Gilliam came to, but he realised that he couldn’t see anything. He could breathe, hear and feel, but not see.

It didn’t take long before he realised that he was blindfolded, it was ragged so there was a little light seeping in through the corners, the blow to his head had made things blurry in addition to everything else. The smell of the air was rank, it smelled like the dry heat of a drought with the addition of rot, meat and trash all around. It was not to the level of nausea but it was not far from it. The air was hot, the kind of hot and dry air that instantly dries out your nostrils, filled with just enough particulate that he could taste it in the air, but not enough to make breathing too problematic.

Trying to keep calm was hard, when he moved around he realised he was tied up, the sound of metal against metal jangling hinted that he was chained up. The wound in his side burned now that he tried to move, the blade was still in there and his movement reopened it, this was solidified by the feeling of something trickling down his thigh, this also let him feel that he was naked. The air itself stung in the wound, this was not a good palace.

Forcefully calming himself down let him listen, there were a lot of sounds. The strong wind in the distance, the sound of various tones of voices talking, he couldn’t make out what was said but he could hear them talk. What sounded like punching and other various sounds in the distance. Just, everything at once. Without any visual input it was very hard to place everything.

Suddenly a small voice shouted “He’s awake!”

This was followed up by the sound of flapping away.

The other sounds faded, seemingly everyone stopped doing whatever they were doing and waited for something. This something came stomping closer not long after. Gilliam got more scared the closer the stomping got, it was terrifying not seeing anything, feeling all of this, feeling this helpless and vulnerable while something large was coming closer.

As the something got closer, so did a foul stench, it was like a burning pile of trash getting more and more overpowering, its breathing felt like morning breath times a thousand. It metaphorically burned Gilliam’s nostrils clean, causing him to cough a few times as his lungs got used to breathing this.

The feeling of something blunt crashing into the side of Gilliam’s head startled him, trying to shake it off didn’t do anything, it clawed around his head for a second before it caught on the blindfold and flew off.

The blinding light overpowered Gilliam’s eyes, taking several seconds before he could see anything at all, and even more until he could see anything in proper focus. Though as soon as the blindfold was torn off his face he started seeing what was going on.

He was hanging by his arms and legs on some chains that ended up with manacles around his limbs, they were fastened to what looked like an oversized door frame. He was a solid 3 metres (~10ft) off the ground, around him was a large collection of various demons. A small imp of sorts that was flying off with his blindfold, more humanoid shapes with wings, claws, tails, horns, fur and what have you were scattered around him. Some were dressed in armour and branding weapons, some were less dressed if not outright naked. In front of him was a large and terrifyingly familiar shape.

A 3 metre (~10ft) tall demon, built like a bodybuilder, glowing yellow eyes, wings on its back, sharp teeth and a set of large and intimidating horns. Based on the missing left leg, at the lowest joint, it seemed to possibly be the gate master from the first portal.

He briefly wondered how he ended up in this position, a sting from his wound, the blade still embedded in his side let him piece it all together. The runed dagger was probably some teleport beacon thing, the blinding light he felt after he was stabbed felt identical to the teleportation trips with Aeris. The sharp pain in the back of his head was probably someone knocking him out as soon as he landed in this place. Oddly smart to be honest, knocking him out as soon as he arrived, before he could even see from the blinding light in his eyes.

“You don’t look like you’re shit.” The large demon spoke, a deep rough voice sounding like its vocal cords were subwoofers filled with gravel.

Gilliam decided to try and take advantage of the assumed language barrier and not react to the words.

“This... thing.. Took out two of our gates?!” the demon that Petal identified as the Gatekeeper shouted at the other demons around. Some yelled, some booed but most remained silent.

“I can kill it with a flick!” the Gatekeeper raised his massive hand and flicked Gilliam in his chest. This felt like having a wooden log slam into his chest, this caused him to let out a failed muffled grunt of pain, it knocked the air out of his lungs, the dagger was ejected from his wound and though he couldn’t be certain, this might also have broken a rib. He coughed violently after it but did his best to stop as the coughs hurt almost as much as the flick itself.

The demon was not wrong, he probably could kill him with a solid flick.

Some of the demons started laughing, one of the servants scurried underneath Gilliam and picked up the dagger. This was a demon not too different from Petal’s apperance, though a male. He ran over to the Gatekeeper and presented the dagger to the Gatekeeper in a deep bow while holding the dagger on his flat hands well above his head.

The Gatekeeper took the dagger and the servant promptly ran off to hide somewhere as the Gatekeeper liked the blade clean.

“Tastes like weak human to me:” he laughed in a taunting tone, again a lot of the others joined the laugh around him, it was incredibly cliché.

He needed to get out of here, find somewhere that he could heal himself, the wound on his side was not bleeding as much as it should have but it was still bleeding a lot. His potential broken rib and god knows what else that flick did to him. He wanted to go back, he was pleasant and entertained in the world before this, he felt sorry for the underlings of this world and even more for himself at the moment.

He wanted to try to cast spells but decided against it, just in case it worked this might hasten his demise. According to Petal’s explanation of what they did with prisoners, he was most likely to be fed to some lord, alive was better so until that was happening he should be relatively safe...

“Open the gate to the Heart.” the Gatekeeper shouted at someone Gilliam couldn’t see, he was too busy trying to find the least painful way to breathe.

Gilliam wanted to force himself to gather more information but that was out of the question, his head hung forwards and all his focus went to breathing. It hurt so bad that he had to force himself to breathe through the pain, his body objected but there was really no choice. The flick might even have punctured a lung.

Since healing magic was based on knowledge, hopefully these wounds were simple enough that knowing the possible problems could be enough... but he couldn’t openly heal, he couldn’t do anything but take it for now.

Luckily for him it seemed that the Gatekeeper left after a taunting grunt to... probably help with the gate to the Heart that he spoke about.

Gilliam was left hanging there alone, in plain view of everyone in the area.

Suddenly coming to, Gilliam realised that he blacked out, he had no idea how long he was out for, like Petal explained before there was no moving sun here, it was just permanently lit up. Judging by the blood on his side it was at least a while, it had coagulated and he was at least not actively bleeding at the moment. Based on the pool of dried blood in the dirt beneath him he had lost quite a lot. He felt incredibly weak, breathing was still painful, his wrist and ankles were also hurting now although the pain in his chest overpowered this considerably.

The only good thing was that he was not being actively monitored, all the demons around were doing their own thing. Some were fighting, some were quite intimate in the open area with the others and some were just sleeping. But this let Gilliam try to heal!

He still had to be somewhat subtle about it, he didn’t know how acute their mana sense was, focusing some healing energy in his body, rather than sending the energy down his arm and into his hand for touch-healing, he did his best to gather it in his chest. The wound on his side, though not healed at least it had stopped bleeding, meaning at the moment it was secondary. Healing worked on knowledge so he started with the lungs, remembering the images and explanations he was given in school or through various media. He didn’t have proper knowledge about it but he knew that the lungs were some weird elastic material filled with blood vessels. Using this alongside just focusing on enhancing the natural regeneration in that area should mitigate his lacking knowledge... Right?

He had to be careful, not gather too much energy while staying silent, any structured magic was out of the question as it would be too visual, the unstructured he could try to keep internal and, it worked! His breathing got easier, still pained from the broken rib or ribs but it felt a little bit better at least. Not wanting to stop too soon he rather overdid it in length and kept focusing on this longer than needed, only stopping after he didn’t feel any improvement for a while.

Stopping healing all together for a good solid few minutes as he looked around to see anyone reacting, only after not seeing anyone did he try the same for the ribs. Not having proper knowledge at least he knew how bones worked, and though rough he had an idea on how they healed.

Like before he focused his energy, gently, weakly, focusing it in his chest. It slowly started getting better, the pain subsided. This kind of back and forth healing, trying his best and keeping it small, gritting through the remaining pain as it slowly improved did just that; slowly improve! In the end he focused on the cut on his side. He had no idea what kind of internal damage was done so he focused on the external wound for now, that was closed easily enough. To at least try to make the internals better he couldn’t do more than accelerate the natural healing and hope that anything would fix itself....

He didn’t know how long he used this, but based on earlier tests this should be a five minute fix if he didn’t have any restrictions, now he probably used at least an hour if not more. It was very hard to tell here when the shadows didn’t move as the sun didn’t change location in the sky. His lack of blood he couldn’t do anything about, he had no idea how blood was created in the body, all he knew was that you often got water and perhaps some snacks or fruit if you gave blood, so he most likely just needed water and rest... He had partial rest...

The Gatekeeper seemed like he was going to work on the gate with the others, Gilliam had no idea how long this was going to take, nor how much time had actually passed since. He needed to find a way to escape, preferably before the Gatekeeper was back as the locals would most likely be much more active when he was there.

He needed to get rid of the chains somehow and escape. But he was weak, so very weak. But he didn’t have a choice. Escape here and find somewhere to heal, he had magic so he could perhaps just make his own underground bunker for a while... That actually didn’t sound like a bad idea... But first he needed to escape.

The chains holding him looked old, worn and rusty, if they were rusty they were most likely made of at least some kind of iron. They were thick, not thick enough to tear him apart with their own weight but enough to be a problem. They could probably connect smaller boats to their anchors. But... Magic seemed to work, which was his only chance, no way he had the physical strength to do anything about them.

But how to do that, he needed a way to break them all at the same time, at least his leg chains first so he could land, if he got the arm ones first he would probably brain himself against the ground...

He was pondering for a few minutes, straight up physical force seemed the most likely at the moment, he didn’t have the focus to create any form of structured magic to keep things silent. The best idea he had at the moment was to use telekinesis to brute-force the chains and then just leg it, or use a flying spell and zoom away.

This actually didn’t sound like a bad idea, but he had to be fast, he still didn’t know when the Gatekeeper would return.

He was only three metres (~10ft) off the ground, even if he didn’t get his slow fall spell activated he could land at this height without taking damage... His current condition could change this but he was running out of options. Starting to focus the energy around his chains, he wanted to gather the needed energy so he could pop them all roughly at the same time, he didn’t need to shatter them, just break one link. Imagining a crowbar of sorts he focused for a good solid few minutes.

Suddenly he noticed that some demons started looking at him confused.

Shit.

He had gathered enough energy for them to notice, he would have to strike now. Focusing the gathered energy into a forced bending of a single link in the chain close to his feet, not gambling to target the manacle itself at his current state, he was incredibly relieved to hear them break. The chain fell to the ground with a loud noise, this alerted everyone else to what was going on and had them stop what they were doing.

Balls...

Using the remaining energy he had gathered he mimicked the event on the chain around his wrists, again he was relieved to hear the chains break, but he was now in freefall and he quickly found out that in his current state it was faster to just land.

He landed with a hard thud, spraining his ankle in the process. Focusing healing at max power on said damage he started running. Or rather limping away at his max speed.

Luckily his max speed improved dramatically once his brute-force healing process hit what it needed and he was now fine enough. It still hurt but as the horde of demons that was chilling around him only a few seconds ago had now started chasing him like a chaotic wave of creatures.

He needed distance, he needed to get away. Luckily enough the night before all of this weird shit happened he did get a rudimentary flight spell tested, it was not perfect but it would propel him!

Forming the magic circle in the air the runes Aether, Flight, support and Speed in an odd format formed, this had Aether in a circle alone at the north point of the circle, it was connected to a triangle with the three others further down in the circle, making an asymmetric magic circle where the Flight rune was in the center of the circle, but at the top of the triangle.

All this happened as the demon horde behind him came closer.

The magic circle consumed the needed energy and then moved to embed itself on Gilliam’s body, his running stopped as he started hovering instead, a little smirk grew on his lips as he focused the spell forwards. This focus had him increase his speed dramatically. Though he was supported so he didn’t have to consider falling back and forth he was still not super stable, it was the flying equivalent of running on ice; stable enough until something went wrong.

He made significant progress, and aiming upwards at the same time he got some height and a quick overview over the place; this had him dread more than before.

He had made significant progress in getting distance from the demons, so he had a few moments before the flying creatures caught up with him, but in his vantage point rather high up he could see the whole world, so to speak. It seemed that the ‘world’ he was in at the moment was nothing more than a landmass flying in space... kind of. It was not black with stars but rather floating in a weird haze like a constant calm sandstorm of sorts.

The landmass was huge, easily able to house several cities in the modern world but it was nothing more than a dry desert, lots of spiky rock formations and it kind of looked like the pictures from Mars back home. Just more pointy. There were some constructions here and there, from his elevated position he couldn’t see what they were or what they were made of but given the landscape and the place that had him captive it’s probably stone.

For now he needed to leave, a swarm of flying demons were headed his way, and he didn’t want to end up back in captivity. Since there was no cover of darkness he would have to go underground. They would most likely just swarm any mountain range if he went to the closest thing that could be considered as such.

Starting to fly downwards he just needed to get down and somewhat in hiding, his body was full of pain, lack of energy and general feeling absolutely horrible. He had healed the worst of the damages but he was absolutely not healthy or healed completely. Not to mention that in his weakened condition he was not doing well mana wise either, breaking those chains ate a lot of energy.

Finally making it to the ground he made some more distance between him and his soon to be less-than-friends. Hiding behind some rocks he proceeded to cast a spell focused on earth; it had the runes for Earth, Tunnel and Restore. His idea was that he could tunnel downwards and later in another direction, the Restore rune was to make it look similar to before he tunnelled to hide his position.

This seemed to work as intended, he found himself tunnelling dowards for quite a time, before he turned to an arbitrary side and kept going for a longer time. He had no idea how far he had gone, it was dark and in his haste he just went for it, using the glow of the spell itself for navigation.

Deciding that this was good enough for now he stopped, using another simple spell to create a decent sized room. It ended up as 10 m(~33ft) in each direction, somewhat cubeish in shape. The air was dank but luckily it seemed that his wind spell didn’t just move air, it could create it. Much like how his water spell gave him something to drink.

At this point he finally relaxed a bit, the first time since he woke in this world, the sudden rush of fatigue that followed had him instantly collapse and fall asleep.