Danyeth stretched, cracking his back several times as he rolled out of bed. He bounced in place, getting his blood pumping, enjoying the freedom of movement he had been lacking for so long. He stopped and stretched a couple of lunges before exiting the room, noting El’s absence.
Down the stairs he went, a pep in his step. He waved at Mr. Doggard, behind the counter as always, and exited the shop.
“Ho, there, Dan,” Jessup greeted, leaning against the wall by the door. “Sure took your time.”
“I’m recently recovered. I’m allowed to nap occasionally,” Dany replied, unbothered.
“It’s almost nightfall,” Jessup deadpanned.
With a shrug and a smile, Dany set off toward the street, only to be stopped in his tracks.
“Where are you going?” El asked, approaching with two large sacks thrown over her shoulder.
“I was heading—” Dany started.
“The wrong way,” El interrupted, shoving past him and into the store.
Dany traded a glance with Jessup, who merely shrugged and headed inside. Dany followed, awkwardly waving at Mr. Doggard again, who just shook his head. Upstairs, he found El throwing all their things into the bags, stuffing them to bursting. Although the pair did not have much to their names, it was a lot for the two shoulder carriers.
“What are you doing?” he finally asked.
“We are leaving. I told you,” El responded without even glancing back.
“I thought you meant for the day…”
El threw the last article of clothing, the shirt Dany had worn mere days ago while bedridden and ill, and turned to him, seemingly in a hurry, for some reason.
“I don’t know how long it’ll be. It’s as long as they need,” she declared, reaching for the nightstand and flicking something behind it.
Before Dany could ask for clarification, a yawning abyss opened behind him, covering the door completely with eerie purple energies. Dany jumped back instinctively, groping at his waist for a sword he did not have.
“Come,” El demanded, grabbing both him and Jessup by the arms and pulling them through the spatial tear.
“—won’t be soon, at least,” said a voice.
Dany blinked rapidly, his eyes struggling to grapple with the low light. He seemed to be in an impenetrable darkness, uniform, and broken only by a soft purple light hovering between two women before him.
One floated just off the ground, a halo of stars orbiting her head, and stars twinkling and shining through what seemed like cracks in her skin. The other was perhaps only as tall as Dany’s waist, and covered completely in a cloak so that he could discern nothing about her.
“You just lectured me about the unstable dimensions, Eirene, and now you say it’s fine. Is it going to collapse or not?” the starry woman asked.
“It is unstable. The dome is more of a saucer, way too flat to be structurally sound. That said, it’s crashstone. It would’ve collapsed already if it weren’t. It’s probably fine for now—the stuff is tough—but Ashreach isn’t known for its stability. One good earthquake and it could all crumble.
“If you’re trying to squeeze a specific time frame out of me, it’s not gonna happen. You’ll have to find a…rock…scholar, or something,” the small woman, Eirene, finished, waving dismissively.
The starry woman shifted her gaze straight up, as if she could see what was above her, despite the clinging, suffocating darkness.
“How was the shield covered with crashstone? My understanding is that it was aboveground prior to the impact,” she mused, seemingly lost in thought.
“No idea. If you don’t mind, though, my lady, I have lots of work to do, and your guests are waiting,” Eirene said, nodding toward Dany and the others before stalking off into the shadows and vanishing.
“Lady Nephthys, I have brought my brother, Dany, and his adventuring companion, Jessup,” El introduced, kneeling on the ground, much to Dany’s shock.
Was this some sort of noble? He and Jessup quickly followed El’s lead, the consequences for failing to show nobles proper respect beat into every commoner’s bones from birth.
“Please, rise. I am uninterested in supplication,” Nephthys commanded, and the three rose to their feet, Dany and Jessup standing awkwardly behind El, who seemed…if not ‘comfortable’, per se, less awkward than they.
“Your adventuring party was composed of only the two of you?” Nephthys asked, floating closer and glancing between Dany and Jessup.
“Uh, well, they all found other parties after, uh…when Dan…you know…” Jessup stuttered, attempting to be diplomatic about the sensitive subject.
Dany’s gut clenched tightly for a brief moment, but he relaxed it with an exhale. He knew it was completely reasonable. People had to work, or they could not eat. That was just the way it was.
“I see. Well, we can make do with the two of you. The goal is for this to be merely the beginning, after all,” Nephthys said idly.
“Sorry, what goal, exactly?” Dany asked plainly.
El shot him a glare from behind and, turning, whispered in a harsh tone.
“This is the woman, the guild master, who healed you.”
Dany’s eyes widened, and he slapped a hand to his chest and bowed his head.
“Thank you very much for your aid! I do not know how I can ever repay you, but I will serve however I can to try!” he shouted.
The echo from his call bounced around the apparently enormous cavern before an awkward silence descended over the group. Dany waited a few moments before raising his head, finding Nephthys rubbing her forehead and sighing.
“I do not need servants, Danyeth,” she said.
She looked Dany and Jessup in the eyes, her gaze shifting between them.
“What I need are reputable, trustworthy adventurers to lead a new guild I aim to establish. I will not lie to you, the purpose of this guild is dangerous, but you will receive training and aid from my own guild in return, and the job will be an ongoing one hosted by the adventurer’s guild.
“I have already spoken with Grantwell, and participation will count toward your advancement in the guild. Knowing this, are you interested? I can send you home and find others, if not. I do not aim to pressure you,” Nephthys declared, crossing her arms before her.
Dany and Jessup exchanged looks, but they both communicated the same thing. Even without considering Dany’s near-miracle cure, they had arrived through some form of obscenely powerful spatial magic. That alone made the decision easy, but she wanted what? To sponsor their adventuring or something? That made the decision even easier. There were no downsides.
“Yes,” they declared in unison.
“Splendid,” Nephthys replied, though her unchanging, neutral tone made it sound sarcastic.
“You will be with Moirenea for a while,” she said, nodding toward El, who returned the motion.
The same gate ripped itself into reality, lighting up the surroundings better than the soft purple light. Dany inhaled sharply, the colossal bones of an ancient, empty city surrounding him. The foundations were huge, and they rose so far into the darkness that he could not see their roofs.
El, seemingly unfazed by the ghost of a civilization around her, stepped through the gate, which snapped closed behind her, darkening the area once again.
Oh, she has all my stuff…
Nephthys gazed at the place where the gate had vanished and sighed once again.
“This is why all these tasks need to progress…I am not a taxi service,” she muttered to herself.
Dany and Jessup exchanged a quick glance, both shrugging. Nephthys waved her hand, and suddenly, their feet left the ground.
“Whoa! Wha—” Dany exclaimed.
“Come. I will explain in more detail,” she said, an enormous gate shearing reality in two before her, at least twice as wide as any previous gate she had created. Without preamble, all three flew into it, Dany and Jessup’s flight beyond their control.
Dany blinked rapidly, once again trying to adjust his eyes to the sudden shift in light. They had appeared in the sky before a setting sun, long shadows crawling across the ground, lending the trees below a strange shape. No, wait…they were not trees.
Mushrooms, that is what they were.
A mushroom forest extended as far as his eyes could see in all directions, tall ones shooting hundreds of feet into the air with stalks as thick as houses, shorter ones no taller than Dany himself, and every shape and size in between. Blurry shapes moved in and among the stalks below, crawling over them, walking on the ground between them, and covering the forest like ants around a hill.
As his eyes adjusted, he began to pick anomalies out in the landscape below. There were vines of some sort stretched between the mushrooms. Off in the distance, they seemed sparse, but the further north he looked, the thicker and more tangled they became until they were a near blanket of twisting and twining strings stretching across the entire forest floor.
His eyes widened as he followed them, tracing their path through the forest, their elevation increasing. He could just see their origin on the distant horizon: a gargantuan structure of interlaced vines that rose hundreds, maybe thousands of feet into the air. It appeared almost a solid mass from this distance. If Dany had not traced the vines all the way to it, he might have assumed it was a huge tree.
The structure twisted and warped, like a tree that had grown in high winds, bent at awkward angles that seemed unsturdy. Offshoots like branches shot off in all directions, each as large as a city street, mushroom caps and hanging vines and all manner of glowing flora covering them.
The top looked vaguely like a mushroom, but it seemed an illusion, the way a city might appear as a smooth hill in the distance. The mesh of thick vines wrapped around and around themselves in a shape that resembled a spider’s web more than a mushroom from here, and for some reason, the shape made Dany’s stomach churn.
It seemed to move, as if the texture was alive and wiggling. No, it was alive and moving, he realized. The anthill comparison from before did not do it justice. The surface of the vine mass writhed with motion, covered nearly from top to bottom with moving creatures, so small from this distance that they appeared a uniform liquid.
Dany’s palms began to sweat as he watched, mesmerized.
“A gloamwarden should understand their territory well, and the first step toward that end is familiarizing yourselves with this, the gloamheart, for it is the center of the Gloam,” Nephthys declared, staring at the mass in the distance.
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