The sudden chill of drenching cold water yanked me from unconsciousness. I sat up, spluttering from the small quantity that had entered my open mouth and ran down my throat.

“He’s awake,” Alwyn cooed like a loving parent, lowering the wooden bucket.

As much as the liquid had been a shock, it was refreshingly clean and cooling within the roasting cell. I watched as steam started to rise from the heated rock beneath my feet. The one thing I didn’t immediately notice, which was weird because it had been all consuming, was the absence of pain. My head felt foggy, but had none of the piercing torture of before.

“Do you have any more?” I asked, hating how pitifully weak my voice sounded, but unable to help myself. There was just something beyond demeaning about sitting there, feeling the damp in my underwear that wasn’t down to her dousing. I made a solemn vow there and then that when I made my trillions from the stolen ideas, I’d use the money to pay for A-grade care for anyone in need. I’d seen the horror stories in exposé documentaries of care homes and their treatment of the elderly. The homes I would build would give them dignity as the final days of their lives ticked down.

“Are you ready to talk?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, but you probably won’t believe me.”

“Very well,” she said. Clicking her fingers, the snap brought an orc scuttling into the room. She ordered him to collect more water and he prostrated himself obligingly, obviously terrified of her.

“Would you mind if I stripped down? I feel fucking awful.”

She smirked at my question. “Please do. Don’t feel embarrassed in front of me.”

“Lady, you made me shit my keks. I think we’re way past the point of embarrassed.” I was reluctant to get completely naked, but I simply had to get the sticky clothes off. It had been a while since I actually undressed myself by hand and I laughed at how absurd that fact was.

“What’s so funny?” asked Alwyn as I stripped my boxers off and threw them away. I didn’t miss the favourable look she gave my body.

“Excuse me, my eyes are up here,” I chided, cupping my modesty.

I felt her power peel my hand away to hold it at my side.

Great! I had a psychotic voyeur holding me captive. As if my humiliation couldn’t get any worse, the orc returned and began laughing. Alwyn snatched the water from him with her mind and conjured a pillar of flame that made me wince from its intensity. The raging vortex of heat slithered as if alive amongst the stalactites of the cave roof. When the power faded, all that remained of the greenskin was a blackened skeleton that collapsed in a heap of sparking embers.

“I’ve changed my mind. I’ll date you as long as you keep your pyromancy in check.”

“You’re a strange creature, Mark. What is this dating you speak of? It’s almost as if you don’t speak my language.”

“Never mind. I just talk a lot when I’m nervous. It rarely makes sense.”

I waited, naked in my cell. She let me go and I could feel her psychic shackles retreating. “Get washed and then we’ll talk.”

The bucket passed through the steel bars as if they were a hologram. Her level and power were immense. I tried to hide my shock as I remembered the gift Ilfred had bestowed upon me, and his words about if I should ever face her to let the other sorcerers know. My problem was it was safely tucked in my pack, and thus out of reach. I would try later, when the mountain and my captor slumbered. Taking the water, I found a rag floating within and used it to sluice myself down. A jetwash and industrial soap would’ve been better, but at least the solids were now gone from my body.

I turned back to her. “Thank you,” I said, sincerely. She was under no obligation to give me anything. I was indeed a little fly, trapped in the web of a great spider. Alwyn would now toy with me before eating me, but at least I wasn’t caked in shit. For that, I was grateful beyond words.

“Come. Sit and talk a while,” Alwyn urged.

I did as she asked, sitting cross legged before her. Only the bars and a few feet of space separated us. If I’d had the nerve, I could’ve lunged and tried to strangle her through the cage. Not only was I terrified of her magic, but I still had nightmares of Shinara dying at my hands. There was something deeply personal, offensive, vile, about ending a life like that. A weapon provides a measure of detachment, even if it was only a few inches or a couple of feet. Her neck had been so pliable beneath my strength, and I shuddered. I was reminded of a line in a film or documentary where the killer mentions taking joy in watching the lights go out in the eyes of his victims. I was a killer too, that much was true, but I would be haunted forever with the faces of those I’d ended. There was no pleasure in it. I felt stained, and it was a mark that would never wash off.

Alwyn was smiling at me. “You’re not even going to try?”

“Would I be able to get to you?” I asked. Had my thoughts been that obvious or was she reading them?

“Of course not, but I’d respect you for trying.”

I sighed, the tension leaving my body. “Our time will come, I know it. But not today.”

“It will?” she asked, brimming with amusement. “You have a high opinion of yourself.”

“You’ll see why I’m right once you’ve asked all your questions.”

“Now you have me even more intrigued,” she gushed. “Where shall we begin?”

I shrugged.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

“England. A town called Brighton,” I saw her brow furrow. “And before you ask, no, you won’t have heard of it. It doesn’t exist on this world. I come from somewhere across time and space. Another universe.”

She studied my face for signs of deceit. “You’re not lying, are you?”

I shook my head wearily. “Nope.”

“How did you get here? Why are you here?”

“I was sent by beings that are akin to gods. In answer to the second question, I’m looking at her. Or at least one half of the why. Gutrender is the other half. I’ve been sent here to stop you. Well, technically I was sent to stop him and his army, but I think I sense a hand guiding his strings.”

This gave her pause. I saw in her eyes a need to disbelieve my statement. “So the very gods themselves seek to undo my plans?”

What could I say to that but the truth. “It seems like it. I’ll just mention again that you weren’t featured when they explained the task. It was only the goblins and orcs.”

“So?”

A cowardly plot had entered my head, aided and abetted by my run-in with Bommy in the tutorial and the turning of the barbarians to our cause. “I think they sense a chance for you to redeem yourself. Otherwise why would they have left you out?”

“You think I’ve done all of this to turn back now?” she scoffed.

“I’m only giving you my thoughts. It’s up to you what you do with them.”

“Enough!” she snapped, “I want more answers, not some nonsense about salvation.”

“Ask away,” I said, feeling the long shot miss the target by a country mile.

“What are the strange powers I sense within you? It’s like my magic, but also not like it. Is this also from your gods?”

“It is.”

“Explain it!” she demanded.

“Some of it won’t make sense with words. Some of it I can only show you. Like my map.”

“Map?”

“I can see the world around me. I sense lifeforces, and whether they are hostile towards me. Like yourself, I can see you on my map.” I checked the minimap and found a small group nearby. “There’s another eight hostiles as you turn left out of the cave we’re in.”

Alwyn frowned, climbed to her feet, and investigated my claim. Sure enough, her face registered surprise when she saw the pack of orcs outside. “That’s a nice little trick. So you can see me at all times? You can see everyone?”

“No, not everyone. Like when you were hiding in the dungeon. I didn’t know you were down there. I’ve missed orc scouts too, ones that are sneaking through the forests of Kherrash.”

“That seems a little thoughtless on the part of your gods, no? If you’re here as their harbinger, why would they leave you vulnerable? Why would they allow you to be captured so easily?”

“We’re getting in to you won’t believe me territory,” I warned.

“Humour me,” Alwyn said, retaking her seat before me.

“They want me to suffer.”

“What?” she exclaimed. “Why?”

“Because my home is under threat, just as Kherrash is from you and the goblins. By fighting against Gutrender, I can save my people.”

“Aww, a hero, how quaint,” she mocked.

“Not a hero. Just an idiot who said yes when he should’ve kept his mouth shut.”

She snorted. “The fallibility of men. I’ve never understood why it is always the males that rule. Prideful, arrogant creatures.”

“Ilfred wasn’t prideful or arrogant. He loved you, I think. Your allies killed him.”

I prepared for a fireball in the face. What I got was a wistful laugh. “I know he did. Silly fool.”

“It wasn’t mutual?” I asked, still waiting for my pretty face to melt.

“There was a time… once, perhaps. But how could I ever be with someone who was content to serve? They’re all weak. Every one of them. We have all the power, yet we cower before a family name?”

“You mean the Dawnstars?”

“Who else? They’re nothing but men. Normal men,” she spat. “We control the very elements themselves, and we are supposed to bow before them?”

I could draw parallels between my own world and the uprisings of the hoi polloi throughout history. There is only so much a person will accept being under a bootheel before they say enough is enough. The fact that Alwyn’s bootheel had in fact been a rather splendid life spent alongside the Dawnstars, enjoying the finer things didn’t alter the point. I think my own reason for getting the business loan and opening the arcade was so I didn’t have to answer to anyone except myself after my retail days. But even then, I’d had the ability to clock off and kick back. For the sorcerers, they were on call twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five. I think even I might’ve snapped.

“They’re still your people. So many of them have died because of you.”

“Nobodies. Farmers, soldiers, the dregs of the world.”

Any inclination I felt towards trying to turn Alwyn back to the right path was shattered by her outright disdain of the normal folk of Kherrash. Her face was even more hate-filled than when she had mentioned the Dawnstars. “So you’re going to rule over a kingdom of dull witted orcs instead? Great plan until they get tired of your shit and eat you too.”

“They might be dull witted, but they are far more malleable and compliant. They dare not turn on me.”

“They say if you beat a dog long enough, it’ll turn round and tear your throat out. Or something like that.”

“A normal person might have something to fear, but I’m far from normal. I’ll just incinerate the disloyal hound. As many of them as I need to, to keep them in check.”

“You’re only one person. They are, well, they’re a lot fewer now that I’ve killed tens of thousands of them. But my point is, it might be worth running for your life before my friends get here.”

“This place is impregnable. And even if they do manage to get inside, I won’t be here.”

“How did you do that, by the way? Ilfred seemed to think you were stuck after he locked the tower.”

“His little ploy did keep me from coming back to deal with you, but in so doing, he actually helped me to unlock my greatest power.”

“Teleportation,” I grumbled.

“Indeed. I can jump anywhere I wish in the land, provided I’ve been there before and I can visualise it.”

“You’ve been in Pitchhollow’s dungeon?”

“Of course not. At least, not until you trapped that poor fool that helped us in there with your spider friend. I sensed a great deal of magic in play.”

“You saw what I did, but left Finneus in there?”

“Mark, I may have gifts, but what you have is far more interesting. I can’t move massive lumps of stone, much less make them disappear at will. And then do the same thing with your eight legged companion. Tell me about it.”

“I can’t really explain it. Even I don’t know how it works or where the stuff goes. I can show you, though. If you’ll turn off the hex or spell or whatever for a moment?”

Alwyn’s curiosity outweighed her caution, but she was no fool. “One false move and I’ll drown you in fire.”

“I believe you,” I said. And I did. This wasn’t the time to try and snatch the stone and summon the support of the sorcerer’s. Before I’d even put the phone stone or whatever it was to my lips, I’d be a molten statue.

“You’re free,” she informed me unnecessarily.

I’d felt the anti-magic cocoon evaporate from my body. My HUD was alive with colour once again. I summoned one of the stone blocks inside my cell.

“Impressive,” said Alwyn, ponderously.

Until Spidey jumped on her, sinking its fangs into her neck. “Go on! Kill her!” I yelled, jubilant as the poison took effect.

I should’ve known from my gaming that it was hopeless. The sorceress was too high a level. My enveloping shroud returned with a vengeance, and she used her powers to tear my arachnid companion from her back, throwing it across the cavern. The low level debuff was hardly even affecting Alwyn as she conjured another pillar of flame that incinerated my friend. I waited for the drowning metal, but she picked up her staff and smiled instead. I’d have preferred a mask of fury to that evil grin.

“Let’s get inside that head of yours, shall we, little fly?”

My brain exploded with indescribable agony.