ACT 1 THE BEGINNING
Hope Plaza Project base 2130
The scientists and the soldiers were all staring at what they had thought was a fracture in time and space and there was singing coming from it, and not in any language anyone was even familiar with,
Commander Nathaniel Taylor looked at what was going to be the first pilgrimage through the portal, they had sent through a probe and it had sent through images of what looked like some forest,
"Alright listen up people you all have the locator beacons in your tags so DON'T lose them tags." he ordered, and looked at a scientist who nodded that it was clear to go through.
Nathaniel thought about his wife Ayani and his now eight year old son Lucas and how much he wanted to be with them, but if this turned out to be what they hoped it was his family could follow him through one day and they wouldn't need re-breathers anymore, it could possibly be a fresh start for humanity, Nathaniel adjusted his own re-breather just in case making sure it was working properly, and turned to his soldiers among them his second in command Lieutenant Alicia Washington, And also a couple of real wildcards sergeants James Shannon and Kono Lao and also his weapons expert master sergeant Tomas Boylan, these men and women had served with him across the Earth, there was NO other people he trusted more,
"Let's MOVE OUT soldiers!" he barked at them, and then stepped through the fracture.
Sword coast, ruins of Arvahn 1355 DR (and STILL 2130)
Nathaniel stumbled out of the portal onto what seemed to be a small hill and turned around too look at the portal and saw that the exit on the end he was, looked like it was made of some sort of white silvery stone,
Then he heard what sounded like a woman's scream and ran in that direction he also wondered why the rest of his unit hadn't come through yet, but he couldn't worry about that since there may be a damsel in distress, when he came down the hill and into a glade he saw a lone woman and a small child, the woman was lying on the ground with a pool of blood forming around her and the child was trying to shield her from the six creatures who looked a good eight feet tall….tall and UGLY, Taylor needed no further introducing as he charged the creatures and yelled at them,
"Let's see how you deal with me you cowards!" he yelled, and the creatures at first looked a bit stunned at him and then started shouting in some incomprehensible language….at least Nathaniel thought it was a language,
Nathaniel was furious, there were few things if any he hated more than people or in this case ugly creatures that attacked lone women and children, Nathaniel fired his pulse rifle at them and two was immediately thrown back with shattered chests, the creatures started backing off but Taylor continued firing at them until the few that was left took off running, Nathaniel wanted to go after them and do a little genocide on those monsters but then remembered the woman and the child and turned toward them and saw the woman was still alive and so he picked her up as the child a boy looked at him without any fear even defiance, Nathaniel smiled at him and he motioned for the boy to follow him as he carried the woman, it was now that Nathaniel realized that this was not some forest since he could see that they were walking on a stone road, he followed the road until he saw what very much looked like some medieval castle reaching for the sky and walked as fast as he could there with the boy running beside him, the woman was bleeding out from the deep wound in her abdomen, when Nathaniel reached the castle door and gently put the woman down and started pushing the door open he had to hurry since he could hear the same guttural sounds from more of those creatures and they were getting closer, he finally got the door open and picked up the woman again and motioned for the boy at the same time as he said; "Hey kid get in here now!" the boy didn't seem to understand what he was saying but understood when Nathaniel motioned for him to get in, when they got in Nathaniel again gently put the woman down and shut the door and to his joy found a beam to put into the wall beside the door and thereby jamming it shut with,
He bent down to the woman and got out his first aid kit as she opened her eyes and looked at him with pleading completely purple eyes he couldn't even see any pupils in them, and the rest of her while very beautiful looked….for a lack of a better word almost angelic, her skin looked fair almost silvery,
she started talking with an almost singing voice and off course Nathaniel did not understand a word and tried to explain it to her in so many and most likely useless words as she most likely did not understand a word HE was saying either, she looked at him with eyes full of tears and grabbed his head on both sides and brought their foreheads together, at the same time she started chanting some even more incomprehensible words, and then he could hear in his mind her voice, and he could understand it as well,
"I do not have much time, so listen carefully, the boy is my son, please take care of him, we come from a village called west harbor, my son's name is Marcus Reynolds and my name is…." The woman trailed off as whatever connection was severed and he looked down on the now dead woman, and could see the boy Marcus sitting on his knees and trying to wake his mother – crying,
"Mama!" he cried and pushed her trying to wake her up but Nathaniel put a gentle hand on his shoulder and slowly shook his head,
"She's gone boy." he said sadly and the boy cried and lied down beside his mother and cried "Mama!" Nathaniel's heart broke and took the boy into his arms trying to comfort him,
"Just where the hell am I?" he wondered and Marcus looked up at him with tear streaked eyes
"He-ell?" Marcus said haltingly and Nathaniel face palmed himself,
"GREAT the first word he learns in English and it's a cussing word!" he thought distraught, "Ayani's gonna have my head." he thought again, and rose and looked around the area he came in through and when he turned back to the woman she was starting to glow and then in a blinding flash she was gone in a golden beam of light,
"MAMA?" Marcus cried out and looked up at Nathaniel as if he would have the answer.
Nathaniel decided it was pointless to wonder about the weirdness of his situation, he managed to find enough fire wood and started a fire and shared his MRE's with Marcus who didn't look to be enjoying it but ate nonetheless….no doubt trying to appear tough to impress him, Nathaniel smiled at the kid and ruffled his hair as they ate in near silence….not that they would have much to talk about with the language barrier, so Nathaniel decided to try and teach the boy English starting easy with their names he pointed to himself and said; "Nathaniel Taylor." the boy seemed to catch on even though he couldn't be more than four or five at the most, and pointed at himself and said likewise "Marcus Reynolds." and then Nathaniel started pointing at various objects and saying the words in English and Marcus would respond as best he could and then pointed at the same object saying a word in what probably was HIS language, they kept that up for the following days that turned into weeks of learning each other's language and hiding from the orcs as Marcus had explained them as when they had to run back quickly to the castle when they were out looking for wild fruits, and every day he would turn on his com unit and try and reach either his unit or Hope Plaza, and weeks turned into months, the orcs seemed to be not so much interested in them anymore after a confrontation which left a dozen more dead orcs, and they explored the castle as best they could and found what Nathaniel likened to medieval weapons, a crossbow that by the looks of the spider webbing and dust on it should have been useless but seemed to work just fine….more than fine when he realized he actually had to put some effort to NOT hit his target he even tried shooting with the bolts he found and they always seemed to hit the mark even with his eyes closed, off course Marcus found his antics very amusing,
"Hand crossbow, with magic!" Marcus laughed, he had explained that he was four years old and Nathaniel was astonished at how easily he seemed to pick up his language while Nathaniel was still lingering through some basic words and had some HUGE problems with pronunciations,
Nathaniel always thought of magic as something that belonged in fairy tales, but he could not deny what had happened with the boy's mother and the fact that this DAMN CROSSBOW JUST WOULD'NT MISS?!
Not to mention that some of the bolts he tried seemed to have properties that the level of technology he'd seen just shouldn't be capable of like when he tried shooting a bolt that felt as if it was charged with electricity of some kind when he shot an orch with it and it exploded with lightning as the orch seemed to get electrocuted by it, the orcs by now for obvious reasons gave them a really wide berth, Nathaniel also taught Marcus how to use his sonic pistol and a few survival tricks and some martial arts which the boy seemed to pick up fairly quickly, though the weird weapons the boy referred to as magical seemed to Nathaniel at least belong to different time periods AND from different cultures, and Nathaniel found the archetypal secret back entrance that always were in such castles, out into the forest so he could both fish and put out some traps when they started running out of MRE's and rats.
One day when Nathaniel was giving Marcus his daily martial arts training the com unit crackled to life, by now Nathaniel had all but given up hope of ever seeing his friends and loved ones ever again,
And he stopped and thereby got a kick on his leg by Marcus, who did not let anything break his concentration,
"OWW!" he said as he ran for the com unit,
"Hope Plaza, this is Commander Taylor, are you receiving me?" and he almost laughed out loud when he could hear the voice of his second Alicia Washington,
"Sir this is Lieutenant Washington what happened to you?" she queried,
"I've been here for at least three months Wash, what the hell happened to YOU?" he asked,
"Where are you now." he continued,
"At the base of a small hill on what seems to be an old road." she answered,
"Okay is the portal still open?" Nathaniel asked,
"Yes sir, but not for long." she answered,
"Okay send a message that they send through reinforcements tomorrow morning at O eight hundred hours and to contact us as well, after that follow the road to the south and you'll come to a castle you won't miss it, there may be some hostiles in the area so be careful." Taylor said knowing that Hope Plaza would contact them anyway but thought it would be good to say it just in case they didn't,
"Yes sir." Wash acknowledged, and after about twenty minutes there was a loud knocking sound on the door and after having checked Taylor opened it and after a major reunion with the twenty man elite unit with a LOT of explanations, and all of a sudden Alicia froze and looked as Marcus came up and stood behind Taylor and peeked out from behind his back,
"Err is there something you want to tell us sir?" she asked and couldn't help but smile as the boy stood his ground and glared defiantly at her and the others
"Everyone this little fellow here is Marcus Reynolds." Taylor answered and gave a quick explanation as how he found Marcus and his mother,
Alicia bent down and greeted the boy and he gave her a hug,
"You're purty." he said, after three months picking up a lot of Taylor's southern vocabulary and accent, and in any way Alicia's face turned from her normal beautiful golden hew to a bright red within seconds and was awarded with some laughter from some of the other men which stopped abruptly when both Alicia and Marcus gave the offenders an obliterating dual glare.
