Morgan had been teleported before, and he was pretty sure that was what was happening to him now. As the darkness seemed to rush past him, he wondered why teleportation seemed different based on who or what was causing it. He'd seen kaleidoscopic lights with the Token of Travel; when the Yovashi had teleported him by accident, he’d felt the tug of dimensional magic and a sense of timelessness. Now he was rushing through the darkness but very much aware of the time.

After five minutes or so, and not knowing how long this unexpected journey would take, Morgan turned his attention inward, calling up his class refinement options and scanning through each of them:

***Class refinement option 1: Hollow Dreadnought - Epic. Prerequisite: Vortex Class Core. Confronting danger and savagely destroying threats, you have the means to absorb damage and recover from blows that would defeat lesser beings, all while dealing tremendous blows to your foes. Class attributes: Vitality, Strength, and Will.***

***Class refinement option 2: Void Adept - Epic. Prerequisites: Vortex Class Core and Void Affinity. You embrace the nature of your Core and Energy, learning to wield powerful magics to both manipulate space and lay waste to those who challenge you. Class attributes: Intelligence, Will, Unbound.***

***Class refinement option 3: No Refinement - You are pleased with the path on which you find yourself and choose to continue until your next refinement option.***

Morgan tried to exclaim about how surprised he was only to see two options, but no words came out of his mouth. He figured talking wasn’t something one did while teleporting. Both options were epic ranked, and so was his current class, so that didn’t play a part in his decision-making. The Dreadnought class sounded very strong, but Morgan had to accept that the Void Adept class was perfectly tailored to him; it required both his vortex Core and void attunement. On top of that, it gave some “unbound” attribute points; did that mean he could assign them wherever he wanted?

What really clinched the decision for him was that he’d already learned advanced swordsmanship, and though it was useful, nothing had been more effective in his more difficult battles than his Energy abilities. He decided it was time to try embracing the fact that intelligence was his highest ability score, and he was gifted with Energy use. With butterflies tumbling around in his stomach, he touched the option for Void Adept.

***Congratulations! You’ve refined your class: Void Adept. Class skill gained: Void Step - Basic.***

***Congratulations! World-first Void Adept! Feat awarded.***

***World-first Void Adept: Feat granted: One with the Void - the harsh physical realities of existing in a vacuum are much less pronounced on you.***

***Void Step - Basic: You are able to instantly travel between two points in space, provided you can see your destination. Energy cost: 1000 Cooldown: Medium.***

***Congratulations! You’ve achieved level 31 Void Adept. You have gained 8 Intelligence, 8 Will, and have 12 points to distribute.***

Morgan had almost forgotten that the System was holding a level for him. He supposed he was lucky that being forcibly teleported didn’t count as losing consciousness with regard to the banked Energy. He was very excited to try out his new spell, and he hoped it was a portent of the skills to come with his new class. Being able to teleport would be a massive boon in many ways. He felt a surge in his Core as his body accommodated the changes his new class and level had wrought, and he looked at his attributes:

Core:

Vortex Class - Base 8

Energy Affinity:

9.2, Void 9.2

Energy:

6630/6630

Strength:

65

Vitality:

60

Dexterity:

74 (95)

Agility:

133

Intelligence:

162

Will:

133

Points Available:

12

His Energy levels were truly growing massive, at least in his opinion, and even with the high cost of some of his abilities, his pool and regeneration hadn’t had any trouble keeping up. He wanted to hold onto the twelve attribute points for now, but he was all too aware that something terrible could be waiting at the other end of the portal, so he dumped them all into vitality.

Morgan was just starting to wonder if he could get out the scrolls he’d been holding that contained advanced Fighting Crane forms when something changed; a pinpoint of light had appeared in the darkness. He still gripped Bloodfang in his right hand and began to ready a Void Burst, pushing void-attuned Energy into his pathways. He watched as the pinpoint became a nickel, became a basketball, became a window of orange light, and then he was standing in a bright open space, a smoldering orange sun high overhead, with a screaming, howling mob of gargoyles charging at him with spears, clubs, and axes.

Morgan took one step and then unleashed his Void Burst; a dark wave of Energy rolled out from him, ripping reality with a crackling, mind-rending screech. The gargoyles in front tried to pull back, but the mob behind them mindlessly drove forward, and the entire pack was caught by the full force of the terrible Energy. As the wave of torn reality faded, chunks of partially obliterated bodies and the fluids within them piled and puddled around Morgan in a circle of devastation.

Morgan whirled around, waving his sword, ready for something else to attack, but nothing came, and his mind was having trouble grasping the reality of his situation. Where the hell was he? He stood in a valley that resembled what he’d imagine a crater on Mars would look like. The soil was red-orange, and not a single plant grew within sight. What’s more, the orange, shimmering sun hanging in the sky was very different from the bright yellow-white sun of Fanwath. “What the fuck?” He’d known he was being teleported, but not to an entirely different world. Panicking slightly, he reached out with Guardian’s Senses for Issa and found absolutely no hint of her. That’s when he realized the portal was gone. He was standing among a pile of dead gargoyles in a blasted hellscape with no idea how to get home.

As he spun around again, he saw furtive movement in a narrow gap of the crater wall and realized some gargoyles were hurrying in that direction. Were they running from him? “The prisoners!” he said aloud as he started trotting up a hard-packed path toward the gap. While he was running, his mind was busy trying to solve his predicament, and he remembered the Token of Travel. “Will that work to teleport between worlds?” The description hadn’t said anything about him having to be in his homeworld for it to work. He powered up the dusty slope to the gap in the crater wall, and when he peered out between the two sides of the cleft, he saw a dirt road running out over a desert-like landscape.

Five of the large gargoyles were dragging a string of six bound Ardeni, stumbling and flailing, along the road. Morgan couldn’t see their destination; the dirt road ran through the empty landscape for as far as he could see. Morgan began to run toward them, then stopped. He’d nearly forgotten about his new spell; staring at a point not far in front of the gargoyles, he concentrated and cast Void Step. With a rush, a large wave of Void Energy pulsed through his pathways and out, ripping space around him with a terrible, strange cracking sound, and suddenly he was standing on the road in front of the running, growling creatures. He reached out with an Energy Drain, pulling a torrent of black and red Energy from each of the gargoyles, and then began to lay about with his sword, hacking, cleaving, and stabbing.

The gargoyles tried to fight back, to their credit, but they were surprised and weakened by his Energy Drain, and the minor cuts and bruises they managed to dish out were healed when Morgan drained the last three of them as soon as his ability was ready again. As he finished off the last gargoyle, he looked at the line of hooded, tied-up Ardeni and shouted, “Don’t worry, I’m freeing you!” He supposed it must have been nerve-wracking hearing the combat but not knowing what all the screaming, stabbing and hacking was about.

Morgan pulled a scrap of leather from his storage pouch and cleaned off his sword, sheathing it before moving over to the prisoners. The first thing he did was untie the burlap sack-like hoods they had on their heads, noting the deep purple bruises on most of their faces as he worked to untie the ropes around their wrists. They all uttered things like, “Thank you,” or “Thank the Ancestors!” and Morgan nodded, trying to reassure them that things would be okay.

He noticed that, along with the ropes, they each had a strip of leather strung through a heavy pewter disc around their wrists. He snapped the cords on one and held it up, noticing the strange little runes stamped into it. “They using these to control you somehow?”

“That’s right,” a round-faced older man responded. Morgan moved among them, breaking the cords and stowing the little discs in his pouch. He didn’t recognize any of the Ardeni; four of the six were darkly “tanned” men, their blue skin almost purple, but the two women were just as swarthy, and all wore loose, cottony trousers and shirts. “Are you all from the trading flotilla that was raided?”

“Yes!” one of the women replied, rubbing at her chaffed wrists.

“Are you the only ones? Do you think they brought others through that portal?”

“A portal? Was that what that was? I knew something strange had happened!” The tall, bald man who spoke looked around, squinting at the strange purple-blue sky and the throbbing orange sun. “This isn’t Fanwath!” The other Ardeni burst into distressed chatter, looking around, shock and fear on their faces.

“That’s right. I got sucked in trying to stop the gargoyles that dragged you all through.”

“Gargoyles?”

“Those creatures,” Morgan gestured to the corpses, “I don’t know what they’re really called, but they look like something called gargoyles from stories I’ve heard.”

“They had us in huge pens, and yes, they took many others before us. I didn’t know they were putting them through a portal, though. They had Urghat penned up also; just a dozen or so.” A different woman answered. She was shorter and older and had lots of gray in her amber-colored hair.

“Well, my name’s Morgan, and I’m a friend to the Ardeni in Tarn’s Crossing. I’m not sure how we’re all going to get home, but we’ll figure something out.” Morgan looked around, squinting into the harsh light. “I wish there was some shelter nearby. I want to scout ahead and see if I can figure out where they were taking you, but I’d like to leave you someplace a little more secure.”

“Please don’t leave us!” the younger woman said, reaching out to grip Morgan’s armored forearm.

“I’m not planning to. Hmm, let’s just follow this road a bit; see what comes up.” Morgan didn’t wait for a response, turning to walk past the dead gargoyles and briskly along the hard-packed road. The light was harsh, the air was dry, and he began to sweat in his heavy metal armor. After hiking down the road for another twenty minutes or so, he glanced over his shoulder and saw the drooping, exhausted Ardeni, and he realized his improved racial traits were allowing him to weather the extremes of this world far better than those poor souls, so he called for a break and produced water and fruit from his storage pouch.

While they sat hunched on the dirt road, drinking and slurping at the fruit, Morgan tried looking around with his Void Vision. To his surprise, the ability cut back much of the sun’s orange glare, reducing the haze in the air, and he was able to see that a few miles down the road, some hills began to rise up out of the barren desert. He saw the faint outline of sparse plant life on the hills and turned back to the little group of Ardeni, “Hey, there are some hills ahead with plants growing on them. Hopefully, we’ll find some answers up there.”

Once again, they set out, Morgan setting an easier pace this time, and after hiking for about an hour, they began to pass between low rolling hills with fat, cactus-like plants growing sporadically here and there. They reminded Morgan a little of barrel cacti, though they were shaped more like inverted cones than barrels. “Keep walking on the road; I’m going to climb this hill and see what I can see.”

Morgan jogged up the smooth slope of the nearest hill, and when he reached its crest, he stared off in the direction the road had been taking them. He activated his Void Vision again and took in a sharp breath. Maybe five miles away, he saw, rising into the strange, hazy sky, a tall, pyramidal structure the color of dried mud. On the one hand, it looked kind of like an ancient ziggurat, but on the other, it resembled nothing so much as an insect hive. He jogged back down the hillside to the group of Ardeni who were slowly trudging along the road and called out, “Hey, we need to cut into the hills. I have a feeling we’ll run into a lot of company on this road pretty soon.”

“I’m so tired and hot!” a grizzled older man said. Briefly, Morgan thought about getting all their names, but he knew he’d probably forget them before they stopped to rest and decided to put it off a while.

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, but we’re too exposed on the road. If we move into these hills, we might find a good spot to rest.” They didn’t argue further, and, though it took a while, they all trudged up the hillside and followed the gulleys between the hills. All the while, they edged their way toward where Morgan had seen the hive-like ziggurat. The huge, pulsing orange sun slowly moved across the sky, and, as it began to descend toward the horizon, Morgan wondered what night would be like in this weird alien world.