“Do you think our parents were from here, or at least visited this world before?” Zara asked her brother softly.

He quirked a curious brow. “I doubt it, why do you ask?”

“Do you remember the story mom used to tell us about Zelda, and how she got her name?”

“Yeah, it was based on some story about a long-eared princess.”

“Exactly!” She slapped a hand over her mouth and quieted back down. “They have the same story here. Kate was telling me about them last night. She thought the name was interesting and told me all about them. There’s an entire series that uses her name!”

“Okay, I’ll admit that’s more than a little of an odd coincidence, but we already know our parents came from someplace else. It’s possible they may have visited this world before, but I don’t believe this is where they’re originally from. It doesn’t seem like the place the Oracle described at all.”

“You’re right,” She sighed and kicked the ground. “I guess I was just hoping that there was some kind of connection there.”

“You’ve been talking about them more lately.” He observed as the group followed the bears to the first grouping of low-level monsters they had found.

“It’s the Oracle’s fault. Ever since she mentioned they weren’t from Aperra, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them for long. Don’t put too much thought into it. I still hate them for what they did to us.”

The conversation was interrupted as a wave of dozens of rats scurried out of the rocks towards them. Zack used his magical energy control to the fullest, making each ‘Arcane Bolt’ as weak as possible. Left unchecked, the bolts used as much energy as they could handle, which would leave him drained after only five or six shots, if he was lucky.

Then his special ability would kick in, which converted his health to magical energy. It was a painful ability, and one he relied on entirely too often for his own good. It had also nearly gotten him killed just a month or so earlier. He was understandably leery of relying on it to the same extent he had before.

That was where his magical energy control came in. As the name implied, it helped him to control how much energy the spells he used received.

Unfortunately, it was something that you had to learn on your own through constant practice and hard work. For most people, that meant it was learned over the course of months or even years. As they typically only went into the portals for short periods of time. Having access to his magic constantly had accelerated that learning process, but it was still hard.

He naturally packed an insane amount of power and little control. From the beginning, he was fighting an uphill battle for every small percentage of improvement. However, it was because of that he could see the improvement.

It was there, and he wouldn’t give up.

Still, the one who had seen the most improvement during their time on Earth was undoubtedly Tessa. Her ‘Flame Shot’ spell had gone from a level zero spell to a level four currently. It helped that it was her only spell and therefore the only one she ever used.

All of the spells Zack had, used his energy like crazy, so it was hard to level them. He had managed it, but not to the same extent as Tessa.

“Yes!” The teenage girl shouted exuberantly after they had blasted through their seventh long wave of the day.

It seemed that was all they were required to do, use their spells or abilities constantly in an effort to level them. As soon as they ran low on energy, the wave would die out and retreat. Only coming back once they had regained their energy.

The bears were each having a grand old time. George and Aisha were even getting smoother in using their adopted weapons.

“You got another level in your spell?” Zara asked in a dead voice, already having mostly given up.

The bears were having fun training, but outside of the random experience, each kill generated for her. She wasn’t getting much from this particular exercise. She had been working on increasing her spell levels on her own for a while now even outside of the dungeon.

They had increased, but at a slower pace than what the fiery redhead was experiencing. Her ‘puppet’ spell had increased to level three early on in the morning. Further decreasing the time, it took to use the spell and its overall energy consumption.

However, ‘modify’ hadn’t increased at all, it was still a level one spell for her. Some spells were like that, they took longer to level, but the gains when they did were far more pronounced as well.

Tessa nodded happily. “It’s good too. It not only attacks the body, but also the mind or spirit of the target. It helps to keep them distracted while I either keep attacking or more companions finish it off.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same side,” Zack muttered with a shiver.

He had suffered an attack on his soul before when he overdrew on his magic and his special ability began cannibalizing him. It was not an experience he ever wanted to go through again. If her attack could put someone through something like that, then he felt nothing but pity for them.

Zara put a hand to her belly as it rumbled hungrily. “Do you think there is anything to eat in this place, or did Gaia forget we lowly mortals need food to survive?”

The light wherever they were had changed little the entire time they had been there. It was impossible to tell how long it had already been. The only obvious way to tell was by how hungry, thirsty, and tired they all were.

“I give it a fifty-fifty chance for either option. Both seem like they could happen.” Zack suddenly grabbed Zelda, took her large knife, and tossed the bear high into the sky before she could do anything. “Did she see anything, or is it just more of this rock crap we’ve been climbing over for the last several hours?”

They had yet to see a single blade of grass, let alone an edible plant.

Frankly, the desolate landscape was wearing on them more than the nearly endless waves of weak monsters. At least one of those was helpful, the other was just mentally draining.

He caught Zelda as she came down, letting her bop him gently on the head in recrimination of not asking her permission first. Not that she would have refused. She enjoyed flying and the freedom it brought. Still, he should have asked first instead of just tossing her into the air.

She picked up the knife that was larger than her and used it to point to the right of the direction they had been going.

“She says there appear to be some ruins in that direction with some bushes around them.” Zara said interpreting the mind speak only she was privy to.

They had to work their way through one more wave of the giant rats on the way to the ruins Zelda had spotted. All three of them were beginning to feel tired from the long day of fighting they had experienced. A lack of food and water had exaggerated and accelerated those effects, leaving them increasingly weak.

“Do you think Charles will really be able to help us get home?” Tessa asked, stumbling as the rock she had stepped on rolled out from under her.

“Who knows,” Zack grunted out as he caught her before she could fall too far. “But Gaia seemed to think he could.”

“We saw him create those portals we traveled through already,” Zara piped up adding her own thoughts.

“How will he know where to take us though?” The other girl asked.

They all shrugged; it was a question none of them had an answer to.

A few minutes later, the ruins came into view. Giving them their first glimpse of what appeared to be an old village. There were eight crumbling stone houses built around a single well in the middle. Around each of the houses were the bushes that Zelda had seen.

The barest hint of a stone wall could be seen farther out that had once surrounded the village. They stopped outside the ruined wall and stared at the houses in curious distrust.

“You think it’s a trap or something else?” Zara asked after a minute.

“In this place they could be the same thing. It’s like our game we’ve been playing at home. There is some kind of rest area with food and water before the big boss of the portal shows up. Err, tower level, in this case, I guess?” Tessa offered.

“I always thought that was a stupid mechanic to have in the game. Only one of the portals we’ve entered in real life has had any kind of boss in charge of everyone.” Zara muttered, trying to distract herself.

“Right, the Ruler you met; I’m still surprised it let go like that.”

“I think it found us interesting, and we hadn’t done anything to earn its wrath by that point either.” Zack supplied, squaring up to cross over the remains of the wall. “Well, no matter which option it is, we’re not going to find out just standing here.”

The bears lined up beside them, standing at the ready in case something should happen.

They stepped over and waited with bated breath.

“Okay, I think we can rule out it being anything that we spring right away in any case. Let’s move on and get some water before I die from thirst.” Zara cast one last look back at the wall of stone, deciding not to mention the barrier that had appeared.

The others had already noticed it as well and were pretending it didn’t exist. Whatever was going on, might not have been a trap, but they were certainly stuck inside the ruins for whatever came next.

Zack stepped close to the well and spotted a wooden bucket that was sitting on the stones ringing it. Grabbing hold of the rope connected to it, he tipped the wooden bucket into the well.

It fell for a long second and then they heard the sound of it splashing into the water below. Excitedly, he began pulling it back up, only to hesitate when he saw the color of the liquid in the bucket. It wasn’t the clear, pure water that they had been hoping for, but a dark crimson viscous liquid instead that smelled of copper and iron.

The well was full of blood, not water.

“Don’t eat anything from the bushes!” He called out.

Zara popped a berry out of her mouth and wiped her tongue off. “Why, what’s wrong?”

He poured out the bucket for everyone to see instead of answering.

“Well, I think we can safely say this place is meant to be where we fight the last enemy. So, where is it?” Tessa peeked into the house nearest her. “There’s nothing in here but dust and the moldy remains of a bed.”

“Um, I think I actually found the boss monster.” Zack pointed to the blood he had poured out onto the ground.

The puddle was wriggling across the dirt, coming together to form a rat made of blood. He peeked down into the well and saw the rest of the liquid inside climbing the walls.

“Yup definitely found it. Tessa, light it up!” He yelled, backing away from the well.

Her leveled-up ‘Flame Shot’ with its ability to target the spirit could be exactly what they needed to defeat this thing. Assuming it even had a spirit, if it didn’t, then this fight was going to be a slog for them. He just knew it.

Defeating a being made of blood wasn’t going to be easy. Then again, it was the perfect time to work with another of his abilities. He had finally gotten ‘Arcane Manipulation’ to level one since they arrived on Earth. Maybe now he could get another.

Zelda stepped up and swung her blade at the blood rat. Drawing the proverbial first blood of the fight as it separated in half and then reconstituted itself behind her blade.

Yup, it was going to be a long fight, no matter what they did.