The outside world was loud and confusing as they stepped into it. Attendants were rushing to and fro around the pocket dungeon, still preparing the matériel for the dive. Adili was still walking away from the Gate after throwing the message through.

"New plan everyone, we're going to do an incarnation. There's a strong chance that we didn't even get into the dungeon. I'm fairly sure that the gates are stacked, we enter through one, we leave through another. It's likely that the core is well past its base manifestation, I think it's probably started to deliberately shrink itself to ramp up its temporal density." Chris' voice rang out over the site, startling Adili who clearly hadn't expected to get a response this quickly. "That means it's going to try and bud, normally at this flux here, we wouldn't care, if it was really just doing a category four draw and then closed, happy days. But I recognised the other side. We were in this Realm, but thousands of years ago. Specifically I think we were in Cwm Idwal in Snowdonia. That's in Wales for those of you born this century. We're looking at a potential temporal bridge. Ah-Soon," he addressed the General. "Get me a clear space, withdraw everyone from a... oh let's call it fifty kilometer area, yes I know that means evacuating the city, but if there are any latent sensitives in there, then they'd be dead. One exception, I need every goldsmith, platinumsmith and as much of each of those metals as you can find. We can make up the difference with indium. We'll need oh, about seven litres of them mixed, make it eight. Yes this is going to be expensive, but time is definitely of the essence here!"

He clapped his paws together and then shouted in a language none of them could understand. The attendants understood it though and the immediate change in their behaviour was apparent. They unceremoniously dumped whatever they were carrying and began to scurry to surround Chris. They quickly removed all plants, insects and stones from the soil in a couple of metres around him. The insects being driven off by a combination of magical winds and flailing arms in the air and the simple expedient of being picked up and carried away on the ground. As soon as an area was cleared, Chris began to etch the soil with runes which were in no textbook at the academy. There was little it seemed that the rest of the party could do and so Adili, Wolfgang, Lin and Ishani ended up sat on the tailgate of one of the trucks that had brought them here. Now they were outside the dungeon, their phones were working properly again so they started searching for Wales. Apparently it was a part of the United Kingdom and was mountainous in places. Cwm were valleys, and a particularly famous one was in the North, at Snowdonia, which was Cwm Idwal. They looked at the archived pictures, and it did bear a resemblance to the place they had been. Since the fall of the North though, it was certain that this place was under several metres of snow and ice. There were specific Diver teams who operated throughout the North, those with powers suited for the cold. The only way to get to the North was to go through the single entry point in North Africa. Cairo in what had been Egypt was the northernmost city in Africa now. Half of it was cut off by the shield in the early days and millions had died. They'd opened a tunnel under the ground, to the North from some of the old tombs in the area. It was in the shadow of the Great Pyramid that the divers of the North were based, they sallied out of there around the globe. It was lucky that there were relatively few incursions in the dead zone. None, so far as they could tell, had ever been dispatched to Cwm Idwal.

While they were researching this, Chris had finished his circle and the attendants had fled the area. The light of mana entering the runes began to push back the incipient night. It was nearly dark here now, night fell quickly this close to the equator. The ground began to heave and push, somehow not disturbing the mesh-work of runes but completing it. From the dark, rich, soil a pure white altar rose, the runes it touched adhering to it and becoming part of it. The air itself seemed to change as if the altar was a window into a world with a cool breeze. The scent of flowers definitely not native to this country, possibly even this realm, wafted over the living, raising their spirits.

This moment of solemnity and peace was broken by Adili trying not to laugh. "We're talking to god on the big white telephone!" he spluttered, and refused to be drawn on the subject any further.

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A voice, familiar now to Ishani, rang out. "Is it as I had feared, my avatar?" Ngaboux asked.

"Well my god, you never told me what you feared, so I really cannot say. This is why communication is so important." Chris responded, drawing gasps from the audience with his irreverence to the god. "I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to tell you what you feared, but I can tell you what I fear. This dungeon has multiple gates, at least one of which is in the past of this planet. It is hidden and small and any damage we do on the other side will be damaging our own past. I fear this. But I do not and cannot know this. I do not have the senses that are needed, but you do. Will you incarnate though the cost is high, and come with us to the past? Or will you abandon this realm and leave us to our fate?"

Ngaboux's voice whispered in Ishani's ear "I told you he loves the melodrama. I bet he's going to suggest that he sacrifice himself to close the other gate next."

As if he was playing out a script, the next words from Chris were "There is another option, using the seed of divinity you planted in me, I could destroy the far gate, and myself, opening a way into the dungeon proper for the rest of my team."

"Honestly, if I had any need for money, I could make a killing betting on him." came the whisper again, then out loud, "I've invested so much of myself into the system that I can't abandon it, and you know that. You just love to be the melodramatic star. I assume you've got the materials on the way?"

"Yes, my god. The order has been sent and the materials are even now on their way here."

"You know, you definitely read too many fantasy novels. Still, that's why I love you I guess. Very well, when they arrive I will incarnate. Depending on the quality of what we get, I should have maybe an hour in this realm."

"Actually slightly longer than that I think, if you use the anchor method and come through with us, that hour becomes a few months."

"The anchor might work, but won't the temporal differential cause an exponential drop in power over the link..."

The conversation between god and avatar descended into a deeply technical discussion which no one else could even begin to follow. It appeared to be predicated on the principles of trans-planar tunnels and shielding.

The dismissal from the god was felt rather than heard, and everyone fell to whatever random tasks they thought they should do before the specifics of the dungeon were discovered. Knowing that there was very little that she could do, Ishani fell back into meditation again.

It was a good rest. Something about the presence of the god and the scents in the air spoke of home to her. Like her this god was now a child of two worlds. She was centred and calm when the rumbling of engines brought her back to the world around her.

"We managed to get eleven kilos of platinum, seventeen of gold and twelve of indium. How much do you need?" General Soon reported.

"Eleven kilos of platinum? That's amazing, what purity is it?" Chris began to ask, but by this point Ngaboux was already casting a spell that separated and appraised the materials from the lorry they were in. Each of the metals was splitting as they moved to the altar, the impurities put into neat piles on the floor while a heap of incredibly precious metals formed atop the altar.

"This is excellent, there's eight kilograms of pure platinum, ten of gold, and you can keep the indium. With this much, I can make an anchor and a body good for at least a day on this side. If we use a secondary bridge with the feedback pipe, we can get a second day of power. I'm sure we can do that." For an actual deity, Ngaboux sounded quite excited about visiting a mortal plane in the flesh as it were. Then with a note of regret, they said "But, I cannot be away from my home for so long. An hour where magic is regulated only by my avatar there can work, but to have them try to assume my role for a day or more? She'd be driven insane." Most of the wealth on the altar was separated and moved to the lorries, leaving only a few kilos of platinum and gold.

"My chosen one, is there anything that you need to do before we step through?"

"No, my god."

"Then we'll just do this" With an unassuming sparkle, part of the metal on the altar became a small cube, etched with too many runes to read them with the naked eye. The rest became a human sized metallic statue, made of floating segments like an insect's exoskeleton, held together by magical tendons and muscle. Its face was an animate mask that looked exactly like the face of the god that Ishani had seen before.

Without any further preamble, Chris and Ngaboux stepped through the portal and into the dungeon. The rest of the team were scrambling catch up, having been caught completely off guard.