Chapter 2: A New Friend and a Pair of Pants

Cecilia washed herself in the river, ignoring the curious little fish that came to nibble at her legs, and then decided to follow the water downstream. Although she was a city girl, born and bred, she figured that if you followed fresh water, there was a good chance you found people eventually.

She considered trying to rummage up some leaves or something to slap over the more delicate parts of her anatomy. But, even though she looked human enough at the moment, if she tried, she could still feel the stone underneath. It didn’t really seem worth it if there was no one around to see. Hopefully, the first person I find will be a tailor.

If she had any doubt, as she walked, that she was no longer on Earth, it was dispelled within the first hour. The forest was old, the trees towering things with canopies that blocked out most of the sun in places, and thick layers of moss and lichen growing on their trunks. It put the Everglades to shame, and some of the animals here were nothing you’d ever find in Florida.

A sinuous, snakelike thing with feathered hind legs and wings leapt into the air when she startled it, flapping into a high branch where it coiled and hissed at her. Some of the birds that flew through the canopy had not one, but two sets of wings and hung upside down from the branches that they landed on.

It wasn’t just the animals, either. While Cecilia couldn’t prove that none of the lichen on Earth had the fat, pink swells of the lichen that clung to the trees, she was absolutely certain that no berry on her planet was protected by a delicate, translucent crystal shell that she had to shatter against a tree trunk before sampling. The berry itself was sweet and refreshing, with a tart edge despite its pale pink flesh. It also didn’t make her sick, so she gathered more from the bushes on the riverbank as she walked.

Hunger and thirst both lessened if not eliminated, Cecilia considered her plight. Her first order of business was to find pants, obviously. And more, what pants represented: people, safety, and some information about where she was, and what the Hell was going on. Once she had that, though, there was a more pressing problem.

She had to find a way to contact Earth. Eventually to return, but first to let her friends and family know that she was okay, and second to figure out who killed her and why. Cecilia wouldn’t say that she had no enemies; her cousin, Morelia, had never forgiven her when Grandma Rojas left Cecilia the good pearl earrings. But that was more of a ‘gossip and shun at family holidays’ offense, not a ‘push off high buildings’ one.

Probably.

After a moment, Cecilia decided to leave Morelia’s name off the list of suspects. The office had security; they worked with several classified projects and you had to have ID to get past the lobby. So her murderer was either some evil version of Spiderman...or one of her coworkers.

Cecilia couldn’t think of a single person who might want her dead. Her time was happily spent working on code projects, interacting with coworkers through chat, email, and teleconference when pressed. She didn’t pay too much attention to the rest of the office and had always assumed the benign apathy was returned.

To be frank, until Cecilia Rojas was dead, she hadn’t considered herself interesting enough to be killed.

It was strangely heartening to realize she’d been wrong. Aside from the being murdered part.

Something roared in the woods nearby, breaking her from her reverie. She froze, trying to identify the location of the sound. It came again, from her left; this time as a coughing, guttural growl that rose to a bellow of rage.

And was echoed with a very human scream of pain.

Cecilia, who had only been trying to pinpoint the noise so that she could run away from it like a sensible person, found herself paralyzed, instead. A person. Exactly what she’d hoped to find. And they were in trouble.

You’re naked and unarmed, the sensible part of her snapped; it always sounded like her mother. What do you think you’re going to do? Shake your hips and hope whatever it is might be distracted?

Another cry of pain and frustration. Weaker. Time was running out. Cecilia began to run, too, but towards the sounds. Running barefoot through the woods should have been a nightmare, but she barely noticed the detritus beneath her feet.

She burst into a clearing, skidding a few feet down a slope. The clearing was a bowl-shaped depression in the forest. At the lowest part of the bowl, a woman stood. She was tall and broad, with well-muscled arms and long, blond hair bound back in a single, thick braid, despite her darker skin. She favored one arm; it dangled limp at her side, streaked with blood. Her other hand held a small, curved knife, which she was using to fend off two monsters.

Each one was about the size of a pony, but broader, with muscular, scaled bodies and six stumpy legs. The heads of the creatures were alligator-like, with long, toothsome muzzles. They snapped at the woman; when she struck one across the nose with the blade, it let out another of those frustrated roars.

The bodies of two more creatures were collapsed on the upper slope. Arrows protruded from them, and Cecilia’s quick scan noticed a broken bow near the woman’s feet. She was outnumbered, and clearly not using her favored weapon. Cecilia didn’t even think before she scooped up a rock from the hillside and flung it with all her strength at the nearest monster. “Hey! Shoo! Get out of here!”

The beast did not shoo. The rock struck with a meaty impact on its left flank, and it whirled, snapping at the sudden, unexpected pain. Its eyes were tiny and mad, crimson dots in its bumpy face. It stared at her. So did the woman, but she was slightly less likely to try and kill Cecilia, so she could be ignored for the moment. Somewhere, Cecilia remembered reading that if you were accosted in the woods by the wildlife, you should try to make yourself big, scream and shout, so that they’d realize you weren’t prey, and would run away. So Cecilia waved her arms and screamed at the beast, jumping up and down to give herself some extra height.

Its head cocked slightly to the side. Then, it coughed a growl and charged.

Note to self: fantasy monsters have not read the booklets about scaring away wildlife. Cecilia stood her ground as the creature came on; mostly because her legs were frozen at the sight. She retained just enough presence of mind to ball her hands into fists. Here goes nothing.

“Triple Strike!” Somehow, shouting the Technique to activate it just felt right.

The beast flipped over backwards as it was caught by Cecilia’s blurring hands; hitting the creature was like hitting a sack full of grain with some sort of glass inside; she felt things breaking inside with every impact of her fist. It was the final uppercut, delivered as the beast reared up in shock and pain, that lifted it up and off its feet. It landed with a wet crunch on its back.

Everyone, including Cecilia, stared at the scene in shock. Her hands throbbed. Not with pain, exactly, but with the tingling aftermath of impact.

The unknown woman was the first to recover; she darted forward to reach the other monster, and drove her dagger deep into its eye. It flung its head in instinctive counterattack, but she was already leaping back, falling into a ready stance, even as the beast began to thrash in death throes. The other didn’t move.

Cecilia crept forward to get a better look at its head. “Jesus Christ,” she whispered. The head was no longer in quite the same shape as it had been before she’d punched it. And it was definitely not alive. In any fashion. “I did that?”

“What, did you not mean to?” The woman’s voice was strained, but amused. She gave Cecilia a puzzled once over. Her eyes were shockingly pale in her dark face, and a color Cecilia had never seen on a human: a warm gold. “Are you, uh, all right?”

“I’m, uh.” Cecilia looked down at herself. She coughed. “Relatively? I don’t suppose you have a spare shirt? And pair of pants?”

The woman stared at her for a moment, then burst into laughter. There was more than a little relief to it, tension exploding outward in mirth. It was contagious. Cecilia joined in, and the women laughed until they gasped. “I thought I was going to die,” the woman said, between helpless giggles, “and instead a naked woman punched the grel to death. And asked for clothes! No one will believe me.”

“I know that feeling,” Cecilia returned. “But, really, if you have spare clothing…”

She blinked. “Oh! Yes, yes, I do. Just here.” She turned and beckoned Cecila to follow her into the woods on the other side of the bowl-shaped clearing. There, a large pack had been placed in the shelter of a massive trunk. “I am Shin, by the way. And I am grateful for your assistance.”

“Shin? Nice to meet you. I’m Cecilia. And, uh, glad I could help? How’d you get into a fight with four of those...grel?”

“It’s my job,” Shin said, as she went to one knee and untied the pack. She pulled out loose cloth trousers, and a long tunic, offering them over. “The grel have been menacing the farmers; they asked for someone to track them back to their lair and destroy them.” There was a wry twist to her mouth. “I only expected two. Grel young do not usually stay with their parents so long. I killed the first two, approached to confirm the kill, and was ambushed.” She groaned. “My bow! What a waste.”

Cecilia pulled the clothing on as she listened; normally, the lack of underwear would be uncomfortable, but after a night and much of a day with nothing, any cover at all was a relief. “Can it be fixed?” she asked, noticing Shin’s distress.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“No. It will never be strong enough to trust in battle. And a new one will cost much of what this job would bring.” Then she stood, and frowned, looking past Cecilia. “Unless…” She gave Ceclia a sidelong look.

“Unless,” Cecilia prompted.

“I was not going to harvest the grel; the job paid well, and grel parts are heavy and unpleasant to carry. But, with four grel, if I had help hauling the parts back to town, selling them off would allow me to cover the bow and still have a decent profit.” She flashed a hopeful smile. “I would share the profit with you, of course.”

Cecilia smiled. As it happened, that suited her just fine - hauling some stinky monster meat and whatever in return for a trip to the nearest town, a new contact, and even a share of whatever this place considered money? “I’d be happy to help, Shin. I don’t know how to skin grel, though.”

Shin blinked, as if surprised she’d agreed so easily. Then her smile bloomed even wider, to a grin that showed off whiter, straighter teeth than Cecilia would have imagined in a fantasy realm. “You don’t need to. I will do the harvesting; I have skills that make it faster and cleaner. Your class, I think...would not.” She tilted her head to the side. “You are some sort of Barbarian?”

Class, again. The creepy old man had mentioned it, too, which seemed to confirm that this world knew about the class system. That had to be weird, growing up with something like that. She hastily shook her head. “No. I don’t, uh, I promise I don’t usually wander around the woods naked! I was--”

She broke off. How did she explain? Hadn’t the old guy said something about forbidden arts as well? Maybe revealing herself to be a golem would get her smashed. Or treated like Tool had been. And then, if she added the Otherworldly Soul on top of it? It seemed like the absolute truth could go badly. “I was kidnapped,” she decided on, after hesitation. “This creepy old man kidnapped me for some sort of ritual. I managed to escape; swam out through a river under his dungeon. I’ve been wandering around since. I don’t even know where I am.” She tried her best to look innocent and pathetic.

Apparently, she succeeded, because Shin hissed in sympathy, then spat on the ground to the side. “Necromancer? Nasty things. I hadn’t heard of one acting in this area, but there are a number of tainted ruins in the forest. They draw necromancers like meat draws flies.” She gestured for Cecilia to follow as Shin returned to the corpses, this time with lengths of rope from her pack. And that very sharp knife.

“When we return to town,” she said, as she knelt by the first grel, “will you report to the Guild with me? They should know if there is a necromancer kidnapping people. It always ends poorly.”

“Especially for the kidnapped person, I imagine.” Cecilia’s reply was distracted. She was caught in fascination by the process of skinning and harvesting the beast. Shin only had to touch her knife to the scales before a long slice appeared. Then another. She cut along the belly, down all six legs, and around the large claws, and up the throat. Then peeled the skin off intact with an ease that was astonishing.

She could even talk while doing it. “Ha! Yes, surely. But more - a necromancer sacrifices their victims to gather life azoth which they then use to animate the dead. A local necromancer means zombies, skeletons, and even worse, if you allow them to build up enough azoth.”

Cecilia made a mental note about the unknown word. Out loud, she only said, “I don’t mind reporting to the Guild about it, even without the threat of an undead invasion. Even for a kidnapper, the guy was creepy.”

Another laugh from Shin. “Necromancers usually are.” She rolled the skin up into a tight, neat turn, almost like a rug, and tied it off, before moving to the next. “You seem to have held up well under the experience. Are you an adventurer? Out of Daru, perhaps? Your name has a Darish ring to it.”

Oh, dear. Right. The downside of dishonesty was that it was sustained on lies; you always had to come up with a new story to tell. Cecilia winced, then said, “I wouldn’t call myself an adventurer. Or from anywhere in particular. I was just wandering, really.”

Shin looked up from her work, studied her with those warm gold eyes. Cecilia did her best not to squirm under the scrutiny. Perhaps she succeeded, because the other woman just smiled, and said, “I did not mean to pry. I was hoping you were an adventurer, that’s all.”

“Why?”

She gestured at the corpses. “There is a lot of work for adventurers, and I’ve not seen many who could punch a grel, even an adolescent, to death. It would be nice if you were open to taking jobs.”

Jobs would mean money. Money might mean a way to pay someone to help her contact Earth. Not to mention food, clothing of her own, and a place to sleep - all those things she would need if she wasn’t going to take Golem Endurance anytime soon. “I’m open to it,” she said. “I don’t know what’s required to become an adventurer, but if it means steady work, I’m in.”

“In what?” Shin blinked at her.

“Oh! I just mean, I’d be interested.”

That bright smile bloomed once more. “Good! Excellent! I will introduce you to Orn, the Guildmaster.” She neatly wrapped the second skin.

In short order, Shin had skinned all four grel. Their skins, even wrapped, made a pile that reached up to the women’s knees. After some discussion, they managed to tie the rest of Shin’s ropes into harnesses that would allow each woman to carry two of the skins. They were surprisingly heavy for something so thin and supple; when Cecilia expressed surprise, Shin explained that, with further treatment, they would make excellent armor.

Shin was stronger than she looked; she carried her two skins, as well as that large pack. Even though it had lost a little of its weight with the removal of ropes and one outfit of clothing, she still groaned when she stood. “Luckily, Ikshan is only an hour or so walk away.”

Ikshan. As they set off, Cecilia pondered the name, as well as the other proper nouns she’d heard so far: Shin and Orn. If there was a singular Earth-analogue culture inspiring them, she didn’t recognize it. One thing she had realized, and it was startling enough that she was reluctant to touch it.

She wasn’t speaking English. Or Spanish, for that matter. The words flowed easily from her brain and out of her mouth, and she had no trouble understanding Shin. But the language that came out of her wasn’t at all like English. She could speak the languages she knew, if she intended to, but there was that little flick of concentration that usually meant she was switching from English to Spanish. The translation was almost perfect; clearly a few pieces of slang were incomplete, but was this a function of being a golem, or did everyone in this world just have a language given to them? Maybe it was a passive skill?

The Voice was silent on the matter.

Shin, on the other hand, was not silent at all. The Hunter - because she had confirmed that was her class as they walked - seemed delighted to have company. She didn’t chatter. She was too laid back for the kind of rapid, shallow speech that implied. But she talked freely, and with frequent pauses to check on Cecilia’s attention. She noticed when Cecilia stopped to look at a strange flower, or another of the bird snakes, and identified those as tanner’s pride and a mirsep, respectively.

Cecilia did her best to keep up, both because she enjoyed the conversation, and because a few gentle questions here and there did wonders for bringing her up to speed. By the time Ikshan’s rough wooden walls came into view, she’d been given a brief summary of the place and the people who made it their home.

Ikshan was a freehold: a town that owed no allegiance to a lord or country, and wasn’t on land currently claimed by anyone but itself. There were several other freeholds in this area, Shin said, and Ikshan was neither the largest nor the wealthiest. The town existed on the edge of the wood, and the wood was filled with monsters and tainted ruins. Without a lord to appeal to for help, or the sort of revenue necessary to hire soldiers, it depended on adventurers and other part-time mercenary sorts to help keep the roads and fields clear enough for people to live in safety.

Which made the Guild the biggest power in town, to hear Shin tell it. Its formal name was the United Fellowship of Explorers, but everyone just called it the Guild, and those who belonged to it ‘adventurers’. There was a Mayor elected every ten years or so, but his duties were largely about solving quarrels between merchants, and judging the rare crime that couldn’t be solved by someone beating the crap out of whoever they thought the offender was. The Guild was where people went when they had what Shin considered to be real problems, whether that was monsters, or a need for rare items, or someone to chase a rumor to a mysterious ruin.

“Do you do a lot of that?” Cecilia wondered, while imagining an adventurer called Lara running around.

Shin chuckled. “You’d be surprised. The town’s been here for a long time, and people are always unearthing family stories. I hear ‘Granpere said a third cousin was a famous adventurer who died in this ruin and his body and his treasures were lost’ a lot. Someone always thinks they’re going to be the one to find the treasures and strike it rich.”

“How often does that work out?”

“Maybe once or twice out of every ten times I hear it,” Shin replied, then shrugged. “At least to find something. Usually not the wealth the source expects. But even when it doesn’t, as long as you search the ruin, you get paid. It makes a nice change of pace from pest disposal,” she jerked her thumb at the rolled up hides, “or trying to find one specific mushroom someone needs.”

Overall, Ikshan was small enough to run on informal arrangements and word of honor. Shin was quick to point out that no one cared about citizenship there, and you didn’t need letters of reference to get past the gate or register with the Guild. Ikshan was also too small to be at war with anyone, or to lever tariffs and entrance fees.

All of which told Cecilia that these were things she would have to deal with in larger cities. The gate of Ikshan wasn’t even guarded, although it was sturdy; planks of native wood had been reinforced with black iron and cross beams, for all that they were open and welcoming. Shin noticed her studying them as they crossed the threshold. “Monsters,” she said, simply. “Gates are closed at night. If someone hears you knocking, they’ll let you in, but try not to get stuck out there - people usually don’t hear you.”

“That sounds like the voice of experience,” Cecilia said.

Shin ducked her head. “It’s advice! Friendly advice! Don’t question from whence my wisdom comes, Cecilia! Just accept it.”

Cecilia grinned and held up her hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Don’t look the wise horse in the mouth. Got it.”

The two women laughed. Cecilia decided she liked Shin, even outside of the overwhelming gratitude for having given her pants part of things. She was younger than Cecilia, possibly in her late teens, but she was the right balance of down to earth and energetic. Cecilia liked to think that they could be friends.

Cecilia was surprised to note that Shin was also not unusual among the people of Ikshan. Most shared her coloring: dark skin, fair or even platinum hair, and gold or yellow eyes. Here and there, other types of people could be seen - a few had dark hair and eyes, like Cecilia, although their skin tones tended towards what she could only see as green , while the one or two pale-skinned folk she saw had hair that tended toward red and gold. She studied them curiously, and received more than one curious look in return. Not hostile, she was relieved to note.

The town itself was built out of the forest, and that showed. A smoothed dirt trail ran from the gate straight through the middle of town, with smaller paths branching out from it. Wooden buildings were scattered rather haphazardly beside these roads, most old enough that ancient moss grew on their roofs. They were simple buildings in structure, but not plain; everything was carved and lacquered, and the lacquer was in many different shades, giving the buildings a rainbow shine.

“There’s the Guild,” Shin said, and pointed. She hardly needed to; the wooden building was elaborately carved and lacquered, even compared to its neighbors, and it stood a half-story above the second tallest building nearby. “We’ll get paid for this job and I’ll introduce you to Orn. He’ll want to take your report, and then you can sign up as an adventurer, yourself!”

“Wait, stop!”

Cecilia jumped as a wild-eyed young man leaped out in front of them. “You can’t go in there,” he cried, staring right at Cecilia. “You simply can’t!”