A Little Farm in the Middle of Nowhere

“Haha… haaah…”

For a moment, Berus didn’t know where he was. He knew his face was buried into soft, damp soil, and a pleasant breeze went over him. Somewhere in the distance, he heard birdsong and the clucks of chicken.

Strange, he thought. My body feels… stiff.

It took another moment to remember that he was not in his original body, but still trapped inside the automaton.

“Urgh!”

He sat up and scanned his surroundings.

“Took you long enough,” Ki-Rai spat at him. “I was sooo bored while you were gone.”

She giggled. “But seeing you face-plant like that was priceless. I’ve recorded the memory for my collection, hehe.”

“Glad to see you’re doing well,” he grumbled.

Then he noticed Mikkah, laying next to him on the ground. Her hair fanned out, streaked with mud and draped like spiderwebs over her tunic and upper arms. There were some scratches he could see, and in some places her tunic was worn, but all in all she looked better than he had anticipated. She let out a soft whine. Berus forced his body to move, and gently poked her side.

“Mikkah? Are you alright?”

“No, of course not,” she groaned. “I am not alright. Everything hurts!”

Relief flooded him, resulting in a laugh. “Well, if you can complain like that, it can’t be so bad.”

“Not so bad? I’ll be black and blue tomorrow,” she grumbled. “Who would trust an elf with full-body bruises?”

“You can be happy you didn’t break anything.”

He meant it. They had been extremely lucky with their plunge towards the shard. Her parachute was broken, with pieces of singed fabric lying all around them. His own body felt as if he had fallen through a net of electric fences. And as he looked at his own status, he could clearly see why. No part of his body was unscathed, but thankfully it remained fully useable. Whatever repair magic Mikkah had worked in the temple probably saved him.

“Just where are we?” Mikkah wondered. “I’ve never seen this place before.”

Berus wondered the same. He had visited this world shard many times before in the game, but this place was completely new to him. A big piece of grassland stretched into all directions. To his right, he could see the edge of the shard, dropping down into the abyss. On the other side, a thick forest obscured his view. And they were caught right in the middle.

Now that he thought back on it, he remembered that he had steered towards a little farm. This must be the place, then, for he could see a cute little farmhouse in the distance. It was small, smaller than the house his family used to have, made with red bricks and a thatched roof. From the chimney, dark smoke gently danced through the air. The windows were adorned with flower pots, and on one side emerald ivy grew so high it touched the roof.

Around the house were small fields where vegetables and fruit were grown, and the magical sprinkles in the middle of each field sparkled golden in the sunlight. A small river snaked close to the fields, and behind the house he could see a flock of chicken and geese.

It was surprisingly peaceful here. Really, aside from player-made houses, he couldn’t think of a more cozy and peaceful place in the game.

But something about it felt off to him. Just like when he first met Mikkah, his gut told him not to trust his first impression. Why was there no path to or from the farm? There had to be visitors, or whoever lived here -- and clearly, someone took care of this little farm -- had to go to a bigger village at least often enough to build a little trail.

Even more suspicious was the circle of stone monoliths around the farm. They were set deep into the earth, and the purple-gray color of the stone itself was contrasted by deep golden lines chiseled into them. In the middle of each stone hovered a golden sphere, held up by magic. He had never seen something like that before, but they were definitely magical. It could be something like a spell to keep good weather, or maybe make the soil extra fertile. But for some reason, he believed they were more sinister.

“Hey, Ki-Rai.”

“Hmmm?”

“Can you analyse those stones?”

“I told you not to treat me like your personal assistant, keh.” Still, she floated closer to the nearest stone. “But they are interesting… Huh. Hm. I actually can’t decipher the magic woven into them.”

“Hmmm.” He turned around. “Mikkah? What about you? Can you-”

“Berus!” She looked at him with despair in her eyes. “I think we trashed their pumpkin crop.”

She gestured to the crater his body had left. And yes, now that she mentioned it, he could see the remains of pumpkin shells, though most of it had already mixed well with the soil.

“Oh, shoot. Hm.” He crossed his arms. “What do we do now?”

“We have to apologize to the farmers. We’re here to help people, not to destroy their crops, by Lucine.”

“Yes. I mean, we didn’t do it on purpose, but you’re right. Maybe we can compensate them?”

She huffed. “I don’t have any money. And I doubt you have something valuable for farmers on you, either.”

“Hey, I can work, at least.”

“But we’re not here to stall. We should be on our way, and…”

He nodded. “Alright. We find them, we apologize, we go. Sounds good?”

“Sounds good.” Mikkah let out a sigh. “At least this can’t get any worse.”

They had shaken off both the Stalker Demon as well as the dragon. Apologizing to some farmers was nothing in comparison to that. Mikkah straightened and fixed both her elven ears and her hair.

“Try to look as much as a holy knight as you can, okay? We don’t want to scare them.”

“Uh, sure.”

He thought back to the Berus he knew from the game. What could he do now to look more like him? He was missing a good, big sword and a billowing cape. But at least he could clean the muck off of his armor. Maybe it was good that he was unarmed. That would be less intimidating, right?

Together, they walked over to the house. No one came out of it, and they couldn’t see any movements through the windows. Mikkah knocked against the door, from which a handmade flower wreath hung.

“Hello?” She called out.

But even after several knocks and calls, nobody answered. They exchanged a glance.

“We should enter,” she finally said. “What if they’re in trouble?”

“You’re right. After all, we were pretty loud with our crash.”

Slowly, she opened the door. On the inside, the little farm house was just as cute and cozy as from the outside.

“Hello? Is somebody there?”

But no one answered. The hearty smell of warm soup hit their nose, and as they entered the kitchen, they could see the small pot in which a carrot soup bubbled slowly. A little wooden cutting board, still full with carrot skins and other vegetable scraps, sat next to the mana crystal-powered stove. On the little table in the middle of the kitchen were a lot of hand-cut flowers from the garden, with a still empty vase right next to it. It looked like the inhabitants had left in a hurry.

“We are sorry that we crashed… I mean, we fell into your garden. It was not our intention, and we are terribly sorry!”

Berus followed her silently as they looked around the house. His feeling that something was off only got worse. This was wrong. It was too peaceful, and on the other hand, brought up too many questions. What was going on with the weird stones outside? Why were there no trails? And why did the people here hide instead of checking what was going on, if this was really such a nice and peaceful place?

“Huh.” Mikkah whispered, and tilted her head. “My mecha… my elven sense tells me something is off with this closet. No, the whole room. It’s too small.”
He nodded. “They’re in there?”
“Probably.”

She walked forward to open the closet, but he held her back. Instead, he was the one that grabbed the door handles and threw it open. He had made the right call, for he was greeted with the tip of a sword which slashed right over his metal throat.