Fomrinay, 2033 Earth Time

Tessandra Cruces emerged from the spire.

The gleaming surface flashed iridescent in the sun light.

A yellow sun that looked about the same as the one on the Threnosh world and the one on her home.

She stood alone inside the safe zone around the spire.

As the strongest she had gone first.

She reflexively thought a command, forgetting that she had stripped her Threnium armor of much of its advanced systems. Both hardware and software.

It had been the only way to afford the transit fee.

She scanned her surroundings the old-fashioned way.

With her eyes and ears.

An empty plain.

Mountains that looked impossibly large to her west… assuming the planet’s magnetic field worked the same as that on the Threnosh world and Earth… more plains to the south and thick forests everywhere else.

She opened her faceplate with the press of a button.

It was going to take some time to get used to the lack of cybernetic thought control.

Wind stung her face.

It felt colder than it had looked, which meant the others, aside from her sister, would need to be careful about exposure.

Time ticked.

Hard to tell without the clock in her HUD.

Her sister was supposed to be next.

Minutes turned into a quarter hour.

She had kept her head on a swivel as she walked the perimeter of the tiny safe zone around the spire.

Nothing.

No monsters, animals, or natives.

She was completely alone on an empty plain covered in short, green grass.

Honestly, it didn’t resemble an alien world.

Perhaps the foliage in the forests would’ve been properly alien like those on the Threnosh world when compared to home—

— golden flame played a sweeping symphony across her childhood neighborhood—

The images came and went like the sudden rainstorms across the southern plains of Prime Custodian 3’s territory.

Even after her uncle had assured her that he had killed It, glassing a few miles of Manhattan in the process.

Waiting left her too alone with her thoughts.

The tree line wasn’t that far away.

Maybe 2 or 3 times the length of the Danger Complex’s largest training chamber.

“God. Damn. It.”

She hadn’t realized how much she had come to rely on the little numbers in her HUD.

Not too far that she couldn’t scout the forest a bit and maybe get started on some kind of camp.

Being exposed out on the plain overnight wasn’t the winning move and the safe zone would time out by then.

She pulled two things from her bag of holding.

The only two things she had in there aside from Threnosh nutrient paste, water and other small survival items.

A handful of pebble-sized ultradense metal balls and her kanabo.

Her dad had made the latter with his powers, creating an ultradense alloy for the weapon as long as she was tall and weighing half as much as she did.

It was even self-repairing.

All she needed was the heat from a small camp fire and any dents and bends would disappear.

Couldn’t do much about material being shaved or cut off though.

She carved an arrow into the ground, tearing up the grass to reach deep into the dark soil before heading in that direction.

One hand held a handful of shot while the other rested the long, slender, studded club on her shoulder.

Silence.

Aside from the wind rustling through the grass and leaves there was nothing.

No birds chirping or insects buzzing.

No smoke rising to the sky meant no people.

She knew this world had people.

Humans, if not like the kinds she was familiar with from home.

Granted the cragants she had sneakily obtained information from weren’t natives.

They had transited through on their way to the Threnosh world.

A glorified layover.

She had vague memories of hating those things whenever her family had gone on vacation back before the spiresapocalypse had put an end to those Disney World trips.

She gently cleared her way into the forest with flicks of her kanabo.

Dark.

Dense foliage.

Green mostly.

Some color in the form of plentiful berry-looking things on the rather thick bushes.

Like thorny spiderwebs big enough for her to get lost in.

It was hard to keep track of time as she kept her scouting pattern within sight of the tree line and the spire still in visible range.

Go too far and it’d vanish from sight in an instant.

The difference of a step.

An imaginary line demarcating where it allowed her to see it. An arbitrary distance that differed from spire to spire. Sometimes, it even varied for the same spire from day to day, minute to minute.

She muttered a silent curse and bumped up a watch on her list of items to procure.

The cragants had given her a description of the city they had transited through.

It had sounded a lot more advanced than medieval times with animal-less wagons and artificial lights that may or may not have been magical in nature, among other things.

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No animals, but she wasn’t going to rule out something nasty like them coming out of the ground or trees at night.

That’d take away the option to sleep in said trees.

She could rip one open without much difficulty, but she’d wait for the others.

They had better methods to find out without hurting the poor trees.

One never knew when some kind of nature spirit might pop out angry she killed their home.

All it took was that one time.

Sudden violence erupted from the direction of the tree line.

Branches snapped.

Leaves shook and sprayed.

Some thumping beast that seemed to shake the earth with its steps and the deep huffs from massive lungs.

Tessa brought her kanabo down on the dark shadow looming out of the dense undergrowth.

Metal thundered on metal.

“Hey!” a high-pitched voice snapped. “You almost hit Twinklestar!”

“Vee?”

It was definitely her little sister, Veronica, astride a black-furred beast that looked down on her with huge black orbs.

Her sister twirled a staff made of the same alloy as her kanabo.

Twinklestar wheeked a deep, thumping bass not at all like his typical high-pitch vocalizations.

Granted that was when he was as big as her hand.

The guinea pig nudged her chestplate, forcing her to take a step back.

Stronger than he looked.

“Alright…” she nodded. “What the hell?” she pointed at their ancient pet.

“I dunno,” Vee shrugged before jumping off Twinklestar’s back with an unnecessary back flip. “He was like this when we came out of the spire. I followed your arrow. Did you find anything? Monsters? People?”

“Is he…” she eyed the giant guinea pig warily… “him?”

Vee arched a brow. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

Oh, she could name a few dozen reasons why a guinea pig suddenly being hippo size was a cause for concern.

“His brain waves are the same,” Vee said.

“How?”

“I told you… dunno. Magic?” Vee shrugged. “Isn’t he so awesome!” she rubbed Twinklestar’s fat cheeks.

“Yeah. Magic.”

It made perfect sense.

“Alright. I need you to scan the area.”

“I already did,” Vee rolled her eyes. “No electromagnetic waves, well, except for the planet’s stuff and, like, the rocks in the ground and the trees and possibly metal stuff, but that’s far away.”

“Where?”

“Er…” Vee spread her arms out to encompass what Tessa took to be toward the northeastern portion of the forest. “Somewhere out there.”

“Any weird sh-crap? Like spirits in the trees.”

“Nope. Just normal trees. Oak? They kinda look like oaks and there’s Christmas trees over there,” Vee pointed with her staff. “No snow even if it’s cold. That means less moisture. Not having stuff in my helmet sucks.”

“Yeah, same. Alright. Keep scanning while we look for a good spot to make camp while we wait for the others.”

“Wait, how long have you been here?” Vee said.

“Hard to say. An hour or two.”

“Wow… that’s weird. I went in, like, 10 seconds after you.”

“With Twinklestar in your pocket.”

“His carrying bag. Which got torn up,” Vee pouted. “Um… should we send a message to mom and dad?”

Tessa almost laughed.

Sure, she could imagine it now.

Hey, mom and dad, we did exactly what you told us not to because the dreams and visions kept getting worse even after Uncle Cal killed Zalthyss. You know because a gut feeling told us that only we could do this and if you guys came it’d be super bad for you. Not that dad could’ve come since he doesn’t have enough Universal Points. So, that’s it, see you later, love you, bye.

Her prior conviction on the rightness of her actions seemed to bleed away now that she had traveled to the Dominion of Immortal Light and Joy’s world leaving her with zero Universal Points.

They had discussed the very real possibility that said visions and dreams were a trap, which might’ve worked just as planned in pushing them into an irrational course of action to save their loved ones from what, in hindsight, was starting to look like a nebulous, rather than concrete, threat.

“Maybe later. We have no points to send one anyways. And it doesn’t seem like there are any monsters around here to kill for some.”

Tessa lost track of time completely as she used pantomime and liberal pushing to get Twinklestar to clear some thick brush around a large oak-like tree and flatten the ground.

The guinea pig had gotten smarter over the years since the spires had appeared, so him following directions pretty well wasn’t a new development alongside his sudden size growth.

Vee had declared the entire area free of anything with a brain.

Even underground.

So, Tessa was fairly confident that they could head back to the spire and wait for the rest of their team.

“Party. Not team,” Johnny pronounced.

They sat around a campfire in the twisted shadows of an oak-like tree that looked a lot spookier in the dark.

The team had arrived in similar intervals with Olo the last as the sun started to dip over the west.

Familiarity bred some level of comfort.

Had it rose in the west and set in the east… well… that would’ve been harder to deal with.

The thought of which surprised Tessa.

She had thought she had been hardened against such inconsequential things.

“We’re obviously a traditional adventuring party now,” Johnny continued. “Traveling to another world? Straight up isekai’d. Off on a Quest to slay the evil angel in its tower… I’m assuming there are towers involved because… duh. Adventure. Evil. Tower.”

“Not an isekai.” Mads cradled her old, custom competition over-under shotgun. A hold over from her days as a junior champion skeet shooter. “We came willingly.”

Not the choice of weapon Tessa would’ve picked for her.

A recoilless gun would’ve been a lot better, but they had all been limited by the travel cost and the shotgun was the one belonging Mads wouldn’t leave for anything.

“And no creepy reincarnating into a baby to pick up a harem of under-aged girls while being mentally 30 years old,” Bastien said as he absently rubbed the crucifix hanging from his gold necklace.

They were all rattled.

She saw it in those unconscious gestures.

Gene was sharpening his dull gray longsword, which he had done before they had left the Threnosh world.

Olo wasn’t sitting at the fire. He stood watch, facing the darkness opposite where Twinklestar lay curled around Vee.

“Hey, you can relax.”

“Huh?” Olo said.

She directed his attention to the giant guinea pig.

“If he’s chilling, then it’s probably safe.” Gene sighed. “Plus, Vee hasn’t picked up any brains, right?”

“Nope!” Vee grinned. “Just us!”

“So, adventuring party,” Johnny said. “That’s what we’ll say when we find civilization. It shouldn’t make us standout too much if the cragants weren’t bullshitting us with how things work here.”

“They did say that they didn’t leave the city and that they were only there for a few weeks,” Bastien said. “Plus, we have no idea where the actual city is.”

“Well, we can’t avoid people. We need intel and stuff,” Johnny said. “It shouldn’t be a big deal. They get outworlders, right?”

“According to the cragants,” Gene said. “But, not that often and only from the upworld. Never from the Threnosh world like us. I think we’d stand out.”

“Which is why we didn’t use the same spire that the cragants said led to that city,” Johnny said.

“We stick to the plan for now. At least until we need to reassess after first contact,” Tessa said.

“Do you guys think our armor might give us away?” Mads said.

“Zalthyss would recognize them,” Gene said. “But, it’s a question on how much it actually talks to the people of this world. The cragants said that only the hierophants ever spoke directly to it and barely at that. The Dominion is smart with the way it keeps the local populations mostly separated from the forces they said out to conquer other worlds.”

“Don’t shit where you eat. My mom said that, like, all the time,” Johnny said.

“What do you want to do?” Tessa said.

Gene stopped sharpening his sword. “We have food and water for a month, but I’d like to find a good water source like a stream or a river. An added bonus is we can follow it to look for civilization.”

“We’ve got berries,” Johnny popped a handful into his mouth. “Like lemonade candy, which is weird.”

Testing edibleness had been straightforward.

Johnny and Mads used their danger sense while Bastien used a small bit of cleansing prayer magic.

They had also done the same to a root vegetable that was a sickly green, but perfectly edible, if spicy.

“I say we start heading northeast and adjust our route according to Vee’s detection. Find that water source and mark the spires we come across.”

That was the thing with the spires.

No matter where person was in the world, they were always within walking distance of one.

“Kill monsters? We do need points. I’m not liking looking at that donut,” Johnny ventured.

“If it’s safe-ish,” Gene said.

“We should set a watch,” Olo said.

“No. That’s okay. I’ll take care of it,” Tessa said.

She had a few days before she needed to sleep anyways.