A breeze blows heavily and my clothes flap in the wind. Many drops of rain fall onto my hood. My senses start to come alive with the rush of new experiences.

I look up to the orange glow of a foreign star. It even hangs in the sky in a different position. Further, the heat is less and the light dimmer.

I am looking at a new sun and I stand in a different dimension.

A wide grin spreads across my face.

Amazing.

I breathe the air deeply, the sun is cooler and it is colder than Athfens.

I look around.

Ahead and above is a large stone structure. I recognise it from the drawings in the Book of the Dammed. It is the maze and prison known as Dagonlith.

It is built upon a barren cliffside hanging over an ocean. Dagonlith is protected at sea by the sheer cliffside and by land there are many guardians of various forms bred to kill.

I am on the isle of Ein it is a single lush island on a water world created to house criminals whose deeds meant the keys thrown away.

I am at the base of the cliffside which runs clear up to the naked rock that forms the foundation of Dagonlith.

It is a steep climb and I see green as far as the eye; the ferns are dense and the grass tall and thick. I recall that the beautiful paradise that is the Isle of Ein is populated by monstrosities who live in a constant cycle of birth, sex and death.

An Icarious magi, aka me, is one of the few ways to move to and from the Dagonlith. Prisoners are dropped from orbit into the maze. An entire island made to be self-sufficient and brutal. A line of descriptions in the Book of the Dammed noted that prisoners with strong survival instincts were sent here in order to be condemned to live, but to live in misery.

A place filled with beauty just beyond reach, it gives the prisoners the cruelty of hope.

First, I have to make it into the maze alive. Then find this Fark, though what one of them did to end up here raises more questions. How does the Archmage’s son know about it as well?

I walk up.

My clothes become wet and damp quickly in the rain and the terrain.

I walk not five steps before a deer-like creature with the tusks of a boar bounds towards my direction and tries to skewer me.

I pivot and slash causing a shallow cut across its face.

It swerves past me and comes to a quick stop and turn.

I fire a mana bolt but it flies by it as it leaps high and pounces on top of my body.

It has a gaping maw and a hollow chest.

Its jaw is powerful and its teeth sharp but my flesh endures.

We scramble in the dirt, wrestling for supremacy, until relentless, I eventually pin it and snap its neck.

I breathe for a moment, and settle my rhythm.

Up ahead, and what I assume is the “north”, is Dagonlith,

A more careful scouting of the area shows that to the “east” where the sun is rising, is a small forest of trees and to my “south” and “west” is a beach.

Which way?

I summon a quartet of pigs one at a time and push them running, one in each direction. The one to the north dies in seconds, the one to the east makes it thirty before a hybrid fox and hunting hound swallows it whole. The ones to the west and south make noise until they disappear beyond my senses.

The beach it is.

I summon a Minoth Rottweiler with a dark pelt and an orange tufts of fur on its underbelly.

I clutch my spear close, and make my way forward crouching. I move slowly and steadily over the grassy cliffside to the beach.

My summon growls, I hear the bells ring in my ear.

I lunge forward and I pierce through the middle of the mandibles of a lion sized ant.

The creature is awesome in its size and lethality; it falls raising dust in the air.

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It is dead.

I keep low, my elbow and knees in the dirt, spear at the ready.

Here there are plants and over there are snakes.

One raises its head at me and hisses the way snakes do, it lets out a death cry as my Summon closes their teeth around its throat.

Slowly and methodically, I silently creep forward killing the little critters in the way.

It is a grueling but cautious way to make progress. Each step takes me further away from Dagonlith but hopefully towards a safer path on a circuitous route to my destination.

Sweat pours down my back and my throat throbs in pain. The danger is too close to even complain out of my dry mouth.

My stomach rumbles.

I haven’t even eaten breakfast yet. Fuck.

A wasp the size of an elephant descands needle pointing true.

I roll out of the way and dirt sprays as the needle sticks into where I was but a moment ago.

I spin around and ready my spear.

My summon attacks some lizards who use the opportunity to attack.

I see that the wasp also has the trunk and tusks of an Elephant in a bizarre hybrid creature.

I thrust the spear upwards but the Elephant Wasp evades back out of reach, I dash forward and overextend my lunge to close the distance but the Elephant Wasp lets out a spray of scalding water which blasts me into the dirt.

I am hit again and again.

"Fuck!" I bellow as my skin feels like it is burning.

Nothing happens.

It hovers.

I stand up.

Neither a spear or a dog will be of much use here.

I form a mana arrow in one hand when it forms I blast a mana bolt with the other sending it dodging precisely where I fire the mana arrow.

It pierces deep into its body.

Hurt, the Elephant Wasp flies away.

They perhap sense that a further fight would go poorly for both of us.

I, too, hurt for a few. I sit down and I gasp, and I huff.

Resting and catching my breath, I pet my summon relying on it to keep a watch while I recover.

It is too late to turn back and head straight to Dagonlith, but heading to beach doesn’t seem to have been a much safer route.

I am already burning through my mana pool and I haven’t even reached the prison.

I’m running out of time to doubt, I have to keep moving. I’m not sure if I can keep this up.

I get up to a crouch. I shuffle forwards. The beach is closer but is still too far away at this slow place.

We keep low and travel about half the remaining distance until I feel my foot stick. I look down and see I am caught in the edge of a large spider’s web. The web is as big as a window pane.

I cut myself free with my spear and I look up.

A pack of spiders circle, I count four crawling in from all sides.

They are big as wolves and they chitter and chatter.

One sprays a web I roll out of the way and another pounces web flying to where I roll to, a lucky accidental slash with my spear cuts the web.

My summon collides with the creature pushing it out of my way.

My gallant hound to rescue.

The Spider lands and starts crawling away after the chitter from another spider.

My summon pants, winded from the tackle.

They are acting like a wolf pack communicating loudly and attacking with precision.

I throw out a decoy.

As the Wolf Pack Spiders spray a net shaped web above us.

"Switch!"

My summon is caught in the webs.

I appear behind the Wolf Pack Spiders, in the place of my decoy.

I can now catch them by surprise from the rear.

I blast one of the spider’s legs then pounce on it.

Bells ring in my ear and I shove the spear through its head.

I dive low and shield myself behind the carcass as a spray of web flies at me.

I peak over and fire a mana bolt which goes wide.

It leaps high and sprays down, but I scramble out of the way and cast a mana whip.

I flick it out.

Attaching myself to the spider I pull myself towards it and pierce my spear through its open jaws.

I pull the spear out, it’s now wet and slippery with blood and my grip on it is loose.

Meanwhile the other two Wolf Pack Spiders descend and tear into my summon, the dog fades as it experiences its final death blow.

They turn on me.

The first spray catches and webs my arm to the spear while the sticking strands of web latch themselves to the ground. A second spray catches my legs and entangles me to the dirt.

Using my free hand I send a mana bolt flying and it punctures through the head of the third Wolf Pack Spider.

The fourth is eaten by a Giant slug that swallows it whole.

I quickly forming a thin Mana Slash cut the webbing at my pinned arm free.

I’m almost out of mana.

In the moment it takes for me to free my arm, the Giant Slug is dead.

An army of Giant Ants eat it like dinner feast.

Then I use my spear’s point to cut the rest of the webbing.

They turn on me.

I frown deeply and feel a pounding rage take over.

Baring my teeth, I slash, swivel and stab.

One by one they fall limp and lifeless.

Alone I let out a furious bellow.

That wasn’t a smart thing to do, August. Fuck, I wouldn’t have bothered with the cold bath if I knew I was going to be covered in blood, guts and web. Ha, ha, ha. In fact, if I knew I was going to be blackmailed to portal to a deadly island prison in a different dimension I would have had a longer lie in!

I hear the growls of encroaching beasts.

Dozens of beasts leap out chasing me but devolve into a frenzy of slaughter amongst themselves.

Tear and bite, a sheep with wool like a knife’s edge is torn to shreds. Fleshy ribbons fly.

I make ten more paces and slip down into a sandy knoll then the bustle of bashing beasts swarm.

I imaple a dog-like creature through the eye sinking the point through the brain and into the dirt.

Their crimson blood stains the golden sands.

A fox, a wolf, dogs, pigs and a lion surround my back and sides in a frecious frenzy.

Massive jaws take a bite into my side, a different set of teeth bite my ankle and pull me to the dirt.

I roll over and immediately grab a fox’s jaws inches from my throat. A host of teeth start to tear at my flesh until a screech cuts through air.

The fox is ripped out of my grip. A snake’s head the size of a horse’s chews on the fox, the blood drips down into my eyes.

I wipe the blood away in a hurry and I see half a dozen Giant snakeheads devouring a host of the beasts.

Each head is connected to a long, winding neck to a body the size of a carriage and like a crocodiles.

A hydra.

The heads lower and start to eye me up.

I throw a mana bolt out and pierce through one of the eyes and into the brain of a head.

The neck flops limp then over the course of seconds decays rapidly then one of the heads bites and rips off the dead neck at the base.

Slowly, two new necks start to grow.

By the philosophers!

The other three heads rear back then let out a horrid screech.

I fly back as the force of a horse’s charge smacks me back and I tumble feet over head.

Death edges closer…