Fortress Al-Mir

Arkk had missed the opening of the Underworld portal. It was understandable, really, on account of having an audience with a god at the time. He had seen the after-effects, of course. The shimmering, almost water-like membrane that separated the two worlds and the lit runes embedded in the portal’s crystalline archway were certainly a sight to behold. Arkk wasn’t sure that he had much of a reaction after seeing the other portal. But, again, he had just met a god. It was hard to be impressed by much after that.

With the memories of Xel’atriss having faded over time, Arkk watched with rapt attention as the shimmering liquid flooded the interior of the archway, like a pool of water lifted vertically. A light ring rippled out from the center, vibrating the water’s surface until the wave reached the crystalline walls.

Another ripple spread through the shimmering membrane, this one bringing with it proper imagery. The Slumbering Vale, Vezta had called it, was a much more lively land than the Underworld. The realm was a vast, endless garden of soft, lush grasses and sprawling fields of flowers. The undoubtedly fragrant smell of the fields didn’t pass through the portal, but Arkk could still almost taste the strong floral air on the tip of his tongue. Above the garden, the starry expanse in its clear sky was stuck in a smooth transition from twilight to a gentle night, never quite reaching it.

A small warning note in the back of Arkk’s mind alerted him to an alteration to Fortress Al-Mir, one he had not sanctioned.

One of the pedestals within Fortress Al-Mir’s temple room, formerly vacant, now held a statue. This one held an aged man, clean-shaved, slumped in a small, simple chair. His head, topped by a crown, rested against one of his shoulders. Unlike the other statues, his eyes were closed, sleeping, while cradling a humanoid skull as if it were a cloth doll given to a child. He looked entirely at peace as if nothing could possibly disturb him from his rest.

The Eternal Silence. God of sleep, rest, peace, and death.

“It worked!” Zullie said, breaking the silence in the portal room. “And everything appears stable.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Dakka said.

Zullie huffed. “These portals use the Lock and Key’s power. I can see that,” she said with an offended wrinkle on her nose. “It won’t last forever though. Without Fortress Al-Mir to sustain the portal magically, it will shut down when the glowstones run out of power. We should hurry.”

“Stop,” Arkk said, tone flat as he clamped a hand on Zullie’s shoulder to stop her from skipping through the portal. “First, how long will the portal last? Can it be reopened?”

Morvin crouched near an array of glowstones linked to the archway via ritual circles and answered for Zullie. “I’ll have better numbers after a few minutes, but at the current rate of drain—assuming it doesn’t change—I would guess an hour? Give or take ten minutes.”

“No reason why we can’t reopen it,” Zullie said. “Just like opening it the first time. We will have to recharge the glowstones—”

“Which takes a fair amount of time,” Arkk said, frowning as he looked over the glowing stones. The glowstones they were using to power this could have launched dozens of bombardment spells. It would take several days to process them through the Underworld charging rituals.

“Yes, but it is possible.”

Just as he had done with the Underworld, Arkk conjured a lesser servant. The slopping mess of oily mass looked up at him with a multitude of eyes, awaiting his command. So he gave it one. He sent it through the portal’s threshold.

With the Underworld, he had been able to feel the creature on the other side and even give it commands to return. The same was true here. But he stopped it before it could come back.

“Shut the portal down.”

“What? But—”

“Shut it down,” Arkk said, looking at Morvin. “And then start it back up.”

Morvin hesitated a moment, looking to Zullie, then looked back to Arkk. “The starting procedure cost ten percent of the magical reserves held in the glow—”

“I don’t care.”

Morvin sighed but started carrying out Arkk’s order. If it took a chunk of magic off the top just to get the portal started, it would reduce the time they could spend in the Slumbering Vale today. But he wasn’t about to step through a portal without knowing that it could be turned back on again. He’d be damned if he ended up trapped on the other side.

It took a few minutes. The rippling of the archway stilled and the image faded. Slowly, the shimmering membrane disappeared as well. As soon as the last bit of glowing light in the runes around the archway diminished to nothing, Morvin and Gretchen got started turning it back on.

The entire time, Arkk focused on the lesser servant. It sat on the other side, trembling and bubbling as they were wont to do. He might have described its movements as agitated and worried but, from possessing one just to test it out, he knew they didn’t feel much at all. They weren’t like Vezta or any normal being. Its movements did slow as the portal cut out entirely. Its eyes closed and its tendrils slowly settled in the grassy garden.

Perhaps the distance across planes, without the portal active, reduced the amount of magic it could siphon from Fortress Al-Mir? It was still alive, so Arkk wasn’t too concerned.

Before long, the portal shimmered and rippled and the image of the Slumbering Vale’s garden spread out before him once again. Arkk gave it the command to return.

It jolted, eyes blinking open. It looked around, bleary, as if it had just been awoken from a long slumber.

Which… somewhat made sense but also didn’t at the same time. Lesser servants did not sleep or seem to tire at all. Some of the servants down in Fortress Al-Mir’s gold mine had been working non-stop since he first set them to the task months ago. It had been… over half a year? Or close to it. He had never once seen them stop to rest.

But this was the domain of the god of sleep, among other things. If a little exhaustion was the only side effect of being there—and not those other things—then that was probably the best outcome.

“How long will it stay open now?” Arkk asked, looking at Morvin.

“Forty… No. Thirty… five minutes?”

“We have fifteen minutes,” Arkk said, addressing the room at large. “Savren, you remain here in case anything goes wrong. You’re in charge of getting the portal up and running again. Zullie, you’re with me. Dakka, have half your team follow us through, half stay—”

“Why stay?”

“Two reasons. First, it is a low possibility, but it is a possibility nonetheless that someone could attack us here. Second,” Arkk nodded toward the lesser servant who was still a little sluggish. “If we all decide to lie down for a nap on the other side, I need people who are strong enough to drag us back as fast as possible. No sleeping,” he said with emphasis to the rest of the group. “And no venturing far. Stay in clear view of the portal at all times until we’re a little more certain of how things work over there. The objective is hopefully to find some object—any object—that might hold a bit of the Eternal Silence’s power. That might be an enchanted dagger, it might be a flower. Everyone clear on objectives and rules?”

Arkk waited, looking around. Nobody voiced any objections or questions.

“And me?”

Arkk turned to Ilya, hesitating. He wanted to tell her to stay here. It was the safer side of the portal. But… “Your choice.”

“I’ll be with you,” she said, eyes firm. “But are you sure it is a good idea for you to go over first?”

“A leader has to lead,” he said with a smile. “Besides, I’m curious myself. And the lesser servant survived. Now come, we’re wasting our valuable time.”

Arkk stepped up to the portal threshold and paused. Despite his words to Ilya, he was a little hesitant. To start with, he reached a hand through. Everything felt entirely normal. There was a bit of a tingle right at the membrane but nothing unpleasant beyond. Taking a full step forward, Arkk journeyed to his second alternate plane.

Or third, if he counted the encounter with Xel’atriss.

The first thing he noticed was not, surprisingly, the smell. There was a smell, it was true. A faint and far subtler—quite pleasing, in fact—scent of flowers. He couldn’t quite identify the type of flower, which made sense given that this was a whole other world. But the thing that stood out was the sound.

Or the utter lack of sound.

There wasn’t a hint of rustling in the flowers or the crunch of brush underneath his feet. Breathing in a deep waft of the air, he couldn’t even hear the rush of air through his nose. He turned to Ilya, who stepped through at his side, and opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Ilya opened her mouth but, after a moment, snapped her jaw shut. She grabbed his shirt and forced him back through the portal.

“Can I—” Ilya sagged in relief. “I was worried for a second there.”

“Communication in the other world might be difficult. It seems the Lord of Silence takes that title seriously,” Arkk announced to the room at large. “For today, during our short venture there, that shouldn’t matter too much. Long-term postings might have issues. There will be no audible warning when it is time to return so ensure you are checking regularly. If you don’t think you can manage that, don’t come.”

He looked around once to ensure that everyone heard. Then, he turned back to the portal and stepped through.

The silence hit him like a rush of wind. Or, perhaps, the noise was drawn from him in a rush of wind. However the Eternal Silence’s land worked, Arkk didn’t think he would be spending as much time in it as in the Underworld. It was… eerie.

Beautiful, he could admit. The endless stretch of vaguely blue-green tinted fields of flowers and brush. It all looked… cared for. As if it hadn’t grown naturally. At the same time, it wasn’t sculpted and designed. There was overgrowth in some areas and undergrowth in others. Someone had guided the growth of the land without restricting it, allowing it to grow as it saw fit.

Oddly, despite how far he could see, he couldn’t see any sign of habitation. The Underworld held a great number of settlements strewn throughout its lands. They were ruins now, true, but it didn’t feel that different from the regular world. He could easily imagine people living in the Underworld a thousand years ago not so differently to how people lived in his world today.

The same was not true here. Which… maybe made sense. How many people would actually live in the realm of a god of death?

Then again, the plants, odd color aside, certainly looked alive.

It was a confusing place.

As the others started filing through the portal, taking their first looks around and invariably trying to talk, Arkk stepped up to a nearby bush of flowers. Large and vaguely circular petals, all with a blue hue, stuck off the end of a tall stalk, one that reached nearly as high as his shoulders despite the rest of the plant resting somewhere around his waist.

He did not lean forward to smell it. First of all, this was the land of the death god. Who knew what might happen? Second of all, he was fairly certain he could already smell it. The whole air was inundated with that floral scent and there weren’t many other obvious sources.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed one of the orcs that had followed them into the portal had no such reservations. Raff’el leaned forward with his helmet off and, before Arkk or anyone else could stop him, pressed his nose right into the flower’s petals.

He pulled back, looking awfully satisfied with that blissful look on his face, and then promptly toppled backward without a sound.

Dakka and Klepp’at rushed over, the former looking irritated and the latter looking worried. The concern diminished from Klepp’at’s face the moment he started inspecting the fallen orc. He tried shaking him with increasingly more vigorous movements up until Dakka had enough. She lashed out, swinging her gauntleted fist.

She pulled back right at the last moment, swinging her arm back to her chest.

Dakka wasn’t one to pull her punches. From the surprise on her face, Arkk guessed that she hadn’t intended to pull that one either. Her lips moved in what would have been a loud click of her tongue had any sound in this realm been possible. She looked around for just a moment before hefting up a rather large rock.

She let it go, letting it fall in utter silence. Right over Raff’el’s face.

That woke the orc up. Somewhat. He looked around, startled, but upon seeing nothing but the two orcs hovering over him, that blissful look took hold once again and he started to drift off despite the blood dripping from his now crooked nose.

Dakka curled her lips, showing off her tusks, before looking up to Arkk with a shrug.

He just thumbed back to the portal, prompting the two orcs to carry off their drowsy companion. Hopefully, that wore off in time. If not… He would have to figure something out later. Frankly, Raff’el was lucky that the plant hadn’t killed him outright.

Zullie, somehow having watched the exchange with her lack of eyes, promptly started miming out a game of charades to Morvin and Gretchen. The two went over to one of the nearby bushes. Morvin, cautiously, started clipping off flowers for obvious later experimentation while Gretchen worked to pull an entire bush from the ground, presumably to grow them in the real world, if that was possible. As they worked, Zullie turned back to the portal archway on this side and started inspecting it.

She opened her mouth, holding out a hand with clear intent to cast a spell.

Arkk had to suppress a yawn as he watched. Domain of sleep indeed.

The silence of the world didn’t let Zullie speak a single syllable. Frustration quickly etched its way onto her face. She tried twice more, perhaps thinking that verbalizing the words wasn’t necessary. That only led to more frustration that quickly culminated in her crouching down in front of the portal and drawing a wooden dowel from her robes. She started scribing out a ritual circle on the ground, glaring at it the whole time.

Arkk shook his head and looked away, only to spot something he hadn’t noticed before. A peculiar pair of trees stood not far from Arkk with something slung between them. He hadn’t noticed them before despite their relative proximity. Curious, Arkk approached, making sure to keep in full view of the portal at all times.

A net had been tied to the trunk of either tree in such a way that it formed a rather appealing hammock. The exhaustion in the atmosphere couldn’t go unnoticed. If he had wandered here unaware of the nature of this world, he might have decided that it would be the perfect time for a nap.

Arkk slapped his hands into his cheeks, sparking a jolt of adrenaline to stave off the sleep.

Rather than touch the hammock—he knew he sometimes made foolish decisions but he still liked to think of himself as smarter than Raff’el, at least—Arkk called for the lesser servant once again. It slithered and slopped its way over and, at Arkk’s command, it reached out and touched the netting.

It didn’t die. Nor did it immediately fall asleep.

That was good so far. But just to check, Arkk had it climb up into the hammock.

Which… wasn’t exactly an easy operation to carry out. As ropes woven together with large gaping holes between the strands, the hammock presented a certain challenge to a being made of tar and slime. The lesser servant, in its attempts to squelch its way into the hammock, just kept sinking right through it.

After the third failure, Arkk had it stop its pointless task. Instead, he had it bite into the tree trunk right next to the rope.

Trees, as it turned out, did not make a sound even with a dozen people around to hear them fall.

The lesser servant did the same with the other tree, allowing Arkk to lift the hammock up and over the fresh stump. He coiled it up, handed it off to the lesser servant—who managed to carry it despite being unable to sit on it—and slowly looked around the crystal archway.

More than a few of his team looked like they were already worn out after a hard day of working. Voll’ey and Frezza were standing upright but their heads were bobbing as if they were trying to stay awake. Gretchen had completely fallen asleep and was in the process of being dragged back to the portal by two other orcs. Dakka looked to be sustaining herself through pure anger at her own exhaustion. Even Zullie kept yawning every few seconds.

Ilya…

Arkk’s heart skipped a beat as he looked around, failing to spot Ilya. That beat steadied out when he noticed her next to another hammock tied up between a pair of trees. She wasn’t looking at it with an analytical eye but rather the eyes of someone wanting to close them and never open them again.

Arkk rushed over and grabbed her by the arm before she could commit to climbing into the hammock. She looked at him with half-lidded eyes. The sluggishness of her mind took a long minute to fade away along with several shakes of her head. She opened her mouth.

And, of course, could not speak.

Arkk jerked his hand back toward the portal.

He didn’t know how long they had been here but they had stayed long enough.