Gadgorak ducked behind the double doors and motioned for Teif and Kranen to hide behind the other door opposite him, on the other side of the hallway. The hooting, gibbering Orthoridawgs ambled down the hallway sniffing the air, sensing their prey. They came closer, closer. Gadgorak tensed up, but saw Kranen and Teif studying him, looking to him for what they should do. He shrugged at them, and pointed to his eyes, then motioned in the direction of the approaching Orthoridawgs. He readied his proton-weapon in his hands, his fingers tight upon the handlebar grip in the middle. How would the particle streams from the weapons interact with regular, organic matter, like that of the Orthoridawgs?

There was only one way to find out. Unfortunately, that meant shooting—though the Orthoridawgs had no weapons other than crescent-shaped bone knives and long, iron spears, so that was a plus—and alerting possibly even more of the creatures to their presence. One thing was certain: Where there were two or three Orthoridawgs, there were probably dozens more waiting somewhere close. He could feel sweat beading on his skin, a dry taste in his mouth as he swallowed—hard. These things could rip a small car in half with their brute strength and they could outrun a polar bear, even an angry one. And they specifically hunted Humans especially. It occurred to Gadgorak—not for the first time—that they were not the first explorers to enter the Castle to vie with the forces within for Dràchynthýr. All he had to do, in order to verify this, was look down; there were human bones at his feet. A skull, a femur, and part of a ribcage. They still had blood on them . . . which meant the Orthoridawgs had lain in wait for explorers, or, even creepier to think about, was the possibility that they had gone out hunting during the night. If they had, then they had probably seen—and been frightened by—their torches and their fire. That was the one thing they were extremely afraid of—fire. That and bright light. Who knows, thought Gadgorak, perhaps our campfire had saved our lives last night and this morning.

The sheer, daunting, excessively depressing, and terrifying oppressiveness of this place—and the memories of Gadget’s it awoke—distracted Gadgorak; played tricks on his logic he kept having to catch. He didn’t like the way he felt in this place, and had started feeling since they’d walked in; sad, bitter, angry, resentful, mean-spirited, and, he now had an overwhelming desire to just give. Up.. This place evoked a special kind of maliciousness and a blistering, visceral, blood-curdling species of fear. Boundaries had been crossed in this place=; and he wasn’t simply thinking about poor Gadget’s territorial bubble, either. Stranded between two very different worlds, this place bridged universes as nature had never intended. Whoever—whatever—had constructed this Castle had done so knowing that explorers would come. They probably had even known that the Lady Desirée Discordia would send him here on a quest for Dràchynthýr. They had known about the battle with the Wraiths ahead of time; and they knew, right now, what his fate was be if—if—he twisted the handlebar-grip of this weapon’s hose-connected wand. The only question remaining was—was whoever, or whatever, had architected this place . . . were they good, or evil? What were their intentions? Either way.

Well wait a second, thought Gadgorak. If this Castle breaches and connects two different universes, then is any true knowledge of what happens here even possible?

And with that thought, his analysis-paralysis ended, he stepped out into the hallway, facing the Orthoridawgs, flicked on the power switch on the side of his proton weapon’s wand, and let it rip.

The particle-stream struck the first Orthoridawg in the chest and then the beast simply . . . exploded. Blood, scraps of skin, bits of viscera, a slew of offal, shards of bone . . . and a stench so foul it would drive even vultures insane. The other two Orthoridawg’s screeched and ran . . . just as soon as he heard Teif scream as one of them grabbed her from out of nowhere—literally, it had come out of no visible space around them, anywhere—and flung her over its shoulder and began to lope away from them. Kranen screamed, and that was when Gadgorak turned to see Teif grit her teeth, pull an arrow free of her quiver, and slam it’s pointed head into the Orthoridawg’s lower back. The creature dropped her, and quickly, screaming with pain—a freakishly human scream—and flailing as blood poured from the wound. As Teif got to her feet, Kranen stepped out to deal with the three that had just, again, come from nowhere at all. He used his proton weapon, and the high-energy stream of glowing energy slammed into the nearest Orthoridawg’s chest and burned a smoldering, smelly hole through it. The Orthoridawg dropped. But while Gadgorak had watched all this unfold, the two creatures who were the first’s companions each grabbed hold of him. His proton weapon’s wand clattered to the ground and gave off a grinding noise as sparks flew from it as it scraped over the tile floor.

He heard Kranen stop Teif from opening fire with her proton weapon. But what she couldn’t unleash in nuclear hellfire, she sure as hell let loose with arrow after arrow jamming into the Orthoridawgs’ backs. They fell over dead at the tenth arrow in each, and Gadgorak fell to the floor and scrambled to pick up his proton weapon’s wand. But another Orthoridawg appeared and kicked it away, ripping its power-cable—the one running to the backpack unit—out of its socket. Yellow sparks flew and smoke rose from the wound in the thing. Teif screamed again. Gadgorak swiftly turned to look; three Orthoridawgs had them—Kranen by the waist, Teif by the hands and feet. Her weapon’s wand drug on the ground beneath her as the Tyrocs tried to carry them away. Meanwhile, Gadgorak had to deal with the one in front of him. He heard Kranen kicking up a fuss, and then there came an explosion of bright blue light and a brief but sweltering wind. His weapon’s wand had exploded. Quickly, he draw a dagger from within his cloak, just as—

The Orthoridawg in front of Gadgorak kicked him in the face. He felt his nose break and felt blood running from it, a kind of dull numb feeling piled atop of a head-thickening ache. He had barely recovered when the Orthoridawg hit him again, this time with its left fist. He went stumbling to the side, blood—and a tooth—flying free of his mouth with no small amount of pain felt.

And then he saw it out of the corner of his eye—a spider, huge and fat, and with three eyes, descended from the ceiling.

A squirming terror filled Gadgorak as he saw it drop from the ceiling on a single thin line of webbing near where he stood. He jerked away from it in horror—God, why this old fear? Why now?—and the Orthoridawg had him. It grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up. The spider jumped up onto his pant leg. Gadget could feel it there, big as a softball, heavy, glowing a with. A slight hint of green light; radiation . . . and sticking to his leg. He cried out, then, as the spider bit through his pants and its fangs sank into his skin. His mouth gaped in a frozen “O” of cataclysmic fear and pain. The Orthoridawg whirled him around by the throat and thrusted him up against a row of lockers aligned on the left side of the hallway’s wall. The impact shook his. Bones. The spider quickly dropped off Gadgorak’s leg and one of the other, nearby Orthoridawgs stepped on it, squishing it into jelly. He had to face the notion that this was where the quest ended—with him and the others dead. The one holding him was simply too strong for him, too powerful, too—

And then suddenly, so was he. He felt a surge of intense, electric, enlivening power ripple through his veins and muscles, and every sinew and fibre of his being. He looked down at the Orthoridawg, reared back, and punched it in the head. To his surprise, the Orthoridawg dropped him immediately, and retreated, hooting and screeching as it did so, and looked at him with a stunned kind of confusion on its face. Gadget thrust out his leg and spun around at the same time, and his boot’s steel toe connected with the Orthoridawg’s ribs; he heard a satisfying crunching noise.

But how? How had he gotten the drop on it. It slowly dawned on him that he was faster than it was, now, as well as stronger. What else could he do now?

The Orthoridawg loped to the side, clutching its broken ribs, and then ran at him, attempting to bear hug him into submission. Gadgorak thrust out his palm straight ahead of him, and when his skin hit the slimy fur of the creature’s face, its nose crackled and broke and it screamed in pain. Gadgorak, acting purely on what he supposed was somehow his instinct, marched forward and kicked the Orthoridawg in the crotch. It visibly lifted up off the ground for a brief second, then fell over, curled up and writhing in pain. Gadgorak acted on the next instinct, which told him, simply:

Climb.

He turned to the wall full of lockers and experimentally pressed his fingertips to the metal and concrete. He felt the burrs extend from his flesh and sink into the metal and stone. So he also put the other set of fingertips there too, on the opposite side, and they as well stuck there, like glue. He smiled in simple amazement and began to climb up the wall. When he reached the ceiling, he kicked off his boots with some effort, and stuck his fingers to the irregular ceiling tiles, as well.

“Ha!” he blurted. He hefted his lower body up into the air—it was extremely surprising, the ease with which the move came to him—and his toes stuck to the ceiling as well, the burrs extending from his skin, through his socks, and into the tiles. He crawled along the ceiling and then he saw the Orthoridawgs dragging Teif and Kranen away. He instinctively—once again—thrust out his arm toward them and a blast of something sticky and fluid flew out of a slit in his skin near the wrist, and flew toward them and the Orthoridawgs at a blistering pace. As it flew, it expanded into what it truly was: Spider-webbing. The webbing caught on the head of one of the Orthoridawgs holding Teif captive—the one holding her by the arms—and it dropped her. She immediately rolled to the side and kicked the one carrying her feet in the stomach, and then sprang to her feet and put an arrow in the neck of the Orthoridawg carrying Kranen. They both looked at Gadgorak as if to say, How in the world . . . ?

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

But he had no time. Just as he opened his mouth to answer their unspoken questions, from around the corner behind them there came a fierce wave of Orthoridawgs—over a dozen and a half of them—all weilding their stone knives and iron spears, all hooting triumphantly and cawing, and whistling. Teif and Kranen took one glance at each other, and then they were off running toward where Gadgorak lurked, crawling on the ceiling. Then they stopped, and stared at him in both surprise and confusion.

“Guys!” he yelled. “Get out of the way! Move to the side! Now!”

Teif and Kranen exchanged another glance, mutually shrugged, and retreated to the left and right rows of lockers that lined the hallway, as the crowd of Orthoridawgs came at them, only twelve feet—and closing—behind them. Gadgorak dropped from the ceiling—again, somehow instinctively letting go of it—whirled himself around in the air quickly, and then landed on his feet, facing Teif, Kranen, and the onslaught of Orthoridawgs. He raised both his arms out in front of him and tilted his palms upward; and then he concentrated. No sooner thought, then done: Two twining, spiraling spurts of viscous fluid erupted from his wrists—he felt the stuff leaving his body—and swirled through the air like loosed fishing lines toward the Orthoridawgs. And as it did, of course, the individual strands expanded, then expanded some more—it became like he was simply watching all this, the motion of it all slowed down by some trick of perception—and finally exploded into huge sticky cobwebs that wrapped itself around the Orthoridawgs and stopped them in their tracks. The whole crowd of them fell over, trapped in Gadgorak’s webbing.

“Huh,” he said, staring at his wrists.

Kranen and Teif headed toward the Orthoridawgs, when Kranen tripped over something. He turned to look at what it was. Gadgorak could see—that was another weird thing; how his senses were all tightly attenuated now—that it was a small black cylinder, much longer than it was in circumference, with a switch on the side and decorative ribbing near the top. Kranen, curious, picked it up, and then he smiled broadly. He looked to Teif, then to Gadgorak.

“I know this,” said Kranen. “Don’t ask me how I know it, but I know it all the same.” He tilted the cylinders top-ribbing away from him and depressed the switch on its side. A bright shaft of burning, neon-yellow light emerged from the cylinder, and then simply stopped once it had grown to a length of just less than three feet. A sword. A sword made of light. Yes, that did ring a strong bell of familiarity. Somewhere in Gadgorak’s head, Gadget took notice and before he knew it, he too was grinning.

Kranen raised the light-sword into the air—it made a somehow-satisfying whirring hum as he whisked it to and fro, trying it out—and then he headed toward the captive Orthoridawgs. As did Teif. He hacked off half a dozen screeching heads and limbs as Teif put arrows into the rest of them. And then, all was silent.

“Okay,” said Kranen, marching toward Gadgorak, “Now tell me. How.”

“I got bitten by a radioactive spider,” said Gadgorak, shrugging. “I guess some of its nature rubbed off on me. That’s familiar to me, too, though I don’t know why or how or whatever, but yes, that idea is now fixed in my—no, in Gadget’s—head. And in mine.”

“Well,” said Teif, huffing for breath, and with only three arrow left in her quiver, “let’s not question miracles, shall we?”

“No,” said Gadgorak. Then he blurted out, unable to control his own babbling mouth: “Thank Stan the Man for them, though. And Uncle George. Words from Gadget’s world, I think. Not ours. Wait—what’s this?”

A vial of glowing-blue liquid—an elixir of some sort—lying on the floor. The glass bottle the liquid dewelled in, swishing viscously, as though alive, also had a glass stopper in it, and someone had shaped like a thing he knew that Gadget would call “an Erlenmeyer Flask,” though small enough to fit in one’s pocket or bag of holding’s opening. Gadgorak dropped to the floor, landing on his feet, and picked it up, and shook it. The liquid reacted violently, but remained contained.

“Here, Teif,” said Gadgorak, handing it to her. “Put this in your bag of holding. Who knows, we may have need of it later.”

Teif and Kranen again exchanged a glance and a shrug, and they moved onward, up the stairs and onto the next level of the Castle.

At the top of the two-level, triple-wide staircase, they all there halted. There, before them, stood another person—a man, by the look of him. He had a strong, wide-shouldered, muscular build and powerful-seeming arms, and had dressed himself in a uniform, with shining silver buttons and stars, a uniform of some unknown kind of military officer, or—

It’s a Nazi uniform, whispered Gadget’s mind to his. He’s dressed like a Nazi Commander, or something.

The man looked normal . . . almost. Except for the fact that where his neck ended and his head began, the “head” that sprouted forth appeared as a flaming-scarlet skull, sans nostrils and lips and flesh; only his eye-sockets were not empty or on fire. His eyeballs somehow “glowed” black, with red-shining irises in them, as the man scowled pure hatred at them, pure malice. He did not move nor speak. But he was in their way and did not look friendly, and that was all Gadgorak—or the others— cared about.

“You are trespassing here,” he said, in a thick German accent, his voice low and resonant, so much so that the metal of the lockers—and the glass in the classroom doors—on either side of him trembled when he spoke. “Go back from whence thou cameth. Now. Or I will be forced . . . to destroy you!”

Teif reached backward quick as a flash and put an arrow in his forehead. His red-irised eyes crossed, blood pouring down his already crimson face, and he dropped to the ground, dead.

“Wow, that was easy,” said Kranen. “I wonder what he meant by that threat if he couldn’t back it up, though? I—”

And then a few seconds of time answered his question. Striding down the hallway—where it had not been before—and crunching the Nazi’s body with a gigantic crunching and crackling noise with its enormous claws—was a three-headed hydra. Each of its heads was identical to that of the skull-being they had just faced . . . except for the fact that the heads’ mouths breathed plumes of fire straight toward them. Thankfully, each spurt of flame had a limited range, and faded after only a few seconds.

“Oh great,” moaned Kranen. “Just great. That’s all we needed.”

“Uh, guys?”” Said Teif. “That thing isn’t slowing. And if you hadn’t noticed, its eyes are glowing white. It’s enchanted somehow. I vote we run like hell.”

“Seconded,” said Gadgorak. “But not from it. Toward it, and then around that corner over there that corridor leads to the adjoining hallway like this one; Gadget knows, so I know. Now go! Quick! Before it reaches us!”

“Not while I’m in the Wizard in this party!” Said Kranen angrily. “I’ve just about had it with this place!” He stalked forward, and flicked the side-switch on the cylinder, switching on the lightning-sword. Its blazing blade emerged once more, sparking and crackling and humming with energy. It lit the gloom around them, a bright torch made of iridescent yellow laser-fire. He whisked it back over his shoulder into a striking position, and ran toward the fire-breathing hydra—all of whose heads looked exactly like that of the crimson-headed guy that Teif had just felled. He gave a yell, and then swished his laser-sword through the air, chopping off two of the hydra’s five heads. Immediately, four bumps formed on its neck-region, which—with sickening cracking and oozing sounds—soon grew into slime-covered replicas of the two heads Kranen had just cut off. These kept growing, like evil blossoms on vines, until in place of the heads he had sawed off, four now stood. Now the thing had seven heads.

“Well, shit,” said Kranen. He dodged out of the way and did a roll as one then another of the heads breathed fire at him, and crouched around the corner from the wall of lockers, pressed close to it, so that the hydra couldn't see him. It probably wasn’t that stupid though. Oddly enough, the hydra did not move. It did not attack. Kranen took advantage of the opening. He closed his eyes, held one hand above another, and in his mind he wove a Chaos Ball—a ball of purple, glimmering flame that hovered between his hands, about a foot in diameter—and then whipped around the corner and thew it at the hydra. The Chaos Ball landed against the creature’s heads, and it screamed in agony and—no doubt—confusion, as that’s what Chaos Balls were designed to create. Kranen took advantage of its distraction to run back to Gadgorak and Teif. Huffing for breath, he said:

“Damn that thing is made of sturdy stuff!” said Kranen, shaking his head. “Also my head full of monsters must have lost a page or two—at first I couldn’t identify what that thing was. Problem is, now I remember: It’a a Hydra, and they’re very rare. Hardly anyone has ever seen one, and there were only drawings in the one small book I once managed to obtain. So now what do we do, boss?”

“Try another fireball, or use lightning on it,” said Gadgorak. “Let’s see if we can get it to come at us, and then we’ll split up and head for its sides, and try to squeeze through. There isn’t room enough here for it to turn around on us.”

“Aye, cap’n,” said Kranen. He got into a fighting stance and raised his right hand upward, and lowered his left, forming a forward-facing arch with his arms. He curled his fingers into fists. Closed his eyes, concentrated. And then—

“Hey-ya!” Kranen let loose the chi energy in his scream as from his fingertips, bright blue arcs of lightning leapt from him, to the Hydra’s heads, and from them back to his fingers. The Hydra howled in agony and backed up a few paces as Kranen kept up the attack. The monster retreated even more, clearing—they could now see—the entrance to a connective corridor that branched off to the right of the hallway.

“Keep it up Kranen!” yelled Gadgorak. “Teif! Now!” She and he both ran for the corridor. The Hydra breathed fire at them and Teif cried out as the flame grazed her shoulder and she tripped, and fell. Gadgorak stopped and helped her to her feet. They stepped back, into the corridor, watching as the Hydra now advanced toward Kranen. Uh oh. Big flaw in plan. Gadgorak handed the remains of his detached proton-weapon’s wand to Teif. “Here,” he said, “fix this for me; I can’t reach back there.”

“Roger that,” said Teif. She took the wand from him and worked to reattach the vacuum hose that led to the backpack unit. She worked for a few moments, twisting wires around each other, holding a bolt in her mouth before screwing it back in, and concentrating, as she tried her best to remember how these things had gone together. Finally, just she was about to give up in frustration, the lights on the backpack unit and wand began to glow again. First flickering, then steadily. “Yes!” She said. “You’re good to go!”

“Roger that,” said Gadgorak. He powered on the wand. “But I’m not going to use this to attack the Hydra.”

“Well,” said Teif, “what’re you gonna do?”

“Okay, listen to me carefully,” he said.