Ethria- the Pioneer

by Aaron Holloway

  Mysterious Stranger Aspect “Past Oaths”: In your past world, the oaths you took were relatively easy to keep, and as such had little hold on your soul. Most of these were stripped away when you went through the veil. However, you can reclaim these oaths as part of the Mysterious Stranger gift, granting you both guiding principles by which to live your life, and certain restrictions and boons based upon these oaths.

  Oaths Reclaimed

  The Sanctity of Life: In your past life you swore to uphold the sanctity of the lives of other humans. You have interpreted this as to apply to the sanctity of all sapient life, a rare sentiment indeed on Ethria. While further growth and knowledge may change your specific understanding and application of the principles of this oath, you are bound to it. Oath Type: Rare. Oath Restrictions: May not willfully or knowingly take the life of a sapient being without just cause. Doing so will have severe negative effects either temporary, or permanent depending upon the severity of the breach. Oath Boons: +1 automatic relationship status upgrade to all sapient beings upon their learning of this Oath. Oath Status: Reclaimed, Loyal 2

  Unlimited Potential: Ethria itself has given your race this boon, you will be able to learn every type of magic native to Ethria. This boon synergizes with each of your cosmic gifts. Known Synergies: None.

  The Unlucky/Lucky trait still kind of bothered me, but with how my life had been before I got to Ethria, and the very fact I was on Ethria at all, kind of proved it was true. My entire family really. Random events just sort of happened around us, both good and bad. The bad things usually ended up in our favor somehow, but not before causing all kinds of stress and trouble.

  Human adaptability seemed quite useful, but without a baseline to compare it too, It was a bit out of context. Still, in my experience and from knowing what I did about history, humans were quite adaptable. Back on Earth, we lived on every continent, save Antarctica, with little trouble.

  Human societies, sense of self, diets, body types and colors, and even religions were often heavily influenced by where we lived and what things were like there, despite the fact that a Mediterranean climate was technically the ideal. All that being said, the wide range of temperature, atmosphere density, elevation, even scarce availability of essentials like food and water very rarely had any kind of major deterrent effect on us living wherever we wanted. We adapted, or where we couldn’t we worked together to adapt our surroundings to us.

  I heard giggling coming from somewhere far off. I minimized my window and stood up. Looking around I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary even as false dawn began and the area around me lightened. I swear I can hear something. It sounds familiar. It was coming from one distinct direction and didn’t sound very far away, so I began to walk in that direction suspecting a trick from a particularly keen-minded tiny person.

  I turned the corner around a large tree a few feet past the clearing we had stayed the night in, and found a large boulder, with light, and what sounded like the theme to That Seventies Show playing. What the… I walked up and slowly peered over the rock.

  “Oh! Kelso you idiot, how did you get your head stuck like that!” Ailsa said in an intent whisper before she began to giggle as Ashton Kutcher playing the childish Kelso began to fight with the cardboard box that was wrapped around his head. She was watching That Seventies Show on a magic screen set in front of her.

  “Hey,” I said trying to act nonchalant about it. The screen disappeared with a wave of her hand, and she shot into the sky before realizing it was me and floated back down. “So, how long have you had access to stuff from my world?” I asked.

  “Um, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She said, her purple aura back and flashing slightly reddish.

  Probably a color meaning embarrassed I thought as I fought to keep a smile from my face. “You know, that show is one of my brother's favorites.”

  “ I don’t know what you're talking about.” She said again, but she knew she was had.

  “Oh come on I caught you, you can’t just pretend I didn’t see Kelso on that screen just now. When did you get access to stuff from my home?”

  She sighed frustratedly. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you.” She said rubbing her face with both hands. “Mr. Grumpy Face gave me access to media from your world. It's all so I can better understand you and help you. That's all.” Ailsa said defensively. “Now, let's get back to camp before…”

  “Hold on,” I said as I put out a hand in front of her. It wouldn’t actually block her way if she really wanted to go, but it did have the effect I wanted. “You’re not getting away that easily. You have access to ALL of earth's media?”

  “No, don’t be dumb. You’re people produce so much content, a sentient magical supermatrix couldn’t sort through it given a hundred years. But, I do have access to the digital media from the point you came here into the past. So basically anything you might have experienced. Again, so I could better understand you. Now, can we go?” She asked as she bobbed up and down nervously. “The others can’t know, I really shouldn’t have even told you, I should have wiped your memory.”

  “What like agent J?”

  “Yeah exactly like…” she stopped herself.

  “What did you think of the movie?” I asked as I began to walk back towards camp.

  “Ugh.” She buzzed her wings in that familiar way I knew meant she was annoyed. “You know it was your agent comment that had me ask for access right?” I nodded having suspected something like that.

  “So? What did you think?”

  “The first one was really good.” She buzzed her wings happily this time, the change in the subject not phasing her at all. Again, the one thing I've learned about fairies, and Faie in general, riddled with ADHD, all of them. Though I came to find out later that Ailsa was considered a studious and stuffy member of her race. I was told so by her when I teased her as we walked along the road.

  “And?” I prodded.

  “Well, the second one was, not nearly as good.” She said deflating slightly. “But the third one was better, just not as good as the first.”

  “Yeah, most people think that. What about the International movie, and the TV show?”

  “There’s a TV show?” She looked like any uber-fan who found out that there was more content they never knew about, ever.

  “Yeah, but its a cartoon so a lot of people who loved the original trilogy were turned off by it sadly.”

  “What's a cartooooon?” She asked, fluttering up next to me and holding onto the last word too long.

  “Cartoon. Not cartooooon.” I corrected. “And it's kind of like, well, have you ever seen when someone take a stack of paper, draw one thing on the first page, and then draw nearly the exact same thing on the next page with only a slight difference, and how if you do that over and over again it can look like the drawing is moving?” She shook her head no. “Well, remind me to demonstrate some time, and then you’ll understand better what a cartoon is. Right now think of it like a drawing, but it moves.”

  “Your peoples illusionary magic, and your prosperity to use it for amusements and entertainment rather than to beguile one another is simply amazing.”

  “It's not magic.” I corrected for what felt like the millionth time.

  “Oh really?” She asked snidely. “Then why does this…” She pulled up a screen with the Industrial Light and Magic effects company logo on it and held it out in front of her for me to see. “… say otherwise? From what I understand this is the caller sign for an establishment that specializes in such things.”

  I laughed then, a full belly laugh as me and my indigent little fairy friend walked back into camp. She made the screen disappear as we entered the clearing. “I’ll explain it all later,” I said still fighting off laughter. “You’ll understand better when I show you how the paper thing works. Remind me when we have a little downtime, okay?” She bobbed up and down and then sped off somewhere.

  Tol’geth was already awake, as I went and rolle
d up my bedroll and doused the coals in the fire, stirring the water into the ashes to ensure it was out. A short time later the elves and Riggil woke up. We finished packing everything and set out on the road.

  Sitting in the back of the wagon I decided on the next few techniques I was going to try when we had some time in a safe place. The wagon was filled with the broken arms and armor of the bandits, who Tol’geth had buried after we had all gone to sleep. The man was tireless and must have been an incredibly powerful man to be able to go on so little sleep.

  About the time I was finished reviewing the information in the primer for the third time, about two hours after I was clear-headed and sitting up straight, we entered the giant clearing. “Impressive isn’t it,” Riggil said from in front of me. I watched as the trees grew taller and taller, from inside the canopy I couldn't really see just how tall those trees where I realized. The sun could still get through, as the green leaves that riddled the trees were small and swayed in the wind. Most of them had fallen off, but the ones closer to the ground had yet to fully succumb to the season yet.

  “That canopy must block nearly all sunlight during the summer months,” I said amazed as I watched the trees grow slowly smaller as the cart trundled on.

  “That's right, we usually have to use covered lanterns to make it safely through to the twins. Before the woods grow thick on both sides of the road the grass grows so high that it meets with the canopy. In other places, the tree branches are so heavy with leaves that they bow down to the ground, and are so thick it's hard to cut through to the grass on the other side.” Riggil said as he guided the cart around a particularly nasty looking pothole in the road that I saw as we passed by it.

  “It was once our forest,” Markel said as he walked beside us through tree stumps that filled the fields around us. “Some of us wish it to be again.” He said the last in a lower voice, almost a growl of frustration, but clearly meant for the group's ears.

  “That is why it grows so well,” said Telli from my other side. I turned to watch her as she cheerfully hopped from one stump to the next. “The magic that our ancestors placed on these trees, on the soil, in the rocks and water, are still here. It makes the trees grow thick and large, the grass grow tall and reedy, and the animals grow wild and strong. Even during winter!” She hopped down from the constant stream of tree stumps we were passing to walk directly behind me. Markel followed her lead and joined her.

  “That makes a lot of sense, it's hard to believe that trees could grow both as large and as thickly as that under normal circumstances. Back on…” I paused as I caught myself from saying ‘world’. “... my home island.” I said sticking with the story that Ailsa and I had come up with the other day to cover the same mistake. “There is little to no real magic. We use science, and a pure understanding of nature to do things that magic does for most of you.” The two elves eyes went wide and the hostility that Markel had shown just a minute ago was now gone as interest overcame politics.

  “Your island must be very sad.” Said Telli “Magic heals, it fixes, it allows things like those trees to grow, and it lets us do wonderful things like change shape, talk with animals and even fly! You say you can’t do any of that?” She asked as her emotions swung wildly from excitement at the prospect of talking with animals and flying; to sadness at a land of people who would never be able to do so.

  “That…” Markel began. “That would suck.” Telli hit him lightly on the arm.

  “You know where not suppose to say that word. It means something bad in the human tongue.” Telli said it as if it was something she had repeated a thousand times to her companion. Which I realized, she probably had.

  “Well, why should I if the adults will never tell us what it means,” Markel said defensively. Then they stopped their arguing and looked at me expectantly. “Maybe, maybe you could tell us?” Markel asked tentatively.

  I think I’m being manipulated I thought as a smile crossed my face. I knew what it meant, in Torish ‘sucking’, like back on earth in some English speaking cultures was essentially a reference to fellatio. I will not be explaining THAT to children, no matter how mature they look.

  “Absolutely not. Your parents know best. They will explain it one day when you’re old and wise enough.” I said chiding the children. Both of their expressions fell slightly, and their eyes went downcast. “But I will tell you what it means in my home tongue and culture.” The two perked up immediately. “Here in Torish lands it means something crude that you’re not old enough to know about yet. But, in my homeland, it means that something is bad, annoying, or sad.

  “It comes from the fact that in order to clean carpet, my people use a machine that uses ‘suction’...” I pronounced the English word carefully and then did my best to translate it into Torish, the language we were speaking. There was a better translation in Elvish, but I could tell these two needed a little practice with Torish, so I stuck to that. “...To pick up dust and debris off the floor. It's a force, very similar to what happens to air when you breathe in. It fills your lungs because your lungs are creating ‘suction’.

  “Occasionally, one of these machines will suck up something that is valuable or that has worth without the person realizing it until much later after the container is emptied and the valuable thing is lost.

  “So when my people say ‘suck’ it means a bad thing has happened, something valuable was lost. It is among the mildest of bywords, curse or cuss words to my people. Along with Flip, Dang, and Dang-nab-it” I said the substitute cuss words in English. Their faces light up with delight with each new word.

  Yeah sure I was lying to them, and probably going to give their parents a heart attack when they started using those as swear words randomly, but it was only a little lie, and those parents nearly let their kids kill me, so a little payback was in order. Besides, it wasn’t like they were going to be interacting with anyone else that spoke English other than me and Ailsa.

  Tol’geth appeared to the side of the children almost out of nowhere. “That is enough. Stop corrupting the youths.” He said glaring mildly at me as he shooed them back to playing on the tree stumps that amazingly even now still littered the ground. Well, mildly for Tol’geth, I still felt a shiver of instinctive fear run down my spine as he glowered at me. The children ran off talking amongst themselves about ‘sucking machines’ and I grinned from ear to ear.

  “You should not have told them those words or that story. Their parents will be plagued by them for years to come.” He said shaking his head slightly.

  “Oh, I do that to my own nieces and nephews back home all the time. Teaching them swear words in other languages or phrases that are totally innocuous in our society, but are completely inappropriate in others. Ticks their parents off, but it is really funny to watch my brother try to explain why bloody isn’t appropriate, or why screaming ‘pants’ to a British person is not a good thing.”

  I smiled at him and he chuckled slightly “You’re as bad as Tell’esh from the stories.” He said before walking off muttering “Mettling wizards.”

  Tell’esh? Wait, wizard? I thought surprised. Is that what I am? Hmmm. I guess I kind of am. I know that's what I want to become, but if Tol’geth already thinks of me in that way then that’s good enough for me! My grin turned into a full toothy smile as I turned my attention to the second book I had to read on magical theory.

  The book had a leather cover instead of a wooden one, with the title “Argumentai Materiali: A Discussion Of The Magical Properties Of Metals And Other Extracted Materials” cut and then burned into the leather on the front. The book was essentially an encyclopedia of various metals, with each entry listing the type of metal by name in Dwarvish, a description of the magical properties in Elvish, followed by a short paragraph or two discussing what those magical properties could do in forging, again in Dwarvish. A few of the metals had multiple entries, where different scholars disagreed about specific points of potential use, and what methods might best serve the typ
e of metal or its various alloys.

  Most metals only had one entry that gave a brief if terse description of the metals uses and magical properties. A few of them had multiple, while only three had commentaries that disagreed with each other that went on for pages.

  The ones with only one or two entries were known as Common Metals, and my ability easily translated their names via the context, and due to the drawings and descriptions that were given in each of their entries. Things like Iron, Tin, and Copper. Once I figured out what each one was, via the description and listed uses, my ability translated them. For some reason, until I at least had a better grasp about the metals nature, and connected it in some way with the knowledge that I had, the translation of the name of the ore or metal alloy didn’t happen.

  The second group of metals, the ones a handful of different, but rarely contradictory entries were known as the Majestic Metals. Oddly, the only name I could translate immediately was the first one, Steel. These were supposedly magically active metals, usually purer or alloyed forms of their Common brothers. After reading over them I was able to figure out a couple of more, like Gold, Silver, and both Naturally Occurring and Alloyed Electrum. Supposedly naturally occurring Electrum was more powerful than purposefully alloyed Electrum. A couple of the entries postulated theories but no one really knew why this was.

  Then there where the Mythic Metals. These had entries that went on for pages. In fact, they took up roughly half the book and the page that introduced them described them as the rarest and most deadly to work with, as well as by far the most magically active and easiest to enchant. Those were Mersary, Urtasium, and Eithercite. I skimmed them, sure that they had to be some kind of foreign or Faie metal, but I promised myself I would return to them when I had a little free time.

  I looked up from my reading and saw the sun was well past noon. We were moving a lot more slowly due to the armor and weapons that Tol’geth had policed from the bandits, so I wasn’t surprised we hadn't made it to town yet. But I was worried that we hadn't stopped for lunch. I looked around me and spotted Ailsa playing with the two elven children, they were playing a game that looked remarkably like tag, but with shafts of light and sparks that had little to no real effect when they hit one another. Choosing to let them continue their game I turned around.