The Truth of the Gospel

I can’t believe I didn’t know what catching a carpet meant! It was a flying carpet. I gave the driver the coordinates and he took out this GPS like magic tablet with a map and all. “It will cost you one silver”

“No problem. As long as you step on it”

“What?”

“Eh… I mean, as long as you fly quickly. I’m in a hurry.”

“I fly as fast as I can, lady” The pilot said, insulted.

“Sorry.”

I gave him the silver and sat criss-cross applesauce as he started flying. It was a real treat. I felt the wind in my hair, and not for a single second felt unsafe or like I was going to be swept away, no matter how strong the wind became. Gee. Worked like a charm.

The pilot dropped me off in a forest clearing where a woman was waiting for me. She was covered from head to toe in light blue, but the hood of her robe was down. She was blond, with long hair and piercing green eyes. She was rail thin and had long ears. I guess this is what Alina meant by elf. I was thinking of Santa’s little helpers. She was quite pale and had a stunning face, even though at that moment it was scrunched with anger.

“Who are you?” She asked me with a suspicious look.

“Alina” I answered. What? How does she know?

“Even Alina’s mana is not so dense. Her mana is yellow while yours is white. Don’t tell me you took a boosting potion” She said with disdain. What’s a mana? What’s a boosting potion? More things I needed to figure out. The angel sent me to such a foreign place.

From her tone, I thought drinking a boosting potion was a bad idea, so I said “No. I’d never do such a thing” I hoped I didn’t. I didn’t think I would. Unless Coffee with a ton of sweetner was a type of boosting potion.

Was I lying to her? I didn’t even know. I can’t count the number of lies I’ve told since coming to this world. Am I really respecting Alina’s path, or am I just weaving a complicated web of lies?

“Anyway, you’re late” she said angrily.

“I apologize. Something came up.” Alina wouldn’t share what she did. She was mysterious.

“If you think I’ll forgive you this easily,” she started, but couldn’t finish the sentence. “Ok. If you can actually help me, I’ll join your platoon.”

“I knew you were a smart cookie,” I said haughtily. Alina was definitely Haughty.

“Is this all a game for you?” the elf said exasperated.

I didn’t answer. Alina knew when to remain silent.

“Come with me,” she said and started walking. She didn’t even look back to see if I was following.

She walked quickly, but she didn’t run. Seems like we were in a hurry, maybe I shouldn’t have been late?

There were spots where she stopped to look at the ground, like some tracker from a movie, but there were no discernible tracks to me, so I was wondering what she was doing. Were these tracks that I just couldn’t see? Something else? She was an earth mage. Maybe the earth talked to her, or something? Could the earth talk? I wasn’t sure of anything, but I didn’t want to ask, in case Alina was supposed to know.

After about thirty minutes of walking, she took out her staff out of nowhere and gave me a look. After a moment, I realized she was expecting me to take out my weapons, so I unsheathed the sword and drew the pistol. The sword was in my right hand, and the pistol in my left. I felt this is how Alina did it. It suddenly struck me, we were about to do something dangerous. Alina was a fighter, but I was bearly a highschool graduate. I couldn’t make a sound and the elf didn’t even look my way, she just resumed walking quickly.

I continued following her until she stopped and started prowling at a snail’s pace. I noticed it was quiet. Silent. There were no animal sounds in the forest. This was bad. I didn’t need to be Crocodile Dundee to know that if the animals don’t want to go somewhere, there was something dangerous there. The elf’s every step seemed calculated. She walked in a weird pattern, and I tried following in her exact footsteps. Our steps were quieter than usual, so it must have worked. Moments later, we reached a large clearing where a bear was laying down. The bear was brown, and looked to be at least two stories tall. Maybe larger than my parent’s house in Arizona.

What would Alina do? She would go to battle with relish. She’d say something like “I hope you can keep up”. She’d have this smug smile. So when I tried saying it in my Alina voice, I ended up choking up like the Maria I was. I was terrified. Those action-hero lines I was using to pretend to be Alina suddenly all disappeared in front of my eyes. In front of this bear. This monster. Maybe Alina could give it a fair match, but I, Maria, could only die. “Wait,” I finally managed to say in an unsteady voice. “I can’t do it”

“What do you mean? Are you chickening out? We’re already here. You promised you’d help me with this beast that’s been terrorizing my village, Alina. You don’t want my help? Prove to me that you deserve it,” the elf said in a staccato whisper.

“I don’t deserve it. I’m not Alina” I said, I could hear the panic in my own voice.

“What? Who are you? I know something was wrong with you. Imposter!” She whispered in anger.

She started to do something, maybe cast a spell, when I whispered “Wait, I can explain. Alina died!”

“Did you kill her and took over her body?”

“No. She died of a disease. It’s more complicated. Please, don’t kill me.” I begged her. My pathetic demeaner seemed to have cooled her down and she pointed her staff at the forest floor.

“Let’s get away from here. When we’re safe, I think I’m owed an explanation. Or, more like, you’ll give me one, or I’ll kill you”

She started to retreat back to the place from whence we came, but our whispers may have been too loud, because it seemed like the bear was looking our way. It didn’t move, it just watched us. I remembered that when you meet a bear you have to make yourself look as big as possible. Wait, was that all bears? Weren’t you supposed to play dead if a bear approached you? Or climb a tree? Well, even if I wanted to look big or climb a tree, I would definitely not look as big as this bear, or be out of its reach anywhere. Maybe playing dead was the right thing? I kept retreating after the blonde elf, but a moment later I stepped on a twig that cracked loudly, like some cliché, and the bear simply roared.

The mage started running. She was so athletic, I couldn’t help but think. I wasn’t the worst at track at my high school, and Alina seemed to be in an even better shape than me, but this woman was leagues above me. I could hardly keep up. The bear, seeing us running like that, decided to take us more seriously and started running himself. I was sure he’d catch us within seconds.

“Please help me!” I screamed.

She looked at me and I could see that when she looked at my face something stirred in her, because her stren frown was broken and I could see the compassion in her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m going to waste this for an imposter!” She screamed and stopped. “Get here and hold me with all your might. We have to be touching when I do this.” She took out something, a stick? And held it with both hands. I gave the last few steps my all. My lungs were burning with the exertion When I reached close enough I jumped on her, as if I was tackling her. I didn’t know if that was the right thing to do, but I was desperate. As I put my hands around her, she broke the stick and the world… wobbled.

I found myself in a cave, with the elf under me. My leg was between hers and my right hand was touching something soft and delightful. Wow, I was touching her breast.

“Now I’m not sure. Are you Alina? She’s exactly the kind of woman to use teleportation to touch my breast.” She said with amusement mixed with something I couldn’t put my finger on.

“I’m sorry!” I said in the most apologetic tone I could muster. “I didn’t mean to”.

“So, why don’t you… remove your hand?”

“Right,” I said. I moved my hand away. I felt doubly guilty for thinking her chest was bigger than I thought it would be under her robes, and how great it felt.

“Now, do you want to explain why you almost killed us both?” She asked in a cool tone. “Or… Give me a moment,” she mumbled a few of words and the earth did something. I could see white light pouring from her staff towards the earth, and the earth sent her back something brown and green. “Now you cannot lie.” She gave me a toothy smile.

For the next hour I explained everything. How I came from another world, how both Alina and I died at the same time. I told her my life story, about the angel, about how out of a feeling of obligation towards Alina I decided to live her life the same way she would. “Anyway, the reason I was late was that I released a woman who was a slave in the Inn I’m staying at. I mean, Alina stays at.”

“I have no doubt about it, I certainly know you’re not Alina. She would never release a slave. At best, she would have bought her if she liked her enough.”

“Did you know her well?” I asked, curious.

“No. Not well. We worked together a couple of times, and I met many Babylonian officers. They are fucked up people. Did you know that Babylon prohibits slavery?”

“So why would a Babylonian officer buy a slave in Italy?”

“Italy? That’s a really old name.”

“Oh, I meant Etruscia. It’s called Italy in my world.”

“Because they can. In the ‘territories’, which is what Babylonians call all of the vassal states and colonies they have, they let them have their own laws, at least at first, so they come here to do all sorts of degenerate things”

“That’s terrible. And how do you know Alina was like that? You know, in my world they also abolished slavery a long time ago. Some people wanted to keep having slaves, but many people found the idea to be disgusting and fought against the slave owners.” I don’t know why, but I was defensive about Alina, even though I also wasn’t sure if she was going to do anything for Julia.

“I guess I don’t know. Maybe she would have set her free,” the elf said quietly. “She was going to make me her lover. She was aggressive about it. I knew she was using me, though. I’m not an idiot. She wanted me to join the Babylonian army. You know, I’m quite famous where I’m from.”

“I thought you were from here. You talked about your village.” My tone was curious.

She chuckled. “I’m not from here. Etruscia has no elves,” she pointed at her ears. “I’m from a place called Wales. I made a lot of trouble and they sent one of the most powerful wizards in the world to take care of me. I, personally, saw it as a compliment,” she smiled. “At least, until he wiped the floor with me. They let me go in the end. To escape. It would be more accurate to say I was exiled.” She said all of this with a sardonic voice. “But I matured. I realized you can’t change the world. I chose to live here in a small nameless village, and protect it. I did that for a little while, maybe a hundred years.” With what casual tone she talked about a whole lifetime.

“And you were going to go with her? She sounds like a wicked woman”

“Maybe she’s not as bad as I made her out to be.” She was suddenly defensive about Alina herself. “Besides, I was going to use her as well. I was going to enlist anyway and I wanted her to help me with this bear. Besides, I was getting lonely in this village. It’s hard to treat the mysterious and powerful protector of your village as a woman. Most of these kids see me as their guardian” She eyed me up and down and after a moment said “You have to admit that Alina is one fine specimen. She’s maybe the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” Her face was flushed when she said the last sentence.

“Yeah. Me too. We look pretty similar. If you would have seen the real me you would just think I was her uglier sister.” I said somberly. “The first time I saw ‘myself’ in the mirror I was startled.”

“Go to sleep,” she said finally. “We’ll get out of here tomorrow. I’m not angry at you. You can go your own way and I’ll hire some mercenaries to help me.”

I went to sleep, dreaming of Alina’s life.

The morning after I suddenly recalled the elf’s name, though it was never written or spoken to me. It was Morgan. She woke me up. “It’s not good.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“It found us.” She said. I didn’t need to ask what ‘it’ was.

She looked grim, but not scared. I assumed we weren’t in immediate danger. “Can we just do that thing you did? With the stick? And teleport somewhere else?”

“No. I can’t do that. The stick was a magic escape item. It was my last one.”

“So… what are we going to do?” I asked.

“I think we can wait it out. We have some rations. It may take days, since the bear is persistent, but I’m sure we’ll be able to leave soon.”

It felt funny to ask her in this situation, but since she was basically stuck here with me, I simply asked: “If we’re here, and you’re the only person who knows about me. Could you explain how this world works?”

“I can try” she answered, seemingly not bothered by my question. “Can you share your status?”

“How do I do that?” I asked, but I already knew, instinctively. I shared my status with her.

“Hey, don’t share everything! I don’t want to go into your life. Share the first page!” She said with her eyes closed, facing away from the status window, with a hand obscuring it. It was as if she was trying not to peep on me in the shower.

Overview | Locked | Locked | Locked | Locked

Name: Alina Ashburn

Class: Spellsword

Profession: Lieutenant, Locked

Level: 2

Nobility: You are the heiress of an Earl.

Strength: 12

Intelligence: 14

Dexterity: 14

Constitution: 9

Wisdon: 8

Charisma: 18

Affinities: Lightning, space

Spells: Mana Charging, Mana Shield, Misty Step

Skills: Appraisal, Mana Sense, Decode (Babylonian Cypher), Share Mana

Weapon Arts: Sword, Spear, Shield, Dagger, Pistol

She read over the status screen livetweeting everything. “You’re just level two? I thought Alina was level 5. Well… you have those attributes. Those are not level two attributes. And three spells? Wow, showing you Babylonian privilege much? I only had one when I was level two. Now at level five I only have ten. Oh ,well. I always knew Alina was strong.”

She continued. “Ok, so you see these attributes above? These range from three to eighteen.”

“What? That sounds arbitrary”

“Yeah, I know. I don’t know why that is. I’ve seen people with less or more, but it’s about the limit of what’s humanly possible.” Se looked puzzled. “You have eighteen charisma. That explains so much. You are one of the most beautiful women in the entire world. Your beauty is only rivaled by the fae and the gods. But looks isn’t the only thing influenced by high charisma. People would find you convincing even when you’re full of shit. Maybe this is reason I thought a nineteen year old would be level five. People wouldn’t suspect you easily, and would probably follow your commands.” she paused. “This must have been why I was so tempted by you. I mean, by her.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Anyway, do you see these spells? If you concentrate on them you’d see more information. It will give you a sense of how to cast them. It usually happens the other way around where you learn to cast the spells and the system eventually bridges the gap, but you can also do it the opposite way. Most likely, Alina did learn the old fashioned way, but don’t worry about it.”

I did what she asked and read what every spell did. The descriptions were long so I’ll just simplify it here.

Mana Charging charges energy into an object. It could be anything, but people usually charge their weapons. If the object isn’t suited for it it can explode in one’s hands. I think Alina mostly charged her sword with electricity, but she was also developing using space-mana. One of her affinities. It was very abstract (that’s what Morgan said) and I felt like Alina was frustrated with it, but maybe close to a breakthrough. It had many uses, including teleportation at higher levels.

Mana Shield was a weightless shield that I could summon to my left arm. It could stop physical and magical attacks, but it was more effective against magical attacks.

Misty Step was a short range teleportation. I felt like Alina had some sort of trick with it. She was more proficient with it than other mages, but I didn’t really know how.

I sort of understood how to cast the spells, and I managed to practice a little. It was incredibly easy. I just said a few words and it worked.

“You’re not bad. I saw Alina use a few of these spells and you’re about as good as her. I’d say your shield may even be better than hers. Its edges are somehow more solid. That doesn’t mean that you should try to block with the rim, a rule for warriors is that you always want the attack to hit the middle of the shield. I know it’s not intuitive. The middle is where your forearm is located. You may be afraid of what would happen to your arm if the shield ends up failing. but if it’s a spell that can break your shield where it’s hardest, you’re already screwed. You better off simply running away.

When I cast the spells I had to move my finger and I felt like it might not be that easy to do during combat, especially with my left hand. Alina held the pistol in her left hand and also cast magic spells at the same time.

I also worked on the skills in the same way. I needed to concentrate on them. It turns out that skill that lets you understand things if you focus on them is called Appraisal. Morgan also let me appraise her.

Name: Morgan Le Fay

Class: Druid

Level: 5

Her name reminded me of a Hallmark movie I saw once with my older brother, but I didn’t dare ask her anything about it.

Afterwards I activated Mana Sense, and it looked like I was looking at the world with AR glasses. It overlaid everything with interesting colors moving around from place to place. It turns out that this skill also works passively. This is what I saw when I cancelled Julia’s Slave contract. It’s also what I saw when Morgan cast the truth spell. I felt like all this new information started giving me a headache. For a second I felt like I understood everything. Like I understood creation. That, like a scientist, I could find an equation to express the entire universe.

Morgan shook me. “I know it’s fascinating. People use it to learn magic and improve their minds, but it’s not as simple as it appears. People spend days upon days neither sleeping nor eating, in an effort to understand even the tiniest piece of this puzzle.”

I couldn’t use decode or sneak. Morgan explained that sneak is more of a passive skill. It’s more of expressing a person’s proficiency to be inconspicuous or quiet when needed. I don’t know if it could have helped yesterday, since I didn’t feel like it gave me any knowledge. It could also be that Alina wasn’t particularly good at it.

At a certain point we wanted to eat. Morgan took out a pot and some ingredients from nowhere. She cut celery, onion and carrot into small bits and started frying them. She she added white beans, green beans and tomato. She added chicken and then conjured water to fill the pot. Towards the end she added some macaroni too.

The entire cave smelled of fresh from the vegetable, but had deep aromas. She called this alluring liquid Ministrone soup. It tasted savory, but somehow sweet and tangy because of the tomato, and the pasta had this strong flavor and chewy texture. Wow. This world’s cooking sure had style. It could have made a killing if people knew about it in my old world

After lunch she helped me practice the sword. It was one of the first times I ever touched a sword, but I was pretty good. It was as if Alina’s skills were mine. I had her instincts and ideas. My movement was graceful as if I’ve been a fencer since birth. Alina probably was one. I wondered if I could have simply done all these things yesterday as well and we could have taken the bear, or if my dreams of Alina made the difference. Even if we had a chance, who would have tried without even knowing how to cast their spells?

In the evening, after Morgan checked and saw the bear was still waiting for us outside of the cave, we sat and talked some more. “What if I still helped you? You said Alina and I have the same skills, right? If Alina was here, she would have definitely been the leader, but if you give me orders, we may still be able to do it. I feel like I have her instincts.”

“Don’t be dumb. I’m starting to think Alina was too full of herself. The rule of thumb is you need three people to fight a monster of the same level. I thought Alina was level five or even six from her confidence and bluster. I won’t say she’s not incredibly strong for her level, but I don’t think she had a chance against this bear.” Morgan told me in a somber voice.

“I don’t think so. I have a feeling Alina had a lot more hidden aces than you imagine.” Alina was confident because she had it all. She seduced women because she was beautiful and knew she was all that. She also went to this battle knowing she could win it.

“I don’t think you understand what this battle was going to be like. I could definitely beat it. I have some strategic magic, which means large scale magic, that I was going to use against it. Alina was going to somehow occupy it while I worked my spell. Level five Alina had a chance. Level two Maria will get pulverized. I’m not saying no level two can match up against a level four, but even if Alina could, I don’t think you could. Sorry.”

I couldn’t argue with her logic. “Oh… kay” I said eventually.

“Don’t worry. We have enough provisions. Let’s just wait this monster out.”

I was trying to somehow get over the embarrassment of trying to convince her I could fight this monster. “So,” I said with a smile that didn’t feel like my own. “Let’s talk about king Arthur, Merlin and Camelot.”

“How do you know about that?!” she was aghast. I explained we had legends about it in the place where I came from.

She spent the whole evening explaining everything about Camelot. How, one day, they decided magic should be forbidden and Arthur, who was her half brother (he was also a half elf) started killing all of her mage friends. He tried to kill her as well, but she was too strong for him, plus, he learned she was his sister so he decided to just leave her be. At that time they were isolated from the world at large and didn’t know many mages existed outside of Wales. They let Merlin stay alive, since he was ‘on the right side of history’. Unfortunately for them, Babylon didn’t have any compunction about mages and magic and when they came to wales they ended up conquering it pretty easily, since there were no mages. The Babylonians killed Arthur, sent Merlin into hiding, Morgan didn’t think ‘the old codger’ could even be killed, and closed the chapter on mage hatred. Even then, the situation didn’t sound better in the elf’s mind. All her friends were dead, so she didn’t think of coming back there. She was also unsure if Merlin would ever allow it. He was the one who exiled her.

“Did you really sleep with Arthur?”

“S-sleep with him? Why would I do that? Didn’t I tell you he was my half brother?” She sounded horrified.

“Wow, the movie I watched was so wrong about you.”

“There’s a movie about me?”

“About Arthur and Camelot. Wait, you know what movies are?”

“Of course I do. Even my village has a movie theater.”

Wow. I got a strong desire to say “we’re not so different you and I”, but I stayed quiet.

“Wait, are you a lesbian? If everyone thought you slept with Arthur, doesn’t that mean you’re straight?”

“What do you mean? I told you I’m from Wales, not Lesbos. What’s straight?”

“What? I thought you were English.”

“I’m British. England is a different kingdom on the same island.”

“England is an Island?”

“How do you know all the finer details about the history of Camelot, but not that England is an island?!”

“I’m really bad at geography?”

“Clearly.”

“So, do you like boys, or girls? You never said.”

“I am not attracted to girls. No. Well, your beauty… I mean, Alina’s, transcends sexual orientation.” She said, She was blushing fiercely.

“Good to hear” I said sheepishly. Wow, Alina was one of those girls who would convince straight girls to switch sides? And now I’m her? This was fantastic.

“And you?”

“I’m also attracted to you.” I answered.

“I meant, ‘do you like girls’, but I’m guessing the answer is yes.” We were both red in the face.

“I think I’m tired. I’m going to sleep,” I said quickly and covered myself in my cloak.

I dreamt about Alina all night. About her style, her way of fighting, her conquests. I knew she was special. She was definitely better than those degenerate Babylonian officers. I was sure of it.

When I woke up, I found myself sleeping on a nice pillow. I was in Morgan’s hands and my head was laying on her breast. I tried to get up, but she held me tight. I shook her a little so she would wake up.

“I just wanted to make sure you’re not cold. You know, in these situations we need to share body heat.” She let go after that.

We ate some breakfast and I checked outside. The bear was still there. Didn’t it have a life? Why is it such a stalker! “I think I’m going to fight it.” I told Morgan.

She looked straight at me, with her deep green eyes. “I know you want to continue Alina’s life, but it’s a mistake.”

“I’m not doing it to continue Alina’s life. I’m doing it for your village. I’m doing it for you.” I told her. I usually didn’t feel that comfortable with eye contact, but this time I felt so self assured. I felt like Jason Borne, or John Maclaine, or The Rock.

She didn’t say anything for a second. I felt like it was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. “I feel like I should stop you.”

“Why don’t you,” It wasn’t a question. I knew why.

“Because I want to join you.”

Jesus. I know we weren’t friends these last couple of years. If I understand correctly, my parents were wrong about you and you don’t hate women like me. If so, I’m sorry and I hope we can get past this. I’d be thankful if you blessed me in this fight.

I suddenly saw some weird icon in the edge of my vision. With a thought I opened it and saw a screen. 

“You have received the blessing of the crucified god. You have 30 minutes”

I smiled. Jesus still loves me. How can I lose this battle?

“After me” I said and together we left the cave.