The next day Manannan was awake before sunrise, which was unusual, but thankfully Gwydion was already awake, and about to leave his room. The wizard yelled from the stairs, "Gwydion! Get up you lazy boy! I have decided to take a journey. Have dinner ready for me when I return. And the tower better be spotless when I return!"
"Yes, Master." Gwydion called back. And with that, the wizard, just as the sun crept above the horizon, made a loud CRACK as he disappeared. According to Rowan's notes, the wizard should be gone all day, coming back at sunset exactly. Rowan noted that on trips when the wizard left at dawn he would always return at dusk, and had supposed that wherever he was traveling required that timing for the magic to work. Other trips, when Manannan left after dawn, would take exactly 8 hours.
Gwydion quickly heated water to wash, feed the chickens, made himself breakfast and hauled a bucket and soap up to the tower. He swept the room first, then with a damp cloth wiping everything down before mopping the floor. Gwydion wasn't sure how to clean a telescope, so just left it at a wipe down. He even scrubbed the windows. Once he was finished, Gwydion checked how high the sun was, and was surprised how low it hung in the sky. It was too early to have lunch, so he went into the study. After finding out that Goblins were real yesterday, he wanted to see what other magical beings where in this new world. Gwydion ran a finger tip along the spines of the books, glancing at a few of the titles, 'Ancient Arabic Mythology', 'One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi', 'A Study of the Heavens' and 'The Philosophies of Socrates' on the fattest books caught his eye. There were books in other languages, such as 'Hélas, Je me suis Transfiguré Les Pieds', 'Магичен Теория', 'Skrifter af Knos', 'Þrymskviða', 'Ars moriendi', 'القانون في الطب' and 'Trk'hsk''. Some he wasn't sure of, such as 'Xylomancy', 'Spellman's Syllabary', and 'Cyrillic Model'.
On one shelf, where he had found the book on Évreux, there were a number of other books on other Kingdoms. Gwydion tried the first in the shelf, a slender book bound in a deep green. The title was 'The Sultanate of Shapeir.' Gwydion flipped through the preface pages and looked for an index. The book didn't have one, instead just starting with, 'A history of the region.' Gwydion kept flipping through the pages. He wasn't really interested in a history yet. Maybe if the place had weird talking plants or something. The next chapter was more on the right path, with the title, 'The people of Shapeir', Gwydion laughed when he flipped the page to look a picture of a cat, standing on it's hind legs, wearing clothes. He read the first paragraph of the page, skipping the words he didn't know.
The Katta are (something) to the region of Shapeir. The (something) kin of the Liontaurs, as both (something) from from cats, the Katta have ruled the region for at least 1000 years. The Katta's fur is known to come in a (something) of colours, however browns and tan are the the most (something). Black Katta are more common in the southern regions. The ruling family are known to have (something) white coats with darker faces, and members of the royal warrior guard tan coats with sharply banded black and white ears. Most Katta have bright green eyes, but yellow is also common. Blue eyes are sometimes seen in the more (something) tribes.
Cat people! Gwydion couldn't believe it! He had brief thought about how the Dursley's would have reacted by now, how Vernon would have jumped up and down, yelling that 'Magic doesn't exist!' and 'No Freakiness here!' How Petunia would have screeched and probably sneered at Master, no doubt quickly earning even more punishment. Dudley would have thrown a tantrum, and Gwydion didn't doubt the wizard would have killed him. After all Gwydion had never seen Dudley do a single chore, and the fat boy probably would have attacked the wizard at first time he was told to clean. Gwydion put the book back and looked at the next one. 'The Troll Kingdom of Vulcanix under Kyöpelinvuori Peak'. Trolls! Gwydion smiled, and opened a random page.
In (something) with their underground (something) Kyöpelinvuori Peak trades heavily with the the elves of Alfheim and further with the goblin nation of Évreux, but due to long standing (something) with the dwarven kingdom does not trade with Dinas Affaraon in the south. The largest (something) to these regions is mined crystals including red imperial topaz found only in the mines of Kyöpelinvuori Peak. For above ground trade routes, the Ooga Booga region blocks trade to the east, and the Endless desert to the south, however the Republic of Nendos to the west is a known trading (something).
Elves? Like Santa's elves? Gwydion vaguely remembered Dudley coming back from school last year and asking Petunia about elves, and demanded she get (buy, borrow, steal) an elf to make toys just for him, just like they did for Santa. He remembered because Petunia had said no, a very rare occurrence, and therefore worth remembering. Vernon had been absolutely enraged, coming home to a full scale tantrum of Dudley's while the boy demanded magic elves. Gwydion had been locked in his cupboard for 3 days, as somehow it was of course his fault. It had been worth it though, to see Dudley so angry, Petunia almost in tears, and Vernon an incredible purple in colour.
Gwydion put back that book and looked for one on elves, or their place called Alfheim. None of the books had a nice easy title with the kingdoms name. 'Undersea Kingdoms of the West' might be interesting, as might 'Cloud Lands, Living above the sky' or 'Through the Forbidden Woods on Dark Paths'. That was when Gwydion saw the next shelves book title of 'World Traveling: Portals to the beyond'. He grabbed it before hesitating. Did he want to go back? He wasn't sure. Well no, he was sure he didn't want to go back to the Dursley's at all. So did it matter how he got here? Maybe if for some reason he was sent back, he could find a way to return to this place instead.
He settled down to read, but it was very hard. There was a lot of talk about how things influenced natural portals, like the stars and other things he didn't understand. The next chapter was about permanent portals. The were well guarded and often blocked to outsiders. The goblins had the most well known one, and the book said that they often travelled between Sierra and what was referred to as Terra, which might (probably) be the world he came from. So if he was sent back he just needed to find a goblin.
Because that was so easy.
The book also said there was a portal in the Endless Desert, but the surrounding country made it hard to get to. There was one in the undersea kingdom, but it linked to a place very very deep in the ocean on the Terra side, making it basically useless. There was mean to be a fourth portal, but its location was somewhere in the Old Dark forest in the south (and therefore considered lost).
The book then talked about rituals to open portals, but the ingredients needed where nothing compared to the complex (what looked like) maths to figure out when and where you had to be. Gwydion thumped his head back into the book shelves in frustration.
The last section had a short history of how the portals had made Sierra. This world, he found, was made of magic, and was sort of adjacent to the world he had come from. Because of the high concentration of magic, the fantastical beasts and beings Gwydion had read about lived here (having fled here or were perhaps were made by coming here he didn't really understand it), partially because of the lack of belief and desire of the people in Gwydion's old world had been weakening them, not just magically but in ways such as intelligence wise or physically, and often making them sterile (a word which took Gwydion a while and a few sentences to figure out). But their presence in what had been before just a whole bunch of magical energy meant time and space need to exist too, and so the world had formed. There was brief mention of the fact that humans, one of the last species to come through, all contained the 'spark of magic' and couldn't exist here without it. This lead to a low birth rate (only babies with magic could be born), but a high survival rate (as magic meant they didn't get sick as often), small towns (due to the few people being born) but high levels of trade and travel (as people were healthier and stronger). Occasional accidental portal travellers mean the population never became to 'close'. The cities were also quiet small, normally only being a dozen or so buildings, and a single large castle. He didn't really understand how that was possible, where did they grow the food?
A book on farming was a few books over, and Gwydion glanced at the introduction. From what he could figure out it was also because of magic. Magic meant that plants grew very fast, and could be harvested multiple times a month. A single field of wheat was enough to feed a whole kingdom, and sometimes multiple kingdoms. There was also no real change in seasons. Some places were forever in winter, some forever in summer, so Kingdoms like Daventry who were always in late spring produced the majority of the crops for all of Sierra, making the kingdom one of the most powerful and wealthy, despite its small size. The book then went on about how to farm magical plants, and what was considered 'must haves' for any garden. Gwydion thought he might like to plant a garden. He could make beds from some of the largest wood pieces, and the scrap heap of kitchen leavings could be, with a little work, turned into good soil for the beds. Some seeds from the kitchen and he could grow his own fruits and vegetables.
Gwydion by now was hungry, and realised he had forgotten to have lunch. He wandered back into the kitchen and make himself (and Master), some sandwiches. He was too hungry to try cooking again. Maybe he could find a book on easy recipes. Petunia's magazines where full of that sort of thing, so there had to be books like that too.
It was only as he was climbing into bed that Gwydion realised that if all people in Sierra had magic that meant he had magic too.