It was mid-morning before I had finished changing my blood soaked clothes. After a tepid bath in a bathroom half exposed to the sky, I picked out some new attire from the chest. My new traveling wear would be a long dark blue waxed canvas riding skirt that was cut about to my knee, and divided so that it was actually like a pair of extremely loose trousers. It had pockets, which delighted me as much here as it would back in my home reality. My shirt was black, and while that didn't show that I was covered in blood, it would probably stink later, so I changed that to a light tan cotton blouse. I kept the Key hidden under my shirt, resting just above my heart. My dark riding boots were apparently tanks, and didn't need a replacement after the ordeal, and after a wash in the smashed sink, I was ready to go again. The blood had stained them, which gave them a morbid nod to the Ruby Slippers. This lady had a knack for finding utilitarian clothes that actually looked nice, I thought happily. And everything was already broken in since I had stolen her body!
I took some time to braid my hair, pulling it out into two long French braids down my shoulders, where it reached past my collarbone and down my mid-back. Watching myself braid my hair in the mirror while in a new body was a disconcerting experience. I took stock of what I looked like now. Instead of my green eyes, I now had dramatic pale blue eyes that were striking to behold. My eyebrows had more of an arch, making me look slightly sinister, which I didn't think was that bad of a thing. I was a little thinner and more muscular, and my body felt as if it was familiar with horse riding and general fitness. The rough riding wear she owned was also evidence toward that. I folded the lock of long white hair into my left braid.
Seeing the white lock, I flashed back to the entity in the Crystal Labyrinth, the Lord of Change himself. I pulled back from the mirror, clenching my jaw and sighing. This was not how I imagined my life would be, I thought. Unbidden, I began to wonder who would find my body if I failed to find a way home. Would I die here if my body died there? Maybe this was all an elaborate near death experience? Pessimistically, I started to think there wasn't a way home, considering that if there was a way to leave, that people would've already done so here.
But she found a way, I thought, tapping my finger against the mirror after finishing my braid. Evanora escaped somewhere, a backdoor in reality, to somewhere else. She did it with the cooperation of a Chaos God, one which I may also have on my side. I mean, the Changeling was very friendly with me, and Tzeentch himself said that he liked me, and that "people were impressed" with me. Who were these mysterious people, I wondered. Maybe my neckbeard-ed assassin had a grudging respect for someone who could shrug off whatever poison I had been given, I supposed? Why did I have an assassin in the first place, and why would anyone want me dead? The thoughts gnawed at me, so I tried to think more positively. I had done miraculous things and skirted around doom already with that encounter with a Keeper of Secrets during my first few hours here. Why it didn't kill me still puzzled me. I wondered if I had a Mark of Tzeentch somewhere, which would explain my luck. There were still a great many mysteries to be solved, and at the very least, I had to retain hope that I could escape this horrific daemon-poisoned dimension. I have to at least try, right?
I drew my finger away from the mirror, and my thoughts back to the present. I have a long journey ahead of me to the big pylon in the distance. "Follow the northern road," I said to myself. Maybe Evanora owned horses, I thought again. That would greatly speed this trip up. Walking a day or two in unfamiliar territory alone on foot didn't sound too safe. All I had was that black double edged dagger which I didn't really know how to use for protection. Yeah, time to check and see if I could find a stable.
Stepping outside and walking around the ruined property, I could admit that it was a fine day. The temperature was cool and crisp, and reminded me of a fresh September morning in the weeks before the first Mid Atlantic frost. The sun was still a few hours away from noon, but seeing as I had a long trip ahead of me, I should really get going. Let's hope I can make some horse friends.
The outside of the manor was stone, and parts of the structure had crumbled away in the magical chaos that had brought me here. I hoped that if there were stables, that they were intact, with their horses kept safely. When I turned the corner of the rear of the manor, I was greeted with an ugly sight.
There were stables, yes, and also horses. But the stables looked to have been burned to the ground, and charred bits of their wood still hissed and smoldered. In a gruesome scene, I found the charred skeletons of at least three horses piled in the center of an obscene magic circle. Runes, similar to the ones in the small ring that had "summoned" me here, were scorched into the ground. The scene was tragic and revolting, and the faint smell of cooked meat hung in the air. What had this lady done? Along with the slaughter of the villagers and the fried horses, I really couldn't get away from this location fast enough.
I walked through the broken front door of the manor, and picked up my rucksack. This wasn't going to be easy, I thought, but I have to at least try. I need to not die in my old body so I can completely ruin whoever it was that poisoned me, I thought, a flash of fury racing through me.
I recoiled as I started to walk down the short path toward where Amnaich's statue still stood in the center of the now empty village, shining majestically in the sun. Transhumanist Burning Man now looked like a scene from Jonestown, Guyana. The bodies absolutely covered the area around the colossus. The corpses had had time to bleed heavily into the ground, and I didn't want to stick around to see what would happen if the pylons failed again. Taking out my compass, I checked for magnetic north, and found that the tool was now functional once again. My bearings found, I walked around the settlement to avoid stepping through the killing field, looking for a road that lead north. The eerie silence of the whole scene was punctuated with light gusts of wind which caused opened doors and windows to howl mournfully. Not even a bird sang here, if birds even existed on this world. I hoped that Wolfie would return when I was somewhere that could be affected by the Warp again, I thought. His absence was definitely felt.
"Ah, here we go," I said to myself as I found a rough stone road leading north. Since the land I had been on had been raised on a hill, I was able to get a good view on where I was going. It looked to lead into an area of farmland, which then wound into a wooded area, which surrounded the pylon. Modest farmhouses dotted the checkered landscape ahead of me. It appeared that it would take me the better part of the remaining daylight to reach the edge of the forest while walking through the farms. Maybe one of the farms would have some spare chow to supplement my sawdust nutrition bars, I hoped. Looking upward, with a last glance at the daemonic golden Statue of Liberty (which I supposed should actually be called "The Statue of Amnaich"). I spat a curse at the thing which now presided over a field of exsanguinated bodies. It was actually facing south, so I ended up spitting a curse at its backside.
With a hopeful breath, I turned my back to the daemon colossus, and started walking down the long sloping hill, beginning my adventure.
The trip down the gradually sloping path was uneventful, which was good. I wasn't in the mood for any more spooky surprises. For most of the trip, I whistled the tune to "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" to keep myself occupied. I really missed my headphones. It was a few hours before I started to hear the sounds of birds twittering through the air, and occasional trees reached into the blue sky, hissing a susurrus in the gentle wind with bluish leaves. This was a very beautiful countryside, at least. The Imperium didn't really seem to have a presence here, despite having read that it was conquered thousands of years ago. The statue of Amnaich was definitely proof that the greater Imperium appeared to have forgotten this land, as the Inquisition definitely wouldn't have tolerated that thing. Levant felt as if it was at most a feudal world at this time with odd pockets of technology such as the pylons and the cultists' mechanical implants.
The road that I was walking on was very old and rough, and the landscape only barely tamed. Farmhouses and thatched huts started to appear in view as I entered some sparse farmland. Sadly, I was able to see that they were mostly abandoned, with rotting roofs, and weeds overwhelming the crops. Was this where the settlement got their food from? Surely some of the other farms would still be intact, and I would have to share the news about what had happened back at the statue, I thought reluctantly. Before that, though, I should rest. At a crossroads, while whistling "Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead", I found a reasonably tall flat boulder for me to sit on and munch on a couple nutrition bars under a pair of tall trees that bordered a field of maize. These things tasted really bad, but they quelled my hunger so I ate them. Drinking from my water flask, I took out the history book. It was then that I heard a noise. It sounded like someone moaning.
Hyperaware from everything I had been through, I froze, and listened. Because of the pylon, I couldn't simply use my psyker abilities (that was probably dangerous anyway), so I slowly observed the area, searching for the sound. I couldn't quite tell where it had come from.
"Nnnmmmnnn..." I heard the moan again. It didn't sound exactly like a human, but neither did it sound like an animal. I stood up, and removed the dagger from its leather scabbard. I listened again for the sound.
"Nnnnnn...mmnnn..." I heard it again, somewhat louder. I looked about the crossroads, but saw nothing but the trees dotting the edge of the road. I then realized that the noise was coming from above rather than at my own height, and behind me. If this was the "Scarecrow" of the story, I swear to God...
The moan was getting more insistent, and with that, I heard a strange rustling. Cautiously, I stepped into the field behind the trees. It was there that I discovered the source of the moaning.
A tall figure with skin the color of a robin's egg and a burlap bag over his head had been crucified to a roughly hewn cross, which faced the field, and not the road. It didn't appear as if he had been nailed to the posts, only tied fast, as if he was a live scarecrow. There was something metal tied to the back of the cross which reflected the light.
Huh, will you look at that. Here was the Scarecrow, I guessed. I wonder if he needed a brain, and why was he blue?
Time to investigate. I walked around to his front, pushing away tall stalks of dry maize swishing in the breeze. He was wearing rags which were tied to his waist by a crude length of rope, falling to the upper thigh. He was otherwise naked. He was struggling against firm knots of tightly bound rope on both hands and his feet, both of which had short black claws. While the claws and the blue skin made him appear alien, aside from that, his proportions were human. I walked toward the base of the cross where he was helplessly tied, observing him from below. He could apparently hear me walking around him, since I saw his head follow the noise of my footsteps.
"Mmmm!" he tried to yell, as if gagged from behind the bag over his head, clenching his fists angrily. What had happened with this guy? Was he a mutant? Could he even understand me?
"Um, sir?"
"Mmm?" the response was questioning. It seemed that he understood.
"A-are you, gagged under there?" I asked.
The blue man nodded vigorously. I saw him open his hands and gesture toward me while still tied fast. One clawed finger tried to point toward his head. He made a sad noise, and slouched.
If I let this guy go and he immediately kills me after all that happened, I would be very upset. But, I can't leave this poor man to his fate, mutant or not. However, if freed, this individual may be helpful to me in this alien world, and I definitely needed friends. It couldn't really get much worse for me anyway, I thought.
"Hold on, I have to figure out how to get you down," I said, and watched him nod slowly in response.
Cautiously, I walked around the pole where he was tied. There seemed to be signs of struggle in the dirt on the ground adjacent to him. Crushed maize and broken stalks lay scattered all about the area. The strange fellow had put up a fight, but still lost. It appeared that he had been left up here to die to the elements. I was searching if there was an easy way to release him, like a nail or a knot somewhere. Walking around his back, I noticed something out of place.
I was briefly thankful that I was super into medieval history, because I recognized the weapon that was inexplicably tied behind the cross with the unfortunate man. This spear was a glaive. It had a shining curved metal blade a little under a meter long fastened tightly to the end of a black staff. An elaborate an ivory heft offered a secure grip, and I could see intricate decorative carvings along the bone. From my cursory exam, it appeared that this weapon was of exquisite quality. That did not make sense at all. Why wouldn't they take his weapon?
Wait, where had I seen something like this recently? I got a sense of deja vu as the bound stranger struggled in his bonds. Dimly, I flashed back to one of my visions I had had in the Warp where I had seen an eagle faced man bravely fighting off a sinister group of robed individuals with a long, shining spear. Was this is the eagle faced man? He hadn't been blue in my vision, so I wasn't sure, but what was certain was that he was definitely the victim in this encounter, and that was enough for me. I couldn't just leave him to die.
"Hold still, I'm going to try to cut you down. Please don't try to kill me, alright?"
He responded with a muffled affirmative, and nodded in my direction.
Holding my dagger, I cut the bindings on his feet first. I immediately saw him stretch his legs afterward, groaning with relief. It would be more difficult to undo the bindings on his hands, since it was way too tall for me to reach. But, I had an idea. Seeing the glaive tied vertically against the rear of the pole, I reached up and snapped the bindings off the weapon with a quick stroke of my dagger. It was only loosely secured. It fell into the maize. I reached down and I grabbed the polearm, but as I did that, I felt a strange chill, goose bumps prickling across my skin. Not stopping to consider that, I reached up with the blade, and started to saw through the rough ropes tying his right hand to the cross. As soon as his right arm was free, he reached up and supported his weight on the cross, waiting for me to free his left arm. His face was still obscured, but I could hear him breathing in excitement. Who knows how long he had been trapped up there?
I sawed through the bindings on his left arm, and with a thud, he fell heavily to the ground, and I dropped the glaive to walk around to see if he needed any more help. He did not get up immediately, but he did reach for the burlap sack that was wrapped around his head. He undid the ropes around his neck, and tore it from his face, throwing it away.
As the stranger started to undo the gag around his mouth, I walked around to his front to see him, and was met with an unusual sight, but not quite unexpected considering my vision earlier in the Warp.
He had the head of some kind of bird of prey, and his gag was tightly wrapped around his head, likely causing him pain. I knew what this was. It was a beastman. A chaos beastman. A Tzaangor, I think they were called. This one didn't seem to have horns or spines or backward facing legs, however, and his head was more falcon shaped instead of a monstrous vulture. His body was very human proportioned, and he appeared very strong. I started to back up in retreat, and tripped over the glaive that had fallen on the ground behind me.
He had extricated the tight gag from his mouth, and coughed a few times through his beak. He opened his blue grey eyes, and fixed them on me as he gasped dryly. His expression was that of surprise, and he actually stumbled back on the ground as he saw me, whispering what sounded like "My God," to himself.
"It's okay," I said, my hand finding my dagger again. "You're free, just don't hurt me. You're free."
"Water..." he rasped as he tried to compose himself on the ground, holding his throat. "Water!"
I didn't want to get too close just yet, so I tossed him my flask from where I also sat on the ground. The creature caught it gratefully in a clawed hand. He drank and drank, pouring the liquid in the side of his mouth behind his beak. This, creature or guy, or whatever he was was certainly parched. After drinking almost half my water, he sat collecting himself. His eyes were closed as he breathed heavily.
I decided to be charitable, since he was clearly weak. I reached into my rucksack, and took out a nutrition bar.
"Eat?" I held it in front of him, cautiously advancing.
He opened his watery eyes and he nodded, taking the little parcel from me. He sliced the paper open with a claw, and began to gnaw. As he chewed, he offered my flask back to me. I took it back.
"H-hello. Uh, my name is Erika. I-uh, I'm from out of town," I said, not really wanting to tell him that I came from the damned manor up the hill where the daemon statue was or that I was from ancient Terra. "What is your name?" I hesitantly asked.
"Alberich..." the bird man rattled out between bites. He looked at me again, this time, his expression thoughtful. It looked as if he wanted to say something, but was having trouble finding the words. Finally, after a few bites, he closed his eyes again, and said, "They left me to die. They will kill you if they know you freed me."
His voice was a very pleasant soft spoken baritone, and almost musical to my ears. If I hadn't seen him, and had only heard his voice back home, I would have assumed that this mutant was a cultured man who may have worked in radio. One thing really stood out to me, though.
Alberich had an accent. He had a pronounced and distinctive German way of speaking. Considering that 40k's Low Gothic was just English, though, it was probably some weird regional dialect. He continued eating his food bar, and paused to speak again. "You should go before you are caught, and they crucify you as well."
"Who do you mean?" I asked him as I watched him stretch his limbs and back. He looked very strong, and had a sculpted body that would be common on a swimmer or a gymnast. This mutant could easily kill me if he wanted to, so him warning me of people that he presumably couldn't ward off got me worried. He answered my question by pointing to where I had come from.
"The fanatics. The ones with the machines in their bodies who worship their profane golden god."
"I don't think you have to worry about them any more," I said with a smile. He raised a feathery eyebrow. In response, I made a cutting gesture across my throat.
After stretching his legs a final time, Alberich then abruptly stood up in a motion that was frighteningly quick. I went to also stand up, and saw that a blue-skinned, sharp-nailed hand had been offered to help me stand. This guy had manners!
"Have you done this thing?" He asked as he walked to where his glaive had toppled, reaching down and picking it up. With a swing over both out heads, he struck the base of the polearm to the ground. We both walked to the road. "Have you killed them? All of them?" He asked me with doubt in his voice. Yeah, I don't look too tough, I know.
"Well, I didn't kill them. They all committed suicide."
"How unfortunate," Alberich said, a small smile on his short hooked beak and a twinkle in his eye. "Humanity will certainly not weep the loss of them. I fell across them while walking to that statue. They proclaimed me to be imperfect in the eyes of their god, and I was tied up to suffer and die. I have been here for the better part of an entire day."
"Why were you walking there?" I asked him as he inspected the immaculate metal on his glaive, something that I was also curious about. "If those cultists were bad news, why walk into danger?"
"It is a long story," he said, drawing his thumb across the edge of the blade, checking its keeness. He then held his fingers to his bare chest, and appeared apologetic. "Such a story I can not hope to tell to a stranger in a short encounter, but only to a friend in trust. To where are you traveling? I have knowledge of the roads."
"I'm off to the black tower in the north," I said, not revealing more. Alberich turned his avian head, and regarded the needle reaching into the clouds.
"If you desire a traveling companion, I would kindly wish to join you," He bowed his head to me, a perfect blue gentle-bird-man.
"I thought you were going to the statue? You won't even have to worry about the cultists anymore since they're all dead," I said, suspicious. After all that had already happened, I wasn't exactly in a trusting mood, especially toward a random Tzaangor I found crucified on the street.
"Things have changed now," he said, also not revealing what he was up to. He appeared greatly pleased at the death of the cultists.
I considered all of this. I tried to pull up what I remembered about Tzaangor beastman. They almost exclusively followed Tzeentch. This beastman might be able to see that Tzeentch had favored me, and might not try to kill me. Or, he could just rob and kill me with that weapon he carried. He was crucified for a reason, but those cultists were not reasonable people in the least. He was also mysteriously left with that glaive, which was not taken from him. I again thought back to The Wizard of Oz and it appeared that this guy might actually be a Scarecrow analog, but he wasn't a jolly Scarecrow who sang and danced, but an educated German beastman who definitely had a brain and carried a huge knife on a stick.
Fuck it, I thought. "Well, whatever, lets go. We have a few hours till nightfall. And we need to replace all the water you drank," I said, shrugging.
Alberich smiled and bowed his head again, his hand on his heart. "My kindest thanks, Erika. There is a well near to us, within a few hours walk in the direction you are traveling. If I may carry your pack?" His politeness combined with his mellifluous German-accented voice made him very pleasant to listen to.
I remained holding my things. Alberich smiled and shrugged, and then, we both continued down the north road, with the Tzaangor so happy he was nearly skipping.