Welcome to Xaranya

Book 2 – The Knight’s Tale

Chapter 3 – Under Arrest

“You are under arrest.”

Those were the first words Susan heard upon entering Tilton for the first time, having arrived not in the starter area of Chellest – which would have also caused something of a ruckus mind you, but – oh no, she showed up in a gleaming room lined with gold, with a single, blue-gray carpet running the length of the long hall, the carpet soft beneath her feet.

And there, less than two feet in front of her sat King Enias himself, not that she had any idea who he was, other than a half-human (the top half) and half-fish (the bottom half) person, wearing elaborate blue and green regalia and robes and carrying a large, silver trident emblazoned with carvings like blue-gold fire.

For a second, Susan stares at the king who stares back at her and then … like lightning, or like a very fast fish flicking through water (take your pick), the guards have seized her arms and someone is saying the words.

“You are under arrest.”

What? she thinks, still staring at the king on his throne. Under arrest for what?

None of those questions will be answered for her any time soon, as the guards literally pick her up, one on each side, carrying her stunned and silent body out of the throne room and to a jail cell.

The explanation for why these things all happened would take a while, far too long really. Instead – hi – this seems like a good moment to point something out, something that many people misunderstand about being around God. For some reason, despite all the many, many, many examples to the contrary, people think crazy-sounding (to me) things like this: when God shows up for me everything is going to be okay and also God is there for that person and that is why they are so successful.

Sometimes. Sometimes it is like that. Usually it is like this: being dropped in the worst possible place at the worst possible time, for reasons you may never entirely understand. In fact, that is literally one of the most divinity things anyone can do.

Trust me.

And then, Susan sits on the coral bench inside her cell, contemplating her life choices. No, really. How did she wind up here? First, she died of old age and then … she met this woman named Kat and did a bunch of tests.

Maybe – she thinks – she should not have killed the bunny. That was a moral test she failed and now she is being punished for it.

She waits for about two hours while – without her knowledge – heated and worried conversations take place up stairs. Finally, a decision is made.

Finally, Chief Magicker Antithas comes downstairs, wearing his vivid purple robes and looking very calm, too calm, the kind of calm one looks when inside one is actually panicking.

Probably.

Antithas is half-merperson, with blue skin but no fish parts at all. His vanity title declares him to be Chief Interrogator, but Susan knows about vanity titles and she looks for the one in brackets which is [Chief Magicker] which is a Tilton-specific title for reasons no one cares about. Probably.

Regardless, Antithas stands well over six feet tall, looming over Susan in her blue-gray cell, with walls that shimmer and a spider-web wall of solid, blue-grey strands that form the door to said prison.

While Antithas stands there, face and body angled so he can stare at her with one deep, dark green eye, the door either disappears or goes invisible, hard to say which really.

“You,” Antithas says, stepping back to survey her. “Who are you, really?”

Susan stares back at him, and then licks her lower lip, and then gently bites it, thinking. Then, she straightens and squares her shoulders.

“My name is Susan,” she says. “And I’m from earth, and I was supposed to be sent to Chellest in Tilton as my starter city.”

Antithas crosses his arms across his chest. His arms are … humanoid apart from the slight – so slight she might not even notice except that she was looking, trying to grab onto some anchor, trying to make sense of a bizarre situation…. He has a very slight webbing around the fingers, like they never quite separated in the womb. Is that a thing?

“That is a very … convenient story,” he says.

“Is it?” she asks. She pulls up the chat window while they talk, but there is still no response. She has tried sending out requests for help, has checked and no one else seems to be using the chat function. She thinks but does not say that none of this feels convenient to her or to anyone really. Then, she pulls the one item in her inventory – the mysterious Contact coin which reappeared along with other starter items, like clothes, provisions, the things one generally gets as a newbie fresh out of orientation.

“What is that?” Antithas asks.

“The contact information for the person who sent me here. Her name was … Kat.”

Antithas stares at the coin, still not trusting her but curious about the coin – if nothing else – right up until she says The Name. Then, his eyes snap up to meet her face, and the look on his face…. She almost drops the coin.

“What?” she asks.

He opens his mouth, and raises his hand, about to say something. Then, he stops, reconsiders.

“The coin doesn’t seem to be working,” she says.

Not talking to her, not talking to anyone, talking perhaps to the ether, to the air, Antithas says in a very low voice, one which barely crosses the low-humidity air between them, the cold, dry air.

“But the gods have all abandoned us. The gods are all dead. It can’t….” He stares at the coin again, and then appearing to make up his mind he nods slowly before turning silently away, leaving her alone in her cell again.

“What?” Susan asks.

Then, she – first of all – puts the coin back into her inventory and then – second of all – walks up to the door which is in fact gone. She steps into the hallway outside her cell, and turns to face the person who says, “Uh-oh” in the cell beside her.

This person looks much more like a local, with long purple hair and dark green skin, almost the color of seaweed. Her dark golden eyes flicker beneath silvery blue lashes. The tag above her head reads, “Amaran [Cleric]”.

“Um,” Susan says. “Hi?”

More of the prisoners speak up, rousing from their slumber or meditation.

“He forgot to lock the cell,” one of them says.

“Run while you can.”

“Did you really talk to God?” someone asks, and she turns to that person, a human-looking person like her or like she was, because she is now half-elf. The tag above this person’s head reads, “Merin [Thief].”

“What?” Susan asks, lingering over the words above his head. Thief? She didn’t remember this option, and she had been looking for it. Not that she favored [Rogue] classes, but it was strange not to even see the option. Then again, maybe not. Those classes were sometimes less obvious.

“Are you really a [Warrior]?” Amaran asks.

That was the class she chose, yes.

“Why are you all in here?” Susan asks instead of answering the question.

“Go,” Amaran says. “Go and get the rest of us out.”

Susan goes. Well, she leaves the corridor the way she remembers, more or less. All right, so she was in something of a haze on the way down here. The single staircase leading up is pretty straightforward. After that … well, she is not as surprised to find the guards waiting for her as they are surprised to see her out of her cell and walking around.

Two guards stand at the top of the stairs, both wearing silver plate, both bearing the tag [Guard] which is – in case you were wondering, a sub-class of the [Paladin] class, to this day.

The guards take a second to respond, which gives Susan an instant to use her [Warrior] skills to attack, but because this is a real story and not fiction (probably), she doesn’t have time to respond. And, this is how Susan winds up being cast into hell the first time.

And here, I feel as if I should probably pause. Hi. Still here, still me, still Kat. I know. So many questions.

Me too. What on earth is going on with Tilton right now, right? Clearly, they are “going through some things, as a people.”

I sometimes want to say that like friends and family will say this about a couple that should – probably – break up because clearly this isn’t working and one of them might literally be about to kill the other, but far be it from us to interfere. Entire nations can be like that at times. Trust me. (Or not.)

Regardless, the guards grab her, bind her wrists this time and haul her toward the shadowy doorway that leads outside the dome, where – to her horror, because the horror hits the instant before she gets cast out. She can see hundreds – literally hundreds – of bodies, bodies of living people that were thrown out of the airlock, as she is about to be.

And then, it might be appropriate to talk about some of the baseline rules of Xaranya, rules like no one can die, but people can suffer.

In fact, people can suffer forever.

But there is a lot of in-between to the here and there of how all of this happens, and Susan doesn’t know any of that yet – and therefore, neither will you, not until the next chapter, if there is a next chapter.

…

There will be a next chapter.