May 30th, Thursday, 1968
So with all the abilities I've accumulated in just two weeks I've had to come up with a daily plan for my time. This had to be planned around my work in the shop, or else I'd starve.
I hadn't seen that girl with the trick coin again, but I was sure I'd run into her at some point. Next time I'd just ask her what was up with that.
In the morning I'd work out on my martial arts and do some running. The perk Knows His Own Strength means that I can always pace myself such that I never burned my lungs out, but still push my limits without hurting myself. Mostly it was a lot of power walking, some jogging, and more power walking and stretching.
This week I decided to tackle a very painful jog on the beach that left my legs cramping in odd places. Sand hurts!
But it got better!
I was super durable now. I could run barefoot on the beaches without worrying about sticks and shells and stones. By the time I got done running the length of this one beach my muscles looked way different underneath the skin. I think the secondary powers perk was allowing all my other perks to put me in shape.
So much the better, I'd say.
During my cool-down walk back to the shop I'd use my Gentle Shadow Magic to collect resources from the sea and pick up some of the cities' more detestable diseased rodents to be my unwilling test subjects for my mental powers.
I also took a walk through the open markets once in a while. Unfortunately there were no hidden artifact gems amongst the junk. So my It Belongs In A Museum perk had yet to be put to any real use. Although as a consolation prize I now knew which shops were selling fakes.
Back at the shop I'd work on carving items to sell so I'd have money.
After lunch I'd split my work between Research and potion making to increase my magical powers.
One more thing…
One of the first things I learned about my new perks from the Young Justice Jumpchain was that Telepathy was a full right Bitch of a superpower!
There had only been one character in the Jackie Chan Adventures show that had telepathy: the benevolent mystic Mohajah.
This is important.
It had been kind of cool awakening my new Martian psychic abilities. Walking down the streets of San Francisco, the city of hills, feeling in on the ambient emotions and thoughts of others – it was kinda like listening to the roar of the ocean.
Intense, eccentric, soothing, and somewhat overwhelming. While I refrained from reading thoughts with my telepathy the emotions tantalize, like freshly cut fruit. There are new jazz songs being played that I've never heard of before and people coming and going to the shops along the beaches that don't exist in the latter half of the century.
The place is filled with stores and bars. A good number of stores are just opening for the morning cloud, for people like me, but the bars are always open. It's good to be around people in a community and this one has a great number of flavors.
People are not afraid to try out other cultures and experiment with exotic foods. I especially like it when some new sensation rushes through the crowd. Like when we pass by a group listening in on a sports game going "Awe…" and "Hurray!" and "&Q%#!" when someone gets the goal.
I walk past a theater and reflect that all the movies I'll be seeing for the next fifty years will be done without computer animations.
The emotional content of the patrons is very high. Everyone is dressed up trying to be something else for just one day. The girls are interested, the men are interested, so much energy.
It had given me some wicked thoughts about all new dating opportunities. I even picked up some stronger emotions from those having make-out sessions behind closed doors and it was getting me in the mood like nothing else.
Thankfully the Vigilante origin stuffed some control back into my brain before I went nuts with the thoughts and emotions of an entire city. What felt like a cold shower flowed through my nervous system dousing the fires of my youth.
Before I could become a full on sexual predator lost in the hormones of my new youth and burgeoning power the Required Secondary Powers perk had forced/given me something like a Toggle in my head. None of the characters in Jackie Chan Adventures ever had trouble turning their powers or off or having them go out of control while they were asleep and so neither did I.
I stopped walking around with a boner.
What I then did was shut down my powers and installed some controls.
I'm not totally sure how it works but a Martian's abilities are not completely dependent on their brain structure. If it was than M'gann M'orzz would have lost IQ points going from her Martian form into her Human form changing the shape of her head and nervous systems.
I'm pretty sure that shape-shifting Garfield's brain from one animal to another would make him moderately immune to mind control and telepathy as well. Beast boy doesn't exist in this realm, so there was no way to be sure or test how that works in this universe. Since he never seemed to lose IQ points even when his mind was occupying a mosquito, which is one of the most non-thinking insects in existence, I was pretty sure I was right.
Anyway, Martian biology and mutant biology not important.
Human biology and Distant Relative is important.
Apparently I could use the origins perk Distant Relative to be related to Mohajah, twice removed through marriage, as his blood nephew. Combined with Vigilante's best-of-the-best training perks and it was like I had spent few years under his tutelage AND at a colony site on Mars talking to all the Martians without having to experience culture shock. Not having to hear everyone's stupid thoughts was as easily as keeping my own mouth shut.
With enough effort I was also able to shapeshift my human brain to the point where I didn't have telepathic powers anymore if I wanted some extra protection. Perfectly null and void for my own safety.
How I did that without turning my own mind into a vegetable I was still trying to figure out.
One more thing…
None of my other skills or powers needed training either. I just had to get used to the fact that I had them and make use of the training after I reminded myself that I had it.
I was still going to go on runs in the morning if I could do it. Being able to do something so physical that I could never do before hadn't lost its appeal yet.
One more thing…
I now knew that there were limitations to how I stacked choices from CYOAs.
Everyone Was Doing It was a fairly specific perk about the Ancient Art of Butt-Whoop. But it was a completely human variety of whooping ass and even Vigilantism had only enhanced that so far. Nor had gaining Martian Shapeshifting powers given me any Martian Kung-Fu. As I had not gained Martian as an Origin I had not gained some form of alien shape-shifting Kung-Fu. I was sure they existed though. The Martian Manhunter was a cop after all, he had training and been in a war depending on which universe he's from, and these lessons were a part of the continuity of his universe. I had training in my entire list of Martian abilities as if I was a biological Martian and had grown up with these powers all my life, which I clearly am not. I'm still human with human biology.
Even when I can give myself extra arms and hands.
I hadn't gained any magical abilities from Martian Sorcerers either. I had Young Justice's Basic Magic and Atlantean Magic but it was still all human magic with a lot of Jackie Chan Adventures Chi Magic and Demons and Oni and Dragon magic from books thrown in for funnies. My skills had gained enormous heights and variations on theme but were very narrow in width. And they varied in depth.
I was not an advanced Practitioner or a Master at all. At best I was a Savant thanks to the We Must Do Reeesearch perk that would allow me to learn whatever was written down and enable me to figure out the rest on my own.
I suppose it was like the difference between putting together furniture in your house for the first time verses someone who does it for a living. I'd only been doing this for two weeks you know.
So my perks had limits.
In the late afternoon after lunch on Thursday I did Reeesearch on my items. I was able to learn plenty about my new super cool super hero toys. With my blossoming hard earned tech skills it was as if I had built these things myself from scratch. I was able to take them all apart and put them back together in less than 11 hours. Which was a good speed if you ever wanted to strip down a stolen truck and put all the bits and pieces back together on a different frame so you could sell it, just in case you're curious.
The jetpack and the laser batons seemed to be perfectly reproducible technology. The jetpack had an average speed of about 60 miles an hour and 300mph when you're falling to your doom from on high. It contained enough fuel for half an hour's worth of flying fun time. The laser batons cut through steel like butter and the batteries were stupidly strong to power this lightsaber knockoff.
This was the late 1960s, or thereabouts, the integrated circuit board was little more than a pipe dream on a paper in some stars-in-their-eyes Technician.
A few trips to the nearby hardware stores during my last grocery shopping expedition had confirmed that I wouldn't be able to make more Items with common off the shelf products. I could cheat to hell and back using my Gentle Shadow Magic and other magical abilities but at some point I was going to need to be able to craft my own integrated circuit boards for the flight control systems and the engines and the batteries. Unless I got some tech skills, tech superpowers, or tools in the next CYOA that wasn't going to be changing anytime soon.
I also didn't have the money to buy the tools I'd need. And I certainly wasn't going to waste my amateur attempts at shop on my Items by breaking them.
Still, I had to start somewhere. So I picked up a few electronics magazines and ordered a subscription to Selmer Electronics Catalog as well as Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. The rest of my purchases went into tools for modeling kits and watch making.
Resources were going to be a serious problem. I can see why villains rob stores left and right. The military was usually too hard a target and even most government labs wouldn't have what I'd need.
Thank my Rob Patron for magic.
I was a budding wizard with some awesome abilities in a variety of magic knowledge from two worlds and from under the seas. It was time to make use of them. If I need resources I'll just have to get some.
The community for a cleaner and better world was going to love me.
It took a while to sort through my knowledge and instincts to come up with a solution to my needs. Even Research and Vigilante helped. I started out with a cube of stone a foot on a side and start carving some runes into its surface. To make sure I had enough room I removed dozens of slices of rock but left them connected at the corners. Into the surface of these plates went my spells. It looked 3D printed when I was done. This was going to be the answer to my raw materials supply problem.
If there was one thing that was true in this world that was true in my old world it was that there was always trash. It was on the sides of the highways and it was always around the piers of ships. Sucking the crap out of the nearby area is always a huge pain for mundane technology. Even with a mind towards recycling it would take fifty years for the industry to adjust to having other sources of materials income and you'd still need to sort it all and provide the energy to render it down into something usable. Besides, being so far back into the past I don't think anybody would care if I went and stole it all.
What I'd created was kinda simple but no less awesome. When I planted my Shadow Resources Stone into a nearby area it would sink into the ground. Then from sunset to sunrise it would use the shadows to slowly absorb any trash from the area and dump it into the Shadow Realm.
The amount of materials I would get would be staggering at first as my little rocks cleaned up the area. Afterwards it would be rather low. I'd have to collect them at some point and move them around to other areas I'd want to clean up. But it would at least be somewhat constant.
I had to put in some safety features: Don't absorb human remains. Don't absorb trash while humans are in the area. Don't absorb a car with a human body in it. Don't absorb materials from an area where a human died for two weeks. If a human is sleeping on the ground don't absorb trash from the area for 12 hours. Leave the roads, fences and stop signs alone. You know the usual stuff.
For my morning runs I had to use the maps to plan my rout where I could dump my Shadow Resources Stones. Most of them ended up being thrown into the ocean or along the highway. The stones operating range was about as long as a man's shadow. I also added in a feature where if the stones were too close together than they'd drift apart. They had tracking spells on them so I could find them too. Eventually I hoped to have at least the first half mile of the ocean shore covered with my rocks to absorb junk and chemicals.
For fun I made a variant of the stone with a light bulb in it that you could put on your front lawn. The lamp's only purpose was to absorb cigarette butts thrown on the lawn. I'd put on in my garden, then I thought to sell them to other people. I was hoping to prevent a few fires that way. I'd even put a sign up saying they were warding's against fires, which they were. The stone plate on top allowed me to change the focus to different forms of trash.
Three people came into the store and each person wanted one.
I was actually surprised by how well those sold. I'd only done it on a lark and used most of my lamps to decorate Uncle's Rare Finds. But there were people out there that really liked protections against evil, curses, and misfortune. So I expanded my stone enterprise to include little stone monoliths that would offer protections. People would come in and have all kinds of requests that I would write down in a book. Given a little time I could produce most of them. My new product would go to the customer who'd request it and I'd create one for myself to place around the shop or the garden.
A some point or other, I realized, I was going to have to build up some stock or else risk running out of things to sell.
I think I might need some help.
Otherwise things were going well.
-000-
Next Chapter I'll be introducing some action.
For those of you who are wondering I'll be giving you a reply. My character Norman is not in the middle of the action because he's outside of the action right now. Until he's not. He's kind of like the guy watching a hurricane through binoculars. He's not anyway near that disaster and he has no idea that the clouds overhead are going to turn into a Twister. But it is getting closer.
You don't need to start a fic with immediately jumping at the fire breathing dragon you know.
Last edited: Sep 22, 2020
67May 31th, Friday, 1968

After my morning run I'd turned on the radio while making some breakfast on the gas stove. I was a bit afraid of it actually. Ever since a cracked propane tank had exploded during a barbeque I'd been like that around gas. I intended to replace it with an electrical one as soon as I was able. They had some awesome looking appliances, and they were big. They were only $200, but that might as well have been a thousand in this day in age. By the time I saved up enough I'll probably have a few Tinkering abilities so I could make something nice for myself.
While I did that I also thought about my current situation. So far there were no real hints about why I was here. I liked living the slow life – doesn't everyone? – but the anticipation of the other shoe to drop was getting to me.
On this last day of the month the radio cut out just as I was scooping out the eggs from the pan. I was just getting into the mood with "Hey! Jude," from The Beatles when it was replaced with a tasteless Radio calisthenics program, "- one, two three, four! Higher, now! – three, four! Put your weight into it! – two, three, four!"
I reached over to fiddle with the dial and adjust the bunny ears. "I swear to god if it's because of those airplanes passing overhead I'm going to hex this thing into next week."
Speaking of my situation and the impending catastrophe…
It is now my assumption that some of the strange sounds picked up by television sets and radios were programs and commercials that came from other realms. There were transmissions from places that were no less than a thousand miles away, and picked up on boats, which is impossible with technology in 1968, not without the help of relay stations and satellite uplinks. And yet the images came in clear and the sounds of music could be recorded.
I was never more grateful for the We Must Do Reeesearch perk, for otherwise I would have missed these hints, and been oblivious.
The same could be said for the weather. Some cities said that a storm had completely passed them by, while in others the opposite. Things like an earthquake that knocks over a city, an avalanche in the mountains or an exploding volcanic island. At the very least a tidal wave which had crashed into one location should have had effects on other locations up and down the coast. It was as if the events were happening in complete isolation.
The government was probably trying to suppress the reports for fear of a panic but they had completely missed the weather reports.
As if a worldwide phenomenon could be kept secret!
How did these transmissions get to our locations? Why were the stations the transmission were supposedly from been off the air for more than several years? Where did they go when they stopped?
I'll have answers to these questions.
But I didn't get my song back. Instead the receiver becomes overwhelmed by static. The radio squawked and shrieked its mechanical tones, as if all the thunderstorms of the world had gone off at once. Then it became blessedly silent.
I turned it off.
Something was wrong and I wasn't going to be getting news from there today.
Was today the day?
There was a silence. I was new to the San Francisco area but I had read up on the signs. It was unnaturally silent and I felt a tingle. I grabbed my eggs and bacon and went right outside into the open just as a bunch of men, women, children, and dogs began howling.
"Earthquake! Earthquake!" they cried as we gathered in the streets.
Only there was no earthquake. We stood there in the streets staring stupidly at each other. Not a single puddle shook, nor did any of the buildings sway, or the powerlines twitch. We stood there for half an hour like that. When was it going to hit?
In the silence that gripped us all there was a new sound. Someone's radio was still playing static. It cut out with a report. It was happening right then, right there and now!
Apparently an area between San Pedro Valley Park, Monteria Mountain, and the Rancho Corral de Tierra, an area some five miles wide and seven miles tall, had just had its wilderness replaced by a massive Chinese city of some kind filled with non-humans. A state of emergency had been declared and all police and military personnel were being asked to mobilize.
The newsman was babbling incoherently at the end of his report and went off the air soon after.
Supernatural things were happening and it was practically next door, I stared at the radio and I knew that this was it!
I went back into Uncle's Rare Finds and locked the place up. Then I put on my costume and its light armor, the utility belt and cape, put the jetpack in my shadow for later, and made sure my electric baton was securely in place, the battery charged. I used a little magic to change the colorings to a nice dark blue with swirls of gold in a high sheen on the armored panels, similar to the ones used by the Armor of the Eight Immortals.
The markings didn't do much more than glow in the daylight. I didn't have the ingredients for serious enchanting. Most of the ones I had were spells against slipping and falling, adjusting the suit automatically to my size, lightening the load, and keeping me comfortable while I was wearing it even if it was too hot or too cold to be wearing it outside.
Just in case, before I went on my adventure, I grabbed all of the onion and garlic that I had in the house and all the other ingredients from my kitchen and amateur wizard laboratory for spell making. Just in case.
My mad dash across San Francisco towards the south was a disjointed one. Stepping between shadows as fast as I could was disorienting. There was no nausea. But I was still being moved dozens of feet in a single step and the abrupt transition was like flickering between random pictures of the world.
And so it came on a Friday afternoon of May 31, 1968, that I came across a column of iron club wielding, red and blue colored Oni, dressed in a variation of samurai armor. They had the air of soldiers who were used to such weapons. They honestly reminded me of the G1 Power Rangers Megazord. They had giant black shoulder pads with three spikes with super dark red armor over their arms with spiked knuckles and yellow gloves. A Chest plate that looked like it had been stolen off the Dragonzord in fighting mode was on their chest, but with three spikes over the sternum. Most of the rest of the uniform was deep red. The yellow armor over their hips had small spikes and square compartments. Their boots were yellow, came up to their knees, and had spikes over the knees and claws over the feet.

Their helmets looked relatively normal, red with yellow highlights with nail-like spikes protecting the nose and forehead. There were holes in the helmets, two for the red Oni and one for the blue Oni. Thing is that each person had a giant, flat, two inch thick and three foot tall steel shield floating in front of their faces. This shield face was at least as big as I was tall and emphasized their horns, teeth, expressions and giant eyeballs, and seemed fully functional.

They looked out at the road they had found and stared in awe at the cars that slowed down and passed them by. One took a swing at a nearby car with his enormous spiked iron club and its driver hurried away quickly. They didn't seem too familiar with mechanical transportation but they certainly weren't afraid of it.
I fucking wanted that magical armor.
"Okay Norman, this is it, you're first meet and greet with the Supernatural. Stay confident. I hope all those books I read on Oni don't all apply to these guys. Just don't think about having your brains eaten and you'll be fine."
Gulping, I stepped out of the shadows of the trees to the golf course and crossed the highway to greet them. This was either going to go very well or spectacularly badly.
They stopped gawking when they spotted me crossing the road, and straightened up into military formation; I had to pause once or twice to dodge around a truck. One wizened old Oni with giant puffs of white hair on his facemask stepped out to meet me. He gestured and his face mask articulated perfectly and spoke with a giant's voice.
It was very old Japanese. Thanks to Vigilante and Distant Relative and interacting with the shopkeepers of Chinatown it seemed like I could understand it. We Must Do Reeesearch helped.
He basically said: "You boy! What sorcerer-king rules these humans?!"
I noted with amusement that a great number of authors from back home and their fans would have recognized the events for what they are. An epiphany came over me, and I knew exactly what to say:
"Oni! A great cataclysm has come to pass for our people. Know this; I have great knowledge to pass onto your sorcerer-king!" I spoke in the biggest voice I had. "Your city has been cut from its land, as if by the hands of laughing gods, and placed in this Realm. Humans rule this realm. Your city is on the edge of another city, as part of a state, as part of a country. I have a map."
I made a point not to mention any magic. It seemed like these Oni wouldn't talk to non-magic-using mongrels. With the Martian telepathy I had going it felt like these guys only recognize magic users as any kind of authority at all.
I gave the leader Oni the map I'd gotten as a tourist, which wasn't a very good one at all unless you want to find a restaurant, who unfolded it and quickly understood what it meant. He pointed at one spot, which I confirmed that we were in that location. The soldiers behind him gaped at it.
The leader passed the map back to his men and turned to me. "No human knows magic." He stated it as if it were a fact. "Humans are lesser creatures."
"Last week the sun turned blue for as long as you can hold your breath," I stated, in the same tone as his own. I held up my hand away from the soldiers and summoned forth an enormous cleaver made out of shadow. "This week things are different. Next week, what was true today will not be true then. Yours is not the only land that was torn from its Realm and tossed onto this one. If you think you are strong, then there is a cave full of monsters and treasures I'd like you to explore."
The soldiers guffawed at that. The nine Oni and their leader conferred with one another, with the leader handing out whispered orders I couldn't hear, and then broke apart.
From the mind of the leader I sensed caution. He seemed more concerned about his fellow Oni's actions than his own. This Oni did not get where he was in life by being foolish and he did not want something bad to happen because of them. I was a stranger to him and he had no idea what my abilities are. The home he protected was also in danger, and he had no intention of making things worse to his sorrow.
He told me carefully, "You'll need to come to the palace with us, and confess this knowledge to our sorcerer-queen."
I sensed no danger of violence from him or his men so I was inclined to go with them. Apparently these Oni were the civilized sort, the kind who had settled down to making cities for a few hundreds of years. The warrior Oni escorted me into the countryside where it was quickly replaced by where the territory had been switched out.
The closest comparison to the city was Himeji Castle, which was more of a fortress complex than anything. The vast majority of the building materials were of stone and wood, and all the tiles on the roofs were black. The entire city was a confusing maze of paths and small bridges over internal waterways. There were aqueducts for drinking water in bronze pipes and many of the intersections had a building with a fountain. They also had a sewer system. The walls were at least a hundred feet high.
All of the people were Oni. Take all the Chinese and Japanese manga and historical documentaries and put them together and replace the humans with guys and girls with horns and big jaws and teeth and you'll have a city of Oni. They were red and blue and yellow, green and red and black. The guards wore swords and leather. The civilians wore kimonos, robes, some normal clothes; straw hats, wooden sandals, kept their hair tied back in pony tails, and decorated their ears with large stone rings.
Even if their species and their clothing were of no interest, there was always what was in their shops. I watched one Oni from the corner of my eye as he drank blood soup from an upside-down skull cup.
I wondered if it came from an ape. There was sure to be a market in drink ware made of skulls in the future.
Of particular interest beyond the residents were the statues. Each fountain had a similar statue with slightly different pose and in different colors of stone. The demon girl on display looked like a mermaid with long hands and seven long tendrils instead of hair. She was undoubtedly female. And if the little Oni on the fountains with her were any indication she was at least three times bigger than the nine foot Oni samurai that surrounded me.
We passed by a dozen checkpoints. The Oni guarding the entrances to the inner city, who, when told of my story, were of a similar mind to the leader of Oni warriors, that I should be allowed to quickly pass through and taken to the sorcerer-queens. So they took me through and sent a runner ahead with news.
I stayed silent. Most of the Oni was released to their duties, but the leader and one Oni stayed with me throughout the journey while another pair of Oni with giant axe blades escorted me to the inner sanctum. Pretty good security and very good workmanship on those weapons. But that was to be expected at such a large facility that had just been moved sideways through time.
As we got deeper I realized that I might have made a mistake in the translation of the worlds "palace." This place seemed more like a compound. I'd counted over 80 buildings that were more than thirty stories tall. Each with different markings on the doors and people's clothing's as if each were ruled by a different family. In the center was the largest and lowest building of them all. But I was not to meet the ruler inside. I met THEM outside.
The women were the exact image of the water demon statues. Every one of them. Each head was ten feet tall with tendrils for her hair, the body that of a woman, and a serpent's tail from the waist down that was long enough to wrap itself around a whale.
Behind them were other Oni in various finery. There were priests, military generals, cooks, shop keepers, and so on. The heads of clans and guilds and businesses. They made a fine show in their spender. And I can't help but admit to squealing like a fanboy on the inside of my mind are how anime this all was. The sorcerer queens outdid them all, each dressed to the nines in jewels. There were ten, each for a different color of the rainbow. They each held a staff that was bigger than most of the trees I'd seen in my life, obnoxiously decorated with rings of gold and gems, with whole statues integrated into the wood, and giant conch shells at the tops.
It took me a second to realize that while the staff might have had fancy bits of magic tied into it very few were for actual war. My Basic Magic and Atlantean Sorcery told me that my Water Bearers had more punch than those overgrown head crackers.
As soon as we arrived I was commanded to wait in a side area behind a fence of wood where I would not be seen while the Oni leader went forth to tell his story to his leaders; whereupon the woman sent for me, and the Oni brought me to them.
The largest one dressed in Sapphire gems approached me with her staff held horizontally. She was very courteous but also very commanding, "They tell me that you are the sorcerer Norman. I am Bigger, of the Sapphire Blade tribe, the ruler these waters and lands. Our magicians have confirmed that we are no longer in our world." Her voice sounded like it came from the depth of a well. "Our legends tell us of shadow walkers. You will be an honored guest. Tell us what you can, so that we all may prosper."
So she wasn't threatening me. Being an honored guest sounds lucrative. And since they know of shadow magic they might know how to counteract what I've got up my sleeves. But she seemed nice enough for a giant serpent woman.
Honestly, I had that same feeling in my gut as the last time I went to the zoo and saw a killer whale. They both wanted fish.
I took a moment to think, then told her what I believed happened, "The explanation is simple and complex, your Wisdom," the fish woman preened. "Imagine for a moment that you had a dozen maps of the same area. On one of them live your people. On another is a map filled with humans. On another is a map of a land covered with lava, or a sea water, and so forth. Now imagine that some god comes along and cut a hole in all of them, so that you could move the patches from one to the other like tiles on a board. Now imagine that you're a person on one of those maps. Suddenly the land has moved. Your still on a world, in the same place, the same year, and there's still a sun in the sky, but everything is different."
The Bigger fish woman hissed like a steam train, "This disturbs our waters greatly."
"It is greater than that." I continued, and gave them my warning, "From the beginning you must exercise great caution. There is a chance that this land may be torn back to its proper Realm at any moment. Even if you were surrounded by people of peace or of war you cannot allow your people to leave the area. If you set out soldiers into the local area you might lose them when your area is moved again. If it is moved again. You might be stuck here."
The words were heard by all and caused instant low-murmured conversation amongst the locals.
One of the queens dressed in red spoke out of turn, "You speak as if you know the future. Did you do this to us? Why should we believe your lies?"
I calmly spoke, "Ancient Wisdom: When all the troubles of the world are about to land on his head, a person should know when to get out of the rain."
"Well, no dua," the youngest of the big ten crossed her arms in front of her.
"By the rains, we must converse," said Bigger. "Tell us of your people and we will tell you of ours. If we are to escape this great peril and save the city, we must learn, for how else are we to survive? Praise the waters and the sun!"
I smiled, "That would be an equivalent exchange." I reached into my shadows and took out an American history book and a first edition English to Mandurian dictionary. "This is a history book and the means to translate them between two languages. If you have any scholars I'd give this to them."
I handed them over and the very large woman took them between two of her fingers, then gave them a look. "This will do for a start."
I was no longer a wayfarer brought forth to the sorcerer-queens. They took me in favor as someone whose console is to be listened to.
Benches were set out for those of us with legs. The serpent mermaid women used their magical powers to retrieve enormous stone bathing pools and filled them with clean water to rest in, clean fresh water that they summoned from nothing from nowhere by the thousands of gallons a second. Vessels that had to weigh as much as fully loaded cement trucks and shaped to hold their large bodies in comfort.
The conversations went well. I had a bit of a headache trying to figure out all the ancient Japanese and the drift to a difference in slang, but I made due. And the Saki was good. I was half tempted to use my psychic Martian telepathy to read minds beyond the emotions I was sensing. But with the way these demon fish people mermaids threw magic around I didn't want to piss them off. If they got into the water I could easily see them sinking a city into the ocean for fun. And it would be rude beyond imagining.
I learned by listening and watching that there were a total of ten sorcerer-queens on the government counsel. These serpent ladies were the most powerful magic users in the area of which all must bow down before them or be smashed. The problem is that these women were all sea creatures and were more interested in water trade than using the land and with trading with other sea-fish mermaids the bounty of the land. It was the Oni that had the farms and the skills to craft metals out of the water. If one group of Oni on one side of a river wanted something from the other side you had to trade through the serpent mermaids who owned each side of the shore.
Fortunately they seemed to be more the merchant type than the types to sack and loot.
Eventually I learned that their species was called Jiāorén, because someone spoke, "… all the Jiāorén have never had an opportunity like this!"
And that they were expert weavers of cloth, called jiāo xiāo shā, or "Dragon Yarn." I wished for a sample of this cloth and was presented with a small handkerchief that seemed to forget if it was supposed to be yellow or orange, so amazing was its coloring. To see if it was the true stuff I removed a canteen from my Shadow Realm and used my water-bearers to remove a dollop of water and tried to get the handkerchief wet. No matter what I did I could not get it wet.
"Well this is fantastic!" I exclaimed in delight. "There is nothing like this to be found in the city of San Francisco. We have a great textile industry, you will be a sensation. Perhaps you would like to trade?"
The youngest amongst them dressed in pink asked what I had to trade with.
I asked the youngest if there was some place from which I could show off my trade goods. The little girl who can swallow me with her sharp fish teeth gets a feral look. "I'll have to inspect the merchandise first. You may show us over there." She pointed to a corner.
"Great!" with a big smile I retrieved from my Shadow realm one of my stones. "This is a Shadow Resource Stone." And I explained how it works.
I went over to the corner and stepped on the shadow of the overhang. With my box I made a point of unloading, well… quite a lot of metals. There was everything in there from bicycles to tubs and even most of the parts of a ship and chain and anchor. It was all rusty. Which made a pile bigger than Bigger was tall. That was most of everything I'd gotten so far.
I turned to the surprised fish girl. "They're a bit rusted. So what will you give me for all that?"
The pink dressed Jiāorén took one of the pipes. "This was in the sea. Who did you steal it from?"
I shrugged. "It's just the junk found around the harbor."
"It's not worth one tear."
"I'm interested in seeds and books of magic myself," I paused for a moment in thought and then brought out a big shaker of Sichuan pepper from my stock of Reagents. "If you don't like metals then maybe we can trade spices. But you'd better hurry. I don't want to be here in case your land is relocated to another Realm."
The conversations around us faded away.
The sorcerer-queens forgot their conversations and rounded on me with desire in their eyes. They surrounded me and flared their nostrils as if to catch a full scent. I smiled in triumph for I knew I had my fortune made. In the ancient world the food is bland and tasteless because it must be preserved and cooked to remove diseases. Salt is a highly desired preservative. I just might have the only can of pepper in the whole city.
The little girl of the group unloaded upon me a pile of Golden Yarn bigger than the pile of iron. The others of the group presented me with chests of jewels, silver, iron, weapons, seeds, jewelry, and other finery. From these I removed a single chest full of gold coins with medusa heads on them, several chests full of items I was interested in, a chest with a number of scrolls in them for those who know magic, and a few bags of seeds. I then removed from the pile all the Dragon Yarn I was allowed to take. In exchange I gave them practically my entire collection of spice, sugar and teas. Once I was sure that my It Belongs In A Museum perk was sure that everything was the real deal I put everything into the Shadow Realm.
I wasn't even sure if I got screwed on this deal. Pepper is damnably expensive in the ancient world.
"A pleasure doing business with your ladies, your generosity knows no bounds," I made sure to give the pepper tin to the youngest sister. "If you're ever in the city of San Francisco you can find me at the shop Uncle's Rare Finds."
The sorcerer-queens bid me a good day while the little one in pink jewels waved at me. They wished me good luck on my journey. I then asked for, and received so I wouldn't get lost, a single Oni warrior to escort me out of the city.
Before I left the courtyard I saw the women fawning over the boxes of spice and reagents I'd given them while the youngest hugged the largest tin box to her chest protectively.
On my way out of the city I made sure to spend a minute or two at each shop I passed buying an artifact that my Museum perk twigged on. Some of them were ancient, some of them were special, and one or two was magical. I had no idea what they were or what they were worth or what the magical ones did until I asked a few questions. But in any case I was somewhat rich now so I spent gold and jewels like water. Having purchased a great amount of merchandise from the city, I gave the Oni warrior my farewell and thanks for the escort, and tipped him a large gold coin. He bade me farewell.
My journey out of the area was met with no complications, and, having found things as I'd left them, I soon found myself on native soil once again in safety. I hoped that all my adventures were like this one.
Having approached the highway I found that a crowd had gathered. Cars were parked all along the roads. The people stared into the park. Through the trees of native vegetation you could see parts of the palace here and there. The watching group buzzed with speculation and talk. What they all saw was impossible. It should not have been real outside of a movie screen, and yet it was here.
But as I walked out of the forest I saw that I was not the only one wandering around. They had gone in to explore and met the Oni. The warriors were tall and fierce looking, and when anyone approached the entrances they swung their clubs threateningly, speaking in a language not many could understand. At least none seemed to be hurt.
One of the State Police Officers held up a hand as I walked out of the forest.
"Sir! Do you understand English?" the man cried.
The policemen were weary and frightened. I'm sad to say that I had to use my Martian telepathy to enforce a feeling of calm upon the officers. I would not abuse them as I had done with the rats I'd acquired the other day but I also had no desire to have guns aimed at my face.
I nodded and said, "I know many languages. If you can speak old Japanese, you can converse with the Oni. I came to trade with them, and now I'm going home. If you can keep the people away from the entrances of the city, they'll be all right."
"Do you know what's happening?" the man eyed my armor. "And why do you look like a guy from the funny pages?"
"Well I've always wanted to be a superhero," I shrugged. "As for what's happening, it's simple and mind boggling at the same time. I've been preparing for weeks. And as soon as you show me to someone in authority, I'll tell you all about it."
The Officer brought me to a Commander, which was about as high a rank as I could expect on short notice. We had to wait a moment as he was in communication with someone. Then he got done talking on a radio in the police car, and we could hear every word spoken by the dispatcher on the other end of the speaker.
He turned from the radio and threw the microphone back through the window. "Well men, you heard correctly," he gulped. "Washington, and the White House, it all disappeared. The land lines were cut. They examined the area with helicopters. In its place was an immense swamp like something from Florida. That was Judy on the radio. She just gone telling me that the city came back, the streets covered with gator. The President was evacuated by helicopter. He's safe!"
A rippling sensation of ease went through the crowd as the tension flowed out of the officers and the people present. One man fell to his knees and proceeded to pay silently.
I had just learned of these things, and I felt like I might join him. This wasn't an isolated incident!
The Commander then turned to me and the Officer. "Who's this?
I had to put my hands up. "I have a story to tell. If you heard it, you will know what is going on. May I approach and tell you my tale?"
"Tell us. Your story cannot be any stranger than what we've all heard this morning. I feel as if I were in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Your story can't be worse."
I put on my best face, which is the same one I used when dealing with people who might be unhappy with my service through no fault of my own. "My name is Norman. I run a shop in Chinatown called Uncle's Rare Finds where I was this morning. When I heard what happened I came right over."
He wrote that down in his pad of paper. "That's fine. What do you know about all this?"
I looked around at the people around us and took a time answering. "I suppose what I have to say sounds less fantastic now that you've heard of other things. I've been doing research. There are a lot of things to be learned from the histories. Some so fantastic, they were pure fantasy until proof was given. I suppose we have that now."
"What sort of proof? The commander demanded. "Damn it man, just tell us! What the hell is up with that city?"
"The city is the proof that the archeologists were wrong," I replied. "Legends tell us there used to be all sorts of creatures that walked the earth. A thousand kinds, who killed, traded, made fantastic things, were strange and unknown, and more. Some of them feared iron and iron's daughter metals. And humans killed them."
The commander frowned as I spoke, as what I said sank home. "Hey, wait a minute."
I continued. "Some of the creatures we called monsters just wanted to be left alone, were bothered by men and attacked, or engaged in trade. Then they all went away. Now we know why."
The man's eyes were wide, "You must think I'm a fool. You mean like something out of the movies. A world of apes instead of man? You're saying that there is a world out there where things are and they're coming here!"
"You've heard the reports. Washington went away, but then it came back," I pointed towards the city of Oni. "That city might stay there for another forty years, or it might disappear in four minutes, along with everything else. Walk in that direction and you'll pass over a line drawn in the ground. You'll feel a tingling in your guts. That's where space and time itself has been cut. Do as you like. All I ask is that you don't make war. Keep the people out of the area, or you might lose them."
I made sure to reinforce my Jedi mind tricks so that these officers would not allow anyone into the parks and to hope they would convince others in authority to do the same. I also implanted in them the desire to have a few officers that could speak other English, and female officers to deal with other women, into their brains. So hopefully we'd have some progress in that social quarter soon.
I went to turn away, but he stopped me. "Where do you think you're going?"
"Back to San Francisco," I pointed into the distance. "If the city should disappear, I want to be in my home when it happens. For the benefit of all, don't let anyone go into the Oni City."
The news spread amongst the gawkers like wildfire. With my warning given and spreading I disappeared behind some trees and shadow stepped my way back home.
There in my store and surrounded by walls in privacy I took a moment to relax and forget the perils and dangers I had endured that morning.
I barely managed to take a breath when I felt a powerful need, and retired to the bathroom. The shakes hit me soon after.
Gods that was intense!
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