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I never thought I’d write a book, but I’m getting old so here I am.
This book is for my kids: Tommy, Danny, Rose, Kyle, Penelope, Seamus, Sydney, and Gorth’ruk.
Like I said, I’m starting to get old - and I want you kids to have something you can hold. I know I’ve told y’all all these stories until I was blue in the face before, and that y’all can probably tell them better than I can. But hopefully it’ll be nice to have this book - something you can see and remember me by.
I’m gonna have some more copies made, so anyone interested can read it too. I know there are still some other folks from ol’ Earth, so maybe this’ll be good for ya too. I’ll add in some more details for y’all who don’t know me personally.
Anyway, my name’s Topher Murray and I’m the current “conductor” of The Escapade Endurer.
I lived on a planet named Earth until I was 25 years old. Then I ended up here through some unusual circumstances. I’ve been riding the Endurer for 60 years now - ever since I got here. It’s been a strange and fun journey.
Well hell, let’s cut to the chase and start at the beginning.
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So before I got here to Aier, I lived on a place called Earth. I was born in a place called Tennessee and spent most my life in a place called West Virginia. I lived out in the boonies, far away from big cities. Compared to the rest of my life and everything coming up in this book, growing up in West Virginia wasn’t nothing too exciting.
For work I was a “mechanic” - I pretty much fixed fancy carriages. Nothing much worth telling about these days. Growing up I spent a lot of time outdoors, in the woods. I did a lot of fishing and spent time with my friends and family. Back on Earth things were mundane. The only race was humans, there was no dragons or beasts, and no magic. Back then the only thing I’d fought was Harry Goodman when I was 12 years old, and some drunk guy in a bar once.
Wish I had more to say about those days. Wish you kids could’a met your grandparents and whatnot. But life gives what it gives ya and you gotta roll with it, so let’s get into the meat and potatoes.
It all started around two weeks before Halloween. The year there was 2023 on Earth. Everyone was living life as usual - going to work, getting home, downing 12 beers, and repeating. It was about a week before Halloween (Earth’s version of Shamblenight) when things started going to shit. First, there was a bunch of natural disasters - more than usual. Consistent tornados, flooding, earthquakes, and the like. People were scared but chalked it up to luck.
Next things ramped up a good bit. A little after midnight on Halloween the big stuff all started happening at the same time. Not sure what all happened, but from what I gathered every volcano erupted, and every river and stream flooded. Tornados hit all over, and huge fires sprung up wherever they could. Both tsunamis and super-hurricanes hit every coast. Then the earthquake started - a constant low tremblin’ all over the world. This is when people started goin’ batshit looney.
As you can imagine, most people thought it was some religious rapture. And maybe it was, I’m still not sure. Though from what I know now, it probably wasn’t the Abrahamic god Yahweh. Could’ve been Yasotheam’e, I met that god once and he’s a nasty sum’bitch. Even to this day, knowing that gods exist, I ain’t ever been one for religion. Those days sure did have me second-guessing myself though.
Them days I was taking care of my grampy at his house down in the valley. Gramaw had passed a few years before and Grampy wasn’t doing well. Just about every day I’d go to work an hour and forty-five minutes away at the shop and then cook something that Grampy liked. Sunday I’d take him to church so he could see his friends.
When the shit-storm hit, he never did say much. He was like that in general, though. With him bein’ a god-fearing man I had expected something more outta him, but nope. He kept on with his regularities until the last moment I saw him.
Most my neighbors were all quite religious, and the lot of ‘em had pretty much been living together in the Church since a couple days before Halloween. I had stopped by a few times to help out with this or that. I gotta say, that place put more dread in me than anything else; the crying, sobbing, the nearly violent praying at all hours. Not to mention everyone got sicker than hell. Some of the elderly passed on right there on the pews. Impromptu funerals were happenin’ daily. Whelp, enough about that.
It was almost a week after Halloween that me and my friends figured that we were probably goin’ out one way or another, and decided to go with a bang. Our little corner of West Virginia was a combination of flooding in the valley and wild fires all up and down the mountains by this point. I talked to Grampy and he didn’t care one way or another what happened really, “When it’s my time, it’s my time” he’d say.
My cousin Casey lived a couple roads down. We’d grown up together and she was a great gal. Red-head with a temper to match, but overall one I was proud to call kin. She worked at the diner down the road from the auto shop, so we’d occasionally head down to the bar after work. Well, I got off work at 6 and she right near midnight, so by time she got there I was usually a good 8 beers deep. (That’s how she always whooped my ass at pool - I’m damn good at pool.)
And then there was Uncle Cletus. Good god, where do I start? First of all, Cletus has always lived within an hour of me, and he was no stranger. He’d been at all my birthdays and notable events in my life growing up. But thing is, I never knew where exactly he lived. Or what he did for a livin’. I don’t know if anyone did. Casey and I had our theories - that he lived in the woods. That he sold moonshine or drugs. Still don’t know to this day. Ask him and you’ll still get some vague ramblin’: “Well these days I’m living up on the mount, got me a good bidness going! No, you can’t invest. And no, you ain’t coming over for a bonfire. Now pass me the gravy before I hafta come over there and snatch it, AHahHAha!”
He’s as good a man as they come though. He will (and has) break his back to help ya.
So, with Grampy’s go-ahead, I rounded up ol’ Uncle Cletus, Casey, and whoever else was still in that neck of the woods and was down for a hoe-down — an end-of-the-world bonfire. We wrangled up twelve mostly willing party-goers and set to find goods for the shindig. A few of our friends from work, and some folks who’d prefer our company to those in the church.
All in all we managed to round up enough moonshine that if the weather didn’t kill us, the alcohol would. And that's saying something cause Uncle Cletus once drank 5 fifths of the good stuff and still climbed a 40 foot tree like some goddamn squirrel. Whatever would wasn’t wet or already burned, we grabbed it and made a massive pile in our backyard, which was a mud-pit up to my knees by now.
We had all the ingredients, but we weren’t sure when to kick things off. Sure as hell didn’t wanna be hungover if the rapture did indeed come to pass. Our start whistle was the earthquake. When it started it was huge, I thought I’d be shaked right off the planet. After a minute it settled into the low, almost vibration-like that went on for the remainder of my time there.
So we started our bender. And by god, if we were being judged on what we did, I would be in an abyssal plane fighting Rathgor demons right now and not this comfy chair. Debauchery of all sorts- you kids don’t need to hear about that.
We went goin’ on having a good time for a few days.
There are a few last things I remember from home.
Casey laughing at Uncle Cletus putting an oversized boot on his head and doing cartwheels. Grampy sitting in his rocking chair, looking out at the wind and rain and fire, and at us.
And then the fire whirled up like a tornado - forty, sixty, a hundred feet in the air.
It got bright, like the sun was trying to squeeze out of the bonfire. It wasn’t hot, but it sure was bright. I shut my eyes as tight as I could, and right when I thought I’d go blind anyhow — everything dissolved away.
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The next thing I know, I open my eyes to see a bright blue sky, the sun shining down on me. It was hotter than hell. My head was pounding and it felt like all the worst hangovers of my life crammed into one. I immediately upchuked a few times. I looked over and saw Cletus and Casey lying just a few feet from me. Their clothes were pert near burned off completely, but otherwise, they looked alright. I was still worried so I went over to Cletus and he was asleep but breathin’, same for Casey. My clothes were also charred, but I wasn’t burnt either.
I looked around and we were in an honest-to-god desert. Sand dunes as far as the eyes could see. I didn’t see anyone else. I stumbled around a bit and called out for people, for Grampy. But we were the only ones.
I doubted that we were still in West Virginia, no matter how bad a storm could be, it couldn’t do this. I reckoned that we had been moved somehow, maybe some tornado grabbed and sent us to the Sahara (a big desert on Earth). At the time, with what was happening, this seemed like a fairly good guess. Also crossed my mind that it was all in my mind. But with how much my head was hurtin’, I figured my brain couldn’t make up that much pain for itself. There was some stuff scattered a few yards around us. Mostly trash - moonshine bottles, beer cans, broken glass, some pieces of burnt wood.
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There were 3 things I didn’t recognize from our hootenanny - 3 tickets, thin and golden. I nabbed ‘em and just about shit my briches when I looked at them. Kids, I’ve done my best to teach y’all English, the language we spoke in The U.S.A. I was never very good at it, but I did my best to pass down what I did know. It’s important y’all know your heritage. Anyways, these tickets had writing on them that sure wasn’t English. But even weirder, I could read it. At this point, I realized that I wasn’t even thinking in English anymore! It was the darndest thing, suddenly knowing another language (The closest I ever got to a foreign language back home was knowing enough Spanish to order at Taco Bell). It was also weird that it didn’t feel weird. Felt perfectly normal, like I’d known it all my life.
As I took a gander, shit just got cooler. Along the bottom was a moving train, smoke and all, still embossed in gold. The background was like a map with a small line squigglin’ all over the place. Front and center were the words “The Escapade Endurer”. Below that - and this really made me trip - were our names. Topher Murray, Cletus Murray, Casey Patterson. Right there, clear as day.
I didn’t know what to make of ‘em, so I stuck them in the waistband of my underwear. I was trying to get my bearings, and looking at golden tickets with moving parts wasn’t helping none. I looked around the desert, figuring out a direction to go in that seemed like a good guess. Luckily, I didn’t have to guess ‘cause there were plumes of smoke just barely puffing up over a sand dune.
Right about then Casey and Cletus woke up at the same time.
Casey took a nice big chuck. Cletus went right off; “Got-DAYUM, I ain’t never had a hit like that before!”. “Ah shit, it’s still goin’? How long I been out!?” he hollered.
I told him “Well now, Uncle Cletus - don’t get your panties in a wad but you ain’t tripping anymore. Otherwise, we’re all three having the exact same trip.”
Uncle Cletus laughed hard and said “Whelp, wouldn’t be the first time! That stuff happens, y’know. Anyhow, let’s make the best of it. I should’a known it’d be good. Got it from my buddy Kurt - he’s always got the best. Y’all just go with the flow, I’ve known his stuff to last 72 hours!”
Casey had gotten whatever was in her system out, and took to what Casey does best: gettin’ riled up.
“WHAT IN THE HELL-” she hollered before some sand caught her throat and she had a coughing fit. I tried to jump in to calm her. I don’t know why, never worked before. Sure as hell wouldn’t work now.
“Now listen, Casey. Some weird stuff is happening, but what’s important is that we’re together and unhu-”
“WE’RE IN A GODDAMNED DESERT, TOPHER. CLETUS IS WEARING A BOOT ON HIS HEAD. WE’RE BURNT TO HELL. WHERE IS EVERYONE?” she thundered. “GRAMPY! MOOG! BETSYYY!” she called out.
“Casey, they ain’t here, but we’ll find ‘em, I promise.”
Some of her steam had let out and collected at the corner of her eyes. The shakin’ in her fists had made it north to her lower lip. I gave her a big hug.
“It’ll be alright. We’re tough. We got family here. It’ll be okay,” I assured her.
“God, you smell like vomit and piss, Topher.”
“You don’t exactly smell like honeysuckle and dew drops, ma’am.”
We chuckled and glanced over at Uncle Cletus.
In not too loud a voice I said “And I don’t even wanna know what he smells like. Let’s keep him at a good two or three arms-lengths.”
“If not more,” Casey told me. That got more than a chuckle from us and a brief eyeing from Uncle Cletus.
“Alright y’all, good news if ya haven’t seen - there’s smoke over there”, I pointed. “We’re luckier than hell. Let’s go say hello, and hope they return the favor.”
We took off in the direction of the smoke.
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We walked at the best pace we could for feeling how we did. We had thought there was going to be no hangover. We partied like the next place we lay would be our graves. And boy-howdy, we were paying the price. None of us had been in a desert before, and we were not big fans that day. I sure thought about fans while we were walking barefoot through blisteringly hot sand.
Casey and me didn’t say too much for the first few miles. Uncle Cletus didn’t shut up. Don’t know how the man had the moisture in his mouth to talk about every damned thing from the lone puff of cloud in the sky to the seven different oases he swore he saw. We were walking for maybe half an hour, hard to tell, before I realized how far away the smoke was. I started to realize it the plumes were big, not close.
As we started to close the distance we could pick out some details. There did look to be a large body of deep blue water, some trees, and even some buildings! Sure was an oasis. That pepped us right up, and we got to talking about how the three of us were gonna’ drink that thing dry.
I had given my thought that maybe we were picked up and dropped off by a tornado.
“That’s impossible, there’s no way we’re in the Sahara!” Casey had told me. “Plus, don’t you know anything about maps? If anything, we’d be somewhere like Mexico.”
“Oh, Mexico is realistic, but Africa is too far, huh?” I said.
“Doesn’t matter, we aren’t in either of ‘em. I don’t know where we are, but things are different Topher, can’t you feel it?”
“Can I feel the difference between the mountains of West Virginia and a desert? Yes, I can, Casey. I think I picked up on that.”
“No, smartass. The air, the light, sound. It has something… I don’t know, extra.”
“I didn’t know that you partook in Uncle Cletus’ goods, Casey. I thought you swore off the stuff when you had a bad trip and took a chainsaw the neighbor's house?” (For you non-earthers, a chainsaw is kinda like an Abyssal Tethagor’s tooth. Ya got one big tooth, with smaller teeth spinning around it real fast).
Cletus piped up; “OHHohohoooo, I feel it Casey! I know just what’cher talkin’ ‘bout. I’m all in, this stuff’s great. It’s flowing through me, all hot and heavy. YEEEEEEEEW!”
“Alright, I’m responsible for two hicks trippin’ balls while we show up in a strange town in a strange desert after the end of the world. What a fuckin’ day” I thought aloud, earning a rather strong punch in the shoulder from Casey.
We started gettin’ real close, and then I saw it. All the hairs on my body stood up. I stopped dead in my tracks. Casey and Uncle Cletus walked a few steps ahead of me before Casey turned around.
“What’s up? We’re getting close, there’s water. Now ain’t the time to lollygag, cousin.”
“Do y’all see that?” I replied, pointing to the most enormous train I’d ever seen. I realized now that the long black line I’d seen from afar wasn’t a ridge or a mirage. It was a train that spanned as far as I could see on either side.
“Well I’ll be, it’s a train!” Casey acknowledged.
“Yep, and y’all, check out what I found in the trash that came with us from the bonfire,” I said as I pulled out the golden tickets, holding them carefully so the breeze wouldn’t send them into the dunes.
“That one’s mine!” Uncle Cletus yelled as soon as he spotted his name, snatching the ticket out of my hand and dancing and hopping away while hootin’ and hollerin’.
“And just when in the shit were you going to show us these, huh!? And what language is this? WAIT, WHAT IN THE FU-”
“Casey, CASEY! It’s fine! Listen, I can read it too. And yes, I’m thinkin’ this way too.”
“I hadn’t even noticed, Topher! What the hell is going on? I never even seen this language before. By god, I hope I did take drugs. This is too much.”
“Hey listen, I agree with ya. This is wilder than shit. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I like what Uncle Cletus said - let’s go with the flow. We’re alive, and I’m sure things will start making sense any time now.”
“For some reason I highly doubt that,” Casey said, sorta spaced out with glossed-over eyes.
About now Uncle Cletus yelled “Last one to the Endurer is a rotten egg!” and bolted through the sand with his awkward running, like his balls were the size of coconuts.
Casey and I shrugged and took off after him.
Uncle Cletus was fast for being almost twice my age. Casey was slower than molasses in January (Yurnum sap in Frostseason).
I overtook ol’ Uncle Cletus and booked it down until I was within a hundred yards of the buildings of the small oasis town. It was bustlin’. I could hear people talking, shop owners yelling and hustling. I could smell different foods cooking. I couldn’t tell what any of it was, but it would’a had my mouth watering if I had a drop to spare.
A few things stopped my sprint. First was the severe lack of water in my body. The second thing was that I knew Casey coudn’t had been very close at all.
Third was the kind of people I spotted.
Now kids, I’ve talked this point to death with y’all, but I’ll give the rundown for the rest of y’all real quick. Back home and here on Aier, I’ve met a lot of different kinds of people. And in both places, sometimes people don’t like people that don’t look like them. For the people who made it over here and thought like that, I wonder how they did. I don’t care how someone looks, as long as they treat people with respect. Now that’s not to say I wasn’t shocked when I first saw the people of this world. I just about fainted, and it wasn’t ‘cause of the heat. Now where I come from, people generally look alike. As in everyone has the same general height range, faces with noses. No tails. No horns. No feathers. We were all humans.
So when I came to the edge of a town in a desert and saw renkus, draccons, gnomes, elves, and all the others, it took me a hot minute to realize what I was looking at. I could tell that everyone was the real deal — no suits or costumes here.
A minute later Uncle Cletus caught up, breathless and wheezing. He stopped next to me, bent over with hands on his knees just tryin’ to catch his breath. After a bit, he lifted his head and looked around.
“Alright Topher, you’re quicker than ya used to be! I’ll get your ass next time though. Also, what is the flyin’ fuck is that?” he said pointing to a draccon, then a gnome, then a dwarf.
“Uncle Cletus, I really wish I could tell you right now” I replied.
We just sorta stood there looking around. We were on the backside of the city. The buildings were all wood, most about 2 stories tall. We were watching the different kinds of people walking between alleys, or taking care of duties out behind shops. Everyone’s clothes looked real weird to me back then, very old-timey. Also the first time I saw people casually walking around in various kinds of armor. It was a new sight to me then to see a bunch of people carrying swords longer than I was tall, staffs with small purple crystals floating around ‘em, and bows more intricate than any I’d ever shot. Uncle Cletus pretty much just gawked and kept repeating “look at THAT” until Casey arrived.
It was a good ten minutes before Casey finally showed up. She had quit with the running and walked up to us. She stopped next to us. Looked around. Stared a bit.
“Hooolly. Shit,” she cursed in the quietest voice I’ve ever heard come from her.
“Yep. Anywho, I am actually dying of thirst. So here’s the plan: We walk it there, all confident-like. We don’t stand out too much, all things considered. Let’s get some water, and then we’ll-”
“We’ll get piss drunk!” Uncle Cletus interrupted.
“Yes, that, exactly that” Casey chimed in.
Uncle Cletus let out a laugh that was more like a half-alive cat hacking up a hairball.
The three of us walked down the alley onto the main strip and stopped again.
The Escapade Endurer was the most beautiful damn thing I’d ever seen.