Outside the Broken forest, before the young dark-haired woman arrived. Chaos was upon in the mountain kingdom of Blaym Stela, a wild, fiery redheaded man thought vigorously, wielding his giant double-edged axes against four tar-like bears with poisonous green eyes. His strength was tremendous; with one hit of his axe, he throws a tar monster across the way, crashing through the trees. But it wasn't enough. These monsters thought in packs covering every angle of attack, and the man was on his own now. His small array of warriors were wiped out in an ambush. It was meant to be a routine scouting report, no fighting necessary. They were all so young, still inexperienced to the cruel beings of this world. The mission started full of laughter, learning about silly things their teammates had committed when suddenly piercings screams echoed throughout the still mountain. They didn't stand a chance.
The redheaded man was only doing so well because he was so much older than them. The warrior paranoia had sunk in along time ago. Regardless he didn't think he could last any longer; he was slowing down, and these demons? They weren't even batting an eye. But, as if some sign from a God, high pressure of wind came thundering through, bending back the trees and hurling the man and monsters to the ground. The crash of a sonic boom following a second after.
The demons recovered instantly and shot off away from the blast, terrified of what has come. The man took a little longer to recoup, not from the explosion but the monsters running away. In all his years of being alive, he has not once seen them monsters look so afraid. Standing up, he made his way forward, looking down out at the direction the blast appeared.
The Broken Forest looked perfectly unharmed, but the surrounding areas were blown apart.
***
"What do you mean you don't know what this world is called? You're on it!" Ciri asked, sounding bewildered by the very concept.
"It's not like I asked to be taken to this world. You even said you got all this worlds knowledge to help me adjust! Did you not even consider that I knew nothing?" Eliana fired back. "I know, zilch! I don't even know where we are right now, just that I landed here!" The young woman couldn't believe she was arguing with a talking book. It didn't help that it sounded so much like Rachel that it made her feel all too comfortable and why she was getting so fired up.
"Oh. That kinda makes sense." The book ended the argument. Eliana groaned in annoyance, rolling her amber eyes at it. "Well then, let me tell you the basics!" Ciri flourishing declared. Placing itself on the ground opening-up. A soft orange light emitted from the middle of the spine, projecting a globe. The book started to speak;
"This is Earia. It's a lot like Earth by how it's set out. Though, as you can see, most of the land is placed mainly in the middle of the globe, this is because the poles are underwater kingdoms with small isles scattered about.
There are three main kingdoms that shape this world, and a few minor ones trying to get recognition from them.
The most thriving domain is Adria that's this bit of land here" the projection highlights a large section of land "this is because they have monopolised trading. Their land and climate allow perfect condition for growing crops all year round. It's also the home to The Elder Lake. A lake with potent healing properties and the crops that grow near has a slight healing factor too. It's mainly elves that live here, but its capital has started enticing other species that want a trading part or learn to be healers. It has one of the top academies for it."
This world looked a lot bigger than Earth. The kingdom Adria wasn't even one of the largest continents, yet it was still bigger than Asia. 'How do they even travel across the countries?' Eliana thought, seeing how vast the distance was between them.
Another part of the globe lights up. "This is the biggest kingdom and also the most powerful, Xabrayria. It dominates the world in its scholars and mages, discovering and creating new inventions for the world at a price. It also has a scary army; the brawns with brains. They demolish their enemies in a blink of an eye. But if you have them as an ally, they will go to the ends of the world to help you. Humans mainly dominate the kingdom cities, but the outer villages and towns are more wildly spread. But they are run by human nobles."
Xabrayria sounded like an English aristocratic environment, Eliana pointed out. She wasn't sure she wanted to be part of something like that. She's read the history of how it worked back on Earth, and it looks pretty toxic and fake. Not to mention pretty sexist. But Ciri said it wasn't as bad as that, but there were still many fake people trying to chump up to people with more money and the higher titles. Also that there was flower talk that was secretly ripping you to shreds... Yeah, Ciri wasn't selling it to her.
"Next, we have Blaym Stella, the kingdom in the mountains, and as you can observe, it is huge! This really is all mountain range!
These mountains aren't like the ones you are used to; because they are so large you can't feel the steepness and this aloud these incredible woods to cover the vast lands, and the kingdom itself is inside the mountains range.
The ore in the mountains makes for the perfect weapons because you can wield your mana with it, whilst their trees wood make ideal mounts as they withstand pretty much anything, making these weapons sort after. And only the dwarfs that live there can fashion these weapons. As you can guess, this kingdom dominates the world by their craftsmanship, weapon specialist and manufacture. They have a good relationship with Xabrayria. They have their troops train together in each other's lands and lend their specialities to help their nations to evolve."
'Was it a dimensional trope of having dwarfs live in the mountains?' snorting at the thought as she listened to Ciri carrying on explaining the world. Mentioning how the two underwater kingdoms barely had contact with the land dwellers, but we're always at war with one another. The other domains pretended that they didn't exist until peace talks come around every hundred years. This world also had its own version of the black market that was run by goblins. Instead of dinosaurs, they had dragons who got wiped out by a meteorite. They even have their own loch ness monster myth in the Elder lake called Tairoit, the Eternal One.
"This brings us to the two lost nations. The one we are sat in right now. This place is now called The Broken Forest; no one comes in here at all. It fulfils as the bogeyman of children bedtime stories but still seen as sacred territory as this was the last sighting place of their gods.
It use to be the kingdom of fairies, Ethereal Ilse. Also known as the firefly gardens by how much natures magic ran free here. Glittering in the air, the forest was never dark. But when the gods disappeared, the fairies fell into a deep slumber, and the forest lost its light."
Ciri spoke softly of this like it was, remembering how this woodland use to be. But it had never been there when it was like that. Ciri was newly born, the first of its kind; this emotion came from Caelus. He deposited all the knowledge into the stone, trying to be as impartial as he could be, but this forest held too many significant memories that he couldn't stop them from leaking in.
"The other lost nation is the Stygian Void. It was the polar opposite of Ethereal Ilse. It was swarming with demons that terrorised the whole world but just like the gods, they vanished. It's now called The Abandoned Fields, and it's the centre of the black market."
'Where one used to thrive in life becomes nothing more than a scary children tale, to one where it conquered in death and becomes infamous for selling lives.' a soft voice whispered in her mind.
***
Eliana didn't bring up the strange voice in the hours she and Ciri sat going over basic knowledge. She was too freaked out at the moment and just focused on what Ciri was telling her so that the dark-haired woman wouldn't bring more attention to herself, other than her clothing. However, she did find out her coat is similar to what they have here, so it should cover her enough until she could find a change of clothes. They also agreed on preparing to make their way out of the forest, collecting a few things on the way, so Eliana had some form of currency to help her out.
"Right! We should go this way." the floating book pointed an orange beam to the trees on their right "this part of the forest has this stone that's sought after by the rich because it shows off they have money. So you should be able to get quite a bit for it. Especially with it still being in its natural state," and off they went into the dark, gloomy forest.
The forest was haunting. Eliana could understand why it has been turned into a scary story. It reminded her of the scene in Snow White when she is running away from the hunter, and all the trees look like ghouls and as though they were trying to reaching out and grab her. But Eliana was sure that this forest was moving. Sometimes when she walks by a tree, it looked as though it turned to watch her go by. Sometimes, even a branch would tug at her hair, and she was sure there were no branches near her head. She told Ciri this, but the transformed tablet told her she had imagined it all; the darkness was playing tricks on her eyes and that this forest doesn't have any magic left in it; if it did, it was too faint to pick up and it definitely wouldn't make a tree move. So Eliana kept quiet, just watching her surroundings.
"We are here!" The floating book zoomed into an extraordinary looking stone henge—the boulders at least three meters high and one meter wide. And Eliana could place her self twice over on the sides and still be hidden by it. "Come, come!" Ciri yelled. Glancing over, the dark-haired woman sees the book hovering over a dark grey stone tablet in the middle of the henge.
"You don't want to hack up these stones, are you? Because one, this place looks ancient and sacred. And two, we actually don't have anything that would even make a dent in them." Eliana questioned, making her way over to Ciri.
"No, silly! You need to make a blood sacrifice!"
'Wait...what?" this was not what the amber-eyed woman was expecting. She thought they would just have to go into a cave and grab some stones. Easy peasy.
"What?" That was all she could get out.
"If you look at the tablet, it says to give a blood sacrifice to see if you are worthy of being helped." all Eliana could see was beautiful gold scripture, but she couldn't read a word of it. Ciri could see the look she gave it. "You can't understand it, can you?" The dark-haired woman just shook her head "well, you're going to have to trust me. This is the only way we can safely take something out, not because of the forest but because of the people outside of it. As I said, they may talk about this forest as a scary story, but it is still sacred. So they don't want you stealing from it."
"But what blood sacrifice does it want? It does not want me to kill something, right?" the young woman was starting to freak out. She knew she wouldn't be able to kill anything.
"No. No killing just a few drops of your own blood willing given in front of the tablet. Just let them fall to the ground." that was not as bad as Eliana was thinking, and she believes she has something sharp enough in her bag to prick herself. Rooting through it, she finds her small emergence sewing kit and gets a new needle out from the packet.
"So all I need to do is prick myself and let a few drops fall to the ground?" Eliana confirm.
"First, you need to be on your knees and bow your head in honour, then you sit up and offer the blood."
"Who am I honouring? The forest? Gods or fairies?" she asked, getting down in front of the tablet admiring the golden Scripture.
"The fairies. It's their kingdom even if they have not appeared in thousands of year's and it's only polite to ask. But also pray to the gods to get a sign that you've been allowed to take from the forest. That the only way you won't be in trouble with Earias people for even being in the forest." Ciri advised.
The amber eyes starred at the beautiful gold writing for a few more moments before falling to the ground and bowing her head low.
'Fairies of Ethereal Ilse, if you can hear me, please help me. I don't even know why I'm here on this planet. I got kidnapped from my world and told in a letter that I had to help this world somehow. And I have no clue if I can go back home to my family and friends. I have just been ditch here with a talking book and nothing else to help me in this world. I don't even know what questions to ask, and Ciri, the book is new to this world too, so they don't know what to tell me. It's just common knowledge that they believe I should already know.' the young dark-haired woman could feel her throat tightening up with the lump growing inside it. Thinking this thought out to something was only upsetting, making her understand the dire situation she was in and only reinforcing that she was alone with no way home. Eliana was never going to see her family again. 'I am sorry for releasing my problem on you, and you probably have worse problems of your own and don't need mine on top, but I'm pleading with you please help me.' tears started to escape her eyes, sitting up promptly, she quickly pricked her finger letting four drops of blood fall to the ground mixing with her runaway tears. With that, she instantly stood up and turned away from Ciri, wiping her eyes.
"You okay?" Ciri asked, but before she could reply, the ground started to shake. "Woah! This isn't meant to happen!" the book yelled, flying into Eliana's arms.
Eliana fell to the floor, holding protectively onto Ciri; the stone tablet started to rise, its gold writing was glowing brilliantly. It was growing to the size of the surrounding henge. The aura it was given was an immense amount of pressure keeping the young woman pressed to the floor. But it didn't feel threatening; it just didn't know how to control its power. As though it has been asleep for a very long time.
"We will help our liberator." hundreds of voices talked as one in the dark-haired woman mind. "We will help you on your quest, the daughter of Titania and the offspring of the sky. You will have great expectations placed upon you once the people of the world learn who you are. We have already sent a sign to the descendants of the sky's allies. They will help and support you through everything. They'll teach you magic and the way of life in this world, so learn as much as you can as quickly as possible before the world starts to watch you. We will lend you the stones you are after, but all we ask in return is, once your quest is done, please help bring our kingdom back to its former beauty and life." A shimmer of small gold lights appeared in front of the amber-eyed girl and quickly formed a dark green coin purse with a gold pull string. "In here, you will find the stones and some gold coins to help you on your way. The bag will also show that you are entitled to be in the forest. Furthermore, if you need help, all you need to do is pray to us, and we will help in any way we can. We wish you luck, our princess. Be safe and be vigilant."
Eliana watched as the tablet gently returns to its original size, looking as though there was no disturbance in the first place.
"So... What just happened?" Ciri questioned from her arms.
***
As Ciri lead the two out of the forest, Eliana explained what she had heard after realising the talking book heard nothing and just saw the purse appear. This shook the grimoire as it knew that the tablet, has only ever done what it did once before, was when all the fairies prevailed there to recognise the prayer. Ciri told the dark-haired woman that with the fairies in their slumber that it thought they wouldn't have any cognition of anything going on in the forest, mindless knowing the knowledge of Eliana's journey to forewarn her and give there endowing to the quest. But this proved every theory wrong. And they only asked for somthing in return after the quest was done, which could take years. This implied extraordinary faith in the young women.
"There is one thing I don't understand at all. They called me the daughter of Titania and offspring of the sky, also calling me their princess. Do you know why?"
"I have no clue. Any information I have on you is from Earth. Their nothing in my knowledge to explaining that; also, the name Titania seems to appear, but it occurs in blacked-out information. I - I think this is part of your journey to find out who you are. I'm sorry I'm no help so early on..." Eliana heard the discomfort in the books familiar voice, understanding it must be hard being created with the whole purpose to help her. Yet, someone or something has already covered up important information.
"It is fine, Ciri. We knew this was going to be difficult; we can always ask if someone knows the name." the amber-eyed woman tried to reassure the magical book.
"Right, and we can always go searching libraries for the information", Ciri stopped sounded more determined, turning towards her "we are coming up to the edge of the forest, so I'm going to shift into the necklace." the book came closer as Eliana held her arms out to catch it. With a sudden pop the book dropped into her arms and the weight appeared on the chain 'so Ciri can change independently.'
"Only to hide, you still have to call me out," Ciri voice echoed in her mind. "We are a few meters away from the exit. Just keep going straight forward."
The young dark-haired woman gently put the book into her satchel, making sure the bag was secured before setting off again. Looking around, as she made her way to the opening, she noticed a few yellow flowers waving their leafs goodbye to her with soft, sad chimes. "I'll come back and visit", she told them softly, waving her goodbye making her way out of the forest to happy chimes.
"What are you doing in there, Lassie?"