Page One

It had been three days of wandering across the pages. Pages without water, grass, dirt, a soft place to rest, and sometimes without light. Yukiko could hardly remember the slight differences of colour any longer.
...
Oh wait...
...
There was a splotch of green in the distance. With buildings! and trees! All of this seemed to be surrounded by an outline, but it also appeared to have depth. Strange as it was, Yukiko continued towards the village.

Her first step on grass was a great relief, it was much softer than the hard paper (or whatever it was) that she had been walking on before. A man standing underneath a tree greeted her.
"Euhh, ju come from anodzeer worhld, oui?" (You come from another world, yes?)
Yukiko really hadn't thought about it up until this point, but she supposed that was the explanation. Before she could speak.
"...weell ju'rh not ahn abeerhrazheon, euhh come along, wee'll find ju a bed for ze night." (well you're not an aberration, come along, we'll find you a bed for the night.)
Ooh, a bed.

((Bad French accent added as an after thought, translations in italics))

Noticing Roland and a seemingly confused girl walking in his direction, Jackobs stood up, forgetting whatever it was he was thinking about.
He slung his rifle and lightly shook his leg, it was numb after leaning against the wall for so long.

He raised his hand and walked up to them.
"Yo !"
He shook Rolands hand and simultaniously patted the girl on the shoulder.
"The name's Jackobs, pleased to meet ya'. A newcomer, I reckon ?
Don't worry if you're still wondering what the fuck is going on, you ain't the only one.
Bet you still have plenty to do, so don't let me get in your way.
Roland, can I have a word with you later on ?"
Bien sûr, copain.
"Alrighty, then."

After seeing them off, he decided to take a stroll around town, it was pretty calm today.

Roland nodded at Jackobs and continued towards the centre of the village. He motioned at a few buildings, describing their uses as shops and places of gathering, then stopped in front of a small hut. "Zis will have to do for now, dame." He unlocks and opens the door for Yukiko. "I must go take care of somedzing now, au revoir."

Roland wandered about town searching for Jackobs, waving at the occasional passer-by. He spotted Jackobs and approached him.

Jackobs turned around and waved at Roland coming down the street.
"Soooo.... I'm pretty sure you get this more often but...
Even after everything you said the other day, it all doesn't really make sense to me.."
He scratched his head, pondering for a moment.
"So I'm stuck in a world where stuff appears out of nowhere overnight, people from different worlds get warped in and is littered with hostile monstrosities.. ?
Is there any way out ? What are these 'abberations' ? ..Why is all this even happening ?"

Roland broke eye contact with Jackobs and looked off to his left, throwing in an answer whenever he pauses "You are correct een your understandings...
eet ees not een my beliefs dzat dzere ees an euh, "escape". Perhaps...
dzese aberrations are, euh, wandering demons of dze empty plain...
c'est la vie."

Jackobs sighed.
"This is some wacky shit, right here...
Guess I'll be stuck here for quite a while then.."
He patted Roland on the shoulder.
"Might as well make myself useful then.
If you ever need something done, I'll be right here, a'ight ?"
Sliding his rifle off his shoulder, he leaned against a nearby wall, looking around and mumbling.
"..What the f..."

As if on cue, a dust storm started to stir from nowhere. The winds raged into a full-blown dust devil. The visibility of Jackobs and Roland dropped to around six inches as the two tried to communicate, to no avail. -- The storm raged like this for a few minutes, and the winds started to die down. A vague outline of a figure - a man about 6 foot - began to come into focus. The man made no attempt to show that he was not a hostile.

"Hello out there!" The man had yet to see either of the other two, "Is anybody here?" He continued to walk until he heard the faint sound of a gun being cocked.

His stopped in his tracks, but nothing else about him changed, "I am no enemy of yours, I would hope, from the sound of that gun. May I ask who's ready to shoot me?"

Jackobs lowered his rifle as neither movements nor thoughts seemed aggressive.
He taps his goggles whose greenish glow immediatly fade.
"Heh.. Never thought this fancy crap would ever come in handy.."

He looked around, Roland wasn't far away and the figure was still standing there.
"Oh... sorry."
He slung his rifle and approached him, patting him on the back while shaking his hand.
"The name's Jackobs, bet you're new around here, aren't you ?
Well you'd better go talk to that guy over there."
He pointed at Roland and pushed the man in his direction afterwards.

He gave Roland an over-enthusiastic thumbs-up.

The gun slinger was... disrupting... not surprising in the least to Roland. He had expected that there would be more wanderers soon. "Bienvenu, euh, dzis ees ze village of Blueshire," he pauses to toss the man a key with a number on it, "enjoy your stay... euuh... here." Lowering his voice to a murmur now, "I could really use some Chardonnay, we could sit down with ze new guests and explain ze... situation."

He caught the key and stared blankly at it. Still staring at the key, "I forgot to introduce myself." He held out the free hand, "I am Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gombigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andri Charton-Haymoss Ivanovici Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser III," He smiled, "But my friends call me," He took a heroic pose, "Juan."

One could easily make out the overcoat that he was wearing, a crimson red that stretched the whole length of his body and partly covering his mouth. His boots and gloves were black, with silver buckles covering them. He had short, bedhead style black hair. Jude's eyebrows took up most of his forehead, and he wore goggles over his eyes. The goggles had white rims and green glasses with red wave-like patterns splitting the green into two parts.

Jude looked around, "So what's this key for anyways?" He took his hand back, noticing the rejected handshake.

"Euhh, house..." Roland began walking back toward Yukiko's house. "...need wine..." He got Yukiko, changed directions towards the empty bar in the village. The barkeep had headed to Page Two last week.

He walked into the bar, sat everyone out of courtesy, and then began making a drink.
"Welcome to Page One."

"So you weren't kidding when you said this was just a giant storybook..?"
Jackobs sighed and started to fiddle with one of the many high-tech trinkets attatched to his rifle.

"So now what..? If there's a way out of here, we should find it.. But if we're trapped in here forever..."
He stared at the drink put in front of him for a while before he finally removed his mask.
After taking a sip, he gave a friendly nod at Roland.
"Well we'd better make the best of it, I guess.."

After pondering for a second, he grinned and blurted out:
"We should totally roam around like some crazy squad of superheroes.
We could save kittens out of trees or even take a shot at killing those monsters !
Hah-haaahahahahah !! Aaaah... hilarious..."
He calmed down and took another sip of his drink.
"But no, really. What do we do now ?"

Roland poured himself another drink, he spoke slightly more confidently now.
"Well, gentlemen--and madam--I propose a theory. we are here because our old world is dead."
He paused, firstly to let them think this concept through, and second to take a sip of his wine. It was a new concept for Roland as well, he hadn't planned on saying it until the words left his lips.
"Euuh... perhaps not exactlee... like so. It may be zat we are dead, maybe in a special way... or we were people from a dead world that have some trait or..."
A dead world? The more he thought about it the more he was sure he hadn't come up with the idea... had he heard it somewhere? It would make sense. The objects that appeared out on the pages came in groups, and they tended to come from the same climate and era. Still didn't explain the people though...
"I believe you should fight the aberrations."
Those words weren't his either, interesting.

Thinking about it, the chances of his world being destroyed or him being dead..
Well they weren't really non-existent...
Taking another sip from the glass, he looked around at the others.
They might be stuck here forever..

He chugged down the rest of the drink.
"Ahh.. Well.."
Scratching his head, he shrugged.
"... I'm in."

Juan sat opposite Roland. He tuned his guitar as the others talked.

"Maybe if I can find a place to plug my guitar in..." He set the guitar down and sighed, "Anyway is there anything else to do here?" He chucked a bit, "Maybe read a story?"

He stood and looked around, "So when do we start?"

Yuki shifted uncomfortably in her seat, she did not like this talk of fighting aberrations.
"D-don't you think it would be a good idea to gather m-more people?"
She looked down at her hands, [日本語] they might not want me to come along anyway. [日本語]
Roland nodded at the suggestion, "Fine idea, dze town of Sanctimonia IX should be your next stop then. It is on page 2."

Jackobs frowned at Yuki, puzzled.
What the hell was that..?

He quickly turned to Roland who had just commented on the idea.
"Oh.. You're not coming along then ?
I know you're looking after this town and all...
But I still think someone who knows more about this 'world' would come in handy."

Roland shrugged, that wasn't the exact answer but it would do.
"Yes, dzese people need my help. I can, however, help you with equipment."
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a key. This was a silver key, shorter than the house keys and much more complex. It was for something important.
"Dzere is a vault hidden in dze town hall, it's behind a door. Dzis door has dze letters B, L, U, on it. Inside is a... collection I amassed for an occasion of dzis nature."
He held out the key to Yukiko, who quickly took it.
"Go along now, and good luck."

---

Yukiko nodded at the other two and walked out of the bar. The town hall was two streets over, in the centre of town. It was a small building with an industrial tone to it, painted in shades of grey and blue. She wondered what would be in there...