The Raptor walked away from the group, now in heated discussion, towards Mason Templar, who was carefully brushing the feathers of Erasmus while cooing in the great bird's ear.
"Templar," Euro said.
Mason Templar didn't reply at first. Finally, without turning his head, he said, "Aye, Cicciotto?"
"Something about your story didn't make sense to me."
"Eh? What's that, man?"
"How did you happen to overhear all that information about the condition of this world? Without Phil's influence, none of us except Sam can understand the language of this world."
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong," Templar said, turning to meet his eyes. "The language in this land is not unlike that of an obscure dialect on Earth, one which I happen to be familiar with. It's akin to Basque, in fact."
"Oh, really...?"
"Aye," Templar said. He pulled out a bundle of scrolls and tossed one to Euro. "Here, look at this map. It's a map of this entire world."
The Raptor unfurled the scroll and gasped as he realised what he was looking at. "Pangaea?"
"Well, it's certainly similar to Pangaea," Templar said. "Indeed, the continents never split on this world, making it all the easier for one powerful figure to dominate. If you'll look at the dimensions, however, you'll notice that this world's supercontinent is much, much smaller."
"Yes," Euro said as he looked around it, "this world's equivalent of the Americas, Africa, and Asia are much reduced in size. And Danny's Australia doesn't seem to exist."
"Or at least it hasn't been discovered yet. The Americas were flooded, in fact. The coastline of the North American equivalent of this world's supercontinent extends from the Great Lakes rather than California. And the entire southern halves of South America and Africa is completely missing, as is much of Asia. It seems that the European subcontinent is the only one not missing any mass whatsoever."
"So this is a much smaller world?"
Mason Templar laughed. "You're not as daft as you look, Italian. Here, I have five map-scrolls for the group. Take them to Daniel, will you? There's a good lad."
The Raptor did so, Templar's condescending comments notwithstanding. There was something about the man that Euro did not like.
