And let me tell you, that is not a pleasant feeling, to be hurtling through space right down to a planet. I was sure for a moment that I was going to die! But then I came to my senses. I was in my anime avatar! I was a cooler, darker, edgier version of myself, and one good rule of thumb is that unless you are in anime going for realistic, you will never die from a fall. It’s just one of the many odd rules of anime.

I took comfort in that.

Trickster and Ru-lah, or I should say Naomi and Trick, were right along side me. They also looked super unsure of this. It all happened so quickly. We plunged through the chilling, blue clouds and then soared out from underneath them. I could see the massive trees in the distance. They were beautiful.

We then gilded leisurely towards them, no longer falling. As we got closer, I could see the cities carved into the majestic wood. It was like the tunneling of termites, but much more refined. There was lots of advanced technology, ships flying around, large and powerful balconies that carried large buildings. Which I guess would make them more akin to overhangs. Whatever.

All three of us landed gracefully on one of these, surrounded by people bustling along, going about their business, and ships flying to and fro.

“That was easier than it at first appeared,” Naomi admitted in a gruff voice. “And Ruben, you look terrible as an anime character.”

I flipped her the bird as I walked off to find some information.

“Excuse me,” I called to a guy with a fish head in a fishbowl. “Can you please tell me where we could find a place to send some messages? It’s kind of urgent.”

The man spoke, and bubbles issued from his mouth, bursting once they rose to the surface and sounding out his answer, “That’s the problem with you anime types, your lips never quite match up with your words.”

And with that he walked off. How rude!

“Yeah, well, same to you buddy!”

“You are way more confident here than you are back in Reality,” Trick commented.

“You’re right,” I suddenly realized. I thought about it a little further and then I exclaimed. “What the hell, guys! We’re in another universe right now! In different bodies! Why does this feel so natural? I should be freaking out right now!”

“But you are freaking out right now,” Naomi pointed out.

“I know,” I shouted, with my hands over my head.

“You’ll get used to it,” Trick said smoothly. “Come on. We’ve got to see if we can find someone more helpful than fish head there.”

I am embarrassed to say that I had momentarily forgotten that the two of them had already experienced weirdness like this before, and they had already gone through the process of figuring out their identities as they were merged with the histories and minds of their avatars! Yeah, as the one who wrote their story, that is kind of sad.

I wonder if this is how biographers feel when they realize they have made a terrible mistake about the person they are writing about?

For the sake of brevity, suffice it to say, it took us a couple of hours to figure out where to go and how to get there. We finally found a very nice wolfman who informed us that the best people to hire for sending messages to anyone in the Realms were pirates who helped manage the Thieves’ Web. To get to them, we had to take this super strange elevator that went in all kinds of directions throughout the tree.

Upwards, downwards, to the side, diagonally, to the side again. Take it back now y’all.

And there were so many different people who got on and got off. It is hard to even now to keep track of them all. Vampires looking for a good time, Stormtroopers, will-o-wisps, a shaggy bear, two skeleton soldiers, a man with an octopus for a head, a really old Looney Tunes character, and a sentient cupcake who just wanted to die. The Realms have a lot of strange people walking around, I can tell you that much!

Trick and Naomi took the lead, and they insisted that from this point on that they be called Trickster and Ru-lah. They said that they wanted to blend in. I did see other anime characters running about, along with copious amounts of cartoon characters, and even some drawn figures. There are really all kinds of people in the realms! I know I’ve already said that, but it is incredible!

I tried talking to some of the other anime people I saw, but they mostly avoided us. Ru-lah teased me that it was because I was going for too edgy and I was not in the right show. I told her that only a desperate man on the run like Trickster would ever want to hook up with a half-orc paladin. I got slugged really, really hard in the shoulder for that one. Trickster just stood there, shaking with laughter.

When I was about to start asking if we were there yet, our floor finally came.

We stepped out to look upon another overhang that was about to be engulfed in one of the blue clouds. Nearby was a gigantic tree limb, populated with even more buildings, homes, and overhangs. Where the pirates of the Thieves’ Web congregated, there was a collection of seedy looking pubs, a large satellite dish raised above them all, and docks for repairing ships. There were all kinds of ships moored there.

Some of the vessels looked like old-time pirate ships, the kind you’d expect in movies. Except these one had rockets and armor plating attached to them. Then there were spaceships of all kinds of varieties. Many of them looked piece together with heaps of junk and scrap metal. There was one that looked to be made of dark crystal. Another ship was straight up an enlarged plastic replica of a flying saucer.

“These all fly,” I found myself asking out loud.

“They sure do,” a thick accent answered behind me.

I wheeled about to see a purple, six eyed alien, with eye patches over an additional three eyes. He had six, long arms with spindly fingers that came to sharp points. He gave me a pointed, toothy grin.

“And ain’t they real beauties too?”

I found myself at a loss for words. Luckily, Trickster was there to bale me out of the situation.

“This is a fabulous shipyard to be sure. And I like the overall decour,” he said quickly with a grin to rival the alien’s. “But we haven’t just come here to admire the surroundings, we’re here to see about sending some messages. The scuttlebutt along the tree is that the good people here can send some messages for us.”

“For the right price, anyone in the thieving guilds would happily see your job through, no matter what,” the alien replied.

There was something about the way that he said that, which implied that he expected us to do more than a simple phone call.

“Can you point us in the direction we should go,” Trick asked.

The aline gestured with a pointed finger to the dish and responded, “You’ll want to go right over there. Ask for Hearny. She’ll see ya straight.”

“Wonderful,” Trick said, still grinning. “And if you would please return my compatriots belongings to him, we’d be much obliged. I’d hate to have to get into a fight already.”

Before the alien could respond, and indeed before I could register what had just been said, Trickster pointed behind the alien’s back. “You took his wallet, and some other tidbits from his pocket. We’ll need those if we are going to pay for the message.”

The alien went a shade of blue and then threw my belonging back into my face, before muttering and slinking off hurriedly.

I juggled my wallet and some other items around for a bt before I got a hold of them again. It was not just my wallet that he had tried to pilfer, but also a watch, a bomb pen (because why not), and a pocket knife.

“Perhaps you should walk between us,” Ru-lah offered.

I grumbled, but agreed.

We made our way to the small hut under the satellite. Many different folks gave us strange looks, but none of them bothered interfering with us. It was easy to find Hearny. She was a busty, black and white 30’s cartoon, with curly hair. She wore and apron lined with cruel knives and had a deep, black lipstick on.

“What can I do ya fer,” she asked in a thick Southern accent.

“We need to send some messages,” Ru-lah informed her. “We need to get in touch with any of the Guardians that we can.”

Hearny gave her a stern look. “And what do ya be wantin’ to contact them Gleam Buckets fer?”

“We’ve been fighting against some dangerous people who want to break the barriers between reality and realms of Imagination,” Ru-lah said.

“Ah, I see ya bein’ Crossovers. Only they would use language like tha’,” Hearny chuckled. “Hope you wasn't tryin’ to be inconspicuous.”

Trick thumped me on the back. “With a guy like this around, we’d draw eyes wherever we went!”

That drew a genuine laugh from Hearny, much to my chagrin. Nobody respects a properly angsty anime character anymore! We just need to go back to the late 90s! I let them know my feelings with a sharp ‘harrumph.’ This got the busty lady to laugh even more.

“Y’all be fools fer gettin’ involved with Guardians. Them Buckets be causin’ many problems throughout the Stars. The war they got goin’ on ain’t goin’ as well as they’d expect, I think. Then again, any world can be targeted these days.” She then shook her head, getting serious. “Fine, ya came to the right place. I don’ need much convincin’. Them Gleamers be better than the Abominations runnin’ around and causin’ troubles! Stars be damned, but we’ve already had a hard time roostin’ ‘em out of our homes, ya know?”

“I don’t, sorry,” Trickster said apologetically. “But perhaps you can tell us while we give you the messages to send?”

“Maybe afterwards,” Hearny said, considerately. “It’ll take some work gettin’ everything ready to go. Them Buckets don’t like no pirates contacting them, but we have ways of gettin’ messages out to them, no problem there! We’ll just have to encode it so they understand it is important and not some junk for us, ya know?”

Ru-lah handed a letter over to Hearny and said, “Can you please make sure that a copy gets to each known Guardian?”

“We charge a hefty price for each Guardian we’re sendin’ out to,” Hearny replied. “What do ya got?”

“More than Republic credits, I hope,” I muttered under my breath.

“We’ve got gold,” Ru-lah answered. “Lots of it.”

“Let’s count it out then.”

Trickster took my shoulder and steered me around. He gave me a look that clearly said that we needed to watch out backs in this area. Hearny could be setting us up to get mugged if weren’t careful. Ru-lah saw out the deal. In the end, we could only afford to send three messages out. They charged an arm, and a leg, plus your first born child just to send one message out to the a Guardian! Highway robbery!

But then again, these were pirates…