Bahena offered to go with her, but the more she thought about it, the more Dassah wanted to go by herself.

Part of it was based on stubborn principles. Part of it was how awkward it would be to explain Dassah’s coincidental relationship with Sathuren at the last minute, let alone her dreams. The other part was it was Dassah’s own dare to herself. She could handle the garule in-game now. She needed to suck it up and prove to herself that she could handle them in real life.

“Ibraxis” had given her the perfect opportunity as, according to Bahena, he lived in one of the biodomes owned by their regular campus, which was also where he conducted his research. With his home and office being one and the same, there should have been plenty of other people and security in the area.

Not that ‘office’ was the word Dassah would have used as she stood outside the massive building. Biodomes were absolutely enormous structures. She had seen several of them from afar, amazed by not only the sheer size of them and many others like it, but also by the technology that went into generating spaces of the simulated environments of other worlds.

Her, Bahena, and Stella had talked about taking a trip to one someday to spend their special currencies, but this was the first she had ever been to.

Sunlight glinted off the glass, set in a clear, geometric but frameless glass-like material. Through it, she could see all the greens and reds and blues and yellows of the forest within. There were flowers she had never seen before, blooming with colors she wasn’t sure she had words to describe and birds with bright feathers flying from perch to perch with the semblance of a mountain in the distance. A cloudy atmosphere hung above it all—at least what she could see—leaving traces of perspiration and condensation on the glass. Her breath caught in her throat, and for a moment, overcome with the sheer excitement the taste of real adventure brought her, she forgot why she had gone in the first place.

There were many such biodomes in the Iceberg Cities, and they were used for many purposes. Oftentimes, they were used as parks, gardens, and classrooms to educate people about others’ homeworlds or ecosystems. They were also often used as workshops or places for resource management, similar to the native-based Point Wars that were used for farming and plantations. Sometimes, they even served all purposes at once.

Given that Bahena had given this address as Professor Sathuren Sul’s office, she assumed that it was mostly used as a public space. A large sign at its front read ‘Gathori — Tethoth Kurr’ in the valkyrian language of Isoli, and a plaque at the side had a painted map and several brochures that were free for people to take.

Dassah walked up to the map and looked for the name of the gray garule. A directory off to the side listed several classroom amphitheaters, two research gardens, and a museum, along with several office locations that were also listed with home addresses. Professor Sathuren Sul, area 6... Finding his name, she looked at the map again, seeing how the dome was separated into various blocks.

“Holy crap!” she exclaimed, looking at it.

Surface-wise, the biodome was about the same size as the inner wards, like where Dassah and the others lived, but the majority of it was sparsely populated—if it was populated at all. Between the in-mountain apartments and the little villages that did exist, the surface was listed to home a total of ten thousand people. In contrast, the surface population of the Io ‘Berg was about one million.

With the land-to-population disparity and the fact that someone had to be responsible for whatever was going on on the domes, she was only partially alarmed that the area assigned to Bahena’s brother looked to cover about a hundred acres alone.

It was an awful lot of land for her to get lost in. Or to be murdered in, she tried not to think but did anyway.

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Luckily, there was a doorbell of sorts for each area, and Dassah pressed it, hoping that, at the very least, there would be someone to know that she was there if something did happen.

“This is Professor Sul’s office,” a smooth, energetic voice came from above her. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Um,” Dassah started, trying not to lose her nerve. “No, not really. It’s just—I’ve been sent by Bahena Sul? With some... papers?”

“Ah! Professor Sul was expecting them. Do come in! He’s left to survey the grounds, but I’ll page him for you, and he should find you momentarily.”

“Thank you!” Dassah said with a sigh of relief. She didn’t think she would need an appointment to just meet him. Maybe she didn’t, she thought, feeling guilty about the lie she had told. Bahena would probably forgive her?

She turned to face the door. Inhaling, she pushed open the metal door. There was a small lobby with a smaller set of doors to the actual building. Several signs were hung about the room, telling visitors to make sure the doors were shut as the inner doors would remain locked until the outer doors were fully closed. Dassah checked them and proceeded through the inner doors.

Paradise greeted her.

Her breath caught in her throat as the smells of sweet flowers, herbs, and earth hung in the thick air of the deep, dark jungle. Different from Yidar’s flora, it seemed that Gathori’s plants were not very different from the colors on Earth—and there was so much of it!

The sounds of birds and other animals reached her ears, along with the snapping of branches and rustling of trees, creating dense layers of sound, the likes of which she hadn’t experienced since she was a girl.

At the entry point, there was another large map and a great variety of trail markings telling her in which direction she should go. Area 6 was marked with a thick yellow line that branched off into several different paths. The one she wanted had a grey dot in the center. An appropriate choice, she thought. Easy to remember. A small, colorful garule she assumed to be male smiled at her and asked if she needed any help, but she thanked him and shook her head before starting her way down the yellow-marked path.

Reminding herself to breathe, Dassah went forward; the feel of the earth breaking beneath her feet was nostalgically comforting—even more so than it was in TheirWorld. It was real. Tangible.

Dassah paused and knelt, touching the dirt with her fingers. It was dark, moist, and smelled like cinnamon and leather. Looking up into the canopy, she was shocked to see that the sky was a bright teal color that reminded her of pictures she had seen of tropical islands on Earth.

As she walked on, she saw strange, fascinating creatures she had never seen before. Curious and seemingly friendly, they observed her. They were probably no more sure about what to make of her than she was of them.

“Oh!” Dassah turned in circles a few times, looking back down the path that she had come up from. How long had she been walking? When was the last time that she had seen a yellow marker? How far from the entry had she come? The blood drained from her face as she flipped around, realizing she no longer knew which was forward and which was back.

Her heart began to beat wildly in her chest as she stood in the center of the path. The woods, which had seemed so beautiful and kind before, now seemed as if they were filled with shadows. Songs of birds and the chittering of animals turned into wild screams and threatening whispers, and the trees turned into dragons. Clutching her skirt tight in her hands, her body convulsed as her mind told her to relax—but it could not stop the fierce beating of her heart nor the pressure that gripped her lungs. Breathe, she told herself, though her eyes began to water as the shortness of breath set in. You’re okay. They know you’re here. They will find you. And then what? The positive logic that half her brain was using to calm her body down began to feed into the negative impulses of the other half. This was garuli territory. This was not a game.

Snap!

Dassah’s eyes shot open, and her head went to her right as the sound echoed through the jungle.

She blinked as two large, golden eyes stared out at her from between dark-colored leaves. Realization, though delayed, set in quickly as she stepped backward and let out a muffled cry as she tripped over a stick that caught around her ankle.

Covering her mouth with her hand, she watched and waited as the creature stepped out from its cover with a breathy snort.