The farther we got from the wagon, the thicker and heavier the air became. At first, the shift was so subtle, we almost didn't notice. Gradually, however, the sky darkened due to some heavy clouds, and the breeze grew damp and thick. The wind picked up, but rather than getting cooler, the air felt heavy, like a thick wet blanket was thrown over me.

  "The hell is this shit?" Vral wiped the sweat from her forehead. "It feels like that time I went down to Osreva for a job. Nothing but sand and bugs. Makes fighting all sweaty and gross. And did you know they have spiders with tails down there? They're disgusting." Shuddering, the goblin pulled off her hood and opened up a few of her leather armor's buttons.

  I tried not to look.

  I failed.

  "Sounds like scorpions. We have those on earth." Pulling my eyes away, I took stock of myself. What I felt wasn't good. I was soaking through the clothes underneath my armor. Leather and thick cloth didn't mix well with humidity.

  "I've heard of those. Aren't you supposed to shake out your boots out or something before putting them on? I had no idea they were on earth too." Tristan seemed like she was faring the heat far better than either Vral or me. A quick glance revealed she wasn't sweating but merely flushed, as if from a good workout. Even so, her face was relaxed, and her breathing was easy. A stark contrast to my gross self. Must be her elf genes.

  "They're venomous, yeah. We don't have magic back on Earth, so a bite from one of those can take someone out."

  "Sucks for you losers," Vral added.

  "It does, actually. Magical healing is amazing."

  "Is there anywhere this hot on Earth?" Tristan asked.

  I pulled on the armor around my neck to vent some of the heat away from my body, but all it did was let more heat in. "Yeah, hotter. I lived in a place known for its heat back home. I don't love feeling this hot again."

  "I didn't know that," Tristan said next to me. "What's it called?"

  "Florida. I spent a few years there during college. It was okay. Nice beaches. Lots of drugs. One guy took some bath salts and ate someone's face a while back."

  Vral looked back up at me and cocked her head. "Bath salts?"

  I laughed. How could I explain it... "You know how Farvad makes weird stuff out of plants? It's kind of like that. Crystals that get you high."

  "High?" She asked.

  "Um..." I had no idea how to explain that. "All I can really say is that you get a lot done until you don't. At least, that's what it seemed like when my old roommate used it. I never tried it."

  "Huh, sounds useful." Tristan seemed interested.

  "Nah, it's a trap. You gotta keep taking more and more for it to work. People spend all their money chasing that dragon."

  "You have dragons?" Vral asked. "What color are they?"

  "It's just a metaphor."

  "Oh..." Vral seemed confused. "What's a metaphor?"

  I laughed. "We'll talk about it another time." I didn't fully know how to explain it anyways.

  "I forget you're not from here sometimes."Tristan's voice was soft. "This world must be strange to you"

  I shrugged. "Honestly? Less than you'd think. Most of the things here were myths and stories back home. Hearing tales about dragons and monsters were bedtime stories, games, and novels for us. It wasn't real life, but it felt real."

  "That makes sense. I grew up hearing about Earth from my dad. Sometimes, I really feel like I've been there, especially when you talk to me about it." Tristan's voice was bright. From our conversations in the past, I knew talking about Earth made her feel close to her late father.

  "If I ever get the chance, I'll show it to you for real." I didn't know if that was possible, but I'd try.

  "Blegh, leave me out of it. Earth sounds boring as hell," Vral chirped.

  I laughed. "It can be. I rather like it here. It's been pretty neat to see the stories in person. I can't really complain."

  "But there has to be something you miss, right?" Tristan asked.

  "To be honest, sure. Back home, we had cars and airplanes, electricity, the internet. Instead of systems and goddesses and magic, we had science. We used it to take care of people's needs and created a ton of comfort for people. But, we were so isolated and atomized back home. People here are far more interdependent and connected. I like it."

  "I don't have any idea what those words meant." Vral's eyebrows were scrunched up. "Airplane?"

  "It's like a metal bird that you ride in."

  "Freaky."

  "It kind of was." I never liked flying. "But, it doesn't really matter. As far as I can tell, half of the stuff we had back home either doesn't work or has a better magical analog here. But it was different back home. Less exciting in some ways. A lot of ways, really. We mostly worked, ate, and got lost in whatever media we liked. Maybe we went to the bar every once in a while. It was pretty dull. But there were also far fewer dark cults, evil undead lords, and bloodthirsty bandits. Earth is certainly safer in that way."

  "What monsters do you fight there?" Vral was thumbing her swords' hilts.

  "We had these things called CEOs. Nasty things. Made life difficult for the rest of us."

  "Which would you rather fight?" Vral's eyes were shining.

  "Not sure which I'd want to take on. Bandits you can fight. Corporate capture was almost invisible. It feels easier to fight an enemy you can see. Plus, rent is certainly cheaper here." I laughed at my own pitiful joke, but neither of the girls seemed to get it. To be expected, I supposed.

  Tristan looked downcast. "I'm sorry you lost everything when you came here, Alex." Tristan put her hand on my arm. "I wish there was a way we could get you home."

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  I reached out and squeezed her hand. "Don't be. My parents and I stopped talking years ago. My sister, she... she died when we were young. It was just me working a dead-end job for a dickhead who stole from the business. The only person I really got along with was a coworker, but I kept her at arm's length. She's probably the only person I miss, really."

  Vral's eyes met mine again. She stopped playing with her swords. "What was her name?"

  "Devon. Devon... I honestly can't remember her last name anymore."

  "Devon..." The goblin trailed off, seemingly considering the name. "Was she human like you?"

  "Everyone on Earth is human like me. There are no other races on Earth. The only other one that lived at the same time as us died, like, ten thousand years ago or something."

  "Huh. That's weird. Earth is weird." She pulled out her dagger and began spinning it in her hand. "Knowing your taste, I'm assuming Devon was beautiful too?" At her words, Tristan blushed and looked away, and Vral's lips puckered.

  "She was pretty and very spunky. Kind of a brat, but she looked out for me. We got along well. It's funny too. She always scrunched her lips up when she got irritated, kind of like you are right now." I pointed at Vral's face. The little goblin blushed and slapped her cheeks. Her lips softened.

  "And you bedded her?"

  "I..."

  "Got it." The goblin frowned. "I know I'll never compare to her, but how does she compare to Tris?"

  What did she mean she'd never compare? That didn't seem like the confident Vral I knew. "She was very pretty. But, compared to you two..." I searched for the right words. They were both amazing in their own way. "There isn't any comparison. Vral, you and Tristan are both fantastic, beautiful women. I'm happy you're with me." Tristan turned back and took my hand, but Vral's face darkened.

  "I see." Vral spun on her heel and picked up her pace. Calling over her shoulder, she said, "Come on you two. Let's cut the chatter and get this job done."

  Confused by Vral's response, I caught Tristan's eye and silently asked her what I said. Had I somehow insulted her?

  She shook her head slightly and gave me a pitying smile, but instead of offering any insights, she jogged a little ahead and caught up with Vral. Reaching out, she placed an arm on Vral's shoulder.

  What just happened?

  ***

  It got twice as hot before we reached the ruin. Hot and wet. The worst kind of hot.

  To make matters worse, the trail had long since turned to mud, and a thick suffocating fog blanketed the area. We couldn't see far in the mist, which made our trec both miserable and difficult. I stepped in at least a dozen holes in the ground, each disguised by the many puddles that had settled on the trail, and I was pretty sure my boots were filled with a gallon of mud each. My toes sloshed in my boots, and I could feel the mud grinding under my toenails.

  However, despite the moisture in the air, after a few hours of marching through the woods, a massive stone wall was finally just barely visible ahead of us.

  So were the skulls buried in its walls.

  Fighting off an involuntary shiver, I tried to take the structure in as much as I could. It was more of a crumbling heap than a fortress or castle. Large sections of the walls were decaying, and whole sections were completely destroyed, their stones crumbled away by some ancient battle or maybe time. The gaps in the wall revealed a large, seemingly intact central building with a huge spire in the middle. Smaller buildings were also visible in the grounds, but most looked like little more than piles of stones.

  Nothing grew on the walls or the ground within fifteen or twenty feet of the wall, and the entire area felt sickly. The grass that did grow close seemed yellowed and stunted, and when got within a few feet of the wall, the ground dried out completely. From the gaps in the wall, I could smell that dry, dusty death smell that Vral had mentioned before. That shocked me a bit. Just how good was her sense of smell?

  We walked around the wall until we approached a large stone archway. Set on either side were massive iron hinges, and one of the two iron doors was still relatively intact, if rusty and precarious, but the other had long since fallen into the castle's interior. When we reached the entryway to the keep's interior, Tristan and Vral stopped and looked at me expectantly.

  "I think it's safe to say we've arrived." I kept my voice low, but it still managed to echo in the silence. There were absolutely no animal sounds anywhere.

  "It stinks." Vral pinched her nose. "I've smelled some undead before and more than a few dead people, but it reeks here."

  Tristan unslung her pack and fished out a thick tome.

  "What's that?" I asked. I'd caught her intently studying a text in the scriptorium over the past few months, but I had no idea what she'd been working on. She'd been reluctant to share and often said she'd share more when she was more confident. I respected her privacy.

  "I don't know if this is going to work." She settled on a page. I watched as she scanned it. A moment later, she looked at me. "Would you mind giving me a little encouragement? It helps."

  She'd been trusting me more and more to have her back. I loved it. "Whatever you're doing, I know you've got this."

  Smiling, she began reading out loud. I didn't understand a single word she spoke, but, after a minute or so of reading, a thick white energy began forming on the surface of her skin. Within seconds, the light was pouring from her body and filling the air, which crackled with energy. She read each word with a confident and steady pace and tone, and as she did, the light grew brighter and brighter until, with a flash, everything went white. Words appeared in my vision then.

  「Hallow」

  As my eyes adjusted, I could see a cloud of bright white pouring out of her. The light surrounded us, flowing almost like the motes of light did with the Luminara cast its spell on us, then flowed past us into the castle grounds ahead and the forest behind us. Slowly, the light infused the area until it blanketed everything as far as the eye could see. The white energy mixed with the mist around us, cleansing the air of the foul stench and clearing the mist substantially.

  Sweat was pouring from her, but still, she read. Her sapphire eyes had turned golden and glowed with a soft inner light. White-golden tears seeped from her eyes and left tracks down her cheeks. Her hands trembled, and sweat ran down her brow, but her voice was strong, confident. Her hair whipped in an invisible wind, and her words echoed off of everything. My heart clenched.

  She looked like an angel sent from above to cleanse the land.

  Finally, after a final string of words that she spoke with a power I'd never heard from her lips, a gust of wind whipped around us, clearing the last of the mist and removing any trace of the foul smell. Then, it faded, dissipating into a faint shimmer in the air.

  When the light was finally gone, our eyes met again. The golden glow lingered in them, mixing with her sapphire irises to create a color I'd never seen before. She smiled and wiped the tears from her cheeks. She reached out for me, but the action made her teeter on her feet. The book fell from her fingers and she started to tumble. Rushing to her, I grabbed by her waist and guided her to the ground.

  "Thanks." With a groan, she put the book back into her pack and drank a long pull of water from her canteen. "I didn't know if I could pull that off. Junior priests generally need several people to help cast that ritual, but Lady Varga said I would be able to manage it. Looks like she was right." Tristan wiped her soaked brow with her sleeve and took another long pull of water.

  "What did you do?" The air around us was still just barely shimmering. The temperature dropped by at least ten degrees, and the oppressive humidity lessened.

  "It's a spell called Hallow. It consecrates the area around me and undoes any curses upon the land. It also makes it difficult for undead or infernal beings to linger here. More importantly, it'll increase my magic while here." She stood up, but her whole body was shaking. She tried to take a step but stumbled. I caught her as she fell forward. She fell into my arms. Gazing up at me, she blushed. "Thank you."

  "I'll always catch you." I smiled and brushed a strand of sweaty hair from her forehead.

  "You idiot... Always such a hero..." She smiled up at me and placed a hand on my chest. "As much as I'd love to stay like this, it's a little uncomfortable. Please, set me back down."

  I lowered her down, careful not to drop her too hard.

  "Thank you." She smiled up at me, then took a long pull from her canteen.

  When she swallowed, I asked, "so, maybe I'm just a newbie, or maybe it's because I'm not from here, but what exactly was that? I've never seen magic like that. And the way the system notified me looked different. Why?"

  "I'm from here, and I don't get it either." Vral looked as concerned as I felt. "But I don't meddle with mages and the like much. Don't like that stuff." Vral hugged herself and shuddered.

  "I can explain, but give me some time. I need to rest for a bit. Vral, go scout while I rest up. Alex can guard me until you come back."

  Before the final word left her lips, the little goblin was gone.