I woke up on sand, and pulled myself to my feet, glancing around. I hadn’t even remembered passing out, but here I was.

Speaking of here… Where was I?

There was a beach all around me, stretching out for miles to my left and right, far enough that I couldn’t tell where they ended, and there was an ocean pushing off into the distance dead ahead.

There were human bodies on the beach, but they were all breathing and alive to my senses. A few were even starting to get up on their feet, so I let them be for now while I examined my surroundings.

The ocean went for a half a mile before it ran into a wall of cracks and distortions that were pulsing and slowly growing, changing, and pulsing.

I focused, zooming my vision in with the power of the Surveyor’s eye, and stretching my mana senses to the limit. My senses couldn’t reach all the way out there, even with their strength, so I was forced to guess. It seemed like they were growing about a centimeter every second or two.

I turned around, and saw that the beach stretched for a few hundred feet before turning into a thin, grassy area. The grass looked sharp – not supernaturally so, but just enough that I wouldn’t have wanted to walk on it barefoot.

I summoned my cauldron, and it didn’t appear right away. It slowly started to reach through space, but it was like it was moving through molasses. That made me frown and reach out to my connection with Dusk.

It was there, but tennous. In a way, it reminded me of the time she’d stayed in Kene’s village, and I’d been home in the capital, only even more amplified. She was clearly incredibly far away from me.

I focused and pushed out a thought to her, trying to determine if she was okay. The thought began to send, but it was painfully slow.

Since my cauldron was taking so long, I stopped trying to summon it, and instead teleported up into the air, then locked myself in place, sweeping out a Surveyor’s Eye to examine the island we were on.

And it was an island. Judging distance from this height was hard, but I guessed it to be about eight miles from the edge of the ocean to the center of the island.

And the center of the island was certainly something. There was a crumbled slice of something incredibly familiar – a trial entry gate. The magic still pulsed and glowed, so it couldn’t have been too horribly damaged, but the four statues that made it up were in poor condition. The first looked fair enough, and I could make out a woman in classical witches’ clothes, huddled over a cauldron. The second was missing most of its head, but otherwise appeared to be a wizard, holding a wand. The third was missing most of its torso, only displaying the legs of what looked to be plate mail, and the fourth was missing almost everything. I could make out a carved foot wearing a sandal, but nothing else.

A trial site? Now that was curious. I’d given up on getting a growth item the moment the sky had cracked, but Kene had suggested that clearing a third trial site might give a growth item, since it was meant to parallel the tower. Even a chance could make it worth it…

I shook off my greed and kept looking around.

Ringing the central trial point was portals. There were fifteen of them, and fourteen seemed to be composed of the strange spatial cracks, with a voidlike power running through it. The fifteenth, however, looked familiar – the entry and exit portal.

That caused me to breathe a sigh of relief. At least I wasn’t going to be trapped here forever. That was good.

Though, I suspected that if those spatial cracks got all the way to the portal, I would find my stay to be a little more permanent.

Or I would die. I wasn’t sure.

Spatial magic wasn’t supposed to be capable of cutting people or direct damage – spatial particles didn’t allow it. They were more focused on conserving energy. It was easier to fail a teleport or sift your teleport spell a foot forwards, backwards, or to the side than it was to fuse you into a rock.

But… I’d never even heard of something like these cracks before. I’d not seen them in Dusk’s realm, nor in the Library’s realm, or heard Orykson ever talk about them.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Dusk’s response through our soul link finally got through to me then. She said she was fine, and could feel a way out, but also something else, and had attached a mental image of Liz being healed by a unicorn.

As soon as the relief faded away from me, I felt a tiny bit disappointed. I wanted to see a unicorn! I’d run into dragons galore, but no unicorns? That was supremely unfair.

Glad that she was fine, I turned my attention to the rest of the island, since I’d only really looked at the center and edges.

I could see scattered palm trees, and wondered how exactly this realm had wound up so tropical? I was guessing when that artifact had gone off that it had somehow fractured Idyll’s realm into a whole mess of broken, but linked parts, which broke the seal and would allow the bird and Elio to leave. Had it scrambled their planar aspect too? That would be impressive.

Idyll, though… If Travis’ words had been true, then whatever group he’d been a part of had been trying to free her too.

I didn’t see how that would be possible if they shattered her astral plane. A worldspirit was intricately linked to the astral plane that they possessed, and if that broke, I would bet every last dollar on it being fatal. It was like taking apart a human into little chunks and expecting us to survive – it just didn’t work that way.

Then again, it had been an Occultist level artifact, powered by a suicidal power leap, six arcanists, and probably Elio as well.

I didn’t know what was possible when you threw that level of magic at a problem.

Oh, I’d gotten distracted again.

Sweeping my vision through the realm, I could see several elementals moving through the area, as well as some glowing points that were probably mana sources or natural treasures.

The strange thing was, the condensed mana and energy all around us felt… Strange. New, almost, like it had been freshly constructed. I had no idea what sort of natural treasures would be around.

No other trial sites or the like were obvious, so I teleported back down onto the ground.

It still felt strange to me that teleporting down cost more than up. I was working with gravity – shouldn’t it be easier?

But I shook that off as I started to walk down the beach, looking for people. Dusk may not be here, but that didn’t mean that nobody I knew was.

The first person that I found was Araceli, Octavian’s terragon familiar. Octavian was nowhere in sight, but since Araceli wasn’t freaking out, I assumed that he must have also been able to send her a mental message, much like I had with Dusk.

As I approached the terragon, she bounded up to me like a puppy, jumping with her front claws retracted, but still enough weight and strength that if she hadn’t been slowed by my aura pin, I would have been thrown to the ground.

I scratched her head, then some behind her horns and under her chin.

“Hey girl,” I said softly. “You doing okay? C’mon, you can stick with me until your dad gets back.”

Terragon weren’t even as smart as estragon, being more like dogs, whereas estragon were more like ravens, but Aracelli seemed quite bright. A side effect of bonding with Octavian, maybe?

Or maybe I was ascribing too much intelligence, and she was responding to my tone and familiar scent. Whatever it was, she happily trotted along by my side as I kept walking down the beach.

People were mostly awake now, and that made things both harder and easier, as they started to form up into their own groups and make their own choices. I flexed my mana senses to their limit, trying to keep an eye out for anyone who felt familiar.

As I circled the beach, I spotted a streak of red in the sky above me, and tensed. I pulled my mana-senses in and threw as strong of a veil around my spirit as I could, weaving into a group of people.

Travis flew overhead. I held my breath as he flew out of sight moving in toward the center of the island. The instant he was out of sight, I took a long breath of relief.

That had been too close for comfort. I shouldn’t have jumped into the air – what if he’d noticed me?

That did make me wonder why I’d woken up faster than most, and the only thing I could figure was that it was my full gate spells helping me process the power faster. Either that, or my mind-shielding ring, but surely others had items like that?

I started moving again, Araceli still with me, but I didn’t send my mana senses out quite as far – there was no need to advertise myself, after all.

After a while more walking, I felt a familiar spike of mana in my senses, and made my way over to find Mallory.

“Mallory,” I said, smiling, but not too broadly.

“Malachi,” she said, dipping her head. “Primes, that was…”

“It was absurd,” I agreed, then held my hand out. “Want to team up against the monsters? At least until we get to the center? I know we’ve had… History. But you’re a strong, skilled mage, and a better physical fighter than I am. Plus, you’ve hit third gate. I’m almost ready, but I’m not one hundred percent of the way.”

It couldn’t hurt to soothe her ego, just in case she was still carrying a few bruises there.

“Sure,” she agreed, taking my hand and shaking it. “I can work with you for a while. Doesn’t seem like there’s much of anyone else around here that I know. And at least I know you’re competent, and won’t get me killed in a fight. Plus, you have a pet dragon now.”

“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” I teased, and she let out a dog-like – or rather, wolf-like – growl.

“Don’t push it,” she said.

“She’s not mine, by the way. She's a sky terragon, belongs to a nice dude named Octavian. She’s just sticking with me until we leave.”

“Ah,” Mallory nodded. “You know, I’m surprised you didn’t get a legacy for animals. Anyways. What are we doing now?”

“I’ve been able to get a good look at the island,” I said. “It seems like it’s formed around a trial, and we’ve got a few days before the spatial cracks get close to the exit portal. Do you want to try your hand at the trial? Get out of here? Try to use the other portals to look for people while hopping from place to place to grab the newly condensed natural treasures?”