Days later, Stephen lay in his bed, while Blargh, Rurth, and Shomos looked at him from the doorway. An uneaten tray of food sat on a stool next to the bed, which Rurth had taken away and replaced repeatedly.

“Have either of you tried talking to him?” asked Blargh. “Tell him he needs to get out of bed?”

Rurth and Shomos made eye contact, and the druidess rolled her eyes. “What a fabulous idea,” said Shomos. “Perhaps you should give it a try.”

“Hey boss,” said Blargh, raising his voice. “Do you think it’s time to get out of bed soon?”

Stephen pulled the covers over his head and turned away from the three champions.

“That didn’t work,” Blargh said to Shomos.

“You’ve been getting messages from some of the other dimensional travelers,” said Rurth, speaking up. “We can’t read them or respond for you. Maybe they’re worried about you? It could be something important is happening.”

An incoherent muttering came from the bed. Stephen didn’t move.

“What happened in Clodor?” Rurth asked the other two.

“Well, none of us came back with him, so I guess the three of us died,” speculated Blargh. “Do you think he found Maggard? Was Count Lowther helpful?”

“Given that we died and Stephen is refusing to get out of bed, I’d guess it didn’t go too well,” said Rurth.

“Ok, enough of this,” said Shomos sharply. “We’ve left you alone for three days. You aren’t eating, or washing yourself, and I’m not going to keep casting healing spells so you can stay in your bed. Time to get up.”

Stephen lay unmoving in the bed.

“Pull off all the covers,” Shomos directed Blargh. The former innkeeper looked at the druidess appraisingly, then with a shrug grabbed the bottom of the covers and started yanking them off.

Stephen continued to lay in the bed after the cover had been removed.

“Carry him out to the water wheel and dunk him in the river,” instructed the druidess. After a moment's pause, Rurth and Blargh started to advance on the former graduate student.

“Fine, fine,” muttered Stephen. “I’ll get up. Leave me alone.”

***

“... and as we were falling, my powers seemed to recover from the poison, and I was able to start releasing and unleashing cards again. I released the three of you, which made the undead versions of you disappear, charged my dimensional travel card, then made it back here,” said Stephen, finishing the story.

Blargh had kept cooking different foods and a buffet of dishes was now laid out on the dining table. Stephen picked at some of the food disinterestedly.

“Was I a badass as a death knight, skeletal dragon rider?” asked Rurth. “I bet I was a badass. I wish you could have gotten a picture with your phone.”

As the other three stared at him, the young wizard amended his statements, “... although I understand you had other things on your mind. What with falling off of the giant bird and all that.”

“I don’t get the problem,” said Blargh. “Didn’t you train as an adventurer? Back with ‘Land of Legends’ and ‘Domains of Danger’?”

“Those were games,” said Stephen. “Not training. I never expected to be tortured.”

“I’m loath to agree with Blargh,” said Shomos, “but I have to agree. What did you expect? That sounds pretty standard for adventuring life. My time with Avin wasn’t exactly a trip to… what do you call them? A spa?”

“I used to chum around with a guy we called Lucky Seven,” said Blargh. “He’d lost three fingers, each in a separate torture session. I suppose if you were the third torturer, you’d almost feel foolish cutting off something else. Good guy. Wouldn’t break until he’d lost a finger.”

“This isn’t at all what I wanted,” said Stephen. “I’m tempted to just return to Earth, and live my life, ignoring any cards in my mind.”

“That would leave the three of us out in the cold,” said Blargh.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“We wouldn’t realize it, though,” mused Rurth. “We wouldn’t experience time passing. Maybe Stephen would just leave then come back an instant later, from our perspective, as an old man.”

“He’s not going to do that,” said Shomos. “He isn’t going to run away from his responsibilities.”

“I’m not able to run away from my responsibilities,” said Stephen helplessly. “Besides, if I went back to living my life on Earth, Avin would come and harass me.”

“You should respond to the dimensional travelers who sent you messages,” said Rurth. “Some of them might be important or urgent.”

***

The next day, sitting in the dining room of The Malachite Club with Falco and Feyrith, Stephen detailed what had led up to his imprisonment in Clodor before the arrival of the other two dimensional travelers.

“Sounds like it’s lucky we arrived when we did,” said Feyrith.

“Lucky isn’t the half of it,” said Stephen. “I was on the verge of breaking. I don’t know how much more I could have stood. Thank you both again, and sorry for not replying to your messages sooner. I’ve been… out of commission for the last few days.”

“Understandable,” said Falco. “What do you think would have happened next if you’d surrendered your cards? Would he have just killed you, or done something else first? All the dimensional travelers that have disappeared in Clodor. He must be killing them eventually. None have ever escaped before.”

“That’s what tipped us off to go after you,” said Feyrith. “The feelers I’d put out about Maggard sent me information about the many dimensional travelers who had gone there and never returned. I sent you a warning message, but when you didn’t respond, I got worried that you’d already traveled there. In the end I’m happy I got Falco, and we went after you to warn you, then rescued you.”

“We’ve got to stop Maggard from doing this, get a band of dimensional travelers to go after him or get one of the highest ranked dimensional travelers to stop him,” said Stephen.

The other two travelers exchanged a glance.

“In theory, you could report him to the governing council of dimensional travelers,” said Falco.

“Then we should do that,” interrupted Stephen.

“Well…” continued Falco. “They’re called the Inner Circle, and they very occasionally recruit high-ranked dimensional travelers. But they don’t meet with travelers who aren’t already part of the group. So they wouldn’t let you in for a hearing. They have an office, where you could report your experience, but it’s intensely bureaucratic, and mostly the staff there come up with reasons why they won’t do anything, or they take a report that gets ignored.”

“In situations like yours, they’ll likely say that since you weren’t killed, it’s a dispute that’s gotten out of hand, and they’d encourage you to make peace or work it out between you,” said Falco. “Or just avoid one another.”

“I almost was killed,” objected Stephen. “And I was tortured. This isn’t some scuffle between school children.”

“I’m just telling you what their reaction will be,” said Falco, raising his hands.

“So, if I’d been killed, they’d do something?” asked Stephen.

“Probably not,” said Falco. “They’d demand proof, and if we brought your body, they’d ask how we can prove that Maggard did it. If we had extensive proof, they’d ask how they can be sure we didn’t fabricate it with some cards they don’t know about. Their staff work pretty hard not to work at all.”

“So, what am I supposed to do?” asked Stephen.

Feyrith and Falco shrugged, then the elf said, “Avoid Maggard and Clodor. Where is he now?”

“I don’t know,” muttered Stephen.

“But you’ve met him, when you see his contact information, where does it say he is?” pressed Feyrith.

“I’ve walked around my entire pocket dimension and there’s no contact for Maggard. Or Count Lowther or any other new traveler,” said the traumatized physicist.

“That’s impossible,” objected Falco. Stephen shrugged.

***

Stephen sat at one of the long dining tables in the pocket dimension’s Wizard Guild, moving food around his plate as Rurth, Shomos, and Blargh kept trying to engage him in conversation.

“... and that gave us more fine motor skills with the golems and lets us assign them to domestic work around the guild,” finished Rurth. Shomos and Blargh murmured appreciatively. The three eventually fell silent and looked at Stephen.

Looking up, he blinked a couple of times and said, “Golems?”

“Yes, golems,” said Rurth. “I’ve been telling you about them for the last fifteen minutes. Trying to catch you up with our enchanting training that you’ve been neglecting. Shomos and Blargh don’t care about enchanting.”

“I don’t care about enchanting either,” said Stephen. He started to get up, and Shomos made a sound of disapproval. Looking at her, then back at his plate, he sat down again and began mechanically shoveling food into his mouth and chewing.

“Why do you say I don’t like enchanting?” asked Blargh. “I’ve started helping you and Adam, and the statue says I’m getting up to speed as a helper.”

“Yes, you’ve been great,” agreed Rurth. “I’m just saying you’re not interested in deep theory. Stephen hasn’t seen you in the workshop, and I didn’t want to confuse him.”

“I haven’t spent much time with ‘deep theory’,” said Blargh. “Who are you to say I’m not interested in it?”

“I’m sorry,” said Rurth, looking at Blargh in irritation. “Forget I said anything.”

“I couldn’t care less about your manufacturing games,” said Shomos.

“Fine, Shomos doesn’t care about enchanting, and it remains to be seen whether Blargh cares,” said Rurth to Stephen.

“I’m going back to bed,” said Stephen, getting up and leaving his empty plate behind.