At a Crossroads

Once again, I could feel the open air and cool breeze rushing across my face. I could see the rolling green hills and rustling trees. The fact that this was a world designed by a book and quill was impossible to reconcile. Even the worlds conceived in my mind's eye from my imagination couldn't match this level of detail. It really was as if this world had always been here, for not just thousands, but millions of years. It really made me wonder how exactly the Studio functioned.

I was a bit overwhelmed when I had first arrived here, so I decided to take a closer look at my surroundings this time. Somehow, I had an innate sense of where north was no matter which way I was facing. That would come in handy. Currently the north of me was occupied by a mountain range with a forest crawling up the sides. Much closer to me, but still north, was a dirt road that came to a crossroads which split into three different directions, and a wooden sign was posted at the crossing point.

To the east of me I could see that far off in the distance, the mountains eventually tapered off into low hills, and there were nothing but rolling grasslands all the way to the horizon. To the south of me was another smaller mountain range but much farther away. Peering down into the valley I could see a massive river cutting through the grasslands and disappearing into a forest to the west of me.

"Wow. Well, where should I go first?" I wondered out loud.

Amelie's new halfling voice spoke up beside me, reminding me that she was there. “That depends on what you’d like to do first.”

"Shouldn't we take care of that Dark Queen lady?"

Amelie shrugged, “If you want. She can’t control this world completely since she doesn’t have the Atlas. So, there isn’t a **** need to get the Quill back unless you really want it. She isn’t going to be able to change anything dramatically in this reality, the Studio’s owner before you was pretty thorough.”

I thought about this for a moment. I couldn't help but think that the Quill being in the possession of a tyrannical megalomaniac was undoubtedly bad; on the other hand, it may be a poor decision to try and hunt it down without at least having a grasp of the world I'm in first and without having a complete grasp on magic.

“So where are we right now?” I asked.

“We’re in Elwindale, one of the four kingdoms that dominate the northernmost continent. It’s roughly a big diamond shape and each kingdom is in control of a corner. We’re on the eastern corner, the north corner is Arkendale, to the south corner is Vallace, and directly to the west is the Castian Empire.”

“Tell me about Elwindale, what should I know?”

“It was originally an elven kingdom, though many more humans live here than elves by now. Even still, the royal family is elven and the rulership is generally considered to be a good one. There are two separate sorts of elves that live here, however, and not all of them live in the major population centers. Those that do are often called ‘high elves’, the rest live within the forests of Elwindale and are considered ‘wood elves’. Though there has been tension between the two groups in the past, things have largely settled down. The high elves generally just leave the wood elves alone and let them do their thing.”

“Oh, that’s good.” I nodded.

Amelie tapped her chin thoughtfully. “It would be wise to say that you aren’t from here, when asked. Most people in this kingdom can speak elven, especially the half-elves. Seeing as you can’t, maybe you should say you’re from Vallace and you were raised in a human community. And of course I can always teach you elven if you want.”

I shrugged. “I’m pretty good at coming up with backstories.”

The two of us made our way to the road and toward the sign posted at the crossroads. We came to it on the eastern road, and it continued on westward into the distance. Another road extended to the north toward the closer mountain-range, and the last one went south, eventually going west but following the river and into the forest.

“The north road will eventually turn west and follow those mountains.” Amelie began, counting off the routes on her fingers rather cutely. “It would take a while, a long while, but following the mountains will eventually lead us to the border of Arkendale. The westward path will bring us to the roadside town of Beeble, a small human settlement, and if we continue to follow that road for a few days we will eventually end up at Elwindale’s capital city of Verium. The southern road will take us along the river in the center of this valley and into those woods. There’s a wood elf commune in there that is unusually friendly with strangers.”

“Interesting.”

“Of course we can also go east, doing so for a couple days will eventually lead us to the port town of Nelenvar. We could take a ship from there to one of the other continents if you’d like.”

I nodded. “Do you know any teleportation magic?”

Amelie put her hands on her hips and pushed her chest out confidently, making her breasts bounce slightly. “Of course! That’s always an option if you want to get somewhere quick, I just figured you’d want a taste of exploration and travel first. You seemed excited about that part. Also it would give us time to teach you magic.” Then Amelie hopped up suddenly with a finger pointed upward like she had just remembered something. "Also! If you aren't much interested in towns or people at the moment, we can always just explore the wilderness. It's dangerous, but there are lots of caves and old ruins scattered around the countryside we could explore.”