Arn fell backwards onto the floor, right on top of Dav, and then jumped up again.

He stared back into the glowing misty light of the portal.

Gone. Just like that.

He’d lost her again. How stupid could he be?

He had to go back. His ankle wasn’t quite as bad. He was sure he could carry her now.

He stepped into the shimmering mist again.

But before the portal could start to take him, something hit him hard in the back and he fell face-first onto the floor on the other side.

“No,” Kim said.

She had pushed him.

“I have to go get her!”

“There’s a dozen Walkers between you and her. They’re probably already running the other way.”

He couldn’t just let her go. There was no way.

“Kim’s right,” Dav said. “What would she do if you suddenly came through again and she saw?”

He knew the answer. She might try to come to him. Right into a swarm of mobs.

“She’s safest if you let Grem and the other Pakmog bring her,” Kim said. “Plus you can’t run anyway.”

Arn made a disgusted sound. He hated that they were right.

“Then we should go. Now. Warn everyone.”

There was nothing they could do in here. He moved towards the stairs and Kim started to follow him.

“Wait!” Dav yelled.

He looked serious. It was a strange expression, for him.

“Who can we trust out there?”

“We…” Arn said. But then he stopped.

Kim’s mouth dropped open.

“Nobody,” she said.

Dav nodded. He pointed at the Underworld Portal.

“We need to close it. At least for now. To give us time.”

“We’re not leaving her out there,” Arn said.

“Fine. After she gets here.”

“If she gets here,” Kim said.

“Either way,” said Dave. “We need to be able to close it.”

Arn spread his hands wide.

“How? With what?”

“I don’t know.”

“We can’t wait,” Kim said. “There could be mobs here any second. Or Ren. We need to run!”

There wasn’t anything they could do.

“We saw a portal get closed, so we know it’s possible,” Dav said.

“It got blown up! By a Floater Demon!” Arn said.

“Right, but all it took was a spark to turn it back on again.”

Kim groaned, and walked over to the chests that lined the walls.

“Good!” Dav said when he saw. “See what’s in there. Let me know if anything looks useful.”

“How will I know?” she said.

“I don’t know. Just look!”

He frowned, but then went back to walking around the portal, looking up and down at it.

Arn made an angry noise, limped over to a chest, and threw it open.

“Dirt!” he yelled. “Gravel! Rocks!”

“Can we fill it up with rocks?” Kim said. “You know, put something in the way?”

Arn brought an armful over to the portal and tried to set them down in it.

They slid off onto the floor on the other side.

“No good,” Dav said. “Keep looking!”

Arn turned to a chest while Kim kept going through the ones on the other side of the room.

“Rocks!” she said. “More stupid rocks!”

There was a sudden humming sound from the Underworld Portal.

“Someone is coming through,” Dav said.

Arn grimaced and hurried through the chest.

Leather pants, a torch, more rocks, some coal, it’s all useless junk!

He looked back at Dav.

“Nothing here,” he said.

Dav pointed at the portal. The purple light was shimmering.

“Get ready to run.”

Kim threw open another chest, while Arn got ready to grab her and try to run for the door.

“I can see someone,” Dav said.

Please be Ama, Arn thought.

There was a shape in the portal. It was just a dark outline, but then it suddenly solidified into a body, that jumped out into the room with a deep snarl.

“Run!” Arn yelled.

“Wait!” said Dav.

Arn had already reached Kim and was ready to pull her towards the stairs, but he looked over at the portal.

Grem the Pakmog stood in front of Dav, staring down at him. He was panting, like he’d been running.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“They coming,” he said.

“Who?”

“All them. Run. Now.”

“Where’s Ama?” Arn said.

Why wasn’t she with Grem? Was she alone now?

“She with Prag. We get split up.”

“What?”, Arn yelped.

“Prag good guy, she okay! Need to run now!”

“No,” Dav said quietly. “You two, keep looking while I think.”

Grem looked like he was going to hit Dav.

“You no hear? Too many come!”

“I heard. What if they come? Where will we run to?”

“Far away,” Grem said.

Dav shook his head and walked away from Grem, staring intently at the Portal.

“We can’t. Leaving the village, it’s not so easy. We’re stuck.”

Grem looked around at them again.

“Then Grem waste time,” he muttered.

Dav ignored him.

Arn was standing in front of the portal again, looking into the shimering light.

Grem turned to him.

“Grem see Arn’s idea. Bad idea. You go back, you get caught.”

Arn whirled around to Grem, and stood face to face with him for a second. The Pakmog stared back.

“If we close the Portal, there’s no way to find her,” he said.

“Arn forget Grem talk about other portal? That where they go!”

Understanding dawned on Arn’s face, and he turned back to Dav.

“The chests,” Dav said to him.

Kim was already looking.

“Keep talking to me,” he said to them.

Grem looked at them like they were crazy.

“Nothing here,” Arn said, when he opened the next one. “More garbage.”

“Wheat, bread, it’s all food,” Kim said and slammed the lid shut.

The humming from the gate started again.

Too long, we took too long! Arn thought.

He threw aside the worthless trash in the chest and slammed it shut.

Grem hefted his sword.

“You run, Grem slow them down,” he grunted.

Kim threw open the very last chest.

“Come on, let’s go!” Arn said, and moved towards the stairs.

Maybe we can hide. Probably not. But maybe.

“Buckets!” she said. “Iron! Rocks! There’s a bucket of water, too!”

“No more time!” Grem said. The light of the portal had started to wiggle and wave. Something was about to come through.

“That’s it!” Dav yelled. “The water! Give me the bucket!”

Kim ran over to him carrying the sloshing pail.

There was a shape in the portal. It was adult-sized.

Dav leaned forward and poured out the bucket onto the shiny black rocks, right at the base of the light.

And just like that, the portal was gone.

The water splashed out onto the floor.

Grem let his sword drop and grunted in surprise.

Kim let out a whoop of joy.

Arn slumped back against the wall and stared at Dav.

“How? Why water?” he said.

Dav looked pleased. Like he’d just performed a very clever trick for everyone.

“Well it was a lucky guess, really. But it seemed like the right answer.”

Arn looked at him, waiting. He knew Dav wouldn’t be able to stop explaining.

“I mean, that’s what turns the portal on, right? Fire. What puts out fire?

“Water,” Kim said. She stared at Dav admiringly.

“Good guess,” Grem said. “What happen if wrong?”

“Ah, yes,” Dav said. “Well then I guess we would have had to run. Fast.”

Grem nodded.

“That good guess too.”

Up the stairs, they all stood in the little wooden room, looking out the door of the player house. It was morning. The sun was bright.

“Too cold here,” Grem muttered.

“Do we talk to the council?” Kim said.

“What else can we do?”

“How do we know they’re not - you know?”

“Changed?” Dav said. “I don’t know.”

“Grem know,” said Grem. “Pakmog eyes not so easy fooled with magic.”

They stared out at the day some more.

“We should go,” said Kim.

“Definitely,” said Dav.

None of them moved.

“What happening?” said Grem. “Why we not go?”

“Well,” said Arn. “I think we’re a little worried. How many of the people we knew…”

“Not people Arn think they are?” Grem said.

“It’s been bothering me too,” said Dav.

Grem pushed the button, and the door opened with a slam.

“Only one way know,” he said.

He pushed them all out into the daylight.

There was nobody around, but that wasn’t a surprise. People didn’t come out to the player house very often.

“Which way?” Grem said. “In those things?”

“Those are trees,” Dav said.

“Weird things,” said Grem, frowning.

“The village is around on the other side,” Kim said.

She walked to the corner of the house, then stopped and looked confused.

“Where is everyone?” she said.

The village was deserted. Normally once the sun was up people couldn’t wait to get out of the houses and into the sunshine again.

Mak’s potato farm was empty. He was always the first one back to work. He’s been tending his plants for as long as anyone could remember.

Arn looked in one house after another.

There was nobody.

Kim walked out of the library, and her face was pale.

“There’s nobody here. Nobody at all.”

They went to every house. They were all empty. They looked everywhere, even out to the very edges of the village.

The went to Ren’s house too. Carefully. But there was nothing worth seeing there either. Everything in his chest was ordinary and boring.

So they headed out to village woods, hoping they might find a clue.

Which is where Dav discovered something. They could leave the village now. It used to be that once you got far enough from the village, going any farther felt worse and worse until you couldn’t take another step. Now they could walk out as far as they wanted.

Dav was almost excited about it. He stepped back and forth over the last blocks, the ones that used to mark the far edge of the village.

“Nothing at all,” he said. But then he looked up at the deserted houses and frowned.

“Just like the village,” Kim said.

“Wait, wait, this might be good,” Dav said, “If we can leave the village, then so could they!”

She stared back at the empty houses. There was a little bit of hope in her eyes.

“You really think they might be out there?”

“Where else could they be?”

Grem muttered something in Pakmog, and Kim poked him in the arm.

“You don’t know what happened any more than we do, okay?”

He shook his head but didn’t argue.

“Someone took them. Or made them go,” Dav said. “That’s what it has to be.”

“We aren’t safe here,” Kim said. “Ren knows where the village is. He’ll probably be back.”

“Everyone might be out there,” Arn said, “But Ama is definitely still in the Underworld. We need to find the other portal. I’m going even if none of you are.”

He stared at them like he expected them to start arguing, but they just nodded.

Eventually they all sat together in the middle of the empty village.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask you,” Dav said to Grem. “How did you know? About the flint?”

“Know?”

“You made a spark. It started the Underworld Portal.”

Grem grunted.

“Grem get lucky. Old Pakmog plan. Things not working, hit them.”

Dav looked annoyed, but Kim snorted and started laughing.

“Let’s suppose everyone really did leave,” Arn said. “Or were forced to. Where would the go?”

Nobody had an answer.

“What about Grem?” said Kim.

“About Grem? What?” said Grem.

“Can you tell us anything? Can you… I don’t know. You can sense things we can’t, is all.”

She waved her hands around at the village, then dropped them, looking unsure.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t know what else to do...”

Grem stared at her and grunted again, then stuck his nose up in the air and snorted a few times. He stood up and turned in a circle, sniffing loudly at the air.

“Maybe smell man from above. Maybe two, maybe more. Go that way.”

“Really?”

“Maybe,” he said, and shrugged. “Pretty old, maybe nothing.”

Arn stood up.

“Wait, what about Ama’s village? Where the other portal is? That’s the only way I’m going,” Arn said.

“Lucky us,” Grem said, “Same way.”

Everyone stared at Grem for a second.

“How do you know that?” said Dav.

“I tell you already. We don’t get lost so easy. This is right way to go. Other door to above is that way.”

Arn looked out into the forest. There was nothing obvious about that way, but Grem must have had some kind of sense of direction that villager’s didn’t.

“Well, that’s a lot more than we had a minute ago,” Dav said. He jumped up and looked off in the direction Grem had pointed.

“That’s our direction. Let’s go see if we can find anything useful to take. Torches, flint, whatever. Oh, and food, probably.”

Grem came back with a whole armload of food.

“Found all this,” he said. “You eat this, right?”

They divided it up, but Grem shook his head when Arn offered him some bread.

“Pakmog eat anything,” he said.

“Anything at all?” Dav said.

Grem stared back at him.

“Anything.”

It was already past noon, but they weren’t hungry. They all had one more look around, but the village was empty. Nobody could argue about that.

After a while, they drifted together again, staring out at the forest.

“We can walk in those things?” Grem said.

“I think so,” said Arn, “I’ve never been in them either.”

“Looks cold,” Grem said. “Too cold all over here.”

He looked at them all.

“Grem find Ama. Find village men. Then Grem can go home where not so cold, okay?”

Dav clapped Grem on the shoulder in a friendly way. Grem stared at Dav’s hand.

“We’ll take you home too, but before then I’ve got about a million questions I need to ask you, okay?”

Grem shook his head.

“Dav ask, maybe Grem answer. Maybe Grem tell him stop talking, okay?”

Dav looked like he was thinking about it.

“Good enough,” he said.

“It would make sense if the other portal was at Ama’s village, right? She said she went through one there,” said Arn.

Kim smiled at him.

“Let’s go find her,” she said. “Let’s go find everyone.”

Arn looked up at the sky.

“Lots of daylight left. Shall we go?”

Grem pointed at the forest.

“In those things. Trees. We go that way.”

Arn took one last look back at the village. But there was nothing to see - it was just a bunch of buildings. The only reason they meant anything was because of the people who lived in them.

So they followed Grem into the forest, and then there was only the wind blowing into the empty doorways.