“So how do you feel? Aside from the arm.” Nate asked, looking over his... 'patient', for lack of a better term. Despite his tumble down the rocky incline, Zericho didn't appear to have any injuries, perhaps it was due to his skin, which seemed to be tougher than a human's, almost leathery.

“Well aside from the horrible job you did with my arm, I'm fine kid.” Zericho began to pick at the wrappings, “What exactly is this supposed to do anyway?” He asked rudely.

Nate slapped Zericho's hand away, “Stop that, it'll never heal if you do that.”

Zericho glared up at him, “Do you have any idea who you're dealing with here?”

Nate shrank back slightly, “Um... no, in fact I was kinda hoping you would answer some of my questions?”

Zericho rose to his feet, and stared straight into the kneeling human's face, “You've got some questions?! That's a good one, if anyone's gonna be asking questions around here, it's gonna be me! First being, where the hells are we?”

“Wait, you don't know?” Nate asked, a note of panic in his voice.

“No, and I suggest you start talking.” Zericho jabbed a finger into the other's chest.

“What?”

“Don't play dumb, this is obviously a trap.” He stared straight into Nate’s eyes, and his voice took on a strange tone, “And you are going to tell me everything you know.”

Nate was taken aback, this thing was scary and its eyes were glowing! “Wait, what?! No I... why would I do that?! I mean I don't even know you, and I-I don't know where I am and-”

Zericho seemed confused for a moment before sighing, “Okay fine, shut up, I believe you.”

Nate collected himself as he watched the imp pace back and forth, “So you don’t know where we are either? You don’t have a map or anything?”

“A wha-” Zericho suddenly remembered his sack; maybe something in there would be of help.

He quickly whipped it off his back and began rifling through it, with Nate looking on in confusion. “Come on, come on…” He muttered

After a few moments he pulled out a roll of parchment, “Maybe this is it?” He unrolled it and smiled.

“Yes! Thank you!” He exclaimed.

Nate came closer, trying to see what was on the sheet, “So you’ve got a map?”

“Better!” He smirked and laid out the paper in front of Nate. “It’s a scrytograph.”

To Nate it just looked like a map, albeit one that showed a landmass he was unfamiliar with, “A what?”

Zericho sighed, “Okay, I know that your puny human brain will struggle to understand this, but here’s the idea, this is a map of the realm that can track where you are and show it to you.”

“You mean a GPS.” Nate stated plainly.

Zericho stared at him quizzically.

Nate shrugged, “Ok, yeah I guess you wouldn’t know what that is. But it’s a piece of paper, how would it be able to do that?”

Zericho scoffed, “Magic. How else you idiot?”

Nate eyed the small creature with suspicion, “Magic?”

“Yeah.” Zericho answered, as if he had just been asked if the sky was blue.

Nate massaged his forehead, “Okay, look, while I’ll admit that coming across you has been a really fantastic discovery and broadened my horizons, I mean I don’t know how in the modern age an entire species of sentient beings has escaped the notice of people, magic isn’t real. Now I know there’s a pretty good chance you come from a less technologically advanced society, and that you probably attribute the more fantastic natural phenomena to forces beyond your understanding, or gods, or what not, but I’ve got some bad news, all of that isn’t true, and your map… what are you doing?”

Zericho was waving his good hand about and his eyes appeared to be glowing! The imp grinned, “About to shut you up, and prove you wrong kid.”

His hand was suddenly engulfed in a strange light which quickly flew straight at Nate, and then… absolutely nothing happened. Nate slowly lowered his arms from in front of his face and opened his eyes; Zericho stood in front of him, his grin slowly fading into a scowl.

“Why didn’t it work?!”

“Why didn’t what work?” Nate asked fearfully, “What the fuck was that?!”

“My domination incantation! There’s no way a stupid human would be able to resist it!” He glared at Nate, then glanced away and began to mutter angrily to himself, “Then again, the strength is probably drained a bit with this stupid injury constantly distracting me,” he raised his voice and looked back at Nate, “which wouldn’t be a problem if someone wasn’t such a crap healer!”

Nate quickly shook his hands in front of himself in panic, “What the hell is a domination incantation?! And I did the best I could with your arm, I don’t have magic, which exists apparently!”

“It’s what it sounds like you moron. And what kind of self-respecting healer, even one in training, has no magic?” Zericho hissed.

Nate stared at the imp mouth hanging open, dumbfounded, before shaking himself out of the state, “Okay, look, I think we seriously need to have a discussion here, cause there’s way more going on here then I first thought.”

Zericho huffed stubbornly, “Fine, but let me see where we are first.” He looked down at the map, which was still lying at his feet. He began to mutter to himself as he scanned the map, after a few seconds he quickly glanced up at Nate, before glancing back down “So where are you from kid?”

“Uh, Jersey.”

“Never heard of it. Where in the realm is it? You wear some weird clothes there.” Nate looked down at his hoodie and jeans, “Must be pretty remote and small if you haven’t seen magic before.”

“Okay, this is what I’m talking about; I’m starting to think this is like another planet or something. I’m from Earth, where are we?”

Zericho glanced up, annoyed, “I told you I’m finding that out.”

Nate shook his head, “No, I mean what do you call this place, like the entire thing, like if you had a map of every location what would you call that as a whole.”

Zericho looked at Nate like he was a madman, “Serenium.”

“Yeah, I’m from Earth. Never heard of Serenium, sounds like some kind of vitamin.”

“Okay, maybe we do need to talk.”

“Okay, so it’s a pretty safe bet that we both got teleported to the forest at the exact same time.” Nate said as the two trudged through the forest.

Zericho nodded, “So it’s pretty safe to say that when the gem malfunctioned you somehow got dragged in too.”

Nate sighed, “Well that’s lovely, do you have any idea how to get back? For either of us?”

Zericho shook his head, “Sorry kid, I’m good with magic but not that kind, we’d have to go to like a mage college if you wanted help with that.”

“Well can we?” Nate asked

“Can we what?”

Nate rolled his eyes, “Can we go to a mage college?”

“Oh!” Zericho seemed to mull this over for a moment, “Yeah sure, in fact I’ll probably need to go to one myself along the way.”

“The way back home?”

“Not exactly, I’ve got some… let’s call them errands, to do.”

Nate eyed the imp suspiciously, “Are you going to elaborate on that?”

Zericho smirked, “Nope.”

“And I don’t have really any option but to follow you on these errands don’t I?”

Zericho continued to smile, “Well I’d appreciate the company, and besides, even a crappy healer is better than none.”

“I told you if I had more than a goddamn bottle of water and an extra shirt I could’ve done a much better job.” Nate sighed, “Let’s keep moving. You got any more questions for me?”

Zericho mentally went over the conversation they had just had, “So not only do you guys have no magic, you don’t have any other races?”

“Well, we have animals that are almost as smart as people, but otherwise it’s just humans.”

Zericho chuckled, “Gods, that sounds so boring; I mean you humans are all the same.”

Nate smirked, “That’s not true, I mean physically we’re all pretty alike when compared to the variety you have, but in terms of personality we’re varied. I mean I’m sure you imps are all different.”

Zericho seemed to muse on that, “Hmm, no not really. Besides my dad and his top lackeys we’re all pretty much huge pervs, and I’m pretty sure they just hide it better.”

Nate rolled his eyes, “I’m sure you’re just exaggerating.”

“No I’m serious, when my father took over he had to do so much work to curb all the horrible stuff us imps normally do to the other races.” He sighed, “There were some real nasty works out there, I’m talking ‘dungeon and regular torture sessions are too good’ level.”

“Wait, back up. You said your ‘father took over’. What exactly does that mean?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, I guess I’m so used to it being common knowledge that I forgot to mention, my father is King Zedesh,” his hand dove into his sack and pulled out a crown, “and I’m the prince.” He smiled at Nate devilishly as he placed it on his head.

“What.”

“Yup, you’re in the presence of royalty, feel free to bow down and worship my feet.”

Nate looked down at the purple claws and laughed nervously, “Um, no thanks.”

Zericho frowned, “Aww, these guys could use a tongue bath.”

He actually sounded disappointed, Nate thought, he didn’t actually assume that he actually might have gone down and licked his feet, did he? He shook his head, and immediately changed the subject, “So what are you doing out here then? I mean you told me you got teleported here by accident, but you didn’t say how.”

Zericho shrugged, “It’s a long story, I don’t really feel like telling it, maybe another time.”

“Okay…” There was obviously something big going on, but Nate didn’t pry. “Then you have to answer this question, why are you just wearing a loincloth thing if your royalty?”

Zericho snorted, “Well it wasn’t like I was going to any diplomatic meetings or anything formal, and unlike you humans we aren’t ashamed of our bodies, and our skin doesn’t tare like paper.”

“We’re not ashamed of our- okay I can’t even finish that sentence with a straight face.” Nate said, making Zericho break out in laughter, “I mean, there are definitely societies where being nude all the time is acceptable, but yeah, for the most part people don’t appreciate nudity outside of the bedroom.”

Zericho smirked, “You know for someone who’s talking about it like they’re above it all, you’re sure wearing a lot of clothes. Aren’t you hot in all that?”

Nate blushed, “Um, well it’s comfortable, and it was a bit cooler back home.” Zericho was still looking at him. “I mean, I guess I could take off the hoodie, tie it around my waste.”

Zericho shrugged, “Do whatever you want.”

Nate removed the hoodie and tied it about his waste, “Wait you were wearing something underneath it?” He looked up to see that Zericho was frowning as he stared at his t-shirt, “Boring.”

The imp turned around and continued through the forest. Nate stood there for a few seconds, blushing profusely, wondering what the hell had just happened.

A few hours later the two emerged from the forest, seeing in the short distance a small village surrounded by farms, chimneys bellowed out puffs of smoke against the setting sun.

“So this is it kid, the lovely town of…” Zericho pulled out his map to quickly glance at it, “Surk. We’ll make it just before nightfall.”

Nate looked over at him, “So what are we gonna do once we get there? You haven’t exactly let me in on your agenda.”

Zericho shrugged, “Well I need a little info, so we’ll need to get in with the people in the know.”

“You mean like the mayor, right?” Nate asked hopefully.

Zericho laughed and slapped Nate on the back, “Don’t be stupid, they won’t know anything. We’ve gotta go to the brothel. That’s where all the real information is, besides, I could use a little bed warmer after a day like today.” He grinned wildly as he began to jog towards the town, “To the whores we go!”

Nate stood there frowning, “He’s totally gonna get us both killed.”