Autumn

Autumn wandered through the Mists for an indefinable time. It never felt like she was in the Mists for long, but sometimes she found a journey that felt like moments for her had in fact been weeks. Time was slippery here.

Soon, or finally, Autumn reached the source of the disturbance in the Unformed. She paused a moment to study the problem.

There was an Enclave.

Enclaves were, basically, bubbles of other worlds within the Unformed. They could be as small as the estate she and Winter shared, or as large as a kingdom. She had seen Enclaves formed of mountains dotted with Dwarven mines, forests full of Pixies and fairy glens. She had visited castles and swamps and moors and markets and even a few oceans. But this.

This Enclave was impossible. Utterly, completely impossible.

There were no anchoring points in the Unformed to give it shape. There were no paths or Gates to link it to any other Enclave. The only way she’d found it was following the Mists. It seemed to have sprung up from nothing. How could an Enclave be formed from nothing, with no sigils, no circle, no anchor and no Gate?

Yet here it rested, a bubble within the chaos. It was stable. The Mists did not press in on the Enclave, if Enclave was the word for the thing. There was no wavering in the border between whatever it held and the Unformed. 

She had to know what was inside.

She pressed her hand to the border to see what kind of barrier protected it. Her hand fell through, meeting absolutely no resistance. 

There was no barrier spell. There was precisely nothing holding this Enclave together. It was simply there. Existing, where nothing should be able to exist. 

Well, there was one guaranteed way to know what was inside the thing. She took a deep, steadying breath and stepped past the Mists into the boundaries of the Enclave.

And found herself staring at the muzzle of a gun. A human weapon. Held in a human hand. 

She froze, stock still, and focused on the spells that would make her effectively bulletproof. Those spells were meant to deflect a stray bullet across a battlefield though, not stop a spray of... what were the really big guns called? Marching guns? Mecha guns? Machine guns. Yes. That. Her shield had never been tested against direct fire from such a thing. Certainly not at such close range. 

Her eyes traveled up the barrel of the gun to the person holding it. They seemed young; barely older than she was at a guess. She was pretty sure it was a young man. He wore slightly baggy clothing in shades of green and tan all mottled together in an odd pattern. There was a patch on one sleeve but she was at the wrong angle to see it clearly. Her eyes trailed up to his face. She studied the smooth skin, and the wide, terrified brown eyes. 

Was this young man somehow afraid of her? She was a Champion, clearly, with the sigil on her shoulder and wearing the traditional armament. Did he not recognize it?

“Peace, warrior,” she said gently. “I am here to help. I am the Champion Autumn.”

He stared, clearly not comprehending, and babbled something she couldn’t understand either.

Great. He didn’t speak Elvish.

That was fine. She switched to Dwarven, the closest thing to a universal trade language Underhill, and repeated her greeting. That garnered her no better result. 

He tried speaking again.

Human languages. She didn’t know many human languages. There were other humans Underhill, sure. The Champions Tethis and Ayame were human, for instance. But Autumn had never learned any human languages because they both spoke Elvish like she did. Ayame sometimes spoke her native Japanese. That language was still in use, right? Autumn would try that. 

“Peace, warrior. I am here to help,” she replied in formal, but hopefully clear, Japanese. 

“Uh,” the young man made a confused sound and said something else in whatever language he was speaking. He turned slightly, and called out. Another young warrior, dressed identically and carrying an equally large weapon, approached. 

The two young warriors spoke to each other, gesturing to her in a manner she would consider rude if she couldn’t tell how absolutely terrified they were. She held herself absolutely still while she waited for them to come to whatever conclusion they were going to reach. Surely they would realize she meant them no harm just by her lack of weapons or aggressive behavior. 

Autumn looked around the Enclave, only her eyes moving. The ground below her feet was strangely smooth, some black material like stone but not quite. There were large, ugly buildings all around. Blocky and dull in color, with no windows and no decoration to indicate their purpose. One building was somehow sliced in half. Or had it been built with its interior open like that? No, the ‘cut’ portion intersected the barrier. Whatever had brought this place to the Unformed had left part of the building behind. 

Was their presence here an accident? They did appear to be honestly confused and frightened. But they were also well armed, with weapons formed of steel and iron. Weapons that would wreak utter havoc on the Unformed and spread devastation and death on most of the denizens of Underhill. 

Why arm yourself against the fey kind if you don’t intend to fight them? 

Was this an accident?

Or were they here as the spearhead of an invasion?