Chapter 44) Gate Crasher. Or, We got to get out of this place.

I hovered over my three guys as the dead surged past them to crowd into the temple. Matt shuffled up close to the other two as they tried their best not to get in the deads' way.

“Tex, get in there and let us know what he’s doing in there.”

I wanted to ask ‘Why me?” but, you know, flying. I went in through a window and saw the Liche standing in front of the red colored exit portal. Gazing at it with a fixed intent in every bone of his body.

The sword guy stood by his side. “What are you thinking Terrance?”

It turned its head toward sword guy the slightest of amounts. "I came here through a similar door Consular. One that vanished behind me forever. But an open door allows passage both ways.”

I made a clear my throat sound, which I immediately regretted as dozens of dead faces turned upwards to look at me.

“Ah, sorry. The Portals have exit sides, which are red, and entrance sides, which are blue. I don’t think you can go into this one… Sir?”

The Liche looked at me for a long time. “Is there anything a god or their agents have ever told you spirit, that you would trust on their word alone? Or have you learned nothing?”

He didn't wait for my answer, which was just as well since I didn't want the guy paying any more attention to me. But I would have told him I had tried going back through the gate once and it didn't work.

The Liche pressed his hand up against the face of the Portal and leaned onto it.

“I have defied the will of a god and death itself. I will not be denied.”

He set his other hand against the gate and black flames ignited on his hands, and began to flow up his arms until his whole upper body was on fire. The flames above his head in the form of a spiky crown.

“I am enteral! I will not be stopped! I will not surrender, and you will yield before me!”

Something happened to the gate, its color shifting from red to purple, then to green as it seemed to shutter… and the Liche twisted his hands to thrust his fingers into the barrier which had been keeping him back… and then he tore his hands apart ripping something away.

With his hands held apart, and the edges of the Portal warped to the sides, he took a step forward, pausing only as the sword guy, the Consular raised a hand toward him.

“Terrance... What of us? I beg of you, free us first.”

The Liche lowered his head and chuckled. “Free yourselves. Once you pass the edges of the city your souls will be free.”

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Then he stepped forward and his body shrunk into the distance, his laughter echoing from the portal as it shook and began to groan as its framework bent back into shape.

Three things happened all at once.

The dead, the normal ones who had dreamed away the years believing themselves to still be alive, all woke up as animated corpses of various types, and with their minds and bodies united, they now had voices.

Throughout the city, people screamed along with all the birds and other animals.

Second, Drew burst out of the crowd and jumped into the still broken portal just before something snapped into place and it returned to its normal red color.

Third, a pair of still burned hands closed around me as the Princess floated up into the air next to me.

“Liar…”

And she squeezed.

Abruptly I found myself floating over an endless plain of unmarked red stone, floating a few feet over the solid ground.

No Liche, no Drew gasping for air, just… that guy.

Sitting on the edge of a wooded bench like piece of furniture was a man leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped together as he pressed them against his mouth.

The guy was muscular as all heck, with his hair shaved down to stubble, and half open gray eyes looking toward the ground.

He was wearing a plain white scrub like shirt over a set of loose black pants, along with a set of plain leather sandals. A simple leather belt around his waist held a sword with a hilt made of something that looked like the frames of the Panels.

“Don’t speak, unless I ask you a question. Or tell you to speak. Do not test me on this.”

Extending both of his index fingers, he began tapping them together.

“I should thank you Szoke. I have been asking for more responsibilities for ages, but the first generation of gods fear giving their children work that would allow them to rise in power and stand before them as equals. As they did to the Elder gods before they cast them down.”

He stood and placed his hands behind his back. Still not quite looking straight at me.

“But the mortal born goddess chosen to direct this new series of Tutorial Dungeons failed in her task, because of you. She didn’t take you mortals to task and supervise you correctly. She was so eager to please my aunt that she tried to satisfy the Goddess of Life’s impossible demands. Never knowing she was set up to fail.”

“So allow me to thank you this one time Szoke. And now it’s time for you to get to work.”

“First you will build an entrance room. Twenty five feet by twenty five feet, with an alcove for the entrance portal. This time, you will be doing it exactly as I, Asalor, tell you to do it.”

“No improvisations. No innovations. No malicious compliance. Just follow my instructions, exactly, or I send you to hell rather than deal with you. Damned until the end of time.”

Well. I guess I’ve been told.

I dropped down and set to work on the dungeon. First an entrance.

“Close enough. Now the long hall. One hundred feet.”

Then the hallway.

“Now the exit room.”

I knew now that this was actually days if not weeks worth of work. But as he got me started on each step, he would look away and stretch off into the distance, returning periodically to check in on me.

Once while he was away I considered asking him about Terri to find out if I had gotten her in trouble, but the last thing I wanted to do was put her name in this guy's ear.

After finishing the exit room, he surprised me.

“Put in all four side rooms, like you had in your old dungeon. Teaching all four starter skills was harmless, I will allow it again.”

He also rattled off a list of the starting equipment I was allowed to put out, but…

“One monster, a goblin, for the Trainees to fight to unlock their armor and a single weapon. Whichever one they pick. You will have put the goblin out as soon as a Trainee leaves, and you will not embody yourself in it, ever. You will only put one exit Portal into place.”

At this point, he set his hand on his sword and seemed lost in thought for a moment. "Tesaro I believe. My uncle is amused by that city and he always supported me. Make no other Portal, but you may warn the Trainees of what awaits them. It matters not, they have to go through it or suffocate over and over again until they do.”

Standing up on the edge of the Strata above the dungeon, he looked down in my direction and slowly smiled.

“Now you may place the exit gate, then the entrance one. And I will obser….”

His eyes went wide, and I could see that around his gray irises, the rest of his eye were made of the same metal as the panels. And that he was very uncomfortable.

“...what is sniffing me?”