Tales From the Traveler's Guild - Prologue
Prologue: Introduction Interruption
On a slow and calm afternoon for Galatians Sub-world I, the Traveler sat in his room writing a story. He wanted to tell a love story about a young couple that rushed into a relationship and had to find the real love they had for each other along the way. Then, a portal opened behind him.
“Hey T, what ‘cha doing?”
“I am writing a story. Or, I was until somebody decided to teleport into my room uninvited.”
“Oh no! Who would ever do such an awful thing? So, what ’cha writing about?”
“It’s a story about young idealistic love and all the complications it presents as the couple begins to deal with the harsher realities of life. I want to write it as a series of short episodic stories.”
“Wow! That sounds boring.”
“I mean, there is a lot more to the story than that. There’s a lot of drama.”
“That still sounds, you know, boring and kinda cliché.”
“Well romance stories kind of rely on clichés and being predictable. The writing of the characters is what makes them unique.”
“Or, and follow me on this one, you write something exciting to begin with?”
“And what exactly is your idea of exciting?”
“Explosions, violence, and sex… duh.”
“And you call my story cliché? Ever hear of nuance and subtlety?”
“Explosions can be subtle.”
“Can they though?”
“Sometimes. And violence can be nuanced. Like uh, a guy who doesn’t like to kill but he knows he has to in order to save the Universe. Wink. Wink.”
“Very funny.”
“Ooh, I know! Why don’t you write a story about your little guild?”
“For the last time, it is not a guild!”
“Call it whatever you want but the rest of us already agreed to calling it the Traveler’s Guild.”
“And who is ‘we,’ if you don’t mind?”
“Me, Austin, Lenny, Keita, Bell, Pip.”
“Seriously? Whose side is Pip on?”
“Mostly yours but she agreed y’all needed a team name.”
“Fine then, what do you call your squad?”
“I never put thought into it. Uh, the Foxy Five? In honor of Bell?”
“Sounds like a group of female superheroes that use seduction as a superpower.”
“You right. The Forces of… okay, you know what? We don’t need a name. Your team gets a name because you are the ‘good guys’ and we are just the opposition.”
“Why does being on the side of good automatically mean we need a team name?”
“Because we need to refer to y’all as a single unit sometimes and ‘the Traveler’s group’ just sounds lame.”
“And using ‘guild’ to replace ‘group’ somehow makes it less lame?”
“Yeah!”
“How?”
“It just does, dude. Besides, what would you call the group, Time Patrollers?”
“Better, but kind of inaccurate since the time traveling is the least of what I do, plus, we mostly stick to this timeline.”
“I get it, you just want to be lame!”
“And you just want to annoy me.”
“Yeah. That’s like, my entire reason for existing. So, yeah, you should write about your guild.”
“Fine but stop calling it a guild.”
“Never. So, how are you going to start it?”
“I don’t know. Got any ideas?”
“Hmm, how much backstory do the Solarians need?”
“A lot. Four, maybe five books worth. That would be way too many short stories and I do not know enough about their time back home to do it justice.”
“Sheesh, seriously? I know about the whole thing with Onox but what else happened?”
“It was a lot. I guess you could just start with them after… no, you kind of need their upbringing for the necessary emotional context.”
“Okay, maybe you just start with meeting Pip? She was first, right?”
“Not much to start with. I popped into her workshop, she tried to kill me, I explained why I was there, she continued trying to kill me, I eventually got her to stop and then I helped her buy a planet.”
“Yeah, sounds boring. How about the whole thing with the Gods?”
“Actually, I think Reina would be a better mind for that.”
“Ugh, so picky. What about starting with your first mission as a guild? Or was that the first time I met you guys?”
“Well, technically speaking, Reina referred to us as the Traveler’s Guild for the first time right before we went to rescue Cail.”
“Perfect. Start there. Building up the Guild! Ooh, you could call the episode, Lightning in a Bottle!”
“A bit much but I like it. Only issue is going to be explaining everything about me and the others without it coming off as clunky.”
“Pssh, I got this. High-speed character introduction: activate. First up to bat we have The Traveler. He stands at six feet tall and 200 pounds of pure beefcake, but you would never know that because he dresses from head to toe in a brown cloak and hood, perfect for a ritualistic stabbing. We call him the Traveler because he travels through time trying to save the Universe from destruction and because he doesn’t even know his name. His grab bag of superpowers is nigh infinite and plot convenient as he has the power to copy other people’s powers via the touch of his hand.”
“What are you doing?”
“Breezing through character introductions in a swift and hilarious way.”
“Why?”
“How would you do it without five books of backstory?”
“Fair enough.”
“Continuing, we have the androgynous inventor and truly evil, without being evil, genius, Pip McClaren. This short and skinny blonde bundle of sarcasm and confusing looks stands in at 4’11” and is actually a girl, but I don’t blame you for not believing it. I sure didn’t. Her superpower is that she is smart and can really take an ass whooping both on the field of battle and in the bedroom. She builds weapons that are so unbelievably advanced that she can actually compete in a fight with the rest of us. This also includes her patented Gravity Gun and her Z.E.P.H.Y.R. Suit.”
“That was incredibly rude.”
“Next, we have the demon prince, Roland. Sporting a lush head of black and red hair, this telekinetic powerhouse comes in at a stout 6’3” and is an absolute sweetheart until you hurt his friends. Had to learn that the hard way. Being half-human and half-demon, he can go full demon and unleash a nightmare of brute force and dark energy or phase in and out of this plane of existence as a human. All that in addition to his telekinesis, mind you.”
“I am very afraid of what you say about my other friends.”
“Fear not, I have nothing but kind words for the voluptuous red-headed beauty that is Bonnibel. Being 5’8” and almost as doughy-eyed as her baked goods are doughy, she is the resident mother of the guild as she cooks, cleans, and gives the most amazing hugs. Don’t let her kind eyes and alluring voice full you, she is a city wrecking bomb of fresh air waiting to go off as her powers allow her to manipulate the air around her. Sounds lame on paper but you ought to see her in action.”
“Honestly surprised you didn’t just drool over her.”
“I can reign in my lust when I need to. It certainly helps that she is sadly spoken for. Her wife, Harmony, comes in at 5’6” and spends more time inside Bonnibel then you would think possible for a couple of girls. This platinum blonde babe comes equipped with a sword that can cut through meteors, the ability to walk through anyone or anything, and a hauntingly beautiful pair of lavender eyes to match her highlights. She can usually be heard and not seen as she houses her soul inside Bonnie to become the most dangerous person I have ever been attracted to.”
“That’s fair, I suppose.”
“Rounding out the active participants of the guild, we have the short but not so sweet box of teen angst that is Reina. Coming equipped with an ugly anti-rainbow of hair on her tiny 5’1” body,”
“Two things, considering the rainbow eye-sore of your hair, I think Reina’s is quite nice to look at. Second, why are you listing everyone’s height?”
“To emphasize how short Pip is by comparison. Now, ignoring that I was rudely interrupted, Reina has a bewildering quad-fecta of powers including controlling and conjuring ice, melding into the ground to move as a shadow, launching volatile bolts of dark energy, and unleashing a terrifying hoard of dark tendrils from her legs. Exactly where they come from is anyone’s guess.”
“Admittedly, I have no idea how her leg tendril power actually works.”
“Finishing up, we have the mostly passive observers of the guild, Ruri and Dani. These hotties are quite literally goddesses as they hail from the planet Nessus and are around to help the guild for their inevitable battle with a monstrous Universe destroying beast. The strawberry blonde Ruri is the trainer and the bodacious fiery red headed Dani is the guilds medic and last resort button that only gets used by a total bitch…”
“Hey, I warned you it would happen.”
“And with that, boom. Characters introduced. Roll the title card!”
“I guess that will have to do.”