I didn't so much ease into consciousness as bounce off it. Waking up was a slow process, made slower by the mild muscle ache in my legs. I wasn't used to walking nearly as much as I'd walked yesterday, and it was starting to show. Eventually, I mustered up the energy to slowly pull myself out of the bed.
The journey last night had been relatively short. Rather than heading towards the barracks, it turned out that Julie and her friends rented out a couple of rooms in a widowers house, an old man who I met briefly before being pointed to a bed. I'd basically just stripped down to my trousers and collapsed into it, and as I sat up now, I saw my kit scattered all over the both the floor and the otherwise empty bed opposite me. Urgh, I'd have to put in effort. My least favourite thing to do early in the morning.
After using my ring to clean myself off, I started to gather my stuff to get dressed. I looked at my armour, considered it for a second, and started to labouriously getting ready to don that as well. I wasn't sure if those thugs, or anyone else, would be going to try something today, but better wearing armour than being stabbed in the gut, even if I did have to figure out how to put it on. It wasn't that difficult, thankfully, even if I did get the leather greaves the wrong way up the first time around.
As I started shrugging on the surprisingly thick studded leather (it looked like the inside was covered in padding of some kind, no doubt to help absorb the force of incoming blows), I let my mind drift. I hadn't really thought about it at the time, but the ease that I'd jumped to violence last night scared me. Yes, there was tiredness, and stress from the whole 'new world' situation, and a host of other extenuating factors, but that didn't change the fact I'd been seconds away from covering people in fire, that was genuinely capable of killing people. I liked to think that I was a good person, if not necessarily a nice one, and the thought that I could so casually decide to kill someone sat uncomfortably with me. There were all sorts of justifications that I could use, that they outnumbered me, that they were hostile, but I didn't even bother to try to de-escalate. I could have tried talking, or even just paid the damn money, but I went straight to violence. I wasn't that I was necessarily against violence, but considering I'd never even seriously hurt anyone before, it was uncharacteristic. (I tried my best to ignore the little voice at the back of my head, that whispered maybe it wasn't characteristic, that you've never had real power before, and maybe that so-called 'good person' thing was simply a fear of consequences that you no longer have to deal with.)
These thoughts bounced around in my head for a bit as I kitted myself up, made sure that my daggers were firmly fastened at the small of my back (those coming loose would be awkward), threw on my cloak, and reached into a pocket. A flask of sweet tea came out, and I took a gulp. I didn't know if I still had a caffeine and sugar addiction, or if being dropped into a forest with magic powers dealt with that, but I could do without the headaches, so I hoped the three flasks of sweet tea a day would help me slowly wean myself off them. The withdrawal from my anti-depressants would probably be a lot worse, admittedly, but I'd burn that bridge when I got to it.
Leaving the room, I slowly made my way down the stairs. The house wasn't that big, three rooms on the top floor, all bedrooms as far as I could tell, and downstairs had a main room and a kitchen. It was sizeable by the standards of this village (in that it had more than one floor) but it was still somewhat cramped.
The main room had a table dominating one side of it, and it seemed that I'd come down during breakfast, as sat around it eating were Julie and her three friends from the night before. They were in their civies, and I took the moment before they noticed me to study them all.
Julie was sans armour and weapons, wearing trousers with reinforced knees and a belted tunic. Her blonde hair and pale features suggested Scandinavian, maybe, although whether or not that actually meant anything wherever I was was up for debate. She was lean, muscles designed for quick movement and explosive power rather than straight strength, and I watched her gesturing animatedly with a fork as she talked to the individual next to her.
Her conversational companion was, I presumed, the other individual in armour from last night. The first thing that I noticed about her was that she was ripped. I was pretty sure that some of her muscles had muscles of their own. I briefly admired her impressively large, erm, pecs. She was wearing slightly more ornate clothing, a shirt that had been laced up and some baggy trousers. Her brown hair was pulled into a long braid, and with her helmet off I could make out an almost greenish tint to her features. Attached to a chain around her neck dangled a silver pendant in the shape of a sunburst.
Sat reading a book, occasionally shovelling a forkful of eggs into her mouth, was the quarterstaff wielder. While the others had swapped their armour for a shirt and trousers, she'd swapped her shirt and trousers for a simple robe. A light brown pixie-cut hairstyle revealed pointed ears attached to an angular face, and she ignored the conversation with an ease born of long practise.
The final member of their group was watching me as I watched them. The halfling was still in her leathers, and although she didn't have her bow, the handles of a couple of knives were visible in between all of the pouches strapped to her. Her black hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, and sharp eyes followed my movements. Not wanting to seem like I'd been creeping on them, I waved at her, and took another mouthful of sweet tea.
"Morning." The halfling greeted me with a flat stare. "Sleep well?" The other three at the table turned to stare at me, giving me the mildly uncomfortable feeling of being put on the spot.
"Not bad. Yourself?"
"Given that I was sleeping on the floor, due to there being someone in my room, as well as can be expected."
Ah. I guess she wasn't best pleased about that. "Sorry? I didn't realise I was putting anyone out. If I'd known, I'd have crashed on the floor somewhere."
The halfling winced, and shot her head around to glare at Julie. Julie had an unusual facial expression on, half regret, half anger, and some form of silent communication passed between them. Looking at the other two at the table, to see if they had any idea what was going on, Muscles simply looked exasperated, while Robes was mouthing the word 'crashed' to herself in confusion. Shrugging, I sipped at the flask of tea.
The silent conversation continued on just long enough to become awkward when Julie let out a part whisper, part plead, part demand.
"Lids..."
The halfling sighed, and deflated slightly. Looking back to me, she seemed apologetic.
"It's not a problem, don't worry about it. I've slept in worse places." Her piece said, she picked up her fork and started eating.
Confused by the whole situation, I decided to deal with it in my usual way. Ignore the whole thing and hope that it wasn't important. Grabbing a spare chair, I sat down at the table.
"So, I don't think we really got the chance to introduce ourselves last night. You can call me Mahziron. It's nice to meet you." Let's see if I can manage a slightly better impression than the one I seemed to have managed last night.
Julie eagerly piped up, almost before I'd finished speaking. "I'm Julie! We met last night, I was the guard at the gate that you were talking to." I nodded in acknowledgement, and as I turned to look at Muscles, I nearly missed the disappointed face she pulled. Muscles just looked at me, taking a moment to reach up and fiddle with her sunburst pendant before speaking.
"Zahri."
Was that it? Alright.
Robes spoke up next. "I'm Sabrina. So what brings you here? I've not seen someone quite like you before, and Julie mentioned something about a mage? What happened?" She rattled off the questions as if the thought of pausing for breath was anathema to her.
"Fucks sake Sabrina, give the man a chance to answer. I'm Lidda, by the way." The halfling spoke up. "You should probably answer her, though. She'll be hounding you all day like a dog in heat if you can't sate her... curiosity."
Judging from the cries that came from both Julie and Sabrina at that, it wasn't a particularly welcome comparison, although the long-suffering expression that Zahri was pulling, and the self-satisfied smirk on Lidda's face, indicated that this was not the first time she'd made comments like this.
"Ok, so, in order, magic brought me here, I didn't think I looked that unusual, I'm pretty sure they were some kind of spell caster, but I'm not sure of the specifics, and a plane shift, most likely, as I have some experience with geography and I've never heard of a place like this." Ah, my favourite form of deception, technically not lying. I've never been a big fan of outright lying, too easy to lose track of things, but presenting the truth in a convenient way was much more my speed.
"You don't know the specifics of the mage that you're running from?" "You're an outsider?" Lidda's sceptical question was swallowed by Sabrina's energetic, if slightly panicked, outburst.
"No? I'm from a prime, I just don't think it's this one. And there isn't a lot of running involved in a plane shift."
What followed was a fairly basic, bare-bones explanation of what a plane shift actually was to Lidda. I guess the specific details of high level spells, and cosmology, wasn't common knowledge, but the concept of 'travel to a different world' wasn't that hard to get across. That explanation did need to be followed by another brief explanation of 'there are different worlds in the prime material, it's not just this one' to Sabrina, but the list of follow up questions were interrupted by Julie butting in.
"So, why did a mage use powerful magic to get rid of you? You said you hadn't done anything to them last night, but there's got to be some reason, right?" She sounded almost despondent at this. I kinda wished she'd keep to the same emotional state for more than a minute, but random people showing up and crashing at your house was probably unusual enough to kick out your normal equilibrium.
"Honestly, I'm not sure. I was in bed, there's a voice, everything got a little hazy, and then I woke up in the forest clothed and armoured with no idea how I got there. Didn't even recognise the voice. I'm just putting together the plane shift thing based on context clues."
All four of them suddenly had sympathetic expressions on their face when they looked at me. Julie whispered something to Sabrina quietly enough that I couldn't hear it, but I didn't miss the answering shrug, followed by looking at me, back to Julie, and then a slow nod. The sympathetic expressions got more pronounced, and I couldn't help but feel mildly annoyed. It was stupid, especially given that I'd only had somewhere to sleep based on them feeling sorry for me, but I couldn't get the part of my brain telling me it was patronising to shut up. I decided to deal with the situation by just changing the topic.
"So, anyway, thank you for letting me stay the night, I appreciate it. Saved me quite a lot of trouble."
"Ah, yeah, I did warn you about the fact that that inn was rough. I guess I should have..."
I cut Julie off. "Nothing to do with any amount of roughness, I didn't stay there because the lady behind the counter decided to charge me a ridiculous amount because I 'looked weird'."
At their surprised responses, I laid out the whole situation. I left out my suspicions of organised crime, though. I didn't know if she was a 'respected pillar of the community' or whatever the term was, and accusing someone I didn't know, in a situation I didn't know, in what was probably a world I didn't know, of crime struck me as not an amazing idea.
By the time I'd finished speaking, Zahri had her head in her hands, Lidda was giggling to herself, Sabrina had closed her book to stare at me in fascination, and Julie kept trying to speak, but was cutting herself off before she got more than a word or two out. Eventually, she spoke.
"That's not... You know... The... The two silver charge is for space in front of the hearth. It's not for a room, or anything, it's for a little bit of space on the floor in the common room at night. The five gold was probably the cost for you to stay in her room for the night, while she slept on the common room floor instead. If she hadn't done that, you'd have slept there with four or five women, in a somewhat cramped space."
What, had she been worried I'd have done something to them? Even if I was the kind of person to try something, which I wasn't, I'd have had to have been an idiot to do so outnumbered five to one.
"It's not like I'd have done anything. I mean, I guess they didn't know that, but still, if they charge everyone that comes through that much, I doubt they get much custom." Mildly surprised faces all around as a response to my statement. I was starting to feel like I was missing something. Was I making some kind of cultural faux-pas?
Sabrina used the moment of my confusion to speak up. "There isn't a lot of custom here, no. We are on the edge of the Queendom, and there's not a lot to do here." Queendom? What? Didn't Julie call it the Kingdom of Sen-something-or-another last night? "As far as your appearance goes, you'll have to admit that blue eyes like yours are very much a rarity."
I blinked, and gestured to Julie. "She has blue eyes. It's mildly uncommon, I guess, but it's not that rare."
They all stared at me again. Fuck, I absolutely was missing something, wasn't I? Zahri broke the silence. "You seen yourself?"
"Not since I ended up here, I guess. Why?" I reached a hand up to my face, my nervousness starting to spike. It spiked a little more when Lidda pulled out one of her knives, although that faded when she held it out so I could see my face in the polished side.
There were two things I noticed, as I stared at the reflection of my face. The first was that I was beautiful. I mean, I knew intellectually that I was, I picked up a feat for it (for perfectly legitimate and non-ego-boosting reasons), but as I stared, I had to admit that I was stunning. I was still recognisably me, but it looked like I'd had a Hollywood makeup team and a VFX airbrusher working at me for a couple of hours. I was almost inhumanly stunning. The only downside was that I was beautiful. Not handsome. Not ruggedly masculine. Beautiful. It was an androgynous kind of beauty, but it still left me in the awkward situation of being vaguely attracted to my own face.
The second thing that I noticed was that my eyes were indeed blue. Normally, when discussing eye colour, people are talking about the colour of the iris. In my case, the entire orb was a single shade of blue, as if someone had replaced my eyeballs with oval sapphires. Between that, and the fact that they glowed faintly blue, shading my eyes and the area around them as if I was wearing a light layer of eyeshadow, I had to admit that they were mildly off-putting. I wasn't quite sure how I was still able to see, but then I remembered that I could breathe fire and use magic, so apparently both the laws of physics and biology could go and fuck themselves.
"Huh. That's new." I looked away from the knife. "Yeah, I just had normally blue eyes before. The whole 'monochrome' look is, erm, unexpected, to say the least."
"That explains that." Zahri grunted.
The conversation stilled for a moment, as I tried to wrap my head around my new appearance. They seemed willing to let it drop, and Zahri and Julie got back into their conversation. Half-listening in, half-drinking tea, I sat there as Zahri played devil's advocate (was that a term here) to Julie, as she rambled about a new plan of hers. Something about a crypt?
After a minute or so, I turned to Lidda (Sabrina engrossed with her book once more), who'd so far been willing to quietly sit there and watch the rest of us.
"So, I get Julie is a guard, but what do the rest of you do?"
Lidda shook her head. "Julie and Zahri are only members of the guard temporarily, to earn a little bit of money while we're here, pay for housing and food. Nah, we're adventurers."
Of course. Figures.