It didn’t take a master investigator to solve the mystery of the missing malcontent; Murdo, Amanda and I all agreed that Esmond had let himself out of his cell with a key. Of course he had a spare key, he was the Seneschal of the castle. The two guards were Manchwark militia, not guardians. Constables Harmon Oliver and Lewis Jack, while possibly not the best that Police Scotland had to offer, were still police officers. Much to Murdo’s annoyance, given that he was still the most senior member of the force to present himself, this meant that they were now under his command.

The next issue was Esmond’s location. Murdo, quite rightly, worried that he’d make another attempt on my life. I agreed and, after only another moment’s hesitation descended into the Cronephere. Esmond wasn’t there, thankfully. But to my surprise I was not alone. Scattered across the Cronephere there were others. Not submerged into it as I was, but still connected to it. Most were concentrated in and around the castle, a few in the town, and one heading south east at speed, before he passed beyond the limits of my awareness.

I’d bet my baronial crown that was Esmond, running away like the coward he was.

Then I noticed everyone else was moving towards the great hall and I remembered I had a meeting to attend.

“I think I’m safe, for now.” I said from the Cronephere, startling everyone. “But we've got a meeting to get to.”

As we moved back towards the great hall, with me still in the shadowy realm of the Cronephere, I noticed that I was right. A web of shadows, tunnels no doubt, extended below and through the mound that the castle, and Skipingham itself, were built upon. It wouldn’t be possible for me to map them from where I was; they were black, on black, against a black background. But I filed the information away for later.

I slipped through the shadows of the crowd, the room poorly lit by candles on the tables and torches on wall sconces. I made sure that I picked out everyone who was connected to the Cronephere. There were several hundred people in the room. But no more than twenty who had, what I suspected was, the Born of Darkness trait. Each I tapped on the shoulder and whispered a request for them to stay behind after we were done. Otherwise I made my way to the stage where I joined Amanda and Murdo as they waited.

I popped out of the Cronephere, to not so much a rapturous applause than surprised gasps.

“Good evening,” I began, projecting my voice as best I could, “I am Drake Dunn, this new world we all find ourselves in has honoured me by making me the earl of Manchwark, the county we all find ourselves in. A small fraction of the Kingdom of Tares.

“On Earth I was nobody; just a carer for my wife, who was disabled.” I gestured to Amanda. “But she is now reincarnated, like all of us here, and is thankfully able bodied once more. I don’t covet power. I don’t enjoy the responsibility of authority. I don’t enjoy leading. But what I want is for all of us to survive and thrive in this new world we have been reborn in. In my own way I have always cared, and now I find myself in a position where I feel that care can do the most good.”

“To this end there are a handful of things we have to do. Foremost we must trust the instincts of these bodies we find ourselves in. While we, the people of Earth, don’t understand or know what we must do to survive in this new world, these new bodies of ours do. Trust them. If something feels dangerous then avoid it. If something feels comforting then you should probably trust it. Question yourself and respect the answers you get back. Especially if it comes in response to a personal lore check. That seems to be how this world tells us what we should know. Just knowing what questions to ask and when to ask it is the issue.

“Secondly the physical and metaphysical laws of this reality seem to be structured like some sort of adaptive roleplaying game engine. If you try and practice skills you have from Earth then it will try to accommodate them to this world. Further you’ll each have a class which we think gives you access to skills specific to this world. Doing things in the world will grant you experience which should increase your level in said class. Changing class seems to be possible and your given level seems to be in your current class, and probably won’t account for prior classes. At tenth level you can gain access to something called an aura, which allows you to extend an energy field out into the world. Which brings me to magic.

“Yes magic is real here. If you look like Murdo or I then you have something called a Seagel, not a seagull or Seagle. Seagel. It appears to be a source of elemental or nature magic. Be careful as incautious use of these abilities might harm you or others. If you look like Amanda here then you probably have an ib, which is a mutual responsibility with one of this world’s gods. I know that sounds even scarier than having elemental magic. Especially if you’ve experienced the presence of one of their agents. But remember they’ve all lost everyone they’ve ever known, who has been replaced by us. Despite being in mourning they made the effort to tell us what happened to bring us here, when they could have kept us in ignorance. To me this displays a kindness beyond expectation.

“Leslie Craig here is going to organise a census. We need to reunite people who have been separated and for that we need to know who people were on Earth, and who they are now. It will also help if we have a vague idea what people’s classes and levels are.

“Murdo is going to be trying to reconstruct our law enforcement. So if you were police on Earth, talk to him. Especially if you were a higher rank than him. Then you can take over the organising of it from him.” That generated a laugh.

“This means that we’re going to need volunteers, including couriers, runners, and messengers. If any of you have a town crier type of class, or used to be a postie on Earth, please go speak to Leslie.

That said, I reintroduced Amanda and opened the floor to her.

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“This has been the worst Monday on record,” she said, “For all of us, one way or another. I’m sure that things are going to be hard going forward too. But I have hope for the future. Through the understanding of this world I’ve gained through my Ib with Tolyin, the Rombe goddess of the forge, we can uplift ourselves back up to something like what we had yesterday. I don’t know how long it will take but it won’t be quick. We’re all going to have to lift together to do this, no one person can bootstrap us up by themselves. Together we can rebuild and even make a better world. Not the same world’, that’s in our past. But a better world all the same.

“Now knowing Drake as well as I do I can tell you that this period of pseudo-feudalism that we find ourselves currently in will not last forever. My husband is married to the ideals of democracy almost as much as they are married to me.” Another laugh from the audience. “But it won’t come tomorrow or even possibly this year. Only when things are stable and we’ve made contact with the rest of the continent can we move forward to being a democratic society once more. Now that might sound like an excuse but you can be sure that if we don’t return to some form of democracy as soon as we can I’m going to make sure Drake regrets it.”

It was at this point we made the mistake of opening the floor to questions and were hammered by a cacophony of queries. I asked for people to speak one at a time and picked someone from the audience. As I did so a low peal of thunder rolled across the sky, startling us all. Heavy drops of rain began to fall against the roof above us.

“What about food?” It was a good question and apparently foremost in most people’s minds.

“We have lots of the essentials in storage across Skipingham,” Leslie said, “Although we’re going to need most, if not all, of that to get through whatever winter we have coming.”

“The field system is ridge and furrow.” I said, “Which is good given the wet environment, but not excellent for feeding vast numbers of people.”

“There’s also a tradition of bow hunting among the Tares, which is us now,” Lauchlan said from the crowd, “So most of us can probably hunt for food in the forests around here.”

“If you’ve more immediate needs,” said a large welf wearing an apron over the rest of her garb,” there’s a kitchen in the castle and we’ve been preparing meals all day. Mostly out of habit I suspect. I’m Eleanor Pierno, restaurateur and chef. Now I’m Tanelia Torrel, who is in charge of the castle’s kitchen. We’ve several basic pasta dishes, an approximation of garlic bread and filled sandwich rolls ready if people need them. I think I can feed everyone in this room if you want, although I don’t know what we’ll do for crockery and cutlery.”

“Everyone should have their own cutlery on their person,” Amanda said. “Crockery might be harder but not impossible. Someone with a vegetation seagel might be able to slice logs into plates and bowls, and someone with fire can burn the surface to polish and sterilise them.”

“I can go one better!” Someone in the crowd exclaimed loudly. They rushed over to a nearby table and called forth rows of leaves. These hardened and dropped off the stalks they had grown from to become the required crockery.

“Excellent forward thinking there,” I said to them. “I wonder what else you can do.” And with those words I’d given myself a savage earworm that persisted the rest of the evening. “Eleanor, if you can get some volunteers to bring the food up to here once we’re done, we can have an impromptu banquet.” I gestured to the plates and then to myself as I spoke and one was passed up to me. It had dried and hardened into a consistency of plastic, reminding me nostalgically of the school cafeteria trays I’d been subjected to when my parents had dragged the family stateside for their work.

In less than a day we’d apparently already ‘reinvented’ a close approximation to biodegradable plastic.

“Any more questions?” I asked, and of course there were.

Most were about small matters; other provisions, such drinks and medicine. It was pointed out that everyone was in a different body and thus probably didn’t need to worry about any medical conditions they had on Earth. And there was plenty to drink from small beers, beers, mead analogs, wines, and spirits; the castle had an entire wine cellar. Of slightly more importance were questions about shelter and reconnecting with missing people.

It was the last question that was the most poignant.

“When can we go home?”

The speaker was a young welf by the name of Seona McCauley. In human terms she was a teenager roughly the same age as Heather. Thankfully it was Heather who answered, jumping onto the stage from the crowd. I wondered how someone who literally glowed could hide so easily.

“We can’t go back,” she said, “We’re only copies of the people we remember ourselves to be. The original us are still there.”

“So we’re just clones?” I’ve no idea who asked that.

“Spiritual clones from Earth inhabiting the alien bodies of the natives of Lusfell.” Said Amanda.

“Yes, but what does that mean?”

“It means,” said Amanda, “Our minds are copied from the people we think we are, and put into these bodies.”

“And you know this because?”

“Because I have an Ib with Tolyin, the Rombe goddess of the forge.”

“So some heathen demon is telling you lies!” This was a third voice.

“Tolyin is not a demon.”

“How would you know?”

It wasn’t hard to pick out the speaker this time. He was the biggest dude in the room. Leonard Cowden, the Human exalt.

“Are demons capable of love for mortals? Can they mourn for their deaths? Demons in Christian mythology are creatures of sin, incapable of virtue. Tolyin is virtuous. She is not evil. She mourns for the fallen and weeps for the crime that brought us to Lusfell”

“HOW WOULD YOU KNOW!” Cowden’s yell echoes across the room. Threat was implicit within it. My hand was on my concealed blade before I’d even realised it. I lowered my hand and sought some self control.

“I know because an Ib goes in both directions,” Amanda said. “I feel her mourning and love, just as she feels my curiosity and compassion.”

“LIES!” He began to push his way through the crowd towards us on the stage. He wasn’t gentle in his passage either; shoving anyone too slow to get out of his way with quite some force. Then Greg interposed himself.

The two stared at each other for a brief moment before Cowden reached for the huge blade across his back.

I felt eyes on me. This was going to be a disaster. Someone could die. Turning I saw Heather looking at me. She must have read the indecision on my face because she nodded as if coming to her own decision. She rushed forward towards the edge of the stage, and leapt.

“ENOUGH!” she cried out, flinging her arms and legs wide, so that her small glowing body resembled an X. Then there was a crack like thunder and my vision went to white.