Will didn't show any outward signs of confusion at the question, deciding to try and piece it together properly rather than potentially saying something that would prove dangerous. He could only speculate on where Dzel was from, she was old enough that she must have been through most of school before The Cremation, so even if her current community was very inwards focused and cut-off, they must have been like that before too. Somewhere backwards, kind of place that might inspire a short horror story or murder mystery set in a tiny village with vaguely threatening locals. Sheltered, lots of ingrained and powerful xenophobia. Plus this little community had existed for a long time in the Slavic Union, so she probably believed Will was a godless red devil, which was not entirely accurate.
Of course, the growing possibility that this was something else entirely was also there...
"Well, the CNC kicked in after the war got hot in South America, and kinda grew from there. The nuclear weapons-" He glanced across, seeing her expression was not that of someone who was gaining a greater understanding of something "-I think I'll reel the explanation back a bit. Sorry in advance if I explain something you already know, point it out if I do."
"7 years ago, the Cremation War occured, taking about 3 days, start to finish. It was fought between the nations of The Internationale and the nations of the Wolfram Pact. The Internationale was a bloc of nations promoting socialistic principles, so workers owning the means of production, the people having a direct say in governance, the structuring of society to redistribute the wealth it generates based on the value of labour and what is needed for a dignified life, rather than pooling wealth into the hands of a group of capital-aristrocrats, the prevention of the disproportionate and vastly unfair devaluation of labour seen in many systems, and (with a few sad exceptions) full gender and racial (and more) equality. They controlled the continent of north America, all of the South American continent aside from Brazil, the British Isles and former Dominions, Central America, Southern China and Free French Africa. The Wolfram Pact was a group of fascist totalitarian states, and I'm trying to be unbiased but I can't put their ideologies nicely at all- each of the states in the Pact promoted some form of ethno-ultranationalism; the belief that their particular cultural grouping was inherently superior and that this could be used to justify atrocity, conquest, war and more. Continental Europe, Russia, North China, Japan, Brazil, South Africa."
He paused, collecting his thoughts. They had been racing off, and he had to cut down the scope of what he wanted to explain; now was not the time to explain the distinction between an implosion or gun-type atom bomb, or between a fission and fusion bomb in depth.
"Each side had cultivated an array of missiles armed with nuclear warheads, and extensive networks of communication and detection stations. It was a brilliant deterrent, no war between peer-powers would be declared, or between members of either bloc, as the alliances would expand the war until it became desperate for someone. Then they would use nuclear weapons, and someone would reply with them, but worse. That network would take over, running on protocol and paranoia and some automated systems. CNC refers to Catastrophic Nuclear Check, the idea that neither side could attack because both sides were in check and would be destroyed. Missiles are like bullets or arrows, with a thinking-tool inside them and machines that approximate the parts of the body that lets you keep your balance. Instead of flying across meters or hundreds of meters, they can cover continents in minutes, and are incredibly hard to shoot down. Nuclear weapons, the warheads in the missiles, are weapons that work by taking a clump of material that is unstable at some of the most fundamental levels of existance, and pushing it all together, causing that instability to multiply out, making the material split apart at nearly the tiniest level and release a huge amount of energy. That's one kind, the other kind is the fusion bomb, it basically does the opposite, using the first to provide the energy needed to push together material that is very tiny on its fundamental levels, to release... even more energy. The first kind poisons the land around it and living things, and both release enough energy to destroy a moderately sized city.
Large cities, those with a million or more, normally had about 5 of these aimed at them, with only 2 or 3 expected to get past the interceptors. Capitol cities or otherwise very important ones could expect 8-9 with about half hitting. Exceptionally important capitols could be hit with roughly 15. Thousands were fired in a few minutes by both sides, no significant city would not have been targeted, nearly every nation had been drawn onto one side as well as those core nations I mentioned earlier. This happened, with most of the world's population of about 4 billion at the time, perishing in... 30 minutes. The vast majority of the rest died in the chaos and collapse following. The burning of all of those cities made the situation worse, as once those survivors tried to bring in their first harvest or not freeze to death, they found that all the ash had cooled the planet, blocking a lot of the sunlight from reaching them."
Looking across to gauge the effect of what he had said, he was expecting either a muted reaction if she knew of this, horror if not, or anger if her community had been Slavic Union loyalists. Horror and deep confusion was a bit disappointing. She recognised none of these place names, and the terms used had not been even vaguely familiar to her. They gave up on explaining the situation from his end for now.
"A forest? Are- are you sure? There shouldn't be any around here, literally for hundreds of miles, never have been. No, that's a dumb question, of course you're sure."
There was another lull in the conversation. As usual, Will started back up again. His brow was furrowed, which was quickly becoming its defaut state, and he looked concerned.
"I'm not gonna insult you by assuming you're confused or something... So you came here for a country called Avalon, in a forest, and don't recognise any of what I'm saying, even words like 'gun'. I don't know what questions to ask, normally I have an idea of what sort of things I don't know, but this, this is a solid contender for the most confusing thing I've ever experienced. Can you tell me about Avalon? Also, do you recognise these contintent- Asia, Europe, Africa, Antarctica, Astralasia, North America, South America? It feels like we've come from different worlds. Maybe we're concussed. I don't know. Ask what you want though, we need to figure this out."
They kept trying to understand the situation as they walked on, the discussion and confusion providing a good distraction from the cold.
Finding the gun in the backpack, Will quickly searched some of the others too (not all, too many), filling the magazine of the gun and taking other magazines as spares. He then took an empty gun and set it on safety, double checking that it was unloaded, and handed it to Dzel.
"Here. I have a hunch that you'll get taught how to use this soon, for now, it can't do anything but it makes us look more intimidating if hostiles appear; two people with guns. If you want to make someone feel threatened with it, point it at them. Be very careful to do so, it will make them very afraid."
Knowing they had a measure of safety now, Will ripped up some of the clothes from another bag, and they bandaged up Dzels worst wounds before moving on to some of the other supplies. Will and Dzel both took a flashlight with them, and Will explained their use to Dzel, but they intended to come back for the other supplies once they had explored. Will spent some time looking at the gameboy, it reminded him of a tiny version of the arcade games in Sapparo that he'd seen while working at Sakhalin before the Cremation. He put it aside for now, without trying to turn it on.
Thinking on it, Will thought 'She might not be the only one who's far from home. This place just looks similar to where I was from, those pieces of electronics, I have no idea what that is. Possibly I'm a stranger here too.'
They soon moved into the altar room. After Will had calmed down, he watched as Dzel moved into the room and closed the eyes of the victim, not wavering in her path. His eyes widened, still finding it quite hard to talk.
"Good. That's impressive."
They heard the voices, abruptly turning and moving to what cover the wrecked building could offer. The guns were visible, but not in hand.
"They sound safe. Like they're just greeting someone who just appeared. Could be a trap, but I really doubt it, nobody can see or hear far enough through this wind to do it, wouldn't be worth standing around outside either. No reason." They agreed to look, and introduce.
Will and Dzel stepped around the corner.
"Hey. Am I interrupting? It looks like you've already got some introductions going on. I'm Will and this is Dzel- guess nobody here knows where this place really is? Would fit the general theme."
