Getting Ready to Look Around

Trisha and Marsha had spent the last half-hour looking through their bags after the meeting with Jonah and the dino ladies; aside from the erotic parodies of their prior attire, which still made next to no sense, the twins did indeed find their mobile phones in the bag, and they still surprisingly hadn’t quite died yet. Marsha’s was at just under sixty percent, and Trisha’s was just a little over forty percent, in terms of battery power. Remembering the comment that Marsha had made, Trisha decided to see if she could actually charge the phones; she managed to get her phone up to almost eighty percent in what felt like no time, which was kind of nuts.

“I can not believe I’ve actually turned into a living charging port,” Trisha turned her attention to Marsha, “I thought you were joking about that.”

“I was,” said Marsha in confused surprise, “I honestly didn’t think that would actually work; I intended that statement as more of a joke than anything else. But, that said, I doubt they’ll be of any help in our situations.”

“Let’s look around the area,” said Trisha.

“Sounds good,” said Marsha, “I think I know where to start too.” After the two ensured their attire was good to go, they started to make their way out of the structure they were sleeping in; they both elected not to have Jonah come along because they felt like horny teenagers during prolonged periods with him.

On their way out of the complex, Ulnarka met them and said, “And what are you two up to?”

“We’re going to look around nearby,” said Trisha, “we hope that isn’t a problem.”

“Not at all,” said Ulnarka, “I’ll join you on the excursion on account of your lack of familiarity with things around here.”

“Aren’t you worried about your ward,” inquired Marsha with a gesture to Molsalkisa.

“Normally, yes,” said Ulnarka, “but you two, and your associate, represent a considerable investment for her in terms of research. That, and the protection measures she has made on this facility, along with the defense it had put into ages ago, which are remarkably still functioning, are more than enough to keep those in the facility safe from most hazards. I’m not too worried about Molsalkisa and your friend; she is more interested in things from an academic angle than anything else, so the chances of her getting into trouble with him are quite low; besides, she’s far too invested in gathering data on both of you before she considers participating herself, she would probably request for me to be a participant before that happens.”

The twins looked at each other in confusion before looking at the sauropod woman in surprise. “Okay,” said Marsha, “I just have to ask, how are anthro dinosaurs even a thing in this world? Where we grew up, dinosaurs died out several MILLION years ago.”

“Oh,” said Ulnarka with a bit of surprise, “they technically died out an extremely long time ago here as well, but some magical mishaps resulted in their reemergence back during the last great age, and our peoples were born from some less-than-ethical magical experiments during that same age.”

“How long ago was that,” inquired Trisha.

“From my understanding,” said Ulnarka, “that as a little over two thousand years ago, and the Great Turmoil happened and all the great innovations of that age were lost, it was so turbulent that the gods suffered such a great blow that those that made it to a time that was less hectic initiated the restructuring of the world’s system that led to the one we have now. From what I understand, males were supposedly in greater abundance during that time, both as mortals and divine existences. But due to the nature of how deities operate, all the names for male gods were lost when things were changed. Now, all that remains of those advanced civilizations are ruins like this; the change was great that the name of our world even changed. And all that is basic information every child learns as part of their primary education.”

“Okay,” said Marsha, “so what is the name of this world?”

“Erotolsia,” said Ulnarka proudly; this resulted in facepalms by twins that were practically simultaneous, “it’s named for the goddess Erotosnria; she’s one of the prime deities of our world, and the most popular of our world as well.”

“But we got told that the sea goddess was responsible for the event that brought us here,” said Trisha, “what can you tell us about her?”

“Well,” said Ulnarka, “her name is Aquaria….”

“That sounds a little basic,” commented Marsha, “sorry, please continue.”

“Thank you,” said Ulnarka, “she holds dominion over the seas, travel, water, and storms. She’s known for her usual periods of calm, dotted with erratic periods of anger; it’s why almost everyone gives her offerings and tithes. They want to stay on her good side. That all said, I’m at a loss as to why she would summon you three, I have a few ideas as to why she summoned you to this location, but I’m at a loss as to why you three and now.”

With that, the three women were out and off. Ulnarka was playing the part of guide and vanguard as they traveled around outside the complex. Stepping outside, the twins were guided to the place they would make a few discoveries of their own, one of which would lead to something bigger than it seemed at first glance.