Zeke pushed through the brush, following Abby through the forest. It was slow going due to the thick vegetation, and curiously, it reminded Zeke of home. Having grown up in the deep south, he was well used to foliage so thick it almost resembled a jungle. The heat, which had spiked soon after they’d left Nightweb Ravine, didn’t help matters, and sweat poured down both of their faces. It was nothing compared to Pudge’s misery, though. The bear’s thick coat was meant for colder climates, and so, the oppressive heat and humidity was doubly bad for him.

“So,” Zeke said as Abby hacked her way through a particularly dense bit of foliage. “What’s with the weather here?”

“What?” she asked, a little winded from her exertions. They’d been going like this for most of the day, and even her enhanced stamina was lagging. Zeke had offered to take some of the load, but her only response was to grumble that she was the scout of the group.

“The weather,” he said. “The climate, I guess. I’ve maybe covered a few hundred miles since I’ve been here. Probably a lot less than that. And I’ve seen a swamp, a ravine that looked like it came straight out of New Mexico, a regular forest, and now this nightmare that looks like the backwoods of Alabama. The temperature has ranged from just above freezing to right now, where it feels tropical. What gives?”

“Oh, that,” she said. “Everything here’s kind of exaggerated. We’ve got an entire world’s worth of biomes in a space that’s a little bigger than Alaska. Some of the other islands are bigger, they say. But nobody ever goes to them.”

“Other islands?”

“Right,” she said, shaking her head before hacking at a thick vine that looked suspiciously like kudzu. “I forget how ignorant you are.”

“That’s me,” he said, a little annoyed by her tone. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know anything about the new world. “Mr. Ignorant.”

Zeke could hear the roll in Abby’s eyes when she said, “Oh, don’t be like that. Nothing wrong with ignorance. It’s stupidity you can’t cure. Like jumping at a monster twice your size while yelling like an idiot.”

“For the last time, I didn’t –”

“Anyway,” Abby said, interrupting his self-righteous defense of his fighting style, such as it was. “There are hundreds, maybe thousands of other islands in this new world. Some are a lot bigger than our archipelago, which is a collection of islands called the Radiant Isles. Others are smaller.”

“Have you been to any?”

“Nobody ever goes to the other islands,” she explained, hopping over a downed and rotting tree. “Too many sea monsters. Like, kraken and such. I’ve heard there’s even an ancient leviathan roaming around out there. So, our boats don’t stray too far from shore, and even that’s kind of a risk. It’s one of the reasons we use caravans rather than ships.”

“If nobody ever goes to the other islands, how do we know they exist?” Zeke asked, following in Abby’s footsteps. He noticed a snake coiled beneath the log, but it was only level three, so it didn’t disturb him. A huffing Pudge followed behind, misery coursing through their bond.

“There’s some sort of communications array in Beacon,” Abby said. “Lady Constance is the only one that can use it, but enough people have seen it in action that it’s common knowledge.”

“Oh,” he said.

Abby went on, “The islands, as far as we can tell, are based on the region where you died. It’s why most of the people here are American. Or used to be. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell because the Framework translates languages.”

“So, that’s why I could understand that troll,” he muttered, thinking back to his fight with the troll warlord, where the monster had accused him of being a baby killer. Which was accurate, after a fashion. Zeke had slain hundreds of troll larva, even going so far as to destroy their brood mother. However, he certainly didn’t feel bad about it. They were monsters, and they would have killed him if he hadn’t gotten to them first.

“You talked to a troll?” she said, glancing back at him. He told her the story, to which she responded, “Gross. I hate trolls.”

“You and me both,” he agreed. “So, these other islands have people from other countries?”

“Mostly,” Abby explained. “There’s some overlap, I think. Just like there are two or three collections of islands for Americans. It doesn’t really matter, though. It’s not like any of us are ever going to see them. Thousands of miles of monster-infested water between us and all.”

That made perfect sense to Zeke, who had no interest at all in braving the kraken-infested seas. On top of that, he knew the true nature of this world. It was nothing more than a pit stop along the way to something bigger. So, he wasn’t afflicted with the need to adventure out into the world and explore. He would stay so long as it took him to grow powerful enough to take the next step, and that was it. But he didn’t want to do it alone.

As they made their way through the dense jungle, the pair talked about the nature of the world. However, neither really spoke about their past lives. When Zeke asked about the lack, Abby informed him that it was kind of rude. Most people saw the new world as a second chance to do things better, and so there was a certain stigma associated with talking about their lives on earth. Not that Zeke minded overmuch. When he’d died on that operating table, he’d been a broken young man, a failure with a painful past. He had little interest in revisiting that emotional state, even in memory. If he could manage to forget it altogether, he would have done so without a second’s hesitation.

Finally, as the sun began to set, they came upon a small clearing that was just big enough for the cottage. When they came into the clearing, Abby said, “We should camp here for the night. Bastion is only half-a-day away, but I don’t think it’s smart to go through the jungle at night.”

“Agreed,” Zeke said. One thing he’d discovered was that the nocturnal predators were far more dangerous and higher leveled than their diurnal counterparts. Neither he nor Abby wanted to chance being ambushed by something that could actually hurt them. So, he summoned the cottage, which had grown a bit sturdier, if not actually bigger. The tiles on the roof had become clay as opposed to wood, too. But that wasn’t the biggest change.

“We have a bathroom now!” Abby exclaimed, peeking into the small room at the back of the cottage. “And…is that a shower? An actual shower?!”

Indeed, it was. The form was primitive, with the floor made of wooden slats where the water could drain. Using the shower required a simple process where they pumped water into a container, then pulled a chain so the gathered water could be released in a steady stream that could last up to a few minutes. But to people who’d been limited to washing in streams or taking birdbaths at the cottage’s other pump, it was a godsend.

Abby wasted no time before she went into the bathroom to make use of their new luxury, leaving Zeke to the tedious process of making camp. He had plenty of firewood in the cellar, so making the fire wasn’t difficult, and it wasn’t long before he’d pulled some snake meat from his spatial storage and had it on their makeshift spit.

When Abby got out of the shower, seeming refreshed, Zeke followed suit, finding that Abby had even left a rough brick of soap behind. The water was incredibly cold, like it’d come from some mountain spring, but he didn’t care. After sloughing weeks of grime from his body, he found himself relaxing more than he had in months. Tension he hadn’t even known he’d been carrying on his shoulders fell away, draining between the slats with the filthy water.

Once he was suitably clean, Zeke pumped another container full of water before setting himself to the arduous process of cleaning his clothing. The soap was a poor substitute for detergent, but he made do. Still, everything he owned bore the signs of his battles, sporting numerous rips and tears where he’d been bitten, clawed, and impaled. But by the time he was finished, it was at least passably clean.

After putting on the pair of thick, woolen pants he’d looted from one Julio’s thugs, he left the bathroom and hung his clothing over one of the chairs to dry. Hopefully, they’d be okay by morning, but even if they were a little damp, they’d be a sight better than before.

Finally, Zeke dragged his familiar stump out of the cottage and set it before the fire. He sat with a tired sigh, saying, “That really hit the spot. I had no idea how dirty I was.”

Pudge sat on the other side of the fire, sitting up like he thought he was a human being. Zeke had set aside some of the raw snake for him, and he was busy tearing into it with considerable enthusiasm.

“No kidding,” Abby said, turning the spit. “I’m also getting really tired of snake, by the way.”

Zeke shrugged. “I actually kind of like it,” he admitted. They had other stores of meat, mostly harvested from the creatures they’d killed in the ravine, but his favorite was the snake. It tasted like a gamey combination of chicken and, curiously, freshwater trout – two of his favorites. Still, he wished he could fry it. “So, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“Yeah?” she asked. “What’s up?”

“I’ve told you about Oberon,” he said. “About what this place is supposed to be. I don’t know if you believe me, but since we’re partners now, I think I should probably tell you that I don’t plan to stay here any longer than absolutely necessary. I’m going to move on as soon as I can. If I can, I want to fix whatever’s wrong with the system, but my primary objective is to take the next step.”

“Move on to this next, mythical plane, right?” she said. “Do you have any idea how you’re supposed to do that?”

“Nope,” was his simple response. “But I figure it can’t be that hard to figure it out. Judging by how long it took me to get to fourteen, it’s going to take a long time for me to reach level twenty-five. And I can’t move on before then. So, the way I figure it, I’ll have plenty of time to find the way out.”

“Okay?” Abby said. “Why are you telling me this? So long as I get to level, I don’t really care how we do it. And like you said before, we make a pretty good team.”

“I want you to come with me,” Zeke said.

For a second, Abby stared at him. Then, suddenly, she chuckled, her blonde ponytail bobbing. “You don’t even know where you’re going,” she stated, shaking her head. “Until you do, there’s absolutely no way I’m going to just blindly follow.”

Zeke narrowed his eyes in annoyance, but Abby went on, “Listen – I know you’re convinced what you saw is real. I’m open to that as a possibility, and if it turns out to be true, you can bet your ass I’ll be right there with you. But I’m going to need a lot more than what could’ve very well been a hallucination.”

For a few seconds, Zeke glared at Abby. Hadn’t he proven himself trustworthy? He’d helped her. He had saved her life. And when they got to Beacon, she was going to evolve her race – all because he’d chosen to help her. And now, she was questioning his story? Maybe even his sanity? It was galling.

However, it only took a couple of seconds for that anger to fade. He had taken everything on faith, but what if he had been hallucinating? What if Oberon was just a figment of his imagination? Or worse, if he’d lied? Maybe he was some sort of trickster god who got his jollies by stringing ignorant humans along. In this world, anything was possible.

But Zeke felt sure none of that was the case. He couldn’t quite place why he felt the way he did, but he was all but certain that Oberon had been telling the truth. There was another layer to this world, and Zeke was determined to find a way to take the steps necessary to reach it.

“Fine,” he said at last. “Reserve judgment. But when the time comes, I hope you choose to go with me.”

Abby visibly relaxed. “Me too,” she said, her voice soft. “For what it’s worth, I hope you’re right.”

And with that, the pair of adventurers went silent, finished their meal, and retired for the night. Zeke’s mind whirled with the possibilities before him; soon, he’d find himself in civilization, and he couldn’t help but wonder what he might find.