When Auberon woke, it was amidst pain and confusion. Pain due to the muscle-deep aches and stiffness when he so much as moved, and confusion because he had-- momentarily-- forgotten where he was and had been awoken by a particularly loud growl from one of the Outworlder vehicles as it sped by on the large roadway he’d crossed under to get there.

The sun was coming up, judging from the light he spied outside the large window he slept in sight of. How long did nights on Outworld last? How long had he slept for?

He fought against the stiffness of his limbs and got to his feet, making sure to listen for any movement inside the house. It was silent. His mouth was dry and he was hungry, but now with light to see, he had to secure the house before even thinking of that.

The room he was in was curious. A large sofa sat against the wall-- Auberon had used it as a bed, and had to admit it was more comfortable than some of the beds at high-class inns he’d been to. In front of it, a low table, next to which he’d shed and laid out his clothes during the night. He checked them. Still damp.

One thing of notice, however, was the strange sword sitting upon a stand on a cabinet on the other side of the room. He walked over to it, picking it up. It was long and smooth. The hilt did not have any sort of guard to speak of, and the blade was one-sided. He ran his finger down the blade. It was surprisingly… unsharp. The metal seemed brittle, flimsy.

What man would think such a sword would be of use anywhere?

Still, it seemed to be a solid stabbing implement. He’d lost his dagger in the river with the rest of his plate armor. His side-bag. All he had left were his damp underclothes and the necklace his sister had given him at her wedding.

He held it in his hand and quietly moved into the next room. The floor there was different, smooth and patterned. Countertops lined the wall with a basin built into it. A kitchen? He glanced into the next room and saw a table with six chairs, the walls lined with paintings and shelves.

Upstairs he moved. He found what were clearly bedrooms. Four of them, at least two meant for children, a closet, and what appeared to be an indoor lavatory.

It was devoid of people.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he returned to the sofa. He was alone for now, but there was no telling when the residents would get home. And it was best for Auberon if he wasn’t there when they arrived.

Still, the only place he had to go might as well end in his death. He couldn’t very well walk up and make demands to be returned unharmed. Auberon wouldn’t grant such mercy, he doubted the Outworlders would either.

And even so, one look at Auberon’s clothing would reveal his Embrayyan origins. The Outworlders didn’t dress like them, they dressed in bright colours and--

He spied several pairs of shoes sitting next to the large sliding window, then had a thought.

He went to the shoes and put his foot besides the ones that looked like they would fit him. He slid his foot into one. It seemed to fit.

He picked up the pair of shoes and dropped them on the sofa, then went back up the stairs. He rummaged around in the bedrooms until he’d found what he was looking for-- Outworlder clothing. He found underclothes, trousers, socks, even shirts and took a handful of each. They were odd articles, but they fit intuitively and comfortably. In one of the closets he found a satchel and put a few more articles into it.

He looked into a mirror he’d found in one of the other bedrooms. He was dressed just like them, the Outworlders. Indistinguishable except perhaps for his Embrayyan features and dirty face. But were they enough to identify him? Perhaps if he spoke to them. But would they even recognize he was speaking Embrayyan?

He was, however, quite filthy from being in the river and running barefoot through the Outworlder’s city. If he was to hide in plain sight, he couldn’t stand out. All the Outworlders he’d seen up close had been clean.

The river was far too dirty to bathe in. But he found a large basin in the lavatory that he assumed was for washing clothes. It would have to do, but where was the well? He hadn’t seen one outside. Perhaps it was in the front of the house? He peeked out the windows, taking care not to be seen, but could see nothing that looked like a well. A house across the road, however, appeared to have water streaming out of the very ground.

Auberon had never seen anything like it. Did water just spray forth from the ground in Outworld? Why?

He then realized that the grass in front of that house was greener than the rest. To waste water like that simply for green grass? Did they not have a care?

No. It wasn’t that. It was that water was in abundance in Outworld. Why else would they have basins on the top floor of their home? How it was fed, Auberon could not even begin to imagine, but somehow there was an easy way to get water within the house.

A spigot hung over the wash basin, and a single round knob was on top of it.

He reached out and pulled the knob, and the spigot sprang to life, spitting water out. He leaped up in shock and used the wall to prop himself up, then found himself surprised again as the entire room lit up.

Confused, Auberon inspected the wall-- there was a… a switch? He pressed it. The light turned off again. Then on again. He flipped it a few times, laughing. He’d wondered how the lights were operated, and now he knew. The little panels on the walls contained switches.

With light, he was able to see the room in much higher detail. Bottles filled with all sorts of goods, small brushes, towels and more lined every shelf, as well as the rim of the large basin. The smaller basin in front of the mirror appeared to have an identical spigot.

The water flowing into the basin was growing hot. He cupped some of it in his hands and used it to wash his face. He then looks back to the larger basin. The water just flowed down the drain. He needed to block the drain in order to fill it. After a moment, he found the small plug and blocked the drain. Success!

Auberon could bathe.

He shed his Outworlder clothing and climbed into the basin. Along the rim of the basin was a sponge, he started using it to scrub himself of all the filth he’d accumulated since... When was his last hot-water bath? Last month while carousing in Dunleth? More than forty days, that was for certain. He’d been lucky to bathe in the Ceylon River when Raptor Company had arrived at Mercer’s Mound.

Regardless, the hot water helped to soothe his aching muscles.

Suitably clean, he shut off the spigot, dried himself with the hanging towels in the room, and dressed again. He spent a few minutes grooming himself in the mirror with a comb and a bottle of perfume he’d found.

When he was finished, he went back downstairs in search of food. There were a number of cupboards in the kitchen, but most of them were filled with strange items, well-made porcelain bowls and plates and glass cups. Any other time he might have wondered at what such things would be worth in Embrayya, but his hunger was the most important part.

He opened a cupboard filled with small boxes with whimsical colouring, as well as small cup-shaped objects with pictures of what he thought to be food on them. He picked it up-- it was colored paper wrapped around a metal cylinder. When he shook it, he felt the sensation of liquid moving around inside of it.

Why the Outworlders would encase their food in metal, Auberon couldn’t have begun to understand. No amount of pricking and prying at the edges had any give. If there was a trick to opening them, he grew far too frustrated to bother opening it. Instead, he threw it to the ground.

There was a cupboard different than the rest. It stood almost as tall as Auberon, but was far more bulky, and didn’t seem attached to the wall. He pulled on the uppermost handle, and was surprised to find it resisted opening for a moment, as though someone were inside, attempting to hold it shut.

What he saw made his jaw drop.

Ice. It was ice. As though the cupboard were in the midst of a deadly winter, or atop the snow-covered top of Kira’s Peak high above the Ciel Clanhouse in Freia. He felt the cold air strike his face and wondered at it. 

He closed the ice cupboard for a moment and felt the exterior of the cupboard door. It was cool to the touch, but not much more than anything else he’d touched.

He opened it again. There was food inside. What appeared to be frozen meat and strange bags with intricate paintings of what he thought to be vegetables. Obviously they cooked it-- he stopped for a moment and thought. He hadn’t seen a hearth anywhere in the home. There had to be a way the Outworlders cooked their food in their homes.

He opened the lower cupboard and was mildly disappointed to find that it, too, was cold. He’d hoped that was where he could cook the food.

The lower chamber of the ice cupboard was cold as well, but nothing was frozen. It was filled mostly with items he didn’t recognize. Containers full of some unknown substance or sauce, a transparent jug with what appeared to be milk. For the children, perhaps? The idea of drinking cold milk turned Auberon’s stomach.

Cheese, on the other hand, would do perfectly. He picked up a solid block of orange cheese and took a bite out of it. The Embrayyan Forces marched on a diet of cheese and nettles, and while it wasn’t as soft as what he was used to, the Outworlder cheese had a welcoming taste. He took three large bites, then wrapped it up in its strange transparent packaging and put the rest of it into his pack. He found some eggs in a smaller drawer inside the cold chamber and wrapped them up in a towel, and took those as well. He picked up the various bottles inside. Some of them had attractive smells, but were sauces of some sort. Many had a foul, acidic smell he nearly gagged over, but most of the rest were foods he didn’t recognize.

That would have to do for now. He could worry about more food once he made his way to the wilderness.

He paused to think about it. Was there wilderness? The mountains in the distance above the Outworlder city seemed green, but they also seemed far. Perhaps even several days journey by foot. He hadn’t thought of it before, but just how large was the Outworlder city? He’d heard that some maps were found of Outworld, but never thought to ask what was on them.

Nonetheless, he couldn’t be found where he was. He might be able to fight off whomever lived there, if the portraits he saw were recent, but he didn’t relish the idea of killing children. Even Outworlder children.

He began to wander around and gather useful items he found. The sword was next to useless, and carrying a sword was likely to draw unwanted attention, even one as flimsy at that. However, in a drawer in the kitchen he found a number of knives of various sizes and exquisite sharpness. He took two, and left the rest. He also grabbed a few of the metal cylinders he suspected had food in it. If it came to it, he suspected he could pry one open with one of the knives once the cheese and eggs ran out. 

He sat at the sofa once he had gathered enough, and tried to gather himself. He still ached, and it had been a long night. He was tired.

But he felt the urge to go. To the mountains he saw, obviously. If he could figure out how to use one of the Outworlder vehicles, that would save time. But they were still confusing messes. Only one out of all of the ones they’d managed to capture even moved when pushed, the one with the bright lights he’d helped push back through the World Tree. That likely wasn’t an option.

He would, of course, encounter Outworlders as he moved. And he may yet need to camp outside during his journey, but at least now he looked like one of them. Still, if they tried to speak with him, they may see through it.

It was a risk. But he believed he risked more staying there. He would have to move while there was still daylight.

But he didn’t move. Instead, he sat in silence, picturing Rustam’s broken form and Rost’s falling, charred body. He thought of Vetszsche and quietly cursed the Outworlders. He thought of his parents, the people the demons had killed in his village, and ground his teeth.

Only his sister still lived, as far as he knew. But if the Outworlders crossed into Embrayya-- he sighed. He hoped that anyone left on the other side had the good sense to destroy the World Tree, which meant Auberon would be forever trapped in Outworld.

If it came to that, what was there for him to live for?

He continued to grind his teeth.

Revenge. As long as Embrayya was safe, Auberon would survive long enough to learn the ways of Outworld, and then kill as many as he could before he was taken down.

But not now. First, he needed to make for the mountains in hopes to find the wilderness. He was certain he could survive there. Trapping, hunting and fishing-- until he was taken into a Dai’ani’s embrace. Were there Dai’ani in Outworld? There had to be-- they created the Dai’ani, brought them to Ayndir. Or perhaps the Outworlders had considered them more trouble than they were worth and exterminated them.

He spent some time wandering around the house one last time, rummaging through closets and doors to find anything useful. There were books and paper everywhere. But on the low table next to the sofa was a small black object he had initially discounted as a piece of trash.

It had shapes on its surface, round, square, triangular. His hand brushed over the top of it--

--then suddenly a voice filled the room. Auberon leaped to his feet. It was loud, and seemed to be coming from inside. It spoke in the strange tones of the Outworlders. He quickly pulled out a blade, ready to kill, but when he realized where the sound was coming from, he fell to his knees.

On the cabinet across the room had been a flat reflective surface, black, that he had ignored as unimportant and uninteresting. Just another strange Outworlder artifact.

But this artifact in particular was… alive? Like the singing box they had found in the Brewery, it was speaking.

But it also showed who was speaking. On the surface, a blonde woman looked at him and spoke, looking him directly in the eye.

“Can you see me?” he asked, knowing full well she couldn’t understand, but then quickly realized she didn’t react. She continued to talk.

What was this device? Was it showing him the past? The present? Was the woman he saw even truly alive, or was she some… construct of the Elder Law?

No, he’d been told Outworld was devoid of the Elder Law.

But obviously it was something that rivaled it in terms of power. He stood up and reached out to touch the woman. He wasn’t certain what to expect, but was relieved when he only felt the hard flat surface of the artifact. He pulled it forward-- it was thin. Too thin for a person to sit in.

Whatever he was being shown, she couldn’t see or hear him.

Suddenly, the woman disappeared and was replaced with…

...replaced with a place he recognized. It was a vision of the island in Outworld the World Tree had grown, from high in the sky. He quickly recognized the lay of the land, and the World Tree. It seemed utterly devoid of his people, but he could see some of the tents they had erected. He could hear the woman’s voice continuing as he watched.

Outworlder soldiers seemed to be moving around. It was as he suspected, they had defeated the Embrayyan forces entirely. He cursed the Outworlders yet again.

He remained watching the visions it showed for a few minutes, before he once again steeled himself up. He put on the boots of the Outworlder and laced them up, hung the sack he’d found over his shoulder, then moved to the sliding glass doorway. He would travel toward the mountains, and avoid talking to any of the Outworlders. It was a great risk, but he needed to put some distance between himself and the World Tree. If he could find a way to get back, he would take it. But his first instinct was for survival, and that meant escaping the city.

He opened the door and stepped out, held the bone pendant his sister had made for him, then stepped outside.