“Where… Where’s the portal?”
Amity and the group looked around the area it was, between the dune and the tree, but it just wasn’t there. They felt the ground, and noticed that the sand had been dyed a green-ish yellow right where it stood, but aside from that, it was gone.
“It’s.. Guys, I think we’re stuck here.” Himiko said.
“We can make another one! I have more than enough of the stuff to make it, we can find a door frame and dump some of the stuff onto it. It’ll be fine!”
“If you’re sure, lets go find a door frame. Did they have doors in the weird tree place?”
“Hmm, I actually don’t think they did. That’s the only place I can think of. Shit. I don’t want to be stuck here.”
Raleigh eventually spoke up;
“Hey, didn’t they have a library in there? I think we saw it on our way down, maybe they have some way to get home.”
“Oh, actually true. We should go back, there’s probably a magic section.”
The group made their ways back to the tree-topped house, and opened it using the panel. Once they made it to the first floor, they entered the library and searched for the magic section. After Katie found it, she waved over everyone and began searching for some sort of a teleportation book.
“Hello, are you new here? I don’t recognize you. Would you like some help?” A librarian whispered to the group.
“Oh, yes, please! We need to find a way to get back to Earth, because I’m pretty sure this isn’t Earth.”
“Earth? Really? Look, are you from Earth, or are you from here and trying to get there without a permit?”
“Uh, from Earth, ma’am.”
She sighed. “Alright, come here. I can help you.”
The group followed her into the elevator, and the librarian entered a code before hitting a button to enter the basement.
“So, what are we going down here for?” Amity asked.
“I’ll explain in a second.”
Once they made it to the basement, they were directed into a smaller room containing a map spread entirely across one wall, a few books on the table, and a small computer contrasting with the rest of the room.
“This is my office. It used to belong to the person who owned this place probably a hundred years ago, but now he’s dead and it wasn’t being touched so I moved in.”
“Wait, a hundred years ago? Wasn’t there someone from Earth here, back then?”
“Yes, and that’s why I brought you here. He did a bunch of work trying to get back home, but he died before finishing. There’s a lot of stuff here that you can check out, I’m not sure if you have PDAs on Earth but if you brought one you can take a picture of it all. I’m also happy to copy it all onto some paper for you to use.”
“Hey, just out of curiosity, could this guy use magic?”
“I’m pretty sure he could, there are a few trace remnants of magic on all this stuff, way more than background levels. Why?”
“Did he use glyphs?”
“For the first half of his first journal, yeah, but after that he managed to channel it directly like we’re able to.”
“Can we see his journals?”
“Yeah, of course. Have at them.”
The four inspected them, and noted a few new glyphs. They weren’t quite circles though, they were either two circle glyphs somewhat pushed into each-other or three circles placed in an odd pyramid like shape.
“Guys, come over here. There’s some weird ones.” Amity called out.
The three who weren’t at the notebook came over, and gawked at the seemingly impossible glyphs. Raleigh grabbed his phone and took a picture of the mixes, seemingly only finding one three-mix, being ice plus fire plus lightning, all the harmful ones.
“You guys are gonna need to come out soon probably, I can’t be here all day.”
“Yeah, sorry, we’ll be out in a second, taking a few more pictures.”
Raleigh took a picture of the map, and a very important seeming page, although he didn’t read it immediately. The three others made their way out as he did this, and he followed right behind.
“Sorry for taking so long, it’s probably better if we have stuff we don’t need than need stuff we don’t have.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I do have something you may want to know, though. From what I read in the book, there’s only one place in this region where you can actually make the portal. It’s locked behind like 5 layers of protection, and you would need to find a bunch of stuff.”
“Let me guess, this guy mapped out everywhere that has an important artifact and we have to go on some magical quest now. Am I close?”
“Pretty much. It’s like your human books, I think they call it an ‘isekai’?”
“Yeah, it’s a pretty common writing trope. We should go, this feels like it’s getting too meta.”
“What’s meta?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
The group got led out of the library and back onto the elevator, where they headed up to the desert.
“So, what are we gonna do now?” Katie asked.
“We should sit down and look at what Raleigh got pictures of.”
“Alright, here’s my phone. You know the password.”
They all sat beside the tree, being careful not to sit on the lifting section, and then looked at the photos.
“Okay, this map has a way to align ourselves written on it. If we face towards the panel on the back of the tree, we’re going north.”
“Wait, if they have north here, do compasses work?”
“Actually good question, hold on.”
Amity reached into her purse and pulled out a survival tool which included a compass. She turned it a few times, rotating it around her, and she realized something.
“The answer is no, my compass isn’t working.”
“Shoot, that would’ve been useful.”
Amity turned back to the picture, and swiped a few to the right to pull up the image of a notebook page, and zoomed in. She didn’t find much substance, besides a sentence reading “I’ve found a way to navigate; the wind always blows north.”
Amity repeated this sentence to the group, followed by them cheering, as they now had a semi-reliable way to know where they are.
“So that way,” Raleigh said pointing with the wind, “is north.”
Amity nodded.
“That way,” pointing perpendicular, “is west.”
Amity nodded.
“Awesome! Now we can actually navigate. We should get going soon maybe, I’d rather get back home in a week than a month.”
“Really? Are we seriously ready? We’ve only been analyzing for like 10 minutes…”
“I don’t think there’s a point in waiting, since we’ve looked at everything.”
“Amity, do you want to get going? Himiko?”
They responded affirmatively, and they all got up and started walking.
After maybe 5 minutes, they spotted their first goal: the library.
It was a bit run down, and seemingly pretty small, but it was annotated with the words “VERY IMPORTANT.”
“Alright, here it is. We’re looking for the magic section, then a few books on ‘Human Magic’ according to this journal page. Everyone got it?”
Everybody understood, so Amity directed them to different sections and floors, and they got searching. No more than 15 minutes later, Raleigh gathered everyone and showed them his find; a bookshelf full of non-native magic user tutorials.
“Whoa, that was way quicker than I was expecting. Let’s see… Maybe this one?” Amity pulled out a book labeled Basic Human Chanelling, and as she opened it she noted a page stating that it shouldn’t be used by non-humans, nor should it be used by humans unfamiliar with what it called “traditional magic”, very likely referring to glyphs.
She flipped to the table of contents and searched for the meat of it, finding it at page 23. Amity showed that page to everyone after looking at it for a second, and they all near immediately reeled back in repulsion; it contained a gruesome diagram of a body modification that, once complete, allowed near-native control over magic.
“What the- Did they really need to draw it like that? It’s disgusting!” Himiko exclaimed.
“I know, right? Unrelated to the… everything there, it says we’d need someone who knows how to cut someone open, not kill them, then put them back together.” Raleigh said.
“Don’t they do stuff like this in Amity’s stupid advanced pre-med thing?” Katie mentioned.
“Oh, I mean, we do, but… I don’t really trust myself with a scalpel on one of you guys, plus we do it on fake skin and stuff, not a real person.”
“Yeah, I get it, plus would you even be carrying a scalpel?” Raleigh said.
Amity sighed, and reached into her bag to pull out a first-aid kit, opening it to reveal usual first-aid stuff, with the unusual addition of sterile-packed scalpels and suture.
“Ah.”
Amity put it back, and then flipped to the next time for a different, less invasive method.
“This page says there’s a way to channel magic without shoving a chunk of rock in your side.”
“Wait, really? Is it any less dangerous?”
“Not really… I can probably do this one, but I would need to find some sanitizing stuff…”
Amity thought for a second.
“Oh! We could probably make a fire and boil some of the weird goop.”
Raleigh decided to inquire; “What does that… mean?”
“If you boil water, it makes it safe to drink, right? I assume it would be safe to inject, then. If I make the magic goop, we could boil that and then inject it. That’s what this book says.”
Raleigh yanked the book away and skimmed the page, reading aloud an excerpt;
“All humans used to naturally be able to use magic, but as of the human year 1950 (our cycle 495) the element used to channel it has fallen below critical concentration on their home, planet Earth.”
“Wait, really? There’s no way…”
“Wait, there’s more.” Raleigh continued:
“Additionally, the art of magic has been lost to their people since our cycle 60 (their 1515) as the final magic wielders died with no heirs.”
“Whoa, so we did know magic at some point, we just got unlucky with people having kids, and they never taught anyone else.”
“Pretty much, that’s what it says.”
Raleigh closed the book and put it back on the shelf.
“You said you could boil water so it’s safe to inject? Lets go find something to boil it in.”
Raleigh guided the group back out of the library, using the wind to guide them to a series of ruins that was labeled as “Camp #1 - Likely has many rooms. Kitchen??”, and on arrival they saw the fell remains of a castle, with a barely-standing drawbridge being the sole thing connecting it to the land surrounding its moat. They looked down the moat, expecting maybe a small puddle of water, but they saw nothing. Genuinely, there was nothing down there, it just kept going down. Amity walked a few feet away to grab a rock, and she dropped it down.
1…
2…
3…
4…
5…They never heard the rock hit a bottom.
“Yo, what the fuck? There isn’t a bottom to this thing!”
After a few minutes of deliberation, Katie had an idea.
“I’m gonna go find a huge rock and chuck it at that bridge, it looks like it’s barely not fallen yet, so if I hit it we may have a way in.”
Katie did as she said she would, taking a few minutes to grab a rock about as big as her hand, then using a running start she threw the rock at the bridge. Nearly slipping into the abyss that would’ve awaited her, Katie stepped backwards as she heard the thunk of the rock, followed by a dampened thud of the wide wooden platform landing on loose sand, and then a shattering crash when a pillar fell, apparently previously leaning on the door.
“Whoa, that worked? My plans never work out like that…” Katie gestured for them to enter the castle, and they all took a step onto the bridge.
Once Amity's foot hit the bridge, they heard a crack.