Tales of a Wanderer: March 3rd, 3328

  Journal Entry: March 3rd, 3328

The first time I stepped through her portal, it delivered me to a world of shallow water. Before I left, Zenara warned me that she could not control the destination; she did not know the world into which I would wander. She seemed to worry herself sick over the randomness of her portal, but a part of me thinks she did it just for show. If she truly cared about my safety, the Alchemist would never have recruited me in the first place. If I cared at all about my own safety, I probably would have turned away when we met for the first time. Maybe I just don’t know what it looks like when someone supposedly cares for another person, so perhaps my mind is just warping her intentions. My safety must mean something to her. If it did not, then she would not entrust me with such an “important” task. Besides, she cast a spell to give me a protective tunic. That must mean something, right?

The problem is, the tunic she gave me is no ordinary piece of fabric. It is infused with, from what I can tell anyway, an annoying trickster spirit conjured by some long-dead sorcerer. When I was young, I would have killed for a companion who could protect me, if for nothing more than to mitigate my own loneliness. But that was when I was young. Now that I’m not so desperate, I can see Hondam for what he really is—a continuous headache. As soon as I wore the tunic, he told me that I have less muscle than any man he’s ever protected. He said that at least he wouldn’t run the risk of getting stretched, and then he laughed at my build in front of Zenara herself. Even as I stood in the shallows of a beautiful world of water, I told myself that poor Hondam just might not make it home. This was a dangerous quest, right? Anything could happen to him.

“I hope ya know I’ve already saved your life, man! Ha, your weak-ass lungs couldn’t breathe this air without me,” said the tunic as I stepped through the shallow water.

“And what exactly did you save my lungs from?” I asked.

“What you asking me for? Motherfucker, I don’t know! I’m a gangster-ass tunic with an air filter, not no air scientist. Zenara made me promise to protect you, but you’re not making it easy!” said the tunic. God, I hate that I’m talking to a tunic. But I guess that’s my life now. When an all-seeing Alchemist of Astroconvergence finds you wandering alone in a wasteland, it’s easy to say yes to just about anything. Doesn’t hurt that she’s so pretty.

“Just relax, man. If you came from my world, you’d already be shot, probably shot-dead. You just get to work and start gathering spells. Zenara said you’d be good at that shit, probably the only reason she went and found your musty ass in the first place! You gotta shower or something next time you put me on, ‘cause let me tell you right now, you stank!” 

“What do you mean I’d get shot…?” I asked as I wandered toward a splashing sound.

“Shot? You don’t know shot?! Man… you really don’t know about them streets, huh? I wonder what dopey-ass world Zenara even found you in! Probably didn’t have any cool shit there. No guns, no magic, no hoes. I can practically smell that shit on you… among other things,” Hondam said, laughing even though he did not have a mouth.

After that, I shook my head and approached the shimmering horizon. At first I thought that a setting sun cast golden light on this world of water, but then I realized that the light came from a silhouette in the distance. A man stood in the center of the light, unleashing the powerful glow as he used a spell to transform the world around him.

From the center of the glowing light, pillars of water emerged from the shallow sea and shot into the sky. A part of me felt terror, but another part compelled me to race toward the spellcaster so that I could learn his magic for myself. As the pillars of water shone brighter than the golden light, I finally saw the details of the man standing in the heart of the glow. This may sound dramatic, but he looked like a god; his powerful muscles flexed as he finished casting his fearsome magic. His long hair danced in the wind as the shallows transformed around him. By the time the spell ended, the pillars of water solidified into aqueous trees. Large roots emerged from the water, and vines descended from their branches. Waves rolled across the shallows from this transformation, but the man who cast the spell simply turned and walked away from his own creation.

After I jogged through the waves to reach the shallow swampland (of course, being ridiculed by Hondam in the process), I discovered something I had failed to notice from a distance. The trees and vines were still made of water. They had solidified enough to mimic the objects they were meant to resemble, but I could see their aqueous structure in the way they glistened on the inside. The faint glow of the distant sorcerer still shimmered through the trees. I could hardly see the sorcerer as he walked away, for the swampland he created seemed to stretch for quite a distance. It wasn’t until I escaped from the aquatic forest that I got a front-row seat to the sorcerer’s next spell.

Once again, the shallow ocean trembled as if undergoing a catastrophic change. The seafloor quaked violently, but I ran as quickly as my tired legs would carry me, even as the waves swept me off my feet. I watched with my eyes open wide as an enormous mountain emerged from the water, just past the sorcerer who cast this mighty spell. The mountain grew by the second and ascended toward the shimmering sky, glowing as the spellcaster flexed every muscle in his body. Just as I had hoped, the long-haired sorcerer stood still and watched his creation grow taller. It pierced so high into the heavens that the peak froze into incandescent ice. I raced toward the glacial mountain until I could no longer stand, and then I swam onward with everything I had.

Despite being underwater, and despite being a tunic, Hondam said, “See, now, this right here surprises me. When we met, I thought to myself, ‘This motherfucker won’t last one week!’ I didn’t think you had an ounce of willpower. But here you are, swimming toward an icy-ass mountain like your life depends on it! What gives?”

“Don’t misunderstand me. I haven’t given myself over to any cause; I’m just not that kind of person. The fact is that I’m a traveler, and there isn’t anything else to it. Curiosity and nothing more. I wandered every inch of my world, and now for the small price of transcribing spells, I can wander to other worlds, too.”

“And here I thought a punk like you didn’t care about anything,” Hondam laughed.

“I have my reasons, and we’ll leave it at that. But nothing I see here has anything to do with me,” I answered.

I tried to accelerate my swim as I saw the sorcerer begin glowing again, but I physically could not move my body at a faster rate. Waves still emanated from the icy mountain, and every ripple shimmered in the golden light of the newest magic. In the moment before he cast this spell, I noticed a bloody gash on the side of his body. It faintly stained the water beneath him with a red tincture. But after he unleashed his technique, the wound on his side sealed shut. A golden glow emerged from the ocean and spiraled along his arms, as if fueling another spell which would transform his world of water.

When I came up for another breath, the sorcerer faced me and said, “It has been a long time since I have seen another soul in this ocean. I can conclude with one glance that you are not the same as the people who once lived here; a simple syllogism portends that truth. Who are you? Where are you from?”

I nearly froze until I realized that my feet still could not touch the ground. I continued swimming until I reached the edge of the frigid mountain, and I pulled myself upon it even as I shivered. Just like the trees in the swamp, this mountain was also made of an aqueous solid. It took a moment for me to catch my breath, for which the tunic quietly mocked me, but the sorcerer did not mind waiting. The golden glow still danced along his arms as he faced me, and his long hair flickered in the icy breeze.

“I am a wanderer, here for just a short while from another world. I was sent on a mission that I do not care much about; my only real goal is to see other places and learn. I apologize for following you. It’s just that… I did not see anyone or anything else since I arrived. Nothing but water,” I explained.

The powerful man simply smiled and said, “Some would say that nothing actually exists but water… or at least they would have. Philosophers and skeptics splashed around these shallows for generations, postulating that everything in the world is all made of the same material. Eventually their monism concluded that water is that one material; it even floods the air we breathe. They would spend entire nights debating and hypothesizing, fighting to make sense of this world while abstracting a better one. I learned everything I know from them. Both my knowledge and my magic.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to them?” I asked.

“A monster came from the sky and bathed the world in shadow. My people fought back with everything they had. They conjured an enormous rogue wave from the ocean, but the monster deflected it like it was nothing. It rained fire down upon them. They tried to hide themselves in the swamplands, or in glacial mountains, superheated steam, or even clouds of fog, but nothing saved them in the end. It slaughtered all my people and left my world barren. It left me with wounds that will never fully heal. Maybe I was too weak to save them, but I swear that one day I will avenge them. Until that happens, I will rebuild the beautiful terrain which once covered this world, one mountain or swampland at a time. It’s the only way to calm the screaming loneliness inside me,” explained the sorcerer as his golden eyes glistened.