had been during his bizarre introduction. Once they saw that sigil, their gazes softened. Some of them turning away in disinterest, while others smiled at him. Beyond that were the veterans, the hard men and women and otherwise that looked him up and down. Seemingly satisfied, they too looked away. A few scoffed, but they didn't seem so offended anymore.

“Captain Daito.” The dwarf chided, but he was a jolly sort. Pushing through the crowd and taking Tyr by the harnessed breastplate covering his chest. Tugging it tight and checking the straps in a fatherly sort of way. These people, the Hunter's, they were hard and grim. Didn't like the other guilds too much, but they took care of their own. All brothers and sisters, unbound to the titles of nobility that would cause men to bicker and argue. Never looking for an angle on another man. The dwarf seemed content with the make of his armor, nodding calmly and continuing to speak. “I'd heard he'd took an apprentice. Could do with a bit more discipline though. Not that it matters much to our lot, right lad?”

“Ah...” Tyr nodded slowly. “Yes sir.”

“Ah!” The dwarf boomed into raucous laughter, some of the other grim faced Hunter's joining him in his mirth with wide smiles. “A bit of discipline in you, after all. Daito's run for Leygein, closest city – terrain wise. Not as the crow flies, reckon, but the lotus field gets in the way and all that. He'll be back, with reinforcements.”

“Reinforcements?” Tyr asked. He turned about, observing just how many people had come to this place. People of all races that he was familiar with, and a few that he was not. “Reinforcements for what?”

“That.” The dwarf jerked his head to the rear, his friendly features completely composed. Free hand twirling at his mustache. “What we in the industry like to call 'the money train'.”

One of the men, with the red crown of the Dynasty guild stamped on his adventurers badge leveled a glistening axe, letting it hang in the air. Answering Tyr's question. “Dungeon break!”