The Spell impacted the portal and from the point of contact a ripple went out in all directions. The perfect image of the destination began to lose focus, but again I felt a tug on the portal and the image started to clear.

"Already tired of me?" his mouth was wide with a grin, "That was an interesting spell."

As I was preparing another spell, he said, "How about a game, I answer one question then you answer one question."

"You realize I could lie, right?"

"Sometimes we can learn more from a lie than a half-truth" he said.

"You may impress your orc buddies with those pseudo-intellectual quotes, yet all it shows is that you like to hear your own voice."

He again didn't take the bait, usually people are easy to get riled up, seems he was a paragon of patience "So you want to ask your first question?" he looked confident he would come up ahead in this game or whatever it was.

"How much intelligence you have?" I asked.

"51" he responded instantly, which gave the impression he was telling the truth, so he was more powerful than me but not by much.

"You don't seem surprised by the number, so I'm guessing you're close?"

"Is that your question?"

He thought for a few seconds and nodded. "Yes, my stats are similar"

Alira came near me and whispered, "You need to stop this, you're a terrible liar, he'll get more than you from this exchange."

She was right, yet it was my turn for a question, so might as well ask. I needed a question to figure out whether his world had magic, but also not reveal my world had no magic.

"Which place has stronger magic, here or in your world?" it was the only thing I could think in a short notice.

"Here" he again immediately responded, at least it seemed my one advantage remained, obviously assuming he was telling the truth.

I signaled with my hand it was his turn, while Alira was making the gesture to cut the connection."

"Do you know anything about the laws of thermodynamics?" So he wanted to know where my world scientific progress stood next to him, that was his first inaccuracy if not mistake.

"Conservation of energy and all that?" I shrugged, "That's where your world is?" immediately his demeanor changed, maybe I finally hit a soft spot.

"Well, now I know not to kill you, but to capture you instead. I'm going to enjoy torturing you for every bit of information you have." he definitely meant every word.

I knew by now it was a long shot to get him to lose it, yet sometimes I couldn't help my self. "Is that how you get your kicks? Torturing people? And here I thought you were different, an orc elevated by his superior intelligence"

"We are all slaves to our base desires, no matter our intellect." he was not wrong, I'll give him that.

Alira by now was getting ready to come and drag me away. I started casting Lightning Bolts at the portal and it began to destabilize much faster and though I felt the jolt to keep the portal open, it was just too little to keep it open. It popped out of existence moments later.

Alira shook her head like she wanted to admonish me, though only said, "Let's go, they will have surely sent scouting parties in every direction."

As we started walking Isla remarked "We might have to split up, you may not know, but orcs have scryers that can discern some information of the future. It won't be much, nonetheless a direction is possible"

"Let's just say I have that covered, they won't be able to track us"

She looked like she didn't believe me but Alira spoke up, "He's not joking, they won't be able to find us that way."

"Still, they can use old-fashioned tracks we left on the ground, and they have mounts, so we need to hurry." she said while stepping up her pace.

"There is a hill on our right, we need to get to it to scan our surrounding for options" I said to Alira.

"It will slow us down by at least one hour, you think we can find anything worthwhile?" she took this pause as an opportunity to rest.

"They will catch us eventually with or without that hour."

Alira and I were almost spent by the time we reached the top. I had been worried about Isla not keeping up the pace, but there wasn't even a bead of sweat on her pale skin. Her reddish-blonde hair, I imagine there was a name for this color, was loosely tied back so it wouldn't bother her while walking looked amazing, and she was a prisoner until recently, there had to be some kind of magic involved.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The view from the top was stunning. Behind us stretched the plains we had traversed, and ahead, more plains dominated the landscape with hills on the horizon. However, the most striking feature was a chasm that bisected the land in front of us.

"Damn," Alira snapped, "we need to make a huge detour to get over that thing."

"No, this is perfect, the chasm is not that wide" I added.

"Even if you have a power to cross it, I don't" Isla said.

"I believe I can create a portal over such a small distance." The complicated part was done; I had already established the point from which the portal would expand. The rest should be easy.

Alira watched me carefully. "If you fail, we'll be trapped, and he's stronger than you."

"Clearly he was lying, 51 intellect is impossible" Isla said.

"I have 46, and the way he forced my portal open and managed to keep me from closing it makes me think he's the real deal." as I said this, Alira started walking towards the chasm.

Isla started walking as well, "Then we have no chance in a direct fight."

"He might be smarter, but I have 150 years worth of progress over him, that might give me some edge."

As it was a descent, we made excellent time and were welcomed by one of the most magnificent views I've ever witnessed. The chasm basically looked like a smaller version of the Grand Canyon, a river had carved an enormous valley and the other edge of the canyon could be seen far in the distance.

You could actually see different layers of rocks that had different color forming the opposite bank. The swirling river produced so much noise it could be heard even up here.

"This looks amazing" I said, "I've seen pictures of something similar in my world, yet pictures don't do it justice"

Alira and Isla remained silent, their gazes fixed on the breathtaking scenery. However, Alira was first to break out of the reverie and ask "Pictures? I don't think you mentioned those."

"Yeah, imagine someone making a perfect drawing with every color and shape exactly the same, but instead of a painter you could do it in one second with a device like this big" I said while mimicking the size of a photo camera.

"And it looks the same as a painted canvas?" Isla asked.

"Even better, it looks exactly the same as your eyes see it."

"That's an incredible invention, if you can build one you could be set for life" Isla said.

"Maybe some very primitive version of it, however it would still take years." it always humbled me that each of the modern inventions was the product of thousand of other inventions and people's work.

Alira was the first to return to business, "How about we sight see from the other side? We have no way of knowing how far back they are."

Nodding, I started to squint my eyes to better see the other edge. A few trees could be seen and a large rock near them. I guess that will have to do. Picturing the same view in my mind, it didn't take long to feel it across the canyon.

I had the little point created, though nothing I did made it larger. I could somehow feel the point was on the other side, but nothing seemed to influence it.

I started getting anxious, imagining that even Alira's breathing hinted at my impending failure. That anxiety turned to frustration, and I was ready to call it quits.

"Hey" Alira's voice sounded very close to me, upon opening my eyes I realized she was right next to me and leaned and kissed me.

"You're concentrating too hard, stop meditating if it's not helping, try to imagine something similar from your world."

I remembered the orc said my portal only went one way, and he found that weird. The only instance where I knew to be the case was a tv show. The writers must have invented something random for plot reasons, but if it worked like it did, it meant it was possible in real life.

I imagined a vortex originating from the point that propagated forward, then returned and went through the portal. While it did work, the portal was maybe a basketball in size.

With renewed effort, I redid the last steps a few times until the portal was big enough for a person, that is if that person did a running start first as it started from knee height.

Alira was watching me with pride and was actually moving towards the portal.

"I appreciate the vote of confidence, but we should first test it" I said.

"Test it how?" Isla asked.

Looking around where we stood, I said, "Something alive, it doesn't matter what, even a beetle will do."

Surprisingly it took awhile to catch something alive, Alira managed it.

"Now throw it in the portal and watch it after." I said.

Alira threw the flying bug, and I felt something—though I couldn't pinpoint exactly what had happened. Just then, Alira distracted me with some news.

"It seems to have survived the portal just fine. No point in prolonging the inevitable" she said while eying the portal.

She got back a little and with a little speed jumped into the portal. The moment she touched the portal a wave of weakness hit me almost making me drop to the ground. Recovering a little, I could see Alira had reached safely on the other side.

Seeing my obvious weakness, her voice wavered "I was worried something like this would occur, otherwise people would be portaling everywhere"

I clenched my fists trying to regain some muscle tone, "It did seem a little overpowered if it had no downside."

Isla voice suddenly had an air of panic, "I think I see something coming."

Glancing behind us, it was evident—a cloud of dust billowed atop the slope we had just descended. In mere minutes, they would reach our position.

"Isla, go through the portal, now." I almost shouted.

She jumped, more clumsy than Alira, but I didn't manage to see the landing. The weakness overwhelmed me to the point where I fell to the ground. I focused on the new headache to prevent myself from drifting off to sleep.

"Tiberius" I heard shouted somewhere far away.

"Tiberius" this time it seemed closer.

Opening my eyes, the portal was still in front of me, with the girls screaming my name. Glancing behind me, the orcs were now visible, meaning even less time.

The question now was could I use the portal? Would I just feint and sleep for a few hours, or the magical exhaustion would be so great I could die?

Despite my weak voice I managed to make my self heard, "You said people die from magical exhaustion, how often does that happen?"

"I don't know" she chewed her lip, eyes darting behind me, "However I don't see any other choice"

I didn't even want to say it out loud, but if the portal didn't close and an orc passed through it, I would be 100% dead.

They were getting closer, arriving in less than a minute. There were too many of them—nearly a hundred. Fighting wasn't an option. As a bit of strength returned, I waited a few more seconds and then leapt into the portal.