As consciousness returned, he groaned and rubbed his head. He was on his stomach and really uncomfortable. He felt the bright sunlight hitting his eyelids, and he cursed himself for not closing his blinds before he went to bed the night before.

  “I’m never drinking again,” he muttered and flopped over so he was on his back. He hadn’t noticed how uncomfortable he was when he was lying on his stomach. Now that he was on his back, he could feel that he, in fact, wasn’t in bed. He was somewhere that was very hard, and he also realized there was a dark patch blotting out the sun’s rays from his eyelids.

  He knew he was going to regret doing it, but he opened his eyes slowly and blinked several times so he could acclimate himself to the light. He found the last thing he was expecting to find: someone standing over him. Not only was someone standing over him, but he was very much not in his flat in downtown London.

  Standing over him was a boy that couldn’t have been any older than sixteen. He had dark hair and brown eyes that were staring at Adrian. The chef looked at him and blinked once more and then realized the boy was dressed in clothing that belonged in a medieval movie. A green, what did they call them, tunic? He also had on some brown pants that tied in the front.

  “I’m not in my room, am I?” Adrian asked. Did he happen to pass out after the debauchery that was post service drinks in a field they used for the renaissance fair? That’d make sense for the kid’s clothing.

  “Did you have a room at the inn, sir? I didn’t think Declan had any visitors at the inn right now,” the boy said in what sounded like a Scottish accent.

  Adrian furrowed his brow and rubbed at his head. “Who’s Declan?”

  The kid stared at him. “The owner of the inn and rest area you’re sleeping outside of. My boss. Why didn’t you get a room last night instead of passing out in the back?”

  “Oi, Wallace, if I come out there, that stable better be cleaned!”

  Someone yelled from a doorway leading into the building that Adrian was lying next to, another Scottish accent. He looked back towards where the yell came from and saw the open door. He took in some of his surroundings and realized that everything looked like somewhere the kid’s clothing would belong.

  It was a wooden building with hay everywhere and the wood looked old and worn. Shrubs and plants were along the cobbled walkway he was next to. The chef was on the other side of the pathway from the building. The rest area had a thatched roof made from straw. He looked back at the teenager.

  “Did I pass out on a movie set in Scotland?” He just had to venture a guess, but he figured it was wrong.

  Adrian looked up to the sky and saw it was about midday. “Oh shit, I gotta go. I’m late for work. Brian is gonna kill me.”

  He grunted and climbed to his feet and brushed off his hounds tooth chef pants and black chef’s jacket. He was surprised to still be wearing his jacket, though it was unbuttoned and hung loosely over his white compression shirt.

  “No, wait, sir…”

  The boy, Wallace, stammered a bit more while he watched Adrian situate himself. Adrian rubbed at his eyes and smacked his lips. Fuck, he needed something to drink, water. Lots and lots of water.

  “Oi, Wallace you-...” The other Scot stood in the doorway in front of where Adrian was brushing himself off and stopped when he saw him.

  Adrian looked at the guy and took him in. Red hair under a deep forest green bowler hat that matched the dressy vest he wore under the brown leather jacket. A pair of jeans and boots on the man’s lower half. Adrian saw the man was inspecting as well as he inspected him.

  “You a chef then?” The new man asked.

  Adrian nodded his head. “Yeah, I own AB on Basil Street in downtown London.”

  “Declan, I found him passed out in the yard and yeah, I’ve done everything I was supposed to do. We’re ready for business whenever the Lily wants to take us somewhere with actual customers,” Wallace told his boss.

  Adrian looked back at Wallace with a betrayed scowl. He looked back at Declan, who was looking up at the sky.

  Declan gave a heavy sigh as he inspected the bright, cloudless sky. “It was a wild storm last night, huh?”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Wallace answered.

  Declan ignored the boy’s answer and Adrian joined the other man in looking up to the sky.

  “Doesn’t look like there was much of a storm here,” Adrian said and looked back down to the ground and bushes, all of which were dry.

  Declan looked back at Adrian with a knowing smile. “Not here, but back in London. Back where you’re from, there was a nasty storm, wasn’t there?”

  Adrian frowned and looked back at the boy and then back at the inn owner. “Yeah. Wait, am I not in London anymore?”

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  Declan’s smile didn’t falter, and he shook his head. “There was some wild-looking lightning, wasn’t there?”

  Adrian nodded. “Yeah, it was blue with a red that swirled around it. Figure the planet is about to go tits up.”

  Declan gave a laugh at this. A deep warm laugh that seemed genuine, and then he nodded in return. “Yeah. I’ve heard about lightning like that. No, sorry to say you’re not in London anymore. I don’t even think we’re on Earth right now, but I can’t be sure.”

  Adrian blinked and stared at the man with a hard look. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “I’ll uh, I’m sure I can find more work to do,” Wallace said and looked at his boss.

  Declan nodded at him and Adrian heard the teenager turn heel and walk quickly back towards the barn looking building Adrian saw while he was on the ground.

  “Alright then, come on, lad. Come have a beer and some stew and I’ll explain some things to ya. Get you sorted out. I suppose I could use a full-time chef,” he muttered the last part to himself and Adrian could barely make out the words as he walked towards him.

  “I didn’t think we were on Taria last night, but…” Declan muttered, still to himself, and shrugged.

  Adrian wasn’t sure what to think about any of what the man said, but he went inside the tavern with him. He needed to get himself sorted out, and this guy seemed to know what was going on. When he tried to question Declan, when he walked past him inside, the redhead just clapped on him on the shoulder and told him he’d explain everything over a pint.

  The inside of the tavern fit the outside, which is what Adrian was expecting. Everything was made of worn wood and looked like something from Game of Thrones or Tolkien or whatever else was in that genre. There was a long bar counter to the left of the doorway and some tables and chairs scattered around the room, with one long table in the middle. Off to the right was an unlit fireplace with some large overstuffed chairs in front of it that looked quite comfortable.

  Without thinking, Adrian followed Declan, who opened a counter and stepped behind the bar. Adrian took a seat at a bar stool that didn’t have any padding but still somehow felt pretty comfortable.

  “Alright then, I take it since you’re a chef you’re not opposed to drinking some ale?” Declan asked.

  Before Adrian could answer, there was a mug sitting in front of him, that was filled with a dark thick liquid. He took in the scent of the brew and got heavy chocolate and coffee. He grabbed the mug and took a small drink from it, letting the slightly bitter fruity and deep flavor wash over his taste buds. Adrian’s eyes went wide, and he set the mug down and looked at Declan, who just gave him another one of those knowing smiles.

  “Aye, it’s good, isn’t it?” He asked.

  Adrian nodded and took another deep drink from the mug.

  “Yeah, it’s probably better that you drink up. What I’m about to tell you might be hard to hear,” Declan said and sounded regretful, as if he was about to give some terrible news.

  Adrian frowned and put the mug down and looked right into Declan’s brown eyes now. “Yeah, what’s going on? Where am I?”

  Declan nodded his head and put up a hand. “You’re at The Lying Lily, where that is…”

  The bartender paused and looked around for a moment before he centered his gaze back on Adrian and shrugged before he finished his statement. “Is anyone’s guess.”

  Adrian just held his frown and stared at Declan.

  “I’m gonna tell you what I know, but just have an open mind when I give you the info, alright?” Declan pleaded.

  “I’m surprised you wound up here. Normally I’ve heard about people landing right in the Sasuke Empire, not…” but Declan was interrupted by Adrian.

  “Just tell me what’s going on.”

  Declan nodded and then launched into the story about everything he knew. “Let me preface this by telling you that I only know a small bit. Things I’ve overheard from some of my customers.”

  Adrian just gave him a ‘get on with it’ motion before he took another deep drink from the mug.

  “Earth is a long, long way off at the moment…” Declan paused because he figured Adrian would interrupt him. It took him a minute to recover when he realized Adrian was going to sit in silence and listen to the entire story.

  “So, there’s a world named Taria. I’m not sure if it’s a different dimension or just another planet or what. I’m still not entirely sure how the Lily works. Anyway, in the world of Taria there're gods and kami and one of them somehow has way more power than he should. The lightning god, specifically. Hence the weird lightning you saw,” Declan started.

  Adrian just nodded.

  Declan still seemed hesitant. “Did you want something to eat? I can grab ya some stew or some snacks or something.”

  Adrian sighed. “Please, just tell me.”

  “Alright then. There’s been a few of you I’ve heard about going to Taria. I met one of them, and he ended up here twice. He has a wagon and a powerful ox. Paid me a good bit of coin. Anyway, he’s from somewhere in your world. I’ve heard of a couple of others. There’s this blind cultivator who comes in here from Taria from time to time and he gets drunk and tells me stories. I also get this skeleton god guy here checking up on him from Taria as well. Think he’s the lightning bloke’s brother, but I don’t know how all that works,” Declan explained.

  Adrian held his head up with his fist as he listened with a furrowed brow. I mean, it had been a while since he had been able to read books, and the explosion of isekai and power fantasy stories blew by him since he was always working. Still, he had watched a few anime in his spare time, so the whole idea wasn’t completely alien to him.

  “So I’m in a different world,” Adrian said slowly.

  Declan nodded but then shrugged. “Maybe? Like I said, I’m not sure where the Lily as at the moment, but we must have been on Taria last night while you were on Earth in that lightning storm.”

  Adrian’s eyes went wide, and he jumped to his feet.

  “No, wait…”

  Declan started, but Adrian ignored him. Adrian ran outside and also ignored Wallace, who tried to stop him. The shouts of ‘No’ ‘sir, wait’ ‘you can’t’ were ignored as Adrian ran past the barn and down the little stone driveway. What stopped him was the pure blackness he met when he reached the end of the driveway. The utter nothingness that was past the property line of the inn.

  Adrian staggered back and yelled before he fell. He ran into a man’s body and Declan caught him before he could fall to the stone ground.

  “Ah, we aren’t anywhere at the moment. We’re just hanging out in the aether. Must be why we’re so slow,” Declan said softly as he took in the view.

  “What the fuck is this….?” he breathed and kept trying to pull away from Declan so he could get away from the void that the property sat in.

  “The Lying Lily goes wherever it wants. Right now, I guess it doesn’t want to be anywhere. Good thing I bought a bunch of supplies back on Earth,” Declan said with a sigh.

  Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy!

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  SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:

  Because I'm sort of an idiot, me and someone else in Immersive Ink (great discord server btw) have decided we want to try to write and self publish a 40k sci-fi story in a month there's going to be some new content coming to Patreon. I'll post the story on Royal Road when I'm done with it, since it'll only be 40k words I don't want to try and post it while I'm writing it. It's a sort of Taria 2099 thing. Takes place in the same universe but in the future. So far there haven't been any cameos except for maybe a noodle shop.