Unwilling Eldritch Horror of Fortune

Things calmed down, relatively speaking, once we were in the air and the horrible shaking of the dragon minimized. Things got bumpy when the massive creature took to the skies, lift off was not a smooth affair when our ride had to use wings to do so. Vadeem seemed like he would have a heart attack every time the cabin shook, and it took the concentrated efforts of the twins to ease the man’s suffering before he destroyed the whole cabin.

Honestly, I’m pretty sure that Vadeem would do more damage to the Earth than it would to him if he ever fell from the sky. I could see him cosplay as the meteor that ended the dinosaurs if he turned titan sized in his descent, although I didn’t share this little nugget of information with the big man himself. We all allowed him to suffer in peace. Even Noel was uncharacteristically quiet when she saw him like that.

At least Vadeem managed to regain some of his composure once we reached cruising altitude. I wasn’t sure exactly how far up that was, but it must have been a lot lower than the standard 30,000 feet for modern airplanes, after all, we weren’t freezing to death so far. The added benefit was that we were still below most of the clouds, so the view from the windows was gorgeous.

Once we all felt safe, our group of seven naturally splintered off into two sections. Noel, Vadeem and the twins sat in a back corner, away from windows, and were playing a board game that the redhead had purchased. It seemed to help with the big man’s nerves, having something to focus his mind on.

That left me with Yoona and her taciturn brother for company. Kind of reminded me of when we first met, way back in that zombie hellscape. It hadn’t been that long since we first met, relatively speaking, but after everything that we've been through, it felt like I’ve known them for a lot longer.

The cabin area was spacious enough to house all of us comfortably, and even had various comfortable seats and tables around for us to use. I had underestimated the size of the place when I first saw it, thinking it was only the size of a bus, but it was a lot larger. Nestled in the back were some small bunking areas where we could rest, a singular toilet was also there, while the rest of the area provided plenty of space to walk around in.

Naturally, the first thing that I did was to go to the front where I could take a proper view of the land around us. Out in the front was a little patio-like area where you could enjoy the fresh air. The observation deck was small, maybe just a few feet in all directions, but there was more than enough room for me and the three others to all enjoy the wind and fresh air. I was joined by Yoona and her brother.

“Quite the view, isn’t it, Walter?” Yoona whispered as she gazed into the distance, “I never thought I’d see something like this in my lifetime.”

I glanced down at the beautiful landscape before me and agreed. It’s probably impossible to see such clean ecosystems devoid of the corrupting influence of humanity anywhere else, and just seeing nature run its course was beautiful.

“Yeah…” I muttered, “It really hits you that you’re not on Earth anymore.”

Yoona chuckled, “And the zombies didn’t tell you that before?”

I laughed back, “Well, not in the good way at least. It’s been one horror after another since we all got sent here, guess we never saw the beauty before.”

“Those last few trials feel like a lifetime ago,” she smiled, “I like it here, with everyone helping out. It's nice to feel like I belong to something larger than myself.”

I nodded. I can start to see why the Regressor wanted to keep the shady sides of his operations a secret now. With how absolutely messed up our guild was becoming, I think we all needed someone like Yoona to keep things in balance. We all needed a little light in this new world.

I gazed down below for a bit longer, enjoying the breeze in my hair, “So where are we going that needs us to get there by dragon? I know that I said I had a lot of money, but this must be pretty expensive to rent.”

Jae-Hyun moved over and leaned on the railings by his sister, I think he was also enjoying the rare moment of calm.

“You’ll see,” he said simply, “And we need to get there by air because we can’t reach it by land.”

I sighed. I hated how the man would never just tell us things straight up. Would it kill him to just let us know ahead of time, or was looking at us squirm in anticipation the only form of entertainment left to him?

“Fine,” I grumbled, “but at least tell us how long it’ll be. I think Vadeem will have an aneurysm if we don’t get down to the ground soon.”

“Vadeem will be fine,” Jae-Hyun answered, “the priest gave us some of his own medication we can use on him.”

“Oh,” Yoona answered innocently, “That’s very kind of him!”

Oh how I wish I had less Charisma at times like these and saw the creepy man in the same way that Yoona did. I don’t think I’d trust anything that the came from Father Marcus' own stash of goodies, but at least Vadeem’s in the same boat as her, so whatever undoubtedly horrible cure the priest gives won’t look so bad on his end.

The Regressor nodded in thanks and continued, “It will take us maybe a full day’s trip, depending on the weather. No more than a day and a half.”

Well, that’s not too long in any case, although wherever he was taking us sure was far given how fast we were going. Of course, Noe’s still upgrading, and that won’t end for another week at least, so I’ll have to get through whatever the Regressor has in store for us by myself.

But that’s a worry for future-Walter. Now-Walter will relax and just look at the pretty scenery and not dread what's to come. The various hills and rivers were passing by our dragon quite quickly, and I even saw a few small village settlements down below.

“Say,” I said, now that a new thought hit me, “I never had the chance to ask, but just how big is this place they’ve thrown us into? Actually, just where are we anyway?”

Jae-Hyun smiled, “I was wondering when you would ask that.”

Noel and Vadeem heard the conversation and stopped their board game to hear his explanation as well. Although Vadeem stayed as far back as he could in his case.

“Yeah,” Noel added, “Never thought about it, but we’ve been flying for a while, so this place must be pretty expansive. This whole world can’t all be run by those creeps, right?”

The Regressor shook his head, “No, the people in charge of the Trials did not make this place they call the Main Stage from scratch, nor do they control every facet of its operations. But they are the ones with the most power here.”

“Makes sense,” I said, then remembered all the budget cuts that Q was complaining about, “I’m pretty sure not even these mysterious kidnappers could fully control a whole world. Still, what is this place we’re in? I’m seeing medieval villages below, but we also got the strange urban stuff near our base. That can’t be natural.”

“And you’ll see even stranger things as we go further from Pandora,” Jae-Hyun continued, “You can think of the world that we’re in now a patchwork planet of sorts.”

“So like what, a bunch of smaller worlds all smushed together and made into one big world?”

“Something like that, it’s why Pandora’s the way it is,” he answered, “I don’t know the exact details myself, but I know that the Main Stage is huge and you can find practically anything here. It’s also more or less completely governed by the System.”

“So is this whole place the exclusive use for the Aspirants?” Noel asked, “Cause that’d be a little lonely if this place is so big, reminds me of that stupid zombie city.”

“No,” Jae-Hyun shook his head, “There’s locals here as well, but they tend to stay away from where the Aspirants are. Remember that there’s other towns out there where others are going through similar experiences, and not all of them are human. We aren’t the only people they took.”

Noel’s eyes went wide open, “So you mean Raffiel and his crew kidnapped aliens as well? Oh my god, I’ve always wanted to meet an alien!”

Yoona sighed, “It’s not all good news, Noel. My brother said that it’s pretty hostile out there, but the um, aliens are far away enough that we won’t see them for a while longer.”

“Aw,” Noel pouted, “I wanted to see an alien, or at least fight one! But aren’t you curious about what an actual alien would look like?”

Yoona hesitated a little, but Noel’s enthusiasm was infectious, and soon the two girls were discussing all the possibilities about what an alien would look like. Even Vadeem joined in a few times, while the twins were listening in with fervor. I drowned out the noise as best I could, I had other things to contemplate.

I was having a hard time trying to picture how everything slotted into place. There were still so many questions left unanswered. Was this main stage the location where all the Aspirants gather, regardless of which Site they belong to? It wouldn’t be impossible if Central had control over the timelines of various other sites, but I doubt that Aspirants from other dimensions would also gather here. If that were the case, then this place would have to go on near forever, and I can’t imagine how Central could keep that much chaos all contained.

So that probably means that the Main Stage, or at least our Main Stage, was local to this dimension or maybe some adjacent ones. But if that was the case, then was it the Overseer who was responsible for all the Aspirants? No, that can’t be the case, he barely seemed to care about how we were doing when I met the man, and was probably too busy with whatever war was going on.

So that meant that someone else was in charge of the Main Stage’s operations. I’ll have to confirm all of this when I see Q again, maybe this is the angle that I can approach to get the man’s job back, and get rid of that piece of shit Overseer. I’ll need powerful allies for that, and perhaps I can leverage my status as the Legendary Arbiter W to see if I can’t worm my way into the good graces of whoever’s in charge.

I smiled, this is the start that I needed.

“All of that will only matter in the far future,” Jae-Hyun said, “For now, get some rest. We’ll be busy once we land.”

The others agreed, Vadeem especially so as he quickly went back to his little corner away from the exposed elements. The other three followed him and they continued with their board game, while the Regressor went back inside the cabin to do whatever it was he did in his spare time. It seemed like a lot of planning and brooding, but what did I know?

Yoona stayed for a little longer before heading inside. I stayed out there for a long time, just gazing at the distant horizon, before hunger finally got the better of me and I went inside to join the others.

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