“You alright?” Ingrid said, patting Siria’s back.
Siria collapsed to the ground coughing and heaving.
“You’re right! You’re right! I should just use this paralysis potion on myself.” She said, coughing as she emptied her stomach on the ground. She quickly opened her satchel and quickly drank some of the medicine Ingrid recommended to her. Traveling very fast was definitely NOT pleasant to someone not used to it, it was a miracle that Arthur was unaffected at all.
“G-go ahead and look for the ship… I’ll be fine, I just need to recover for a bit.” Siria said weakly.
“Alright, holler if you need anything.” Ingrid said, standing up and walking further into the vast nondescript grassland around them. They were several miles away from Teth-Odin, a journey that would have taken probably a week on horseback and even longer by walking.
From inside the Dialogue Window, the tracking device that Cecil was holding onto was starting to beep faster.
“It’s here.” he said, looking at the tracking device that Arek gave him. “Fifty feet ahead. Thirty feet below, be careful.”
At this, the rest of the mice disembarked from Cecil’s Dialogue window. Arthur unslung his rifle and placed it into the window before joining the rest of the pack. The mice started digging very fast, carrying only pistols in their hip holsters. Ingrid followed, creating a spherical forcefield to widen the tunnel and compact the soil as she followed the mice downwards. Cecil followed behind, using a flashlight (also borrowed from Arek) to illuminate the way. At the end of this incline they found a round door, Cecil came over and the mice scrambled to get to their guns, then he waved the space equivalent of a key fob and the door opened, various lights of Arek’s vessel hummed to life.
“I thought it would be something smaller like the size of an SUV.” Ingrid said, but the chamber they were in was a good fifty feet across, it was round, suggesting they were in some kind of flying saucer. As they entered, the opaque walls with hexagonal patterns flickered and displayed the packed soil, rocks, and roots all around them, these were overlaid with various symbols in possibly Gulan script or whatever was the lingua franca for space people.
From what they could see, the ship looked pristine, there didn’t seem to be any broken consoles anywhere, nothing scratched or dented. The mice carefully advanced but there seemed to be nothing amiss in this strange chamber.They sniffed around the air but could not find anything suspicious.
Meanwhile, Ingrid and Cecil noticed that the only chairs around were like divans and they were arranged perpendicular to the window-monitors of the ship, which would make sense for a Gulan like Arek.
“Now that I think of it, Arek always had that quickly expanding cushion for him to sit on.” Cecil mused, “but never seemed to need a front rest…”
“You missed the memo, when Arek goes on ‘all fours' it's the equivalent of a bipedal like me lying down from a standing position. Something about how their muscles are normally in that position.” Ingird replied, their conversation however was interrupted when they heard the telltale sound of ice crystals forming as Siria created an ice ramp for her to slide through. She slid along the smooth floor of the ship before standing quickly to marvel at the interior all around her.
“This… this is beyond anything I can imagine!” She said excitedly.
“I told you, we’re from another world.” Ingrid said. “But Arek, he’s on a whole ‘nother level from us.”
“What do you mean?” Siria asked, still taking in the view of the futuristic interior all around them.
“Cecil and I come from another world that’s far more advanced than yours.” Ingrid began “You’ve seen the weapons that SABER uses. They’re from my world, that’s how we fight our wars…”
“Got it, switching to English.” Said a mechanical voice. Siria jumped in surprise alongside SABER but the latter calmed down quickly when they saw Ingrid and Cecil were unmoved.
Thanks to one of Melrondia’s SEEDs, this wouldn’t be the first time they’ve encountered an AI that talked without the archetypical robotic monotone, although this ship did have the mechanical reverb and distortion around it. They figured that Arek must have done this on purpose, as an advanced civilization like his would probably have artificial voices indistinguishable from a person already.
“Who’s talking?” Siria asked, quickly looking around her. Her interpretation spell understood the voice but Ingrid and Cecil were not sure if the machine could understand her.
“Hello, computer? AI? Cephalate? I’m Ingrid Lily and this slime is Cecil. The Elf is Siria, and the big rodents packing guns are called SABER, we’re friends of Arek. We’re here on his instructions.” Ingrid didn’t bother to look around, she was sure that this vessel could see all around.
“I’m Kaguya, AI of this vessel.” the AI said.
“Hello Kaguya,” Ingrid said.
“Heh, classic.” Cecil chuckled.
“Who’s Kaguya? What’s an “Ayy-Eye?” Siria said.
“I can’t interpret the Aeldari’s language” Kaguya observed “Ingrid, you will need to interpret for me.”
“Aeldari? Those space elves or something?” Ingrid asked.
“Yes, I’m talking about the elf.” Kaguya replied.
“Her species here is just called ‘elf’” Ingrid then turned to Siria “Kaguya can’t understand you, so I’ll be your interpreter.”
“That’s good to know.” Siria said.
“She said that’s good to know.”
“I talk too, but not the rodents.” Cecil said
“I noticed that, Cecil. You and Ingrid were conversing. It appears you’re using some kind of unknown technology to communicate with the elf. Explain.”
“Magic. I don’t know how else to explain it.” Cecil said. “Run a scan or something. Siria, can you say something? Ingrid, try repeating what she says in English.”
“Sure.” Ingrid replied. It probably sounded strange to the AI but as far as Cecil’s mind was concerned, the translation spell turned all of Siria’s elvish words immediately into English for him. He could hear the words but couldn’t really parrot them, as his mind was quickly interpreting them all to something he could understand.
Kaguya’s lights flickered and changed colors. “Scanned it, I’m detecting unusual radiation from all of you but I can’t make sense of it. Magic it is.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t throw a tantrum and say something like ‘illogical’ or something like that.” Ingrid deadpanned.
“You’ve met Arek, define ‘illogical’” and they all burst into laughter.
“Is this ship Kaguya alive, Ingrid?” Siria said, looking around nervously.
“You could say that Siria, she’s a living, thinking, self aware machine. AI stands for artificial intelligence, imagine a golem that can think and feel.” came Ingrid’s answer after some thought.
“That’s correct.” Kaguya said. “Ingrid, there’s no way Earth has any form of FTL technology, how are you here?”
“I’m from Earth too” Cecil said “have you not heard of the Starchasers? The SEEDs?”
“No.” Kaguya answered quickly. Ingrid and Cecil looked at each other while Siria looked on in confusion.
“Can you show me a picture of Riverdale, North Carolina?” Cecil asked.
“Certainly.” Ingrid and Cecil’s face fell.
There was a long pause as the two of them saw a different Riverdale in front them.
“Wrong RD.” Ingrid sighed.
“It looks like we’re from a different dimension than Arek.” Cecil wistfully said. “What if we reincarnated here while Kaguya FTL’d into a different dimension?”
“It appears you’re implying you and Cecil died.” Kaguya’s tone had a hint of incredulity. “I hate to sound like a slobbering primitive AI, but your suggestion that you two have had a bad case of Isekai is tempting me to say ‘illogical.’”
“But the slime and gun toting mice are not?” Cecil squeaked.
“You should see what’s outside of planet Earth.” Kaguya said with a tone of amusement “there’s a planet that conscripts pre-sapient lemurs. Now, you said you three were here on an errand for Arek, what was it?”
“First have a look at this.” Ingrid flared her aura. Some beeping alarms went off on the ship but Kaguya quickly shut them off. “Scan anything?”
“Yes, it looks like you could power an entire crypto mining farm…oh, there goes my six million dollars” Kaguya replied flatly when Ingrid stopped “...anyway that ability is not something in my records about Earth or anywhere else.”
“Arek told us you needed a boost to start up your self-repair process. I can’t promise you you’ll get FTL back but at least you can in theory, get back to atmospheric flight.” Ingrid said.
“She means that if this goes well, we’ll have a flying ship.” Cecil explained to Siria.
There was a pause as the elf digested this information “What’s Eff-Tee-Ell?”
“Faster than light travel…” Ingrid began. “Actually it’s quite complicated for me to explain but… there’s worlds beyond that sky you see, but they’re very far. So far you need to travel as fast as the fastest thing in existence; and that is light itself. The speed you’ve seen me do? Not even close to the speed of light.”
Thinking quickly, Cecil had an idea “Kaguya, you wouldn’t happen to have a visual aid to educate someone from the middle ages?”
“Why as a matter of fact, I do. This wouldn’t be the first civilization that Arek’s broken the Prime Directive on. Come, have a seat, let me adjust one for you.” As Kaguya spoke, one of the divans made a ninety-degree turn so it was now parallel to one of the consoles. A second divan rose up to accommodate SABER as well.
An overlay appeared in front of them, serving as their screen. It showed a video of Arek mowing the lawn from a bird's eye view. “Here’s a recording of Arek doing his chores at the Grace farm…let’s bring this drone up.”
“You just happened to have a recording of Arek mowing the lawn and bringing the drone out of orbit?” Ingrid said cryptically.
“No, I generated this part, you should be familiar with AI enhancement by now Ingrid.” Kaguya replied.
For Siria, she felt her stomach drop as the view of Arek and the farm fell, soon she was looking at a vast tract of farmland as if from a great height, then came the lakes and then a whole continent…then the ground started to curve out and she beheld a sphere of land and ocean floating in a deep abyss lit only with by the stars.
Ingrid and Cecil were making amusing, peculiar noises as the drone climbed higher and higher.
“Ground control we have lift off.” Ingrid began and finished her phrase by making a weird throaty sound like a Tehphran trying to half-heartedly cough up a hairball.
“Ground control copies, Major Tom.” Cecil said, and the two broke into giggles.
“That is planet Earth, the world where Arek, Ingrid, and Cecil were from. That’s how your world looks when you fly high enough, Siria.”
“I see…”
“She says she sees.”
“But don’t think you can simply fly high up there, Siria, if you’ve climbed very high mountains you may notice that the air is very thin…” Kaguya then showed a scene of people wrapped in thick puffy clothes, their faces wearing peculiar masks. They were standing atop a high mountain in a snowy landscape.
“This is Mount Everest, the tallest mountain on Earth. It’s 8,849 feet high, or about 1552 Ingrid’s standing atop each other.”
The image of that many Ingrid’s forming a human ladder had everyone laughing as well as the mice squeaking in amusement. For Siria and the mice however, it impressed on them how tall that figure was.
“At this height, the air is so thin you’ll have trouble breathing-” Kaguya explained but Ingrid interjected.
“I’ve explained to her what oxygen is.” Ingrid said.
“Very good, well then, we’re talking about receiving only one-third of the oxygen in the air at this height. Such places usually require the body at least three days to get used to these conditions. Now, go even higher and there’s no air for you to breathe at all, you’re as good as being underwater. The masks you see these climbers are wearing are connected to a tank that supplies them with oxygen.” Kaguya showed a picture of a mask connected to a metal jar through a flexible tube.
Siria’s eyes widened in surprise while the mice stopped their chittering when they saw the next scene.
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“The lack of oxygen has not stopped humanity at all. They’ve explored the deep depths of the oceans and have even landed on the moon.” The elf saw a scuba diver swimming placidly at the bottom of the sea, the camera panning upwards to show how far the surface was, the next scene was the iconic moon landing, from the launch of the rocket until the arrival at the moon’s surface. This was followed by a diagram of the breathing devices the men used in a hostile world that denied them even the most basic of necessities to live.”
The image then cut back to Earth “You might be wondering, how can people live on a round planet? Why aren’t they falling off? The answer is gravity. All objects exert this force, but one needs to be as massive and dense as Earth-”
“Or Wal-Mart people…” Cecil said and Ingrid burst out laughing, she covered her mouth with her hands to muffle her guffaws. Cecil had done the same, retreating to his room as his own joke hit him hard.
“Ignore them, they’re enjoying a private joke.” Kaguya said, continuing on while the two try to control themselves. “It appears that your planet has the same gravity as Earth’s, also the same rotation speed. I’ve calculated it and it takes 24 hours to make a complete rotation just like Earth’s. It appears that whatever caused Ingrid to either manifest in this planet or be transported to it is sentient and willfully chose a planet with conditions just like Earth’s.”
As Kaguya spoke she showed the planet rotating on it’s axis, a split-screen overlay showed the perspective of someone planetside, showing the sky. An indicator was placed on the planet, letting Siria know the location of the planetside view. Time was then sped up showing that as the marked location turned away from the sun, the sky became night.
“From your perspective, the sun rises and sets in the horizon, but the reality is, it’s your planet that’s turning on its own axis. Here is the size of Earth, forty thousand and seventy-five kilometers in circumference, you’d need fifty-two billion, and five-hundred-ninety-two-million steps to walk around the world, assuming you have only flat plains, no hills and mountains and no oceans to cross. Such a journey would take eight-thousand three-hundred and thirteen hours and twenty minutes, that would probably take three-hundred forty-six days…”
“Ohhhh…” Siria and the mice squeaked, eyes wide at the outrageous figues.
Kaguya continued “...if you walked without pause, no resting, no sleep, and no eating or drinking. Add those factors, add the various dips, valleys, mountains, add the ocean, and you will probably take much longer to circle the world.”
It then shows the earth and moon distance from each other.
“This is how far the moon is from the Earth, three-hundred eighty-four kilometers away, if you could walk upwards and don’t need to rest and eat, then you’re looking at a journey of nine two-thousand and six-hundred, sixty-nine days, or seven years and a few months.”
Kaguya drew a line connecting to the earth and moon as well as a circle delineating the moon’s orbit “Earth’s gravity, while nearly non-existent at this distance, is still enough to pull the moon, causing it to rotate around the earth.” She then showed the inside of a space station, showing astronauts goofing around in zero-gravity. “Outside of Earth’s atmosphere not only is there no more air to breathe but there’s also almost no gravity.” The video showed an astronaut tipping a cup of water into space, showing a blob of liquid floating. The mice squeaked in surprise as they saw this happen.
“Now let’s talk about the sun…” As Siria and mice made their noises of surprise and awe at the outrageous distance and the time one would take if they could walk there (3,536 years), Ingrid and Cecil composed themselves.
“This region outside of the skies is Outer Space, the distances are immensely vast. Arek and I belong to a civilization far more advanced than Earth’s and we use FTL or Faster Than Light travel to cross these long distances within a very short time. Earth does not have the technology yet to construct a ship with my capabilities.”
“Then how come Ingrid and Cecil are not impressed?” Siria asked, the mice realizing this, looked at the two.
Without needing interpretation, Kaguya answered, she could already understand the context and tone. “Ingrid and Cecil’s culture are unique. The imagination of humans and potential for creativity have given them almost prescient abilities to imagine technologies they’ve yet to have. No civilization in the greater Galactic Community has ever made any contact, yet they have already envisioned this concept of extraterrestrial foreigners, or as they call them, ‘aliens’ visiting their far-away world and giving them the knowledge and tools to do so…”
“Awww…” Ingrid sighed “Guess I’ll take that compliment, though. About being creative.”
“And despite no prompting from outside sources, they’ve already imagined the concept of faster-than-light travel and worlds outside of their own. Some have said that human minds are deeper and darker than the universe itself, their creativity seem to have no bounds, for better, or worse.”
Siria saw a scene of warfare, with soldiers in patterned uniforms moving quickly through the rubble, hundreds of soldiers firing their guns, she could only imagine how deafening it was. They carried no armor but used their guns as shields. A man quickly set up a large gun and began to rain steel and fire down a ruined street and the enemy had no choice but to cower and hide underneath its relentless onslaught, nobody dared to poke their head out and shoot the man as he was accompanied by marksmen with their long rifles. One foolish soldier tried and was taken down by an alert shooter.
Meanwhile the rapid-firing gunners' comrades moved out and began to flank the men. The enemy had dispersed to deal with this threat but it was in vain. Rumbling through the ruined city, monstrous hulks of armor bore down the streets. It slithered down the street on long wheels and used its enormous gun to shoot massive explosions, denying them the cover, leaving them exposed to gunfire. Nobody dared to take out the monstrosity and the enemy soon was forced to retreat.
The mice squeaked excitedly as they saw the tank, after the grenade, Ingrid was probably sure that SABER was probably thinking of building one, another addition to their pet project (heh, phrasing Ingrid thought.)
The scene then showed a city at peace time. Siria wondered at the immensely tall buildings, the horse-less wagons with various colors and shapes running down the widest roads she’s ever seen. She saw people from all walks of life walking on paths beside the road, there were so many of them.
She watched in awe as some strange, unspoken rule was being observed. Many people patiently waited as the torrent of vehicles passed through the street, and then gradually they all halted, making way for the pedestrians to cross. The video then showed the many lights hanging above the street, the source of these commands that everyone obeyed without question.
As the mice squeaked excited among themselves their voices rose in volume as they saw the huge buses and trains carrying so many people at high speeds. Despite the immense speeds of the train as shown by an infographic by Kaguya, the people inside looked comfortable. There were lovers embracing, old men relaxing on their seats. Children restlessly swinging their parent’s hands and bickering with each other. A group of pretty girls chatting amongst themselves wearing fashionable clothes, then without warning they push one towards a boy, possibly egging her to take him as a lover. The young reluctant couple blush and try to make small talk, causing Siria and the mice to giggle.
Siria blinked, trying to digest everything she’s seen, the massive buildings, the sheer volume of vehicles, people from all walks of life enjoying such amenities one would think they were all aristocrats, but they were clearly not.
One clip showed a boy from a poor home, he attended some kind of academy, his not-too-clean and wrinkled uniform contrasting with his well-off friends. But it mattered little, they played and roughhoused together regardless of peerage. Next, it showed the boy, now grown, playing some kind of ballgame, and despite his humble origins, the crowd in the area were shouting his name as he ran with all his might before ceremoniously slamming the ball to the ground to great applause. Then it showed him, now an adult in Siria’s eyes. He and many others like him were dressed in ceremonial robes, one by one receiving some written letter. Time passed and now he was dressed in white robes of a healer, tending to the sick and wounded, and it was clear that he commanded a great deal of respect among his peers.
The next video showed a man in a strange mask inside some kind of vehicle, a small crew was communicating to him with various hand gestures, with the foreman’s signal, the vehicle hurtled forward and to Siria and to the mice’s surprise, it took flight. The camera zoomed out, revealing that this was all taking place on the largest ship she had ever seen. Kaguya then showed an image of a galleon. Siria’s seen one up close, galleons are huge, and yet this ship of iron with its odd shape made it look like a tiny rowboat.
“Aircraft carrier.” Ingrid explained “bringing the flying cavalry anywhere across the world.”
The deck of the aircraft carrier was carrying so many of these flying machines, one by one they were taking off at great speeds with such precision.
Next scene was one such aircraft in flight. Kaguya showed an infographic of its speeds, comparing it to the speed of familiar organisms such as a galloping horse and flying birds, impressing onto Siria and the mice how fast these aircraft were flying.
It cut to a scene of a war zone. A group of soldiers were being pushed back, unable to mount an assault. One man had a device pressed to his ear, speaking certain words, he received acknowledgement from one aircraft.
“They’re telling the pilot where to strike.” Cecil explained. The aircraft let loose massive bullet-shaped objects, the ends of which erupted in flame and sent them flying at even higher speeds. The scene then cut back to the war zone and the attacking soldiers whooped and cheered as the ground erupted into flames.
A group of tanks crawled past the flames and destruction, but rather than retreat the men held firm. Another one spoke to his device and the scene cut to an oddly-shaped aircraft. Smoke billowed from it’s noise as it made the iconic sound.
“BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT” Ingrid made a funny noise with her mouth but it did match the sound the war machine was making. The tanks with the impressive armor disintegrated like paper held to a flame.
In another battle field, a swarm of strange insect-like aircraft descended onto the grassy field, large groups of men leapt out of the vehicle and soon there was an army of them. An overlay showed the fort the men were stationed in and the great distance along with the mountains and valleys they bypassed by flying over it. Siria reckoned that traversing such a distance could have taken an army of knights several days to cross, yet the infographic showed that this took barely an hour.
Another overlay showed what these machines were called: helicopters, their wings were rotating blades that spun so rapidly it became a blur. A snippet showed the main difference between the fixed wing aircraft and the helicopters; these could take wing vertically, not needing a runway.
Barely half of these helicopters deployed their soldiers when their enemies launched their ambush. Rather than retreat the men pushed forward. A different type of helicopter, this one bristling with weapons engaged the enemy. It laid an oppressive curtain of fire forcing the ambushers to retreat. A few bullets struck the helicopter’s metal body but to no effect.
Again, the scene shifted to a peacetime scenario. It was the great hall of some kind of palace in Siria’s eyes, yet again it was people from all walks of life as they waited. A disembodied voice spoke on intervals, informing the people that a flight was going to some city or place.
Emerging from the biggest longhouse Siria’s ever seen was a massive aircraft. It was as big as a dragon and people were filing into it. Inside it showed the sheer number of people and baggage it could carry and despite its size, it took flight as easily as a little graceful bird.
Kaguya then displayed an infographic showing the airliner’s passenger capacity, the speed it was traveling, the distance to it’s destination as well as the time. Siria and the mice were quietly watching in disbelief as they saw the numbers; half a world away for less than half a day.
The next clip showed a woman sending a box to a uniformed man, it showed the man putting it into his vehicle, the box then arrived at a great hall where an army of workers efficiently sorted the packages. Overlaid on this scene was the time elapsed, showing the speed and efficiently it was being delivered. The warehouse was stacked with packages of all shapes and sizes in numbers no one could ever hope to get cleared out in a short time yet the timelapse showed it happen before her eyes. The mountain of packages shrunk in the span of one day, only to be replaced with another.
The scene then showed the package being placed into another of those large aircraft. Taking flight, it too had a destination too far for anyone in Terragalia to cross in one month, yet here it was, arriving in another country the next day and at the recipient’s doorstep the day after.
Yet what truly amazed the elf and the mice was that the woman and her recipient were communicating. They held a device similar to the one Arek was using to play his music and they were talking as if the other was in the room with them. Humorously, the recipient, the woman’s daughter, held up among the various items in the box, a pair of brightly patterned socks which she regarded with abject horror. Something about it looking too silly to wear in public had Ingrid guffawing.
The next scene once again went back to scenes of violence but it was more intriguing. A group of men in all black were quietly infiltrating a heavily guarded fortress. Silently the men communicated to each other using some kind of device. The guards were quickly taken out, their noisy guns somehow silenced. With efficiency like an assassin’s guild this small group snuck into the fortress.
The scene cut to a room where guards were monitoring the inside of the fort. One guard was looking at an array of screens showing various rooms. One infiltrator began manipulating some wires affixed to the wall using a boxy device. He stepped into the view of what could only be the “eyes” of those screens, he waved his hand at it and mockingly gestured at it, yet the guards in their inner sanctum beheld nothing, as if he had cast an illusion on these “eyes.”
Working their way further into the fortress they entered the prison, rescued a prisoner and exited the fortress, but not without causing pandemonium. One infiltrator took a small object out of his pocket and pressed a button. A large hole was blown out of the fort’s walls and all the lights went out. The prisoners, seeing that their cell doors were no longer locked, made their escape while the helicopter flew off into the night.
A peacetime scene then played next, or looked like one. It showed young men wearing a similar device on their heads. They sat in front of a single screen, one hand on some kind of rectangular plate with many buttons while the other gripped a smaller rounded object that they rubbed across a small mat.
On the screen it showed the arms of someone carrying a gun, but the image was more…stylized as if it was a painting moving. The figure in the screen seemed to be responding to their controls.
“That’s a videogame, they’re playing a first person shooter” Ingrid said.
The scene to a montage of these young men playing this game, some loudly yelled in triumph while others swore and screamed in agony as if they were shot.
“Are they feeling pain?” Siria said, perplexed at these boys’ reaction.
“The pain of losing.” Cecil chortled
Siria heard Ingrid chuckle as one victorious player stood above his fallen opponent and rapidly crouched and stood all the while hurling insults at this opponent, telling him that he was a poor fighter, a mere squire daring to fight against a grand-level hero like he was. His vitriolic monologue was accompanied by derisive laughter from his comrades. Ironically his speech was cut with an anguished cry of pain as his own construct was felled by said opponent who had seemingly been resurrected.
“In games like these you only have to wait a few seconds and you’re back.” Ingrid said.
“Back then, you had to wait for the round to end.” Cecil mumbled.
“Then what’s the point?” Siria asked, it made no sense if this game was about eliminating the opposition.
“These types of games are all about scoring as many kills as you can within a time limit.” Kaguya explained. “In-game deaths will detract from your score. Being killed immediately by the one you just killed will subtract even more.”
At that, Siria then realized why all the other players were now jeering and laughing at the vitriolic boy earlier, he had been utterly disgraced by his own hubris, and even the mice were squeaking in amusement.
Siria sat and digested the information she had just seen. Meanwhile Ingrid and Cecil had requested Kaguya “play a concert.” Ingrid began imitating the bard’s movement, undoing her ponytail and rapidly flailing her hair in a circle, and singing along. On stage the singer was a man in an outrageous costume that looked like an orcish rider in ceremonial battle dress, his face painted in intimidating patterns.
Ingrid and the singer belted out the words in a guttural voice that seemed to come from an eldritch horror in the deepest abyss. Cecil was doing the same thing, manipulating his body so it looked like he had long hair and flailing it about, using one of the guns as a guitar as he furiously “strummed” it. Even the mice were going crazy, taking turns to jump up the divan and dive into his brethren who caught him in their paws, imitating the people on-screen who swam through the upraised hands of the crowd.
As the musicians sang, fire erupted from the stage and for a second she thought it was some accident, but it was all part of the show. The crowd was immense, they were jumping and jostling with each other. Ironically despite the oppressive and intimidating sounds of their instruments her translation spell was hearing words of… love?
Sitting back, Siria marveled at everything she’s seen so far. There was no such place in Terragalia that matched anything she’s seen. Ingrid truly was from another planet, or rather, a completely different plane of existence.
Thinking back on what they mentioned earlier, both Ingrid and Kaguya agreed on the concept that the latter was a construct without a soul, and thus must have brought Arek here when she attempted to use FTL to teleport across the vast reaches of outer space.
Meanwhile, Ingrid and Cecil arrived here via reincarnation. She had discussed several days ago with Ingrid that there was no such thing as summoning people from other worlds. Such magic if it existed would only be a closely guarded secret, as the implications of summoning someone like Ingrid were massive.
“I am just curious about something, Ingrid.” Kaguya’s voice interrupted Siria’s reverie. “Is this a thing in Terragalia? Why are you u-”
“Ingrid, shouldn’t we get back to powering Kaguya up?” Siria called, suddenly remembering what they came here for.
“Oh right! Open up the item box, Siria! Sorry, I just got a little homesick.”
“Why are you looking at me like that, Cecil?” Kaguya asked. The slime shook his head.
“Don’t question it.” he sighed. “It’s like dividing by zero.”
Meanwhile, the mice continued to jump around and mosh with each other as the on-screen guitarist belted out a solo, squeaking happily.