Morvin arrived at the portal chamber just in time to watch a lesser servant scurry up the side of the archway, slot in a keystone, and then leap from the height. It landed with a heavy slop against the stone tiles. Apparently unharmed, it scurried off to a corner of the room without delay. Vezz’ok moved ahead, hurrying over to the portal where he proceeded to give it that little spark of magic, activating the portal. Fortress Al-Mir would keep it running now that it was active.
The shimmering liquid membrane slowly spread across the archway’s interior. First, it reflected the room. Vezz’ok, Morvin, and the few guards who were hopefully prepared for whatever might come through when this all inevitably went poorly. Given the active conflict, there were fewer guards than he would have liked. Most were orcs in that shadowy armor. One gorgon sat ready at the back while a handful of those mechanical people from the Anvil filled out some of the empty space in the chamber.
A single, large ripple spread through the silver membrane. The reflection vanished as the ripple traveled from the center to the archway, replaced by another world.
A moist, floral planet with fungal hills and swampy lowlands spread out through the archway like a living tapestry. Moisture clung to every surface, giving trees, stone, and even the ground a glistening sheen that reflected the world’s green-hued sun. Massive, spore-laden mushrooms stretched skyward as if in worship while strange trees drooped from their trunks, hanging like parasols with streamers attached to the ends. Insects buzzed through the air, scurrying in great dark clouds as they made their way through the world.
Things stood in the distance. At first, Morvin thought they were oddly shaped mountains—or large and cavernous rock formations that had been eroded to thin legs capped by a large, central mass. Then one moved. They weren’t made from stone at all. They were creatures that stood atop five spider-like legs, massive enough to have the Walking Fortress frightened.
“Close it!” Morvin called out, striding forward past the rows of guards.
Vezz’ok started, only now noticing his arrival as he turned. He hesitated rather than following commands.
“It isn’t what we’re looking for,” Morvin said, moving ahead to close the portal himself. Good help was hard to find these days. Zullie likely thought the same of him on occasion, but that was different. Zullie had unrealistic standards.
“How would you know?” Vezz’ok said, bristling at his approach. “Supposed to wait for the servant to mime out what it wants us to do, I gather.”
Morvin didn’t much care for his posturing. This portal was dangerous to keep open any longer than necessary. And not just because of those massive spider things in the distance. “I know because this is the realm of the Bloated Mother. Arkk is not there.”
To be fair, he didn’t know with absolute certainty that the realm beyond the portal was that of the Bloated Mother. But it was a damn good guess. The realms were arranged somewhat like a ladder, each realm being a rung. Their world was at the bottom, where all the magic flowed from wherever it started, with the Underworld being the next closest, devastated by the toxicity in its air. Anywhere in the bottom half of that ladder was effectively unlivable, at least without access to another world for supplies.
Given the plant life through the portal, the realm was either high up on that ladder, likely near the very top, or the Bloated Mother had come up with a method of avoiding the ill effects of extreme toxicity, much as the Anvil had done.
Either way, maintaining the portal to the realm of life, fertility, and disease longer than a second or two seemed like a good way for everyone present to die horribly.
He pressed his hand against the archway, pulling magic from it. Just enough to disrupt the stability of the portal. The shimmering membrane collapsed a second or two later, popping like a bubble. “I don’t know if he is busy teleporting people to the infirmary or if he got distracted on his end, but we’re not about to wait around for the lesser servant to play a game of charades.”
Vezz’ok didn’t look pleased that someone had come to barge in on his moment to shine. “How would you know where he is?”
“I’m not Zullie’s chief assistant for nothing,” Morvin said. “Not that one,” he said as Vezz’ok bent to pick up another keystone from a small collection over by the lesser servant. “That one is the Holy Light’s symbol. It’s all over the abbey’s churches. Same with that one and that one. Gold and Glory, if I don’t miss my mark.”
Morvin moved over to the collection of keystones, shooing Vezz’ok aside. “Anyway, Gretchen let me know that she had been mucking about with the Maze of Infinite Paths again, despite her being the one to shelve that project. I posit that she is either in the realm of the Unknown, Xel’atriss, or somehow between realms. And Arkk is obviously with her.”
Eleven keystones sat in front of Morvin. One was set apart from the others. He had heard that, before he arrived, they had opened a realm to the Fickle Wheel. Probably. It wasn’t like they had taken the time to do a full examination of the place. He wished he could have seen it in person, apparently an ever-shifting landscape of color and lights where nothing was ever certain and the only constant was change. He wasn’t quite sure how Hyan came up with that description, but that was what he had heard.
There would be time to reopen it at a later date. Now that they had the keystones in their possession, it wouldn’t be trouble.
First came resolving the immediate emergency.
The three he had pointed out went off on their own. That just left seven.
The symbols on the keystones weren’t typical runes used in ritual circle construction. They were ancient and archaic, each scratch containing more information than a whole sentence in regular speech. While he didn’t recognize the symbols, he could make educated guesses on where some of them might lead based on that information. Those markings there probably meant division. A division was a separation, or, in other words, a boundary. Xel’atriss?
He set it apart from the rest.
In the same manner, he pulled out four more. They were his best guesses for the most likely places of where Arkk would be. He had his two best guesses for the Betwixt, realm of Xel’atriss, Lock and Key. The remaining three hopefully had among them the keystone for the Maze, realm of Unknown, the Enigma. Unfortunately, they were only guesses. Five out of seven wasn’t even a good ratio.
Morvin snatched up one of the Betwixt keystones and handed it off to the lesser servant. Zullie’s magic often invoked Xel’atriss, so starting with THEIR realm seemed like a good beginning.
The servant climbed up the archway, removing and tossing down the keystone already up there. Morvin caught it and handed it off to Vezz’ok. “Attach a label to this, give a brief description of that plane, and call it the Hatchery for now.”
Though he still had a few grumbles left to give, Vezz’ok complied, moving off to the side of the room. He elected to label the Fickle Wheel’s realm as well, picking it up as he moved to a large desk.
Morvin waited a moment, watching the servant. As soon as it slopped to the floor, he moved forward and pushed a bit of magic into the portal.
Nothing happened. The shimmering membrane didn’t form. It remained as inert as it had been while completely shut down.
Morvin raised an eyebrow and tried again, feeling the magic leave him just as it was supposed to. Yet again, nothing happened.
“Need some help,” Vezz’ok said with a half sneer. He used his sheer bulk to push Morvin aside, planting his hand on the archway’s base. Morvin watched with mild satisfaction as the smug look on his face twisted into confusion. “Oi. Servant,” he said after a moment. “You put everything where it needs to go?”
Lesser servants supposedly lacked feeling, emotion, or even proper cognizance. That didn’t stop it from shrinking down on itself like it was embarrassed.
“It could be that this particular stone requires further configuration,” Morvin said, feeling bad for the thing. “Or that there are no available portals on the other side, like what happened with the Anvil. Rather than try to force it, let’s try one of the others first.”
Shuffling the keystones took but a few minutes. The servant slotted it in and slopped off the frame. Morvin simply waved a hand at Vezz’ok, letting the orc take the lead in activating the portal.
A wintery blizzard appeared on the other side, so thick with massive clumps of snow that seeing further than ten paces was utterly impossible. Plenty of the snow blew through the portal, bringing a chill into the otherwise warm chamber that got immediate protests from nearly everyone present. Morvin gave the signal to cut the portal connection almost immediately.
“Permafrost,” he said, handing it to Vezz’ok for labeling once the servant got it down.
“We get storms like that out in the Tribelands a dozen times a year,” Vezz’ok said. “You think none of the other realms can get snow?”
“They could, but Permafrost was my second guess for that particular keystone. If it makes you feel better, you could put a question mark after Permafrost on the label.”
Vezz’ok grumbled at that as he stomped off to the desk.
This time, Morvin didn’t wait for him to return, activating the new keystone straight away. It was one of the three he suspected would lead to the Maze.
He made sure to warn everyone against stepping foot into the place. One wrong move and they might be lost forever. He wasn’t sure at all how Arkk was going to get back. But that was up to him. His job was just to open the portals.
And open it did. A fresh silver membrane spread through the archway, rippling a few times before solidifying on a new realm.
The realm beyond was a darker land, draped in twilight. An ethereal glow in the atmosphere provided some light, casting long, haunting shadows across the landscape. Towering spires and ancient ruins stood tall in the mist, their bases obscured by the flowing, moving fog. Long shimmering wisps of air currents curled the streams and blew through the unhealthy-looking leaves of swaying willows.
A shadowy figure swept through the fog, their form more visible in the absence of mist than any actual body. They moved gracefully in a fluid allure, yet there was something unnatural and haunting about their movements. Long, slender limbs stretched and twisted in a delicate yet disjointed ballet. At least as tall as one of the Protectors, they nearly matched the height of some of the shorter willow trees.
They paused, still swaying as if caught in a silent rhythm, and turned their head to face the opened portal.
Morvin wasn’t sure if he was frightened or enticed. Probably a mixture of the two. He heard the soldiers behind him shifting their grips on their weapons as the creature’s gaze lingered on them.
But the creature didn’t approach. After a moment of staring, it simply resumed its slow dance, waltzing through the forest of trees in slow, gliding movements.
“Think that’s the place?” Vezz’ok asked, watching the dancer with unblinking eyes.
Morvin didn’t have an exact answer, though he did have a guess. The lesser servant made a cross shape with hastily formed arms, further informing him. “No. I presume that is the Veiled Dancer.”
“That is a god?” Vezz’ok said with clear disbelief in his tone.
Morvin stared at the swirling mists a moment more before slowly shaking his head. “Who knows? Might just be an inhabitant of that place. The Elysian Flow, if I remember what Vezta called it. Curious, but not what we’re looking for.”
“Seems a shame not to say hello,” Vezz’ok said with a longing look on his face.
Morvin shot him a strange look, wondering what that was about. He looked around at the others in the room, looking at the faces that weren’t hidden by helmets. A good half of them stared, enraptured. One of the closer guards took a step forward, slow and hesitant. “I’m sure Arkk will want to later. But we need to get him back so he can.” He passed the servant another keystone as he moved forward to disconnect the portal. Better to not leave temptation around. “Make sure you label this one with a question mark,” he said as the servant scurried up the archway.
As before, Morvin didn’t wait for Vezz’ok to finish his task before jolting the portal. The moment the lesser servant was clear, he sparked a drop of magic into the frame.
A new world filled the archway, one divided into nearly two even sides.
On the left were soldiers clad in dark metal armor, designed for killing, not for glory. They clung to spear shafts and sword hilts as they surged forward, crying out—though the sound didn’t pierce the portal. War beasts—hulking creatures with scaled hides and spiked harnesses—plowed through men and earth alike, their handlers driving them forward with shouts and whips as they took on the opposing army.
The army on the right was vastly different, mostly dressed in loose cloth and lighter armor, wielding curved blades, longbows, and even bare fists. A small group of warriors with painted faces stood side-by-side, poised as if in meditation despite the war around them. At least up until one of the armored soldiers got too close, then they became a blur, moving fast and hitting hard enough to cave in armor with their bare knuckles.
Morvin closed the portal the moment he registered what he was seeing. “The Red Horse,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “The Infinite Battleground. We have enough war here already,” he said, picking up one more keystone. “Don’t need any more.”
Although it was more the focus of Arkk, Zullie, and Vezta than an assistant like him, Morvin still heard things around the fortresses. Things like the statues appearing in the temple. Thus far, the Red Horse had not appeared in the temple. Which, he found, to be somewhat strange given the Horse was the god of war and there was a big war going on. The Smiling Prince showed up after a display of necromancy, so it stood to reason that events related to the domains of a particular god might help bridge the Calamity to draw them here.
Then again, the Red Horse—according to Vezta—despised magical combat. Between avatars, spellcasters, Arkk, and everything else, this was far more of a spell-slinging conflict than not.
Before he could hand the last keystone to the servant, a slight tremor shook Fortress Al-Mir. A faint few specs of dust fell from higher up, making Morvin grimace as it fell around it. He stared around the room for a moment. The guards all mimed his actions. At least, the living ones did. The machine people stood near perfectly still, only emitting strange clicking and grinding noises.
It stopped as quickly as it came. Everyone glanced around, no longer looking upward but at each other, as if someone here had answers.
Morvin didn’t have answers, but having been at Elmshadow and knowing what had happened toward the end, he had suspicions. None of which were reassuring. A bad feeling of impending doom slowly welled in his chest. “We need to hurry,” he hissed, turning back to the lesser servant. “Unless I was grossly off-mark, this one should—”
Another, stronger tremor shook the fortress. Morvin stumbled back, the keystone slipping from his grip. It landed on the floor with a clatter, sliding a short distance away. He stooped to pick it up.
A cracking, grinding noise of stone against stone was the only warning he got. Stone bricks and dirt from overhead rained down as the ceiling collapsed. He dove to one side, using the vacant crystalline archway as a makeshift shield even as he speed-spoke the incantation for a proper shield.
Not all were as lucky as he was. A few of the guards took the brunt of the ceiling. One of the machine things turned into a pile of scrap. Vezz’ok grasped at his leg where it was pinned beneath a thick slab.
Something slopped against the ground near him, just a few paces away. In all the chaos, he thought it was another lesser servant.
Then he turned his head.
A pile of meat, smooth on its edges and vaguely egg-shaped, sat in the chamber. Thin tendrils of meat squirmed outward from it. Some dug into the tile floor. The magically resistant tiles cracked and wilted where they touched. Others went after some of the people. At the epicenter of the ceiling’s collapse, everyone nearby was on the ground, either hunkered down or knocked down. Those still on their feet were further away. They tried to move forward, scythes and cutting tools drawn, but they were too far.
The dark, shadowy armor of the orcs turned far more tangible where the tendrils touched, as if they leeched out whatever magic was held within the ethereal metal. A few of the orcs vanished just before the tendrils could reach them, teleported away by Arkk no doubt. Others weren’t so lucky. The tendrils lashed around their arms or legs, holding them in place. A few of the nabbed orcs started screaming even as fresh soldiers teleported in, already hacking and slashing at the thin tendrils to try to free their comrades.
Amid the chaos, Morvin’s eyes found the keystone on the floor. One of the tendrils snaked toward it.
Morvin dove, fingers grabbing the keystone the second before the tendrils reached it.
In his head, he did a perfect flip, grasping the keystone in one smooth motion.
In reality, his face slammed against the tile, skidding along the ground despite the shield around him. But he had the keystone.
“Desidia,” he intoned, feeling the utter drain of one of the old spells against his magic. But the slowing spell successfully connected, turning the egg creature’s lashing limbs into slow-moving worms. No longer having to dodge, the active guards advanced far more effectively. The shadow scythes of the orcs only worked once against its flesh before whatever magic kept them going was drained away.
The slowing spell was already beginning to fail, far sooner than it should have. One of those whip-like tendrils lashed at him, missing by a hair. It struck the portal instead.
The golden, iridescent crystal lost its glimmer where the tendril hit.
Morvin focused back on the egg. Fire. Arkk had used fire to kill these things. But the only flame spells he knew were relatively weak, more designed for light or cooking, or far too strong to use while a dozen people were fighting in melee or, worse, were trapped in the squirming tentacles.
Before he could figure out what to say, a heat washed through the room. He didn’t even need to see the woman to know that Agnete was present.
She would handle this.
Morvin looked over the portal frame, grimacing at the dark spot. It didn’t look good.
Rather than waste time, he clutched the keystone to his chest, hopped over a stray, now flaming tendril, and rushed from the room. He made it ten paces down the hall before Arkk must have noticed his flight. The familiar pull of a teleportation flung him across the fortress.
Luckily, at the moment, his and Arkk’s minds were one.
In the ritual room, Morvin rushed to one of the teleport rituals and took it.
A dozen hops later and he found himself in the Highlands ruins, standing before the undamaged portal frame. A spare dozen glowstones were already in place, ready for any emergency activation they needed with this frame. All it needed was a keystone swap.
“You had better work,” he hissed as he ran to a ladder leaning against one of the walls.