Having arrived down a slide in the middle of a children's park, Ullie stopped to catch his breath. He was back to where he started from and his trail was hopefully lost somewhere along the way.

He considered it a neat plan. The world was big, he'd seen it all several times over, and he could have chosen to hide under any rock he deemed cozy enough, but there was something that was his own, something the enemy could not predict.

The northern side of Kaiden Port had a secret.

He discovered it not long after arriving on the island, a series of tunnels, deep underground, dug during the golden age of pirates and smugglers who used the city as their main port for transporting their shipments of goods straight to the continent, avoiding all the taxes and ridiculous laws. For plenty of years, they operated without a flaw but after the industry died out, they went into legend, both as a historical fact and a haunted place people used to scare children of the archipelago.

The real value of the tunnels, completely missed by the scare tales, was in the rocks it was carved through. Among the magically gifted, there was a phenomenon known as madakar, that in the modern day translates to silence. For them, it referred to the silence of the seven arts, as magic was incredibly difficult to wield down there.

If he could get to the tunnels, Ullie would be able to erase his every trail and wait out the storm.

The entrance to the tunnels, however, was the main issue. Once upon a time, it could be found in many places, but after it became a hazard to the local populace, most doorways had been walled up inside basements to keep the rats away, while others were simply too hard to reach without a few injuries along the way. The safest bet was the passage in the old toll house, in present times converted to a club.

The plan needed to work.

The streets on the north side were narrower and followed the natural grid of the old city. Most were empty, safe for the few insomniacs and drunkards who never seemed to be able to find their way home. Ullie cut through the night like a colorful shadow and stayed as far away from the main streets. He had a lot to lose if he was caught and there was nothing he wanted more in those moments than to seize the unique opportunity to show the world its true potential.

As the music concealed his intention, he entered the brown brick building near the docs. Slipping through the crowds like a ghost he kept a watchful eye on everything around him until he entered the little hallway that led to the bathroom.

"Almost there," it was the only thought that mattered. All those years could finally feel less wasted. If he only had a little more time.

Looking over his shoulder, every few seconds, he waited for the last of the six stalls to get free, and once inside, he began to count the bricks on the wall.

When he got to a certain number he would press the brick until it clicked.

“22… 28… 34…” he whispered as the world around him got smaller. There was hope, after all.

"42... 47... wait..." The light had changed. Someone was standing outside the door. Shiny black shoes peeked through the gap at the bottom.

The enemy had come.

He tried shaking off that feeling of injustice that suffocated him from all around. The injustice that he had the power to do so much good but if he even dared to show what he was really made of, he would drag both himself and his nemesis down a spiral from which there was no return. The rules had been created and they were not meant to make things right. Both of them had to bear that burden for centuries, instead of dying when all the others like them did.

There was still time. He had to make it right.

“Damnit. I lost the count,” he murmured, turning his eyes back to the wall. Perhaps a part of him had hoped for some kind of salvation, but at the end of the day, his chances were getting slimmer.

As his heart pounded with the rush of adrenaline for the first time in forever, and his breathing got faster, he felt something shift inside his pocket. It moved with such power he wondered if he'd picked up a dragon along the way. Plucking out the prized artefact he watched in absolute awe as it changed. Ring after ring rotated, rearranging in accordance with its own laws. It clicked every time a piece was put into place. White sigils glowed like stars themselves as a combination was being set in place.

"Ullius Oleander," the voice said. "You've always been predictable. Come out of there and let's talk like adults. There's really no point in running."

The rings on the artifact stopped moving once everything locked in a new position, like its sole purpose of existence was to play a game only its creator understood.

"Why do always have to ruin everything?" Ullie said in an agitated tone. He peered at the sphere, almost having forgotten about his bricks. He wanted to know more, to see more but was somehow back at the beginning of the riddle.

"I'm done waiting. Come out."

"Fine, you sanctimonious bastard, I'll surrender," he lied pressing the last of the bricks inward. It clicked when it got deep enough and a rectangular line appeared on the wall beside him.

Pressing on it until it opened and preparing to disappear into oblivion, he came to realize the shadow outside the door was gone. It did not end there, the chatter of the people waiting in line, and every other sound and motion had disappeared as well, almost as if he'd gone deaf in a single second.

Absolute silence.

"You've gone dramatic in your elder years, old friend. It doesn't suit you," he joked, thinking it was some elaborate act to coax him out, but then, before moving on his way, he stopped. Curiosity was always his greatest weakness, and he had to satisfy its call.

Peeking through the door, he noticed he was alone. The bathroom, and the hallway beyond were as empty as if everyone had disappeared with a flick of a finger.

"I'm not falling for your tricks, old dog," he changed his mind and hurried to get out of sight before the enemy found a more serious way to mess with his mind. But, as he crouched to enter the tunnel behind the brick wall, he was met with another wall, just a bit deeper in. This one was not made of brick, but dirt, like the tunnel, had never been dug that way.

"Impossible."

He was certain there was a passage down there, he'd come that way before. It would take a lot of effort to fill it in so brazenly and moreover, he'd have known about it.

Once again he observed the empty room and found no sign of life.

Having had his last chance taken away and no idea what illusive sorcery he had fallen into, Ullie decided to see it for himself. The artifact in his pocket had gone quiet, though its layers rested in a new position, equally riddled like the previous one. He wanted to keep it there, safe from anyone's prying eyes, especially those of the Bureau. He'd had too many unpleasant encounters with their kind over the year and was very keen on staying off their radar.

After bouncing around the empty club, through the flashing lights and the sparkle from the ceiling, he concluded that everything was the same. The building, the streets, and the sea beyond were no different than they were before he went inside, but there was not a living soul around.

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"Anyone there?" he yelled into the night, but his voice felt muffled, almost like he was underwater. "I'd like to go back now, please. This is not funny."

The further out he went, the stranger it got. The familiar landscape, the stone-clad shops, and the tiny flags on every window were slowly getting bent out of shape. One by one, things around him began to lose their composure and become something else, something he did not know how to define.

He was not where he thought he was anymore.

"Orelin," he yelled. "You won't get away with this. I won't let you have it."

He rushed to check on his shop, but by the time he reached the south side of the city, things were hard to recognize. It was not a building anymore, but a tower of things that made it what it was, the walls, the doors, the antiques he kept inside, and the secret artifact from below. It all rose up to the sky like a long thread of twine and twisted around with other threads from the other buildings.

The sea was streaming upwards in strands of water that spread out like endless arms.

Nothing made any sense.

A soft glimmer of light came from somewhere, though it looked like it existed in some form within every surface he was able to see. It radiated with colors he never imagined could exist, an explosion of everything in the universe, separated by a thin transparent layer that could not have been glass. The cobblestones felt his footsteps and contorted to accommodate the pressure. The other islands moved like a living organism far ahead, slowly regaining some kind of an unfamiliar shape.

"This must be another pocket dimension," Ullie concluded, hoping that he'd gotten the unique opportunity to wander about one of the seven lost shortcuts. But something about the size of everything unsettled him beyond logic. It would take an enormous amount of energy to bend such a place to one's will. No one was capable of that, no one but the gods.

He walked on, now fully mesmerized by the discontinuity of the world around him.

The mirage kept changing, forming and destroying itself into pieces as he passed by, revealing all kinds of impossible creations. To some degree, it appeared to be connected to at least one other place, somewhere far beyond the familiar horizons. The laws that made everything make sense and have a degree of predictability, were no longer applied here, giving way to another combination of rules.

Soon, he could see landscapes that were not of his world. Mountains that scraped the sky, cities that formed like rings of fire around volcanoes, rivers of gold, and beasts so vile they could devour life itself. Kaiden Island had faded away and from its pieces other worlds were made.

"Where am I?" he finally said as the great spiral above his head came closer, and the ground under his feet got firmer. It was collapsing back into something, but it was impossible to know what it was.

Closing around him like an open box, things were put into place. The floor settled into a patterned carpet and the ceiling illuminated his way through dozens of crystals protruding from above.

it began to look like a corridor, with an endless array of doors stretched out before him as it curved to the side.

No door looked like the next, in size, shape, design, or material. They followed no common logic, apart from a marking just above the frame, carved into a dark metal plate. Beautiful as they were, they were also too complex to understand from just a single glance. They were patterns, formed around geometrical shapes, but sitting somewhere in between the ones made from weaving the threads of magic and constellations of stars. Either of the two could be read by someone like Ullie, but these ones had a whole new dimension to them, like patterns stacked on top of one another, forming a puzzle that could reach into infinity.

"Remarkable," he said to himself, as he slowly began to doubt that what he was seeing was a mistake. Wonder overtook him, and he walked about the corridor like it was supposed to reveal something to him. The crystals above his head changed color, and the pattern of the carpet flowed from one shape to another. Even though he thought he was going in circles at first, he noticed that he never came across the same door twice like he'd been walking down an impossible spiral.

He held the artifact in his hands, hoping to compare its symbols with anything he found. The possibility that the two were connected was hard to doubt, and yet he had no way of proving it.

After making countless rounds, seeing no end, he tired of walking and started considering a new option. Just like the wizard in his story had found a way to enter hidden dimensions, and lock them inside a small object, perhaps the very same was the case with his artifact.

Perhaps the doors led somewhere.

His eyes settled on a door made of black stone, with words of some never-before-seen language carved into the surface. It was warm to the touch and the longer he held to the handle the hotter it got. It took a lot of force to pry it open and when he did, a gust of scorching air came to meet him. He was not surprised to find a hellish landscape, stretching to incredible distances. Entire fields of rocks, molten lava flowing in between them, volcanoes erupting with thunderous noise to the point it became unbearable to watch. Though fascinated by what he was seeing, Ullie had to leave it be, before his hair caught on fire.

"Worlds? he cried with childish happiness. "A gateway to other worlds? Could this be it?"

As he moved around, trying to understand the logic around the door placements and all the riddles that defined them, he began to wonder about something. It often took a lifetime to understand the limits of magic, and for most people in his profession, that limit they discovered upon their death. He was both lucky and unlucky enough to live the life of a scientific and magical anomaly, which led him to the oldest of all conclusions. The seven arts of magic have never been strong enough to pierce the veil between worlds. It was like a language that could not be understood by its practitioners.

The very idea was insane, and tiny pocket dimensions were as far as anyone managed to reach. Every other attempt led to at least one outbreak of hideous monsters, that would often wipe out a village or two before dying themselves. One kind of rift led to another and eventually to purging the gifted from the world. Universe, it seemed, liked to keep itself well-balanced, and the price had to be paid.

Nonetheless, the wizard pressed on, tempting his fate with every door. Some hid worlds of horror, some were salt deserts devoid of life, others as unfathomable as a toast falling on the dry side. He got nearly eaten, burned, shot, dissected by lasers, decapitated by axes, drowned in goo, and stabbed by a pitchfork for having five fingers on his hands.

The idea of going back seemed a bit better now, but among the endless array of doors, it was more than difficult to know where the way back was hiding.

He stopped by a tall metal door, bigger than any other he'd seen so far. It looked like it belonged to an evil overlord's castle, or even the underworld itself. It had all the creepy decorations, spikes, dripping blood on the edges, and what looked like the skull of some unfortunate animal. At first, he tried to resist the urge to enter, knowing all too well that there was danger behind, but the idea of being where he was and not seeing what stood behind the meanest, most diabolical door, was like going on a holiday and not leaving the hotel.

Unfortunately, when he tried to pull the obscenely large handle, the door refused to budge. It did not look stuck or broken for any reason but felt almost welded together. He turned back, fighting the most intense curiosity he'd ever felt, and turned to smash it with the most powerful spell he had for breaking things.

Nothing.

The door shook for a bit but remained otherwise untouched. The only thing the spell did was heat it up and make it even harder to do anything. Fueled by frustration, he kicked it, injuring his toes, before peeking through the keyhole for the sake of posterity. There was nothing to see there, apart from an evil-looking red eye staring back at him.

"Damn you," he mumbled and marched onward.

"You too," he heard the door say back to him, but something told him he did not want to continue that conversation.

The more doors he looked at, the less intrigued he got. It was like he'd suddenly been overwhelmed by a tsunami of new things, that hit him so intensely he needed to take a moment and let it sink in.

His feet started to hurt, and he could not count the hours that had passed by. Dragging along the hallway, he desperately wanted to know if there was an ending to it.

Then, a sound caught his attention. He could not discern what it was, but he was certain it came from one of the doors. Looking around frantically he listened to each of them until he found it.

It was much shorter than the rest and so old its boards were ready to crumble to dust at any moment. There was no real quality to it, other than its age, but the pattern above it seemed a bit different to his eyes. It was significantly more complex than the others he'd seen, even the one above the big door he could not open. The pattern had twice as many combinations, almost like what was behind it was much more important than it appeared to be.

The sound got louder, the longer he stood in front of it. He could have sworn it sounded like a clashing of waves against rocks. Debating if it was worth his time, he listened to it, eventually deciding to see for himself.

He took great care when he tried to pull it open, but it resisted his attempt. The handle was loose, and it remained in his hand like a bad souvenir.

"Oops."

But then he noticed another thing. A piece of crumpled paper stuck out of the hole where the handle used to be. It was a language he could understand.

"Enter at your own peril."

"Huh?'

The sound no longer sounded like the calm sea waves. It was so much more violent now, and he could no longer be certain if it came from the door. Backing off a few steps out of pure caution, he felt the floor tremble as a massive wave of water came from the side like a dam had snapped somewhere further down. It hit him with such force, he never had a chance to run. The hallway quickly turned into an underwater tunnel and Ullie's vision turned dark.