The ominous red door loomed in front of them. Vex had chosen to deem it the ORB, for "ominous red boundary". No one had really taken on the name yet, but they hadn't disputed him on it, either, so he was confident they'd pick up on it eventually.

"About time we go through," Misa said, eyeing it.

"If we do, I'm not sure we're going to be able to help the rebellion if anything goes wrong," Sev said. "This thing—"

"The ORB," Vex supplied.

"Yes, Vex," Sev sighed. "The ORB. It looks like... it looks final? It looks like when we go through it, we're going to face the last trial of the bonus room, and then we'll complete it."

Derivan patted Vex on the head, and the lizardkin gave a low trill of pleasure. "I do not think we should delay," Derivan said. "There is an advantage to remaining here, certainly, but we are aware that it pulls resources from the Elyran anchor. It is possible that by staying, we are accelerating Elyra's eventual fall."

"Elyra's going to fall anyway," Vex said. Some of his earlier humor faded from his eyes — he was trying everything he could to distract himself from everything happening in his home. A large part of him wanted to go back and do everything he could to help, but...

He was more valuable here, with his friends.

"You want to go back, though," Derivan said, observing him closely, and Vex sighed as the armor pulled him into his arms.

Arm.

They still hadn't fixed that.

"I do," Vex admitted. "It doesn't feel right to be... I don't know, safe? Not that it's safe here, but Elyra's in danger, and I'm not there. Helix is trying to protect it, Riss has no idea what's going on. I don't think the nobles are going to agree to work with the rebellion, so if the rebels just leave, Riss is going to be stuck there..."

"Do you really think Helix would leave your little brother there?" Misa asked, raising a brow. "That doesn't seem like him."

"No," Vex said, shaking his head in frustration. "But my father..."

He trailed off.

Karix was powerful. Helix couldn't fight off the man even at his best. If Vex helped...

But that was their conundrum right now, really. If they went through the trial and it somehow prevented them from working with Elyra — from keeping an eye on everything happening with the rebels and the nobles — then they would effectively be on their own. If they waited, they might accelerate everything that was happening, and no matter what they'd have to enter the door eventually.

The ORB. The joke seemed a little less funny, now, but sometimes a little levity was... needed, Vex thought.

"Sooner rather than later, I think," Misa said, and her words were surprisingly gentle. A strong arm landed on his shoulder, and Misa smiled at him. "No matter when we go, we're going to end up indisposed for a while. The sooner we get it over with, the sooner we can help the rebels if anything comes up. And knowing those noble fucks, something is gonna come up. Right?"

Vex nodded slowly. She was right. It was pretty clear, even, in the way Jakka had fought back against Helix with his own children. There was... something going on there; he just didn't know what.

Better to be ready by the time they did something. Derivan's portal time was limited, anyway, and if they were forced to retreat in the middle of a fight — or let the portal close on them — Vex doubted the results would be pretty.

In one universe, Misa opened a door.

It was only practical that she tested out what was behind the door first, with an application of Endless Echoes. Just in case they were wrong about what the door was, and it was a trap.

In all universes, the door opened.

It wasn't a trap, thankfully. Derivan apologized, and said that he should have noticed; the door was almost a fixed point in reality, solid across all the wavelengths he could reach through Shift. The door existed even back in the 'real world', for all that their definition of that concept was rapidly falling apart.

Misa let her Endless Echoes dissolve, and stared past the door at what lay beyond.

It was chaos.

"What the fuck is this?" she said, almost dumbly. She reached out with a hand, brushing it against the blistering light that lay just beyond the door; thankfully, it did nothing to her. She'd been half-expecting her health to start dropping just from the contact.

"I don't know what I'm looking at," Sev admitted. He stepped inside, somewhat braver than Misa had been, waved a hand; a small dome of shade appeared around him, blocking off the excess light that made it near-impossible to see. Misa joined him, and Derivan and Vex followed soon after.

Being able to see better didn't make it much easier to parse what was going on, though.

It was like up was down and left was right; the world paid no attention to the petty requirements of things like gravity and common sense. Chunks of rocks floated in the sky, upside-down, and Misa could see small figures moving upside-down along with them, entering little homes and drinking from tiny teacups. She wasn't even sure if they were alive — something about their movements were false, mechanical.

The wind blew around them, but something about the breeze was wrong. The air was denser and heavier than it should have been, and so what should have produced a rustling breeze was instead a deeper howl. The air smelt, strangely enough, of cinnamon and blueberry and the static crackle of an oncoming storm.

"I think..." Vex started, hesitating; the wind almost drowned out his words. "I think this is a place that the magic hasn't fixed yet. I think it's a place the magic is working on fixing."

"Perhaps that is what we were intended to do?" Derivan suggested. "To help the mana repair this land?"

"I... don't know." Vex looked surprisingly lost. He knelt down close to the ground, brushing his fingers through the faux grass beneath them. When he made a face, Misa knelt down to copy him, and shuddered.

The grass felt like wet paint.

"I wouldn't even know where to begin," Vex said quietly.

The four of them stared out across the landscape for a moment, taking it in.

"Let's just explore," Sev said after a moment. "Take it one step at a time. We'll figure something out."

"We always do," Misa agreed.

A few hours in, and they had discovered a few basic rules about the new space they found themselves in.

One, they couldn't go back. The door they'd gone through had vanished as soon as the last of them had stepped through, leaving grass and air in its wake. Shift, too, failed; reality here seemed denser, Derivan said, for all that it was technically weaker than it was anywhere else. It was like there was something holding it in place, and Shift was not nearly strong enough to move it.

Two, for that same reason, Derivan couldn't use Shift to reach out to Elyra — or anywhere else, for that matter. Their time here was indeed locked, and they had to work quickly if they wanted to help with the evacuation.

Three, the system itself still worked, as well as their ability to communicate with the outside world using the chat function.

Case in point was the message they received from the Guildmaster, shortly after entering what they had deemed "the ruins".

[Not sure if you're able to receive this message,] she sent, her words surprisingly short and clipped. [System is experiencing far more trouble than usual. Some places have it worse than others. Finish up quick. Assistance may be needed.]

"Ah, shit," Sev muttered, reading the message, and Misa made a disgruntled noise of agreement.

"Is it not just Elyra?" Vex frowned. "I'm sure she would have said something if any place was as bad as Elyra."

"I doubt any individual settlement has it as bad as Elyra, but a lot of smaller things can ruin a settlement without the supplies to keep it going," Misa said, frowning. She glanced at her own system. "Things are... apparently going well in Teque and Fendal. J'rokksur is assisting as best as it can with the Guild — many of its guards have joined up, so they're fighting the manpower shortage for now. Mom says that she's helping to keep track of the numbers, and she's pretty sure at least five adventurers have gone missing with no record... Shit."

"Let us hurry," Derivan said, and no one protested.

The first place of significance they encountered looked something like a ruined palace. Most of it had crumbled to dust, leaving very little left to indicate who or what might have once lived here.

"Noram said something about how the world began to crumble and fall apart, and the mana put it back together," Vex said softly. He knelt, letting some of the dust trail between his fingers. "This was someone's home."

"It's just dust, now," Misa said, though her voice was gentle. "Let's move on."

The second place they encountered was a little more intact. More of the walls were left behind, though they swayed dangerously in the wind. Vex walked up to them and brushed his fingers across the faded murals, a faint sense of recognition sparking in his mind.

Why did this place seem familiar?

He didn't know, and there was nothing else here for him to find.

They'd been wandering for almost a day, now, and had yet to find anything that might give them a hint as to what they were supposed to do here. Food and water was at least abundant, if strange-tasting; Sev made sure to purify any of the food they came across, just in case.

The second day saw a new message from Helix, and one from the Guildmaster.

[Nobles didn't listen,] Helix said. Vex imagined him typing the message and rolling his eyes as he did so, like he'd known the whole time it would happen. [Not even dad would listen. Didn't expect any different, but it's still frustrating.]

[They didn't try to spring a trap?] Vex sent back.

Helix took a long half-hour to respond — three minutes, in his time. [Of fuckin' course they did,] he said. [We were prepared. No casualties. Took a little souvenir with us, too.]

Vex managed a small smile. [Any update on what the deal with Jakka is?]

Three hours before the reply on that one. [No. Jakka still won't talk, and all his kids won't either. We think it's a Wisfield compulsion, so we're asking the Guild for help removing it.]

The Guildmaster's message explained why the Guild hadn't already sent them that assistance. [Guild's overloaded right now,] she sent. [Dungeon breaks are getting more common, even when the dungeons themselves are getting cleared. System seems to be stabilizing for a bit, but no guarantee it'll last. Any recommendations?]

[Wait for us,] Misa had sent.

J'rokksur had thus far not experienced any of the problems with the system that many others had. The prevailing assumption at the moment was that Misa's particular anchor was immune, or at least protected, from whatever degradation was affecting all the other ones. They'd told the Guildmaster how Misa had ended up binding the anchor to herself, but the Guild had had no luck replicating those particular circumstances so far — nor did they want to risk their already limited adventurers on broken dungeons.

The best thing they could do was to find a way to link everyone to Misa's anchor instead. With enough reality shards, they could handle the load, at least for a little while, and they'd managed to stock up a bit while they were here.

And yet they still didn't know what the objective was. What did the bonus room want them to do?

The third significant location was a good three days away. This time the ruins were intact enough that Vex recognized a small piece of architecture, and the lizardkin caught his breath.

"This was Elyra," he said. "I should've realized. Everything was so broken... but this place was Elyra."