Chapter 3
Cookies are a Guy's best friend
“My apologies Elder Jack for such a poor introduction. Greetings Honored Elder Jack. This one's name is Sum Guy.” said Sum Guy, with an abashed look on his face while bowing with his hand held over his fist, like in karate class.
“Huh? My name is Jack, Elder is my surname. Uh, my families name. But you can just call me Jack. Some people just call me Elder, but I'm getting the feeling that means something else where you're from? Here it just means my family. Wait. What'd you just say your name was? Some Guy? Are you fucking kidding me?” Jack giggled a little.
“What? No, this one is called Sum Guy, not 'some guy.' Oh, right, OK, I see what's happening here. Jack, what is the name of your language?” asked Guy, with something of a smirk on his face.
Jack might have still been recovering from a concussion, but this question seemed moronic even so. “English?” In this moment, Jack was trying really hard not to look at Guy the way my old next door neighbor's teenage daughter Cheyenne usually looked at her mom. And everyone really. I'm pretty sure I don't want Sum Guy thinking I'm not respectful. He is enormous, at least six and a half feet tall, and all six and a half feet are packed with muscle. Not to mention he had had a sword, though Jack had no idea where it went, after the fight it had just sort of disappeared.
“Excellent. What language am I speaking right now, Jack?”
“Still English...” Jack heart was filled with a creeping horror when he slowly became aware of the sounds coming out of their respective mouths. Except for 'Jack' and 'English', all the words sounded like crazy talk. It sounded nothing like the language he'd spoken his entire life. In his 42 years, Jack had never succeeded in learning another language. He had tried half a dozen times and as many different languages over the years, but the best he ever got was understanding some baby talk Spanish, and a smattering of Latin. So, the idea that Jack seemed to have completely learned and naturalized a new language in an afternoon seemed to not compute.
“How are we talking nonsense words? It sounds like Gibberish?!" Said a panicking Jack. Is this some kind of delusion that that Guy guy can even understand me? Oh my god. I'm insane. There is no Guy here. I'm all alone, snowed in, stuck alone in the middle of a terrible blightning storm and talking to an imaginary guy, Guy! Jesus! Gwen was right! I actually am a raving lunatic! Of course none of this can happen! Mysterious holes in reality? Mysterious Stranger? Mysterious Lovecraftian beast from beyond? Thought Jack to himself. No. None of this shit happens, man. This is exactly what Gwen said was gonna happen. And Mum. Huh. Actually, lots of people have said I was crazy. Pretty much my whole life. So why am I finding it such a surprise now? Good point, me! Thank you, also me! Jack had slowly begun gripping the edge of the kitchen table at the beginning of that tirade, and by the end, his fingernails had slowly sunk a little into the antique walnut table. Jack looked a little unhinged; and also, apparently, he was stronger now, and so were his fingernails. He looked at his fingers like they belonged to someone else. “What the f...”
“Excellent! You have broken through the shock now! There is so much to explain to you Jack, but parts of it will not make sense until you know some background details. This is the perfect situation for a... right, no, one thing at a time. As I was saying, I am going to have to explain things in a very strange order. Why? Well, it is obvious to me that I am no longer inside the August Jade Empire. Which is what where I am from is called. It is obvious mostly because you do not speak [indecipherable], the dominant language there. Also, because you do not practice [indecipherable] or apparently know anything about it. Oh, you do not know what that is, do you? I used [indecipherable] words because I could not find a suitably useful word in Celestial Elvish, which is the language that we are currently communicating in. Farming? No... that has the wrong connotations. Er... Spiritual Cultivation? Hmm...That is perhaps closest to what [indecipherable] is supposed to mean. The actual word the Ancient Elves used means [Science] and I have to admit I am very curious how that word translates into your 'English.' In my language their word most closely means 'Alchemy,' which is strange because Celestial Elven already has a word that means that. It just goes to show how differently Elves thought about the process we now call Spiritual Cultivation; To them, it was just [Science].”
Jack really was having a very difficult time parsing that monologue. His consciousness seized onto the most easily grasped aspect of it. “Did you just say Elves?” Thoughts of an empire of tree loving, cookie bakers, who mend shoes in the night and build toys for un-naughty children. Yup that checks out. Jack's brain had decided to just give up. In fact, Jack's brain decided to adopt a new policy as of now. It will rubber stamp anything that passes in front of it, no matter how ludicrous it seemed. After all, what was the alternative? Calling bullshit for infinity? That would make it difficult to understand anything, forever attempting to tell reality from unreality. Which could be dangerous either way. Believing real danger to be fake could get you killed. Believing fake danger to be real could also get you killed. Thus, it was decided: If one was stuck inside a delusion, with no way to decide what was or wasn't real, one might as well be agreeable and have a nice time. Real? Imaginary? Really, what's the difference?
“Yes, Elves. Have you heard of them before?” Guy's eyebrows had lowered into a scowl.
“Sure I've heard of them, Elijah Wood used to hang out with one as I recall. Tall. Pale. Long blonde hair. Had a thing for bow and arrow. But I've never met one. They're probably all busy this close to Christmas.” Trying very hard, Jack's brain was trying to keep him on track, but the idea of an ancient empire of Elves made Jack wonder how tasty their cookies must be. And now Jack wanted a cookie. “Shit. I feel like I haven't eaten in days.”
Getting up from the now slightly damaged kitchen table, Jack went about the kitchen, assembling ingredients and bakeware. Before long Jack would have cookies. And also, a mess to clean, as was typical of anything Jack did. They wouldn't be made by ancient mystical masters of exotic culinary techniques, but instead by Jack. The loss to the cookies future quality was sure to be substantial, but Jack would eat them anyway. After all, even a bad cookie is still a cookie. Profound wisdom that.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Until the cookies were finished baking, Jack made steak and eggs while a possibly imaginary Guy continued his paradigm destroying explanation. Jack didn't care that Guy might be imaginary, primarily because Jacks brain told him that it didn't care either, besides, some of Jack's best friends had been imaginary. It wouldn't be Guy's fault if he wasn't real, and so Jack wasn't about to hold it against him. “Don't mind me. Please continue. You mentioned Elves are real, and farming spirits, yeah?”
“This is what I meant. If this conversation is not strictly controlled, we will never get to the explanations. Yes, to Elves being real. No to farming spirits. There is a thing called spirit farming where I come from, but that is something else altogether and beside the point. Right now, we are both speaking 'Celestial Elvish'. It is a dead language, because the last of the Celestial Elves were wiped out during the 'Great War of the Firstborn', a period where some factions of the oldest races in the Cosmos made war against others. The Celestial Elves' Empire was reduced to a single world after a long and bloody conflict, besieged by enemies and cut off from their allies. Then one day, they were all just gone. Nobody knows what happened, or where they disappeared to, and nobody knows why. All that is known is they left many things behind. Relics from that age are priceless treasures, knowledge from that age is peerless wisdom. Almost all human Spiritual Cultivation techniques were derived from their original methods.” Guy said.
“This is why I am here, actually. I am on a personal mission for my Sect Master. I had finally finished acquiring my final Artifact, and my next instruction was then to leave the Silver Perennial Realm by the closest exit, which in this case was a ruined ancient Celestial Elven transportation array. The transport took a lot longer than I would have expected, I am not an expert in ancient Arrays, but I know enough to know that the one I used was not like any Transportation Array I had ever seen or heard of before. Presumably the Array was not instantaneous teleportation as has been my previous experience, perhaps because the distance to wherever here is, is much farther away than the worlds inside the empire? But maybe it is just a different kind of Array? I do not know."
“Then there was the Abyssal Horror that attacked me while I was mid-transport, I have never heard of that happening before, but again, my experience with Transport Arrays is that they are instantaneous. Not like this one, which was more like a long dark corridor through apparent nothingness. I honestly have no idea how it could attack me inside... wherever I was, unless the tunnel traveled through the Abyss, I should have never come even close to something like that. But surviving in the Abyss is not possible for humans until they are far more powerful than I, at least as far as I am aware. Anyways, it attacked and I was caught off guard. Its venom severely weakened my ability to project [spiritual energy], oh, um, Chi? Yeah, ok, Chi. It also blunted my Psight, and my other spiritual senses, and set back my Cultivation by decades at least. I was lucky you distracted it, or I would have surely died. And then every other living thing nearby would have also died.”
“At first, I was not sure that this was where the fortune teller had meant for me to go. I expected to be transported to another Imperial ruin, or to yet another hidden realm. Why would the Imperial family even have a transport Array to here? A place with no [spiritual energy], um, Chi? I suppose it must have been very different here back then though. It was a very long time since the 'Great War of the Firstborn', millions of years by the reckoning of the August Jade Empire. So, at first, I believed that the Abyssal Horror, or the age of the array or something else might have skewed the transport and sent me somewhere random. But now I understand. I was supposed to come here. For you, Jack. I was told to find the Elder House.” Jack's face showed a distinct lack of comprehension.
“I am sorry, this is all very confusing for you is it not? I know this is hard to understand with your current capacity. Right, I have not explained that yet either; Jack, your mind was damaged. Seeing that Abyssal Horror as a mere mortal was such an assault on your mind that it should have killed you, but luckily for you, you had given yourself minor brain damage first, so you did not instantly die. Luck. Or maybe fate?” Guy seemed strangely excited about this, but Jack didn't understand why this was exciting. After all Jack spends literally all his time not instantly dying. It was his number one hobby.
“When I saw that you didn't immediately die, I made the assumption you were a meridian level spiritual cultivator which was my Second failure. The first was letting that thing into the portal at all. That is why when I awoke and saw you had tended my wounds, I used this... um, Skill-Book? Yes, I used a Skill Book on you so we could communicate. I would have loved to give you my own language, [indecipherable], but why would anyone carry around a Skill Book for a language that they already spoke? Everybody already speaks [indecipherable]! I only had this one because the Sect Master's mission revolves around it. This Skill Book was never meant to be used as just a language Skill Book, it is actually a Celestial Elven Inheritance, discovered in the abandoned palace of the Celestial Empire's home planet. It acts as a Skill Book for the Celestial Elven language before checking for whatever requirements it has to unlock the full Inheritance. Which is very lucky because there have been very few recorded Skill Books ever found; Elves almost never made them because all of the elves already spoke it. Which does beg the question of why the Imperial Celestial Elven Inheritance would transmit the Elvish language first, does it not? It is almost as if they knew that its intended recipient was a non-Elf... But I digress."
"My Sect Master, Master Chen discovered that this Artifact held a hidden inheritance only after years of study, though no matter what he tried, he could never meet the requirements for unlocking it. Master Chen theorized that perhaps only the bloodline of the Celestial Elven Imperial family could do so. But if that was true, then why transmit the language? It is a great mystery. It was then that he sought the help of the Sect of the Whispering Spirit Seers, a tiny Sect which focuses on divination and other esoteric practices. After many exhaustive rituals, they cobbled together a convoluted and nearly impossible plan which would hopefully, unlock the restrictions on this ancient Elven inheritance. These rituals determined that only I, out of all the other disciples of both sects had even a slight chance of success, and even then, only if I followed their directions exactly.”
“My need to determine if I was in the right place led to my third failure, which is why I also have to apologize for also damaging your soul. I did not realize at that time that you were just a mortal, or that you had not yet opened a single meridian, or that you had both mind damage, and brain damage. If I knew any of those things, I would never have used the Inheritance, er, Skill Book on your unconscious mind. I only meant to talk with you, maybe ask you some questions. I am afraid it has had catastrophic effects on your self and personhood. Though I would like to commend you on your integrity! I congratulate you on not being dead!”
Apparently, Guy was really reaching for something positive to say to Jack. Luckily for him, Jack was not overly concerned about the overall negative tone of this giant info-dump, as he was barely paying attention to any of it. Being praised for failing to be dead still seemed silly to Jack, but maybe Guy comes from a place with especially low expectations on people? Jack thought that sounded nice actually, people always have really high expectations of him, it's quite stressful. Jack slid a large plate over in front of a briefly paused Guy. On that plate was Steak and Eggs. “Oh, thank you. What is this?”
“You've never had Steak and Eggs? You poor bastard! Here's the ketchup and hot sauce. Its already got butter on it if that's all you need. It's all I need, but Gwen would kill me if I didn't at least offer the ketchup. Enjoy! I can hear incomprehensible nonsense uttered by possibly imaginary people better on a full stomach, that's what my dear old Mum used to say!” Jack's mother had never in fact actually said that. But the food was delicious, or maybe it was just that Jack hadn't eaten since Monday night, whenever that was. Guy watched Jack eat a few bites before picking up his fork and knife, looking at them as if he had never eaten with utensils like these. Eating with a tiny trident and knife? It is so barbaric it is almost quaint! That thought made Guy smile to himself.
“If you think this is good, wait until you try my Mum's Chocolate Chip Cookies!” Jack said, while beaming like a lighthouse. Guy started getting the feeling that Jack wasn't really processing any of this particularly well. Well, thought Guy, his “mum” is right, whatever a “mum” is. Everything is easier to understand on a full stomach. I wonder what a Chocolate Chip Cookie is.