When CJ woke up in the morning, there was clearly legible text where the darkness was in the right side of his vision. He sat up in alarm, but the words didn’t move.
There was more than text. While his left eye watched the refugees collect and talk, some of them eating a morning meal that smelled like a rather bland meat soup, his right eye was focused on a 3D puck like shape that was emblazoned with the letters CJ.
There was a circular green area around the CJ symbol, and other markers like white arrows pointing down lingered near the edge of that green space before it faded into black.
There was a simple message in text that lingered on his right side.
* Objective: Make an allegiance *
“You’re awake,” Larl said. He was coming from the direction of the center of the refugee camp. He had a small brown bowl in his hands, and offered it to CJ as he got close. “Hungry?”
CJ watched as a marker approached the CJ puck. It stopped right in front of CJ just as Larl stood there with the bowl proffered. CJ reached up from his kneeling position, took the bowl and nodded.
“Thanks,” CJ said. He looked at the soup, which was almost gray with a few small chunks of something in it. “What is it?”
“All we have,” Larl said with a smile. “But before you eat it, you have to agree to let me look at your injury.”
CJ looked at Larl, who stood there in a pose of feigned innocence. His hands were held out, and he kept eye contact with CJ. CJ tilted the spoon to his mouth and sipped at it. As he guessed from the smell, it was pretty bland. But it did have a savory aspect to it. He wasn’t exactly an expert cook, so he wasn’t going to complain.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Larl took a step closer and squatted down. “Does it hurt?”
CJ shook his head no. “A little sore, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
He thought about saying more, but he didn’t even know how to begin to describe what was happening. While he had an inclination, it was hard to describe to a priest from a fantasy world.
“The scar isn’t bad,” Larl said. “Still, I think we should show the uhm, Lady Mae.”
CJ took note of the pause. “Sure, not like I have a lot of plans.”
As he took another big gulp of soup, Larl stood and clapped his hands together. “Perfect. Come on, we can chat in private while she finishes her business.”
He didn’t realize Larl meant showing her right then. But he was being honest, he had no clue what his options were in this world, he didn’t have anywhere to be. Until he figured out more about this world, there was no way he could even think about trying to find a path home.
“Do me a favor though,” Larl said. “Keep that eye closed as we walk, please.”
That was a strange request, but CJ tested closing it again. There was only text again, his objective floating in the void.
“Perfect.”
CJ finished his soup as they walked through the camp. Near the center was a tent more elaborate than the couple others. It stood tall enough that someone could stand comfortably inside, and was wide enough a dozen people could probably squeeze in at once. There were two guards standing outside. CJ noted that they had the yellow lines, leading off to a woman talking to a man not far away. The woman not currently in armor, but she had a sword at her side.
“In here,” Larl said. The tent flap was pushed aside.
Inside there was a simple table placed across a pair of small chests that were flipped on their sides. Wooden stools were on opposite sides of the makeshift table, and a bag with several rolled up documents sticking out was placed right beside it.
“Go ahead and sit on one of the stools,” Larl said as he went to a bag in the corner of the tent. He grabbed it and dragged it over.
Inside the tent now, CJ opened his right eye. As he expected, the CJ puck was in a different place now. It was placed over a brown square. There was green at the edges, and then the fade to black beyond that.
“Where did you say you were from?” Larl asked as he approached with his bag. He sat across the makeshift table from CJ, adjusting on the stool.
“I guess that depends,” CJ replied. He tried to smile, but between the emotional exhaustion and the tension of the situation, he could only manage a fluttering grin.
“On what?”
CJ blinked, thought about his answer. “Why are you asking?”
Larl chuckled, then leaned back and laughed. But instead of answering, he leaned over and fished into the bag at his side. When he came back up he had a head-sized mirror with a handle in his hands.
“When Lady Mae returns, I have a good idea what she is going to want to say to you. It isn’t my duty, but I want to both be prepared for that, and prepare you for that. Much has happened to us, and I’m afraid the Lady might depend on you more than she should out of desperation. That could end in tragedy for all of us.”
CJ sat up on the stool, his eyebrow rising. He didn’t expect an answer that straightforward. Not that Larl was anything but forthcoming so far, but it still felt strange.
“Oh,” CJ whispered.
“In addition,” Larl said while handing the mirror over to CJ, “I wanted to gauge how likely it is that that is normal.”
CJ held the mirror in front of him and looked at his face. He was right before, he didn’t look normal. It was almost as if he was younger by a few years, or just healthier. His cheeks were fuller, his skin a vibrant brown.
But he immediately knew what Larl was referencing. His right eye had a bright yellow iris, almost glowing. Where his pupil should be, there was a symbol he didn’t recognize. It was outlined in white, an uneven triangle pointed down where the top upper part ended in five points like a simple mountain range.
“What the hell!” CJ shouted, “my eye!”
“Shhh, freak out quieter please.” Larl said.
CJ pulled down his lower eyelid and tried to look around. The eye tracked with his left eye, but he wasn’t shocked that it didn’t change the view of the right hemisphere of his vision. There was a scar above and below his eye, the flesh along his cheek looking like a pink gash that was already safely sealed.
“This is wild,” CJ said, “what is this?”
Larl shook his head. “We noticed it last night when we tended to you. I’m sure Lady Mae has already noticed it as well. I can only say that I’ve never heard of anything like it. I take it this doesn’t happen where you come from either?”
CJ dropped the mirror and looked at Larl. “No, this is a new one. I… how much did your Lady tell you about what I said?”
Larl shrugged, “Rumors are spreading around about you, but they are rather incomplete. You are either from a distant land, or you manifested in the temple. Both fantastic legends to have attached to yourself.”
A legend, yet somehow the truth was even weirder than either stories.
“I think I’m from a different world completely. You know Sir Byr’s sword, the Ash Walkers, we don’t have anything like that where I’m from. No magic stuff like whatever your friend rubbed on my eye, or glowing eyeballs, none of that.”
The priest watched him and considered that. “You just call yourself CJ, right?”
“That’s what everyone calls me,” CJ said.
Larl nodded, “You say no magic, but we don’t really call anything you named magic either.”
CJ leaned in. “You have zombies and flaming swords, and that isn’t magic to you?”
“Yes and no,” Larl said. “Most of that power comes from your Soulflame, it is part of everyone, even you. Not everyone can achieve every trick their soul is capable of, honestly the majority won’t. But magic is… something more than that, ritualistic and arcane.”
That made sense. CJ put a blanket label over everything they can do. Larl was saying that ‘Magic’ was more specific.
“What Sister Halta does is pretty magical though,” Larl said with a grin. “She is one impressive priestess.”
The man was disarming, and seemed jovial for someone that just left a disaster. CJ grinned back, but knew he had to elaborate. “Well Larl, where I come from people don’t even all believe souls exist, and they don’t even see them the say way. We definitely don’t have whatever Soulflame is.”
That stunned Larl. The priest’s mouth hung open, then he tapped at his chin before nodding and whispering something to himself. “What is the same here?”
“Well you all look human at least,” CJ said. “The architecture, lots of items and tools, feel similar. The world doesn’t look too different, I think I saw pine trees out there and the grass is normal.”
“Kula trees,” Larl said. “Though I’m glad they’re familiar.”
The two of them just sat and looked at each other for a moment, then Larl hummed in consideration. “If that much is different, maybe you should be asking the questions.”
CJ laughed, a nervous smile on his face. “If I started asking questions, Larl, I don’t know if I’d ever stop. This is all, insane.”
Larl shrugged, “Your questions will be just as informative. If you promise me that you truly mean it when you say you come from a different world, then I will answer any question I can.”
The man looked sincere to CJ. He couldn’t see why he would lie, but then again he only knew one group of living people on this world. For all he knew he was wandering around with thieves and liars, and falling for an obvious con. But it didn’t feel that way.
“Okay,” CJ said. He thought for a moment. “We can start from the beginning, what is an Ash Walker?”
As the words came out of his mouth, his objective in the right side of his vision faded away and was replaced with a prompt.
|Field Guide <|
It had an arrow pointing to it that blinked twice before opening an entry that said ‘Ash Walkers’ at the top. But beneath that was just three question marks.
CJ stiffened up, but Larl didn’t notice. The priest was looking off to the side, his eyes distant. The question caused a deeper reaction than CJ imagined.
Still, whatever his eye was doing was new. It seemed ready to answer his question, but it was just as lost as him about the answer.
“Ash Walkers are, a mistake,” Larl said. “Terrible people have learned that they can take the ash left behind when a soul expires, and perform terrible deeds with it. Ash Walkers are the remains of a soul returned to a body, animating it in a blasphemous mockery of the life God once gave it.”
So in the end, they were just zombies. Though Larl’s description of making them was draped in religious language. CJ wasn’t sure what it all meant.
But the question marks in the guide entry faded away, and were replaced with a text.
|Blasphemous undead created using the ash remains from a Soulstone and placing them in a dead body.|
“They are illegal to make anywhere in civilized society. Even learning to make them is highly guarded.”
CJ didn’t know what a Soulstone was. The guide mentioned it, but he wasn’t sure if it knew either. Did he have to speak his questions out loud, or could he navigate it another way? He concentrated on the question, ‘what is a Soulstone?’
The entry on Ash Walkers vanished and instead a new entry appeared on Soulstones. But it was also empty. He wanted to see the whole field guide, just look at what all he could browse. With minimal concentration, a list of categories appeared.
|Field Guide|
|-Politics
|-Creatures
|-People
|-Places
|-Phenomenon
|-Abilities
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|-More
So many options. For all he knew they were already filled with so much he didn’t know.
“Sorry,” Larl said. He looked back to CJ and smiled again. “Next question.”
CJ snapped out of it. “Yeah, sorry. What next. Earlier when I was talking to Alyss, she brought up someone called Hibe. I figured it was your word for god, but you just said God. Was I wrong? Who is Hibe?”
The entry for Hibe popped up in his vision. It also noted a few other names.
|See, Father Hi, the One.|
But there wasn’t much in the notes. While he could glean some extra knowledge from field guide entries, it could only get him so much beyond what he actually knew.
|A god of the Soul and Fire, considered the central and/or highest god of multiple religions.|
“Oh,” Larl said with a sudden realization. “You actually don’t know about Hibe? That is… okay, this is too good. I would absolutely love to be the first one to speak to you about god. You might suspect from my profession, but it is kind of a specialty of mine. But that would require more time than we have right now, and I want to do it right. So please, ask me again when we have an actual roof over our heads.”
CJ couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Okay, okay. Another question then. Soulflame, I heard it mentioned and it seems kind of important.”
Larl took in a sharp breath, looked down, then went into his bag again. He came back out with a small black box that fit in his palm with a hinge on it to open in the center.
“What’s that?” CJ asked. “You look like you’re about to propose.”
Larl raised an eyebrow at him. “A prop, it’ll make sense eventually, trust me. So you say you don’t know what Soulflame is, which sounds like your world might be a little… underdeveloped when it comes to observing the inner workings of the body.”
“I promise you that ain’t the case,” CJ said with a shrug, “but go ahead.”
“I just meant,” Larl started, then cut himself off. “Well, Soulflame is what powers us, CJ. When you are born it is placed inside you by God, and it animates you. Without it, we could not move on beat with the world around us. We draw power from our Soulflame to renew us. When you are tired it has gone dim, and once you rest it burns bright again.”
CJ’s first instinct was to consider all of that flowery language, but considering where he was and what was happening, he needed to start taking everything a little more seriously.
“So, the box?” CJ asked.
“Almost there,” Larl said. “Soulflame has another aspect. For those that toil hard enough, a piece of your soul will solidify, becoming housing for your energy to grow even stronger.”
CJ thought for a moment, “Is that the Soulstone thing?”
Larl pointed at him, “Exactly! For many people, Soulflame is enough to live their lives. For soldiers, or those who wish to practice in the Attuned fields like myself, you must have a Soulstone. With it, there are crucial attributes that grow with you. Through a Soulstone, great heroes have performed divine feats beyond measure. But for most of us, those attributes can at least be estimated.”
He opened the box, and inside were several thin strips of a very bleached white wood. They were like thin tongue depressors, except squared off at the ends. Larl pulled two out, leaving a good dozen still in the box. He put the box down on the table, and placed one of the strips on top of the hinged box. Then he took the strip in his hands, and snapped it near the center so that the fibers of the wood were poking toward CJ.
“We go like this,” Larl said, then he stuck the wood to his chest with a finger.
As CJ watched, the wood started to stain with color. It went from a cool blue to a light green, and then stopped changing.
Larl held the strip out for CJ to see, and then nodded toward it. “See?”
CJ grinned, “I don’t know what I just saw.”
“Oh right, of course.” Larl said as he put the strip on the table and grabbed the fresh one. “Well, the strip changes color based on your attributes. These are a simple gauge of power, usually used to see if a prisoner is a risk. They make others that can quickly read all four major attributes enhanced by Soulflame individually, or even some other traits. All while in the field. Even when I was young this was more complex, a bit exhausting for the person observed too.”
CJ looked at the strip, still green. “What does green mean?”
Larl looked a little sheepish, a slight blush coming to his cheeks. “Not that impressive I’m afraid. It goes from blue, to green, to yellow. I hear Sir Byr is nearly orange, the man is a legend.”
The priest grabbed the second strip of wood and then nodded toward CJ. Before CJ could respond, Larl snapped the wood, walked over, and placed it against CJ’s robes at the chest.
For a moment CJ panicked. But he wasn’t certain what result terrified him more. What if it came back blue, and CJ was a nobody in this world just like the last? What if it turned some terrifying shade, becoming a black mess that marked him as more powerful than anyone else? He didn’t know if he wanted to be part of this world’s mess, but how terrible would it be to get reborn in a fantasy world, and be just as useless as ever? Then again, there was another option, a more likely option.
“I don’t know if that’ll even work,” CJ said. “I mean, I’m not from here Larl, I never had one of those flame things.”
Larl shushed him, and pointed.
CJ looked down and saw what Larl did. The color of the strip was changing, it went from the same light blue to a very light green and then stopped.
“Oh,” Larl said. “I didn’t expect that.”
“You said green wasn’t impressive,” CJ said.
“Still, it means you at least have a Soulstone.” Larl said with a wrinkle in his brow. “Interesting, very interesting.”
“So that means…” CJ wasn’t following well enough to know.
“It means you have potential, for one.” Larl said. “Once you have a Soulstone, it is much easier to advance in power from there. Impressive for someone that wasn’t sure souls were real. At least now you know.”
“I don’t think that…” CJ lifted a hand as he started to argue, stopped, and then dropped both his hand and the argument. “I have another question actually.”
Larl took the strip and placed both used strips in the bag along with the box. “Of course, go ahead.”
“What language are you speaking right now?” CJ asked.
“Language?” Larl asked. He closed up the bag and pulled it over toward the corner of the tent again. “We’re speaking the same language. Though your accent is pretty odd.”
“I figured,” CJ said, “But what’s it called?”
“Midlandish,” Larl said. “Why?”
CJ considered for a moment. “Do you know any other languages?”
“A little Northern tradetongue.”
“Talk in that for me, as much as you can.” CJ asked. He hoped he was right about this.
Larl cleared his throat, then spoke in a stunted and slow voice, “Our forecast shows the prices are all correct.”
But for CJ, it came out in perfect English. His lips moved as if he was speaking in English too.
“Okay, experiment successful,” CJ said. “It doesn’t matter what language you speak, I can understand it.”
Larl’s eyes bulged for a moment. “You must be joking. You understood me? I barely understood me.”
“Perfectly, it all came through as English.”
Larl tilted his head. “Okay I didn’t understand that word.”
“English?”
“Yeah there it is again. It kind of hurt to hear it, like a high pitched wail.” Larl said. “Sometimes you say stuff that doesn’t make much sense, but that wasn’t anything at all.”
That was interesting. So something was translating for him, anything spoken at least. But sometimes he wasn’t translated back. English was a specific word, referencing the language of a certain group of named people. Maybe whatever force was translating him back to Midlandish couldn’t find a proper set of words for it?
The tent door opened and Alyss the soldier walked in with her hand on her sword.
Behind her was Lady Mae, who looked worlds more composed than the night before. She was wearing boots, and had her hair tied back. She was wearing a thicker coat that mostly covered her nightgown underneath.
Larl turned toward her and bowed like before, then he walked up to Mae’s side and started to whisper in her ear.
She held her chin high, and watched CJ while Larl spoke to her. Her expression shifted from concern, to suspicion, to anger, and then she took a calming breath as he finished. She stepped up to the table while Larl backed to the side of the tent.
CJ stood up. He noticed Alyss stiffen, but she didn’t move.
“So you were hiding something behind that wound,” She said as she stood across from him.
“Not on purpose,” He said. He pointed to his golden eye. “This, like a whole lot of stuff, is new to me.”
She looked him up and down. “Larl tells me you shared a lot with him. His belief is the same as mine now, you are exactly who we need to save Akahi.”
CJ snapped his eyes to Larl, who smiled and shrugged. The man had a whole conversation with CJ, could clearly see that CJ had no idea what this place was or how it worked, and he used that to feed into whatever delusion this lady had? CJ squeezed his hand into a fist to calm himself, then raised a palm to Mae.
“Look, I appreciate you folks saving me and everything, but I’m going to say again that there is absolutely no chance I’m what you need to save anything.” He stopped, nodded, and shook his hand in the air. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what this is all about, huh? Who am I to you people? Then I can lay it out for you exactly how far I am from whoever the hell that is.”
Lady Mae’s face scrunched up for a moment, but she relaxed. “You’re right. I should explain.”
He sat down at the table again. “Thank you.”
She looked back to Larl, and he gave her a nod of approval. Alyss and Larl took up positions near the table, and Lady Mae sat down.
“Long ago, before any of the kingdoms or nations of today existed, there was a terrible beast of death and destruction that tried to bring about the end of the world. It was known by many names, but our stories call it the Flameburst Dragon, and it tried to bring about the end of mankind.”
She told the story with a deliberate pace that spoke to memorization. She knew this story in exact details, despite it supposedly being ancient.
CJ thought, ‘what is the flameburst dragon’. His eye brought up an entry, and it expanded as Mae went on.
“This creature hoarded the divine flame of god, it sat on this very volcano and consumed it straight from the source. Then it razed the farms and villages whenever man built them. So God sent mankind a hero, the Hero General. They weren’t the leader of any lands, they weren’t part of any royal line, but they united all of mankind behind one banner.”
There was also an entry for this Hero General. Though Mae didn’t mention it, there were some names for the mythical hero, like Darell and Mel, but Hero was also sufficient.
“When the last of mankind came to the Flameburst Dragon’s perch, the Hero General led them in a perfect assault. Even then, it wasn’t enough to defeat the unholy leviathan. So the Hero General sacrificed himself, throwing himself into the beast’s maw to finish it off. It died, and the release of the divine flames touched the soul of all the remaining members of mankind.”
CJ mumbled out loud, “Soulflame.”
Larl nodded, “Exactly.”
“But what does that have to do with me?” CJ asked. “Sounds pretty taken care of.”
Mae crossed her arms. “After the monster’s defeat, there was a prophecy that it would return untold times stronger. To defeat it, God promised us Four Generals in time for the great battle, to defeat what could not otherwise be defeated.”
She met his eyes as she finished. Her meaning was obvious, but the idea still made CJ pause. They thought he was some legendary general?
“Just because I popped up at a bad time doesn’t mean I’m one of these generals,” CJ said. “I’m not a general, I’m not even a soldier. Ask Larl, I’m a green on the wood stick thingie!”
Mae bit down on her lip. She looked away, then back at him, her hands moving carefully to gesture as she spoke. “A mysterious person with no ties to any nation appears in the highest temple to the god of the divine flame, with a glorious brand in their eye on top of everything. You don’t think any of that fits, CJ? I know I seem desperate, but please see it from my view.”
He wanted to refute it, but she was right. His appearance was strange, and fit the tropes to be some kind of hero. “So is the dragon already back? I really am just whatever a light green is. If you need help now, I don’t think I’m going to be of any help.”
Mae shook her head no. “No, the Flameburst Dragon has not returned. But there are events around the world that I and others think point to an end of days.”
CJ huffed. “Take it from me, if you look hard enough for those you’ll see them everywhere. The world is always sort of ending if you think about it.”
“No!” Mae snapped, making CJ sit up. “I don’t want to get into the details where someone might overhear, but I have reason to believe that someone worked hard to make sure you wouldn’t arrive in this world. There are people among our enemies, the Ashen Cult, that wanted control over you, CJ of the Eastmen. We need your help, mankind will need your help.”
He wasn’t a general, and he wasn’t a hero. No matter how much he tried to be honest with these people, they didn’t seem to understand. He was going to end up dead in a ditch somewhere while they suffered because of how much they dedicated to trying to make him into something he wasn’t.
But then again, something was happening here. He couldn’t avoid that he was brought here, and the oddity with his eye.
He thought, ‘Objective.’ His objective grew large in his vision, and more text was added.
* Objective: Make an Allegiance *
Join forces with one of the powers of the world. Pick a side, and prepare for the battle to come.
It didn’t list any rewards or specifics. Was it possible that the objectives were required to move everything forward, like a story objective? Worse, was it that if he didn’t achieve an objective, something terrible would happen after enough time? If that was the case, he had to join at least one allegiance.
“Okay!” CJ snapped.
All three looked at him with surprise.
“Okay?” Lady Mae said.
“Okay,” CJ repeated. He looked over the three of them. “I’ll join you, but on one condition.”
Lady Mae narrowed her eyes at him. But Larl jumped in.
“Name it.”
Mae looked at him, “Brother Larl!”
Larl shrugged.
CJ tapped the table with his middle finger. “Until we know more, I don’t want to be considered some hero of myth. Don’t go around telling anyone about this, or make decisions around me. I don’t want people dying because of what I might be, you get me?”
Lady Mae opened her mouth to reply, but CJ cut her off.
“You get me?” He repeated. “Maybe I become your hero someday, but I’m not right now. If you’re right, and I die somehow, god should supply a replacement or something, right? You win in this prophecy after all.”
Mae looked down at the table, her eyes scanning back and forth as she argued with herself. Her lips moved but nothing came out. Then she looked up at him. “Okay, but I won’t let you go easily. I have to believe you are the Hero General of Akahi, or all is lost for us.”
CJ just nodded at that. “Well, for now I can be one more body, I’ll help how I can.”
Their eyes locked onto each other, and they stopped fighting each other.
“So, how does this work?” CJ asked, “Do I have to swear to you, get down on a knee?”
Lady Mae stood from the table, a small grin on her face. “Well, first I should let you in on the truth. You should know who you are fighting for.”
CJ shrugged at her while still seated. “Oh, I guessed that when we first met.”
Mae faltered, “You, what, huh?”
“Yeah, you’re a princess or something right?”
She crossed her arms again and scrunched up her nose. “Well no, actually. I’m the daughter of the Duke of Akahi.”
“Oh,” CJ said nodding. “Right so that makes you like, a Dukelette? Do they have a title for the kids of Dukes?”
His eye had no answer, but Larl raised a finger and replied in a pedantic tone. “Actually, they are just called Lady. Many nobles hold that title, so it is a little ambiguous. Though in this case, it is a little different.”
CJ looked from Larl to Mae.
She looked down. “My father is captured, or worse. Akahi is captured. He has no other children, so for now I am the only one from my family line that can make decisions for the Dukedom. I am Lady Madaleene daughter of Daen, acting Duchess of Akahi.”
She tipped her head down to him, a formal gesture. When she came back up, CJ was still staring at her with a blank expression. So she sighed and rolled her eyes.
“What?” He asked. “Sorry, we don’t have have a lot of dukes left where I’m from. Was I supposed to bow there?”
She walked over to him and grabbed his hand. “Just put your hand over the center of your chest, and think of your loyalty to me and Akahi.”
He took his hand back and did as she asked.
The Duchess put her hand over her chest. She watched him, but didn’t say anything. It felt like a truncated ritual, quick and easy.
But under his objective the word ‘Complete’ appeared, and then the whole objective started to fade away. At the same time, the arrow markers in the right side of his vision started to change from white outlines to blue filled in markers. Then the black border began to expand out, his vision zooming back as more and more blue markers appeared nearby.
The people in the camp, those who fought for Akahi, they were all being marked for him. Many of those in the camp remained clear markers, but now he could see the camp’s movements in vivid detail. He also spotted several other markers with unique icons, like the sweeping fire icon of their religion. It wasn’t just a map, it was a strategic map of those around him. Now that he was part of an allegiance, it swept away the fog of war to give him a clear picture.
CJ’s eyes opened wide. “Holy shit.”