Ren the Cleric shook his head sadly.

“There’s nothing else we can do,” he said.

It sounded final. It sounded like someone slamming a door closed on Kim’s whole life.

Arn could see that Dav was going to explode.

Dav’s face was getting red and his eyes were darting back and forth, looking between the three Council members. He was putting something together in his head - Arn could see it happening. But it wasn’t going to be anything good. Not something that would actually help Kim.

The whole village was there.

If Dav started yelling at the Council, it wouldn’t even matter if what he said made any sense. He’d just be an angry kid. A kid who was sad that his friend had vanished.

Probably a kid who needed some time to calm down.

Dav had brains, for sure, but he didn’t have any clue how to deal with people.

Arn needed to stop him before he ruined their last chance.

Everyone had been back and forth across the whole village - nearly the whole village - all day long, and now the sun was going down.

Kim was nowhere to be found.

At least nowhere that they’re willing to look, Arn thought.

But they all knew it. It just didn’t matter. The player house was forbidden. Off-limits.

Dav was going to start yelling at them that their stupid rule had to go, and that if they weren’t willing to go look in the player house, he and Arn sure were. He’d probably call them cowards, too.

Ren the Cleric looked at Dav. His face was sad, but it was also firm. Like he’d made a decision. There was no way he was going to change his mind now in front of everyone. Especially not because Dav was angry.

“I’m sorry Dav, really,” he said. “It’s awful but it happens sometimes.”

Bre and Cat, the other two council members nodded.

Arn hurried forward, and pushed past Urn the Butcher.

He grabbed Dav’s shoulders, squeezing them. Hard. Hard enough to make him look.

Hard enough to interrupt the words that were just about to come flying out of his mouth.

“No!” he tried to signal to Dav with his eyes.

Dav looked confused, then angry again.

But he didn’t start yelling.

“We have to…” he said.

“No,” Arn said quietly.

The three of them were all the same age, though Arn was going to be a Butcher and Kim was going to be a Librarian.

Of course Dav was going to be a Cleric. That much probably would have been obvious about him even if he never wore the colors. He had that kind of mind. It was always experimenting with things, asking questions, and making the old folks uncomfortable.

But even for a Cleric, Dav was just… different. He didn’t think about things in the same way that the rest of the villagers did.

“That kid's either going to change the whole world, or else he's going to get blown up”, Mak the farmer always said.

Dav wasn't usually angry. Ever. He was too interested in things to even notice what other people thought, never mind getting angry about them.

But this was different. It was strange to see him that way. He kept looking around like he expected her to just suddenly be there.

If Kim wasn't there to keep Dav safe, Arn would have to do it. Arn was not the one in charge. Usually he and Kim followed Dav’s lead. Or at least Kim would go along with Dav’s plans when they weren’t actually going to get everyone killed.

Arn… he followed the two of them, mostly. He certainly wasn’t the one in charge.

Dav and Kim had probably never been apart for more than one night in their lives. Last night she’d ended up in another house when the sun went down, which happened now and then, but in the morning she was just… not there.

All day long Dav had been rushing back and forth across the village, helping everyone look. Getting more frantic all the time.

Looking more lost all the time too.

He and Arn had both walked past the player house a dozen times, looking in the windows when nobody was watching. They would have gotten yelled at for doing that much.

They hadn’t seen anything, but nobody knew what it was like in there.

“What if she’s just in a room we can’t see?” Dav whispered to him. “Or up the stairs?”

It was the obvious question. It was also the question nobody was going to let them answer.

Now Ren the Cleric was thanking everyone for helping out. People were starting to head over to the houses they liked, getting ready for the evening.

"We can't fight it," Arn whispered to him. "We need to let them think we're going along!"

Dav stared at for a moment, then nodded his head. He didn't look any less angry.

Lyn the Librarian came over to see them. Lyn was nice. She had been close to Kim too, Arn knew. But Dav whirled around on her the second she was near them.

“That’s it? Everyone’s just finished, and that’s the end?”

Arn could see that Lyn was near to tears. She looked like she didn’t know what to say to Dav.

"I don't like it either, you know," she said. "But it's getting dark. What are they supposed to do?"

Dav was being too hard on her, but he wasn’t thinking about anyone except Kim.

“Can we keep looking in the morning?” Arn said, before Dav's mouth ran away on it's own.

Lyn nodded.

“Of course. Why don’t you both come over to the library tonight? We can talk.”

That wouldn’t do at all, Arn thought.

“We’re going to keep looking for a little bit longer,” Arn said.

Dav jumped at it.

“That’s right,” he said. “We’re not giving up.”

Lyn stared hard at Arn. She probably knew that Dav wasn’t thinking straight.

“Promise me you’ll be inside by sundown?”

It was probably a fair request. Even on a good day there would be a decent chance Dav would just keeping looking all night long if nobody stopped him. He'd probably try getting any Bonewalkers or Ashmen that showed up to help him.

His faith in everyone being reasonable if you could just calmly explain what was going on was legendary.

One time a Bonewalker archer was stuck in the shadow of a tree near the potato patch, and he'd ended up with three holes in his robe from arrow shots before Kim had dragged him away.

"Has anyone ever tried talking to them? What do they want? How do you know they're not willing to listen if you don't try?"

Kim pointed out that the holes in his robes kind of answered his question. Dav frowned but didn't keep arguing with her.

He was easily the smartest villager by a long shot, but he would probably have been killed ten times over if Kim and Arn weren't always looking out for him.

Arn solemnly promised Lyn that they wouldn’t do anything dangerous. He felt bad about lying to her, but at the same time he agreed that everyone was giving up too easily. None of the others could really understand just how lost Dav was going to be without Kim.

He pulled Dav away down the path before he could say anything that might make Lyn suspicious.

Dav gave him a dark look.

“You’d better be thinking the same thing as me,” he said.

Arn nodded slowly.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Yeah,” Arn said. “Yeah, we have to go.”

They stared at the outline of the player house on the other side of the village. It was a black square against the orange sky. It looked… unfriendly.

The sun was getting low, and the sky was turning from orange to red. It was almost time.

They went round to the player house by the long route, so that nobody could see what they were doing without actually following them.

The player house was three floors high, and it didn’t look like anything else in the village. It didn’t look like anything else, period. It was made of shiny granite and sandstone covered in runes, and bricks, and had strangely colored windows. There were bright lights inside.

It was the weirdest place in the whole village.

It was also totally out of bounds. Off-limits. Forbidden. If any adult caught them in the player house they’d be in serious trouble. It was the one rule everyone followed, no exceptions.

“That place is dangerous,” the adults had taught them from day one. “Players made all sorts of traps. Touch the wrong thing and BOOM, you’re gone.”

There was no way Kim would have just gone in there on her own.

Kim was cautious. She was sensible. She wasn’t very much like Dav at all, but she seemed to really believe in him. She trusted his strange mind, even though she spent half her time keeping him safe from it.

Arn wasn't even sure if Dav noticed. He was too busy watching spiders at night, or trying to see if he could talk to Bonewalkers through the windows. He had a thing about them.

They’re smarter than Ashmen, he said. They use bows and arrows. Those are complicated tools, they don’t just shamble around bumping into walls!

Everyone just nodded to keep him happy, but Kim knew him well enough to stop him from actually doing things that might get him killed.

So for her to just walk into the player house for no good reason, without telling anyone? It didn't fit.

But then again, neither did her disappearing.

But nobody, ever, went into it. If Dav and Arn went in there at night, they’d be all alone.

Which might be good.

Or really, really bad.

They looked behind them, but nobody was following. Everyone was probably inside by now.

“You ready? She has to be in there,” Dav said. He sounded like he was trying to make himself believe it.

The house only had one door. It was iron, but everyone knew about the button. One push and the door would open up for a few seconds. Nobody had ever actually gone inside, though.

When Dav pushed the button, the door popped right open with a loud bang.

Arn hoped nobody had heard it.

Dav clapped him on the back.

“Go, Hurry!” he said.

“Remember, don’t touch anything!” Arn said.

He went inside, and Dav came in behind him, then the door slammed shut.

It was a pretty boring room, to be honest. All wood walls, a few more doors. Nothing very special at all.

Dav was all business.

“Up the stairs,” he said. “Let’s take a look up there.”

There was a wooden door right in front of them, and they could see stairs going up behind it. Arn grabbed the handle.

But the second he did it, there was a SLAM sound that echoed through the house. He jumped back - was it a trap?

They looked all around. It didn’t seem like the house was going to blow up.

“It came from there,” Dav said and pointed.

Looking through the peepholes in the door, the stairs went down.

“There are more rooms down below,” Arn said. Nobody had ever even guessed that. How far down did the house go?

“Amazing,” Dav said. “Let’s go.”

“Are you nuts?”

Dav's look made it pretty clear that he was going downstairs now, no matter what Arn did.

“You heard the noise,” Dav said. “There can’t be anybody else in the house. It must be her! She probably got trapped. Plus look - there’s already mobs.”

Arn could see a spider outside of the door.

They were stuck for the night.

“Maybe we should just stay right here,” Arn said. “We could tell the council about the sound.”

He didn’t want to go down the stairs. Who knew what would happen way down there? Would they even be able to get up again?

“Be my guest,” Dav said. He threw the door open and walked straight in.

Arn waited while Dav went down the stairs. He was halfway expecting something awful to happen.

But Dav just turned around and looked back at him.

“Are you coming?”

Nobody else was going to take care of Dav. It was up to Arn. Plus what if Kim really was down there?

So he started going down the stairs.

They went a long way. Longer than any stairs anyone had ever seen in the village.

“This is nuts,” Arn said. “This isn’t a house, this is practically a mine.”

“It’s incredible,” Dav said. “What do you think is down there?”

“Probably something waiting to eat us, is my guess,” Arn said.

They could see the bottom of the stairs. It was just solid rock, but it was brightly lit. It definitely wasn't dark down there.

“Wait!” Arn said.

Dav stopped and looked back at him.

“Listen,” Arn said.

There was a noise. It was… weird. A rushing sound, like wind. But also kind of like a thousand voices yelling.

“That can’t be good. I don’t think we should…”

But Dav had already started going again. It was something strange and new. Whatever it was, now Dav was going to need to see it. Arn didn’t doubt that for a second

He stood still, not sure if he was really going to keep going. If Dav was just going to run towards everything dangerous, what was he supposed to do?

When Dav got to the bottom, he stopped and stared.

“What is it?” Arn yelled down at him.

“You have to see this,” Dav yelled back. He was grinning. It was the first time Arn had seen him smile all day.

The room was lit up with torches. The floor was polished, glimmering stone. There were chests lined up all along the walls. In the center of it was a shiny black square, with a shimmering, glowing sheet of light in the middle of it.

“It’s a Underworld portal,” Dav whispered.

“Isn’t the Underworld pretty much the worst place in the world?”

All Arn could think of was stories about horrible Gray Walkers, and screaming rocks, and fire, and monsters.

“We need to take a look,” Dav said.

“No way. Not going to happen.”

Dav rolled his eyes.

“We could be the only villagers to see the Underworld. For real. Ever. You want to raise potatoes every day for the rest of your life and think about how you could have seen something nobody has ever seen, but you were too scared?”

“I think I could live with that. I mean, if it meant that I could grow old, you know, instead of being set on fire by a screaming Underworld monster.”

Dav shook his head.

"What if Kim went through it somehow? We’re just going to take a look. Anyway, it’s the only time you’ll ever see this in your whole life.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Arn said.

But it was too late. Dav stepped into the whirling light, and his whole body started to swirl and shimmer.

Then he was gone. All Arn could see through the gate was the wall on the other side of the room.

It was a little creepy, being all alone in the house. He’d actually feel a little bit better having Dav beside him.

Plus who was going to rescue Dav when he did something crazy because it was too interesting not to do it?

Arn sighed and stepped into the portal. It felt like he was… wiggling.

The room got blurry. And red. Everything was very red all of a sudden.

Something grabbed him and pulled.

When he could see clearly again, Dav stood in front of him, holding on to his robe.

Arn’s mouth fell open.

They were somewhere else. Somewhere horrible.

His feet crunched on the red ground as he stared upwards. Lava was falling from the sky. Long streams of it. But there wasn’t any sky, there was just rock.

They were near a cliff edge.

Down below, far below, was more lava. More lava than he’d ever seen before. It was bigger than a lake - it just went on and on and on.

He could feel the heat even from way up here.

“No, no, no,” Arn said. “This is no good. We need to go back. Right now.”

“Okay, it’s a bit smelly and hot,” Dav said. “I agree. But isn’t this amazing?”

Then he started walking away.

Arn followed behind him, and together they crunched across the rocks and stared right over the edge of the cliff.

“I think this might be worse than being outside at night,” he said. “I really think so.”

There was something off to the right. Arn pointed.

“What’s that?”

Dav started walking towards it, trying to get a better look.

“Come back,” said Arn. “Don’t be stupid.”

“It’s… yeah, it’s a fortress. A real Underworld Fortress. Come and look!”

It was just like the pictures in the library books. The fortress was blocky and dark, and sat on high pillars that went right down into the lava below.

It looked about as scary as anything he'd ever seen.

“You know this is where things like Firethralls and Void Demons live, right?” Arn said. “Wait, where are you going?”

Dav kept walking along the edge of the cliff. He seemed to be looking for something.

“There!” he said.

He was pointing down a long hill.

“It’s a bridge,” Arn said, sticking his head out to look.

“That’s how we could get out to the fortress!” Dav said.

“Are you crazy? We should go back!” Arn said.

There were terrible monsters in the Underworld. Going near an actual fortress was a really bad idea.

“Fine,” Dav said. “I just wanted to see as far as I could. Just in case.”

“There’s something on the bridge.”

There was. It was moving. Something gray.

“It looks kind of like a Bonewalker,” Dav said. “That's incredible. I think it’s a real Gray Walker!”

“We should go back,” Arn said again. He was trying to sound calm, but he was starting to get worried. Dav was getting too interested in this place. He didn’t seem to understand that the danger was real.

But Dav stared down at the thing on the bridge for a moment longer, then sighed and turned around.

“Fine,” he said. “It’s just that there’s so many new things to see. Plus I was hoping maybe she was here...”

“Great!” said Arn. “We can talk all about it back in the village.”

Arn turned to go, and almost smashed straight into a creature that was standing behind him.

Arn gasped. It was a Beastman. There was no doubt about it.

It must have walked up so quietly that they never even heard it.

The thing had a pig nose, and a weird scrunched up face, and its leathery skin was loose and greenish. It looked halfway dead, but it had bright, smart eyes that were staring into his own.

“Not safe here,” the Beastman grunted.

Arn let out a little scream and just about started running back towards the portal, but Dav walked up and stood in front of the Beastman.

“We’re looking for a lost friend,” he said to it. “We aren’t doing anything bad.”

The Beastman shook its head.

“No friends. Not safe. Bad things here,” it said. “Things don’t like men from above.”

The Beastman was scary to look at, but at least it didn’t seem to be ready to attack them.

“It’s no problem,” Arn said. “We’re going back now.”

But Dav had other ideas.

He held out his hand.

“I’m Dav,” he said. “I’m a villager, What’s your name?”

The Beastman stared at his hand.

“Grem,” it said. “Name is Grem. Dav must go.”

Arn grabbed Dav and started pulling him towards the portal.

“Thank you Grem,” he said. “We’re leaving right now. The Beastman is giving us helpful advice.”

The Beastman nodded, then said, “Pakmog.”

“Excuse me?”

“Call ourselves Pakmog. Don’t like that other name.”

Arn nodded.

“Fair enough. Pakmog it is.”

They had started moving towards the portal, but Dav stopped, and said. “Did you hear that?”

“No,” Arn said. “I didn’t hear anything. We need to go.”

“Someone was yelling,” Dav said, and walked back over to the edge of the cliff.

“There’s nobody yelling!” Arn said, “And if there is it’s probably nobody we want to meet! Let’s go!”

“There, right there!” Dav said.

He was pointing out at the fortress again.

Now Arn could hear something too. It sounded very far away.

They couldn’t hear the words, but it was a voice. A person’s voice.

There was an arm waving out of a window way, way out in the fortress. It was halfway down to the lava.

It looked like it was wearing a villager robe.

“There’s a villager down there!” Dav said. “It’s Kim! It has to be!”

It did sound like a girl’s voice.

Grem the Pakmog walked up to them.

“Too late,” he grunted. “They see you.”

“Who?” said Arn.

But before anyone could say anything else, there was a huge explosion right beside them. A big chunk of cliff fell away and tumbled down to the lava below.

They got up off of the ground, and Arn saw the Floater Demon floating towards them.

It was disgusting. It was a huge, flabby red and gray bag with drooping tentacles. It had eyes too, and they looked angry.

Another fireball flashed out of a mouth on the end of one tentacle. Probably it was a mouth.

Arn grabbed Dav’s arm and pulled him out of the way. The fireball exploded where he had been standing, and made a smoking hole in the ground.

“Run!” Arn said.

For once Dav didn’t ignore him. They both ran as fast as they could back toward the portal.

Just before they ran into it, the Floater Demon spit another fireball at them.

It slammed into the portal.

The shining magic doorway disappeared.

All that was left was a big black square.

There was no way home.

Then two more Floater Demons popped up from down below, and floated up above the cliff, staring down at them and shrieking.