I jerked back as the veil of the world tore open in front of me. On a basic level, the result reminded me of the "snow" on old TVs when they weren't receiving a broadcast signal. The thin gap of air between me and the open portal seemed to vibrate, and the overall impression was purple. But the color was more complicated than that. My eyes were kind of averaging ten thousand swirling tones so that my brain could say "purple," even though that didn't do it justice at all. I was pretty sure some colors in there didn't actually exist. They were more like ideas about color that the creator of the universe had brainstormed but never gotten around to finishing.

Shapes formed and died, jagged and smooth. Patterns and the absence of patterns. Storm spirals, lightning arcs, alien faces and alien tongues. There was a looming sense of a presence or presences on the other side, of being seen by things that I never wanted to notice me. They came and went too fast to track, too fast for me to decide if I was really seeing anything. It also had a smell.

Ozone, maybe, but with undertones of sweetness like crushed fruit. The scents came and went, replaced by the odor of burnt meat, eggs, and then back to sweetness again. Despite the visual display, there was no sound. The silence of the portal was almost as disturbing as the non-images playing across its turbulent surface. I was afraid to look away. A tiny animal in my skull was telling me that the moment I did, this torrent of mad energy was going to reach out and swallow me.

"I'm supposed to walk into this?" I asked.

"It's perfectly safe," Bojack assured me. "The Survivors who came before would not have used it if it led to certain death."

"What if they died the first time they went through and never used it again? Or what if there's one of those time prisons on the other side, and that's why there's no one here?"

Bojack chuckled. "That would be delightfully unfortunate. But I believe all the Dark Lord's predecessors are accounted for, griefed from this world in the usual way. Whatever waits for you beyond, we cannot overthrow the Dark Lord and the demons who support him without atreanum and the resources it will provide you. Bedlam is its only source. You must proceed."

My mind raced to come up with an alternative that did not involve me walking through a maw of raw chaos. "Doesn't Kevin have some we could steal?"

"Atreanum is brittle. Tools and weapons crafted from it do not last. The Dark Lord may have a supply, but as he rarely ventures into Bedlam himself, it will not be much, and I have no sure means of finding it."

"Could we try?"

Bojack pushed me.

It was like being thrust under a waterfall. Reflexively, I tried to go back, but there was no back to go to. The Stargate chamber was gone, the world was gone, and reality had been replaced by ten thousand shades of what my brain kept insisting was purple. All I could see was eldritch snow, even when I shut my eyes. Liquid currents flowed across my body, pulling me in every direction at once. My ax was still in my hand, and I squeezed the haft so tightly that my tendons threatened to pop. Breathing was out of the question.

The transition lasted ten furious heartbeats. Not long objectively, but a long time to be outside of the world, of any world. If that was Discord, I wanted no part of it. My first normal sensation was smacking my face into a stone floor. It stung, and for a while I just lay there. It was solid and cool and very real. Even if using the Stargate hadn't risked damaging Plana's veil, I had no intention of going through the portal again until I had what I'd come for.

No wonder Kevin found "Bedlam" disturbing. Just getting there was traumatic enough.

Bojack was right about there being a shelter on this side. I was in an octagonal room crafted from the same bluish stone as the underground base. It was so similar to the chamber I had just exited that for a moment; I imagined that being pushed through the portal had literally pushed me through the portal, and I had never left.

The same dais, the same gate alive with otherworldly energy, but no Bojack. Four glowstones, as before, but this set had been cranked to eleven. They were bright enough that no shadows pooled in the corners of the broad, square room, reflecting harshly off the four iron doors set in cardinal directions. I picked myself up.

As uncomfortable as the trans-dimensional journey had been, it had done no harm. My equipment was intact, even my pack, ready to be filled with coins. The ax was fine. It hadn't disappeared into unknowable chaos, and the other tools, Pickle Rick and Scrapper, were still medallions tucked into one of several leather pouches I'd tied to my waist.

The doors were plain, little more than iron slabs attached to a hinge, without handles or bars. I went to the nearest one and pressed the button affixed to the wall beside it. Raising my ax proved an unnecessary precaution. It swung open without so much as a whisper, revealing a bedroom.

It looked cozy. A bed that could have been a twin of the one I'd stolen from Kevin, a few chests, and a nightstand. The room wasn't much bigger than a prison cell, but it had a lovely, plush carpet patterned with arcane looking geometry in gold thread. Instead of torches, a glass lamp hung from the wall by a wrought-iron claw. There was a switch beside it, and when I flicked it on, a warm ball of yellow light burst to life within the glass. The lamp connected to the switch by what looked like a red neon tube.

It glowed. Had I just discovered redstone? I had to hold myself back from trying to harvest it to find out. I'd just gotten here. It probably wasn't a good idea to immediately start breaking things. The first chest was full of totally normal looking clothes, normal for Plana. Tunics and trousers and a cloak. Folded neatly instead of converted into medallions, I ran my hand over the fabric. It felt like silk. Certainly nicer than anything I'd made for myself.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The second chest subdivided into half a dozen compartments, each stocked with a different coin. I took one of each and brought them over to the nightstand beside the bed. Setting them down, the steel thermos balanced on the stand distracted me. It looked modern in its design, a sleek cylinder with a screw-on cap.

Opening it, I sniffed at the liquid inside. It didn't smell like anything, so I took a sip, prepared to spit out the contents after a quick swish. It was just water. Cool, tasteless and clear. The thermos came with a handy clip that allowed me to attach it to my leggings. I'd been using a rope belt for convenience to keep pouches on me, but apparently, there was a way to craft objects that matched the armor.

I stowed the coins in an extra pouch and went to explore the rest of the building. The next room contained a furnace, but the area wasn't set up for crafting. There was a surprisingly normal looking table, complete with the stains and scratches one would expect of a kitchen counter that had been put to good use for an extended period. No matter your intentions, someone would eventually forget to use a cutting board. A cabinet hung over the table, but it wasn't what caught my attention.

A double-length chest inscribed with runes took up most of one wall. I rushed over, surprised to find that it was unlocked. A blast of cold air washed over my face as I threw up the lid. Empty. This dude had crafted himself a cooler.

Perfectly ordinary household goods took most of the cabinet up; cups and plates and utensils, as well as a hotplate. It looked like what it was, a flat chunk of metal with a heating element underneath, except with a magic-steampunk vibe. Bringing it down to the table, I flipped a switch on its side and was treated to the sight of redstone tubes lighting up throughout the apparatus.

After only a few moments, the plate heated. A little longer, and it was too hot to touch. I turned it off. Someone had been here long enough to make themselves comfortable, and they had known a lot more about crafting than me.

Before leaving the kitchen, my eyes settled on a lonely button sticking out of the wall opposite the chest. That area was otherwise clear. Though this place had thus far been trap free, I played it safe and used the head of the ax to press the button, standing as far away as I could from that wall and still reach it.

It clicked, and a single block slid to one side to the right of the button. Blazing heat, and red-orange light, poured out. No horrific monsters followed, so after spending a few moments standing absolutely still, ax still extended, I approached close enough to look inside.

The hole opened onto a stubby shaft that ended on lava. They'd put lava on the wall. I knew what this was.

In Minecraft, if you didn't feel like organizing scrap materials, you could keep some lava nearby and use it to throw anything away you didn't want floating around you and jumping back into your inventory. Lava destroyed anything that fell into it. This was a super-heated trash-can.

I tapped the button again, and the block slid shut. Back in the central chamber, the door facing the portal had a pressure plate beside it instead of a button, so I was going to save it for last. The third door led to a bathroom, which was impressive in its own way. It had a fully functioning toilet, uncomfortably reminiscent of the "silver bullet" single units common to holding tanks in jail, with a sink built into the body and the bowl jutting out to one side.

And a shower. Like the toilet, it had a sleek, modular look that suggested the Survivor System either came with formulas for a complete bathroom experience, or someone had invented them. Since waking up in a new world, I'd given up on running water and a proper restroom in the short term. The shower was tempting, but I had stuff to do.

The absence of a workroom was a little odd, but given that a crafter could convert all their tables into medallions and carry them in their pockets, I could see why a dedicated space wasn't required. Heading back into the kitchen, I gathered the new coins in one hand and began slamming them on the table like magic Pogs with the other.

My first prize was a bowl of mushroom stew. It didn't look bad, but the mushroom chunks collectively made up all the shades of a developing bruise. But a Survivor had made this, so it had to be safe to eat, right? I found it fiendishly appetizing. It was odd. I hadn't felt hungry until the moment I was presented with a meal. But I hadn't eaten at all since coming back to life. Was that an enhanced physiology thing?

The stew was cold, but I had a hotplate. The metal grew hot enough to for the bowl to be simmering in a couple of minutes. While waiting, I checked out the other resources.

A blue block of the same rock that made up the base, my System informed me it was Warp Stone, and gave a useless description. “Very solid.” That was all. The next coin yielded a coarser rock that looked like it would crumble at a touch, though it didn’t. Its shape and texture were somewhere between sandstone and swiss cheese. Rough to the touch, and full of holes.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

Bedlamite

Porous and brittle, this mineral composes a major portion of the land masses in Bedlam. Not recommended for tool recipes. Beware of Beddlemites, which often nest in the cavities of the rock.

Those sounded horrible, but the harvested blocks would be free of parasites. Should be free. I didn’t know how it worked. The remaining coins yielded amethyst, something my System informed me was Dream Sand, and some Bedlam Wart. Mushrooms here must have grown to legitimately worrisome proportions, as chunks of the stalks and caps were entire blocks unto themselves. The entry for Dream Sand was just a dash, which took first place for unhelpfulness among all the unhelpful notifications I’d gotten so far.

I returned to the bedroom and filled one pouch with Bedlamite and another with Warp Stone on the principle that you could never have too many rocks. I'd brought some wood with me, but not nearly as many raw materials as I would have liked.

My stew was ready. Little curlicues of steam rose from the bowl, and I grabbed a spoon from the cabinet after deactivating the hotplate. It didn’t have much aroma, which I was grateful for. The mushrooms themselves were, if anything, too juicy. They popped in my mouth like berries, but they had the normal umami mushroom thing going on for flavor, so I wasn’t too worried. Could have used some hot sauce.

With a belly full of what was almost certainly dangerous alien fungus, I grabbed Kevin's ax, Stormbringer, and went to the last door. An elder sign was engraved on the pressure plate, and when I held the flat of my hand against the square, the sign glowed green. My guess was that this was a security System. Anyone could press a button. Only heroes, and maybe only Survivors, could activate a pressure plate marked with this rune. Maybe.

It took a few seconds to activate, but once the plate depressed, the door swung open as cleanly and easily as all the others. I looked outside.

Bedlam was insane.