Thinking about the big picture

After a few words and understanding about the situation, it’s hard to express what I’m feeling. For a moment, I can’t say if I should ignore everything else that happened for us to arrive here, or just accept it.

It’s much more complicated than anyone might think. There is nothing we can do to change the situation right now. Asking the elf and the orc for help would not work. They called us here, so they might even start having a bad idea about us.

I went to Nikita. While I was talking to the other two, he looked for a place to sit and found it at an old table where he moved some ancient tools aside.

“How are you doing? Feeling nauseated yet?”

“No… no, Erick. The problem is not that. What are we going to do now? We left absurdly and now… Now we’re in those stories I used to listen to and help with ideas? I have a life out there, are we just forgetting that?”

“Of course not, man… But like, what can I do too? Well, you already understood that we are in Auzyia, right? The peak we saw in the warp, and now these two, I don’t know the time yet, but at least I know where we are. I mean, we are in Auzyia, where exactly I couldn’t figure out.”

“An ancient ruin. Like… hell, there are lots of those in the campaign and the books. Do you remember anything about the story they told us about someone who went to another world and became a hero without calling a hero back?” Nikita asked.

“No. I’m pretty sure I never wrote about this, maybe those other two…? That creates an important question: Which version is this story? The published one? Do my drafts and ideas that we discussed enter here? We need to scout them for information, but I’m a bit scared, I’m not going to lie. They called us heroes. Somehow, they count on us to help them, but what can we do? We are just humans”, as I said, I gave a crooked smile in the end.

The idea of us aiding these people is crazy. The story involves everything from monsters to gods, and we are just plain humans. Nikita still has a good body build, but I am skinny and weak in a place like this.

Melirya and Jopliv were giving us time to discuss as they noticed this was too much to absorb. As we talked, they were discussing something too, eventually looking at us to see how we are.

Nikita started to open his bag and look inside it. He pulled out his notebook computer, opened and turned it on.

“What are you doing? Thought about anything?”

“Not exactly. I’m just testing my stuff to see if anything stopped working after we warped. My phone is still on, with the same amount of battery as it had when we left. And… Yes, my computer has a battery,” he says, confirming the computer successfully turned on.

“You wouldn’t have that backup of the worldbuilding notes, would you?” I asked, looking like a puppy for a moment. It was just a stupid question, that was a long time ago.

“Wait, let me see,” we started searching through his files, looking for something. Eventually, we ended up in a folder, and I assume it’s his character's one from our old games.”

There it was. An old compressed file I sent him some years ago. It was not much, but it would help us.

“Here, there are a bunch of things. You did write a lot about this,” he said, looking at me.

“Wait, wait, man, your computer battery, this could be useful. Turn your computer off for now, let’s try to use it as we need.”

“Ok, good point. Although even with the computer off, the battery might not survive for long without charging,” he pointed out.

“Yes, we can think about it another time.”

I felt good after seeing the files on his computer. One thought that came to my mind was that I wouldn’t remember everything.

You see, the biggest problem about worldbuilding is that the more complex the world you build is, the more difficult for you to remember things. I think I know about the big picture of most of the large-scale events, but the details, that’s the core problem.

“Hey Erick, let’s try thinking about the big picture. We are in Auzyia as you said, do you know what era this is?” he asked me.

“I have an idea. Jopliv is young, and his body is fully preserved, so we might be in the second era. And wait… If that’s the case, things will start to escalate quickly.”

“I remember. The continent might be on the verge of a war, right?” he asked.

“Yes, I think so.”

“But ok, we are close to the end of the second era, there are some things that might work differently right now, but I’ll be honest, I cannot picture how things are. The Pactos’ moon is not there yet, so the time works differently. We don’t even have 13 heroes yet.” I continued.

“Didn’t most of the things you wrote about happen at the beginning of the first era and the middle of the third?” he pointed out.

“Hum… Yes, but I also wrote a little about this time in stories about the heroes. But a funny fact, I never wrote anything about Jopliv being in a ruin calling for a hero.”

“I believe we need to know about recent news and what they want with us. The political situation of the continent at this time is not the easiest, so let’s try to gather some information,” I said, looking at the other two. They stopped talking and were just waiting for us.

“Hey Erick, what about powers? Do you think we have something?”

“I don’t know… Looks like we just learned something to understand them, because when we arrived, they weren’t speaking our language. If we could use magic, or learn to use it, we could defend ourselves. Who knows, maybe we might even have a talent for it?” I smiled. We need optimism right now.

He smiled back, put his gear in the backpack, and got up. We were both thinking at the moment when Nikita touched my shoulder.

“Look, this situation sucks, but being here alone would be the worst, right? We ended up together, so let’s try to make things work. It’s you and me,” he says.

“I knew bringing you to this trip was the right choice,” I say as I smile and look into his eyes.

Jopliv came closer to us with soft steps. As we noticed he was getting closer, we stopped talking and turned to him.

“Are you both better? You looked tense minutes ago,” he asked.

“I think so. Being called was not something on our plans, but since we are here, what's the sudden call?” I tried to be more confident about it.

“You see, we need help containing the military tension with the Helessians, and we should help create a collision in the East. This would help us fight against the main problem, the forces of the Erlorians that are coming from the south of the High Peak. We need to stop a vampire lord called Alaric and his forces before it's too late. If those names don’t ring a bell, we can explain everything better at the city.”

“Leonia also formed a state in the northwest of the republic after killing the province governor, and late news told us that Darzen, a military commander of Alaric, is moving his soldiers to subjugate the Shaulian Duchy. As they move, they are destroying the Alyria Fores. My home,” says Melirya.

I sighted.

Alaric, the Everborn Immortal. Now this… This would be difficult.