It was late morning by the time the party neared their destination, moving through the busy city, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible.

“Keep moving and keep your weapons hidden!” Brother Yuri said, head down to avoid attention.

There were Union City guards everywhere, patrolling the streets in groups of three or more, stopping often to harass any that they deemed suspicious. Connor, Olanna, Dargan, and Brother Yuri wore the large, baggy red-and-ochre robes of the Temple of the Wave over their own clothes, their cloaks pulled up and hoods down as far as possible to cover their faces.

Still, Connor flinched when he saw soldiers standing outside the inns and taverns that they passed, stopping any from entering. From inside came the sounds of yelling, smashing glass, and grunts of pain.

“Get the elves out of here!” A passerby, a street merchant called, and Connor peered from under his hood to see a soldier doing just that.

“What are the fools doing!?” Dargan muttered angrily.

They saw people being dragged from the inns, soldiers roughly expelling them out onto the cobbled streets.

He saw elves, some like Olanna with white hair, others wearing green-and-russet robes—all apparently picked out by the Union soldiers as “enemies of the state.”

“Get out of the city before sundown. You’re not welcome in Union City anymore!” one soldier yelled, stopping just short of actual violence against the family of elven descent he’d just herded out of an inn. Instead throwing their belongings after them as they cowered, confusion clearly evident on their faces.

“You and your Beastling allies!” the soldier snarled after them.

“Well, that is really going to help matters, isn’t it?” Olanna hissed under her breath. Connor and Yuri closed ranks around her, trying to keep her in their midst and furthest away from sight.

“The entrance isn’t far, through the old Shrine of Manilaes ,” Yuri was whispering as the group saw that it wasn’t just elves who were getting the same xenophobic treatment.

“You ’n’ all, shorty!” A gang of Union City toughs had apparently taken it upon themselves to drive out a complement of dwarves in the local market, and the soldiers weren’t doing anything to stop them.

Dargan started to growl at Connor’s side, as did Olanna.

“This is going too far,” he heard her hiss, but Connor was adamant.

“We make for the First Gate! That’s what this is all about!” he whispered fiercely. Yuri pointed across the busy, rowdy marketplace to a small white-stone building that looked like a chapel. An iron gate was closed in front of a narrow doorway. A statue of a robed figure, some kind of water hero, sat atop the building.

“That is the Shrine of Manilaes. That leads to the water tunnels that wind under the city and will take us to the First—”

The Brother of the Wave hadn’t even managed to finish his sentence when another voice burst out near them. It was one of the leery Union City toughs, raising his eyes from the three dwarvish merchants that they were threatening and turning to look at the supposed monks.

“There’s another one! They’re even being priests now!” the tough called out, and Connor saw all eyes—the toughs and the three persecuted dwarvish merchants—turn to register Dargan.

“Monks, not priests, you idiot!” Dargan shouted back, and Connor saw the dwarf’s hand moving to the handle of his concealed war hammer inside his cloak.

“Dargan, no . . .” Connor hissed, but it was already too late. The youngest tough was striding toward them, reaching up to snatch at Dargan’s hood.

“What good is a dwarvish priest, huh? Who wants to hear their rock-loving sermons?” the tough laughed, his meaty hand just about to pluck at the coarse material.

“Not today, cow-hand,” Olanna snarled, stepping forward and smoothly grabbing the wrist of the tough before it could touch Dargan.

“Step back, and no one gets hurt,” she hissed at their would-be attacker. Connor looked on in horror.

No! he thought as he saw the tough’s eyes widen in shock and horror at the face inside the hood.

“Elf!” The young thug shouted as Olanna stepped forward and casually slammed her hand into his throat.

“Ugh!” The tough fell back, but his cry had been heard by the others—and across the marketplace itself.

“Elf! There’s a witch elf over here!” the other thugs started shouting, their anger and outrage being joined by some of the stallholders, who were reaching for clubs and weapons.

“Dammit! You fools!” Connor roared, jumping forward to grab the edge of the nearest market table.

With a growl, he pushed the tabletop laden with strange, brightly colored fruit over. It fell between Olanna and her about-to-be-attackers, and Connor sprang back and seized Olanna’s arm.

“Come on! To the shrine!” Connor yelled. “Dargan, let’s go!” He could see that the dwarf was hanging back, already drawing his war hammer as the three other merchant dwarves started to growl and draw their weapons.

“We can’t leave them!” Dargan shouted as more thugs and soldiers started to arrive.

“Let them go! We’re only making it worse!” Connor called, pushing Olanna toward the shrine as he turned back.

For Yuri to jump forward at his side. Both of them confronted the charging merchants and thugs.

Connor leapt forward, purposely not drawing his hand ax but instead, using just his hands to parry the first meaty forearm of the stallholder. He delivered a punch to the man’s nose in return. There was a sharp smack and the sound of cracking bone as the man fell back. Beside him, the monk Yuri’s hands were a whisper of blows, striking out fast and quick, catching a fist and turning it before delivering his own barrage of blows.

“Run!” Dargan shouted at the three dwarvish merchants, who, hearing the whistles and seeing the rushing soldiers reach the edge of the courtyard, could clearly see which side their fortune favored. They broke apart, heading for the other side of the marketplace as Connor and Dargan fell back.

But not Yuri.

“Brother Yuri!” Connor shouted. He saw the monk kick one of the thugs who dropped immediately, stumbling backward into cloth wall of a stall. There were already two more unconscious bodies around the monk, and now a tide of soldiers rushed through the crowds toward him.

“Go! This is in the service of the Balance!” the Brother of the Wave shouted, casually spinning to trip up another stallholder who rushed at him with a club upraised. Yuri turned to face the soldiers, his hands up and not even breaking a sweat.

“I’ll hold them. Now go! Get to the Gate!” the monk called again, turning to face the soldiers.

Connor noted that his savage grin did not appear to be keeping with a peaceful way of life of a monk. But who was he to argue? The half-elf pushed Dargan ahead of him as he ran, catching up to where Olanna was already kicking open the black iron gate. The trio barged into the dark space beyond, finding a set of stairs leading downwards into the dark.

At the bottom of the stairs, Connor pulled out the Grimoire of Hebspeth and flipped through it, the pages glowing slightly so he could read the words well enough to recite the spell.

Spell: Light

Effect:

Creates a glowing ball of light.

Cost: 2 Vitality points

A ball of blue-white light appeared, flaring into life before them, illuminating the small room where the stairs stopped. Each wall contained a brick arches, their lower halves covered in dark mold and moss, and in the center of the tunnel floor was a channel where a stream of dirty looking water flowed.

“This must carry the river’s overflow,” Dargan whispered, looking first one way and then the next. “How do we know which way it is to the First Gate?”

Connor started to shake his head, but then a thought struck him. He quickly unlaced the cuff of his forearm, holding it out in front of himself and moved it one direction then the next like a divining rod. The band where the Ring of Tantor had been began to glow a little when he pointed his arm toward the right archway.

“I still don’t even understand it,” Dargan whispered, nodding at Connor’s arm.

The half-elf had already told his friends of his earlier adventure and the reason why he had come into Legends in the first place. That included an explanation of who Mae-tsu was and why she was after him. The dwarf hadn’t been as offended or as scornful as Connor had been afraid that he might be—or as much as Olanna had been. Instead, he had merely nodded seriously.

“I think the Ring of Tantor . . . changes the game. Or the player,” Olanna offered. She eyed Connor’s glowing forearm. “It must add something to them, some sort of permanent effect or ability.”

“You don’t say,” Connor was grumbling as he shook his arm a little. The glow remained the same.

There was sound from above them, a scrabble of boots on the stairs.

“They’ve gone into the water tunnels! Tell the guard captains!” Connor heard voices shouting.

“Come on. No time to lose!” Connor said, leading the group into the tunnel his arm appeared to be directing them toward.

***

After the third intersection, there was no need for Hebspeth’s magical light since the half-ring around Connor’s forearm was glowing stronger and stronger. The glowing arm band didn’t hurt, thankfully, it just cast a golden glow upon the tunnel before them.

“Have we lost them?” Connor gasped as he leaned against the wall, panting heavily and feeling the stitch in his side.

Connor Halfelven

Vitality: 25 / 40

The half-elf groaned, feeling his heart thumping hard in his chest. His Vitality was barely half full from all of the running and fighting that he had done since daybreak. He hadn’t given his body a chance to replenish it fully. If he stopped to think about it, then it seemed as though every muscle in his body was aching. Around them, the arched tunnel was lit up by the eerie, golden glow of his own arm, and every time he moved, he threw strange and lurid shapes of their silhouettes around them, like ghouls.

“Wait . . .” Dargan breathed, pausing for a moment before he lowered himself to a crouch and set an ear to the stone.

“Dargan, what are you doing?” Connor asked in disbelief. The dwarf shushed him with an angry wave and then appear to rest his head on the ground for a moment longer.

“Huh,” he heard the dwarf say after a moment. “I always wondered what that ability was like!”

Connor and Olanna shared a puzzled look.

“Dwarves get StoneSpeak. It means we can hear messages through the rocks when underground,” Dargan said proudly.

“Well?” Olanna was impatient. “Just what did you hear?”

“There were sounds of running boots, but they were far, far behind us,” he said. “I couldn’t say how I knew, just that I did. I could somehow feel what was going on.” His face darkened.

“There were others, though, another group moving through other tunnels somewhere above us,” he said warily.

“Could you tell how many?” Olanna asked, a concerned look on her face.

“No . . . and that wasn’t all,” Dargan said, turning to nod in the direction ahead. “There was something else. A noise I can’t describe, like a thrumming, from ahead. It didn’t feel like rock noise, if that makes sense? It didn’t feel right.”

“Rock noise?” Connor considered that he was way out of his depth. “What do you mean? A machine ahead of us, maybe?”

Dargan beetled his eyebrows. “I have no idea.” He shook his head. “All I can say is that the rocks didn’t feel right.”

“Didn’t feel right,” Connor murmured. He was lost when it came to dwarvish ways, but he figured they’d find out what Dargan meant soon enough.

Their steps led them deeper into the maze of tunnels, as first one archway opened off to one side and then another. The shining Ring of Tantor on Connor’s arm led them deeper and further.

“The walls are changing.” Dargan was the first to notice, nodding to where they had passed out of brickwork to more naturally flowing “flutes” of rock.

“We must be deep under the city,” the dwarf whispered. Even the water gully beside them had disappeared, instead replaced with smooth, slightly silvered rock.

“Hmm,” Dargan murmured. They passed what appeared to be an arch built into the rock, made of cut stone and supporting the roof.

Connor noted that the stonework was nothing short of marvelous. It was smooth on the outside, but every block appeared to be a different size, from thin slivers to larger, rounded, or oblong shapes. Their joins were so finely put together that Connor didn’t think he could even get a fingernail between them.

“This is dwarfish work; I’m sure of it,” Dargan murmured, inspecting the stone before grunting appreciatively to himself.

“Old dwarvish settlement under the city?” Olanna asked, earning a puzzled grunt from Dargan and Connor both.

“Didn’t Fenwalker say that the dwarves came from the UnderWorld originally?” Connor remembered, his eyes on the arch and the rocks ahead of them. The architecture was so graceful, complementing the natural shapes and flow of the tunnel itself.

“Then we must be getting closer to the First Gate.” Olanna nodded, looking at Connor’s fiercely glowing arm before they turned to step forward.

Olanna was a few steps ahead and stumbled as a wave of something washed over them. Dargan let out a low moan, and Connor clutched at his heart. The half-elf felt petrified, as if all of his blood had suddenly run cold.

“What was that!?” Connor hissed, steadying himself by placing a hand on the wall before another wave hit him.

You have been struck by Fear.

Effect: 20% decrease in attack damage and defense ability for duration of attack.

What the . . . Connor gasped, feeling his knees actually shake as he almost slid to the floor in a heap.

No. Keep it together, Connor. Keep it together! The half-elf demanded of himself, breathing through the wave as it finally started to subside.

“Unnhh . . .” He heard a groan, looking up to see that both Olanna and Dargan’s faces had gone a pale white, and Olanna was hunched over with her hands on her knees.

“The rocks don’t feel right, you said?” Connor heard her quip, gasping. “Is it the Gate itself? Some kind of enchantment?”

“Curse, more like.” Connor straightened up, taking a deep breath. “Feels more like a warning. But we can’t let that stop us!”

He took another step, and Olanna and Dargan did too. The half-elf almost started to believe that it was going to be a one-off attack when it suddenly struck him again, stronger and more powerfully than before.

Connor staggered as the wave of fear and terror ran over him, making his body tremble. He broke out in a cold sweat.

I can’t do this. This is too much . . . His mind was hammering. How could he ever have thought that he could make it through the entirety of the Six Realms without dying? He was just a nobody who lived in a cheap-ass Tokyo apartment.

Come to think . . . How long have I been in the game? Is my body starving? Am I going to die right now!?

Doubts and fears slammed into not just Connor Halfelven, but Connor Breen, the man.

There was a tortured groan as Olanna managed to move one leg forward before she coughed, hunkering down as if under a heavy storm.

There’s no way that we can make it out alive, Connor thought. No way. This was too much, even for him. And if everything that Finbar had said was true—that it wasn’t just a rogue game that they were up against an entire nightmare realm as well?

I can’t do it!

Another wave of the fear rolled over him, and this time he hadn’t even moved. Connor quailed.

You have been struck by Fear.

Effect: 40% decrease in attack damage and defense ability for duration of attack.

His stats were plunging, and if anyone were to attack them now, there was little chance they would prevail.

Who was he to think that he could win this game? What hubris, he cursed himself, shaking his head in despair.

And he had once thought himself to be one of the best game hackers in the entire world.

“Connor! Olanna!” There was a strangulated cry, and Connor managed to blink back the tears of frustration to see that Dargan was actually managing to move, one sliding step after another.

But Connor could also see just how much each sliding step cost the dwarf as he heaved great sighs and gritted his teeth. “We have to move! We can’t let this trap win!” He breathed, shoving a resisting boot forward once more, the simple act looking as if it was the hardest thing in the world.

A trap. It’s a trap. The thought hit Connor. Of course it was. How could he have forgotten it?

“Focus!” Olanna hissed through her teeth. She narrowed her eyes and forced herself to crab forward as now successive waves of terror and fear battered them.

You have been struck by Fear.

Effect: 50% decrease in attack damage and defense ability for duration of attack.

The waves were getting stronger, the instilled fear greater. Connor knew that soon, he would be as weak as a babe and probably unable to move at all.

But it’s only a trap, he the half-elf reminded himself.

He had to focus.

All at once, a thought occurred to him. “Focus!” he croaked, remembering the skill that he had recently acquired at the Temple of the Wave.

Focusing could be used as a way to heal . . . and a way to center and ground oneself. The Sister of the Wave had said that it helped to clear the mind.

And I really need my mind clear, Connor thought. He struggled to recall just what the woman had said.

“Breathe. Breathe deep . . .” he murmured as around him the elf and the dwarf struggled to advance.

Connor tried to take a deep breathe, but it was hard when his jaw was clamping tight with fear. He skipped that part and moved onto the next, counting his breath. She had said something about relaxing, hadn’t she? Relaxing the muscles in the body, allowing them to return to a state of oneness.

At that moment, Connor felt very much at one with his state of sheer panic. It was a miracle that he hadn’t turned and fled. That any of them hadn’t, actually.

Breathe, one, two, three . . .

The helf-elf tried to focus. He tried to count the breaths in and out. He tried to allow his mind to settle just as the Sister of the Wave had shown them.

You have been struck by Fear.

Effect: 20% decrease in attack damage and defense ability for duration of attack.

A new wave of fear washed over Connor, and he knew that he should have been disheartened by fact, but he realized it was improving. He was still shaking with fear, barely able to breath, let alone move, but the effect was definitely less severe than it had been a moment before.

Breathe in, breathe out. Let your mind focus, he recalled the sister’s words—and shoved a foot forward. And then the next.

“Raaargh!” There was a sudden cry of triumph as Dargan, a few yards ahead of him, threw himself forward and fell to the floor, gasping.

“I made it! Right here—the trap ends!” Dargan gasped, and Connor extended a shaking hand toward Olanna.

“Olanna! Focus! Take my hand!” he urged through pursed lips. Connor could see the elf’s fearful eyes glance at him, catch his own . . . and then her closest hand reached out to grasp his. Just the touch of her warm hand sent wave of courage into Connor, and in return, back to Olanna too.

“We’re going to make it,” he hissed, dragging his feet forward a little more. Olanna did the same beside him.

“We can make it!” Connor insisted, pushing once again as the hand in his own tightened.

“Friends, you can do it!” They were close enough now for Dargan to strain forward in a swipe, catching at Connor’s out-stretched arm. The dwarf fell backward, pulling them both out of the enchantment.

Both Connor and Olanna burst from the curse trap and collapse on the stone floor of the tunnel, gasping and panting as their heartbeats slowly went from thunderous to a more normal beat.

“That was . . . intense,” Olanna groaned when a several minutes had passed. There was a chorus of agreements and grumbles from the other two. They all pushed themselves to their feet and scrambled down the tunnel and away from the terrible trap.

“I guess it was put there to stop people from getting to the First Gate,” Connor said in a voice that still wasn’t entirely steady.

“Not Level 4 people, anyway,” Olanna agreed glumly. She nodded to where Dargan was already leading the way ahead of them.

“How did you get across so fast?” she asked.

In response, their friend merely turned back to regard them once, solemnly.

“Back in the real world, our own world, I guess I should call it,” he said, “I have a spinal condition. It means that I can barely walk, dress myself, wash, cook, you name it. I have to rely on caretakers and family.”

The dwarf’s words were stark and echoed in the cramped tunnels.

“While I know that all this business with Annwn is terrible and that we’re stuck in Legends of the Six Realms now . . .” Dargan cleared his throat.

“I reckon that I already face far worse fears than that every day of my normal life. And while I don’t want to die down here, that helps me put all this in perspective, I guess,” he said with a shrug, then turned and set forth into the darkness.

Connor looked at Olanna. Although they didn’t speak a word, they were both thinking exactly the same thing.

That they had never heard anything so brave before in their lives.