Tessa cleared a path with lazy sweeps of her kanabo.

“What day is it?”

Her guess was about a week of uneventful walking through the forest.

It had been quiet the entire time.

Silence, ah, silence!

Normally, she’d be all for silence.

But not an unnatural one.

They hadn’t heard anything beyond the wind rustling leaves or the cracking of branches the entire time.

No animals or monsters.

They hadn’t crossed into encounter challenges or spawn zones either, which wasn’t at all like she remembered how Earth was. The Threnosh world also had more than this new one, but less than Earth.

Did it have something to do with how recent the spires had appeared on each respective world?

“Dunno.” Vee sat astride Twinklestar just behind his ears, crossed legged because he was a chonky boy and made for a stable platform.

“This is day 8. April 10, 2033 Earth time. Assuming we didn’t lose or gain when we traveled here,” Mads said from behind Vee, nearer to the center of the giant guinea pig’s broad back.

Someone cursed from behind Twinklestar causing Tessa to stop.

“Sorry,” Gene raised a hand. “It’s all good. I just… stepped in his pellet.”

“The size of a football,” Olo chuckled.

Tessa resumed the march, listening for something other than the occasional scampering in the branches overhead from Johnny doing rogue things or Twinklestar munching on the leaves and berries he stripped from bushes they passed.

It was hard to tell time in the depths of the forest’s perpetual gloom with the rare sliver of light.

“It’s noon-ish,” Mads called out.

“Should we stop here?”

“Maybe,” Gene said. “Johnny?” he whistled.

The man in question appeared suddenly clinging to a nearby tree trunk like a squirrel causing everyone but Mads and Vee to jump.

“What’s up adventuring party leader?” Johnny saluted.

“How safe is it for Mads to climb up for a better view?”

“The only danger is the falling. Nothing but leaves up there.”

“Okay. Can you set up some ropes for her?”

“Yeah. I saw just the perfect tree.”

Johnny disappeared again.

They waited a few minutes until a rope rustled the dried leaves at the base of a rather thick pine-like tree. At least that’s what Tessa figured judging by the way it looked and the Christmas-y scent the dark green needles gave off.

Mads leapt off Twinklestar’s back and climbed after Johnny.

“Adventuring is boring,” Vee muttered.

“They never show the getting to the tower or dungeon for a reason,” Olo said.

“Or they do a montage,” Bastien added.

“Or all the gross stuff,” Vee sighed.

Tessa didn’t agree with her sister.

Vee had been too young to remember the camping trips their family did back in the pre-spires days.

A few days had been Tessa’s limit before the lack of a proper shower had made her uncomfortable enough to override the fun parts.

Wet wipes were insufficient substitutes.

The Threnosh-made stuff actually meant that she was pretty comfortable all things considered.

The onesie wicked away sweat and kept them dry.

Their version of wet wipes were way better than Earth wipes.

And, perhaps, most crucially, their version of feminine hygiene products shit all over Earth stuff and they were a species that had genetically engineered such biological processes out at the same time that humans were still roaming the glaciers hunting mammoths and avoiding cave bears.

Gene sidled over to her and whispered. “Are we going to address that?” he glanced over to the three humans and one giant guinea pig.

The former were in deep discussion over what the worst part of adventure walking was… so far. While the latter munched lazily on a nearby berry bush.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Twinklestar.”

“What about him?”

“He’s bigger than a bear.”

“Obvious is obvious.”

Gene sighed. “Guinea pigs don’t do that.”

“Magic,” she shrugged. “I mean, you did say you detected mana in him.”

“Almost everything has mana.”

“So, he’s not like a demon in disguise, right?”

“As far as I can tell, but I’m not a full mage.”

“Relax. I’ve kept an eye on him. He’s the same Twinklestar, just… bigger.”

“I’m just saying we should probably be paying closer attention than we are.”

“Vee says his brain wave patterns are identical to before. Besides, Twinklestar was, like, old when the spires showed up. He’s over 20 years old. That’s, like, 4 times the normal age. So… magic…”

“Obvious is obvious, huh?” Gene grinned.

“You’re just salty that you keep stepping on his pellets.”

“You can’t call them that when they’re bigger than my head. Besides, he’s doing it on purpose,” Gene said flatly. “Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, five times is enemy action.”

“Maybe he senses your plotting against him? You ever think of that?”

“You know what? That’s fair. I’ll go apologize. But, when—”

“If.”

“If he eats us in our sleep, well, I told you so.”

Gene went over to apologize.

Mads and Johnny returned from their tree top scouting mission.

“I saw… trees,” Mads said. “As far as I could see.”

Unhappy news.

Mads had Skills that made her eyes better than birds of prey or binoculars.

“How far?” Gene said.

“I don’t know how far we are above sea level, but I’m guessing about 40 kilometers.”

“What’s that in American?” Johnny said.

“25 miles,” Gene said. “No smoke or anything else out of the ordinary?”

“No.”

“I guess we’ve got more walking to do,” Gene said.

“Boooo!” Vee, Olo and Bastien said.

They resumed their hike after a break for lunch, hydration and the natural consequence of those two acts.

Buddy systeming the latter was something Tessa could do without, but they couldn’t risk wandering off alone to take care of their business when the forest was unnaturally silent and so dense as to swallow a person up after just a few yards in any direction.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

In a way she envied Twinklestar’s supreme confidence in dropping huge pellets whenever he damn well needed.

Days and nights passed.

Water wasn’t an issue since they paralleled a swift moving stream.

Their survival gear included everything they could need to ensure safe drinking water.

Food wasn’t an issue.

They had plenty of Threnosh nutrient paste supplemented by the plentiful amount of weird berries and weird wild vegetables.

They had even found a mint-like plant for tea that came with its own sweetness.

Northeast turned into east when the stream made a lazy turn.

Another week brought them to the first break in the monotony.

“Well… shit…” Gene muttered.

They lay prone under dense bushes at the edge of the treeline.

The transition from forest to open space was abrupt and unnatural.

“That looks like a road.”

Tessa studied it.

Definitely paved.

Flat gray with a thin layer of dirt and dried mud on top that bore signs of passage.

She was no tracker, but she had training back on the Threnosh world enough to spot boot prints and tire tracks. She need a closer look to be sure and she’d rather have Johnny or Mads give the last word since they were way better than her at the tracking stuff.

The road was wide. About the size as a two-lane road back on Earth. It ran from west to east.

“Let’s go back and talk about it.” Gene whistled.

An answering whistle sounded from somewhere overhead.

Johnny would stay to keep an eye on the road while they returned to the rest of the team— party.

“Johnny found a road,” Gene said.

“Yes!” Olo and Bastien hissed while exchanging a silent high five.

“We’ve got two questions,” Gene continued. “Do we use it?”

“That’s, like, a no-brainer, right?” Olo shrugged boulder shoulders.

“And which way do we go?” Gene finished.

“It’s not that hard hiking through the forest,” Tessa said.

“No offense, but maybe for you,” Bastien said. “We lack your superhuman-ness.”

“She’s clearing a path, making it way easier for us,” Olo said.

Twinklestar’s whine was higher-pitched, but still a deep bass.

“You’re helping too,” Olo said.

The giant guinea pig wheeked acceptance of the proper amount of appreciation.

“That’s all fair, but I’m still getting tired. I mean, the armor is super light, but it still weighs more than clothes and we had to remove the artificial muscles,” Bastien said.

“I’ll trade off riding Twinklestar,” Mads said.

“Me too,” Vee added.

“Thanks, but you guys are our early warning system,” Bastien said.

“We can talk about that later. East or west is the real question,” Tessa said.

“All I saw west was that impossibly huge mountain range,” Mads said. “A working HUD would be nice because I can’t trust my own estimates even with my Skills.”

“Did you guys see any tracks?” Bastien said.

“Yeah. Boots and tires. Maybe tires,” Gene said.

“Which direction?” Olo said.

Gene glanced at her

“Looked like both ways,” she said.

“That’s what I saw,” Gene said.

“The elevation’s dropping to the east,” Mads said.

“It’s weird that the forest is basically empty,” Vee said. “Except for fruits and veggies… but it’s weird that there aren’t any animals or monsters. So, like, if I was a person, I mean, a native, I’d be, like, ‘this forest is being way creepy, I’m gonna move far away’.”

“Easier to go downhill,” Olo said.

“I’m thinking east is the way to go too,” Gene said.

Tessa nodded.

She was of the same mind.

Moving away from the impossibly huge mountains seemed a safer bet.

Mountains tended to have scary monsters… well… everywhere could have scary monsters. Just that in her experience and in the stories of others mountains seemed to have more.

Like that dragon back on Earth living in one of the Hawaiian volcanoes according to her uncles or that mountain village in the Philippines filled with the Filipino version of vampires. They sounded a lot more hardcore and terrifying than Bennett, who was kinda sorta scary, but not really, cause he was mostly a shy guy. Could a guy with cute fancy rat familiars be truly scary?

In the end they decided on a compromise.

They would use the road while she’d scout ahead to warn them if any people were approaching at which point they’d run into the forest.

“We should go dark.” Mads tapped her faceplate.

“Should’ve brought cloaks like I said,” Johnny said.

Their armor, though the dumb version, still functioned as an essentially closed system keeping them insulated from the environment. Which had led them to eschew excess clothing to conserve space in their bags of holding for essentials.

“The natives not being able to see our faces won’t make much of difference when they see our gear,” Gene said.

From what they had gathered from the cragants, the natives, at least from that one city, were probably human with some noticeable differences in features and coloration.

The cragants had claimed that the natives had skin about as dark as Olo’s and features that resembled Gene’s the closest.

Granted, most of the cragants they had spoken to admitted that all small ones sort of looked the same to them outside of the obvious things, like skin color and hair color.

“Gear’s easier to explain away,” Mads said. “They have encounter challenges and spawn zones on this world. We can just say we got them from there.”

Mad’s suggestion made sense, even if it wouldn’t stand up to good scrutiny.

At least by keeping their faceplates dark they wouldn’t be instantly identified as not belonging.

Only Olo had the skin tone to blend in.

Gene was Korean.

Mads and Bastien were pale. The former with blond hair and the latter with light brown.

Johnny was a light brown being a halfie like her and Vee.

They were sort of ethnic cousins in a sense.

Concerns on first contact drifted away as they followed the road for another week and a half in that same silent isolation.

Tessa wondered if they had emerged in a land mass devoid of life.

Perhaps the consequence of some kind of spires-induced apocalypse within the greater apocalypse.

Sentient virus that only targeted biological life?

Not likely judging by their continued health.

Ghost armies that absorbed all biological life?

Long gone if that had been the case.

Eldritch being? A full god unlike the godling that was the Deep Azure? Doing its thing?

She hoped not.

- sublime music caressed her cheeks, swaddling her in a golden blanket—

She stumbled.

Johnny appeared in the brush ahead.

Playing it off, she waved as he beckoned her urgently.

“Did you find something?”

“Shhh… I did and it’s not good.”

Johnny had ranged ahead about half a kilometer counting on his rogue Skills to avoid detection.

The road turned south.

The stream had steadily widened into a good-sized river as they had walked. Wide enough to need a bridge.

It was a well-made bridge.

Not wood, but something like concrete. Light gray and hard with neck-high sides to keep travelers from falling off. Two lanes just like the road.

It spanned about 50 meters without any pillars in the river.

The bridge wasn’t the cause of Johnny’s consternation.

It was the small fort a few hundred meters from the other side of the bridge.

The fort seemed less well-made than the bridge.

It was surrounded by old wooden walls about Olo’s height with wooden guard towers at each corner of the square.

The towers were empty.

The fort was not.

And she didn’t like what she was hearing coming from within.

Thus, they waited deeper into the woods on the north side of the bridge while waiting for Mads and Johnny to descend from the treetop.

“People. Humans and… er… elves, I guess?” Mads shrugged.

Voices would’ve erupted if not for Gene’s shushing. “Start with the elves,” he said.

“I don’t know if that’s what they are called, but they’ve got pointy ears, like knives,” Mads continued. “Smaller and skinnier looking than us. The humans have them locked up in jail wagons unless…” Mads’ eyes darted from Vee to Tessa.

“I know,” Tessa said. She had heard the sounds emanating from the fort.

“Excited and terrified.” Vee ground her teeth as Twinklestar nuzzled her side.

Her little sister was technically an adult, but was immature for her age in some aspects, while being mature for her age in other aspects owing to the nature of her upbringing.

Tessa could say the same thing about herself. The same thing about their friends. Who were all a handful of years older than her.

“The brain waves, I mean,” Vee finished.

“Stop scanning,” she said.

“But—”

“I’ll ask you when to do it.”

“What about the humans?” Gene said.

Mads shrugged. “Men. They look normal except for the weird skin color and feature combination.” She turned to Olo. “They’re not black like you, but their features are kinda close. They’re a bit more broader… I guess that’s how I’d describe them. But, they’re more like in between us,” she looked at Tessa, “in skin color. Their hair looks dark, but it’s kinda weird, like there’s a green-ish shine, but that could be cause of the magic light gems they’re using.”

“What’s the plan?” Johnny said. “Sneak past? Wait for them to move and follow since they’re obviously heading to some kind of civilization?”

“If you can call slavery that,” Bastien said.

“It might not be slavery,” Johnny said. He grinned weakly at the dark looks shot his way. “Of course it’s still wrong even, especially if it’s, like, a war captives situation thing. Yup, definitely wrong. Evil. No doubt.”

“We have to help,” Vee said.

“Justice,” Olo nodded at Vee.

Tessa regarded him flatly.

This wasn’t the time to be encouraging that.

“Alright, guys, obviously the rational thing is to stay out of sight and wait, observe what we can,” Gene said. “We’re in different world with a different culture. Who are we to come here and impose our ways? Not to mention, messing with who are likely to be the rulers of this area will only make what we came here to do more difficult.” His serious face split into a feral grin. “Fuck that chickenshit, I say. Let’s come up with a plan!”

Truth be told, Tessa had already made her decision earlier.

The spires seemed to agree as it chimed in their ears with the first Quest on this new world.