“Are you sure the child should come into a place like this?” asked the inn’s hostess as D.R & Associates entered the Wealthy Wench Tavern. Though she wasn’t the world’s tallest woman, she looked down at the face of an elf child who looked like he couldn’t have been older than nine or ten human years of age.

Next to the child, at the front of the group, able to look the human woman eye-to-eye, the bearded face of a dwarf gently leaned forward just enough to break her gaze at the youth and grab her attention. Not only was the dwarf’s beard magnificent in its own right in length and bountiful bushiness, but it was adorned with a myriad of dwarvish beard gems that sparkled when he turned his head.

“Lassie, that child, as you call him, is most likely twice as old as you are. And you work here.”

“Oh,” was all the hostess could manage to say at first, though she soon gathered herself, smiled, and led the party of seven to a spacious curved-booth style table in the far corner of the inn.

“Right this way, folks.” Looking at the elf child, she added, “I beg your pardon, sir.”

“It’s okay,” the elf kid replied. “It happens all the time. I’m used to it.”

Espino let himself drift to the back of the party, letting his eyes get used to the room and taking in the scene around him, especially the people. They were the most eclectic mix he had ever seen. A dwarf with a cropped red beard and an eye patch belched loudly as he emptied his tankard. Two elves played a strange board game in the front of the establishment, a game that looked similar to chess but was not. Fragrant herbal smells drifted from the tea cups placed in front of a tableful of what looked like ascetic monks. Espino could hear a deep, theoretical discussion of magic theory going on between a human and a half-elf each dressed in stereotypical mage’s robes. (Espino could have walked up to them and corrected them on several points of understanding, but chose not to.) The establishment even had an interesting-looking bouncer, what Epsino assumed was a half-troll.

This place looks calm enough in the early afternoon, he thought. That they have a bouncer must mean that it can get rowdy later.

“Here you go.” Hiln, the dwarven combat leader of D.R. & Associates, gestured for Espino to sit down, snapping Espino out of his musings.

He took his place with the rest of D.R. & Associates, who had already slid themselves into the booth. Next to Hiln was Espino’s rival in the Associates for the role of party magic-user, Deldric Rumble, a gnome. (The “D.R.” in the group’s name stood for Deldric Rumble. This was something that chafed Espino. A few years ago, while the party was residing in a kingdom in which all adventuring groups were required to be legally registered, Deldric had volunteered to take care of that little detail for the group. When filling out the required legal forms, Deldric had penned the not-so-humble legal name for the party all by himself without the rest of the group around. Even though that kingdom was now far away, in another world from Jasmia, and on top of that removed in time by thousands of years of time travel, the name had been grudgingly accepted by the others and wasn’t up for change. Espino couldn’t say the name out loud without rolling his eyes. Stupid Deldric! he thought.)

Next to Deldric was Bob the Brownie, Deldric’s familiar. Almost all familiars were not humanoid beings, often taking  the form of creatures such as owls, cats, mice, bats, or the like.  Brownies were a unique little fey folk, in that while they were a fully intelligent and independent people with their own society, history, and culture, individual brownies could be familiarized by a mage of compatible temperament. It was a tremendous advantage to Deldric to have as a familiar a humanoid, albeit a very small one, who could run errands for him such as going shopping or talking to people, that a more animalistic familiar could not. Bob was as much a sidekick as he was a familiar.

In brownie society, familiarization by a magic-user was not seen as slavery, since it could only be done if a brownie willingly accepted it, which many did because of the legendary status of great brownie heroes and heroines who had been familiars to great mages of history whose exploits had shaped worlds. 

Next around the table came the party’s healer Rave (short for Ravenwood), a tallish human man who, though kind and friendly, didn’t like to talk about himself much. The Associates had figured out that he had once been a cleric with some religion or other, but he had moved on from that life.

Lastly, at the other end of the booth’s curve came the party’s two ladies, Natasha and Gayle Garnetstar. Natasha was a human like Rave, but if she had a religion, she didn’t talk about it. She had been a solo mercenary swordswoman when the Associates met her. Though she insisted that she worked best alone, upon meeting the Associates, she thought she might join them for “just one job or two”. That had been about thirty jobs ago.

Nathasha was laughing loudly with Gayle, who, like Hiln, was a dwarf, although other than that, she was unlike Hiln in almost every other way. Whereas Hiln was always stern and no-nonsense in his demeanor, Gayle was warm and regarded people she liked with a motherly affection. Folks she didn’t like, however, sometimes found their heads detached from their bodies by her axe.

A server had come to take the Associates’ orders. Natasha and Rave were blinking as their eyes finished adjusting to the relative dimness of the Wealthy Wench compared to the glaring Jasmia sunlight outside. (Humans have such weak eyes, Espino thought, not for the first time.) Gayle giggled into her beard as she let the laughter fade at her joke with Natasha.

Hiln tapped the table with his guantlet for attention. “Well, we’re here, in Jasmia. We made it. What now?”

Before anyone could reply, there was a loud booming crack like thunder outside and the roar that Espino thought could almost rival that of a dragon reverberated through the timbers of the Wealthy Wench. Immediately after, screams and shouts from the streets outside reached the ears of all inside the Wealthy Wench. The front door flung open. A human kid of about fifteen years whom the Associates had seen in the streets fulfilling the role of town crier was there and exclaimed, “The Wall’s been breached! There are T-rexes in the streets!”

“I think I got my answer,” Hiln said matter-of-factly as D.R. & Associates started extricating themselves from their booth, adjusting armor, checking weapons, and mentally reviewing spells.

“Welcome to Jasmia.” The one-eyed dwarf gestured to them with his now re-filled tankard in mock salute as D.R. & Associates headed for the door.

*******

Outside, it was the humans’ turn to have vision-related advantage, for their eyes, though weak in darkness, could adjust much more quickly to the bright daylight outside. Espino saw Rave scan Newtown around them. The loud roar of the purported T-rex was was coming from the west, only multiplied as if there were several of them, mixed with the shouts of town militia trying to rally and the screams of panicked citizens.

“Close the gate! Close the gate! We can’t have any arrivals now!” ordered the Gatekeeper, a spectacled gnome, through his gnomish steam-powered megaphone.

The Gatekeeper didn’t refer to any normal gate in Newtown’s defensive Wall. He referred to Newtown’s predominant eyecatching feature, a 50-foot circle of stone adorned with inlaid runes made of various metals, both precious and ordinary

This was the Worldgate, that brought newcomers and traders to Jasmia on a daily basis from the various worlds. D.R. & Associates had come through that very gate just a few hours ago. Espino had known that life on Jasmia would be exciting, even by the standards of an adventuring company like D.R. & Associates, but to see dinosaurs already the first day, and right there in Newtown, was wonderful. Espino’s stomach growled. He frowned. It was too bad they hadn’t had a chance to eat anything first at the Wealthy Wench, though. Oh, well. Now, what magic did he have that would wrap up T-rexes quickly before they destroyed Newtown? His frown turned into a wide, mischievous grin. As if there were any other choice than his most fun favorite, he thought.

The elf boy looked at the rest of the group. Rave, realizing that he and Natasha could see better in the light more quickly, but not wanting to usurp Hiln’s role as combat leader, touched the dwarf on the shoulder, bent over slightly, and said, “I see three of the beasts’ heads over the rooftops. The closest one looks like its headed for the Worldgate. It’s about to turn the corner ahead of us about three blocks and come this way.

The dwarf began pulling on his weapon. “Then let’s get ready to greet our new friend.”

The group’s eyes became fully focused on the scene just in time to get dust and grit in them from Newtown’s unpaved streets. A centaur galloped past them, stirring up a gritty dust cloud, clad in mail on his human upper parts, barding on his equine lower parts. The centaur brandished a long spear.

Espino sneezed, wiped his eyes and looked up in time to see the T-rex round the corner, about three blocks away as Rave had said. It was absolutely magnificent! So far in his young (for elves) life, Espino had seen many things in many worlds, but he had never seen dinosaurs other than as drawings in books. He couldn’t wait to try his favorite magic on it.

The centaur with the spear charged, crying out a Sylvan battle cry to Nuada, God of War. Espino thought a straight on charge like that as a lone warrior was stupid. D.R. & Associates had long ago learned the advantages of distraction, teamwork, and attack from multiple directions. 

As the centaur closed with the T-rex, his spear aimed perfectly for the creature’s breast, the creature suddenly lunged forward with speed that belied its huge size and ponderous gait, biting down on the centaur, neatly cleaving it into distinct man and horse halves, connected no more. The magnificent spear had wound up jammed into the forest of the beast’s teeth where it had no more effect than a toothpick. Yup! thought Espino. Stupid.

The dinosaur crunched down on the upper half of its victim a couple of times but apparently didn’t like the texture of armored mail. Lacking the facial structure and muscles for a proper spitting, the tyrant lizard violently shook its head to the side with its mouth open, flinging the unfortunate centaur’s remains through the air. They flew over the nearest building and landed with a crash in the alley behind it.

Espino ran forward. “Hiln, I’ve got this one. You get the others.”

Espino ignored Deldric’s glare at him. Even life and death combat didn’t constitute a break from their rivalry.

“I’ll stay with the kid. The rest of you take that one.” Hiln pointed to another visible T-rex head bobbing up and down over the rooftops a few blocks away. That one also seemed headed on a route that would take it right up to the Worldgate.

Rave nodded and led the others down a sidestreet.

“Don’t get eaten luv,” Gayle chided Hiln as she passed by. “Or let the boy get eaten.”

“I’d never hear the end of it.” Hiln retorted.

“That’s right.” 

As the main group dashed down a sidestreet lined with Newtown’s hodgepodge of cultural and architectural styled buildings from many worlds, Hiln braced himself with his greatsword in front of Don Espino de la Rosa, Archmage of the Great Magocracy and child, wondering what his patron Odin would think of his exploits these days.

“Hey, ya overgrown lizard! Over here!”

The T-rex still a few blocks away, was picking at the horse half of the centaur.

“Yeah, I’m talkin’ to ya! My young friend here has a few words for ye! Some magic words!”

Behind the dwarf, Espino threw his cloak back and took on a combat casting stance his school teachers at the Great Magocracy Academy had taught him, glancing to the buildings on either side of the street and estimating the spell’s range, ready to cast the moment the monstrous beast was within it.

The T-rex, seemingly perturbed by the interruption of its meal, for the barding plates on the centaur’s lower half had been easily torn off by the beast’s teeth, and apparently horsemeat was to its liking, roared back at Hiln defiantly.

“That’s it, beastie! C’mere if ye’ve got the guts!”

It was doubtful that the T-rex could understand speech, but there must have been something in Hiln’s tone that set off the dinosaur. It immediately reared back and charge the staunch dwarven warrior and magical elven child.

“Is it in range yet, kid?”

“Not yet, not…now!” Wow that things was fast when it wanted to be, Espino thought.

He chanted as quickly as he dared to not mess up the flow of the spell.

“Though on two legs you creep, I prefer to see you as a sheep!” he intoned.

The beast, as it charged them, began to morph, shrinking down, down, down. It’s scales disappeared underneath white puffiness. It’s snout retreated into it’s skull to form a much flatter face. By the time it reached Hiln, it was a sheep.

“Baaaaaaa!”

It still seemed angry and upset. It threw itself at Hiln in ovine rage.

Hiln chuckled. “You’ve still got your touch, kid.”

Espino laughed. That was his favorite trick.