Character introduction - Doug

“You’re leaving?” a boy asked
“Yes, I have to go back to my world now,” A dragon responded.
“But we had so much fun together…”
“Listen, Dem, as much as I enjoyed the time we spent together in Jr. High school, my purpose is complete. I was told to look at humans and observe them. We clearly cannot exist together, there’s too much conflict for humans now to even consider introducing a new species even more intelligent as they are. They’re too used to being the dominant species, and our presence would merely challenge their dominance,” The dragon explained to him.
One could tell that the boy named ‘Dem’ was sad. The dragon that had become one of his best friends over the past three years was leaving him. Thanks in part to this dragon, the boy, who was completely anti-social at the time he met him, had become better. He had gotten over the extreme “Destructive Criticism” he had been given by peers and anonymous people over the internet at age 12 and became more confident.
“Good luck in High school, Dem.” It said, putting its paw on the boy’s crew cut, “Chances are we won’t ever be coming to this world again for a long time…Perhaps you can come visit us when you master the spells.”
“Goodbye…Ginseng,” Dem said.
“Goodbye, Douglas,”
Doug’s friend, Ginseng, had referred to him by his real name and not a nickname that he had gained over the years.
Ginseng vanished into the rift and it closed behind him. Doug simply stood in the middle of nowhere (By Wyoming and Colorado) staring at the spot where he and Ginseng used to enter the “Dragon’s World” as he had called it.
But he did not cry. It felt as if a piece of him was missing, but he did not cry.

Doug continued the rest of his High School education as was expected of him. Doug had driven off into a school that was designed specifically for the Red Mages-Or Hedge Wizards, as some had known him. Red Mages used both White and Black Magic, using neither more effectively than the other. Red Mages were generally people whose alignments were neither “White” nor “Black” but shades of Gray.
When Doug was 18 and graduated from the High School, he went to the spot where Ginseng had left him three years prior. He had his Bo Staff in hand and wore some unusual clothes-A dark blue shirt and light blue jeans, with a brown leather belt. (One wouldn’t really believe it, but his favourite colour was orange, not blue)
“I’m coming for you Ginseng,” he thought.
Doug had been secretly reading up on an ancient book he had found. The book contained spells that were commonly used by red mages to travel into other worlds or realities by altering space and traveling through the X-zone through it.
The x-zone, the void, the Sands of Time, the Sands of Fate, whatever it was called, Doug had still never tried it before. He was very sure that he could do it, in fact, something told him that he could do it.
He recited the spell and a small rift opened up. He smiled and walked in, wanting to surprise Ginseng or Bahamut.

Where Doug wound up wasn’t exactly the “Dragon’s World”. For one, he was still human. Whenever Doug had entered the Dragon’s World, he would emerge as a dragon because they didn’t exist in that world.
Doug was standing on a cliff above a seemingly endless sea. Fortunately for him he had landed on the ledge and not in the sea. In the horizon, he could see a seemingly massive sun setting in the ocean.
“What the heck?” he said to himself, adjusting his glasses, “This isn’t where I wanted to go…”
The Sunset was beautiful, especially on the ocean.
“Wow, I wish I brought a camera,” he thought, admiring the reflections of light on the clouds making very beautiful shades of blue, pink, orange, red, and yellow.
“Hey! You there in the blue!” A voice said from the distance.
Doug turned around and saw something walking up to him. He nearly gasped when he saw it.
It appeared to be a dragon, but…not, really. Well, it was probably best described as an “Anthro dragon”. It stood about seven feet tall (A foot taller than Doug, who was about 6 foot three). It had a dragon’s head, similar to Ginseng’s, save with smaller horns and with seemingly black human hair that ended in a pony tail that went down its neck. It was bronze and had a yellow-shaded underbelly scutes (Most of which were covered up by its clothes). One distinguishing feature was that, while this creature had a tail and some claws, it did not have wings, and its feet appeared to simply be human feet but with claws on the end.
“Uh,” Doug said, not knowing what to say.
“Yeah, you, what’re you doing here?” It asked. Obviously the dragon-like being was male.
It walked up to where it could have made eye contact with Doug, but it stood almost a foot taller than he did
“I’m…lost, where am I?” Doug asked.
“This is Helios, the land of the Golden Sun,” the dragon-man said.
Darn it! Wrong world!
“Okay…I’m definitely lost…”
“Where were you trying to go?” the dragon-man asked.
“You probably won’t believe me if I told you,” Doug responded.
“Don’t know…I’ve seen some pretty weird things…You’ll have to try hard.”
“I’m looking for a dragon…”
“A dragon? You mean…like me?”
“Err, the dragon I’m looking for is a lot bigger and is named Ginseng.”
“Oh, you’re looking for a full dragon…If I can find someone from my father’s family; he can probably find who you’re looking for. I’m half-dragon, though you probably already knew that.”
“Well…uhm…I never really saw a half-dragon before…No offense…”
“You never saw a half-dragon like me before? Where’d you come from to never even hear of us before? The Middle of Nowhere?”
“Would you believe me if I told you?” Doug asked.
“Shoot,” The half dragon said,.
“Where I’m from, it’s called ‘Prithvi’.” Doug said.
The Dragon man put his hand to where a human’s chin would be and thought for awhile.
“I can’t say I’ve ever heard of that before…Now, what was it you were looking for again?”
“I’m looking for a dragon named Ginseng,” Doug said again.
“Why don’t you just go with me to the director? He probably met someone named ‘Ginseng’ before.”
Doug shrugged. He simply followed the anthro dragon.
“By the way,” the dragon said, “My name’s Kato. What’s yours?”
“Doug,” he said, not quite ready to give him his true name. (Doug’s true name was Dominik)


Kato lead Doug to a group of caravans circled up around a campfire.
“This is our caravan,” he said.
Doug wondered…were these the equivalent of gypsies that traveled to different worlds?
Kato lead Doug into the camp. A bunch of others noticed that Kato had someone else with him, and he carried a large stick. However though, what they found most interesting about Doug was that, while he resembled the humans of Helios, he was much lighter skinned than they were. Humans from Helios were dark-skinned, and Doug was practically an albino in that world, if not for his darker hair colour.
“Wow, who’s your friend?” someone asked.
“This is Doug,” Kato said, “He came here looking for a dragon named Ginseng.”
“Where’re you from?” A woman asked.
“Prithvi,” Doug said.
“Never heard of it,” the original person said, “Is it further away from its sun than Helios?”
“What?” Doug asked. It was a rather unusual question for someone to ask.
The original person walked up to Doug. He was a human, like Doug, but his skin was dark brown and his hair was black. His style of clothing was also much different than Doug’s, appearing to be made from similar cloth but had much lighter colours.
“You know…Helios is much warmer than other worlds because we’re rather close to our sun. Do you come from a colder planet with less sunlight?”
“I’ve only just got here,” Doug said, “I barely even know what Prithvi is compared to Helios,”
“Forgive Nundu,” another person said, “He’s really interested in Astronomy and all that stuff.”
“So what’s he here for? Some relative of Kato?” another person said.
“He’s looking for some dragon named Ginseng.”
“Sounds like a good idea for a play…”
“Play?” Doug asked, “Are you performers?”
“Of course, we’re the Hikari Acting Troupe, founded by Yumei and Jataro of Yamato!” a person who appeared Asian said proudly.
“What, now you want to join?”
“Well…” Doug said.

Meanwhile, someone had slipped off to a wagon in the caravan. One of the bosses, Jataro, was inside making edits to a script.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Kato brought sssomeone. He’z ssearching for a friend of hiss,” the visitor said in a hissing tone of voice.
“Who?” Jataro asked.
“I think it’z a friend of his family,” The lizard-man visiting said.
“Oh great…” Jataro said. The acting troupe wasn’t exactly on friendly terms with Kato’s family.

Jataro walked out of the trailer and noticed a new face in front of the campfire, with some of the props from the prop wagon on the ground. The acting troupe was watching the new face do stuff with the props.
Right now, Doug held what looked like a gigantic boomerang in front of his face, so that it looked like his mouth.
“I find a smile helps, don’t you?” he said.
There were a few giggles. Someone then threw what looked like a giant long yellow tube at Doug out of the wagon. Doug caught it, looked at it for a moment and then held it to the top of his head.
“Yes, I know I have a gigantic Twinkie on top of my head, but who cares?” Doug said.
Everyone laughed. He was having a field day with those props.
“Okay, he is pretty fast,” Jataro said.
“Hey!” The lizard man yelled.
Everyone stopped. Doug lowered what looked like a gigantic spring. Jataro put his hand to his forehead. Stupid Wa’irrith backseat driving for him.
“Who’s your friend Kato?” Jataro said, putting his hand down.
“I found him on the cliff; he’s from some world called Prith-vee or something.” Kato responded.
“Prith-vee?” Jataro continued, “I never heard of it. How’d you get here?”
“Don’t know really, I went looking for my friend and wound up here.” Doug shouted back.
“Who is your friend?”
“He’s a dragon named Ginseng…Big…green and yellow…You honestly can’t miss him.”
Dragon? Well, maybe this wasn’t so bad. Jataro thought to himself. The acting troupe was only really on not-so-friendly terms with Kato’s mother and her side of the family. Kato probably hadn’t ever met his father’s side of the family before, which was the dragon side.
“How did you get here again?” Jataro yelled back.
“I just did some spell and wound up on that cliff.”
There was some small chatter forming within the crowd. That was the kind of spell they did to go too other worlds.
“It would be mean to jusst ssend him packing, it iz getting pretty late after all.” Wa’irrith whispered.
Jataro ignored him.
“You can stay, maybe we can help you find your friend, but can you act at all?” Jataro yelled.
“Of course!” A kitsune actor yelled up, “He’s doing awesome with the props!”
“Alright, then it’s settled…We’ll help you look for your friend, but you have to help us perform.” Jataro said.
A few people clapped.
“Thank you so much!” Doug yelled up.


Wa’irrith entered Jataro’s wagon.
“What is it now?” he asked.
“That person who Kato found…I’m not entirely trussting of him.” Wai’irrith responded.
“You said it yourself that it wasn’t nice to send him out while it was getting late,” Jataro reminded him.
“Yeah, but like I ssaid, he might be from Kato’z family.”
“He doesn’t look anything like he might be related to Kato at all…Both of us are from Yamato, after all. He doesn’t look anything like that, too pale… too much blue.”
“But what if he came from Kato’z father’z sside? I’ve heard that Dragonz can change their formz.”
Jataro paused.
“I never heard of that…Is that what they’ve said about dragons in your world?”
“Not jusst my world, it’z appeared in taless of sso many worldz before and haz been reported in otherz,” Wa’irrith continued.
“Any of those tales of yours show how to reveal one?” Jataro said.
“I don’t know…Maybe he doez ssomething when he’z assleep…”


That night, Wa’irrith looked out into the sleeping people. Helios was a naturally warm world due to its distance from its sun. Even during most nights it was about 26 degrees Celsius (78 degrees Fahrenheit), but during the cold season, the temperatures would decrease to about 13-20 (55-68 Fahrenheit).
Wa’irrith’s people were more adept at seeing in the dark. The “Rods” in their eyes actually shared many characteristics with their “cones”, making them able to see colours much easier in the dark, although they weren’t able to see darker shades as easily. While not exactly “Night-vision”, they were certainly on their way down that path.
“I can ssee him,” Wa’irrith said, pointing his short-clawed finger at Doug, who was sleeping next to a nearby wagon. Wa’irrith could make out the colours of his light-blue pants. No one else would really wear that.
“I think I can see everyone else,” Jataro whispered back and he begun to inch along the wagons, being careful not to touch anyone’s body parts to wake them up. Wa’irrith followed.
They were next to Doug. Fortunately, he was a heavy sleeper, like the rest of the troupe. Wa’irrith’s tail wasn’t exactly the quietest on the wheels.
“So is there a way to tell?” Jataro whispered to Wa’irrith, “if I wake him up, does he like show his true eyes?”
“I heard a saying,” Wa’irrith begun, “That it iz not only bad luck to wake a ssleeping dragon but it iz alsso a very bad idea az well.”
“So…What, are we going to observe him?
“Don’t know, we’ll have to do some awkward explanationz if he wakez up,”
“Check hiz sstaff, maybe he put ssome sspellz on it,” Wai’irrith picked up Doug’s staff from the ground.
Jataro looked at it. It simply looked like a wooden staff. It wasn’t even tempered with magic…Maybe Doug’s world didn’t use magic to temper wooden weapons like this. Jataro could sense if there was something major on it, but it could have been something hidden from his view. Jataro never met a dragon before Kato; he didn’t know what they were capable of.
Wa’irrith was most interested in Doug’s staff. Perhaps Doug kept some spells in it that would allow him to take human form. Wa’irrith certainly would want that staff if it turned out to be some magical staff.
“I didn’t find anything,” Jataro whispered, “They didn’t even put a tempering spell in it. It’s just a long staff of wood.”
“Really? You sssure?” Wa’irrith answered.
“Yep, there may be something hidden though.”
“Perhapz I’ll asssk him tomorrow,” Wa’irrith responded, “We ssshould get ssome ssleep otherwize we may be doing ssome awkward explanationz,”


Doug spent a month with the acting troupe. Doug was a pretty good actor, and improviser during the skits in which the actors would come on stage and just make up the entire scene as they go along. The audiences found it funny in particular whenever the actors made each other laugh.
Everyone was used to expecting Jataro and Yumei’s acting troupe to have some weird or unusual performers, many of which being from other worlds. However, it was more of a shock when people first saw Doug’s light pink skin at his first performance (“Othello”) because he was so drastically different than what the people of Helios (Sporting brown skin and black hair, much like Africans) were used too. Even though Jataro, Yumei, and a few other actors were from their home world, their skin had tanned to light bronze shade.
After a month, Doug’s skin begun to tan significantly as well, although he did suffer some sunburn within his first week. (His body wasn’t quite used to the extra Ultraviolet exposure yet, some healers’ spells had altered it while treating his sunburn.
Doug really couldn’t help but wonder at the other non-humans, such as Dexin, who was a Tanuki (Racoon Dog). Surprisingly, he never really appeared to be hot at all underneath his fur coat. Doug also wondered why Wa’irrith didn’t appear to tan either. His scales had pretty much stayed the same red-orange (And yellow on his stomach, as Doug found out during one performance) since he had joined the acting troupe.
“Exactly how did you all get here?” One child asked the actors after a performance of a Helian classic.
“Plotholes,” an actor joked.
The child laughed. Several times during their improvised scenes, they joked about plotholes and would oftentimes pull a prop out of a plothole.
“Actually, that guess isn’t too far off,” Jataro added.
“What? You mean Plotholes really exist?” the child asked.
“We kind of fell into a hole and wound up on Helios after we were on Yamato…It’s somewhere on the edge of the desert,” Jataro continued, “That’s how we wound up here, and how we met Wa’irrith. Well, we kind of found Doug somewhere…Did you fall through a plothole as well?”
“Probably,” Doug continued, noticing that Wa’irrith was giving him a kind of look.
That look was pretty much saying, “Doug, I know how you got here…And don’t explain how you got here.” Doug pretty much though Wa’irrith would have said that to him if Wa’irrith did.
Wa’irrith always seemes kind of suspicious to Doug…He always seemed to want to be in control and appeared to be hiding something. Several times, Wa’irrith would basically say what Jataro was going too or would try to talk for someone else.

Later that night, Doug noticed Wa’irrith with something. It appeared to be an amulet of sorts, but Wa’irrith was, for some reason, taking extra care to hide it from everybody else…Yet somehow at the same time, he was trying to make sure that Doug knew about that amulet.
When Wa’irrith knew that he had Doug’s attention, he shot him a look. If he said something, Doug thought it would have been, “You’ll want to meet me later on about this amulet.”

Later that night, Doug walked away from the Caravan when everyone was asleep. He put his staff on his back with the strap that was given to him and noticed Wa’irrith in the shadows. Wa’irrith seemed to be waiting for him, and he held up the amulet.
“So what’re you doing with that?” Doug asked the lizard man.
“I’m taking thiss artifact back where it belongz,” Wa’irrith responded, holding up the pendant.
“And where does it belong?” Doug asked.
“It belongz where the wrong persson can’t get their handz on it,” Wa’irrith continued.
“And where would that be?”
“Right here,” Wa’irrith said, holding up his left hand and opening what looked like a portal.
“What the hell?! That’s how I got to Helios in the first place!”
“Becausse you could even do it in the firsst place,” Wa’irrith said, to Doug, “I haven’t manipulated your memory. It iz uncommon to find ssomeone who can uze asstromancy without training ssuch az yoursself.”
“Astromancy?” Doug was confused.
“It’z the art of bending sspace-time, sso uzing it, you can travel to different worldz such as Helioss and Yamato, where the acting troupe came from originally. They came to Helioss becauze ssomeone accidentally left a portal open, and they fell through it before I could fix it.”
“You said you could manipulate memories…Why couldn’t you just make them forget about that?”
“Becauze being in the acting troupe waz the mosst fun I had in yearz, I did them a whole lot of good…bessidez, where I work, it’z hard to keep track of time after awhile.”
“So through bending space-time,” Doug hypothesized, “You don’t know what year it is, and you could be either a thousand or even a million years old through time-traveling paradoxes?”
“Probably…Lasst I checked I waz only 20-something…However though, it iz time to move on from the acting…And you are coming with me.”
“Wait…I’m going with you to who-knows-where?” Doug asked.
“You will…” Wa’irrith said, “If you want to know what thiss amulet doez, and if you want to further train your sspecial gift…When I tell him, he will come after you in the firsst place, provided he doessn’t already know.”
“Who is ‘him’?”
“Get in here and you’ll find out.”
Feeling as if he could trust the reptilian actor, Doug stepped into the portal, Wa’irrith followed as the portal closed.

Doug appeared to be in a really odd place. It wasn’t like anything he had seen before…Something told him that this was the “N-zone” he heard of in legends as a child.
“It iss alsso called ‘The mu’ or ‘The Void’ but the ‘N-zone’ iss a much better name.” A voice said.
Doug jumped. He looked over his left shoulder and saw a dark red dragon there.
“Pleaze don’t do that,” Wa’irrith said, coming up from behind Doug, “He’z new. This iss hiss firsst time in the N-zone.”
“Sorry,” The dragon said, shrugging and flexing its wings. “Don’t worry…You’ll know whenever I’m reading your mind after thiss,”

Wa’irrith lead Doug through the N-Zone. It wasn’t anything like one would see, it was obviously well-lit up, but there were equal amount of shadows. The sky in fact seemed gray, but it appeared to be some odd bendable space made up from all kinds of worlds. It kind of reminded him of the N-zone in Final Fantasy 5, which was made up from the remnants of the world sucked up by the Void.
“Who would have though the N-Zone would have been like this?” Doug asked.
“Not much, that’s for ssure,” Wa’irrith said as he opened a door.
Inside the room Wa’irrith opened surprised Doug the most. There were cubicles and desks everywhere, constant sounds of phones ringing, keyboards and computer mousse clicking, and people having talks on telephones. It was sort of like what one expected a generic “Office” to be like in some corporation. The only thing it needed was some mumbling person asking for a stapler and an evil boss.
“Wow, I’ve died and gone to Dilbert,” Doug thought.
Wa’irrith went to a door labeled “Purest Neutral” and knocked on it.
“Yes?” A some-what familiar voice on the other side said.
“It’ss me,” Wa’irrith said, “I got a little delayed, and I have someone new here.”
“Bring him in,” the voice said.
Wa’irrith opened the door and lead Doug in. Wa’irrith closed the door behind Doug.
This room was probably what one would expect out of a CEO’s office…Only a little more like the N-zone described in books. He could see a window that appeared to have opened up to space behind a large chair. Inside the chair sat someone who seemed really familiar.
“Who’s your friend?” the man asked, “He seems familiar.”
“Have you met him before? He kind of jusst popped up on Helioss and waz able to use asstromancy by himsself,” Wa’irrith reported.
“Hey, I know you!” The man said, ignoring Wa’irrith, “You’re Doug from Prithvi!”
“…Dan?!” Doug asked in disbelief.
“Dan’s just the name I wore on your world as a human,” Dan said as he got up out of the chair, “As I’m sure you know, I’m really Purest Neutral, the master of the N-Zone, the pure neutral, and the only one who keeps Purest Good and Purest Evil from destroying all life in their crossfires,”
“He doezn’t always look like thiss,” Wa’irrith said to Doug quietly, “He ssorta preferss ssomething that lookss like an anime-robot-god or something.”
“Or would you maybe prefer this?”
In Dan’s place was a Charmander.
“I AM NOT CHARMANDER!!” Wa’irrith said, raising his voice.
Doug never really noticed it, but Wa’irrith’s head was kind of shaped like a Charmander’s.
“Now while we’re off topic,” Dan/Purest Neutral said, still in the Charmander form, “I knew it was only a matter of time before you showed up. Ever since I met you back when I was in 7th grade, I could sense something different about you.”
“I had never assumed that you were…Purest Neutral…”
Doug was still shocked.
“That’s sorta what Daklon said when he found out.”
The Charmander laughed.
Daklon was Dan’s brother…or, to be more exact, Daklon was the brother of Purest Neutral’s human form on Prithvi. Dan and Daklon had been Doug’s friend for a really long while.
“Come to join the Artifact business now?” the Charmander asked Doug.
“You collect artifacts?” Doug asked.
“Yes. We store them here in the N-Zone so Purest Good and Purest Evil can’t get their hands on them…or so they don’t get misused and cause damage. You wouldn’t believe how much trouble those Zodiac stones caused. Don’t worry…They do get used. Sometimes we’ll have to give them to some good or evil person.”
“But that dependz on how well they pay,” Wa’irrith said.
“Ah, what’s that?” The charmander said, pointing to the amulet Wa’irrith had on him.
“Thiss iz an amulet I found on Yamato. It sucks the soulz of living thingz into it. Thiss iz one of our more dangerouss findz, we should put it away immediately.”
“Oh, sucking souls, that IS a bad thing.”

“The good thing about the N-zone,” Purest Neutral, wearing Dan’s body, said as he opened up a door in a hallway marked “living quarters”, “Is that I can do this.”
The door opened up to Doug’s room on Prithvi. It had everything he remembered, even down to some laundry he didn’t do.
“Wow, this is amazing.” Doug said in disbelief, looking on his computer and finding that it had every file that was on it back home.
“This is your room,” Purest neutral continued, “We’ll tell you when you’re ready to train your Astromancy further,”
“…you can sense that?!”
“Yep. Easily. Welcome to the artifact-gathering business, friend. I have some stuff to do now…The Émigré Manuscript is giving us some trouble again.”
Dan closed the door as Doug logged back onto his computer.