Every step blazed agony up Robin’s legs. Those frelling rabbits had bit deep into his calves. He and Eli leaned against one another as they staggered through the forest. Every rustle of a leaf or snap of a twig was a new threat, though Robin was running so dry on adrenaline, his body barely reacted.

‘Almost there,’ Eli promised for the third time in less than a minute.

Robin just grunted in response. Most of his focus was on moving forward and leaving Cherry as far behind him as he could. Not that the other plant life in this frak-hole was much better. He spit, thinking of the ghilded ghourds and the demonic vine that had spawned them. Well, he’d wanted magic! And magic he had gotten.

He’d recovered enough to tear Eli free of the stunned vine, ripping as much of it up by the roots as he could manage in the process. There were seeds scattered all across the clearing, however. Robin was sure it would regrow even stronger than before. Unfortunately.

‘Almost there,’ Eli said again. It wasn’t clear if he was trying to motivate Robin or himself at this point.

Robin winced as his wounds burned. Between himself and Eli, there weren’t even enough rags to tear apart for decent bandages, but the cleric had scavenged enough moss to pack the worst of them. So at least he wasn’t leaving a trail of blood for Cherry or her minions to follow. Or to use in dark magical rituals. Oh god. Gods. He really needed to learn more about how this world worked.

‘There it is!’ Eli’s voice perked up, a trickle of energy running through the words.

Robin looked up, blinking through the cascades of sunlight that fell into the new clearing. Another clearing? Already? Please no.

But this one was different. Massive menhirs rose around the perimeter of the clearing. Robin couldn’t tell if it was a perfect circle or a very regular polygon of some sort from where he stood, but the clearing was definitely not natural. Though it had clearly been here for a long time. The boundary stones each grew a healthy crop of moss.

In the centre of the clearing, the stump of a tower squatted. Robin winced as he saw the vines that wound irregularly around it. Too soon, world. Too soon.

‘Come on,’ Eli said, ‘we’ll be safe inside. Neither Cherry nor those that serve her will come here.’

‘What stops them?’ Robin really wanted a bit of clarity on that right now. He was in no shape to run away again.

‘Wards. The important ones are still intact.’ Eli started forward, all but dragging Robin along with him. ‘So far as I can tell, anyway.’

After a moment’s consideration, Robin decided he was too tired not to roll the dice. Wincing, he took more of his own weight back from Eli. If they were this close to safety, he could manage a bit of a brave face. He hissed as the added weight set more of his wounds to throbbing. For now. He could manage for now.

Hobbling closer, it became apparent that the vines weren’t completely random. There were spaces on the tower they seemed to avoid. Eli led him to the largest of these, at ground level. It was roughly the size of a door.

Eli laid a hand on the stone and simply asked it to open. The stone vanished, and Eli pulled Robin into the shadows within.

It was certainly the least terrifying thing he’d seen all day, so Robin allowed himself to be pulled along with a minimum of trepidation. The door sealed itself behind them, but as it did so, runes flickered to light in long chains along either wall of the corridor, providing a soft blue-white luminescence to everything.

[Tongue of the Fallen Tower] allowed him to see that the runes he focused on almost all read as The Light of Tel’Perion Evenstar with a few that were structured as conditionals for passage and renewal. He couldn’t quite see the magical links between everything, but his gut told him that making the magic was a bit more involved than scrawling the symbols themselves on a surface.

Not something to worry about right now.

As soon as the door had sealed itself behind them, Robin had received a quest update notification. He’d scanned it quickly before dismissing it to focus on the lights, but it went a long way to reassuring him that this was truly a safe place.

Quest Progress Update: [Freedom, Freedom, Freedom!]

Congratulations! You have successfully escaped the cage of roots that bound you and extracted yourself from the magical roots Cherry wrapped around your being. Parts 2 and 3 of this quest still pending.

Reward: Random proficiency unlocked!

Proficiency Unlocked: Streetwise. All Social Proficiencies Unlocked!

‘Through here, come on,’ Eli tugged him on.

The cleric led him to a long, narrow room. A series of bunk beds and chests lined either wall. The wood was solid, with no signs of rot, but also dry and cracked. It had been a long time since it had been polished or cared for.

Each bed still had a mattress and bedclothes on it. Robin reached out to one. The weave was finer than he expected, more like cotton than homespun or burlap. The cloth was stiff from disuse but otherwise remarkably intact.

‘Wait here,’ Eli said. ‘I’ll go get some water. There’s a well that stays fresh in here. No food, but water.’ The cleric grimaced. ‘We’ll have to go out and forage later. That’s how she captured me last time, so we’ll need to be careful.’

Robin just nodded. That was a problem for Future Robin, not Present Robin, who was about to pass out from exhaustion.

‘I’ll wash up after.’ Eli smiled. ‘Be right back.’

Robin all but collapsed onto the bed. Huh. Not much dust for an abandoned ruin. Before he could ponder that curiosity further, sleep took him.

***

Robin woke suddenly, coming to consciousness in a sudden burst. He felt fully and completely rested. The sheet was cool against his chest. He stared up at the wood above him. Bunk beds. The tower. He shifted, and his wounds groaned with pain. The battle. The clearing.

There was a stone cup and a clay jug on the floor next to his bed. Water. Wait, why wasn’t he thirsty? He should be dry as dust. Right! The ring he’d found. It could sustain him without food or drink. Though he still had a bit of a foul taste in his mouth.

Robin reached down and poured himself a cup of water. It was sweet and clear, though room temperature rather than refreshing and cool. He could make it feel cool with [Lesser Phantasm], but it didn’t quite seem worth the effort.

Then and only then, he noticed he was completely clean. Clean and naked. Again. And if he hadn’t done it, that meant Eli had. Interesting. And entirely unfair. Why should he get to see everything Robin had, when Robin hadn’t seen—

‘Morning,’ Eli called from the doorway.

Robin glanced over and stiffened. The elvish cleric was clean, quite naked, and entirely—what’s the technical term?—hot as frelling frak. Damp hair the rich dark blue of Morning Glories fell to a ragged halt around his shoulders. His eyes matched, and his skin was a green so pale as to be nearly white. He was also much more muscular than Robin imagined elves to be, but hey, who was he to complain?

‘I thought I’d wash the clothes. They were a bit worse for wear, considering. They should be dry in a few hours.’

‘Smart,’ Robin said, focusing his gaze quite firmly on Eli’s face. ‘What do we do until then?’

His pulse leapt up a gear as Eli smiled. The elf was really too handsome to be allowed to do that. No wonder he was a cleric of the Deity of Beauty. Or was it the other way around? Did it matter that he’d lost her grace? Or did he have it back now he was clean and looking like that?

‘Sorry I haven’t been able to heal your wounds,’ Eli said, crossing the room to sit on Robin’s bed. ‘I’m afraid Vané will require an extreme act of penitence from me before she restores her favour to me and I’m able to channel enough divine energies to heal again.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘It’s been a long time since I had to wash with water instead of simply using [Vané’s Blessing] to look my best.’

‘No one would be able to tell,’ Robin said. ‘You look great.’ He shifted under the sheet so his body wouldn’t give him away any more than it already was.

‘You are very kind.’ Eli smiled. ‘Would you like to see the rest of the tower? There are some fascinating sights.’

There were plenty of fascinating sights to look at right here, right now. Robin shifted again. He needed a minute. Clearly the elves, or maybe the Church of Vané, had no nudity taboos. He deliberately pressed on his calf as he sat up. Pain spiked through him and yanked his mind onto a less potentially embarrassing track.

‘Yes, I’d like very much to see your tower—the tower.’ Robin couldn’t resist a touch of innuendo, though, just in case.

‘This way.’ Eli rose and walked toward the door.

Robin bit his cheek. It wasn’t the cheek he wanted to bite, but it was the one he needed to bite. Tour now. Then clothes. He considered using his mask to cover himself; he could still feel it resting around his eyes. No. That would put them on uneven footing and make things even more awkward.

Where had his illusory coat gone, though? Could it be separated from his person and real enough to be washed? Had it vanished when he fell asleep? Eli hadn’t said anything. Too many questions, not enough answers.

The tower wasn’t large. There were several small rooms around the perimeter, and stairs leading both up and down, but the bulk of the space was dedicated to a large central room. A massive pillar of what looked to be crystal thrust a few metres into the air, though the ceiling rose further still above it. Around the pillar was wrapped a heptagonal table of stone with runes both large and small etched across the surface.

‘Much of the magic still holds,’ Eli was saying. ‘I managed to locate the wards and activate the basic protection spells. There are others, but either they have faded or broken with the passage of time, or I do not know enough to activate them.’

‘Is this kind of set-up common amongst your people then?’ Robin asked, slowly circling the table. [Tongue of the Fallen Tower] spilled the secrets of the control runes as he went. Greater and Lesser Arcana. Botany and Biology. Wards and Protections. Cartography. Records. Communications. Provisioning.

‘No. I do not recognise this style of architecture, nor most of these rune formations. I was able to deduce the ward functions from my childhood instruction in magic, and lucky to manage even that. I was not the most apt of pupils when it came to the arcane arts.’ Eli smiled ruefully. ‘And I suspect this section has something to do with interacting with the natural world.’ He gestured to the section Robin had read as dealing with Botany and Biology.

It all looked far more technological than Robin had expected. And it was so old. But it didn’t seem like this level of tech—magitech?—was common, or Eli would have a lot greater grasp on things here. What kind of world was this? His eyes strayed to the Cartography panel.

‘This looks like it should be some kind of map, he said, gingerly running his fingers over the central rune of that station.

As he said the word 'map', the rune flared to life. An illusion appeared before him. In the centre was a small icon that looked like a tower, though a much taller one than the stump they currently occupied. Around it spread a cartographic representation of a surrounding valley and what Robin thought must be mountains.

‘Looks like you were correct!’ Eli moved to join him.

The cleric’s shoulder brushed Robin’s as he leaned closer to examine the map. The contact sent a jolt of electricity down Robin’s spine. Map. Focus on the map.

‘I wonder if I can get a wider view.’ Robin coughed, then cleared his throat.

Instinctively, he reached out and placed his hands at the edges of the image and moved them toward the centre, with its representation of the tower, like he was zooming out on a smartphone or tablet.

It worked. Maybe some things were universal. The illusion shimmered and a chunk of the continent was floating before him, a regional map-sized bit of cartography. He could clearly see the pass currently occupied by the Keep he and the Sisters Sharp had spotted when they emerged from beneath the mountain. It was occupied by a keep in this map as well. Was it the same one?

‘How did you know to do that?’ Eli was looking at him with unabashed interest.

‘Just…instinct,’ Robin answered. ‘Does it still match what you’d expect of the region? Or is it out of date?’

‘Can you get it to show a bit more?’ Eli asked, transferring his gaze to the map. ‘I’m not sure from what we see here. The cities I’m familiar with are outside this range.’

‘Sure!’ Robin reached out to zoom the map further out. Flustered from Eli’s attention, however, he flicked his hands harder than he intended. Much harder.

The illusion whirled in front of them, mountains and forests and seas flashing before their eyes. Light flickered, images zoomed past, until the image resolved itself into something new. A mote of light blazed in the centre like a star, and several shapes drifted around that point in a spherical cloud.

‘What?’ Robin blinked.

‘A full orrery!’ Eli grabbed Robin’s arm. ‘This is amazing! I’ve not seen one since I last visited the University of El Darond.’

‘What?’ Robin repeated.

‘This is the sun,’ Eli pointed to the mote of light. ‘And these are the lands that Úrin shines upon. I’ve never seen an orrery this extensive before, though. I only recognise a handful of these lands.’

Robin’s mind began to race. This is what the world looked like? Not quite a Dyson Sphere, nor a ringworld, but a…Dyson Cloud? If this was accurate, what did it mean for gravity? Night? Magnetism? Things clearly operated on vastly different laws here. He wasn’t even standing on a planet! Here, if dwarves delved too deep, did they fall out the bottom or the world? And if the sun was similar to Sol, and the lands an equivalent distance away, that would be, even with the cloud effect, something like 250 million times the surface area of Earth in habitable lands floating around this sun? Maybe even twice that? This…this would take some time to process.

Frak Kansas! He wasn’t even in frelling Oz anymore!