"And then, the vortex collapsed down into a point, and was gone. It was as though time stopped, or something. I don't know how long I spent in that state. This must have been what King meant in The Jaunt, only that you apparently don’t go insane. There’s just... no time at all. I don't know how to put it into words, that feeling. Like everything was frozen, a moment stretched out into infinity."

"Well... I can tell you that it wasn't that long. Of course, time being... flexible in some cases doesn't offer a lot of security. If it helps, I floated out of that orb over there little over three hours back, and you two came hurtling out a couple of minutes ago. That's also when it went all weird."

The orb in question was large, perhaps six or seven meters in diameter. It hovered silently over a stone spike, which jutted out of a raised platform a couple of meters wider than the orb itself. The whole assembly was situated on an even larger platform, whose edges just cut off abruptly, except for one spot, where it connected to a path suspended on a narrow bridge. Erci said he'd leaned over a little and saw that it was supported by a rocky pillar which disappeared into the fog below.

From what he'd described, when he emerged, the orb was shining with a green light reminiscent of the Worldstone still clutched in my hand; then, it started to grow turbulent, like clouds gathering in the sky, before spitting me out and dulling down into a washed out grey. If you squinted enough, you could barely catch an echo of the green it once was, but as soon as your eyes twitched that was gone as well. I tried to touch it, but couldn't manage. It was like trying to overcome a fear or phobia, and I didn't have the strength to do so. Nevermind all the work we'd done to get this far.

Trying to talk to Ref was a no-go as well, at least at first. The mirror didn't clear up, and neither did my sword, it was as though they'd both lost their reflective properties while in the Management Office. I eventually caught the reflection of my eye in a mug of tea, but it was glassy and only twitched once when I tried getting its attention.

But I think the strangest thing was the sky. It was starry, but the dark between said stars was deeper and more vivid than any night I'd seen before. The immediate area was still illuminated slightly by the nearby orb, as well as the re-lit campfire in the middle of an abandoned group of tents, but it was unnaturally quiet. Normally, the night holds the sounds of insects, or the wind, or shuffling plants, but there was none of that here. Only the occasional crackle of an ancient log in the fire, and the almost imperceptible hum of the nearby orb.

I'd somewhat recovered, Erci made a tea the dulled the pain in both my arms, but I still couldn't use either of them - my left arm was numb and growing colder by the hour, even the fire having no effect, and my right felt as though it had magma flowing through it instead of blood. My right hand was also clenched tight around the Worldstone, not letting go no matter what we tried. I drew a line when Erci suggested that we should start cutting off fingers.

I was worried, though. Earlier, I'd taken off my jacket, by now weathered and dusty, and saw that there was scarring running up the inside of my arm. It somewhat reminded me of the scars a lightning bolt causes when it hits someone, only these were a lot more vivid and also tinged a dark green. They were also growing.

***

In the "morning" (the sky didn't change), I woke up to Erci rifling through the abandoned tents. The night hadn't been good to my limbs, and it took a little bit of rubbing along the bicep for me to become aware of my left arm again, and the scarring along my right had made slight, but inevitable progress. By now, my right shoulder had started to ache as well.

I sat up, boiled the last can of tortellini above the dying fire, and watched as Erci struggled mightily to pull an improvised sled toward the campsite. Eventually, he lost his nerve and began punching and screaming elvish obscenities at the crate he'd been trying to shove instead, and slowly but surely slid it toward the fire. At some point, Raven had landed on the crate as well, and began pecking at it.

When it got nearer, I saw that she was actively pushing splinters caused by Erci's violence back into the cover, but it was a lost cause.

"What've you got there?" I asked, the spoon balanced between two fingers, and a single noodle illuminated by a green ray.

"I found some stuff." He replied, breathing heavily, and shoved the crate the rest of the way. It was now sitting just within range of the fire's light. Then, he bent down and tore a strip of cloth off one of the tents and bandaged his right with it.

"What kind of stuff?"

"I'm not sure. Some of it reminds me of elven military supplies, but it's all incredibly old. There was also a flag of some kind stuck on a spear by the edge opposite the orb. Take a look."

He threw me a piece of faded red cloth, which I unfurled.

I froze.

There, on the thready, ancient, dusty red cloth, was a shape in gold. two curved branches, with something written between them. I wiped off some dust.

SPQR.

***

"But how could they have gotten here? And why did it survive this long?" asked Erci, walking beside me. "I do not understand how they could have exited into this... place." He gestured around us, toward the dark pathway, the sheer drop to both sides, the unnatural sky. The cobblestones of the path remained stubbornly dark in his torchlight.

"I don't know either, unless..."

"You know something. I can see it in your eyes."

"It's just a hunch, but... When I met Ref, she occasionally used latin words. Just random things, like 'yes', or 'friend' - she stopped after a while, but I can't help but think that there's a connection somewhere."

"This latin... I presume that was the language of these Romans you spoke about earlier?"

"Among others. It perplexes me, actually, as I thought they used mostly greek instead, but perhaps we were wrong. Or there's another reason entirely."

I took a sip from the canteen tied to my new belt, one I'd found among the junk Erci had collected in the roman camp. Most of it actually was junk, rusty cutlery or decayed pieces of what may have once been armor, but we found a couple of things which were of use to us. My belt was one. A reasonably preserved whetstone another. Erci spent some time restoring my sword's edge, but it did not regain its reflectivity. In fact, the newly sharpened edge was even more unlike how it had been before. It still cut, probably better than before, but Erci said he'd never seen a fey blade behave the way mine now did.

The scarring had slowed to the point it was imperceptible, but still noticed a little growth toward my heart with every new "day". At this point, the pain had dulled down into a silent, but ever-present throb, and I'd long given up trying to regain feeling in my left. That arm was simply suspended in a sling made from roman tent.

All this made it so I couldn't use my walking stick for walking, so it stayed fastened to my back - the slight back pain it prevented vanished eventually.

The path we were walking was very dark. At some point, we'd come to a fork and chosen the left-hand path, but there was little else of note.

***

It was the fourth "day" when I noticed something strange. One of the constellations in the sky had apparently moved, and it took me some remembering to realize that it was caused by parallax - an optical effect caused by movement, the way two objects seem to move less and more depending on their distance from the viewer. in this case, several of the stars had shifted in relation to the others.

I didn't really know what to make of it.

***

It was on our seventh day on the path that we discovered something truly noteworthy. No parallax, and also no fork, but something seemingly mundane.

A napkin.

in the middle of the road.

It was so out of place all three of us stared at it for a few seconds, before Raven apparently gathered her wits and glided down toward it. After turning it over, she squaked once and fluttered up to Erci, holding the napkin, and deposited it in his hand before landing on my shoulder once more.

"It says 'N's Inbetween Place'."

"What?"

"The napkin. It says that."

"What kind of name is 'N'?"

***

"Are you seeing what I am seeing?"

"If you think you're seeing that star getting brighter with every mile, I think so."

"Indeed... what could this mean?"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"I don't know."

We couldn't read the napkin anymore.

***

"That can't be right."

"I concur. However, it doesn't seem to be a hallucination, we're not delirious enough."

"How incredibly strange."

Before us was a platform - similar to the one we'd arrived on. This one, too, held an orb - a much different one. From a distance, even our own orb was a dull white, same as all the others (though we’d lost it some time ago), but from this close, this one was a pale blue. It was also much smaller, a little closer to the ground, and there were some strange devices set up around it. Three curved prongs rose up out of the ground, each with a small number of spikes pointing directly inward. It also glowed much less brightly - more akin to a large lantern, not like staring directly into the sun.

However, this was not the strangest part. Around the entire platform, built to the very edge, was a building. It was made of wood, which was double strange - the windows were lit from the inside with a soft, flickering yellow light, and the entire place was built in a very... homely style. Above the main doorway was a sign written in an angular script, using no language either of us knew. From the door, we could hear the faint rumble of conversation.

We carefully avoided the orb and its strange setup, and I pushed open the door.

Instantly, the sound stopped. Something clattered to the floor, but nobody paid it heed.

For inside, there were beings. I couldn't describe them as people if I wanted to, that word sounds way too restrictive for the sheer diversity I saw inside. There were large beings and small ones, humanoids and blobs, beings of all colors, all shapes. There were beings sporting tentacles, spidery legs and eyes on stalks, there were beings with hair so long it touched the ground on all sides, there was a being made out of eyes in one corner, and a moving pile of cloth in the other. There were beings made of metal and wood, flesh and bone, stone and glass. There were hooves and legs and feet and hands and tentacles and eyes and beaks and spikes and hair.

And you could have heard a pin drop.

The one who'd dropped something, a thin, long being made of what looked like reed, was the first to move. It took a step forward, and said something that sounded like static - and made my forehead hurt. I saw Erci clap his hands to his own ears, but I couldn't do anything on account of my hands. The being stopped as soon as it saw my flinch.

Instantly, it backed off, and stalked toward a counter in the back of the room, where what looked like an octopus sat, frozen. Its one eye was trained on me.

wait.

It was not trained on me, but my hand.

My right hand.

I looked down, and the rest of the beings did too - eyes widened, beaks opened and tentacles quivered at the sight of the green rays shining from between my fingers. The pile of eyes began to uncoil away from us, but a harsh noise from the octopus at the back made it stop. It also broke the quiet, and most eyes in the room turned toward it.

It made another noise, and beings began to rise, only to be stopped once more. The octopus barked something, and a couple of the beings shook themselves, before walking toward us.

I jumped to the side, pulling a whimpering Erci with me, and most of the beings filed out of the large double doors. Numerous eyes were upon us both, and once the last of the beings had left, I chanced a look outside - only to see the one, the pile of cloth, slide into the pale blue orb and disappear. Once it was gone, the orb rose back to its original position and the three pylons holding it in place folded away.

Looking back into the now empty room, the octopus had vacated its counter, and the reedy being had disappeared somewhere. The octopus was taking up most of the room, sitting (standing? Do octopodes stand?) in the middle of it. It held up three tentacles, and wiggled them.

I wiggled three fingers back.

It shook its head, throwing me off a little, and grumbled some static.

Then, it straightened up again, and began speaking said static again, louder this time, and Erci fell to his knees, hands pressed to his ears. I tried to remain upright, and fumbled to catch an unconscious Raven, before tumbling down to the floor myself.

The being stopped speaking, but it was too late. Erci was already out, and I felt my strength fading as well. Shortly before falling unconscious, I felt a sharp pain in my forehead, and then nothing.

***

Warm.

Comfortable.

Comfortable?

I opened my eyes.

And saw... a ceiling. Wood, from the looks of it.

I caught a snore from somewhere to the right, and rose off the supremely comfortable mattress, only to see Erci spread across another bed, grunting in a deep sleep. Sweeping the room, I saw a mound of pillows on the nearby table, with a little black bird spread over it - then it rolled over, and vanished in a gap between two of them. An angry squak resounded from within, before it wrestled itself out and fluttered over to my shoulder. My right shoulder.

"Hey, Raven, should you be sitting there?"

She simply cawed loudly into my ear, and clawed herself to it more tightly.

I looked down toward my arms, feeling strangely relieved to see the light of the Stone shine back from my right hand, and flinched back at the sight of my left. The entire arm was bandaged, shoulder to fingertip, but something was seeping through. It looked like blood, but it was a dry, solid grey, and where the grey had spread, the bandage was as porous as ash.

While I was poking at it (naturally), the door opened, and the reedy being from before walked in, placed a wooden plate laden with... something on a free spot of the table, looked at me, raised one of its three eyebrows, and then walked over to Erci's bed.

It laid a claw gently on his forehead, and closed two of its eyes, the third gaining an otherworldly focus as it peered down at Erci's drooling face.

It held the expression for a moment, blinked, and walked out after gesturing toward the plate. I hesitantly looked at something... sort of fluffy, and Raven swooped by my face. She cackled and snatched it up, flying to the top of a wardrobe, and began tearing it to pieces.

"So it's food, then?"

She paused for a moment, tilted her head to the side, and shot me a look.

I looked back.

Our stalemate was broken by the appearance of the octopus-being. It squeezed in through the door and settled the free corner, then held up one of its tentacles - one which I now saw was made out of segmented metal, moving like the others. Curious.

Then, it spoke. I reflexively flinched back, but there was no static this time - it spoke actual english. Broken english, but english nonetheless.

"No harm wish. Nourish yes?"

I blinked once, before snapping out of it and answering.

"Yes, it's good. Thank you, ... ehm. Who are you?"

" I named-" a string of static, "-excuses. I not harm wish, but... mistake? Happen. Excuses."

"No harm done. What... what happens now?"

"You tell I. Not know why you here... or why alive."

Well that's creepy.

"What do you mean?"

It looked... confused for a moment, before making a deep sigh. Yet another very familiar expression.

"You not... entire here. You restrained. Is why you fall... down? Fall down."

"Well, can you remove this... restraint?"

"I not. Excuses. But know one. You wish?"

"Is there a downside?"

It looked melancholic.

"Yes, many. Can go back?"

"No! No. I'm sorry, but no."

"Understand. You wish to not restrained?"

"Yes, yes I do. Please."

"Yes. I call one. He too?"

"Erci? I don't know... Erci! Wake up!"

He immediately sat up, straightened, and surveyed the room, eyes locking on the being.

"Amy? What's going on?"

"This... person just told me that we are 'restrained', which is why we 'fall down' all the time. I told him I'd like to not be. Would you like to be free as well?"

"You woke me up from an amazing dream for that? Are you daft? Of course I want to! Do you think I enjoy pain? Hello, by the way"

I turned toward the being, which nodded at Erci’s greeting.

"He wants to. Be free, I mean."

"Yes. Call one who can. Back soon - not prison."

And then it squeezed out the door once more, which remained open a crack, perhaps to drive home the point.

"You know, Erci, we've seen some crazy shit, but I think this tops it all."

"Indeed it does, Amelia, indeed it does."

***

Some time later, we'd tried and eaten all that was edible on the small tablet. The bowl of eyes had remained untouched, and so had the liquid smelling of defroster, but the strange bread was good, and Erci really liked deep fried spiders for some reason.

"This is a national delicacy! You're insulting fae culture with your words!"

I found our stuff in the wardrobe, and decided to leave most of it there. After all, if they wanted to steal it, they’d had ample time to do so, and maybe it was time for a little trust. Erci did strap his spear to his back, though. I didn't take my sword - couldn't use it in any case. All the beings had been more wary of the Worldstone than my sword, anyway. And that one didn't leave my hand, even with my permission.

The building was wooden, and obviously built by someone without any sort of architectural knowledge - rooms were apparently tacked on, and the doors were all different shapes. The one to our room was slightly slanted on top, which I now knew was because the roof was right above our heads and slanted in the same way.

Eventually, I found the original room, and the reedy being did its claw-stare thing again, frowning when it finished with me. I tried asking, but it mimed to its mouth and then shook its head. Probably didn't speak any kind of english.

Erci, Raven and I sat around a round table toward one corner, swapping observations about the beings here last time, and Erci surprised me with something I hadn't noticed then: Most of them had some sort of metal limb, or something metallic at the side of their head (or head-like bulge), or a variety of metal parts shining underneath their coverings.

When I described to him the coiling motion the ball of eyes had done, we were interrupted by the doors opening, which admitted the octopus-being from before, as well as a stranger.

The stranger was peculiar, resembling the pile of cloth in that they were covered by a large sheet moving on its own, but I quickly realized that it wasn't the same species as the one before had been. It was floating above the ground, the cloth actually a garment, and the motion was caused by a myriad of limbs moving underneath the strips of cloth. Some of those were coiling as though weightless, but this was mostly restricted to those closest to the floor.

When it entered, their hood instantly turned away from the octopus, who was whispering something to it in static, and faced us. Inside the hood was mostly darkness, pierced by seven points of light arranged like a flower. The central point became larger when its gaze shifted toward my right hand, which was on the table, but the octopus-being quickly whipped out one of its tentacles and dragged the being's hood toward itself. It spoke in aggressive tones, and the stranger became much more mellow.

It drifted over, the octopus in tow.

"You wish for freedom, leglings?" It asked in a voice like an open grave.

"Yes." said Erci and I simultaneously.