A short time later, standing on the hill in Mecond, Stephen could see the Ashburnum estate far off in one direction and the ghoul den off in the other.

“Here goes nothing,” he said to the version of HAL in his cyborg clay golems.

“I’ve relayed the information about our attempt to the ghoul’s network,” HAL said. “Best of luck, Stephen!”

With the charged travel card, Stephen focused intently on his life on Earth, particularly the parts that he knew still remained and hadn’t been captured yet. He released the dimensional travel card and found himself standing in his old office at the university, which had been ransacked, the door knocked down, and the furniture left in disarray.

***

Stephen and his golems wandered over to the mini-mall full of restaurants that used to be near the campus. Other than some suspicious scavengers who fled at his approach, nothing was functioning on the campus or at the restaurants.

“Try to make contact with your network, we’ll update them, then we’ll try to travel to a new sci-fi dimension,” Stephen said to HAL through the golems.

“I’ve already made contact and updated them,” said the computer speaker embedded in the golem.

“No time like the present then,” said Stephen. “This honestly does feel safer to me than walking into the mist.”

Thinking intently about his favorite science fiction world, seeing the movies for the first time when he was five years old, watching them repeatedly over the years as he got older, talking about them with friends, reading books and comics set in the same world. He unleashed his dimensional travel card.

***

Stephen appeared on a sand dune and was immediately hit by a wave of heat. “Spread out and see what’s around us,” he ordered the nearby golems he'd brought with him. “I’ll be right back,” he said and vanished.

Some time later, he reappeared on the dune in a long white robe, with wrappings covering his head and face. He had a pack of supplies he passed to one of the golems to carry.

“Apparently this dimension is called ‘Zephyra’,” he told the golems.

“There’s a small outpost over that way,” the local HAL told him through one of the golem’s cybernetic components. “We saw a spaceship of some sort taking off from it.”

“Let’s make our way there then,” said Stephen. “I can’t believe I’m about to see my first spaceship.”

***

A sandstorm rose up as Stephen and his golem entourage reached the outpost. He ducked into the nearest building, and came face to face with a six-foot tall preying mantis. The creature made a menacing, chittering noise at him and started waving its claw like arms at Stephen while advancing.

He eyed the jagged spikes, said, “Sorry, wrong house,” and backed out. He heard the loud noise continuing inside, but there wasn’t any sign of pursuit.

Pulling the wrappings tighter around his face, he made his way to the large, central building. He couldn’t see any spaceships or much of anything else through the storm. Entering the large building, he was greeted by what was recognizable as a bar. Most of the patrons were the preying mantis creatures like the one he’d already encountered. Two heavily armored reptilian creatures glanced at him when he entered, then went back to their conversation. Five members of a bird-like species began squawking at one another, and a single amphibious looking creature eyed him steadily. The beings in the bar ranged from 4 feet tall to over 7 feet.

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The mantis behind the bar kept repeating something to him, in increasingly loud terms, and gesturing at the golems.

Stephen cast ‘comprehend languages’ and finally started to understand him. “... or not. I told you, no constructs. They can wait outside. If you don’t order them out of here, we’re about to have a problem…”

“My apologies, good sir,” Stephen said. “I’ll ask them to leave immediately.” Turning to the golems, he asked them to wait outside, and the group departed.

The bartender walked over and eyed Stephen. Grudgingly, it took out a pale, gray globule and placed it on top of the bar. The globule quivered. Stephen looked at it closely, then poked it, causing the quivering to increase. The bartender picked up a nearby metal straw and placed it next to the globule.

Stephen nodded his thanks, picked up the straw, and stabbed it. Taking a small sip, an acidic taste with undertones of bile hit the back of his throat. He let the straw fall, smiled at the bartender and said, “Yummy.”

The bartender stared at the bar and, following his gaze, Stephen saw that liquid was pouring out of the fallen straw, emptying the globule onto the bar top.

“You didn’t come in on a ship,” said the bartender. “Were you in the desert? What were you doing out there? Where’d you come from?” The mantis said with increasing suspicion, “You better have trade goods, we don’t have any resources for freeloaders here.”

“Yes, yes,” said Stephen. “Many trade goods. Perhaps even some food and beverages you’d enjoy.”

“Well, your Standard sounds good, no accent, so I’ll take your word for it,” it said. “I’ve never seen your species before. You’re some kind of monkey?”

“I suppose that’s accurate,” Stephen said. “An ape really, but monkeys are a close relation.”

***

“I don’t have it in me to learn another language,” said Stephen to Adam later that day as they sat in his workshop in Liminalis. “There’s a hostility there to what they call constructs. For them, robots, most of which aren’t in human form. But they don’t like the golems. Otherwise, they could learn their language, Standard, in short order to translate for me. I was hoping you and HAL could make a small device, with a copy of HAL in it, just to translate for me. Hopefully, if it’s small enough, they won’t consider it a construct. It’s strange that they have such hostility to large pieces of technology powered by A.I.”

“Even in Riowiver, there was a prejudice against intelligent magic items, like me,” said Adam. “Some people would never trust us. 'Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain' is a common aphorism.”

“An author on Earth wrote the same thing,” Stephen said. Adam nodded slightly.

“I’m trading for any equipment I can get from them, and learning about everyone at the outpost,” said Stephen. “The mantis creatures are called Vrellan, and they’re native to the planet of Rekkar, which is where I've been. It’s apparently a backwater, but there are some valuable sands that multiple groups hunt for, collect, then transport to the outpost to ship off planet.”

“Are there any dangers?” asked Adam.

“It seems like the standard, oppressive authorities deal,” Stephen said. “But I’m not trying to get involved in any politics. I’m just going to learn any science I can from them, capture everything I can grab, and I’ll head out at the first sign of anything dangerous.”

“My first step is to bring anything I can back here for you and HAL to look at,” said Stephen. “I’ll jump over to Gravewrought and update HAL’s hivemind there, then get back to Zephyra.

***

A week later, demonstrating the couplings for the power cell and the interface to the data pad, Stephen ran over his recent adventures, which included organizing the townspeople to fight off a group of bandits.

“I’ve been working on some of Maggard’s library artifacts under construction,” Adam told the dimensional traveler. “I believe that I might be able to modify the construction techniques to create a new type of library that provides information to non-travelers about the cards it holds. I think it could be the first step in creating a tool to study your cards and to understand Maggard’s dimensional traveler technology.”

“I don’t think HAL will let us use Avin,” said Stephen.

“No,” said the nearby golem.

“But perhaps he can prioritize enmeshing a traveler for us,” said Stephen.

“I’ll pass along the request,” said the golem.

“We understand this will kill the traveler, right?” asked Adam.

Stephen said, “Yes.” After a pause, he continued, “Please try to avoid anyone we know.”