Four teal dart-like shapes veered around a tree and slammed into a boulder, cracking it into smaller chunks. This process was repeated four more times at increasing power levels. The darts looked more violent and hit harder each time it was tested. They flew through the air, dodging trees and now zooming past the broken boulder into a thick tree behind it, all four hit roughly the same spot which ended up blowing out the part of it entirely, felling it with ease. The next spell flew similarly, but each of the four darts hit a different target, though they were split up the damage was still quite substantial.

“I would say you got it.” Angela said in a confirming tone, eating the last part of the food she was holding.

Gilliam didn’t look as happy as he perhaps should have been, he had made a new spell yet again so maybe it just wasn’t as special anymore. “Yes, it’s good that this works, it didn’t work that well with the explosive spells.”
He thought of one of his tests where he tried to avoid friendlies with an explosive spell, and though he could avoid the ally stand-in, the problem was that the shockwave still travelled even if it originally avoided a target. It was like placing explosives around a target, the initial fire technically doesn’t hit the target but since blasts travel spherically it didn’t save it.

There were some ideas of making directional shockwaves, travelling out from an ally, but since there were two of them this could be problematic anyway. Due to the logistical issues with this, or just Gilliam’s lack of knowledge about the finer controls of magic, he opted for a more localized process with the darts.
“Well, this kind of aiming should help, I don’t feel comfortable trying to work around explosives with you in the middle...”
Though he sounded a little bit happy about himself, this was instantly brought back down once he realised just how lacking his knowledge was in magic. He knew the language but he didn’t have a solid grasp of the application.

However, in cases where things went well, none of them would enter any melee range anyway, so the powerful spells could still be used.
Having used the downtime to eat, drink and relax a little, in addition to the much-needed testing. He also took a few minutes to manage the mana-gem pockets in his coat, making sure they were adequately stocked up for future use. As well as to replace the Aether dart spell in the coat’s pocket with the upgraded one he just tested, the new one was a much larger and versatile spell circle, making it a bit more complicated so it was a better use for the pocket.

“I suppose we’ll move on.” Gilliam stated, bringing attention to himself as he dusted some sand off his coat.
It didn’t seem that Petal was aware of the jungle’s existence, hinting that there might be other biomes than sand in this place.

Having packed up, and putting everything back in the ring, including his sword, they started moving through the jungle in the direction they thought they needed to go. If it weren’t for the nature of their mission, the trek through the jungle would be quite nice. The air was not too humid, there was a gentle breeze moving through the large-leafed plant life and the plants themselves seemed to have enough control over the sand that nothing made it to where they were walking now. The treetops provided some very nice shade but there was something that caught them all a little off guard.

Angela pointed at the creature they were all looking at. “Is that... is that a deer?” The creature a bit ahead of them in a small clearing looked like a deer, it had the same rough shape, a short furred coat, four legs with hooves and a slender build as one would expect from a deer. The main difference was the horns, they looked almost crystal-like, translucent with a hint of brown in them and many seemingly random offshoots. The right and left horns were not symmetrical in the slightest. It almost looked a bit comical but it was still interesting that there were animals at all here.

“I... didn’t expect that.” Gilliam replied honestly. Given the starvation and eat-your-own lifestyle that the demons further out in the Fractured Lands lived, it felt both logical but also insane that there were potential animals around.
Though they heard animal sounds after landing here, this was the first they had actually seen anything non-demonic and out to kill them. It was surprisingly refreshing.

Leaving the weird deer alone, they kept walking in the opposite direction than the gate platform. Though it lifted its head to look at them for a moment, it seemed to ignore them and continue eating what looked like a small bush near a tree.
Now that Gilliam wasn’t sending explosions and other noises across the desert jungle, other wildlife seemed to make their presence known. There were birds and reptile creatures like a lizard with way too many legs. All in all, it seemed like this place had wildlife unlike what Gilliam expected to see at home, just with some changes hinting at their otherworldly or magically mutated nature. It gave Gilliam a moment of calm he felt that he sorely needed.

Though Gilliam was surprised and calmed by this, and though Angela seemed to share this, Petal looked different. She had wonder in her eyes but there was also a hint of an uncomfortable feeling, like she had something pointy in her shoes while trying to enjoy the scenery.

“What’s on your mind?” Gilliam asked Petal, perhaps in a calmer tone than expected.

“This... feels weird...” She was pondering something and seemed like she wasn’t able to place it in words. “There are many things I don’t know about the Lands but... This doesn’t make sense...”

Gilliam raised an eyebrow, sure; it might be out of place but perhaps the higher-ups just wanted the more comfortable land to themselves. “It’s not too weird that people with power or in charge want the best for themselves, is this really that weird?” He put some pressure on ‘that’, in his modern mind it was not weird that higher-ups with power and wealth wanted more for themselves than they cared to share. There were plenty of stories and those kinds of people in the modern world, after all.

“No.” Petal simply dismissed. “I heard someone speak with the Gatekeeper once, he said that the Fo*... People that were brought through the gate would be brought back ‘through the sands’ to the Heart...” She stopped herself from calling the people ‘food’, at least that’s what it sounded like. Perhaps for Gilliam and Angela’s sake.

Angela joined the talk with her own furrowed brow. “They might have been lying but... This entire thing feels weird... They might have been keeping this from you but... This place is just too clean. There is no well-travelled path, if people were brought through here often there should be a path. Where are the guards, why didn’t anyone react to your testing...?” She seemed somewhat deep in thought but on guard at the same time.

This clicked weirdly in Gilliam’s mind, she was right. He was so caught up in his testing, in his mind and thinking too hard about other things to properly analyse their situation. Now that he looked closely at things, there was some weirdness to the whole place. It was already weird being an alien jungle of sorts but certain things just felt even more off. All leaves had the same markings on them, and though there were a few different flower colours they all looked the same, the small birds that moved about shared the problem with the same markings. None of this made sense, there should be at least some small deviation on any of them.
“You have a point... Look around, the leaves have the same markings, same with the flowers and birds... Everything is just too perfectly similar...”
Voicing it out just reinforced Gilliam’s thoughts on the matter, was this place created?

On properly realising this, something in his mind clicked. It was like understanding that you’re in a dream, while dreaming, which somehow wakes you up.
Gilliam opened his eyes with a jolt. He got a brief second to look around, he was currently heavily tied up, entirely nude, dangling from a large bone between two of the lizard-like locals carrying him. He saw Petal and Angela in the same situation to his side. As he noticed the imp sitting on the bone looking down at him it also appeared that the imp took notice of him.

“Awake! Awake!” It shouted as it pointed down at Gilliam. It jumped off the bone and took flight, not stopping to either shout or point for several seconds.

Gilliam tried to wrestle his hands or legs loose, both of which were tied to the bone, but this was all cut short as another one of the lizard-like demons walked over, winding up a punch it went black as it connected.

Waking up slowly, Gilliam felt a thundering headache. Slowly opening his eyes the rest of his senses focused on his all-around situation more than just his head.
“Fucking hell!” He found himself staring into the featureless face of a demon, this startled him enough to let out a swear. The creature he was looking at was a little taller than a normal person. Its face was entirely smooth and featureless save a large and toothy grinning mouth as well as two large horns coming out of its forehead. The horns were slightly asymmetric in their bends but were ribbed like goat horns and were largely facing up and back, the creature’s left horn had a golden ring around it. The rest of its body was best described as a ripped and athletic active gym-goer, with a long and strong tail. Its entire body looked like smooth skin much like a dolphin, save the very prominent muscles. It looked male based on its body features.

“Oh, it is awake.” The creature slowly spoke with an amused tone.

Gilliam took a second to look around and found himself hanging on a wall, chained to it by his arms, legs and around his waist. His body was covered in small scratches and wounds which had healed quickly. He was also covered in sand that had stuck to his body. Angela and Petal were in the same situation on the wall next to him and likewise chained up, though they hadn’t woken up yet. They were all just a meter (~3ft) off the ground. The building they were in was seemingly fine, it even had a door, intact walls and a roof.

His eyes were quickly brought back to the creature in front of him. The height difference was equalized by Gilliam being off the floor, staring right into his smooth face where the eyes should have been.

“This is an interesting one.” He spoke in its deep voice, seeming strangely amused at Gilliam’s existence.

Gilliam could sense a lot of magic from the demon, though due to the recent head trauma, he couldn’t narrow it down to the creature itself, the ring on the horn or just something in the area.
“Well, nice to meet you, mind letting me down so we can talk like adults?”
There was a slight cheeky tone to his request.

The creature tilted his head but kept the large grin. Rather than replying, he punched Gilliam in the stomach. The force behind it didn’t seem to be all he had but was still plenty to cause Gilliam tremendous pain and have him vomit his last meal across the room, missing the demon entirely.

He somewhat regretted saying what he did.
“O-” Coughing as soon as he started speaking he used more time than he thought he would before he could continue talking, even then the pain didn’t fade much.

“You broke through my illusion, how?” The demon seemed curious, the grin was still present on the plain face without much change.

“W-why would I tell you?” Gilliam tried to sound brave and heroic but it just came out as a pleading forced sentence through pain.

The demon pulled back his arm again for another punch, which had Gilliam rethink everything.

“Ok.. wait... Stop..” He realised that surviving torture wasn’t something he was planning on... He would of course do his best to survive but he didn’t exactly like pain. And though he had a decent tolerance this punch made him reevaluate his entire existence.

The demon’s grin grew slightly with amusement as he lowered his wound-up punch.

Gilliam tried to find a way out of this, he didn’t want to tell the demon anything as it might just make the situation worse long-term, but he wasn’t in a position to attack, defend himself or even cast anything due to his hands being severely tied up.

“Details.” Gilliam started through the pain. “Everything was the same, not enough natural randomness.” He disliked himself for caving in after just one punch, but his body really couldn’t take any more than that, even just that was way too much.

He hoped that Angela or Petal would wake up, though they were tied up it seemed like they used cloth and actual rope to tie them, their super strength might be enough to get out of this but Gilliam had no chance as he was now.

The demon’s grin faded slightly, still very much present but lowered back to what it was before the stopped punch.
It looked like it was pondering, thinking, behind that surprisingly honest grin.

Gilliam caught a glimpse in the corner of his eye like something just shifted ever so slightly. Taking this as a hint he started looking around more specifically, and he started noticing similar things as before. The few pieces of furniture were exact copies, the room lacked a lot of logical wear and tear on things, and given the amount of sand on his body there was no sand in the room at all. He was back in a dream, in an illusion.

Like before, this clicked in his mind and slapped him out of it. Opening his eyes with the same reaction as waking up to something falling off a shelf in your house he quickly looked around. He was still very much tied up lying in the sand, as were Petal and Angela. The faceless creature was crouching in the sand before him and it seemed that the punch was real as well. Surrounding him was a small army of various demons. Though faceless Gilliam was certain the demon had a hint of surprise in his expression.
The main difference as he looked around time was that he felt a very worried Savia over their shared link, and he couldn’t see her tied up nearby. This had to be real, he couldn’t sense her the last few times that he woke up. Though he wasn’t exactly sure how to take advantage of this.
He could technically use Unstructured magic, but without his arms to direct it he was afraid that he’d get his companions caught in it, he needed his arms for something more controlled.

“You woke up again.” The demon didn’t sound as happy as he looked stating this.

Gilliam pulsed a pleading emotion over the shared bond with Savia, he didn’t have any way to talk to her without actually talking, which probably wouldn’t go well. So he had to leave it to her.
“I did.” He replied. He would have to play along to give Savia time to do something, or figure out something himself, but also not to be knocked out or just attacked again.

“I sense power from you, I wonder if I should have you for myself.” The grin grew notably larger as he said this.

Gilliam guessed that the demon intended to eat his heart, instead of sharing it with the demon lord. He vaguely remembered Petal explaining that sometimes a heart or body taken through the gate was eaten by the lower demons who might end up gaining power from this. He didn’t entirely know the hierarchical structure of the demons and the rules within, so this might be one of those moments where it’s only cheating if you get caught.

“I would prefer not to be eaten... if I can decide.” Gilliam honestly commented.

The grinning demon laughed, others around him hesitantly laughed a little bit but stopped well before he did.

“If you tell me how to use these... trinkets, I will consider it.” The demon waved to the side which had some lizard-looking demons come over with their clothing and gear, he specifically referred to the coat and ring.

If he could sense magic it made a lot of sense that he could at least pick out those two. Gilliam didn’t want to share much, if anything about them but he was somewhat at the demon’s mercy.
Gilliam also felt strongly that the demon was lying, there was no need to keep him around when his heart was worth so much. So the main reason he was still alive might either be some sort of loyalty to their lord or just curiosity.

Wondering what to answer, Savia shared a confident feeling over the link, it seemed she might have a plan.

There was a small point collecting energy some distance above them.