The Wreck of the Onphanion

The Wreck of the Onphanion Part 2

                                  Part 2:  The Merfolk City of Ralthas

     "And that's why I can't be topless in Hearport." Merlisa now bereft of her top. "They called it a riot, but really only two people got strampled and it's not like they died either. That's barely an occurrence in my opinion."

     "Strampled?" Hank asked wondering briefly if his translation magic had made a mistake.

     "Yeah strampled, it's when a surface dweller gets crushed to death by another surface dweller using their legs."

     "You're mashing together the words trampled and stampede I think." Hank said. "Trampled is the one you want to use."

     "Are you sure?"

     "I've had legs my whole life and have used words associated with them for almost as long, you can trust me on this."

      Merlisa was starting to get annoyed at this wizard, she was swimming as fast as she could and he was still keeping up with her, while pulling her shop. Even with magic that should have been impossible, but here he was underwater, breathing, talking, swimming just as fast as she was. "So enough about me, tell me something about you."

     "Like what?"

     "Well where are you from for starters."

      "Pennsylvania," Hank said.

      "Oh? I've never heard of that city, it must not be on the ocean. Is it nice?"

      "Every time I stay away for long enough I want to go back," Hank replied. "Then I do and I remember why I left."

      "Ah," Merlisa said holding on to her followup question about his family. "Well I'd be a poor merchant if I didn't ask, so where exactly is this Pennsylvania and what kind of goods could I sell there."

      "It's upon another world," Hank explained. "Things like mermaids, Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs are all creatures of children's stories. Nobody thinks they actually exist." Merlisa cursed herself for not asking for ten times the gold, if this wizard was a planar traveler he could have afforded to pay a much larger amount. Oh well she'd make thousands of gold coins off of that hair growth spell he was going to give her, provided she didn't oversaturate the market. "How much further?"

     "If we can keep this pace up we should be there in an hour or so." Merlisa responded. "Why do you need to take a break to renew your spells?"

     "No I'm fine, I was just wondering."

     Merlisa really wanted to pay better attention to him when he was casting, she didn't even notice him cast the spells on himself before they started their journey. "Have you seen many worlds?"

     "I've seen hundreds," Hank said. "But I've only been to a couple dozen at most."

     "You said mermaids, Elves, Dwarves and Orcs weren't on your world, what other races besides Humans are there?"

     "None."

     "None?"

     "None, just Humans."

     "Was it always that way, or did you purge all the non-Human races?"

     "Don't know," Hank said. "We have stories of non-Human races, but no evidence, and until recently my world was cut off from the rest of creation."

     "Cut off, how?" Merlisa asked.

     "It fell out of phase for a few thousand years somehow. Now it's coming back into phase."