"What?" I was confused. What in my muddled motivational speach made me a genius.

"You said the game was safer. If we can access that world, we could..." The doctor stopped talking momentarily, but the expressions crossing his face told us he was still thinking. "There is too much to think about. For now we need to channel the rift."

He immediately went to the elevator, and when no one followed him he made an impatient gesture with his hand and said, "We don't have much time."

We followed him all the way back to the room with the rift. Everything looked a little different, there were cracks in the walls and floor, and some chunks of rubble that seemed to have fallen out of the walls and ceiling. The lights were still working, so the power grid was still working, or whatever lit the lights. Anyone we passed was told to follow, and by the time we got to the rift room there was porbably about a hundred people with us. Surprisingly there wasn't any new damage to the room, though I might have just missed it because the room was already pretty badly damaged. There was a whole bunch of new equipment. The original tower things were still there, but around them was a bunch of things that looked like the concrete barricade things that usually go on roads, except they were metal. There was also a few screens that had symbols, and bar graph things. It all looked like some kind of crazy science lab. Oh, and the rift was a nice little sphere, about the same height as Lily.

The doctor immediately started giving orders when we got there, telling people to do things that didn't make sense to me. Like manage the vitality pulse, open vapor vents, and prepare for temporal spatialization. He did say some things that I understood, like reroute power from non-essencial systems, and set the blocades. Everytime he gave a command he pointed to one or more people and they went off in some direction to do their assigned task. It was surprisingly organized, I think I was just standing there with my mouth open until blanket man grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the side. Marcus and Lily followed, but they looked almost as surprised as me at the way everyone seemed prepared for whatever was going on.

"If you guys just stay over here you should be out of the way. This is something we train for all the time." He brought us to the edge of the room, away from the doors.

"Thanks Brogan. This is all a little overwhelming. The closest I've gotten to an emergency was some evacuations for a volcano." Marcus put his back against the wall, and slid down until he was sitting.

"I've seen, some stuff. But I was really young at the time, so it is a really old memory, but this is uncomfortably similar." Lily sat next to Marcus.

I was worried about more important things, "Wait, Marcus, when did you talk to blanket, uh, Brogan? Your name is Brogan?"

They all looked at me like they didn't understand what I just said.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Bwyd, he introduced himself a while ago. You were there." Marcus was giving me one of those concerned looks, like he was worried for my sanity.

"Oh, I must of been distracted. A lot's been going on." I wrapped my blanket tighter around me.

"Hey, Bwyd, it's ok. I'm sure you have a lot on your mind. Remembering one person's name when you're introduced to as many as you have been, isn't easy. It's not like I'm a dragon. I'm just one of the humans you've met." He looked a little depressed, but like he accepted being forgotten. Which just made me feel worse.

I didn't know what to say, so I stood there trying to think of something that wouldn't make me look like a heartless jerk, and when I didn't think of anything right away, it just became an awkward silence. Thankfully my silence was interrupted by a low hum, followed by several pulses that spread out from the rift. It almost felt like waves, but in the air, and not wet. When they stopped, the hum continued, but the rift looked like a flat floating circle of water.

"Whoa, it's a star gate." Marcus stood up so quickly that Lily, who was leaning on him, fell over with a squeak.

"Marcus, Bwyd, Lily." The doctor motioned for us to go to him. "The portal is stable, it should work both ways. Would one of you go through to confirm that it is in fact the game world you recognize?"

"Me, I'll go." Marcus barely gave the rest of us a chance to answer. He looked excited.

The doctor nodded, "Good, go through confirm the location, and come back. We will prepare for an evacuation immediately."

He didn't actually get close to the portal before he stopped and turned around. "Guys, I've got notifications again. Apparently I've gained some skills and a title."

"Good, your game world seems to have a sphere of influence around the portal." The doctor turned to someone who was talking into a MUD. "Tell everyone we have a safe evacuation portal here, and someone get to the transpo cirlce. We're going to have a lot of visitors. Marcus, Bwyd, and Lily, you should go through first to prepare the area for at least a thousand refugees."

"Sir, I would like to go as well." Brogan didn't look depressed anymore, so that was good.

"Go ahead, and remember this is a completely different world, with different rules. I would suggest recording everything you can so we can study it later. Everyone else, listen up. We are going to keep this portal open for as long as possible. We need to evacuate as many people as we can. If this works, we may avoid what happened to Tripolta, and be able to rebuild. For our families, for our people, for life!"

Everyone cheered, but it was kind of a subdued, probably because their city was being attacked.

"What are you waiting for, get through that portal." The doctor looked at us before turning back to the gathered people, "Pep talks over, get back to work."

The four of us looked at each other, then stepped towards the portal.

Congratulations!

You have earned an achievement!

World Walker

Grants the ability to understand any recognized language, though you may not be able to speak it.

Congratulations!

You have gained 5 stat points for unlocking a rare achievement

After dismissing the notifications, we stepped into the portal.