Iris awoke to a night sky blanketed with brilliant stars and nebula clouds. Her body shouted in pain as she tried to move, and she let out a miserable groan as she scooted upright against a boulder. Slow swirling hues of rich purple and orange cream from the moons above faintly illuminated a rocky desert landscape that sprawled in all directions. Short, hardy shrubbery dotted the land in sparse patches, and in the distance she could see veins of shallow rocky cliffs. She kept waiting for her thoughts to return to her, but all she could think about was her agonizing headache.
Almost absent-mindedly, she reached into her bottomless bag and pulled out the bottle of tea Mrs. Rousey had given her. To her surprise, it was still warm. It was about that time that she realized how cold she was, instinctively curling her knees to her chest and bringing her arms close. She sipped at the warm tea, happy to drink something even as she cringed at the dirt taste. After a moment her myriad of pains began to ease.
Next she pulled out a ration bar, ripped off the paper wrapping and started eating. She knew she would need her energy for whatever came next. The bar was a soft, mushy texture, like it would have been gooey had it not been intentionally dried for preservation. It mostly tasted like chalk, but there were hints of nuts and berries. Officially Mr. Quell had a strict policy against employees taking anything home from the store, even if it would otherwise be thrown out, but she always saved the expired ration bars and smuggled them out instead of throwing them away. The taste tended to get worse and worse beyond their recommended shelf life, but they were safe to eat for months beyond that. She liked them because they were free, and also because they made her feel like an adventurer.
Despite the comforting familiarity of the ration bar, it was a labor to keep her breathing calm. With every second that passed her situation settled in deeper. The purple and orange moon in the sky wouldn't be visible in the valley for several months, and the familiar lazuli blue moon that lingered perpetually over her homeland was nowhere to be seen. Iris didn't know much about the cycles of the moons, but she knew this meant she was very, very far from home. It was said the fastest dragons could encircle the world in one month's time. No one Iris had ever met had ever even seen a dragon, let alone knew how fast they could fly, so she generally interpreted that to mean that the world was very big. To this day she still occasionally learned of new nations, new lands, and even once a completely new continent. She found it hard to believe that any one person could possibly know all the lands of the world. That meant that not only did she have no idea where she was, but might now be in lands she didn't even know existed.
She remembered the unfinished quest slips in her bag, the pocket watch that was now further from its owner than it had probably ever been, the still aching wounds that Mrs. Rousey had treated, and finally the events at the Weird Farmer's farm. Living scarecrows? A giant, invisible chicken? She touched the hat on her head, then felt the bandages beneath it. At least some of what she remembered must have really happened, but she found herself seriously considering how much of a role head trauma had played. A sick feeling broiled in her stomach as she thought about her village, the raging fires, and the murderous scarecrows. She reasoned that the village guards shouldn't have much trouble dispatching the scarecrows, but how many people would they hurt before they were all dealt with? How many even were there? Was every scarecrow in the valley secretly evil? That was to say nothing of the fires, which could spread across the farmland, into the forest and possibly even the village itself. The village had dealt with fires before and wouldn't be unprepared, but that didn't guarantee they could stop this one.
She had wanted to leave that valley for as long as she could remember. It represented everything about the world that kept her trapped in a boring, meaningless existence that she longed every day to escape. Still, as she sat huddled in the cold, dark desert, tears streamed down her cheeks.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
----------------------------------------
The tree trunk legs of a tyrannosaur stomped through the rocks and shrubbery of the desert floor, its jaws gnashing out at the tail feathers of the flying griffin it chased. Eli clenched his legs tight around the saddle, digging his feet into the stirrups as he leaned to his left. The griffin intuitively followed his lead, diving to the left and sweeping around the side of the tyrannosaur as Eli leveled his staff to his shoulder and took aim down its length. The runes engraved into the staff began to glow, rapidly illuminating to an almost blinding light before discharging their power towards the tip of the staff. A deep red bolt of pure magic erupted from the tip and fired forwards, leaving a quickly dissipating trail of red wisps in its wake.
The bolt of magic landed on the left side of the beast's face, obliterating its left eye in an instant and leaving a charred wound emanating dark smoke. It roared in anger and ducked to its right, twisting and swinging its tail towards the sky. The tail, as big around as the griffin was wide, slammed into the griffin's side and swatted it from the sky. Eli was hurled off, his long blonde hair knocked loose from its ties and violently whipping around his face. His vision blurred as he rapidly spiraled, unable to see the ground or the sky for more than a fraction of second as he struggled to discern which way was up.
He heard the screech of his companion as it deftly recovered and swooped towards him, but the ground was rapidly approaching. He released a steady blast of magic from one hand, the runes on his gauntlet illuminating like the runes of his staff. He then added a blast from the other hand to stabilize himself. He was still falling quickly, but the force of his blasts steadied him in the air and slowed his descent from deadly to dangerous. He gauged his angle of descent and picked out his likely landing spot, and saw the tyrannosaur stomping towards it with a gaping maw outstretched.
A bolt of blinding white light slammed into Eli from the side, blasting sideways just before the beast's jaws clamped down where he had been. The impact pushed the air from his lungs, yet he felt a brief flash of rejuvenation before abruptly slapping against the hard stone of a cliff face. Pain exploded throughout his body as bones cracked and sharp edges cut into his flesh. Another bolt of light -- this one larger and faster -- crashed into his chest and pressed him against the wall for a second longer before he slipped off and dropped to the ground below. He landed on his feet and fell into a crouch, his bones already healing as if they'd never cracked while the gnarly gashes under the shredded leather armor on his back were closing shut with a searing pain. He looked up to his party's healer, Titus, who had turned his attention to the towering beast and summoned an erratic shimmering spear of the same blinding white light that had just saved his teammate. Eli cracked a smile at the healer's ridiculous maneuver, then scanned the battlefield for his staff.
A deep, guttural scream came from overhead. A figure clad in a suit of armor molded from the rocky terrain itself was hurdling off the cliff above and plummeting towards the giant beast's head, a giant stone battle-axe clasped with both hands was raised overhead and ready to strike. The axe trailed streaks and globs of molten rock as its wielder flew through the air. The tyrannosaur jerked its head just before the attacker struck, causing the attacker to miss its target but still land a hit. The battle-axe carved a deep gash through the side of the beast's neck, sending gallons of blood gushing out onto the ground below. The beast roared in pain and fury as the figure crashed down in a kneeling stance, shattering the ground beneath the impact. The figure rose to their feet and let out a passionate, angry scream as the axe arced up from the an underhand swing that sent a geyser of magma spewing up the ground and into the beast's chest, further fueling it's panicked roars as it stumbled back with melting scales across its chest.
----------------------------------------
Iris stood atop a tall rock jutting from the ground, wiping the tears from her face as she watched the light show of red, white and orange glows erupting in the distance. The roars of the beast echoed through the quiet desert air even as its distant form was only faintly and periodically illuminated by the bursts of light from the battle. In the rare glances she got of the figures fighting the monster, they appeared like flies buzzing around an elephant.
She might not know where she was, or exactly how she got here, but she knew adventurers fighting a monster when she saw them. She briefly found herself captivated by the thought of how beautiful the image would look illustrated on a page of an adventurer's magazine. Then, with a quick stretch to loosen her tense, aching muscles, she teleported into the darkness between her and the battle.