Oops, I Was Accidentally Transported To A Fantasy World And Taught Dragons About Capitalism - Chapter 6

I'm afraid that those of you who are looking for a more in depth recounting of my rescue from Xylera's lair are going to be disappointed, because it was around then that I passed out. One moment I remembered staring at the patch in front of me, then the next I was elsewhere with a small, vaguely mousey woman looking over me in a room of pure white.

“Oh good, you're awake,” I heard her say the moment that my eyes started to open, the instant and heavy exhaustion that had fallen over me making it impossible to think. “How are you feeling?”

It was a question that took me the entirety of my mind and effort to process, a full five count passing before I was able to utter my answer. “Guh.”

What? Were you expecting something better? Something more eloquent? Well you try cooking your core the way I accidentally did and you see if you can do better. Besides, it wasn't like what I said wasn't understood by the woman.

“That's fair, understandable even,” she replied with a quick nod as she leaned away from me and did something that caused whatever I was lying on to raise me up into a seated position. Moving slowly, I soon discovered that I was in some sort of medical ward, but one that defied any sense of normalcy or even familiarity from any I'd seen before.

And that was namely because of the open sky above me.

Blue as blue could be and stretching seemingly forever, it was the first thing that I noticed that threw me, that and the fact that no matter where I looked there was no sun, despite it being bright as day out. It was a blast of confusion that lasted right up until the point where my vision dropped downwards to what my tortured mind expected to be floor, only to find thick clouds instead. In fact everything I looked seemed to be made from white fluffy clouds, from the machines beside me with medical readouts, to the nearby wall beyond it, to even the bed I lay upon and the blanket that covered me.

So as one does when presented with a scene that their understanding of physics and reality could not reconcile, I started to panic a little bit. Okay, I’ll be honest, I started to panic a lot.

“Wait, how, I mean, oh no—” I started to half shout as an overwhelming sense of vertigo shot through me, my mind expecting me to start falling at any moment. In a blink, my cloudy white blanket was in the air, literally, it started to float away from me, a machine was sent spinning, and I was headfirst halfway out of the bed before a forceful hand on my shoulder stopped me.

“Ugh, those interns, I swear!” I heard the woman that I'd awoken growl as he pushed me back with surprising force, her words quickly followed by something that I understood to be curseword but not in a language that I could place, let alone repeat. Once the invective was out, and she had all but shoved me squarely back onto my cloud bed, her voice turned calm. “Sir, just take a breath, just pause and breathe, you'll feel better in a moment.”

And to my immense surprise she was right, the all-consuming panic that fried my brain cells but vanishing from me in record speed. That was because right as the woman started speaking, so did another burst of what I was rapidly recognizing as magic filled the air around me. Whirling faster than I could read, the spell quickly finished casting and rushed into my chest, arriving with enough metaphysical force that it pushed me even further onto my back. A second later, I saw strange floating words appear in my vision.

New Patient Medical Chart Update: THERAPY has been applied.

Treatment Explanation: The Transmigator’s Holistic Emotional Realignment And Psychological Y—

I didn't even have the to finish reading the words before they promptly dissolved from sight as the woman gestured sharply.

“I think it’s probably better that we don’t worry about that right now,” she said curtly while making a note on a cloud white clipboard that I could have sworn she hadn’t been holding a moment earlier. “And on behalf of my staff, I'm so sorry about the…turmoil that you just experienced. That enchantment should have been put on you long before you woke up. We normally don't want to put our patients through something like that. Are you feeling better now?”

“I…uh, yes,” I replied, surprised to find that I was not only able to answer, but that all of the terror, worry, pretty much everything that I'd been feeling since I'd found the fairy straddling me was now gone. It felt more soothing than I could put into words, leaving me feeling like I finally had my feet on solid ground for the first time in ages. But while I did feel better, I was still confused as all hell.

So I said as much to the woman who now that I wasn’t in a complete state of shock noticed was dressed in the same white robes as my rescuers, save that her hood was pulled down and I could see her face. One that while quite similar was decidedly not human.

“Who…what the hell are you?”

“Good questions to ask,” she instantly replied with a nod, mercifully not showing any office to my less than eloquent tone. “And to answer that in parts, I am Senior Mender Gabriella Lightwind and I am a Authorized Narrative Guardian and Enforcement Liaison, as were all of those who rescued you after your abduction.”

“As for what I am...” she continued after glancing down at the clipboard in her hand. “That is a little it more difficult to explain given your... incomplete worldview at the moment. Suffice to say I am what your realm would call a gnome. In fact all of us here at the Humane Export Authority For Varied Existential Needs are.”

I couldn’t help but blink at the statement my mind almost instinctively wanting to protest at the explanation, but stopping just shy of doing so. After everything that I had just gone through, the literal dragon that I had seen and talked to, well, being face to face with a gnome didn’t quite feel that special. So instead it shifted to focus on all of the capital letters I heard in the latter half of her explanation.

“So…you're a gnome angel from heaven?” I asked, unable to help feel surreal as I did so. Here I was in a fluffy cloud bed, surrounded by what Sunday school had taught me was the ever after. It made me ask the obvious question. “Am I…dead?”

“Oh, thankfully no,” Gabriella assured with a shake of her head, letting go of her clipboard as she spoke and causing it to simply vanish from sight. “You put us through a bit of a scare when you come in, but I'm happy to say that you've made a full recovery. I'd really recommend that you never do whatever it was you did to burn your core again. Chances are you won't be so lucky a second time.”

Of course that only served to confuse me even further, my eyes narrowing on the woman. “My... what?”

“Ah, you don't know about that either then, do you?” Gabriella’s face scrunched into a frown. “Well, that's—”

“—somethin that I can handle.” A new voice announced as they cut the mender off seemingly from nowhere.

That is until a slash of color abruptly appeared from beside me, as if a door was opening in the very air itself, and another gnome stepped out. Or as I knew better now, an angel stepped out. However unlike any of the others that I’d seen so far, this new arrival was dressed differently, far differently. Where the other angels that I had seen so far had worn mystical looking robes and hoods, the newly arriving gnome wore a faded and well-worn brown suit, complete with a far too long black tie and a sweat stained white shirt. Regardless of his appearance however, his arrival immediately had Gabriella stiffening as she turned to face him.

“Uh, welcome, sir!” She stammered out in clear surprise. “I-I wasn't expecting you to come and handle this personally.”

“Oh, knock that shit off Gabby, we’ve known each other too long,” the gnome replied in a gravelly voice that wouldn’t have been out of place on a beat cop patrolling the streets of New York. “And nor did I until this cluster of a file came across my desk. What a colossal cock up.”

The gnome gaze shifted to meet my mine and simply nodded by way of greeting. “So, you're Matthew Cross.”

It was obvious that it wasn't a question, but I still nodded all the same. “I—yeah, that's me.”

“It's a pleasure. All things considered at least.” He replied as he offered his hand. “The name is Peter, and I'm the one who will be handling your case. With some luck and your cooperation I'm hoping that we can get this all sorted out relatively cleanly.”

“That would be great, fantastic even,” I replied while staring stupidly at Peter's hard for far too long before it finally clued into me as to what to do. Moving as quickly as my body would let me, I extended my comparatively massive hand and offered it back to the barely three and a half foot man who promptly grabbed my two middle fingers and gave me what to this day remains as the most awkward handshake of my life.

Not that it seemed to faze him in the slightest.

“Excellent, then let's see about getting this shit show on the road then,” Peter stated the moment our awkward exchange was complete, his head then turning towards Gabriella. “Is he ready for discharge?”

“Medically, yes he is, sir,” the woman replied without missing a beat. “He's made a full recovery for all physical and mental injuries incurred during his abduction.”

“Wonderful, then I'll take custody of him now then and get him out of your hair,” Peter replied as he turned his attention back towards me and motioned for me to stand before glancing back at the woman. “In the meantime, don't be a stranger, next time you have a break, let me know and we can swap stories. It’s been too long.”

“That… would be great, sir, I mean Peter,” Gabriella replied as I did exactly what I'd been instructed and climbed out of bed, a process through which I discovered I was no longer wearing my old clothes.

In fact instead I was wearing a plain grey track suit with a series of letters stitched over my heart. Staring down at it as I rose, it took me a moment to parse the upside down word that they spelled out. But when I finally did, I couldn't help but be instantly annoyed.

“Wait, what?” I grunted before shifting to look down at both Peter and Gabriella. “Why does my shirt say DUMBASS on it?”

Which is exactly what it said black capital letters that anyone with vaguely functioning eyes couldn't miss.

“Because that is what you are,” Peter answered without missing a beat, needing to practically crane his head straight up words to see me. “And before ya think to get uppity about it. No, it doesn't mean what you think it means, rather it lets everyone in the office know that you're a Displaced and Unintentional Migrant Being Assigned a Secondary Story.”

I instantly felt my eyes cross and mind sputter as I was bombarded by another wave of capital letters, their arrival and explanation doing practically nothing to help my understanding.

“I'm a displaced what being assigned a what now?” I grunted back as I glanced between the pair.

“I’ll add it to the list of things to explain,” Peter stated as he indicted the door that he had arrived from, it at some point that I had missed having grown tall enough to accommodate my height. “But first we’ve got a few other things to cover, so we'll be walking and talking until we get to where we need to be.”

Realizing that the man, gnome, angel, whatever he was, wasn't going to wait for me, the next few seconds passed in a bit of scramble as I hastily waved goodbye to Gabriella and stepped through the doorway, stumbling as I did so. Not because I tripped over something, but rather because the second I stepped through the door, I found myself in the hallway of a 1950s police precinct.

It came with everything you expected the place to, the smell of sweat from too many people packed in close together, a thick almost musky heat, and the stench of nicotine laced smoke, a thick cloud of it hovering just under the heavy bright lights that hung from the ceiling above.

“Welcome to Heaven Headquarters, enforcement wing,” Peter announced as he led his way down the hall away from me, this short stride making it mercifully easy for me to catch up. “This is the place where people like me do their damned best to make sure that things like what happened to you don't in fact happen. More often than not we do a good job, but sometimes, like your case, things go sideways.”

By this point and everything that I had gone through it didn't take me much effort to figure exactly what Peter was referring to and I quickly spoke up.

“You mean the woman who... sent me to that's dragon's lair.”

“Right in one, kid,” Peter replied, pausing to nod at another passing gnome who was heading the opposite way as us. “Though using the term ‘woman’ is a bit of stretch in this case. The being that you met was actually no other than Fae Queen Arcilla. She is a notorious interrealm serial predator whom we've been looking to pin down for the last couple centuries, heaven local time that is. Unfortunately she's been careful enough not to technically break any of our mandates, or at least leave evidence that she did so.”

Peter paused to look up at me with a meaningful look in his eye. “That is not until she breached Earth and pulled you from it. We're hoping that with your help we can finally send her down to Tartarus until the end of time.”

I blinked at the gnome it taking me a moment to not only process what he said but also for my mind to awaken to a concept that it hadn't yet even considered thinking of. That thing in particular being justice.

Yes I had been assaulted, abducted from my realm, thrown into a dragon's lair and left for dead. But up until now I'd just been focused on survival, that and to try and make sense of the surreal new reality I'd been so unceremoniously dumped in.

“What do you need me to do?” I asked as a kind of cold anger that I'd never felt before washed over me.

“First of all? I need to know what happened. The protections that we have around Earth are the strongest in existence to say the least, so the fact that she got through at all is a little concerning. Please don’t leave anything out what happened to you, and goes to include your surroundings, time of day, everything. The smallest detail could help us figure out how she did it.”

“After we’ve got that sewn up,” he added, his voice taking on a more gentle tone. “I'm going to need you to pick her out of a line up and identify her.”

It was understandably that part of his reply that brought me up short. “You mean... she's here? You caught her?”

The gnome's head bobbed in response, “we do and did. A team picked her up what we believe was seconds after she pulled you from Earth. Unfortunately though because she sealed the rift she sent you through before they arrived, we simply didn't have any idea as to where you ended up, at least not right away.”

“I see,” I replied, wondering exactly how to even begin to reply. But when nothing came to me after several more, seconds of walking I decided to simply start, talking. “Well, it all started at a party that I was hosting...”

I told Peter everything at that point as we walked through the seemingly endless halls of Heaven, our journey to our destination taking us pretty much the exact time needed to retell my story. In hindsight I'm pretty sure that was intentional on Peter's behalf, though not in a way that I could really figure out, seeing as we never double backed or took winding turns through the precinct.

More too, Peter was an apt and engaged listener, commenting with useful things such as “the party's theme and the day you held it on likely thinned the interrealm barriers.” and “We know that Arcilla is attracted to displays of power and wealth, as the host, it made sense she'd fixate on you.”

Granted all of that makes sense to me now, but back then, it was just more on the pile of confusion and madness that I was forced to endure. The only thing that did make sense amid Peter's intermittent comments was when I mentioned my ring and how it had burned her when she'd touched it.

“A fae, even one as powerful as her, won't be able to hide an iron burn so quickly. That could be all we need to nail her.”

It was a reply that had me glancing down at my ring several times as I spoke, only eventually interrupted by, Peter's sudden announcement of, “Right, we're here.”

He then stepped in front of a seemingly random door in the hallway that we'd been walking through and opened it, holding it open for me to follow him inside.

“So this is how things are gonna go,” he said once I was in the dimly lit room with large curtain on its opposite end. “When you're ready, we're gonna open that blind and you're gonna see a bunch of fairies, but don't worry, they're not gonna actually be here. Rather you'll be seein them through a one way scrying mirror to where they're being held. It's about twelve million miles away from here as you understand distance. There's no chance any of them are going to get to you, understand? You'll be perfectly safe.”

“I... understand,” I replied, only realizing then as to how nervous I'd suddenly become at seeing the fairy again, appreciating the gnome's reassurance. “And then once I spot her... all I need to do is pick her out?”

 “That's right,” Peter assured with a nod as he walked over to the wall where a rack containing eyewear for several various configurations and number of eyes were arranged. He grabbed a pair, one for each of us, and turned back to face me. “I'll take care of all the rest afterwards. Now, before we start, I just have one quick question... are you by any chance allergic to peanuts?”

I blinked back at the pint sized angel and the glasses, thinking that I'd heard him wrong. “What?”

“Are you allergic to peanuts?” He repeated as he waved one of the black framed spectacles, signaling that no, I hadn't misheard him. “I need to know, because sometime these glasses cause bad reactions to those with peanut allergies, and if that's the case, then we'll need to put a filter on the mirror instead. The last thing we need is for you to go blind and then explode.”

“Uh, and why would either of those things happen to me?” I asked, suddenly feeling worried at the turn the conversation had taken.

“Because you're about to lay your eyes on six lust fairies at once kid,” Peter explained as if that statement made all the sense in the world. “You think I'm gonna let you do that without some PPE? You’d be a goner. One look without protection and, pop, there goes my chance at conviction, and all the juices that are inside you. You'd also ruin my suit, which if I'll be honest, I kinda like.”

“Now,” He continued in a more series tone. “Allergies. Yes, or no?”

“No,” I replied and all but instantly was tossed the glasses that Peter had in his hands, glancing down at them they looked like just plain black glasses, save for the printed and stickied label that ran down one of their arms. The kind of label you’d see in an office with a underworked human resources department.

So like pretty much every corporate office everywhere.  

“Post Coital Clarity Glasses?” I read aloud before looking up to Peter who had put on the glasses he’d chosen for himself. “Are these really what I think—”

“Yea they are, kid,” came the resigned reply from the gnome as he walked back over to me.

“But why—”

“Because the universe has a sense of humor, best you not overthink it past that,” he interrupted again, while gesturing for me to put them on. “Now are you ready? Sooner we can get this sorted, sooner we can start figuring out what's next for you. You know, your future.”

I felt my reservations meld away at that particular enticement, even if I were somehow being pranked. The sooner my life returned to normal, the better. I put the glasses on and instantly felt my vision somehow get sharper. Satisfied, I glanced down at Peter and then turned to look ahead at the curtain.

“I'm ready.”