The shopping trip hadn’t been a total bust. I picked up a bunch of non-magical books, a few blank books, maps, and trinkets. There were random bits of leather and metal that I purchased to practice runecrafting on, but those were the cheapest of my purchases. In total I spent less than a hundred gold. As it turns out, books are not cheap.

We had stopped by a tame tavern with lackluster food. Eating at the castle this whole time spoiled me. Up-close people watching was the highlight of that stop.

Out of everything I gained on my little trip outside the walls, the best were the plethora of choice words and phrases. Dorstark was none too pleased having to explain their nuances, but that was just a bonus. It was this experience however that led me to the discovery of a universal truth. In the same way that one plus one will always be two, anywhere, ‘curse like a sailor’ is also an infallibility. Who knew?

I updated my inventory sheet first thing when I got back, including my formerly confiscated weapons that were sitting on the table when we returned.

My next task was to finally write down my ‘to-do’ list… in the form of a quest log, of course.

Open Quests

Norvosian Knowledge: Learn more about the history, geography, and culture of Norvos World Knowledge: Learn more about the history, geography, and culture of this world Investigate Arrival II: Learn more about why the portal opened What are the Skane: Surely there is something to be learned about this species Flying Dinosaurs: Learn more about the ‘pterodactyls’ Invent the Elevator: Anyone with an abundance of stairs will rejoice at having an elevator Create a Bag of Holding: You have too much stuff and need a better way to carry it Write a Math Book: Norvos would benefit from a kick in the math pants Travel to Videm: Travel the Oryan Trail from the coast to the capital Morskov’s Fables: Learn more about Morskov, his family, and Orya Learn Magic: Throw a fireball or something Gift for a God: Present a gift at the shrine of Kuriy

Completed Quests

Save Nespolan: Completed (hidden quest) Bonus Objective (Save Argenti): Completed, partial success Rewards: Badass cloak & sword, chest of gold Learn Norvosian: Completed Bonus Objective (Learn foul language): Completed Rewards: Novosian fluency

Some part of me recognizes the absurdity of attempting to ‘gamify’ this entirely real world and my involvement in it. That part is repeatedly beaten with a sock full of gold coins by the rest of my wholly stable psyche on a fairly regular basis.

Knowing that I would be leaving Orya in only a few days bumped up the priority of a few quests on the list. Speaking with the Mors would have to happen soon, in addition to the books on Orya and Morskov I purchased to help me along there. The flying dinos may only exist here, so that received a star next to it. Kuriy’s gift should be simple. Elevators would almost certainly fall to the wayside like so many side-quests did though, which couldn’t be helped.

I set up a couple cameras with grippy tripods on the balcony railing to take a picture out over the city every thirty seconds hoping to get some good shots of the not-pterodactyls. At worst I would have an awesome sunset timelapse and would keep up the project for the remaining time here. That finished, I set off to find Nespolan.

After a bit of wandering around and asking people who only wanted to scurry away from me, I was pointed toward his rooms. I knocked and entered when he bellowed for me to enter. He sat behind a large desk with maps and papers strewn about in front of him.

“Sully,” he said while standing. “My apologies for my discourteous response. I am trying to finalize preparations for our journey and have yet to have an hour without interruptions.”

“My apologies Nespolan. I can return at another time or we can speak during our evening meal if you would prefer.”

“No, that will not be necessary.”

“Is there anything I can do to be of assistance?” It wasn’t the reason I was here, but it never hurt to ask. Well, unless he piled a bunch of fetch quests on my shoulders. That could suck. Although I suppose travelling to Videm was just a long escort quest of sorts.

“Not at all. I am likely fretting over nothing.”

“I wanted to ask you a few things if you would not mind,” I said. He gestured for me to continue. “Three things. The first I wanted to ask about was Kuriy. Before we leave I would like to present an offering.”

Nespolan seemed taken aback by that. “I see. You would like suggestions then?”

“Yes. I have only the most vague beginnings of an understanding of your gods. I am also curious what happens to the offerings.”

“It depends on what it is and why it was given. Some items are burned and others are taken by the ministers to re-gift to someone in need of it at a later time. Animal sacrifices, rare as they are now, would be slaughtered then removed to be skinned and eaten.”

“Nothing is taken and kept then.”

He poured a wine-like drink into two goblets, handing me one. “Correct. As far as what to offer, I would propose finding something personal to you that also falls within that god’s domains.”

That made sense, of course. Gold might work best for one of the gods of commerce or trade, but less so for Kuriy. “What were you offering the gods the day I arrived?”

“That I will not say. Kuriy brought you to me in exchange for my… contributions.”

“I will come up with something fitting. Thank you for the advice. Next, I was wondering if we could share a meal with the Mors. It may help for you to be present for the sake of introductions.”

“You are quite full of surprises. May I inquire as to the reason you would ask this of me?”

“It seems prudent to thank them for their hospitality,” I said before taking a drink. I am no wino or townie, but this stuff is scrumptious. And, fortunately, it was too watered down to be dangerous. “I would also like to ask them about Morskov and their family history as part of my endeavor to better understand this world.”

“They are certainly an interesting family with a long, storied past. I can do this for you without issue. Your candor and tact are welcome changes to most who dance around a topic for far too long,” he shared before draining his cup and pouring another. “The first two were easy enough, but I sense you saved the toughest for last.”

I swallowed at his insightful observation. Letting out a long sigh, I figured it was better to just get on with it. Especially after being praised for being forthright. It was my turn to empty my cup of not-strong-enough booze. “When we spoke I told you more about myself than I have anyone else here thus far. Not that I have spoken to many people. I have just been unsure about…”

“Wait,” he interjected. Nespolan stood and refilled my cup before sitting again. “Whatever it is you have to say, know that it will have no bearing on how I see you,” he explained before a pause, “unless it is something terrible which you have done since you arrived here.”

That statement did almost nothing to alleviate my trepidation. Before me sat an extremely powerful and likely pious man. A man who led armies against enemies of their kingdom and may see what I’m about to tell him as a threat toward their country, or worse, a transgression against their gods.

The parts of me wanting to drop the topic altogether were gaining support in my internal struggle. If we were going to be travelling together, they would need to know sooner than later. And, of course, I hoped it would be best coming from me directly in a setting such as this.

Without hesitating further, I pulled out my phone and set it in the middle of his desk. “It is a tool. Science and technology, not magic, from my world,” I blurted. The words for science and technology more accurately translated to research and advancement, but close enough for government work.

Leaning forward, he hovered over the otherworldly curio. “What is it?”

“It is called a ‘phone’ and has far fewer uses than it did there,” I said, having to use the word for it from my native language. “It was used to communicate across any distance, perform math, create illustrations, and many other wonderful things.”

“Not a weapon then?”

I shook my head.

“Show me.”

I pulled up a picture I had taken from the balcony and set the phone back down.

“Remarkable!”

His face was so close to the screen that I wondered why he wouldn’t just pick it up. With that thought, I handed it to him. With little hesitation he took the device, flipped and rotated it, then settled back on the screen.

“Actually, I should be close enough to my room to…” I thought before cautiously reaching for the phone. “Let me show you this.” He relented and let it go. Yup, still in range of the cameras on the balcony. Pulling up the controls for one of them I switched to a livestream without recording anything, then set it back down in front of him.

Nespolan watched the screen for a bit before realizing it was not a still image. “It moves,” he gasped, never pulling his eyes from the screen. Minutes passed as he watched before he abruptly bellowed, “Guard!”

“Oh, shit…”

Two of his elite guards and two guards that always followed me around burst into the room with their weapons readied. “Oh, fuck… oh, fuck… oh, fuck.” Heart slamming in my chest, my hand lowered the pistol at my hip. I fruitlessly wished against all hopes that I wouldn’t have to do something drastic I could never take back. A dozen scenarios played out in my head in this far-too-slow second, feeling like a speedster as the calamity of an explosion crawled through the air.

Who to shoot first? How would I escape the castle and city? What about all my stuff?

“Fetch Dorstark,” he ordered. No one moved for a beat, until he looked up. “Well, what are you waiting for? You three back to your post. Sten, you will get him.” To their credit they didn’t dither further. “With haste,” he called out after them.

My mind stuttered along trying to make sense of it. After coming to terms with the lack of my impending doom, I finished my drink. Then poured another. Then flopped into the chair to sip it. Nope, that one vanished rapidly too. Another then.

Dorstark rushed into the room right around the time I realized that I was out of drink in both my container and the decanter. No reasonable amount of this stuff would get me inebriated. The cathartic act of ‘drinking booze’ helped nonetheless, I think. Not at all like a grief stricken princess guzzling ‘adult beverages’ with little to no alcohol content and ugly crying at a ball to avoid the forlorn misery of being ditched by her suitor for a lady in another castle.

“Your Mightiness,” he addressed Nespolan with a bow then turned to me in my wholly disheveled mental state, “Sully? Is everything alright?”

Not even the ridiculous honorific snapped me out of it. Weakly, I looked at him. Being the sole person not blissfully unaware of how close I had just felt to my own demise, it didn’t seem like either of them would relate with my current predicament. “Yes,” was all I mustered.

“Dorstark, come look at this wondrous trinket of Sully’s.”

Gathering up his robes, he leaned over the desk to look at the phone. Realizing it is a moving image faster than Nespolan, his eyes went wide.

I was still uneasy for a time, unsure of what they were going to do. Finally settling down I spoke up, “It is the view from my balcony, right now.”

They both started and looked up at the same time. “Truly?” Nespolan inquired.

Nodding, I picked up the phone and cut off the stream so I could swap to a regular video recording. With the front facing camera, I began recording myself turning to include the others with the phone raised and facing down to capture their shorter stature in frame.

“This is us, right now.”

“I have read of mystical viewing portals before, though the faithful among the Resolute are more familiar with such methods of divination,” Dorstark whispered. “This is marvelous.”

Nespolan’s face was peering just over my mentor’s shoulder, though he said nothing. I stopped the video, took a picture which included both their faces in awe, and lowered the phone to show the replay.

Again they watched enthralled fascination.

“That is... me,” Nespolan stuttered.

“Yes, and those are my words,” the wizened tutor said, still in a whisper. He looked me in the eyes, “This is not magic. I sense nothing special from this novelty.”

“My world has no magic, so nothing I brought with me should resonate or give off that special tingle.” Honestly, I have no idea what it was he sensed or felt. I just imagined it as a tingle.

“I would appreciate it if you would show us more of the wonders from your home later,” Nespolan invited. His face became stern before speaking again, “Though I must ask what that is first.” He nodded toward me. No, he was looking directly at the right side of my waist - at my gun.

My heart beat faster, again, as I thought, “Fuck…”

“You were reaching for it when I ordered the guards to send for High Magister Dorstark.”

Of course he would always have his head on a swivel. The man was a hardened and veteran warrior in a world where, I presume, such people did not often live long lives.

He shook his head, “I believe it to be a weapon of some strange variety I am unfamiliar with.”

“Son of a…” Damn, he’s good.

“As I stated previously Sully, this will have no bearing on my perspective of you. The sword and your other weapons were returned to you as I have no intention to force you to remain unarmed.” Despite the steely expression, I could read genuine concern and a hint of curiosity. “In time I hope we are able to trust one another more.”

“It is a ‘gun’,” I replied while slowly drawing it out of the holster, finger off the trigger. I removed the magazine and cleared the chamber before placing it on his desk. “A type of projectile weapon.”

They both hung over the gun without touching it, inspecting it without being sure what the function of its components were.

“Thank you,” with a minor bow of his head he began, “You may re-sheath and keep your weapon. Perhaps you could demonstrate how it works for us in the future.”

From all that he had said so far, his statement about trust hit me the hardest. He was right of course and I should afford them the same trust they extended to me. “My apologies for not trusting you more. I should reciprocate your generosity and your confidence,” I admitted. “Both of you have shown me many great kindnesses. If you would like, I would be willing to show you everything else I have - at your convenience.”

“Though I appreciate your apology,” he explained, “it is unnecessary, sibling. You are in a strange land and are still growing accustomed to everything. Trust will come in time.” Nespolan sat back down and frowned when a scant few drops dribbled from the empty pitcher into his cup. “While I am interested in seeing some of your other oddities, I must get back to this,” he ended with a gesture at everything strewn about his desk.

Dorstark quickly chimed in, “I would relish the opportunity.”

“I will send word when a meal or meeting is scheduled with the head of the Mors as well.”

“Best of luck with all that,” I offered before leaving. “Dorstark, I could blow your mind before or after dinner. Your call.”

He scoffed, “Blow my mind, sir?”

Nespolan raised his eyebrows but said nothing as we left the room. The exact phrase I used was one I learned from a conversation between a sailor and a working girl. Probably shouldn’t have said that in this context. Oh well, the looks on their faces was worth it.

We reached my rooms with little in the way of conversation because I continually thwarted his attempts to pry information out of me. It was my intention to fully capitalize on this unique, once-in-a-lifetime chance for me to overwhelmingly impress my mentor with technology beyond his comprehension. Knowing that some part of his anxiety may have also been trepidation from my earlier comment was an added benefit.

The first things I presented to him were some of the camping gear and miscellaneous items from my inventory of stuff. Few of these really blew his gray hair back in any meaningful way, but that was mostly by design. Admittedly his nonchalance at the miracle of duct tape was frustrating. Still, I wanted to build up to the really good stuff rather than just dropping the big surprises out the gate.

The multi-tool and e-tool finally caught his interest during the more mundane phase of show and tell. Compared to what was available here the craftsmanship and small details of most things were orders of magnitude greater. Perhaps on par with a grandmaster artisan’s fine works.

None of what I had brought with me were cheap quality products back home either. Nope, it was all ‘professional’ survival stuff that cost me a bunch of money over a long period of time - which I definitely have no regrets about now.

It had better all be solid gear anyway. Not that I could write a complaint about it.

I briefly wondered how inspecting magic items worked and if there were hawkers of bunk enchanted goods that granted impossible-to-prove benefits until the unwitting patron would be entirely too dead to complain about the scam. A worry for another day.

Those two items kept him occupied for a good ten minutes or so. Unfolding, inspecting, and re-folding them down to their most compact sizes. It was glorious watching him be amazed at something I found rather ordinary. I took more pleasure in this than I should have. Maybe.

It also served as a reminder not to take most of it for granted. Though he wasn’t overly interested in them, he did comment on the utility and usefulness of the tent, dry boxes, fire starters, and others.

Next up were the flashlights and lamps. “That is alarmingly bright,” was really all he said about those. Magic lamps and lights, along with illumination spells, existed apparently.

Fine, time to break out the big ticket items. He knew about the cameras, but I showed him those in person now. The tablet and laptop were the reality bending and ground shattering ones though.

I connected all the devices, thankful again that I was still able to. Downloading the pictures from one of the cameras I threw together a short time lapse of the sunset and screen shared it to the tablet in his hands. All of these together elicited an abundance of excited muttering, finally.

While he watched that loop more than a dozen times, I set up the projector on the wall behind him. Definitely not the ideal surface, but it would work just to show it off. “Look behind you.”

Dorstark turned and looked at the same video, now playing on the wall. Confused, he looked between the tablet and projection a couple times, “What... How?”

I nodded to the projector. “Another device. This one is called a ‘projector’,” I bragged. “It can display these images at a distance onto other surfaces.”

We went over a bunch of content after that. Pictures of my house, friends, and other things. I explained that within one of the external storage devices I had many billions of words worth of information, articles, and books - not that he could read any of it. The downloaded copy of a community built online repository of knowledge took up more than half of a single drive. That was more data than the much smaller ‘official’ encyclopedia that I also had.

It would take time, and probably some help, but I wanted to make a digital copy of all the books here that I could as well. Damnit, I forgot to put that on the quest list.

To round out the presentation I explained that the drone was a flying camera. I hadn’t launched it yet because I was afraid the gravity and lack of gps would hinder its ability to fly. Most of all though, I was genuinely scared of the ‘tayayash.’ I found out they were closer to a pteranodon than a pterodactyl with their seven plus meter wingspan after I looked it up to show Dorstark right then and there.

I used this opportunity to also get some info about them from him. What do they eat? Birds, fish, and small mammals - including children or pets. How big do they get? Much larger than the ones seen around Orya.

“How rare are they outside Orya?” I asked, growing more concerned with the fact that these giant winged predators exist here.

“Fairly uncommon away from coastal areas,” he informed me. “Except for the next couple months as they migrate to warmer climes and again when they migrate back north.”

There was a little more question and answer time about them before moving on. And with that behind me, I played an old game’s victory theme snippet on my phone and would call the Flying Dinosaur quest done.

The last thing I explained was the portable battery and solar charger. Though it isn’t my area of expertise, I tried explaining electricity. This also required me to look it up a bit to thoroughly baffle him. The concept of this power source did that on its own, but the more I spoke about it the more confused he was. So, bonus.

This had all been necessary and helpful, but we definitely missed the typical time for dinner. “That wraps up the tour, unless you have any other questions.” Hopefully he didn’t, because I needed to eat.

“Actually Sully, I do have one last question. Would you mind showing me that large book of yours?”