With Dreyer having his meal and the conversation momentarily ceased, I finally get the chance to take a look around at the place. His house is… Less a house than it is a well-built hut. It consists of nothing more than a single room furnished with a table, a couple chairs, a bed, a bookshelf – here’s hoping I get the opportunity to peruse its contents extensively – and a cupboard.

Just outside the singular window is a small pile of assorted implements – tridents, pitchforks, three bladed swords and a singular tuning fork. Everything in the pile could, if one squints a bit and keeps a very open mind, be defined as a fork.

Other than that, there is just a sturdy door, padlocked shut, some crystals embedded in the floor and… An arch up against one of the walls.

“Is that a portal?” I ask, starting up the telepathic link again.

“Wah!” Dreyer jumps out of his chair in shock. “Oh. Could you give me a bit of warning next time? Your voice just comes out of nowhere! It’s a bit creepy…”

“Sorry.” I apologise. I suppose it would be quite startling. “How about this: I fly up in front of you when I want to talk. Is that alright?”

He nods. “Okay. Now, what was it you asked again?”

“Is that a portal? On the wall, I mean?” I ask again.

He looks over at it. “That’s right. It’s inactive, though. I deactivated it for the trip across. First rule of portals: don’t put a portal through a portal. Someone always ends up dead. Usually you.”

That sounds fun. “Why? What happens?”

“Well, a portal is basically a carefully managed twist in the fabric of space.” Dreyer explains after a moment. “Put one through another, and it becomes horribly complicated and messy. Space breaks. Everything around the break… Poof.”

“Sounds deadly.” I say lightly, immediately adding ‘portalception’ to my list of things to never do. “So, where’s it go?”

“Arbadak.” He says a name that sounds like some foreign board game, or perhaps a foreign sweet. “The center of all magical learning, and my home world.”

Oh? “I suppose that that would be a very good place to learn magic?” I ask with interest.

“Yes. The best.” He states.

There is a moment of silence. “Oh. You meant you want to learn magic there.” He finally realises. “Well, if you have enough talent, you might be able to get a scholarship.”

“I’m probably talented. I don’t know. Does having high intelligence and wisdom stats help?” I ask questioningly.

“Yep.” Dreyer replies. “But that’s besides the point. First thing’s first, I’m getting out of Hell. Anything else can come after that.”

“Right, sounds good.” I agree.

“…So, how long will it take to get back enough mana for that?” I ask.

Dreyer scratches his head, scooping another handful of nuts in his mouth. “Hard to say. Assuming I need to keep summoning food and water… Two months?”

“Two months!?” I exclaim in disbelief. “It only takes me just over three hours to fill my mana pool from empty, and that’s with the ‘foreign mana’ debuff nearly halving it!”

“Well, I put all my stats into intelligence, so of course it’s going to take a while.” Dreyer folds his furry arms. “And I have to fill up all the mana crystals – even with my stats, it’s impossible to transport a whole house with my mana pool alone.”

“You transport the entire house between worlds!?” I gasp.

He nods. “Of course. I don’t know how to build a house, so what else am I going to do? Pitch a tent?” He laughs. “I’m not an animal.”

I refrain from mentioning that he looks exactly like a giant animal.

“Wait, I forgot.” Dreyer hits his forehead lightly with his palm. “I’ll have to adjust the amount of mana going into the formation to account for the extra person going through – make that two months and a few days.”

“Can’t I fill up the mana crystals for you?” I ask. “That would speed this up.”

“No, having someone else’s mana in the formation would make it difficult to control.” Dreyer replies. “It’s best not to risk it.”

I sigh in resignation. “So, what do we do in the meantime?”

“Talk. I suppose I’ll look through my spell books, see if there’s anything that can help you. Maybe explore a little.” He muses.

In other words, more sitting around doing nothing for me.

Fork.

---

Dreyer flips onto the last page of the last spell book on the last shelf of his bookshelf, snapping the book shut a moment later. It has taken him a few days to read through them all, and with each one my hope dwindled slightly.

“Looks like you’re out of luck this time.” Dreyer sighs. “I do have one spell that could be modified to suit your purposes, but it’s just too advanced – to learn it, I’d have to go through and teach you a several dozen other things first. And with you not being able to see writing, I don’t think I’d be able to even if I wanted to try.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I say, resigned. “Still, thanks for taking the time to look through all those books.”

“It was about time I read back through them, anyway.” He replies, waving it off. “Now, it’s about time I do some exploring of this god-forsaken place…”

“Mind if I come with?” I ask, happy to do something other than sitting around.

“Sure.” He replies, slipping gloves on his paws, both front and hind. From what I can see, his paws are somewhat more developed than an ordinary squirrel’s with fully opposable thumbs, but still retaining the pads and claws.

Opening the door, Dreyer steps outside and winces slightly. “The ground is hot!” He exclaims as I fly through the open door.

“Will you be alright?” I ask.

“I’ll be fine.” He says, shifting slightly from paw to paw as he gets used to the temperature. “Not nearly as bad as the time I was at Ignis – the elemental world of fire.”

I pause at that. “How on earth do you survive in a world of fire?”

“You don’t, normally.” Dreyer replies. “I was lucky enough to come across some friendly fire elementals who were willing to siphon off the heat around my house until I managed to get out of there. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to siphon off all the heat, and I had to have extensive repairs done in the world after.” He says wryly, before remarking, “Gosh, it really is dark, isn’t it?”

“I can’t tell.” Without living beings to use as reference, I’m completely unable to tell the time of day. “If it’s night, maybe we should wait until morning?” I suggest.

“According to my research, Hell doesn’t have day, just night and dark.” Dreyer explains. “The moon… There it is, the moon provides a little bit of light. After it goes beyond the horizon, there’s not even that… just pure darkness.”

“The more I learn about this place, the more I want to leave.” I groan. I had seen demons using the terms before, but I thought ‘dark’ and ‘night’ were referring to the same thing.

Apparently not.

Dreyer gets down on all fours and starts dashing across the ground at a decent pace, with me following closely behind.

“So, you know a bit about this place?” I ask, curious.

“A bit. I res – WAH!” Dreyer ploughs into a boulder. “Ow. Ow. Ow… I… try and research places I could end up in, especially the bad ones. I knew I would end up here eventually…” He says, a thin trail of blood seeping from his head.

“You alright?” I ask, slightly concerned.

He waves a paw. “Fine. Just… try not to distract me when I’m running, okay?”

“Alright.”

I’m keeping up the telepathic link between us so that we can talk at any time. Of course, that means some extra drain on my psi given that I’m also using telekinesis to fly, but since the distance between us is fairly small, it still isn’t putting my consumption over my regeneration.

The landscape around us isn’t much different from where I was before Dreyer summoned me – bleak, barren and sheltering minimal life. Dreyer pads in steady, gradually expanding circles around his house, familiarising himself with the area.

As I follow him around, getting a bit of exercise so to speak, I notice some people appearing on the edge of my vision. To be more specific, it’s a few demons chasing after what looks like a kid. The kid looks like an elf, and he also looks like he’s in terrible shape, dressed in little more than torn rags and sporting several large wounds.

Noticing that they are heading roughly towards the house, I warn Dreyer. “Hey Dreyer, can you fight? We have demons incoming.”

“Of course I can. Where are they coming from?” Dreyer replies, standing up and looking around cautiously.

“Coming towards the house from… A bit to your right, about one and a half kilometres away.” I estimate. “Chasing a child, as well.”

“A child? Those beasts!” Dreyer says angrily, running off towards them.

Well… I’m honestly sceptical that the kid is much better than the demons after all I’ve seen so far in Hell, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

We reach within a stone’s throw of them just in time to witness them plunging a spear into the boy’s back.

‘No!’ Dreyer shouts.

Incredibly, the boy doesn’t fall and just keeps on running, the spear tearing from his flesh under the scowling visage of the demon holding it. ‘Hey, furfuck! Come to help your friend?’ He shouts, noticing us. ‘Come over here so I can make some fu-hrrk!’ The demon collapses forwards, an arrow protruding from the back of his head.

Dreyer raises a hand, plucking an arrow from thin air and setting it to the string of the bow that had appeared only moments earlier. Drawing back the string, Dreyer releases and the arrow jumps forwards – into a tiny portal that emerges in front of him.

The portal’s twin appears over the head of one of the remaining two demons, who has turned around to see who shot the first one. He is soon sporting a stylish new headpiece.

Seeing the demise of his accomplices, the last demon turns and runs.

But honestly… what use is there in running when your opponent is a space wizard? A third arrow quickly finds its mark, and the final demon collapses to the ground.

Tossing the bow aside, Dreyer rushes towards the boy, who collapsed to the ground upon witnessing the death of his pursuers. Stooping down beside him, there is a brief glimmer of light above Dreyer’s hand before it sparks into nothingness. “I don’t have enough mana to summon potions! Can you do anything?” He asks, panicking at the sight of the boy spilling blood from numerous wounds.

“Probably not, but I can take a look…” I look closer at the boy, both at the exterior and interior of his body, inspecting his very bones and organs… Or what’s left of them. “Impossible. This should be impossible!” I exclaim in disbelief.

“What’s wrong?” Dreyer asks with dread.

“What’s wrong? His spine is broken in three separate places, his legs in seven, his lungs are holier than swiss cheese and his heart was accurately shish-kabobbed by that spear earlier!” I report, unable to believe my eyes – not that I have any.

Dreyer sighs. “He’s dead, then.”

If I had a head, I would be shaking it. “That’s what’s so impossible – he’s still alive!”

That’s right, he’s alive. His lungs are still pumping and his heart is still beating. Even though they don’t seem to be doing anything, they just keep going without showing any indication of stopping.

“What!?” Dreyer gasps. “But how?”

“Beats me.” I admit helplessly. “But I think it’s best not to touch him. Might disrupt whatever it is that’s keeping him alive.”

“I think that’s best…” Dreyer agrees. “But we can’t just leave him here.”

“There’s nothing we can do. I don’t see that we have much of a choice.” I reply.

Dreyer looks like he’s about to argue the point when the boy opens his eyes. Glancing over the big ball of fur in front of him, the boy’s eyebrows narrow slightly, but he says nothing and just gets up off the ground… that looks unnatural. And painful. His bones are broken, but are acting as if they aren’t, keeping in alignment and everything.

…That probably means they’ll heal up better, right? I think I remember something along those lines.

Ignoring Dreyer, he walks over to the corpses of the demons and picks up a spear. Without so much as a glance at us, he starts walking away. I can see him muttering under his breath, ‘Kill them… I have to… find a way… Kill them all…’

That kid has problems. “Well, I think that’s that. How about we go back to your house now?”

“That sounds good…” Dreyer sighs.

“Remind me how long it’ll take, again?” I ask, as we start travelling back.

“I just used all my mana, so we’re back at the beginning.”

“…”

---

The days pass by as slowly as ever. I spend my time as per usual, slowly increasing skill proficiency and getting some more flying experience. Occasionally, I perform my duties as the only fork in the house.

Dreyer spends his time reading through his tomes, sleeping or eating. Every now and again, he infuses mana into one of the crystals in the floor, making them glow ever brighter in my sight.

Days turn into weeks, and a lone demon happens to spot the house. Not wanting to stay in Hell any longer than I have to, I decide to face him myself. With a quick combination of my natural forky stealth, a ki blast, magic edge and power stab, I fork him up good.

Weeks turn into months, and the number on the ‘age’ section of my status ticks from 11 to 12… A whole year. I never expected to have my first birthday in Hell. It’s quite dreary, one might even go so far as to call it hellish. I think I’ll make it a goal to have my second birthday anywhere but Hell. Actually, make that any birthday.

Eventually, my age ticks to 13 months. With the day of departure drawing near, I check over my skills, satisfied that my constant training has paid off.

Power stab has advanced to… advanced… Decreasing cooldown to 4 minutes and increasing the multiplier to 1.2 times. Not exactly a startling increase, but every bit counts. Still, physical attacks are not my preferred course of action, so with any luck I won’t have significant use for this in the future.

Magic edge has also reached advanced, bringing with it greater control over the skill… I mean, using all my mana on it is powerful, but I really don’t want to use all my mana for something like that.

Now, for the more interesting and useful ones: mana control has increased to advanced – I don’t need to explain that, do I?

Form manipulation – self has finally reached expert, meaning that I can transform quicker and more smoothly than ever, and at a lower cost. Heck, I can actually form an edge with some sharpness to it now! Or make my tines pointy…

And last but most probably the greatest of all of these is meditation! It has crossed the threshold of master proficiency, bringing with it great gains! Well, the increase isn’t as large as from basic to advanced, but it’s still significant – my mana and psi regeneration are now multiplied by 3, while my ki regeneration is multiplied by 25. What’s more is that the meditation state now has a calming effect and makes me slightly more resistant to mind affecting or altering effects.

With that and the ol’ ‘structured sanity’ trait, my mind should be pretty well protected.

On top of all that, my ki pool is now completely full.

The last few days seem to crawl by at a snail’s pace, my anticipation of finally leaving this place making the hours drag on endlessly.

But finally – finally! – the last mana crystal gains the same bright glow as all the others, and Dreyer says that the formation is ready.

“Now I just need to fill up my own mana pool again, and we’re good to go.”  Dreyer says with satisfaction when I ask him when he’ll be starting up the spell.

…You mean there’s still another few days!?

---

A few long days later…

“Alright, let’s get out of here!” Dreyer exclaims. “Oh, and please don’t interrupt me. That could be bad.”

I sever the telepathic link just to be sure.

Sitting down in the center of the floor, Dreyer lays his paws on the center of the formation. A slight amount of mana slips from his body into the formation, radiating through lines that were barely visible before. When those faint threads of mana reach the glowing mana crystals, the formation suddenly floods with light, the threads of mana quickly turning to the thickness of ropes.

A moment later, a portal appears just below the house.

Then, in a bizarre turn of events, the house appears to start sinking. I almost contact Dreyer in panic but decide to trust that everything is happening as it’s supposed to. His expression doesn’t seem to have… I can’t read his expressions, actually. Hm.

Dreyer, and the furniture in the house, start sinking as well. To me, who can’t see beyond the portal, it appears as if Dreyer is just half a giant squirrel sticking out of the swirling mass of mana that is the portal. After a few moments, the table I’m on slips below the surface of the portal, taking me with it. As it does, a system window appears, but I ignore it for now.

Now on the other side, I can see what’s actually happening. The house, and by extension us, is on flat ground, and we are not sinking into it. Thank god… I should really find out more about the gods, who they are, what they do, that sort of thing. It’s probably important.

Anyway, back to matters at hand. The portal on this side is above us and slowly ascending, with more and more of the house being revealed as it goes. After another ten or so seconds, the portal rises over the peak of the house, stops, and shrinks quickly into nothingness.

Dreyer stands up and looks around. ‘Alright, everything seems to have come through fine… Gerald, it’s done, you can talk again!’

“That was… A unique experience.” I say, re-establishing the telepathic connection between us. “What world are we in now?”

“Well, let’s have a look, shall we?” Dreyer opens the door and steps outside. “Hey, a forest! Now this is my type of world.”

…Now this is a strange type of world. There’s the forest, which extends beyond the limits of my vision, and that’s fine. It’s just a big forest, right?

Wrong. The trees are moving. Not all of them, and not fast, but the trees are moving around.

Actually, there seems to be a notable exception – the trees around us aren’t moving at all.

“Some of the trees are moving.” I note to Dreyer. “Just outside this ring of trees. Don’t suppose you know anything about them?”

He peers around but is unable to see anything. “Do they have trunk-like legs?”

“Not really. They more crawl through the ground with their roots.” I reply, taking another look at one of them.

“No clue then.” Dreyer shrugs. “Still, we don’t seem to have anything attacking us just yet, so it’s already a better landing that some of the other times.”

…Maybe I should mass produce that book I’m planning to write, hand it out to schools or something.

Dreyer steps back inside to rest up for a while after transporting us across worlds – he tells me it’s a strenuous ordeal.

Since nothing is happening, I take a look at that window I missed.

I do a double-take. I’m outside the system, just by moving to another world? I suppose it does make sense that it doesn’t exist everywhere, it didn’t exist on Earth, after all.

Just to be sure, I ask Dreyer about it. “This world is outside the system?”

“Huh? Yeah, it is.” He replies absently. “It’s pretty rare, but there are a few worlds without it. Not sure why. It can be annoying, with the numbers in your status getting mixed up so easily, but I’ve learned to live without it.”

Interesting…

The day passes without incident, despite Dreyer jinxing us earlier.

---

(POV ???)

I watch the foreigners through the night. The squirrel beastman – I haven’t seen one in quite a while – simply sleeps. The small one does not, seeming content to watch and train through the night. He is quite unusual, even to me.

He has the form of a fork, and yet the spirit of a human. The unusual combination reminds me of an old friend, one I have not seen since… Shortly after The Darkness. But that was my choice.

Stay here. Watch over my people, so that history never repeats itself.

However long it takes.

The night passes without incident, but they are not so fortunate in the morning. One of my people, riding an ash that is young and capricious enough to still be roaming, happens to come close enough to the foreigners that the ash freezes up.

Not having had visitors for a long time, my people have forgotten the trees’ ancient instincts upon encountering people they don’t know: pretend to be a ‘normal’ tree, lest they be felled by axe or fire.

So, it is understandable that she is perplexed about the ash suddenly stopping. Descending from amongst its branches, she strikes off into the forest, asking the forest to guide her path. Of course, the trees around her are playing possum, so none of them are able to answer her request, and she ends up walking straight towards the house.

She is shocked by its appearance, and when she becomes close enough to see what it is made from, horrified. Her scream startles the beastman, who has just left the house to greet her.

His attempts to calm her down are met with no success, and it quickly becomes obvious that it will come to blows if nothing is done.

Sighing, I step out of the forest and place my hand on her shoulder. “Calm yourself.”

I remove my hand again as she whirls around, the anger in her eyes quickly changing to awe and respect. “M-my lord! But… the… this thing! It’s made of…” She trails off, her voice quickly regaining an angry edge.

Looking to the beastman, I say, “I apologise for her behaviour. For so long have my people known only the forest that they have forgotten that there were once trees without will or intelligence – and still are, in other worlds.”

“No harm done.” He replies amiably. “I’m Dreyer. And you two are…?”

I turn back towards the now considerably calmer woman. “Remain nearby while they stay here, to prevent any further misunderstandings. And teach them the way of the forest.”

“Yes, my lord.” She bows.

Shaking my head softly, I step back into the forest.

---

(POV Gerald)

“If he hadn’t come along, I don’t know what would have happened.” Dreyer sighs with relief. “But he was a tad rude.”

“Who?” I reply, confused by the whole situation.

Dreyer tilts his head. “The satyr man that came in and calmed down that satyr woman. Didn’t you see him?”

“No…” I reply slowly. “No, I didn’t.”

Great. We have another invisible man.

---