Gorren hardly made his way through the wood. He didn’t even try to be subtle as he crashed through the shrubbery, stomping over the plants that hindered him and pushing aside the others. Still, in his defense, he couldn’t do any different.

His stone body felt heavy, stiff and was awkward to move around with. It looked like a stony and squat reproduction of a short humanoid wrought by black rock. Two glowing quartz stabbed into the head made for eyes.

Gorren would be the first to say that golem body wasn’t exactly top-notch, but even a mage of his caliber needed time to build a worthy Soul Vessel, more time than he was willing to spend over his own. After all, he needed it just for explorative purposes, nothing more. If anything else, the small effort went into building it only made it more easily expendable.

He stopped, both to let the arcane ligaments of the vessel a pause from stress and to give the time for his golems to catch up.

Snatchers and Jaws bounded along the stomped trail he had left, followed by tip-toeing Magicians. Many carried boxes and cages, others were festooned with ropes, hooks and nets along with other implements that rattled and clinked with every step.

Gorren felt a little burst of pride in the few seconds they needed to reach him. Even rushed, his work was good. Strength and speed, if not subtleness. Very pleasing.

The Golems stopped by him, their proto-minds lighting with unvoiced obedience. With a mental smile, Gorren patted a Jaw over the head and resumed his march.

The trees passed him by quickly as he marched, his Mana-powered body giving him the strength and stamina to move between the foliage almost unhindered. Soon, he settled into a steady pace and could think.

The reason why he was forced to make use of a vessel rather than going out in his own body, that was something he didn’t wish to dwell upon, not now. He had raged and cursed about it enough. He would do it again, but now he needed and wanted, to focus on what he needed in the present.

Aside from anything the Gremlins seemed to believe, he had no idea where in the Material Plane they were. It had been all too quick, too sudden for him to get even a cursory glance where the dimensional barrier was being pierced. But honestly, he didn’t care. Right now, it only mattered that they were in a somewhat reclusive location. More precise details were ultimately irrelevant.

It had always been his plan to return to the Material Plane to acquire more materials. Plants mainly. He needed live specimens to extend his range of possibilities. Animal lifeforce could bring him only so far. He also needed a vegetal animus for his works.

The method which that return had been accomplished wasn’t exactly the one he’d choose, but who cared. He was going to exploit it all the same and to hell with everything.

There was only one big problem to hound him. He had studied the portal extensively and while he was confident he could close it, he needed time, focus and effort, none of them being available right now. He couldn’t seclude himself in work and leave the compound undefended, as there was nobody he could trust with it.

No, right now he needed to build his defenses on this side of the barrier, stockpile more resources and bide his time. When a degree of security was achieved, he would delegate to others and work to seal the breach.

It felt redundant, especially after all the time he had spent working on the compound, and it was also infuriating that he’d have to work for something that he would later abandon, but to hell with it. He was used to obstacles. He’d just grit his teeth and push forward. Like always.

“Like always.” He murmured, and that mantra filled him with angry energy.

He came to a stop against a small tree, the plant groaning under his weight. At his gesture, a Snatcher scuttled close and took the map out of the backpack nailed to its back. It dutifully unrolled it, allowing for Gorren to look.

“Mh, getting close.” The mage murmured, observing the scrawls. Trich and Krik’s writing skill were pathetic, but they had given him a more or less general visual of the island and that was what it mattered. Especially, they had noted points that seemed promising, with an accuracy that he could almost find surprising.

One in particular attracted his attention. He didn’t relish the idea of going to one of those places, but it wasn’t like he could be picky.

With a mental snort that his form couldn’t reproduce, he started back down the wood, golems quickly following.

After a while that they marched, Gorren started to notice changes in his surroundings. The trees and the undergrowth were thinning out, while the soil was getting wetter and more malleable. His heavy body sank easily, and he had to push to get a foot after the other.

Eventually, they reached a flooded area. Green-colored water replaced the dirt, with tall, thin tree jutting out of it. Small islands covered with ferns, moss and short plants emerged there and then from the water. Swarms of insects busily flooded the air, their buzzing almost deafening. It was only added by the chirping of who knew how many birds, alongside the sounds of the wildlife

Gorren swatted away the insects trying to pick at him, but gave up soon.

I hate out-door excursions.

His group had to pick their way carefully through the swamp, feeling out for every solid-looking piece of dirt before actually stepping over it. In these conditions, the heaviness of the golems played against them, and more than once a slipping golem had to be saved by Gorren’s magic.

Ferine eyes observed them from the bushes, but no predator dared to stand in their way. As much as they were concerned, the things passing by were as alive as the rocks under the earth. Even if they could bring them down, the strange energies surrounding those walking stones told them to stay well away.

Thanks to that, the group passed the swamp without any major incident. Following a small river, they made their way down a series of slopes, the golems triggering small avalanches of wet dirt with their weight.

In that stony form, Gorren couldn’t pick up scents but very faintly. Even like that, he smelled the stink the same moment it wafted over them. It felt like someone had just stuffed used socks in his nose. It smelled of rot and rotten eggs left out in the sun for a week and then put to boil into a broth made with sewage water and a juice of elbow grease and horse feces.

He stumbled and grimaced, or at least tried to, his stone face impervious to smell-based emotions. Ignoring the helpfully quizzical emotion coming from the golems, he damped down his sense of smell to almost non-existence and stomped forward.

Alright, i got the stupid goblins. But maybe this time isn’t what you think. Come on.

He felt like he deserved something more than what he thought he was going to find. A small recompense, after all that sudden chaos. It wasn’t asking too much, right?

A Marsh Treant. Boggards. I wouldn’t spit even over a nest of Drowners.

They were, down to their stinking, mud-encrusted bones, revolting creatures all. He was still ready to settle for those if the alternative was what he feared.

The smell got worse the further they moved down, reaching improbable levels.

This looks to be a fairly isolated island. Maybe there is something rare. A Dryad Enclave perhaps. It doesn’t need to be though. Ghouls are okay. Zombies too. Heck, i’d get a Wraith.

His hopes got more and more desperate the more they advanced and the more the smell thickened. It reached a point that he could almost swear he could see it, wafting in the air in reeking clouds.

Trolls?

Gorren moved aside the last shrubbery and emerged from the trees. As he did, his last hope died away with a croak.

The marsh gave way to a bog. Where it wasn’t a morass, the sickly-looking earth showed sallow reeds like a leprous man may be showing his armpit hair. The small river made a bend, like it too, after the first glance, had decided that, no, it wasn’t going to stay there, thank you very much.

Even with his barely functioning sense of smell, Gorren was sure that the stink there could have melted through walls. It was more than a simple smell. It felt like a living thing, the sins of all humanity condensed, pickled in sewage water and then let loose as vengeful spirits. If it wasn’t insanity, he would swear that even the golem flinched at it.

At the center of the morass, like the spawning point of all filth in the world, there was a pool. Grayish, muddled water that looked like it had remained there from the beginning of the world lapped against mounds of rotting refuse. Bones, pieces of meat, wood and who knew what else, all covered in rot and swarming with insects and worms and unwholesome life.

Suddenly, the largest mound shifted. Rotting wood and refuse tumbled away, revealing a bulbous form. It looked like a rotten potato, and it was the size of a wagon. Three razor-stunted tentacles flailed lazily alongside a fourth, that was stunted.

As Gorren watched, while trying to stop the mental gagging, the potato split open, revealing rows of jagged teeth with a hissing breath. It didn’t move from its throne of filth, didn’t even show signs of acknowledging their presence. Instead, it just ponderously turned with a series of wet squelches and sank back in the pool.

Gorren repressed the need to slap his forehead.

Otyough, of course.

The most stinking, revolting, horrible creature of the Material Plane, and probably beyond, and of course it had to be the closest creature he could make use of. Those stupid goblins weren’t enough, obviously.

Gorren grumbled.

Needs make the tools.

With a resigned sigh, he had his golems move into action. As they advanced, a longer tentacle emerged from the stinking morass. This one ended with a large, fan-like protuberance. A cluster of eyes peered from the center of it.

Gorren was sure of seeing some concern in it.

You can thank me later for taking you out from this, but i much prefer if you remained like that. I really don’t need other things that ought to be silent start to talk.

The golems made for wonderful workers. They didn’t complain, didn’t need for drink or food and their endurance was limitless.

In just a few days, they had built a strong palisade in the plateau facing the portal, using trees chopped down deeper in the forest. Since the island looked fairly isolated from civilizations, Gorren had decided that there was no use for subtlelty. The wall was four-meter tall, made from a double row of strong logs deprived of branches and smoothed, so as not to allow for any easy climb. It formed a semicircle, running from the rock wall upon which the plateau ended and ending against the same wall, encompassing almost all of the flat space. Small battlements had been built on the inside to allow for sentinels to peer for any approachers. A gate, flanked on each side by a small tower, was held closed shut by strong wooden doors.

A strip of land before the wall had been emptied of tree and shrubbery so that none could came close without being seen. Groups of golems patrolled it, while others silently watched from the walls. A ditch had been dug before the wall and ran along all of its length.

The gate swung ponderously open under the labors of a group of Snatchers, and Gorren briskly stepped inside. The golems he had brought with him for the exploration followed him, carrying the unmoving form of the Otyough.

Inside, the ground had been flattened thoroughly, with the dirt dug from the ditch amassed against the base of the walls. Three squat, log buildings had been built against the rocky wall, the central one leaning against it like an old man struggling to hide a secret. And a secret it held indeed.

“Master! You‘re back!” Trich and Krik ran up to him, looking way too relieved to see him. It still vaguely surprised him how the duo, along with many of the Gremlins, still looked at his golems with concern. Pah. All the better for keeping discipline.

He held up a hand, signaling for them to wait. Very pleasingly, they obeyed right away, scurrying out of his way.

Gorren led the golems to an open space of flattened dirt and had them unload the Otyough there. Equipment of various kinds stood around, from somewhat mundane objects like cauldrons and bags of ingredients to strange apparatus that didn’t seem to make any sense.

Gorren directed the golems as they bound the behemoth with ropes and nets, that were then nailed into the ground with thick metal stakes.

Even heavily sedated, the Otyough didn’t make for the best of sights, and it was with grim relief that Gorren gave his back to it, once he found the bindings satisfactory.

Trich and Krik waited for him with eager smiles.

“Start the procedure.” He instructed them. “The mixture for the first injections must have only three parts of the Zsleg Compound and one part of Astrokel, understood?”

The two Gremlins nodded with enthusiasm and scurried off, already wielding paddles and Mana injectors.

Gorren watched them for a moment as they started trafficking with the equipment around the Otyough, lighting fires and putting machines into motion.

They are nosy, but at least they have taken to transmutation well.

Putting aside those thoughts, he marched toward the closest of the building.

Inside, a bunch of Gremlins labored between pots and boxes of all sizes, all containing different kinds of plants. They classified seeds and controlled roots, examined leaves and tested wood, all following a specific list of instructions that he had personally set and that throned at the center of the room as minute writing on a chalkboard.

The moment he was noticed peeking in, the chattering of work gave way to a wave of cheers and happy welcomes.

He grunted, and retreated, leaving his minions to their work.

Good. These ingredients will be useful.

From the other building came the sounds of assorted wildlife, hisses and barks and other, stranger ones. Gorren listened for a moment, before nodding and stomping toward the central hut. No commotion meant no problems, and he hadn’t time to waste.

The golems on guard gave him a cold acknowledgment as he stepped past them and inside.

The building was spacious but pretty much empty. One of the walls was the rock of the hill it leaned against. Right at the center, it opened into a ragged hole that could have once been the entrance to a cavern, but that now led into a corridor of uneven black rock. There was no sign to mark the portal’s presence, the rock of the Material Plane just abruptly giving way to the Kor.

Gorren grimaced to it for a moment, before noticing that there was already somebody in there.

A Gremlin in the sturdy apron of his Acolytes stood before the only other thing in the room apart from the portal. It was a dazzling-looking apparatus, made from interlocking, golden plates. Hovering above a steel basement covered with minute, red scripture, they formed up into a ball, but they never stood truly still. They constantly shifted positions with a series of clicks and whirrs, the ball seemingly always about to lose its form but never actually doing it, as the plates kept filling back the place they left. The shifting allowed glimpses of a shining mass of crystals hidden inside the ball,

Gorren stomped close, and the Gremlin turned desperate eyes to him.

“Master.” He whined. “It is really necessary to waste them like that?”

Gorren mentally sighed, ignoring the lack of proper respect.

Even amongst an obedient and dutiful species, Zurat was a particularly invested apprentice, the “i give my life for a greater objective and take pride from it” type of Gremlin. None of his Acolytes had taken well his announcement that they would be using all five of the Gamma-Orange level Mana Crystals they had been cultivating from his lifeforce to build a Mana Scrambler, but Zurat had the worst of them all.

He couldn’t say that he liked the straight out adoration with which the Gremlin regarded him, but he could at least empathize a bit. The loss of those crystals would essentially shut down any operation in the Cultivation Chamber for months. Still, the Scrambler was needed. All his operations leaked off a small trickle of Mana that could be easily picked out by a trained Seeker. The Scrambler worked to hide it, masking it as normal ambient energy.

Even if he doubted that someone with the right abilities was close enough to do it, there was no point in taking that big of a chance.

“I know, my servant. It pains me greatly as well.” He said, his voice coming as a rumble because of his body. “But needs make the tools. You will surely find other ways to make yourself useful to me.”

He didn’t really mean for that to be an encouragement, but the Gremlin looked a tiny more heartened all the same. He bowed low to him and then walked out, probably to join his brethren.

Gorren waited for his steps to fade, then walked toward the portal.

He liked to think of himself as a man of action. He could be slow or fast in taking a decision, but once his mind was made, he stuck to the path, no matter what. Immune to doubts, regrets, hesitations, he burned a path for himself through each and every difficulty.

That was the theory. Like so many things, the reality was a bit different.

The barrier announced his existence by a soft ripple into the air. Gorren felt it like he pierced the surface of a frigid pool of water. The stone that lodged itself in the pit of his stomach didn’t come from the sensation though.

Every dimension, his studies had revealed to him, had a specific “frequency”. It was an invisible vibration, harmony, silent music at which all things danced. If he was given to poetry, he’d call it the song of the Plane, its voice.

All the creatures that inhabited that Plane shared that vibration, their Mana singing with the same rhythm. It was their proof of belonging, which allowed them to touch and interact and be interacted with by the Plane itself. Finally, it was what allowed them to exist in the Plane, their right to enter and move and live and die inside of its boundaries.

A right, it seemed, that didn’t belong to him anymore.

Stopping by the threshold, he focused. A mental string flew out of his mind and into the compound. Focusing over it, he willed himself to flow away through it, leaving that stony form behind.

For a moment, he was an unbound spirit, flying through the air like a gust of wind. The next, he was back into his old body, painfully squeezed in the prison of flesh and muscles and bones.

He waited for the sensation to fade, alongside with the cramps of remaining immobile for so long.

That he was forced to project himself into a vessel chafed at him, even if the shorter distance allowed him to make use of true constructs instead of mental constructions. Despite everything he had received, on the contrary, he still liked to think of the Material Plane as his home.

Problem was, the Plane didn’t seem to think the same.

The frequency of the Mana flowing through his body was different from the one singing in the Plane’s bowels. It wouldn’t allow him to enter its boundaries, not in that form. He could force his way through using his power, but what can a single being do against the will of an entire world? At best, he could advance ten-step in, before the pressure forced him to go back.

He gritted his teeth, rubbing his sore shoulder.

I must accept it. The Material World isn’t my world anymore.

Easy to say. So, so difficult to truly accept.

But it explained everything. From the innate hostility of the animals, to why his blood wasn’t accepted by the earth. He had become… something else, an outsider.

It’s the Crux now my world? No, it cannot be…

He angrily shook a clenched fist, like he was threatening an invisible enemy.

To hell with it!

Unwanted or not, that was a new insight into the structure of his body. Little by little, his knowledge of its strange nature increased. Soon, he would be able to understand it completely, and then new paths would open. Toward power, toward vengeance, toward completion.

He rode the wave of anger and frustration and regret, allowing it to swamp it, before pressing it back with the sheer force of will.

It didn’t make it go away, it didn’t make him feel better. It just left him a shaking container of anger, but it didn’t matter.

Good. It will give me strength.

Bursting with the sheer need to do, he jumped at his feet. The Kor opened obediently before him, allowing him to stride out of the sealed chamber and into the compound.

Two important matters waited for his attention.