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After waiting for the mercenary to disappear in the distance, Peter pulled out the surveillance drone and raised it five hundred feet high. The quadcopter rotated around, showing him the landscape.
Eastward, Redroar was cutting a trail in the grass, beelining toward a village looking like a mixed medieval-far-west settlement. Northwest was his group. He dared not to make the drone go there to check on Regina for fear of being discovered. Still, the silhouettes were engrossed in picking flowers, so he supposed all was OK.
The grass sea continued unabated in every other direction, with a line of blue mountains toward the North. But to the West and South, a shimmering coating covered everything.
"Wanna check?"
Recalling the drone, Peter used his movement skill, trying to travel longer distances. It did not work as planned the first time, exiting just a hundred yards from the departing point before a forested hill he had to climb on foot before jumping again. There were probably too many obstacles in the way.
There were limits to what Warp could go through—or over, or around because Peter didn’t know exactly how it worked. The safest use was to go to a high point and jump lower or on another hill. He promised himself to try to get up in the air and then jump ahead, but for now, he stuck with a more prudent approach.
Finally, he arrived at the margin of the fog. From close, the grass behind the haze looked different. Distorted.
"What now?"
Peter refrained from replying, as it would have involved cursing. It was a dumb idea. The drone was the safest bet, but the image disappeared as soon as it entered the haze. Strangely, they could still hear it buzzing.
Looking around, Peter found a bush and broke a twig from it, using it to poke an ant nest. A few critters climbed on the wood, and he plunged the tip into the rare fog for a few seconds. The ants looked well and undisturbed, so Peter put them back in their home. Then he tried with his hand and felt nothing. Slowly leaning forward, he inserted the tip of his nose and inhaled a bit of fog. Again nothing. In the end, he crossed himself and took a step forward.
"Oh my God!"
The haze was a mirage. In front of Peter, the grass rarefied, leaving place to a sand bar on which the drone sat, the rotors still moving from inertia. Thirty feet farther, the ground plunged at a steep angle for about six hundred feet, then flattened, transforming into an endless landscape of dunes, going forever forward and to the left and right. A wrecked sailship displayed its masts in the middle of the incline.
"No kidding, Sherlock. But who builds a town in the sea?" Peter pointed at a line of large but ruined buildings. Some were intact and colored a deep blue, with horses, bulls, and people over the base layer of paint.
"We explore?"
The distance was not very big, so Peter opted for running. Going down the dunes felt like skiing, a floating surreal sensation, and a nice one. He reached the wreck in one minute, but there was nothing there, no trunks with treasures or even a cannon, so he continued toward the city. Nothing there as well, only the paintings. Men and women with wavy hair woven in patterns. The men's silhouettes were red, the women's white.
"This is Minoan!" Peter exclaimed.
"Yeah…"
Looking up and realizing how steep the incline was, Peter sighed. "Pff… that will be hard…"
"Oh… forgot about it…”
He did as asked and Warped up. It worked fine if the target was in sight and without obstacles in between. When they exited the haze, something that was not there before appeared in front of their eyes: a makeshift beach bar with a few tables. A sign above said: We take dollars, Opened Non-Stop. An elderly man sat behind the counter, and a customer was on a stool. Jack.
"Hey, Petey!" Jack waved. "Pour a whiskey for my friend,> he said to the bartender. "Make it a double-double."
The fuck? Peter had his helmet and biker gear on. How the hell did Jack know his real identity?
There was no choice but to roll with the wind. "I'll have a lemonade instead," Peter said before the bartender poured the alcohol into a chipped glass.
"Sure." The bartender poured the whiskey back into the bottle, opened a fridge, and extracted a jug. Approaching the counter, Peter sat on a stool, took out his helmet, and sipped from the drink. It was perfect. Cold and tasty. He groaned in satisfaction.
"Found anything in the depths?" Jack slapped Peter's shoulder.
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The latter tried to contain his befuddlement and shook his head. "Only ruins…"
Jack nodded. "We should skip away from the others and explore at night when the real stuff comes up," he whispered, lowering his head toward Peter, who was at a loss.
"I dunno, man… I dunno…"
"Think about it… Have to go. I’m working tonight and wanna get some rest. Cya. He's paying," Jack said to the elderly man, getting down from the stool. In beach slippers, he looked shorter than normal. "Remember what we talked about,” Jack leaned toward Peter, whispering. "Treat her right, or else."
The fuck? Peter repeated, looking after the leaving Jack.
"It will be ten bucks for the beer and lemonade."
Dazed by the strangeness of the situation, Peter extracted a hundred-dollar bill and forwarded it to the bartender. "Hahaha… you think I'm blind?" the older man laughed.
"Sorry?"
"Kid, you don't want Old Jimmy to get mad at you. Pay with real money or blow me."
"Sorry… Do you take gold?" The bartender nodded, and Peter offered him a half-ounce coin, praying he would get some change at least. Floor three was very expensive for his tastes.
"I can't give gold change for so much," the bartender waved his hands. "I'll break it for you if you want."
"S-sure."
Walking to a small anvil set in the back of the bar, Old Jimmy used a chisel and a hammer to cut it into halves, then divided one of those in two, returning three-quarters of the coin to Peter, along with a couple hundred dollars: a hundred bucks bill, and several smaller cuts. The latter looked normal, but the hundred bill displayed a mustached man with evil beady eyes instead of Franklin's familiar face. Adolf Hitler, Rex, the text beneath said.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
The only explanation he could think of was that the fog had transported them into an alternate reality. Grabbing his helmet and running away at full speed, Peter plunged back into the haze. He went a hundred yards deep, then returned to the surface. The bar was there.
“Fuuuuuuuuck!”
Peter used his skill to reach the ruins, ran around, and then Warped up. The bar was still present. He returned to the fog with wobbling steps, collapsing after thirty feet, grabbing his knees in his arms.
"We emerged in a different reality!" Peter screamed. Tears began to flow on his cheek. "I need to get back to my Regina!"
“Not anymore!”
“Haven’t you seen the weird Jack up there? We’re in a different reality.”
Wiping the tears with the back of his palm, Peter picked up his helmet and followed the instructions. This time, there was no more bar; they exited near the drone. It looked fried, but he stored it in the backpack to remove evidence. Eventually, he changed into his old clothes and Sneaked back into the camp.
The students were having a break, and many were eating. On his way, he picked several blue flowers for Regina, small ones that grew under moss and looked full of Mana.
"Hey," he said to her, sitting down, his heart full of happiness at seeing her OK.
"Where have you been?" she frowned at him. "I wanted to spend some time together."
"I fell asleep under a bush," he pretended to confess. "Here, I found something for you."
"The elves' periwinkle!" she clapped her hands. "The best, thank you!" she rushed to kiss him.
"Regina…" he said, his heart up in his throat.
"Yes?" she furrowed her brow.
"N-nothing… S-sorry…" She grinned back with an expression showing she was sure he wanted to confess his love but was too shy.
Peter sulked, looking away. They stood there silently for a while, and then Alchemy yelled at the students to return to their jobs. Peter stayed with Regina, helping her gather flowers and plants. They hiked back to the extraction point a few hours later, arriving at six in the afternoon. All groups were in position, but there was a big commotion among the students.
Melinda exchanged a few words with the sports teacher, then yelled: "We leave in five. Take your place."
"What happened?" Peter asked a shivering normie. A girl, barely eighteen.
"Botanics died… A few hours ago, a big cat came on a buffalo and screamed insults at us. Dumbster yelled back—"
"Who's Dumbster?"
"Him," she pointed to another student, a lanky one, who was crying. "Spirit, on the verge of breaking into the third stage, but dumb. He accepted the duel, but the teacher said she'd fight instead. She threw a Qi-bolt, but the cat dodged it and beheaded her in one stroke. There's the body bag," the girl pointed with his chin.
"The c-cat k-killed a teacher in a second?"
"Then it said something like: 'At least I got this one' and went away. Uh…" the teenager began sobbing.
"It's OK…" Peter patted the girl's back, at a loss for words.
You realize that when you say condescending, it means you’re lying, right?
Theory: something tells me that you consider me underprepared. Why?
We’ll see… I spent a lot of money today… That cat won’t come cheap.
"Prepare yourself. First jump in ten, nine…" one of the Cultivators doing the teleportation yelled.
They arrived back at the Campus two minutes later, the summer's hot evening dazing them. The mood was down, and many heads were lowered.
"My folks are back in town, and I want to spend more time with them," Regina said, “so I can’t go out today and tomorrow.”
“They’re back in town?” Peter repeated her words.
“Yeah,” Regina let out an exasperated sigh. “By coincidence,” she made air quotes, “a lot of business has appeared in the area…”
“Oh…”
“They’re checking on me.”
“Maybe it’s because you were hurt by the Jack thing, and they want to be sure you’re OK,” he fondled her shoulder.
“I hope we'll be in the same group on Friday, and I can't wait for the weekend," she added vividly, kissing him. He replied in kind, hugging her tightly afterward. She squeezed herself into him, then ran away.
"Hi, Peter. There was a courier for you," the doorman said when he arrived at his dorm, giving him an envelope with nothing written on it.
"A courier?"
"Yeah. One of those biker guys. Dark visor helmet and leather all over."
"This is strange," Peter said, hurrying to his room.
"I’m all sweaty; I'll read it after I shower."
Ten minutes later, in boxers and a loose T-shirt, a glass of orange juice in hand, Peter finally read the missive.
Dear Stupid Me,
Yelling aloud ten meters away from the bar, thinking no one will hear you because you're in the haze? Genius! The bartender couldn't stop laughing. 'Noobie pops in and out. In and out. Crying like a baby,' he said.
You're lucky he's a friend.
Don't worry about Jack, I'll tell him it was me. We'll speak more on Friday when you return from the trip. Meet me at Garcia, seven sharp. Burn the letter.
Peter from the Second Floor