Bert found himself in an entryway of sorts. It was a singular circular room with the opening a few meters above in the center of a small dome. Looking around showed nothing but smooth walls with no apparent way out.

His grappling hook would easily reach, but it did hint at what kind of temple this might be.

Anyone coming in this way was not intended to leave.

The singular exit from the room was a simple arch with no markings or adornments of any kind. He spent a few minutes looking for anything like carvings or traps and then stepped gingerly through the gap.

Nothing tried to kill him, so he summoned one of his trusty trap sticks and started tapping his way forward with all due care and attention.

He seemed to be in a carved, seamless passageway. It was the same size and shape as the arch he had come through, and it continued around the corner ahead of him and into the distance. He was also pretty sure it was heading down.

“Just once,” He muttered to himself, “Could I explore something on the surface?”

However, he immediately changed his mind when he looked at his prosthetic arm.

That had happened as a result of an exploration above ground. The bloody dwarfs had booby-trapped the place, and if not for the magic of this world and his strange class, he would be the one-armed man. Bert eyed the roof suspiciously.

If he saw so much as a single one of the weird square dwarf murals, he was out of here.

Definitely.

The floor continued to slope downwards, and he was just starting to wonder if he was imagining it or if it was getting steeper when he felt his foot slide out from under him.

Windmilling his arms, Bert began to slide as both feet lost traction. He slipped forward and saw the telltale glint of moisture on the rose marble walls.

And the floor.

The slope got steeper as he began to slide faster.

“Ah, bollocks!” Bert said as he felt the wind begin to whip by him. A second later, he crashed down on his ass after bouncing off one glistening pink wall.

Bert struggled to control his slide, trying to brace his feet against the walls as they slipped past did next to nothing; they were as slick as the floor itself. He tried to turn sideways, bracing his hands on one side and his feet on the other, which only succeeded in spinning him around to face the other way.

And the slope was still getting steeper.

Swearing and cursing, Bert rolled onto his shield and rose to his knees. After a few careful moves, he was at least facing the right way again. He changed his hand into an axe and tried to use it as a break, but it didn’t help much.

Giving up on that as the spiraling turns began to tighten even more, Bert changed his prosthetic into a grappling hook and waited.

Lowering himself to keep hold of his shield with one hand and remaining on his knees, Bert cycled the tides until his exposed skin glowed enough to lighten the area around him.

This slide couldn’t go on forever, and he somehow doubted the end would be something he wanted to be a surprise.

He was proved right a moment later when he felt more than saw himself soar out over empty air. Bert didn’t hesitate, lighting his shield up and expanding the magical form to its maximum size as he dropped into the darkness.

The glowing shield blazed in the darkness, showing a set of jagged rocks below as he plummeted into the depths.

Charging the grappling hook with mana to increase its cutting power, he fired it at the darkness around him. There had to be walls there, even if he couldn’t see them.

He felt the grapple stick, the rope went taught, and his trajectory changed. He swung now, falling still towards the spines of rock reaching up towards him. Bert activated the turn runes on the grapple return and crossed his fingers it would be fast enough.

Watching the jagged spines of rock approach was not fun, but at last, he felt himself stop falling down and swung forward.

He cheered, only to see more spines reaching for him from the cavern's wall.

“Fuck!” Bert swore and let the grapple release a little more rope. His mana shield skipped and bumped along the top of the spikes, snapping them off as he slowed.

He was still going too fast, so he let out more rope and slammed his shield against each spike he hit, dropping speed.

The nearest spines on the wall seemed to rush at him, and he realized he wasn’t going to make it like this.

“I fucking hate this place!” Bert roared as he tucked himself into a ball and pulled the grapple free.

Bert tumbled into the gap between the nearest spines of rock, clutching his shield close. Impacts against this armor seemed to come from all sides as he fought to keep himself tightly rolled.

A single mistake could result in having a jagged piece of rock cut off a limb or worse.

“Fuck!” His shoulder armor turned aside the tip of a razor-sharp shard of rock, “You!” Something dug into the back of his heel and snapped off there; Bert felt warm blood begin to flow as his whole leg seemed to explode in pain. “Dagon!”

He lost his air as his whole body slammed into the floor, bouncing like a pinball between the bases of the spires of rock.

Bert pulled the spine of jagged black rock out of his leg and cast reclaim flesh using a small carcass from his bracer storage. His head was still ringing slightly from the last impact, and he tapped his pot helm fondly.

The cavern floor seemed to be made of the same rose-pink marble as the rest of the place, but the black spines of rock that pushed through it were everywhere.

“Bell could have flown,” Bert sighed. “She will never let me forget that.”

Not telling her would never occur to him. Secrets, even small ones, could be poison to any relationship. That went double for dating a pixie with a fondness for sharp implements.

Leaning his back against the nearest black stone spike, Bert took a moment to eat something, as well as to have a drink of water.

What kind of a temple was this? The quest said the Lost Temple, so it had to be a temple, at least originally. If something had happened to it, and the black spikes of stone certainly didn’t look like original features, then what?

Even without the spikes, that fall would have killed anyone. A sacrificial pit of some sort? They normally had some kind of ritual or similar involved.

Waiting for the sacrifices to rain from the sky seemed like it would ruin the most dedicated of rituals.

What if someone missed the circle? Not that he could see a circle or really anything of the cavern with all this black stone around.

Bert tested his foot carefully as he stood, finding it was definitely mended, and headed towards the nearest wall.

He kept his shield illuminated as he worked his way between the spires. It created huge, shifting shadows of the spires as he moved, which was anything but comforting, but it was better than creeping around blindly.

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And he would be blind without it.

He had not seen a spec of light since he walked through the archway far above.

“Isn’t there supposed to be some kind of helpfully glowing moss or some shit?” he muttered as he finally saw the wall of the cavern.

The spires jutting from the floor and wall left a reasonable amount of space, just enough to walk in, around the base of the wall, so he turned and began to walk.

The strange thing about walking along, all alone, far below the ground in near-pitch darkness was that besides the crushing sense of loneliness and vulnerability, there was also a meditative quality to it.

When was the last time he really got time alone to think? Pixies only did alone time when they wanted it, and there always seemed to be something to do. A new town, a bonkers gardener, a delusional family of overactors, and an other-dimensional being playing at being a King. Bert had a complex life.

Bert found it almost peaceful as the silence was broken only by the soft sound of his footsteps.

It would certainly be more peaceful than telling Bell he had gone to a brothel. Bert chuckled to himself at that.

The strange thing was that as busy and eventful as his life was these days, he wasn’t alone. He liked having all these people around him, counting on him, needing his help, trusting him.

Sure, the weight of the responsibility could feel crushing at times, but it was worth it.

All of it.

It was even worth everything he had been through with that stalker Felicia. The more he walked, the more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t wait to get out of this place and back into his crazy, magic, and lunatic life.

He grinned in the darkness and began to jog.

=========

The exit, when he found it, was not exactly welcoming. A portal sat in a small recess in the wall of the cavern. It rippled with a faint pink light, like the surface of a pond. Bert walked around it a few times before poking the end of one of his trap sticks through it.

It was still intact when he pulled it back, which he took as a good sign. Next, he wrapped the stick in his Canary Vine, poked it through the portal, and held it there for a moment, waggling it about. It was still alive, healthy, and happy-looking when he pulled it back out. Putting it back on his shoulder where he could keep an eye on it, Bert took out the corpse of a small deer-like creature that he kept for emergencies and tied a length of rope around it.

He then heaved it through the portal as hard as he could before dragging it slowly back, jerking it occasionally.

It came back looking uneaten and unmolested.

Right, so he had checked for traps, bad air, poisons, and even predators.

That was the best he could do, really.

Well….

Bert grabbed onto the rim of the portal and gently pushed one arm through, quickly pulling it back out.

Nothing.

Finally, he stuck his head through to have a look before he…

“What are you doing?” A polite voice called.

Bert screamed and yanked his head back.

After calming himself, Bert stepped through the portal and into what looked like a waiting room in a doctor’s office.

A pointy-eared woman with delicate pink skin and wings, dark hair, and horns sat primly behind the counter at the far end of the room, safely ensconced behind a sheet of what looked like glass; she raised her eyebrows in question.

“Uh, Hi?” Bert tried, eyeing the blood trail and drag marks on the otherwise clean rose marble floor.

“Greetings, may I help you?” She asked.

“Sorry, a little confused here,” Bert admitted. “I was exploring a lost temple?”

“Can you offer me any more information?” She asked, running her finger down a page in what looked to him like a ledger.

“Not really,” Bert admitted. “I know I was told what that world was called once, but I didn’t really pay attention at the time.”

“That was a poor choice, sir.” The receptionist gave him a sniffy look.

“I had recently had my head repeatedly torn off, discovered immortals, and was being stalked by one of them,” Bert pointed out.

“Hardly an excuse for poor attention to detail.” She sighed. “Can you tell me anything about the temple?”

“Well, it’s made of rose marble, is underground, and has a pink tunnel that gets really slippery and then a massive cavern that drops you onto black spikes.” Bert summarised.

The receptionist huffed.

“That is not a pink tunnel; it is the entryway to Hell,” She glared at him, “And it does not drop you if you can fly,” She motioned with her wings. “Have you ever considered NOT sticking yourself into every hole in the ground you come to?”

“Frequently,” Bert said, with feeling, “But I was given a quest by this multidimensional entity pretending to be a King called Dagon.” He shrugged. “He has something I need, so….”

“Hmmm,” The receptionist laced her fingers together and stared at him. “You certainly don’t seem to have wings. How did you survive the spikes?”

“Grappling hook. Why?” He asked.

“We might have to consider upgrading to better protections in the future.” She narrowed her eyes. “Do you consider this to be the start of any sort of religious war, invasion, coup, or other armed attack on his realm?”

“No,” Bert said. “Can I just say that Hell is not quite how I imagined.”

“What world are you from?” She asked with a dramatic sigh.

“Earth,” Bert said.

The receptionist dug through a file cabinet for a moment and then consulted a thin file.

“Ah, yes,” She laughed, “We were contracted there as prison guards for a God. It seems the locals became somewhat overwrought.”

“Just a little,” Bert admitted.

“Well, Earthling,” She asked, “Feeling any crusader urges?”

“No, thanks,” Bert said lamely. “I would like to ask a few questions, however?”

She waved for him to go on.

“You are a demon?” He asked, feeling stupid even as he said it.

“As you would understand the term, yes,” She grinned, revealing sharp tips on every tooth in her mouth,

“From what you said, I assume you undertake mercenary work?” Bert asked.

“We do, yes,” She nodded. “It is our chief export and industry. Do you know any cross-world beings who would like to hire our services?”

“No, sorry,” Bert thought. “Do you eat souls? I know it seems a weird question…” He felt a proper prat even as he said it, but you had to ask, right?”

“No!” She laughed, “Souls can not be consumed. By anyone.”

“Good to know,” Bert smiled. He had to ask, right? Speaking of which…. “Okay, this is kind of related, but… is there such a thing as a sex demon, succubus, incubus, and such?”

The receptionist blushed, going from a pale pink to crimson.

“Never mind!” Bert really wished he hadn’t said anything then, “Sorry!”

“Where do people come up with these things?” She fanned herself with a stack of papers.

“Uh,” Bert thought about it. “Their priests not being allowed to have sex probably had a lot to do with it,” He grinned awkwardly.

“Oh,” She laughed, “One of those worlds. That might explain it.”

Bert sat in one of the comfortable chairs, pink, of course, and waited while the receptionist summoned a historian to examine the entrance and see if there was anything on file about it.

A delicate music was playing. A classical version of Muzak if he was any judge. That strange, nothing music that is just short of enjoyable enough to drive you crazy after a while.

A wizened old demon came in after a short wait; he walked with a cane and wore a vaguely Asian-pacific-looking outfit that suited him well. Long white hair grew from just about everywhere except the top of his head.

In short, he looked like Satan’s grandad, who had moved to Korea for his retirement and absorbed the culture a little. Despite his advanced age, he moved quickly and had a quick wit that made Bert laugh a lot as he described his journey in the temple.

Once they passed through the portal and back into the temple itself, the old man tapped a simple rhythm against the rose marble, which caused all the marbling to light up from within. It was like watching a sunrise, only the light never turned to a warm yellow. The pinks and pale oranges of the marbling remained while it revealed the entire cavern and even the passage far above.

It was impressive if somewhat ruined by the spires of black rock jutting out from all angles.

They talked for a while, and the old demon took a few readings.

“Just an old entrance we had almost forgotten about,” The demon said with a bored tone, “Not much to this world anymore. None of the gods or goddesses like to hire outside their own followers.” He shook his head. “Truly a pity. No one respects honest mercs anymore.”

“I have to ask,” Bert said, “What do you charge?”

“Oh, didn’t anyone tell you?” He shook his head, “Damn, younglings never remember. We charge in mana, of course. It’s good everywhere.” He looked at the entrance and sighed again. “Well, I don’t suppose there is much use for this place anymore, but we might as well leave it open, at least for now.” He gestured to Bert to come closer as if he was imparting a secret. “We don’t really bother with the places without the Fae if the Gods don’t look likely to hire. Only the Fae can afford us, broken bastards that they are, with unlimited mana.”

“The Fae are back in this world,” Bert added with a grin.

“Oh, I don’t suppose they need an army?” The old man looked hopeful.

“Not at the moment,” Bert said, “But it’s always good to know where to get one.”

“Could you perhaps convey our availability to the local Fae, or even better, a Lord or Lady of the courts?”

“You just have,” Bert said. “I’m Lord of the Court of the Travelling Lands.”

The old demon looked him over with a careful eye. Then his eyes lit up, and he grabbed his hand and began to pump it up an down with joy.

“Delighted to meet you!”

“Thanks,” Bert said, feeling himself flush slightly. “We are a new Court, still growing.”

“I must give you a stone!” The old demon dug through one of his pouches with enthusiasm before pressing a deep red ruby carved into a horn shape into Bert’s hands. “If you ever need urgent help, just call on this. We can send up to a hundred warriors in under fifteen seconds!”

“No shit? Really?” Bert grinned. “Cheers.”

“My pleasure, young man.” He preened. “Imagine that, I meet a Lord on the up and up!” He laughed. “Henrietta is just going to hate herself for leaving you waiting.”

“She was a great help, really.” Bert insisted. “So, any tips on how I get out of here?”