The Wandering Inn_Volume 1, page 274
That’s when I heard the voice. It was distant at first, and then grew louder, accompanied to the sound of branches crackling. Something wails and I hear a thud off somewhere behind me and to the left.
I get a bit worried. Okay, stepping into another world is a jarring experience, but I was keeping calm by rationalizing it as a Platform 9 and ¾’s experience. But no one wants to meet a monster.
Or a bear. Forest + large thing = bear in my mind. But this bear has a voice. And it’s upset.
Behind me, I hear the thing stop, and then hear what sounds like sobbing. That’s reassuring for me, but then I practically feel something punch something else. It sounds like a tree from all the branches rustling from the impact.
Is it a person? I listen hard. Contrary to public belief, being blind does not confer supernatural senses to me. I just use what I have more efficiently. I can sort out the sounds—yes, someone’s crying. They’ve got a deep voice which is why it sounded so odd. And they’re hiccuping.
I already feel a bit sympathetic for this person caught in their grief, although the thumping aspect I don’t like. If they’re hitting that tree, then I’m listening to it splinter from the impacts.
But there’s no helping it. I stand up and raise my voice.
“Hello? Is anyone there? Are you okay?”
Immediately the crying stops. I hear what sounds like the intake of breath. I call out again, turning towards where I heard the person.
“I think I’m lost. I’m sorry, but could I ask you for some help?”
“Help? I’m coming!”
It is a person! I never thought that would be the highlight of my day. But not only is it a person, it’s apparently a female person. At least, that’s what she sounds like. But she has a very deep voice; not that I object to that. Her voice sounds soothing.
Immediately after she speaks, the mysterious person runs over to me. I hear her crashing through branches as she makes a beeline in my direction.
“I’m here! What’s the prob—oh!”
Her footsteps make the ground tremble just a bit as she walks closer. I hold my ground and sense her as best I can.
Heavy. She’s definitely that. And big; that’s my general impression. And she smells. Not bad per se; but she smells…not exactly normal, I guess is the best way I could describe it. She’s certainly perspiring a bit, but that’s not unpleasant.
And then she speaks again, and I hear the worry in her tone. Her voice is deep but smooth, and she has good diction; it’s rare to hear someone enunciate as well as she does.
“I’m here. Are you lost, stranger? Are your eyes hurt? You have them closed.”
“What? No. I’m—”
I lift my cane a bit and I can feel her recoil backwards. I hear her take a step back. Did she think I was going to hit her? I lower the cane and raise a hand.
“I’m sorry. I’m blind. This is my walking cane.”
“You can’t see?”
The voice sounds shocked. She didn’t recognize my cane, either. It’s pretty universal—am I really in another world?
“Not at all. I can’t see you, but I can hear you.”
An intake of breath. I feel like whoever’s standing in front of me is huge; or at least their lungs are.
“You can’t see my face?”
“No. Is something wrong?”
Silence. And then—
“No. Nothing’s wrong.”
I smile. I’m not sure if I’m smiling at her, but it helps. It always does.
“That’s good. I heard you and didn’t want to interrupt, but I am in a bit of trouble. My name is Laken Godart.”
I offer my hand, and I sense hesitation. But then a hand engulfs mine.
A big hand. But it gives my hand such a delicate squeeze that I barely feel a thing.
“My name is Durene. How did you end up here, Mister Laken?”
Mr. Laken? How odd. Is there any country I know of that uses that kind of title? I smile ruefully.
“I’m not quite sure how I got here. I was at a mall, and I must have turned the wrong corner? Something happened because I was suddenly walking around here.”
“Mall? I’ve never heard of that town. I’m sorry.”
My eyebrows shoot up. Either she’s a brilliant actor and this is the greatest simulation of all time, or she’s serious.
“Can you tell me where I am?”
I think she nods. I’ve been told people do that a lot although I only understood the gesture after someone showed me exactly what they were doing with their head.
“You’re near the village of Riverfarm. In the forest, actually.”
Riverfarm? At least I was right about the forest bit.
“Is that near a city? I was in San Francisco just now and I have no idea how I got here.”
Another pause.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know where that is. Is it a big city?”
“Very big. What’s the biggest city near here?”
“That would be Bells. It’s over thirty miles away, though.”
“…Is that anywhere in America?”
“America?”
…
This is probably just a dream. Or a mental breakdown, although the psychiatrist my mom hired gave me a clean bill of health for the last few years. This is any number of things, but what I really want, a tiny bit, is for this to be real.
“Sorry Durene, I’m going to go out on a limb here, but…could you tell me what the year is? And what nation I’m in?”
“Nation? Year? I—don’t keep track of the years. I think we’re around 22 A.F.? And, um, we’re not in a nation. No one rules Riverfarm but the village head.”
“Oh my god. I am in another world.”
“What?”
“I must be. Durene, do I look…unusual to you?”
A pause. I can feel her drawing slowly closer. I can’t tell, but I think she’s looking me over.
“Well…you dress a bit oddly. You have unusual clothing. There’s a strange symbol of a triangle on your shirt. It looks…colorful.”
I smile, a tiny bit. Being blind means my fashion sense is a bit skewed. I know I’m wearing shorts and a t-shirt, apparently with a logo of the Illuminati eye on it. Zoe told me it looked good, but I have reason to doubt her fashion sense.
“Have you ever seen anything like it before?”
“Not so vividly. Are you a noble? A merchant who sells fabric?”
“No. I’m just blind. And I think—yeah, I think I’m very far from home.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry.”
I shrug.
“It’s not your fault. I think. If it is, I’d love an explanation?”
“What? No! I’d never—”
She’s so easily distressed. That makes me feel a bit guilty.
“I’m sorry. It was a joke.”
“Oh.”
What to say? I’m usually a decent conversationalist. Or at least, I can always find something to talk about even if it’s not well received.
“I heard you crying. Are you alright?”
“Me?”
I’ve heard of a blush as well. Based on people’s descriptions and the one time I touched someone while they were blushing, I imagine heat filling their face. That’s certainly how it feels to me, and I suspect, Durene at the moment.
“It—it was nothing. I was just upset, that’s all. I didn’t think anyone was around.”
Her voice is rough with emotion. I pause, but why not follow this? There’s nothing to be gained from holding back. I learned that a long time ago.
“It’s fine if you don’t want to speak about it. But if you want to talk—”
“No.”
I nod. But I can feel her hesitating. So I wait.
“Someone called me a name. That’s all.”
“Ah.”
So many years, so much feeling can go into a single word. I face in her general direction, and I know she’s looking at me. And then I hear something funny.
Rumbling. Gurgling. A massive stomach. And I remember I do have something in one of my hands. I smile even as I sense Durene shifting and presumably, blushing.
“Durene, would you like to share this quiche with me?”
“Are you sure?”
“Why not? Let’s sit and talk. You seem like a nice person.”
I sit down on the ground. After a second, I sense someone sitting next to me. I don’t have a fork, but it’s no trouble to lever the quiche out of the tin container and break it apart. I give the bigger section to Durene over her protests and we eat and sit and talk.
That was how I met Durene, and my introduction to another world. As I said, I would have liked to eat my quiche first. It was only lukewarm at that point, but at least the company was nice.
Day 2
When I woke up, I once again confirmed that I was in another world. I didn’t freak out.
That mildly surprised Durene, when she found I was up and quietly exploring her house. She lives in a rather large house next to a stream. I can’t imagine it as a whole yet, but my exploration and her descriptions of the building give me the sense of a building of wood and rough stone, but carefully patched to avoid the elements or nature getting in. The stone floor is only slightly rough on my bare feet, and the lone window has no glass.
In short, this is a medieval building, and from what Durene told me in our hours-long chat yesterday, this is a medieval world. With magic. And only a limited grasp of technology. She was amazed to see my fiberglass cane; she exclaimed over the material as if it were alien to her world, which it was, in a sense.
Now I sit at a table, feeling like a midget in the chair Durene put me in while she clatters around the kitchen. I can smell something cooking, and it sounds like she’s making eggs. The scent of warm bread is already filling my nostrils.
“Here you are, Mister Laken. I’m sorry it’s a bit burnt.”
“It smells delicious. And call me Laken.”
I hear and feel the big plate being placed in front of me. Cautious exploration with a fork she hands me finds the eggs—only slightly runny—and the toasted bread. Yes, it’s crunchy, but it is quite good, and I tell her so.
“Thank you for letting me sleep here. I think I took your only bed. I’m sorry about that.”
“Oh, no! It’s nothing. And I like sleeping outside.”
“Pretty liar.”
Well. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever startled someone into silence so quickly. I hear her shifting, clearing her throat, and then she bursts out.
“Aren’t you worried?”
I raise my eyebrow. I have no idea if it looks good, but friends assured me it did, and I fell in love with the idea after reading a story where the main character did it to great effect.
“About what?”
“Well, you said you’re lost. Alone. In another…another world? How are you so calm?”
That makes me smile. I may act calm, but I spent a good bit of last night while Durene was snoring outside freaking out and trying to affirm I really wasn’t hallucinating. I have a sore arm from all the times I’ve pinched myself.
“What’s the point of freaking out? I’m more excited than anything else, actually. I’m in another world, one with magic. There’s no magic where I come from.”
“But you told me you have so many strange things. Like these ‘cars’ and ‘malls’. It sounds amazing.”
“I’m surprised you believe me, to be honest. If I heard someone talking about my world, I’d assume they were crazy.”
“But you make it sound real. And that stick you have which folds up—”
Another miraculous invention by her standards. I think it was actually that which convinced Durene I was from another world. That, and my iPhone. I think Siri scared Durene more than anything else.
Yes, it turns out I have no wireless, and without battery I turned Siri off to save energy. But having an iPhone, even one with limited power, is amazingly useful in a survival situation, which is what I find myself in.
So is having a friend. I smile at Durene.
“I don’t think my world is that special. But I am glad you found me, Durene. I’ve always found that I can trust most strangers.”
Another pause. Another hypothetical blush.
“Really? But you can’t even see—and you just trusted me to help you. I could be—”
She pauses.
“Someone bad.”
“But you’re not. And I have a good sense for people, or at least, I like to think so. You seem like a very nice person, Durene.”
“I—thank you. But you can’t see—”
I smile wryly.
“I do notice some things. For instance, I know you’re taller than me. And stronger. And you have calluses on your hand, your table is cracked here—and you have a big appetite.”
It’s hard not to notice her chomping down her food, to be honest. Durene shifts in her chair, making the wood creak.
“I’m sorry.”
“What? What are you sorry for?”
“Um—”
“I quite enjoyed the eggs and toast. Did you make it yourself?”
This time I think she nods, because there’s a bit of silence before she speaks.
“Oh! Yes! I eat a lot. So I have a big garden and I um, raise chickens and pigs and other animals. But I can’t cook well because I don’t have any Skills.”
“That seems rather harsh. Your food tasted good to me.”
Silence. And then—
“Thank you. But I have to buy a lot of food anyways. The villagers sell me lots of things I can’t make by myself.”
“So you live in a village? How many people live there?”
If it seems odd we didn’t cover that yesterday, well, there’s a lot of explanations and confirming to be done when you think you’ve ended up in another world. Another part is convincing a scared young woman that you haven’t trapped a person in your iPhone.
Is she young? Durene sounds like she’s a bit younger than I am. Of course, I’m terrible at judging ages so she could be anywhere from my age to still in her teens. Girls grow up quicker than guys, after all.
Back to the conversation. Durene apparently lives in a small village of around sixty souls, most of whom live closer to each other. They inhabit a lovely area of farming land fed by a river, hence the name Riverfarm. The people there grow crops and raise animals—they have a blacksmith, and a dedicated person to go and trade for them at a town, that person having the most skill at buying and selling.
The people in this village live together in large families. The children often go out to learn jobs in other towns as they grow, or manage the family business. It’s rare to see a single new face in a month, let alone a group of people aside from adventurers or Runners now and then.
Oh yes, this world has adventurers and the weirdest postal service I can imagine. But what stands out to me in all of Durene’s explanations is an odd…lack of detail. Namely herself.
Durene doesn’t live in the village. From what she says, the only other people who live alone are bachelors or bachelorettes or those who have lost their partners. But Durene is far too young to fit either criteria, and she tells me she’s never met an adventurer, despite them being popular with all the kids.
I smell a rat. And Durene. She still smells…off. If I met other people I might understand what’s different about her, but until then I just keep the conversation going and tell her a bit about where I come from.
That’s me Laken Goddart, blind son to two fairly affluent parents, one a lawyer, the other a businessman. I’ve travelled more places than Durene’s heard of, and I’m blind. That’s a basic description, but the key to selling yourself is embellishment.
And all too soon, I find that Durene’s big breakfast has affected me in another way. I clear my throat politely.
“Uh, Durene? Can you help me get to the bathroom again?”
Yes, it’s embarrassing to have to ask someone you’ve just met to help you out, but I’m used to it. Don’t want to walk into the ladies’ room now, do I? But then, they’ve always been quite considerate the two times I’ve done it by accident.
Anyways, it’s always easier if I ask for help, especially since any door could be the wrong one. And Durene is happy to help.
“No problem. This way—oops! Let me just push this aside—the door’s over here.”
She’s very considerate. Normally people have a hard time directing me, but she’s gotten the hang of it quite quickly. She lets me grab onto her arm—I can feel her muscles rippling every time she shifts—and she walks forwards at a reasonably fast pace.
It’s not as if I have trouble moving around, and I can sense whether she’s walking up an incline or stepping around something. It’s natural to me, and once I explained that to Durene she got the trick of it quickly.
Her bathroom is an outhouse located outside of her home and a ways away from the stream. She has to wait at a respectful distance afterwards, but I don’t take long. There’s only one problem.
“Do you have any toilet paper? Uh, anything to wipe with?”
“I’ll get some leaves!”
“Leaves? Hello? Durene?”
It turns out toilet paper is a luxury so rare Durene’s never heard of it before. But the leaves she gives me are serviceable, and my butt doesn’t complain too much.
The outhouse is definitely an outhouse in the sense that I know there’s no water below me as I toss the leaves down. But it smells nice; Durene’s put some fragrant herb there to chase away the smells. I say as much as I leave.
“Your home seems very nice, Durene. I’m envious.”
“It’s nothing special. It’s really not. It’s—crude.”
“I don’t think so. But uh, do you have anywhere I can wash up? And some soap?”
“Soap?”
It takes me a while to get across the basic idea of hygiene to Durene. That’s my first worry. But she boils some hot water for me and when I’m reassured it’s not scalding, I use that.
“You really need to wash your hands, Durene. In my world, countless people died in the past because they didn’t keep themselves clean enough.”
“Really?”
It’s amazing, flattering, and humbling how Durene takes all my statements at face-value. I tell her about the Black Plague, and within minute she’s swearing up and down to buy some soap the next time someone goes into town.
