The gateway carved a tear through the fabric of the world, and on the other side Hump saw a world of shadows. It wasn’t far to the temple ruins. From the base of the rock formation, he guessed it would take him five minutes to sprint the distance. Five minutes and he could be back in the human world, if not for the monsters blocking the path.

He tried not to focus on that, instead, taking in the remnants of a ruin that surrounded the gateway. Great stones stuck from the sand, stained red and scarred from years of dust and age. The rooftop had long since fallen in, and now only a few sections of wall remained, crumbling and half collapsed. The rear wall of the ruin was in the best condition, mostly still standing, its stone showing the white that it must have once been.

Hump saw no sign of the townsfolk. Either they were hidden in the ruins somewhere, or more likely, the gorger had imprisoned them elsewhere in its den. A part of Hump knew there was a third option, but it was one he’d rather not consider. At least, not until they were free of this place. He told himself he couldn’t help them. That the gorger needed them for its spell—it had said as much.

Lucile was an adventurer—a Chosen. She could fight, she could keep going in this dark world without slowing him down. Civilians were another matter entirely. It wasn’t selfishness, it was fact. He could not protect them. All he would do by finding them was get them all killed. There was no point in dying for them in some hopeless struggle of valour.

He pushed aside those thoughts and focused on what mattered. The things that would affect him.

The gorger was at the centre of the ruins, clear as anything. Outside, in the dimly lit world, its body was like something of the earth itself. It had said it could mould things to its will. Clearly it had chosen the red sands to give it form. There was magic down there, faint as distant heatwaves, but rising in streams from around the gorger nonetheless. At least ten distinct streams of power, pouring into the gateway. Were they what kept it open, or was this amgic for something else?

That’s when Hump noticed the faint glimmer at the edges of the tear, like white water on a wave. Not just keeping it open, it was nibbling away at the rift, slowly wearing back the fabric of the world and widening the gateway.

So that’s it’s true purpose, Hump realised. The gorger didn’t just want to escape to the human realm. It wanted a gateway large enough that it could take its army with it. Or perhaps it was worse than that. Perhaps it wanted a gateway that would never close. A constant bridge between this barren land and theirs. If it managed to succeed… Hump dreaded to think of the consequences. It would practically be a dungeon at the centre of Fishers Lake, only two days from a major city.

He wondered how long the gorger had been working on its plan. There were other rifts in the sky, but they were small, more like papercuts. This was no papercut. It was a mortal wound, pried further open with every passing moment.

There had to be half a hundred flesh prowlers in view, moving back and forth through the gateway before his eyes. Beyond it, there could only be the temple Vivienne had been searching for. A temple, Hump now realised, that was likely the counterpart to the ruins he was looking upon now. Two sides of the gateway. Vivienne had said that wizards once walked between realms, and now he guessed he’d figured out how they did it.

He wondered how the gorger was doing it, then stopped himself. There was no time to waste. Theories could wait. He could spend all day thinking on the matter, but it wouldn’t help to keep them alive. What mattered was that the gateway was his way back to his world, and between stepping through it and where he was standing were a hell of a lot of monsters.

So what next? Strangely, his mind went to his master. He wondered what the old man would make of his situation. What advice would he give him? Somehow, the old man had managed to skip over the lessons on what to do when trapped in another realm, but there was other training. The first thing he needed was shelter. There was no telling when the weather would change, or if it would change at all, and they needed a place the flesh prowlers wouldn’t find them, if such a place existed.

The ruins lay across a field of rocky ground, the sand so fine it was swept up by the wind like red dust. They would find little shelter amongst the rocks and hills, nothing that would suffice as any real defence. He leant back against a rock, the hard stone smooth against his back, feeling lost. There were too many enemies. Even with the shades on the other side of the gateway, there was no way through. The gateway was surrounded.

His hand brushed something behind him that didn’t feel like stone. He turned around to see a cluster of hard, bulbous tubes poking out through the cracks. They reminded him of coral. And more importantly, they proved that there was life in this world beyond just maneating, cannibalistic monsters. They must somehow absorb essence from the world to survive, similar to how the plants in the dungeon grove functioned.

Which only made him more wary. He pulled his hand back, careful to avoid any further crevices, fearing what else might dwell inside.

As he stared off into the distance, he considered picking a direction and running. Perhaps they would find another gateway. There were plenty of them in the sky after all, it wasn’t farfetched to think they’d find another.

It was a vague hope, and a useless one. Wizards don’t hope. Probability is their ally, and right now, death was all but a certainty if they ventured out onto the open plains. The moment the gorger realised they were gone it would send its hounds after them. And even if they escaped, where would they go? There was no food or drink out here, and they were weak from a diet of essence chips. Perhaps he could cover some ground before collapsing, but Lucile wouldn’t be able to keep up. And even if they found a gateway large enough for them to travel through, there was no guarantee it would lead back to the human realm.

No, running was a bad idea. They had one way home, and they had to find a way to use it. The odds were against them, but at least it was a chance.

He carefully descended back down the rock formation to where Lucile still waited outside the gorger’s den. She’d walked to the edge of the crevice, giving her a view of the ruins down below, along with the gorger’s army.

“There’s a problem,” Hump said. “Our only way out is guarded by a battalion of monsters.”

Lucile didn’t respond. Didn’t react at all in fact. She simply stared in the direction of the gorger.

Hump’s heart stopped, fearing she may have fallen back under the gorger’s control when he realised what had caught her eye. The creature that had caused her so much suffering was suddenly before her. He was an idiot. He should have kept her somewhere out of view.

He gripped her by the shoulder and she suddenly whirled on him, a fearful squeak escaping her mouth, eyes white.

“You’re alright,” Hump whispered. “It’s just me.” He held up his hands so that she could see his palms. “I’m not going to do anything to you.”

A second past. Another. Each one dragged on for eternity. Finally, she gave a jerky nod, light returning to her eyes. “I’m sorry. I… I started to remember.” She pressed a hand to her head and massaged the temple. “What did you say?”

Hump frowned. Their situation was perilous enough without her spacing out. He pointed toward the gateway. “That’s our way out, and there’s a lot of monsters blocking the way.”

She pressed her right hand to her chest, gripping tightly to her staff. “Then what do we do?”

Hump looked back out across the wasteland. Dust swept across the land in curling mists, carrying a wind that made his skin crawl. The air was cool, but not cold enough to pose any danger to them. At least, if it stayed like this come nightfall. Gods, did this place even have a day-night cycle?

He shook his head. Focus.

If it stayed like this, they could find a place to hole up for the night. Perhaps slip in through the gateway when it started to close, or before the gorger arrived come morning. If they had time to analyse its patterns, he might be able to find a way to slip through unnoticed. That was, if the gateway opened without the gorger’s influence in the first place.

But time was not their friend. Not here. The moment the gorger discovered they were gone—and it wouldn’t be long—they would be hunted. Perhaps they could cause a disturbance within the gorger’s den and lure it away from the gateway. Slip in while it was investigating. There was potential there, but he had no idea how he could accomplish that. An explosion might work, but he’d need to be here. And it might just dispatch flesh prowlers to investigate anyway.

Hump sighed. There were no good options. The only thing he could do was gamble. With Lucile relying on him, he knew he couldn’t let his nerves show. Whatever decision he made, it had to be made with conviction.

“Do you feel comfortable using your powers?” Hump asked.

Lucile nodded. “I think so, as long as it’s nothing too essence demanding.”

Hump nodded. “We’ll rely on you to cover our scent and head to that area over there. The flesh prowlers are gathered inside the ruins, so we should be able to get there without being noticed.”

“And then what?” she asked.

“We wait,” Hump said. “When our opening comes, we go for it with everything we’ve got.”

Lucile shook her head. “We can’t. I remembered something. I know where the townspeople are.”

Hump frowned. “Where?”

She gulped, then pointed off into the distance. At the gateway, and the ruined temple. “Beneath it. There’s a tunnel connects to there.”

“Of course there is…” Hump said. “Of course there’s more than one way out. It’s how this creature survives. It has an emergency escape, straight to the gateway. Do you know how to access it?”

Lucile nodded. “We need to go back inside.”

She was a true adventurer. Even now, she showed it. Even when terrified. Hump bit his lip. Was it really worth the risk? The two of them had a chance, but with more people—people that couldn’t fight for themselves—was there really any chance.

The tunnel connected to the grounds beneath the temple. If there was a path leading to the surface, it might be a better plan than waiting around on the plains anyway. Besides, there was a big difference in knowing and not knowing. He could abandon people that might not even be alive. But could he really leave them now that he knew where they were?

He arrived at the same conclusion as Lucile. The choice was clear. They would need to once more enter the den. He would just have to chance the gorger didn’t realise they’d escaped in time for it to matter.