1

The Inmates cast their buff spells before jumping up three feet into the portal. It wasn’t too hard for Damon, as he was much bigger and jumped through vertically.

Harper couldn’t jump that high and dove through the portal like a swimmer. When she landed on the soft earth of the nineteenth room, she knew they were back in the basement. She rolled her body on the ground to catch a full view of the room.

Damon was standing close to her. He had cast Firefly, illuminating the dark space in the room. He smiled down at her. “Can you believe it?”

Harper surveyed the small room and saw only one figure in the room. Miguel was standing in the center with his arms extended toward her. Involuntary tears started flowing down her cheeks, and she couldn’t put words to her happiness, so Miguel spoke first.

“Yes. It is me, Harper,” he told her.

“But, you were… you were…” she stuttered.

He shook his head. “No. I wasn’t dead,” he told her, then laughed hollowly. “I was pretty close, but Cloud Nine intervened.”

“But… but they can’t see us in the realm?”

“I know, I know.” He walked toward her with his arms reaching out. “Somehow, they were able to track us and they knew I was in danger. One moment, I was in that wooden egg and the next, they transferred me to the final realm.” He reached her now and wrapped his arms around her.

Harper’s body shuddered with a longing that had ached her soul. She looked tentatively at Damon, who was backing away, giving them space. He nodded reassuringly at her.

“Oh, Harper,” Miguel said. “You should see that final realm. They call it the ‘time’ realm, but that doesn’t do it justice. It is so incredible!” He squeezed her tightly.

She started sobbing.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he whispered. “I was in pretty bad shape, on the verge of dying, then I touched the time orb and it transformed me. It made me whole again.”

She looked into his eyes. “Miguel, is it really you?”

He smiled. “Yes, it is me, my love.”

Harper leaned into his body, feeling weak and overcome with emotion, and she cried some more. He kissed her forehead, and she instantly remembered the softness of his lips.

“But… but where is the monster in this room?” she asked.

“Taken care of,” he soothed, then kissed her fully on the lips. “We’re going to go home now.”

“What? How?” She glanced over at Damon again. The orc was beaming, grinning from ear to ear. He retreated further into the room then stood rigidly, waiting for her to adjust to the surprising development.

“I’ve arranged everything, Harper,” Miguel cooed. He pulled her closer. “There’s no need to chase after a dead CEO, my love,” he whispered, “and there’s no reason to finish the tower. Cloud Nine can bring us home from here. Trust me.”

She hugged him as hard as she could. Oh my god, Miguel, I can’t believe it’s true, she telepathed to him.

He smiled at her blankly, not reacting to her words.

Miguel?

Still no reaction.

“Did you turn your telepathy off?” she asked.

He looked confused for a moment. “My? My… oh, yes, the telepathy,” he stammered. “I turned it off.”

Harper felt her heart sink. She glanced at Damon, who was still smiling. “Can you please turn it back on?” she asked as she turned back to Miguel.

He paused for a moment. His smile faltered. “I’d rather not.”

She tried to pull away from his arms, but he held her firmly.

“Shhhhh, shhhhhh, come on, Harper,” he said. “You don’t have to continue this quest. Harris is dead.” He kissed her neck, and his saliva left a wet spot on her skin. Harper resisted the urge to wipe it away. “Trust me, Harper,” he said. “I’ve come a very long way to be with you and take you home. We can finally make love and then—”

“What is my nickname?” she interrupted.

“Huh?”

“What is the nickname you gave me?”

He paused and thought about the answer.

Seconds ticked by.

“Har… I… I call you Harsta,” he said, then smiled apologetically.

Harper yanked her body away, and his grip loosened slightly.

“Come now, Harsta,” he urged, his voice changing to a deeper tone. “Your foolish human is gone. Let’s leave this tower!”

Harper continued to struggle against him. She pulled her right arm free.

“Damn it, girl!” he yelled. His face seemed to ripple. “Don’t make me punish you!”

Harper turned to Damon, looking for help. The orc’s body had transformed into a pink, tubular, cancerous growth. It squirmed and wiggled vertically in the air. Damon’s face was the last part of the illusion to change. His head was perched at the top of the huge, thick worm. Then his face melted into its fleshy mass. It was replaced by a bulbous pink head that opened its mouth and extended hundreds of leeching proboscises toward Harper.

She turned to face Miguel. His face was still intact, but he was wearing a dark hooded robe now. “Harper, I love you,” the monster attempted one last time then its eyes bulged, expanding to twice their size. The skin around the grotesque eyes changed to dark gray. The hands that still held her transformed into sharp, elongated fingers. The face before her became a writhing mass of pink and white flesh.

“You should have listened,” the monster croaked. It threw her across the room. Harper slammed against the hard surface of the portal. As her body slumped to the dirty ground, she cast Fire Glow. She looked up and saw that the portal was completely solid.

Disabled, she thought. We’re trapped.

Near the center of the room, dozens of fleshy worms advanced on her. She couldn’t see the Miguel-monster anymore.

2

As Zack jumped at the portal after Harper had gone through, its shimmering green colors turned to a dull greenish-gray. “What the—” His body smacked into the unyielding surface of the portal. He fell awkwardly onto the marble platform.

Ethan helped him up off the floor.

“Oh, this is not good,” Angie groaned as the Inmates stared at the solid portal.

“They’re gonna be trapped in there!” Zack exclaimed.

She nodded as she studied the wall. “Emma, run a boulder through that wall,” she ordered, “off to the side, there.”

Emma launched the spell and whipped it at the marble wall. The strike only splintered the surface. Small chips of pink rock fell to the floor. She looked at Angie hesitantly.

“Keep hitting it.”

While Emma repeatedly pounded the boulder into the wall, Ethan walked to the edge of the guardrail.

“Damon!” he shouted out at the courtyard. “Harper!”

There was a moment of silence. Then a response came.

3

When Damon jumped through the portal and entered the nineteenth room, he saw it was the basement again. Harper jumped in after him. She lit her Fire Glow combo, and it flooded the room with a warm, orange light.

Angie was standing in the middle of the room.

“How did you get in here, Ang?” he asked her as he looked back at the portal, which changed to a dull green. “You’re not supposed to come through until—”

“We’ve made other arrangements,” Angie said. “Harper has contacted Cloud Nine and—”

“How did she do that?” he exclaimed, glancing at the mage, who was unequipping her staff and cape.

Angie walked toward him. “It doesn’t matter, Damon. Cloud Nine is going to transfer us back home.” She unequipped her helmet and splint mail. “We convinced them that Harris is dead. We’re going home.”

Harper tugged at him, pulling him into the corner of the room. Angie followed.

“How?” he asked.

“They have fixed the coding,” Harper answered. “That’s not easy with qubit processing, but they were able to track the realms again. Cloud Nine saw the damage from the river and reprogrammed that portal.” She pointed at the room’s exit portal. “It will transfer us back to the landing zone.”

Both women embraced him.

Damon was speechless.

“But, before that happens, Harper and I want to have a talk with you,” Angie said. “You see, I know you want Harper—”

“What? No!” Damon protested.

Her hand pressed against his bronze-plated armor. “Don’t argue.”

“We can build our home together,” Harper cooed. “All three of us. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“I… I…” Damon muttered. His eyes were glued to the two women. Under the Fire Glow’s orange light, their skin sparkled and gleamed.

“But before we go home,” Angie said, “we want to consummate our new arrangement.”

“I, uh, I don’t think…” he started.

“You don’t have to think at all. You can have us both, my love.”

Harper pulled on his metal plating. “Stop stalling and take this armor off,” she ordered. “We’re keeping the others waiting.”

Damon glanced at Harper, then Angie, uncertain.

“This is your fantasy,” Harper whispered, “so what are you waiting for?”

Damon felt dizzy. “No, this is selfish,” he argued. “We can do this when we get back home. I will not keep our teammates waiting!”

Harper leaped at him. Damon was caught completely by surprise. Her body slammed into his armor, just above his groin. The force knocked them over, and he landed on his back against the dirt floor. “We can ‘do this’ back home?” Harper cried victoriously as she straddled his body. “So, you admit you want me!”

Damon looked up at Angie, hoping she might intervene.

“Give it up, Damo. Remove the armor.”

Damon opened his mouth to protest again, but Harper kissed him passionately. He tried to move his mouth away, but she followed his movements. Then he heard Angie again.

“Take the armor off, Damon.”

As his mind was flooded with unexpected desires, Damon finally relented and unequipped his armor. He felt the warm skin of a hand touch his belly. Harper didn’t move and stayed locked in her kiss with Damon. Angie shimmied next to him and kissed the side of his chest.

He felt a pinch. Did you just bite me? he telepathed to her, but she didn’t answer. With hormones raging through his bloodstream and his mind feeling intoxicated, he closed his eyes and became lost in the moment.

4

“Ethan?” the voice asked. “Is that you?”

Ethan wanted to believe it was Harper’s voice, but he recognized the tone and cadence immediately. “Yes, Janna, it’s me… us,” he called down. In the fading light, he saw the flicker of Janna’s fire twenty-five floors below them.

Zack walked to the rail and called down to the injured healer, “How are you doing, girl?”

There was a pause, then she answered. “Ethan woke me up.”

The two orcs laughed.

“Sorry, Janna,” Ethan yelled down.

“That’s okay,” she hollered. “I need to do more healing and stoke the fire, anyway. I’m not doing too badly now.”

As the orcs and the nurse conversed through the expanse of the courtyard, Emma pounded the wall with her Boulder spell. Ten minutes later, she chipped enough of the marble away to see what was on the other side. It was an empty room.

She looked at Angie and shrugged. “It was worth a try.”

Angie grunted and stared at the solid portal. “Whatever trouble they’re in, they’re going to have to deal with it on their own.”

5

Because the worms were advancing on her so quickly, Harper equipped her bone-base sword, setting aside the staff for the time being. The worms were six feet tall and one foot wide. They seemingly surfed across the floor with no movable limbs.

She swung the sword across at five of the fleshy monsters. Her blade sliced through them easily enough. Red blood flowed from the monster’s open wounds that, oddly, looked like mouths now.

Harper slashed again, and the worms started disappearing. It takes two hits to bring these mobs down, she thought. She chopped back and forth at the onslaught. The mobs vanished, only to be replaced by the next layer of attackers. Hidden somewhere behind the horde was the original monster that had entranced her and was now controlling its minions.

Harper spun around, searching for Damon. He lay dressed only in his underwear on the floor, near the corner of the room. Three worms had burrowed into his body. One was fixed to his stomach, another digging into his chest, and the last completely covering his mouth.

Oh my god, the worm’s tendrils are going down his throat! Harper thought.

As she continued slashing her sword at the worms, she saw Damon’s neck swell. She checked his HP.

87 out of 532.

Harper reacted instantly and completely from instinct. She turned and darted toward the fallen orc, no longer shielding herself from the attacking minions. One creature lunged forward and planted its proboscises onto her arm. As the sucking devices broke through her skin, she threw her sword to her left hand and jabbed at the worm. After a couple of swings, the worm fell from her arm. The proboscises slipped out of her flesh and the monster vanished before it hit the floor.

She swung at the horde, trying to keep them at bay, as she reached Damon and chopped at the worms attacking him. They did not try to defend themselves. With a few more swings, the worms disappeared.

Damon woke from his trance, turned over, and started coughing profusely.

Why isn’t he in his armor? she wondered. She turned to face the army of worms. Planting herself in front of Damon’s crumpled body, Harper kept swinging her sword. The worms kept coming, seeming to respawn behind the front lines.

Behind her, Damon continued to cough, then threw up. She glanced back to check his hit points. He was at 36.

Harper wondered how close to flatlining he had been. She saw his HPR was 7.10 per second and knew it would take him over a minute to rebuild his 532 hit points. She cast Basic Heal at him with her left hand.

She felt a sudden pain below her knee, looked down and saw a worm hooked to her leg. It started sucking. Harper shrieked. She swung frantically at the creature. “I don’t mean to rush you,” she called down to Damon, “but I need your help!”

Damon’s response was a litany of ragged coughs.

Harper chopped once more at the mob attached to her leg, and it finally released its hold. With both her arms slimed with blood and her energy draining, she lashed at the advancing worms again. Despite that, she wasn’t getting closer to the Miguel-monster.

She heard the clank of Damon’s armor wrapping around his body. He joined her and started swinging his much larger skelchion sword. His neck was swollen and blood trickled from underneath his armor.

“Thank god, you’re up,” Harper sighed.

Damon tried to respond, but his voice was gone.

“Can you handle the sword fighting while I figure out what to do next?” she asked.

He nodded as he mowed down the pink worms.

Harper equipped her staff and fired Mana Flash at the worms. The spell evaporated two front lines. As she waited for the spell’s fifteen-second cooldown, Damon marched forward, swinging his skelchion and getting closer to the main beast.

Harper launched her spell again. More worms vanished. While she waited for the cooldown, she wielded Fire Scorch and pared the army down even more. With every sword swing and every spell, they got closer to the end of the room. Harper saw glimpses of the main beast in between the moving worms.

God damn, this is disgusting, Damon telepathed to her.

Harper agreed. She fired Mana Flash again, and some of the spell’s effects got through to the main beast. Its details appeared.

NOKRAST (Level 62)

HP: 842

MP: 401

STRENGTH: 27

CONSTITUTION: 84

DEXTERITY: 51

INTELLIGENCE: 40

WISDOM: 43

XP: 500

DESCRIPTION: Vermilion king of Cartahena.

As Damon kept swinging at the thinning layers of minions, Harper cast a Mana Reject sphere for them both, which ate up the rest of her MPR. Knowing she would have to depend on her 288 mana pool to handle the offensive spells, she fired another wave of Mana Flash at the horde of worms.

The blast took down the last of the minions, revealing the Nokrast. It stood against the back wall, covered in its gray hooded robe. It lifted its arms to cast a spell.

“Get him, Damon!” Harper screamed.

The orc ran and lunged at the beast, switching from his sword to his axe mid-flight. He swung the blade down on the Nokrast’s head. The blade ripped through the magician’s hood and wedged into the monster’s head. A large V-shaped wound jetted blood from its scalp.

Harper checked the monster’s HP. 798 out of 842. Your axe did 46 points of damage, she told Damon.

In a shower of its own blood, the Nokrast ripped the hood from its head. It snarled at the two Inmates with teeth that were long and sharp. A bulbous pink mass grew out of the wound in its head. It lifted one clawed hand and cast a healing spell. The monster’s head healed completely but it had used up 92 mana points.

Harper fired another Mana Flash at the Nokrast. The magician countered, using the same Mana Reject spell they had used. The blast still leeched away 19 of its mana points.

I wish I could see its MPR, Harper thought.

The Nokrast attacked with a spell similar to Boulder. A ball of dirt busted through their green protective barrier, flinging them back against the portal wall. Harper slammed hard against the stone and struggled to get back up while Damon charged forward again.

The Nokrast launched another spell, producing a driving force that pushed the orc back as he continued to run. The steady pressure pushed Damon to the wall. He looked at Harper, frustrated.

As she got back up, the Nokrast raised its arms and launched its next attack. Two masses of proboscises thrust from its arms toward their heads. Damon ducked the blow. Harper, who was preoccupied thinking of a way to counter the previous spell, got hit square in the face. The mass expanded over her head and the proboscis needles punctured the skin on her face. Though it was muffled through the pink flesh, Harper screamed and, as she opened her mouth, more proboscises plunged into her throat. I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! Although she wasn’t aware of it, her body fell limply to the dirt floor. Her vision had gone completely black, but, incredibly, she could still see her hit points as they plunged.

298… 271… 244…

6

Damon’s first instinct was to attack the appendage that had clung to Harper’s face. But an intuition, something based on his years of combat service, told him to fight the Nokrast instead. With Harper’s hit points taking a nosedive, he made his decision in a fraction of a second.

He charged at the Nokrast. If I am going to save her life, I need to make this quick, he thought.

The startled monster saw him coming, but its left arm was attached to the abomination that was killing Harper. It pointed its right hand toward him to cast a separate spell but the spell never had the chance to materialize.

Damon swung his axe and chopped the arm off. The limb fell behind the magician and blood sprayed from its shoulder socket. Damon saw both its hit points and mana points plummet, the latter a result of its ongoing spell. He swung again, burying his axe back into its head. Its skull split into two leaning pieces of meat. The magician’s fleshy pink eyes sagged in opposite directions. Blood gushed from its severed head in a macabre imitation of a water fountain.

The Nokrast shook its left arm, struggling to release itself from the spell, but it couldn’t.

You can’t heal yourself now, Damon thought. The monster’s HP dipped below one hundred. Damon switched to his sword. He drove the blade into the magician’s gut. Warm blood splattered on his hand.

He withdrew the blade and stabbed the creature again. And again. And again. Damon saw small masses of flesh bulge from the Nokrast’s injuries. It’s trying to grow back, he thought. Replace what I’ve damaged. But the magician’s mana points were spent. He gutted the beast one more time. It fell into a pool of its own blood.

Damon ran to Harper and pulled the dying mass of flesh from her face. His attack on the Nokrast had only lasted a few seconds, but Harper was down to her last twenty-eight hit points. As he pulled the proboscises from her throat, blood trickled from her mouth and Damon realized she wasn’t breathing.

7

Damon pumped Harper’s chest for what seemed like a very long time while casting his limited Basic Heal spell on her. Her body bounced like rubber beneath his palms. He was losing hope when she suddenly coughed up a large bubble of blood that splattered onto his face.

Breathing again, she rolled over and coughed uncontrollably, curling into a fetal position, holding herself. Damon continued his healing spells for another five minutes as Harper recuperated.

With the Nokrast’s death, Damon noticed that the entry portal was shimmering again, but no one was jumping through. They probably think it’s still solid, he guessed.

The coughing finally eased after ten minutes, then Harper started shivering. Her face was covered with pockmarks and her arms were coated with sweat and blood. She clutched at Damon and cried that she wanted to go home. He held her quietly, not knowing what to say and knowing he wanted to be back home, too. As more time passed and she cradled against his kneeling body, he wondered about the illusion the Nokrast had used to deceive him. Why had Harper been included in the mirage?

She gazed up at him with an agonized expression, looking sickly and covered with abrasions. She took a deep breath, then sighed.

He touched her lower jaw and raised her head gently. Will you be okay if I get the others? he telepathed. Or do you need more time?

She coughed again. I’ll be alright. Go on, she answered.

He got up slowly and walked to the enabled portal. He glanced at Harper. She was staring at where the Nokrast had been. Damon jumped through the portal.

8

The Inmates were sitting in a circle around the portal when Damon jumped through. Forgetting that the portal was three feet off the floor, he fell awkwardly against the marble, hurting his shoulder. As he got up and looked at the team members, his face was drawn and serious.

“What happened?” Emma asked. “Where’s Harper?”

Damon raised a hand and telepathed, I can’t talk. I’ve lost my voice. So has Harper. We almost died in there.

Angie ran to him and started crying against his shoulder. “We tried to come through,” she said, exasperated, “but couldn’t.” Damon squeezed her.

“Yeah, we kept smacking into that hard surface,” Zack said humorlessly.

Look, we can talk more in the next room, Damon telepathed. We have business to look after in there. Harper is still recovering. Now let’s go. He gestured at the portal embedded in the wall. Not sticking to any particular order this time, Ethan jumped through first and was followed by Damon and the rest of the Inmates.

9

“Oh, fuck,” Ethan gasped solemnly. He saw Harper lying on the dirt floor. Her face was pale, slick with sweat and covered with what looked like a bad case of acne. He walked over and knelt beside her. “I guess you know we couldn’t come through the portal,” he said quietly.

She nodded. Ethan, do you have any idea what time it is?

“Yeah, the sun is going down,” he answered. “Early evening, I suppose.” Behind him, the other Inmates were filtering into the room with more gasps of shock. Slowly, they circled Harper.

She looked up at them pleadingly. There’s only one room left, she telepathed. But can we please call it quits for the night?

“Absolutely,” Zack replied, “but how do you know there’s only one more room?”

Making no effort to get up from the floor, she pointed toward the exit portal at the far end of the small room. The portal that was embedded into the stone wall didn’t look out of the ordinary. It was the carving above the portal that made it stand out. The Inmates immediately recognized it from the main portal room at the beginning of the earth realm.

It was a six-pointed star.

10

The Inmates collected the spells from the Nokrast’s Epiphany cloud before it vanished. Emma approached it first and was inundated with messages.

Congratulations, Emma! You have found an Epiphany that contains the spell: Mana Heal, Level 2. This healing spell will enable a quicker, continuous flow of healing energy directed at yourself or your allies. Ranked advanced and available to Healers, Hunters, and Mages, so tell all your friends. Mana Heal, Level 2 will cost you 5 MP for every 2 hit points reclaimed, and has a cooldown rate of 10 seconds and a range of 150 meters. Remember, you have to be fast to be good!

Congratulations, Emma! You have found an Epiphany that contains the spell: Dirt Bag. This spell will create a ball of dirt that will strike through your enemy’s magical defenses, injuring them and driving them back! Ranked advanced and available to Hunters and Mages, so tell all your friends. Dirt Bag will cost you 15 MP, and has a cooldown rate of 5 seconds and a range of 150 meters. Don’t be a drag, be a Dirt Bag!

Congratulations, Emma! You have found an Epiphany that contains the spell: Dirt Squall. This spell will provide a constant force that will drive your enemies back! Ranked advanced and available to Hunters and Mages, so tell all your friends. Dirt Squall will cost you 2.5 MP per second, and has a cooldown rate of 15 seconds and a range of 150 meters. Who you gonna call? Dirt Squall!

“Whoa. That is a motherlode,” Emma murmured.

Jordan and Angie acquired the spells next, then they helped Harper get back up to obtain the spells. Physically, she was doing better, but her spirit was crushed.

“Has she given up?” Zack asked Damon discreetly.

He grunted noncommittally.

When Harper was done with the spells, she turned and telepathed to the group, Can we get out of this hole in the ground?

The Inmates agreed and moved back to the eighteenth room.

11

Although Harper wasn’t enthused about going across the highest bridge in the tower again, the Inmates insisted on spending the night with Janna in the seventeenth room. So they crawled across the bridge on their hands and knees and with the aid of Harper’s Bridge of Vines spell. Janna was snoozing when the Inmates entered the room, but she woke up and was overjoyed to see them back.

“How you doing, princess?” Zack asked.

“Better now that you’re here,” Janna replied, smiling despite her constant pain.

Zack added more wood from the Rukh’s carcass to the fire. It pushed back the night wind that whistled through the gaps in the reinforced wall. He and Ethan cooked the food from their individual inventories, which amounted to two squirrels, eight ptero birds, and ten salmon.

As they sat in a circle facing Janna, who lay on her bedding, they talked about the six-pointed image chiseled above the final portal.

“Maybe it’s some kind of celestial being,” Angie said.

“Uh-uh,” Zack countered. “I think it’s an octopus.”

Damon laughed despite the day’s harrowing events. “An octopus has eight legs, Zack.”

Zack shrugged. “Okay, maybe it’s a six-legged octopus.” His eyes widened with inspiration. “Hey, maybe it’s a giant starfish!” he said excitedly.

The whole group laughed.

“I hope it’s six of those drunken belchers,” Emma said. She turned to Harper. “Do you have any ideas?”

Harper bit into her meat and shook her head. She hadn’t communicated with the team, even telepathically, since they had gotten back. Damon observed her carefully. He knew the team was going to need her at one hundred percent for the next day.

Emma ran her new Mana Heal spell on Janna continuously, and the nurse talked about how much better she felt.

“Still, I am under no illusions that you’ll be ready tomorrow,” Angie said as she looked over Janna’s body. The nurse had dressed down to her undergarments. Most of her body was badly swollen. Janna was hesitant but agreed.

Speaking of illusions, Harper telepathed to the group, the monster in that last room used some kind of illusion magic on me and Damon. I’m a little bummed we didn’t get that spell.

Damon agreed.

“What were the illusions like?” Emma asked.

Harper looked up from the fire. The Nokrast had me thinking the mission was over and that Miguel was back. It sort of impersonated him, and that’s how it got my guard down.

“How terrible,” Emma commented.

There were a couple of things the Nokrast said that I found curious, Harper continued. It talked about the final realm and referenced some sort of transformational power.

“I don’t care,” Zack grumbled. “I’m not doing any more realms, towers, or dungeons after this one.” The Inmates murmured agreement.

Fair enough, Harper replied, and it could’ve just been lies it told to get us under its spell.

What was the other thing? Damon asked.

Harper paused. It confirmed, she answered, looking at the brothers, that Will Harris is dead.

The brothers sagged visibly, and it didn’t help when Damon said he’d received the same message. Emma grabbed Jordan’s hand and squeezed it. “Well, like you said, it could’ve been lies.”

Harper nodded.

Damon stood and walked to the damaged wall. Through the cracks in the buttress, he could see the entire landscape under the night sky. His eyes focused on the river and the lake at the start of the realm. The water was calm now, deep indigo blue with lines of moonlight reflected on the surface. Damon felt the journey was almost over. Tomorrow, we might be swimming in that, he thought, and then we’ll be going back to our normal lives. He returned to the group by the fire.

They talked about their experiences in the tower. Zack joked about Harper levitating the orcs with the Boulder spell, but with their bellies full and their bodies exhausted, the group slowly slipped into their sleeping formation. Zack slept behind Janna this time and touched her gently before moving his hand away. He got as close to her as he could but was wary of aggravating her injuries. Angie slipped in behind Zack. Damon followed her and wrapped his left arm around her body. Harper slipped in behind Damon and surprised him by wrapping both of her arms around him. Soon he felt her warm tears dampen his back. He thought about the illusion the Nokrast had used on him. He didn’t think he had those feelings for Harper, but it made him wonder.

The rest of the Inmates slid in. Sighs of relief followed. The fire kept them warm, and they slept through a rare peaceful night.