Thora flipped the page, now about three quarters of the way through the lunar astronomy book on the three moons of Rhime. The dwarf had skimmed through it before, but was taking more time now as they began the journey down the road. It wasn’t an exciting read, but the focus required to understand the words on the page allowed Thora a moment of rest from the thoughts that had made sleep almost impossible. The others had spread out, sharing the work to drive all the carts that had been part of the caravan. Thora couldn’t see the sense in it. Why bother? The others had made a good argument that they had promised to protect the caravan to Enkar, even though they had left behind the corpses of pretty much everyone that actually cared about the caravan getting to its goal. Well, all except that one guy on the horse who had been following them. He seemed harmless enough, but Thora hadn’t caught his name, so ‘guy on the horse’ was sticking for now.

Thora leaned back against the wagon’s bench, already tired from being upright this long. Being dead seemed to do that to a body! The soldier’s eyes squeezed shut as the dwarf tried to stifle a yawn, but reopened immediately as Thora was thrown violently backwards in the seat. The cart was nearly flying as Duanne cackled at the reins, urging the horse along the strangely lit road. The giant redwood trees that lined the road seemed to be shooting past them at an impossible rate, blurred green and brown towers that never came into focus. A pressure was pushing against Thora’s chest, like a giant slamming you against a wall and holding you there.

When the cart suddenly lurched back to a normal pace, the pressure finally lifted from Thora’s chest. The distance to the city had greatly shortened, and Duanne was already urging the horse toward another glowing block on the road. This time, the dwarf was ready for the shift as the cart suddenly surged forward again, the blurring trees once again flying by as the cart hopped ever closer to the city. As the soldier’s guts pushed upwards, Thora realized that a few days ago this would have been an exhilarating experience. The dwarf would have been just as excited as the nearby tortle. Well, perhaps not exactly THAT excited, Thora admitted, watching the glee on Duanne’s face as the wizard directed them toward yet another jump. Looking back, Thora could see some blurred shapes following them that must have been Zearach and Alandal’s carts, moving as if they were out of phase with this plane. Perhaps that was how it worked? For the first time since yesterday’s event, Thora felt the disinterest and fatigue and ‘grayness’ of it all lift, even if only for a moment.

When the jumping finally stopped, they found themselves gathered before a large sign reading “Welcome saviours”, hanging loosely off a post. The bandstand held some discarded instruments, but there was a deathly quiet surrounding the adventurers. Nobody walked the streets, no vendors working their shops. They had arrived a day late, but how could that have caused the entire town to empty out? Where was everyone?

Zearach and Duanne were already scouting around, trying to figure out what was going on. After sending the elf on a flight around the city, things were even more confusing. There were 6 towers, stretching out from the market where they stood, as if the city was split in six sectors.

“Something isn’t right” reported Zearach, setting foot back on the ground beside them. “Every sector looks identical and when I tried to reach one of the towers, the perspective wasn’t shifting correctly. I even saw a bird flying in exactly the same position in all six sectors.”

“An illusion, no doubt” submitted Duanne as the obvious hypothesis. “But an illusion of that size would take tremendous power, and it could not last like this.”

The wizard raised his beak to the air, flaring his nostrils repeatedly.

“There’s a smell on the air, coming from this direction” he said, pointing towards a fruit market. “It’s hard to fake that.”

Thora walked up to the store front, knocking on the front door, but there was no answer. Pushing their way inside they found themselves in a fantastic market shop filled with wonderful smells and delicious food. Apples, larger than any the dwarf had ever seen, were piled high in a bushel by the door. No store owner, though.

Thora picked up one of the apples, huge and solid in the dwarf’s hand. Seemed real enough. Tossing it back into the pile, it seemed to rattle around oddly, passing through some of the other apples in the basket. Something was off.

Shnick.

Thora’s blade was unsheathed in an instant, ready for whomever, or whatever, was behind this. Alandal and Zearach similarly prepared themselves but Duanne stepped forward, his eyes focused on the room ahead of them as he chanted. He waved his claws about, gesturing to the room and drawing strange shapes in the air before him. With a final clap and flourish, a wave echoed out from him and the illusion fell away.

Everything around them was old and withered. There were a few decrepit-looking rotten fruit, wooden boxes that were breaking apart with age. Outside, the sound of glass-like shattering began to spread through the market. In the room, shards of crystals began to break apart in the upper corners of the room.

Zearach peered out the window, beckoning the others over to look. Everything outside was rubble and ruin in every direction. There were no birds, no bandstand, no banner or instruments. Just the ghost of a city that once was.

“So, now you know” came a feminine voice from behind them.

The Time Warrior

They turned to find a soldier, decked out in the blue armour of those assassins that had tried to take them all out the day before. She wore no helmet, unlike the ones they had met yesterday, and stood casually, almost defeated.

“Go ahead, look around. This is what the Enkari Empire is today, right now” she continued, a slight tone of contempt mixed in with a heavy dose of sadness in her voice. “The rumours you heard were once true, of the powerful empire, but we were too greedy. The powerful tapped into the very essence of the world. The rich became richer, the poor became poorer, and those who had the means drained more and more. But it couldn’t last. We ran out of resources to fuel the civilization. As we tapped into more elemental resources, the countryside was slowly drained and burnt all around us. Everything has lost its energy: the air, the water, the earth.”

The dwarf eyed up this new arrival, trying to judge the potential that this was a trap, but she didn’t seem to be making a move for any weapons. She had the air of a worn out shock trooper that has seen too many missions. One hand seemed to be applying pressure to a wound in her side. She kicked at the hard dirt ground below her booted foot, kicking up dust around her. Thora noticed that the way the ground crumbled beneath her boot was odd, like it didn’t have the right consistency.

“I’ve been trying to stop you from coming here” she admitted. “Not just myself, obviously, but we’ve all tried. We have technology that has given us glimpses through time and we knew that one of you would have the power to join our captors, those that enslave us. We did everything we could to find you at different points in the past and stop you from ensuring their victory, yet here you stand.”

Thora had thought that perhaps the soldiers were some sort of rebellious force trying to stop an evil plan by the Enkari scientists to take over all of Rhime, but it seems that guess had been a little off. These were the Enkari, but they didn’t seem to be the ones in control.

“And so I have one plea, a last ditch attempt, a long shot: join us! Help us stop the Hexen!”

“We’re here to stop this” came Alandal’s melodic response, speaking on their behalf. “To stop what happened here from happening everywhere. What can you tell us about these captors of yours?”

“There are six of them, the Hexen Overlords, living far in the future. They are draining life from across all time over to theirs”. The woman coughed, some red slipping out onto her lower lip.

“Does somebody have a bandage for her wound?” Thora called out, looking to the others. Duanne was quick to respond, pulling out a medical kit and starting to see to her wounds as she continued to fill them in.

“We discovered it here, in this place, that we could combine the four elements and focus them to look through time. That is when we saw the four of you arriving.” She seemed to pause dramatically, eyeing each of them in turn, as if trying to size them up. “One of you will join the Hexen Overlords, becoming the seventh. That cannot happen.”

Even through the pain and the exhaustion, her voice was firm on this point.

“We have mobilized as quickly as possible, but there is not much time left.” She laughed, though it was strained by the pain in her side. “Ah, time. We thought we’d found a way to use it to our advantage, going after you in the past. Many of us went, few made it back. Perhaps there are things that cannot be changed, but I refuse to lose hope that we are locked into our future.”

Leaning against the wall, she rested, and pointed towards an alcove she had been standing in front of. Thora supposed this must have been how she appeared so suddenly.

“Through here is where we can try to make a stand. Make sure to stay to the left, though. The caverns and tunnels have crumbled over the years and many of the passageways are far too dangerous to take.”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” asked Zearach, an eyebrow raised in surprise.

“I’ll follow, but I will just slow you down.”

Alandal was sizing her up, Thora could tell. The dwarf had seen that look in the dragonborn’s eyes a few times now, even if it was a subtle shift. There was a way the bard would tilt his head and blink his eyes that made him seem much more like his draconic ancestors when he was fully considering something. Whatever he had sensed, he seemed satisfied with what had been proposed.

As they looked into the dark tunnels, Duanne helped the woman to her feet.

“Who discovered these tunnels and caverns?” he asked, as if making small-talk during a walk in the park.

“It was my cousin, Morfin. She’s powerfully unpowerful, but great at seeing things others sometimes miss” the woman spoke, a tinge of sorrow on her words. “That’s not her name anymore, though. In fact, those of us who joined the forces had to give up our given names. You can call me Shadow.”

“I wish we had met under better circumstances, Shadow” greeted Zearach with the formality his people were known for. “If time is as short as you say it is, we should start moving.”

Duanne and Zearach led the way, exploring and trying to make the best of their time in these winding tunnels. Thora, however, trailed behind. The dwarf was completely wiped out, even the standing they had needed to do for the last few minutes in the shop had taken away most of the dwarf’s energy. Thora’s gauntlet was pressing firmly against the sides of the tunnel, using the crumbling stone walls as a crutch to keep from falling over. It was one thing to be tired, but now it took so much willpower for the soldier just to put one foot in front of the other. The others were somewhere off in the darkness now, the bard’s light source far away and around a corner. It felt a little like home, come to think of it, albeit with a little more heat and a little less mithril veins in the tunnel walls.

Thora began humming an old miner’s tune that Beka used to sing.

“What’s that song?” asked Shadow, who was hobbling along slowly, but still keeping up with Thora’s slow pace.

“I don’t remember the name, not sure if I ever knew it. Just something from a long time ago…”

Thora remained silent after that, struggling along to catch up with the others. They found the others waiting at a doorway into a large, crumbling, colosseum. Dozens of soldiers were suited up in a variety of armour and equipment, preparing to jump into glowing shimmers of light. Each of these shimmering portals seemed to have a different image on the other side, places all over Rhime. Many soldiers jumped into the portals, but there didn’t seem to be anyone coming back.

Shadow stepped before them and gestured toward the small army before them.

“Welcome to the launching point.”

The Hexet

A launching point, but not an arrival point. It seemed that Thora wasn’t the only one to pick up on this as their tortle friend was also having questions for their guide.

“So, Shadow the nameless, are you able to return?”

“Two have done it” was Shadow’s response, a serious look on her face. “They went back only a few days, and came back by living through those days and travelling here, not back through the portal.”

“So they only go backwards” stated Duanne, confirming what the rest of them had already suspected.

Shadow’s nod held a sadness underneath it. Even though she and her soldiers had attempted to brutally murder them, Thora could still empathize and understood the emotional impact of sending soldiers to their sure deaths. One-way trips that you know your friends will never come back from. You know it’s a part of the deal for yourself when you sign up, but you never think about what it will feel like to send others in your stead.

Thora looked around the colosseum at the various portals. The soldiers at their portals were prepping for more launches, each to their own target. Had they already met these soldiers? Had they felt Thora’s blades in their guts, knowing they had failed in their mission as they bled out? Thora looked down at the bronze-tinted weapon hanging at the dwarf’s side, one of the Enkari flame-thrower devices. Thora spotted a similarly-armed set of soldiers walking through a portal just at that moment. Some of them looked young, healthy. Others were haggard and worn, looking as if they were already near death.

“Are you sure you can’t direct the portals the other way?” asked Duanne, looking over at one of the larger portals to their left.

“We have been trying with this one” Shadow stated, following the wizard’s gaze and gesturing at the large portal. “We attempted to focus the crystal magic to get some glimpse of the future, but we can’t stabilize it.”

They watched as short visions of the future appeared, just hints of motion. The four of them standing together looking up at a tower. Another vision appeared with an enormous alien creature with tentacles reaching from its head. Yet another image came into view with a shrinking fire elemental, shouting in pain as its very essence is siphoned off into the mouths of a group of the tentacled aliens.

There was a look on Duanne’s face. Thora could recognize some of the wizard’s moods, but reading the tortle was always tough. It seemed like he was excited about what they were seeing? The dwarf looked back at the visions of the future, trying to see what Duanne was seeing. How was this helpful?

“WE SHALL SEIZE THE FUTURE AND DEFEAT THE HEXEN!” came Duanne’s shout, surprising Thora and most of the others nearby. They had drawn some attention during their arrival, but now all focus was on the wizard who was practically dancing on his peg leg as he made some complex motion with his claws and staff.

“This is going to be bad, isn’t it?” Thora whispered to Alandal, who was equally surprised at the wizard’s sudden outburst.

The bard was quick-witted though, and already drumming out a beat to match the tortle’s rhythm. His draconic voice joined in with the rhythm, urging the wizard on, sending Duanne into an even greater spiral of antics. There seemed to be a glow forming around the wizard now and the other portals began to flicker. Arcs of energy seemed to jump from one crystal to another, flying through the air towards the larger portal.

It was getting bigger.

“Be ready!” shouted Zearach, who was already nocking one arrow while holding a second in his hand.

Thora was having trouble focusing through the pain, the tiredness, and the lack of will. Still, the dwarf had come back for a reason, to put an end to this. There was still so much to be done, wasn’t that what Thora had said to Uncle Belgar? The soldier looked down at the bronze tube coming out of the strange Enkari contraption they had found back in Embassy and then slid the weapon’s pack into place, grimacing in pain. What was that old saying grandfather had repeated?

“Today is a good day to die.”

There was a crackle of energy in the air causing the hairs on their arms to rise on end. More and more power was surging into the portal, stabilizing it. Suddenly a burst of wild arcane force blasted out from the wizard, sending lightning arcing through the air at the portal. The strange alien beast on the other side swiveled in surprise as the blast not only stabilized the portal but burst through, striking the creature with full force.

Then chaos reigned.

Some soldiers fled in terror, others turned to face the tentacled monstrosity that was clawing its way through the portal. Thora slowly walked forward, forcing every step towards the beast. The demonic presence opened its maw, sending an icy blast that immediately froze an entire squadron of the soldiers.

One more step.

Zearach was firing arrow after arrow, joining the other soldiers as they tried to fill the creature from a distance. It roared in pain but refused to fall.

One more step.

Duanne was in the portal now, Thora could see him on the other side, slashing with his claws and pummeling it with his power. The tortle really had taken that chaos realm to heart. Any moment now, that creature would turn its attention on the wizard.

One more step.

Alandal charged forward, past Thora, his drum slung to his side as he launched himself into the fray. Summoning the energy within him, the dragonborn was spitting a stream of lightning into the portal, doing whatever he could.

Just one more step?

Thora could feel it now. Fear. The dwarf wasn’t sure if that feeling would ever come back after what had happened, but here it was. Thora was afraid to die. Struggling with one of the switches on the handle of the strange Enkari device, Thora tried to figure out how to prime the hose, but it was simpler than expected. A burst of flame suddenly popped out of the end, almost singing the dwarf’s beard.

With a press of the trigger, the flame shot out at the creature, engulfing it in a cloud of fire. It screamed as it burned, but the Enkari device had only so much fuel. It sputtered, unable to continue. Thora started mashing at the other buttons, struggling to keep control of the device.

“I’M GOING TO BE THE 6TH HEXET, DON’T WORRY!” came the shout from Duanne, somewhere in the portal.

The tortle was doing something. Probably something very dangerous. The portal had started closing, but everyone kept firing, trying to keep the creature from coming through. Duanne was still on the other side, locked in battle with it, seemingly oblivious to the danger. The tortle suddenly stabbed into the creature, sending a shock through the Hexet’s body that caused its tentacles to seize up and its eyes go wide. Its mouth opened to scream as tremors shook the ground all around. The thing was burning from the inside out, but the last thing to go was the eyes. Those alien eyes stared out in hatred at the wizard, unbelieving.

And then there was nothing left but a pile of ash.

Duanne leaned down, plucking a large red gem out of the ashen corpse of the Hexet and then diving back into the colosseum. Behind the tortle, the portal snapped closed with great force, sending a shockwave across the room that threatened to knock them over. As the dust settled and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, a chorus of five booming voices filled their minds, speaking in unison.

“Oh, there you are!”

Credits

• Cover image: “Hexet”, composite image by Jason St-Cyr. Hexet creature image generated by John Richardson, background stock is “Mystical Energy Flows” (sourced from stockcake)