It took Zoe an hour to climb to the top of the dune. She wrapped the chain tethered to her ankle around her legs to keep them still. The pressure hurt, but by focusing on her Vitality she could distance herself from the pain. It throbbed, dull and angry, in a walled-off box in her mind.

The two chains around her hips dragged her uphill, slow and steady, while the chain around her neck scooped up the corpses of the baboons. She didn’t know her next chance to get food.

All the time, she scanned the skies. Listened for the wingbeats of the invisible scavengers, but if there were any, they were out of range of her Insight.

The top of the dune gave an incredible vantage point. It was the tallest dune for miles around. A pale slope with a glow like moonlight. As the sky darkened she spied the telltale glow of fire against the clouds. It seemed she would have to cross several dunes to reach what she suspected was the tavern.

There were several shafts of darkness in all directions. They moved across the landscape with a steady motion, slipping over dunes as though they were not even there. Perhaps they were stationary, and it was the planet that moved, like a needle on a record player. It still gave her goosebumps to think she was on an alien world. After all the crazy things that happened to her, this felt the most tangibly surreal.

The nearest shaft of darkness was the one she fell from. Advancing across the land, a line of solid dark against the bruised sky. It made sense that it led back up to the hole surrounding the mirror-clad yacht. Though the shadowy pillar’s steady movement didn’t match the yacht’s weaving route. Perhaps one end of the shaft disconnected from the other as they passed between dimensions.

Had Trinch been trying to return to the Mirrorbell dungeon? Maybe she would find out when she found the tavern.

Rain from the drained lake water fell in a trail behind the shaft. Long whips of water eternally spattering the desert below. Through the gaps in the dunes, Zoe spied a river of sorts marking out the shaft’s path. Reeds and greenery swept the banks of the river, as though the shadow gouged the desert and tilled life. Even in the strange half-lit night, she could make out trees and the shimmer of flowing water.

The sight brought a tickle to her throat. An aching reminder of her thirst. That river was her goal. There she could rest and heal until she could walk without the chains.

Though the chains had been useful, she didn't want to rely on them. There would be a cost associated, she just knew it…

[Ding!]

[Always trust in love.]

[-1 chain for doubting me.]

The chain attached to her ankles vanished into ethereal smoke. Her legs fell loose without the chain to strap them together. The sudden movement jerked her broken bones. She screamed.

Her legs sank into the sand. She took deep, heaving breaths as tears trickled down her cheeks.

[Ding!]

[See how hard life is without me? You should appreciate what you have before it’s lost forever.]

[-1 chain to teach you a lesson.]

One of the chains tethered to her hips vanished as though it were never there. It was one of the two propping her upright. Now, off balance, she started rolling down the dune.

Nauseating pain flared in her legs. She directed her Vitality to neuter the pain, and reinforced the command with her dwindling Willpower. As the raw sensations faded, she turned her attention to the chains.

The chain around her neck discarded the baboon corpses, while the remaining chain around her hips steadied itself. Both chains dug deep into the sand and stopped her rolling. She lay there on the sandy slope for a moment, breathing and watching the dark shifting sky, waiting for any other prompt, for anything else to go wrong.

Only the cold and windblown silence of an eerie desert on an alien world.

She finally relaxed.

More proof she needed to heal, but to do that she needed shelter. She felt too exposed on these dunes, especially since the only creatures encountered so far could make themselves invisible. She grabbed the nearest baboon corpse, out of stubbornness more than anything else, and directed the chain around her waist to bind her legs, while the one around her neck dragged her down the hill.

It was an uncomfortable process, and mentally draining. Where before the chains responded to her subconscious desires, now they barely even moved with her direct attention. They creaked, and clanged in her ears, as though ghostly rust coated the ghostly metal. It took hours of careful movement, but she reached the bottom of the dune, climbed up and down another, and finally smelled water.

She followed her nose, letting the single chain drag her across flattened sand. Patches of fuzzy grass that smelled of honeydew, a growing smell of mud, the trickling splash of water. Her impatience grew, and she found it harder to maintain the methodical pace of pulling. She wanted to sprint forward. Charge toward the river and bury her face beneath the surface. Great gulps of fresh water to wash the taste of blood and sand from her mouth.

Her Willpower suffered in this dimension, and this reduced her ability to focus.

At last, her chain splashed into water and pulled her the final few feet to the river’s edge. More a creek than anything else, maybe twenty feet across at its widest point, and shallow as it ran over the sand.

Zoe slid over soft grass. A breeze sent shimmering ripples down the river. Just as the dunes glowed, so too did the water and the trembling bladelike reeds. A strange light, unnameable color, reminding her of the ethereal chains.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

But her body demanded she drink, and so she abandoned speculation. The chains withdrew, once more wrapping around her body. She eased herself down to the water and, after hesitating for a moment longer, cupped her hands into the flow, and drank.

Sweet ambrosia.

She swallowed the taste of silt and sand and the residual sadness of the Mirrobell dungeon. That lake over the drowned town was rich with morbid emotion, but the fall through dimensions flattened that sadness. Here, the water carried a taste of hope. Zoe drank until her belly sloshed, and didn’t even question the fact she could taste the emotions.

Shadowy figures moved on the far bank. A dozen eyes glowed sapphire as they reflected the landscape’s eerie light. They moved in a pattern that suggested four creatures with three eyes apiece. Her Insight couldn’t penetrate the darkness, couldn’t discern their forms, and so she suspected some technique was at play. A low growl sounded across the water.

Zoe clenched mud, roots tangling in her fingers, as she formed a fist, but after another six eyes joined the dozen, she grabbed the body of the baboon she had dragged this far, and retreated. Even with her Skein fully recovered, she didn’t want to risk fighting these unknown creatures in the dark. She was missing an eye, her legs remained broken, and she was exhausted. The creatures were confident, obscured by darkness, and who knew what other tricks they had tucked away?

Their growls grew louder, and she hurried.

The chain around her neck dragged her away. She lay on her back with her legs bound, and faced the creatures as the distance between them grew. Moving downriver. The flow seemed to head toward the fires of the tavern. She would need to climb another dune to confirm her hunch, but that could wait until she rested. Though there would be no rest for a while.

The creatures were following her.

Sapphire eyes glowed in trios. Never blinking. Soft hoots passed between the creatures as they kept their distance, but never strayed too far behind her. The chain grew heavier, harder to move, and her pace slowed. Her heartbeat rose, and she spent Skein to lower it with [Our Hearts Toll As One]. No matter what, she needed to stay calm.

Stay rational.

Because she just heard the sound she dreaded most: splashing water as the creatures crossed to her side of the river.

She urged the chain to hurry, but it barely registered her command. The creatures gained, a steady loping speed, sapphire eyes bobbing with the excitement of an easy kill.

Zoe didn’t want to have to prove them wrong. More eyes were crawling down from the steep dunes surrounding the river. Over twenty of the creatures in the pack. Hooting, growling, following.

She threw the baboon corpse toward them. Loathe though she was to abandon the hard-won meat, she valued her life more. Hopefully, it would prove a distraction. With her burden removed, the chain increased speed, dragging her bound legs along the muddy riverbank.

The sapphire eyes converged on the corpse of the baboon. They frenzied. Hoots pitching into whining shrieks like a cluster of demented power drills. They fought amongst themselves. A shifting mess of shadows. Foul sulfurous odors reached Zoe’s nostrils as she continued dragging herself away with her chain. The ghostly links plunged into the soft earth, yanking her away from the pack with a jerking pace.

Not all the creatures went for her distraction.

Some streamed around the chaos over the corpse, crystalline eyes unwavering as they pursued Zoe. Hooting. Hollering. Clawed feet pounding the muddy ground. They charged toward her. The distance vanishing.

Zoe’s chain skidded off hard stone. She risked a glance and saw the ruins of a temple. Columns, collapsed roofs, tiled floors, all lit by sand piled in the corners. The stone itself did not glow.

The creatures charged in silence. Zoe forced her chain to wrap around the nearest column and pull across the tiled floor. The river ran through the ruins. Sound of running water bouncing off the ancient walls. If she could find a room, she could collapse the entrance. Hole herself off. Keep the creatures at bay until she healed.

She aimed toward the nearest room. Chain grabbing at rubble to haul her along the sand-swept tiles.

A cacophony of whirring shrieks punctured her ears. She cried out at the sudden pain as a warm wet trickle flowed over her earlobes. The world grew muffled, pain, but she hauled herself on with the sluggish chain. Not long till the room.

She risked a glance back.

The creatures paced at the border of the ruins. Blue eyes watching. Segmented mouths gnashing in the shadows that cloaked them. Zoe stopped moving, and the creatures remained outside.

They refused to enter the ruins.

She wasn’t stupid. Either fear, or magic kept the creatures at bay. She didn’t know which, but she didn’t care. Skein boosted her Vitality and the pain in her ears diminished.

The creatures snarled, paced, and retreated.

Zoe waited until they all vanished into the darkness before she leaned over to the river running through the floor and puked. All the jostling with a full belly. She washed out her mouth with the flowing water and looked around the ruins.

The piles of sand offered scant light, but they illuminated the carvings in the walls. It seemed a parade of snakes, or a carnival of worms, in various gestures and poses, formed a bas-relief across the walls. Was this history? Or graffiti? The broken walls obscured any real meaning. Columns supported sections of cream-colored roof, or they stood alone like dead trees.

As Zoe calmed, she studied the ruins and spied signs of habitation. Scatterings of charcoal. Broken glass. The bones of an animal flecked with hardened scraps of gristle. She pulled herself toward a darkened room. There were blankets rolled out inside. Faint body odor lingered in the air. Three beds for three campers.

She bit her lip.

People were staying here. They were gone now, but they would return. Should she stay? Or should she go?

She decided not to risk an encounter, especially not with her body in the state it was. Maybe she could find some provisions to help her. Did she dare risk it?

The pain in her legs compelled her into the room. Keeping her legs as steady as possible, she entered and picked at the blankets. It was difficult in the dark, but the metal in her body pulled her fingers toward a certain bed. Under the woolen blanket, she found a curved knife and a jar half full of glass beads. She studied a bead. The dim light offered scant detail, but it resembled a cat's eye marble. Her chains trembled as she rolled the hard orb between her fingers. There was some connection between her chains and this glass, but what —

A gruff voice boomed out in the near dark. Zoe froze. Another voice responded to the first, and pealing laughter sounded from a third. The wind whistled through the ruins, chilling the sudden sweat coating Zoe’s skin.

The campers had returned.