I don’t know what I expected, I just know it wasn’t this. Without the desk to climb onto I was stuck in the pool of muck. It had been a sickly mixture of greens and greys earlier but now red and purple stained the water, slowly seeping from one side to the other. My fingers dripped with it as I lifted the hunk of Croc meat in front of me. The eye of it wasn’t white like I had expected. Instead, it stared out at me with the same slit-like pupils nestled in a pool of gold and green. The orbs still glistened yet there was no spark behind them. No life. No soul.

New Item Received: Head of the Smoke Prince

Description: You have eliminated a key member of the Crocodilian Council. With his death will come a political war like no other. Lucky for you, you’re not a Croc. The Smoke Prince’s head will live on in your inventory as a unique object used to upgrade armor or weaponry.

Effects: Grants the boon of the Smoke Prince. +10 Poison Resistance. +10 Strength.

I didn’t waste time thinking it over. If it was a mistake then that was a problem for my future self. I hurriedly opened my inventory and selected the items I wanted to combine before reading the new description.

Silver short sword of thieving

Description: An intricately crafted blade of silver imbued with talents from the dirt of the earth. Upgraded with the boon of the Spriggan Wraith. Upgraded with the boon of the Smoke Prince.

Effects: Backstab does 45% extra damage. +10 vitality. +12% affinity to nature. +10 Poison Resistance. +10 Strength. Ability to use Recall. 200 points of poison damage on the initial strike. Ability to spread poison in a 5-meter radius with reduced potency. 0 available upgrade slots.

Attack power: 310

It was true, I had a soft spot for this particular blade. Sometimes I missed its twin and yet I never bothered to use my obsidian dagger in my off-hand, preferring to use my crossbow instead. It made me grateful I hadn’t gone down the dual wielder path.

The job done I closed my menus and looked around at the others. Nora was standing in the center of her whirlwind of death, admiring her new battleaxe. This one was a little different from her old Bertha. The head was made from Croc teeth joined together by some kind of thick leather cord. One side was much larger than the other, and yet from the way Nora held it, the balance was perfect. The way she chopped down the three Crocs with relative ease and little help from us told me it was a ridiculously powerful weapon.

It was nice to see the Warrior Woman whole again.

Gabby was hovering above the blood-soaked pool, her wings beating steadily and her hand clutched around a thin pipe crossing the ceiling. She still hadn’t mastered true flight just yet but she was improving. She had a faraway stare on her face that made me wonder if she was sifting through her own menus.

“Damn, remind me never to go up against this badass. I don’t think even I could beat her.”

Water splashed around my ankles as I sprinted across the room. I hadn’t expected the sound of a voice to fill me with a wave of energy and yet Kendrick’s had. I made to throw an arm around the hunched-over shadowy figure but my arm passed right through him. The shadow wavered, struggling to form back together around the singular solid point around the wrist cuff that kept us bound together.

“Oof, please don’t do that,” Kendrick said, his voice strained. “It feels… awful.”

“How are you alive? The explosion?” It was hard not to bellow the questions and harder still not to try to grab the man's shoulders and shake him.

“It’s not like I used the self-destruct button. I’ll be sore for a while but it’ll take more than a full energy discharge to take me out,” Kendrick said, his voice still lacking its usual force.

“He’s doing that thing again,” Nora said behind me. I got the feeling it was meant to be a whisper but it was far from quiet.

“Just let him be weird,” Gabby responded. “Maybe his imaginary friend can help us.”

I flinched at their words. I really needed to work on the mind-talking we’d managed not long ago. They had a point though. If anyone knew how to get us out of here it would be Kendrick.

“How do we go home?” I asked.

Kendrick was silent for long enough that I’d started to sweat and then he said, “We need Cassie. I could maybe get you and me out but not the others. I don’t have that power.”

“I won’t leave them behind,” I snarled.

Kendrick laughed. “I thought as much. You’re very sentimental. It’s adorable. If you want them to get out too, we need help.”

“Cassie is all the way back home, how can she help us?”

“Ahh, poor helpless Joe. Sometimes you’re so on the ball and other times… well, not so much. Still got that mirror?”

I shoved my fingers in my bum bag and pulled out the delicately carved mirror my glob friend had saved for me. The room reflected back at me in hues of green from the polished glass. I tilted it one way and then the other, even turning it all the way around, and yet I didn’t see a way to contact Cassie. Even pressing my fingers to the glass had no effect other than leaving a pair of smudges on the glass.

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“How do I make it work?” I asked.

A bout of hacking coughs interrupted any response I would get from Kendrick. If he’d had a physical back I would have slapped it. Instead, I stood there awkwardly, waiting for it to end.

Nora speaking directly in my ear made me leap out of my skin. “Have you figured it out?”

“Woman, what the hell? You gave me a heart attack.”

She just looked at me with a blank uncaring stare that made me fidget in my new fancy boots.

“Aww, cute,” Gabby said from my other side. “They look like Frank.”

I brushed a thumb over the raven carvings circling the mirror. “Yeah, they kind of do. Not as loud though, thankfully.”

“Shut the hell up!”

I flinched again, almost dropping the mirror. The image reflected at us warped and shifted until the image of Frank’s beady eye took up the majority of it. He chattered angrily at me and suddenly I was grateful I couldn’t understand him.

“It’s linked to Frank, not Cassie,” Kendrick wheezed. “You two have a stronger bond. It can reach...”

“How does this help?” Gabby’s words only partially overlapped Kendrick’s. “Frank can’t come here, he’s an animal.”

More angry chattering came through the mirror. “It’s not an insult Frank,” I snapped. “You are an animal.”

Gabby was right though, this didn’t help at all.

“Remind me to smack you when I have my body back,” Kendrick grumbled. “Frank is with Cassie.”

“Frank, get Cassie,” I said almost shaking the mirror to get my point across.

“Shut the hell up!”

The bird disappeared from view and was shortly replaced by a mass of red hair. “Having fun on the other side? I noticed you decided to stay a little longer than anticipated.”

“We didn’t choose to stay, we were forced,” I grumbled.

“We’re stuck here,” Nora said over my shoulder. “We can’t get back.”

“They made us swallow some type of frog goop,” Gabby said with a shudder.

Cassie tapped her chin as her eyes grew hazy. Every one of us stayed silent while she thought but Frank on the other side was less than quiet. Over and over he shouted his tagline until my head began to ache.

The witch’s eyes lit up and her painted lips spread in a wide grin. “Ahh, it must have been a Confibula Jumper. They have this strange property to fasten a being into a place. Very strange and rare little creatures. Excellent for crafting.”

“That’s great and all but can you help us?” I asked.

“Patience is a virtue,” Cassie snapped. Frank lost his sanity in the background, his shrill cry loud enough to echo down the hall on our end. Cassie muttered and turned her head, ordering him to hush only for her smile to broaden more. “Is Kendrick with you?”

For the third time in only a few minutes, I flinched. Now the others knew my invisible friend's name. Did the witch have no sense of restraint? I had to answer and there was no way to avoid it, Nora and Gabby were both staring at me. “Yes.”

Cassie clapped her hands together. “Fantastic. I can use his body as an anchor and a bit of a power boost. I need the three of you to surround him and link hands. If you can, channel all your magicka into Kendrick.”

“None of us are mages, “ Nora said, ignoring the parts she couldn’t understand. “How are we supposed to channel magicka? I don’t know about these two but not even one of my skills feeds off my magicka.”

“It's easy really. Just push the internal force away from your physical body. I know you won’t have much given your class choices but every little bit will help.” She paused for a long time, the smile dropping from her face before she added, “This will hurt. Without the potion still in your system, the change between the worlds will be… harsh.”

I wanted to say that none of us had chosen our class. If we had I probably wouldn’t be a thief right now. No, that was a curse forced on me by the Guardians.

Kendrick moved to stand close to me and I directed the others to form the circle Cassie wanted. Down the tunneling halls of the celestial sewer system the Crocs called home, a loud droning sounded followed by thundering and groaning. I swallowed, trying to grip the mirror and Gabby’s hand at the same time. It was an awkward maneuver. The others closed their eyes as they attempted to push their magicka away from them. I tried to focus but the sounds had me breathing heavily and my chest tightening. I didn’t know if it was Frank’s screaming or if the beasts had caught our scent but I knew the Crocs were on to us.

My feeling was proved correct when a wave of Croc monsters appeared at the far end of the hall, roaring and crushing each other as they forced themselves down the tight space as a group. A twin noise had my head whipping around. A matching crowd of monsters was barreling down on us from the other side.

We were trapped.

“Concentrate Joe or this might not work,” Cassie's voice chided me.

I closed my eyes like the others and looked inside myself for the weird force called magicka. I had long since learned how to feed my stamina into my running. This was much the same but without the instant benefits to prove I was doing it right.

My stomach rolled and the firmness under my feet was whisked away. I cried out, clamping my hands harder on Nora and Gabby’s. The rope holding Kendrick and I together pulled taut and almost painful as it dug into my flesh. I opened my eyes only to see a clawed and scaled hand flashing down on me. I opened my mouth to scream but all that came out was a wheeze. Then the hand disintegrated and we were thrown into a tunnel of blackness and flashing colored lights.

Pain tore at my insides stealing any interest I had in the world around us. I curled in on myself, refusing to release my grip on the others as invisible knives stabbed at my gut, twisting and thrusting back into me. Jolts of agony slid down my limbs, focusing on my toes and my fingers. This pain didn’t stab like the other kind but came in vicious waves one after the other. Stars danced in front of my eyes turned wavy by the tears flooding them. There was no mercy. There was no hope.

The soothing blackness came rushing at me. I should have been afraid and yet I welcomed it. Embracing it like an old friend. Rory was in here somewhere. All I had to do was submit to it. To release my hold on everything else. Nora’s fingers tightened even more and yet I barely felt it. Even her ungodly strength couldn’t keep me from the sweet release of the abyss.