Professor Majere had shouted at them, praised them, shouted at them again and then interrogated them at length. As Norman had suspected at the beginning of their journey through the maintenance tunnel, there were serious side effects from the prolonged direct supply of energy to living cells. They had not been traveling long enough for the breakdown of carbohydrates and other energy sources in the blood to have any effect. But the cells had used up almost all their oxygen and then only functioned thanks to the supply of wormhole energy (as Leo at least called it). When this supply was cut off, practically all bodily functions had suddenly ceased. However, the heart-lung massage had revived the oxygen supply and blood circulation, so that the oxygen saturation of the blood quickly returned to normal. A dose of healing magic removed the remaining after-effects.

After a three-hour "meeting" with Professor Majere, which had been more like an interrogation by a bad-tempered inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, the three students had finally been dismissed "for now" and had been able to organize a much more pleasant reunion with their friends. The three returning students, Samanael, Leonardo and Rodrik Bannwäldner, met in Leonardo's dormitory. Leo had hurriedly put the components of his current projects to one side. The two chairs, the office chair and the bed were fully occupied and Horst had made himself comfortable on the floor. Pizza, coffee and large plastic bottles of Coke and Fanta covered the table. The two groups took it in turns to recount the events they had missed, sometimes in a rather confused order.

"And then Wamm!" Leonardo slapped the pizza slice he was holding back into the cardboard box to demonstrate. Small drops of tomato sauce splashed over the table, which was already quite soaked: "Glistening death ray from the sky! The giant beetle is only made of energy, but this overload of radiant energy has completely disintegrated it."

Jane raised her eyebrow critically: "If these scarabs are made of pure energy, why do bullets and grenades work at all?"

"Quite simply, the energy matrix that maintains the force fields consumes energy each time to neutralize the kinetic energy of the ball impact. Too many impacts in a short space of time will cause the system to collapse. I can calculate this for you using a few simple formulas."

Jane hastily waved her thanks. Norman smiled a little pained. He was sitting quite still at the moment and had a half-empty glass of tap water and an open packet of aspirin next to him. The overload on his brain from the sprint through the maintenance tunnels had really taxed him. And the three hours of critical questions from the dean hadn't exactly helped. On top of that, he was increasingly tired. Nevertheless, he didn't want to go to bed just yet. He simply found it far too pleasant to finally talk to normal people again in a completely normal environment.

He grinned as he realized that his standard for "normal" had shifted significantly in a short space of time. While Leo disappointedly put down the pen he was about to use to start writing formulas on a sheet of paper, he asked a question in the brief silence that had been bothering him for some time: "Tell me, Jane, what exactly was it about the problems I got from being conjured up too much?"

She waved it off reassuringly: "Oh, that's actually just a purely theoretical problem. I've never heard of anything like that actually happening."

"I would still be interested."

"Alright then. When a demon, in this case that would be you, is summoned multiple times, its aura..."

Leonardo interjected, "You mean his Warshok constant."

"... his aura increasingly changed. Of course, this is never enough for you to be transported to another parallel world, but it makes you easier to summon. So if someone uses a summon without a True Name, the likelihood of it hitting you increases each time. You will be summoned more and more often until you become the default demon of your dimension, so to speak. With a bit of bad luck, you'll hardly spend any time in your own body."

"Then I'm glad I'm no longer in Carcarus."

Leo, meanwhile, typed some numbers into his PDA. He looked at the results he got for a second and then said: "I wouldn't be so sure. Your Warshok constant has definitely been permanently altered by all the transfers. If someone starts summoning souls from this dimension or doesn't care at all where they get their demons from, then you could well be affected."

"Thank you. That reassures me immensely."

Horst, who had eagerly devoured his second pizza so far, paused thoughtfully while chewing: "What I didn't understand, why did the Majere give you such a nasty look, Norman?"

"What do you mean? He didn't exactly give us all a friendly look."

Leonardo intervened: "That's right, I noticed that too. When he examined you all with clairvoyance magic shortly after you regained consciousness. He had just used the spell on Jane, looked at the results in detail and suddenly looked over at Norman as if he wanted to lynch him on the spot. But then he quickly regained his composure. You were just discussing the finer points of heart-lung massage with Jake."

Norman felt his newly healed ribs with magic: "You can revive someone without breaking their ribs."

He washed down another aspirin and glanced at the package insert to be on the safe side. He sighed. That would have to be the last one for today, because he had already reached the top dose for the day. He decided to pop into the hospital the next day and get a prescription for something stronger. When he noticed that everyone was looking at him, he just shrugged his shoulders: "I don't know. For the life of me, I don't know what he had. He asked me a lot of probing questions earlier about what we did in Carcarus."

Samanael had listened quietly most of the time and observed the respective narrator. Her unerring sense for lies didn't work within the university, but she also had an excellent sense for body language and similar unconscious signals. And Norman was terrible when it came to pretending. He was embarrassed about something. Jane was much better, but not good enough this time. Sam asked casually: "Did he want to know if you'd slept together?"

Norman coughed and almost snorted out the water with which he had just washed down the last aspirin: "How do you know... I mean... What makes you think that?"

Jane put a hand on his arm reassuringly and flashed a slightly irritated look at Sam: "Yes, that's what he asked. And no, we didn't. Not that that's any of your business. My father used a truth spell to be on the safe side. He can be so bloody ruthless sometimes."

Rodrik clearly enjoyed this part of the discussion: "But now I'm curious to know how he came up with this question. Let me think about it..." He leaned back and looked very thoughtful.

Jane's voice sounded threatening: "Rodrik..."

But he was not impressed: "... A good clairvoyance spell, for example, might have determined that she was no longer..."

"Rodrik!" Jane's hand ran over the floor beside her, but found nothing and gave up when she remembered that her father had collected her handbag, which contained a large bottle of pepper spray, among other things. He had also ordered her shadow golem back to his mansion. She knew of no spells that she could actively threaten him with and the repertoire of spells she had memorized from the forbidden Green Grimoire had long since been exhausted. While she was still wondering whether she should just smack him, he continued: "...is a virgin."

He grinned, not sounding at all guilty: "Oops. Shouldn't I have said that now?"

He ducked away with the skill of long practice as she threw a pen holder and its contents at him. Without losing his rhythm, he continued: "... No. That would be an unethical invasion of privacy, as he himself would say. He probably just noticed the necromantic curse."

"Just wait and see what kind of curse you'll catch soon!"

As she looked around in annoyance, she noticed Leo, who had just finished his clairvoyance spell. His variant showed the result as a translucent status screen floating in the air in front of him. Not exactly inconspicuous. When he noticed her gaze, he quickly wiped the illusion from the air guiltily: "Sorry. I couldn't resist. Only... I don't quite understand the problem. It looks like a medieval curse of infertility. That's certainly bad if you want to have children and don't know a mage who can remove it, but Majere sweeps it away with the snap of a finger. And how could it be Norman's fault? He's not even a magician!"

Jane raised her hands in the air resignedly: "All right. Rodrik, explain it to them. No one will give up until they understand everything anyway."

The conjurer didn't need to be told twice: "This is simply the magician's equivalent of finding out by surprise that your daughter is secretly taking the pill. A very convenient magical contraceptive spell. Safe and without side effects."

Leo grinned and poked Norman in the side with his elbow: "You're a very lucky man. Majere must like you. Considering what he did to Reinhard..."

Jane scowled at him, but said nothing. The others looked at each other in confusion. Samanael said what they were all thinking: "Who is Reinhard?"

"Reinhard... something. Never got the last name. Not a student from here. It's just some slimy pretty boy from the city who often sneaks into our student parties and discos. During the last semester break, there was a rumor going around that he'd been telling people everywhere that he was flirting with our prettiest student... I mean... that he..." He fell silent under Jane's gaze.

Rodrik snapped his fingers: "That's right! Reinhard Stark. Long brown hair, big blue eyes, about that tall? I met him in the Irish pub during the vacations. He bragged that he'd even secretly recorded a video. You know, those moving pictures with sound."

"You're the only one of us who grew up without a TV. I think we know that." Norman told him to keep talking and was ready to intervene if necessary if Jane went for the little magician's throat. For the moment, however, she was still able to hold back. Even if it was obviously only just.

"The guys from my demon summoning class and I chipped in and offered him 230 euros for it.... Now don't look so angry, Jane! We would have just looked at it once, just to make sure it was real, then we would have given it to you. You know my motto: a good deed every day. And if we had secured this video, we would certainly have had a stone in your father's court. It's just a shame that the guy never turned up again."

Leo looked at him suspiciously: "You do know that he can make as many copies of this as he likes?"

"What?!? That works?"

Leonardo picked up where Rodrik had interrupted him: "Shortly afterwards, Reinhard's house burned down under highly mysterious circumstances. At first, everyone suspected Jane, but now I think it was her father."

Jane looked annoyed at the group: "Could we please stop going through my private life now? Good. Because then I'd like to ask something. Why the Lord Mage in Carcerus claimed that the three of us came from three different worlds. I came here with my father, but you both always claimed to have grown up here. So? Which one of you is from a parallel world?"

Norman and Horst looked at each other in confusion. Norman took a quick look out of the window and then pointed to the left: "Well, I grew up over there in the city. How about you Horst?"

"I was born here on earth. But when I was four, my parents moved to Hinterwald with me."

As usual, it took the others a while to translate the gibberish internally. The veil did its best, but as always had problems reading Horst's thoughts correctly. Jane looked at Horst suspiciously: "Where is this backwoods ?"

"Well, Hinterwald. The colony."

"What kind of colony?"

"Na dia on Proksima. Proksima with the horse man."

Everyone stared at him uncomprehendingly. Leo took his PDA from his desk and called up a star map. When he showed it to Horst, his sausage-like index finger hovered briefly over the image, then he confidently tapped on a star almost directly next to the solar system. Leonardo glanced at it, then suddenly began to laugh uproariously. After everyone looked at him questioningly, he said: "That's Proxima Centauri... Proxima with the horse man... If I tell that to our astronomy lecturer..."

Horst nodded: "Exactly. You must know them. There aren't that many colonies."

Sam smiled at him: "Horst... You don't watch much TV. Or listen to the radio, do you?"

"They all talk so funny..."

"And you don't read the newspaper either?"

"You write just as funny!"

"This earth has no colonies."

"Ned a moal auf'm Mond?"

"No. Not even on the moon."

"Koi wonder my relatives never answer the phone..." The big massive guy slumped down and looked like a pile of misery.

Norman sat up in alarm. He remembered for the first time that it had been far too long since he had called his parents due to his absence. His little brother Klaus and they would surely be worried by now.

Calm down. Your relatives will remember that they spoke to you on the phone every week. It's part of the service. Nothing to thank you for.

Did I say anything special?

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Well... I'm not very good at this sort of thing. So I took the events from a Brazilian soap opera. So: your new girlfriend Gabriela Duarte is pregnant, but you broke up with her anyway because you realized you were gay. You're newly engaged to a Russian ballet dancer called Ivan... I'll tell you the less important details later.

You do realize that I can see exactly that you're lying?

Of course. In fact, I've only told really boring stories. I'll commit the details to your memory while you sleep tonight, if that's okay with you.

Do this.

To distract himself from his inner dialog, Norman had grabbed the PDA and was working his way through the Wikipedia entry on Proxima Centauri: "A red dwarf star... A flare star? That doesn't sound very healthy when the sun flares up violently from time to time. And it doesn't say anything about planets."

"That's all right. The planet is terraformed and the planetary shield... well... shielded against the sun and the cold."

"How did you get here?"

"With the train to Schdurgert. We just shouldn't have driven through the Weldaportal at the Sonnasturm'."

"Horst, please stop talking. I'm getting a headache. You could learn sign language. Or communicate via Whatsapp on a cell phone. But only with a grammar correction." Jane ignored Horst's slightly offended face.

Sam turned to Rodrik: "It's your turn. Tell me, where are you from?"

"I was born in Tias. That's a small village near Siebengurken. But I wouldn't tell that to anyone from my homeland. The area around Siebengurken has a reputation for being inhabited only by crazy people... Don't laugh like that! Archie said my description was a bit like the local Schilda. Where the stories about Schildbürger pranks come from. The jokes he told me about them could actually have come from my home country. But I grew up in a mage academy in a remote barony south of a large lake. Freshly founded by two mages who were among the greatest heroes of our age. They had a pretty flexible curriculum because they were away at war most of the time. It was quite nice."

"And what's your world like?"

"As far as I've been able to determine from the history books in the library so far, I'd say my home here would be around the late Middle Ages. But with magic around every corner."

"And how did you end up here at Nexus University?"

"We have a spell that instantly transports you from one place to another. Unfortunately, it doesn't work here. Bloody annoying. Once I wanted to use it as a shortcut home, but I must have completely messed something up. I was probably too tired. Or too drunk. And bang! I was standing in the ladies' room in the Tactical Overkill faculty. The worst beating I've ever received. But since then I've just loved it here. Electric light, incredible food options, no inquisition kicking down my door and arresting me for illegal necromancy, and then of course this magical story box... Television! Plus, I can study at the university under Rohal! He's from my world too, you know. He's an absolute legend here! Everyone there thinks he's dead. When I get back and can somehow prove that I studied under Rohal, I can choose a chair at any academy."

Sam raised an eyebrow, "I thought Professor Rohal didn't like you? He mentioned you several times in class. Always as a bad example."

Rodrik waved it off calmly: "Oh, that's just a misunderstanding. He's far too happy to have someone who can tell him how the war against his brother ended. But that's far too long a story. And pretty boring if you haven't lived there."

Leo took a new packet of potato chips out of the cupboard and then sat down again: "Well, I'd like to ask a few more questions about how exactly you found your way through the maintenance tunnels. Without any technical aids..."

No, you don't. You think the story makes perfect sense. The three of them were just lucky. Besides, you're really tired now.

"... but that was probably just luck." Leonardo yawned and could barely keep his eyes open: "Shall we put it off until tomorrow afternoon? Why don't we meet at Café Fraktal after the last lecture?"

The others agreed and the group set off, tired but in a good mood. Only Jane stayed behind briefly to use Leonardo's cell phone to order a cab to the university entrance. Her roommate Sam looked at her questioningly: "Aren't you coming to our room?"

"My father has condemned me to house arrest in our house in the city until further notice."

"Because of the curse?"

"No! Well, also... But mainly because of the story with the Green Grimoire. I shouldn't even have looked at that thing. And certainly not feed it Gallifreynium dust and use it."

Norman, who was putting on his shoes, had involuntarily overheard the conversation: "Shall I accompany you to the gate?"

She shrugged her shoulders indifferently: "If you really want to."

For a while, the two of them wandered in silence through the now quiet and deserted paths of the university well after midnight. Then he couldn't take it any longer: "Because of the fire..."

Jane didn't look at him, but kept her face stiffly forward as she spoke quietly: "I liked Reinhard. I even thought I was in love for a while. Maybe I was. But to him, I was just a notch on his bedpost. One of many conquests. He told people everywhere that he had recorded us on video. One of Rodrik's friends called me straight away to cash in on the fame. But buying the video wouldn't have done any good. I grew up here with computers, the internet and video recorders. It was only a matter of time before Reinhard showed the video to someone. Once something like that is in circulation, you can't stop it. I wouldn't have trusted him if he had claimed to have deleted it."

"So you burned down his house." Norman formulated it completely neutrally, without reproach.

"I burned everything in the house to cinders. Furniture, walls, floors. Even everything he was wearing, with the exception of his clothes." She was now expecting the question of whether she would have killed Reinhard if he hadn't distracted her.

"So I almost killed him then."

She turned her head in surprise and looked at him for the first time in the conversation: "What do you mean?"

"The fire spell can't be particularly complicated. Things burn on their own. But you looked totally focused. At the time, I thought you were fascinated or scared or something. But now I know what a mage who casts a complicated spell looks like. You prevented him from being hurt by the fire. And I disturbed you."

"It was close. I dropped the fire spell first, then the heat shield. If the fireman hadn't been there and wrapped him in a protective blanket and carried him out... Well, he would have gotten at least a few burns."

"What happened to him?"

"I wrote quite extensively on the walls around him in flaming letters what I thought of him. So he knew who was responsible and wisely left town in a hurry."

That's right. I manipulated his memory beforehand, of course. He has forgotten all the events surrounding Jane and the video. He can still remember the terrible, but completely natural apartment fire in detail. It was a traumatic event that caused him to have a massive stutter. This should significantly reduce the risk of him seducing other innocent women.

"Something tells me the veil barely left him with the intact memory of magical events out of his reach."

Jane's face brightened: "That's right! With any luck, he doesn't even know me anymore. He really got off far too lightly. If my father had found out about the story..."

She let the sentence hang in the air and fell silent. Norman racked his brains in vain for what else to say. They walked on again in silence. The university gate, open despite the late hour, came into view further ahead.

In all his time in Carcerus, he had never tried to get closer to her because he didn't want to take advantage of the extreme situation. In retrospect, he felt pretty stupid about it. Everything was always much more difficult here, more complicated. But he had to do something. He decided on something innocuous. An invitation to the movies.

"Do you want to go out with me tomorrow night?"

He froze inside. He hadn't meant to say that. He hadn 't said that either!

But that was what you wanted to say. Your wording made it completely incomprehensible. I took the liberty of translating it analogously.

We'll talk about that later, Voice!

She smiled: "A classy restaurant, dim lighting, light violin music and candlelight?"

"With my budget, it's more McDonalds and two tea lights."

Although he found his line rather flat, she laughed heartily: "You're forgetting that I'm grounded. In the next few weeks, I'll have to go home straight after the last lecture. How about a compromise: a picnic tomorrow lunchtime on the roof of the biology faculty? They have a flat roof and the access door only has a single bolt. Get a blanket, a picnic basket and, if you absolutely have to, bring your tea lights."

Before he could do more than agree, they were already through the gate and out to the bus stop, where a cab was already waiting. Norman remembered dozens of movies in which a man walked a woman to the door and visibly wondered how he should say goodbye. Should he kiss her? Hug her? Shake her hand? Before he could remember a suitable movie scene that had ended positively, Jane whirled around light-footedly and gave him a quick hug. Before he could blink in more than astonishment, she was off again: "Thank you Norman. I could have had worse company in Carcerus." She opened the car door and was gone.

Completely exhausted, Norman dragged himself through the corridors of the student hall of residence.

Somewhere, a few floors up, a game was raging, but it was slowly coming to an end. A few of the participants came towards him tiredly on their way home. He still found it irritating that no one at the campus parties was even slightly tipsy. However, this obviously didn't dampen their spirits.

He would have recognized his own room immediately, even without a name tag and room number. After all, it was the only one without a working lock. At least he didn't have to worry about forgetting his key card. His roommate Cerebrantis was already fast asleep. Exhausted, Norman took off his shoes and dropped into his bed. The soft, steady snoring was surprisingly soothing. But perhaps he was just too tired to be bothered by it. The soft mattress felt unfamiliar after sleeping on thin blankets for so long.

When he had been released from Dean Majere's office at the end of the interrogation, he had thought he wouldn't be able to sleep for days. He had been far too excited. It was only on the way home across the university campus that tiredness had caught up with him. Now he only wanted to sleep for another ten to twelve hours.

Back to normality at last, he thought as his breathing slowed. Back from the madness that was called Carcerus. Out of the maintenance tunnels of the Primordials. The last thing he noticed before his tired eyes closed were a few of Cerebrantis' little cuddly toys floating slowly along the ceiling, circling. Sleeping lekinese... at least his roommate wasn't sleepwalking...

*

Countless eyes peered out of trees, branches and rocks in all directions. Rector Argus wanted to be absolutely certain that he was not being watched. He had no desire to have to rely on this complex portal generator being set up quickly enough. So he had instructed his students to install a permanent generator here in the forest. Camouflaged, of course. And when he had made it clear that money was absolutely no object and that they were to live out all their James Bond fantasies, they had voluntarily slaved away almost without a break. The result was impressive. Or better still, it wasn't visible at all. The plant had been moved underground. Then they had poured a full meter of earth over it and laid turf. Afterwards, they had spent hours erasing the tracks of the trucks and construction machinery. After a few of the gardeners had worked on the clearing, it looked like an untouched piece of nature. Including old leaves, dead tree trunks and a few animal tracks.

The principal pulled a remote control out of his pocket and pressed a button. At the interdimensional weak point, two previously inconspicuous stones rose upwards, carried by the projector antennas that rose up to three meters to the left and right of the portal to be opened.

But it was not yet time to open the portal. He placed the briefcase he was carrying on the floor and opened it. From it, he took a fist-sized, shimmering black crystal, which immediately tore itself out of his hand and floated away. Argus cleared his throat and then launched into a prepared speech:

"Listen, messenger of my master. I am about to open a portal here to an interdimensional wormhole network. The secret maintenance tunnels of our enemy Mandatus. Find your way back to Eris and deliver my report to him. I have no doubt that you can open the exit with your abilities. On the negative side, I have to report that this little incident has critically depleted our reserves of Gallifreynium. We will be looking for further deposits with the highest priority. I would be very grateful for any help in this regard. Because when we've used up the last of the sacred material, we'll be stuck here exactly as Mandatus planned. At least until the next arrivals bring back enough of it.

On the positive side, however, we have made extremely important progress with the discovery of these maintenance tunnels. And we have gained numerous insights into the dungeon world of Carcarus. One of the souls there was permanently anchored in the body of one of my students and can be interrogated as soon as the student has recovered from the psychic shock. And a group of three students survived the physical journey there and back again. They even discovered a piece of praematter there, the ultimate tool of chaos."

The crystal grew to the size of his head in his hand and floated a little away from him. The voice with which he spoke sounded annoyed and spiteful: "Do I look like a dictaphone or a messenger? I am a messenger and part of the mighty Eris, defender of freedom, breaker of cosmic order, bringer of entropy and champion of chaos. I will report to him that you have messed up. And I will suggest removing your skin with a cheese grater. Then you should be rubbed with salt and tied up and thrown into a herd of goats."

Argus rolled his eyes and looked up at the sky, resigned to his fate. That's what you get for working for a slob: "Well, messenger, do what you can't help but do. I'll just rely on Eris to absorb your knowledge directly without waiting long for explanations."

The crystal extended vicious spikes in all directions so that it looked like a flying hedgehog and hummed angrily, but said nothing in reply.

The principal pressed a second button on the remote control and the portal generator started up with a low hum. Seconds later, the portal flickered open, revealing the cosmic maintenance tunnel. Blue-white light streamed into the clearing. The tunnel was teeming with fist-sized translucent beetles that had settled on the walls of the corridor.

The messenger hurtled towards the portal at a speed that the eye could not follow. But as soon as it had crossed the border of the tunnel, it slowed down abruptly. The principal stifled a grin. This proved his theory that the wormholes created by Mandatus were shielded against the usual tricks of Eris. He watched calmly as the crystal disappeared into the distance, closely followed by a swarm of energy beetles. However, Argus did not doubt for a second that he would escape. He deactivated the portal generator and watched carefully from numerous angles as the opening closed, flickering and crackling. He was sure that no creature had come out. Then he used another function on the remote control to make the cylinder of gallifreynium rise from a well-camouflaged flap in the floor. He pulled it out and then carefully closed the camouflaged flap again. The material was too rare and the danger of an unauthorized opening of the portal too great to leave it here unattended. It would be unthinkable if these energy scarabs got into the university. What kind of study programs would he have to come up with to keep these creatures happy? No, he was quite content that peace would finally return. Whistling happily, he wandered back to the forest parking lot, where his butler was patiently waiting for him in his car. He liked excitement and general panic, but only when he himself was responsible for it.