Torg Eternity – Dead Legion
The Orphan
Aysle – Stockholm
Some saw the location as a shining beacon in a sea of chaos.
But there were far, far more stuck beyond the isle's borders who thought it was a place for Core Earthers to hide from those outside the world as they knew it. Even those who'd gladly fight the High Lords at their side, if they were welcomed.
Stockholm's rustic architecture looked gleaming and modern compared to the stone forts the most advanced buildings in the occupied quarters of Europe were becoming. Electric lights still shined in the windows, and motorized watercraft still patrolled the waters around the islet, jealously guarding entrance to one of the few places in Uthorion's territory to resist being transformed.
In the distance the shadowy but unmistakable shape of a dragon cruised could be seen cruising by. In the boats being stopped before they could reach the shore, were crowds of squat, bearded dwarves and their wives and husbands. Others held slender elves with knife-like ears. Others held humans, some wearing medieval garb and others the ragged remnants of more modern clothing. Sitting on a raft of lashed-together tree trunks was a snaggle-toothed giant, holding the crude oar he'd carved up to his chest and looking miserable as he waited for an answer along with all the other refugees.
Sitting near the aft of one of the boats, everyone else standing as far away as could be managed, was someone in a ragged robe, its hood pulled up to hide their face.
But their hands were visible, and were constantly twisting and contorting in the air in front of them. Spark of color would appear, flicker in the air for a few seconds before fading away.
An old boat pilot, wearing the remains of a red ski jacket and blue jeans, bored enough by being stuck in the bay to approach, sat down near the hooded one. "Hey, ah," he asked, "you one of them wizards?"
The hooded one lowered their hands, and looked down at their feet.
"I think so."
Nile Empire – Northeast Sahara
Outside the truck there was nothing but a shifting cloud of brown. It'd been like that for hours now, most of the drive out to the site. Kristina would much rather have been down with her teammates, but someone had to stay and guard the truck. No way in hell was she going to end up walking back to Cairo through the desert, let alone through a demonic sandstorm like this one.
Still, she wished she'd brought a book to read or something while she waited. She wished she read books, come to think of it. Her parents had wanted her to have safe little hobbies like that.
What did people even write books about, in a reality where there were real superheroes? And monsters. And mad scientists and cults real with magic powers. Did they have books about office romances and race car drivers and stuff on Terra? That was what Ghost had said his world was called, wasn't it?
Suddenly something knocked on the glass. Kristina jumped and whipped toward it, rifle in her hands. But even with the goggles and headscarf on to protect his skin from the pounding sands, she recognized Ghost pressing himself against the door of the truck. She leaned over and opened the door lock. Ghost tried to open the door gently but the handle was yanked out of his hands by the wind of the sandstorm, and he and then Sophia climbed back into the cab and slammed it shut again as quickly as they could.
"You guys find anything?" Kristina asked while the others were still pulling off their masks and goggles. It took a minute of them gasping in the relatively clean air of the truck cab before she got her answer.
"Nothing," Sophia scowled. "The entire tomb's been picked completely clean by the pharaoh's people. Whatever they were looking for, they're long gone with it."
"And you're sure it was the pharaoh's people?" Kristina asked.
"Yeah," Ghost breathed. "We ran into the bodies of a few shocktroopers down there, along with a couple guardian mummies who must've been the ones who killed them. The rest of their group probably heard this damn dust storm was coming and figured it'd save them the work of burying their buddies."
Silence descended over the group. All this way, and nothing to show for it. With surprising suddenness, Kristina started the engine. It coughed but then roared to life.
Sophia gave her a dubious look. "You're planning to drive back in this hellstorm?" she asked.
"Hey, GPS doesn't work here," Kristina said, then waggled a compass in one hand. "But this still does."
She hit the gas pedal and their truck trundled away into the sands.
Soon the trio lost all track of time. The pelting clouds of sand gradually got slightly darker, but it was only an eternity later that the sandstorm thinned out and they could see the village just before Kristina drove right through it.
And over the old man sitting on a rock among the ruins.
Kristina screamed and stomped the brake, but there was really no need. The Delphi Council's truck rolled to a stop a few feet away from where it could've hit him. Still panting, Kristina was gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles, and leaned forward until her forehead rested against it.
"We're stopped," Ghost assured her.
"Thank gods," Kristina muttered.
"Gods?" Sophia asked, arching an eyebrow.
Kristina shrugged without looking up at her. "Whatever ones are out there," she said. "I wasn't sure before, I'm sure as hell not now. After all these other people's dimensions dropped out of nowhere on mine."
Shaking her head, Sophia opened the door and climbed out, starting over to the old man sitting right in their way. Ghost and Kristina followed a few steps behind. "Sir?" she asked, a bit gruffly. "Could you please tell us what happened to your town? Did the Nile Empire's forces destroy it?"
"Bahram," he said, without looking up. "My name isn't sir."
Still looking totally impassive, Sophia said, "Bahram, could you please tell us what happened to your town? Did the Nile Empire's forces destroy it?"
The old man murmured something and scratched at the sand at his sandalled feet with a walking stick. "Not two days ago," he said, low, as if he was no longer aware he was speaking to anyone else, "our village was a welcoming oasis in this great desert. Today, it lies in ruin, laid waste by some beast of the gods. At dawn yesterday, as we prepared to celebrate the wedding of Nadia and Gamal, we all heard a strange rumbling and felt a vibration beneath our feet.
The lines he was drawing started to take shape, a tall cone surrounded by lines like rushing winds. Surrounded by small boxes with jagged tops, like destroyed houses.
"By noon, our words could no longer be heard above the roaring din of an approaching storm. An hour later, a twisting column of sand erupted from the desert and overwhelmed the village. We tried to flee from the wrath of Set, but few escaped from his cloud of destruction.
"Houses were shaken to their foundations, and loved ones were wrenched from our hands and pulled into the sky. As quickly as the madness began, the terrifying storm ended, and we all learned the horrific truth. That the joyful wedding was to be replaced by a hasty funeral.
"The few of us who survived the onslaught gathered our remaining belongings and fled. All except for me, for the gods had sent to me a vision that from the dead, would come those who would avenge the carnage."
Ghose came over and kneeled down in front of the old man, who raised his head to meet the outsider's eyes for a minute, had no reaction whatsoever to seeing his mask, and lowered his face to look at the dirt again. "I'm called the Ghost," the masked hero volunteered. "If you got a vision, I don't know if it was about us, but we'd like to help all the same."
"Would you, now?" Bahram asked, still looking down at his toes.
"Yeah," Kristina added. Sophia gave her an odd look, as if there was something she wasn't in on, but said nothing. "Do you know which way whatever did this went?"
Without a word, Bahram raised his cane and pointed at a funnel of air colored sandy brown, maybe about a mile and a half out.
Still not saying a word, the trio of Storm Knights boarded their truck again and trundled off into the sands.
Aysle – Stockholm
A sleek, modern patrol boat floated up to another of the ragtag fleet seeking refuge in Stockholm. After only a few minutes of inspection, they waved it away. The patrol boat cruised on, to inspect another of those vessels full of fantastic refugees.
Obviously, it was going to be a while before the city's security got around to examining them, so the old pilot stepped down from the prow of his old boat and sat down by the hooded sorcerer in the back. "Any particular reason you're on your way to Stockholm, friend?" he asked.
"It is the closest place to where I arrived, where I could make contact with those whose help I need."
"Oh?" the old boat pilot asked. "What's a wizard up to that they need help with?...Not that there aren't a million things that need doing at a time like this."
"To help a group I am meant to join," replied the sorcerer. "A legion of the dead…I feel kindred spirits there, in ways I cannot remember feeling before."
Some might have moved away from the hooded sorcerer after hearing such dark proclamations. Instead, the boat pilot took a pull on a whiskey bottle. "You got a name, wizard?" he asked.
"Wren."
"Wren?"
"Of Greymarsh," the hooded sorcerer replied. "Although I suspect that name means nothing to you."
"Nope," said the boat pilot. He took another swig and looked over at the water. The patrol boats from Stockholm were still almost four boats ahead of them. It was going to be a while yet before they were even considered.
Evidently the pilot wasn't the only person who'd heard the sorcerer giving their name, however. An old elf looked up, squinting slightly. Curiously. He took his walking stick off his lap, braced it against the shifting deck of the boat, and shuffled closer. When he was right of them, he asked in a wavering voice, "Wren? Of Greymarsh?"
"Yes."
"Here?"
"Yes."
A few other passengers had gotten up and come closer at what they'd heard. Most were murmuring to each other about the news.
"How?" asked the aged elf.
"…I'm not sure."
The boat pilot watched as the rest of his passengers slowly got up and joined the crowd, some asking if it was true Wren of Greymarsh was really there among them, others just wanting to see what was going on after the tedium of their journey to Stockholm.
For his part, the pilot took another swig and wandered to the front of the boat to see if they were any closer to getting waved through.
Nile Empire – Northeast Sahara
Time seemed to stand still while the Storm Knights' truck climbed over and slid down the dunes. Always the menacing air funnel they were following was in the distance, growing slightly larger every minute.
"Is this wise? Coming straight at it without the slightest idea of what to expect?" Sophia asked gravely.
"Gaea probably has monsters that could wreck entire villages, right?" Kristina asked her.
"Many," Sophia answered her. "Unless you planned to be wrecked yourself, you needed to know what you were up against."
Ghost put a hand on Sophia's shoulder. "I get what you're saying, but on Terra, you usually have to go by the seat of your pants."
"…by the what?" Sophia asked in exasperation. Suddenly she turned her head slightly, then pointed. "What is that?"
Holding up his binoculars, Ghost inspected the dark spot in the distance also speeding across the desert. "It's a halftrack. Being driven by a crew of shocktroopers. And…"
"…and?" Kristina supplied.
"…and they've spotted us."
It only took a second for the others to see what he meant. Something took off from the back of the shape in the distance and hovered over in the direction of their truck. As it got closer, they could see it was a twin-prop autogyro.
And as it got closer, they could feel the shockwave from the bomb it tried to drop on them.
Every pane of glass in the truck's cab cracked, and the truck tilted harrowingly to the left. Sophia was thrown on top of Ghost, who was almost thrown on top of Kristina but managed to grab the edge of the dashboard. Neither of them were wearing their seatbelts; Kristina guessed superheroes didn't really take the time with how quickly they might have to get out and chase their enemy, and Sophia have never been in anything with an engine before coming to Egypt.
Just as suddenly as they'd started tipping, the truck slammed down onto all four wheels again. Sophia and Ghost were thrown the other way, Sophia banging her head on the doorframe. Muttering curses, she clutched at her head in pain. The sound of the autogyro's rotor's faded into the distance, but almost instantly it started getting louder again. Meanwhile, the halftrack it had launched from had turned and was coming over to pass at them too.
"Step on it, and keep your head down!" Ghost ordered. He drew one of his pistols just before the halftrack was pulling up alongside their truck, and fired a single precise bullet. It struck the shocktrooper standing on the back of the halftrack, who was taking aim with a mounted machine gun. He let out a dramatic scream before falling over the side.
Kristina might've congratulated Ghost on the shot, but that was when the sound of the autogyro passing overhead got too loud not to notice. Another bomb went off, tilting the truck on one side again. This time the halftrack clipped them as it went by, knocking the truck completely over it.
It tumbled top over bottom down a dune, bounced once and landed on its side.
Awakening came harshly. Kristina tried to move her arm to cover her eyes against the desert sun. Only to realize she couldn't, they'd been tied behind her back. The weight of her weapon was gone too, but that surprised her less than the fact that she could still feel every body part attached.
"You guys okay?" she groaned.
"No, my dear. They are not," chuckled a harsh voice.
Immediately her eyes flew open to see a shocktrooper captain standing over her, leering. Other soldiers had surrounded them, with Ghost and Sophia lying on the sand, their arms and legs tied with rope. Just like Kristina's seemed to be. One of the shocktroopers had taken Sophia's weird rifle and was inspecting it, obviously pleased with his acquisition judging by the grin on his sun-darkened face.
"Seems we have a couple of Stormers with big plans! Don't we, boys?" scoffed the captain.
"Yessir," said his troops all at once, as if it was a trained response.
"Well, don't you worry about it," the captain said. "The proper authorities will look into that little whirlwind, and we'll bring whatever's responsible for it back to the pharaoh, where it belongs!"
"And you'll get rid of us as a warning to the pharaoh's enemies or something, first, I bet," Kristina groaned.
"The thought had occurred," the captain said with another leer. "We're going to leave you to the tender mercies of the desert! You'll have a while to consider the magnitude of the mistakes you made in defying the pharaoh, and you'll never see the welcome sight of civilization again."
Sophia laughed a haughty laugh. "You're entirely too proud of yourself, you lowly little grunt," she spat. "Whatever that is, it leveled an entire village. You think a few of you can overcome it?"
He gave an even haughtier laugh in response. "Looks to me like we made short work of a couple of Stormers who thought they could handle it! All of you, into the vehicle! Let's let our friends have more time to enjoy themselves together before the gods come for them!"
And to a chorus of sarcastic laughter, the shocktroopers boarded their halftrack and treaded away into the desert, blasting a fine spray of sand over the Storm Knights.
None of them said a word as the soldiers zoomed across the sands, taking their supplies and the only transportation in sight with them.
Maybe predictably, it was Kristina who spoke first. "Now what?"
"We wait until they're not paying any attention to us," Sophia answered. "Then we escape."
"You've got a plan?"
"Yes," Sophia said simply. She shifted, shaking her wrists, until a thin blade that'd been concealed in the sleeve of her duster came loose and dropped into her hand. After orienting the blade with her ropes, she started working it at the strands.
By the time Sophia had freed herself and then the others, the trail of dust from the shocktroopers' vehicle was cresting a dune half a mile away. It was still heading for the dark funnel cloud both of their groups had been pursuing.
"So, we're still going after them?" asked Kristina.
"Of course," Sophia said grimly.
"You think they found our little secret in the truck?" asked Kristina.
"Doubt it," said Ghost. "That tomb was empty, remember? There was nothing worth taking out of the truck."
"So let's go get it!"
They did. It took a bit of work with the truck lying on its side, but they managed to pry a panel off the floor of the truck and reveal a desert-tan motorbike hidden underneath.
Sophia was the one to ask the obvious question. "How are we all going to fit on this?"
Kristina looked at Ghost and scratched her chin in thought. "Can you drive a motorcycle?"
"Sure I can."
"Then you drive, and I'll sit on the handlebars."
"You'll what?" he demanded.
She shook her head in exasperation. "You want to catch up to those soldiers before they have a chance to catch that thing?" Ghost shook his head. "So let's go! Unless you want to ride on the handlebars."
"…I'll drive," Ghost answered.
It was a strange sight indeed of the three Storm Knights riding across the desert to catch up with the soldiers who'd attacked them. Sitting on the very front, holding up her legs to keep her skin from being sandblasted off, Krisina grinned.
Only a few minutes later Ghost slowed down and stopped next to something at the top of the dune. It was the halftrack the shocktroopers had been piloting, tilted slightly and buried partway into the sand. Around it were littered the bodies of the soldiers, some with gaping holes through their torsos. A ways away, the autogiro it'd carried before lay upside down, its rotors crushed. Silently,
Sophia slid off the back of the bike and recovered her rifle from where it was sticking out of the sand next to the body of the shocktrooper who'd taken it from here. Three chambers were empty. Obviously, it hadn't done him any good against whatever they'd been chasing.
"Hey guys, does it look like that tornado's stopped?" Kristina asked the others.
"Yeah," Ghost answered.
"Perhaps they managed to hurt it after all," Sophia suggested. "If that's the case, we might never get the chance to attack while it's weakened again."
Ghost nodded. "Hey, Kristina. Think you can drive that rig of theirs?"
She nodded too. "Doesn't too look bad. If the engine starts, it should be able to crawl out of that. I don't know about it getting us back to Cairo, but…"
"One thing at a time," said Ghost. Kristina nodded then started wrestling the door to the driver's seat open. A few fierce chugs and the vehicle's engine snarled to life. Ghost jumped onto the back and Sophia beside him, carrying her half-spent slayer's rifle.
Kristina gave a strange look over her shoulder at them, but when she kicked the halftrack into gear, she saw what they did. Ahead, the whirlwind they'd been following since leaving the tomb was blowing itself out, getting lighter. There was no sandstorm to ride through this time.
More than that, dominating that stretch of sand was a massive hole. A hole she could swear something was moving inside…
Aysle – Stockholm
"…truly if you are who you say, then you cannot be. Wren of Greymarsh perished eons ago," said one of the younger elves facing the hooded sorcerer.
"Fool!" one of his elders said and cuffed him on the back of the head. "There's been word of a mage by that came from all over Aysle! First he was supposed to be a human, then later there was an elf, a giant—"
"Wren of Greymarsh was an elf, not a human. Don't be a fool," interrupted someone else.
"You're both fools. He was a dwarf!"
"A dwarven wizard?! Who's the fool?"
"Wren of Greymarsh wasn't a man at all! She was a woman!"
Wren themselves looked away from all the arguing. Silently, they rose and headed up to the front of the boat. A few watched them go, but none stopped them. The boat pilot glanced over at the hooded one, and set down his bottle.
"Seems like these people have a lot of different ideas about you," he observed.
A sigh was Wren's first reply. "They aren't wrong. I've worn many faces, fought the Dark in many lands. It would seem this Core Earth is where I'm needed now."
Both of them looked up at the sound of a patrol boat pulling up at the side of their own vessel. A soldier leaned over, inspecting the crowd of ragged elves and humans seeking safety in his city. He stopped when he saw Wren, who turned away before the soldier had a chance to see anything in the folds of their hood.
"Purpose in seeking entry?" the soldier asked briskly.
"Refuge from the forces of the Dark Lord, Uthorion," replied the boat pilot. "At least, that's what they told me."
Giving him a probing look, the soldier suddenly said, "Inventory?"
"Twelve elves, six dwarves, fives humans. And one, um, wizard," replied the boat pilot.
"Wizard?"
Wren looked away.
"I assume he means you," the soldier declared. "What interest does a wizard have in Stockholm?"
Slowly, Wren turned and faced his direction again. "My presence is required in a land called…Egypt. A ghost who walks. One whose prior identity was destroyed by this war, and taken another. Most darkly, a hunter whose life was destroyed, and who rose from the ordeal a grimmer figure than the rest put together. I must make contact with someone who can take me to them."
"We are not a taxi service," the soldier frowned.
The boat pilot cleared his throat loudly then. He reached into his vest and handed a card to the soldier, showing an image of a sun with an eye in the center, with eight swords emanating outward. "Excuse me, sir. I represent a certain, ah, office. We're looking for talent like wizards, and if you could let us through so I could get in touch with my boss about this, I can promise there'd be a certain…gratuity in it for you and your friends."
It was a minute before the stoic soldier said anything. Then he turned away and said over his shoulder, "Pass through. Stay in the open lane, you will be shown where to dock."
And the patrol boat cruised on.
Nile Empire – Northeast Sahara
Kristina almost steered the halftrack straight into a dune before she realized what the sound had been. It was Sophia leaning over and shouting, "Be ready for anything!" through her window.
Not that there was time to wait. A huge brown claw stuck itself out of the hole, followed by another just like it. Then the entire abomination they were attached to: a massive creature that climbed out of the hole on six long, bent legs. From behind it raised a tail, hanging over the monster's body glowing a menacing red was a stinger that could've easily pierced a human body.
Most terrifying of all was that as it scuttled around to face them, it looked back at the Storm Knights with what even at that distance seemed to be human eyes.
With a gulp, Kristina gripped the steering wheel to steady herself and stomped the accelerator. The gigantic scorpion splayed its legs and locked its eyes onto the incoming vehicle. It jabbed its stinger forward.
A lightning bolt ripped from its tip, arcing crazily through the air but in the halftrack's direction. It exploded barely a foot away from the vehicle and splattered Ghost and Sophia with a fountain of sand.
Already the stinger was glowing again, but as the monster swinging it forward to fire, Kristina swerved hard to the right, around the edge of the hole the monster had crawled out of. The second lightning bolt raked across the sand. Again the giant scorpion's tail warmed up for another shot, and they'd gotten so close, Kristina had little doubt it could miss at this range.
That was when the others went into action.
Sophia jumped down from the back of the vehicle and rolled down the dune, closer to the monster. She considered the ammunition still in the cylinder of her rifle; both silver bullets had been fired, and one of the heavy-duty shells for slaying giant beasts had been as well. She was going to need to make what was left count.
Ghost stayed on the back of the halftrack, lifting and aiming its heavy mounted machine gun. He squeezed the trigger buttons and unleashed a hail of bullets that twisted crazily across the monster's back, but left deep pocks where they hit. A few seconds more and Ghost was forced to let go, gasping down at his quivering hands.
"I've got to start spending time at the gymnasium!" he muttered. Ghost looked up as the monster let out an ear-piercing shriek and started chasing after the halftrack. He expected it to rear back its tail and shoot another lightning bolt, but Ghost noticed the glow seemed to have gone out: now it was only a hunk of black stone.
One he had no doubt could crush their vehicle in one blow, so Ghost ignored the pain shaking every joint in his fingers, and lifted the grips of the machine gun again.
Another horrible shriek, and the giant scorpion was scuttling after them across the desert. Ghost considered aiming for its eyes, then on the thin legs carrying it after them. The masked hero's fingers trembled as he thought of having to hold the weapon steady enough to hit those targets, but then he spotted a faint blue and red glow, coming from halfway up the monster's back.
That was where Ghost aimed the machine gun.
In his shaking hands, the heavy gun roared as it pelted a trail of fire up the gigantic arachnid's back. Ignoring the pain, Ghost managed to hold the weapon steady enough to land a few hits on the glowing spot in the middle of the monster's body. Whatever was making the glow jerked to one side from the hail of bullets, causing the giant scorpion to shriek in pain. It lifted both of its enormous claws and slammed them down, slicing the halftrack completely in two.
Ghost went rolling away after he fell from the back half. The front careened right and left for a few seconds before tipping over with a soft *WHUMP*.
And to the monster's side, Sophia Black took aim at the target Ghost had given her.
The armor-piercing round tore into the chitin armor next to the glowing beacon. Again, the monster let out a horrific screech. Sophia clenched her teeth and fired again, not giving into the urge to fall to her knees and cover her ears. It was all or nothing, and she couldn't let her focus slip.
She took aim, and fired her last armor-piercing round at the light atop the scorpion's back. It drilled through the armor next to the hole her first shot had made, widening it more.
With surprising speed, the giant scorpion was turning about to face Sophia. If she gave it the chance to do that, she'd have no target for her last shell. There was no time to be subtle.
"Aleksander, if you can hear me, guide my aim," she whispered.
She fired.
The molded shell screamed from the barrel of her rifle. It soared into the hole next to the small point of light atop the massive creature's back.
Sophia only hoped Ghost had given her the right target.
Within seconds, she got her answer. The small light erupted into a corona of red and blue, and below it the monster was thrashing around and screeching in pain, louder than ever as its stomping and flailing kicked up huge clouds of sand.
But even more incredibly, Sophia could see bits falling off the monster's tail, body and legs. It suddenly struck her as looking like a pile of sand falling to bits. Within minutes, that was all that was left. A pile of sand. With a glowing blue and red light sticking from the top.
After she'd gone up the hill of sand that'd once been their enemy, Sophia rolled the source of it down to the ground: an obelisk the height of a person, covered in carvings she couldn't begin to understand but that flowed with blue and right energy.
That was when she slid down the hill herself and made her way over to where she'd last seen Ghost and Kristina Rouge. She noticed the front of the halftrack, and when Sophia started over toward it, the door was kicked out and Kristina flopped out onto the ground, coughing puffs of sand from her lungs. Weakly, she managed to push herself up and meet Sophia's eyes.
"So you got it?"
"Yes, I 'got' it," Sophia said. "It seems one of those Eternity Shards was responsible for its life…when its powers were disrupted, that abomination fell apart."
Slowly, Kristina managed to stand up. "Well, it's over. All we have to do is find a way to get it back to town before any of those shocktroopers' buddies come looking for them."
"No, that isn't all," Sophia said, her voice suddenly grave. She looked around, now that the dust had literally settled enough for her to see what was around them. Kristina seemed to have realized the same thing, and started looking around frantically too. Both of them spotted the back end of the halftrack, lying on its side, with the mounted machine gun smashed into twisted wreckage. The two of them ran over to it, then ran around it until they almost ran into each other on the other side.
"Where's Ghost?" Sophia gasped in horror.
Aysle – Stockholm
"…as a matter of fact, yes, I do have a group of Storm Knights in my territory who fit those descriptions perfectly," chuckled the image of Deputy Director Nakatomi over their screen. "Send your friend over, I'll make sure they meet up."
"Yessir," said the boat pilot with an overly dramatic salute. Nakatomi chuckled and shook his head. "Shall we go, Wren?"
The sorcerer simply nodded, before following the boat pilot through a short maze of halls out of the maritime base where he'd brought them. Already waiting for them was a man in a dark coat, cap with goggles on the forehead, and a green scarf around his thick neck. He was putting on a pair of leather gloves as the last part of his aviator ensemble.
"Got here awful fast, didn't ya, Rex?" asked the boat pilot.
"When adventure calls, Rex Steele is always ready to answer!" the other man bellowed, grinning and thrusting out his strong chin.
The boat pilot chuckled and shook his head slightly, which Rex Steele didn't seem to notice. When the boat pilot stepped aside, Rex Steele stepped up to Wren. "Right this way, if you please…," he said, then stopped when he seemed to realize he couldn't recognize any details below Wren's hood. "…sir?" he finally said to finish his sentence.
"I don't subscribe to such…designations," Wren replied.
"Ah, so it's like that," Rex Steele said. "What are your, ah…" he glanced at the boat pilot for help.
"Pronouns," the older man supplied.
Wren held up a hand to interrupt. "Please just take me to Egypt, if that is still our arrangement."
"Indeed! Into the skies!" Rex Steele shouted, grinning again at the prospect of another journey. Wren followed him out to where a launch was waiting, and a little further than that saw what others would recognize as a seaplane sitting in the water waiting for them.
Once again, Wren of Greymarsh was beginning a new odyssey.
Well, this took a damn long time to get out, but my one reader doesn't seem to mind. Thanks to The Blind Tigress for basically being the one to create this fic's most unique hero, Wren of Greymarsh. We'll explore them more in the coming chapters.