Edited by Brett Heller

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license.

Azor steps over the twisted root of an ancient tree. Derek follows him, hopping on top and then down from the root.

The Golon strokes his chin, "You say that there are libram in your world that speak of our world as a game."

Derek walks quickly to keep up with the stone giant's stride. "Well, if by 'libram' you mean book, then yes. It is a roleplaying game called Blade and Bolt, B&B for short. Basically, people, in my world gather around a table for anywhere from three to six hours and pretend that they are controlling a character in this world. The characters are usually a rogue or a wizard or a cleric or a fighter. We tell stories together in the setting of this world, Thrycion. That's a roleplaying game. Now here is where things get sticky. The roleplaying game fans back on Earth don't know that this world is real."

"And the way that this game was created was that a Planes Walker from your world, a man called Korbach, came here and wrote down all he saw in journals and then turned those journals into a game when he returned to your world, Earth?" Azor asked.

"Korbach isn't a Planes Walker, he's just an ordinary man-"

"You mean a commoner, a peasant."

"No, Korbach's not a peasant, he has money. Well, lets say he has lots of gold but he really isn't a Duke or a Baron or anything like that. In the part of my world where I live we don't have kings or royalty and the way we buy goods is actually by trading special slips of paper."

"These slips of paper are writ with magic, I assume."

"No, magic does not exist on my world."

Azor stops and turns to face Derek. "There is no magic on your world?"

"No magic on my world. There are no sorcerers, no wizards, no clerics. No magical healing, no scrolls, no wands or magical rings."

"Then you have come to Thrycion to bring magic weapons and equipment and tomes back to your world so that you may help defend it against magically powerful planes walkers that enter your world."

"No, I am not sure if any of the magic that exists here on Thrycion would be viable on Earth. Actually, we have technology on my world - computers, guns, flying machines, spaceships, cell phones - that rivals the magic on your world."

"I see. If there are no wizards or fighters or rogues or clerics on your world and you yourself are none of those, what purpose do you serve on your world."

"Oh, ahh, well, I - I am a merchant on my world."

"What do you sell?"

"I sell, well, I sell - You know what Azor, I am many things on my world and one of them is a liar. But now I am on Thrycion and perhaps on Thrycion I can be something different. I am going to tell you the truth. On my world I sell drugs. I sell substances that are like alcohol but are much more powerful and much more damaging to people. It was not a great purpose, but I was good at it and I did make a crap ton of money. I broke the laws of my land and hurt a lot of people to do business though."

"Oh, I see. You align yourself with the spheres of evil and chaos." Azor reaches above his head and plucks a small flower from a tree limb above him and gazes at it in his palm.

"No, no. We don't have alignments on my world. We don't believe that your actions fall neatly into spheres of evil or good, law or chaos. It is more complex than that."

Azor lets the flower drop. "So your world is free of both magic and morality. Most interesting."

"Honestly, I think you would -"

A scream echoes through the forest surrounding the two. Azor waits a few seconds to isolate the direction of the noise and surges off through the trees once he is sure. Derek yankes the pistol out of his pack, drops the heavy bag to the ground and flies through branches and foliage to catch the giant. Derek jumps from a small hill crest, slides down a loose embankment of moist thick grass and follows Azor's deep clomp marks until he bursts out onto an open field. Across the field, a small village stirs with the frenzied movement of peasants and horses as they run from four minotaurs.

The minotaurs carry long curved blades and wear black leather armor. Derek watches as one of the minotaurs knocks a child from the arms of a farmer and then eviscerates the man even as the child scrabbles back toward the man. The single scream Azor and Derek heard is now a cacophony of burning thatch and sorrow and fear. Azor pounds toward the minotaur that is cutting at entrails wrapped around his hooves. Azor hits the minotaur with all the force of a fifty-foot charge and shatters its torso and shoulders. A burning hut fifteen feet behind the struck minotaur topples as it bursts through a load-bearing timber. Azor growls and unsheathes Klage and searches for his next kill.