Ralph gazed over the wall out over the now cluttered battlefield. He could see the goblin forces pulling back to the woods. The stench of crushed bodies and burst livestock wafted over the eastern plains. Ralph had the regnant brought into the shelter after he collapsed. The makeshift general was drained of all his mana and stamina upon activating Farmageddon. Tantus couldn’t tell when he would wake up. That told Ralph they expended their trump card much too early. It seemed like the enemy was going to regroup giving them a precious moment of rest. This engagement was only an hour old. Ralph gripped the lip of the wall, feeling the hard stone surface under his fingers. The goblins have not entered the town and have been content with just field engagements.

“Ralph, I think you should come back to the bunker for a few minutes. Let the guardsmen man the walls. Tantus has something he’d like to show you,” said Amanda gently rubbing his back.

“What if the start up again?” Ralph asked.

“There are others. Typhus promises to be out here just in case,” answered Amanda pulling on his arm.

“Fine,” replied Ralph as hustled down the stairs.

Back inside the emergency shelter, Tantus was adjusting sigils on the underside of the sand table. Alfred was instructing him on the proper amount of mana to apply to any given section. The concentric circles that made up the enchantment on the underside of the table was some of Tantus’s best work. Alfred of course helped him with the magical theory part. They both leveraged Tantus’s subclass advantages in the making of the table. His reduction in material requirements made an almost impossible craft for his level achievable. Tantus even netted two skill levels in enchantment and a personal level increase to nineteen. When they were done, Alfred slid the wooden cover over the intricate symbols hiding them from view. That’s when a haggard looking Ralph came up the stairs and through the door.

“Amanda said you had something for me?” Ralph asked.

“Yes, yes. We managed to extend the sensing range of the table to just inside the woods. Now we should be able to get a look at what they are doing out there,” explained Tantus.

“Excellent timing. The towns regnant just wasted a war working in the opening minutes of a battle. Let’s take a look,” Ralph said.

Tantus made some gestures with his hands and the sand began to redraw a map of the area. About ten inches before the edge of the sand they could see trees and a gathering of goblins around what looked like a tent. The tent was circular in nature with three long sticks holding it up. A slimmer looking goblin that was taller than the rest came out holding a staff and barking orders they couldn’t hear.

“Can you pick up what they are saying?” Ralph asked.

“Unfortunately, no. We are stretching the limits of this magic item as it is, if they were closer, we might be able to listen in, but considering no one hear speaks goblin but Typhus, it wouldn’t help much anyway,” answered Tantus.

They then noticed the large goblin grabbed another by the head and raised his staff into the air. Once the tall goblin let go the body just fell to the ground. Suddenly there was a blank space where the sand didn’t move. It was roughly the width of a dime where the sand was inert. Goblins started to appear all around the blank space. First ten, then twenty. Finally a large figure emerged from the empty air carrying a tower shield and a battle axe.

“That is an Orc,” said Ralph, his hand immediately going to his sword.

“I think I know what those flashes in the forest are now. That blank space needs to be a gateway or portal of some kind. No air is occupying the space, so the sensor doesn’t see it,” explained Tantus.

“We’ve been holding our own thus far, but goblins are one thing. If they keep bringing Orcs, we will be in trouble. I have to tell Typhus,” Ralph said before being stopped in his tracks by Alfred.

“I was hoping it was momentary disconnect from all the activity going on, but I must inform you all that I have lost my connection to master Deacon. The only way that would happen is if he died or wasn’t in our dimension anymore,” Alfred said with real concern in his voice.

“Death won’t stop him,” came the voice of Sophie entering the room, “The town’s people are starting to ask questions about what’s going on, so I came up here to get an update. As the senior most ranking Guild member I suggest we secure this town. Then we can go looking for Deacon. Ralph, can you keep the Regulators focused on that?” Sophie asked, taking a seat.

“Yes ma’am,” Ralph responded.

“Important update, they have a method of creating portals to bring in more troops. We may have to go on the offensive to end this,” Ralph explained.

“That is tier four Arcanum: Planar. That shouldn’t be available to goblins,” Sophie reacted.

“True, there are very few mages in the Tower that can access that tier of Arcanum. Probably count them on one hand,” added Tantus rubbing his chin.

“But the inside of the Tower is much bigger than the outside. That had to be done by somebody,” Ralph said.

“The founder enchanted that and the links to other Towers. He also made it so you needed to actually travel to the other towers before you can portal to them. Something about earning it. Scholars have spent years trying to unravel that particular enchantment,” Tantus expounded losing track of the tall goblin on the table.

Deacon kept moving across the sand staying ahead of The Unsatiated. Every time he looked up, he could see the monkey man just over the next dune staring at him. He was mentally exhausted and confused. At one point it looked like the armored staff wielder wanted to help him since he gave him assistance dealing with the now consumed Caphida. Deacon’s health still hadn’t improved since he had no base regeneration. If he could stop maybe, he could cook up a healing potion if he had the ingredients in his bag, but the ever present chomping kept him moving. The pain in his leg was ever present now. He crested one more dune and saw rolling hills with wave upon wave of wheat. Now he was even more confused. A massive desert gave way to fertile waves of grain. That didn’t make sense. In the far distance there was a solitary mountain sticking up over the horizon.

He began to question how long he’d been at this. It felt like hours and hours of walking and occasional jogging to stay ahead of that thing. There was no way all those animals could be that far ahead of him. He didn’t even have a stamina bar to worry about. Chomp! That was getting on his last Chimera damned nerve. He reached into his bag and pulled out his Adventure’s die. Deacon felt he should use it to help him instead of just carrying it around. Maybe he’d roll a five and portal that damn thing to somewhere else. He tossed it at the massive creature that was about two hundred yards behind him chewing. It flipped end over end glinting in the starlight provided by the sky. It finally came to rest in the sand with the number one facing up.

The Unsatiated stopped chewing. The lids on it’s many eyes started to flutter as it’s head lowered into the sand. Once the last eye closed it stopped moving all together. From his vantage point, Deacon could see on the outer edges of The Unsatiated’s body were little arms that do not look like they grow with the main body. They were curved at the elbow with long shovel like claws at the end of its fingers. Deacon postulated they were only used to scoop more food into its mouth.

“I can’t believe that fuckin worked,” Deacon said out loud while rubbing the back of his head.

“What are you?” asked the armored man who was now standing next to Deacon leaning back on his staff as it just hung in the air against nothing.

“Hey, don’t sneak up on me!” Deacon shrieked as he jumped to the side. He didn’t feel any disturbance in his aura when he showed up. Deacon absent mindedly wondered how he did that.

“I have been fighting and running from that for hundreds of years now. You show up and put it to sleep in one night? What is this thing?” Asked the armored man holding up Deacon’s chaos artifact and rolling it between his fingers.

“That’s mine, give it here before something stupid happens,” Deacon demanded.

“Calm down, calm down. If I was going to hurt you, I would have. At least you didn’t attack me on site like that unpleasant man you fed to The Unsatiated. This is outstanding. It hasn’t been this quiet here ever. How did you figure out the Ravine Stones key?” asked the monkey man tossing the die over to Deacon.

Deacon caught the Adventurer’s Die with Polterheist, and it went back into his bag. He felt this guy was trouble. He reminded him of an old story from Earth. He just couldn’t remember his name. Staying on his toes around him was probably the best idea. There was something so familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Perhaps if Deacon kept him talking, he’d learn more.

“My name is Deacon, what’s yours?” He asked.

“You can call me Sun Wu,” replied Sun Wu cordially with a bow from the waist.

“Wait, you’re Son Wukong!! The Monkey King! But that is an earth story, how are you here?” Deacon asked as he noticed Sun Wu go rigid. He could see his eyes form thin slits as he stared at Deacon.

“Do not say that name out loud. I take it you’re from Earth as well. Don’t you know anything. Your full name gives them power over you. Have you given people in this world your full name?” asked Sun Wu.

Deacon thought back to all his interactions. Had he given his family name to anyone? He didn’t think he had. Now he was happy he inadvertently avoided it. Or did he? Didn’t Chimera push him past that during the time period he was first aware. Someone was playing the long game and Deacon felt like he was just another pawn on the chess board.

“Did you say Ravine Stones?” Deacon asked while facepalming.