Xander, Kayde, Jorge, and Gwendolyn all shudder as the word distortions escapes Drakthar’s mouth, the terror associated with that word reintroduced into their minds as they see a horde of distorted fire creatures moving around the city streets before them.

“What the hell are those?” Lunette asks, this being her and Kali’s first time seeing such things.

“It’s hard to explain. The Scientist said they were created as a reaction of failed time travel, or… I think they are like energy or something that is created when something like that is attempted. I don’t remember all the details… it’s all kind of confusing,” Kayde does his best to explain in a hushed voice.

“The part I don’t get though is how are they here if we prevented all of that time travel stuff?” Kayde thinks to himself.

“How are we supposed to deal with these things?” Kali asks, trying to learn more about them.

“Oh you can just hit them like anything else and they will disappear eventually… at least that’s how it worked with the last ones,” Kayde responds, it being a simple answer than Kali was expecting.

While the others are talking, Xander stares at the distortions in the distance, watching as they stir around the city streets. Something is off about them; they are not the same as the ones they encountered in Melusarej all those years ago. They are oddly humanoid, like the one at the tower that opened up a giant portal that let the monster through, the same one that wiped out the Silent Brotherhood in the other timeline.

“Guys look closer at them,” Xander tells the others, stopping their conversation.

Kayde is the first to notice what Xander already has, “They are human, or at least they are shaped like they are. It’s kind of like the one that summoned that monster”.

“Aye, they are, but that one seemed more human than these ones do. They’re just wandering around like they don’t have a purpose, but that other one… it was like it could think,” Jorge voices his observations.

“We need to get out of here, if we wait any longer they could find us and swarm us,” Gwendolyn suggests, noticing the group of them getting larger and larger, as well as the area around them not having many escape routes if they were discovered.

They begin to move through the streets, the advanced architectural marvel that inspired awe within them before now only inspires fear as they spot distortion after distortion around the city.

Once the coast is clear and they cannot see any distortions around, they duck into an abandoned house to discuss what to do.

“Okay, you guys need to explain everything you know about these things,” Lunette is the first to speak once they get inside.

“The first time we encountered them was in Melusarej. The Scientist pulled a lever on a machine that he thought would turn back time… but it backfired. As a result, those things were created. They destroyed Melusarej in a day, rampaging through the city. If one of them touches you… you can lose yourself for a moment, most people ended up screaming until they snapped out of it. We fought them again outside of the desert capital, that’s when we met Jorge and learned that they can be hurt with ordinary weapons. I don’t know how but if we hit it enough times it will eventually disappear. The last time we encountered them was at a tower in the mountains where the Cult of Chaos, an organization that was working with these things, was hiding out. At that tower, we saw the distortion Kayde and Jorge mentioned before. It seemed more alive than the others and when it saw us it summoned this thing out of a portal above the tower… when it did that it also opened a second portal that caused us to travel two years forward in time… which I was forced through against my will,” Xander gives the others a dirty look at he wraps up his explanation, remembering their decision at the time to leave Gwendolyn behind.

“Hey it worked out man, she didn’t die and you’re married now so let it go,” Kayde tries to give Xander perspective so he can get over it.

“Ya know lads, that priest we were with seemed to know something about that second portal,” Jorge recalls the reactions of the priest they had captured at the time.

“That’s right... if he did know something… wait! Gwendolyn, you spent two years pretending to be one of them. At that time did they mention anything about portals or summoning some monster?” Xander asks her, thinking maybe there is something she could have learned.

“No… I never heard about anything like that. It was mostly battle plans… successful ones, the Sacrosanct Empire never really stood a chance against the distortions because half of their military force was already in the desert so they never saw the attack from the other side coming. I didn’t really interact with the distortions much, but the priests there had an odd fascination with them… it was like they worshiped these creatures,” Gwendolyn tries to remember what she can about her time with the Cult of Chaos and Black Sun Empire.

“None of this matters, it’s not like there is a portal down here. We need to wipe out every single one of them and then figure out how to escape,” Drakthar coldly points out.

“Hold on what if there is a portal down here?” Kayde takes the opposite more optimistic approach.

“Say we were to find a portal, there is no telling what time we would end up in, based off you guys being transported forward two years,” Lunette points out, thinking back on what Xander’s story.

“It doesn’t matter, as long as I’m with you guys I’ll be okay,” Gwendolyn states while looking over at Xander specifically.

“This is all speculation anyway, Drakthar is right we shouldn’t pin all our hopes on there being some magical portal down here. The threat right now is those things, which should be our focus. We don’t even know why they are down here,” Kali tries to get them back on track.

“It is simple, this civilization tried to mess with time. That is how they are here,” Xander states plainly, thinking everyone had already figured that one out.

“That makes sense, we found an underground city with no one in it, I guess the distortions killed them all off or something,” Kayde agrees, not seeing any other obvious answer.

“Something been bothering me though. This place must have been heavily populated based on the level of technology that is here… so how come we haven’t seen any bodies? I haven’t seen a single human remain since we have been here,” Lunette mentions, causing them all to realize the same thing.

“This is a good thing, it means the people must have escaped. There has to be a way out!” Kali jumps to the conclusion excitedly.

“I don’t think ya are right about that one missy. There aren’t any remains because of the distortions, the human shape they have… it’s because the dead bodies are inside them,” Jorge suggests, remembering the human shape to the ones they saw earlier.

Everyone gets silent, realizing what Jorge said makes sense and also draining the brief hope they got from Kali’s words out of them.

Kayde breaks the silence and dire looks of sorrow, trying to pragmatically plan their next move, “I see two options. One, try and find the machine, lever, or whatever that failed to turn back time. It could give us a clue to where a portal could be if there is one. Two, we destroy every distortion down here, and then try to find a way out that very well doesn’t exist… yeah, it looks pretty hopeless, but hey we’ll figure it out”.

“We don’t know how many are down here lads, I don’t like the idea of fighting all of em,” Jorge gives his opinion while taking another swig of whatever bottle he has moved on to.

“We should figure out more about what happened, we could look for buildings that appear to be important, maybe they can give us clues to what is really happening down here. We only fight along the way if he have to,” Xander suggests, seeking to give them some sort of direction to keep their minds occupied.

“Want to move out in the morning?” Lunette jokes, knowing there is no way to tell what time it is.

“I’m not really tired, we could go now if everyone else is fine,” Kali notes, not able to force herself to sleep right now.

“I’m not tired either lads,” Jorge agrees as well, preferring to do some searching now instead of waiting.

“Sure, we can go unless anyone else has any objections?” Kayde asks, waiting for someone to say they prefer to stay put, but no one does.

“Okay, let’s go then,” he stands up and heads towards the door.

“Let’s head to the center of the city, important places are usually in the middle, at least that is how it is in the capital, Aconblasam, and Melusarej,” Gwendolyn suggests as they make their way outside the door.

They look up using the ceiling as their guide towards the center of the city, assuming it will get higher, leading to the highest point in the center due to its dome-like nature.

“Guys, I think that looks kind of important,” Kali comments as she notices a circular building that has a road surrounding it after a few hours of walking towards the center.

Kayde looks up and can barely see the ceiling that is typically illuminated by the many streetlights that were turned on when they activated the generator.

“Okay, this could be the middle, let’s check it out,” he agrees.

They go inside and find a circular desk at the center with smaller offices along the walls with file cabinets in between them. Kayde goes to open one of the file cabinets, but instead of a drawer opening up a screen pops up on it.

“What the hell is this?” He asks himself as he scrolls through a list of options.

“Wow… this is some high tech stuff, they really were advanced down here,” Lunette notes in awe as she watches Kayde use the interface.

Instead of letting him look through it she grabs what looks like a crowbar out of her bag and starts to rip at one of the other file cabinets intending to examine the machinery behind what causes the screen.

While Lunette starts to stuff different parts into her bag for later experiments, the others start to use the interfaces to try and figure out what happened to this civilization. Instead of finding useful information they learn about the history of the city, mainly through articles about happenings within the city.

Some of them catch Kayde’s eye, “Wait, they had elections down here… they were a democracy! That’s pretty cool”. He looks around after these comments realizing maybe everyone else doesn’t share the same forward-thinking he does.

“Looks like the last guy in charge was someone named Draco Stark,” Xander mentions, having read the same sort of things Kayde has.

“What a weird name,” Kali comments as she scrolls though, looking for the most current articles in the files.

“The article on him getting elected is the most recent thing they have here,” Xander realizes, as he is no longer able to scroll down.

“It looks like whatever happened, it happened a thousand years ago,” he notes.

“How do you know that?” Kali asks, noticing the dates on the articles make no sense, having a different calendar system than the one they use.

“Because look at the date in the top right of this screen. This number is exactly one thousand higher than this one, all the other ones are below twenty, so this must mark the year,” Xander points to the top right where there is a sequence of numbers that he assumes marks the current date, seeing a similar sequence near the top of each article.

“Guys, I think I found something,” Gwendolyn interrupts them, having been looking around in the circular desk in the middle of the room. Inside there are actual papers, not electronic articles like the ones stored on the database that’s disguised as file cabinets.

“The people here, it looks like they didn’t like this Stark guy,” she tells them.

“What do you mean? The people elected him, they must have liked him for that to have happened,” Kayde questions what she found; assuming one must be likable to be elected in a democracy.

“No not the public, the group of people that were in charge before him… it looks like they were plotting to stop his election, or rather stop him from actually taking over,” she clarifies, that being what she meant when she said people here.

“Hold on… are you saying these guys tried to turn back time to stop this guy from becoming their leader?” Kayde asks, realizing how utterly ridiculous that sounds out loud.

Lunette starts to laugh at that idea, taking a break at scavenging parts, “They must have hated this guy really badly if they went to all that trouble… although I guess if I had the ability to casually make a time machine to prevent something I didn’t want to happen I would do the same,” she changes her tune once thinking about it.

“Okay, great, they turned back time to stop this Draco Stark guy from taking over. We know why it happened, but we still don’t know anything that will help us,” Kali stands up, this feeling of hopelessness still hanging over her.

“It looks like you’re right Kayde, it says right here they were developing the machine at a place called York Laboratories and that they had just finished testing it when Draco was elected,” Gwendolyn holds up a part of the document that states as such.

“Well it looks like we need to find York Laboratories, does it say on there where it is?” Kayde asks her.

“No, it doesn’t, but maybe it will on one of these other ones,” Gwendolyn notes as she begins to flip through more of the papers.

The others go over to help her and together they look through all of the documents in and around the circular desk to see if it mentions where York Laboratories is, but they find nothing.

“Shit, well I guess we’ll just have to look ourselves lads,” Jorge notes as they finish.

“Should be fine… I noticed signs on the side of some of the buildings here, there could be one that says York Laboratories,” Xander speculates based off what he has seen.

They grab the papers specifically mentioning the plan to prevent the election and leave the circular building, combing the streets in order to find York Laboratories. They find themselves at a street intersection while searching. Suddenly the three directions forward are being closed off by slow-moving distortions that have noticed them.

As they get closer they can see what Jorge said is true, within each of the masses of distorted fire they can see the brittle skeletons of those who used to inhabit this place a thousand years ago.

Turning around in an attempt to escape the same direction they came from, they notice more, flowing in, cutting off that direction as well. Xander’s eyes dart around, scanning the area for a place to go to avoid them.

“Over there, that building, we can hide inside it,” he calls out, pointing towards a building on the corner. They don’t waste any time, running towards the first door in sight along the side of the building.

Drakthar tries turning the knob, but it doesn’t open. He stands back and tries to bash it down, but it doesn’t budge, the hard edge remaining firm against Drakthar’s equally firm shoulder.

“Over there,” Gwendolyn points towards an alleyway alongside the building once realizing Drakthar won’t be able to get the door open. At the end of the alleyway is just a dead-end, the only way out is a door on the building to the right, but like the one on the front, this one doesn’t budge.

Drakthar turns around to face the distortions that are following them, “Now we fight,” he declares as he draws his axe. Kali joins him in the front, the alleyway only wide enough for two people to stand side by side within it.

The others draw their rifles and bows at the back, preparing to handle those that are filing in to face them. They fire and in Jorge’s case throw fireballs at the incoming distortions as Drakthar and Kali fend them off front the front.

They cut through distortion after distortion, the bones within them disappearing with the fire as they fall. Just as they are finally starting to thin out, the door to the side of the building bursts open, distortions pile out of it, onto Jorge who was standing right next to it. He screams as he collapses to the ground in pain.

Xander cuts them down from the back, with Kayde turning around to help him, just long enough for the two of them to push the door closed again. The two of them push up against it, holding it shut while the others finish off the ones coming in from the street.

The sounds of banging against the doors are accompanied by muttering from the still collapsed Jorge as they fell the last distortion that entered the alleyway.

Now that things have calmed down slightly, Lunette looks over at Jorge, “What happened to him?”

“This is what happens when one of them touches you. It should die down in a minute,” Kayde explains as he struggles to keep the door closed with Xander.

“We need to move,” Drakthar states, eager to move out while the coast is clear.

“Jorge is not right yet,” Kayde tells him, he not able to see what is going in the back.

Drakthar pushes his way back there and throws the muttering Jorge over his shoulder. The others clear the alleyway before Xander and Kayde let go of the door, the two of them running behind the others as the distortions pour out behind them.

They run to a building a couple of blocks away and hide inside, Drakthar puts Jorge down on the floor.

“It has been ten minutes,” Lunette points out, Kayde mentioning before it should stop after a minute.

“I don’t know what is going on… it never lasted this long,” Kayde starts to panic as he looks down at Jorge. Just as there is a silence Jorge starts to scream and a fireball is summoned in his hand and lobbed at the ceiling.

They watch as the wooden part of the ceiling catches and starts to spread before dying out, ashes of the burnt area falling down around them as it does.

“Okay, he just got increasingly more dangerous,” Kali comments as she looks down at him.

“Let me out of here! You can’t do this to a person!” Jorge starts to scream as he writhes around on the floor.

“You can go where ever you want Jorge,” Kayde calmly responds to him as Jorge pounds his fists against the floor.

“We can’t keep him here like this. We need to find a place to confine him that is sturdy so he can’t destroy it and can’t get out either,” Gwendolyn points out, worried he could hurt himself or others if he continues on like this.

“What like a jail?” Kali asks, that being the first thing she thinks of based on Gwendolyn’s description.

“Yeah, a jail cell would be a great idea actually,” Gwendolyn agrees now that she thinks about it.

“Okay, so now we are looking for a jail and York Laboratories?” Kayde notes, trying to decide what they should be doing so they aren’t in this smoke-filled building anymore.

Drakthar picks up Jorge again and they head out, wandering aimlessly trying to find what seems like two needles in two equally big haystacks.

“Hey, what is going on?” Fore barks up at Kayde.

It is then that Kayde remembers that he has a metal detector to find such a needle.

“Hey Fore, you want to find us a jail?” Kayde asks him, trying to use Fore’s luck to find what they are looking for.

“Jail?” Fore questions, never having heard such a term before.

“Yeah, it’s like a place with metal bars where they keep people so they can’t get out,” Kayde explains as best he can so Fore will be able to find it.

The wolf tilts his head curiously before responding, “Okay”.

The others watch as Fore takes the lead and starts to strut along confidently in a direction. Eventually, he walks into a building that doesn’t seem that different from the others.

“This doesn’t look like a jail or a laboratory,” Xander notes as they make it inside. Fore isn’t finished walking, he continues down a set of stairs in the corner. They follow him down and see holding cells, not ones made by the city for a specified jail, but ones that used to house animals.

“You know I’m never going to get used to his luck,” Kali states as she sits down at the edge of the room. Drakthar puts Jorge down in one of the cells before Kayde closes it, wiggling the door to test how sound it is.

“Yeah, this will work. Good job buddy,” he pats Fore on the head while complimenting his efforts.

“Wait, hold on… if we are looking for York Laboratories shouldn’t we just follow Fore?” Xander notes, thinking of how they just found the cells.

“You just put that one together? Anyway once he is locked up and rests up a little we can do just that,” Kayde mocks him a little bit before sitting down at the edge of the room. The others relax as well, this being the first time they have been able to do so since arriving here in this mysterious civilization.