Flashes of black and violet illuminated my vision as we fell through the portal. I expected to instantly land in the forest much the same way we ended up in the hellscape; but, it was apparent that demonic and holy interdimensional travel was different. Instead, the four of us fell through a long tunnel that continuously undulated. I could never see the end through all the twists and turns. I tried hard to focus on the walls and the path we followed despite the distracting screams of the others.

I could see holes in the walls of the tunnel that led to other routes and our own route would occasionally fork. Each time it forked I could feel a force manipulate our fall, directing the route we took. When I was certain that this fall would never end, a bright green light blinded me and a moment later there was a woosh before I slammed into something hard and rolled to a stop. By the moans I could hear I guessed I wasn't the only one that made it through. "Everyone okay?" I asked with a groan.

"Not for long" came a gruff male voice. My eyes snapped open to find we were surrounded by six men wearing burlap breeches and dirty cloth shirts of various colors. All of them were armed with swords or knives of some type. "What serendipity lads. We just happened to be here when the dark one sends agents to our world. Get em." The speaker had long stringy black and grey hair and a rough beard that was a couple days old..

Two men grabbed my arms at the elbows. I struggled but couldn't get free. The odor of unwashed bodies hit me immediately and I struggle to breath over the stench. The leader never moved but the remaining three men each grabbed one of the girls. "Amrald sir, look, a witch," said the one holding Jaz."

The Amrald guy leapt over and forced the side of his forearm into her mouth while he fished in a pocket. She struggled against them and the man pulled his arm out of her mouth only to shove a dirty rag into it, using another to tie it in place. "Can't risk letting her get a spell off. Here, tie her hands." He said handing the other man another strip of cloth.

"Who are you, what do you want?" I asked angrily.

"Don't worry lad, you'll find that out soon enough. Now, all four of you will come with us. If you make it hard on us, we'll make it painful for you." He said as he pulled out his sword and looked over the blade with obvious meaning.

As we walked I tried to process everything that had happened and what brought us to this situation in such a rush. The demon said I would be stronger and faster, but I didn't feel any different than I had before. All four of us were bruised and Becca was walking with a bit of a limp.

I could tell it was late afternoon and the sun was setting through the thick trees overhead. The path we were on was made by machete and recently. The thick brush showed the signs of ragged cuts and the path was just wide enough to fit a narrow cart. Looking down I could see parallel grooves in the loose soil of the forest floor. We rounded a bend over a cliff and I stopped. Below us on a plateau was an ancient looking temple that had obviously seen better days. A shove from behind got me moving again and soon after we were out front of the temple.

Jaz was tied by the wrists to a wooden steak anchored in the ground and the rest of us were pushed into one of many stone houses that dotted the area at the feet of the sprawling temple. Inside was an unconscious girl that was our age. She had on a white dress that was finely made but was currently filthy with dirt and mud. Her blonde hair covered her face as she lay there. Becca and Haley went to check on her so I turned to look out.

Men were everywhere outside, I could see at least twenty through the open door. Amrald gathered a few additional men and addressed them, "I want you four to guard them and the two of you to guard her. Don't let her get free or she'll use her witchcraft to kill us all. I'm going to go find Tomalin."

He took one step before there was a low rumble and everyone on the plateau froze. They all turned to the temple and stared with a mix of horror and disbelief. A few moments later smoke and dust exploded out of the temple's entrance, filling the clearing and rising into the sky.

Everyone except for our guards ran to the opening. Some took off their shirts and used them to try and fan the dust away, while others ran inside. They re-emerged helping others out of the debris. The men caught in the cave-in coughed and leaned heavily on their helpers.

I scanned the area in an attempt to gain as much information as I could and spotted Amrald. He was covered in dust and stood straight at the approach of another man. The newcomer was clean and his clothes were a much higher quality than most of the others around the camp. He had brown hair and a clean shaved jaw with a sharp nose and wore brown breaches with a white tunic held in place by a simple leather sword belt. By his posture and the way the others looked at him, he was definitely in charge. I assumed this was Tomalin.

They walked towards us and I caught the tail end of the conversation. "Yes sir, Hopkintos reported that a slave tripped a wire trap and it started a small collapse. That caused the last of the slaves to panic and in their rush out of the crypt a few more traps must have been tripped, we're out of slaves" he said, finishing his report.

"How many men do we have left?"

"Eighteen. And most won't go near that blasted temple."

The two stopped outside the hut and Tomalin nodded thoughtfully while examining Jaz. He then turned and looked at me with his ice-blue eyes, considering something. "You boy. Come here," he said while pointing at me.

I left the hut and stopped when I was maybe ten feet away from him. "Why are you holding us?" I asked.

"You came through the Demon Gate did you not?" He asked me and I just shrugged because I was unsure how best to answer. "Hmmm, perhaps you can do me a favor, boy."

"Why should I help you?" I asked, standing straighter. "You've practically kidnapped us."

He ignored my question and said, "I need someone to go into that temple and bring out any relics that are in there. If you find any, you have my word that I'll release you and your two friends."

As I stared into his eyes I was sure that he was lying. "There are four of us." I said

"Oh no, the witch has to die. Sorry, but that's not negotiable." He said casually and gave Jaz a brief glance. "It's said, burn a witch at twilight and don't let the night fall on her or even bound and gagged she can still cast her evil magic."

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"She's not a witch." I shot back

"If you hurry and get back with some goodies you might have an opportunity to say goodbye before we burn her."

"Fuck you." I shouted in his face and a guard on either side grabbed my arms. As rage boiled inside I could feel my bones vibrating. It was an entirely alien sensation that caught me off guard. I wanted to punch the man and knock that grin off his face so badly.

He made a sound with his tongue while waving one finger back and forth. "Thk thk thk, such outbursts. Tell you what, if you don't go, I'll have you gutted and fed to the dogs while you're still alive; and your two girlfriends in there will be given to my men as playthings. How does that sound?" He finished while using one fingernail to clean dirt from under another on the opposite hand. "Or, you can just run into the temple and find me some goodies."

His teasing tone was getting under my skin and I swear I was literally vibrating in rage. I knew if I kept talking to him I was going to snap and get myself killed which would mean all kinds of bad news for the girls. So instead of answering him, I pulled my arms free, stalked right past him, and made for the temple entrance.

"Remember to hurry If you want to say goodbye to your witch friend, it's almost twilight." Tomalin taunted me as I entered the temple.

The arch of the entrance immediately opened up into an atrium with a statue standing in the center. It was a statue of Azgollan made entirely from black volcanic glass and in this environment his statue was just intimidating as before. Even though everything in the room was covered in gray dust and rubble, the statue was pristine and untouched. I remembered what the demon had said about his weapon and I looked up to the statue's eyes. "I am here, where do I find your weapon, Destroyer?" I asked. The statue’s eyes began to glow a terrifying red and I took an involuntary step back.

The atrium had three other arches around the room. The one to the left was collapsed but a symbol above the one to the right lit up, pulsing the same vibrant red as Azgollan's eyes. I gave the statue a small bow and thanked it before turning and going through the indicated arch. After a few twists and turns down a confusing stone hallway the smell hit me before it opened up to a long rectangular room with multi-colored strips of light along the ground and holes in both sides.

Corpses littered the floor, at least ten. Some were in clumps and some spaced apart from the others. Every one of them was dressed in rags with a purple colored face that was bloated and swollen. Occasionally a tongue comically protruded from a mouth but the majority wore an expression of intense pain. Many had small darts sticking from their bodies.

Without crossing the first light, I stuck my hand forward and brought it back as quickly as I could. A chuffing sound came from the left side but nothing else and after a few seconds it stopped. I realized with shock that Tomalin and his crew forced so many slaves down here that the darts literally ran out of ammunition. I carefully tested each colored stripe to be safe but each chuffed empty.

On the other side was a tunnel that took me deeper into the temple. After a few minutes of walking it opened into a chamber about twice the size of the last. But this one had multicolored floor tiles about a foot and a half in size. I wasn't able to discern a pattern to the colors but I quickly counted the number of colors, blue, green, orange, red, yellow, purple, black and white. A dozen corpses were scattered everywhere and laid across multiple tiles so I wasn't able to really discern a pattern.

"Yellow with envy, red with rage" I muttered to myself as I tried to think of any meaning for the colored tiles. It was worth a try. I approached the edge of the tiles and hovered a foot over a red one, nothing. I lowered my foot and touched the tile without putting weight on it, nothing. I applied my weight and, nothing. "Okay, red it is." But I quickly discovered a problem. The tiles were randomly placed and the next red tile would require a jump, the kind that would carry momentum and with how narrow these tiles were I'd have to leap from one tile to the next rapidly.

I stepped back to the tunnel floor and moved up and down both sides trying to find a better path but the light coming through the small windows in the ceiling was fading as twilight approached, couple that with the slightly glossy surface of the tiles and it made it look like the tiles were losing their color the further away from me they were. I squinted at the last few tiles and it looked like the path to the right went the furthest. The fallen bodies also made it difficult to know for sure but I was rapidly running out of time.

I took a deep breath and let it out with a nod to myself. I back peddled a bit into the tunnel and with a short run up I launched myself out over the tiles, skipping from one red tile to another as I bounded across. I was almost across when I ran out of red tiles. It was impossible to stop and turn around and I realized the corpse of the man in front of me had been in this predicament. Before I could fully comprehend what I was doing I angled myself to use his corpse as the last stepping stone. Luckily that didn't trigger any tiles he'd fallen on. And then I was across.

I whooped and was about to fist pump with some quip about Indiana Jones when the macabre nature of using the man's body like that hit me. I looked back at all the bodies in this room and thought about the many more in the last room, I could only imagine the number that must have died down the other paths too. The magnitude of Tomalin's grave robbing excavation was astounding and as I looked at the man, anger seeped deep into my soul. I felt my bones vibrating again as I thought of the men's casual disregard for human life.

"Thank you friend, you will be avenged." I said to the corpse before turning and moving to the next room. The next tunnel opened into a massive room that was perhaps twenty yards wide and fifty deep. There were no corpses, but there wouldn't be if there was no floor. Columns of various heights rose out of the blackness from below Into random formations. None of them were more than two feet in diameter and none had a top that was level. There looked to be a path down the center and I placed a foot lightly on the first column.

I gradually applied my weight and when I was halfway over the column began to tilt. I quickly kicked back and twisted my body so I could grab the cliff ledge with both hands. With a bit of effort I pulled myself back up to safety. I settled on the ledge and looked left and right. I began to notice small details I had missed on my original evaluation of the room. And I say evaluation, but in truth it was only shock. Looking down below me there were several broken columns that look to have a sheer top. Obviously some of these columns would break away, some would shift and some would be sturdy. Who knew whatever other traps existed. There was a relatively flat one I could see with a hole in the top and I could only imagine a geyser of flame erupting from it when you stepped on it.

I stood up and walked the ledge all the way to the left hand wall without finding a route I thought would work so I went to the right to try that direction. I reached the wall without finding anything. Exasperated, I leaned against the wall and tried to think. The massive room had no ceiling and I could see the sky getting darker above me. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back against the wall with a thud, wracking my brain for a solution. Hundreds of hours of video games played in my life and nothing hinted at a solution. This most certainly wasn't a video game, but it was analogous in a way I supposed. I pounded my right fist into the wall with frustration and I was surprised when the part of the stone I hit moved.

I stepped away and whirled around. Examining the wall I found a round depression. It was cleverly disguised. Putting my hand on it I pushed. It sank about a foot in and clicked to a stop. I held it there as I held my breath and after a few seconds a low rumble vibrated up my legs. A slab of the wall six feet high and the entire length of the pit was pushed out from behind to fall into the pit. It hit many pillars, knocking them into others and the overall sound was deafening. I covered my ears and looking back at the wall, there was now a three foot wide path that ran the length of the pit. Realizing that the sound of that had most certainly been heard by everyone in the valley and that they would think it meant I failed and died, I sprinted down the path. I had to get the weapon and get back before he killed Jaz, or forced the others to come in here.