I can feel my mind struggling against whatever drug he put in the soup, trying its hardest to bring me back from the brink. All I manage to do is dazedly open my eyes, seeing a blurry Hunter dragging me to the shack. I close my eyes and feel the snow beneath me change to hardwood. I try to open my eyes again and manage to make out another figure in the shed; it looks like a woman with dark almond skin. She was tied to the wall of the shed by what looked to be chains, and it looked like the one linked to her left hand had come loose from its latch, but I couldn't be sure.

My vision was still spinning. I could vaguely hear her yelling something when I entered. Still, Hunter ignored her and placed me on the ground (are they not going to chain me, too?), but I could feel my mind drifting again. I had to struggle to keep my eyes open. The woman was saying something to me, but I couldn't distinguish the words, she looked like she was trying to comfort me, and then I was gone.

It was a dreamless sleep, and I kept waking up, only to fall unconscious a few seconds later. I had vaguely heard what happened while I was out of it. It sounded like Hunter was talking to someone. I could also hear the sound of wooden wheels on snow while he was talking. I think I was loaded into a wagon. Every time I woke up, I could also feel that the temperature was rising, and after about nine times waking up only to go back to sleep, I felt myself sweating from how hot it was.

I don't know how long it took, it was hard to judge how long my lapses were, but eventually, I felt that my motor functions were returning.

I open my eyes and see nothing. For a moment, I panic, fearing that I may have lost my vision as a side effect of the poison, but as I desperately look around, I can slowly make out more and more of where I am. It is incredibly dark. The only light source is a torch hanging on a wall opposite where I am. It barely illuminates a sandstone corridor with cell rooms on both sides.

I am in the last cell, and at the cell opposite to me, at about three meters, is the woman I saw in the shack. I can see her better now that I am not in a drug-fueled haze. She was tiny, or well, tiny compared to me (I still did not know how I compared to the general public). If I had to guess, I would say she was four foot eleven, and she did have dark almond skin ( good to know I didn't hallucinate the whole deal. ), she had short black hair that looked almost like the night sky, and she was dressed in light, loose clothes with long sleeves and pants, all dyed in light-brown.

"Hey, hey, you awake?" I quietly whisper.

She does not respond.

I think of calling out to her, but I quickly decide otherwise. I do not want to alert anybody that I have awoken. Still, I do need some way of waking her up.

I look around my cell for anything to throw at her but find nothing, and then I realize that I am naked and shackled like her. ( Great naked yet again with no idea of where I am. I hope this does not become a common occurrence.)

But I could throw the pendant, as unwilling as I am to throw what very well could be my only clue as to who I was. I had to figure out what the hell was going on, and she could very well hold the answers.

I take the pendant into my hands, careful not to look at its pattern too much, and throw it at her head.

It hits with a *bonk*, and she jumps awake.

"OWWw, what the hells?" she exclaims while looking around and holding her head where the pendant hit her.

When our eyes meet, I see the most beautiful pair of eyes I had ever laid my own on (I think). It was as if I was staring at a nebula of stars. I could also get a better look at her face. She had a cute round face sprinkled with freckles that resembled stars. (Noticing a bit of a theme with her.)

While inspecting her face, I also put my index finger to my mouth.

"Shhh, quiet. They might hear you if you're too loud."

She, from the very little light I had, looked very confused.

"They who? Also, where are we?" She asks in an exasperated whisper.

"Fuck, I kinda hoped you could answer that. Somewhere hot, obviously, beyond that, I don't know. As to who, it's the guys who kidnapped us, I think? Wait, did you also get captured by a big guy about six foot, rough beard, who calls himself Hunter?"

"Uhh, I don't think so. A bunch of cultist-looking guys ambushed me."

"Then I assume that the guy who poisoned me must have been part of the group that ambushed you. How did you get ambushed?"

At this comment, she gets a frustrated look that makes her look more cute than scary.

"I was investigating a ruin of the forgotten, but I was careless. I didn't expect anyone to be so far out on Aker, and I wrongly thought the site was empty. I think they were using the ruin as a base, and I just waltzed in there and got captured instantly. I think they were expecting me, somehow. Anyway, they loaded me up into a wagon and dragged me back to the Mountains of Madness, and I was kept prisoner in a random shack in the middle of fucking nowhere."

Okay, I didn't understand about half of that, but I didn't get that sense of discomfort I got from Hunter (thank fuck). Whoever this is, I feel that she is being wholly truthful.

"What about you? I saw you being dragged into the shed, but you didn't respond to me. Wait, you mentioned poison. Did you get fucking roofied?"

I decided not to overcomplicate things and ask her what "being roofied" meant. I just tell her a part of the story—no need to mention my memory right now.

"I was lost, with nothing but that pendant on me, which by the way, can you throw it back?"

She looks down and sees the amulet on her lap.

"Uhh, yeah, sure."

She has little room to move with her hands tied up, but she manages to throw the pendant near enough that I can grab it. I put it around my neck again and am filled with a sense of comfort I didn't realize I had lost.

"It's very pretty."

I blush, even though the compliment wasn't aimed at me.

"Thanks, but going back to it, I was lost and stuck with basically nothing when I met this dude and a kid. The dude, Hunter was his name, gave me some clothes and offered me food, and while I had some very bad vibes about him, I did not have much of a choice and had to go along with him if I wanted to survive. He served me some stew, and I was out after a couple of seconds."

"I feel like you skipped a bit of the story. Also, yeah, totally roofied."

"Just some details of it, not important right now. What is important is figuring out how to get out."

She looks around her cell and then at mine.

"Crap, yeah, we should. Have you come up with a plan or something?"

I try and think, and I remember that she had one hand free from the shackle when I was dragged to the shed. Maybe she had some skill in pick-locking.

"Do you think you could lockpick your shackles again?"

She ponders for a bit.

"I mean, I do have a DR for it, but it's always easier to bend reality when you have something to trick it with, so unless you have something that could act as a lockpick, it'll take a while."

What? Whatever, not necessary to know right now.

"Alright, you start on that then. I'll try and figure something out."

I see her start fiddling with her shackles, and somehow, even without something to stick inside the lock, I hear metal clicking.

That is undoubtedly weird, but priorities. I must assume that our captors will eventually come back to check on us, so how would we deal with potentially multiple people that probably have weapons from inside a cell?

Let's presume the star girl can not finish pick-locking and that they arrive in the next minute or so. Do I have anything in my cell that I can use as a weapon?

I give the room I am staying in another investigation. It is wholly made of sandstone, with nothing but myself inside it, not even a window. It looks extremely worn down, with the wall and floor having tears and holes. Maybe I could scrape some sand where the foundation is less solid and use that to blind someone. Looking around with nothing else to do, I start using my nails to shave the softest portion of the floor.

The woman looks at me inquisitively while still messing with the lock.

"Uhh, whatcha doing?"

I look back, not stopping my actions.

"Gathering sand to throw at someone's eyes. It's about all I can think of doing right now."

She nods.

"Say, what's your name? I'd prefer not to refer to you as a "tall woman with an enormous penis" in my head."

I can feel myself blush again (huh, so I am tall and well-endowed. I guess my instincts are pretty sharp.)

"You can call me Sophia, and I would likewise enjoy not having to refer to you as "star girl" in my head."

She giggles a bit.

"Miah, my name's Miah."

And maybe it's the way she laughs or how the light caught her face when she looked directly into my eyes, but I can feel my heart skip a beat. I can also feel something stirring, but I clench my inner thighs and stop a boner from distracting me from the fact that we are very much still in danger.

"Alright, Miah, how's it looking with the lock."

She smiles a bit while still looking at me.

"Look for yourself."

And I hear a *click* as one of the manacles opens.

"You will have to explain to me how the hell you did this later, but for now, how long do you think it will take to do the other one?"

She gives me a questioning look.

"But I did? I told you I had a DR for it. Trying to explain more than that gets complicated, you know. Also, give me like 6 seconds tops."

And just as she says, after six seconds of using her now free hand to fiddle with the lock, it also slides open. She gets up and arches her back like a cat stretching herself.

"Alright, good. It is not fun to be chained in that position for very long."

She moves to the cell door and starts working on the lock. Meanwhile, I think about what she said about the DR thingy. She said that she was tricking reality somehow, and from how she talked about it, it sounded like that was common knowledge. Perhaps, it is common knowledge because it is common to have the ability to do that, i.e., maybe I could do that.

I hear another click and the sound of the cell door opening. I look up to find Miah standing outside my cell and working on it.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Don't worry, Sophia, I got you."

I feel a warm feeling spreading in my chest. Maybe I just got unlucky that one time with Hunter because I had to balance the luck of meeting Miah. Because so far, Miah has been proving herself to be a kind and cute girl.

"After all, two is better than one if we have to fight these guys, right?"

And she's cute and probably clever too.

"Yeah, maybe it's from the poison, but I don't seem to remember much. A lot of my memories seem to be missing. How does one go about using their DR again? Also, what is a DR."

She looks up from the lock she's working on with a flabbergasted expression.

"Wha- wait, wait. You're kidding, right?"

I shake my head, and she brings a palm to her temple.

"Fucking hells, I had hoped you knew how to fight, maybe even some magic if I was lucky. Fuuuck."

There's another click as my door creaks open. She comes through and starts working on my manacles, and oh fuck, she smells good; It is hard to describe, almost like my brain is interpreting something that can't be solved and can only guess an approximation, but I swear that she smelled like stars. I don't even know if stars can be smelled or if they smell good, or even if I have ever smelled one before. But as I tried to identify the scent, that was all that came to mind.

"Okay, whatever, fine. I guess we'll have a quick crash course on DR, emphasis on the quick. First of all, in the simplest terms possible: DR stands for Domain & Range. It refers to someone's capacity to bend reality to their will, Domain refers to what aspect of reality you can bend, and Range refers to how far you can bend it."

Another click as my left-hand gets freed.

"To use it is the complicated part. It's easier to do when you know what your Domain & Range is, but seeing as your memory of DR is fucked, and these cultist bastards stole my shard, it will be difficult to figure that out."

"But how do you even go about changing reality? Do you just wave your hand and think real hard about what you want to change."

She moves to the other manacle and eyes me with a tired expression.

"I mean, yeah, there's an element to that. However, that only ever works out for people with really high Hume levels, which by the way, Hume refers to what we use to describe how easily someone can exercise their Domain & Range. For those on the lower spectrum of the Hume levels, you still need to, arhg, how do I put this into words."

She brings her hands to her temple before resuming lockpicking.

"Okay, imagine reality as a fully formed weave. Someone with a high Hume level can easily alter that weave, substituting the existing strands with the ones they want."

I hear another click as my other hand gets freed.

I rub my sore wrists and stand, stretching my back, feeling it cracking. I catch Miah slightly blushing as she stops talking and has to now look up at me. I also see her eyes wandering over my body and stopping for a moment on certain parts.

I cough with a smile on my face.

She immediately looks back up to meet my eyes, and I see that her face is red.

"Uhhhh, right, where was I?"

I stifle a giggle, and I can feel my member start stirring again. I try and focus on the fact that we are still in mortal danger.

"You were saying that people with high Hume levels can easily alter this weave."

The blush subsides a bit, though I can still see that she is embarrassed.

"Right, so yeah, those people can easily alter this weave because they're strong and can easily remove and add their own strands. Not everyone can, though. Most people still need tools and techniques to substitute the yarn. Normally you also try to keep the weave as close to what it was as possible. For example, you saw how I just rubbed the manacles till they unlocked. That would've been much quicker if I had a picklock because the consensus reality is that to unlock something, you need something to unlock it with. Notice how I also went through the process of moving the mechanism to unlock the manacle instead of just skipping it and making it be unlocked. That's because you generally don't want to change reality too much. The results can sometimes be unpleasant."

Midway through her talk, she lost her embarrassment (aww) and instead got a focused look, but as she stops her rambling and looks back at me, I see the blush return like she remembered that, yes, she had openly ogled me. She coughs.

"Anyway yeah, unless you have some crazy Hume level, you probably won't be able to just wave a hand and kill someone."

That's good to know. But it begs the question: How do I find out my DR?

"Say, how would you go about figuring out your DR? It seems unlikely one could stumble around, trying random things to find theirs."

"Oh wow, your memory really is fucked. But yeah, you're right. Normally you can just use a shard to view your sheet. You can see your DR there, among other things, like your name, species, body status, and a bunch of things we probably don't have time for."

She's right. We spent far too long speaking, and we still didn't have a plan. I'll just put that DR stuff on the back burner.

"Okay, do you think we can close the manacles and doors without them locking again?"

She blinks.

"Yeaaah, I guess? The lock is basically hard-coded to be unlocked now. Why do you ask?"

"I think it would be unwise to make the fact we broke out of our restraints known to our captors. If we pretend to be still trapped, we could probably gather some intel or maybe take them by surprise."

"Couldn't we just escape and take them out on the way, or better yet, just sneak out undetected?"

"We could try, but it would be risky since we don't know how many are out there. For all we know, tens of them could just be waiting outside that door. We need to know what we're dealing with if we want to make this escape work."

She raises an eyebrow.

"You know, I never really asked how much you remember. By the looks of it, you at least retain some combat knowledge. If you're all the way out here, then you are probably some kind of adventurer or archeologist. Ooh, hold on, maybe you're some criminal that got exiled because-"

I put a hand to her mouth.

"That's a conversation that I would love to have when we aren't in mortal danger. For all we know, these cultist fellows could walk in at any point. For now, assume I don't know anything, and all that I have is my instincts."

She tilts her head and speaks beneath my hand.

"Why?"

"Because it's the truth. Now listen closely because I think I might have a plan."

She leans in and, still keeping my hand in her mouth, I explain my plan.

...

...

...

"Alright, are you set up?"

I ask her from my cell.

"Almost there, harder than it looks to keep this door perfectly still, ah! There we go."

I check my own cell to see if everything looks untouched, and aside from a few claw marks on the floor, to which I quickly hide away with sand, everything looks fine. Like we never even woke up.

I give Miah the okay, and she gives an affirming nod before slumping into the position she was before she woke up. Minutes pass as I replay the plan in my head, and after an hour, I hear the sound of a door opening and closing, followed by two pairs of footsteps.

I crane my head to look down the corridor while being careful not to slip out of the manacles accidentally, and I see two figures. One of them is the familiar silhouette of Hunter ( the bastard). He is wearing clothes similar to what Miah is wearing, loose robes with light coloration. The other one beside him is a bit smaller. He is also wearing this loose clothing but on his face is a plain mask with two slits for his eyes and a web pattern engraved on it. He is carrying a torch, and I can see two scimitars on his hip. Hunter, on the other hand, is barehanded with his arms crossed.

I see those familiar eyes that contain nothing but madness within lock into mine. He smiles and walks to my cell while the masked fellow follows closely behind. However, he seems to be keeping an eye on Miah. Shit, that's scenario 4, at least it's only two, and only one has a weapon.

"Four such a big lad, you resort to some sneaky methods. Pretty sure you could've just punched me in the face and knocked me unconscious. It would've spared you having to poison yourself."

He smiles brightly and seemingly ignores what I said.

"Who could've seen this coming? The one and only Sophia just dropped into my hands. If I didn't know any better, I would've suspected it to be a ploy, but no. You really don't remember a thing. Oh, this is PERFECT."

He breathes in and kneels to meet my eyes.

"Don't you worry, Sophia, all will make sense in due time. When it's too late, oh, you'll love it."

I see his eyes lose the taint of madness and slip into the same emotionless deep eyes that that kid had, his smile dropping as well, oh well, now or never.

I slip out of the manacles and throw the sand I had in his eyes. He screams and recoils, bringing his hands to his eyes, and I slam open the door into his body. He kneels from the impact, and I see the other guy drop his torch and turn to me, drawing his scimitars.

"Two against one, huh?"

I see Miah open her eyes and carefully pick up one of the chains, so it doesn't make any noise.

I can see that hunter is slowly coming to, rubbing the sand out of his eyes, and the masked figure is advancing toward me now, bringing the scimitars in a crossing slash.

I retreat back into the cell, closing the door, and hear the sound of metal against metal as the masked man slashes at the bars. I quickly pick up the untethered chains in my cell and wrap them around my wrists.

I hear the door open as the masked man steps into the cell with me. I smile and turn back to face him, instinctively bringing my fists into a guard around my head and widening my stance while bouncing on my feet.

The masked man eyes me carefully before dashing toward me while making a downward slashing motion with his right scimitar. I move into the slash using my chain-covered fist to deflect the blow and get into a position where he can't comfortably use the left scimitar. He looks surprised but quickly regains his wits and tries to back off me. I use the opportunity to punch him in his chin, shattering a part of his mask and knocking a tooth off. I reel back my hand from the pain in my knuckles and see the masked man bring a hand to where I struck him, I rush to him, and he brings his scimitars to cross-slash me, but I roll past him and run out of the cell closing it on the way past.

Outside I see that Hunter is only now standing up with red eyes now open. Behind him, I see Miah sneaking up to him with the chain stretched out, but before she can wrap his neck, I yell to her:

"Zero! Do it now!"

Hunter looks confused, but I don't give him time to think. Lunging at him with a fist, he dodges, and I see Miah running past him. Hunter looks baffled but does not have the reach to catch her, having dodged my fist, and just as the masked man is reaching for the cell door, Miah uses the chain like a whip to strike at the lock of the cell, and I hear a *click* as the chain strikes it. The masked man recoils as the chain threatens to hit him, but he realizes the chain wasn't meant for him and tries to open the door only to find it locked.

I focus on Hunter again as I see him bringing a massive fist to my stomach. I try and dodge to the side, but his arm blurs, and I see it snap to where my abdomen is. I feel the air being pushed out of me as I almost throw up. I stifle it and try to get back into my stance, only to see Hunter preparing another punch, this time to my face.

However, before he can throw it, he recoils back from a hit by Miah as she whips the chain to his head. I see the area she struck turn red and swollen, and I waste no time as I throw a punch to his chin, intending to knock him out. The punch connects, but I must've hit him at the wrong angle because he does not go down. He does, however, stagger back, and I can see Miah winding her chain to strike at Hunter. In the corner of my vision, however, I can see the masked man preparing to throw one of his scimitars at Miah's back.

"Miah, duck!"

She hears me, but I can see she won't react in time. The world slows to a crawl, and I see the sword slowly flying at Miah. I try and think of a way to save her, knock her down? Too far, maybe I could change the trajectory of the scimitar by throwing something at it, my chains, maybe? Impossible. It will take too long to unwind the chains on my wrists. The blade is getting closer now, and I can see that it will pierce her back straight in the middle if I don't do something, shit shit shit what do I do. I try and remember what Miah said about DR. It's about bending reality to my will. It's substituting the yarn of the weave. I try to think of something fast, something that can knock the blade off its course in a flash, and I can feel something stir inside me. I grasp onto that feeling, channeling it outward as lightning coalesces in my hand and, with a resounding boom, explodes into the scimitar knocking it out of the way just in time.

I release the breath I didn't realize I'd been holding, and the world resumes its pace. I see Miah standing still with a stunned expression, and I see the masked man preparing to throw the other scimitar and Hunter beginning to charge at me. Before they can complete their actions, however, I focus on that feeling again deep within myself. It's dimmer now, however, almost as if it was drained. Still, I think it's enough for one more.

I decide to throw it at the masked guy; after all, he's the one with a weapon. I feel this energy racing across my body as it coalesces in my hand, and with a thundering boom, it launches into the masked one hammering him to the wall, and I can see cracks form around his impact as he slumps to the ground. I feel that energy within me fade, though not disappear.

I am interrupted from my introspection by a hard punch to my face (it seems Hunter was not abated by my lightning powers). I feel blood in my mouth and almost drop unconscious, but I hold on to the adrenaline and bring myself into the stance.

Hunter cracks his neck and positions himself so that he has both me and Miah in his line of sight and his back to a wall. I see Miah winding her chain again, and I look at her and say.

"Careful with his punches. He likely has some kind of DR that prevents missing."

She nods, and I see Hunter smile, his expression half stuck on mad glee and neutral apathy.

I approach first and do an uppercut with my right hand. He blocks it with his right arm and retaliates with a left hook. I intentionally let it hit me on the face, preparing myself for the impact, and at the same time, kicked him in the crotch. I feel his breath being knocked out of him, and Miah wraps a chain around his neck while he reels from the pain.

He elbows her, and even though I see Miah dodge out of the way, she still lets out a gasp of pain. However, she does not let go of the chain, and I use all the strength I have to kick in the crotch again, feeling something break. He slumps from the pain, and Miah finishes choking him out as he finally falls unconscious.

I let out a sigh of relief and slump to the ground, the adrenaline fading.

"Fuck me, that was too close," I whimper out.

Miah slumps next to me, likely also running out of adrenaline.

"Thankfully, it seems you at least remembered how to do magic. Thank fuck for the save, by the way."

I pause.

"Wait, magic? No, wasn't that the DR thingy? Or wait, do you also name DR magic, because if so, that is very confusing."

She sits up straight and looks at me incredulously.

"We have got to get you fixed, buddy, but no, those are different things. I'll explain later after we get out."

I stand up and look at Hunter and then at the masked man.

"Yeah, let's do that, but first, I would prefer not to be naked and preferably also armed."

She nods, though I can't help but see a faint look of disappointment flash through her face.

"Right, let's get looting."

I strip Hunter of his attire and put it on myself, seeing as he's the one closest to my height (thankfully, the robes are pretty loose, so I don't have to suffer from any tightness). Miah picks up the two scimitars and holsters both of them. She offered one to me, but the moment I felt it in my hands, it immediately felt wrong, so I just gave it back to her.

We searched their pockets and the rest of the cells, but there was nothing else of note, so we just threw Hunter to Miah's cell and locked it again.

We make our way to the door, and I look at Miah as I prepare to open it.

"Ready?"

She gives a fearless smile back.

"Always."

I open the door and am immediately met with a searing heat wave to my face. I struggle to open my eyes through the heat but eventually, I manage to force them open.

I am met with the vision of dunes of bright yellow sand as far as the eye can see, a barren wasteland stretching far beyond the horizon devoid of any life, and at the horizon, I see that curved line again with the mountain range behind it, even from this distance I cannot see it's peak as it seemingly stretches forever.

I turn back to Miah and see that fearless smile gone, replaced by a strained smile.

"Welcome to Aker, or as people in my business like to call it: the endless desolation."