“Who- who are you?” Caspiera croaked.

The man looked down at her. The sun, stained crimson through the smoke shone at his back, shadowing his features and outlining him in a corona of cardinal red. He looked down on her like a child might look at a wounded animal, a combination of curiosity and concern dancing in lustrous grey eyes.

“How bad are you hurt, can you walk?” the man asked.

“No.” Caspiera said, wincing at the pain. “My leg is busted.”

The man nodded as if he expected as much, and crouched down to scoop her from the dirt. Before he got to lifting her, a screeching howl emitted at his back. One of the last remaining warg-rider goblins was charging towards them, crude spear in hand.

The man jumped.

“Jesus Christ these things are freaky.” he said, before standing up and pulling his arm back, the pebble he’d been holding now pinched between his thumb, index, and middle fingers.

Another whip-like crack thundered as the rock left his hand and blitzed across the field too fast for her eyes to follow. The goblin simply vaporized from the waist up, leaving behind another cloud of red mist. Had the man cast some kind of spell? Couldn’t be, there hadn’t been any of the arcanic pathways visible on his skin, nor had there been a magic circle. It must’ve been some kind of magic she’d never seen before, that had to be it.

The man turned and flashed Caspiera a reassuring smile. His body language was all off, his shoulders relaxed, his gaze fixed squarely on her, utterly unconcerned about his surroundings. Was he an idiot? Any soldier worth their salt knew never to turn their back on the battlefield. Or maybe he was just that confident.

“Hey, so this is gonna sound like a weird question.” The man said. “but do you perhaps know of any plucky farm boys around here? Probably an orphan with uncertain lineage, maybe spends his time gazing hopefully at sunsets, possibly in possession of a fancy sword, anyone like that?”

Casperia gaped.

“I’m sorry… what?”

The man shook his head.

“Eh, don’t worry about it. It was a long shot anyway. You look like you could use some help.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond, but before she could say anything, the man scooped her up off the ground as if she weighed nothing and cradled her in a princess carry.

“I think the brunt of them are gone now” He said turning to look out over the rest of the field. “Those last two were just stragglers I think.”

Caspiera only barely comprehended his words. She was too busy staring up at his face. He was a handsome enough man, but the wispy stubble, and disheveled hair gave him a scruffy look. That paired with the fact he was wearing nothing more than a haphazardly tied damp cloth around his waist made her wonder if he was some kind of vagrant. Still though, cradled in his arms against his bare chest, the warmth was nice.

She blushed the moment she realized she had let herself lay her head on his shoulder, and immediately pulled back supporting her own head.

“So where’s a good place to take you?” The man asked, oblivious to her slip up

“Um…” She answered in an uncharacteristically girlish voice. Then immediately clenched her jaw. She was a soldier, not some blushing maiden. The attack may have been over but it was still her responsibility to keep order.

“Town center.” She said reclaiming the authoritative tone of a ranking officer, “There is a small temple of Jeiya there that should be helping the wounded. They should be able to get me on my feet fast enough for me to help coordinate relief effort.”

The man nodded and set off towards the village gate.

...

Donavan passed through the village gate ogling around him like a tourist in a foreighn land, gaping at the log cabin like buildings constructed from the surrounding dark-wood pines. Most of them sat short and long, but with steep gabled roofs of thatch to deflect the snow. Past the tops of the roofs and far beyond the spiked palisade, the village was surrounded on all sides by monolithic mountain peaks, still capped in white snow but receding into earthy greens hazed in luling grey mists with the onset of spring. It would’ve been beautiful if not for the many wounded and dejected looking people shuffling about in the aftermath of the attack.

|Welcome to Priapine Village| A thick signpost situated just past the gate read. |Where we’re always hard at work!|

“Priapine village huh?” Donavan said curiously. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.”

Of course he’d never heard of anything in this world, but he needed to gather information without tipping people off to that fact.

“Not surprising.” The wounded soldier in his arms said. “It's a frontier village, not on any maps yet, the closest big city- Artiks Concord, is a little over three weeks west by horse.”

Frontier? Now that was interesting. That meant the continent he was on- whatever that was, had yet to be fully explored and settled. He’d need to gather more information about this world. He’d just need to be careful about how he did it.

“Never did understand why people would want to live in the middle of monster infested wilderness.” He said, hoping to prompt further explanation.

“Opportunity.” The soldier said with a shrug, immediately making her wince. “Out here it seems like anything is possible. People have stumbled across underground dungeons filled with ancient treasure and powerful artifacts, brand new species and strange creatures, magic and natural resources unlike any seen before. Everyone from the Imperial family to the Arcanists Association wants a piece. Not to mention the whole place is a Seeker’s wet dream.”

Donavan nodded acknowledgingly, and filed away the names for later use. They all had sounded pretty important, but for now he needed to focus on his immediate surroundings.

“So what piece is Priapine village here for?”

“Uhm well…” The woman cradled in his arms said meekly. A brief glance down at her revealed her cheeks to be tinged red and she was making a point not to make eye contact. “This town was founded by the Oaktri trading company to farm for a special seed that only grows on these nearby trees by and...”

Donavan raised a brow at her

“and?”

“And… Y’know what, I’m not really the person to ask about all that” She responded quickly “I’m just the captain of the local guard.”

Donavan gave her a puzzled look. The way he’d initially seen her lopping off goblin heads and barking out orders contrasted greatly with the girlish and shy attitude he was getting from her now.

At first she’d seemed quite intimidating. Tall and broad shouldered for a woman, having more handsome features rather than pretty ones- strong jaw, fierce brows, light blonde hair shaved on the sides and short on the top and still matted with blood and dirt. But now his attention was drawn more to her feminine aspects- large sky blue eyes affixed with long blonde lashes giving them a feline edge, surprisingly plump pink lips. She was a sturdy woman- built for battle but without having sacrificed her femininity.

“Is there a reason you’re staring at me like that?” She said dropping the girlish edge and re-assuming the tone of a not-to-be-fucked-with battle commander

“Sorry” Donavan apologized, quickly looking away. “Bad habit of mine. Though if you don’t mind could I get your name?”

“Caspiera.” She said “Angelise is my first name, but everyone just calls me Caspiera. And yours?”

“Don…” Wait, should I be using some kind of fantasy alias? Did it even matter? “...navan.” he finished before properly finishing his thought..

“Well Don of Navan.” Caspiera said testing the name. “Thank you for saving my life.”

“No that’s not…” he started to say but stopped, It wasn’t the best fantasy name he’d ever heard, but it’d do for now.

“You said you were looking for someone? I’ve never seen you in town before, where’d you come from?”

“Where did I come from?” Donavan repeated not knowing what else to say. He’d only been in this world for a few hours, he hadn’t had time to think of a cover story. Shit, he didn’t think he really needed one till now. “I came from the uh…” He gulped. “The mountains.”

Well that wasn’t technically a lie.

“The mountains.” Caspiera repeated incredulously

“Yeah, the mountains.” Donavan doubled down.

“Ok, Don of Navan who came from the mountains.” She said mockingly. “Who exactly is it you’re looking for?”

“Well I don’t know exactly who they are, just that I’ll know them when I see them.”

He knew this was gonna come up eventually. Truth was, he hadn’t actually read Erwins first draft. He’d read the first few pages and knew it wasn’t gonna get better so he’d pushed it off on a junior agent to read and summarize it for him. It sounded bad, sure, especially with the criticisms he had leveled at the work. But reading a novel was similar to listening to someone sing. You knew if it was gonna be bad after the first few notes. And besides, he was a busy man. He went through dozens of manuscripts a day. He wasn’t going to memorize every little character name and description, especially not for a story his firm wasn’t gonna publish anyway.

“You are just full of information aren’t you.” Caspiera said shaking her head. “Well because you saved me, I’ll tell you this. There is gonna be a town meeting in an hour or so, so leadership can address the attack. Anyone who is in town will be there, so that’ll be your best bet. In the meantime, I need you to get me to the temple of Jeiya, they should be able to get me back on my feet.”

Donavan nodded, he wasn’t sure how this temple was going to help her, but she seemed confident that they could.

“Point the way.”

Donavan more or less ghosted his way along the villages uneven dirt paths. It seemed its denizens had far better things to be concerned about one half naked stranger, that was good. The lower profile he kept the better.

Still, he was actually a little impressed by the authenticity he saw around him. He heard the repetitious clash of a hammer brought down on heated steel in the distance, The bickering of an elderly woman bartering over the prime cuts of a recently disassembled deer. The brown, beige, and greys of hand-woven tunics and cloaks worn by the villagers to protect themselves from the high altitude breeze. It was all surprisingly convincing.

Could all this really just the product of Erwin’s imagination, Or was it the typewriter that was really responsible?

“Over there.” Caspiera said pointing at one of the larger structures he’d seen. “The building with the six chimney stacks.”

Like all the other buildings, it was constructed by the layering of thick pine logs, with tall steep roofs. But unlike the others it had a foundation and ribcage support structure of mortared stonework, and a series of small stained glass windows set high up on the walls showing depictions of a sapling sprouting golden leaves.

A small crowd of people were gathered around outside, all of whom were shouting and pleading for medicine and assistance for the wounded. Their petitioning seemed to be directed towards people standing in the big double-door entrance, but he couldn't get a good look through the crowd.

“Just push through.” Caspiera said. “The Garrison gets priority treatment, they’ll let us in even if they’re already crowded.”

Donavan nodded and moved to make his way through the crowd, earning a few snarls and insults as he did.

Once he broke through and saw the pair of women standing at the center of the mob, any sense of immersion or realism that this world could have possibly earned from him disappeared faster than a snowflake in hell.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.