Torrin sat upon a hill in the Endless Plain. A tree provided him shade and he studied his map thoughtfully, before replacing it for a book he'd purchased in Bolin. It had been a week since he left Bolin Town and he needed a break from the monotonous scenery of the plain, a sea of green grass shone golden in the afternoon light, only broken periodically by giant hills and a few trees here and there.

His back pressed to the tree, he wondered what Grams was doing. 'A short while... Just stay alive... At least Grams' expectations have been achievable so far.'

A huge yawn split Torrin's face, and he rubbed his tired eyes. He put away the book on Elemental Manipulation, and stretched the kinks from his muscles.

"Well, Stix, let's get going, then! The mountain range shouldn't be more than a few more days travel. I'm serious! Look!" He said excitedly, pointing Stix towards the horizon, "If you look hard enough, you can spy the peaks just on the horizon." He argued fervently with the stick.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it... I know it's been boring and our destination's still a few days off, but hopefully we'll be able to find something exciting when we arrive." The loneliness had set in once more, his conversations with Stix the only thing keeping him from wallowing in regret.

As Torrin tromped down the miniature mountain, he spotted a shimmering haze near a lonely bush, it looked like a heat haze.

Squinting, he activated his mana sight, seeing strange fluctuations where the haze was. Cautiously, he approached the hazy patch of air. As he neared, he sent his will towards the circular patch of hazy space, startled by the power emanating from it.

'What exactly is this?' Torrin pondered.

His eyes were mere inches from the hazy patch, circling it, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. He thought for a moment before shrugging and giving it a sniff.

*Pop*

Torrin nearly shat himself as he heard a popping sound and fierce cackling behind him, causing him to almost jump out of his own skin. He turned, seeing Grams less than a foot away from him. She was looking over him at the mysterious heat haze with curious, analyzing eyes, cackling all the while.

"Damn it, Grams! You scared me shitless!" He cried out. The intensity of her cackling increased, sending a chill down his spine and he unconsciously took a step back, stepping directly into the circular haze.

The world seemed to twist and spin, as if he himself were a wheel on a rolling cart. His body felt stretched in a weird--albeit painless--way, before being unceremoniously spat out onto a rocky floor.

----------

A week had passed since Torrin left Bolin Town, and Grams watched her makeshift screen as Torrin crossed the Endless Plain. She was proud of him for getting out of the mess he made on his own, and was curious where he was headed.

She wasn't worried he'd get into too much trouble, as she'd originally dropped him in a forest on a completely different continent than where Karth was making his moves. She'd spent the last week split between watching Torrin's progress and foiling Karth's plans.

She watched the boy, thoroughly amused by his talking to a damn stick. The only thing he could be headed for is the Duval Mountain Range.

Grams laughed to herself, "Oho, boy, you sure know how to get yourself into trouble!"

The Duval Mountain Range was home to a few known Dragons and their lesser ilk, Wyrms and Wyverns. They were incredibly dangerous. She decided she would meet with the boy once he made it near the mountains, to provide him guidance once more.

Her eyes narrowed briefly as she saw a shimmering haze on the downward slope Torrin was traversing. 'A pocket dimension?' she thought, tapping her finger on her cane as she decided what to do.

Her gaze turned serious as the boy stopped walking and started inspecting the portal from mere inches away. Seeing his actions, she knew she needed to stop the fool boy before he tried licking the damn thing. She began cackling at the thought and teleported directly behind him.

*Pop*

"Damn it, Grams! You scared me shitless!" Torrin whined at Grams, causing her to laugh even more hysterically. She quickly sent her will into the portal, trying to detect anything living on the other side.

What happened next made Grams stop cold. The stupid ass kid stepped backwards directly into the portal.

"Oh, shit... Well... That's not good." Grams spoke in a surprised tone. The portal began to writhe and twist upon itself.

Grams stepped closer to the portal, scrutinizing it with her will more intently. The portal was obviously unstable, but she didn't feel anything too dangerous inside, so she decided to let the kid stay in there for a bit.

"Oh, wait... What's this?" She felt a familiar energy emanating from the portal, making her brows furrow.

She began a few chants, runes forming in the air around the portal. This spell could analyze the dimensional differences with their current plane, and the results shocked her.

"Time dilation as well?" she whispered, almost in reverence at the design of the pocket dimension.

The portal led to a pocket dimension, where time passed three times faster than their current world. This was an infinitely complicated pocket dimension, one that might possibly hold something even more valuable than the Dromo pocket dimension that she found with Karth and the others.

The portal began to move more frantically, tears appearing in the fabric of reality.

"Good luck... Little Rin..." A sadness could be seen on her weary face. She didn't want to do what had to come next.

Her hands weaved an intricate pattern before her, using her understanding of Space and Time, she wove together a make-shift seal on the portal. Mana and Runes whirled around the tears, preventing them from opening further.

Chains of mana formed, runes swirling along their length, wrapping around the circular, hazy portal before tightening. This would stabilize the dimension by cutting access to their world, that way Torrin and everything inside would not randomly implode.

Around the hill, she placed 20 High-Tier mana crystals at even intervals, before connecting them to the seal as well as adding a distortion and barrier formation, so no one would be able to access the hill. As she added the final touches, she spotted something that had rolled to the foot of the hill.

Seeing Torrin's only companion, Stix, on the ground, she murmured, "This might be a rough three years for you, kid..."

She walked over and picked up the stick, pausing a moment to admire the runes he had engraved in it. She shook her head sadly as she popped back into her hut.

----------

Torrin's head throbbed as he lay on the ground. He slowly used mana to heal his aching head.

No light was visible wherever Torrin was, a rocky floor digging into his face.

'What the hell... Where am I?' he thought as he slowly sat up, activating his mana sight to see if that helped at all.

The world turned vivid with swirling colors, instantly giving him a headache once more.

"Fuck!" he shouted into the darkness as he removed the mana from his eyes.

The sound of shuffling feet could be heard echoing in the darkness, along with a high pitched screeching noise. The sound penetrated his ears, causing him to shiver. Hearing this, panic began to rise in Torrin's chest.

Luckily, Torrin had been studying elements recently, his focus drawn to fire. He gathered mana from his ring into the palm of his hand, applying his intent towards Gathering fire mana. The ball slowly lit up in his hand as the fire coalesced into existence.

He hardened the blazing orb, forming it into a shining marble, granting him sight in the darkness. He allowed the orb to float above him with his will. His eyes slowly adjusted and he was able to see once more.

"What the hell?!" he couldn't stop himself from exclaiming at what he saw.

A dozen glowing eyes reflected the light, looking directly at him. The sudden brightness must have stunned them, as they stood completely still. He was in some sort of tunnel or cave, stalactites hung from the ceiling like water caught in the act of dripping down from above. The tunnel was quite spacious, about 20 feet across and 40 feet high.

The glowing eyes belonged to some sort of humanoid creature; stringy black hair hung down from the top of their head. Stretched, gaunt faces that easily showed the bones beneath sported round, red eyes. They were about Torrin's height, a little over 4 feet.

The stunned condition lasted only moments as they shuffled forward, clawed toes scratching roughly across the ground, the source of the high pitched noise. They had inhumanly thin arms, hardly more than bones, and their fingers were extremely long, with razor sharp nails.

Saliva dripped from the corners of thin lips, teeth like that of a shark visible in the open mouth. Torrin gulped audibly as he stood to his feet, looking around the ground for Stix. Stix had either grown legs and run off when he heard these creatures approaching, or he didn't made it to wherever this hellhole was. Neither idea made Torrin feel any better.

The slowly moving creatures suddenly pounced, jaws unhinging, their mouths becoming unbelievably wide, like that of a snake. Torrin spun mana to his brain to give himself a moment to think.

'What... The... Actual... Fuck! Did I end up here from that stupid ass heat haze? Or is Grams trying to torture me?!' Torrin thought desperately, immediately realizing this wasn't a helpful train of thought.

As the creatures waded through the air slowly, he rushed mana from the ring into every fiber of his being, sending his right fist forward to meet the leading creature. His fist moved at almost triple the speed of the evil things.

His fist met flesh with a crunch as the creature's head caved in, he immediately pulled his arm back to himself while ducking below the second creature; he straightened his right hand, forming a blade of sword energy.

His hand shot up, directly into the jumping creature's stomach, ripping the creature in two as black, rotten blood spilled onto Torrin's head. With his enhanced perception, he saw one creature approaching from the left, while the other three were dead ahead.

As he bisected the creature above him, a ball of fire quickly formed in his left hand, smashing into a charging fiend on his left.

Almost instantly, half of the creatures were slain, the last three were quickly--still slow to Torrin's perception--approaching.

The sword aura surrounding his hand extended, forming an arcing swordlight that he launched through two of the remaining ghouls. The last ghoul was unphased by the brutality brought upon its brethren and continued forward without hesitation.

A mana infused kick from his crouched position sent the ghoul flying into a wall with a crunch and he allowed his perception to return to normal, a slight headache forming behind his eyes as he tried steadying his rapid breathing. The next second, the smell hit him and he lost the contents of his stomach, retching violently.

"What the hell are these things..." Torrin mumbled to himself between retches.

When he was able to straighten up once more, he sent his will barreling through the tunnel, it met a wall behind him and didn't sense any other life forms for the next 250 feet. He removed his disgusting clothing, throwing it onto the dead creatures.

He walked forward, naked as the day he was born, sending pulses of his will out every now and again to check for more creatures. After traveling roughly 400 feet into the tunnel, he stopped.

Water mana coalesced around him, drenching him in water and washing away the disgusting, putrid blood. He even took the time to take some soap and shampoo from his storage pouch and wash himself thoroughly.

A short while later, Torrin was smelling fresh once more, with a new set of clothes on. His light orb still floated around above, giving him a view of the tunnel. It looked roughly the same as where he had begun, only a bit more narrow and missing the rotten corpses. But the mana density was slowly rising the farther he went.

'Where does this tunnel lead?' Torrin thought as he sat down against the wall, head in hands, trying to get his thoughts together. 'And what the hell were those creatures?'

Taking a breather helped Torrin calm down. He took out a mana stone and quickly absorbed the entire thing into his ring, topping off his mana supply.

Once he was mentally prepared, he stood once more, heading deeper into the tunnel.