Theo fell after the plummeting soul, piercing through the veil of the mortal world. It impacted before him, slamming into a vacant area outside of Broken Tusk with a flash of light. When the alchemist arrived on the plane, he landed nearby, eyes locked on the crater created by the fallen soul. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. It was the most confused he had been in a while.

Standing in the crater, eyes wide with confusion, was a man. Earth humans were much smaller than Theo remembered. This guy would have been a tank back there, but not compared to the height of a dronon or the stature of a half-ogre. His head was freshly buzzed and a scar ran the length of the left side of his face. He wore thick-treaded boots and a comically out-of-place gray trench coat.

“Damn,” he muttered, eyes searching the area. The most concerning part of the single word was that it was in English.

Theo had seen that expression on people before. The desperation before they drew a weapon and started blasting. He crossed the distance between them in moments, making observations about the man’s lacking speed, and gripped his forearm before he could reach into his coat. The alchemist yanked the hand free, finding a sawn-off shotgun with gadgets attached to the side.

“You’re fast, demon,” he said, struggling against Theo.

20 Strength was apparently enough to overpower this guy. Theo thought about his observations before, the idea bolstered by a Wisdom of the Soul message. He didn’t have a class core, or access to attributes. He was a baseline human from Earth, likely freshly plucked and deposited into this world’s queue.

“Who are you?” Theo found it odd to speak words in English. How long had it been? He wrenched the gun from the man’s hand, holding it limp at his side.

“Jan Turowski,” the man said, eyes still darting around. “Figure I’m in a mound of shit by now. Where am I?”

“Broken Tusk in the Southlands Alliance.”

Jan licked his lips. Theo could see him calculating how to get his gun back. The ghost of the man jumped forward and the alchemist kicked forward. When the new arrival moved, he was met with a foot and fell back onto his ass.

“Message received.” Jan coughed from the ground, rubbing his chest where Theo had planted his foot. “Is this the other place?”

“The what?” Theo asked, sputtering.

“Maybe not.” Jan looked around, reaching under his coat again.

Theo crossed the distance again, pinning the man’s hand to the ground when he withdrew another gun. They always had another gun. This one was an old world revolver. No fancy tech attached to the side. “Got anything else in that coat? Care to pull out a kitchen sink?”

Jan’s lips curled into a smile, even as he rested on his back. “Yeah, I have a few tricks. But I know when to admit I’m beaten. Do they grow everyone so big around here?”

“Mostly. Let’s start again. My name is Theo Spencer. Are you from Earth?”

“Where else would I be from?”

“What’s the year?”

“2053.”

That was about 250 years off from when Theo left. He grit his teeth, unsure how to take the time nonsense going on. Building a mental map of what had happened, he confirmed his suspicion that there was something going on with Earth well before the Harbinger showed up. The governments of the world either suppressed information or it was lost. It was impossible to tell.

“Funny bringing weapons like these here,” Theo said, brandishing the shotgun. “They’re unlikely to work. You have a lot to learn if you want to survive.”

“Really? Looks fine to me.”

Theo held the gun up, trying not to roll his eyes. He pulled the trigger. Two barrels bucked against his hand as he fired, pain jamming down into his shoulder. He cursed, dropping the weapon and shaking his hand out.

“See?” Jan asked, winking from below. “She works just fine.”

Theo glared at the man, scooping up the shotgun and adding it and the revolver to his inventory. Jan raised an eyebrow, betraying his calm demeanor. The alchemist sighed when he felt Tresk and Alex drawing near, and released his shadow aura to block out unfriendly eyes. That got more of a reaction from the earthling.

“Woah! What is that!” Tresk shouted, walking through the barrier. The horse-sized goose came next, honking.

Now Jan’s eyes went wide with surprise.

“An Earth human,” Theo said. “Who I will release if he promises not to grab anything else from his coat.”

“Promise.” Jan took on an apologetic tone, eyes locked onto Tresk. “Is that a lizard?”

“Kinda.” Tresk shrugged, responding in Qavelli. Her English sucked, but she read Theo’s memories in real-time to get the translation.

“We talking French around here? Is that a goose?”

Honk!

“You guys have anything hard to drink around here in fantasy land?” Jan asked, sitting up once Theo released him.

“Oh, yeah!” Tresk shouted, withdrawing some zee liquor from their shared inventory. She handed it over to the man, nodding with approval. “Dang, he’s so small. Smaller than the humans around here.”

Jan offered her a confused look.

“She thinks you’re small,” Theo translated.

“I’m pretty big where I come from,” Jan said, taking a swig from the flask. He winced before smacking his lips and nodding with approval. “Shit could strip paint. I like it.”

Theo clicked his tongue, uncomfortable being out in the random field. “On your feet, soldier. We need somewhere private to talk. Just stay inside the bubble.”

“What happens if I leave the bubble?”

Theo gave Tresk a look. “Did you get a notification when you saw him? Something related to your special core?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Nope.”

Considering his next move, Theo opened his interface and issued a command. Xol’sa still knew a lot about dimensional travel, even if the alchemist was becoming the master of the void.

“Still… Just stay inside the bubble.”

“Understood. Stay inside and shut the hell up. So long as you don’t kill me, we’re cool.”

Theo led the party back to Broken Tusk. He had a lifetime around people like Jan, and wasn’t interested in expanding his experiences. Twitchy people like him had seen stuff. Perhaps he was a soldier back in the old world, or a cop. The alchemist didn’t know enough about the older version of Earth to make an assessment, but the answers would come. Jan’s head swiveled as they walked through town, spotting all the sights that must have made him question reality. They arrived at the study in the manor shortly after.

“Sit,” Theo commanded, gesturing to the one chair. It was just Theo, Jan, and Tresk. Alex could no longer fit through the door.

“Yes, sir,” Jan said, taking a seat. He checked the door and the windows.

“What do you remember?” Theo asked. “What happened before you came here?”

For the first time, Jan’s expression shifted. He looked up thoughtfully, as though recounting the events of some ordeal. “The whole thing started in Connecticut. I was looking for my nephew. Came across some wild shit.”

“What kind of wild shit?” Theo asked.

“I’d say you wouldn’t believe me, but… You’re a demon. And she’s a lizard… and… I don’t know what he is,” Jan gestured to the door.

Xol’sa bowed his head, cocking an eyebrow at the man in the chair. “Who is this?”

“Jan,” the man in the chair responded. His eyes were locked on the extra-planar elf. He took another sip of the booze. “I’ll need more of this.”

“The glowing blue elf was the breaking point for you?” Theo asked.

“Yeah.”

“So, Connecticut. Your nephew. Go on.”

Jan shrugged, taking another long drink. That liquor was for alchemical purposes, but Theo bit his tongue.

“Some weird stuff was happening. My nephew Ahmad disappeared and I was on his trail. Found a sniff of him in Hartford. Some old book shop just got a load of junk from an estate. Ahmad had made inquiries to the shop before he vanished. Boy was bedridden. Body was eating him alive. Funny how medicine can fail like that.”

This was more backstory than Theo expected to get out of the guy. It must have been weighing on his mind. When Tresk went to say something, he kicked her in the shin.

“I figured out who bought the book and tracked her down. Feisty girl named Maria up in New Hampshire. College kid. Then I got my ass beat by a six-year-old.”

“What?” Theo asked.

“Busted down Maria’s door ready to get some information about Ahmad. Found this little girl with pointy ears talking with that college kid. Trained my shotty on them and the next thing I knew, the child was twisting my arm. Nearly broke it off.”

“A powerful class core?” Xol’sa asked.

“There were no classes back on Earth,” Theo said.

“Yeah, there were,” Jan said, shaking his head. “Not sure where you were hiding, but there were plenty of people with those cores from what I remember. I never had one, but that Maria girl did.”

This flew in the face of everything Theo knew. It would take time for him to reconstruct his timeline of events, but that didn’t matter right now. Now he needed to hear the rest of the story and get Xol’sa’s help to figure out what happened to this guy.

“So, the powerful child…” Theo inclined his head, waiting for the man to continue.

“She said her name was Fate, always talking about her brother Omen. Never saw the brother, but I ran some operations with Fate and Maria. They said my nephew was trapped in another world, but they could get him out. Even if he was different. Got his diseases cured with a new body. Other fantastical shit that would make any uncle drop everything to see. Especially when that uncle had been watching his nephew die for the past eighteen years.”

Theo was gripped. He leaned in, waiting for more.

“Never saw my nephew. I couldn’t keep up with the others, but some went into that other place. They said Ahmad was fine. Fighting for the fate of the world or something. The last thing I remember was an eye. A massive eye looking down at me. Darkness after that.”

Theo shot a look at Xol’sa, who had his ‘pondering wizard’ expression on. “I’ve read of a massive purple eye in the sky, leering down on people.”

“The eye was red,” Jan corrected.

Xol’sa shot Theo a look. “Told him the wrong color trying to catch him.”

“Okay. What does it mean?” Theo asked.

“I’ll need to run some tests on him.”

“Hooray.” Jan delivered the word with no enthusiasm.

“Are we gonna kill him afterward?” Tresk asked.

Theo opened his administration interface, drawing up a contract. “No, I’ll bind him in a few contracts.”

“A few what?” Jan asked.

“Magical contracts,” Xol’sa explained. “You’ll be killed by spirit animals if you void the contracts.”

“I saw a guy explode after voiding a contract,” Tresk added. It was a complete lie, but it got Jan to twitch. She understood the assignment.

Theo presented the contract to Jan, laughing as the man flinched back. “Read those over. Or not, you don’t have a choice but to sign them.”

Jan grumbled, poking at the air to swipe through the many pages of the contract. It forbade him from harming anyone within the alliance or her allies. It also protected the interests of the alliance, spanning further than he would normally allow a contract to span. But it was the only way to get an unknown factor under control.

Under Theo’s command, Tresk went off to hire three adventurers from the guild to watch Jan. The man was putting on a strong front, but the walls would come crashing down. Some might think execution or banishment was the right move, but this guy would be a trove of information about old Earth. He mentioned both Connecticut and New Hampshire. Both locations were mostly destroyed in Theo’s time. If the only thing he got out of the exchange was information about the world his people left behind, it would be worth it.

“There. Guess I’m your slave, now,” Jan grumbled. “What should I do?”

As if summoned by the words, the door swung open and Sulvan stepped in. “Is this the guy?”

Theo nodded. The only god Theo trusted completely was Glantheir. What better way to introduce Jan to the world than through a servant of that god?

“There’s a group of adventurers waiting for you outside. They’ll keep him in line. If needed.”

“Let’s go,” Jan said, groaning to his feet. “I’m getting too old for this shit as it is. What are we doing, boss?”

Sulvan pulled at Jan’s coat, cocking a brow. “You’ll need some new clothes to blend in.”

Jan tried to smack Sulvan’s hand away, but failed. He cleared his throat. “I’d rather keep the coat, thank you.”

Sulvan seized his hand, reaching inside to withdraw a knife. “To conceal this?”

“Get him a spear or something,” Theo said. “Daggers kinda suck.”

“Hey!” Tresk shouted.

Theo gave her a flat look. “Your daggers only work because of your classes. Unclassed folks are better off using weapons with range.”

“Agreed.” Sulvan gestured for Jan to exit the room. “Let’s get to work. Qavell is stable, but we have a lot of work to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once the room was cleared, Xol’sa nodded at Theo. “This is a strange turn,” he said with a shake of his head. “What are you thinking?”

The only thing Theo could think of were the other souls he saw in the void. If that was the queue of souls ready to head down to the mortal plane, interacting with them was a bad idea. More information about what Earth was like would be nice, but he couldn’t predict who he would find.

“I’m thinking I opened a can of weird. We need to watch that guy. He’s not showing it, but this is new for him. He’ll be scared, looking for a way to get out.”

“Would that be so bad?” Xol’sa asked.

“He’d die out there. Even if he could hop a ship out of town, or head north… Yeah, I think nothing friendly is waiting for him without a class. Even if he had his guns.”

“Well, that was some serious excitement for today.” Tresk stretched, rolling her shoulders. “I think you should bring more souls from the queue. Might make things more interesting.”