They say life begins at the end of your comfort zone. They neglect to mention it also might end in a crumbling fortress teeming with homicidal flora and fauna. One minute, you're binge-watching True Detective and debating the merits of dark fantasy RPGs. The next, you're knee-deep in a realm that seems to have taken architectural inspiration from an unhinged medieval dungeon master.

Welcome to the Fortress of Eldrath, AKA the Nexus—a sky-high monolith that defies the laws of physics and common sense. Imagine your worst fever dream. Now, toss in a sprinkle of murderous vegetation and ravenous beasts. Congratulations, you've just entered my new reality.

It was a week of endless exploration, dodging ever more perilous dangers, scavenging for food in the overgrown sections, and praying we weren't about to consume poison. Hoping we wouldn't tumble into another hallucinogenic horror courtesy of those mushroom men. Freezing one day, sweltering the next. Subtropical afternoons, arctic evenings. Most of our time was spent trying to avoid getting killed, discovering bizarre new creatures to hunt—and attempting to eat them. All the while, we searched for an exit.

That's how big this fucking place is.

I almost wished Captain Al was still around to help us out of this mess. He had been an entity that had passed himself off as a quantum-powered AI that was able to manipulate space, matter, and time. Turned out he was actually a posthuman who wanted me to reboot the world server so he could kill off the actual AI, a more or less friendly AI affectionately known as Phil. Not Dr. Phil. We also called him Fucking Phil, depending on how the group's mood was running.

I don't know what happened to that guy after I turned off the world reactor, but if I find him, I intend to kick his ass severely. He, Captain Al, and Uber-Liam hadn't bothered us since the power station had come back online, and civilization had begun its rebirth. Even the weird system messages had stopped popping up in our HUDs.

We’d been warned the Nexus was big. It was one thing to say it, another to be stuck in the damn thing.

The fortress itself was like something out of a fever dream, with hundreds of levels of crumbling stone, rusted metal, and impossible architecture that seemed to defy gravity. We'd clawed our way up through dozens of those levels, scrounging for food scraps and huddling together for warmth.

There'd been plenty of close calls, but we'd always managed to scrape through somehow. Leech with his dopey determination, Trogs with his black metal battle cries, Darby with her razor-sharp mind. And me? I guess I brought the smartass remarks. Comic relief to keep us sane. That's how various entities had explained it to me. It was supposed to be buried in the earth, but either Phil, Captain Al, or Uber-Liam had activated the fortress, setting it into motion. Long dormant engines had kicked in and launched us high into the air.

We had stayed in the Nexus because it was the link to our old life, and it was huge, and we were still trying to find the bottom floor. We wanted to return to our own time and lives, but

The Nexus had crashed, leaving us sitting at a slight angle, making progressing from level to level a literal uphill grind.

We had explored for days before becoming trapped in this little space right after we'd stepped inside. The doorway was suddenly buried behind tons of rubble, the victim of increasingly unstable locations we'd encountered. Even with my enhanced strength, we'd been unable to dislodge the massive stones that had sealed us in.

The one saving grace was an inches-thick window that allowed us to look down. One side had been shattered, leaving a gaping hole.

The ground seemed impossibly far away, a patchwork of green and brown stretched out to the horizon. Beside me, Darby, Leech, and Trog stood in tense silence, their faces grim.

Our provisions were dwindling - sustenance, materials, everything. A wrong move had cornered us in a cramped chamber, and there didn’t seem to be a way out.

I glanced at my companions, flashing a sardonic grin. "Any takers on guessing our impact speed if we decided to take the plunge?"

Darby responded, "Maximum descent rate, also known as terminal velocity. That's the quickest a body can plummet through the air. For a person, it's approximately 120 miles per hour."

Leech said, "You're practically a mobile reference library. Though I reckon I could outpace that. I've been perfecting my cannonball."

Trogs scratched his scaly head. "Cannonball? Is that some kind of magic spell?"

Trogs was a seven and a half feet tall, walking, talking, and screeching troglodyte. His songs could buff the party or harm enemies. Back in our time, he was the lead singer of a Norwegian black metal band, Hamed Blyted Fjord. When he had arrived in Eldrath, he'd been cast as a bard.

Trogs doesn’t ‘sing’ in the usual sense of the word. He screams his bard songs. Sounds like a cat getting flayed alive. His spells, though. Damn. He can buff and debuff. Trogs is literally the life of our D&D party. He helped save the world by chanting a song that boosted our intelligence to the gills and allowed me to outwit a trio of competing entities, including a weird future version of myself.

I couldn't help but laugh. "No, Trogs. It's a way of diving into water. You know, like a ball shot out of a cannon."

Trogs' eyes widened. "Oh, I see! Back home, there is a sport known as base jumping. We have no parachutes here. Otherwise, a base jump might save us.

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Leech grinned. "I don't think my mage robes are designed for base jumping."

“You're old as fuck body isn’t designed for BASE jumping. Or jump rope jumping, for that matter.”

“Shut up,” Leech growled.

Donovan Leech. He prefers to go by Leech. He was in the Air Force… Is in the Air Force? Wait - that’s the Marines. They’re the dudes who always say, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” I have heard Leech claim no such allegiance toward our long-defunct Air Force.

Although I didn’t initially care for him, he's a good guy. Leech had been a big guy. Like “live at the gym” big. I’m pretty sure he used to eat nothing but chicken breast and cottage cheese six times a day to get so ripped. He had been built like Jack Reacher, and this son of a bitch decided he wanted to be a magic user instead of a fighter.

He’s all "Indiana Jonesing". Squinting and proclaiming, “Never tell me the odds.” He usually says that right before casting a spell with unexpected consequences. One time, he cast a spell designed to mow down some undead fuckers with a wave of sorcery. It came out in the form of thousands of crickets. I’m pretty sure most of them are still lost down there in the nexus. Don’t get me started on the demon battle he initiated with about five hundred flying rotisserie chickens.

One of his spells had gone wrong, and now Leech is an old man with a stiff back and lost most of his body mass. He now appeared to be about seventy-five, has a thick gray beard, and constantly complains about all his aches and pains.

As for me, my stats have been stuck for the entirety of the week.

> Level 15

> Strength - 21 (+2 derived from Bracers of Better Biceps)

> Dexterity - 6

> Vigor - 17

> Intelligence - 8

> Capacity - 11

I peered over the edge again, my stomach doing a little flip. "If we weren’t trapped in this stupid room, we could try to find some rope or something. Make a makeshift climbing harness."

Trog nodded eagerly. "Yes, good idea! I used to be good at tying knots. Now, not so much.” He held up one hand and displayed his three fat fingers.

I didn't want to say the obvious. We were stuck and Xalawrath was dead so there was no chance of the enormous demoness showing up and ripping the wall down.

Darby had her Make-shit-kit out and was experimenting with ingredients. We'd dumped everything from our temporal totes and pushed all of our various scraps, leaves, twigs, creature teeth, fur, and miscellaneous liquids we’d collected during our journeys. The strange strawberry drink we’d procured from the vendor room when we had first met FinnCharles was the subject of Darby’s experiments. I eyed the clear liquid and practically drooled. We’d had very little water stored in our bags, and now it was all gone.

Darby hesitated, her fingers tapping nervously against the vial she held. “I think I can create a potion that will make us light enough to float down safely. But it's risky. I'm not sure how long the effects will last. So yeah. We’re probably going to have to jump. But, hopefully, not to our deaths.”

I glanced back at the window, my stomach churning at the thought of leaping into the void. But what choice did we have? We couldn't stay here forever and had already exhausted every other option.

“Maybe this will help,” she said and held up a floppy little wing that looked like it had been sheared off a bat.

“That looks familiar,” I said and scratched my head.

“Flutterfang. Remember those little jerks?“ Darby said.

“Oh, yeah.”

Flutterfangs were these hybrid bird/snake creatures with a bite filled with life-ending venom.

She set to grinding one into a paste before smearing it onto the edge of the potion bottle, shoving it in, and shaking it around.

I looked away before I puked.

“It’s not enough,” Darby said and frowned. “Shit. I’m missing something.”

----------------------------------------

I later tried to sleep, but the wind howled through the shattered window and tried to freeze my bones. Where in the hell was Stretch? My former talking toy pal had disappeared after I had turned off the world reactor. He and that weird postie/elf EchoAnilTrine. As we had explored, we'd looked in every nook and cranny, but they were nowhere to be found. It wasn't like he was small since he was practically glued to his mount Cindi the Cinderclaw. Echo hadn’t left my side while we had fought our way through the upper levels of The Nexus.

I was beginning to think they had been killed in the crash, and guilt gnawed at me. There hadn't been time to devise a better plan besides powering the reactor down, and it had caused the crash, and now two of my friends were gone.

We had almost nothing in the way of sleeping gear, and all the material to keep a fire burning had run out.

Darby also couldn’t fall asleep. She kept adding pinches of this and squeezes of that to her potion. She would pause, hold it to the moonlight, and then shake her head.

Trogs snored away in the corner. That lizard could sleep through a monsoon. Leech tossed and turned, groaned, rubbed his knees and hips, and tossed some more.

"Any luck?" I whispered.

I whispered to Darby, "Hey, why don't you take a break and come lie next to me? We can keep each other warm."

She looked up from her potion-making, a small smile playing on her lips. "Liam Beaumont, are you trying to get me to cuddle with you?"

I grinned. "Maybe. Is it working?"

Darby chuckled softly and set down her vial. "Alright, you win. A little break couldn't hurt."

She made her way over to me, careful not to disturb Leech or Trog, and settled down beside me. I wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close. Her body was warm against mine, a welcome respite from the chilly night air.

We might have been running around The Nexus for a week, and we all had a level of grime and sweat that needed a spa day to erase, but she still had the faint scent of vanilla about her.

We lay there in comfortable silence for a while, listening to the wind whistle through the broken window. Then, I murmured, "It would be easy to get down if we could just fly. How many flying creatures have we fought since we got here? Not many."

"The fizzlefiends were the most annoying. Little jerks."

Darby tensed. "What about them?"

"Well, they're kind of like bats, right? And bats have hollow bones. That's what makes them so light and able to fly."

Darby sat bolt upright, her eyes wide. "Liam, you're a genius!" She scrambled to her feet and hurried back to her potion-making setup.

I propped myself up on one elbow, watching her work. "What is it? What did I say?"

"The missing ingredient!" Darby exclaimed, rummaging through our pile of scraps. "Flutterfrog bones! They're hollow and lightweight, just like bat bones. If I grind them up and add them to the potion, it should make us light enough to float down safely."

Trogs sat up, his nictating membranes flicked across his eyes a few times.

"It wasn't me!" Leech bolted out of sleep, looked confused, then shook his head. "What? What's happening?"

Darby pulled out a few small, delicate bones and set to work, grinding them into a fine powder with a rock. Then, she carefully measured out a portion and added it to her vial, giving it a vigorous shake.

"She might have the missing ingredient to the potion."

The liquid fizzed and bubbled, turning a vibrant shade of purple. Darby held it up to the moonlight with a triumphant grin. "I think we've got it, Liam. Our ticket out of here."

Above us, something poured on the roof. Dust and little pieces of debris fell.

"Better put a hurry on it. Sounds like a huge beast is trying to get through."