Login

Travelers and Jumpers

by Nathan Traveler

Chapter 1: 1 - The Traveling Wizard

Load Full Story Next Chapter
1 - The Traveling Wizard

Travelers and Jumpers

Prologue:

The Story So Far

Have you ever wondered what’s out there, in that universe? Of course you have. Even as children, when we take our first look at the night sky and see all those great, bright, twinkling lights, we have to think to ourselves, “What are they?” Most sciences will tell you that they’re just great big hunks of flaming gas, or something like that. I’m a little rusty on that topic, to be honest.

However, I think I do know just what they are. They’re stars. Inspiration. They make us think. And when we think, we dream. And when we dream? We create. Entire galaxies, universes, and multiverses all extend from just a single idea. You see, if you make one universe filled with people, then those people will start dreaming, and create other universes. The most common example of this is a novel, or a movie. We see the story of that, and it gets planted in our heads. But all of us see it a different way, no two views are exactly alike. After that, we even begin to wonder… “What if?”

Even the dark ideas exist somewhere. Yes, your nightmares exist. Maybe not in your world, but they're out there...

Now, here’s where I come in.

My name is Omnius. I’m a Traveler. And more importantly, I'm a wizard. For about six hundred years, I've been Traveling through different universes, under the orders of certain Divine beings who shall remain unnamed for now. Because of them, I've had to actively fight against those nightmares for my entire existence. It's a thankless job, but someone's got to do it.

Of course, sometimes...I wish it wasn't me.


Chapter 1:

The Traveling Wizard

The night was dark, Princess Luna’s moon barely visible through the thin layer of black clouds that filled the skies. Raindrops gently fell upon the head of the white-maned unicorn, as she trudged her way through the muddy road, her head bent low in an attempt to keep the rain from falling into her azure eyes.  

“Such a miserable night, isn’t it?” a hauntingly familiar voice asked from behind her.

Eyes wide in fear, she whipped around to behold her follower, and she swallowed nervously.

“O-oh,” she stuttered. “I-I didn’t expect to see y-you here, I mean, it’s really-”

“Save it, Miss Scrolls,” the voice spat out in a mixture of anger and cold victory. “You should have known that I would find you after our dreadful business was concluded.”

Desperately, she tried to placate his anger. “You have what you need,” she barely managed to get out. “Why can’t you just leave me alone now?”

The clouds parted, just for a moment, revealing a small patch of moonlight that illuminated the two figures. There was a small bend in the light, a flash, and the pony felt as if someone had just traced their hoof across her throat. It would have been fine, had it not been for the trail of scarlet that followed the touch.

Not a touch, she realized, right before she collapsed.

The figure leaned over her, an indistinguishable shadow in the night. It seemed to smile, before whispering, “You should have known, Miss Scrolls: I never leave any loose ends. It’s bad for business.”

As her life blood poured out, and mixed with the mud and water, she heard the figure say something that shook her to her very core.

“A new dawn is approaching, Miss Scrolls. No longer will Redemption be needed. Neither will Hope, for that matter.”

And just like that…with the knowledge of what she had just done for them fresh in her mind…she died…


“No, no,” I tiredly spoke into the phone on my desk. The voice on the other end babbled about the logistics of physics, mathematics, and a whole lot of other “icks” that I didn’t particularly care for at that moment. When she paused to take a breath, I finally told her, “Lady, look. Your brother already paid my full expenses, including my train ticket, and I got rid of the poltergeist. If you just give it a couple of weeks, you’ll see that the damage will stop spreading as quick as it has been.”

“That’s a load of bullshit, and you know it!” she practically shrieked into the phone. “There’s no such thing as ghost, no such thing as thaumatzerzits-”

“Thaumaturgy,” I said through gritted teeth. Can go on about astrophysics and horoscopes, but can’t understand a magic circle, can she? Must...resist...urge...to curse...

“WHATEVER! And there are certainly, without a doubt, NO SUCH THINGS AS WIZARDS! My lawyers will be speaking to you tomorrow on accounts of fraud! I will see you in court!”

She slammed the phone down so hard that I thought she’d have to pay for a new phone along with the lawyers. It’d serve her right, wouldn’t it…?

I sighed, and leaned back in my chair, tiredly rubbing the three-day growth of stubble along my chin. My desk was a clutter of envelopes, half-folded papers with a motley mixture of precise, clean, obviously-from-a-computer writing, and hand-written thank you/death letters. Some of the papers had been covered in my own untidy notes from the cases I’d taken care of recently.

And a good number of them were bills. Rent, electricity, property damage, lawsuits…everything that wanted to sink its teeth into my wallet, had been stacked neatly into my “Out” box. Out of sight, out of mind, at least until I could finish dealing with the bills from the previous month.

Then again, that’s the life of a freshly started detective, isn’t it? Especially when he’s just finished training with the only professional wizard in Chicago to get said detective license (long story), and moved out all the way to Seattle.

Yeah. I figured Chicago wasn’t the only big city with supernatural problems, and figured someone would have to go and try to deal with them. That required a lot of detective training (despite the fact that I had a license to do that on a plethora of other worlds) and some professional advice from the man himself, Harry Dresden, before I could actually move out here.

The first couple of months…were interesting, to say the least. And it involved a lot of property damage. Most of it wasn’t my fault.

I said most. Don’t give me that look.

In any case, I was sitting at my desk, contemplating how to deal with said bills, when the door opened, and a woman walked into my office.

If this were an old detective movie, this would be the part where I describe her long legs, and how she looks like trouble with a capital “T”. But that’s not what this is. This is a Travels story. So I’m gonna move onto the actual conversation now.

“Excuse me, is this the office of Mr. Voyaguer the, ah…wizard?” she asked in a slightly shy voice.

No, this is the office of Mr. Voyageur, the, ah, lizard. Instead of saying that, I told her in a polite voice, “Yes, this is. How can I help you?”

“Well…you see…” she glanced around, as if she were about to speak about something sacred…or blasphemous. “I have a…well, I have a big problem.”

I winced, and told her, “I’m sorry, you’re in the wrong room then. Big problems are one door over. We only deal with small to medium sized problems here.”

She let me have a wry smile, and shook her head slightly. It looked like she was a little more relaxed than before. I think that’s a good sign. Perhaps she was expecting a looney, or an old, wise, benevolent sage. Unfortunately, I’m just old…and a bit mad…

Gathering my thoughts, I returned to the matter at hand. The woman shifted uncomfortably, and said, “Mr. Voyageur, I’m afraid that my problem can only be dealt with by someone who can operate outside of the normal parameter of investigations.”

Ah. So. She’s using bigger words now. Legal terms. That means she has something bigger for me to worry about, and more importantly, it’s supposed to be some form of secret. Time to get serious.

“Alright, tell me what you know about the case,” I said, pulling out my notebook.

She looked at me cautiously. “So…you accept the case?”

“Well, I suppose so, yes,” I nodded.

Her face lit up in a worrying smile. “Excellent,” she said, instantly changing once more, throwing me off balance. “I assure you, Omnius, you won’t regret this!”

Wait, what?

“How did you-”

I suddenly felt a deep tug in my gut, as something started to pull at my very existence. I tried to fight against it, struggled even, but the power was greater than my own. Akin to that of a God, if I had to guess. I looked at the woman, and gave her an angry glare.

“Lady, just who are you?” I snarled, reaching into my coat.

She only smiled at me, and disappeared. As soon as she did, my entire office began to shake. My spellbooks started to rattle on their shelves, some of my alchemy ingredients tumbled about in their containers, my bills ever so casually fell into a paper shredder, and became a wad of incomprehensible slips of paper. The lights began to flicker, and then fail entirely, leaving the only the pale white light that would flow in through the windows. And even that light was started to change. It became brighter, more intense…it seemed purer, in fact.

Finally, the sensation of forced Traveling ended. It was official. I had just landed in another dimension.

Oh. And my office had come with me.  Peachy. Whatever this “case” is, it’s bad enough for a Goddess to personally hire me (probably without pay either) and warp me to another world with my basic wizarding/detective equipment…

I should stop talking to myself, and just get it over with. First, though, I’ll have to grab my said equipment.

“Welp, Live and Learn,” I grumbled, standing up from my chair. A brief shot of dizziness accompanied that motion, but faded just as quickly as it appeared.  Slight after-affect of being force-Traveled to another dimension. The only comfort I could take in that was that only a God/Goddess of Good could manage that.

That’s getting distracted again. I need to focus.

I steeled my nerves, and started digging around my desk’s cabinets. A tin filled with small crystals, some string, duct-tape, salt, some chalk, a couple notebooks, and some other odds and ends, all went into my coat’s pockets. Once I stuck my blasting rod into my inside coat, I grabbed my staff, tightened the silver band around my wrist…

And tightened my gunbelt around my waist. What? Wizards can’t just rely on magic all the time. Sometimes you need a bit of mortal firepower. In this case, a Colt 1911 handgun, one of the few guns that wouldn’t act up around a magic-slinging wizard.Well, one of the few small guns that could do that, but still.

Now that I was properly equipped, I could walk outside, and face whatever fresh hell I had been thrust into.

I tightened my grip on my oak staff, and yanked open the door…to reveal a shining, happy, peaceful looking meadow. There were even a few butterflies flying around, and birds singing a cheerful tune. A gentle breeze caressed the glade, carrying with it the warm touch of spring. There was barely a cloud in the sky, and a calm, blue lake was stretched out before me.

“If this doesn’t spell trap, I don’t know what does,” I muttered cautiously, tightening my grip on the oak staff. “All it’s missing is Admiral Ackbar screaming the obvious.”

With a heavy sigh at my own paranoia, I turned back around to stare at the remains of my office. Really, other than the bits and pieces of plumbing and electrical wiring that stuck out from the walls, it looked to be in pretty good shape. I could probably use it as a base of operations during my time here. Hell, it was the only place where I knew I had my magic gear. Unfortunately, though, it still cut me off from my Vault, along with the heavier bits and pieces of my stuff.

Speaking of, there’s at least one powerful piece that I’m gonna want to keep with me at all times. Best not to lose her, especially on a foreign world.

I stepped back inside of the office, and dug around my filing cabinet for a minute. “Come on, where are you Ivy…” I idly said to myself while digging through the seemingly random junk. Finally, I managed to extract a bright, shining pocket watch with a shining picture of a book and quill on it.

“Ivy? C’mon Ivy, time to wake up,” I said, opening the watch.

There was the sound of a soft yawn, before a small, cyan colored flaming puffball floated out of the open watch. The puffball shook itself a little bit, before it said in a feminine tone, “Trav…what’s going on? You normally don’t wake me up unless we’re on a case, or about to Travel.”

Spirits of Creativity are an increasingly rare thing to find. Anything involving the imagination, or even facts in general, they can memorize and store for later use. Ivy is one such creature. She had been given to me when I first started Traveling, and she's kind of become my substitute for the internet on occasion. And she lives in a pocket watch. Come on, that's gotta be kinda cool, right?

Bringing myself back to the question she had asked me, I sighed, and told her, “Exactly. We’ve got a…different kind of case, I guess.” I briefly explained the situation to her, about the mysterious case offer, how the office had been warped to another dimension entirely, and how everything seemed too bright and cheerful to involve a murder case.

“You really need to stop jinxing yourself like that,” the puffball stated seriously. “Especially with your luck.”

“Thank you, Ivy. For a living catalogue of all of my stuff, you really know how to get me all confident, don’t you?” I dryly commented, attaching the watch to a chain around my neck. Once it was nice and tight, I walked outside, and showed her the state of my office.

“Hmm…well, sir, it might be a good idea to draw a magic circle around it. Bind it to your magic, make sure only you can get in. Other than that, there’s not much we can do. Especially with the sparse materials you have on hand,” Ivy commented.

“Figured as much,” I nodded.

I set about using my staff to draw a large circle in the ground around the room, taking careful pains to make sure that the circle didn’t have any breaks in it. Once I had it all the way around the place, I sealed it with a bit of my own will, and took a couple steps back to see the results. After a couple of pebbles were thrown at it, and reflected back with little-to-no problems, I put a basic glamour over it, and started off in a random direction.

“Do you think we’ve been to this world before?” Ivy asked, resting comfortably on my shoulder. Oddly enough, her “flames” did nothing to burn my shoulder. Then again, I’m not complaining.

I thought about her question, and answered honestly, “It’s very possible. But I’m also getting the feeling that my memories might be blocked again. So, prepare to take notes on anything we might run into.”

“Of course. I’ll also take note of how they react to seeing a strange looking man with carrying a staff, wearing a Seattle Seahawks jacket with bulging pockets, and hiking boots,” she deadpanned in reply.

“The jacket was a gift from Mrs. Eberly, and you know it!” I shot back. “She wanted to thank me for getting rid of those pixies.”

“Nasty things they were,” she remembered.

“Yeah. Good thing we had those doughnuts on hand,” I mumbled. “Gahl, I hope whatever planet we’re on has decent orchestras,” I added offhandedly, maneuvering myself onto a dirt road that had conveniently entered my field of vision.

“Indeed,” she agreed.

After that, we fell silent for a time, simply following the path, wrapped up in our own thoughts. To be honest, I was more than a little worried. See, I’m a Traveler. Now, while that means I normally have phenomenal interdimensional powers, I’m more than usually limited to whatever world I’m on. For example, if I’m in the Wild West, then I have to rely on technology from that time period. Right now, I’m just a wizard. So that means I can only access powers relating to wizards; anything with magic, basically.

That being said…I have no idea what my magic will do now. I’m gonna have to improvise really soon, I’m guessing. Hopefully, though, I’ll be able to get a little time to test out some of m-

“ROAAAAR!”

“Ivy, what the hell was that?” I asked, feeling my muscles tighten in their fight-or-flight response.

In answer, another roar echoed throughout the woodsy area. Followed by the shrill shriek of a young girl.

“Oh, you have to be kidding me!” I groaned, cursing the absurdity of it all.

Right now, with my magic in question and my knowledge of this world sketchy at best, the smart thing to do would be to run away, and get help. Hopefully before said child got hurt. I mean, I had experience in running from things. I could probably pull it off.

But that kid would have one too many scratches for my liking.

So, I did what I have more experience with.

I ran towards the huge, ginormous, angry sounding monster.

Wizards. Some of us aren't exactly that wise.

Next Chapter: 2 - Travis Voyageur Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 13 Minutes

Return to Story Description

Login

Facebook
Login with
Facebook:
FiMFetch