Chapter 39

(are there mosquitoes?)

Jarow read the message before her twice over. The realization slowly sank in: she had been sent into the future from her original time here.

This meant her party would have long departed, unable to wait indefinitely. They had to move on with their lives. Furthermore, she learned her friends were still alive on a planet called Gilo, and that Xinpo now knew how to reach them.

The unfortunate truth she was dealing with was they couldn't join her for the final leg of her quest. This was perhaps the hardest part to accept. She had eagerly anticipated fighting alongside her companions once more, as those times had been both enjoyable and terrifying.

Reuniting with her teammates and concluding her adventure had been her hope since learning of the last part of her quest, but now that possibility was gone, leaving her with a profound sense of loss and defeatism.

"I need to open the portal, suzerain," Xinpo's voice broke through the swirling thoughts in Jarow's mind. "So that you may see your friends once again."

Jarow, still processing, didn't immediately acknowledge Xinpo or show excitement about the new portal. Instead, she simply pressed the Passe-partout button in her interface to activate the portal power. She continued to stare at the ground, feeling a mixture of negative emotions. Her life had been tossed around so much, and now that she had finally found a place she wanted to revisit, with people she wanted to be around, it was taken away from her.

She felt as though she was on the verge of tears, ready to give up. “What is the point? I’d probably be better off without seeing them. Maybe it’s best if I just move on without them, let them live their lives and forget that I even existed,” she thought to herself as the portal soundlessly opened before her.

Then she heard a sound coming from beyond the portal. A familiar voice rang out: "Isn't that one of Xinpo's portals?"

It was Isilandra's voice, and Jarow instantly conjured a mental image of the beautiful elf with her silvery hair and eyes. Next to her was her wife, the darkly enchanting Suhry, with blue-tinged horns rising from her charcoal skin. The image brought back feelings of warmth and good times, and Jarow's spirits began to lift from the quagmire she had been creating for herself.

She chided herself upon hearing the voice of her friend. If it was true that she, and most likely Suhry, were just beyond the portal, then what was keeping her from rejoining them, at least for her remaining time? She knew that her time here would be relatively short and that the last part of her quest would most likely be upon her soon.

Jarow looked up to see the portal before her. It was unlike any other portal that Xinpo's Passe-partout power had ever manifested, yet it was also somewhat similar. The ‘frame’ of the portal was split between black and white, similar to the duality along the handle of the sword. The interior swirled with rich yellows and greens, but mixed within were iridescent flakes of silver. These flakes reflected the colors and caused the light to radiate outward in a dazzling array.

“It’s the same as Xinpo’s discoball handle,” Jarow realized.

The fears and anxiety that Jarow had just been dealing with seemed to melt away as she examined the portal and heard the voices on the other side. This portal was definitely different from Xinpo's usual creations, but Jarow wasn't going to question it. She was just grateful for the opportunity to leave this place behind and reunite with her friends.

Taking a deep breath, she straightened her posture. She didn't want to appear disheveled when she finally saw her friends after so long. With a slight upward curve of her lips, she stepped confidently into the swirling colors. There was no whoosh of movement, no sensation of warping through time and space; she felt almost nothing before finding herself immediately on the other side of the swirling portal.

As she stepped out, two very familiar women stood before her. They looked almost the same as they had when she last saw them. Their clothing and hairstyles were different, but their faces were exactly as she remembered: Isilandra and Suhry. They stood together, poised for battle if necessary with their staves held in both hands. However, as Jarow emerged from the portal, their intimidating expressions softened into confusion.

Jarow's smile widened upon seeing them. "Whoa... it's me, Jarow," she said, holding up her hands to show she was not a threat.

The two women exchanged puzzled glances before asking the obvious question. "Jarow? Is that really you?" Isilandra asked quizzically.

"How do we know if that's who you really are, who you say you are?" Suhry asked, her tone a bit more forceful. Her words seemed to stumble in the middle, as if her thoughts had come out differently than she intended.

Jarow paused to consider their questions. She realized she should have set up a password or some other form of identification with her friends, for moments just like this, but the need hadn't seemed as pressing back then when Frank was dolling out personalized messages to announce her coming.

"Uhh..." Jarow started, wondering how to truly identify herself. Then she remembered the magical items she had given them. "I gave you that, in a huge underground cavern while we stopped to rest. I was male back then, and looked a lot more dog-like at the time," she said, pointing to the elephant figurine still hanging from Suhry’s belt. Her smile widened as she spoke of the memory.

Isilandra and Suhry exchanged glances before turning back to Jarow. Isilandra was now wearing a large smile. 'It is you!' she exclaimed. 'We're so glad you're back!'

With that, any doubt of Jarow’s identity vanished from the Elf. She moved forward and wrapped her arms around Jarow. Due to her shorter stature, Isilandra's head only reached up to her Orcish body’s chest, pressing awkwardly against her breasts. Jarow gently returned the embrace, glancing at Suhry, who raised an eyebrow as she observed Jarow's new, more muscular, green, and enlarged form.

"Well, I'm glad you don't have those disturbing wings again, but you're even taller now, I think," Suhry remarked, extending her hand to Jarow. "Well met, it's been a while."

Jarow shook Suhry's hand, a rare smile crossing the usually grimm looking woman's face.

"How long has it been? It seems like only yesterday to me," Jarow inquired of the two.

Isilandra withdrew from the embrace but stayed close, running her hand over Jarow's skin. "It's like Grolluk’s, but clean and pretty," she commented idly.

The touch tickled, and Jarow felt that if he had been male, there would have been an obvious reaction to the touch, one that his small skirt probably wouldn't have been able to cover.

"Over twenty years," Suhry replied to the question. "We'd all but given up on seeing you again after about five, all except her." She pointed at her wife.

"I knew you'd come back," the beautiful elf said, her enchanting voice still filling Jarow with excitement and all but taking her breath away.

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Jarow had a brief flashback to her own elven body and desperately wished she could have retrieved the soul coin for it back then. She would have loved to have had that body as an option when she was given the chance to choose forms. She would have loved to see Isilandra's reaction to her as an Elven youth.

"Twenty years?" Jarow asked, struggling to comprehend the time loss and what she had missed.

"Yeah. A lot has changed since then," Suhry replied.

Jarow thought of the town and its dilapidated state. It made more sense now. But she still had questions.

"The town where we gathered, it looks so rundown now," Jarow observed. "What happened? Oh, and about the message you left, the barkeep, he was almost dead, I think."

"Huh, I figured he would have already passed," Suhry remarked. "I'm glad you got the message then. Yeah, after we left, the quests and dungeons dried up. The town had flourished for quite a while due to adventurers passing through on their way to fulfill their quests, but when those stopped happening, the money stopped coming in, and the town quickly declined."

Isilandra looked up at Jarow and added, "It was sad that we didn't have a better way of leaving you a message. I felt sorry for that guy. I'm glad he's finally free of the compulsion now at least."

Jarow had wondered how that spell or whatever had worked. It seemed she was right in assuming it was some sort of compulsion. Gerraldi probably had to sit there all day, every day, except for when he ate, drank, or used the bathroom, just so they could leave a message for her. Twenty years of not being able to do anything was like a form of torture.

Jarow now felt like the jeweled bangle she had left for the man didn't really begin to cover the price he'd had to pay. Her smile waned as the thought of the trauma he'd endured started to hit home.

Suhry apparently caught onto Jarow's facial expression and spoke up. "It wasn't that bad for him. He had autonomy; he wasn't a zombie or anything. He just couldn't leave the town until he delivered the message. Other than that, he was free to live his life… mostly."

Jarow heard the last word Suhry had muttered under her breath. It made her think there was more to it than what the Tiefling had led on. She couldn’t really say how twenty-plus years would have affected Gerraldi, but despite not seeming as mentally sharp as Jarow assumed he should be, his health didn’t appear to be bad.

It was also a fact that people in small communities like that rarely had many adventures or trips out of town anyway. Most individuals in those types of environments were born and died in the same area. While she was still unsure about the extent of autonomy he had actually been given, she began to feel a little better about the situation.

Finally, Jarow stopped thinking about the innkeeper and took in the surroundings. They were in a small room within a larger structure. The walls were made of a light wood, in a style she couldn’t place. It looked and felt as though she was within the belly of a tree, as though the wood had grown around in this shape naturally.

There were mystic-looking paintings hanging from one wall and an electric chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Along another wall was a large window with gauzy drapes. Two large, brown, comfy-looking chairs sat around a circular rug near the window, and bookshelves occupied the entirety of the wall behind her. There was a door and a hallway leading out from this room, and Jarow spied a kitchen down the short hallway.

"Is this your house?" she asked, awareness finally dawning on her.

“Yes, it is!” Isilandra chirped happily. “Oh! Would you like to see it?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jarow replied.

The elf took her hand and led her from the room. Jarow had to duck under the doorways as she was guided through the moderate-sized house, which consisted of two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, and an attached dining room.

Near the bedroom, there stood a full-length mirror, and Jarow finally had the chance to see how she looked in her current form. She knew she was tall and green, but seeing her reflection next to Isilandra’s in the mirror truly emphasized the contrast between her robust physique and the slender frame of the elf.

Her muscular body bore a light olive-green hue, which seemed complementary to the pale brown of the Elf’s skin. However, it was her face and hair that intrigued her the most. Leaning down to get a better look, she studied her reflection in the normal-sized body full-length mirror.

Starting at the top, a short and spiky pink mane sprouted from her head, seemingly styled with some sort of product, although Jarow had no idea how that had happened. Her eyebrows were almost nonexistent, with only a few wispy blonde hairs visible.

Her eyes were encircled by what appeared to be a tattoo or possibly just a darker layer of skin, giving her the appearance of permanent smoky eyes. The darker shade extended out to a point in a unique and fashionable way. The eyes themselves were a shade of amber with golden streaks running through them, striking against her skin and complementing her hair and smoky eyes.

Her nose was more petite than expected, though petite for an Orc was much different from petite for an Elf or Human. Easily twice the size of Isilandra's, her nose protruded from her face, while her tusks jutted from her lower jaw in a relatively clean shade of white, capped in gold to match the streaks in her eyes.

Her high cheekbones provided a natural blush in the light of the hanging fixture above her head, while her lips appeared full and were shaded a complimentary light pink. Overall, she found herself to be attractive, as much as she thought she could be attracted to an Orc.

Suhry whispered to her wife as Jarow studied herself in the mirror, "Grolluk would have been all over her!"

The way she said it made Jarow wonder if something had happened to the large Orc, but she kept her inquiry to herself for now. She wanted to continue the tour before catching up with what had happened in the years since her departure.

At the back of the house was a workroom set up as a laboratory. Jarow could see many vials and jars filled with less than appetizing ingredients along the walls and on the tables.

Suhry moved into the room and dipped a small piece of paper into a beaker. The paper caught flame, which then rapidly turned blue, and Suhry said to no one in particular, "Another hour or so should do it."

The journey concluded at the front of the cabin, where they settled into chairs on a screened-in porch. The view was breathtaking. Positioned atop a small hill, the cabin overlooked a sunlit swamp. Bogs of water stretched out, surrounded by towering trees cloaked in vines. The vines were adorned with flickering leaves and vibrant flowers, creating a mesmerizing display of color. Lizards and snakes slithered through the foliage, while colorful birds danced and sang in the branches above.

Jarow had never really felt any desire to visit a swamp like this before, but as she watched the area teeming with life, she began to see the terrain as something extremely beautiful and rich rather than dank, dark, and full of mosquitoes.

They talked for a while, and the three women sipped on the hot tea that Suhry had brought out. Isilandra asked Jarow where she had been for so long, but Jarow didn't quite know how to answer. When she tried, the memories of her time spent with Frank and Tenebrous seemed slippery and left her mind when she began to recall them. But once she stopped trying to explain, the memories settled back in place, and she could recall the entire event.

She concluded that she wasn't supposed to tell anyone about the universal beings, and the best she could come up with was, "I got the item from the giant robot, it was called the Disco-Ball of Destiny—corny, I know—then I died. I went to an interesting place where I got my memories back and then learned that I have one more quest to accomplish, but the details are pretty fuzzy."

The answer was less detailed than she wanted to provide, but the two women seemed to understand and accept her response.

Finally, Jarow asked the burning question that had been on her mind since she arrived, but she had hoped it would come up naturally. It seemed, however, that this was a subject the two women were avoiding as well.

"So, I have to ask, I’m sorry if it’s not something you want to talk about, but..." Jarow said, unsure of how the women would react. "Where are Mediv and Grolluk?"

Isilandra's gaze sank to the ground, and Suhry looked introspectively out over the swamp. There was a pause before Suhry finally began to speak. She kept her head turned away, so Jarow had to listen hard to hear her when she spoke.

"Grolluk died a noble death," Suhry said. "We were caught in a volcano, and he fought back the swarms of rock monsters attacking us while the rest of us escaped. They finally overpowered him, though, and dragged him into the lava before we could open the portal. We finished the portal shortly afterward and were able to leave before we were overrun. His sacrifice was the only way we were able to survive. We returned later on, but we could find nothing left of him."

There was another pause while Jarow digested the information. Grolluk had always wanted to die fighting a strong enemy, so this seemed like an ending he would have been happy with, but it was still hard to hear that he was no longer around.

Isilandra spoke next, her voice shaky. "Last we heard of Mediv, he was doing adventures on his own, but he was not in good shape. He took your disappearance hard, and then when Grolluk died, he lost it even more. Mediv died twice more while we were with him, so he only had six more chances left. That was a few years ago now. We don't even have a way of contacting him anymore."

Jarow felt a wave of sadness wash over her. She had been closer to Mediv than the others, and she couldn't imagine what he must have gone through. Now more than ever, she desperately wanted to find him and let him know she wasn't gone, or at least didn’t leave on purpose. But without knowing how to get a hold of him, the chances of that happening sounded slim. She didn’t even know how long she would be able to stay and visit here, let alone go searching through the cosmos for him. She doubted it would be long enough to embark on such a quest.

Without any other options, she turned to the one being she knew could possibly influence her and Mediv’s life. She wasn't sure how to reach Frank, uncertain if it would be like a prayer or a manifestation of her desire, but she desperately reached out to him, hoping for a response. She felt deeply that she needed to see Mediv, to ensure he was okay before she could tackle this final challenge. Her soul cried out to the old man.

She didn’t actually expect anything to happen, and nothing did for a while. The women, including her, sipped their tea and chatted about other adventures they had embarked upon during the decades of her absence. Then something tingled at the back of her mind. It was similar to when Xinpo was deep in thought, but less intense and more ticklish than itchy.

She realized the sensation wasn’t Xinpo, but her getting a response from Frank, but not in a way she expected. A rustling sound emerged from below the house, and the docile wildlife began to scatter.

A mysterious dark form crashed through the trees of the swamp. It was dark and ran on four legs, a large feline form which swiftly navigated through the trees and brush, skillfully avoiding the water as it bounded from limb to limb as it climbed ever nearer to the house.

Isilandra, Suhry, and Jarow all rose from their chairs as the large cat rapidly ascended the hill. Its large yellow eyes reflected the setting sun behind them, creating a dazzling array of colors which held their attention as well as their attacks.

Closing the last small part of the distance, the cat stood upright just beyond the screen of the patio. Its body was tall and lean, its fur striped like a tiger's but in black and dark gray fur. It wore a belt and a small loincloth to cover its private parts. The cat's face broke into a toothy grin as it spoke in a very familiar voice.

"Isn't someone going to invite me in?"