Mike was astounded that, after hours of casting it, his Force Dart spell hadn’t leveled up. It was a surprise, because the Identify spell had hit level five, giving Mike three minutes of understanding the local language. Not that he needed that time as much. Haliard had been talking for a bit before Mike realized the spell had fallen off. The information it was giving him was sticking better as the spell leveled up.

  Even without leveling, Mike’s control and aim of Force Dart had increased. At the end, he was able to hit the target easily three out of four times. The stone cup had been cracked and chipped by the time Mike had collapsed, his body exhausted and strained by holding the pose Haliard had placed him in.

  It was enough success that Haliard called for lunch early. The sand structures collapsed back into the floor as the rest of the fighters grabbed water and drank deep. Sum floated up the stairs as Mike fell in beside him.

  “Do you need to eat?” Mike asked the large floating crystal. He hesitated for a moment before continuing. “And is that rude to ask? I don’t know the rules.”

  There was a faint psychic chuckle. “No, I don’t need to eat like you do. I… photosynthesize would be the best way to explain it in terms you can understand easily.”

  Mike glanced at the way the light shone through the crystal’s facets. The living crystal caught the high sunlight and bent it internally. The refraction was beautiful, the colors shifting through pinks, oranges, and purples. Mike noticed that it didn’t reach the ground. Sum cast a shadow, not a prism containing a rainbow of bent light. Mike was baffled but filed it way in the growing list of things that would drive him mad if he thought about it.

  “Are you from around here?” The fighters fell in behind the two of them. Mike head Bradiac whispering to Haliard about his training but ignored it as he continued to walk with Sum.

  “No, I am not from Slide originally. I come from a universe where organic life never formed. Just stone life like us.”

  “Slide. Haliard mentioned that, and said my gift for languages would serve me well in Slide. What is that? The country here?” Mike’s legs burned as he moved up the steps. His stamina bar was partially empty, about a third of it gone. It had stopped filling back in an hour ago, when Mike first felt his stomach rumbling with hunger and exhaustion.

  “A country, no. A world? A universe? I’m not sure how to describe it.” Sum was silent for several seconds. “Are you familiar with the multiverse?”

  “Well, if you’re from a universe where organic life never evolved and everyone is some kind of thinking rock, I know it isn’t my universe. So, there must be more than one. Is Slide one of those?”

  “Slide is more than that.” They entered the mountain, the colors fading from Sum as the shadow took over. “Slide is the base of them all. It’s—”

  “It’s the grease trap.” Aaron had caught up with them, stepping up between Mike and Sum. “When the engine that is the cosmic multiverse slips a gear, Slide is where the mess gets thrown. We can ask Bradiac, he loves talking about it. Something to do with his gods.”

  “Gods are real here?” Mike remembered that his Identify named Bradiac as a Prophet of Doors. If gods could exist, could their prophets?

  “Oh yeah, you’ll met a few.” Aaron pulled Mike aside but gestured for Sum to continue in the room. “Even the gods are beneath the Great Machine. Don’t say that too loud, though, they can turn you inside out for disrespecting them. Hey Bradiac!”

  “What?” Bradiac and Haliard had fallen behind the group, still standing in the sunlight. Karl, Sum, and Julian had already moved down the hall to the central room where they had eaten breakfast.

  “Mike here doesn’t know about Slide. Do you want to fill him in, or should the rest of us?”

  “You get away from him with your nonsense ideas! I’ll talk to him.” Bradiac turned back to Haliard and whispered for a few seconds more. The older man nodded and the two started up the hallway towards where Mike and Aaron waited.

  “You’re in good hands. I’m going to go grab lunch.”

  Mike stood there as Haliard and Bradiac caught up to him. He wondered for a second what they were talking about but dismissed it. If they were plotting against him, there was nothing he could do. Trapped in a new world as he was, he needed to trust them.

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  “In your world,” Bradiac started as he reached Mike. His tone had shifted somewhat, becoming smoother, more melodic. They started walking again, Haliard silent behind them. “Do they have stories about places that just vanish? Cities, people, transports and vehicles?”

  “There are legends of lost cities, airplanes and boats vanishing in the Bermuda triangle…”

  “Some of them are lost naturally. Boats sink; people die without being found. But sometimes…

  “Your universe, Sum’s, all others, are grinding, shifting spheres that make all that has existed or will ever exist. They are part of a Great Machine. And like any machine, occasionally something goes wrong. But this Great Machine does not throw a rod or blow a gasket. Rather, when the pressure of errors gets too great, something vanishes. A city, gone. A continent, lost. A ship, vanished. This release gets things back on track for the Machine.”

  Mike was getting lulled by Bradiac’s voice. There was something grand to it, hidden behind the words. Like something was projecting its power through him, using his oration to do it. Mike was relaxing, letting the words flow over him, through him, when he realized what was happening.

  Prophet Of Doors, Mike thought to himself. He shook his head, trying to push back against Bradiac’s influence the way he had Sum’s invasion of his mind. It took effort, enough that he lost track of the words, but it worked. There was another ding, and a notification box appeared at the edge of his vision.

  New Skill!

  Lesser Divine Resistance

  Your ability to throw off divine influences and manipulation is increased a very minor amount.

  “OK, this one is a bit much,” Mike muttered under his breath. Bradiac stopped speaking at the interruption. “Sorry, just a little disoriented. You were saying?”

  “When they appear here on Slide, the civilizations that already exist have to react and adjust. If it is a person, it’s not a big deal. As long as they can breathe the air, metabolize, whatever they need. Sometimes they can’t, and they die fairly quickly.”

  The same tone and strength were in Bradiac’s voice, but Mike was able to ignore it now. It wasn’t sneaking into his mind and influencing him. He could focus on the words and think about them.

  “But the bigger stuff…” Mike said softly.

  “Correct.” Bradiac looked at Mike oddly. “If a city falls on you, a country, that is a change that has to be dealt with on higher levels. Around here, the rulers are the mage families, of which the Bluringtons are a minor house.”

  “Though the recent downturn may be changing, with Master Eric finally passing his trials,” Haliard said from behind them. They entered the dining hall, the smell of hot fresh food was strong in the air. The other men were already filling plates like they had for breakfast, but the food this time was bread along with slices of meat and cheese. Haliard, Mike, and Bradiac headed towards the buffet as the prophet kept speaking.

  “There was a… I’m not sure what to call it. A building? Bigger. It was like an an underground complex. It appeared at the edge of the territories controlled by the Bluringtons, and under the laws, they claimed it. They sent in their servants to clear it out—”

  “He doesn’t need to hear that part yet,” Haliard said as he piled food on a plate. “Just keep it to what we know about Slide.”

  “Don’t I get a say in that?” Mike asked. He wanted to trust the man, he was willing to give him a chance, but his insistence that Mike not know this was odd. Haliard looked at him sadly but nodded and gestured for Bradiac to continue.

  “There were fifteen of us at the time. Sum, the brothers, all of us were there, but others too. Trained fighters, experienced mages. The Bluringtons were a powerful family with fifteen fighters, but whatever was in there tore us up. Only we few came out, and the family name became a laughingstock.”

  “The building is still there, too,” Karl chimed in. “Other families are challenging for the right to explore it, but Master Aric will not release it without a fight. He knows the family’s fortune might depend on what is left inside.

  “Sum has to stand to challenge tonight.” Haliard was looking at a piece of paper next to the trays of food. “The Gormenstones are claiming that, with Master Eric’s advancement, they should be open to full challenges now.”

  “All right lads, we’re back to it then!” Cheers went up from the others at Julian’s outburst.

  “Were all of you brought here?” Mike settled at the table with the others, trying to imagine what the room would look like full of fifteen boisterous fighters.

  “Most of us are born here,” Aaron answered him. “My brother and I, of course. Karl too. Haliard, I think, though he doesn’t talk about where he comes from. Sum obviously isn’t. The Bluringtons have been an established family for centuries. The volcano we’re in appeared over a millennia ago, and the mages moved in to make it their capital.”

  “Wow, a volcano city.” Mike started stuffing his face, watching the stamina bar at the edge of his vision. At his first swallow, it started to rise. The change was faint, but he felt it. Mike thought for a moment that it really should wait until he digested the food but decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  “Well, the magma chamber beneath the volcano didn’t come with it, so I guess it is not really a volcano anymore.”

  “So let me summarize my situation then.” Mike took another big bite of his sandwich as everyone looked at him in silence. He chewed and swallowed again before continuing. “I have been plucked across vast cosmic distances to the trash bin of the multiverse by a wizarding noble family who want to me to fight their battles for them, so they don’t unleash devastating, terrible power?”

  “Basically, yes,” Haliard answered solemnly.

  “I want to object to describing my home universe as a ‘trash bin’ but I don’t think I can,” Bradiac added in his normal speaking voice.

  “Well lads…” Mike’s smile was bitter, sardonic, but it was there. “It beats another day in the office.”