Albrecht didn’t look backwards, not once. As the vanguard and the only one with a shield (though Jyu-Ni’s giant metal arms were probably a way better defensive tool), he focused on keeping his eyes everywhere except backwards. The growing darkness made it harder to see, and the constant unrest he felt set his nerves on the edge as well. No resources, no other sign of civilization, and a deathbeam in the distance. What a goddamn life. Almost made him want to give up and just pretend to be a tree. A metal tree. With green hair.

It brought forth a fun memory, and Albrecht bit back a chuckle, before redoubling his focus and his efforts. He died a virgin once. No way was he going to die a virgin twice!

The knight climbed more hills, maintaining his pace and patience with a top-ranking student’s discipline. He scanned the horizon constantly, noting birds flying away from them and the skybeam of doom. He ignored how his feet ached, resisted the urge to sling his shield over his back again, and simply kept grinding away, leading the other members of his small party along with sheer force of will. And eventually, they did get lucky.

In this world, at least, effort didn’t go wholly unrewarded, even if the reward took the shape of a giant that dwarfed them all and that could probably kill them all with a friendly slap on the back. Albrecht tensed up again, back straightening and eyes narrowed, but didn’t move at all. In front of what amounted to an intelligent building, his kite shield felt mighty unreliable.

Irene, however, was the one to break the silence, buying time for Albrecht to do some thinking of his own. The giant spoke English, did they? Or had the goddess given them some natural ability where they could understand and be understood by others in this world? Did that apply only to the most common language, or did other ones work too? It was something worth testing, and, more than that, it gave him something else to think about beside the fact that those floating boxes must weigh a hell lot.

“I heard,” he began, voice a bit dry, “that someone was doing some digging at this place with stone obelisks or something? Probably has something to do with the current big beam.” Eyes flickering towards the way the giant had come, the knight pointed in that direction and said, “Gibt es irgendwelche Städte in dieser Richtung? Oh, and if it’s not too much trouble, could you point us to the general direction of like, dunno, water?”

The self-depreciating laugh came easily.

“We sorta ended up in the middle of nowhere with nothing n’ all.”

It was better to not go back after all. Rather cruel, but cowardice was better an option than death. The plains were bizarre. This world was bizarre. First, a massive lizard noise. Interrupted by a massive explosion, then forced to walk the long path to not horribly dying alone from dehydration, starvation, or giant lizards. This world was bizarre as shit. Each step made her feet tingle. Not out of exhaustion, no. This was something different. It was grass. Her thin boots did little to stop the grass from glancing her ankles. In fact, wasn't this grass getting longer for no reason? It was the same land and nobody would fertilize grass. Fertilizing grass was bizarre. The grass had rapidly increased in length compared to the grass behind. Not an absurd amount, but enough so that anyone actually paying attention to the grass (which Jyu-ni was doing for some bizarre, lonely reason) would notice. It doing this probably had something to do with the explosion, but what?

Magic, the only way that Jyu-ni could categorize the tinglings, was fuckin' weird.

An explosion. Complete baby shit compared to the nuke that proceeded to blow the shit up out of the digger group. In the distance, a small figure floated above it. Then, a voice. It was similar to Jyu-in's. That sort of indeterminate drunk speech that was hella bizarre. The small man was a distance away. Wait, small? Using the precise calculations known as "guesstimation", Jyu-in confirmed that at that range, the man wasn't ordinary. No, he was a very large man. Big, if you would. That was pretty much the only word to describe that giant. In awe at the size of that absolute unit, Jyu-ni's vision seemingly locked onto him. If her eyes had a zoom function, it would have actually done something besides gather the bare basics of his appearance and the floating boxes. Wait, floating and drunk speech?

Motherfucker, her gimmick was stolen.

The giant had asked about what was going on back there. Irene had awkwardly asked the big man how he was after giving an awkward non-answer. Albrecht, their semi-functional and FEARLESS leader, had actually given an answer. He deadass ratted out the digging team while simultaneously denying all responsibility. Truly the work of an amazing CEO.

"Tha lizerd," she added to the explanations, "and 'ere was a lizerd's roar. Me ears are still ringin'. Real loud, it was."

Uriel Bertolini

“And when you make your way up here, we will have some questions for you.” To be absolutely honest, Uriel also had some questions for himself. First of all: how should he refer to himself? Should he try and play it off like he was a woman all along when interrogated? Or should he explain the situation and embark on a quest to recover his manhood? The trek upwards seemed long enough to allow the mob heir(-ess) to try and improvise a story. A hand reaching to the rope and giving it a tug would reassure him that it would allow him to reach the rim of the well safely.

Uriel was quick to discover that he seemed much lighter than what he was before, and that his limbs were swifter and nimbler than he expected. Confidence began to blossom within his chest as he began to climb his first steps and promptly slipped due to the combination of the smooth walls and the lack of experience with the heels. He figured that it'd be easier if he did it barefoot so he bent his leg backwards to pull the footwear off with a free hand. However, as his fingers traced the contour of his legs, he did not only discover that they were very slender but also that the boots reached up to his upper thigh. Not only that, but they were fastened in such a way that it'd be too time consuming to remove them. As he thought about this, he caught himself removing a lock of wet hair away from his eyes in an absent-minded manner, an act that confused him more. How was his brain already used to this situation but he wasn't?

The bob of bucket bucket leading it to touch his shoulder reminded Uriel of the situation and of the tales of well dwelling creatures that weren't interested in his well-being and would rather eat him raw. Or perhaps well done, who knows at this point? As such, Uriel began to climb upwards, taking it slow and easy to avoid slipping again. At this moment he noticed he had a rather large coat on him that was weighing him down a little bit due to it now being absolutely soaked in water, and that he had a strange golden object floating slightly above his head, the shimmers of gold reflecting the sun giving off its presence.

It'd be a somewhat long trek but, unless any unexpected difficulties arose, the villagers of Tici would welcome a young, tanned redhead with a floating headpiece into their little town as she rose up from the well. They'd also see that their first action was to take off that pompous coat she was wearing and disregard any questions or words to look at herself, first at the strange tattoo she had on her hand then at the rest of her body, visibly annoyed yet too disturbed to comment on any of it. She patted down her entire upper body, a red eyebrow perking up at how solid her abdomen was. Overall, she wasn't half bad. Standing at a five foot and half and with a slender and very toned body that was almost completely in display due to the scarce clothing, she could consider herself attractive despite the incredibly striking look.

With a heavy sigh, Uriel swiped all hair on his face upwards to clear the view and finally look around, taking in the landscape and, more importantly, the little gremlins around him. He was frankly surprised to see all those animalistic traits on the kids, but he had head an adult before and, lo and behold, there effectively was one. Assuming that he was the one that spoke, Uriel approached the blond man. He set his hand on his hips in an open stance, one that, whilst carrying a masculine aura, it'd came off as a tomboy more than anything. His voice, when he spoke, properly reflected that he was at his wit's end and was simply waiting for the surprises to end. "Alright, before you ask anything: Where the hell am I?" asked the man-turned-woman. He was fairly sure that the man would be offended but there were bigger things to worry about in his opinion. Namely, getting used to this new body.