Neitherlands

I emerged from a bottomless fountain, soaked and cold, my fist tightly clenched around the button.

Thankfully, the bag of holding slung across my chest was waterproof.

Dean Fogg really went premium making this for me huh?

I pocketed the button, stuffing it in the bag and looked around to get a lay of the land.

The fountain I had just emerged from was a round one, with a circular pedestal at the center.

A statue was placed atop it, depicting Hebe, the goddess of youth and wife of Hercules holding up a lotus in her hands.

In the show, it was just Hebe.

In the books, it was just a lotus.

But here it was both.

So maybe this was a mix of both worlds? We'll see!

The fountain was in the middle of a small enclave, surrounded by low walls and a stepped amphitheatre and garden around it. There were a few paths leading out of the enclave, some up above the stairs and others straight before me.

But the one before me at ground level seemed like the official way out given that it had a stele beside it showing some pattern.... Star charts? Traveler runes? Identification numbers? I'll have to find out.

Maybe it's a way to navigate this place without getting lost. Because it is a trippy place.

The Neitherlands.

A sort of in between place disjointed from time where fountains to all worlds existed. It was a place you had to cross through to get from world A to world B.

Fountains upon fountains, enclave after enclave, spread out in all directions under a three mooned sky, pastel, going on forever.

I walked over to the stele and memorized it, trying to find a pattern in it.

In the meantime, I cast a spell on myself, drying up my soaked clothes when suddenly someone called out to me.

"Hey there! Which fountain did you come from?" A voice asked.

I turned around to see a woman at the top of the amphitheatre steps, coming in from one of the unofficial entrances as she walked down and over to me.

"You don't seem surprised or confused. You've been here before haven't you? Curious. Though, I haven't seen you here before." She wondered looking at my relaxed expression with a cheerful smile.

But I didn't answer, looking around scanning my surroundings to see who else was around.

"So, how did you arrive here? Are you from Earth? We don't get a lot of you around here but I swear you guys bring the most amazing types of magic. Just a while back I saw this guy fly in, with a sled driven by ..uh what do you call them....not Zebra. Reindeer, yes. Nice guy. I liked him." She chattered on.

Oh right, there was a subplot about black Santa Claus in the later seasons, wasn't there?

Unfortunately, it was so boring I almost forgot it existed.

Heh!

My scan of the surroundings was now complete. There were two more of them hiding in the bushes ahead of me, hoping to ambush me.

Who were they?

Mercenaries. Native to the Neitherlands.

Once they worked for the Order Of The Library Of The Neitherlands as couriers and labour but now they, after they had some falling out with them, the natives had been banned from the Library and thoroughly cursed, preventing them from using the fountains to escape to other worlds.

So now, they had been hired by the Beast to kill everyone who came through and capture their means of coming through.

In my case, my button.

Well, gotta earn a living somehow right?

I don't blame them for their mercenary work.

"So tell me. How did you get here-" She pestered me again.

This time though, I didn't wait for her to finish.

Instantly, I drew my trusty 9 gauge laser pistol and blew her head off, drawing her companions out.

"What did you just-" One of them shouted when I blew his head off too, splattering his melted remains onto the amphitheatre steps.

"Die, motherfucker!" The last mercenary cried out flinging a battle spell at me.

An invisible slicing spell. That crumbled at the shores of my forcefield.

"Wha-How?" He asked, and I smiled.

"Why don't you ask your boss?" I replied, blowing his head off too, "When you meet him in the underworld!"

With a twirl I holstered my pistol again and scanned the surroundings again.

Nothing. No one.

Good.

I snapped my finger, casting a flamethrower spell over the dead mercenaries turning them to ash instantly before twisting my hand in the air. A gust of wind sprung up around me, swirling in a whirlpool and with a wave of my hand it swept across the enclave, blowing away the mercenaries' ashes, leaving no trace of me behind.

Lesser versions of the Flames of Faltine and Winds Of Vatoom spells but as a plus, they don't need the influence of some extradimensional entity to cast so that's a plus.

Why kill them so wantonly, I'm sure you're wondering, dear reader.

Simple. They report back to the Beast. And I don't want him to even know I exist before I can wipe him and half of Fillory from orbit. Because there's this thing he has. A treasure that allows him to see the future. One of the seven magical keys of my quest to control magic. The Future Key.

It's why he's nigh damn unbeatable in a straight fight.

Not only does he have his own wild magic, he can also see the outcome of the fight, every move you make, every thought that goes through your mind, everything in advance and prepare for it.

Now that begs the question. How do you beat someone who is potentially omniscient master magician.

Simple.

Blindside him and overwhelm him before he realises what's happening.

See, he has been through 39 loops of the same old thing. The same people come to hunt him down, using the same tired moves and tricks. Same magic, same weapons, same time, same places.

He's used to it. So used to it in fact that he has likely stopped consulting the key to check the future.

And I can use this to my advantage.

This is basically a war of subterfuge at this point.

Will he find me out first and prepare or will I get him by surprise?

Hence, I need him to be blind to my very existence till it's too late to stop me.

I smiled.

Now that that's taken care of, time to get to Fillory and loot some treasure. I put on a mask and flared my technokinesis outwards, connecting to my coat, turning me invisible.

Then, my lab coat fluttered, wrapping around me and gently lifted me into the air as I scoped out the surroundings, unhindered.

I didn't have a huge charge on the invisibility, or the flight, much less both at the same time so I had to make it quick.

If I remember right, from the show, the Fillory fountain was two up and one aside from the Earth fountain. Or thereabouts.

I scanned the other fountains in the distance and spotted it some ways from the Earth fountain.

A fountain with two ram heads on a pillar littered with striped eyes.

Yup. Found it.

Just one problem.

There were other mercenaries posted on it.

I frowned.

Four of them.

Just in case I scouted the entire area around the immediate region of the Neitherlands.

It was littered with mercenaries, handfuls of them or even singular patrols strolling through the whole place.

I'm not getting through this without alerting them.

Even with invisibility.

They might not notice three mercenaries missing but seven?

And exactly the ones posted on Earth and Fillory fountains? Even more so.

No. I need a distraction.

Or.....I could just wipe them out.

I smiled evilly.

I definitely favour the second option.

And I have been wanting to try out my assassin's creed skills for a while.

But then, the rational part of me spoiled the mood by reminding me of the obvious flaw.

If I kill them all and no one reports to him, it will be even more suspicious.

Tch!

I will have to dispatch the future key first before I can make any forays into Fillory. And for that I need to wait till his attack on Quentin at Brakebills in a week or so.

But then what about the three I have already killed.

What do I do? Whatever do I do?

Hmm....maybe. Yes.

This could work.

I began to search around the Earth fountain and found some traces of someone I had been looking for.

A hatch for a library storeroom.

Abandoned of course, with the faintest hint of light and magic warding.

Yup. Here it is.

I walked up to it, undid my invisibility, keeping my mask on and politely knocked on it.

"Excuse me. Is anyone in there? I need help! I'm lost. I'm from Earth!" I cried out desperately.

Immediately the wards went down and the hatch popped open.

"Come with me if you want to live!" A fat, white guy said in a fake austrian accent, before bursting into an infectious smile, flushing slightly, "I've always wanted to say that line! But seriously you should come on in. It's dangerous out there."

I smiled.

Yup. This will work.

__________________

MC wipes the floor with the murderhobos.

But finds out he can't make it out without being found out.

Can't let that happen can we?

No siree!

Next time, catching a sucker to be a distraction!

Next extra chapter at 600 powerstones!

And if we reach 800 powerstones, 2 extra chapters at the same time!

So let's-a go baby!

Till then see ya.

Also, extra chapters are already out on pat-reon so go there if you want early access.