It isn't late at night, but it is late in the year, and the sun went about its business quickly ere it departed.
Jacqueline Somer walks beside a busy road, with her back to oncoming traffic, which she's read you aren't supposed to do but it makes the stupid LED headlights somewhat less unbearable.
She flinches every time a car passes her.
Cars are loud, and she has enhanced hearing.
She'd be much happier, she thinks, in a world without automobiles.
....She needs to take a moment to step back and orient herself.
The people with the circled wagons saw someone out and about when the sun was going down, and sent a rider.
Circled wagons.
The rider isn't here to investigate, he's here to rescue her.
No more reflexive recalcitrance, idiot.
Get on the deer thing and get out of here.
"I'm from a planet called Earth it's a long story or rather a short one that would take a long time to explain can I stay with you for tonight I won't eat your food or take up much space."
"O-Oh! An otherworlder! Welcome to Chartara! I need to get you to the chief!"
He reaches down a hand, presumably to help Owl up.
Well, she guesses it does make some sort of sense if people who find themselves on different worlds disproportionately find themselves on worlds that get a lot of "otherworlders".
Makes her life simpler.
She'll take the hand.
The scout casually pulls her up into the saddle behind him. As easily as if she was a scrawny 14 year old girl.
"You'll want to hold onto my waist"
It's bad enough that she has stuff from his hand on her hand.
(She's belatedly realizing that she failed to think that through.)
She'll do without the... waist holding, thanks.
Can Owl give me a DC 15 acrobatics check as the deer accelerates to 43.97mph within 5 seconds.
She'll grip the animal with her legs and the saddle with her fingers.
Owl holds on astonishingly well for a first time rider as the deer takes but a minute to arrive at the circle of wagons. Each wagon is twice as tall and four times as long as Owl. The deer slows down to a trot and enters the makeshift camp through the space between two wagons. A large board is dragged into place behind them by a dwarf, blocking the outside world from the inner sanctum of the camp.
Dragged into place by a dwarf as in a short person?
Or, like, dragged into place by Gimli from Lord of the Rings?
All around her a mix of humans, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes are running around in a hurry. At the center of the camp is a massive bonfire surrounded by children and the elderly. Smaller fires in front of various wagons have food cooking over them. A mass of deer, hundreds by your count, are all eating out of a trough. One portion of the circle has 13 people in a ring, from her elevated position she can see two men in armor and wielding swords dueling while the ring cheers. A very large man with an even bigger sword stands next to the fire and people constantly rush over to him to talk before leaving toward their various activities.
The scout directs his mount and it walks towards the mass of deer.
She read a sci-fi story, once, where the characters had to travel into the mind of a fantasy author to wake him from his delirium.
The world the fantasy author had dreamt up had green sand and multiple suns and a giant snake and overall seemed impressively bizarre to her.
She's never actually read any fantasy set in a setting that weird, in her experience that's mostly the domain of sci-fi.
Maybe she's read the wrong books.
The scout dismounts and reaches out a hand to help Owl down.
"I'll take you to the chief, he should be able to answer any questions you have."
Getting down from things is not difficult. It is anti-difficult, it happens by default.
The hand will not be necessary.
He watches Owl hop down.
"Alright just follow me. Stick close, I'd rather you not get lost in the crowd."
He begins walking toward the bonfire.
She'll beat him there, in her haste to get some charge back off of the fire.
She hasn't seen any trees around, what's it burning?
A man and a woman stand next to the fire. They both seem to be just pumping wood out of thin air and throwing it in. As Owl gets close enough to see them she notices the very large man from earlier. His eyes snap towards Owl and then to the scout jogging after her.
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