Wilhelm woke up and was immediately confused, even before he opened his eyes.

His bed felt different than usual – instead of the plush memory foam he had grown accustomed to after a generous Christmas gift from his mother, it was hard and gritty with a thin film that felt like cornmeal. Even more uncomfortable were the places it had managed to chafe its way into. The ground beneath him rocked back and forth like a hammock that had developed rhythm – or a sadistic desire to make the person within it sick.

He didn’t smell the orange citrus Febreze he had stocked up on last time he went to the store – longer ago than he would like to admit, he didn’t get out much these days – automatically dispensing itself every few hours through an automatic air freshener. Another Christmas gift, as it felt everything in his meager apartment was.

Instead, he smelled the salty brine he’d always associated with the few times he’d travelled to Myrtle Beach with his family, running through the waves with his siblings while his parents yelled at them not to go too far out, lest they get eaten by a shark. Or taken into a riptide, but a shark seemed like a more reasonable cause for concern to his 6-year-old brain at the time.

His wrists and ankles had something cold and hard around them, and footsteps were slowly but steadily approaching him.

Finally, it occurred to him to open his eyes.

He was in what looked to be a rudimentary cell. There was a small wooden cot off to the side with little more than an itchy blanket for comfort, a chamber pot – what was it, the 1800s? – and a small window that looked out into the distance. The floor was wood, the ceiling wood, the walls wood – the only things that were metal were the chamber pot, the bars, and the manacles around his wrists and ankles.

Oh, and he was very obviously on a boat. That explained the rocking.

“What? Where am I?” He slurred aloud, coming out as a cacophony of syllables in a no-holds-bar-fight.

“Sorry mate, what was that?” Wilhelm turned to see two men standing outside of his cell, presumably the footsteps from earlier. One had pale skin and red hair in an undercut, while the other was olive skinned and tall – far taller than Wilhelm though that was hardly a high bar, with a bald head and scar across his chin. He stared at them in confusion.

The red-haired man turned to the other. “You think he’s deaf? Maybe he doesn’t speak our language. That would make sense, considering the circumstances. And the fact that he just babbled nonsense; at this point I’m hoping for a language gap, and not some kind of baby-man. It is a he, isn’t it? I’d assume so, but you know how things are these days. Last time we were in port I met this lass with a bigger-“

“Quinn.”

“Aye, Captain?”

“Stop talking.”

“Aye, Captain. Whatever you say, Captain. For the record, we still had a wonderful time.”

The Captain turned his eyes to Wilhelm, who felt very exposed under the gaze. They were storm-cloud grey, and he rested a white-gloved hand on the pommel of the sword at his side.

Wilhelm did a double take to the sword, to the chamber pot, and to the ship around him.

“Alright, maybe it is the 1800s. Next you’re going to tell me there’s cannons on this thing.” He paused for a moment. “That would be kind of cool, now that I think about it.” He conceded to himself.

Quinn brightened immediately.

“He can speak our language! Oh, sorry mate, I hope it is ‘he’ at this point because otherwise I’m being kind of a dickhead about it. Anyway, we have a couple of cannons but mostly we use ballista, standard navy gear, you know how it is. Better for the monsters, and still alright for the ships. Nothin’ special, but you do your best with what you have, and our best is pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Hardly miss a shot these days, especially when I’m on the handles.”

Quinn finally noticed the Captain staring at him, went paler than he already was, saluted quickly and scurried away.

The Captain turned back to Wilhelm and studied him for a moment before speaking.

“Do you know how you got here?”

Wilhelm pushed himself from the starfish-like position he was in a moment ago and sat, undignified, looking up at the Captain.

“To be straight with you I’m not entirely sure where ‘here’ is. I’ve gathered I’m on a ship of some kind – a little odd considering I live in Wyoming – and that you’re the captain. Oh, and that I’ve been imprisoned, but that’s hardly worth mentioning. No need to state the obvious, or something. Show don’t tell? I think I have brain damage.” He squinted towards the captain, “I don’t suppose you’ve got a pair of glasses around here? 23 / 40 prescription? Maybe you call them spectacles, this all seems a bit colonial. You know Ben Franklin? Am I in the revolutionary war? You’re not a lobster-back, are you? Damn brits.” He stopped squinting and looked around, a faint look of surprise on his face.

“Well, that’s odd.” Wilhelm prodded his face, going as far as poking himself in the eye on accident before dropping his hands back to his lap. “Never mind about the glasses, they don’t seem to be necessary. Disregard my American patriotism as well, I’m not big on our foreign policy nowadays. Or home policy. I’m not really a big fan in general, I guess.”

“Do you ever stop talking?”

“Oh yeah, I don’t talk most of the time. I get called quiet a lot back home, though I can see how you might not believe it. I suspect I’m speaking so much nonsense at the moment partially as a coping tactic if this is real, and partially because this all seems a little too fantastical and that I’m probably dreaming, so none of this really matters.” He pinched his arm and scowled. “Hard dream to wake up from, though.”

The Captain stared at him a few more moments and muttered something about ‘delirium’ or ‘idiocy’ – it was hard to tell with his very likely brain damage.

“I have no idea what almost any of what you’re saying means, but I’ll try to fill in some since you are very obviously confused: In the middle of the night, we were struck with a massive storm – worse than these seas usually are – which culminated in a cyclone of clouds overhead. Long story short, we were battered by some more waves, covered in fog, and when it all finally cleared up you were lying unconscious on deck.” The Captain looked at him as if waiting for a response, and Wilhelm shrugged.

“Sorry. Don’t remember any of that, though my back is a bit sore.” A jolt of pain made him wince and grab at his torso. “Speaking of sore, any idea why my stomach feels like it’s on fire?”

At the mention of a feeling in his stomach, he was suddenly looking down two feet of steel, the Captain holding his sword in a white-gloved grip. The previously curious, if suspicious, gaze turned far more hostile, and Wilhelm had to resist the urge to throw his arms up in a pointless defense, lest it be taken as an aggressive maneuver.

“Woah woah woah, let’s all calm down here. Well, ‘all’ as in just us two. I think it’s just us anyway. Is what I said bad? It seems bad if this is your reaction. Is it a bomb?” His eyes went wider than they already were, “Please tell me it isn’t a bomb.”

The sword was slowly lowered but did not return to its sheath.

“You’re aspected, but you don’t even know what that means, do you?”

Wilhelm shook his head. “Is that a bad thing?”

“No, just potentially dangerous. Don’t do anything stupid. I’m going to get someone, and we will continue this conversation. In the meantime, what is your name?”

“Wilhelm Fisher. You? Calling you ‘Captain with a big sword’ feels a bit objectifying. At least it isn’t veiny.”

The man’s brow furrowed for a moment. “Absalom, but it’s Captain Absalom to you.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Captain Absalom, please don’t try to kill me again.”

Absalom turned away, “Wilhelm, if I wanted you dead, you would have been.”

He walked out of the small room and the door shut behind, leaving Wilhelm alone again with his thoughts.

After a moment, he nodded appreciatively. “Good exit line.”

He started laughing – not at all in a maniacal manner, thank you - at the absurdity of his situation, but immediately hunched over in pain. The burning feeling in his stomach got worse, like a campfire centered in his abdomen. Tears sprang into his eyes from the agony of it, and he ended up curled in the fetal position on the floor, chains gently rattling from his shaking. His brain felt like it was made of cotton candy dissolving in water while being shot with a gatling gun. It seared his insides endlessly, and within moments, he blissfully passed out from the pain. As blissful as passing our from intense trauma can be.

Wilhelm wasn’t sure how long it was before footsteps approached again, but when he came to there were a pair of men standing outside his cell. One was Absalom from earlier – who he mentally corrected to Captain Absalom lest he see the scary sword again – and the other was a mouse faced man with stringy brown hair bound in a ponytail. He wore the same blue uniform as the rest of them – a crisp blue jacket, practical pants, and a white shirt, but he wore a pair of spectacles that the other man, Quinn, had not.

Wilhelm smiled from his hunched in pain position, coming out more as a grimace,

“You do have spectacles! Still don’t need them, but cool to know.”

The mousy man looked to his Captain with a furrowed brow and a look that said “What?”

Absalom shook his head and nodded his head towards Wilhelm.

Another spike of pain caused him to dry heave. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

“What’s wrong with him, Nate?” Absalom asked

“No idea, sir. You said he was aspected, didn’t you?”

Absalom nodded

“Did you ask what aspect? I’m not sure what kind of aspect would cause this, but it seems the most likely cause.”

Wilhelm groaned on the floor but forced words out, “Is there an aspect of gastrointestinal distress? Because I think – oh God – that I’m aspected to that one.”

“Bound to.” Nate corrected absentmindedly, and then paused. “What does gastrointestinal mean?”

“Oh god,” Wilhelm moaned in pain from the floor, “It is the 1800s. What are you going to do, cover me in leeches? Please don’t do that, I like my blood where it is. And the humors are bullshit anyway.” Another wave of pain shook through him. “Then again, I’m feeling pretty sanguine right now. Or black-bilefull. Or choleric. I don’t remember – Christ that burns - the last one.”

“Do you have any idea what he’s saying?” Absalom asked

Nate shook his head and looked pensive. “Hold on, how does he not know what aspect he’s bound to?”

“Nate, he was found on the deck of our ship out cold after the worst storm we’ve seen all month. I think him not knowing what aspect he’s bound to is among the least of our concerns, and his.” Wilhelm made another grotesque noise of pain and Absalom paused.

“Alright,” he conceded, “Maybe it is pertinent.”

“Haven’t you asked to see his pocketbook?” at Absalom’s blank look, Nate sighed.

“Captain, did you forget the most obvious solution?”

“Never speak of this again, Nate. That’s an order.”

Nate shook his head and squatted next to the bars. “Yes, sir. Now, Wilhelm, was it? Can you show us your pocketbook?”

“My what? Like, the e-reader?”

“The what? No, your pocketbook.” He pulled a small leatherbound book from his pocket about the size of a brochure, though thicker, and squatter. On the front was an engraved chrysanthemum, the entirety covered in such detailed filigree that it reminded Wilhelm more of complex math equations than art, while the leather was a dull brown.

“I have no idea what that is. I don’t think I have one.”

“Yes, you do. Everyone has a pocketbook.”

“Listen, I probably lost it then. You know, in the giant storm where I somehow showed up on your ship?”

Nate shook his head again. “No, you didn’t. How do you not know this? You can’t lose your pocketbook. It’s less an object and more an extension of your soul; even if I threw this off the side of the ship, I would find it in my back pocket dry as ever as soon as I looked for it.”

Wilhelm frowned and reached into his sweatpants pocket, and to his surprise, came into contact with a small book. He felt the outside of his pocket; nothing. No bulge.

He pulled it out; it was made of the same dull brown leather as Nate’s, but with an engraved orange lily. The entire book was cracked, like it had gone through a great fire and was deteriorating under the heat. Wilhelm tossed the book through the bars at Nate, too deep in pain to care that he apparently was throwing around a bit of his soul.

Nate raised his eyebrows and lifted the book gently, turning it over in his hands.

“Alright, it’s not supposed to look like this. That seems bad, considering it’s kind of your soul. Which aren’t supposed to have cracks in them, as far as I know.”

He turned open the first page and started skimming, largely ignoring what he saw until he finally reached the part he was looking for. His jaw dropped.

“You haven’t integrated the aspect? Are you insane? Are you trying to die?” He was almost shouting by the time he finished reading.

Wilhelm moaned some more and rolled to a position that he could see Nate better from.

“I don’t know what any of that means. I don’t even know what an aspect is.” Another shudder of pain passed through him, and his vision turned double for a moment.

“How do I make it stop?”

Nate pinched the bridge of his nose like an asshole but started explaining.

“The pain you feel is the power of the aspect roiling around in your body without being fully accepted into your soul. The power of the aspect is a spiritual thing, not a physical one, so it gets…upset by being forced into physical reality for very long. Somehow you’re still alive and not riding down Ronin’s pleasure yacht to the underworld, so congrats to you on that.”

“Explanations,” he dry heaved some more and spat blood on the floor of the cell, “Later, instructions now.”

“Right. Basically, imagine yourself taking hold of that painful force, and guide it equally through your body. When you’re finished, it should integrate into your soul, and the pain should go away.” Nate put a hand to his chin and rubbed.

“Probably.” He added after a moment.

The process Nate described was, while simple, not by any means easy, at least to Wilhelm. Perhaps to a hardened warrior it would have been a piece of cake, but to his desk-job, too-thin, privileged-life, dash-abusing self, it was anything but. Grabbing the mass of energy in his stomach felt like touching a hot stove, except the hot stove was actually made of magma and the heat of the sun all at once. Suffice to say, it was hot. He did as he was told, however, and gradually started pushing it throughout his body, since he was both told he would die if he didn’t, and instinctually felt the same. It was not a nice realization.

At first, it was excruciating. Moving the energy didn’t make the pain lessen, it only spread it to new, fun places that hadn’t experienced it yet. But, slowly over the course of agonizing minutes, the pain dulled. Soon, he was pushing what felt like a hot summers day through his body instead of the lava it was earlier. Uncomfortable, but hardly unbearable compared to the pain from earlier.

Once he moved it to every inch of his body, he felt it slowly dissipate back towards his stomach, but in a trickle instead of the furious storm it was earlier, like draining through a funnel. The end result was a gentle, comforting warmth in the pit of his stomach, like the spring sun upon his face.

Wilhelm opened his eyes, covered in sweat, surrounded by his own blood and bile, and let out a sigh of relief.

Nate was staring at his pocketbook which he still held. Instead of the cracked brown surface it was before, now it was an all-red leather with a golden trim around the edges.

“I like that more, especially considering it’s my soul or whatever.”

Nate looked at him with a mixture of awe and horror.

“How are you alive?”

“’Scuse me?” he drawled in partial incoherence.

Nate shook his head. “You don’t understand anything that just happened. You don’t know what a pocketbook is, you don’t know what an aspect is, you talk…weird, and I have no idea what you’re wearing.” His eyes focused on nothing in particular but flicked rapidly, like he was completing complex equations in his head.

“I think he’s Sylum.” He finally said.

Wilhelm shrugged. “I have no idea what that means.”

Captain Absalom stepped forward and nodded towards Wilhelm.

“Enlighten us both, Nate.”

The lanky man rubbed the back of his neck and moved from foot to foot.

“Basically, a Sylum is someone who isn’t from our world, but has arrived somehow nonetheless.”

“What?” Wilhelm and Absalom said simultaneously

Nate pinched the bridge of his nose insufferably. “I don’t know how to explain it any better. You, Wilhelm, are from another world, and somehow, by some twist of fate, are now here. I’d assume that’s why we had that storm that was so bad – it was the byproduct from the kind of magical power necessary to pull someone between worlds.”

“You’re telling me I’m in another world? Are you all aliens? How do you speak my language?”

Nate cocked his head. “Speak your language? You’re speaking ours right now.”

Wilhelm spoke as slowly as he could, but all it ever sounded like was English.

“Alright, either there’s some translation going on or British colonialism stretched a lot further than we thought.”

Absalom and Nate shared a look, but Absalom shook his head.

“I’d love some answers to my questions, but first,” he lifted his manacled arms and clattered the chains. “Could I get these off?” His stomach loudly grumbled, previously overshadowed by the intense pain he was in before.

“And can I get something to eat? I’m starving.”