When I came to, I had no fucking clue where I was.

I had a goddamn miserable headache and the same kind of nasty metallic taste in my mouth that accompanied a bad hangover. It took me a second to recall where I’d been last. Everything was hazy and just out of grasp. The last thing I remembered was...shit! The portal—and, uh, my guts exploding from my body.

My eyes shot open—probably. At least that seems like something they’d have done. I clearly hadn’t died, because I didn’t have the ol’ rez sickness, and my Health was back to full. So, someone had healed me? Seemed likely—given the circumstances—but who? And where the hell was I?

As the world came into focus, I quickly realized I was…not where I expected to be. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t winding up in the lap of luxury. I was sprawled on what felt like the hardest, most uncomfortable bed that'd ever had the privilege of cradling my big, beautiful ass. It was better than dirt or a pile of rocks, I supposed.

The room was small and looked like it was cobbled together by someone who had just discovered the color gold and was hellbent on sharing his newfound enthusiasm with the world. The walls were adorned with intricate patterns and embellishments, each traced in some gleaming, gilded ink. The ceiling was formed into an arcing dome, studded with etchings that told some indeterminate fairy tale or something. There were no windows, only a heavy wooden door with a fancy golden knob that matched the rest of the room. It was dim in here, the only light spilling in from the cracks beneath the door and a single low-glowing lantern on the nightstand next to me.

I fumbled with the light for a moment before figuring out how to make it brighter. Which happened with sudden intensity.

Goddamn fucking magic!

I squinted, my vision blurry, as I tried to take it all in. It was too damn bright in this room, too motherfuckin’...golden and shit. I noticed now that my regular fucking awesome skull-kicker costume was not on my body and what I was wearing looked like a light blue nightgown.

“Is this a fuckin’ muumuu?” I wondered, looking down at myself. “Oh, this is real cute.”

I looked ridiculous. The coarse linen grazing my bare legs made me feel somewhat...vulnerable.

"What in the name of hell?" I said to nobody in particular.

Pushing myself off the bed, I stumbled to my feet, my legs wobbling beneath me like a baby deer. I took a moment, waiting for the room to stop spinning. Once my equilibrium found its way back to me, I padded across the cold stone floor, my bare feet slapping against the surface. The door was only a few feet away, but it felt like a mile.

I paused in front of the door, and shot a quick glance around the room.

Where the fuck was my stuff?

I’d been half-expecting to see my shit piled in a corner. But…weren’t nothin’ there. I suddenly felt even more exposed than before. I didn’t have any of my belongings except for the goddamn maxi dress—and for whatever reason I wasn’t dead. Unfortunately, the vast majority of my things had been in the Feather Chest, and that had been in Jumpy’s possession—wherever the fuck he was. I was pretty sure that, based on the color of the portal when I’d been fired into it, I wasn’t in Palandis. Though, I guess it wasn’t a complete wash. Whoever had dressed me down hadn’t removed my fine jewelry because I did still have my Ring of Redoubt and…

“Zhakko!” I hiss-spoke in the Arcane Tongue.

There was a flash of blue from the bracelet, and suddenly, Edwig was…well, not standing in front of me, but he was there, looking as confused as I felt.

“Pah! Where are we at? A brothel?” The illisinaf demanded, his eyes swiveling around before landing on me. “Yep. Brothel.”

“Shut up,” I said, pointing to my dressing gown. “I just woke up like this. Things went south at the portal.”

“Pah! Of course they did! Can’t ever have a usual time with you around, orc,” Edwig said, adjusting his sweater vest and doing something that looked like stretching. “So, where have we ended up? A bit small and flashy to be a jail cell.”

“Yeah, well, you’d be the expert there,” I said. “And…I dunno. Like I said, I just woke up here. When Arjee went through the portal before me, his little trinket got ripped out of my body and then I ended up here when I went through. I thought I was toast, man. There was so much blood…”

“What do you mean ‘trinket?’” Edwig wondered, giving me a suspicious glare.

“Nothing, nevermind—it would take too long to explain,” I said. “I just want to figure out where we are and then we have to figure out how to get to the others. I’m sick and fucking tired of getting separated from people.”

“Pah! Don’t worry about that, orc,” Edwig said. “If we can find the Gateway you came through—or another like it—I can get us where we need to be.”

“You can? How?”

“I’m part of the Mages Order, orc,” he said. “We’ve all pulled portal duty from time to time. Kind of a punishment, really.”

“Oh,” I said, shrugging. “That’s good news, then. I figured…I dunno, that you’d need a specialization or something.”

“Not for these kinds—that would be inefficient,” he said, then he glared. “Why would you think I’m not specialized in it, anyway?”

“Well,” I said, considering. “From what I understand…portals work with…what is it? Cosmic Arcana, right? You haven’t done anything with cosmic Arcana—from what I can tell. Your specialty seems to be, I dunno, being annoying? But also, some kind of copying magic?”

Edwig stared at me silently.

“What?” I asked.

“How do you know any of that?” Edwig asked.

“What do you mean? I pay attention!”

Truth be told, if it hadn’t been for meeting the crew in the Crypt and having to listen to them prattle on and on about Cosmic magic—really making it into a lecture, ya know—I wouldn’t know any of that.

“I’m just impressed, is all,” Edwig said—and he really did sound like he was struck dumb at the thought of me…not being completely dumb.

“Fuck you, Viggo,” I said. “Anyway! Let’s table this for now. We can get into the nuts and bolts of my overwhelming genius later—-we gotta figure out where we are and get your jiggly ass to a portal so we can meet up with everyone.”

“Pah! I know that!”

“Well, I guess let’s go then…” I said, turning toward the door.

I stooped down and began to inspect it. Despite being a fancy-pants variety, it looked mostly like a normal door. I genuinely didn’t know how to check for traps or, like, an alarm or anything, so I just went with an old classic. Pressing my ear against the cool wood of the door, I tried to discern any movement from outside. The silence was as thick as tar. I couldn't hear a damn thing.

“Anything?” Edwig asked.

“Nah, I can’t hear shit,” I said.

Well, there was one way to find out what was going on.

I hesitated for just a second longer before gripping the fancy knob and turning it as silently as I could manage. The door swung open with a quiet creak and I found myself peering into a long, opulent hallway that stretched out in both directions. Sconces lined the walls, housing glowing crystals that bathed the corridor in a soft, warm light.

In the distance, I thought I heard the faint murmur of voices, but they were too far to make out anything definitive. I closed the door behind me and leaned against it, running a hand through my hair.

“Wait,” I said suddenly, looking at Edwig who instantly got tense.

“Trouble?” He demanded, and his hands flared up as he gathered a Spell of some kind.

“What color is my hair?” I asked him seriously.

“What?!” He practically yelled.

“My hair,” I continued. “What color is it?”

“Pah! The usual color, orc! What are you talking about?!”

“Usual like…black, or usual like the bright kind?”

“It’s looks like the inside of that ghost’s brain. Multicolored.”

“Fuck!”

I’ll admit to having had a small glimmer of hope that enduring the effigy being ripped forcefully and painfully out of my belly meat would have caused my punk rock locks to go back to normal. But I guess that was just another present Santa forgot on my Christmas list.

“Nevermind,” I sighed, then turned back to the door. “It’s an empty hallway out there. I think we’re in some rich guy’s house or something. Lots of one-percent style crap on the walls.”

“Hm,” Edwig said. “If that’s the case, we need to be cautious—could be guards.”

“Yeah, and I don’t have any weapons on me.”

“Pah! This isn’t an ideal situation, orc.”

“Yeah—no shit,” I said.

“Just where did you drag me to?” He wondered.

“Well, let’s figure that out, shall we?” I said. “Well, really, you stick around in here, and I’ll go check it—”

“Pah!” Edwig exclaimed. “I’m not sitting around in this room—makes me twenty sorts of claustrophobic. I’m coming with.”

“While I can appreciate your heebie-jeebies with tight spaces, Viggo—you’re not exactly stealthy.”

“And you are?”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “Yes. It’s literally the thing I do.”

“Pah! Since when?”

“Since whe—what are you—are you stupid? I’m super fucking sneaky, dude! That was the whole reason I came along on this halfwit mission.”

“I just assumed that it was because you’re the biggest halfwit in the camp,” Edwig said.

“Why are you trying to rile me up right now?” I asked.

“Because you don’t have any weapons,” he admitted. “Seemed like the best time.”

“You can’t come with,” I reaffirmed. “You’ll get us caught.”

“Pah! You don’t even know that there’s something out there to catch us!”

“You just said there might be guards,” I groaned. “Make up your fucking mind, ass-snout.”

“The way I see it: I have Arcana that could be useful. You’d be wasting my talents leaving me in here. Besides, it’s not as though I need your permission.”

“Fine…” I hissed. “But if there’s a time for actual sneakin’ around and not getting caught by whoever put me here, can you at least leap back in that bracelet?”

“Pah! Absolutely not!” Edwig said, super grumpy by the idea of it all of a sudden. “It’s uncomfortable in there.”

I’m going to fucking kill this idiot, I thought to myself. But rather than argue further, I just turned back to the door.

“Alright, let’s see what the happy-haps are in this janky joint.”

As soon as we stepped into the hallway, a shiver ran down my spine. I had the feeling of eyes on me. It was fucking weird. The corridor was void of any visible presence, but something still felt off. I motioned for Edwig to stay close and together we began to carefully move down the hallway.

Most of the doors we passed were ornately designed with gold knobs, each one slightly different than the one before it. The corridor was decked out with expensive paintings depicting abstract art and landscapes that looked far too serene for our tense situation. The rich crimson carpet under our feet was plush, our footfalls silent. Well, mine were. Edwig’s movements just sounded a little like sex noises, or like…someone eating lasagna on wet grass.

I felt kind of stupid skulking around like that. You know, wildly visible in the middle of a hallway with light everywhere.

I gestured to the crystal array along the walls to Edwig and then got close. I knew they were probably what I had learned were called magelights—I mean, far be it from anyone in this godforsaken place to use non-arcane means to light stuff. Which meant if I didn’t want some kind of unknown hazard to rise to the occasion and put my lights out, I might want to be careful. So, I activated Eye of the Saboteur.

Ooh! Pretty, pretty! Mysterious! Arcane lights designed to really give a space a glow-up, am I right? It almost distracts from the unglamorous reality, that of the common folk toiling tirelessly in the shadows of their dilapidated shelters, void of even the simplest luminosity. Sad.

I sighed. This was getting aggravating and tedious. However, the oddly underdog-fixated message notwithstanding, the secondary feature of the Ability was what I was really after. Thankfully, whatever malware that had caused the System messages to go all wonky hadn’t infected that yet.

A visual display of the pieces of the magelight appeared in front of me. It was easy to see the entirety of the…honestly pretty simple device. After examining it for a moment I was moderately confident I could just pluck the stone out and have no issues.

I turned to Edwig and pointed up at the magelight.

“Think it’s safe to just take the crystal?” I whispered.

“Most likely,” he returned after scowling at it for a second. “Seems garden-variety, really.”

I shrugged and just snatched the little beacon outta there and watched as the light disappeared instantly. Then, because I figured I was owed something for my confusion, I stuffed the crystal into the pocket of the muumuu and moved along. I repeated the process with each magelight we encountered, feeling ever-stealthier as the light died out, until our entire stretch of hallway was fairly dark.

“Do you have Dark Vision?” I asked Edwig as I activated the Ability.

“No!” He hissed. “I can barely see now.”

I just chuckled and continued on. Guess he was going to have to figure out what this place looked like through echolocation or something.

I stopped, considering.

Fucking Christ—I’m so goddamn stupid.

Hadn’t my Eye of the Saboteur gotten an upgrade? And didn’t that mean it had gotten stronger?

Time to test this puppy out.

Tentatively, I placed a hand on the wall and reactivated Eye of the Saboteur. I ignored whatever dipshit message cropped up and then focused on expanding the sensation. As soon as the Ability pushed out further, I nearly shouted in surprise. The drab hallway instantly transformed into a sprawling, intricate blueprint, one that even Da Vinci would've drooled over. I could see through walls, around corners, and hell, even up and down floors. The whole damn mansion—and I knew it was a mansion now—was stripped bare before me.

Now, I've been in a few gold-painted shitholes in my time, but this... This was some next-level excess. The sprawling floor plan stretched out around me, each room painstakingly detailed in glowing red, white, and blue outlines. Living rooms, dining halls, kitchens, bathrooms, all those boring essentials. There were even a few rooms filled with nothing but statues. Seriously, who needs a whole fucking room for statues, let alone multiple?

The most impressive thing, though, was the place's size. It looked like some twisted fusion dance between a luxury resort and a medieval castle. Like the sort of place you'd expect Dracula to holiday in. Halls led to halls, rooms connected to more rooms, stairs spiraled up to…fucking everywhere.

I traced from where I presumably stood, the Eye giving me a clear path through the labyrinthine layout. Nice, clear, and painted in soothing blue and white. The way out was a set of heavy double doors at the end of a ridiculously long entrance hall that basically got in my face raving 'I am the fucking exit!'

As my gaze floated over the whole fuckin’ venue, something in the heart of the building snagged my attention. Some kind of odd circular room smack dab in the center. And when I say odd, I mean really, really odd. You might even say ‘weird as fuck’ if you were the poetic sort. Unlike the other parts of this overdone palace, the blueprints here were a chaotic mess. It looked like a whirlpool of blue lines, tangled and twisted, and at the heart of it, a red glowing sphere.

I’m willing to bet that this little baby is our portal. Well, this is going to be easier than we thought.

Slowly, but surely, we made our way through the network of opulence in the dark, every so often hearing the faint murmur of conversation but never catching sight of anyone. It was as if we were in a ghost retreat, surrounded by luxury yet devoid of life.

The paranoia was starting to get to me. Even considering Eye of the Saboteur, without my weapons, I felt completely defenseless. There was something unnerving about this place, and I still couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched.

We kept stealing crystals, my muumuu pockets getting more and more engorged. Eventually, we reached a staircase that I’d seen with the Eye, and I stopped at the top to look down.

That’s when the voices filtered in. They’d only been a droning murmur at first, like the distant hum of a running engine. I motioned for Edwig to follow me and we moved towards the voices, our steps cautious and slow. They were coming from below, at the bottom of a staircase that led down into a brighter area, flooded with light.

Now their voices morphed into discernible words. It was a man's voice, laid-back and lazy like a calm, unhurried rhythm, as though he was in no rush to get to the end of his sentences. Matching his tune was the chime of a female voice, bubbly and light. It danced through the mansion, weaving between the man's deeper notes. She sounded young, excited maybe, or nervous, with a slight giggle hanging off her words. Her sentences trailed into soft laughter more often than not, a melody as infectious as it was disturbing in this shitty tomb of a building.

"...Spotted orc nearly bit the dust," the man's voice drawled, sounding almost bored.

They’re talking about me! I thought anxiously. Well, fuck, guess I’m going to need to figure out an alternate plan.

The man’s words hung in the air, part of a bigger narrative I'd stumbled into, as though I'd just turned on the TV to some mid-season episode of a soap opera.

"No kidding?" the woman's voice returned. "Poor thing, and here in my house too."

"Your house? Hell, Tialara, you make it sound like you built this place brick by brick."

I heard her huff.

"Well, someone has to look after it," she said, with a hint of pride sneaking into her words. “So, while I’m here, it’s my house. Call it caretaking.”

"Didn't figure you for the mothering type."

"Well, I didn't figure you for the 'bringing-home-strays' type, but here we are," she shot back playfully.

"Point taken," There was an admission in his tone, a sign of a long-forgotten argument. "Think I'll check on our stray, then."

"I think he's had enough excitement for one day, Buck. Don’t you? Let him rest."

"Rest up, huh? Yeah…Good idea. It's going to get rough for him soon enough, anyway."

'Rough for him?' What the hell does that mean? My gut churned at the thought.

Despite the risk, curiosity got the better of me. I crept down the stairs, staying hidden in the shadows. Edwig, ever the liability, noisily slopped down to follow me, prompting a poisonous silence to fall over the discussion, followed by:

“What was that?”

It was the woman. The man, in lieu of saying anything, seemed to move, and I saw a blur of motion at the bottom of the stairs and several shimmering flashes and a loud clang. My breath caught in my throat as I saw him more clearly: he was a fucking…devil?

As I peered from the shadows, the figure at the bottom of the stairs was quite the spectacle. He was an odd sort of fucker, not particularly dressed for a scrap but still carried an air of ‘don’t fuck with me’ menace. No flashy plate armor or glimmering chainmail on this guy; instead, he was dressed in the rough equivalent of a farmer's Sunday best—a tunic that had seen better days, stitched-up breeches, and worn boots that looked like they were hand-me-downs from the last gigantic fiend that had donned ‘em. I had to think he wore this because it was the only thing that would fucking fit.

Still, he was a mountain of a monster, with a face that looked like it had been used for stone carving practice. Two hefty black horns jutted out from his forehead, curving upwards like Satan’s own eyebrows. They looked like they had been buffed to an ominous shine, the gleam making them all the more menacing. His eyes glowed like two bright purple embers smoldering in the night. The intensity of their gaze was enough to set my nerves on edge. The way they scanned the area, it was as if they could set anything they landed on ablaze.

The cherry on top of this monstrous sundae was the pair of huge shields clutched in his gnarly ham fists. I'm not talking regular 'deflect a couple of arrows' shields, but massive hunks of metal that could’ve easily served as doors for a fortress. The earsplitting clang that had echoed through the mansion was undoubtedly from him slamming these beastly bucklers onto the floor.

“Upstairs!” echoed the woman's voice from earlier. She sounded anxious now. The devil-like man's fiery eyes flicked upwards, seemingly piercing through the shroud of darkness that Edwig and I had taken refuge in. That was the exact moment I felt my pulse accelerate.

This was shaping up to be quite the evening, wasn't it?

“Illisinaf,” he said, his voice still lazy sounding, despite the intensity of the situation. In that moment, his severity melted away, and he stood fully.

God dammit, Edwig! I thought. You went and got us caught just like I said you would.

Edwig, having been clearly spotted, seemed to deflate a little, and slop backward as if trying to protect himself. Fortunately, I hadn’t yet been seen—and it seemed like Edwig, who was frantically looking around—had lost track of me as well.

Good.

I mean, I wasn’t going to let him get murdered or anything, but keeping my presence an unknown variable was a benefit for the moment. Who knows? Maybe I’d need to surprise attack the fucker and—

“Illisinaf?” Came the woman’s voice, and I saw a form stop next to the big man. “What’s an illisinaf doing here?”

My train of thought went completely off the rails and smashed into a ravine when I got a good look at her. The woman, or whatever she was, had glided into view with an otherworldly grace that somehow managed to make her simple outfit of brown pants and forest-green shirt look like it was woven from moonlight itself.

She was breathtaking—like a deity dropped into our undeserving realm and her ethereal beauty hit me like a punch to the gut. Her skin was fair and flawless, almost glowing with a light that seemed to come from within her, an illuminated porcelain canvas untouched by the ravages of time.

Her eyes, a profound and captivating emerald, sparkled with an inner fire that mesmerized me, like stars trapped in two glistening pools. I found myself unable to look away, ensnared by their luminescence. High, delicate cheekbones framed her perfect face and a cascade of seafoam-colored hair flowed down her back, shimmering with the same luminescent quality as her skin.

Her full lips were the color of soft pink roses, and the way they moved when she spoke was a thing of beauty, each syllable like a melody that could bring the most stoic asshole to their knees. Even her voice was charming, with an allure so profound that it seemed to seep into your bones, demanding your attention, commanding your senses. Sis was snatched.

Sprouting from the sides of her head were pointed ears—longer than an elf’s, but similar enough to draw a comparison. They looked lovely.

She turned to the man, her voice lilting and filled with concern, "What did you say you…?"

Her eyes found Edwig, who seemed incapable of doing anything more than existing. The woman smiled.

“Who are you?” she wondered cheerily. “I don’t recall inviting anyone to join our little get-together.”

“Orc…” Edwig hissed in my direction. “What do we do here?”

But I wasn’t listening. The sight of the woman was too intoxicating. My senses were overwhelmed, my mind reeling, and for a second, I forgot that I was supposed to be hiding. As if moving of its own accord, my hand rose, and I found myself stepping out from the shadowy staircase, into the light. A dazed, stupid grin was plastered on my face as I waved at the radiant apparition standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"Oh...hi there!" I said, my voice oddly high and strangled.

Well…so much for the element of surprise.