Chương 11: Anyhoo, the gods must be crazy

I carried my crossbow through town, low and unloaded. I wasn't the only one with a weapon wandering through Nexus town, but I was the only one with a first world crossbow. We caught some stares as we walked the ten blocks to the Oracle, but maybe some of it was because of what Damon said, after about a block of walking.

"I can't believe you two left my bully, penetrated and quivering, just laying in the street." Everyone in earshot turned to look. Somewhere nearby a record player scratched and stopped playing, but obliviously, he continued, "You two make a vicious tag team, going at him from both sides! Bang! Bam! Boom! I thought you were gon-""Damon." Lakshmi cut a word in, "Stop talking about it."

"Oh..." He noticed all the eyes peering sideways at him. A half a block later, when it was a different crowd, mostly, he asked.

"Grandpa, can you explain to me why everyone looked funny at me back there?"

"Maybe in another year or two you'll be old enough." A feathered man who had been walking near us the whole time snorted down a laugh.

"But..." He stopped mid argue. Maybe he was experiencing personal growth.

"Fine, but I'm an adult here."

"How about we make a deal? When we're not out in public, I'll explain it. It'll be awkward, and I'll hate it, but I'll do it." I said, I'd had such conversations plenty of times before.

"Deal."

We continued to walk through the city of towering sky scrapers. There were shops built into the lower floors. Mundane stuff like furniture and clothing stores were built into our building. Bakeries, donut shops, and grocery stores were just down the way, and there was a bar nearby home, too. Good to know. There was also a laundromat, though instead of machines inside, it was staffed with water elementals. Soap elementals? Whatever they were, it was magical business. This was a city full of people, alright.

Reminded me of when I was a toddler, not a car in sight. Unlike when I was knee high, this city held a whole load of weird shit that would never, could never, exist in the first world. My guess was one in ten people become some kind of shifter in this world, and the vast majority got some sort of adventurer class. Then there's the folks like me, that got their own thing.

Furthermore, it seemed impossible to know who is a native and who came through the portal when you're walking through town, everyone looks the same. By which I mean, wildly different from anyone else. It was a city, stocked full of anime protagonists, and there I was, dressed in camo pants and a simple black cotton t-shirt. Five blocks from home and we had left behind skyscraper central. The buildings stopped being fifty plus stories tall, and were merely twentyish stories tall.

By time we got to the oracle's place, they were only two or three stories tall. The Oracle lived in a house a block away from the public market. When we turned down the street away from the market, the sound of it was still noticeable, and endless. It was like the roar of the sea, but it was the ebb and flow of commerce. The dull roar of the market was punctuated by the occasional shout, like a seagull finding a french fry and alerting the rest of the flock. I'm going to be the biggest french fry they've ever seen.

I looked forward to mixing it up. Dickering and bartering was far more acceptable here than in the first world, at least after the war. Before the second world war haggling over prices was much more acceptable. We had traveled away from the noise a little, and for the first time in the city, there were large trees. There had been some bushes and shorter trees in the street near the skyscrapers, but these were nice big shade casters.

Oaks, or something like them, grew in the small yards available to residents of these homes. It occurred to me that someone at some point probably had plant magic, and recreated a number of first world plants... and then nature took it from there. The houses on this street were done up in a dizzying array of styles. Corinthian columns on one house, while the one next to it looked like a miniature Taj Majal. Two houses down from there was a European style micro-castle, with crenelated parapets and everything.

And then there were just... regular American looking numbers, like you might see in any city. There was even a dome home. We found our destination. From the outside it looked like something from Vegas, like a Vegas Chapel, stylized as a Greek oracle.

'ORACLE!' in bright neon orange hung over the gate. More advertisements hung on the fence around the yard.

'Discover the truth!'

'Learn who is living and who is dead''All sales final.'

"Are we sure this place is legitimate?" Lakshmi said exactly what I was thinking. I think she did get mind reading powers and just doesn't know how they work yet.

"Yeah... I got alarm bells going off too." I said.

"What?" Damon seemed genuinely surprised.

"Look, you guys are both new, I get it. It seems like a scam, but this place is legit." I saw it, there in the window of the house. The reason Damon had brought us.

'Bring a paying customer, get a single reading, free.' I sighed.

"Let's go inside Lakshmi. Maybe we shouldn't judge a book by its cover."

"Your money..." she shrugged, and clanked toward the door in her armor. Damon failed to hide his excitement as we approached the door. I made a mental note to never let him play poker for money. Lakshmi opened the door for us.

"I'm wearing plate armor, I might as well be chivalrous."

"Why thank you kindly, Ma'am." I said as we entered. She tipped her imaginary hat at me. Damon first, then me, then Lakshmi. Just inside it had a very, dentist's office meets psychic vibe. The counter said dentist office, but his outfit, a blue Fez with stars and moons, and a matching robe, said psychic. Behind the counter there were five bean bags sitting around a circular table, a hookah and a crystal ball on the table. The man ignored us as we walked in.

He looked to be squeezing something in his hand, and he was quite focused on it.

"Oh! I've seen this before," Damon said, "in a documentary when I was home sick from school. He's juicing that frog for its mystical properties."

"Nah," the man said.

"I just don't like this frog. Givin' 'im a squeeze."

"Oh." Damon deflated.

"Hello." I figured I'd cut to the chase.

"I'd like to find out if my wife is still in this world, or if she's even showed up yet at all?"

"Ahhh, a paying customer." He finally stood up to greet us.

"Excellent. I'll inform the Oracle." He turned and threw the frog at one of the bean bags, which, I was just now realizing, had a person buried in it.

"Aww, what the fuck, Naboo?" The oracle was a woman, one that didn't like getting hit with pre-squeezed frogs. Can't blame her there. She sounded like she'd just awakened from a nap.

"These guys want a reading," the frog squeezer said.

"Did you negotiate a price yet, Naboo?" She asked, not even sitting up from the beanbag. Then she tacked on, "Ya ballbag." I like her, still not sure this isn't a scam, but I like her, sight unseen. Naboo turned back to us.

"It'll be..." He sized us up. One of us was wearing a full suit of plate armor, and I had a fancy ass crossbow resting on my shoulder.

"Uhhh... gold piece?"

"What all do I get for that? Do I get to know if she's alive? Will you tell me where she is on the globe? What about how long she's been here, or if she died again when? or If she's not yet here, when will she get here?" Naboo just stared at me, open mouthed." ALL will be revealed!" The oracle declared, clearly using magic to make her voice sound more mystical and spooky, and full of italics and bolds and underlines.

Same kind of flim-flam you saw in the first world, only they probably just did it with actual magic here.

"Lakshmi. Pay them, please." I said, and she flicked him a gold piece. He caught it from the air.

"Naboo, you got a place I can set this weapon down while we do the reading?" This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. (Lakshmi's balance, 1Lgp, 3 gp.) He seemed shocked to see the gold piece, actually in his hand.

"Oh... uhhh..."

"Yeah, fold up that section of the counter." The Oracle said, pointing toward where it opened with a hand that stuck up from her beanbag.

"There's a rack in here you can hang it on for now. Come, Johnny. Sit, sit. Damon too, and you Lakshmi."

"We-""Didn't tell you all our names." She cut me off, still not sitting up.

"I'm the Oracle, I know these sorts of things. Please, sit. Hookah?"

"Hell yes!" Damon said. He opened the counter and went back to find a seat.

"No hookah for me, or Damon," I said, giving the kid a sharp glance. I went behind the counter and found the weapon rack.

"I was a doctor, I should know better, but yes. I will partake." Lakshmi said, clanking behind the counter.

"You shan't be needing your armor, dear." She made a gesture with her hand and Lakshmi's armor vanished, reappearing on a rack next to where I was setting my weapon. I turned around to see the Oracle struggling to sit up in her bean bag chair. She was a waif of a woman, absolutely swallowed by the seating. She had stringy black hair, and after a few attempts at sitting up, she stopped trying.

"I could use a hand." Lakshmi beat me to it, and pulled her upright. The Oracle's eyes started shooting beams of golden light, and she spoke in a voice that was both her own, and The Golden One's.

"Your husband has already arrived. He was delivered to the south polar portal, because he was a bastard. He lived in this world for less than a single day." Lakshmi let go and the Oracle stopped shooting beams of light from her face. She was upright, and when her eyes weren't shooting beams of light, they were a vivid green. A broad smile grew on Lakshmi's face, it would be plastered there a while. Her shitbag ex was double dead. How nice for her.

"Oh..." Naboo said.

"Does that count as a reading?" The Oracle blinked.

"That was weird."

"Was it?" I asked.

"Yes." The Oracle shrugged.

"Ahh well, weird is what I do. Naboo! Hookah."

"Oh, right." Naboo dimmed the lights before he shuffled over to the hookah to change out the substance in the top. I wondered if that was shisha, or something more, psychedelic. Afterward he muttered some magical sounding words I couldn't quite understand, and sparks shot from his finger tips to light the coal he set atop.

"We'll get to you Johnny, but first, Damon. Who are you looking for, mother or father? You only get one check as a referral, ever, so choose wisely. It'll cost you next time."

"Mom, of course." Why was I not surprised he was a momma's boy.

"Good. I want you to think about your mom. Think of what her face looks like, and how much you love her. Think about the happy memories of her." Damon closed his eyes and did as instructed, and after only a few short seconds the Oracle spoke again.

"She's not here yet. Won't arrive until well after you're probably dead, I'm afraid. It is 2029 now, and she won't be here until 2329. Sorry kid, she arrives ten minutes past midnight from the East Portal. So unless you live three hundred years more, you probably ain't gonna see her again."

"Oh..." He was crushed. It took a few seconds for the tears to start falling, and a few seconds more for the wailing to start. Lakshmi and I shared a look. I hardly knew her, but that look said, 'Oh dear, this needs a mother's love.' And she'd just got the best news she could imagine, so nothing could dampen her spirits, not even someone else's crying child. She took a biiiig fat rip off the hookah before she said, "Come, Damon. Let's go outside while Grandpa Johnny gets his reading.

I will tell you about my mother, and you can tell me about yours, and who knows, in this crazy world maybe there is some way to live long enough to see her." He stopped crying.

"You look like a dragon." She laughed and helped Damon up. She wiped her tongue on the roof of her mouth as she opened it, tasting the smoke she'd just inhaled.

"Weird tasting shisha."

"It's a special blend. I hope you enjoy the additional effects." Naboo said.

"Judging by your status effects, I'm sure I will." Lakshmi and Damon went to sit on the steps outside, leaving me, Naboo, and the Oracle with five bean bags between us. Naboo sat down next to the Oracle and started puffing away at the hookah, building up a nice haze in the room as we spoke.

"So, I don't think I got your name?" I took my chances on extending my hand toward her. She did not take my hand. She didn't look at it like I was offering a snake either, she simply ignored it.

"I'm the Oracle. That's my name. Oracle. The the is actually extra, just like my parents were. Who names a child Oracle? Seriously, I was born in 85, not the 1960s."

"People name their kids all kinds of things." My youngest daughter had named a child Skyflower.

"I've heard worse."

"So, you want to find your wife, yes?"

"Yes. Do I close my eyes and think about her?"

"Easy tiger. I don't want those sort of thoughts mixed up in my head right now. I've got a sort of mild telepathic thing that helps to make this work and I don't really feel like watching porn with company right now."

"Sorry... I'll try to mind my thoughts." I thought about getting her some proper, not weird tasting shisha instead.

"Good, that's a nice thought." I could feel her peering over my shoulder at my monitor with the shisha on the website. It was eerie.

"I'm not eerie!"

"You kinda are." Naboo said.

"Look what you've done Johnny, you've given Naboo a thought." She grabbed a tube from the hookah and took a gentle sip.

"Keep smoking, Naboo, I only keep you around because there's not a thought in your head." I laughed. That made perfect sense, if I could read thoughts I'd keep a completely baked buffoon around as my receptionist too.

"I'm glad you see it my way, Johnny." Eerie, again, responding to the narration. She scrunched up her nose in what I promise was a very cute way, and not at all terrifying and somehow skeletal looking at all.

"Johnny, I'm going to need you to think about your wife, on your wedding day. When you first saw her in that dress. I want you to think about the time in the church, and that's it. Now, close your eyes and get to it." I did my best, I swear, but if she hadn't mentioned other things earlier, and if these hormones weren't so absolutely raging compared to what I was used to... well she probably saw a few flashes of things we'd both really rather I hadn't shown her.

"I've got her!" The Oracle said, and I felt her mood sour, it seemed the telepathic connection was bidirectional.

"Hmmm... Well the good news is that she is alive in this world, now. The bad news is that I cannot tell you where she is."

"Why not?" I didn't mean it to sound like an accusation, I realized after I spoke that I sounded a little accusatory.

"No, you're fine Johnny, I don't feel accused. I swear this rarely happens, but her location is being blocked."

"Blocked? What the hell does that mean?"

"It means, blocked." The Oracle shrugged.

"Very few creatures are capable of blocking someone's location from me. The Demon Queen and her top generals are generally unscryable, and her entire dungeon and capital castle. Basically gotta take images from orbit, or close enough to it for the naked eye anyhow, which is what I get when scrying. And if you try too hard to press through she'll give you a nasty psychic slap.

"The Barons of the Pale Court could block me, certain very old dragons, and then of course high level wizards could manage it, but I'm talking level eighteen or more, and specialists in divination, like Damon should become, but there are very few of those, and I don't know where they are either.

"And there are magical artifacts that can block me, too, but those that can make them are even rarer. I guess they spawn sometimes in dungeons though."

"There are dungeons in this world?"

"Yeah, full of dangers and treasures in equal measure." Naboo said through a cloud of smoke.

"Lots of people head to the third world in them."

"Naboo! No speaking during readings. You're a smoke machine, remember."

"Sorry."

"So anyway, your wife is alive, and either is a powerful asshole, or far, far more likely, is imprisoned by some powerful assholes. Tough break, Johnny. At least she ain't dead, though right? Being a bloodbag for the pale court does seem a fate worse than death. Sorry I can't tell you more."

"Anything else I should know? I felt the connection break from my mind. Eerie how I never felt it arrive.

"I want some mango flavored shisha, please. I know what your exchange rate is like, consider it a tip? You're American right? Despite the last name?"

"I am. Very American. Should I chant USA a few times to prove it?" She laughed, "No that's fine, we can do without."

"I do have another question, are there people who would be willing, or able to break through such blockages to find her. A divination wizard, perhaps?"

"I'm sure it would cost you a mint, but that's smoke I don't want. If I fucked up trying hard and got caught, and it was the demon queen, she might just end my immortal existence. They say she kills immortals, and I wouldn't know whose house I was probing until it was too late the way my power works. She doesn't fuck around, and I want to keep living. I'm sure the pale court nerds would be just as upset by my poking and peering."

"When you said you were born in 85 earlier, you mean just 85, no 19, no 17, or 6 in front of it."

"Bingo." She shot me with finger guns.

"I get myself a new Naboo every once in a while. Sometimes they have a different name and I gotta teach them to be Naboo again."

"Eerie." I said, as I summoned almost three hundred dollars worth of different flavors and brands of shisha.

"Your tip." Balance: 36594. 34"I gotta say... I sorta expected this to be a scam, but two of us left smiling, one left bawling his eyes out. Seems legit to me."

"I do scam like half the people I see. You know how easy it is to not bother looking and just saying, 'they're dead' or 'they'll come out in the future.'" She blew a raspberry, and side-eyed the exit.

"Miss Oracle," I got to my feet.

"Should you require any other first world goods, I'm sure we can arrange something in the future."

"Pornography. Visual, written, doesn't matter. I want it."

"I was thinking more, like a sweater, or shampoo, but... sure?" I don't want to talk about what I bought, but my grandson that introduced me to isekai would be mortified to know his grandpa was searching, and purchasing hentai, I'll tell you that much. And that wasn't the porniest thing that I bought a lot of. Balance: 36369. 69 Nice. I left the Oracle with her... Trinkets, and wished Naboo the best of luck over the next few days. That little stoner was going to get juiced worse than his frog.

When I stepped outside, I had a plan. Make enough money to coerce some fool wizard into locating my wife, even if it got him killed. Hopefully it wouldn't, but it was a risk I was willing to take. She was alive! And I was going to find her.