Chapter 1885: Step Inside
Chapter 1885: Step Inside
[Hey Dana, there is an odd thing happening at the house. I think that a hidden pocket dimension has collided with reality in the middle of town, and the entrance to the secret realm is overlapping the market area.]
[Are you telling me this because you thought I should know not to come back, or because you’re already there and someone reminded you to tell your wife you’re going?]
[I haven’t left yet. Veda reminded me to warn everyone.]
Dana laughed, as she already knew that Karl would not have messaged her before he had entered and found something fun if nobody had reminded him.
Like the beasts, he was very "Find out if it’s fun first, then tell everyone" in his thinking.
Even now, Rae was waiting eagerly in her space for the right moment to jump out and ambush something. She was not happy that the new spell to make an army of spiders was a Karl exclusive, but they could negotiate that later.
She was not giving up on having a whole army of spiders to go places with her.
"Alright, I’ve informed the others, and we can enter when we’re ready. Most of the team will be staying in the Tiny World for now, and I’ve put a barrier over the portal with a warning that the area is currently unstable.
That will pull some people here to investigate, but it will keep those who might want to bring their kids shopping at home where it’s safe."
"Got it, let’s go. Are you brining a healer?"
Karl nodded. "If we need one, I have a spell for that. But I can grab Tian if you want?"
The Seeker laughed, and her eyes flashed the blue of her Goddess.
"No, I don’t see anything positive coming from a tiny fox coming with us. Either he will be in danger, or someone will envy him, and we will be in danger. He’s just too cute for combat."
Karl laughed, knowing that Tian was actually capable enough when he needed to be. He just loved to be cute, and had a strange aversion to getting dirty for a creature that was earth and holy element.
Hawk, Rae and Cara were all ready in their spaces for Karl and Veda to go through, just in case they got separated going through individually.
That happened a lot in the Secret Realms.
Groups would enter together, but they would be deposited at random all over the area by the pocket dimension. So, they would have to work solo, or hunt for their own group. Most would carry a beacon of some sort, which Karl and Veda hadn’t thought of.
But the two of them were an Avatar and a Seeker. They were much better attuned to the universe than most, and they could likely sense each other anyhow.
Especially Veda, as the job of a Seeker of the God of Knowledge, would surely have techniques to find what she wanted.
"I know it’s cliché, but hold my hand, and we’re less likely to get separated," Veda informed Karl.
Karl grabbed her hand, and Cara laughed at the expression on Veda’s face as Karl swung their arms as he stepped forward and shifted them both into the other realm, using [Planeswalker] to move between adjacent realms.
"How did you do that? What the hell?"
Karl laughed. "Planeswalker. I’m an avatar of the World Dragon, remember. Now, should we go say hello to those people staring at us?"
And they really were staring.
"Aah! Red ons, er zijn demonen!"
{Aah! Someone save us, there are Demons!}
Karl laughed as the System delayed its translation for a split second, and then gave the locals a short bow.
"Hello, friends of the Elves. Do not panic, we are not here to harm anyone. I know that I look a bit odd, but I assure you I was born human."
The group froze as the System automatically translated his words into their dialect.
{You are human? You don’t seem human at all. And that is definitely a monster with you.}
Karl turned to Veda and frowned. She definitely looked more human than she did, despite the fact that she was a dragon. What was it that the locals were seeing?
{Someone get the Elders. They will know what to do.}
A child ran off, and Karl waited patiently for them to return with the Elders of this village.
It wasn’t a dungeon type instance, people weren’t attacking them, so they should be able to figure out how to solve the issue of the colliding realms in a peaceful manner. And hopefully, they would be able to do it quickly, or the other Clans would start to arrive to loot this place.
If that happened, all bets about a peaceful reception were off.
The boy returned a moment later with a group of ancient Elves, their faces lined and weathered with the years that they had seen. Even if they weren’t Immortals, it took a thousand years for an Elf to look like that.
So, either it was a show they put on, or these Elves were absolutely ancient and tested the limits of what could be called "Immortal".
The tallest of them, an Elven man with a long white beard, stepped forward and stared directly into Karl’s eyes. Then he spoke in the common tongue with a slight foreign inflection that didn’t sound like Elven.
"I see that we have an interesting guest. How did you get here, War Tyrant of the World Dragon’s Assimilation Cult?"
Karl frowned. "Well, that’s a bit of a rude way to put it. We’re not an assimilation cult.
But your realm collided with mine, directly into my Guild House, in fact. So, I thought that I would come through the overlap and see what your intentions were before the local humans started to arrive.
You know what they’re like."
The ancient Elf laughed. Karl had claimed when he arrived that he was human, but thirty seconds into talking to him, it was clear that while he might pretend to be human, he didn’t consider himself part of the faction that was "human" in his world.
Possibly because he was a World Dragon Avatar, possibly because he was very clearly NOT human. No matter what he told people.