Unfortunately, our enthusiasm for leaving this place was not shared by my body, which decided that since I was now out of danger, it would be the perfect time to stop producing adrenaline and actually let me feel the wounds I had been largely ignoring.

The pain was terrible. Turns out that having dozens of bone fragments and three sharpened bones the sizes of an arm stabbing you is not a pleasant experience, but somehow I manage to keep my wits about and not collapse in a heap of pain. Fortunately, the energy I received from the Halo did not go away with it seemingly powering down, and I say powering down instead of turning off because it was still floating behind my head, just not with its lights on and spinning anymore, and trying to grab it seemed impossible as it was stuck to that position no matter how hard I budged, not that I wished it to remove it (something about it seemed right, like it completed me in a strange way). Still, with the energy yet on hand, I focus the necromantic magic on myself and begin healing what I can so I don't collapse from the blood loss.

The process takes a long time, and any second we spend here is one I would rather spend anywhere else. I mean, the glade by itself is not something so terrible to observe ( I would even venture to say it had an alien beauty to it with its massive trees and a perpetual state of almost night, the skies alight with dim oranges and deep purples.), but there was a sort of unease that permeated the air, one that made me feel as though the forest was twisting and bending all around us, that the Realm itself was trying to make us lost and confused.

For that reason, even as I was outputting positive necromantic energy ( negative energy, Miah had explained, provoked the opposite of healing and instead further aggravated wounds and diseases.) I still continued to keep my eye on the distant light of the station's door.

Miah, in the meantime, took the opportunity to fashion a crutch for herself from a few of the smaller branches around us (even still, she had to use her scimitar to break it a few times as the smallest branch still proved to be bigger than us by a magnitude). The end result looked good, way too good, and professionally made for someone using only a scimitar to carve it (likely a result of her Domain).

In those few minutes spent recovering, there was not a single word spoken. We were way too tensed up by our environment, and keeping an ear out for anything was our priority, but even then, the few glances we shot each other were plenty to communicate our shared anxiety and our want to get out of there.

So it came as no surprise that when I smelled the fresh smell of rain and spotted a heavy grey cloud approaching, I abandoned the healing process (leaving me with plenty of fragments still on my skin), grabbed Miah by the shoulder, and supported her as I rushed us to the station. Miah offered no resistance and tried her best to match my pace, her face still showing signs of fatigue from the blood loss (not that I was in any better shape).

We manage to run a good distance considering our states. However, with the door still a distance away and with the rain clouds approaching (the sound of raindrops now being bearable), it is clear we won't make it before the rain gets us, it is a race against nature, and we are losing badly. So seeing no option with my DR, I reach into myself and grasp upon my mana reserves, forming a type of energy I have not formed until now and holding on to it until needed.

We continue to run to the best of our capabilities with the soft ground beneath us, but I hear the sound of the downpour getting louder and louder, and I know it won't be long until it reaches us.

Still, I wait as long as possible, the amount of mana I have to gather is not insignificant, and I can probably only do it once. So as soon as I spot the falling water ( that is producing very odd phenomena as it touches the ground and trees, seemingly growing and also shrinking the plantlife ), I stretch my free hand and quite literally grasp the space in front of us and pull, warping the area around us and shortening the distance between us and the door by some odd 60 feet, in a feat that provokes a different kind of headache to those I get from trying to remember, as well as a significant drain in my reserves (about eighty-ish percent of what I had left after the fight and healing).

Miah and I stumble as our senses adapt to the mind-bending nature of Space magic, but we quickly get to our feet and continue our half-run half-stumble to the door, barely making it to the station as we careen into the cold hard floor of the station, and I in frantic haste reach for my shard and press the button that now says:

'CLOSE'

The door closes quietly, and the sound of rain instantly goes away as it fully shuts.

I collapse from exhaustion and hiss from the pain as I accidentally bang my neck against the rim of the halo–fuck me, I guess sleeping will be a process from now on. (Goodbye, sleeping on my back. I enjoyed the one day I had with you.)

Alas, we made it, and for a few moments, the only thing I hear is the accelerated rhythm of my heartbeat, the labored breaths of Miah and me, and the soft sound of the dials spinning. However, soon enough, as I regain my breath ( Miah still busy regaining hers) and actually finally have time to process what just happened, I laugh, not hard, more like a soft giggle, but it is all I can do for a few seconds, Miah tries to join in but just makes a sort of strangled noise and begins coughing, hearing this I stop laughing at the absurdity of what we just survived, and I sit up and drag myself next to her to actually begin the process of healing, ( the half-measures I had taken in the Realm of Twilight proving to be just that, half-measures).

Miah makes a sound that resembles a protest, and hearing this, I look at her in puzzlement, and she points to my own wounds.

"You're much w-worse off than me, b-better you do yours first." She speaks, tears in her eyes from the pain.

Naturally, I ignore her and the subsequent protests as well as I slowly remove the bone from her leg, healing the wound as I extract it.

The protests die down in favor of asking for a pause as she tears out a piece of leather from her boot and bites it as the painful process continues. One that I wish I could do faster but can't because of my lackluster knowledge of necromancy.

Instead, halfway through the procedure and my heart hurting much more than my wounds seeing Miah's torment, I get an idea.

What if I transform her pain into pleasure using my Domain? Sure, it'll be a bit morbid and inappropriate as well as somewhat dangerous in the sense it could birth a risky fetish, but hearing her groan against the leather piece, I project my Domain out and imagine the abstract feeling of pain transform into the more familiar feeling of pleasure ( I tried just imagining the pain going away, but I got I bad feeling about proceeding with, and Miah did warn me about pushing my Domain too far) and as I continue the removal the results prove themselves to be... weird, especially since I'm still effectively neutered by my own purging of lust against myself earlier, and that I still need extreme focus to perform the healing process, but eventually I complete the removal and healing process only leaving faint scars in the process ( ones that could be healed by someone that is not as much a novice as I am).

I turn away from the scene of a blushing and panting Miah, who looks like she came out of a very pleasant but tiring encounter, and move to heal myself. At first, I try not to use my Domain to alleviate the pain; I am not in favor of risking the birthing of a new fetish, especially one that is by its very nature dangerous.

But in the end, I could not focus hard enough on my magic when every second was torture, so I turned my Domain in on myself and tried my hardest to limit the pleasure I received ( I first also had to revert the purge I had done, as the process just seemed to fail when I tried it without any lust), and as trying to erase the pain itself didn't work, and removing the pleasure as I felt it proved to be to complicated while I was at the same time healing myself, so it was that I had to endure a very different kind of trial to be able to heal myself as each shard that I removed caused a multitude of intoxicating feelings, so much so that I feared I might not be able to concentrate after all, and that maybe the pain would be better, but my Domain once again proved useful as reached out into myself and imagined being able to focus and concentrate even with the most brain melting orgasm, and just like flipping a switch I felt my mind clear even as I still felt the pleasure of removing the bones.

Even still, by the end, I was much like Miah was, blushing, panting and positively unsatisfied, with a need to quench the heat I feel.

Unfortunately, I fear that fulfilling the fantasy of having love in space I didn't realize I had, was out of the question seeing as we were still on the clock, which speaking of-we, only had...

As I turn my gaze away from the flushed, sexually charged Miah still on the floor to check on the dials, I see that the one we were waiting for is just slightly unaligned with the drawing of the twisting tower, meaning we had just missed it, fuck. The next one in the order has an image of a lighthouse-like tower surrounded by doors in a dome shape, some of them illuminated by a light coming from the tower, and by the looks of it, it'll take around 20 minutes for it to align.

Are you kidding me? We literally just missed the teleport out?! At this point, I'm positive these timings are too precise to be a coincidence, but what could even be causing them? It is unlikely that it's my Domain (as much as it benefits that particular type of activity). After all, my range is only 5 feet, and Miahs is even more unlikely, and that either leaves a third party that is-

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I'm interrupted by my theory crafting by Miah suddenly hugging me from behind.

Her arms come around my midriff, and I can feel her soft breast rubbing against my back as well as her elevated body heat.

"Hey~, gonna be honest here could have used a warning on that pain-to-pleasure switch, though for a second that my brain broke, and that was spooky," Miah complains with lust still in her voice.

"I'm sorry, you're right. I should've asked for your permission- I was just desperate, and the blood loss certainly didn't help and-" I stop apologizing with a groan as Miah grasps my cock through my pants.

"Shhh, I'm not mad, Sophia! Just... next time you do something like that, a little warning will be nice." She whispers, somehow injecting more lust into her voice.

I look at the dias, and then I look at Miah.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I take a moment to take a breather as we both come down from the most mind-melting orgasms of our lives.

Thank fuck for the changes I made with my Domain otherwise I do not think we would be conscious, much less aware enough to prepare ourselves for the teleport–speaking of which.

I look at the dial, and we only have about 2 minutes left (that was only 18 minutes!?). But as I look around seeing Miah in my lap, and the mess we are in I realize that there is no way in hell we are cleaning up in 2 minutes, when I get an idea.

I reach out and imagine us with our clothes back on, and with the blink of an eye, we're fully clothed, though I hear Miah groan out.

"Uhhrg, it's all soaked. We really should've gotten this off earlier." She complains though I can see that she is still basking in the afterglow of the sex.

And it seems today is the day of ideas because I get another, though it does need a bit of a stretch to reach it after all, my Domain is both the creation and the destruction of Lust, so why wouldn't I be able to remove the after-effects of Lust-related fluids, and I imagine it so, and suddenly we are both as dry as we were before the act...

"Sophia," I hear Miah call out while I was busy observing the consequences of my Domain, and her voice does have that hint of annoyance back.

"T-this time, I swear I didn't mean to change anything. I mean, I did, but it was only the clothes, not your body-" I say hastily because it is the truth I was going to ask permission for that one.

She sighs.

"It's fine I would've agreed anyway, and it's not like it's the biggest change ever. Convenient too-still keep it in mind, Sophia, it's extremely easy to get lost in your Domain, I would know." She says something indescribable in her voice, though from what I can sense, she is still in a good mood.

"Ok, I'll keep it in mind," I say in apology (and I mean it too, it was way too easy to get lost in what my Domain makes possible) " Still, be prepared by my estimation, we only have about a minute or less left, we should be teleporting any time no-" And whatever proof I needed that there is something controlling the timings of this universe is given to me as the moment I say this the same familiar pinprick of darkness that bends space around it appears, and then it disappears for a second only to be then replaced by an expanding sphere of darkness that swallows us whole, stretching our bodies to impossible degrees and bending space to form a caleidoscope of the station, and then there is only darkness.

That last only about a fraction of a second as the sphere shrinks, and we find ourselves in a whole different place.

The first thing I notice is the coldness, a different kind of coldness that chills my very core and does not fail to send shudders down my spine.

Then as my eyes adjust to the brightness, I see it, in front of us, a gigantic curved window. It is shattered in the middle, a gash in the centre of it all, snowflakes carried by the harsh wind passing through, and through there is a sight I think I will never forget.

Colossal Mountains jut out from the ground reaching to the skies and beyond… their size, too big for me to fully process. These gargantuan mountains surround the horizon and encircle us, and in the center of these mountains is a... city.

Made of white polished stones are these multitudes of buildings too big to be inhabited by humans. Gigantic spires made of the same material come from the ground and reach towering heights of unprecedented magnitudes. From them, I can see connections to other towers of similar sizes as well as stairs too small for any sane being to safely traverse on their sides and bellow the building follow the same maddening pattern with windows too small to be looked through more slits than anything else, doors often leading to precipices with only protrusions from the walls providing a path to it, and as my eyes sink deeper and deeper into this white city I see that there is no bottom, these buildings are all stacked on top of other mega-structures that don't even seem to connect with each other, chasms where the bottom isn't even visible running in between, and weirder of all is that this strange city is not even the end of the weirdness.

No, as I come to and look around to where we actually are, I notice that behind us, there are four people, and I almost scream out in surprise when I notice they aren't moving or will be moving... ever since their skin is frozen and brittle dark spots already necrosed, with their eyes dead, well for those I that can see their eyes that is.

All four are kneeling in positions of varying fear. One is a man with dark-red armour and a cloak of the same colour covering him. He seems to be trying to shield his eyes though his hands never reach them. Another is a woman with the same armour and cloak she is trying to cover the eyes of the person next to her, that being a man with only winter cloaks and no armour, he wears glasses, and I can see that he was struggling to open a pouch that is hanging by his side, and the final one is another woman also wearing a winter cloak, she looks old with grey hair and frail limbs, but the odd part is that she is wearing a piece of cloth over her eyes-well one of her eyes, as I can see poking through her left eye is slightly uncovered.

Immediately I look to Miah and say:

"Don't look out the window. Whatever they were trying not to see can't be good." I see her nod and turn her head away, though she also seems to be very interested in what the guy with the glasses was trying to reach for.

"Might as well check for clues, I guess, might help us figure out what is going on." She says, reaching inside the pouch and taking out many books and loose papers.

I nod back and focus my attention to behind the corpses, keeping my vision far away from the window.

Behind lies three sets of stairs, all of them wide and gigantic though they don't lead very far. The one in the middle lead downwards, and the two sandwiching it lead upward.

The one in the middle leads to a patio-like area that follows a different architectural design from the one of the white city. First of all, it is not white, it is instead grey, with concrete slabs making the flooring and marble making the walls, and the walls are not smooth and undecorated like the ones in the city below. Instead, they follow a design principle of sharp ridges to disrupt the smooth flow of the marble and create this abstract sharp look. In the middle, there is some greenery with a snow-covered tree, and looking around, I can see that only the middle part is mostly covered in snow. Besides that, I can't see much as the angle makes it hard to observe anything else.

The stairs leading upward go to a balcony that probably lets you look down to the patio. The rest is blocked from this angle.

I turn my gaze back to Miah and see that she is skimming through the books.

"Find anything?"

She scrunched up her face in uncertainty.

"Eh, kind of? I mean, yeah, I now know for certain we're in the Mountains of Madness, not that there was any doubt, but besides that, it's a bit hard to parse out, mostly due to the language I was never good at Draconian"

"And I didn't even know that was a language until a few days ago. What does it say in the books?"

"Well, they read more like diaries or a log book, really, but from what I can understand, they were an exploration team, and they were also much bigger, like from what I'm reading, this was a pretty big operation, and these guys were just a small advance group. Anyway, they were funded by some "Daedulus institute" to explore the mountains in search of Forgotten ruins and were given directions on where they thought it was likely that they were located. Then he goes on about the routes they're gonna take as well as rationing plans and blah blah blah until I noticed that the handwriting got messier. From there, it's really hard to parse out meaning, but I think the team got spooked by something they saw over the mountains that was peeking through the gaps in the ridges, and they rushed into some cavern they found that eventually led them here." She concludes by showing me the notes.

And she is completely right. By the end of the page, they look more like scratching than anything else.

"What about the other books? This was just one, no?" I ask, pointing to the multitude of papers and thin books.

She shrugs

"I only had so much time to read, but from a very general skimming, they just seem to be documents pertaining to their supplies and geology notes of all things. Though-" she pulls out one of the thinner books "This one might interest you."

"Why? I did say I don't know draconic." I reply

"Don't worry, this one is in global, and it's a spell book. It turns out this guy is a mage. Who would have thought?" She says, handing me the book.

"Uhh, ok, going to have to explain to me there. What's a spell book?" I say, opening it and being confronted with arcane-looking symbols.

"It's something mages use to record new spells they discover or spells they have a hard time remembering that kind of stuff. Thought it might be useful to you given you're the magic of this party."

"Okay, gotcha, but umm... what's a spell?" I ask hesitantly.

She doesn't facepalm, but I can tell the want is there.

"What? Spells, y'know, the thing you've been using, the thing that made you go pew with lightning and all that."

"I mean, if that's what they are, I just kind of do it really, feel the energy and channel it."

"Right, amnesia, I keep forgetting." She takes a deep sigh, and I can see she's preparing to explain when suddenly I hear the sound of glass shattering from upstairs.

I look back at Miah and see that she has already pocketed the relevant books.

I nod to her and pocket the spell book, preparing to run myself.

Then I hear the sound of a pained scream that definitely does not sound human, with the voice shifting and sometimes overlapping with itself a cacophony of agony-riddled shrieks, followed by the sound of slime rolling through the ground, and it's getting close.

I look back at Miah, and she looks back at me. We both nod and run to the middle set of stairs.

The unknown creature screams again, and I can now hear the gross sound of ooze rolling faster.

Looks like it's a chase.