Connor waited on deck with the others, still too wired to get any real sleep as the Pettigrew Express soared over the gulf of the Lack.

Below them, whenever Connor dared himself to look, he saw layers and more layers of clouds, some white, some gray, some vaguely blue—all of them stacked on top of each other, looking like the impossible contours of some strange, new land.

The one thing he didn’t see was land, no matter how far down he dared himself to peer.

The half-elf reflected on what they had just survived, thinking about the monsters they’d had to battle and the countless more ahead of and behind them. Even with the new experience—taking Connor a decent way to the five thousand experience points he needed to get to Level 5—he couldn’t find much joy in the achievement.

They had come so close to dying, and there was every possibility that the entire outpost behind them had been overrun and thrown into the Lack itself by the Sleeper King.

Around them the ragtag crew of the Pettigrew Express worked flying the ship, though none of them wore a sailor’s uniform, and not a man or woman among them appeared to want to talk to each other. As he studied them, Connor realized that many of them were in fact clients staying at Mrs. Pettigrew’s lodgings. Among them was a small, gnome-like man with blonde hair now gone a dirty white and tied back in a ponytail appeared to be the eponymous Mr. Pettigrew. Connor watched the husband of the boisterous innkeeper idly, interested in the silent partner who appeared to have great respect from the others but little recognition from his wife.

“Mr. Pettigrew, you sure this rust barrel will get us there?!” his stout and hardy wife shouted for all to hear across the decks.

“She’s never failed us yet, my heart,” the old man said with a shadow of a smile, and Connor realized that this accusation and jibing was simply a part of their relationship—neither of them taking any of it personally.

“Don’t you worry, lads and ladies, the Express will see us safe and sound,” the husband said to the party of three, approaching them under the guise of tightening and resecuring the ropes.

“I’ve sailed her for more than thirty years while my wife ran the Lodge. We’ve been in worse scrapes than this, let me tell you!” The man’s voice was jovial, but his tone was quiet and reserved. Connor was surprised at how different the pair were.

“Sir?” Olanna, who had been silent for most of the journey, suddenly looked up. “The council? Fenwalker, he said . . .” she started to say before her words failed her.

Connor watched as the man paused his work and was silent for a moment, waiting for Olanna to regain her composure. He put a hand on her shoulder lightly, tenderly.

“We all admired the Ranger Marshal. Hero of TrollKeep. That one damn near saved SkyBridge Outpost singlehandedly back in the Elf Wars too.” Mr. Pettigrew spoke quietly, but then his soft eyes lifted, and he looked a little harder at the party.

“He must have seen something in you three to put his life on the line for you like that.”

“I have no idea why,” Connor muttered, his voice so low and so full of shame that no one else appeared to notice.

“We failed him,” Olanna said in a harsh whisper. “He saved us but was cut down just as easily as . . .”

“Ah,” Mr. Pettigrew made a small sound of agreement, and he picked his words carefully.

“Fenwalker knew just what he was getting into. Always did. He isn’t the only one to pay the ultimate price, either. These times . . .” The man shook his head sadly.

“I’ve never seen the like of it, all happening at once. The Heartbreak Goblins and the Trolls of Mourn, all coming down at once—at the same time that the Sleeper King rises. And then there’s word of elvish attacks up and down the Lack.” Connor saw Pettigrew wince, as if wondering whether to say something.

“Might as well, husband! They’re clearly in it now, whatever it is!” said the strong and strident voice of Mrs. Pettigrew who was stomping across the deck.

She moved to her husband’s side, standing firm for a moment as she looked at them all.

“Fenwalker had been hearing things. That’s what he told me in my own common room last night. Things about some new realm, one called Annwn.” The strong woman fixed them all with a hard stare.

“That name mean anything to you?”

Connor felt himself blanch, and he shared a worried look with Olanna and Dargan. What do we tell them? the half-elf thought.

Do we tell them about the strange faun in the woods that had said that Annwn was a magical realm ruled over by some evil Fey King who had decided to destroy all of the Six Realms? That they had heard Boudazz the Necromancer himself say that Annwn had somehow empowered him to raise the Sleeper King?

Hell, given how crazy everything else is in this place, maybe it makes sense . . . Connor thought, nodding abruptly.

“The Necromancer who raised the Sleeper King,” Connor finally said. “We heard him mention Annwn and then . . .” He looked at Dargan, who nodded.

“Hebspeth,” the dwarf said.

“Heb . . . who?” Mrs. Pettigrew asked in confusion, but then a look of comprehension suddenly crossed her features. “The Witch of Mourn?”

“She’s a member of the Rooted Coven.” Connor nodded. “She told us about Annwn—that it was some evil realm, a nightmare place ruled over by the Fey, and that it was trying to take over.”

He didn’t go into the fact that, as far as he could tell from the manual and actual game proclamation back at Woodville, this nightmare realm of Annwn had already successfully taken over. It had taken over at some intrinsic level, one that wound through the entire fabric of the game, changing even the rules of how it was played.

“Hmm.” Mrs. Pettigrew nodded at her husband and seemed to take it all in stride. Connor considered that since this entire reality was already split into six worlds by some magical catastrophe, then maybe the idea of a new nightmare realm popping up was fairly easy to understand!

“Fenwalker said that he’d been hearing rumors and fragments about that place,” Mrs. Pettigrew said. “A place that spawned monsters, out of which creatures could seep into our world. That maybe all of these ills like the Sleeper King and the Goblins are brought about by this one greater evil.” She nodded thoughtfully before continuing.

“The way I understand it, there’s lots of realms out there. Some full worlds like ours, others far away and barely there at all. It was only the luck or the will of the gods that kept us from coming to the attention of one or another of them before now. Or maybe the way that our realm is already split into six by magic draws the others to it like a wolf to dinner.”

The woman shook her head, clearly not a fan of philosophizing. “All I know is that Fenwalker was on the trail of it, and there ain’t no mystery nor beast that the Ranger Marshal couldn’t track down. And it seemed that he must have figured that you three were caught up in it, too, somehow. You were there at the raising of the Sleeper King, so you saw the connection with Annwn. Maybe that’s why he sought to help you.”

“Us?” Connor said weakly as another burst of panic rose through him. Of course, he knew that he was involved in some sense—he had angered the Fey Warriors by stealing the Ring of Tantor—and now the ring itself appeared to have gone missing instead of respawning. Did that mean that all of this mayhem and chaos had something to do with him!?

“You are very involved in all of this.” Mrs. Pettigrew nodded. “So, I’m going to take you to the Council of Union City myself if I have to, and you can tell them everything you know. Everything about the Sleeper King and Annwn and anything else . . .”

“Honestly, we really don’t know anything,” Connor protested, but Olanna shot her hand out and laid it on his wrist, restraining him.

“If we can help, we will,” she said firmly.

But what about the First Gate?! Connor was thinking.

***

Mr. Pettigrew was as good as his word, and the Pettigrew Express handled the sudden gales and currents of wind a lot better than the Merry Piper had on Connor’s last trip to Union City. By the time the distant sun had traversed the sky and was once again setting, the boat was descending through the clouds toward the glow of the large city, its tall guard towers ablaze with magical bonfires.

“It’s . . . It’s unbelievable,” Dargan was whispering as he leaned on the rail to stare at the large city whose walls ended with many waterfalls and the permanent glimmers of mist.

“You get used to it,” Connor groaned, fully expecting the same arrival as last time, but found that this airship crew, each of them ex-adventurers or Rangers, appeared to be much surer pilots and navigators. They skipped the Express over the violent currents and docked gracefully at one of the far towers, settling without even a bump.

“I know the owner of the King’s Head,” Mrs. Pettigrew said as they got ready to disembark, handing Olanna a scrap of parchment. “Give this to her, and she’ll give you board for the night. I’ll come and take you to the Union Council tomorrow morning, where you can tell them your story.” She nodded, hurrying them off her deck.

“Thank you.” Olanna thanked the woman profusely, but Connor felt a shadow of his old resentment.

“We need to be getting to the Aviatrix’s Tower and the First Gate!” he hissed to her as the party clattered down the stairs and into the streets of Union City itself.

“You heard what Finbar said,” he reminded her. “Going through all six worlds is our best shot at getting out of this game.”

“Enough, Connor!” Olanna hissed at him, grabbing onto his wrist tightly. “There is something bigger than us here right now, something to do with this Annwn business. This might be the way that we keep ourselves safe in the game!”

“Yeah, like that is clearly working out,” Connor grumbled but said no more as they joined the river of people at the bottom of the battlement stairs, and Olanna took out the scrap of parchment with the directions to the King’s Head.

“Crow’s Comb Avenue, off the Plaza of Heroes,” Olanna was repeating the directions when there was a deafening peal of thunder from behind them, and the Union night sky suddenly lit up.

“What the?!”

Dargan, Connor, and Olanna all turned around on their heels in terror and saw a giant ball of flame erupting from the top of the battlements behind them.

It was the Pettigrew Express.

Someone had blown it up.