Jane came back to herself, once again suffering from a severe hangover and concurrent drunkenness without any of the fun bits. She lay on the ground groaning weakly until it passed, then a while longer. She listened to the sounds of nature, sounds that she only really recognised from TV and films. It was peaceful under the clear blue sky, lying in the soft bluish-green grass. A slightly strange colour to be fair, but very comfortable, and not impossible back in her universe. She watched a grey cloud slowly approach before deciding that she would need to seek shelter before night happened, or the weather.
She pushed herself up and immediately felt that something was wrong. She felt weak and tired and slow, although that could be because of the soul-wrenching teleport thing she'd gone through. She was also wearing a lace-up brown bodice over a ruffled white blouse and a long rigid brown skirt over what felt like rough trousers. To her it seemed more like an outfit from a renaissance faire rather than authentic ye olde clothes, but the coarse fabric and rough, visible stitching hinted at something more real, or at least realistic.
Her outfit thoroughly examined she started on her surroundings. If her attire seemed vaguely anachronistic the dilapidated village around her decidedly didn't. All of the houses she could see were built in the same style, a low stone wall, about waist height, with wooden beams on top of it, all filled in with a flaking white plaster. None of the ones she could see had a full roof, and most were missing at least part of a wall. Not the best shelter then, although she may be able to find something to eat, or maybe a coat?
Jane nodded to herself and decided to visit each of the houses, in turn, to explore starting with the one that seemed furthest from its neighbours. It wasn’t the one in the best shape but it made for an easy mark of where she had started. She strode up to the door and pushed. It was locked. Jane couldn’t help herself and burst out laughing. She was in the middle of a ruined, abandoned village and was stuck outside because the door to the decaying house was locked and she had no idea how to force a lock. An experimental kick just hurt her foot. She was still laughing as she hopped around on one foot clutching the other one.
When she had calmed down she decided to go around and see if there was another way in. At the back she found a small lean-to with the door ajar. Looking in she saw that it was a shed of sorts, complete with broken hoes, rusty spades and even rustier scythes. She did see a large, long-handled sledgehammer though, and thought that she remembered seeing a police procedural or follow along where they used one to breach a door. She shrugged and hefted the hammer onto her shoulder. It was worth a try. The massive lump of metal on a stick was heavy, but Jane lugged it around to the door that had previously denied her entry.
A solid whack from her newly acquired tool shattered the lock, and the wood around it, and flung open the door. Jane hacked a cough from the dust cloud and pushed her way into the house. It was sparsely furnished, only a sturdy table with three chairs and a large cupboard. Jane leant her sledgehammer against the table and opened the cupboard. It was empty. She sighed in disappointment and moved over to the stairs. Testing each step before she put her weight on it she climbed slowly up to the top floor. Ripped curtains separated two “rooms” both containing a double bed and a low commode. There was nothing in either of the commodes and under the beds she found only an abandoned sock. A disappointing haul for the time spent. The next two houses were much the same. The village had obviously been abandoned but not in precipitation, everything had been cleaned out yet all of the doors were locked.
The fourth house was different. The roof was gone and there were no stairs up to the upper floor. As was quickly becoming tradition she leant her hammer on the table which promptly collapsed. The smell of rot was far stronger in this house and the chairs didn’t look in great shape either. She carefully opened the cupboard to see that the back had rotted away, revealing a low tunnel. After a moment of thought she dropped to her knees and crawled into the dark. A few metres in she realised that she had no light and reversed back out. Standing back up she noticed candles and a tinderbox on the shelf. With a quick thanks to her grandfather who had shown her how to use one so many years ago, she lit a candle and knelt back down. The tunnel led quite far downwards and soon opened up into a room with a ceiling high enough that she could stand. There wasn’t much in the room, most of it seemed to be stores of food that had either rotted away or been taken in the exodus. There was however a chest with a padlock on it. Jane let out a large sigh and placed the candle in a sconce. She crawled back out to collect her sledgehammer from the ruins of the table and pulled it into the tunnel.
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She missed the lock twice before finally smashing it off. Her eyes were almost shining with anticipation, a locked chest in a hidden room must have something valuable in it, even in a backwater village. Jane reached in and pulled out a bag that looked a lot like a leather rucksack, a leather breastplate and a small pouch that made a satisfying metallic sound. The rucksack was unfortunately empty and the armour far too large for her but the pouch held twenty-three coins, two small gold ones, five slightly larger silver ones, and sixteen small bronze coins. Happy with her score Jane put the pouch in the bag and put the rucksack on her front to crawl back out.
Stepping outside Jane decided to leave the tight circle of houses and see if there was anything other than collapsed houses to explore, she doubted she would find another hidden room in the last two houses. Just behind the houses she had visited she saw a larger building made entirely out of stone and surrounded by a wooden wall, a palisade. She put the rucksack on her back, the hammer on her shoulder and headed over to the wooden gates. Thankfully they were only pulled shut as Jane was not confident that she could batter down walls that were obviously designed with war in mind. The manor house had probably belonged to a noble or some such, it was far larger and better made than the others, it even had windows with glass in them! Glass windows that promptly had a hammer put through them. Jane knocked the remaining shards of glass out of the frame and climbed awkwardly into the manor.
Rich tapestries adorned the walls and fine rugs lay on the floor. Everything was reasonably intact making Jane ponder just how long everything had been abandoned. Long enough that roofs had begun collapsing but not enough that tapestries had begun to fall apart. It was definitely strange, not that she had any way to know for now. She entered each room, checking all the furniture for loot, but even here was disappointing. At least she could sleep here and be dry and even fairly comfortable, but the lack of food was beginning to worry her.
The next few rooms were still bedrooms that had been thoroughly emptied but then she came to a large sitting room with a map rolled out on a table. She obviously had no idea where exactly on the map she was, but maps were always useful, with a bit of luck she could find a few landmarks and locate herself and nearby towns. Things were starting to look up. She rolled the map up and put it into her new bag, crossed through the sitting room and opened the door on the far wall. It led to a corridor, and at the end of the corridor was a kitchen. In the kitchen she found a few knives and other cutlery that she threw into the rucksack along with a plate, a bowl and a cup. In a small room behind the kitchen was a pantry that still contained a few sealed clay jars. She opened one and nearly squealed with joy, dried fruit! Granted she had no idea what fruit it was, but it was food. And probably edible, or why would it be here. She shoved the jar of fruits and another of nuts into her bag, which was all that would fit, and left the others in case she could come back and get them.
As she continued to explore the manor she made her way to the entrance hall and made a discovery. In the very centre of the hall, between the doors and the stairs was a huge crystal. It was at least two metres high and floating half a metre of the floor. Jane approached it slowly, this was the first very impossible she had seen since landing in this supposed Universe 2.0. A giant uncut crystal couldn't just be floating in front of her. Maybe it was magnetic? And that colour, a colour that she could only describe as big red button red. The kind that you should definitely not touch, but really, really want to. She turned slowly around the crystal, holding her hand out towards it. She couldn’t feel any heat or anything, and if it was in the middle of a room just like that it couldn’t be that dangerous, could it? Even in the middle ages people didn’t just put dangerous things where anyone could hurt themselves, did they? Probably not. She bit her lip and stretched out her hand to touch the crystal.
As soon as she touched it the whole world turned blue.