Jim’s head hurt. It felt like a migraine the size of Texas had descended upon his poor noggin, but all he could do was stare at the one-armed redheaded woman. He and some poor college kid sat across from her as they digested the sheer amount of information she had dumped on the two of them. Elena the cleric, as she had introduced herself, had taken them all by surprise when she had stormed into the small room that those soldiers had shoved them into when they requested – no, demanded a meeting with someone sane.

With someone from Earth.

Jim gave Elena a once-over with his eyes yet again, his sight taking in how she drank deeply from a compact metal flask she had produced from within her armor. The conspicuous amount of scars that littered the skin that wasn’t covered in honest-to-God medieval styled plate armor. And how much the woman, who looked to be just in her twenties, reminded him of an older version of his own precious daughter he had just finished dropping off at school. His heart hurt for what she must have gone through, but her eyes were those of a woman who wanted no sympathy and tolerated no pity.

“Right” Elena continued her spiel with a satisfied sigh as she finished off whatever she had been drinking. “Any questions? My men are doing their best to stop those government wackos from listening in, but they can only stall for so long.”

At this moment the boy sitting next to Jim cleared his throat and leaned forwards.

“So it’s true? Just like that escapist fantasy shit from home? We can’t go back?”

Elena nodded her head with a weary expression. “Most likely. Carlos, wasn’t it?” At the boy’s nod, she continued. “The thing is, we don’t know if it’s possible or impossible. We simply don’t have the magic or the knowledge to know how to get back. Hell, magic itself is a whole bag of shit in itself. One of your predecessors, Kevin, was fairly interested in topic and did quite an amount of research. We’re still deciphering all his notes after his… passing, but he seemed to think it wasn’t impossible either.”

“So, does this mean that if we learn enough magic or get good enough at it we could go back?” Jim interrupted with a strained voice.

“Perhaps.” Elena answered. “But another one of the issues is that if someone even has the ability to cast magic, they’re usually limited to one element or expression of it.” Elena raised her hand, muttering a few words for it to be coated in a soft glow of light. “For example, I’m known as a cleric because for some reason I’m able to cast holy magic better than most. Due to my special status as hero and being ‘empowered by the world’ or some bullshit like that, I can technically cast magic of most the other elements. I could cast wind magic, but it would be weaker than Adrian’s wind magic, since that was what he specialized in before he passed.”

Jim nodded in understanding. The high mortality rates of heroes lately that Elena had explained earlier aside, it seemed similar enough to those handheld games his son always enjoyed.

“So if we find the right spell or something we can go home?” Carlos questioned.

Elena grunted in a noncommittal way. “Yes, but remember what I said about specialization? Well, besides those elements like wind or fire, there are people with the ability to cast less generic magics. That would include my holy magic. Kevin theorized that we would need to find someone with either temporal magic or spatial magic. Not only that, but they would have to cast it at a hero level. To my knowledge, there has been no one in history to ever have spatial magic that powerful. As for time… there has been one man, but we have an even less chance of having his assistance than we have of finding a hero-level spatial magician.”

Carlos quirked his eyebrow at the statement. “Can’t we just… visit that guy and plead our cases? Or pay him enough money to help us?”

“Well, we… can’t. He’s not exactly friendly.” Elena said as she rummaged around her armor, producing a second flask and popping off the lid with a sigh. “Demu’s public enemy number two. Right after that mad half-elf I told you about, who took my arm and summoned a fucking Lovecraftian demon. Or is he number three now? I can’t remember if they’ve updated the lists since that new demon hero bastard showed up. Anyways,” She said after a hefty gulp of her flask, “the government’s had their best and only unit of temporal mages tracking him down, and it’s been… oh, I’d say around a few centuries or so since that started. That blue bastard’s hidden himself in time itself and we don’t have anyone strong enough in temporal magic to actually find him. Hell, the only reason he hasn’t been marked off as dead is that he popped up a few months ago, contacted that half-elf I told you about, beat the shit out of the guards in the area, and fucked off into the future again.”

“And you’re sure of all this?” Jim questioned. “I won’t claim to be a scientist or researcher, but usually there are workarounds for every problem. If we gathered a team of people to do some research and testing, we might be able find something. Anything!”

Elena shook her head in annoyance. They were always like this. She had been like this. With an emphasis on had. “We had a team of people working on it, but all we got were years of dead ends, embezzled funding, and they all ended up getting caught up in the attack a few days ago when they were looking up leads in the library. No one made it out. Not after that thing swallowed the whole building up in one gulp.” Elena delivered this with the finality of a man patting down the top of a freshly dug grave with his shovel. Jim thought the buried corpse must be him. But just as she finished speaking, a loud staccato of knocks rang out against the oak door. Elena paused for a few seconds, but since the knocks rang out again, she stowed her tin flask in her armor, pulling open the door to reveal a thin youth with a sword stuck in his belt and flanked by two grizzled soldiers.

“Lady Elena, my apologies for the intrusion,” The youth bowed slightly. “My men have informed me the government agents are approximately five minutes away from finding the room, and asking all sorts of questions that I’m sure would be uncomfortable for you.”

Elena’s remaining hand let go of the doorknob and massaged her shoulder, the irritation in her movements apparent to even Carlos, who showed his surprise plainly on his face, and to Jim, who could only think about how his daughter acted the same way sometimes.

“That’s fine.” She replied. “You did a fine job, Bill, thank you”

Elena turned back to face Jim with a steely look in her eyes. “Sorry, but it looks like we’ll have to wrap this up. You were right to be distrustful of the governor. He’s the type of man to try and use us to his own ends. When his men get here and ‘respectfully’ request out presence in the main hall, be prepared for that fucking snake. My guess is that he’ll ask us to strike back against those demon bastards as a show of strength, and he’ll make it so we will be hard-pressed to refuse. Just… just be careful what you say. Don’t let him know too much, don’t let on how much you know, and remember one last thing: heroes aren’t invincible.”

Jim could only stare back into her exhausted eyes and nod mutely in understanding.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Ellie fiddled with a wooden spoon she had found in the kitchen as she watched Galler feel his way around the kitchen until he found the cast-iron pot set in the middle of the fireplace. Over and over the wooden spoon spun around her hands, the spoon working simple patterns in the air as Galler reached into the roaring fireplace, lifted off the lid of the pot with his bare hands, and carried out with a huff of exertion that was nowhere near loud enough to cover up the sound of the flesh on his hands sizzling.

“Perfect, perfect,” The gnome muttered as he inspected the contents of the stew. “Nice and filling, just what the gut ordered, don’t ya think Poncho?”

Ellie nodded her head rapidly as her stomach growled in agreement. Already her mouth was starting to salivate as she spied the tiny chunks of meat and the cubed potatoes she had scavenged from the neighboring building.

Galler grinned in agreement, his shiny red hands scrabbling down into his pockets to reveal a chipped pewter bowl and a sheet of tin with a deep impression in it.

“Now time for the most important part! Lassie, which bowl do you want? This poor ol’ pewter piece of junk? Or….” Galler thrusted the indented sheet of tin above his head and gave a mighty cry, “the Tin Bowl of Power! Known throughout the world for its invincible properties! Said to bestow the power to fly upon anyone who dares use it! What say you, o’ brave adventurer?”

Galler’s words rang out against the mute surroundings, bouncing off the mute, unmoving people in the nearby seats. Ellie put her hands to her chin in mock thought, and then as quick as a snake she darted forwards and grabbed the pewter bowl to the sound of Galler’s fake cries of dismay.

“Well well well, it looks like ol’ Galler will be flying off into the sunset tonight!” He declared, his hands focused on bending the sheet of tin into a shape that more suited for holding liquid. Ellie shrugged with a cheeky grin as forewent her wooden spoon in favor putting the bowl straight up to her mouth, stars filling her eyes with tears as she gulped down the first meal she had come across in days. Galler simply chuckled in warm approval as he watched her enthusiasm, ladling only a single scoop of stew into his own bowl and eating it with his own methodical precision.