Officer Logan Marshall considered himself an honest, hard-working American citizen. He struggled through high school just like everyone else, he told himself. He got a job- a REAL job, one that was keeping his country from coming unglued... he told himself. He kept four thankless children fed and watered and clothed BY HIMSELF, paid for their stupid school books even when that dumbass Jordan kept losing them. His training told him that he was putting his life on the line every day, that anybody on the street could pull a gun on him and carry out some inscrutable terrorist agenda, and he has to come home and deal with four more tiny, child-sized problems as soon as he clocks out.
So yes, the officer tells himself, he uses vodka to take the edge off. Helps him ignore the arthritis too, though the big belly the vodka gave him is probably making the arthritis worse. The percs also help with the arthritis, and when he uses both at the same time he doesn't have to feel anything at all for a little while. Especially not... her.
Especially not the lack of her.
Officer Logan Marshall rolled up to the New Life clinic right after work, still in uniform. His head was pounding, his mouth was dry. It wasn't hard to figure out where his children went, this place was all anyone could ever talk about these days. His fingers pressed into his shaven forehead, eyes closed in frustration. As soon as he gets his kids back, he tells himself, he's going to make sure they show him a little bit of GRATITUDE.
The receptionist at the desk looked up from her copy of Women's World. A police officer was here, his name and badge number covered with a strip of blue tape. He stood ramrod straight, muscles tensed like clockwork. The receptionist sighed to herself, not looking forward to whatever she was about to learn. "What seems to be the problem, officer?"
"I'm here to investigate a missing persons case," Officer Logan told her. There was no such case, but they didn't need to know that. "Four children, ages 10 to 3. The oldest one answers to 'Emily'. Have you seen them?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, they've been here since before sunrise this morning," The receptionist lowered her voice to a stage whisper. "Said their own father tried to stab them, can you believe it? No wonder they're interested in the Portal Fantasy package."
His eyebrows lowered. "The... what?"
"Portal Fantasy. Not just pulling changes from a parallel universe, but taking them TO the parallel universe. We don't often suggest it, since we can't guarantee the client's safety once they transfer-"
"Excuse me?" The officer's hand rested on his belt. "M- Those children need to be taken into responsible custody, not... not this. Let me see them."
She looked back at the door to the clinic proper. She looked forwards at the badge in front of her. She looked down as she rested her tabloid magazine on the desk, and then she spoke. "Sure, they'd be in room 205, upstairs. Hope they're safe."
"Yeah, sure."
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"I wanna be a princess!" Eva bounced and smiled, "Or a wizard!"
"Can't we all be wizards?" Said Sierra as she butted in.
Doctor Penny resisted the urge to laugh. "Of course! Magic is actually pretty hard in this world, but if we put you in a world where it's easy, you'll all be wizards no problem. Just... before we resort to that, we need to see if we can get you a normal family in this world. Once you go through the portal there's no reversing it. There's so many ways you can have a better life here, away from- away from all that. Things can be better, making better lives is kind of our goal here."
Jordan stared at the floor, his face flat and featureless. "That's what the school counselor always told me. Said 'it gets better', so I shouldn't give up. That's stupid. I'm gonna be a soldier as soon as they let me have a gun, and then I can go to another country and never see Dad again. The Portal... thing, it's the same thing but better. I'm doing it."
"Me too. All of us." Emily made a defiant pose. "We're human beings, we have automo... automaton... we have rights! Make us RPG heroes and bring us to a better world. I'll use the machine myself if I have to."
The good doctor raised her palms in front of her face. "Let's just think this through-"
The jiggling of a locked door interrupted their argument. Thud, thud, thud, went knuckles on metal. "POLICE, OPEN UP!"
The doctor felt her heart go from zero to 60 in a split second. She took a step forward, then turned to see how the kids reacted. They were... cowering?
Emily waved her arms in desperation. "That's Dad! Don't answer him!"
The pounding continued. "What bullshit have you been feeding my- feeding them? You psychos had better turn over those children RIGHT NOW before we get this place shut down."
"...I'll do it." Doctor Penny nods to the kids. "Get on the platform, I'll get a coordinate lock as soon as possible. I can't let this happen." Not again, she thinks to herself. Never again.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard like a spring breeze. She had a perfect world picked out for them; truth be told, it was the same world she used for a few other, more nerdy clients, but at least she knew it was the right kind of world. The New Life machine was already warming up by the time a gunshot tore the lock off of the door.
A grim-faced father stepped inside, one hand extended, the other holding a smoking pistol. "Emily, Sierra, Jordan, Eva. Home. NOW. We're going to have some words about this."
"Stop!" The short, slim doctor jumped in front of the glass door of the New Life chamber. "It's already started! If we lose the target lock, they might end up anywhere, even NOWHERE!"
"Then shut it off, you overpaid bimbo!" Polished black leather dress shoes clacked against the tile floor. Logan's service weapon was extended in front of him with all the conviction of a crucifix turning away a devil. "Quit while losing your job is the worst thing that happens to you today." Time seems to freeze for a few seconds as nobody can move or speak.
"...I can't." Doctor Penny shields her clients with her body. "I made a promise."
"Fine. I'll shut it off." Blue lightning and a weirding drone filled the chamber as he moved forwards. The doctor shrieked as she leaped forwards and grabbed at the pistol in Officer Logan's hands! She was no wizard, or soldier, or hero of any kind- yet when she lifted the gun above their heads, she felt a strength she hadn't felt for years. For a few crucial, vital seconds she resisted the giant slab of a man, yet all he had to do was shove her back, point at her center mass, and-
CRACK
CRACK
CRACK
Glass shattered as the chamber door fell apart, soaked in a good doctor's blood. Officer Logan exhaled in disgust, already thinking of how he's going to spin this story as Doctor Penny kidnapping them and resisting arrest. He ran onto the platform to retrieve his children, pushing through the thick, crackling atmosphere of a portal about to open. He grabs Emily by the shoulder and gives her a look which could curse a man to their third generation. There's three there he can see- where's Eva?
"Shit..."
Where's Eva?
"Shit, SHIT, SHIT! Look at what you did!" The officer's pistol fell to the ground and jammed. Sierra was shoved to the side as her father dove down and held Eva, trying to put compression on the bullet hole in her chest. The last thing any of the five saw before they went to a new world was a three-year-old girl's eyes trying to ask, "why?".
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This tale happened... long ago. Five thousand years, perhaps, or maybe fifty thousand years. Heck, from your perspective, it might be happening tomorrow. This is a tale of the old warring states, long before our kingdom united under a single divine crown. The details aren't all there, of course. Libraries burned, scrying magic was blocked, oracles were thrown off the tops of their mountains. We still have the common folk's tales, of course, and that's just about enough for a good story.
This tale happened right here, back before Baron Chesterfield was put in charge of the area. This place used to be a petty kingdom run by a grim old man, one King Marshall, curse his name. A king drunk on power and driven mad by grief, he clad himself in black armor and swore to bend all five elements to his will. Under his domain, fire would burn as long as he willed, water would raise and lower at his beckoning, wood would grow on demand, metal would be shaped by his whims, and the earth itself would crack if he declared it would. If a god stepped down from Heaven to confront him, King Marshall would order that god to kneel.
And yet, there were a few things outside his sorcerous grasp. His precious daughter, the delicate Princess Eva, was frozen in time by a sleeping sickness no mortal medicine would change. The king had her cold, frozen body locked away in a gilded vault sealed in a shell of quicksilver, a tomb in all but name. To add insult to injury, the rest of his heirs had decided they could cure their sister on their own. The three children gathered artifacts from the vault in an impossible heist and vanished under the cover of night, assuring each other that their success was certain.
Jordan of Marshall took a northern-style composite bow of white wood and dragon horn which bathed its eye-seeking arrows in the flames of a distant star. Though barely large enough to fit in a saddle, he insisted on riding a horse as he fled, and it obeyed his commands as if by instinct.
Sierra of Marshall wrapped a black shawl around her neck, its tip dragging along the floor as she ran. The golden worms whose silk shaped the shawl blessed her with the forest's protection, allowing her to pass through wood as if it were smoke and hear the thoughts of all wild things.
Emily of Marshall chose her treasure last, slipping a ruby ring onto her finger. A distant yet powerful voice told her this ruby was the heart of a fallen dragon, and its essence would teach her everything it knew about this kingdom's vast sorcery. Shattering the front gate of the castle's walls with a single touch on its metaphysical weak point was only her first magical lesson.
As you know, the Four Heirs would eventually overthrow their father and lead the warring states into thousands of years of peace. That day would eventually come for them, but when they began they were three scared children and a coma patient. Their early accomplishments were much more humble, naturally. This is their first adventure...