With the skeleton moved from the "mostly dead" column into the "all dead" column, and the world back to looking normal, I started to retrace my footsteps and try to get back to the clearing. The portal that got me here wasn't there anymore, but if there was any chance of it reopening, I didn't want to miss it

It took me a lot longer to get back to the clearing than I expected. I left fairly obvious signs of my passage, but the low amount of sunlight that managed to pass through the forest canopy, coupled with my lack of anything resembling tracking skills made my return trip take far longer than the chase, and it was getting towards evening when I finally stumbled my way back into the clearing. With the portal nowhere in sight, and no immediate danger presenting itself, I sat down to take stock of my situation

My first instinct was to attribute everything that happened to me to hallucinations. After all, authentic or not, who in the twentieth century has ever heard of a demon summoning circle that actually works? I was certain it wasn't drugs. I'm not above smoking the occasional joint, but I've never used anything more serious, and even the joints haven't been what anyone would call recent. I just didn't have the money for such indulgences these days. It was possible that one of the wires I was working on shorted out, and I got shocked and hit my head. I certainly ached all over after the portal transition and running through the woods…

And there I was treating everything that happened like it was real. It certainly felt real. Even the surreal parts, if that makes any sense.

OK. Let's think about this logically, I thought to myself. As far as I can recall, I've always had the habit of talking to myself, in my own head. the most logical explanation here is that I've hit my head and am now hallucinating. If that's the case, Herr Morgenstern will finish his phone call soon, find me, and get me to a hospital. Not much I can do about it from here. If, on the other hand, the whole portal and skeleton busyness were real, then I need to figure out how to get back.

So. Assuming this is real, and I can't count on the boss to get me out of it, the next question is "where am I?" There aren't any walking skeletons on Earth, as far as I know, but there also aren't any teleportation portals, so the skeleton doesn't automatically rule out Earth.

If I'm on earth, getting home would be as easy as finding the closest city, and may be taking a plane back. If I'm not on earth, I'll need a portal back. Hoping that my boss would reopen the portal was probably useless. From what I remembered about what happened before I got sucked into the portal, the room's electrical system was completely fried by the portal. Herr Morgenstern would need to find a new electrician to fix it, which would take time, and even when it was finished, I had no idea what caused the portal to open, and no guarantee that just turning the dance floor on again would work. And even if it worked, the wind was blowing out of the portal on this side, so I might be unable to enter it.

No, my best bet would be to find a way to open the portal from this side, and hope that I would get sucked back to Club Warlock. Lucky for me, the fanny pack with my primary tools and the plans for the dance floor was on my when the portal activated, and stayed with me when I ran from the skeleton.

I would be able to reconstruct the circle on this side.

Assuming I can find glowing electrical wiring, a computer with the right sequencing software, and a power source.

So, no matter where I am, I'll need to find civilization, and there's no use staying here.

It was getting dark by now, and I had a feeling that stumbling through the forest at night would not be a good idea. The problem was that sleeping in the forest clearing where one walking skeleton has found me already was probably not a lot safer. I took out a granola bar from my pack, and started munching on it while I tried to decide on a course of action, when a man stepped out of the forest, from the same direction the skeleton earlier came from.

He was fairly short, about a meter sixty, and he wore what at first glance appeared to be tattered green and brown rags, but were in truth a set of worn out but also well maintained leather armor, dyed in a pattern that would offer excellent camouflage in the forest. He was carrying a long wooden staff, and had a short sword strapped to his left hip and a quiver full of arrows over his shoulder.

As soon as he saw me from across the clearing, the man pulled on a string that was connected to the top of his staff, and before I could figure out that he was stringing what was, in fact, a longbow, he already had an arrow drawn and aimed at my heart, and was shouting at me in a language I could neither understand nor place.

"Don't shoot!" I cried at him, and raised my hand to show him that I was unarmed, and the next thing I knew was the piercing pain of an arrow hitting my right shoulder. I would have collapsed from the pain, but the damned arrow went straight through my shoulder and into the tree I was leaning against, immobilizing me.

The man who short me had a second arrow ready before I even registered that I've been hit, and he shouted at me again, in the same unknown language. I tried to yell that I was unarmed, but as soon as I opened my mouth he raised his bow and aimed it at my heart, and I got the message that he expected me to shut up. We stayed like this, me nailed to a tree and him aiming an arrow at me, until three more figures walked out of the woods. It seemed like we were waiting for hours to me, but it was probably closer to minutes, since there was still enough light to see the people who were probably the archer's friends.

The first person to enter the clearing was even shorter than the archer, being a meter forty at most, from the top of his crested helmet to the bottom of his armored boot, and almost as wide as he was tall. He was wearing steel armor that covered every inch of his body, except for the eye slits. His helmet was crested with what looked like red hair, the same color as the impressive beard, plaited into a complex braid and stuffed into his belt. He carried a massive hammer in his left hand, and a shield as tall as he was in his right, lacquered in white and with the shape of a black dragon roaring on it.

Behind the armored man (dwarf?) came a tall woman wearing a red leather armor. She was taller than the archer, by about five centimeters, with short black hair beneath a leather skullcap, and was carrying a long wooden staff in her hand.

The last person to enter the forest I had trouble recognizing as a person, at first. It looked like a two meter tall tree was walking into the clearing. As it approached, I could see that it was vaguely humanoid, with two wooden feet and two wooden arms, but it still looked like a miniature walking oak to me.

They all stopped in their tracks when they saw me, and all four started talking to each other in that unknown language. The archer lost a lot of his tension when the trio had joined him, and returned his drawn arrow to the quiver so he'd have a hand to gesture with. He gestured at me and wiggled his fingers, talking fast, until the red clad woman raised her own hand to cut him off, and turned to me.

She started talking it what was clearly a different language, rhythmic like a chant or a poetry recital, and waved her hands in a complex pattern in front of me. I was still in pain, and between one blink and the next the world changed again. Like before, the ground and trees vanished, replaced with the vertical light ropes I now knew were somehow the trees themselves. The archer, dwarf and walking tree were replaced with pools of light, the dwarf's pool being noticeably stronger, and streaked with black patterns. The red clad woman, however, was obstructed by what looked like a tapestry made of light, and as she continued talking I could see the tapestry growing larger, and a pattern looking like an electrical circuit started to appear on it. Somehow, I knew when the pattern was complete even before she stopped talking, but I still had no idea what it was.

I blinked again, and the world turned back to normal, and I could now see the woman looking very closely at me. Seemingly satisfied, she turned back to her team mates, shaking her hand and talking to them, now back to the first unrecognized language. All four of them seemed to relax, and the dwarf approached me, talking in the same language, but this time clearly asking me a question. Somehow, I got a feeling of peace from the heavily armored fighter, and while I was still in pain and fairly angry with the Fantasy Four, I managed to answer him politely, "I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you are saying"

Hearing me talk, the archer quickly raised his bow again, shouting something at his friends, but the red clad woman shoved his bow down and answered him in a somewhat disgusted tone.

The dwarf asked me the same question again, clearly understanding me about as much as I was understanding him. "Je suis désolé, mais je ne sais pas ce que vous dites", I repeated my statement in my badly accented French.

By this time, the dwarf has reached me and placed one large hand on my shoulder, the other grasping at the arrow, and with one swift move pulled the arrow out of my shoulder, causing me to black out for the second time in one day.