In the morning, the odd pair continued as they had the day before, crossing the vast hilnd, which slowly began to level out. The sun had just hit the midway point in the sky above them when she noticed an even brighter light in the direction they were heading. She wanted to ask about it, but she didn’t dare distract the man carrying her as they sped across the terrain.

  It turned out that the swiftly growing light was their destination. A huge portal that was shining with a bright golden light seemed to be embedded into a giant rocky formation jutting up in the dry grassy area they arrived in. Phoenix didn’t see any monsters around, so she assumed they were in the rift, as Paul had mentioned.

  When he set her on the ground about a dozen meters away from it, her book appeared again with an update.

  Quest: Mysterious Stranger

  Objective Complete: Followed Paul Waynd to the Reality Rift.

  Objective Reward:

  [Sewing Kit] has been added to your collection.

  Completion Reward:

  10 [Mana Bits] have been added to your collection.

  New Quest: Another Other Reality

  Your new companion has arrived at a Reality Rift and pns to fight the enemies inside; join him in the adventure.

  Objective: Explore the Reality Rift.

  Reward: Rare Aspect.

  Phoenix could sense Paul shamelessly reading over her shoulder, even admitting as much when he gave a slight huff and muttered, “Definitely lucrative.”

  She gnced up at him and asked hesitantly, “It won’t tell me the type of Aspect until it rewards me, but whatever it offers should be okay to use, right?”

  He frowned and pointed out, “It sent you down the path of darkness.”

  The bald Wayfarer scrunched up her face in mild annoyance as she muttered, “Right… I don’t know how or why it gives what it does.”

  Paul went silent once more, then looked from her to the book, then to the portal before them, and asked without a hint of his own preference, “Will you be joining?”

  She replicated his own movements as she looked from his stoic face down to the book, then up at the portal before slowly nodding, “Yes. Aside from going down the path of the Sith, this book has guided me pretty well so far and tried its best to keep me alive… I think,” she said before giving her book a side gnce wondering how it worked even more now. Was it trying to keep her safe by keeping her close to Paul? Or was it trying to off her with the monsters waiting for them inside?

  The warrior gave a curt nod, and his gleaming armor materialized around him as he strode forward to lead the way. She followed closely behind the Emerald Caster, hoping proximity would be enough to shield her from whatever danger awaited them.

  As they approached the rift in reality, the air continued to get warmer. She had noticed the area, in general, warming up as they traveled throughout the day, and now she wondered if this portal was the reason. The heat was reaching uncomfortable temperatures as they walked up and entered together.

  Passing through the barrier into the other pocket dimension felt extremely simir to using her own portal ability, so that didn’t disturb her as much as the blistering heat and blinding light that met them. Hot wind scorched her pale skin and almost stole her breath away.

  When her eyes finally adjusted to the searing brightness, she discovered that this particur alternate reality was home to what she equated to the pnet Arrakis, and she briefly wondered if the monsters they would be fighting were giant sandworms. There seemed to be nothing but rust-colored sand dunes as far as her eyes could see. Only matched in its monotony by the pale blue sky above them.

  “Stay close,” was the only thing Paul said before making his way down the rge sand dune they were currently standing atop. She scurried after him, struggling not to fall as she followed. Eventually, she noticed there were actually two suns in the sky, which made her reassess that maybe they were on Tatooine instead.

  About fifteen minutes of walking passed when Phoenix asked, “How do you know which way to go? There’s nothing out here but sand and sun.” She was fairly certain her pale bald head, which had barely begun regrowing a yer of red fuzz, was going to burn terribly under the merciless twin orbs of fire.

  The tanned man didn’t look back as he replied simply, “Auras.”

  She rolled her eyes. Of course it was aura senses, which she was once again reminded she sorely cked any skill in. It was only another fifteen minutes when she almost ran into Paul’s back as he paused and then gestured for her to lower herself to the sand. They peeked over the top of the dune they were on, which was the tallest she had seen so far, to gaze down at what Paul had noticed.

  The viewpoint allowed them to see quite a ways into the distance, and the Adventurer pointed towards a small group of moving figures. They were dark shapes against the brightly lit sands, and she couldn’t tell how many were there, but it seemed like they were surrounding a rge glowing sphere that she couldn’t make out details about.

  “What kind of monsters are they? It’s too bright. I can’t see well from here,” she whispered quietly to the former padin.

  He seemed to debate telling her for a moment, then said, “The weakest ones are magically altered monsters. Are you familiar with Soul Reapers?”

  She shook her head in the negative, and he continued quietly, “They’re invaders from outside of our reality. This group, in particur, has been a menace trying to sabotage our world’s Reality Rifts for the st couple of months.”

  “Sabotage?” she asked in confusion.

  “They destabilize them somehow and cause them to colpse. It has a devastating effect on our world, completely annihiting the surrounding nd and disrupting the magic of the area.”

  “They turn the rifts into bombs in the hopes of destroying your world enough to take over?” she said, trying to piece together the information in wide-eyed horror.

  Paul gave her a pointed look, “Your world too, now,” he said and looked back at the group in the distance, “The altered monsters, which we call Caged, are usually stronger than the original and dumber for it, but they can easily stand against someone of equal Caste. The Reapers themselves are the smarter and bigger threat. The strongest down there is just a high-level Sapphire, however, with only a handful of lower Sapphires to help. The Caged all seem to be Crystal Caste. The low Castes are why the AOA let me take the mission alone.”

  “Is strength and smarts the only difference between the Caged and the Reaper monsters?” she asked in a hushed whisper, still trying to get a better look at the creatures in the distance.

  “No more questions now,” he said with a shake of his head, shutting down her questions on magic, then gestured to the dune closest to the group that was between them and commanded, “You will wait there once I move in and engage. You will stay there and not draw any attention to yourself. You will not move closer to that sphere until I call for you.

  “If by some bad stroke of fortune, I am incapacitated, you will return to the portal and travel east until you hit a river, then follow it north till you hit a town. If you make it that far, then it most likely means I have failed, and you will inform the local AOA branch of such. Do you understand everything I’ve just instructed?” his piercing golden eyes never left hers as he made his orders clear.

  Phoenix nodded as adrenaline started to surge through her body at the thought of the approaching danger. She had really wished that he had expined all of that before she had agreed to enter the desote wastend of this pseudo-reality, but she wasn’t going to turn back now.

  With no further words, Paul turned back and slowly led them across the sandy expanse towards their target. He whispered a few words she couldn’t catch and then seemed to vanish in front of her eyes. The next moment, there was a deafening explosion from the direction of the monsters, followed by a cacophony of screams, shouting, and roars.

  The sounds brought back a wave of memories of the st week in the monster-infested wilderness, and she covered her ears, trying not to return to the panic of that first night. Tears streamed down her dust-covered face, unbidden. She wasn’t used to having to battle monsters and hated the feeling of weakness the loud roars instilled in her.

  A sudden sm from the side knocked her from her fear-den thoughts and caused her to tumble down the sandy dune in a wave of pain. She only had a moment to look back up, trying to catch her breath that had been forcefully knocked from her lungs. What she saw was a terrifying creature that looked like a mix between a pangolin and a tarantu carved out of a sandstone boulder that was even taller than Paul.

  Its armor-pted back and head seemed to offer formidable protection, while its piercing spear-like legs and sharp mouth pincers seemed to cover its offense. It seemed so heavy that Phoenix wasn’t sure how it didn’t sink into the sand without some sort of magic power.

  She wasn’t given more time to ponder the odd composition of the monster, though, as its rge spiked tail started bearing down to smash into her again. She reactively lunged to the side in a rolling dodge.

  Phoenix conjured her Dark dagger and held it in front of her, rapidly trying to think of a way to take down the monster without getting skewered in return. She could hear Paul still fighting on the other side of the dune and assumed this one must have been bsted far enough away by his initial attack that it caught sight of her and saw a snack.

  As the monster turned, she realized that its armored bulk made it slow and awful at pivoting, and she began to run to the side, trying to maneuver behind it. She was pretty sure that the initial attack had cracked a rib or two and knew that she couldn’t hope to match its strength. So she had to aim for speed and smarts and pray it would be enough.

  She wasn’t sure if the creature actually had some of the weak points that its Earth equivalents were supposed to have, but she could only assume so as she managed to get behind it and plunge her dagger toward the base of its tail, trying to get between the rocky pting.

  Almost instinctively, she could tell that her dagger’s ability to apply a Bane on the creature that would siphon mana took effect as she felt her well slowly start to replenish. It was as if the magic itself was letting her know in the same way she could tell what loot was in her collection.

  The shriek that came from its maw caught her off guard, and one of its stagmite legs struck her in the chest, sending her flying backward. She forced herself to get up, coughing out sand and the blood that pooled in her lungs from the strike and faced her enemy once more.

  Having lost her grip on her dagger from the blow, she conjured it again. The bck stiletto vanished from the monster’s hind, causing blood to flow freely from the puncture wound. It was good to know that was how the ability worked, and she tried a new tactic, throwing the dagger as hard as she could at the creature.

  Of course, it hit at a bad angle and fell harmlessly into the dune that was shifting with their movement. She mentally berated herself and conjured the dagger again, making it disappear from the ground and reappear in her hand once more. She didn’t have time to try throwing it again, however, as the monster charged in fury.

  The Wayfarer barely managed to duck down in time and thrust her dagger upward underneath it as it almost impaled her on one of its legs. Its underside turned out to be much softer than the sandstone-pted back, and its own momentum helped her small dagger slice open its innards as she suddenly found herself painted in blood and guts.

  The added heat and gore caused her to lose the contents of her stomach as she lurched to her hands and knees. Attempting to use one of her hands to wipe her face of the disgusting fluids while the other shakily kept her from falling into her own puddle of bile.

  In a st-ditch effort of pain, anguish, and rage, the creature swung its rge stone tail and hit her prone form with all its power. That single blow crushed the left side of her body as she tried to wipe the blood from her eyes. The pain was unlike anything she had experienced before as she felt her arm shatter in multiple pces at once, and she was knocked back several meters to impact against more of the hard-packed sand. She didn’t even have time to gasp, let alone scream, as her vision went bck, and she felt no more.