"I am," Lyda answered. "Let's go, then."

"Lead the way," Cyrus gestured for Lyda to enter first.

She stepped through the archway and into the ruins, and Cyrus followed, feeling the lethargy spell tingling under his skin. If he wouldn't to, he could ignore it. Normally, he wouldn't even notice such a spell, except he knew that Kylnar had designed it to work against the resilient. He wasn't certain as to why Rynovar wanted that in the ruins' makeup, just that the godking did.

"What now?" Lyda looked around the ruins of the sanctuary. "How do we move on? Approach the altar and get warped or something?"

"Or something," he responded. "You said you wanted to try to lead the way."

"Right," she said.

Cyrus watched as Lyda began walking around, noting the slight sluggishness to her movements. He knew she was probably aware of the effects of the spell and was fighting it as hard as she could to remain alert. She would eventually need to stop, slow down, and lay down. It was an inevitable event.

After nearly half an hour of searching, Lyda stopped, then approached the altar and knelt in front of it, bowing her head and clasping her hands as if in prayer. As Cyrus watched, she disappeared from sight, and he snorted.

Most mortals took longer than that to realize the clue of the setting. He glances into the forest around them, before approaching the altar and kneeling in front of it, pressing his hands together in front of him.

A few seconds later, he found himself kneeling beside Lyda, who jumped, then looked around.

"It doesn't look much different than the ruins we just left," she said.

"We're in a reality marble," he said. "And it's quite different, I assure you of that. One word of advice: stay on the path."

"The path?" She asked, then looked through the archway leading into the ruins, at the dirt path leading out of it. "That path?"

"Yes."

"Okay," she nodded, then paused and looked at him. "What happens if I don't?"

"You'll end up wandering in circles until Rynovar eventually decides to set you back on the path."

"Oh."

"Yeah," he said. "The good news is that you can step off of it, but make sure it stays within sight. As long as it's within sight, you'll be able to return to it on your own. That's important if you need to step away to pee. The guaranteed return range is about twenty feet in the forested sections."

"Well," Lyda took a deep breath. "Let's go, Cyrus."

Cyrus followed Lyda out of the church ruins and down the path. He breathed in the fresh air of the reality marble, looking up and observing the imitation sky. Only a god like him would be able to tell the difference between a real sky and the reality marble's illusion. It was part of Rynovar's attempt and preventing people from realizing they were inside of a reality marble.

Or more accurately, a series of reality marbles. Every time they warped, they would find themselves in a new reality marble, even if it didn't appear to be different.

Their walk lasted for half an hour, Lyda slowing down as they walked. It was obvious to Cyrus that she was losing the battle against the spell, which wasn't a good sign for their trip into the ruins. If it took her less than an hour to need to sleep, they would have to stop many, many times.

He contemplated using magic to shield her from the spell, but knew that Rynovar would likely do something to make up for it. The godking always watched when people were inside of the ruins, and he would know immediately that something was wrong if Lyda was suddenly no longer affected by the lethargy spell.

"More ruins," Lyda said as the path ended in the ruins of a stone building, the roof missing – as well as most of the upper half of the walls and several sections of walls. "What was this place?"

"Nothing," Cyrus answered. "It was created for the ruins, and for no other purpose."

Lyda nodded and began looking through the ruins. Cyrus knew where the traps were, and wanted to warn her of them, but knew it might ruin her experience to have him constantly warn her of danger. She wanted to experience running ruins for herself, the way most people would.

So when she made her way into the ruins of one of the back rooms through the original doorway, Cyrus said nothing. He only watched as she disappeared from sight, the trap activated. Because someone activated it, the trap turned inert, set to turn on once more after exactly sixty-nine minutes.

If he wanted to, he could warp himself into the reality marble Lyda found herself in. It was another ruined stone building in a forest, with a couple of traps. If she left it and followed the path, she would find herself in a ring of stones with runes on them. Stepping into the ring would send her back to the ruins of the chapel in the current reality marble.

Since there was no danger to her, either from the traps or beasts, Cyrus sat on the ground and pulled out a book. There was no service for his tablet in the ruins, so he chose to read instead. More than two hours passed before Lyda returned to him, looking like she wanted nothing more in the world than to lay down and sleep, her clothes slightly wet.

"You didn't come after me?" She asked.

"I was watching you," he told her. "After you were warped to the building you found yourself in, you explored it, first activating a gravity trap with pinned you against the wall for fifteen minutes, then a paralysis trap which prevented you from moving beyond vital functions for half an hour. After that, you activated a dousing trap, causing a torrent of water to pour down onto you. Three traps activated, you decided to leave the ruins and follow the path, where you found the warp zone. Finding it suspicious, you attempted to locate another path, only to find there wasn't one. You then decided to step into the warp zone, found yourself back at the chapel, and then came down here."

He put the book away, then pulled out a fresh set of clothes for Lyda. She stripped off her wet outfit and traded it for the dry one. Cyrus sent the wet clothes to the warehouse, then pulled out sandwiches and bottles of juice, offering Lyda one of each.

She sat beside him as they ate, her head starting to drop. Every few moments, she jerked her head back, and Cyrus contemplated once again using his magic to shield her.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"I expected you to want to lie down and nap after the first hour," he told her as he sent the trash away.

"I wanted to," Lyda said as she stood. "Still do, and pretty bad. The spell is subtle, but it's a little strong."

"Is it?" He asked. "I wasn't aware. It's hard for me to judge such things when I compare it to myself."

"I can understand that," she said. "Do you have any advice for this section, Cyrus? Not telling me how to do it, just… some advice to avoid walking into teleport traps?"

"For the ruins itself," he told her. "Avoid walking through any entrance or exit that isn't part of the building itself and don't try to go over a wall. You'll avoid seventy percent of the traps in buildings that way. There are others scattered throughout, but seventy percent of all traps in a building are in the doorways and lining the tops of the walls."

Lyda looked around, and Cyrus knew she was realizing for the first time that every room could be entered without setting foot through a doorway. Even if it took going through several other rooms first, there would be a way into a room through an additional gap in the wall.

Keeping Cyrus's advice in mind, Lyda began exploring the ruins once more, and Cyrus stood up, then walked to a wall and sat on it, watching her as he ignored the effects of the trap that attempted to influence him.

If he let it influence him, it would cause him to confuse his directions, resulting in him being unable to get to where he wanted to go. Even if he attempted to compensate by doing what he thought would result in going the right direction, the curse would adjust to that. The curse would last for half an hour, meaning he could sit down and wait it out, but further in the ruins, they would last for even longer.

Some of the traps had effects which could last for up to a week.

Cyrus watched as Lyda touched a small pot to look inside of it, instead activating a trap that blasted hot air into her face. It wasn't hot enough to burn her, just enough to be an annoyance, much like a dousing trap.

"That was… interesting," Lyda looked at Cyrus. "Oh, you can't see what happened from there."

"I can see through the elements," he reminded her. "I saw it. I knew about the trap, too, so I knew what would happen when I saw you bend down."

"Right!" She laughed, then returned to exploring the ruins of the house.

Cyrus waited, finding himself burning to tell her the next stage was accessed from outside of the house. If she went to the back of it, she would find the entrance to a cellar, doors closed. They were locked, but the key was hidden in a pot outside as well.

Lyda spent four hours searching through the ruins of the house before eventually stepping out to the back and finding the cellar doors. She spent another half-hour looking for the key, and by then, Cyrus was hungry again and knew she probably needed to sleep. They'd spent nearly a day just reaching the ruins, then making it through the first stage.

"Let's stop for dinner," Cyrus told Lyda as he joined her. "Then we can either sleep here or go into the next stage and sleep."

"Let's just sleep here," she told him. "We won't be attacked or anything, will we?"

"No," he answered as he sat, pulling out sandwiches, bags of chips, and bottles of juice. "There's nothing dangerous in this stage, not even insects."

"Doesn't the forest and everything need insects?" She asked, looking at the trees around the ruined house.

"No," Cyrus answered. "It's magically maintained, eliminating the need for an ecosystem. Kylnar came up with the spell. There's one stage with a horned wolf that's particularly dangerous, but we won't come across that unless you get pretty unlucky. If you do end up facing it off, I'll deal with it."

Cyrus accepted the food from him, then they began eating, the artificial sky beginning its transition to night. After they ate, Cyrus pulled out the merged bedroll they used in their Dungeon trips and spread it out.

"Does it ever rain here?" She asked.

"No," he answered. "Well, not in this one. It does in others."

"Okay," she said, joining him on the bedroll as he pulled out pillows, fluffed them, and set them down. "I feel like I probably took much longer than normal to find the entrance and the key."

"You did," he admitted. "But most people trying to go through a set of ruins are in a group of at least ten to twenty. They'd be searching in groups of two to five for the next way through. That's also why most traps have a delay of one or two seconds – to catch more people in them. They become inert after, taking time to turn back on."

"In other words," she said. "If one group were teleported like I was, another could pass through right after them?"

"Correct," he nodded. "Some of them are simply area-of-effect spells, those are typically the ones not in entryways, and usually have either no delay or a one-second delay."

"Like the spell that dumped a lot of water on me," she said.

"Just like it," he nodded. "It had a range of eight feet in diameter, so anyone in that range when it activated after being tripped would be soaked. It also ensures at least one person is by tagging the person who activated it and using them as a focal point, unless someone else enters the range."

"So someone is always hit by such spells," she said.

"Correct," he said, then pulled her against him. "Let's go to sleep, okay?"

"Okay," she let out a soft yawn. "I've wanted to since we entered this place."

Within moments of them no longer fighting the spell, both of them fell asleep. Cyrus woke first in the morning, with an urgent need to pee. He pulled away from Lyda and walked off into the woods, relieving his bladder against a tree well-away from where she could see or hear it.

After he zipped back up, he summoned a bottle of soap from his warehouse and used it and water magic to wash his hands, then heated the air around them to dry them off. He sent the soap back, then turned around with an eyebrow raised.

"I thought I was concealing myself from the elemental senses," Kylnar sighed, releasing the concealment spell he used, appearing before Cyrus. The older god wore only a pair of light green shorts and nothing else. "I've practiced it against Rynovar many times, and he can't sense me, either with the elements or with his mind magics."

"I can sense magic itself," Cyrus reminded him. "As with all gods, Rynovar can, too."

"I'm concealing my magic," Kylnar shook his head. "He can't sense me when I have it active."

"I'm a god of reality and fantasy," Cyrus said. "You exist, therefore, I can sense you and your magic. It's an inevitability. Why were you spying on me as I peed?"

"I only showed up after you finished," Kylnar stated. "And I didn't actually know what you were doing. Rynovar shook me awake and told me to come to you."

"He wants me to turn you back into the fox guy I made you before?"

"Why would you guess that?" Kylnar asked.

"Because you're shirtless."

"I am?" Kylnar looked down. "Oh, right, I am. No, I threw on some shorts after he woke me up, didn't realize I hadn't pulled on a shirt. You know, he probably made it sound urgent specifically because of what you were doing and what you'd think."

Cyrus sighed.

"What does he want you to ask?" Cyrus asked.

"He knows what you've been considering," Kylnar said. "Especially as she'll only want to fall into the desire to sleep more the longer she's affected by the spell, to the point she'll need to nap for two or three hours every day, even after a night of peaceful sleep."

"I wasn't planning on it," Cyrus told the older god. "I know Rynovar won't like that and would probably do something to make up for it."

"Actually," Kylnar said. "He wanted me to lighten up its effect on her. I'm not going to tell you why, but he does ask something of you in exchange."

"Make her go through a Dungeon to collect the Dungeon Token herself?" Cyrus guessed.

"That you give her no advice in the latter stages," Kylnar told him. "You knew which ones he's referring to."

"I do," Cyrus said. "So he'll lighten the effect on her, allowing her to function a little more and make it deeper in before needing the longer naps, but I can't give her any advice regarding six different stages, should she end up in them?"

"That is correct," Kylnar told him.

"Okay," Cyrus took a deep breath, then let it out. "I take it you'll be putting it back in full if I do?"

Kylnar simply stared at him.

"Rynovar will enforce it," Cyrus rolled his eyes. "He's asked you to put a mind spell on her to prevent her from actually receiving the advice, if I try to give it to her. The way you worded it, it's not actually an offer. Rynovar wants you to lighten the spell for some reason, so he's enforcing this balance. When are you placing it?"

"It's already in place," Kylnar told him. "I put it on her before coming over here. Rynovar will eject you from the ruins if you do anything to it."

"Okay," Cyrus said. "I'll keep it in mind."

"Thank you," Kylnar said. "I need to leave now, and she'll be waking soon. Goodbye, Cyrus."

"Goodbye," Cyrus responded, then Kylnar disappeared.