One Hour later.

As I strode forth, it truly was like another world. The similarities of life in the town only made the differences that much more apparent. Even though I seemed to be in the early morning in this town, people were bustling through it, which could have been seen anywhere in the world back on Earth. However, unlike even the most rural parts of the United States, it seemed like I was in a medieval village as seen through the lens of a fantasy world. It was no small collection of huts, however.

Instead it was a well-maintained settlement that clearly had hundreds if not thousands of people within it. As I quickly noticed – and true to the word of the arch priestess Marlie – it also possessed a multitude of monsters living alongside those people.

Cooks and launderers were accompanied by creatures that looked like crabs which were the size of an ox, with dozens of buckets to carry water or supplies on their backs. These crabs weren’t just notable for their size. Instead of the face one would expect on a crab, they had large water buffalo-like faces and floppy ears like dogs. Their limbs were armored like a crab’s but looked almost like that of a bovine - with thick hoof-like feet instead of the points one would expect of crabs. Some even wore literal cowbells strapped around their necks with ribbons.

Flying creatures of all sorts, be they mundane birds such as seagulls, ravens, and other commonplace avians from back on Earth were joined by the sight of numerous flying monsters. Notably, several strangely colorful ravens could be seen on people’s shoulders, and strutting through the town with was a pterodactyl like flying monster with a pelican’s lower mandible instead of the flat jawed beak that popular culture told us to expect. Numerous others fluttered in the distance as well.

So too, I noticed mundane dogs, and cats accompanied people as they went about their business. I couldn’t tell from here if any were merely dog or cat shaped monsters, or also mundane creatures from earth.

But I didn’t have the focus for it either, because I was captivated when I saw the forges across the square from the primary well of the town, I could see that those forges was controlled by apprentices working the bellows and a Volkswagen Beetle-sized horned toad or bearded dragon that glowed orange on its extremities and occasionally chewed on a chunk of firewood before spitting the material out - already lit and turned into smithy grade charcoal.

I was amazed, and part of my inner monster collections nerd almost demanded I theory craft what were their types which I assumed must exist. It must be a fire type. Because types had to exist! If levels existed, then surely monster elemental types did as well, no? I couldn’t theory craft or try to search more.

I was keenly aware that they would have been looking for me after I just exited out of the chapel as I had. Be it Marlie or the local lord’s guards, someone would be looking for me. God knows, if was my kids, or back when I lived with my parents, I’d have been looking for them. Teenager or no, I had just walked away from what amounted to a ‘trademarked’ serious talk. I was well aware that back in the real world it wouldn't fly so in the case that this was a real thing and it was not some VR stunt, then they would be following me. Young and new to the world in their eyes, why wouldn't they?

I had a limited amount of time to find my intel in the village and its lord. I couldn’t get distracted. The Lord and his presumed henchmen might be around any corner.

So I stopped by the town square’s center and to the bulletin board near its left. I let my eyes float over the notes across the board. Quickly it was apparent that whatever magical spell or effect seemed to allow me to understand the priestess did not extend to the writing of this world. I couldn’t understand it at all when I looked at it and it was not an age regression thing. I was reading chapter books at five on Earth.

However, as my eyes floated to a map taking up a near third of the board’s space I learned that even with the linguistic barrier which I seemed to be having, I could understand it. Mostly, at least. But it would have been hard to not understand the map in front of me. Thanks to the fact that it had pictograms and actual written designs, I could understand it. It doesn’t matter who’s drawing the broccoli clouds or triangles as trees, when you’ve had enough friends draw forests in Tabletop RPGs, you can understand basic maps. As I focused on it another information prompt popped up. It took a moment of mental focus off the map to take the system prompt in..

“You have obtained a regional map of the Tidewarren and Highwater areas. It has been added to your data compendium.”

Woo! I had a map. But I also had more questions. What was a data compendium and how did I access it or the map? If it was following video game instructions it could’ve at least told me to press start for the menu - but then again I did not always get those instructions back in my earliest days playing my first monster collectors, either. Sometimes you had to follow intuition, and so I did so now.

I thought of the words ‘data compendium’ as hard as I could.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Soon, another window popped up. Underlined and glowing at the top of it was ‘data compendium’ and I soon saw a good number of listed items - written in English fortunately. The data compendium’s list of items included:

“Church of the Octahedron.”

“Region of Tidewarren”

“Region of Highwater”

“Map of Greater Regions of the Tidewarren and Highwater Isles.”

“Map of Region of the Tidewarren.”

“Map of Region of Highwater Isles.”

“Lordship of Tidewarren.”

“Towns of Tidewarren.”

“Monster Bible.”

I was intrigued by all of the titles but knew I didn’t have time to peruse them. I needed to focus on the map. After I got out of town, I could think about searching the other topics the data compendium offered.

I focused my mind on the word ‘Map’ and instantly another window opened as I thought of the words. It was a copy of the map I had seen but instead of with notations in another language, it was in English- or at least I perceived it that way. I took in the details and then focused on closing it.

According to the map, if I was in the capital and only real town of the Tidewarren region, then I was in Strongbridge. Signs I looked at around the square even had the same symbols the physical map has over Strongbridge, which confirmed my initial guess. Surrounding Strongbridge in the south and west was a marshy beach and river delta marked as "The Million Potato Marsh".

To the north lay a mountain range which had another settlement within it, and to the east was an arid grassland that stretched about two miles before terminating at a forest called "Shipwright's Glade."

If it had trees suitable for shipbuilding they would fit my purposes too, so I began to stroll as nonchalantly as I could towards the eastern walls - and thus I surmised, eastern gates of Strongbridge. If I hurried I might be able to make my escape work.

I began to beat my feet towards the east.

***

Thirty minutes after that.

Three hours since arrival.

With the energy and vigor I had not felt when walking or jogging since I was a teenager the first time, I had already made my way through the town and snuck into the radius near the eastern walls of the town.

Now that I was at what amounted to my first real obstacle, the town's gates, I faced a problem. Even though it was what seemed to be a slow time of day for travel through the gates, there were still three guards I could make out near it. Two were interacting with a farmer's buggy and evaluating its baskets and cages of chickens. One leaned against the opened gate, apparently keeping watch and supervising the investigation into the chicken farmer's cart. Three guards were a lot of eyes to avoid noticing me, and while I could see a group of shepherds not far from me in age had walked through the gates twenty minutes ago I wasn't carrying any of the gear they were so I severely doubted I could pass as one of them. Further than that I didn't have any animals with me.

No, trying to pretend to be a late herder wouldn't work. Even with the fact I seemed to be dressed largely in a style similar to the townspeople, I could notice differences. If my arrival had been some premeditated act as had been implied, the guards might know about me too. The only option I had to get out somewhere I could think and learn on my own without someone with an agenda there to try to convince me would be if I got past the gate without them noticing.

I took in my surroundings with closer inspections and found only a few rocks to aid me off-hand. That would not work, so I looked around some more. A bucket to pull water into troughs for animals with; a ladle for the same purpose for human travelers.

Banging on the bucket like a drum would only call attention to me. Setting it and the ladle up somewhere high and dropping it? That would be unlikely to provide me enough distraction to get down from up high and out the gate unnoticed. On top of that, it’d be vandalism for no good reason.

That left the rock, and so I took my time to look closer at the scene in front of me.

The cart itself was not newer than a decade old and seemed to have very thin and worn-out wheels. Most of those chicken cages in the cart were precariously stacked on one another. The middle one seemed to be straining because of it and on top of that, every one of the cages was tied together with sticks and twine and fragile looking.

I could practically see a bullseye on the middle crate and its fragile construction. That didn’t make me throw it there though, because I didn’t want to accidentally hurt an innocent chicken with a rock throw.

I picked up two rocks, pocketing them as necessary ammo for later. Then I grabbed a third one and made my best fastball pitch at the middle back spoke of the wheel. It sailed across the distance and hit the spoke, breaking it but sailed onwards. Out of the underside of the cart, a blue crab-like creature the size of a dog scurried forward. With its momentum, it ran into the axle of the cart it had been hiding under and knocked the cart over. As the cart went, the chicken crates fell and their construction let their doors become open enough to allow a positive monsoon of chickens to come forth.

That instantly got the farmer, their aid, and the guards' collective attention so thoroughly I didn’t even get noticed as I ran by and that was saying something because I found myself laughing. I could practically hear ‘my cabbages!’ and ‘my chickens!’ in my head as I ran through the opened gates and out the grassland as quickly as I could.