Storm and Stone Ch. 01

"It's more the timing than the bell itself. On my world, our lives are interrupted constantly by the devices that help us communicate with one another over great distances. It is oddly comforting to know that some things never change."

Amevina laughed with him, "Indeed. Perhaps you could tell me of those devices over a proper meal?"

Arawn offered a bow. "It's a date, m'lady. Pardon me for a moment, then I'll see you to our table."

He grabbed his mess kit and phone from the bedroll and held the door-flap open.

"After the lady and her entourage."

*********

Dinner was thoroughly enjoyable. Everyone seated themselves around the fire in a circle, then expanded outward from there. The human and his elven entourage seated themselves nearest the fire and Arawn was surprised when Amevina seated herself next to him. The Captain soon joined them and took the other seat next to Arawn. The new human intrigued him with his strange ways and astonishing ability in battle, so he elected to stick close and see what he could learn from the friendly man. Once everyone had filed in and taken a seat, they were all served a wooden bowl of hot venison stew. It was a pleasant surprise to find carrots, onions, and potatoes in the bowl as he ate. Since this was another world, he was certain there would be strange new foods items and dishes at some point. Arawn found it reassuring that he wouldn't have to starve, especially after five days of the warm grey mash the Vaszul fed to the prisoners. He would sooner chew on a stick than put that horrible, tasteless goo in his mouth again. So, it was with a belly full of a hot, home-cooked meal that Arawn began to field questions about his home, and ask more questions of his own.

"So lad, er... Arawn is it," the dwarf spoke up.

"Yes, Arawn Stonebrook. My friends call me Rawn, though, and I think it is safe to say that includes everyone here. It is a pleasure to meet you, but I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage, master dwarf. I do not know your name..." Rawn smiled.

His declaration was not missed by Amevina and a warm smile crossed her lips. She was brought back to the conversation when the dwarf laughed and continued.

"Aye, sorry about that lad. I forget meself sometimes. Bronnigut Blackshield of Clan Blackshield, at your service. Call me Bron. I was just wonderin' what it's like on your world. The only living creatures here who remember the last visitors we had are the dragons."

"Well, there's a lot of good and bad. The good is amazing, and the bad is equally terrible. I'll start with the bad so we can end on a good note.

"First, there's a lot of war. We have developed our sciences beyond anything we are willing to admit has existed on the planet before us, but we just can't seem to resist the urge to disagree, alienate, and try to kill each other. We can kill millions of people with just one bomb, and all our lesser weapons are just as deadly in direct combat. We've become so good at it that our soldiers rarely see hand-to-hand combat anymore, from the reports that the governments tell us about anyway."

The shocked faces and awkward silence made him uncomfortable. Rawn shifted on his seat and stared into the sky, then continued.

"We are also shitty stewards of our world. We consume and consume without concern for where it is going to come from next. Wood, metals, gemstones, minerals, even food are all harvested without a care for the life that exists around it or whether the ground beneath can meet the demands of the life we cultivate in it. We have outgrown the ability of our society to adapt to the changes that we constantly throw at it and because of that, we've become greedy, lazy, and arrogant. Don't get me wrong, I did say there was good and I'm not about to go back on that, but the good people with the power to fix things are sitting back and trying to play their politics too quietly while the assholes run around fixing manufactured problems all the time to make themselves look good."

The dwarf laughed, "I see, so you have senates?"

Rawn's surprise at Bronnigut's recognition of his description hit him so hard that he lost his balance and fell backward from his seat. He shook his head and chuckled as he picked himself up and returned to his seat.

"This place is just full of surprises," Rawn told him. "Yes. Yes, we call them democracies... in my home country and some others. There are still a few kings and queens, but most single leaders back home are dictators. Oh, and religion is pretty rough, too. The two dominant faiths on the planet vie for supremacy and claim to be the one and only true faith while the rest of us just want to be left the fuck alone. Poverty and sickness, too, but I figure we're not too special in that regard, everyone seems to have their poor and infirm."

"Ah, sounds a right mess..." Bron opined.

"It is. I'm not sure how we haven't blown ourselves back to using sticks and stones to fight, but we manage somehow," Rawn told him. "Still, the good can be quite spectacular and our science is just fascinating to me. Our medicine can cure most things that would kill people here without the use of healing magic. Hell, we even use disease as a weapon. The results can be rather gruesome, so can our chemical weapons..."

"Rawn, I am confused," Amevina interjected, "How do you use disease as a weapon, by spreading plague detritus or something similar?"

"Not in modern times, not that I am aware of anyway, but body parts and corpses have been used in the past to demoralize armies. Modern science has made that unnecessary, though. See, we've discovered that there is an entire world all around us that is so tiny we cannot see it without the assistance of special lenses and other equipment that magnify things beyond the ability of the naked eye..."

Rawn spent the next few minutes laying out the basics of science, chemistry, and biology before he could return to her question.

"So, now that we have the fundamentals out of the way... we can cultivate viruses that are airborne and release them into an area with just a small vial the size of my finger. It only takes one victim to start the spread. If that one becomes only one more in a day, then the next day there will be four, and so on. The reality, however, is much worse. One vial infects hundreds, who then infect dozens more each and every time they cough, sneeze, speak, or even breathe. Within weeks, a city of millions can be on its knees, if not an entire nation. Thankfully no one has been stupid enough to actually release anything they've created because of a policy called MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. It basically means if you use your superweapon, we use ours and everybody dies, thus ensuring no one can win."

"That sounds rather bleak," her brother observed.

"You're not wrong, Vorsah. However, it keeps the lunatics from getting too froggy and ending our species. Remember, we've got bombs that can do the same thing much faster and leave behind an uninhabitable wasteland that will kill anything that enters for decades, if not centuries after. We can be rather savage despite our compassion. I think it comes from us being so short lived when compared with the legends from our antiquity. Our history is filled with tales of how our earliest ancestors lived for centuries... sometimes even a millenia, and the lucky among us in modern times hits a little over a single century at best. I think it creates a level of desperation for life, inside of us, that drives us to extremes. Enough of that, though. I've gotten dark with this again and I promised good stuff."

Rawn grabbed his phone from atop his unused mess kit and turned it on. He was briefly glad that he had shut it off once he went into the cave, it had preserved the battery charge. He still had over sixty percent of its charge. He almost dropped it in shock, however, when it rang in his hands before he could show them anything. It was his friend, Ray. Still in shock, he took the call before it went to voicemail. Even that thought unnerved him...

"Hello?... Ray? How are you calling me?... Fuck no, I haven't been high in five days. What do you mean I've only been gone two hours! Dude, don't... You won't believe the shit I've been through... Alright smartass, you asked for it... I'm not on Earth, fucknuts, and a whole bunch of orcs along with an ogre just rescued me, some other orcs, three elves, a dwarf, a gnome, and a whole bunch of humans from horse-drawn cages... I know, I know how it sounds. I'm not dicking you around, Raiden... No, I'm not using the emergency phrase... I'm serious!... Fuck you. Hang on a minute."

Rawn turned to his slack-jawed dinner companions.

"Umm, this... is a phone call. I feel kinda shitty to be doing this in such an awkward moment, but could I get a couple of you to help me for a minute? My friend is going to raise all kinds of unnecessary alarms back home if I don't convince him that this is really happening. I promise I will explain everything once we're done."

Then he turned back to his phone, "Ray, call me back on video chat," and hung up.

"Alright everyone, you're about to see what is called a video call. He can see you, and you can see him. I shouldn't have signal here since this isn't my home world, but somehow I do. I cannot stress enough that you should not worry, there is no magic involved here except probably the link between my world and yours. Everything this device does on my world is accomplished through harnessing the natural processes of the Earth and her resources to do the work..."

Rawn was interrupted when phone rang again and he took the call.

"Remember, you asked for this. Raiden Bane, allow me to introduce you to my rescuers and new friends..."

He gave Raiden no time to respond, he panned the camera slowly around to the faces he knew and introduced them one at a time: Amevina, Vorsah, Ke'line, Kem'erra, Kord, Nudjik, Jezzik, Bronnigut, and Grokan. He also introduced himself to the gnome, a nervous little man named Lorup Dunbottom. Still, at the end of it all, Ray refused to believe. Rawn released an exasperated sigh.

"Seriously, man? After all that, you still think I'm faking this? What the fuck, man? How can you sit there and refuse to believe me when you just went on a date with a girl that isn't even human?"

Arawn sat down hard and sighed again, "Yes, Ray, I know. I don't know what she is, but I know she's not hum... Say what?"

Rawn groaned and palmed his face. "Ray, please tell me that you are joking right now... You bound a demon?"

Apparently, from the looks everyone around him observed on Arawns face, things just got worse from there, though the word demon left them deeply unsettled.

"Oh, not just a demon, a succubus," he deadpanned. "And now you're dating her..."

By this point, Rawn was overwhelmed by the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.

"So, let me get this straight, Ray... We can make an interdimensional video call while I dance around in the background and introduce you to elves, orcs, gnomes, dwarves, and even a fucking OGRE, one day after you and the guys introduce me to your three girlfriends and don't even tell me they are not human!... but I'm the one who's lying."

Rawn listened to his friend for a moment, then continued, "Yeah, well you need to save that disbelief for your own situation because there are no doubts about mine over here on my end. Listen, nobody I've met so far has any idea how I got here. I need you to ask those ladies if one of them can figure out a way to get some supplies here... Ray, I am not leaving yet. I've got a feeling that these people need some help. Just talk to them, I'll call you back tomorrow...oh, and Ray? We will be discussing just exactly what else you guys are doing over there. Can't believe my best friend has bound and is dating a demon. Alright man... peace."

Rawn hung up the phone and turned to the crowd. "Well, today has just been full of surprises, hasn't it!"

None of those present had any clue how to respond. They had just been shown wonders beyond all reckoning, and told that even more miraculous things existed: all on a world that they had seen with their own eyes on the human's tiny device and it was as alien to them as theirs must be to him. Amevina was the first to break her stupor.

"Arawn, did you and your friend just say that he bound a succubus and is pursuing romance with her?"

"Yeah, you heard right...," he told Amevina, "and I damn sure hope the demon is a she. If not, Ray is in trouble." That earned him a giggle from Amevina, and Rawn thought it just might be the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.

Conversation was strained for a few minutes while everyone regained a bit of their former equilibrium, but they once again fell into an easy camaraderie. Rawn took the opportunity to learn as much as he could about the world he found himself in, beyond what he had learned from the Captain earlier.

Rawn learned of halflings, whose appearance was described as expected: small humans, hairy feet, preferred rolling hills and farm life. What surprised him, however, was their tendency to court ogre packs. They would provide shelter and food for the ogres in exchange for heavy labor, which was light work for them, and protection from outside threats. When Arawn expressed curiosity, it was explained that ogres were very peaceful foragers despite their titanic size and strength and that they only became angry when their pack was threatened. By adopting the ogre packs into their communities, the halflings became part of the ogre packs as well. It was a healthy symbiosis due to the keen farming abilities of the halflings, who were well known for supplying the finest produce in the east. Those halflings who chose to strike out on their own were never without means, no matter their pursuit, they could always spend time managing or working a farm to keep themselves fed.

The dwarves were pretty much as expected as well: their main kingdom was settled beneath the mountains to the southwest of their current location, and they were ruled by a king. What differed, was the vast tunnel network that connected every settlement, town, and city as well as a dwarven community beneath each. The big surprise for Arawn however, would always be the fact that dwarves and orcs coexisted and thrived together. It flew in the face of nearly every piece of fiction he had ever read.

Gnomes were gnomes and tended to keep their warrens among dwarven communities, and humans were everywhere as always and were... humans.

Orc and elf society, however, proved by far to be the most fascinating. While Arawn learned that they had drastically different architectural styles and cultures, they had achieved a level of inter-cultural exchange that shamed all but the most forward-thinking communities back on Earth and left him astonished.

Orcs had developed a powerful industrial, but well managed society. They were highly intelligent beings that absorbed information like a sponge and brought innovation everywhere. With the help of halfling knowledge of plants, and elven magics and druidry taught to them as part of the cooperative effort between the two societies, the orcs had developed a technique to reinforce their arboreal communities by coaxing the trunk of a tree to engulf a stone pillar to reinforce the center of its heartwood cavity.

Where orcs brought power, cleverness, and innovation, the elves brought self-discipline, mindfulness, inner-harmony, and vast knowledge of arcane and natural magics. The Vaszul like to taunt that the elves tamed the orcs, but nothing could be further from the truth. The noble orc heart can never be tamed, only tempered and polished to its finest by the ineffable gift of wisdom from the elves. The orc society was not tamed at all. It honed itself, slowly, under the patient guidance of the elves. To Arawn Stonebrook, it was like he had stepped into a fantasy utopia. When he learned that the two cultures had so deeply integrated that orcs served in elven armies and vice versa, he had to take a time-out.

"Okay, if I learn anymore surprises about your societies right now, my head just might explode from the shock." When eyebrows started to raise in fear, he quickly added, "... it's a metaphor for mental distress caused by too much information at once." Then his eyes lit up.

"I know, let's talk about lifespans. How long do you guys live?"

Ke'line fielded the question a warm smile.

"Elves live about a thousand. Orcs, dwarves and gnomes all live between four and six hundred, and humans, halflings, ogres, and the lizard-folk sometimes live to nearly three hundred. Goblins and trolls live about a hundred at most. The exception to race, however, is the mage community. Magical energies infuse the user and extend their lifespan naturally, far beyond their racial lifespan." she supplied.

Arawn nodded and made a satisfied face, "That's a little high on some, compared to the fiction of my world, but mostly in line with what my set of humans have imagined. How about the years, here... how long are they?"

"Four seasons of about three hundred days each." Ke'line supplied.

Arawn had been slumped on his seat, but sat up so fast at this news that he fell backwards onto the ground. His antics earned him a round of chuckles and he picked himself up and dusted off. He made no attempt to hide his continued surprise as he returned to his seat.

"Fuck me! That's almost four Earth years..."

As the reality of things set in, it did not take him long to do the rest of the math in his head. Four thousand year old elves.

"That's ridiculous," he whispered. "That is over a hundred of our lifetimes. Only a handful out of billions on my world ever live to see a hundred of our years. Excuse me, I... I need to take a walk."

Arawn left his seat and a group of stunned people behind, and took a stroll around the perimeter of the camp. He offered a friendly nod to the guards as he passed them on his circuit and continued on his way. Arawn just could not comprehend what he had been told. Elves lived four millennia? The oldest estimates of known human civilization on Earth only extended back about ten thousand years. That was only two and a half elven generations. It struck him that there were elves here who might have been alive during the time of Ancient Greece and Rome, even Ancient Egypt. He felt the weight of his own mortality as he considered the lifespan of a Terrock human... twelve hundred Earth years. Then he thought, what if this place makes me age differently, too? That meant he could live another hundred and fifty of their years.

The notion threatened to overwhelm his senses and he let his gaze drift upward. As he stared up at the stars, lost in his amazement with this new world he found himself on, he felt a delicate touch upon his shoulder and turned to find Amevina stood behind him with a warm smile on her lips. It never ceased to astound him, back on Earth, what you could see in the night when you were far away from the light pollution of the cities and towns. Here, there was no light pollution and the stars were absolutely spectacular.

She was slightly shorter than his 5'8, but it was such a close thing that she had no need to look up. Her skin was matte obsidian and reflected no light, but against the starlight and the frame of her long white hair with its sharp widow's peak, her features stood quite clear. Wide, dark-orange, almond-shaped eyes punctuated her narrow cheeks and short forehead. The gentle and supple contours of her face that marked her youth also bestowed a deceptive innocence. The inverted-teardrop shape of her face was completed by a narrow, almost triangular jaw with a rounded chin. Then came that voice again... he almost could not stand it, her voice was so soothing.