Carr

It was very strange to feel exactly as uncertain as everybody else. Everywhere we went always felt a little something between scary and exciting. There was very little I knew about this world, though I had been making an effort to know more. Guess I’ve been too obsessed with Johan. It will be nice to get to know the world around me better…this war is making me good at geography, if nothing else. Cresna to the east, Arcadia at the center, some other cities of the Empire further to the west…and Razil across the sea to the north. And here we were. The forbidden land of Razil, where ships rarely made across without crashing horribly.

“This is quiet,” Nevada muttered, “far too quiet. We’re aboard a floating castle, there is no way they missed out on this. Why is there no one here? No troops? No citizens?”

There was a rather robust port. The pier was quite unassuming, but the architecture marked its difference from Cresna and the Empire. Wooden planks were still used for the floor, but the base that touched the water was made of pure stone. It did not appear as though the people there were particularly concerned about keeping the area clean from the ocean water, and dirty, half-open crates laid about piled atop each other.

“Looks like there were people here recently,” Celle said slowly. “They must have left not too long ago. What do we do now? Disembark?”

Valle rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Quite frankly, this feels a bit foreboding, doesn’t it? I would be surprised if it wasn’t a trap of some sort. At the same time, what can we do? It would be unwise to remain here and wait until they decided to come back to their port. It is doubtful this place is used often, all things considered.”

“That,” Nevada began angrily, “is why we needed to have brought troops aboard with us. This is an extremely dangerous position to be in!”

Frankly, I was on her side, but Valle shook his head. “For what purpose? A small honor guard wouldn’t accomplish much, and arriving here with a large army would not inspire a lot of confidence—not to mention those troops are needed back home.”

“Scouts!” Nevada shouted. “If we had someone to scout ahead, then if they were caught we could escape!”

“And leave the scout to die?” Valle snapped back. “What makes my life more important than his?”

Nevada looked as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. To be honest, even I wasn’t sure Valle wasn’t just fucking with us. But he looked pretty serious. “What makes—Valle! You are King.To care about your subjects is noble, but if you die then they will suffer even more. Have some perspective!”

“I do,” Valle said. He did not appear perturbed by her reaction. “I am always thinking of my role as king.”

“Then understand that if you don’t start thinking about your life, your subjects will—”

“My subjects will die without Razil.” Valle spoke calmly, almost detached, but there was no coldness to his tone. These were shocking words out of his mouth, but he appeared at peace with them. He thought about this before. “It’s not just about defeating Johan. That much we could probably manage without them, albeit it would be much tougher. However, this is about more than that. Remember, stats are dead. We are stockpiling resources, Levelling Spheres, and people who have high stats—true. But what of the near future, when we are completely out of them? How do you expect people to function?”

Nevada’s blank surprise appeared to be less about his arguments and more about the fact that he hadarguments at all and wasn’t motivated purely by emotion. “If we don’t win this war first—if their king dies—”

“If their king lives but fails at making an alliance here, then oh Mighty King in Cresna — he who shall rule over gravestones and ruins. We need help from a foreign country that knows how to live without stats or magic of any sort so that we can live beyond this war. Our priority isn’t my life, it’s the alliance. Nevada, my queen, I hope you understand this—if the leader of Razil asks for my head on a pike in exchange for the alliance, I WILL GIVE IT TO HIM.”

Not once had I ever seen Valle act so intense about something. It was easy to forget with the man’s clownish behavior, but he did truly love his land and his people above nearly everything else. Including your own, you madman. He was ready to die to make sure his people wouldn’t suffer once they were out of magic. I had no intention of letting that happen, however. I’m sorry, Valle, but I’m not that good of a person. I’m not letting my best friend die, and I don’t care if I have to doom your country for that to happen. That wasn’t entirely true. I did care. But I still had no intention of letting him die.

“Razil will respect it more if I don’t have any honor guard with me aside from Carr—who, for some reason, was specifically invited here—and that will increase our chances of getting ourselves a set of allies. I do not ask that you accompany me. Stay aboard the ship. I will let you know when it’s safe to come out.”

Nevada looked at him in silence for a while. “You’re the only one who knows anything about people from this land. If you think they will respect you more if you come without a guard…then they will also respect you more if your queen accompanies you.”

Careful partnership those two had. Nevada thinks that the imperial throne belongs to her—it’s her birthright. She wants it because she feels it was denied to her since she was a child. Valle…doesn’t care about power in the slightest. He only grabbed the title of king so he can protect his people. It wouldn’t surprise me if he threw the crown into the garbage after the war was done. They would have to learn to meet in the middle on this, but they stood far enough apart that the middle itself was not territory either of them would have liked.

“I think we’re going to be safe,” Celle said, not taking her eyes off the port. “To be honest, I see a few different ways they could attack us right now and they haven’t taken it. Not like they need an overly complicated ambush to get us, we literally docked our ship to their island.”

I knew there was more to it than that. She wasn’t ready to say the details aloud, but the way she met my eyes confirmed my suspicions. The book must have indicated that it’s safe. “I say we go. Not like we can turn back right here.” Before Nevada could object, I said, “And Valle, I hope you know that if you try to die, I will kill you.”

He smiled at me. “Of course. Now, shall we—?”

It was an odd feeling, disembarking. We climbed down a ladder we threw over the set of the ship and slowly came down to the pier, one by one. There was no way of defending our ship once we left. If they meant to ambush us and trap us here, they could do so quite easily. That book better be right. “Where do we go from here? The port appears deserted.”

Valle nodded to the northeast. “There is a road—surely it leads somewhere.”

“Aren’t you the poet,” I muttered, shaking my head. I don’t like this one bit. At least this time all of us were equally uncertain as to what was about to unfold. Usually, this didn’t concern me—but usually, I was the only one in danger. I didn’t want Valle or especially Celle to get hurt. I guess I don’t want Nevada to get hurt either. Blah. Frankly, if I had my way, I would have been the scout sent ahead to make sure things were safe. But we were moving as a group, and that was that, apparently.

Celle didn’t allow us to move forward immediately, though. We inspected the port first, for both clues about where everyone had gone as well as any hints that might have revealed something about their motives for leaving. Nothing of the sort came up, though Celle appeared very interested in their architecture—the very little that was even there. It seemed like the port only existed for the pier and not much else, there were only two small buildings that served as warehouses, and both were empty.

We started walking down the only road out of the city. It wasn’t paved, but the earth was hard enough that it wasn’t difficult to walk over. It hardly bothered us, but Nevada was having some trouble with her shoes. I did not dare to point out that high heels were perhaps not the right shoes for exploring an unknown area.

Celle had no problem doing so though. “Nevada, I love your shoes, you know I do, but they are not really meant for unpaved roads—or even paved roads. What are you doing?”

“It—it is important that I look my best.” The princess was grunting and looking away when she spoke. She knew Celle was right, but she would not admit it. “Some discomfort is to be expected…and tolerated.”

“Discomfort is one thing, but that white dress of yours isn’t going to look white for very long if this road goes on for more than ten minutes. Do you want to turn around and get changed?”

“No,” Nevada shot back, through heavy breath, “it is no matter. Let us keep going.”

“Suit yourself.”

A few minutes later it wasn’t the dirt beneath us that was a problem, but rather the heat. Not long ago we had been in the land of winter, but here it appeared to be the peak of the summer. We barely went north, how come it’s so much warmer here? That doesn’t make any sense! But I didn’t dare question the matter. Instead, I was too busy focusing on surviving that horrifying heat…and the humidity. Oh, lord, the humidity—that was so much worse than the heat. It felt like drowning, except with that weather honestly I sort of wish I was drowning. But no, apparently that wasn’t in the cards.

My hand had barely touched the underside of my shirt when Valle said, “Don’t you dare. If we run into someone here, you need to be dressed and presentable.”

I gestured at the pile of sweat I had become. “You think this is presentable?”

“It is more presentable than if you didn’t have a shirt on.”

Celle sighed loudly, then at the end let the sigh be converted into a loud whine. “But it’s so hot. I guess that means I can’t take off my shirt either?”

Before Valle could so much as reply, Nevada shouted back nervously, “Of—of course not! What’s wrong with you? Have some decorum! Carr is not the only man here. You cannot rid yourself of your modesty in front of other men, that is simply unbecoming of you.”

Celle shrugged. “Listen, I’m willing to compromise in modesty if it makes me feel less hot.”

“Honestly, that would have the opposite effect,” I said.

There was a pause. “Heh,” Celle said, appearing both amused and tired, “the heat must be getting to me. I actually thought that shitty joke was funny.”

“Everyone, just keep your shirts on, please,” Valle muttered. He was trying very hard to appear like a dignified leader, walking ahead of us, but between the uneven terrain and the weather, it was becoming very difficult for him to keep up that image. “Just keep walking. We’ll get somewhere eventually.”

I buried my head in my hands and whined loudly. “For the love of all that’s holy, if someone wants to ambush us, can you do it now? Don’t make us wait.”

There was a sound in the bushes.

Celle glared at me. “Honestly, I was going to say you jinxed it, but I hate this so much I’m kind of glad it’s happening now.”

“Silence!” Valle demanded. “Everyone, be quiet!”

More sounds—this time from the opposite side. Instinctively we attempted to move backward, but we heard more ruffling from behind us. After shifting back, we heard ruffling from off in the distance as well. More than one person…more than a few. We are completely surrounded. There was a vague mutter coming from the trees and it felt almost familiar to me. It did not feel like the time to try to narrow down that feeling, however.

A clicking sound beckoned more of them, a symphony of metal hiding behind nature’s shield. Why do I feel like I should know what this sound is? “Everyone, on me!” Valle demanded. We all fell back, our backs to each other, and all drew our blades. This appeared to evoke laughter from some. There are definitely people here. How many? Do they intend to attack us? What is their—

Suddenly they all popped out of their hiding spots. At least a dozen men and women popped up, and they were all holding swords that—wait. Those aren’t swords. I recognized what they were first, of course. The other three appeared to freeze still and not move a muscle, waiting to determine what the proper next move was. Another realization dawned on me.

Those men and women had rather pointy ears. Not all of them, but a noticeable enough amount, some pointier than others. “Holy shit,” I muttered, “those guys are goddamn elves.”

More clicking sounds and the metallic symphony aimed at me. “But not forest elves, they are fucking gun elves,” I cried out. “What, I thought you lot were supposed to be one with nature or something—but you’re the only ones in this fucking world that have guns? You’re the lords of technology? Holy shit, I just—”

“Carr, shut up,” Celle snapped.

“Look, I’m sorry, this is just a lot to process. Fucking gun elves. I just don’t understand, you know?” Something occurred to me. “Oh, by the way, those things they are holding are sort of lethal weapons that can fire from a distance so I really recommend not trying to fight them. That just sounds like a straight-up bad time.”

The Gun Elves did not move toward us, but they watched us carefully with their weapons pointed at us. For a moment neither them nor us moved or spoke. Then, in a bit of a mutter, I heard one of them say, “O que devemos fazer agora?” [What should we do now?]

“Não sei. Ela falou para nós esperarmos por ela.” [Don’t know. She said we should wait for her.]

“Mas ela estava no outro lado da ilha, meu irmão. Isso vai demorar demais…” [But she was on the other side of the island, bro. This is gonna take such a long time…]

“Eu sei, sei…continua apontando a arma aí, vai? Só mais um pouquinho.” [I know, I know…keep pointing that gun, okay? Just a bit longer]

“Oh, meu deus querido, os elfos com armas falam Português,” [Oh my dear god, the gun elves speak Portuguese] I found myself saying aloud.

They all appeared to pay more attention to us now. I looked over at Celle—the language I referred to as Portuguese was something she referred to as Visbonian a while ago. Wasn’t that her first language? My Portuguese wasn’t that good, surely she could help me out here. She nodded at me, and said, “Nós fomos convidados aqui—não estamos invadindo.” [We were invited here—we are not invading]

“Olha isso, eles falam a nossa lingua. Legal.” [Look at that, they speak our language. Rad.] One of the Gun Elves put his gun down. “Desculpe, mas nos temos as nossas ordens. Temos que esperar—ah! Olha la!”[Sorry, but we have our orders. We have to wait—ah! Look over there!”

All Gun Elves—and some regular Gun Humans among them, I noticed—put their guns down at once and stood up, bringing their hand to their forehead in a well-trained salute. A single woman stepped forward toward us, chin raised high but neck tilted to the side as if walking leisurely across a park.

She was wearing something closer to shorts I would have seen back on Earth than the long trousers I often saw in this world, stopping just before her knees, and matching her gray shirt that lacked sleeves. I’m not one for fashion, but I haven’t seen anyone dressed like this since I got here. Much like those holding guns, her skin tone was something of a mystery, in that it was tanned enough that it was hard for me to tell how light it was. There was something oddly unifying about their sun damage. She had a gun sticking from her pocket, a sword tied around her waist, and was the first person I had seen in this world to wear what appeared to be sunglasses.

“I admit I expected a warmer welcome, Estella,” Valle said slowly.

“Did you, now? You should’ve known better, Valle..” She smiled warmly at him for a moment, then opened her arms wide and gestured at everything—at the heat, at the humidity, at the Gun Elves surrounding us…and at a large city in the horizon behind her. “THIS IS RAZIL!”