Chapter 7 : Fillory

I found myself being pulled across the void ocean again, massive tidal currents of ether jetting past me like unseen leviathans, as I fell down towards the light, piercing the pitch dark veil surrounding the world of Fillory. The stars hummed in the sky, as I zoomed towards the discus shaped landmass, phasing through the asteroid cloud at blinding speeds. Instinctively, I brought my hands to my face to protect myself, or tried at least. The force with which I was flung and the ungodly pressure of the ether bearing down on me once more kept them stubbornly in place, like limp noodles trailing behind my form. The breath was knocked out of me, my stomach lurched from the freefall, butterflies tickling the length of me while my mind short circuited at the sight, and my brain resigned me to death, despite my full knowledge of the safety of this method. The lizard brain does as the lizard brain evolved to do. It wasn't used to the sensation, the feeling of flying through the air as time stood still. It was wholly alien to it, despite this being the second time I was experiencing it.

But through it all, even through what muddled sense of reality I yet held onto like a child to its mother, I could scarcely hold back the wonder of it all. My eyes all but lit up, and a childhood spark of curiosity burst forth with joy as I watched the asteroids flitting by like little marbles in the sky. Then further, past the twin moons of Fillory, the force dragged me, and I felt giddy to the bone.

Going to space, to the moon, other planets, hell even other worlds, most people only ever dream of such things, and yet here I am falling through space past not one, but two moons into the land of childhood dreams, of dragons and heroes and kings and queens. A world of grand quests and adventure. A genuine other world.

Isekai, my mind supplied and I grinned from ear to ear.

Fuck, even if I died right now, I'd die more than happy. Not that I would die at all.

I could already feel the tides turn, the ether shifted, space folded- that was the best way to describe what I could only feel but not see through my eyes- and all of a sudden I lurched to a stop, the ether bubbling around me till-

Pop!

I fell out of the void and stumbled out of a tree hollow into a forest clearing.

Gravity took hold of me again, with the familiarity of solid ground beneath my feet and the tickling mix of nervousness and excitement churning within my stomach.

"Hup!" I yelped, flailing my arms, trying to steady myself but my limbs were too tired, too sore, too much so to be of any use as I tripped on one of the roots and tumbled to the forest floor below.

Pfft!

I spat out the dirt from my mouth and rolled over onto my back, laying on the soft grass as I gazed wistfully at the dawn sky above me, red and orange, and delightfully blue, the twin moons majestically hung across the tapestry of the sky, little clouds floating by them like divine vestments.

I'm here.

I'm really here.

Fillory.

I couldn't help but giggle with joy, dancing a happy little jig, rolling on the floor.

I've been here for all of two minutes and I already feel so full of joy, and energy and just....euphoric. Even my fatigue seemed to vanish, my soreness and muscle pain melting away from within me.

"Ah~ This is heaven."

I relished the feeling and grunted happily. Truly, this world is magical.

Or maybe it's the opium in the air.

The air of Fillory was like 0.2 percent opium after all.

I thought back to the euphoria I was feeling, the near instant relief from physical pain.....yeah. It's definitely the opium in the air.

I chuckled.

No wonder Martin didn't want to leave Fillory. The air was making him into a junkie. And the less that is said about the near lethal concentration of opiates in the fog of Flying Forest the better. Let's just say, it's called the Flying Forest for a reason, and it's not because it's floating in the sky.

Heh.

That's kind of an unfair way to make you fall in love with the world. Not gonna lie though, I do respect the hustle.

I looked back up at the sky and smiled.

Time to get going, before someone comes over and finds me here. Don't want anyone making any connections between me and the tree portal here.

Standing back up, I stretched my body with satisfying pops, before I scanned the surroundings and spotted a trail leading out of the clearing to the side of the Clock Tree.

There we go.

I followed the little trail and rounded the corner around the giant tree, when I came to a halt at the sight before me.

The trail led downhill from behind the clearing and out of the thinning forest cover into rolling, lush plains and there in the distance, stood a structure of breathtaking beauty.

A castle, pure white and silver and gold, with five tall towers, each with floating crystalline diamonds with silver metallic rims, swirling above them, floating in the air. Below it, a colorful, sprawling metropolis spread out into the plains and off in the distance to a stream. Little boats bobbed about in the river, and I could see carts going in and out of the city, tiny visages of people going about their daily chores as the sun rose upon a brand new day.

Castle Whitespire, the royal capital of Fillory.

I sucked in a cold breath of the morning air in amazement and tried my hardest not to geek out.

And I certainly did not squeal with glee like a little girl. No siree.

I grinned and resisted the urge to traipse my ass right down there, like a man.

Yes.

I have more important things to do right now and getting access to magic is on the top of my to do list.

But one day, I will return here. The city had a lot of treasures I wanted to 'liberate' into my custody. The magical armory, the flying ship, the mystical garden, and of course, the secret sea.

All in due time.

For now.....

I reached into my leather messenger bag and pulled out a compass and my hand drawn map of Fillory, based on the books.

First things first, let's check the directions and calibrate my compass to the directions of this world, just in case what happened in the books had an actual bearing on the world today.

In the books, Jane Chatwin had once been given a set of trial by the gods of Fillory, Ember and Umber to prove herself worthy of the crown and one of those trials was to move the city of Barion from the south of the Great Salt river to it's North.

Now obviously, she couldn't just pluck out a whole city and move it across a river, so she came up with a clever solution. She issued a new royal decree, declaring that North was now called South and South was now called North, thus by making it so that the city was in the direction named 'North' with respect to the river.

The problem with that was, that she never rescinded the decree, at least in the books, so even in later books characters were complaining about having to redo their maps and charts.

Now usually, I wouldn't worry about it, after all, it was just a name change. But given that this was a fantasy world, with gods and magic, for all I know, the directions could very well have been switched just by her word.

Or....not.

Huh.

East was still East. North was still North. All the directions were in the right place.

I was worried over nothing. Or maybe it's because my compass is from Earth?

Well, doesn't hurt to double check anyways. It would be a shame if I had been wrong and went in the opposite direction from where I wanted, and I don't know, ended up in the belly of a dragon or something. This world was fraught with danger after all. Gotta be careful.

"Alright. Let's see. That way is southeast, to Castle Whitespire, so that means...." I checked the map, and turned to the side, "I'm here, in the Wormwood. And I have to get...there. To the Darkling Woods. Northwest, that way."

The Darkling Woods. West of the northern marsh, it was vast stretch of primal forest where two of the seven Questing Creatures lived. At least the two whose locations I know for sure.

In the books, Jane had hunted one of them there in order to wish for the magical button I had with me. So the best place to start would be there. But the problem with getting there is....well there are too many to count.

I rubbed my temples and sighed.

I did not expect the portal to open up here, this far south, and even then, I didn't realize the sheer scale of my undertaking until I actually got here.

This world is....vast; because you know, it's an actual world. A whole ass world.

Which leads to my first problem, the simplest one. The sheer distance between here and there. From the southeast end of the continent to almost the opposite northwest side, cutting across like half the landmass. I don't even know how long that will take, days, weeks, months even.

And then there is the problem of actually getting there alive.

From the Wormwood where I currently am, there are three ways to get there. First is to go due west and through the Burnt Plains, which is practically a death trap. There's a reason they're called the Burnt Plains. They're the territory of a dragon, and at this point, I'm in no position to fuck with one of those scaly monstrosities. So going west is out of the question.

Then there's Castle Whitespire, where I can probably sell some of my spices, salt, sugar, garam masala, among others to get money for a horse but....it is the territory of the Beast and once I put out the spices, I'd be basically outing myself as a Child of Earth since the people of Fillory eat mostly boiled, bland, tasteless food. Selling spices like that is a one way ticket to the Underworld for me.

So not going there either.

That only leaves north. To Chatwin's Torrent and across the Northern Marsh, with its giant jellyfish that can snipe birds out of the sky, and the Prince of the Mud, an island sized snapping turtle that can gulp down whole wagons, not to mention the various other monsters lurking about in the swamps. Yeah...no. Not even once.

"Hmmm....this is leading nowhere. I'm too weak to go through any of those places, they're practically death sentences for me." I sighed, scratching my head.

Hell, I'm surprised the main cast made it alive in the show.

Actually, on second thought, no they didn't.

Eliot nearly got eaten by the giant turtle, his friend, what was her name, Bargo, Zargo, Janet, something, nearly drowned, that blondie sold her soul to a creature in the Northern Marsh to revive Quentin, who himself had died to the Beast earlier that timeline and then the Beast himself died to Quentin later on. And the traveler of that group, that indian guy with the stupid name, he died on that quest for the magical keys. And don't even get me started on the bodily mutilation. Quentin lost an arm, the traveler lost both hands, Eliot's gal pal lost her eye to those fairies. And of course that whole class from Brakebills that got slaughtered.

Yeah, this place is dangerous, even to magicians.

This location itself.....

From the description the books gave me, I thought the Clock Tree would open up into the Clock Barrens, which was, you know, a whole grove of clock trees that warped time around them.

That would have put me a little west of the Darkling Woods, meaning I could have just skipped over a hill or two and gotten where I wanted to go.

But I guess that was asking too much, because apparently this one Clock Tree is outside the whole grove of Clock Trees out west, like a big 'fuck you' to anyone who thinks this world should make any logical sense.

"Classic Ember." I shook my head and racked my brains for a solution.

I need to get there fast, because the longer I stick around here, the higher my chances of being discovered. Yet, I can't just go out there willy nilly, and walking all the way there is simply out of the question.

Hmmm.....wait, wasn't there a royal carriage that did regular rounds of the country?

From north to south, east to west, like a medieval train.

And I think one of its stops was near here, somewhere....

I looked at the map.

There!

A little ways from here, south, around the base of the Hen's Teeth mountains. There was road, I think.

Right. This might just work.

Just one problem. It only admits royalty, which means I need to be a king first, before I get to ride it. A bit of a risky move since the Beast hunts down all of his competition, but that's only if he knows about it. I don't plan on revealing myself anyways so unless he specifically checks up on the carriage and asks the carriage driver, which he won't because it's months till the actual plot begins, I'll be safe.

I checked the map again and smiled.

Alright, that might not be as much of a problem as I thought.

Just like Narnia, this world had a rule that only children of Earth can rule this land. That's me. A Child of Earth.

All I need now is a crown.

Given that there are four crowns for each of the four rulers of Fillory, all I need to do is get one of them and viola, easy, safe carriage ride to my destination!

And Coronation Island, where the crowns are kept is close by- well, not close by, but certainly closer than the Darkling Woods- just south of here, in the spring lake that spawns the Milkwater river in the Hen's Teeth mountains.

I can almost see the mountain range from here.

Yup. This is the most practical route.

Get crowned, take a carriage ride, hunt down a Questing Creature and get my wish.

Four simple steps. Actually, make that five.

I think I should go take a dip in Chatwin's Torrent up north first. The water there had magical healing properties and I could use some healing right about now. The opium had dulled the pain, but that didn't mean my muscles were all fine and dandy, and most certainly in no shape to be trekking across mountains.

The air up there will be thin and the opium will no doubt wear off, leaving me crumpled up in pain, miles from civilization. That's no bueno. Better get myself healed and back in ship shape before I get on the road.

Besides, I also wanted to get some healing water for later, in case I get injured. It was a long journey across a mountain range, lots of ways to get hurt around there, despite it being the safest option.

So five steps.

Five simple steps.

What could go wrong?

__________________

Like the foreshadowing?

A bit late and a bit lore heavy, kinda info-dumpy chapter but it sets up the worldbuilding so I thought it would be nice to put it there and show MC's thought process here.

Tell me if it was too much.

Share your thoughts.

Add the fic to your library.

Don't forget to donate your powerstones.

Let's get to the top ten baby!

And finally, thanks for reading.