by Eddie Patin
Jason looked down at the carnivore's head with its grisly, broken jaw.
"Nargog," he said, looking up at the monster. "If I ever need your help, can I call on you?"
Jason had no idea where the words came from. They just came out. For a moment, staring into the alpha minotaur's glinting eyes, he was afraid that he'd spoken too impulsively and overstepped his bounds.
"Yes, Jason," Nargog rumbled. "I will help you."
"Then I will consider you my friend, minotaur."
Nargog looked up into the trees, thinking, his wide rack of horns moving as if they didn't weigh anything at all. He looked back down.
"That will be fine."
Then, Nargog crouched over the dead Albertosaurus, reached down with his bloody hands, and yanked a strip of flesh up from its broken ribs. He started to eat.
Jason turned away. He was pretty far from the wyvern's cave.
Unzipping his focus key pouch on his battle belt, he unwrapped the infinity crystal and opened a roaring rift of orange fire to the place where the rest of his stuff was waiting. When he stepped through the spinning, sputtering gateway, Jason looked back to see Nargog watching him, casually eating the meat of his kill.
Releasing the portal from the other side in the dark cavern, Jason set about gathering his things from the tunnel. He had to pull the tiny vines that grew out of the ground away from his cane and the other gear that he'd left behind.
Then, he rifted home.
Appearing in his garage again and stepping onto the concrete floor, Jason immediately felt a lot better. He closed the rift to the wyvern's cave, looked around at the various gear that he and the Reality Rifters had stacked around the area.
He gasped in revulsion when he saw the case holding the troll's head behind him...
The metal case had several holes in its shell; like little windows. Jason had no idea why such a case would have windows—unless maybe it was to make sure that severed troll's head could still breathe, perhaps—but there were openings, nonetheless. And from those windows grew several long and disgusting tendrils of quivering green flesh, reaching and spreading along the garage floor away from the case like random tentacles made of porous, green dough. The tendrils moved. The tip of one was waving up and down...
"Oh God!" Jason exclaimed, feeling the dinosaur blood in his stomach make him queasy. "Oh, fuck!"
It was the troll. It was regenerating.
Jason was suddenly certain that if he were to open the case, he'd see the head in there writhing around, slowly blinking its terrible eyes, opening and closing its mouth like a flabby green fish with wicked, yellowish-grey fangs. It might be trying to talk without lungs or vocal chords. Those disgusting tendrils might be growing from its severed neck, maybe trying to build a body around the blockage; through the openings in the metal case's sidewalls...
Looking around the rack of tools on his garage wall, Jason leapt forward and grabbed his pruning shears. He hadn't used them in a long time and they were covered in grimy dust. He unlocked the handle and opened them up, looking at the stout, curved blade, then frowned at the writing tentacles of new troll-flesh striving across the concrete floor.
Fighting back a sense of horror rising in him, Jason crouched down, ignoring the faded, remaining pain of his spear-wound, and 'pruned' the troll. He put all of the chunks of gross tendrils—odd and gross, feeling like thin, cartilage-like bones were growing inside them—into a small pile by the case. Then, he glared at the pieces as they continued moving like thick and green chopped-up worms. Dark green blood leaked out of the cut pieces, making a mess on his garage floor, his fingers, and pruning shears.
"Freaking gross," Jason muttered, staring at the squirming chunks.
If you leave them, he thought, they'll turn into a whole troll.
"But where on Earth can I put them? I can burn..."
He trailed off, then shoved the pile of writhing troll pieces with his feet into the center of his garage floor halfway to the overhead door. Touching his lava key, Jason felt his way to that hellish lava world again and opened a horizontal rift under the squirming worms of green flesh.
The portal to lava world opened with a snap, unfurling quickly with bright orange fire, and the troll's pieces immediately broke the surface and fell through to the magma on the other side.
Unfortunately, Jason didn't anticipate the danger of suddenly having lava and extreme heat right under his floor. As soon as he was blasted with a wave of fire that felt like he stuck his head in an oven, he released the rift. The instant he did, two of his rafters above the collapsing portal burst into flames.
Shit!
After staring at the yellow, licking flames for a stunned second or two, Jason jumped into motion and ran to the game processing sink where there was a small spray spigot. He threw on both faucets for max pressure, then pulled out the hose as far as it would go, praying that he could make the water reach.
It did. Jason sprayed down the flaming rafters until the fire was long gone, then turned off the sink and put the sprayer away.
"Holy shitballs," he muttered with a sigh.
The rafters were blackened in areas and now totally wet. There was a pool of water underneath, slowly rolling toward the garage door.
"Okay," Jason said to himself. "No lava world in the house."
After enjoying a moment of relief, Jason realized again that time was important. Well—it was probably important. If he could get back to the second bookmark in the same moment of time that he'd left—mostly—then there'd be no harm done. But, if he was wrong about his understanding of temporal coordinates, then he was already ... perhaps three hours behind his friends? Maybe more? It would be however long in 'normal time' he'd been in the Wilderlands; three days on the dinosaur world.
He was on the clock again. He had to hurry.
Jason rushed to the front of the house to make sure that Ben had locked the front door when he came back. It was funny to think that his old friend had just left a few hours ago. The door handle was locked. Jason locked the deadbolt then rushed back to the garage. He washed what dinosaur blood remained on his hands and forearms, then rearranged all of his gear back to the way it should have been; armor, rifle, backpack, OCS, minotaur-hide jacket, lightning gun, deep-concealed Glock 26, and all. He still had plenty of water since he'd brought bottles with him to the Wilderlands. He still had plenty of ammo.
"Good to go."
He had a sudden thought then plucked the orange radio from his backpack strap and turned it on, making sure that it was still on Channel One.
With that, Jason pulled up his OCS and found the coordinates for "Troll Cave after Giant". He made sure that all of the temporal dimensions were on, then tried to rift.
Nothing happened.
What the fuck? he wondered, looking at the coordinates again. Everything looked fine.
Then he remembered.
"The OCS," he said, smacking his forehead. "Outside 95%." The Shattered Swamp was a weird universe that was too different from his own universe 934. Jason 113's blockage in the OCS would prevent him from rifting directly there with the device. He needed to use the focus key.
Jason dropped his OCS to his side and dove into his focus key pouch. He found the decrepit, old troll claw, focused on it, flexed, and opened a rift to the spot where they'd first entered the swamp world.
As his roaring and sputtering portal cleared, Jason looked through to the bizarre bog on the other side full of towering mushroom-shaped trees, huge root-cage structures growing around their trunk-bases, and scraggly bushes growing from a soggy, spongy ground littered with swathes of thick rust-red algae.
It was strange. If Jason went through here, he'd be going into the world after his precious time-sensitive bookmark. He'd have to rift back to the "Troll Cave after Giant" from there with the OCS, but he'd be going back in time. A chill ran through his blood. Did he get it wrong? Wouldn't that shunt him off into another universe? In fact, wouldn't he be stepping into u1243 a few hou
rs after leaving the last time, rendering his temporal idea useless? Would it be possible to get back to that time in the exact same universe at all? Wouldn't present-him be showing up in the future compared to his bookmark, there for a moment before rifting again to somewhere behind him in time but in the same universe? How could that not shunt him off to another universe?!
God—this was so confusing!
Jason swallowed down his fear. His friends needed him. He pushed the dread boiling inside him deep, deep down into his bones and hoped for the best.
Staring at the Shattered Swamp through the sputtering, whirling rift, Jason frowned and stepped through.
Chapter 19
On the other side of the rift, the world was muggy and quiet, though not as hot as the Wilderlands. Jason was shocked again by the red, grey, and brown color scheme that seemed to bleed over everywhere around him except for the sky, which was pale and cloudy and totally overcast wherever he could see through the wide tree canopies. Huge mosquito-looking-things buzzed around lazily far overhead. Jason hoped that he'd never have to face one of them. As his ears recovered from the roaring rift that was now gone, the constant drone of croaks, buzzing, and other small creature sounds crept into Jason's senses like an aural blanket. His nose was flooded with the odor of sulfur and mud.
Jason felt cold in his heart.
The last time he'd stood here, he was part of a group. Now, he was alone.
He immediately moved himself to a higher area of spongy, moist ground coated with twisted bundles of red algae threads and chunks that had probably accumulated there after several violent storms. The red stuff was weird and everywhere. Jason had mostly ignored it back when he was with the others, but now that he was alone, he stared at the clumps of algae that looked a bit like plastered swathes of thousands of thin veins and arteries. He thought of that "War of the Worlds" remake movie with Tom Cruise and what the world had looked like when those huge robots sprayed their 'human mist' all over the landscape. This wasn't that bad, but it did make him think of it.
Jason followed the nearest tree trunk up with his eyes, high into the air where the mushroom-cap-like canopies swayed lazily in the breeze up there. By the light of the sky peeking through gaps in the leaves, he knew that they weren't literally giant mushroom caps, but they were sure shaped like they were.
"Focus, man," he said to himself, quickly scanning for wandering ettins. He didn't see or hear any giants tromping around, so he put away his focus key and pulled up his OCS.
He was in the universe that he'd designated as 1243: The Shattered Swamp.
Okay, he thought. So it's the right place, but can I get to the right time?
There was a strange, loud grunt on Jason's right side. He looked, frantic, dropping his right hand to the grip of his lightning gun, but saw nothing. The swamp only buzzed and repeated its constant song of low croaking.
Jason pulled up his OCS again and navigated to his second bookmark of u1243, "Troll Cave after Giant". Making sure that all of the temporal dimensions were selected, he flexed and opened a rift, praying that he was correct and wouldn't end up in a parallel universe where his trapped friends weren't really his trapped friends.
The rift opened like it always did with a fireball and a roaring orange disc, casting sparks all over the bog.
Jason gasped when he saw himself on the other side, fidgeting with his OCS. The other Jason looked like shit—covered in mud and red algae, his right leg bleeding from the thigh and his armor covered in blood. His face was drawn tight and full of despair and pain.
Of course, Jason thought. That was the same universe, but he'd already been there. After setting the bookmark initially, past-Jason would look around for a few seconds then rift home...
The other Jason did exactly that, reaching up into his collar for his home key. A rift opened—silently from Jason 934's vantage because he hadn't yet broken the membrane of his own rift—then the other man stepped through.
The past-Jason's rift collapsed and winked out of existence.
"I guess ... that makes sense..." Jason muttered, his voice hidden under the roar of his rift.
He waited for a few seconds more, then drew in close to his roaring portal. Jason looked through carefully—he didn't want to step out and be attacked by another troll—then he stepped through fully into the past, to the other side. As he did, he fidgeted with his lava key, ready to bring a world of hellfire if he needed to any monsters on the other side.
Several yards away from the troll's cave and the mound in the middle of the huge, boggy clearing, Jason stood near the trampled, facedown body of a two-headed giant that smelled like shit and sour milk. There was another dead one a few steps away that Jason had killed with his AK-47 after his friends had collapsed.
He eyed the opening of the troll's cave—full of murky water—with a quick flight of terror in his heart.
He felt at his lava key.
"I can kill the next one just the same," he said to himself in a reassuring tone, glaring at the watery hole. "I can fucking fry anything that gets in my way."
Jason thought about his friends. He recalled Morgana's smiling face and the long hair that he loved. He felt her warm, soft skin in his mind. His heart hurt. He thought of Riley smirking and drinking a beer on the couch; of Gliath eating Zelda's gross cat food out of the can with a fork.
Find them, he thought, feeling an uncomfortable twisting dread in his guts.
"I can figure it out!" he said to himself.
Was he still in the right place? The right time?
Jason turned around, looking over the area. He saw the three bodies of the ettins that had pursued him up the clearing. They were all dead in a line: the first killed by rifle fire and the other two burned by his lightning gun. They were monstrous heaps of muddy flesh collapsed into the bog, surrounded by scrubs and red algae.
The two farthest away from him were still smoking like they were when he'd left for the Wilderlands.
That gave Jason a glimmer of hope. He almost smiled.
Pulling up his OCS, Jason took a reading and found that he was, indeed, still on u1243. He aimed his OCS's laser at the nearest body and scanned it.
Unknown. Lore: Ogre, 85% match. Ettin, 87% match. Universe 1243, the Shattered Swamp.
That was a relief.
"Good," Jason said, looking up the boggy slope for the place where he'd rifted to before and passed out with the spear in his leg. It was hard to tell where he'd been. The area looked the same. As the vast clearing full of boggy, spongy ground and occasional pools of muddy water thick with red algae rose away from him, the towering mushroom-shaped trees gradually appeared again, sporadically, then, as a thick forest far away.
Pulling the radio off of his pack, Jason tried calling for his friends.
"Hey, Riley. Morgana. Gliath. This is Jason," he said. "Do you read me? Over."
Jason cast another wary glance at the troll cave.
He tried not to think of how horrific it would be to go into the dark, muddy waters full of algae, submerged tunnels, and chambers unknown. Who knows how many trolls and what other horrors were in there? The muddy ground where he was now was littered with bones of ettins, at least a few humans, and many unknown animals. The underwater cave was probably full of bodies, too...
"Reality Rifters," he said into the radio. "This is Jason. I'm here looking for you! Do you hear me? Do you copy? Does anybody read me? Over."
He listened for a while then put the radio back onto his backpack's strap next to his hanging bite valve.
Then, Jason made his way around the mound and the ettin bodies to where the giant's first dry footstep was. It was still there. There was a complete, obvious trail showing each and every step of the titan; each footprint several inches above the swamp and perfectly dry. The primordial giant somehow moved the earth and sucked it dry with each step, perhaps so that he didn't have to soil his gargantuan sandals.
"Wild," Jason muttered.
He took one last look b
ack to make sure that no horrific eight-foot-tall trolls were sneaking up behind him, then Jason set off, following the tracks. It was amazing. He stood on each dry footprint, marveling at its perfect shape and size. It was like the curved sole of a flat-bottomed shoe, perfectly smooth with the dry-pressed ground beneath a pale mixture of red algae strands, dry mud, and squashed sticks and brambles. Each footprint was about four feet long, and the giant's long strides cleared about twelve feet between each step. Looking down at one dry footprint as he stood in its center, Jason figured that it was like standing on a good-sized table; one shaped like a shoe-sole, anyway.
When Jason noticed the horizon ahead suddenly turn black, he scanned his surroundings for enemies, then knelt down on one of the footprints to hunker down during the coming storm.
Damn storms, he thought.
It came in like a goddamned hurricane. The black clouds swept across the clearing on a violent wind that darkened the sky and quickly reduced visibility to almost nothing. Jason was completely exposed. The wind battered him and tore at his ears. Quickly after its start, the storm pelted Jason with warm, stinging rain, making him cover his face. He knew that he was being splattered with mud and algae. His suit would be filthy again.
Where are these damned storms coming from? Jason wondered, protecting his face and eyes from the whipping, stinging wind.
A few minutes into the black gale, he squinted against the darkness when he saw a blue sparkle from up ahead. A moment after, Jason saw a handful of bright, blue balls of light bobbing around in the distant, dark swamp.
"Will-o-wisps," he said. He didn't hear his own voice over the noise of the storm.
Jason tried to lower himself even more, crouching down and hoping that those weird electrical balls of plasma or whatever wouldn't detect him. If those will-o-wisps were similar to the ones he knew from DnD ... well ... he actually didn't know about those. His old DM, Tom, had never really used will-o-wisps in a campaign before throughout all of those fifteen years they'd been playing. Were they elemental creatures or some kind of undead? All Jason knew was that those things could be killed. At least, he'd seen one killed when Morgana had sliced one in half outside the troll's cave. After that, the giant had come.
