The woman emerged into the faint moonlight seeping through the window across the room, climbing out from behind the crates and barrels.

She was undeniably pretty, but it wasn’t a feature that she leaned particularly hard into. Her hair was a shimmering shade of silver, tied up in a tight ponytail, uncovering skin colored a strong shade of lilac and lightly-pointed ears.

Jack did a double-take at her appearance, but after meeting a gnome his disbelief had remained firmly suspended, and he quickly adjusted to her, recognizing exactly what she was: a fae.

A pair of thick-framed reading glasses sat perched on the top of her nose, covering her bright pink eyes. She wore a tough white blouse, a woolly cardigan over it and a long red pencil skirt, all of which gripped her tall, slender physique.

In a hand that shook slightly, she brandished a familiar-looking hunting knife.

‘It’s okay,’ Jack spoke hastily to the woman. ‘We aren’t going to hurt you. We both just found ourselves in this town and we’re trying to find somebody around here who knows what’s going on.’

She straightened the glasses on her nose with her free hand, then brushed off the dust from her clothes.

The bespectacled fae-woman frowned suspiciously between them.

‘Does this mean anything to you two?’ The woman held up a satchel just like theirs. Jack and Torick exchanged a glance and held up their own satchels.

‘Oh, my,’ the woman spoke with surprise. ‘To be completely up front with you strange men, I was about to run for my life, but now I’m actually thinking about trusting you.’

‘Well at least you are honest, maiden,’ Torick spoke dryly. ‘I cannot fault you on that.’

‘So you’re thinking about trusting us or actually trusting us?’ Jack asked.

‘Since you are not trying to kill me and you are the only ones here, I suppose I shall have to trust you for now. What are your names?’

‘I’m Jack, and this is Torick.’

‘Fiora,’ she replied with a gentle nod, strapping the bag over her shoulder and picking something else up from behind the barrels which promptly slipped out of her arm and clunked heavily to the ground. ‘Darn…’

‘What are those?’ Jack asked.

‘Books from the library I was just in, and rare ones at that. Maybe not the most useful thing to keep in my possession in a place like this, but knowledge can sometimes be of great use.’

Jack helped gather up the books and get them back inside Fiora's satchel, his fingers lightly grazing over the pretty fae’s and activating another window.

Companion: Fiora

Being: Fae

Class: Scholar

HP: 100/100

Stamina: 8

Strength: 6

Intellect: 16

Charisma: 7

Magic: 4

Weapon proficiency: Dagger - 1

‘Do you know how to wield that?’ Torick cut in, nodding at the blade.

‘No, but… Point and slash?’

‘A fine start.’

Jack left the merchant building with Torick and Fiora and emerged onto the street.

‘So you really have no idea how you got here either?’ Fiora asked.

‘By my reckoning we both came through portals,’ Jack said. ‘What about you?’

‘The same. One opened in the library aisle I was standing in. That’s the last thing I remember before awakening here. The question I am more interested in is why we are here. There must be a reason why we were all brought to this place-’

‘WHO GOES THERE?!’

The trio froze up. At the other end of the street was what looked like a tall knight clad in heavy armor, brandishing a polearm.

‘Identify yourself, pilgrims!’ The knight shouted.

‘Woah, woah!’ Jack threw his hands up at his sides. ‘We don’t mean any harm.’ He lowered his voice and looked over at Torick, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. ‘We don’t mean any harm, do we?’

‘Not unless this brave knight decides to use his polearm as a javelin we don’t. Then my cards are firmly on the table.’

‘Do either of you two fellows happen to have weapons on you?’ Fiora asked politely. ‘I only have the dagger that came in my satchel.'

‘Me too,’ Jack replied.

‘Why didn’t I get a dagger?’ Torick frowned.

‘Have you checked your pack?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you checked it properly?’

‘… No.’

Torick pulled off his satchel and fumbled about inside, his small arm reaching all the way to the bottom where he found the sheathed blade before dragging it out.

‘Here it is,’ he smiled happily.

‘What have you got there?!’ The knight down the street shouted. ‘A weapon?!’

‘On second thought,’ Torick muttered, ‘Maybe we deal with Sir Halfwit first before we start brandishing knives.’

‘Is that really how a grand aristocrat talks?’ Jack frowned.

‘Well, I was just…’ Torick shrugged.

‘Let us deal with the situation at hand,’ Fiora cut in.

‘Right,’ Jack nodded, before looking back down the street. ‘Are you a guard in this town?’

‘No!’ he called back. ‘Where is everyone?’

‘Listen, bozo,’ Torick shouted at the knight. ‘Do we look like the kind of people who have any clue about what’s happening here?’

‘We all arrived here in the past hour,’ Fiora called out politely, filling in the gaps, ‘and I would wager that you did too, sir? Tell me, did you arrive with a satchel in your possession?’

The knight lowered his polearm a little.

He reached over his shoulder and held up an identical satchel to the rest of the group.

Jack, Torick and Fiora exchanged glances and held up their own satchels.

‘Looks like this thing is fast becoming the universal way of communicating don’t kill me around here,’ Fiora commented.

‘Only among folk who have it,’ Torick said. ‘If we go shaking it at any old orc raider I doubt that they’re going to see it as a credible threat.’

‘But it is a good means to determine if people got here the same way as we did,’ Jack said.

The knight secured his satchel over his shoulder, moved his polearm to a passive position and walked up the street, glancing left and right at the derelict buildings as he approached.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

A few yards away, the armor-clad knight removed his helmet to reveal fair skin, blue eyes and a face so sharp it would probably cut to the touch. A pair of long, slim, pointed ears hugged the sides of his head, leading up to silver hair tied into a tight man-bun; a high-elf.

The high-elf glared between the group and scanned them suspiciously.

‘Three beings of different kinds,’ he spoke. ‘Who are you people?’

‘Let me guess,’ Jack said, ‘you went through a portal and landed here?’

‘… That is correct,’ the high-elf nodded.

‘Same for us,’ Fiora added. ‘Mr…?’

'Knight Eldrin,’ the high-elf spoke proudly, ‘of the Kurelian Royal Guard. What is this place?’

‘No idea,’ Jack said. ‘Nobody else seems to have a clue, either. We all just landed here. I’m Jack, by the way, and this is Torick.

‘How peculiar,’ Knight Eldrin replied, letting his guard down a little and glancing around as he shook Jack’s hand, activating another window. ‘This is a strange place, is it not? No citizens, buildings left in disarray…’

Companion: Eldrin

Being: High-Elf

Class: Guard

HP: 100/100

Stamina: 13

Strength: 12

Intellect: 8

Charisma: 8

Magic: 1

Weapon proficiency: Polearm – 13

Guard, Jack noticed. He said he was a knight. Why does it say Guard?

So far all of these people that Jack had run into possessed a strangely similar manner of speaking. The aristocratic gnome mage, the bespectacled fae scholar and the high-elf knight all spoke with prim and noble British accents. The only deviation was Torick, who had demonstrated the occasional gutter mouth.

But that was the last concern on Jack’s mind.

Were all of these beings from different regions of the same world, and he was the only outlier? Or were all of them from different worlds altogether?

‘HELP! SHE’S TRYING TO KILL ME!’

Jack and his three unlikely companions looked up the street. A tall woman that stood just a hair shorter than himself suddenly came sprinting around the corner down the road.

The first thing Jack thought was that she moved remarkably fast.

The second was wondering who or what was pursuing her.

‘Oh, thank the gods,’ the woman spoke as she reached them, brushing a hand over Jack’s shoulder to slow herself. ‘This monster has been pursuing me!’

Companion: Aeshara

Being: Half-elf

Class: Bard

HP: 100/100

Stamina: 8

Strength: 6

Intellect: 12

Charisma: 14

Magic: 13

Weapon proficiency: One-handed sword – 11

Jack barely had time to examine the information in the window.

The half-elf in their presence wore tight leather pants, tough boots and a thick ivory-colored blouse that hung loosely from her tall, slender figure. Jack’s first instinct was noticing how pretty she was; there was an effortless beauty to her high cheeks, wide green eyes and soft, full lips, as well as the platinum-blonde hair that fell upon her shoulders in waves.

Her ears possessed sharpened tips, not with the same size as Eldrin’s but markedly different from a human’s.

Half-elf.

‘What is chasing you, dear lady?’ Eldrin asked in a chivalrous tone.

‘A troll,’ she panted, ‘apparently she has no desire to talk.’

Jack frowned and looked back up the street.

A troll? No way.

But stomping footsteps grew louder and louder until a huge figure stampeded around the corner. It stood generously over seven-feet-tall and easily weighed at least 400 pounds. It brandished a huge club in one hand that Jack wouldn’t have even been able to lift off the ground.

Okay, maybe it is a troll.

‘Why does she want to kill you?’ Jack asked the half-elf woman.

‘No idea.’

He noticed the satchel hanging from her hand,

At least this half-elf is one of us.

Then he noticed the strap of another satchel over her shoulder, its fabric tightly-squeezed as if a much larger object had been compressed inside of it.

What the object was didn’t matter a whole lot right now – it was the fact that she had two.

‘Wait,' Jack spoke, 'did you take that from the troll?'

‘What? No, that’s ridiculous.’

‘Then why do you have two?’

‘Ah…’ She said, wincing at her obvious lie. ‘An honest mistake?’

‘Just give me the bag,’ Jack sighed.

The half-elf tossed it to him and Jack caught it. He rushed forwards to meet the troll, getting ready to dodge the being’s slow lumbering charge if it happened to try and mow him down.

‘You can have your satchel back!’ Jack called out diplomatically. ‘No harm done!’

‘Zania kill thief woman!’ The troll yelled angrily, ignoring Jack completely as it raced around him.

He realized in that brief moment that the troll was, in fact, a woman – seven-feet-tall, brown hair tied up tightly, a snarling face, small angry eyes, all of her features sitting above a strong body with long limbs wearing thick material of tough canvas. Strips of tough cloth covered her from neck to ankle, as if she had just come from somewhere very cold.

‘Now shall we deal with the matter at hand in a more head-on fashion?’ Torick shouted impatiently.

‘Looks like we’re going to have to,’ Jack nodded.

Eldrin swept out hard with his polearm at the troll’s legs as she reached the group. The troll-woman lunged through the air and faceplanted into the dusty ground, sending the club flying from her hand.

Eldrin’s confidence faltered straight off the bat; the troll-woman was a lot stronger than he realized, and he spun around with his polearm like a top, barely catching himself.

Fortunately he moved fast; the troll-woman rolled onto her back just as he reached her, and he planted a foot on her sternum and aimed his polearm at her face.

‘Cease your struggles, troll,’ Eldrin commanded sternly, ‘or you shall meet the vengeance of my weapon.’

‘Who are you, by the way?’ Jack asked the half-elf woman as he returned to the group.

‘Oh, how rude of me,’ she smiled. ‘I’m Aeshara. Pleasure to meet you.’

Jack shook hands with the half-elf and crossed to Eldrin’s side, looking the troll-woman in the eyes. Her skin was an intense shade of green; the tusks stemming from behind her lower lip stretched upwards ridiculously far, twisting just past her upper cheeks and curving slightly outwards. Her nostrils flared with each angry breath, but there was thought behind her eyes too. She was a berserker, sure, but not one without the ability to stop and think.

‘Can you speak English?’ Jack asked.

‘What is English?’ The well-spoken elfish knight frowned from Jack’s side.

‘What we’re speaking right now,’ Jack said. ‘Isn’t that obvious?’

‘You mean the Common Tongue?’ Eldrin said.

‘It is called the Common Tongue,’ Fiora added curiously. ‘Didn’t you know that?’

‘Okay, the Common Tongue,’ Jack conceded before returning to the troll. ‘Can you speak the Common Tongue?’

‘Zania speak Trollish. Man speak broken Trollish.’

‘Close enough,’ Jack nodded, quickly figuring out how to communicate with the troll woman. ‘Umm… Okay: Jack is a friend. Jack does not want to hurt Zania. Jack and Jack’s friends want to work together to figure out what’s going on here. Umm… Jack wonders if Zania would like to help?’

Zania the troll looked between Jack and Eldrin, then glanced around at the rest of the group. Finally she set her gaze upon Aeshara, the half-elf who had stolen her satchel. Her angry grimace steadily faded away and she nodded.

She was actually thinking about her course of action. That was good.

‘Zania will help cause if cause helps Zania get back to home.’

‘You can take a step back,’ Jack whispered to Eldrin, ‘but keep an eye on her in case she decides to go haywire.’

‘Haywire?’

‘In case she attacks.’

‘Indeed,’ Eldrin nodded dutifully, removing his foot from her stomach. Jack and Eldrin offered her a hand and pulled her to her feet. Eldrin pulled it off easily, but the troll-woman’s strength damn-near dragged Jack to the ground and crushed his hand at the same time. He had to dig his heels into the dusty earth just to stay upright.

Making contact with the troll, the fifth window belonging to his companions appeared.

Companion: Zania

Being: Troll

Class: Berserker

HP: 100/100

Stamina: 13

Strength: 15

Intellect: 7

Charisma: 7

Magic: 2

Weapon proficiency: Club - 13

Just like all the others, she had paid no mind to any floating windows that Jack might not have been privy to.

‘So Zania?’ Jack said. ‘That’s what we call you?’

‘Zania,’ the troll-woman said, pointing to herself.

‘Looks like you’re the latest one to join us,’ Jack said, glancing around the street. ‘And by the looks of things, the last one. The only question is why we’re here and what we’re supposed to do now…’

Jack and the rest of the group stood around looking at each other uneasily. Another window suddenly appeared before him.

Quest Completed: The Settlers

Objective: Unite the six keys

Reward: Receive the perk [Diplomat’s Joker]

‘Can you all see this?’ Jack finally asked with more casualness than he intended.

‘See what?’ Fiora asked.

‘The…’ Jack trailed off as the rest of the group frowned at him.

I really am the only one who can see this interface. If I try to tell them that I’m seeing floating windows in front of me, they’ll probably think I’m crazy.

‘Nothing,’ he replied quickly, subtly examining the details before him.

Unite the six keys? But I don’t have six keys…

Wait…

In the midst of the chaos that had occurred in the middle of the town of Silverward over the last 20 minutes, Jack had completely neglected to consider one other crucial object that would be in each of their satchels.

‘Did any of you get a key when you arrived here?’ He asked.

One by one, the gnome, the fae, the high-elf, the troll and the half-elf all retrieved a key from their packs and held them up, each identical to the one Jack had placed into the stone dome in Silverward's central plaza.

The quest window vanished, and another took its place.

Quest: Ayak’s Awakening

Objective: Use the six keys to awaken Ayak

Reward: Map of Silverward

Uniting the ‘settlers’ – this strange collection of people Jack had found himself grouped with – also meant uniting the keys. They all possessed one, just like he had.

But then there was the quest.

Whoever or whatever Ayak was, they were about to wake him up.