After Stephen had related the nature of the challenge to Rurth and Blargh, the three men stood at the center of the pocket dimension and discussed their next move.

“So there wasn’t any way to decline the challenge once you were on the battlefield with him?” asked Rurth.

“Not that I could tell. He wasn’t super forthcoming, so maybe there were options he wasn’t letting me know about. He’s taken Shomos and seemed reluctant to give her back,” Stephen said.

“Maybe we should look around the edges of the pocket dimension for the contact he said you’d have?” suggested Rurth.

The three men fanned out and Blargh yelled out that he’d found it. They converged and saw text floating in the mist, similar to Earth and Land of Legends, but instead with the text “Avin (Riowiver) 73/27”.

“What’s Riowiver?” asked Rurth. “And what does 73/27 mean?”

Blargh shrugged. “No idea what Riowiver is,” said Stephen. “I’m not sure what the numbers are. Could they be coordinates for something or a category? He knew my name without me telling him, I guess this label is how.”

“Should you try entering the mist at it and see what happens?” Rurth suggested.

“No yet, I don’t want to accidentally challenge him and lose you next,” said Stephen.

“But I suppose losing me would be just fine,” said Blargh sourly. “You know, he didn’t challenge you until you were here in this pocket dimension. It could be that being here exposes you to challenges. It might not be a good idea to spend too much time here.”

“Good point,” agreed Stephen. “And I wouldn’t want to lose you either, no one deserves to be in bondage to a bastard like Avin. I guess there’s no time like the present to head back to Earth. If I get stuck there for some reason, it’s been good knowing you both.”

“Nothing seems to happen here except when you’re here, so we’ll likely never know if you don’t return,” said Rurth. He was smiling as he said it, then his smile fell as the consequences of what he was saying sank in.

The three men walked together to the point in the surrounding mist that said Earth.

“Here goes nothing,” Stephen said. “If you’re active here without me, keep an eye on Avin and where he goes.”

“Will do,” agreed Rurth. Stephen stepped into the mist at the point where the Earth sign was.

***

Standing behind the chair at his old desk, Stephen saw all his things were gone from the desk. Wiggling the mouse, the screen lit up, and he saw a locked screen with a Chinese name for the user.

I guess the university has moved on, he thought.

Searching in his mind, he felt the cards were back in place. Three of them felt different than they had been when he’d left the ‘Land of Legends’.

Stephen realized that his keys and phone were long gone, but couldn’t think of anything else he’d need in the office, so he left and pulled the door shut behind him, locking it.

Making his way to the men’s washroom, he cast his ‘identify’ spell. As he saw information about himself in the mirror, he realized that he hadn’t even considered that magic might not work on Earth, either what he’d learned or the cards he’d captured. That’s a relief, he thought.

Name: Stephen Crawford

Race: Human

Profession: Master wizard and Journeyman Dimensional Traveler

Spells:

create light (apprentice)

comprehend languages (apprentice)

identify (apprentice)

magic missile (apprentice)

Wounds: 0 (capacity 7)

Hmm, journeyman? As he looked at the word journeyman, a scale appeared.

Neophyte: Has gained dimensional traveler abilities.

Apprentice: Has visited own pocket dimension.

Journeyman: Has completed a challenge.

Master: Has completed at least 7 challenges and won more than half of them.

He focused on dimensional traveler and the information shifted.

Name: Stephen Crawford

Race: Human

Profession: Master wizard and Journeyman Dimensional Traveler

Cards:

dimensional travel

journeyman wizard

hopedale wizard’s guild

violent innkeeper

ashburnum estate water wheel

ghoul body

starfire

mystic grove

Wounds: 0 (capacity 7)

Odd, some of the names have changed. And my wounds are 0. I suppose the wounds I gained from the challenge disappeared after it was over. Focusing on the ghoul body, a new card came up.

More power is nice, but I don’t like that it hurts me when I use it. Stephen focused on the journeyman wizard.

Hmm, it’s updated Rurth’s card since I captured him, Stephen thought. Last, he looked at Blargh’s updated card.

I guess the fighting training paid off, Stephen thought. They’re both more expensive to charge, which isn’t great when time is important, like in the mines with the ghouls or during the duel.

An East Indian student entered the men’s washroom, gave Stephen a strange look as the two made eye contact, then entered one of the stalls. Stephen left the washroom, made his way to the graduate student lounge, and waited until a student went through the locked door, caught it before it closed, and entered. He got a cup of stale coffee from the pot, added some cream from the fridge, and sighed after taking his first swallow of coffee in months.

I’d unleash Rurth and let him try this, but he isn’t really dressed for it, he thought.

Looking down at himself, Stephen realized he was still dressed in ‘Land of Legends’ clothing and realized why the other graduate student gave him such a strange look. Running his hand through his hair, he decided to leave his clothing problem until after the coffee was done.

***

Dressed in clothing Stephen had stolen from the rec center, he and Rurth sat in low chairs back in the grad lounge. Rurth had just taken his first sip of coffee, and he made a face.

“I suppose someone might like it,” he said carefully.

“You can add some sugar,” suggested Stephen. “I guess it’s an acquired taste. We should go for fast food, that might be more to your tastes. We could have more fun if I had some money.”

“So you don’t have your ‘phone’, which is a device that lets you communicate with other people? How are we able to communicate without them?” asked Rurth.

“It lets you communicate over long distances,” Stephen corrected. “And look up information. And play games.”

“How long of a distance?” asked Rurth. “And what information?”

“Anywhere on the planet. And all information,” said Stephen.

The journeyman wizard spit out the sip of sweetened coffee he’d just taken. “That’s amazing,” he said. “We need to get phones.”

Stephen nodded. He said, “Apparently I’ve been away for fifteen months, which isn’t the longest period of time, but people will have been worried about me. Apparently they’ve given my desk to another student. I imagine my supervisor will be quite annoyed with me.”

“Could your family help us?” Rurth asked.

“I’m not really the best at staying in touch with them,” Stephen admitted. “I haven’t heard from my dad in years, my mom doesn’t have much help to give anyone, and my two sisters and I just fight whenever we interact.”

Rurth asked, “What about where you lived?”

‘I’m sure my landlord evicted me and disposed of my things months ago,” Stephen said. “Wait a second, how many gold coins do you have one you?” Counting them out from his purse, Rurth said, “Just thirteen, how about you?”

“I’ve got eight,” Stephen said. “These weigh about an ounce each?”

“No, less than that” Rurth said. “50 coins weigh a pound.

“If we have almost a half pound of gold, that takes care of our immediate money issues then,” said Stephen.

***

In the dimly lit room, the loud music pounded and the woman on the stage held her pasties to her chest as she gyrated. Stephen took a drag on his cigar, then blew a cloud of smoke. Rurth’s eyes were huge as he watched the stage.

“It’s so loud,” he said. “She doesn’t seem very modest.”

“She sure doesn’t,” agreed Stephen. “Let me light your cigar for you.”

A large man approached their table. “No smoking,” he said. “Especially not cigars.”

“Surely,” Stephen said, leaning towards him, “there’s a special fee we can pay to smoke. Be a good man.” He held a hundred dollar bill out to the bouncer.

Eyeing the bill, Rurth, and Stephen, he snatched the bill then asked, “How old is he anyway?” and stuck his thumb at Rurth.

“I worked it out with your colleague at the door,” said Stephen, with an oily smile.

“No kids,” said the big man flatly. “I’m going to take a leak, and if he’s here when I come back, I’m going to break your nose.” He departed.

“Is seventeen really a kid?” asked Rurth.

“Too young to be here,” said Stephen. “We should probably leave. I think he meant it.”

“He reminds me of Blargh,” said Rurth.

***

Sitting in the brightly lit table, surrounded by drunk students and young people, Rurth took a sip from the straw and his eyes bulged. “It’s so sweet,” he said. “How can you stand it? And it bubbles like champagne.”

“Yes, it’s good, isn’t it?” Stephen sipped from his own drink. “Try a fry.”

“So salty!” the journeyman wizard said.

“Magic works on Earth,” said Stephen. “I cast ‘identify’ before I unleashed you and it worked fine. Summoning you proves that the card magic works, too.”

“Isn’t it called dimensional traveler magic?” asked Rurth.

“Yeah, but that’s a mouthful, isn’t it?” said Stephen. “Your card and Blargh’s have both been updated to your recent changes. I think it’s because I took you with me to the pocket dimension. Apparently, when you leave it, any changes get updated to the cards. It’s made you both more powerful, but more expensive to cast. The ghoul we killed has become a battery, which injures me to use. I don’t know that it’s worth the cost. We’ll have to figure out some way to restrain any dangerous creatures I capture, since apparently they don’t have to obey me in the pocket dimension.”

“What should we bring back home from here with us?” Rurth asked. “I imagine many things would be valuable.”

“I thought about that,” said Stephen. “Maybe load up on a bunch of math textbooks, that’s what we called Numeracy here. You could translate them, the journeyman can copy them, and we can make money that way.”

Rurth nodded enthusiastically. “I don’t know how to read English, though,” he said. “I could use ‘comprehend languages’ to read it, but the journeymen could just do that themselves.”

“Ah, I didn’t think of that. You’re right, let them do it,” said Stephen.

“What language are you two speaking?” broke in a drunk, early 20s woman sitting nearby.

“Guess,” said Stephen, looking at her.

“Bulgarian?” she said, with a braying laugh.

“You’re right!” said Stephen, “although it’s a bit of a regional dialect…”

Rurth switched to English and started talking to her and her friends.

As he was finishing up the last of his food, Stephen heard a surprised, “Stephen?”

Looking up, he saw another graduate student, Andrew, walking quickly over to him.

“Stephen! It is you! What happened to you? Everyone was looking for you. The police were on campus talking to people about you.”

“I’ve been around,” Stephen said dismissively. “If anyone asks you, tell them I’m fine and not to worry.”

“You’re fine and not to worry? People thought you were dead or kidnapped. Your mom came to campus and was on the local news, begging for news about you. My theory was you had a mental breakdown and were living on the street somewhere,” he said.

“Thanks for that,” Stephen muttered.

One of the women talking to Rurth cut in, “I thought I knew you from somewhere, you’re that mathematics graduate student who disappeared.”

“Physics,” Stephen corrected her.

“I heard you owed money to your drug dealer, and he killed you as a warning to his other customers,” she continued.

“I don’t have a drug dealer,” muttered Stephen. “I don’t do drugs.”

“Didn’t you say caffeine is a drug,” said Rurth.

“Yes,” said Stephen. “That’s right, caffeine is the only drug I do. And alcohol now, apparently.”

“And tobacco,” Rurth added helpfully.

“And tobacco,” acknowledged Stephen. “But other than those three drugs, I don’t do drugs.”

***

“We really should just get back to Mecond,” said Stephen as he activated the two pay-as-you-go phones. “This is a waste of time.”

“And leave your mother worried about you?” asked Rurth, horrified. “Why would you do that?”

“Honestly, I didn’t expect she’d notice I was gone,” said Stephen.

“She did,” said Rurth.

“Here’s your phone,” said Stephen, handing it to him. “I’m not sure why you need it, but there are some games you can play on it.”

“You said I can communicate with the entire planet and know anything, of course I want one,” said Rurth.

Dialing his mother’s number, Stephen said, “She probably won’t answer. I’ll just leave a voice message for her letting her know I’m ok if she doesn’t.”

“Hello?” said a voice, coming from Stephen’s phone.

“Hi mom, it’s me, Stephen,” Stephen said.

“Stephen! Oh my god! Where have you been?!?” a loud voice screamed through the phone.

***

Stephen finished going through the stack of mathematics textbooks and handed them over to the wide-eyed journeymen. “Start with the lower grade levels, if it says anything about college, leave those until you’ve looked at the easier texts first,” he instructed. The journeymen bobbed at him as they departed with the texts.

“That’s the most excited I’ve ever seen anyone about math textbooks,” he said to Rurth and Blargh.

“Rurth has told me about the naked women and the McDonald’s food,” Blargh said, looking at Stephen. “I would also have enjoyed the naked women and McDonald’s food.”

“We’ll take you next time,” promised Stephen absently. “Did Avin move while we were gone?”

“No time passed while you were gone,” said Blargh. “You stepped into the mist, then immediately reappeared.”

“So the pocket dimension only exists while I’m there. That’s awkward if I want to avoid being challenged, but we want to keep an eye on Avin. I suppose the only option is to pop in, check up on him, then immediately leave and minimize our time there,” said Stephen.

“I had a thought about that,” said Blargh. Rurth and Stephen looked at him curiously. “My favorite fight is kicking a man when he’s already on the ground,” said the former bartender. “If it’s a fair fight or the other guy is stronger, I run away. What if you just left the pocket dimension before that number thing got down to zero?”

“Hmm,” said Stephen. “That’s a good idea. Worth a try, anyway. If I was sleeping, I might need someone to wake me up if a challenge came in.”

“The alarm for it was pretty loud,” said Rurth.

Stephen nodded. “Something to consider. I either have to beat Avin to get Shomos back, which the ante card seems random, so there isn’t even any guarantee I’d get her back. Or, I’ll have to offer him a trade. He was demanding all my cards, but said before he left that he’d trade her for a dozen cards like magic missile. I could master ‘magic missile’ and capture it, but that would only be one card to trade him.”

“We could scout around Riowiver. If Avin spends time there, we might find a better way to deal with him,” suggested Blargh. “If he goes somewhere else, we could try there too.”

“We might be able to capture other cards in other dimensions. Or travel around Mecond looking for something to help us. Or we could try to find another dimensional traveler and see if they have advice on dealing with Avin,” Rurth brainstormed. “I suppose we could also walk into the mist in your pocket dimension at a random, unmarked place and see where we end up.”

“Good ideas, except the last one. I don’t know if that’s what we should start with,” said Stephen, nodding. “It sounds like heading to Riowiver is our next step.”