We're Going on a Field Trip

Cain didn’t know what it would be like to step through a tear in reality, but he didn’t expect it to be quite so…violent. As he followed Rina and Finn and stepped through the portal, static ran across his skin, and he suddenly felt like his body was in a thousand different places at once. Each step he took moved him further in every direction. Cain saw himself, copied and projected both in front of him and behind him. It was nauseating, but this paled in comparison to what he went through when he was first summoned. Cain’s body flickered and flashed as he approached what looked like an exit. And then, the portal spat him out onto solid ground, not giving him the dignity of landing on his feet. As he shook off the headache the short journey had given him, Cain looked up to see Paradox sprawling before him.

Rina and Finn stepped through the other side of the portal, while Cain simply flopped onto the rocky ground like a dead fish. A cavern stretched out in front of the portal’s exit for miles, filled with the ramshackle foundations of a civilization clinging to life. Pale veins of energy ran across the cavern’s walls like spider webs, blanketing the city below with a faint white light. Buildings both old and new covered the landscape under the hill where the portal’s exit point was. Floating lanterns patterned with glyphs of all shapes and colors filled the air, carrying the hopes of salvation of both children and elders alike. Cain wasn’t sure what he expected from a refugee city in a mystical pocket dimension, but the sight before him certainly wouldn’t have been in his top five guesses.

“Woah…” Cain gazed out over the cavernous city in awe, “What…is all of this?”

“Yeah, that’s about how I reacted the first time too.” Finn remarked, walking past Cain onto a path that led below, “Everything you see before you is the courtesy of our chief scholar and resident manasketch expert, Lord Gideon Saffronous the Extensively Knowledgeable."

“Try to keep up, Cain. It’s not a good idea to get lost here. We’ll explain more on the way. Oh! Put this on too.” Rina said as she gave Cain a bump on the shoulder, handing him a dark hooded cloak.

Cain quickly threw the cloak over his shoulders and followed after Rina and Finn, who had already donned cloaks of their own.

The path down to the city was somewhat barren, all things considered. Cain expected at least a little security for the portal to keep people from going in and out of the MOLE when they pleased, but there were no guards or barricades to speak of. It was odd, to say the least. As they approached the city however, it soon became apparent as to why. At the end of the path from the portal, Cain walked into something that felt a lot like one of those plastic wrap traps he and his friends had used to prank a teacher once. While Rina and Finn seemed to walk through it effortlessly, it took Cain a few moments of pushing to finally break through. On the other side, the invisible barrier gave way to the bustling streets just beyond it.

The cobbled streets of the city echoed with the footsteps of the many and varied refugees that inhabited them. Humans like Valerie and Cain walked the streets and tended some of the market stalls, one of the most numerous groups of people by far. A few Wyrmbloods like Rina passed by, their draconic scales and horns glistened in the cavern’s pale light, tails swishing behind them. A Yotun similar to Gunnar lumbered through the street’s small crowd, ducking to avoid clipping a lantern with his ox-like horns. A group of Wanoggi stood at a market stall, their metal feathers clanking as they each tried to bargain with the shopkeep. A couple of people with features similar to Shadra sat on a few crates in an alleyway playing a card game of some kind. Umbrans, Cain remembered they were called. As they walked through Paradox, Cain noticed many of the enigmatic Wildfolk—animalistic humanoids like Finn, such as a bobcat man and a deer woman. Even a few types of people Cain had only heard stories from Rina about dotted the streets and alleyways. A pair of Nefila walked hand in hand, one had an intricate halo floating above his head, while the other simply had curved horns and a long, spindly tail trailing after her. Their angelic and demonic ancestries mixed in their facial features both uncannily and beautifully. Last but not least came the Maccos: short, goblin-like plant creatures only a few feet tall that darted between the legs of other pedestrians like unsupervised children. Vines, bark, and roots made up their bodies and delicately carved masks covered their faces, each painted with glyphs so intricate Cain couldn’t even begin to understand what they were supposed to represent. Paradox was a melting pot in the truest sense of the phrase.

“This place is crazy.” Cain breathed, trying to stick close to Rina and Finn in the crowd. “There’s so many different kinds of people here.”

“Paradox doesn’t care who you are or where you came from.” Rina stated, a wistful look in her eye. “As long as you’ve lost your place to belong, it’ll welcome you with open arms.”

Finn simply chuckled. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, man. We’re headed to the market district to try to find a lead. We’ll be passing by one of the big cultural hubs, ‘The Resting Place’, on the way. Now that is something I can’t wait for you to see.”

“Why the market district?” Cain quizzed. “Wouldn’t it be better to just ask around?”

Rina spoke up with a small grunt as she bumped into Cain after someone pushed past her. “You might not think it at first, but folks here tend to be pretty tightly knit, everyone having lost something and all that. Nobody would be too eager to sell out a friend or neighbor if we just started asking questions. We’ve gotta be a little more subtle about it.”

“By checking the market district to see if any of our missing supplies are on sale?” guessed Cain.

“Exactly! You catch on fast.” Rina remarked, tossing him a wink.

“What kinds of supplies are we looking for anyways?” inquired Finn as he turned a corner.

“From what I understand,” Rina answered, “it was mostly just food and medical supplies. It makes me wonder if we’re actually dealing with someone doing it out of malice or not. Finn, do you remember that group of troublemakers from Lomen that we took in about a month back?”

“Yeah, why? Do you think those might be our guys?”

Rina didn’t say anything, but her thought process was clear with the thoughtful look she donned as they continued walking past darkened buildings.

Cain pondered what Rina mentioned for a moment, then spoke up. “Wait, why would they need to steal food and medical supplies? Do they not get enough here?”

Rina was silent for a few moments before sighing and opening her mouth. “We…We try to give them everything we can spare. Food, medical supplies, clothes, building materials…but with the world becoming less and less habitable, there’s less and less we can find to give them. I guess it’s no surprise that someone would try to steal some of what we have if they felt they didn’t have enough.”

“Still,” Finn added, “it’s not like we can just let ‘em have it.”

The three went silent as they continued moving through the streets of Paradox, but Cain couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt as he thought back to the relatively lavish meals he’d been stuffing himself with for the past week. He wondered if there was anything he could do to help improve the conditions here. Before long, the run-down buildings began to become more sparse, and the pathway opened up into something akin to a park.

This place stood in stark contrast to the bustling streets that comprised everything Cain knew about Paradox until now. People sat meditating, in prayer, or simply resting on the carved stone floor. Four elegant statues sprouted up in the four corners of this peaceful place, each drawing in a number of people for prayer and reverence. Incense wafted through the still, calm air from all directions. The Resting Place was an apt name for this little slice of paradise, Cain thought.

“What are those four statues of?” he asked quietly, trying to avoid disturbing the surrounding people.

“Those are the guardian deities of Ranael.” Rina answered with a whisper, “Dangan, god of mortals. Mensa, god of beasts and dragons. Algo, god of the aureoles, spirits, and malignancies. And Jezha, god of the lost and forgotten.”

“Most people lost faith in the gods after the Bottomless invaded, but a few still believe despite it all.” Finn murmured, motioning for the other two to keep moving.

Cain stole one last look at the Resting Place before they continued on to the market district. It was a melancholy sight, seeing all these people so peaceful and complacent despite their living conditions. Were things really no different in this world than they were back on Earth?

Luckily, Cain didn’t have too much time to dwell on it as the market district was only a few minutes away from the Resting Place. The crowds from before soon returned to the stone-paved walkways as Cain and company entered the market district, perhaps even a bit more lively than earlier. Stalls opened and shut as vendors all over both sold out of their product and opened for the day. Mobs of people gathered around shouting salespeople trying to bargain for the last of their stock.

“Now,” Finn said, dragging the other two into a nearby alleyway, “we wait, and we watch.”

The impromptu stakeout that followed stretched on for what felt like eons, with a level of boredom to rival its length. The three took shifts watching the stalls for any suspicious activity. While Finn was on duty, Rina and Cain discussed Paradox and the thieves. Finn just observed the market, fiddling with his locket as he watched.

“So if the path to the portal is hidden, how did the thieves find it?” Cain wondered.

“Not only is it hidden,” Rina clarified, “it changes locations every day. The only way I can think of for someone to be able to coordinate a heist would be if someone found the entrance by accident, hid on the portal side until they were ready, then led the collaborators through to the other side. And it would have all had to happen while we were busy with the mission in Avcad when no one was watching the other side of the portal. Regardless of how they did it, we have to be careful. We don’t know their motives or the full extent of their methods, so we need to treat them like they’re a threat..”

“And what happens if it turns out they stole it because they needed it?”

“I…I’m not-” Rina stuttered.

“Hey, you two, I think I’ve hit the jackpot.” Finn interrupted, pointing towards a stall in the back corner of the market.

A cloaked figure with a hand cart stood at the stall, just out of earshot, discussing something with the man tending the stall. Coins exchanged hands as a deal appeared to be made, and the cloaked figure handed over a small box of something. They then grabbed the cart and strolled away from the market district. As they passed, Cain caught the tiniest glimpse of a crate covered in a tarp, the same mark from Valerie’s flag emblazoned on its side. Last Bastion’s emblem, plain as day.

Finn turned back to the other two with a sly grin and pulled his flask from his jacket. “Looks like we’ve got a lead. Anybody want a drink for the road?”