The Confused Explorer

Heroism comes with the weight of a thousand miles on one's back. Chivalry will not save a hero's neck from being cut by the grayness of this world. Right and Wrong can only be discerned as truth by the beholder.

Time is the key to the devil's castle.

-✵

The tolling of the bell rang loudly throughout the entire kingdom, bringing the cloud like jets to return too their holding place.

Within seconds they left just as they came.

The whisking bridges of white clouds from the jets remained like tentacles from a thrashing, monstrous, beast as they slowly faded into obscurity.

Minutes passed as the bell's last throes rumbled throughout the world in a spiraling dizziness. For minutes Turul remained stationary within the air awaiting prepared for any other type of offense they'd push towards them.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, no new mechanized weapons came out, instead what came was much larger than the jets.

A vast beast slowly lifted from the back of the kingdom. Vast mixes of white and gray swirled upon this beast in a pattern akin to mixing gases. Almost identical to a blue whale, this beast made no attempt at hiding its lofty and grand appearance as it slowly 'swam' through the air like it was water.

Lighting and thunder cascaded in a series of booming and flashing fireworks whilst torrents of rain fell occasionally from the gray underside of this beast like rain clouds.

Calmly riding upon this whale was a group of people. A chivalry of full masked knights donned in heavy white armor, laced with dark brown leather that held sheathed swords on their waists and tower shields in their hand. This team of 5 knights surrounded a man wearing a white lab coat and a face mask covering his mouth.

As the beast swam over quite peacefully, Mike and Turul stayed on their guard.

Although this will be their second actual interaction with another fully intelligent life it may also not end up being a good one. Worst case scenario they have to flee.

Processing this situation, Mike gripped the walking stick in his hand tightly. Standing upon Turul's head, Mike looked at this group of people. He was both excited, nervous, and scared. This will be his first interaction with people who may actually communicate with him in almost half a year, and while that may not be all that long it's plenty enough to make one crave for communication again.

His beard now somewhat scraggly and his hair reaching to his neck Mike looked like a true vagabond with the thick walking stick in his hand. Were it not for his nice grey clothes he would look like a 40 year old hobo.

Upon getting close to Turul, the knight group lined up behind the masked man, each holding their shield in hand.

Finally the beast entirely stopped in front of Mike, the man no more than 20 feet away stared at him just as much as Mike did at him.

His hair was a light brown, almost blonde, and his eyes a deep dark blue. A simple white mask hung over his mouth obscuring anything below his eyes.

Silence weighed heavily upon the two teams as they waited for any sign of danger.

"Hello?" Mike broke the quiet atmosphere first with a simple question. His voice deep and somewhat loud.

Quiet as it was except for the torrents of rain and lighting falling from the bottom of the beast Mike's voice echoed loudly towards the other party.

As soon as confirmation was made, the lab coated man very smoothly walked forward to stand on the nose of the whale below him.

"How do you do? My name is Hugh." This man's voice was a very thick English accent with a relatively normal voice. Not to high, but not to low.

"Mike."

"You aren't from this world, are you?" Very quickly the man named Hugh brushed past the formalities of introductions and got to the point.

"I...." Mike really didn't know how to respond to such a question. The man before him was also obviously from earth, so why would he ask such a question?

Maybe because the man saw Mike's stony face not move all that much, or maybe because he saw the awkwardness on Mike's face the masked man named Hugh quickly moved on past the question.

"Anyways if you could please follow us back I do have a lot of questions I would like to ask you. In private of course."

Before Mike could even agree, the large animal underneath the mans feet quickly swiveled as it turned itself around. Vast plumes of cloud drifted off as it breathed.

Clenching onto his walking stick slightly Mike sighed before getting Turul to follow along.

As they moved along Mike didn't forget to scan the drifting whale in front of him.

✵

'Something strange is going on here.' Mike had a very strange feeling about this kingdom. Everything about it screamed mystery.

Residing within this piled kingdom was the home of this masked man.

No more than a minute after they flew to the mans house did they arrive.

As a somewhat small house, it was made completely out of white clouds. There was very little to no decor on the front of the house. A modest one story house would describe it best.

It sat at the back of the kingdom hidden behind the clock tower, however it was relatively close to it as well.

It sat in its own area surrounded by flora of an unsurprisingly white color.

Upon arriving the large whale softly landed in a puff of clouds. No sooner did the whale land than Turul did close by.

Getting off of Turul briskly, Mike waited patiently.

Walking over hurriedly not soon after with the the band of knights following along, you could tell the man named Hugh was quite excited with the extra jump in each step he made.

Eager as he was, Mike planned himself out carefully. He was unaware of the area and being happy and forgetful could complicate things. The basic thing he had to do was plan out his words carefully. New changes bring new quirks, but one can't remain stupid in surviving.

"Now if you could please follow me into the house." Speaking quickly, the man named Hugh ushered Mike to follow him along.

However Mike did not move a single step to follow him. His visage stony, hiding all of his rapid inner thoughts of his next action.

Looking, one would think him a cold older man with those limpid light blue steely eyes of his. Seems living the wild life did bring something new about him.

"Is there a problem Mr. Mike?" After turning around and not seeing Mike move, the one named Hugh quickly changed his pace as he asked with a look of impatience in his eyes.

"I will not be moving away from my partner." Saying so in his somewhat loud and low voice, Mike used his walking stick to point at Turul.

Looking over languidly, Hugh felt a sense of dread as he craned his neck to look at the 20 foot tall golden bird. The creature honestly gave him shivers. Its cold arrogant eyes and terrifying aura pierced through him. Even someone of his attitude would shy away from one animal such as this.

"We can go to the back where we can talk there if you would like." Asking with a small amount of sweat on his back Hugh received a curt nod from Mike.

Arriving at the widespread backyard that seemed to delve into a creek and forest only a couple hundred feet away, it was a quaint area for one who wanted to either rest or to explore the forest if one wanted too.

Connected to the small one story house was a raised wooden porch with a metal sheet shade over it to block out rain and sun on regular days.

Both men sat down opposite of each other over a table. Turul rested on the mixed cloud and grass backyard nearby.

Both men had different expressions. Mike with his stony face had a hint of anticipation and excitement in his eyes, while Hugh seemed happy to be able to relax and talk alone with just the two of them, though he seemed slightly unhappy about something as he peered into the house.

"Reiterating what I asked when we first met you aren't from this world are you?"

"What makes you say that?" Asking faintly, Mike looked at Hugh inquisitively.

"One because we speak the same language, and two because you and I are the only humans within this world that are confirmed at this moment." Dropping this bomb, Hugh didn't seem to be all that surprised when he saw the shock in Mike's eyes.

"Then the knights that followed you were..." Confusion poured out on Mike's face as he slightly lost his facade to the excitement of looking at an entirely new race of sentient beings, and although he had an inkling of thought to come to such a conclusion since living so high up didn't seem like something humans could do or press through without a supple amount of technology. However those thoughts were discarded when he saw Hugh, but to think it was actually true.

"Yup those are denizens of this world and of this kingdom, though they are less relevant now a days since knighthood had lost its relevancy about a century or so ago. So they're mostly there for show." Hugh calmly explained, propping his head up on his hand as he looked at Mike's rapidly changing face.

If this kingdom had something akin to jets to defend their borders, would they not have other weapons too? Using knights like that seemed kind of useless if they were vulnerable to bullets from a pistol.

"Then what are the denizens of this world then?"

"Nubes hominem or cloud people. Their anatomy is very strange. I could babble on everything about them but I would also like to ask you questions as well."

"Ah...yes I will answer if I can." Rapidly cooling down, Mike made note on what to ask after he was done answering some questions.

"First I'd like to ask if you received anything special upon coming to this world. As a show of good faith I will divulge mine to you first. The special power I received once I came here is 'The Biologists Compendium'."