Covered head to toe in what I could only describe as Carmichael paste, I pulled myself from the cold stone floor of the chamber, feeling as though I’d just been hit by a runaway piano. My body protested every movement, my muscles aching like I’d just spent the past several hours wrestling eight gorillas.

I was alone in the chamber. Carmichael was gone, the room was a mess, and I felt a wave of disorientation sweep over me. That was when it sank in—Carmichael had exploded. I was alone. I was covered in lich.

I shook myself out of my stupor and took stock of the situation. The need to get out of there, to regroup, to make sense of everything that had just happened, was overwhelming. But first, I had to sneak past my friends.

I had no choice but to go unnoticed. My parting with the crew was abrupt, unannounced, and as it stood, permanent. It hurt, more than I was willing to admit, but I had a job to do. I needed to get out, to find a way back. I squared my shoulders, sucked in a deep breath, and felt the darkness swallow me as I activated my Sneaking Skill.

I moved like a shadow, silent as a cat, prowling through the dirt passage and to the upper level, my footsteps unheard on the cold stone floor. I moved through the corridor, hugging the darkness as I made my way to the main chamber.

The sight that greeted me was . . . gross. There was no other word for it. The chamber was littered with hundreds of chlamydian corpses, their still forms lying in haphazard heaps on the floor. It was an unsettling sight. The battle that had taken place had apparently been quite the gruesome little affair.

I shuddered, my stomach churning at the sight. I forced myself to focus on the living, on the signs of victory. Dragoon and Veruca were tending to a villager, their hands steady as they applied bandages. Rua was squatting down, petting the possessed roe, a soft smile on her face. I couldn’t see Ileyrri or Buck, but it seemed everyone was safe, unharmed. That was all that mattered.

That was when I saw him—Rexen. His small form was visible in the dim light, and I saw him turn, because of course he would. But I had to disappear before he could call me out.

With a last glance at the crew, I ducked back into the darkness of the corridor.

I followed the temple’s winding corridors, weaving through the maze-like structure with an ease that was unnerving. The Eye of the Saboteur worked its magic, guiding me. It led me to a door, hidden away in a forgotten corner of the temple, masked by years of dust and disuse.

Stepping out into the cool night air, I took a moment to collect myself. The temple was behind me, its towering structure casting long shadows that danced in the moonlight. Around me, the village lay in ruin.

I skirted around the village, keeping to the dark outskirts as I moved. I was a ghost, a silent observer. From my vantage point, I could see the monstrous fucking destruction that had been wrought, could see the corpses of the chlamydians that littered the ground.

And there it was—the giant chlamydian, its colossal form sprawled across the landscape, its body beat to piss and mangled beyond reasonable belief. It was motherfuckin’ chilling. I shivered, my mind struggling to comprehend the strength needed to take down such a godawful creature. My thoughts immediately went to Buck. How strong was he, really?

I considered going back, asking him to join me. But…I quickly dismissed the thought. Buck had his own path, his own journey. I had to respect that. Besides, I could see the villagers gathered in the square, their faces a mix of relief and apprehension as they surveyed the damage.

If there’d been any doubt, it was then that I knew I had to leave for sure. If Rexen could sense me, could feel that I was planning to skedaddle, I had to make my move. I couldn’t afford to be caught. I had to fuckin’ go, had to keep moving.

I took one last look at the village. I thought about my friends inside. My abrupt realization as to how important they actually were to me. Gabe wouldn’t have felt like this. He’d have lied his ass off to himself to protect his fragile self esteem. His precious ego. He hadn’t thought he needed anyone. Admitting something like that was, for my old self, reserved for weak babies. Now, though…I paused, considering their safety and what Carmichael had been chirping about. They would be okay. They had each other; they had their strength. They didn’t need me there. At least, that’s what I’d tell myself if I started getting too mopey about it.

Turning away, I began to run.

I moved through the night, my footsteps echoing through the empty fields. I stayed just out of sight of the Blue Road, trekking through the shittiest sections of landscape ever traversed, I had to think. Kettleborough grew smaller and smaller behind me, slowly disappearing into the distance. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. I had a mission, a purpose. And I wouldn’t let anything get in my way. Probably.

Hours passed in a blur of exhaustion and determination. My Stamina drooped more and more as I continued on. My body ached, my legs screamed in protest, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I was so close, so very close.

Finally, as I approached Palandis, the sun began to rise, casting a brilliant glow across the cityscape. The colors were breathtaking—purples and oranges, yellows and pinks, all melded together in a beautiful, chaotic array. But I didn’t have time to write a fuckin’ poem or whatever. Still…it was really pretty. I mean…goddamn. The city lay before me, basking in the dawn’s light, her walls standing tall and proud, her towers reaching for the heavens.

Using Bahlgus’s Gorget of Flight, I ascended over the walls as a perfect fuck-you to the city watch trying to guard the place, taking in the breathtaking view. Once I was on the other side . . . I started running again. Considering the early hour, it was pretty fuckin’ cake to navigate through the straight lines and edges of Palandis’s layout, and didn’t take me long at all to find the Gateway depot—uh, Exodus, I guess.

As I arrived at Exodus, I busted my ass toward the nearest portal.

But as I drew closer, a feeling of dread began to settle in. I was leaving them. Leaving them without saying a word, without a proper goodbye. And it hurt. It hurt more than I could have ever imagined. But it was necessary. I had a task only I could accomplish, a duty that was solely mine to bear. Bequeathed to me like an especially terrible White Elephant gift, and I was just going to have to accept it, I guess. Internally, the words kept repeating in my head. By leaving, I was keeping them safe. I was protecting them from the danger that I represented. That’s what I kept fuckin’ telling myself, anyway. It was the only real avenue I could use to justify dusting off and leaving them in the lurch.

I was so deep in the guts of my own ruminations that I barely noticed the sudden…fog that appeared before me. It was a magical mist, ethereal and luminescent, and once I realized it was there, I got mildly concerned that I was having a stroke and released a tiny, tiny peep of absolute horror. I mean, it may have been more than that, but, come on—I thought I was about to die all of a sudden. You know? Betrayed by my own body after surviving a fuckton of bullshit. And then, from the depths of the mist, a form began to take shape.

Edwig. His form amorphous, shapeless, constantly shifting and sputtering like he was on a video chat from ten years ago. But his gaze was unchanging, unwavering. And it was filled with anger. An anger that was directed at me.

I gaped at Edwig’s irate form. Using the powerful process of elimination, I had to assume that he was using his Sending Rod, or whatever. Still, I couldn’t just let them know I was off to probably get myself killed. They’d be climbing all over themselves to stop me. So I’d need to deploy a touch of the fib.

“What? I’m busy, blob!” I shouted—you know, like when an old lady talks on the phone.

“Pah! Busy? Is that what you call it?” he retorted, his form shifting as if agitated.

“Call it whatever you want,” I snapped, crossing my arms. “I got a lead on something far more exciting than wading through monster innards. It’s called a fuckin’ holiday.”

“Oh, really?” Edwig asked, sarcasm dripping from his tone. “And what could possibly be so exciting that you couldn’t bother to leave a note?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. Interdimensional beings, cosmic horrors, reality-altering shenanigans,” I said, a sly grin on my face.

“I’ll ask you again, Loon,” Edwig said, his tone hard. “Where are you?”

Suddenly, I was jostled from behind, a polite “Pardon me” reached my ears, followed by “Is this the queue for local or inter-kingdom travel?”

Edwig’s laugh bounced through the magical connection. “Pah! Orc! You can’t be serious! You’re in Palandis!”

I glared at his smug form.

“What? No, I’m not. This is, uh, Palan-discount. The cheaper, less interesting cousin of Palandis. Totally different place.”

Edwig rolled what I assumed were his eyes, his amorphous form contorting with the motion. “Pah! Whatever you say, orc. But listen here; if you think you can just—”

“No, you listen,” I interrupted, my temper flaring. “I’ve got to go. And don’t try to contact me again. It’s important that you and the others get back to camp.”

“And why’s that?” Edwig demanded. “You’re doing something stupid, aren’t you? Something that’s going to get you killed.”

I scoffed, throwing my hands up in frustration.

“Oh, piss off, Viggo. I’ll be fine. You’re the one that’s going to get killed. Probably in some freak introduction accident or something.”

His scoff was quite loud.

“Pah! I doubt that, orc. You’ll probably be back sooner than any of the others. After all, with your track record, you’re the one more likely to end up dead.”

I wasn’t really super keen on spending my limited, valuable time on playing ‘No you’re gonna die first’ with this numbskull. It was making me cranky.

“That’s it!” I exclaimed, swiping at the image before me. “I’m hanging up! Gah! Shoo! How do I hang up this damn thing?”

Edwig just harrumphed.

“Pah! Well, you’d better have a good reason for this—now I’m going to have to tend to the eggs!”

“You’re gonna be a great babysitter, Beethoven,” I said. “Now hang up or you’re going to have to watch me use the toilet—and I just ate a whole bunch of cheese!”

“Pah!” Edwig said, but then, before I could demand anything further, his face dispersed, leaving me standing there staring at the portal directly in front of me. Which . . . presented other issues. I knew that my passage back to Creepy Potato was paid for . . . but I wasn’t sure if I could get a free ride to somewhere else. I supposed it made sense to just wing it, though, since that seemed to have the largest overall success rate for me when it came to matters of . . . doing fucking anything. So, I did.

Well, I would, but first . . . I had to get in line.

After a grueling one-hour wait in a queue—with several different attempts on my patience from fellow line-dwellers, I was finally, like an upstanding citizen, able to shift my way to the front. When it was my turn, I approached one of the yellowjacket boys manning the glittering silver Gateway and, putting on my second-best smile—number one was, obviously, with my roe teeth—I greeted the elven woman standing in front of the portal. I noticed she had some kind of incredibly complex instrument of Arcana—I assume—on her head that went down around her pointed ears.

“Good day to you, sir,” she greeted me, the slightest hint of boredom lining her otherwise professional tone. Her eyes, startlingly gold, flickered over me before resting on my face. “Name?”

“Loon,” I replied, maintaining the fake-as-hell smile on my face.

As she hummed in acknowledgement, the device on her head lit up, and a display appeared in front of her. Her fingers danced in the air as she selected something I couldn’t see.

“Ah, yes, Loon. It says here that you’re slated for a return passage to Karepalea,” she said, her tone carrying a touch of curiosity.

“Karepalea? Lovely place, I hear, but actually”—I leaned on the counter, attempting to channel all my nonexistent charm—“I was wondering if it would be possible to . . . switch that up to, uh…Machus City?”

She blinked at me, her pyrite eyes boring into mine.

“According to Interrealm Transit Ordinance seven-point six-five, subclause three-B, changes in destinations are not allowed without the appropriate tokenage. Your passage, sir, is for Karepalea.”

My gaze dropped to her name tag. I couldn’t read it. From what I’d been able to glean from the letters around these parts, I thought it might have said Priscilla.

“But, uh, Priscilla,” I said, hoping this would work, “surely there’s something we can do?”

Priscilla, it appeared, was not swayed by my pout.

“The name is Constable Farnswallow, and I’m afraid, sir, that the Ordinances are quite clear on this matter.”

I sighed dramatically, a heavy weight settling on my shoulders.

“Well, Constable Farnswallow, I seem to be in a bit of a bind.”

“Oh? And what would that be?” Her tone was as dry as a desert in the middle of a drought.

“Well, uh, you see . . .” I began, shifting closer to her.

Fuck it, let’s see if I can use this Deception Skill. Just start talking, Loon m’boy, and let’s see if we can improv our way out of this one.

“I’ve got this . . . fear of . . . Karepalea.”

Ah, fuck. Why did I say that? This isn’t going to work.

“Fear?” Her brows shot up. “…of Karepalea? Now, that’s a new one.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding solemnly. “A very real and very crippling fear of . . . Karepalean . . . dust mites.”

“Dust mites?” She looked at me flatly.

“You maybe heard them called . . . Tallrock . . . ian dust mites? Yes. Yes, that’s right. Anyway . . . you see, they’re really large in Karepalea. Fuckin’ huge, actually. Almost the size of . . . well . . . uh.”

Priscilla stifled a laugh, the corners of her lips twitching upward.

“And just how did you come to develop this fear, sir?”

Whew, saved from that one!

“Have you ever been—to Karepalea, I mean?”

“Haven’t had the pleasure, sir, no.”

“Perfect—uh, I mean . . . oh, I see. Well . . . it’s a long and tragic tale,” I said, my gaze going distant.

“Well, that’s alright; the—”

“It was a simple time!” I began, pulling on my most somber expression. “And I was just a simple man—uh, orc. In a small, isolated town outside of Karepalea—which, of course, was Tallrock then—called Perfection. The town had a bit of a pest problem, only it was no ordinary infestation.”

Priscilla leaned in a bit closer, interest piqued.

“Dust mites?”

“Dust mites,” I confirmed gravely. “The largest dust mites you’d ever seen. Blew in from Tallrock.”

She raised a single, perfectly shaped eyebrow.

“Are we talking . . . cat-sized?”

I scoffed.

“If only! No, Priscilla—I mean, Constable Farnswallow—we’re talking dust mites as big as . . . fuckin,’ uh, carriages. They were hideous, hairy bitch—uh, beasts that could leap up from the earth without warning.”

I shivered for effect, and she blinked at me.

“That sounds . . . improbable.”

“It was!” I agreed fervently. “But that’s what made it all so terrible. These mites—we called ’em . . . ‘Dustoids,’ would tunnel under the earth, and you’d never know where they’d pop up next. One moment you’re strolling down the street, jammin’ out to some tunes, the next you’re scooped up by one of these big fuc—things.”

I paused, and then decided to lay it on a little thicker.

“Oh, the horror.”

“And what did you do then?”

“Are you gonna go through the portal or not!?” someone in line suddenly shouted. “Some of us have gotta get to work!”

I turned to glare over my shoulder.

“I’m trying to tell a fucking story of tragedy and woe, buddy! You’re ruining the ambiance—so shut the fuck up and let me finish!”

When there was no response, I turned back to Priscilla.

“. . . uh, where was I?”

“People were being taken by the mites.”

“Right! Well, we were cut off, you see,” I explained. “No help coming, just us and the Dustoids. So, I had to step it the hell up. I built badass traps, armed myself with the most potent fuckin’ . . . potion of explosion you could ever imagine—big enough to blast a Dustoid right up into the sky in tiny little kernels!”

“An explosion potion?” she chuckled.

“The most underrated weapon in the face of an oversized-dust-mite invasion,” I replied solemnly.

“I am sure.”

“So, there I was,” I said, my voice dropping to a hushed whisper as I leaned in closer. “Facing off with the last of the dirty Dustoids, the king of them all.”

She was smiling now, leaning in too, her eyes wide with mock seriousness.

“And what did you do?”

“Well,” I began, throwing a dramatic glance over my shoulder before turning back to her, “I had one last potion left. I lured the Dustoid to the edge of the largest ravine I could find.”

She covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes sparkling with suppressed laughter.

“Swear to the motherfuckin’ gods,” I exclaimed, “Then I . . . lit the . . . wick? On the potion. And threw it behind the Dustoid. The explosion scared the mite so bad, it charged straight through the cliff face and plummeted to its death onto the rocks below.”

She broke into laughter then, a rich, warm sound that made the corners of my own mouth twitch upwards.

I nodded, playing the part of the weary hero.

“We went back to town and called in the authorities—city watch just like yourself—to begin an investigation. In the meantime, my good friend Earl encouraged me to pursue a . . . let’s say, ‘romantic relationship’ with a certain person . . .”

I realized right then that I was copying the plot of Tremors too much and needed an exit strategy.

She raised an eyebrow at that.

“And did you?”

“I might’ve,” I said, shrugging nonchalantly, “But that’s a story for another time! So you see, Constable Farnswallow, I’ve had quite enough of Karepalea and its dust mites. Machus City sounds like a much safer place for a ma—orc—like me.”

“Yet you survived all this and still went back to Karepalea?”

“. . . Whatcha mean?”

“It’s a return journey to Karepalea, so you came from there to Palandis initially . . .”

“Well.” I shrugged. “Sometimes, you just can’t escape your past. But, I think it’s about time I moved on. Hence, Machus City.”

“Right, of course,” she said, shaking her head but clearly amused. “Well, I must say, your tale is . . . unique. Nonetheless, I am afraid the Ordinances are quite clear. Your destination remains Karepalea.”

“Fuck—I mean, ah, fiddlesticks. You’re saying there’s no way around it?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

Motherfucking goddamn shit, I thought. I gotta get to Machus City. I wish I was good at talking to people like Saban. What would he do?

I paused, considering a new tactic. There had seemed to be some tension between the two factions, after all…

“You know, now that I think about it . . . there must have been some mistake with my travel destination. I had originally intended to go to Machus City, but some idiot with His Majesty’s Royal Army must have fucked up the information.”

She peered at me suspiciously over her contraption.

“Is that so? However, it does state here that it was for a return. Those are usually more expensive.”

I shrugged, rolling my eyes theatrically.

“Makes sense why I ran outta walkin’-around money when I had budgeted for this trip myself. Fuckin’ tin-can Royal Army guys, right? You know how those guys are . . .”

I stuck my tongue out, crossing my eyes to demonstrate the level of idiocy I believed the soldiers possessed.

Her eyes sparkled with silent laughter as she seemed to mull over my words.After a moment, she sighed.

“Well, it’s not uncommon for them to make mistakes . . .”

“It’s not?” I asked, then caught myself. “I mean . . . yeah, it’s not. Lousy dipshits.”

“Be that as it may, if you choose to switch your destination, you’d be giving up your paid travel to Karepalea. There will be no refunding the overpayment. Is that something you’d be willing to do?”

I shrugged again. I hadn’t paid for it.

“Sure.”

Her fingers danced across her magical screen, flicking through multiple options before coming to a halt.

“Right, well, I can’t promise it will be entirely dust mite–free, but Machus City it is.”

“Shit, really? Thank you Pris—Constable!”

“With a bit of luck, it might also involve less of His Majesty’s soldiers and their incompetencies,” she added, chuckling.

“Ah, an orc can only dream,” I said, chuckling along.

A few more taps with her fingers and she smiled at me.

“It’s all set. You’re ready to go.”

I saw a notification that my Deception Skill had gone up. Fuckin’ baller.

I winked at her.

“Thank you, Constable Farnswallow. Until we meet again.”

With a salute, she sent me off.

“Safe travels, sir. And do try to steer clear of the dust mites.”

I nodded in appreciation and turned to the portal, which was now a glowing deep sapphire—which took me a second to calm myself down from her treachery until I realized it was different from the sky blue of the Gateway in Yosper Hall.

Then, without another thought, I stepped into the ring of swirling magic.

Shit! I shoulda just thrown Lazlo’s name around—I coulda avoided all of thi—