The town of Halganfast was perfect. Not just for getting to Nusos, although Cyne assured us that the design of the inn would make that trivial, but just in the sense that it was a ridiculously idyllic little city. There was a ring of orchards around it, four or five different types of trees in neat rows, and then a densely packed inner town made from what appeared to be the same pale stone as Theremas. The rooftops, however, were made from moss-covered thatch and reached all the way to the ground on the sides so that it looked like each building was just an oddly pointed hill. To complete the image quite a few of them had a family of goats perched on top, oblivious to the steep slope. As we wandered the town I got a good close look at some of them and so far as I could tell they looked like Earth goats - though I had to admit I'd never studied one close enough to say for sure. It had taken us a little longer than expected to get there and I still had some things on my to-do list, so when I found out we were going to need to pay the inn to use it for our entry into Nusos anyway I made the executive decision to spend the night and cross over in the morning.

I requisitioned the money we'd taken from the dead Halenvar soldiers and got everyone baths, and then set out to buy some new non-magical boots. The smell of the leather when I entered the cobbler's shop caught me off guard - it had always been one of those scents I loved in moderation but hated when it was too strong. He had a lot of shoes partially made, but unlike on Earth they just assumed all the customers would want their shoes custom fitted. When I explained that we were only passing through and asked how quickly he could be done, he got a very serious look on his face and explained that he could do a rush job but didn't want me blaming poor workmanship if it wasn't up to my standards. With how somber he was I suddenly had an image of some crazy fantasy version of Yelp reviews or something.

He took my measurements and got to work, and I was about to leave when I had a memory pop into my head - a real one, I was pretty sure. Bill had walked into the group home and asked for me and when I came over to him he actually shook my hand and handed over a business card. I was thirteen and had already gone through a lot of case workers, so I just laughed and tossed the business card aside. I couldn't take him seriously. He was just... too much of a boy scout. He wasn't quite condescending, he didn't talk down to me like some case workers had, but it still had the sound of a character on a badly-written television show. I figured it would be about fifteen minutes before the smiling "good to meetcha, pal" act fell apart, but instead he just kept it up the whole time I knew him - more than a year. And that first time, he actually sat with me despite my attitude and seemed to listen. When I told him I hated my therapist and didn't want to go, he said "Yeah, I saw you have Mr. Allan. He tries his best, but I think he's in the wrong line of work. I can get you moved, no promises that the next one will be better but you know, with therapists you have to just keep trying until you find a good one."

That was it, he just casually and fairly politely said "yeah that dude sucks at his job, let's fix this" and then - strangest of all - he followed through and patiently forced them to change my therapist three times over the next year until I got one that was actually pretty great. But it was the end of that first meeting that really made an impression. I got up to leave, and he called me back with a frown on his face. He was so polite, so proper, that I assumed he was annoyed at me for... I don't know, not saying goodbye in the right way or something. Instead he said, "Calliope, do you mind if I take a look at your foot for a minute?"

And he poked at my shoe, and frowned more, and called Mrs. Carol over.

"Mrs. Carol, Calliope's case file says she's been at this group home for three weeks - is that correct?"

"Well she was brought here that long ago, yes, but she hasn't spent a full three weeks here. She keeps sneaking out."

"Yes, I saw that. But my question is... what happened to her shoes?"

Mrs. Carol looked at my shoes, confused, and then looked back at Bill. "She's wearing them."

"Okay. I see. Well, listen, those shoes are at least a size too small and have holes in them. I'm just disappointed, I had hoped in three weeks you would have had time to get her some proper footwear. I know you're busy though, I know you do a lot of hard work here. But I just worry that long term it could be doing some real damage."

"Well we... um. I can check if..." and I knew the end of the sentence, she was going to check and see if any girls had left behind a slightly larger pair of shoes - that's always how it worked, you got the leftover used up ones from the last kid. But Bill cut her off.

"Hey, no rush. I'm not trying to put you in a tough spot. I'm sure you're working on it. Oh and hey, just a thought, I know this group home is franchised through Shadespring and they have a policy about life skills outings, right, where you take everyone to the mall or the grocery store? That's a policy at the corporate level, so I'm sure you're doing that."

Mrs. Carol looked nervous.

"Well here's my idea, I know Calliope has an ISP in place for her behavioral issues and it includes some community interaction goals. I'm sure you're keeping up on those hours, but it seems to me you could kill two birds with one stone - maybe take all the kids to the shoe store and let them go shopping."

I could see her mind spinning. My Individualized Service Plan had been signed off on by someone ages ago and had never come up since, nor did this group home ever take us anywhere - surely she didn't want to get in trouble for skipping anything, but on the other hand the cost of shoes for everyone would be outrageous. Looking back, I suspect Mrs. Carol had probably been skimming money. She muttered something, and Bill just kept smiling.

"Well, I should get going. Hey, Calliope, it was good to meet you. You know, I'm going to be in the area the day after tomorrow, maybe I'll stop by and say hi."

And he did, and he complimented me on my nice new shoes. It was a little thing, and it wasn't like the other shoes had fit that badly, but it had been a long time since anyone had done anything like that for me. I had a lot of adults telling me they were on my side, but they said it while sighing - "Calliope, I'm on your side here but you need to stop..." whatever. Running away. Stealing. Throwing knives at the walls. They rarely if ever made me believe they were on my side in any way that mattered. And Bill, well, not only had he pulled an "I'm not angry I'm just disappointed" on the person running the group home, but he had actually showed up to follow up on it. That was incredible - case workers showed up once a month, because that was how often they were required to do so. I guess even that didn't used to be the rule but they lost a few kids. So typically they'd come breezing in near the end of the month, ask you how you were doing, pat you on the head, and bolt. I didn't really even hold that against them, it's not like I wanted to have that meeting more than once a month either and to the extent that I understood anything at thirteen I knew they were overworked and underpaid. But still, he had come twice in one week just to make sure I had new shoes. That was the sort of thing you remembered.

As I always did when I thought of Bill, I took a moment to do an empathy check. I was at zero, which I had already known, so that meant I should take a moment and make sure I wasn't being an asshole. Had I thanked the cobbler? No. I did that, and he smiled. Yeah, that had been the right thing to do - but there was something else that tiny voice was yelling at me. What would Bill do? Oh. Right.

"Hey. Uh. If I bring five kids in here, can you throw some shoes together for them? They don't need to be fancy, just... they should have proper shoes."

He kept it simple for our little refugees, giving them some nice sandals. He had existing wooden platforms, so he just needed to trim the leather pads somewhat and attach everything - it was a huge improvement over their current footwear, which were basically just long strips of leather wrapped around in a complicated way. It seemed to work but was probably hell to march in, and since we couldn't bring the wagons into Nusos the sandals would probably save us from needing to take a lot of extra breaks. Part of me wanted to roll my eyes at the fact that the nice thing to do was also the pragmatic thing - again - but I settled for just making a mental note that the little voice in my head continued to be a good thing to listen to.

I snuck out that night and climbed the roof of the inn so I could see what the appeal was for the goats, and man, it was actually pretty great. I stared up at that crazy moon for a while, and was even joined by some hooved friends at one point although they kept their distance. I finally had to clumsily scoot my way down when I felt myself drifting off to sleep, since I didn't want to roll all the way down and hurt myself if I actually passed out up there. The bed was only slightly more comfortable since it was stuffed with straw, but I'd slept on much worse. In the morning I woke up excited to be visiting yet another plane, snuck off to a private corner to have a fifteen minute panic attack when I remembered Connie was dead, and then had a light breakfast and joined the others in the common area to get started - Cyne had me pay the staff to stay out of sight, so it was just the ten of us.

"We are about to enter Nusos," Cyne said, "so I need you all to understand what to expect. We will be traveling through various hallways and rooms, and at each turn our goal is to end up somewhere more similar to our final destination. This similarity can be in appearance, or it can be more about the feel of the place. We may need to back up at some point and try a different approach. I will tell you what to picture, and you must hold those thoughts in your mind. If your mind wanders it may slow us down, and if you picture a different location entirely it can prevent us from ever reaching our goal. You've all studied the key as we traveled, but if you need to look at it again we will have it out to pass back and forth."

He lined us all up, and pulled out a rope that he had tied a number of loops into. Each of us stuck a hand through a loop - except Sige, who stood off to one side nodding approvingly. "This rope will keep us together. In an emergency you may drop the rope but otherwise please keep one hand through your loop at all times. The most important thing about Nusos is to not be split up. Never lose sight of the rest of the group. Especially never close a door between you and the others, because when you open it again it will lead somewhere else. If you start seeing rooms that you recognize from the material plane, please alert me. If you see any small white rectangular plaques on the walls, alert me. Do not waste time grabbing any valuable items we pass, as without fabrication magic they will fade away quickly once we have returned to the material plane. Finally... there are monsters in Nusos. I will do my best to avoid them, and with a group as large as ours most will stay away, but it is always possible a powerful creature will attack us. If the attack is obvious, Sige will - I am sure - deal with them quickly. But some creatures in Nusos attack the mind. They feed off of fear, and bend the world like a bad dream to prevent you from escaping. If you detect anything out of place, or suddenly feel like you are in a nightmare, let me know. Some make the mistake of being embarrassed to say anything, or telling themselves they're being foolish. Always, always err on the side of telling me."

He made each person agree individually, and then nodded curtly and began walking. We followed, tromping up the stairs into the upper hall with its rows of doors to the individual rooms. At the end of the hall there was another staircase that led down to the kitchen, and we cut through that back to the common room and began our circuit again. That was it, just this endless loop up the stairs, down the hall, down into the kitchen, repeat. I waited for something to happen, but after our third loop I kinda zoned out. I was worried. The kids were with us, Connie was gone, Aestrid was gone. Cyne wouldn't fight to save his own life. Errod would be most likely to injure himself or one of us. On the other hand, Mila was a space cadet but I'd seen her fight and she was ruthless when she needed to be. And I already knew Sige was worth his weight in gold. Katrin and I... well, we could at least help.

I shook myself out of my musings to look around as I walked. Something was off. What was bothering me? "Katrin. Hey. Shouldn't we... shouldn't we have hit the stairs down by now? It's not that long of a building."

"Did you just now notice? Callie, I think we've been in Nusos for at least five minutes."

There hadn't been a clear transition, but she had to be right. The spacing of the doors had changed, and if I hadn't already noticed we hadn't reached stairs it became even more obvious as Cyne made a turn at an intersection that certainly hadn't been there a moment ago. We eventually came to a rest at a common room not unlike the one we had started in in the material world, although I noted there were no windows.

"Pull up a seat, everyone," Cyne said, "as you have no doubt realized we are in fact in Nusos. Congratulations. For our first attempt, I want you all thinking about the following qualities - the room is old, and hasn't been used in a very long time. The room is underground, but not a natural cave. The room is large, and built like a palace. Keep those things in mind as we travel. You can try to imagine the exact room as well, but it's unlikely to help when we're this far out. I'm going to give you five minutes to rest here before we get moving again, remember to drink some water."

Sige, as the only person not strung to the rest of the group, was wandering around and poking at things. "Been a while since I've been here. My people, we're not big on being closed in - we have houses but they're all just one big fucking room and they have windows all the way around, usually without glass or anything so you can just let the breeze pass through. Growing up with that made it hard for me to wrap my head around this place. Wild. Just one fucking endless house."

But of course it wasn't a house. It wasn't really a building of any sort, and as we traveled that became more and more obvious. We hit a string of bedrooms, one after another, and while most of them looked fairly normal I started to see some anomalies. There was a bed that was made of wood - not just the frame, but the mattress and sheets as well. There was a room filled with chairs. There was a door with another, smaller door set into it. We passed through a kitchen where the food looked good as new and ready to eat, although Cyne said it would be unable to actually nourish us and might cause health issues if we ate too much of it. Then not ten minutes later we entered another kitchen, where the food was ancient and dried out.

"Are the rooms... do they only exist when we get to them, or were they already there?"

Cyne was looking from one door to another, trying to decide which way to go, but he spared me a moment for an answer. "That's an excellent question, and so far as I have been able to determine the answer is both. Rooms are created, based on real rooms on the material plane, but once created they linger - though they will still move around. So some rooms, particularly those with lit lanterns or fresh food, are probably actually new."

As we walked, I started to see a trend - the rooms were getting bigger, and had stone walls more often. We went down stairs several times, though in one case we immediately backtracked.

"Wrong kind of basement," Cyne said, "and I don't want the children to start thinking about anything too scary."

We took a few more breaks, one of which was in what appeared to be a ballroom where the lights we carried barely reached the ceiling. Despite all the room, Katrin kept right by my side.

"I've lost all track of time, and this place is reminding me too much of the Necropolis. I'm worried I'll start picturing it and we'll just end up back there."

"Well, a copy of it."

"No, I mean really back there. You can just sort of... fall out of Nusos I think. Can you imagine? Ending up back there, alone?"

For the hundredth time, the image of Aestrid tipping backwards into the void flashed in front of my eyes. "Okay well... let's not think about it too much. Focus on the room we're actually looking for. I'm still hoping we don't have to sleep here."

But when we got moving again, the thought had been put in my head. And it did, after all, have a lot in common with the Necropolis - darkness, odd architecture, an endless series of little halls and rooms. Plus we were supposed to be thinking of somewhere stone, underground, old... After Cyne backtracked a fourth time I left my spot in line to tell him.

"Cyne, I'm sorry. Katrin and I are having trouble not thinking of the Necropolis."

He nodded. "I suspected as much. It is... understandable. Having a larger group like this keeps some of the creatures here away, but the mixed mental imagery means we travel slower. One person, with a clear mental image, can travel incredibly efficiently in Nusos. Instead we're dealing with mostly people new to the plane, and some of them are children that were raised in trees. It is... far from ideal. I think we should focus on thinking of somewhere comforting and cheerful so we can find somewhere pleasant to sleep. We can try again in the morning."

With our new instructions our surroundings improved quickly - the hallways widened, the rooms showed signs of cozy family life. Everyone seemed relieved to be told to just picture somewhere nice to camp for the night. I was, without thinking about it, mainly picturing Universal Servicing Systems with its empty rows of cubicles and reassuring knicknacks on desks - when I realized what I was doing I tried to switch to something that Nusos would be able to actually find, like a nice common room of an inn, but again my mind drifted and I started picturing the Long Haul Hotel. I was shaken out of my reverie by Cyne announcing that he'd found a room we could use, and was about to walk through the doorway when I felt myself release the loop of rope.

"Callie?" Errod called, "Why did you stop? You have to stay with the group."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. Can you just come here for a second?"

Everyone else had dropped the rope upon entering the room we were going to sleep in, so Errod handed one end to Sige and asked him to hold it before returning to me and forcing me to take a loop again. "What is it?"

"Do you see that, all the way down that hallway?"

It was probably seventy-five feet away, with most of the hallway between me and it being hidden in darkness. But I could see it glowing there on the ceiling, and even that far away I swore that I could hear it buzzing.

"Uh. Some kind of... magic light? I'm not sure. It could be dangerous - come on Callie, let's just get back to the others."

"Yeah. You're probably right." And I let Errod lead me away from that flickering cold light - the fluorescent panel that barely illuminated a metal door below it, on which was stenciled the English words EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY.