Chapter 2 - Something Smells
~{|}~
When: 03.13.993 A.C. - 1701 hours F.C.T.
Where: on the west coast of The Elderwild Lake, outside of the village of Morinrayne, in the country of Tyrnolique
Who: our panicking protagonist, Joshua

I see Mirelle slip in some mud and almost fall as she approaches the stairs of my porch, I almost rush to help her up, but she only drops to one knee as she slides a couple feet and is back up, pivots and in a couple steps is at the base of the stairs.

I'm getting ready to say something about how impressive that move was, as one of those big fish slams into her side just as her foot steps onto the first step of the 8 stairs up to my covered porch. The two of them slam into the wall of my house, the massive fishes new needle teeth chewing through her torso like a hot knife through butter, but more violently.

Blood is spraying everywhere.

I throw the fire, hitting it squarely.

It doesn't even seem to faze it as the smell of burning fish scales fills the air. A chill runs down my spine, my blood cools with more than a slight bit of terror beginning to pump through my body. And that reminds me of being bullied growing up. All those times someone bigger took my agency away, just held me down and hurt me. Or just told me they were going to hurt me, and no matter how fast I ran or how hard I fought they would always overcome me. I don't like to think about that. I don't think about it for a reason. I remember what happened when I didn't have that rule. 'But this isn't the time for rules,' I think. Noticing the light in the young woman's eyes seems to be going out, her arms going limp in her struggle to pull it's jaws away from her; I get angry at the thing in front of me chewing on the poor woman, and I feel my teeth grow. Had I been in my right mind, that would have been alarming, because I only had 6 teeth left after a lifetime of unfortunate events strung together in strange and interesting patterns. As it stands though, I somehow just knew I had a mouth full of razor teeth ready to rend flesh, and a predators fury burning through my veins ready to use them. I leapt at the fish throwing my full weight into a bite into the area behind it's eye on this side. I rip flesh in an instant, my new teeth shredding deep into the huge mutant magic fish. It releases Mirelle and tries to retreat. I throw another orb of flame as it moves away still bleeding. Miss. "Damn." 

I stoop down to where the lady has fallen into the garden bed against that wall near the stairs. I lift her and as I step onto the stairs, the big green girl is at the top and lifts her out of my arms. "Thanks frienderson, I'm getting too old for this kind of thing."

And then we move into my living room. "Lay her on the couch there. I have to find some bandages to help stop her bleeding," I say to her. She sets her down and then pulls out a potion bottle, uncorks it, and pours it down the unconscious woman's throat. It had a glowing red liquid inside it. "What is that?" I ask as I am staring while holding one of my wifes many first aid kits. Before anyone can respond, another of the women in the group steps towards her, pulling a pretty carved flute out, and plays it pointing at the woman on the couch, and a golden energy passes from the flute to the bleeding woman and her eyes open. The group breathes a sigh of relief.

I look around the room and see the others are dripping so much blood the dogs are licking it up off the floor. I step into the kitchen and try the sink, the water sputters a second and flows strong and cool, without wanting to test my luck further I call them in the kitchen to clean the blood off their hands and arms as I go to hall closet to grab towels. I open it and see the towels on the shelf as expected. My brain not registering that's the door I came out of the panic room from yet. I bring towels to the group and tell them to use them to help clean up.

~{}~
When: 03.13.993 A.C. - 1703 hours F.C.T.

As we regrouped inside, still catching our breaths from the ordeal, the atmosphere was thick with a mix of relief and disbelief. The group's thanks were directed towards an unfamiliar face—an elegant elf they kept calling to attention.

"If it weren't for that noble elven lass, we'd have surely all been dead." Sirin said, Roscoe feeling a little torn by that statement from her, but he still looked towards the elf woman and had to concede, her assistance had been at just the right time. "She's right you know Lady Elf, you saved our skins out there with your flying house."

My confusion was palpable until a reflection caught my eye. The elf in the mirror on the wall, with features refined and ethereal, was me. "That's... me?" I muttered under my breath, the realization unsettling yet oddly clarifying. That's when I notice something odd about me that no one else has pointed out. We all got bit by those fish. But I'm not covered in blood except where I'd helped the others and contact with them had gotten theirs on me. I look down at my arm where there are still holes from the teeth. And they just kind of melt closed in front of my eyes. 'Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot Batman, WHAT WAS THAT!' I screamed in my mind while trying not to make a noise or draw attention to myself. I hear one of them start talking and I hide my arm as I turn from the mirror back towards the group.

Before I could grapple further with my new identity, Jasper's alarmed voice cut through the haze of my shock. "The fish! They're swimming towards the village!"

The fleeting moment of existential angst dissipated instantly. Roscoe and I locked eyes, a shared determination igniting between us. "How can we warn them?" I both blurted out, the safety of the village paramount in my mind. 'If that swarm hits a populated area that's unprepared, they will cause some damage for sure.'

"I don't think we can, the village is too far for my message stone to reach anyone on the guard from here. But there's a tower we could get in range of if we run for it, we could be in range in 5 minutes I think." He said, his determination building as his mind formed a plan. He started walking towards the door.

Without hesitation, Jasper began to weave a spell, a conduit to send a warning to his master, the village's seer. Despite his swift action, the expressions on Roscoe's and Lia's faces remained taut with anxiety, the impending danger to the village looming large.

"Can you shoot?" I pivoted towards action, my question hanging in the charged air.

"Shoot?" Roscoe echoed, his confusion swiftly replaced by focus as he grasped the gravity of my plan.

Rummaging through a large gun safe in my home office, I retrieved two compound bows and a case of carbon-fiber shafted razortip arrows. "I bought these for my husband and wife for our upcoming anniversary, but since they're in another world, we might as well use them," I explained, a bittersweet acknowledgment of my current reality. My subconscious noticing the new server's monitor showing the 30 day training run I'd started this morning had completed already somehow. My conscious mind however didn't register that information in any tangibly useful way right now. All I could think about was what if those things eat a kid?

Without waiting for a response, I strode out the door, clutching my husband's spare jeep keys—a vehicle notorious for its belt slipping issue. "Can't be helped," I thought, settling into the driver's seat, a plan forming rapidly in my mind.

As I turned the key, the jeep roared to life, its engine purring better than I remembered. Roscoe and Lia hesitated outside the vehicle, uncertainty etched on their faces. A wave of my hand ushered them in, "Don't be scared, it's just a Jeep," I called to them as I rolled down the windows and soon they awkwardly clambered into the back seats, bows and arrows in tow.

"Look at me, being a chauffeur on my first day here," I joked, attempting to lighten the mood as we faced the imminent threat. The others, still adjusting to the situation, simply nodded, their minds on the task ahead.

With the jeep now in gear and the windows down, we burst out of the driveway, weaving through the forest with a precision that belied my unfamiliarity with both the vehicle and my new body as well as where I was going which I made a point of informing my compatriots of rather swiftly as I swerved around another tree. They had me heading the right way pretty rapidly after that experience of drifting the jeep around that big redwood looking trunk of the second tree I dodged and we emerged from the treeline in maybe another two minutes. As we hit the cobblestone road leading to the village, the jeep's tires protested against the uneven surface, but the urgency of our mission pushed my foot down on the accelerator, having to swerve around a horse the fish had downed at one point, with me yelling to shoot the fish eating it while I slowed down enough for them to do so.

Roscoe and Lia, now understanding their role, leaned out the windows, arrows nocked and ready as they started raining razor death at the mutant fish. I glanced back to instruct them to start firing forward because I was starting to see the swarm coming up ahead, their focused expressions told me they were already on it.

The approach to the village was marked by tension and the sharp twang of bowstrings. We arrived to find many of the village's guards I suspected and a trio of wizards at the gate, already engaged in a desperate defense against the school of arcane koi. Joining the fray, Roscoe, Lia, and I fired from the jeep, creating a crossfire that would hopefully turn the tide.

I searched within for that source of magic I felt teeming within me when I would throw the fire, and I looked across the way at the three wizards casting spells. I saw one of them, a tall human dude in robes and a gaudily decorated tabard casting some kind of lightning spells at them with a big as fuck sword. "I don't care what it takes, I need to learn that. How cool is that lightning sword guy friendersons?" I say as I try to make the fire spell into lightning instead. It doesn't work the first time.

But then I think, 'What if it's like those shaolin ki techniques where you have to visualize it right or something. Move the energy from the reservoir to the right channel to make it have the right frequency or something like that is what I'd read in all those old martial arts books I'd ordered out of the back of Black Belt magazine as a teen. I digress,' And with that I imagined it like my Teacher, Terry Riley, the Archpriest and Dark Druid that had taught me the Old Ways and initiated me into the Craft with his High Priestess Amanda Riley and the rest of the Motani Coven, would have said to do it. I imagined a line connecting my heart down my spine and out my feet into the ground below me, imagining a deep well of emerald green and powerful pink energy swirling up the lines from the planets core through my feet and into my heart. I imagined that a line of white light went up from my heart along my spine through my head and out my crown into the sky above. I saw it striking the clouds and growing through them like spiderwebs growing like a cordyceps mushroom's mycelial network. I imagined I could feel the polarity difference between the two, and I reached into that feeling, that tingling feeling every time the magic leaps from inside me to the magic fire in my hand and I feel it turn, no incantation spoken, the lines feel like I connected them to a nuclear reactor. My vision goes blurry as arcs of lightning reach out from the sky and ground to crisscross the swarm, cooking dozens of them instantly. The stench is truly terrible. The guards and the wizards quickly take down the reduced numbers in the swarm as they scatter trying to flee the area.

As the last of the koi fell, silence descended, broken only by the heavy breaths of the defenders. Among the wizards, one stepped forward, teleporting with a flicker of magic to stand before us.

"Who are you?" he demanded, his gaze piercing, taking in our makeshift but effective squad.

I met his gaze squarely, aware of the significance of this moment. "I'm MageJosh," I began, the name feeling more like my own with each passing second instead of just a gamertag and character from my old role-playing games. "And we're here to help." I punctuated that by pointing at the other two and then pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with my new favorite spell, whispering the incantation "Aer Alam" around the cigarette in my mouth while pointing my fingertip at the end of it. 

<pft> A small puff of flame at the end of my fingertip flares up as I inhale and then grows to light my long naturally feathered bangs rather deftly as well. I quickly pat the flame out and grin sheepishly as I take a long drag of my cigarette. 'I hope that didn't kill my chances to get to learn more about his sword spellcasting. That was the coolest thing ever.' And I immediately get distracted by a hand-painted sign I see on the steps outside a building behind the big guy in robes. 'I'll have to check that place out later,' I think to myself as I look back to see what the dude is gonna say.

~{||}~
When: 03.13.993 A.C. - 1731 hours F.C.T.
Where: in the cross-street just outside the gates to midtown, in the village of Morinrayne, in the country of Tyrnolique
Who: Our plucky protagonist and his two new guard friends as well as Archwizard Aliester Fordham, Arcane Knight Commander of the Region.

Aliester Fordham stood looking at this elf woman in front of him, speaking for some of his guards like she were their leader. It didn't sit right with his pride, even if she had just helped protect the village. Did she not just see his power by teleporting to her? She should show more respect to him. He was a wizard of The Ordum Arcaniu Neopsis, its mark was clearly emblazoned on his tabard he wore over his wizards robes. It is the elder spellcasting guild in the region, any other arcanist should know not to disrespect one of its members, especially not an Arcane Knight like himself. His voice was a flat, cold, quiet tone as he spoke just above a whisper, "Sir, you mean you're here to help me, Sir. I am a wizard of the Ordum Arcaniu Neopsis and a Noble of the Nation of Tyrnolique, an Arcane Knight trained in the Royal Guard and given this station after the Queen herself Knighted me. You will address me as such." He took a glance at her clothing before adding, "Peasant."

The woman's eyes widened slightly, her ears tinted pinkish in tone. "Of course, Sir, I totally meant to say Sir, Sir... I probably said it inside my head instead of out loud, I'll endeavor not to repeat such a mistake in the future." The earth man in the body of an elf woman who introduced himself to the picnic goers and this freaking guy as magejosh tried his best to act the part this blowhard wizard in front of him clearly expected. He didn't know what this guy might be able to do after all, he had just been throwing lightning at the fish with a big sword that seems to have disappeared and then had teleported over instead of walking the hundred or so feet. 'I didn't survive being a nerd growing up through the 80's and 90's by being too slow to pick up social cues like a power fantasy,' magejosh thought. And he looked around, 'Everything looks like it's medieval technology and construction from here on the village edge.' He then realized he forgot to end his last statement in sir again. "Sir," he squeaked out sheepishly.

"Better," the pompous wizard says and he turns his gaze to Roscoe, "Report sergeant," he said authoritatively.

"Well Sir Aliester, we were having a picnic at the Elderwild when a Wild Storm appeared and deposited this elf lady's house on the west side of the lake. The Wild Storm struck the lake with wildly colored lightning infused with massive mana levels so strong they made me dizzy from the aura each strike radiated, and the golden koi began to mutate and fly out of the lake. Had she not come to our rescue, I'm sure the other four who had been there with us might have died, for that matter we might not have survived either." He said as clearly as he could. 

The wizard looks to the other guard and barely constrains his look of distaste upon recognizing her, Lia, an orc woman who had joined the guard around the same time as Roscoe. He didn't like her kind, but she was still a guard under his command. "Is this true?" He asked her curtly. 

"Aye Archwizard Aliester, she seems to be an unfortunate bystander who has saved citizens and stood to defend the village without being asked or promised reward." Her tone clear as she recited the first two requirements of full citizenship in the village listed in their charter. Coincidentally also the only two required to join the guard freely. 

The wizards haughty look on his face scrunched slightly at that response, then turns to look at the elf woman and notices her eyes are different colors, 'One eye bright green and the other almost glowing amethyst, very odd. Oh well, I don't have time for this, I need to return to my lab before the alignment is passed or I'll lose the chance to do this test again for at least a decade.' 

He fishes something from a fold in his sleeve. "Very well, you may retrieve your reward for service to the village from the Morinrayne Trade Authority in High-Town tomorrow." He said after turning to me and tossing a medallion made of bronze with a yellow gemstone in the center to me, then looks back to Roscoe, "And I'll want to interview the others you said she saved as well, tomorrow sometime." Then he lifted a hand and his body disappeared in a ripple of silvery light, teleporting away again. Some of the other guards approached, two short humans I'd thought at first until they got closer and I realized they were too short and their heads and ears were differently shaped, they were carrying the arrows they were able to retrieve from the dead mutant fish while the wizard was talking to us.

"Oh, thank you, those aren't easy to replace!" I said to the two new guards bringing the arrows over towards Lia and Roscoe. Roscoe grins at me, "You heard the Lady, Billy and Lars, put them in her back seat of her golem-carriage." The two guards look apprehensive as soon as he says that last bit. They blink, look between each other, the jeep, and Roscoe again. "Golem-carriage?" they both stutter out semi-clearly. Their eyes a clear display of caution.

"He means my jeep, it's not a Golem Roscoe, why would you say that?" My brain being dense for a moment, knowing I'd already spied horse drawn wagons alongside the roads in the village from here while talking to the archdouche. 

"It's some kind of magical construct, it's a carriage with weird wheels that moves on its own." Roscoe said like he was ticking off a golem identification chart or something. The guards however had assumed whatever it was, it wouldn't attack them after Lia opened the rear door on the drivers side and they tossed the half a dozen arrows each had collected inside on the backseat.

I winced at the sight, but then realized I could probably mend any tears with magic. 'How do I know that?' I thought to myself. "Well, I'd love to stick around Roscoe, but I left your friends in my house and I should probably get back there." I said aloud after the guards had shut my jeep door, looking to Roscoe and Lia. "You're welcome to ride back with me if you like." And I hopped into the driver's seat of the jeep. They both voiced an affirmative as they joined me, after rearranging the arrows in the seat back into the quivers. I connected my phone to the bluetooth in the jeep and played one of my downloaded songs on my playlist.

Heavy metal from a band called Hammerfall blared to life as I cranked the volume up. 

"This is the way we want it to be, this is the way of the warrior.
Walking the way, the honest will see, walking the way of the warrior!"

~{\|/}~
When: 03.13.993 A.C. - 1805 hours F.C.T.
Where: in the jeep driving back to magejosh's home on the west coast of The Elderwild Lake, outside of the village of Morinrayne, in the country of Tyrnolique
Who: Our odd protagonist and his two new guard friends.

Even with the music the drive back was slower, both from the fading adrenaline & the aching fatigue throbbing through my body and draining me of energy forcing me to take it slower than I'd have liked. And because of that gods forsaken bumpiness from driving along the cobblestone road, each minute felt like ten. I really hate the feeling and sound of driving on cobblestone roads. We'd had a couple in Guthrie, the town nearby my homes original location in my world.

'My World, yeah, this definitely isn't the state south of kansas anymore Toto!' I said to myself when I finally noticed the stars in the darkening sky. There were patterns of twinkling lights in the sky and those patterns, like constellations almost, were moving slowly. I had to let off the gas a little as it was mildly psychedelic to look at.

Some stars stayed still, some were moving constellations in some form of stop motion early Disney esoteric animation. And two moons were in the sky, looking like they were rising from opposite directions heading towards each other somewhere overhead. "Well, that's something you don't see everyday." I said more to myself than anyone else, not even realizing I'd said it aloud.

"What is?" Lia said as she leaned out the window again to look around, "I don't see anything unusual."

Roscoe looks out the window and up to me as I say. "The stars are moving?"

"Yeah, that's what most of them do. Kinda slow tonight really." Roscoe remarked musingly.

"Oh, okay. Yep, definitely not south of Kansas anymore Toto." I said.

Lia climbed back into the window at that point and said, "We're coming up on the place you need to turn to get to your house, and Who is Toto?" 

"Oh great, I'm glad you know, Toto is Dorothy's dog. I was sure I'd be getting lost while trying to find my way back all night long. I'm glad you two decided to come with." I said to her. 

She smiles as she points ahead, "There, at the glowing orb, turn before that tree it's beside." Her hand was holding an arcane form as she pointed and concentrated on her spell.

I could sense magic coming off her hand and going towards the orb. 'Very cool' I thought to myself before musing aloud. "I'm gonna need a magic GPS or I'm gonna die from getting lost in a world like this." 

"What's a magic GPS?" Lia asked curiously.

"Wait a minute, I'm still waiting to find out who Dorothy is," Roscoe cut in.

Lia laughs and retorts, "Of course you are, on a date with the prettiest half-elf in the village and already trying to find out about another girl you are." 

Roscoe blushes, "Not like that Lia," he elbows her and she body checks him into the other door with a simple slide over bump of her shoulders. His head bounces off the frame, luckily the window was down or he would have probably broke it with his head.

I look at the two of them in the rear view mirror and start, "Well let's start with Dorothy. This is a long story though, might take a couple hours to tell. Should I start with that or go with the magic GPS thing first and story later? Your call." And I wait for a response.

"Oh, yeah do the magic gsp thing then," Roscoe says rubbing his head and casting a side-eye at Lia. She just grins and looks attentively at me.

"Magic GPS, isn't exactly a real thing, it's me mashing two different concepts together to make a new third one really. But for simplicity's sake," I begin as I slow the jeep and take the turn into the woods, turning on my headlights to keep visibility under the canopy. "A GPS system is a series of constructs as you might call them, that communicate with each other to allow you to create another construct that uses that communication to determine your position on the planet. Helps with navigation so you don't get lost. A magic version of that basically."

It takes us less than a couple minutes to pull past the trees outside my property to find where my driveway ends thanks to Lias glowing orb pointing the way. I pull into it and all the way down, back under the small carport by the small camper trailer. I hop out and head back towards the house, past my other two carports, and my broken down ford escape with its cracked window. I stopped and looked at my Ford Escape's front window again, the crack is gone. It's been there since I bought it used, and now it's gone. 'That's weird' I thought to myself. Then I see the dent in the back door is gone too, and the bumper looks flawless. All the paint is perfect as well. That's when I took a closer look around the yard and realized the nightlight on the electric pole was still running. "Where is the electricity coming from?"

"Usually from a ley line attuned to that elemental energy," Roscoe chimes in, "Also the storms that get bad have a tendency for it too, as you saw earlier. Why? Are you sensing more? The sky looks clear to me right now."

"What? Oh. No, not exactly what I mean. But that is something I'm going to put a pin in and come back to later." I say as I look over at the recycle pile beside my garage, where we keep large appliances and such that have broken so we can recycle or dispose of it properly when we get the money. All the stuff over there looks brand new. My garage no longer has that hole in the roof either. And all the paint on my house is shiny and perfect, free from cracks. I look over at the small camper, it's spotless and shiny like new, the big camper is too. Thats when I realize the old carport, the one my wife stores junk she swears she'll use is full of stuff and it also looks in fresh repair. There's so much it's spilling out of the carport. I look closer at the pile and spot two motorcycles under the pile of things on one side of that carport. I should move some of this stuff out in the yard that might be useful under cover, but I don't think I can lift any of that big stuff in my new body, it's not as big as my original form.

"It seems my property has been repaired magically, and I'd wager some kind of magic is making my lights which run on electricity to operate. I hate to ask this, but do you think you can help me move these appliances into the garage there? These metal boxes all stacked up here into there." I said pointing the 20 feet we'd need to move the old washer, dryer, 2 mini-fridges, full refrigerator, hot water tank, 2 lcd 45" tv's, and a dozen other e-junk items that were no longer junk. Including a laser printer and an inkjet printer/copier. Everything that had broken in their home in the last couple years since their last time to clear the pile. 

"Sure, I think it's the least we can do to say thank you, right Roscoe?" Lia says pointedly.

"Yeah, we'd love to help." Roscoe says in a tone that makes me think he is not interested in manual labor right now. 

In fairness, neither am I, despite my cheerful demeanor I'm feeling dead tired and ready to sleep the night away. Which is a good thing honestly, otherwise I might have too much time to think about how much this situation I'm finding myself in now resembles situations I've put countless friends and other players into in TTRPG games I've run for them over the decades since discovering the passion in my youth.

Then I spot that the trash cans are overflowing. With what looks like full boxes. I spied a small stack of gourmet pizza boxes I'd thrown out two nights ago from one of my favorite shops in one of the piles of things stacked/overflowed beside the trash cans. I move over and the boxes are still fairly warm, despite the dampness from the bit of rain that passed earlier. I've been here maybe an hour, and the pizza is still warm. And smells delicious.

"Roscoe, Lia! I've got a surprise for you to thank you for moving those for me." I said to them as I brought a box of philly cheesesteak with grilled red onion and green peppers pizza over for them to look at and smell. I opened it as they walked back out of the garage empty handed. "Here check it out, grab a slice real quick, you'll love it!" I told them as I demonstrated grabbing a slice and taking a bite of it.They each reached out quickly as I gestured the box back towards them and each took a slice with gusto.

I hand the box to Lia as I tell them, "Help me haul all this food inside to share," as I start quickly sorting useful goods with junk in the trash cans and loading them each up. I had them take the non perishables into the garage with the other things and packed all the perishables I could find around into the now clean rolling trash bins. As they finish moving the stuff I'd set aside I motioned to the trash cans and I said, "These two bins, use the handles and pull them so they tip onto the wheels, then pull them up the stairs one at a time while I hold the door open for you."