The thing about falling through a rip in space is that it gets old fast.

I fell for quite some time, and at first, it was the terrifying experience any would imagine it to be, flashes of red lightning exploding through the dark wormhole and images I couldn’t process flashing all around me. Still, even that began to lose its initial shock value as my descent ticked over from seconds to minutes.

You would think being sent through a portal created by already dead Sages would be a faster process.

I crossed my arms. Flailing around as I had been doing was growing exhausting, and it clearly wasn’t doing anything.

Seek out the villages of the sand.

The Sage had told me to find some villages in the sand, but that was anything but specific instructions. A good third of the continent was desert; the number of villages in the sand would be like stars in the night sky.

This brings me to my next question.

Where exactly was I being sent? The Sage had explained they would send me somewhere that would have the best chance of leading me towards being an adventurer, but as I was beginning to understand was a pattern with powerful people, it was far from a clearly spoken answer. I could guess it would be where there would be sand, but I’d already gone over why that hardly narrowed it down.

I’ll just have to wait and see.

With the question of where I was being sent impossible to answer; my mind instead turned to the other nugget of information the Sage had told me just before portal-ing me to, well, wherever.

“Why, what is there to fix?”

Now, what just did he mean by that?

It was the first piece of conflicting information I’d been given from two different sources. On the one hand, my master had already told me that my ability to use magic was damaged or broken to some degree, but then there was the Sage, who seemed to argue otherwise.

So what is it?

Magic. It always seemed to come down to the fact that I didn’t understand magic, at least not enough to figure out who to listen to or trust.

Does it matter, though?

I was falling through a rip in space, being sent to who knew where, to do who knows what, all by myself.

I was utterly alone for the first time. What I did, who I listened to, I could call the shots. Whether I could use magic, I had already achieved things I had never thought possible with just my ruptured body alone.

Who was to say I couldn’t discover or achieve even more?

That’s right, I can do wh- what’s that?

I had been so caught up in my own internal monologuing that I had failed to notice that the black void I was falling through was no longer the unnatural blackness of, well, void, but now the darkness of a night sky.

Except usually, one looks up to see the night sky, not look down. Surprise, then fear, I began to thrash about with renewed vigor, waving my arms about as if I would suddenly sprout wings. I was plummeting far too fast towards the ground below, the hard, unforgiving-

Sand?

Dark as it was, I hadn’t been able to make out the ground below, but seeing it now, I finally clicked what the Sage had meant.

“Seek out the villages of the sand.”

Right, well, at least that shouldn’t be too hard.

The bigger problem was that I was hurtling straight down, and even with the fact that I would be landing on the sand, I was sure it was about to be anything but a soft landing.

The ground rapidly grew closer, and with me having squat for ideas, I did the only thing I could think of.

I braced myself and prayed.

I hope this doesn’t hurt too bad.

“Hey, hey, you okay? Hey buddy?”

I groaned, suddenly roused from my sleep. I’d been having a nightmare that I had been falling through an endless night sky, about to smash myself onto the ground.

“Dayvin, does he look okay?”

“What, what else am I supposed to say?”

“Just let me handle this.”

Why do they have to be so loud in the morning?

“Hey, what’s your name?”

My name? Why is someone asking me that early in the-

My eyes flew open as my brain finished booting back up; I shot up from where I was lying with a start.

“What, where, what?”

“Hey, hey, relax, easy. You’re okay. You’re okay. I think.”

“Wha-?” I turned to my right, noticing that I was lying at the bottom of a medium-sized crater in the sand. To my right stood a group of four, with the nearest of the four being a woman in her mid-thirties, auburn colored hair covered by a scarf and, more notably, a sword belted to her side.

“Who are you?”

“We should probably be asking you that.” The lady gave me a half-smile before extending a hand down towards me. “But to answer the question, I’m Veronika.”

“Veronika,” I repeated back, stretching my hand to grasp hers. “I’m Eri- I’m Rook.”

“Rook. Nice to meet you. At least, it would be under normal circumstances.”

“Under normal circumstances?”

“Well, abnormal aside from the abnormality of finding a teenage boy in a crater randomly in the middle of the desert, yeah.”

After grabbing my hand, the lady yanked me up. If the sword at her hip didn’t make it obvious, the strength in her arms told me right away that she was accustomed to physical exertion.

“That there is Dayvin.” She jerked a thumb behind her, pointing out another of the four, a large man with a rather painful-looking scar crossing the side of his head and over his mangled ear. “And over there are the twins.”

Behind both Veronika and Dayvin were two twins, as she had stated, one of them a blonde girl in her late teens to early twenties, the other a guy who was likewise blond, both with dark tanned skin the color of the sand under our feet.

“Zet.” The male twin waved at me before pointing toward his sister. “Tes, but spelled with a z.”

“Spelled with a-?” The names clicked into place as I thought about them. “Your names are just opposites.”

“Blame our parents.” The girl, Tez, rolled her eyes before looking over her shoulder. “We can exchange stories later, but Veronika is right. We need to get a move on, like, now.”

“Why, what’s going on?” I questioned, dusting the sand off from my clothes.

“Well, a pissed-off super pack of desert crawlers.”

“Desert crawlers?”

“Big nasty ants.”

My mind conjured images of the ants I was familiar with. Sure, a bite might sting, but it could be crushed between two fingers.

“How big is big?”

“Big.” Veronika said before pointing over the crater’s ridge we were in. “We are only a short bit out from the edge of their territory than maybe a day’s travel out from Enudtsrif. You can tag along with us. Figure probably better than being food for some oversized ants.”

“Uhm, sure?” I nodded, finding nothing wrong with her statement. “I think I’d prefer being bug food.”

“Great, happy to have you with us. Time to go.” Veronika grabbed me by the wrist, tugging me up the side of the crater.”

“By the way, exactly how far away are these ants?”

“About five minutes if we just stay here.” Tez answered as soon we made it over the side of the sand crater. “One or two or even a small pack we would be okay dealing with, but an entire super pack….”

“Again, just how big are these things?” I questioned as we began to march off towards where Veronika had pointed. “And also, why are you guys traveling by foot?”

“We originally weren’t. Had some horses.” Zet shook his head. “Then the super pack happened.”

“Oh. Ohhhh.” I responded in understanding. “Ant food.”

“Yeah.”

“So, how long can we keep ahead of them?” I questioned as we began to jog at a fast pace.

“Well, we were about ten minutes ahead of them until we stumbled upon you.” Dayvin shook his head as if contemplating whether fetching some unknown guy from a crater in the middle of the desert was a wise decision. “We had been holding that lead for the better part of the last day.”

“So we’re fine, right?” I questioned.

“We were still outside their ‘kill range’ at the time.” Dayvin informed me.

“And what exactly is a kill range?”

“Desert crawlers will follow along at a sluggish pace until whatever they are following shows signs of slowing down. Such as, oh, I don’t know, stopping to investigate a random crater in the sand.” He was looking pointedly towards Veronika, but she merely shrugged.

“I’m sure it will work out.” The woman seemed unbothered, save for the nervous glance backward every other minute. “Worst case scenario, we fight our way out.”

“Fight our way out.” Tez scoffed. “Of a super pack?”

“Well, do you suggest we take them to tea?” Veronika snapped, though I could tell there was little malice in her voice. “Don’t put this on me. I told you guys we shouldn’t have brought the horses.”

“Oh, and just who said they didn’t want to deal with being late again?”

“I was just saying that because last time we arrived a week later and missed the job entirely!”

“Oh, and who was the one that accepted that request in the first place? Even though you knew we were unlikely to make it in time!”

“Uh-” Before the group could continue their verbal barrage against one another, I took my chance to interject. “-do you normally argue like this?’

“You get used to it.” Dayvin sighed the only one of the four who hadn’t been slinging excessive accusations around. “Besides the twins being obviously related, Veronika is their god-aunt.”

“God… aunt?” I questioned, throwing a look back towards the horizon, part of me imagining I could see the sand turned up more than usual.

“Like a godmother, except an aunt.” Veronika nodded as if it made complete sense. “They were entrusted to their aunt, who then entrusted them to me as their god-aunt.”

“Right. Right.” I nodded along more for conversational sake than understanding the dynamics of the group at all. “-if I may, how exactly does that all end up leading to… this?” I waved vaguely around us as if that was enough explanation.

“Dayvin and I were adventurers for hire, a duo. After these two joined us, we formed our own party.”

“Wait-” I nearly stopped in my tracks until I recalled what we were in the process of running from. “-you guys are adventurers?”

Rather than respond, Veronika stuck her left arm out, jangling it so the loose sleeve fell back, revealing a metal band around her forearm. It was a strange mix of green and burnt orange.

Copper, and judging from how it had only partially oxidized, it hadn’t been that long since they had reached it either.

“Those two are still at tin.” Veronika let her sleeve fall back down, covering her band up. “They’ve only been at this for about, what, a year now?” She turned to look at the twins running in sync with one another.

“Thirteen months as of next week.” Tez confirmed.

“Dayvin and I have been at this for about eight years ourselves. Six years ago, we were promoted to copper rank.”

That long?

“I know what you’re thinking.” Veronika sighed. “Sorry to inform you, but the good majority of adventurers aren’t what the stories tell. For most, the highest we will ever see is copper or bronze rank.”

The statement gave me a moment of reflection. I had rarely considered just how impressive my mother had been when she had told me in her past how she was a gold band in all but official rank alone. Considering she wasn’t one to brag or tell a story, I knew she hadn’t been trying to boast just to impress me as a child.

“Anyways, we were on our way to Enudtsrif after our last commission, looking to pick up a commission we were told was likely there. Hence why we are out here in the first place. But what about you? How does a kid like you end up out here, alone, in a crater as if you fell out of the sky?”

Would you believe me if I told you that was exactly what happened?

“I, uhh, was on my way to Dunehold. I was going to register to become an adventurer myself.”

“Oh, were you now?” I saw Veronika’s eyebrows creep up her face in surprise. “What are the chances? I think I can understand what happened now.”

“Uh, you can?” I eyed her for a moment, wondering if she was trying to trick me somehow.

“Sure. You’re a runaway looking for a life of adventure. Decided to set out for Dunehold where the main adventurer branch is, and on the way got lost.”

“I... Yeah, yeah, that’s what happened.”

“Still, what was with the crater?”

“I, uh. I fell.”

Technically it wasn’t a lie. I did fall.

Just not as they probably imagined.

“What, did you take a dive off a nearby dune?”

“The, uh, the sun. I didn’t realize how much it was wearing on me, ended up passing out and fell from a dune, so I guess I sort of did.”

Another lie, this one less of a white lie and more of a bald-faced lie.

Hey, what do you expect from me? I’d lived my entire life interacting with the same five people and the few extras from the village where I would be forced to exchange pleasantries. Being sly was not exactly my forte.

“Well, it’s a good thing we found you then. If there is one thing we, the Red Foxes, are good at, it’s returning items and escorting people.”

“Yeah, because it’s basically all we do.” Zet grumbled.

“Oh, for the last time, would you-” Tez, who had been ready to berate her brother, went silent as Veronika held up her hand.

“What is it?” Dayvin questioned.

“They’re here.”

“What? What do you mean they’re here?” Zet looked around, as did I, but nothing was to be seen.

Meaning…

I threw myself to the side just in time as the ground exploded out from underneath us, too much sand thrown up for me to see what had happened to the Red Foxes.

Oh, please don’t be dead.

I scrambled back to my feet, reaching into my cloak for my sword as my head rapidly swiveled back and forth to discern the fate of my new travel companions.

I let out a sigh of relief. All four of them were okay from what it looked, though being okay wasn’t the same as being safe. Veronika and Dayvin had backed up to the right and were currently busy holding off several….

Well, ants. But I now understood why they had simply kept referring to the ants as ‘big.’

Because they were big.

Each one was as tall and long as Dayvin, the largest of the group, and they were still spilling out from the hole in the ground they had burst out from.

“How did they get here so fast?” Dayvin shouted as he swung an oversized hammer as if it weighed nothing more than a meat tenderizing mallet.

“It’s a scouting group!” Veronika yelled back, her sword sweeping a leg out from one of the attacking ants. “Just focus!”

Zet and Tez were back-to-back, Tez holding a staff tipped with a flat blade that had appeared as if from nowhere, whereas Zet was swinging a chain with a circular-looking blade on either end, each swing causing the circular blades to spin faster and faster.

What are they, circus acts?

I’d never seen weapons like those, but I’d only seen the standard swords and spears for most of my life, so it wasn’t as if I was a weapons expert.

“Watch out!”

I had been so caught up in seeing how the rest of the group was doing that I had forgotten about myself and, more importantly, my surroundings.

“Tez, help him!”

Several ant bodies away from me, Tez wouldn’t reach me in time as four ants shot towards me from the hole, giant mandibles snapping at the air.

Breath.

They were big and fast, but they were still only ants.

This isn’t the same as with master.

I could do something.

I could help.

Instantly a cold breeze swept through me, the world slowing as my senses heightened, heat building in every one of my muscle fibers.

And go.

Both myself and my sword flashed forward, the slowing sand doing little to hold me back now. In one smooth motion, I struck out, slashing the legs out from underneath the four ants, falling uselessly to the ground a moment after as I looked for my next target.

There was none. The ants that had exploded from underneath us were nothing more than an advanced scouting party. The only thing left was the looks of disbelief from the Red Foxes, who watched me as if I had transformed into some strange beast.

“Uh.” I awkwardly slid my sword back inside my cloak, coughing into my fist. “I had a good teacher.”

“I’ll say.” Veronika whistled, looking between the four ants that had been rendered immobile. “What was that? It was like, one moment you were there, the next you shot forward like an arrow from a bow.”

“That was-” I winced mid-sentence as the beginning of the backlash hit me. Since I had first used ruptured body, I had refined it, both in time to activate it and how much strength and speed I could draw out from it. I would still be functional for a quick flash and slash as I had just done, but I would ache like I’d been beaten the next day. “-just something I’ve been practicing.”

“Well, I guess you aren’t just some kid who up and thought it was a good idea to travel the desert alone.” Veronika looked between the ants and me once more before cracking a half-smile.

“Ought to get a move on, I guess. With the scouting party dealt with, the main super pack may decide to not bother, but I’d rather not hang around and find out.”

I nodded, rubbing a hand on my neck, the sun beginning to do a number on my skin.

“Onwards to Enudtstrif.”