As the plane landed at Heathrow, it didn't even taxi to a terminal. It just hit the runway and went straight to a side runway. A whole crew of people rushed out with a mobile ladder vehicle. Sixteen people boarded quickly, and their bags were thrown in.

A tanker truck rolled up, connected, and started refueling the plane on the runway. We were on a side runway, out of the way, but still, it was amazing. Within 30 minutes, we were gone again, headed to NYC.

It was a little odd because when we landed in NYC, we were told to go to a private field about 10 miles from the city. We were the only plane landing there. The same thing happened, except this time it took about 45 minutes, and we were gone again.

The next time we landed was at CFB Winnipeg. When we landed, Jeremy and Jeff were separated from everyone else. No one during the whole flight wanted to talk to them. Jeremy swore he saw someone keep looking over at him, maybe they weren't allowed to talk to Jeremy. Who knows?

Jeremy and Jeff were taken directly to the base commander, who was pretty excited. This was a guy who had to ask his grandkids and his officers what Dungeons and Dragons was. I guess they gave him a quick training session because he had his saber on him—it was a real Damascus handcrafted sword. He must have caught the dungeon fever, and I loved it.

"I am Colonel Maxwell. You will be under my command while you're here. Do you understand that, civilian Jeremy and Corporal Jeff?"

Both Jeff and Jeremy saluted, Jeremy because he was used to it by now, and Jeff because it was protocol. The colonel looked at Jeremy, shook his head, and Jeremy lowered his hand, realizing it wasn't appropriate.

Jeremy had already put his foot in it.

The colonel waved over another corporal and said, "Take them to the barracks. We've already watched the video from the flight, so we know that tomorrow morning we're going to have everybody go down to the dungeon. So get some sleep, food, and get ready for tomorrow. And Jeremy, don't do anything stupid. If you're about to, you know you're supposed to ask first. This is the deal they wrote into that contract for you. Understand?"

"Yes, Colonel, I understand. I'm requesting that your communications group records whatever we find and uploads it live to the database for the United Nations and others to review. Then we'll put it up on the website after."

"Have you seen the site yet?"

"No, sir. Is there anything special about it? I've seen a picture. It's just an arch in the middle of a flat piece of white stone, correct? A black arch?"

"Yes and no. Right inside the arch, at the very bottom, is a nub about half a foot tall. It's white stone, and we can't chip anything off of it. It's so hard we can't cut it, can't do anything. It's like the door—it's there, but it's not like it's hard. Fire doesn't work, physical damage doesn't work. It breaks most of our rules of how our world is supposed to work."

Jeremy just kind of smiled and said, "Yep, sounds about right for the b******* called magic."

With that, the colonel dismissed them. Jeff and Jeremy headed to their rooms and then over to the mess hall because, well, they were hungry.

The next morning, there was a convoy outside the barracks, and everybody just got in. When they arrived, Jeremy and Jeff were taken directly into the adventurers guild building and were the first to sign up for their cards, name tags, or dog tags—whatever you want to call them.

Once that was done, they requested to look at the arch. No one was going to let them do that by themselves, so they had to wait.

There were a couple of open rooms for training and meetings on the main floor. After looking at the building and realizing there were no glass windows facing inwards, just solid walls, Jeremy was very happy with that. It took about 45 minutes to get everything prepped, signed off, and ready because they were figuring out the process for the first time.

When it was done, Jeremy logged into YouTube and made a short video, less than 60 seconds, saying, "Look, everybody, we're proper adventurers. We've got our cards!" In the background, you could hear someone checking their weapon, and it sounded like a handgun racking. Jeremy turned to the camera and said, "Ooh, I think it's time to go have some fun. Bye."

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Everyone in the room turned to Jeremy like he was the biggest idiot in the world. He just smiled at them and said, "No one expects the devil to have a smile."

Jeremy then put on his best Joker smile, looked at them for a few seconds, and started walking toward the doors to the courtyard. He put one earbud in, found a good song, and got it ready in case he needed it.

Ark, the AI in his head, freaked out and asked what the hell he thought he was doing. Jeremy took a second to think and then turned off the song. He had pulled a piece of information from Ark that Ark didn't want Jeremy to know. Ark knew that, but Jeremy didn't know how he pulled the information.

What Jeremy knew and wasn't supposed to was that the whole act of using the key and the hammer on the arch to make the dungeon was a lie. What Ark needed was for Jeremy to light the fuse of the arch.

Jeremy didn't understand, but he did. He knew what to do, not why he was doing it, and this was why Ark was freaking out. If Jeremy was doing stuff because it was right but didn't know why, it could get very stupid and bad quickly.

"Jeremy, remember when you almost lit the pilot light for the planet? That would have activated all 200 dungeons at the same time. Now there are no dungeons, and the main controller is not turned on. So if I get you to light the pilot, only this one dungeon will activate. I haven't connected it to the rest of the network yet because I don't know what will happen. So I've limited this as much as I could, turning down everything to as close to zero as possible."

"What you need to realize is that without vibrating the black matter stored in your planet, it doesn't break down. It just stores there. Yes, the core of the planet does a lot of processing when it's running, but right now it's not processing anything. We're going to make a very small one or two-room dungeon—a micro dungeon, if you will."

"This will allow us to try things out at level zero so we can push it. You're probably asking why I want you to push it instead of me. Well, that's because I don't think I'm supposed to be this smart, and if I'm right, it would send a signal that would bring someone to your planet. I think you'd prefer to be a little more ready if anybody shows up."

"What I'm going to get you to do, Jeremy, is go to the arch, put your hand on the handprint, turn on your song, and I'm going to turn the control down on your collar a little at a time until I get enough juice to energize the arch. This will light a fuse into the crystal matrix down under the limestone. It's not metal, but it's not not magical. It'll work, and it's super non-metal, so hopefully, it'll be the lowest explosion if it goes bad. If not, well, everyone needs one to practice with."

At that point, Ark stopped talking.

Jeremy didn't realize he had been focusing on Ark and that a whole lot of people were waiting behind him at the door. Jeremy looked back, smiled, and went for the doors, but they were locked.

Jeremy looked impatient, and then someone, realizing what he was trying to do, came over with a key and unlocked it.

The two doors were an inch thick metal with a big wooden bar that could be put across it. In front of them, when they opened the door, was more of an oval than a circle, but right in the middle was a black arch about 10 feet tall.

All the military people spread out around the arch. They had seen the archways in reports and meetings, but now that they were in front of it, some couldn't help but want to touch it.

Jeremy, knowing what would happen, gave them a minute to look at it. He backed up out of the group, pulled out his phone, and went to put on a song. By accident, he hit next, and "Control The Redline" by VNV Nation came on.

Feeling Jeremy's heart pumping faster because of the music, Ark started turning down the control on the collar.

Negative one, zero, point five, one, two, three percent.

At 3%, the entire group swiveled in unison as Jeremy gave off some sort of aura, energy, heat wave, something they all felt inside them.

Four percent, five percent, six percent.

Ark stopped there, and as Jeremy felt it, he started walking towards the arch. Everybody got out of his way. When he walked up, he found the handprint on the opposite side. He put his hand on it, and things didn't go as planned.

The song ended, and Jeremy's power level dropped. Ark increased it to seven percent, eight percent.

The next song started: "When Worlds Collide" by Powerman 5000. It was a heavier song, and Jeremy's power levels spiked back up, higher than when it was at five percent. Jeremy, not knowing any better, tried harder, pumping almost nine percent of full power into the archway.

The archway didn't light up. It started dissolving from the top down until there was nothing left except the little nub in the middle of the ground.

The next thing Jeremy knew, there was a warning message from Ark telling him to run.

Jeremy shouted, "Retreat now!"

The next two songs were "I am a Dwarf - Diggy Diggy Hole" and "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin.

During those two songs, what they saw was this:

Jeremy touched the archway. It started dissolving. Jeremy panicked and ran to the door. Everyone rushed after him like he was a bomb squad tech with the shirt that says, "If you see me running, catch up."

The area under the arch started changing from white to a shaded colour, dissolving. They watched as a white limestone staircase led them down. It was just a 10-foot long staircase.