Monique stayed in her cabin, looking out at the two Da'xi crewmen who were being carried down. Their plates were charred and covered in scratches while pale white blood oozed from between the edges. She shuddered as she heard their ragged coughing and didn't even notice when someone stepped up beside her door.

"The captain wishes to see you!"

Monique jolted, looking at the female Da'xi who had seemingly teleported next to her. She'd seen her move about the ship before, and everyone except for the Captain had gone out of their way to be nice. Her guess was that she was Xi'kroak's mate, though she had no idea what she was called. None of the crewmen called her by her name. They just bowed.

It was the first time Monique had seen her up close, and she was surprised at the difference in the faceplates she saw. Thin but also more sculpted, they gave the female Da'xi a dangerous, fast air about her.

"Now," the Da'xi said, her tone short.

Monique wanted to ask why she had to go but knew the other wouldn't buy that. There was only one reason why she was called to go to the Captain. He was going to ask about the portal...

"Alright," she said as she stepped outside and closer to her cabin.

As she walked towards Xi'kroak's cabin, which was the one at the front of the ship, she took a quick look into the one the wounded crewmen had been carried into. Both lay on beds with other crewmen caring for them, but one glance told her that one of them probably wouldn't make it. At least, she was pretty sure even Da'xi couldn't live with two fist-sized holes in the center of their chest.

"Grant them some privacy in their final hours," the female said as she tried to shove Monique.

Monique felt like grinning at the weak force but wasn't sure how much trouble that would get her in, so she just ignored it and continued ahead. Captain Xi'kroak's door was closed, and she nodded.

"Come!"

The almost angry snap made her jerk the door open with a bit too much force, but nobody seemed to care. Xi'kroak said, pacing through his larger cabin. Not that it was big, just larger than hers.

He can actually take ten paces, Monique thought jealously.

Her thoughts froze as Xi'kroak stomped towards her, his eyes cold.

"I have given you more courtesy than you deserve," the Captain snapped. "And if I find that this is the reason I've just lost three crewmen, you won't enjoy the consequences!"

Monique swallowed, about to take a step back when she felt something sharp jab in her lower back.

"Don't move," the female Da'xi hissed.

"My crewmen went into that portal, hoping to find Irwin or at least a message," Xi'kroak snapped, not reacting to his mate's actions. "Do you know what they found?"

Monique shook her head, feeling a sudden flare of anger. "How would I know? I've been cooped up in my cabin for weeks, and nobody even talks to me anymore!"

The Captain's mate leaned closer, and she felt the sharp point dig into her jerkin. "Show some respect!"

"Why? I'm a smith, and you have shown me barely any either," Monique hissed, the bottled-up fear and rage of weeks finally bursting forth.

Xi'kroak's face plates rattled loud and fast, and Monique's sudden outburst of annoyance died as fast as it had come. She wilted, wondering if she'd just made her final mistake. Her grandmother had so warned her to watch her temper...

The rattling slowed, and Xi'kroak let out a weary sigh.

"La'suna, let her stand at ease," he said, causing Monique to feel a lot better. That was until he continued. "It might be her last time."

The sharp point left her back, but Monique remained perfectly still.

"You have been deceiving us somehow," Xi'kroak said quietly. "And I'm done playing around. You told me that Giard's Rangers have the coordinates of a new portal! Was that true, and was that this one?"

Monique held back a shuddered denial. She knew she couldn't use the trick her grandmother had taught her to circumvent the low-ranked truth-reader Xi'rkoak was using against her. Still, there were other ways, and she had to try. She didn't really know if Irwin had the location of a portal, even though she believed he probably did. However, Xi'kroak wouldn't have gone here on just her belief, and if he found out that she wasn't sure and had lied….

"I don't know if it was this one," she said slowly. "If they aren't here, I believe it either wasn't, and they continued beyond, or they found it, but it wasn't what they were looking for?"

Xi'kroak kept looking at her, giving her no idea if he wanted her to continue or if he was thinking. Monique hesitated, then continued. What she said herself would be better if he began asking yes and no questions.

"I don't know the exact details of the portal they were looking for," she said. "Nor where it is or what is beyond it. Perhaps this was it, and they left because they also suffered losses?"

Xi'kroak stared at her for a few more moments before looking at La'suna.

"She seems to be speaking the truth," the one behind her said, causing a surge of relief to flood Monique.

She decided to continue quickly before they asked her more difficult questions.

"Did you find a trail leading away from here?" she asked.

Xi'kroak was quiet for a few moments before taking a step back, his faceplates receding slightly, showing he was slightly more relaxed. "Yes, but from what we can see, they have been going into and out of a few of the narrow side branches. It showed they didn't know for sure where to go…"

Monique heard the slight threat in his voice. "Are they all close together?" she asked, quickly trying to come up with a reasonable excuse.

Xi'kroak crosses his arms, frowning at her. "Yes?"

"Then perhaps the location of the portal is an indication without a path leading to it?" Monique gambled.

"You mean they know where it should be but not how to get there?" Xi'kroak asked slowly.

Monique nodded, afraid to say any more, knowing she was pushing her luck.

Xi'kroak shared a look with his mate, but neither spoke for a while. As the seconds ticked by, Monique hoped they would buy what she had come up with.

"Alright," Xi'kroak finally said. "We will be leaving from here and following after them for three days. If we don't find them, then we are returning, and when we pass by this portal, we will leave you inside."

Monique's eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to object when she saw the dangerous gleam in Xi'kroak's eyes. She snapped her mouth closed, her worry growing.

"Good," Xi'kroak said. "Now, you will go to your cabin and remain there."

"Alright," Monique said, quickly turning around to walk away, only to freeze in her place.

La'suna stood before her, a long curved dagger in her hand, her faceplates angled forward, the edges standing out eerily.

"If I find you have been lying to us and risking all our lives," La'suna said softly, raising her dagger to tap on Monique's cheek. "I'll throw you in the portal without any clothing or food."

Monique swallowed and nodded.

La'suna took a step aside, and Monique quickly walked past her back to her cabin. When she was inside, she closed the door and lay on her bed.

Dammit, Irwin! Where are you?

--

"My Captain, what will we do if she is actually speaking the truth?" La'suna asked, staring at Xi'kroak. "Irwin might be upset with how we treated her."

Xi'kroak walked forward, pushing his faceplates against his mate's, causing it to vibrate softly and intimately.

"If that happens, I will take the blame," he said. "I am the captain, and it is my job to keep the crew safe."

La'suna raised her hand and stroked his neck, and they remained like that for a long while.

--

"It's insane," Irwin muttered as he held onto the railing and looked at the mountains that stretched in all directions around him.

"Yeah, I had thought it would be like this narrow ridge," Greldo muttered. "Still, it's a good thing the temperature rose already."

Irwin agreed completely because it saved him from having to use energy to warm others. Still, besides the three of them, the others were still unable to weather the freezing cold.

"Look, another one!"

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Irwin looked up to where Greldo was pointing and grimaced.

A hunched-over Addled was lurching up one of the steep slopes, using both its hands and feet in an irregular gait.

"That thing has to be fifteen feet tall," Irwin whispered.

"Close, more like thirteen," Greldo said. "Think that's why there is only one? Maybe they eat each other?"

Irwin snorted and decided to ask either Daubutim or Ambraz later.

They continued excitedly looking around, the mountain a much-needed distraction from the monotonous boredom of the cold wasteland below. Half an hour later, they had spotted another dozen Addled when Greldo whistled.

"What? A really big one?" Irwin asked.

"No, I think I've spotted what's beyond the mountains," Greldo said as he pointed towards a canyon between two of the highest peaks.

Irwin didn't see it at first, thinking it had to be very far, when he suddenly noticed a brown tint between the gray rocks and dark shadows far away. He'd first thought it was another shadow, but as he watched it, he realized it was probably earth or mud.

"How far is that?" he asked, trusting Greldo's ability to gauge distances more than his own.

"Not sure, but I'd say we will reach it in an hour, more or less," Greldo said.

Irwin soon found that Greldo was right. As they closed in, moving around and over the side of one of the peaks, they had been flying along an opening in the mountain range that unfolded itself before them. The brown area they had seen had been a small part of the brown, swampy land behind it. At the same time, a slight breeze came from ahead, carrying a warm but smelly air with it.

"Ugh, it reminds me of the summer near the Gloomforest," Greldo said, sounding disgusted. "I can almost taste the rot and decay!"

Irwin sniffed, and although he agreed that it smelled bad, it wasn't as bad as he recalled of that.

"Glad I don't have your heightened sense of smell," he said.

Greldo sighed. "Yeah, you should smell what it's like below deck!"

Irwin laughed as he continued looking ahead.

The muck that covered the area they could see seemed to stretch towards the horizon and as far left and right as they could see.

"There's bubbles coming out of it," Greldo whispered. "Almost like there's something moving below!"

Irwin couldn't see what he was talking about; everything looked like a slightly rippling and oozing mass of mud, but he didn't doubt Greldo.

"Hopefully, it's just more of those Addled, but keep an eye on it just be sure," he said.

"I will," Greldo muttered, and Irwin saw his gaze was seemingly trailing something in the mud far to the side.

They remained on the bow as they flew out of the mountain range, the ship descending along the slope that led towards the swampy area.

"There are trees way out there!" Greldo said, sounding excited.

"Let's hope that means an end to this swamp," Irwin said as he looked around. He was pretty sure that if they were going to have to look at this for the next few weeks, it'd become as boring as the cold, frozen wasteland on the other side of the mountains.

The ship straightened out and slowed down as it moved forward. By now, the temperature had gone from deadly cold to freezing to chilly, and Irwin knew that the others above deck should be fine.

"We need to start searching for the portal," Rindiri shouted. "It should be somewhere within a mile around our current position!"

That close? Irwin thought as his eyebrows raised. He shared a quick look with Greldo before closing his eyes. It took him only a few moments to calm his heartcard, the resonance going from a constant jitter and humming to near-perfect stillness. With his eyes closed, the card still, and his mind focused, the world turned dark and empty. It lasted for only a moment when his heartcard suddenly jerked, almost seeming to pull him sideways, and Irwin quickly opened his eyes, afraid he was going to go flailing over the side of the boat.

He was surprised to find Greldo was holding his shoulder, only letting him go when he looked up.

"There's one?" Greldo whispered, eyes wide.

Irwin nodded. Even though he wasn't focusing on his card anymore, he could feel the pull, almost like a rope was latching onto his card, pulling on it in short, rapid jerks.

"Over there," he whispered, pointing slightly to the side and further over the swamp. "It's less than a mile out."

Greldo nodded, closing his eyes, his face going slack for a few moments. When it returned to normal, he shrugged.

"Well, I definitely can't sense it," he whispered before turning to the steering wheel.

Rindiri stood there, eyes closed and obviously still trying to locate the portal. Irwin and Greldo waited until she opened her eyes and turned to them.

"Nothing for me," she said, looking at Greldo. "Did you have any more luck?"

"That way," he said with a grin. "It's not too far!"

"You can feel it?" Rindiri asked, her eyes widening. "That's incredible!"

"Yeah, I'm pretty great," Greldo said before grinning at Irwin, who rolled his eyes.

The portal of the main cabin creaked open, and Irwin looked up to see Zender take a careful look outside, seeming ready to dash back out. His eyes widened, probably from surprise at the temperature, and he dashed outside.

"It's warm!" he shouted before rushing to Greldo. "Did you really find a rank-five portal world!?"

Irwin grinned as Greldo crossed his arms and frowned at Zender. "How do you suppose we know beforehand what portal it is? Besides, what if it is something else?"

"Come on, Greldo! What else can it be?" Zender asked, grinning widely. "Think I can come and try out my whip?"

Greldo shook his head and turned back to the front of the ship.

"We should be close," he shouted, closing his eyes.

Irwin didn't even bother. He could feel the pull of the portal without issue. It was a hundred feet to the side of the ship. He was surprised when Greldo opened his eyes wide and swallowed before pointing in the correct direction.

"It's over there! Really close!'

He really is sensitive, Irwin thought.

A few minutes later, everyone was gathered on the deck, rubbing their hands and stomping their feet to get warm, while Rindiri slowly maneuvered the ship until the invisible closed portal was right above the deck. Then she slowed the ship to a stop and joined them.

"Can you show me how to open it?" Irwin asked as she walked forward.

He already had a general idea of what to do from what Ambraz had said, but more explanation couldn't hurt. The others moved forward, Daubutim in the lead, looking as intrigued as he did.

"I can," she said. "It's not that hard. You just have to feel the resonation of the portal and force your cards in an opposite resonance. You will feel resistance from the portal and just have to push through it."

Irwin nodded as he walked closer to the portal, almost feeling like it was pulling him forward. He didn't think it would be that hard, especially after everything he'd done as a cardsmith.

I wonder why cards seem attracted to them, he thought before fully focusing on the job at hand.

As he focused on his heartcard, Irwin sensed the portal's vibrations and, with little effort, caused his heartcard to counter-resonate. With a mental shiver that surprised him, he suddenly felt the sense of pulling flip around as the portal seemed to want to push him away. Even though he knew it wasn't an actual physical thing, he almost wanted to lean forward against the pressure.

Sensing the portal, almost seeming to want to resist him, confused him even more than the pull from before. Why would it feel like he was being pulled in and now pushed away? Was there something that could have happened between his cards and the portal that didn't happen?

No time for that now, Irwin decided.

He continued to force his heartcard to resonate louder in a way that began destabilizing the portal's signature even more which cost him surprisingly little effort. Even though it was the opposite of what he'd do when reforging a card, either by following its resonance or gently guiding it, it felt like a very familiar thing to him.

As he continued, almost effortlessly, he began wondering what would have happened if he'd increased the resonance of the portal. Would that have stabilized it even more? Perhaps that would have removed the portal to the world entirely… As that thought hit him, another idea came to him. What if that was how things worked? Could he do this from the inside and not just close the portal but remove the exit portal to the Portal Gallery entirely?

Wait… according to the old stories, there were no portals to our world!

Was this what Gelwin and the others had done? Search for a portal far away, go inside, close it, then go into an adjacent world and close that portal as well. Then, at some point, someone had found it and opened the portal, which would have had to be to Fiverio to find them again eventually.

But that would mean that if portals could be removed, they would have done so, he decided, wanting to shake his head as he felt like he was confusing himself. After another minute of trying to figure these things out, he decided to talk to Daubutim about it later. If anyone knew, it would be him.

It took him a few more minutes before he felt the portal's resonance suddenly begin to spin out of control, and he took a step back.

"Do you want me to-" Rindiri began, but Irwin just shook his head.

"No need. It's done," he said.

Rindiri frowned, then closed her eyes, her face going slack. As she did, Irwin wondered exactly how sensitive his card made him. To him, the incredibly tumultuous instability a foot away seemed almost impossible to ignore.

"How did you do this?" Rindiri shouted as she turned and ran to the steering wheel. "It's so far along it's going to open any moment! How hard did you resonate?"

Irwin felt his hair stand on end while the others began backing up. As he stared at the spot the portal was on, he felt his own heartcard start to become agitated, something he couldn't recall when Rindiri had opened the portal to the Terullian world.

Rindiri reached the steering wheel, and a jolt ran through the deck as the Sonata surged forward and down so fast that Irwin felt his stomach rise to his throat. There was a startled cry from the others as they moved away, and Irwin ran to the railing, looking up and back. Behind them, a shimmering appeared in the center of the air. It looked like tiny embers in a forge, yellow, orange, and red, all flickering, while the outlining of a portal began forming.

This is different from the other one, Irwin thought.

"Look away!" Rindiri screamed.

Irwin recalled the previous time, and he was about to obey when he hesitated. He trusted his eyes to look into anything, including a sun… if he was to learn more about portals and exit portals in particular, he needed to try things.

Half the risk, he suddenly thought, clapping a hand over his right eye. If need be, he could-

The portal opened, and a burst of fiery light exploded out, moving so fast it was beyond anything he could comprehend. As it exploded, the center of the portal seemed to ripple open, and for a few moments, he saw the insides of the chaos space just like when he was in a portal canal. There were no barriers, and far in the distance, he saw a green, golden, and blue spec of a planet with a bright white pinprick in the center that seemed to brighten and grow, engulfing the planet, the darkness of the portal, then it connected to the portal which burst out with a brilliant white light.

All of it took less than a second, and when it finished, Irwin felt a tiny bit of burning in his eye as he stared at a black portal with orange, yellow, and red lightning rippling along its edges.

"Captain, are you crazy?" Rindiri shouted, sounding both angry and worried. “I said to… cover... your… By Yilda… it's a rank six world!"

Irwin's second hand dropped, and he looked at the portal hovering in the air, the tiny bit of burning in his left eye already fading.

Well… now what? he thought.

--

Monique stared dully at the wall of her cabin as she lay on her bed. She'd been lying here for two days, and she knew that her time was rapidly coming to an end.

Her stomach clenched, but she knew there was barely a crumb of food that she could eat left.

Shouts and screams from above caused her to jolt out of her brooding, and she stared at the ceiling with a sudden hope.

Did they find Irwin? Is this horror finally over?

Someone was sprinting to the cabin door, then down, and she moved her door, hesitating. She was told not to go out, but had someone said she couldn't open it?

Either it's good news, and they won't do anything to me, or it matters little, she decided as she pulled open the door.

Looking to the side, she saw a crewman rush to Xi'kroak's cabin. She vaguely recognized him because of his larger-than-normal brow-plate and because he'd been the survivor of those who went inside the previous portal.

"Captain! A rank five or above world portal just opened somewhere ahead of us!"

Monique's mouth fell open as she stared at the crewman, barely believing what she'd heard. Of all the things that she had imagined to have happened today, this wasn't anywhere on the list.

If that's Irwin, how did he find this? she thought, feeling a sudden rush of hope grow. It had to be, right? Who else was here? Only the Galubs and the Nyzir, but how likely was it that they found it?

Besides, they were so far in the unknown, in a direction nobody had searched for in a decade. The last rank five or above world that had been found was long ago and far away, but now it was close... and she was here!

Monique shivered as all of the implications began settling in. If she could claim even a tiny portion of it for her family, all of their troubles and sorrow, everything would be resolved!

Monique slowly backed up, dropping on the bed and staring into the hallway without seeing anything.

I'm going to beg him if that's what it takes so I can join his explorer's guild, she thought, clenching her teeth together.