It turned out that it was a tunnel of sorts, after all. After an indeterminate time of dread spent staring at the flames, imagining that my breathing was failing, gasping for air in a perfectly oxygenated environment, the fires started to subside, though the faint glow of smoldering wood lingered. And I was still alive. Either I was hallucinating from a lack of oxygen, my dying brain comforting me with the fiction of breathing - or I was alive, and there was still oxygen coming from somewhere.

Until then, the screaming had continued, and I could hear the monster contort in pain above us. It had long before ceased to be amusing; it had begun to sound too human. It even attempted to send some last few vines down into the cellar, as if by killing us, it could stop the burning. The vines didn’t make it far. At some point, a tremendous sound told me that the roof had collapsed, burying what remained of the monster, leaving only silence in the air. The roof burned as well - otherwise, we might have been buried. At least, one entrance buried.

When the fire had mostly subsided, I could see that the cellar door had been partially burnt away, leaving only charred fragments, with the night sky peeking through the gaps. Behind us was still darkness. Whatever was on the other side of this tunnel, we couldn’t make it out. I couldn’t see anything besides the way we had come in.

After the screaming stopped, I felt a rush of energy, and a question. Like last time, it felt like a question. Yes, or no?

“Has it perished?” Cadoc asked. “Deny its magic, unless you want to do this again.”

Right, okay. I attached my will to the thought. I refuse.

The feeling was gone so quickly I could have doubted I had felt it at all.

“Yes!” Cadoc yelled, the sound deadened by the surrounding soil. “We’ve done it! Yes!”

“Did you get the magic?” I asked. “Or the mana, I mean. Whatever.”

“I can feel it, but- well, I can’t see anything in this darkness. And I probably shouldn’t try it out where I could accidentally hit you with something.”

“But we did it, right? We’re alive, we got the mana, that’s a success, right?”

I could tell Cadoc was grinning just from the way his voice sounded. “That’s right, Miles. We did it. I can feel it, I feel different.” He laughed aloud. “I feel more powerful. Although we’ll have to find some other way to celebrate our heroics.”

I took my first real breath of the night. I’m alive, I thought. My plan almost got us both killed, but I got lucky. Or Cadoc got lucky, and I’m just here. But I’m still alive.

It was a bit of time before anyone spoke again. I was relishing my continued existence, and I think Cadoc was relishing victory. “Your prayers worked, I suppose,” Cadoc said eventually. “You never told me you were religious.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what you were doing earlier, right? Praying to your god? Rena? I’ve never heard of him, but he seems to have brought you some luck.”

He thinks… I shook my head. “No, RENA isn’t-“ I stopped.

He thinks I was praying to RENA. I’ve heard of AI-centered cults before, despite how unimpressive most people realized “AI” truly was, after the initial buzz. Still, it’s a funny idea. Like worshiping your secretary. Why not let him believe it? It’s better than him learning that I’m communicating with another dimension.

“Rena isn’t a god,” I continued. “She’s a goddess.”

“Ah,” Cadoc said. “I apologize. I did not know.”

We stared at each other in the dark for awhile. Probably. I couldn’t really make him out. Eventually I heard him shift his weight.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I’m going up,” he said, taking the first step onto the stairs.

“What? Why?”

“It is impossible to see anything down here. There could be more monsters, surrounding us in the shadows as we sit and gloat.”

I looked around, suddenly feeling like my plan was even stupider than I had thought.

“So I’m grabbing the lantern. If it survived. Say another prayer, if you like. Also,” Cadoc said, ascending. “I’ll be able to see my magic by the lantern light. I’m a very impatient person, if you haven’t noticed.”

He pushed some charred wood out of his way, and climbed out of the cellar, and out of sight.

I waited. I got the feeling that he might just leave. I felt like the walls of the tunnel were closing in on me, and my breathing felt shallow again.

“Ow!” I heard him yell, from above.

“Are you alright?” I asked, shouting up at him.

He grunted, loud enough for me to hear it.

A little while later, he returned, illuminated by the lit lantern he held in one hand.

“Half of the house still stands,” he said. “I suppose it was too wet to burn completely. The ceiling collapsed, as you heard. But I was able to find the lantern in the rubble.”

“Did you hurt yourself?”

He looked away from me. “I forgot that the lantern, being metal, would be hot.”

I saw now that he had taken a spare shirt from his pack, and had wrapped it around the handle of the lantern.

I just nodded. No need to rub it in.

I looked around. The lantern lit the space well. There were no monsters hiding anywhere that I could see.

It was a long and narrow room, dug out of the earth. It was clearly used for storage, though it was far from packed. There were shelves, stocked with more food, and tubes of sausage hanging from strings. There was a barrel of what turned out to be - after Cadoc carelessly tasted it - something alcoholic, and a few bedrolls off to one side, making me think that someone may have been forced to sleep down here. Maybe the family had gotten too large for the little cabin.

I shook that thought away with violence. I did not want to think about whoever had lived here. I did not want to think about the body outside, or the distorted face of the monster.

On the opposite side of the tunnel was a door. We peeked outside, and saw the it came out on the other side of the hill which the house was built beside. There was nothing to see beyond but stars.

Our surroundings sufficiently mapped out, Cadoc set down the lantern, and tried to use his magic.

He put his hand before him, palm out, bracing it with his other hand around the wrist. He was going to try to shoot it out first, of course. I had tried the same thing. It hadn’t worked.

But it worked for him. Kind of. In the lamplight, I strained my eyes to see where it was coming from. About half a foot away from his hand, a long and skinny object slid out of the air itself, as if there was a portal there and it was being pushed through from the other side. It was slow, and when it was done, the object fell noiselessly onto the dirt. I walked over and picked the thing up.

“You summoned a stick,” I said, examining it. It was a wooden stick, two feet long, and about an inch thick.

I looked at Cadoc, expecting to see a look of disappointment, expecting to have to convince him to uphold his end of the deal and help me rob someone, even though his magic was somehow shittier than mine.

But he was smiling.

“I’m unhindered,” he said, eyes glowing. “I’m unhindered, Miles!”

“I- I don’t know what that means.”

“It means I’m not hindered, Miles! I can use real magic, actual magic. Powerful magic.”

I looked at the stick in my hand with a degree of doubt.

Cadoc tried to do the trick again, but couldn’t. “I’ll need to practice,” he said, as if to himself. “Kill more monsters. Increase my mana pool. But this! This is something to celebrate!”

I didn’t really understand, but before I could ask, Cadoc clasped my shoulders, thanked me profusely, and led me over to the barrel.

-

We were able to find a couple of old mugs, and spent the rest of the night drinking and eating sausage, which Cadoc sliced up with his knife. The sausage was the best I’d ever tasted, though I worried about getting sick.

Cadoc was a party all on his own, laughing, joking, keeping the conversation flowing. He asked me about my homeland, to which I gave him vague answers, but he was impressed even with what little I gave him. That I once lived in a tower, for instance, filled with hundreds of other people, in a city of millions.

“Millions?” he said. “Then your city even rivals Eraztun! I would love to see it, some day.”

In turn, he told me about his homeland. He didn’t fully remember it, having only lived there as a child, but he regaled me with what he did remember.

“In Ushante, the flowers are always blooming, and the sea crashes unto the shores with violence, and the women of Ushante are as beautiful as the flowers and as violent as the sea.”

“Weren’t you only a kid?” I asked, chuckling. “Did you really spend that much time with the women?”

“No,” he said, grinning. “But alas, perhaps I would have, if I had stayed. I only wish to impart on you the longing that I feel for this distant paradise.”

“Why did you leave?” I asked.

“I did not leave!” he yelled, spit flying, his face suddenly darkened. “I was taken, stolen away from my home by those wretched insects who call me son. I would have stayed and fought, if I could have. I would have died in Ushante, rather than let those creatures overrun our home, rather than scatter like bugs.” And he said no more on the topic - and I didn’t press him.

The beverage was light, and tasted of blueberries and honey. It was delicious, and, truthfully, seemed to be barely alcoholic, but we drank enough of it for emotions to rise and fall suddenly and dramatically. Cadoc was laughing again within a minute.

We talked little of our future plans, except for Cadoc’s many remarks about gaining more power, the idea of which brightened the mood again. “You and me, Miles. We’re getting out of this place.”

“What place,” I asked, laughing. “This basement? I sure hope we’re getting out of here.”

“No,” he said. “Not this basement. This place. This state of being, this state of want, this state of powerlessness. Or this state of debt, in your case. We’re breaking out. You may be a lowly body-mage, reliant on wild schemes and blind luck, but you’ve shown me bravery and kindness, and we are a team now. We will rise together.” He raised his mug for a toast. “To power and wealth.”

I felt vaguely insulted, but I cheered anyway. “To power and wealth.”

When we had had our fill of drink and sausage, we retired to opposite ends of the tunnel, taking a bedroll each. It was Cadoc’s idea. He thought that if we slept near both of the entrances, then we wouldn’t both die if some monster found its way inside. Instead, one would die - likely quite loudly - and the other would be able to wake up and respond in time to at least save himself. Cadoc had to reassure me, then, that it was very unlikely any monster would actually make it’s way down into this hole. Still, he agreed to take the side near the house, which was probably more dangerous.

It was a good thing I had gotten used to sleeping on the floor while still in my own dimension, because I’d slept on nothing but the floor since I’d arrived. The dirt was still significantly less comfortable than sleeping on a carpeted floor, but I was able to get into a position which was comfortable-adjacent. I suppose I should thank Tom for that one.

I was too drunk to criticize my terrible, awful, foolhardy plan, so instead, I simply slept, happy that I was alive, even without Tom, even thousands of dollars in debt. I was happy, more or less.

Or maybe I was just numbed to reality. But what, really, is the difference?