The question hangs in the air for several seconds.

Verona stared at him.

Verona grasps Mar’s hand.

Mar calmed his mind, remembering his physical body with all it’s quirks and features. He relaxed his thoughts and a winding gray chord began to sprout from his stomach. He followed it’s trail with his mind's eye, and surprisingly it did not lead far away.

Mar focused on traveling down that line, and his manifestation shrank to nothing as it compressed into the form his aura normally took, shooting down the ethereal chord and returning to his physical body.

Mar awoke with something uncomfortably sharp jabbing into his back. He was lying on his side in a puddle of warm liquid that was slowly seeping into his clothes. There was a foul smell that permeated the air and made Mar resort to breathing through his mouth.

Groggily, Mar summoned the energy to sit up. His vision was blurry and every part of him felt sore. He felt around the warm sludge near him and grabbed the sharp thing that had been poking him in the ribs and held it up to the dim light of the rooms single torch. He was surprised to see it was a mithril gauntlet, like the kind the royal guard who protected the palace wore.

Interesting. Mithril was immensely expensive and Mar always wanted to examine a piece of it. The Royal Guard here in Orlem wore a diluted alloy of the mithral strictly for ceremonial purposes, but even so it was supposed to be twice as strong as steel and half the weight.

Mar tried to fit his hand into the gauntlet, but it wouldn’t go. There was something soft and squishy gumming up the inside that prevented Mar from putting his hand in it. Mar held up the gauntlet by the the middle and ring finger and shook the obstruction loose. Into his lap plopped a bloody, severed hand.

Mar jumped back in shock and surprise, only to find that his hand had landed in something warm, wet, and gooey in a roundish cracked bowl. He stood up and grabbed the torch on the wall. Pulling it down and holding it close he was able to examine his surroundings.

There was blood everywhere, and interspersed between the inky red pools were severed limbs and heads. Blood wasn’t the only liquid either. All manner of body fluids coated the floor. Piss and shit intermingled with brain juices and intestinal fluid. The thing he had just stuck his hand in was a smashed human skull. Mar could even see his hand print crushed into the brain itself. It looked as though some rabid animal had been let loose, tearing everyone and everything to shreds with every intent on maximizing the suffering for everyone involved.

Mar felt a wetness in his throat and he stooped over as vomit poured out of his mouth and hit the floor with a disgusting slapping sound. His puke was quickly washed away by copious fluids already present on the ground beneath him.

After a minute more Mar had no more breakfast left to vomit up. He had to get out of here. Just as he was about to leave when he noticed something gleaming and red in the muck. It was a shard of ruby, stationed next to a pedestal that was identical to the one in the spirit realm.

Eventually Mar’s prudence overcame his disgust and he picked up the gemstone. It was a fragment of the now shattered Realmstone. Mar placed it in his pocket. It likely contained some mana still, and if nothing else he could sell it for coin. That was something he’d certainly need.

There were no dry spots for him to hop too and from as he made his way to the exit, so Mar was forced to wade through the stew of human debris. Mar could feel the fluids seeping into his boots with every second. With each step his feet made a squelching sound as air and body fluids squished between his toes and the sole of his boot. It felt enough like water that Mar could almost convince himself he was simply walking through a puddle on a rainy day. Almost.

Even when he left the room, the remnants of the bloodbath that had taken place did not fade. The bodies were fewer in number now but here or there Mar would come across the mangled remains of what had once been a living breathing human. Many of the bodies were still warm.

When Mar finally came to the huge doors he opened them a crack, letting noonday light stream in, allowing him to examine himself beyond what the dim light of the torch could provide.

He looked like a monster. He was covered head to toe in blood and guts, and there was a bit of intestines clinging to his shoulder. If Mar had any breakfast left to puke up he would have lost it then.

He turned to the nearest body, which was far cleaner than the rest. He had to clean himself off, not just for his peace of mind, but so that he could step outside without everyone immediately thinking he was a vampire fresh a feat. Mar stripped off his blood-soaked clothes.

He stripped the tunic off the body of the second cleanest guard and used it to quickly scrub himself free from the worst of the grime. Luckily the man had a canteen of water on him and Mar poured it over himself. His hair was still matted with blood and his skin was still dyed red, but he no longer felt like a walking pile of excrement.

After quickly towelling himself down Mar stripped the cleaner guard and started trying on his clothes. The man had been bigger than Mar, but after hiking up the trousers a bit Mar was able to get them to fit. He tried to get the armor on but the straps were too extensive and elaborate for him to adjust by himself. He settled for just taking the helmet to hide the blood in his hair and smeared on his face. Mar grabbed the plumes that stuck out of the helmet and ripped them out so that he wouldn’t look too much like a royal guard. He grabbed the shard of ruby out of his old tunic and turned towards the door.

The portals were his destination. Hopefully the shard of ruby would be enough to bribe his way through quickly.

He had traveled through this part of the city many times before and knew where the nearest dock for the floating paths was. Within a minute he had reached the location, but when he stepped on the levitating stone nothing happened. Mar gave it a stomp in hopes that a good kick would get it working again, but still the magic remained fully inactive happened. That’s when he looked up and noticed something was very wrong.

Normally the floating paths were composed of countless millions of cobblestones levitated in the air and traveling in sink, forming smooth unbroken rows that would allow a citizen of Orlem to travel from one part of the city to another far quicker than walking or riding on horseback. Only the rows of cobblestones suspended in the air weren’t smooth and unbroken anymore. Chunks of the path were missing here and there, and some portions of the road were absent entirely. Even as he watched chunks of cobblestone fell from the sky and hit the ground with a thud. Many of the buildings had holes in them from where earlier stones had fell from the air, puncturing roofs and knocking over walls. Mar saw the shop where he had bought ink only the day before, and noticed there was a horse drawn carriage broken on it’s roof. One of the horses was dead, the other struggled vainly to hang on to the roof as the weight of the carriage it was bound to dragged it towards the ground. The pull of gravity became too much for the beast and it fell to the ground. It whinnied as it tried to stand back up, but the carriage weighed it down.

Mar jogged over to the beast and undid the crude knots that held the horse to the wagon. Before the beast could bolt Mar took hold of it’s reigns and held it steady. The carriage was fully loaded with goods, but there was no one inside the compartment or near the horses, which meant the owner was already dead or had run off and abandoned the horses and goods. Luckily the living horse already had a saddle on it. Clearly the owner of the carriage had been leaving in a hurry, and so didn’t bother undoing the saddle and bridle to put on a proper harness for drawing a carriage. He climbed into the saddle uneasily. He’d only ridden a few times before, but he would have to do so now. Once he was mounted Mar kicked the horse's flanks to get it moving as fast as it would go.

After getting the horse moving, Mar sped down the street. Within a few minutes, he passed by Orlem’s school of magic. He turned and regarded it one last time, but just as he was about to leave a small green shape started running towards him. It was a goblin, carrying a rather large sack tossed over it’s shoulder.

“Grob?” Mar asked aloud.

“Boss! Boss! No leaving without Grob!” The goblin pleaded.

Mar turned the horse towards the little green goblin and met him halfway. Grob lifted the bag and handed it off to Mar. It was surprisingly heavy.

“Grob, I’m leaving Orlem, and I can’t take you with me. I don’t exactly know where I’m going but I know it the journey there is going to be rough. It’s a harsh world and I don’t know if I can take care of you when I might very well be struggling to survive myself.”

“No no. You don’t take care of Grob. Grob takes care of you. You’re the boss, and Grob knows all about finding good garbage to eat and not getting eaten by scary things. Grob grew up in the forest you know. Besides, Grob doesn’t think there’s gonna be much free food to steal here for awhile.” Grob glanced around at the burning buildings and the stones falling from the sky.

As they traveled the ruin caused by the Realmstone’s destruction grew even more prevalent. The once beautiful Overhill district was hit far harder than most. It was a favorite location for the manors of mages wealthy and powerful enough to be influential, but who weren’t part of one of the major families. The presence of so many mages in the district meant that the floating paths had exits at virtually every doorway, and many of the more exotic buildings, like the tall winding spires of the floating orbs that some of the more flamboyant mages liked to call home had completely crumbled to rubble without a constant source of magic holding them together. As a result, even the more stable buildings had suffered some damage as their neighboring homes had crumbled around them. The luxury of having the floating paths descend right to the homes meant that as the paths disintegrated the structures underneath them were torn apart.

“Grob saw you earlier. Well, it was you, but not you.”

Mar tilted his head slightly so he could glance at the goblin riding behind him. “What do you mean?”

“Your body, but the face was all wrong. Boss is usually thinking, and always tired. When Grob saw you before you were angry and excited. And you had all these black wriggly worms coming out of you. You attacked the men wearing the shiny clothes and smashed them to pieces. Grob tried to follow you and pick up the shinies, but they were too heavy and one of the men wearing the shiny clothes almost stabbed Grob hard, so I go back to the paper making room, grab all the stuff we need, and wait for you to be you again and come back.”

Mar filed the information away into his mind, to be contemplated when he had less on his mind. To think… the stone had caused all of this carnage.

No, it wasn’t right to blame all of this on the stone. It was a demon but without a wielder the warlock’s totem was just a rock. Or Eye of the Enchanter or whatever the thing really was. Mar was beginning to suspect the little gray piece of the stone was both, and at the same time, neither.

All this carnage and ruin was his fault. Mar felt his heart sink. All that blood back in the palace. Sure, his hand may not of wielded the sword that slew those men but it was his actions that drew the blade from it’s scabbard. He was to blame for all this devastation.

Flames leered over the roofs of building walls around him, licking at the cobblestone beneath the horse's hooves. Most of the city was made of stone, thanks to the earth mages, but stone roofs were heavy and took architectural skill to design, so many opted for wooden roofs. As a result, flames were hopping from building to building, burning the roofs and the furniture inside. Mar fixed his sight on the road ahead of him, trying not to look at the devastation to either side as he pressed onwards. He was still emotionally shaken by the carnage he’d seen in the palace. Grob’s first instinct of course was to use the chaos and confusion to loot some shiny trinkets, but one look at the serious expression on Mar’s face told the goblin that they wouldn’t be stopping.

A huge arch of stone marked the portal array. At any other time they would have been bustling with activity, but it seemed that because of the festivities of the Trial they had been turned off. Still, there would be a portal mage here to activate a portal in the case of an emergency.

Mar pulled back on the reins to slow the horse down. It trotted up the steps and Mar brought it to a stop at the center of the plaza. The portal center in Orlem was an artificial mesa, around the edges of which hundreds of small arches heavily engraved with runes and markings stood with precious magical stones embedded in them.

It took Mar a few seconds to spot the dirty brown robed figure cowering under the only bench in the plaza.

“You there! Are you a portal mage?” Mar called out.

“Go away!” came a frightened and anxious voice.

“I need to use the portal.” Mar said.

“Haven’t you looked outside? The world’s ending. The walls collapsed just a few minutes ago and crushed half the city.”

“All the more reason to get out of here.” Mar replied.

There was a moment of silence.

“If I could activate the portals.” The brown-robed mage began. “I would have already gotten out of here. The only mage trained to use the portals took off the moment the walls fell down. I should have dived through right after her.”

“There’s still time.” Mar replied. “Which one of these portals leads the furthest away from here?”

The brown robed mage crawled out from under the desk. “That one there.” He pointed out an arch made of pink granite. It was a simple yet sturdy looking thing. “It leads to the port town of Yvast.”

“Perfect. That’s the one I’ll take.”

The brown robed mage shook his head. “I told you, if I could activate the portal I would have taken off the right after the master portal mage did. But the mana lines aren’t working and I can’t summon enough mana to activate them by hand. For some reason after the walls came down even the simplest spells became ten times harder to cast.”

Mar reached into his pocket and grabbed the finger length shard of ruby. “Try this.” Mar tossed the shard of the Realmstone to the mage. “It should have some mana left in it. And once you’re done, I’m sure the gemstone itself will have some value. Consider that your payment for services rendered.”

The mage glanced at the stone. “This doesn’t look like any mana crystal I’ve ever seen.”

“Just try it. Please.”

The mage obliged and wrapped his hands around the shard of crystal as the air inside the stone arch began to hum. He reached out a hand and touched the archway, which promptly lit up as a swirling pattern appeared, which quickly began to clear and reveal afternoon light streaming through a slightly cracked door.

“Well I’ll be damned. This strange little crystal had some juice in it after all.” The mage turned to Mar. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave the horse. This portal’s only big enough for foot traffic.”

“That’s fine.” Mar unsaddled. Once he was on the ground he helped Grob off as well.

“Is that a goblin?” The mage asked in surprise, having not noticed Grob before.

“Yes, this is a goblin. Do you want to stand here and ask me questions or do you want to head through the portal? As I understand it, holding these things open takes a great deal of mana.”

“Right. I have to go last to hold it open. So, uh, after you.”

Grob grabbed the bag he’d brought with him and tossed it back over his shoulder. Together he and Mar headed for the portal.

Mar spared one look at the glowing archway he was about to walk through. He’d only ever traveled by portal once before, back with the orphanage. He’d always wanted to see the world but portal magic was expensive, even in Orlem. There was a reason why the rest of the world still moved things the old fashioned way.

Mar closed his eyes as he passed through the glowing arch, mentally preparing himself for the wave of nausea he knew would hit him once he passed through the other side. He staggered as he passed through, and his ears popped with the sudden change in pressure.

When he opened his eyes, Mar saw Grob emerge through the glowing portal. The goblin immediately collapsed to the ground clutching his head and blinking rapidly.

The portal mage followed right after, though he displayed no adverse effects from the magic gateway. Being a portal mage he’d probably traveled through such arches hundreds of times.

“Good job. As I said, keep the stone as your payment.” Mar started to turn away but remembered something. “If an inquisitor comes asking if you sent anyone through the portal before you left, please tell them you went alone.”

“An inquisitor!?” The portal mage exclaimed in alarm.

“Maybe an inquisitor, maybe not. It’s in your best interest to say you didn’t see anyone though. You’re an accomplice now.” Mar gestured to the shard of the Realmstone in the mage’s hands.

The mage gulped. “Uh, what did you do?” the mage asked uneasily.

Mar gave him an even look. “You’ll find out soon enough.” Then he turned to the goblin. “Comeon, Grob. I won’t feel safe until we’ve put five hundred more leagues behind us. This is a port town. Let’s see if we can find passage somewhere. I’ve always wanted to see the sea.”