Cael slammed into the ground. The wind was punched out of his lungs and he just lay there for a bit, heaving.

A grid of stars blinked at him, looking sinister in the moonless sky.

He was cold and so alone.

“Tar?” He whispered as loudly as he dared.

Something was definitely wrong. A quiet clicking sound was present in the air, barely audible beneath the thunderous droning of something powerfully mechanical.

It brought to mind the engines of a plane. The thrum of pure physical motion vibrated in his chest uncomfortably and set him on edge.

Tar didn’t answer.

Cael rolled over and eased himself onto his haunches, careful of the sharp ache in his right side.

The whimsicality of teleportation was slowly but surely being ruined for him. With how often it had been happening in the past few days, Cael was beginning to recognize the feeling of teleportation mana. Maybe he could do it himself at some point.

For an instant, it would envelop him, then it would infuse him with mana. The infusion was a very faint feeling, and the speed at which it happened made it difficult to notice. It only left an impression and a light tingling. Once full of mana, he would be dragged to a new location at the speed of magic itself. At least that's how he figured it worked.

This teleport was a solid 10/10 in disorientation— 1 being Layla’s seamless transportation, and 7 being Portline’s impersonal machine magic— Basically, he was aware he was in a new place, but he was majorly nauseous and wanted to close his eyes to shut out his own swimming vision.

He groaned quietly and held his hand over his right eye, where his head seemed to hurt the most.

This left him with one eye to take in his new setting. It was a server room. Like, for computers. A lot of computers, based on the sheer number of lights that blinked back at him. Yeah, those were not stars. In his disorientation, he had identified the lights as something much more grand.

He stood unsteadily at the center of the room, at some kind of nexus point. All of the large machines had a long cable that branched away from itself and ran in a long line toward this point, where it plunged into a deep hole.

He stepped away from the edge of the yawning pit and nearly tripped on a thick bundle of wires.

“Who are you?”

A voice spoke into his mind. Not Tar. Not so friendly either.

“Oh. Hi, I’m Cael.”

“What are you doing here, Cael?”

“I was hoping you would know that.” He looked around, but couldn’t spot the speaker. “Because I don’t want to be here anyway.” He continued to babble nervously. Without Tar there to restrict his speech, he wasn’t able to stop himself before the words left his mouth.

In the elemental's place, Cael plastered a hand over his mouth and waited for the voice to continue.

He’d only had Tar by his side for a couple of days, but the elemental was already an essential part of his life.

Of course, because of the poison, he was kind of forced into that role. Cael didn’t imagine this would be a common occurrence though, so it should be fine.

“If you don’t want to be here, could you please leave?” The voice didn’t sound outwardly hostile anymore. Only exasperated.

“I don’t know the way out.” Cael moved his hand away from his mouth for just long enough to respond.

“Well, how did you get in?”

“Teleportation mishap. I think. Here, wait.” Cael began to walk in the opposite direction of the pit. If there was an exit to the room, it probably wouldn’t be in the dead center. “Before I got here, I was trying to enter a ‘dungeon’. I think one of my Skills messed something up, and now I’m here instead.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“What Tier dungeon were you trying to enter?”

“Tier one.”

The voice went silent for a while. It seemed to be mulling the situation over, so Cael clapped a hand over his mouth and let it think in peace. As he reached the wall, they began speaking again.

“This might be a dungeon, but it is definitely not Tier one.”

“If it is a dungeon, would you be the final boss?” Cael wasn’t liking his chances of winning if that was the case.

“No, but if I was, it would probably be better for you.”

“Why is that?”

“You started in my server room. It is my most vulnerable point.”

“I don't think you should be telling me that. Isn’t that dangerous for you?” Cael turned at the wall and began to trace the perimeter of the room. The exit would probably be somewhere along that path. Besides, if this was their weak point, it would only be polite to move somewhere else.

“Perhaps, but you have very loud thoughts. I believe you mean me no harm.” Cael fought the urge to laugh. Layla had also said that. Did this mean the voice belonged to a particularly high-level entity? None of the Constabulary had commented on it and they had all been pretty powerful.

However, he couldn’t ignore the fact that he had heard this before. That probably meant it was true.

“Even if you did mean to harm me, your low level would make it difficult. I suspect I would be able to stop you before you could even make it that far.”

Cael stumbled on a pair of thick cords that burrowed into the wall he was following. “Don't worry. I wouldn’t do that.”

The entity in his mind sent him a thought that felt like agreement.

“It’s hard to tell in the dark. Is this room curved?”

“It is a circle, so yes. I feel I should also inform you that there is no traditional exit to this room.”

“What do you mean?” Cael stopped in place.

“My creator was able to teleport at will. Because there was no need, no easily accessible exit was made.”

“Right.” Cael slid to the floor, careful not to sit on any wires, which was a bit difficult due to the sheer density of them on the floor. “If there’s no easy way in or out, then how were you planning on stopping me from breaking stuff?”

“I have repair systems in my server room. If the situation calls for it, they could be repurposed for deconstruction.”

“Right. How does that work?”

“Manually.” A small object fell onto his shoulder and scuttled down his arm. Cael jumped and barely managed to not slam the thing into the wall. It came to rest atop his hand.

Cael blinked dumbly at the small metal spider on his hand. Something about it reminded him of Tar, though the cat would likely not appreciate the comparison.

“It is also an elemental, though with a different type of bond to me.” Cael raised a brow. It was one thing to be told his thoughts were loud. It was a little different to have an internal thought be answered directly. Wait. An internal thought? He wasn’t supposed to be having those. “There are a few of these serving me through spirit contracts.”

“Oh. I think the poison is wearing off.” Never mind. He hadn’t meant to say that.

“You still have a few hours.” The entity did not seem to agree, but Cael thought that 'a few hours’ was pretty close anyway. More interestingly, it seemed that the entity could detect the poison in his body.

“Perfect. Um, I need to check on my friend. Please don’t kill me while I do.” Now that Cael was sure he was mostly safe for the time being, he desperately needed to go check on Tar.

It was made a bit more difficult by stress and a bit of lingering fear, but Cael managed to make it back into his soulscape.

Most surprising was that Tar actually was there. The only thing out of the ordinary was how still the elemental was being.

Cael poked the elemental, and like a magic trick, Tar sprung to life. Not instantly, but like an engine revving to life, slowly becoming faster until it reached a comfortable speed.

“What’s up with that?” He asked the black blob after the few minutes it took for Tar to adjust.

“Don’t blame me, I’m almost certain that you're in an accelerated time field. What happened?”

Cael gave the elemental access to his memories again.

“I see.” Tar gave him an assessing look. Cael could feel it. “I think you’ve got us wrapped up in something a bit too dangerous this time.”

“That’s what I thought when we met, but everything turned out just fine in the end.”

“There’s still time for that to change.” Tar wrapped Cael in a thick layer of calming darkness. Like a nice nap in the middle of the day.

The changeling sighed contentedly. “You know, the big computer god said the poison is going to wear off in a couple of hours.”

“That’s good. It doesn’t really matter though. You'll still have loud thoughts.”

“Hardy har har.” Cael deadpanned, pulling out of the soulscape.

‘In the case that this is still a dungeon, I suppose we should get going. A performance evaluation probably won’t appreciate the fact that you’ve been waffling around the starting room for so long.’

“He’s right. None of us are happy with you being stuck here anyway.”

"Great." Cael got up and started making his way back to the center, "Now there's two of you."