I sighed.

Angel, this was mortifying.

That was one of the details I hadn’t shared with Kreston when we’d done our mind-meld, because it made me feel embarrassed. Unfortunately, now that I was in a mind-world other than my own, I no longer had the ability to mind-meld, so, I had to answer Kreston’s questions the old fashioned way.

If only provided protection against ‘cringe’…

We traveled along the river’s edge, careful to steer clear of the geysers erupting from the water where the paint-waterfalls poured into it. We tried our best to ignore the pungent stench and the occasional explosions.

“So…” Kreston asked, after I’d finished my explanation, “what class are you?”

“Cleric,” I said.

The boy smiled. “Oh, I get it, it’s because you’re a doctor, right?”

“Yes,” I mumbled.

“Mr. Genneth,” Andalon said, “why are your face-sides turning apple color?”

Obviously, I didn’t answer that.

“I think Oracle is better,” Kreston said, “it’s a spontaneous—”

“—Yes, yes, I know,” I said, “Oracles are spontaneous casters, and min-max builds generally favor spontaneous casting because blah blah blah blah.”

Traveling down the river, we eventually came across a narrow tunnel in the canyon wall. Though I had no problem entering it, Kreston was having some trouble with his wings.

He yelped in pain as his wings scraped against the stone.

Waving my hand over him, I muttered a spell command under my breath.

“.”

I felt the nigh-indescribable feeling of one of my spell-slots getting used up as a shimmering, watery blue, egg-shaped forcefield appeared around Kreston, insulating him against physical damage, and lubricating his attempts to squeeze into—and through—the slot canyon. As an added bonus, the energy field chipped some of the rock away from either side of the side-canyon’s opening, enabling Kreston to stumble through.

It also cushioned his fall when he fell flat on his face.

“Mind the claws,” I said, as I reached out to help him up.

He (and Andalon) gawked at the energy field around them.

“Did you just cast Armor of Faith?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yes, yes I did.”

I groaned.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I sighed. “I’m scared and embarrassed. I could handle one of those, but both?” I shook my head. “Not a chance.”

Kreston lowered his gaze. “Sorry,” he said, “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No no no,” I said, shaking my head again, and my tail, “it’s my fault. I’ve been thinking about what you said,” I explained. “I know I shouldn’t be keeping my condition a secret from the others, but… I first made that decision because I was scared out of my mind, and now I’m scared that I’m in too deep.” I looked up. “Let’s just take one problem at a time, okay?”

“Okay,” he said.

We spent the next few minutes walking in silence. The air was cleaner here. The slot canyon was a narrow, winding channel that branched off from the main canyon—a passage, etched into the hills. Autumnal striations undulated along the curving stone. I let my claws run along the wall as I walked, letting the vibrations run up my arms.

“Why are you doing that?” Kreston asked.

“To keep myself grounded, maybe?” I said.

The sky was splotches of blue and orange through the gap overhead.

Bit by bit, the narrow canyon wound its way up through the rock. Here and there, patches of furled, abstract, gray leaf-things and those ruddy brambles stuck out from the canyon walls or floated overhead. They burned with pale flame, or let off smoke. Blobs of orange air clung to them, leaving little room for us to cross without touching them.

I didn’t need to know what they were—and I didn’t—to know that touching them was almost certainly a very, very bad idea.

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The things radiated cold, like bonfires in reverse, and every once in a while, they’d glitch out, and suddenly duplicate or superimpose over themselves.

“Kreston,” I said, “you have the energy shield. You should go first.”

He looked back at me.

“I don’t care if I have an energy shield, or ,” he said, covering his mouth and nose with his hand, “there’s no way in hell I’m walking through that stuff.”

Sighing, I casted two more times, once for myself, and once for Andalon.

I only had five level one spell-slots, and, once I’d used them, I’d needed to take a long rest before I could do so again. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but resting meant letting the effect of expire, and, unfortunately, with all the deadly poisons in the air, that was not an option.

“Alright,” I said, “let’s go.”

I went first. I had to splay my tail along the wall to press myself against it as I side-stepped past the weirdness smoking and glitching mere inches from my face. Fortunately, the did its job, keeping the plant-things from touching me. The cold coming off them was so intense, when I’d moved out of their way, my nose was left running and numb.

I then guided Kreston and Andalon through the gap—a harrowing experience, to be sure.

Once we were all safely past the obstacle, Kreston turned and pointed at them. “Why does it keep glitching out like that?” he asked.

“Hmmm…” I pursed my lips. “Maybe it’s like me and &alon,” I said. “Whatever connection the intruders have with me isn’t fully established yet.”

Kreston stared at me. “Whoa. I just felt you use the ‘and’ symbol.”

“It’s called an ampersand,” I explained.

Kreston glared. “What happens when the connection is fully established?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

Finally, we reached the end of the slot canyon, where it opened up onto the hilltop. The big canyon loomed at our left, and the river down below, and the gravel and the geysers and the smoke and the snow.

Kreston and Andalon darted ahead. I pressed on to catch up, only to stop, gawk, and shiver—and not just because of the cold.

Half of the big canyon was obscured by incursion terrain. A sheet of alien woodland hung overhead—or, at least, I thought it was woodland. The sights continued on the ground, up ahead, where the landscape had split in two, one half Lantor, the other half a world of nightmares in orange haze. I saw groves of tubular, gray leaf-things, down from which spilled thorny, epiphytic brambles. Mats of metallic tendrils wove along the ground like overgrown roots, only to intertwine and rise up in branching trunks that pulsed with an inner light, shining through the haze.

“Mr. Genneth…” Andalon muttered, pointing in horror. “There’s something there…”

“Kreston,” I said, “use your wings. Blow back some of the haze.”

Nodding, he did so. His wings might not have been good for flying, but they did a heck of a good job at stirring up a breeze.

We all gasped.

The plant-things cracked and bubbled, fuming pale smoke as Kreston wafted Lantorian air over them with his wings. But that wasn’t what made us gasp.

“What’s wrong with them?” Kreston asked.

I gulped. “They’re infected,” I muttered. “It’s the Green Death,” I said, with a gulp.

The Green Death had struck the incursion world. It was shocking, seeing the familiar deep ulcers and dark lightning cutting through this fever dream. Black ooze scattered everywhere, like the droppings of giant beasts. The trail up from the slot canyon made a sharp turn that took it straight into the depths of corrupted incursion.

And, unfortunately, the otherworldly, fungus-tainted landscape stood directly between us and the bridge.

Tingles ran down the scales on my back, all the way to the tip of my tail.

Kreston shook his head. “How is that possible?”

“Add that question to the list,” I said. I shook my head. “We have to go through,” I muttered. “This is the way to the other side of the Precursor bridge.”

“Will these forcefields protect us?” Kreston asked.

Actually, there was something I could do about that.

“,” I said.

A moment later, I felt the energy of a spell slot being consumed. A moment after that, a mote of glittering light began to spin over each of our heads, gently raining smaller motes down around us.

“This will keep us from—”

“—I know what it does,” Kreston said. “I just hope whatever creepy crawlies are waiting for us don’t make their saving throws.”

Sanctuary protects its targets from being attacked, allowing them to move freely and perform non-harmful actions. An enemy attempting to harm someone under Sanctuary’s protection had to succeed in a saving throw, or their attack would be negated. Anyone under Sanctuary’s protection would lose their protection if they performed a harmful action, though.

“Just don’t stop flapping your wings,” I said.

We huddled close as we entered the forest.

The air was dusty, bitter, and impossibly cold and dry. The ground was like permafrost, only brittle and fragile, crunching beneath our every step. Kreston and I gasped for breath, feeling lightheaded.

Kreston’s wingbeats slowed.

“Don’t…” I panted. “Don’t stop. We need the air.”

“I… I feel like I can’t… breathe,” Kreston said. “Is this the poison? I… I thought you said—”

—I coughed, and then spit out bitter, dark blue granules. They set off fumes where they landed on the ground.

It was like breathing in sand.

“No…” I said. “There’s just… not as much… air… here.”

Shaking my head, I decided to bite the bullet and spend a spell slot on a healing spell, but not for me.

“Varmé,” I muttered, as the words for came to my tongue.

Soft turquoise light enveloped Kreston’s body.

“What was that?” he asked, his breathing noticeably eased.

“Healing spell…” I panted. “Just keep flapping, please.”

Nodding, Kreston flapped his wings with renewed vigor, which definitely helped.

We pressed on.

Andalon whimpered as we traveled. Whenever she did, I’d turn and catch a glimpse of a living shadow lurking in between the alien foliage. I think I even saw one floating in the middle of a rock. It had the shape of a bear on stilts, only without any trace of a head, and topped in structures like trumpet flowers. At times, I saw patches of flesh appear on them—braided from gray, metallic threads—only to disappear, as if their owners were trapped in the aether between worlds.

Kreston’s wingbeats pulled Lantor’s blue skies along with us, forming a corridor in the orange haze. As we stepped forward, parts of the corridor of blue collapsed altogether where the barrier between the two worlds simply broke down.

The deeper we went, the more the shadows diversified. I saw silhouettes shaped like devil rays swoop, there one moment, gone the next. I heard sounds of sparks and electric songs, and the pitter-patter of metallic limbs on the grainy earth.

“Mr. Genneth…?” Andalon whispered.

I felt her tug at the back of my overcoat.

“Quiet,” I said, whispering back.

I could feel it, too.

We were being stalked.