A view of the castle from the barracks.
We came to a complex towards the southern end of Orindale that fell within the shadow of a very real castle that loomed amongst a scattering of tall trees. The complex was surrounded by a stone wall about six feet tall and inside was a large building that was also built out of stone blocks with at least three floors. On the grounds around the building were a number of other soldiers. Some were practicing their swordplay with wooden swords while others were practicing archery with bulky crossbows and simple bows. There were only a few windows in the building and many of them were shut with thick wooden shutters, but there wasn’t any glass covering the open ones. We were heading towards steps that led up to a pair of doors perhaps eight feet tall, made of thick wood and bearing a symbol of a tree encased within a circle.
My captors led me up the steps while a few of the men halted their training to get a good look at me and my apparently strange clothes. Through the double doors we went and into a long hall that was decorated with colorful banners and lit by torches spaced evenly along the walls, more evidence that I was far removed from the world that I knew.
At the end of the hall we entered a large circular room with wide pillars spaced around it that held a balcony above on the second floor. From the balcony hung more banners of red, blue and green, each depicting a different battle scene or standard of the realm. There were two long wooden tables arranged on either side of us and a table in front, set horizontally with chairs behind all of them, much like a dining hall.
An middle aged man dressed in a long sleeved white shirt was seated there, writing on some paper with a feather pen and ink bottle. An empty plate sat beside him on the table with a few scraps of food left on it along with a half full glass of dark wine. On the chair next to him were his weapons, a long sheathed sword and small dagger attached to a thick brown leather belt. He looked up at us as we approached.
“Well, well. What have we here?” he asked, eying me suspiciously.
I went to speak but the guard on my left cut me off. “We found ‘im in the tavern constable, saying strange things an’ causing a commotion. I think he’s crazy.”
“Crazy?” I said loudly. “You’re the ones who are crazy…” a shove from the other guard cut me off again.
Edris waved his hands at them to stop and sat back down. “Have a seat.” he said, gesturing to one of the men to get me a chair. “Let’s start with a name. I’m Edris and you are?”
“Derek is my name, Derek Johnson. I’m from Pennsylvania, in the United States of America, but you probably don’t know where that is do you?” I replied, with sarcasm in the last bit.
“No, I’ve never heard of those places. I assume you’ve never heard of Orindale either?” he said. I shook my head. “Well then, how did you get here?” He was looking at me curiously, examining me for some clue.
I slumped in the chair and shrugged my shoulders figuring this wouldn’t help my situation, but decided to give it a go. “Well, that’s the strange part. I woke up here…”
Although it took a little convincing from the tip of a sharp and very real sword, I agreed to remain calm and allow myself to be taken to see a man they called the constable. His name was Edris they told me and he was in charge of the town’s militia, Orindale’s local “police” force. ‘At least I was getting somewhere’ I thought as they led me up the main road into what looked to be the town’s marketplace.
It was an amazing sight. There were wooden carts of all shapes and sizes strewn about the square filled to the top with fresh vegetables, exotic lamps, jewelry and other wares. There were small tents and lean-to’s in the open spaces between the shops and buildings. There was even one man peddling his manure to another who eventually traded one of his sad looking mules for a small cartful of the stuff. I don’t think I’ve ever smelled anything quite like it to be honest, but it didn’t seem to bother either of the hagglers.
A number of the merchants were obviously well to do with fancy clothing and lots of jewelry from gold to silver to precious jewels. Some even had hired muscle for protection. These rough looking men were clearly armed with a variety of different weapons, but my escorts paid them no mind.
The market surrounded a round platform surrounding a large well, perhaps twenty feet in diameter. A young woman was there now, filling two wooden buckets with water. Nearby a young boy with a mop of hair and ragged clothes played with a toy sword made of wood, swinging it back and forth, battling some imaginary beast. He saw the guards with me and ran down the steps of the dais towards us with his sword pointed towards my mid section.
He stopped a few feet away as one of the guards waved a gloved hand towards the boy. He cocked his head when he got a better look at me, “Where are you from?” he asked innocently.
I kept walking, but turned my head towards him, “Nowhere you know kid.” I said stoically. The boy didn’t miss a beat.
“Are there dragons there? Cause we hads a dragon here last week an’ he ate some sheep. I’m gonna help fight it, if it ever comes back.” he said proudly, swinging his sword.
“Dragons?” I said as I stopped, turning towards him.
“Ya. Father says it was only a youngling though.”
One of the guards leaned forward then and told me to keep moving. I waved to the little boy and started walking again. I assumed the boys’ father kept him entertained with fairy tales and bedtime stories of dragons and heroes. Judging from the land I had passed over, wolves came to mind as the more likely culprits.
As we continued on, I tried to ignore the number of people that glanced our way. Thankfully, the presence of the guards with me saved me from enduring their stares for long and no one else seemed interested in starting up a conversation. We passed two other guardsmen along the way who stopped to inquire about me, mainly out of curiosity. The bearded guard explained simply that I was a foreigner and they were taking me to the barracks. The other two shrugged it off.
Towards the end of the market I saw the old farmer, Grainger, hocking his vegetables under a piece of cloth held up by four long branches. He smirked as he watched us pass by. “I told ya boy, rudeness gets ye nowhere.”
“Thanks for the tip Grainger, I’ll have to remember that.” I shot back at him with a sideways glance.
The old man chuckled at the sound of his name. “Now there’s a start!”
As I pushed open the twin doors to the tavern and entered, I stopped and took a good look around the place. The large room had a stone hearth, which wasn’t lit and the only light came from the sunlight coming in through the open windows and candles on every table. There was an old, tarnished brass chandelier hanging in the center of the room that had the stubs of a dozen candles resting in it. There were simple wooden tables and chairs scattered about in no particular order with a handful of patrons sitting among them. All of the patrons were dressed in similar styles of medieval like clothing and most looked as if they needed a shower.
Across from me was a long bar with some chairs along it’s length. Behind the bar was an middle-aged man wearing a skull cap and a long apron soiled with food and grime. He was staring at me as the others had.
The two soldiers I had seen entering were close by, sitting at a table speaking with a waitress, or “wench” as they say in all the movies. They slowly turned towards me when they noticed that the girl was staring at me now too.
“Can I help you stranger?” said the barkeep, squinting a bit now but he seemed genuine.
I started towards the bar. “I’m sorry to bother you, I’m looking for a phone. Is there one in the back I can use?”
“A phone? You mean one o’ those earpieces like ol’ Grainger uses? Sorry, I’m not that old yet.” A few of the patrons nearby gave a slight chuckle. I assumed that Grainger was the farmer I had just met outside, but I was really getting annoyed now.
“Look, I’m in a bit of trouble and I need to call my wife and make sure everything is allright. I know you’re all being paid to act like you don’t know what modern technology is, but please I need help!” I said to him, a hint of anger in my voice.
The bartender straightened a bit and put one of his hands under the bar. “Allright good sir. I meant no offense. I’m not knowin’ what kind of phone you desire, but if you’re in some kind of trouble, I suggest you speak to one of the guards.”
As if on cue one of the soldiers came up beside me. “What trouble do you speak of?” he said as he leaned one elbow on the bar and set his mug down.
The bartender moved off then, pulling his hand from under the bar and throwing a dirty rag over his shoulder. I took a seat on one of the chairs and turned to the guard. He looked to be in his twenties and physically fit with unkempt brown hair and a thick beard. His face bore a nasty scar across the left cheek. His armor was well kept with rings of metal chained together in tightly woven bands. It was chain mail armor. Something I knew well from computer games and RPG’s on Playstation. His sword was thankfully still in the sheath, with a thick hilt and worn leather bands for a grip. It had seen some use.
“I’m lost. I have no idea where I’m at and no one wants to help me or even knows what the hell I’m talking about. Do you know what a phone is, or a car for that matter?”
“Can’t say that I do.” he said, leaning on the bar as the barkeep filled his mug to the brim. He flipped a silver coin about the size of a half-dollar to the bartender. “What region do you hail from stranger?”
“What region do I hail from? Look man, cut the act already, this is really pissing me off.”
He looked at me strangely, then straightened up. “What is pissing off? I can assure you, no one here is acting. You’re the strange one here, wearing those odd clothes. It’s obvious you’re not from anywhere within a month’s ride of here.”
“I’m from Pennsylvania. You know… in the United States?” I said, trying hard to not sound so angry.
He shook his head, “Never heard of it. This is Orindale, part of the Freelands west of Galador.”
Now I looked at him strangely. “I’ve never heard of any of those places. Am I in Europe? I can’t believe this is happening. Are all of you crazy or something?”
I started to get up but the guard put a strong hand on my shoulder. “Maybe you should come with me friend.”
I shoved his hand off of me forcefully, “Don’t touch me!” I yelled. As I got up I noticed that the other guard was already coming over. Oh no, here we go.
It was perhaps another half mile before I actually entered what I considered was the main part of the village, where I could see a dirt road between two authentic looking buildings just up ahead, varying in size but both very large. These and the other buildings which I could see would’ve fit well in any movie about middle-age England. They were so realistic; they must’ve taken many painstaking hours to recreate for whatever purpose this place serves.
I then saw an older man step across the area between the buildings, pulling a rustic wooden cart of corn and other vegetables behind him. The cart had wooden spoke wheels and two poles adorned with a strap that fit across the man’s abdomen. He seemed to be pulling it with ease despite his older appearance.
The old man was tan but fair-skinned with thick locks of white hair with a matching bushy beard and mustache, though the mustache was pointed and curled on the ends. He wore a wide brimmed straw hat that had seen better days but obviously was good enough to keep the sun out of the old farmer’s eyes.
His clothes were made of very simple looking cloth. His pale green shirt was a button down with no collar or front pocket and the farmer had rolled up the sleeves past the elbows. His pants were made of the same material, though a light brown in color with the bottom’s cut short of his ankles and frayed beyond repair. He looked as if he had been working in the field as his old leather boots were covered in dirt. Fortunately for his feet, his boots seemed to be in the best condition of all of his clothes.
As I approached the old man, he caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of his eye and he stopped and turned to stare at me, his eyes widening as he studied me. I put my hand up in a slight wave as I stopped too, about six feet away from him.
“Hello sir. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m… ummm… lost and I need to use a phone. Is there one around here somewhere?” ‘Lost’ was the best description I could come up with to describe my predicament.
The old man continued to stare at me, moving his eyes up and down and obviously studying my clothes. His old blue eyes met with mine and he cracked a thin smile. “You can divine a knowin’ about a man from his clothes… and you sir are not from around here… are you?” His accent was very strange, but I guessed that he was Scottish, perhaps losing his natural accent here in the states. His stare continued without blinking and it was clearly obvious that the old man seemed as confused as I was.
“No, no I’m not. That’s a good guess though. My car broke down a few miles from here and…”
“Car?” the old man interrupted. “What in the hells is that? I’ve ne’er heard of such a device. My guess was that you were hard of hearing.” he said plainly, finally blinking his eyes slowly.
I wasn’t exactly sure what he had meant by ‘hard of hearing’ but I choose to ignore it for now. “Yes my car,” I stopped for a moment. Who in this day and age hasn’t heard of a car, I thought to myself. “You… don’t know what a car is?”
The old farmer shook his head, blinking once more.
Either this guy was a nut or he was seriously pulling my chain and I wasn’t in the mood to mess around. “Never mind. Is there a phone I can use somewhere around here?”
“So you are hard of hearing! Me too, got my fone right here.” he said as he reached into a pants pocket and pulled a small cone shaped device out and showed it to me, holding it out so I could see. “Works great too. The old buggard Banderwash made it for me some four years ago when I lost a bit o’ hearing in my right ear.. Hasn’t failed me once. I’d let you use it son, but I don’t even know your name.”
“That’s not the kind of phone I was talking about.” I said staring at the old fashioned hearing aid in his hand. “I need a telephone so I can make a phone call.”
The old man again shook his head, denying the existence of telephones too. I was starting to get a little frustrated with him when he said something that caught me off guard. “I see now. Yer one of them magefolk are you not? That would explain the strange clothes and those huge pockets on your pants.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I said angrily this time. “Are you messin’ with me? Because I’ve been walking all freakin’ morning through that field with no shoes and nothing to eat or drink. I am not in the mood to play games if that’s your plan.”
“Listen friend,” the old man said, shaking his head again and looking away from me. “Around these parts, we have a saying, ‘rudeness gets ye nowhere’, coined by an old friend o’ mine. Good day to you sir. Perhaps you’ll find what you require in that tavern ov’r there.”
He pointed across the street to a building with an old wooden sign that read ‘Neverwinter Inn’. It was a long building, almost as long as a supermarket might be, but had a first floor made of stone and a second floor seemingly made of wood and adorned with a thatched, but solid rooftop. I could barely believe my eyes when I saw two men dressed as medieval soldiers entering the place through it’s wooden saloon-style doors. They were dressed in chain mail shirts and carrying swords but the style of clothes looked pretty authentic.
As I stared in disbelief, the old man started off again on his way. “Wait!” I called to him, but he simply tipped his hat and nodded slightly, continuing to pull his cart. I must’ve really pissed him off. “Wonderful.” I sighed.
As I looked around, I noticed that there were quite a few people out and about, all dressed like common folk might be in a middle-age style village. Everyone was looking at me quite strangely. A older, portly woman in a simple dress even changed her direction to avoid having to make eye contact with me. And the old man says I’m rude.
Still, the strange looks were coming from everyone I could catch staring at me. Some didn’t even bother to look away. It soon became clear that it was I who was out of place here. I quickly headed toward the inn at the old man’s suggestion, if not only to hide from everyone outside. I thought of the old line so often used in the movies as a nod towards the Wizard of Oz, ‘We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto!’
The edge of the town after I passed the tower
The closer I got to the town the more bewildered I became. This place was like nothing I had ever seen before. From my vantage point the town lacked any kind of modern architecture and looked like a picture out of a history book on the middle ages.
I could see that almost all of the buildings had thatched, wooden rooftops and most were built from stone or wood and were of simple construction. Nearly all of them were varying shades of gray, white or brown with little to distinguish one from the next. I could now see livestock such as cows, sheep and even lamb wandering in fields enclosed by simple wooden fences on the outskirts of the town. Though I hadn’t yet seen one of its inhabitants.
The first structure I came upon was of course the great tower. It was easily over a hundred feet tall, overshadowing the tall trees surrounding it. The tower was circular around its perimeter and was constructed from large stone blocks. Most were different shades of gray like many of the stones I had seen along the fields, although a few were darker, almost black in color. I could now see the balcony at the very top which led me to believe that it was a watchtower of sorts, but I guessed that it had not been used in a very long time.
There were no signs declaring it a historic site or anything for that matter. I just assumed that something this old in appearance would be some kind of tourist attraction but either the place was closed or was off limits for some reason. Perhaps it was closed for renovations as there were no visible signs of deterioration.
Despite my fatigue and hunger, I was determined to get into town and the tower seemed an unlikely place to find a phone so I continued past it, only stopping for a few minutes to marvel at its magnificence.
As I passed over the sloping ridge, I could see what looked like buildings arranged in no particular order and could now see that there were indeed billows of smoke rising from the place. The closest building was also the tallest. It was surrounded by a large grove of trees and was set apart from the village.
It looked almost straight like one of those tall towers farmer’s use to store corn and grain. It had a pointed rooftop though and was the color of stone, so it couldn’t be that. An old watchtower? I remembered seeing one at a historic revolutionary war site once and at least from this distance, it appeared very similar.
As I got closer, I started to hear a chorus of sounds. The crack of a hammer being used and the distinct clang of metal against metal. There were other sounds I could not make out, but it was clear that there were people living here. I heaved a sigh of relief.
The village was arranged in somewhat of a circular pattern, with more buildings than I originally thought and I could now see other buildings spread out over the fields surrounding the village, farmland from the looks of it.
On the far side of the village there was a large stream, perhaps a river even, but it was difficult to tell it’s width from this distance. It ran from north to south cutting into the great forest just north of the community. Strangely, there was no bridge going over the river at any point. I wonder if they even used cars here as I didn’t hear any of the typical sounds of traffic.
I could see a road leading into town from southwest now but it wasn’t paved. A town with only a single dirt road? For a moment, I swore I heard the sound of a horse trotting.
Then I realized I couldn’t see any telephone or power poles and certainly no wires. Did this place even have a phone? What was this place? Only one way to find out…
After a good hour or so rest at the stream and finding some interesting plants, I started towards what I assumed was East, where I passed over a large hill that led to flatter ground. A great expanse of grassy fields lay before me, speckled with flowers of all colors and an occasional leafy shrub dotting the landscape. Far off in the distance a gray and white haze hung over the shadow of a mountain range, many miles away. Also, perhaps a few miles away, there was a forest, thick and green stretching north as far as I could see. Do places of such beauty even exist anymore?
The sun was passing over me at this point, so it must have been around noon. I continued slowly this time, making sure to watch where I stepped. Being barefoot, this seems like the perfect place for a garter snake or small mammal to live and I didn’t want to risk it, dream or not.
I covered a good distance in a short period of time despite being cautious and the forest was a good measure of how far I’d come. I decided to stop for a break and took a good look around. I was looking for civilization of some kind. A small town, something, anything where there might be a phone.
Looking towards the mountain range again I noticed that some of the haze that I’d seen earlier was starting to look like small billows of smoke. I immediately got excited and raised a fist in the air in triumph. Finally, I’d be able to figure out what the hell is going on and make sure Alicia and Jessica are OK.
It seemed as if there was a rise and then a drop in the land that way and I’d have to get over it to see if it really was a town. I’d settle for a camper with a cell phone at this point. Southeast it is then.
I’d been walking all day, barefoot I might add, through this field that seems endless. Up one hill and down another, through a thicket and past a small grove of some of the tallest trees I have ever seen. They have thick, gnarly trunks with a good bit of white in their barks and thick bushels of healthy green leaves stretching out in all directions.
My feet are aching at this point and more than a little bruised and scraped from walking all morning. All of the sudden, however I came upon a small stream cutting between two hills, no more than a few feet wide. It seems as perfect a place as any to stop, rest and get a much needed drink of water.
There’s been few clouds to provide shade from the sun and although it still seems like spring, it’s warm enough to have made me take off my shirt a short while ago.
The stream’s water was very clear, like spring water and cool to the touch. After taking a few healthy swallows, I wash my face and hands and splash some over my back and then sit down to rest.
