by Pirateaba
The other girl was staring at her. Erin broke off awkwardly.
“What? Is it something on my face?”
Then she stopped. Erin’s eyes widened as her ears caught up to what her mouth was saying. She stared at Ryoka.
“Oh my god.”
2.02
“Are we going the right way? I think we’re lost.”
“Mm. Patience. This is the right direction.”
“Are you sure, Krshia? I think we’re lost. All this grass looks the same to me.”
“There is no road, Selys. We must trust we go the right way, yes? And my memory is not so poor.”
“But it’s dark.”
“If the shopkeeper lady says it’s the right place, we’re going the right way. Anyways, Klb and I have been here countless times. This is the right direction. …Right?”
“I believe so. Please take care not to fall.”
“Oh. Um, thank you.”
“I do not believe we have been formally introduced. I am Klbkch of the Free Antinium. I understand you are a friend of Erin Solstice?”
“Me? Yes! I’m Selys. I’m a receptionist at the Adventurer’s Guild. I’m very pleased to meet you.”
“Allow me to introduce my colleagues. This is Relc, who I believe you two are familiar with. Watch Captain Zevara is also joining us for the night.”
“Selys. Krshia. Good evening.”
“Hm. It is good to see you are well.”
“Oh, hello Captain Zevara.”
“And these are two other Antinium from my hive. Pawn, and Ksmvr.”
“I am Ksmvr. Allow me to apologize for recent—”
“Shut up.”
“Silence.”
“…So um, Z. Why are you here? When Klb told me you were coming, I thought he was yanking my tail.”
“I wanted to see the human who killed that freak. Besides, you’ve talked about that damn inn so much I might as well see it.”
“Well, that’s…great! You’ll love it. Erin is great for a human. You’ll see.”
“You called her a useless sack of meat after—”
“Ahahahahaha! You must have heard me wrong. I never said anything like that. Erin is a great human. She called me a dragon, you know.”
“Humans can’t tell a lizard apart from a salamander. Don’t let it get to your head.”
“…Hey Klb. Are we there yet?”
“There is the inn in the distance. We are moving in the right direction.”
“Oh good! Erin’s still awake. Maybe she has guests already?”
“That mage said he would be joining us. I can’t say I’m pleased with that, but if he’s here—”
“It could be the mage. Or um…well, you know what I said about not killing any Goblins around here, Zevara? Um—”
“Please tell me the Goblins aren’t invited.”
“Well, while we’re on the subject, how do you feel about skeletons…?”
—-
“Oh my god.”
It was perhaps the sixth time Erin had said it. She was still staring at Ryoka in some state of shock. Ryoka was staring back, but her mind was racing.
Erin was from her world. Of course. All the little pieces of her story made sense, especially the way she used catchphrases and expressions from their world. How had she not noticed? She was too tired. But this was a crucial moment. Why had Ryoka suddenly met Erin right after the call? Was it coincidence or something else? Was two people appearing so near to each other geographically simple luck or something else?
“I can’t believe it.”
Ryoka lifted her iPhone. Erin’s eyes followed it as if mesmerized, then snapped back to Ryoka’s face. Her state of shock was starting to annoy the older girl.
“Are you real? I mean, you—you’re from my world, right? This isn’t a joke, is it?”
And how would it be a joke? Ryoka bit back the sarcasm and answered politely as possible.
“I’m from Ohio. My name is Ryoka Griffin. I came here in the year 2016, around October.”
“Oh my god.”
Seven times. Ryoka tried not to let her impatience show.
“I know this is incredible, but please focus. How long have you been here? Do you know how you got here? Are you—”
“Oh my god, you’re real. You’re real!”
Ryoka tried not to make a face. Erin was freaking out.
“Look, I just had a call—it was a message that—”
She got no further. Erin lunged across the table. Ryoka’s fists raised instinctively, but the other girl just threw her arms around her.
“What? Um. What are you—?”
“I’m not alone? I’m not alone! You’re here and—oh my god. You’re here!”
“I am. Why are you…? I mean, yes. You’re not alone.”
Ryoka felt the other girl squeezing her hard. She was having trouble breathing. Erin was stronger than she looked.
“Look, you don’t have to—please—are you—?”
Erin’s muffled noises turned into dampness on Ryoka’s shirt. She was…crying?
Ryoka froze up. She didn’t know what to do. She patted Erin gently on the shoulder. Once. Twice.
“Um. I—”
She had no idea what to say. Erin was weeping into her shirt, and the feeling wasn’t pleasant. Ryoka knew she should say something reassuring, but she’d never done this before.
She wasn’t alone. That was what Erin wanted to hear, right? Ryoka could tell her that. She was one of many. She was—Ryoka could tell her that she wasn’t alone. That would cheer her up. If she met with the others—
The others. Ryoka froze, forgetting everything else in a moment of cold realization. Others. There weren’t just a few. Or even sixteen. She’d completely glossed over that fact in the light of all that had happened. Sleep deprivation, the excitement of the call and meeting Erin—
She’d stopped thinking. But now her slow-moving brain had fitted the pieces together. Statistics. It all boiled down to percentages. There weren’t just sixteen people in this world. There weren’t even just a hundred. There were many more.
How many people had working iPhones at the time of the call? How many had their iPhones when they arrived? What percentage of people have iPhones to begin with?
And of that number, how many people died or weren’t able to answer the call? How many ignored it out of fear or caution?
How many people were in this world?
Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Ryoka felt something twist in her stomach.
Humans band together. They make laws. They go to war. Perhaps other species didn’t do that. But humans did. And peace for humans is only an interlude till the next war.
In Ryoka’s mind, she imagined Celum. A city caught between the renaissance and the medieval age. They didn’t have technology, those people. They didn’t have anything valuable by her world’s standards. Just gold, jewelry.
And magic.
In Ryoka’s mind, Celum burned. Fighter jets screamed down through the sky, strafing cities and dropping bombs in the streets while tanks rolled across open plains, firing at armies that had never known gunpowder. Scientists in hazmat suits walked around next to surveyors and prospectors identifying oil wells while magic and nonhumans were dissected and studied – made fact.
A colony world. Imperialism. Mandate of Heaven. White man’s burden.
In the time it took Erin to hug and release Ryoka, a world burned down behind her eyes. It was an easy equation to solve. One person was an accident, a fluke. Two people was unusual. But more? More was an open gateway. And no door opened in only one direction.
“Sorry.”
Erin wiped her nose on her sleeve as she let Ryoka go. She was snotty in a literal sense and her eyes were puffy, but she was smiling. Ryoka felt like someone had grabbed a piece of ice and stuck it in her gut.
“This is just so—so wonderful! I can’t believe it. You’re here. You’re from home.”
“It is amazing.”
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Ryoka chose her words carefully as she brushed at her wet shirt. Her hand hit a damp, sticky spot and she immediately stopped.
“Um, Erin, right? Why don’t we sit and talk. ”
Erin snuffled, sniffled, and nodded. She scooted back to the table while Ryoka tried to collect her thoughts. People. Talking. This wasn’t her forte, but she thought she had a handle on what was happening. First things first.
“I know this is a lot to take in, but let’s both try to calm down. I’m from Earth, and so are you. And I’ve just learned that other people are here too, scattered around the world.”
Erin’s eyes widened.
“We’re not alone? You mean—”
“Yes. And there’s a lot to talk about, but let’s just start with the basics. When did you get here? How did you arrive? What was the last date in our world that you remember? If we start with that, maybe—”
Ryoka broke off suddenly. Erin looked up as someone knocked on the door.
“Oh?”
“Are you expecting guests?”
Erin blinked. The Asian girl had pushed back her chair and was suddenly tensed, like a wild animal. She shrugged.
“Not really, but maybe they’re just late.”
She raised her voice.
“Come in!”
The door opened. Ryoka stared and took a step back as a giant, brownish-black insect walked into the inn. She looked at Erin, but the other girl was smiling. Ryoka’s mouth fell open slightly in surprise.
“Klbkch! Hey! Come on in!”
Ryoka stared as the Antinium nodded to Erin. Then she stared harder as a giant lizard man walked into the room, followed by what looked like a slightly less-hairy Wookie and another lizard. And then the insect talked.
“Good evening Miss Solstice. I hope we are not intruding?”
“What? No. I um—no. Wow. I didn’t expect so many guests so late.”
Ryoka stared at Erin. The other girl was smiling.
“I hope we are not intruding, but our affairs in the city took a long time to conclude.”
“Oh, Krshia, Selys! And Relc and Klbkch—is that—Pawn? Ksmvr?”
Erin caught sight of Zevara and her eyes widened.
“Wow. Um. Are you all here for food?”
“If you are able to host us, it would be most welcome. I regret to say that more guests are with us, however.”
Klbkch nodded to Relc and the others. The door opened wider to admit more bodies.
“And it appears other guests have arrived with us.”
A throng of short creatures entered the room, and this time Ryoka took a step back. She stared at the squat, green, crimson-eyed little demons and looked at Erin. The girl didn’t even appear fazed.
Then a mage stepped into the room. Well, he was obviously a mage by the long robes he wore, but the effect was muted by the grass stains and other marks on the once-white cloth. Ryoka recognized Pisces in an instant and slowly sat down in the chair. Her head was spinning.
When Erin saw Pieces and Rags her jaw dropped. She counted silently as her guests awkwardly stood at the entrance. Some were looking at Erin, but most were staring at each other.
Zevara was eying the Goblins with unconcealed malice and the Goblins were busy edging away from everyone but Erin. The three Antinium looked around silently while Selys stared in horrified fascination at the Antinium, the Goblins, and at Ryoka. Krshia sniffed the air while Relc patted his stomach and Pisces stared around with a half-sneer on his face.
Erin’s head was reeling. She was surprised, caught off-guard, and she had no idea where Toren was. But she was an [Innkeeper]. She might be busy, but she had guests. She rose to the occasion.
“I’ve got pasta!”
—-
Hell is something you create. Ryoka was a firm believer in not believing in religions, but the idea of hell had always been intriguing to her. Obviously a place of brimstone and pitchforks was ridiculous, but the idea of suffering, of damnation was interesting. How could hell be one thing? How could it be a constant, when it should be the representation of misery and suffering for each individual?
Damnation shouldn’t be something you went to. It should be a place you create for yourself out of your own guilt and fear. People create their own hells and sit in them. Ryoka was sure she had read a quote like that somewhere.
Right now, Ryoka was sitting in her own personal, localized hell. She was still in The Wandering Inn, but now it was full of people. Talking, noisy people who kept introducing themselves to her. And unlike every other party she’d been to, every other soiree and social gathering, here she couldn’t run away.
Ryoka sat at a table and stared around the common room of the inn. Suddenly it was bustling. From the quiet, dark room she’d found only an hour or two ago, it had been transformed into a raucous place full of light and noise.
At least half of the raucousness came from a large Drake sitting in the center of the room next to one of the Antinium. He was called Relc, and he’d greeted Ryoka by spraying her with a mouthful of blue juice and shouting ‘it’s you! The Runner human!’
It was a good thing Runners carried a spare change of clothes. At least the Drake’s companion had been polite enough. He was an Antinium. So were the other two black bugs sitting in the room. They’d made Ryoka’s skin crawl when she’d first realized what they were, but now she was just confused.
One of them, an Antinium with only two arms and one leg—was playing chess with one of the Goblins. Pawn and Rags. Ryoka kept feeling at her forehead with the back of her hand to make sure she wasn’t fevered.
And there were more. Erin was buzzing around the room, filling drinks, serving plates of pasta up, but somehow she found time to talk with Ryoka as well. She’d brought another Drake over to Ryoka’s table in the corner of the room. Erin beamed as she introduced her friend.
“Hey Ryoka, this is Selys! Selys, meet Ryoka. She’s a Runner.”
The female Drake – Ryoka was fairly certain she was female – opened her mouth and revealed a row of very sharp teeth.
“Oh, a City Runner? We haven’t had one of those around in a while! How are you?”
“Good.”
Ryoka took Selys’s hand, shook it once, and then quickly let go. It took her all of her self-control not to wipe her hand at the touch of smooth scales.
Erin didn’t seem to notice Ryoka’s discomfort. She turned to Selys, beaming.
“Hey Selys, you won’t believe this. I just talked to Ryoka and guess what? It turns out that—ow!”
Ryoka kicked Erin. She didn’t even try to conceal it. Every head turned towards their table and the room went silent for a second.
Across the room Ksmvr reached for a sword at his side. Ryoka’s spine crawled, but the other Antinium—Klbkch?—instantly smacked Ksmvr’s shoulder and he stopped.
“Um.”
“Oops.”
“Ow, why’d you—”
Erin glanced at Ryoka’s face and back to Selys. She smiled again, although this time it was somewhat forced.
“Well, um. Ryoka, this is Selys. Selys, Ryoka.”
The Drake smiled at Ryoka again, and backed up a little bit. Her tail was twisting around, Ryoka noticed.
“It was…nice to meet you, Miss Ryoka.”
“Likewise.”
The two retreated. Selys pulled Erin aside.
“Is she…sick?”
Erin made a face as she rubbed at her shin. That kick had hurt.
“I don’t know. She was really nice earlier. Sorry about that. Why’s that Zevara person here, by the way?”
“She wanted to see you. I think it was because you killed that skin monster.”
“Me? I didn’t. That was the Goblins.”
Selys rolled her eyes.
“They just finished it off is what Klbkch says. Erin! The entire city’s talking about you!”
“Really?”
“Oh yes. If it weren’t so crazy over there, I’m sure plenty of people would be
coming over to look at you.”
“Um.”
Erin wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“…How are things? I heard a lot of people died.”
Selys paused. She looked down.
“A lot of people did. Not as many as there could have been, thanks to the Watch and the Antinium but—it’s not the worst disaster we’ve been through. And we’re rebuilding. Stronger with each dead scale, you know?”
“You fought didn’t you? You have to tell me about it!”
“Only if you tell me your side. But guess what? I leveled up! And I gained a new class!”
“What, really?”
“Yep! You’re looking at a Level 4 [Warrior] now!”
Selys puffed out her chest with pride as Erin made appropriate sounds of awe.
“It seems like half the city leveled or gained a new class. That’s war for you. No bad without some good. Anyways, Krshia and I wanted to celebrate and we knew you were alone out here.”
“Well, I have Toren.”
“He doesn’t count. We wanted to come alone, but then Relc decided to come with that Klbkch and Zevara told us she was coming and…”
At this point Ryoka stopped listening to the whispered conversation. She was putting together the pieces, but sleeplessness on top of sudden social interaction after a long day of running was not helping. The only upside was that she was rapidly running out of ways to be surprised. When Ryoka met Pisces, the [Necromancer] who’d fixed her leg and who was apparently teacher to one of the Goblins, she took it in stride.
At some point a skeleton walked into the inn with a huge basket of blue fruits and a bucket of water in each hand. He paused as Zevara and Klbkch unsheathed their swords.
“Stop, stop!”
Erin ran forwards between Toren and the others. Klbkch was already sheathing his sword, but Zevara took several minutes of explaining before she rammed her blade back in its sheathe.
Ryoka remained perfectly still as Erin introduced Toren to her. She looked into his deathly gaze and the twin blue flames burning in his eyes and did not shake the proffered bony hand. He disappeared into the kitchen and reappeared with a plate and drink which he served to Ryoka.