When my sight came back, I was in a stone room looking at a woman in armor. She looked every bit the part of a certain Amzonian if that Amazonian had scars on her face and black eyes. There was a pressure coming off of her that I couldn’t resist. I fell to my knees and had a tough time staying there.

“My name is Frank. Forgive my questions, but who are you? Why have you brought me here?” I asked in as respectful a tone as I could. All I wanted to do was get out of here and back to my world. Something said if I did the wrong thing here I would die instantly.

“Hello Frank. Well met. I am The Morgianna. I’m surprised you can even think as you are.” She looked closer at me. “Ah, I see you have a warriors harmony of spirit. Rare. Hmm.” She seemed impressed, but I had no idea what she was talking about. “I am probably the most powerful being you will meet. Powerful enough to be in charge of this world as well as many others. I make sure they follow the rules of the heavens. It looks like someone was trying to keeps us from seeing their plans. Pulling people between realms without power is forbidden and using a Chuta to do so… To bad you already killed them. I was going to let you go, but you aren’t allowed to kill the Chuta. Now that I have seen what is going on here I can’t let you go back either.”

That caught my attention. “Why not? I was also brought here against my will!”

She laughed at that. “You think you can lie to me? I can see the past fool. You came here to save your kind… no that isn’t right. You came here to save one of your kind and ended up helping the others. As for why not. The laws of Heaven must be upheld to protect the cosmos. Travel between Realms causes damage that takes eons to fix. I will allow you to live on this world, but here you must stay. Goodbye.”

She started to wave her hand “Wait, Please!” I shouted. I knew this was going to end bad for me. I was going to be lost on another world with a few weapons and no knowledge.

She paused “what boy?”

I thought quickly. Two years doing sales hadn’t left me without some skills at negotiation. “It seems I have already punished those who opposed you and your laws. Can I perhaps be given a reward of some kind to help me start my life here?”

She laughed “How bold of you to ask!” She thought for a minute. “Why did you save that woman? Was she your lover?”

“No, she was my friend and the wife of another friend.”

“So you would go so far for a woman who isn’t even a lover…” She mused to herself quietly enough that I had to strain to hear her. “I saw what you did to that cultivator. You were lucky you put that collar on him. It wasn’t just for blocking out my sight of you realm walkers, but also prevented his use of essence and controlled him. If he had had his powers your toys would not have worked on him. The others here were merely his pawns and only mortals... My real question for you is, can you be considered a hero worthy of reward considering how you killed him?”

I thought for a minute. Would she reward me if I made myself out to be a hero. I looked at her again. She had already caught me in one lie. Better go with the truth this time. “Some might say that wasn’t right. He was wearing a collar and my prisoner and I had promised him he would live. What kind person am I? I am no hero. I didn’t come here to save others or free everyone. I came because someone took my friend. I am no hero, but I am loyal. I will do what it takes to take care of those I consider mine.”

She slapped her leg and pointed at me. “Yes! That I can use. You will help me with this world. I haven’t the time and this world has fallen behind in various ways. The most disgusting to me is that its women warriors are so often not given a chance to advance. I currently have many who fight for this cause, but the world is large. Much larger than yours. All of them are women. You would be the first man I have tasked with this. We will see if you will work here.” She looked down for a moment and said “How to keep you honest though. Not a Hero after all.”

I perked up at this. I knew how to incentivize workers! “How about rewards based on my work? I help strengthen warrior women and you reward my efforts?”

There was a gleam in her when I said that. “That just might work. I will give you some power as there are many who will oppose you, but you must work if you want more. What boon would you ask for to start?”

A boon? Like a reward from a god? Hmm… couldn’t ask for too much. What could I ask for that would help me the most? I knew nothing about this world. “I suppose turning back time is too much” I joked.

She got a faraway look in her eye and I started to get nervous and was about to suggest just some money to start with when she said “Time return is a powerful ability. Few have it. Those few are all at my level. You are not worthy of this yet. That said a weaker version of it doesn’t require more power than you can amass and I can put limitations on you. I agree, but I will not have you using this power to abuse women.” She smiled an evil smile then. “You will bed no women less powerful than you or I will rip it off.” She looked down and I covered up reflexively. “and will tell no one of this or the rest of our deal. I will also grant you the ability to speak the local tongue. I will check in on you occasionally without you knowing and if you aren’t working for me, I will kill you. If you work sufficiently, I will grant you another boon. From now on if a woman shows a warriors spirit you are to consider her the same has your friend. Fight for her as you did this day. Now be gone from my sight!”

With a wave of her hand, I was back in the mirror room reeling from what just happened. I no longer felt my feeling… based on what she said I was going to call it Warriors Harmony from now on. I think that is what she was referring to with that. Maybe I can ask next time.

The Chuta and the mirror was gone. Everything else was as I left it. I no longer had my handgun or my taser or even my trank gun. I guess she didn’t want those on her world. That left me without any protection though. I searched the bodies of those I had killed. It was gruesome, but I needed whatever I could get. I pieced together a set of clothing that hopefully wouldn’t look out of place and didn’t have too much wrong with it. There were several swords, but I took a pair of short swords. I have training in Arnis stick fighting that is based off of using machetes. This seemed the closest to a weapon I could use. Each also had a money bag with various pieces of what I assumed were money. Copper and silver colored for the most part. Only the rich looking guy had a few gold looking pieces. No paper currency that I could tell though. Several rings and a necklace I took to pawn later. I then got out of there as quickly as possible. I didn’t know if there would be a change of guard or others coming or if Rich guy was part of a mafia type situation. No matter what I knew I had to get out of dodge.

I had already searched through the building so I knew there was nothing else in any of the rooms. I went to the door to get outside and opened it slowly. It was night time here. Funny considering it was day when I left my world. That hit extra hard. Not in Kansas anymore. The good news was no one was around to see me sneak away from the building. I took a right and just kept walking. No idea where I was or where I was going so I listened. I didn’t know which way was safe, but I hoped somewhere in the city would be at least busy enough that I could try to blend in while I took a second to think.

After about 5 minutes of walking, I heard a woman calling someone. I couldn’t make out the words, but it just sounded like she was calling to someone she knew. I headed that direction. Before long I came to what could only be considered the red-light district. I watched from an alleyway as women called to men and then took them inside the various buildings on the road. At first I was going to walk away, but then I thought ‘where else will be open?’ I had no desire to try to take a prostitute to bed. That could even get me killed ‘cause I had no idea how to tell if someone was stronger than me. That said I didn’t have to ‘bed’ a woman just because I paid her for the night. I took a closer.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

After watching for several minutes I noticed a woman that was being ignored. I couldn’t see anything wrong with her, but it was obvious most customers were avoiding her. I decided and went up to her. She looked up at me with eyes that were surprised and then both happy and sad at the same time. I was getting whiplash just from the emotions on her face here, but it didn’t matter. I took out one of the gold coins and showed it to her without letting anyone else see. “Would this be enough for the whole night? She looked at my hand and her eyes got big and she about dragged me into the building. We went up three flights of stairs and then into a sparse room with a bed and two chairs. I sat on the chair and asked her to sit in the other one.

‘It is day time for me so I’m not really tired yet.’ I thought. When in Warrior’s Harmony I don’t get tired. Never have. During or after… If anything I always feel refreshed. No… what I wanted was information while I had a safe place to wait for the day. This afforded me both. Before I started with that though I needed to review what had happened to me. I had been trying to just keep up with the changes in my circumstances. I had lost everything. First family, then fiancé, then friends and even my world. It was a lot. I knew if I didn’t address that for a few minutes anyway I would be a wreck later.

I needed to frame this in a way that was good for me. That was the one thing I had learned from the psychologist I went to after my parents died. Otherwise, I knew it would stew in my subconscious and come back to bite me in the form of depression. How could I put everything in a positive frame though? I had to tell myself a story that made this the right path. That seemed like a monumental task. What was good about any of this?

I looked at what had happened that was positive. Janet was safe as was my world for the moment. Was there a way that that could have happened without my coming here?… Nope. Derek was a great guy, but he would have frozen up. No one else would have believed me… or at least it wasn’t worth the risk of getting locked up and not being able to help. By that point Janet might have been gone anyway. So, yeah… had to be me. That meant I had made the right choice going in. Morgianna wasn’t about to let me go back no matter what. If I made one mistake it was trying to get everyone else out. Even that though I couldn’t really fault myself for. Once I decided to burn the bridge going back, I had a responsibility to those I would leave behind. I would be cutting off the path their loved ones would take to retrieve them. I’m no hero, but I wouldn’t hurt people if they didn’t deserve it. I decided I had done what was best up to this point.

What about going forward. Could this be good for me? The only thing I could think of was that this was the fresh start I needed. In fact, I even had purpose in my life. A job to do. That was it. This would be good for me. A fresh start was what I needed. It was the framework for seeing my current predicament as fortunate that I needed. I would do this job and make the most of my life.

Mental framework in place and my emotions in a much better place I turned my focus to what I needed to do. Any job required assets and information. Currently my assets were some money and a skill from Morgianna and my two years in sales experience. I could also fight of course, but that wasn’t sustainable as income while working on my real job. Thinking of my skill from Morgianna. Just like she said I understood the local language. It came as easily as English. I didn’t even think about it before I talked. What about Time Return. I tried to bring think about what I knew about it and it came right to the surface. I took note of what I knew of it.

Limitations put in place by Morgianna

1. While I could return to a previous time only my consciousness would return. Any gains I had made or possessions wouldn’t go back with me. I would just return to my body as it was at that point in time. Only my experiences would come with me.

2. I couldn’t bring anyone else with me.

3. I couldn’t go further back than today.

The rest of the information that came to mind was about how to do it. It wasn’t a quick thing. This wasn’t something I would be using in a fight. It took about a minute of focus on moving essence, or ‘Qi’ as it was known in the local dialect. A minute not moving and focusing in a fight would be a death warrant. You moved the Qi through the mind and out to the past where it connect with the point you were thinking of and then pulled your consciousness there. I wasn’t sure how there was a past to send it to, but I knew how to do it. I also had to build up the Qi in order to be able to use it. I knew that just absorbing QI as I was currently it would take me 4 days to build up enough to go back a day. I could also do shorter times, but the 1:4 rule seemed to be it for now. 4 hours to build up enough to go back 1, etc. The good news was it was passive. I didn’t have to work at building it up. That said if I could learn to get more Qi somehow, I could do better than that.

I looked at my roommate for the night. It was time to get some information. First, I made a list of everything I wanted to ask. Some of it was about culture, some about local industries and some was about terms I didn’t know the meaning of like cultivation. I wanted to get honest answers from this person so first I got up and went over to the candle and made a mark and then sat back down.

“Think of a number between one and 10,000” I said.

She looked confused and then said “Ok. I have it”

“Good. What is it?”

“5675”

“Good hold on a minute.” I said and then immediately went into starting Time Return. A minute later I was standing in front of that candle having just made a mark. It was easy. No vertigo or anything. I simply was there again. I sat back down and this time after she said “Ok, I have it.”

I said “5675.”

Her eyes got as big as an owls and she said “how?”

“Simple, I can tell what you are thinking. I wanted to prove that to you so that you would know to stick to the truth from now on. Understood?”

She paled at that and nervously said “Ye, ye, yes I won’t lie.” Stuttering just a bit. It made me feel bad tricking her like this, but I needed good information.

“What is your name?”

“Xi… no that is my name given here… My real name is Yandel.”

“Thank you Yandel I have many questions. Some are common knowledge and I am asking them to see what you know and test you. Some will be more focused. If you don’t know an answer say so. If you know an answer speak clearly.”

“I understand.”

Thus started my night long education on the local town of Shuri. I wasn’t really testing her of course. I just said that so she wouldn’t balk or wonder why I was asking simple questions about things like currency.

My teacher Yandel was from a smaller town and grew up on a farm. She was strong and had some natural ability to absorb Qi which strengthens the body. She thought she would come to the city to try to make her own way in the world and hired on to a merchant caravan as a guard. Even though she didn’t have a lot of training she had strong muscles and was slightly taller than normal so she got the job based on that alone. Unfortunately, that didn’t help when they were attacked by ferocious beasts in the woods. The merchant’s wares were destroyed in the ensuing battle and though they were able to escape with their lives Yandel was singled out as not fighting as well as the others. As a woman her standing was already lower so no one stood up for her. When they got to town, she was thrown into a slavers auction to pay for what the merchant had lost. The Madam that had bought her yesterday forced her to stand on the street tonight. Ironically her physical appearance that had gotten her, her last job was getting in the way with this one. She wasn’t considered attractive. Only weak, thin, pale flowers were considered beautiful by the locals. I started to see what Morgianna was talking about. Strong women were looked down on quite a bit. I also started to get a little nervous as this seemed like exactly the type of person I was supposed to be helping. This was going to be awkward.

I put that aside for now and continued on with my questions. I learned about local customs and currency and what jobs I could get. I also asked about martial training and that led to the most interesting topic of the night. Cultivation. Cultivation was the process of using Qi to strengthen the body, mind and spirit. It seemed that very few could cultivate. Just like that rich guy in the mirror room said. About 1 in 4000 or fewer. Even of those that could, not all had the ability or training. If they showed talent then they might get picked up by a sect. Sects sounded like a cross between a school and a family and a city. They nurtured Cultivators and held great power, but were notoriously hard to get into.

To have talent cultivating you need to have a cultivation technique that matched you well. Families passed down these techniques and they often fit as styles seemed to be familial. If you didn’t have that then if you were rich you could buy a technique, but there was no way to know if it matched with you. Best case it did and you would grow in power and could find a sect to help you. Worst case it would not match with you at all and cripple or kill you. Once you started a technique you couldn’t change it as your body learned it at the level of the soul and to stop or change would tear you apart, killing you painfully. This was the risk all cultivators took.

I had all the information I needed and it was almost daybreak. The light was just starting to come, but the sun wasn’t yet visible. “One last question Yandel.” I said. “Do you want to be a prostitute?”

She was used to strange questions by this point, but she looked at me like I had stung her. “No! Of course not!”

Heh… She had a backbone. There was nothing for it then. “Then take me to your Madam.”