A low, distant roar of waves lapped against the shore as consciousness slowly returned to him. His body ached, his limbs felt impossibly heavy, and a fine layer of coarse, unfamiliar sand clung to his skin. The air was thick with the scent of salt and something faintly metallic, tinged with an unnatural energy that prickled at his senses.

Groaning, Traebus forced his eyes open, squinting against the hazy golden light that filtered through the clouds above. His fingers instinctively moved to check his equipment, assessing the damage. His long coat, once woven with protective spellthread and reinforced plating, was singed and torn, the enchantments barely flickering in protest. His right gauntlet, the intricate magitech construct that allowed him to manipulate raw energy, was a charred ruin, its etheric conduits fried beyond quick repair.

With a grimace, he adjusted the strap on his goggles, lifting them to his eyes. A familiar blue shimmer flickered to life—the one piece of gear that had miraculously survived. At least his goggles, enchanted to analyze magical constructs and identify foreign substances, were still functional. "Well, at least I won’t be blindly stumbling into some arcane death trap," he muttered, trying to find some humor in the situation.

He was lying on a vast, black-sand beach, the obsidian grains shimmering under the shifting sky. Behind him, the endless ocean stretched toward the horizon, its waters an eerie shade of deep violet, rippling as if disturbed by unseen forces. Each wave carried with it a faint hum—an unnatural resonance that made his teeth itch.

He pushed himself up, coughing as he took in his surroundings. Ahead of him, a dense jungle loomed, its towering trees wrapped in thick, serpentine vines. The foliage pulsed faintly, bioluminescent veins tracing through the bark and leaves. Unfamiliar calls echoed from deep within, strange and guttural, as if the very forest was alive and whispering in tongues unknown to him.

"Well… that’s new," he muttered hoarsely, brushing the sand from his coat. His mind reeled, struggling to piece together the events that had led him here. The portal—the explosion—then nothing. Had he been hurled into another dimension? Another plane of existence?

With a weary sigh, he staggered to his feet, his boots sinking slightly into the soft black sand. His entire body ached from the ordeal, but pain was secondary to the immediate need for answers. Wherever he was, it certainly wasn’t home. His gaze shifted between the endless ocean stretching behind him and the dense, pulsing jungle ahead. If he was going to survive—let alone escape—he needed to determine his location and find some trace of civilization.

He brushed the coarse sand from his coat, his mind racing through possibilities. Was this some unknown world, a forgotten realm, or merely a distant and uncharted land? The sky, swirling with unfamiliar hues, offered no guidance. There were no landmarks, no signs of habitation, nothing but the eerie hum of the waves and the shifting glow of the jungle’s bioluminescent flora.

"Right," he muttered, adjusting his coat. "Step one: Don’t die. Step two: Figure out where the hell I am. Step three: Find someone who can tell me how to get out of here. Preferably someone not trying to eat me. But knowing my luck, I'll probably stumble into a village of cannibals who see mages as an exotic delicacy. Really hoping today isn't the day I end up on a spit."

His boots crunched against the black sand as he moved toward the jungle’s edge, each step accompanied by the distant calls of unseen creatures. If civilization existed in this world, it had to be somewhere beyond that thick wall of glowing vines and whispering leaves.

Traebus took a deep breath and pushed forward, trying to part the thick foliage, but the jungle resisted him at every turn. Vines twisted unnaturally, their bioluminescent glow pulsing as if in warning. Thorns snagged at his coat, and gnarled roots jutted up from the earth, making every step an ordeal. After several frustrating minutes of hacking through the underbrush with a jagged piece of driftwood, he scowled and stepped back, glaring at the impassable greenery.

"Fine. Have it your way, you overgrown mess of weeds," he muttered, brushing dirt from his sleeves. "I didn’t want to walk through you anyway."

Realizing that brute force wasn't going to get him inland, he turned and began making his way along the shoreline instead. The black sand stretched endlessly in both directions, curving gently as the ocean waves rolled in behind him. The rhythmic crashing of the violet-tinged water was oddly soothing, even if every now and then he thought he saw something move beneath the surface.

As he walked, he kept his eyes on the jungle, searching for a break in the dense vegetation or any sign of a path leading inward. If he was going to find civilization—if civilization even existed here—he needed to find an easier way inland. The wind carried a faint, unfamiliar scent, something beyond the salt of the ocean. Smoke, perhaps? Or something burning? Hope flickered in his chest. Maybe he wasn't alone after all.

A few steps later, he halted abruptly, his foot nearly sinking into the bloated carcass of an enormous creature sprawled across the shoreline. The decaying beast, partially buried in the obsidian sand, reeked of salt and rot. Its hide was cracked and peeling, revealing thick sinew beneath patches of armored scales.

It resembled some long-extinct reptilian behemoth—its stocky, pillar-like legs had collapsed beneath its bulk, and its head, larger than Traebus himself, lay half-submerged in a shallow pool of brackish water. A trio of jagged, bony horns jutted from its massive skull, and its heavy, beaked maw had been forced open, revealing rows of blunt, crushing teeth.

Something had clearly been feeding on it. Deep gouges ran along its exposed flanks, as if something with claws the size of swords had raked through its flesh. More unsettling were the bite marks—clean, precise, almost surgical in their removal of tissue. Whatever had done this was no mindless scavenger.

Frowning, Traebus lifted his goggles and activated their scanning function. A faint hum filled the air as the enchanted lenses whirred to life, analyzing the corpse in front of him. Arcane glyphs flickered across his vision, translating raw data into something comprehensible.

"Large quadrupedal reptile... Herbivorous diet... Dense bone structure, possibly used for defense... Oh, interesting. Its skull structure suggests a natural weapon system. Defensive frill, forward-facing horns—definitely not a predator, but more than capable of goring something that got too close."

He adjusted the zoom, examining the wounds more closely. "Age at time of death… mature specimen. Cause of death… external injuries, likely from multiple sources. Great. That means something bigger and nastier than this thing is wandering around. Fantastic."

With a sigh, he lowered the goggles and rubbed at his temple. "Well, at least I know I’m not the first living thing here. Just have to make sure I don’t end up like this poor bastard."

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As he stepped around the massive corpse, his gaze caught on a break in the jungle’s dense foliage—a wide swath of flattened undergrowth leading straight into the trees. The enormous creature had clearly forced its way through, snapping thick branches and leaving behind a path of crushed ferns and trampled vines. The sight sent a wave of relief through him. If something that large could make it through, perhaps he could as well.

Traebus adjusted his coat and stepped forward, following the massive trail. The scent of rot and damp earth filled the air as he crossed into the jungle’s edge, weaving between towering trunks covered in glowing moss. Each step sent small creatures skittering into the underbrush, their faint, bioluminescent bodies darting through the thick foliage. He remained cautious, scanning the shadows with his goggles for any signs of movement beyond the trees.

The further he went, the quieter the jungle became, the sounds of distant creatures fading into an eerie stillness. Something had passed through here recently, something big enough to silence the natural chorus of the jungle. That was never a good sign. Traebus exhaled sharply, running a hand through his disheveled hair.

"Well, this is promising," he muttered. "Nothing says ‘safe passage’ like a dead silence in the middle of an alien jungle. Definitely not the setting for my inevitable and untimely demise."

He pressed on, though with considerably more caution. Each step felt like an invitation to some unseen horror, and he found himself glancing over his shoulder more often than he liked. "Either I’m following my way to civilization, or I’m walking straight into something’s den. Which, knowing my luck, means I’m on the express route to becoming someone’s afternoon snack."

As he took another cautious step forward, movement in the underbrush caught his eye. Traebus froze, fingers twitching toward the ruined remains of his gauntlet, even though it was useless. A small, bipedal lizard emerged from the tangled foliage, its scales shimmering with pulses of bioluminescent blue and green. It was roughly the size of a chicken, standing on two slender legs with a sleek, sinuous tail flicking behind it. Its wide, amber eyes locked onto him, unblinking.

"Well, aren't you a pretty little nightmare?" Traebus muttered, tilting his head as he adjusted his goggles to get a better look. The creature tilted its head in response, its amber eyes narrowing slightly as if it were just as curious about him as he was about it. Its bioluminescent scales pulsed rhythmically, shifting between deep blues and flickering greens, casting faint, hypnotic patterns across the jungle floor.

Traebus remained perfectly still, watching as the little reptile took a hesitant step forward, its sinuous tail swaying behind it like a metronome. The goggles hummed softly as they processed the data, spitting out a string of glyphs and figures across his vision.

"Small bipedal reptile… enhanced night vision… rapid muscle twitch response… ah, and a carnivorous diet. Fantastic." His voice was dry, but his body tensed. "So you’re a predator, huh? Or at least something with the tools to be one. That’s comforting."

The creature studied him in turn, its frilled throat flexing as it released a slow, almost calculating exhale. It was intelligent, or at least cautious. The moment stretched between them, a silent assessment of who would make the first move.

Before he could analyze further, the lizard let out a guttural, almost comically deep growl for something so small. Its frilled neck flared open, glowing faintly in warning.

"Oh. Oh no," Traebus whispered.

The bushes rustled. Then they rustled a lot. Dozens of bioluminescent eyes flickered to life in the undergrowth. More of the creatures emerged, their throats rumbling in unison. Within seconds, he was surrounded.

Traebus took a slow step back, lifting his hands in what he hoped was a universally understood gesture of 'let’s not do anything hasty.' The lizards, however, did not seem inclined to parley. Their glowing scales brightened as their growls deepened, their postures shifting into something far less curious and much more aggressive.

"Right. This is fine," he muttered. "I've been in worse situations. Probably."

Instinct took over as he reached inward, attempting to gather the latent mana within him. If they attacked, he needed to be ready to cast something—anything—to defend himself. But the moment he pulled on the raw energy, he knew something was wrong. The mana felt undeveloped, primal, as if it had never been shaped or refined by a trained caster before. It roiled inside him like an untamed storm, raw and violent, resisting his control.

It crawled through his veins, thick and heavy, like trying to force liquid lightning through his body. It didn't respond to his direction, instead lashing out wildly, searing his insides with an unbearable heat. A sharp, ungoverned surge built in his chest, coiling tight before bursting outward in an uncontrolled explosion of raw energy, bypassing his will entirely.

A searing wave of flame burst to life along his arms, hungry and wild, licking up his sleeves with reckless abandon. The ruined gauntlet sparked violently, its damaged conduits failing to contain the surge. His goggles flashed warning sigils across his vision, but he barely registered them, too busy flailing as the fire surged higher, its intensity feeding off the corrupted energy within him.

Flames burst to life along his arms, his ruined gauntlet sparking violently as the fire danced up his sleeves and licked at his coat. His goggles flashed warning sigils across his vision, but he was too busy flailing to take note of whatever emergency diagnostics they were spitting out.

"Oh gods—what!? No!" He stumbled backward, frantically trying to smother the flames with his hands, which only made things worse. "I was going for a controlled burst, not spontaneous combustion!"

The lizards, momentarily startled by the sudden inferno, hesitated. Their bioluminescent scales dimmed slightly as they took cautious steps back, wariness flickering in their glowing eyes.

Traebus, still very much on fire, spun in a wild panic. "Okay, okay—new plan! Stop burning! Stop—ah!" He dropped to the ground, rolling wildly in the black sand, sending plumes of ash and charred dust into the air. The flames slowly sputtered out, leaving behind the acrid stench of burnt cloth and singed hair.

Panting, he lay flat on his back, staring up at the shifting sky. The lizards still surrounded him, now watching with what could only be described as eerie amusement. His mind raced for options, and his gaze flickered toward his right hand. The gauntlet, though charred and barely functional, still pulsed with residual energy, the flickering runes struggling to stabilize.

"Well," he wheezed, "that could have gone better."

A thought struck him—perhaps it was no longer a conduit for channeling magic, but a weapon in its own right. If it still held even a fraction of its former power, he could potentially use it against the creatures.

With slow, deliberate movements, he flexed his fingers inside the gauntlet, feeling the faint hum of unstable energy surge beneath the cracked plating. "Alright, you glorified torch," he muttered under his breath, "let's see if you still have some fight left in you."

Gritting his teeth, Traebus reached into the gauntlet’s housing, fingers fumbling against the overheated metal. His fingertips found the mana crystal embedded at its core—the source of its power, now flickering erratically. With a swift yank, he wrenched it free, and the moment it left its slot, the remaining conduits sparked violently, sending arcs of unstable energy crackling up his arm.

The lizards flinched at the sudden burst of light, their bodies tensing as the pulsing glow of the crystal intensified. Traebus barely had time to brace himself before the crystal, overloaded with raw mana, began radiating arcs of electricity. The first bolt shot out wildly, striking a nearby tree and sending glowing embers cascading into the underbrush. The second, more controlled, lanced straight into the nearest lizard, sending it skidding backward in a burst of sizzling scales and yelping panic.

"Oh, that works! That definitely works!" Traebus exclaimed, eyes wide as he tightened his grip around the volatile crystal. He barely had control over its output, but that hardly mattered now. Another surge of lightning erupted, scattering the lizards as they screeched and darted away, their bioluminescent scales flashing in a panic.

The air reeked of ozone and burnt vegetation as Traebus struggled to keep his footing, electricity still surging wildly through his fingers. He let out a breathless, exhilarated laugh. "Yeah, you better run! Next time, try picking on someone who—"

Before he could finish, the crystal emitted a shrill, high-pitched whine. His victorious grin faltered. "Uh… that’s not good."