Chapter 2:
Introductions?
Location: Unknown
Michael’s P.O.V.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
The swirling multicolored vortex that was our time/dimension traveling tunnel was quickly coming to an end. I couldn’t see Adrian but I could hear him cursing behind me, and as for the damn bastard that I decided to follow… well he was nowhere in sight.
“What kind of shit have we gotten ourselves into?” I called to him.
“Don’t know tovarisch, but the faster we get there and out of this trippy tunnel the better.”
“And they’d better have some good food waiting for us.”
I rolled my eyes and felt myself slowing as the swirling colors seemed to end not far in front of us. I sincerely hoped that wherever we were dropping into had some good human edible food, else Adrian was going to go on a rampage. To make matters worse that crazed genetic science experiment of a god said that we wouldn't be able to bring much with us, just what we could carry.
*Thunk*
I felt my feet land on a nonexistent floor only about 6 feet from the exit. It seemed to be composed of a swirling dark mass of unfocused images, like we were trying to look through a fogged up mirror with several splatters of paint.
I heard some shuffling next to me and turned my head slightly so I could make eye contact with Adrian.
“Okay let’s pool what info we got so far,” I started as I turned to face him.
Glancing between me and the portal he started to pop his joints from his hands to his back.
“Well,” he started looking thoughtfully into the distance, “From the info we got from that mutant horse-zebra-dragon thing I can infer that we’re going to a world where there is no major tech, that combined with fact that the inhabitants are not human, and that the country is in a state of a major civil war.”
I just stared at him, “Mouthful wasn’t it?”
He just looked at me and shrugged a stoic expression on his face.
That’s supposed to be my job.
He took a deep breath to continue like he was trying to aggravate me, “I’d guess that we won’t get a warm welcome.”
I nodded, already agreeing with his assumption. Although the information that we were given was extremely poor, we could still gleam some helpful insights into how the area and its inhabitants worked.
Either they didn’t want help, especially from outsiders, but are woefully incompetent at waging war against the two greatest powers of the country… or they want help but are still woefully incompetent and hate outsiders.
According to Adrian, my way of thinking doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, but it doesn’t have to make sense to other people, it only has to work my opponents into inescapable corners.
“Hey!”
I jumped and brought my arm up to deflect the incoming slap.
He looked at me quizzically, “You were dosing off there for a ‘sec.”
I shook my head trying to clear my head.
“Just a bit tense while excited,” I explained, “I’m glad you convinced me to take the out-of-sim training courses.”
Adrian smiled and lashed out suddenly.
Again deflecting the attack with my arm, I pivoted to give him a sharp kick to the side as I pulled him off balance.
He blocked my kick, but still ended up falling on his ass.
“Good thing too, otherwise you’d be a stereotypical lanky/weak strategist.”
I gave a light chuckle as I gave him a hand off the ground.
“So bronyu odin,” I questioned him, “What’s gonna be the first thing you do once we pop out on the other side?”
He looked at me with a sly smile and started walking towards the portal.
“Dude, do you really have to ask?” Then he stepped through and disappeared.
I sighed to myself and smiled.
‘God help those poor chefs,’ I thought before stepping through myself.
{------------------------------------}
It seemed almost as if all the colors wanted to smother me as I felt myself drop onto solid ground. I heard a splash next to me, but I was still too overcome by the sense of vertigo that it didn’t register at first.
“Oh hoho hoho.”
Wait a sec’, I’ve heard that before.
I shook my head vigorously as I slowly started to get up, trying to place the sound.
Found It!
That very sound sounded almost identical to a character called 'Mole' from an old movie that I saw recently called…called…called...
Dammit what was it called again?
Rubbing my eyes I turned to find the source of the noise and saw what seemed to a man sized cast iron pot over some old coals.
Slowly the picture came to me.
A small French man burrowing his way into a large flower pot?
Atlantis The Lost Empire!
There it was, at least… I think that was the title.
Approaching the pot I made note of the shadowy shapes that were sitting at the edge of my vision along with the newly doused campfires.
Grabbing the lip of the pot I leaned over to look inside, not very surprised at what I found.
Adrian was sitting inside the pot licking his lips and patting his belly, the distinct smell of soup lingered in the air. He looked up at me his face serious and yet joking at the same time.
“Don’t judge me.”
I sighed and waved him to climb out.
“Come on mate’, we got ‘ahselves some locals tah’ meet.”
Groaning, he slowly got up and pulled himself over the lip of the pot. Landing on his feet I was surprised to see that he was completely dry.
“Adrian?”
“Da?”
“How much soup was in the pot?”
He looked at me somewhat guiltily.
“It was full.”
I could feel my mind slowing down to a snails crawl as I tried to comprehend what he had just said.
No! Stop it! It’s Adrian we’re talking about, try to find an explanation to his antics and you’ll just drive yourself mad.
I shake myself out of my confusion and turn to see Adrian staring intently at something past the campfires.
“What are you…oh?”
“Yeah...what the hell am I staring at?”
I tensed up ready for a fight.
“I don’t know but I have a nagging suspicion that we’re supposed to know.”
Adrian continued to stare down the floating eyes.
“They’re at least semi-intelligent, they aren’t looking away.”
Well that's true, but then again most things are semi-intelligent, even...NO! Adrian's pet rock is not alive!
“They could be feral; it could just be some instinct.”
“I know feral, no wild animal stares like this.”
Hmm...that would explain a few things.
“That would explain the campfires…and the soup.”
“Yep.”
“They could be feral and have eaten the campers…”
“I just said they’re not feral!”
“So maybe they’re the campers”
“And what kind of campers carry around a half-man sized pot for soup?”
“Don’t know but the sound like your kind of people.”
“Not likely, they left the soup unguarded”
“Wait didn’t we have something to do?”
“I don’t know, I never remember this kind of stuff”
“Doorway syndrome…literally”
“I’m hungry though…”
“Hmm… oh yeah! We were supposed to meet up with that thing and get our bearings”
“Ok… weren’t we supposed to be teleported into the camp though?”
“Oh crap…*whisper* I think we’ve just insulted the locals.”
Then a husky voice popped out of the darkness.
“We can hear you, you know.”
“Umm…”
Well shit...I really hope this first encounter isn't going to end up being a bloodbath.
"Are you the one’s we’ve been told to watch out for?”
Whew! I thought this was going to go...
“That depends, were you told to watch out for a serious guy and a pig?”
Goddammit Adrian! Who are you...oh...never mind.
The eyes looked at us in confusion.
“Aren’t there two of you…where’s the pig?”
"Mmmm…pig…tasty bacon”
Oh no...
“Bacon, where?” Adrian looked around intently obviously forgetting our situation in the thought of a greasy treat.
I couldn’t help but facepalm, and focused my attention on the first 'intelligent' voice that we had spoken to.
“Ignore the idiots please. Umm… let’s try this again, take me to your leader?”
One of the pairs of eyes moved out of the shadows to reveal a man with a black robe with some sort of ornamentation on his back.
No...wait, those are wings! One of the two species that we're supposed to meet have wings...what were they called again?
"Are you by chance a changeling?"
He just smiled as his body slowly glowed and writhed before settling a near perfect copy of myself...only with blunt black wings.
"Does tha' answer your question?"
The voice could do with some work though...the accent isn't quite right.
"Well okay then! What have you been told about us?"
My doppelgänger tilted his head and gave a creepy smile.
"We have been told that you will help us regain our rights and free us from this forest."
Now it was my turn to smile.
"Maybe...maybe not. It depends on what we're working with really."
The doppelgänger started to speak again, but I interrupted him quickly.
"And in order to know what I'm working with, I need to speak to the things that summoned us, so to speak."
I felt a sharp nudge in my side and I could see Adrian doing some light stretches out of the corner of my eye. He was also looking at the forest beyond our negotiator, and was tapping his foot slightly, stating that he wanted to get a look around...or maybe hijack the kitchen.
Quickly turning my attention back to the changeling I interrupted him once again.
"While I am conversing with your current leaders, my companion here will be inspecting your defenses, weapons, supplies, training, and knowledge told the surrounding area."
This time I looked around glaring at everyone of the floating eyes that I could make eye-contact with, daring them to challenge me. To my surprise, I was not attacked and beaten mercilessly, instead a werewol...(weredog?) type being stepped out of the darkness and bowed to us.
"You have sharp tongues and are much different from the pony-folk."
I shared a quick glance with Adrian.
Pony-folk? Are they our enemies? They don't sound dangerous, in fact the name is almost ironic for our situation.
Adrian just shrugged and tapped his temple indicating that he knew I was making mental notes and that he'd want to hear them later.
"You have even shown a liking to our game stew and reacted well to the mention of the sacred meal known as bacon..."
Okay, so far so goo...did he just say sacred meal of bacon? Oh Adrian's going to have a field day whenever they decide to have this 'sacred' meal. I just hope he doesn't go and ruin our relations with our new friends.
Adrian’s P.O.V.
As Michael left to meet with the leaders of these…things, I decided to have a look around.
What I saw amazed me.
Even though I knew they were primitive and relatively new to the concept of warfare, I’d seen more advanced defenses in history books of African tribal warfare!
But it would do for a camp, the surrounding forest was dark , ominous and eerily reminiscent of a stereotypical story book evil, and besides, the opposing forces were not very advanced in offensive tactics anyway, they would more likely charge in and make our primitive defenses effective than find a way around them and use strategy.
As I stood there pondering all possible ways of maximizing our defenses with what limited resources we had, a familiar odor assailed my nose. I couldn’t believe it, I had tasted it during my little run-in with the soup pot earlier but I blew it off as wishful tasting.
I kept my composure and followed the scent to a tent I correctly assumed to be the kitchen. I found the one that appeared to be in charge and brought him to attention,
“Hey you, cook, where do you keep the store of portobellos?”
It looked at me with questioning eyes,
“Store of what sir? I believe you name something that we don’t have in this kitchen,”
He said chuckling a bit mockingly.*sniff sniff*
I gripped the creature’s throat and lifted it off the ground,
“My nose tells no lies dumbass, WHERE ARE THE MUSHROOMS!!”
As I threw it across the tent, I heard the creak of a wooden board. I smiled as I took the boards from their place.
“I apologize cook, these seem to be different from anything I’ve ever seen before,”
I picked the shrooms from their place and placed them in a large pot on the stove.
“Ah the smell of cooking deliciousness, I can’t believe it’s been over an hour since I’ve had one of these.”
I dug around what was left of the kitchen, filled a waterskin with the cooked mushrooms, and stuffed a bag with over half of their stock.
“Ok now to make the most of those defenses.”
The wooden palisades looked to be from whatever random trees that grew around the forest in no choosing process whatsoever, their cannons though, were surprisingly beautifully crafted and seemed eerily similar to the best cannons of late 18th century Eastern Europe, even though they were merely 6 pounders, I had heard of much larger places being defended with no artillery at all.