Chapter 6

Bex Thresh, of the Singularity Principalities, knelt low and touched his snout to the obsidian floor of the Pulsar Castle of House Xosh’s freehold. His palms spread and despite hardening his scales for the kick, the impact of the Bryaugh bruiser that stood to the left of him still felt like being hammered by a gravity-drill. Bex rolled and tumbled, then came to a stop. He clutched at the place where his scales had been fractured and broken and gasped in ragged pain as he tried to regenerate as quickly as he could.

“Explain again,” the dark voice that came from the Neutron Throne sounded like a mountain grinding against another mountain. The dragon perched there was remarkably skinny and angular for a blue – his elbow spikes had grown long and he had let his forehead plates extend upwards and outwards, flaring into something more akin to a ceremonial headdress than a normal crest. His body was clad in nothing, save for a single glittering ring with a pale emerald set in the center of the swirling quark-soup that had been hammered into a solid shape.

“I...” Bex closed his eyes. “I lost the control egg, Lord Xosh...”

“In a game,” Lord Xosh said, quietly, his thumb claw rasping around the emerald on his ring.

“I thought-”

“You didn’t,” Xosh snarled, thrusting his finger at Bex. The Bryaugh bruiser that was the only other person in the throne room stepped forward, his claws clacking on the ground. His hands grabbed onto Bex’s shoulders and he hauled the other dragon to his knees, then slammed his knee into Bex’s jaw, before punching downward. The impact sent Bex sprawling and his teeth scattering across the obsidian floor. Blood dripped – and where it fell, eldritch runes flared to life for a moment, before fading. “You bullied ahead and thought that a basic understanding of Hackmaster rules would let you just slaughter your way to victory. You couldn’t even play to your fucking alignment, you-”

The bruiser kicked Bex in the belly, managing to match the timing of his master’s words to a T.

“-fucking-”

Thump.

“-red-”

Thump.

“-idiot!”

The last blow was hard enough to send Bex skidding backwards, almost bowling him into his half-sister. Gimtesh stood perfectly still, her eyes wide as saucers.

Lord Xosh rubbed his jaw with one finger. “Did you try to dissuade him, Gimtesh?” he asked.

“Of course, m’lord!” Gimtesh said, bowing low. “But Bex never listens.”

“Oh, he listens,” Lord Xosh said, grinning slowly. His teeth glittered. “That was why we wanted him on the Prismatic Throne, married to the last survivor of House Castrovel, to the only breedable feathered dragon in the galaxy. Those who sit atop that throne tend to be ... targets. And I’ve not lived this long by drawing targets on my chest, Gimmy.” He paused. “May I call you Gimmy?”

Gimmy nodded, quickly.

“You have one chance to save your brother’s life,” Lord Xosh said.

“Oh, fuck him!” Gimtesh said, quickly. “He’s a shithead!”

Lord Xosh blinked. Then he shrugged, spreading his hand.

“No, no!” Bex gasped as the bruiser stepped up. The black dragon lifted his arm – and unfolded a sleek silvery blade from his forearm. It was unlike anything that a dragon had demonstrated before. For the black dragon wasn’t simply a black dragon. His outer layer of skin and muscle and bone were actually the genetically engineered muscles and skin and bone of a second dragon, with its mind blanked and slaved to his own. He merely needed to think and activate his favored weapon.

Unfortunately for Bex...

The shrike catapult was neither swift...

Nor painless.

Gimtesh walked out of the throne room and into the corridors leading to it, her back ramrod stiff. Her servants – tongueless and meek – moved to follow her. She snapped a pair of fingers and a silvery orb flew up from behind her. She snarled to it.

“Go and tell my crew. Prep the ship. And tell my arms-master...” she looked directly at the orb. “Get guns. And get nukes. Lots and lots of nukes.”

The Talon-9 floated in a sea of pure blackness. No. Blackness implied a substance, a possibility. Black is a color – a color of beauty and profundity and terror. Black had a soul. The Talon-9 didn’t float upon anything nearly so comforting. But a human mind is an astounding thing. It could withstand shocks that other minds would reel away from and retreat into madness and insanity. A human mind could be told: Hey, your planet is about fifty years away from choking to death on some horrifying bad thing and respond with...

Hey.

“At least we have Rick and Morty!”

“What?” Merton looked at Carlos.

The other man was waddling along the hull of the Talon-9, his space-suit as uncomfortable and ill fitting as any piece of clothes that Carlos had ever worn in his life. His left arm was splayed outwards, to keep the supplies that they had been given by Speccy tucked up against his chest. His right was fastened to the grapnels that the Talon-9 had helpfully extruded to help them walk around. Meanwhile, Merton was dressed in his skinclothes, which responded to minor magical impulses like a collection of the world’s most helpful puppies, giving him a spacesuit that he could move around in with as much ease as his T-shirt and jeans.

“I was just saying,” Carlos said, puffing as he dragged himself up to stand on one of the flanges that spread outwards from the upper right ‘shoulder’ of the Talon-9. It was the part of the ship where one of the whale-fin “wings” that spread around the engine connected to the normal hull. It was also where one of the literally hundreds of railgun shots that had been fired at them during their space battle with the Ousters had managed to slip past the portal whipple shields and hit the hull. Carlos panted for a few more minutes. “I was just saying ... the TV reception is great for the fact we’re floating in the fucking plane of negative energy.”

Merton laughed.

The Talon-9 had used its defensive portal technology to save the whole ship from a legion of psychopathic black dragons wearing genetically engineered power armor suits – and Merton had called out the first plane that had sprung into his brain as being a place that they might avoid detection and attack.

That place?

The plane of negative energy.

The multiverse, as described by David “Zeb” Cook (the original author of the D&D Planescape setting), was split into three rough areas. The first was the prime material plane. That included the galaxy, Earth, the Five Talon Empire, and so on. The second were the ‘outer’ planes, where heaven, hell, and various afterlives supposedly lived. The third were the ‘inner’ planes, where the fundamental forces of the cosmos waited to be used. These included the elemental planes (fire, earth, water, air), the paraelemental planes (which was the fancy term for where two elements made out and had freak babies.)

Then there were the energy planes.

Positive energy, which powered all life.

And negative energy.

Which...

Duh.

“Speccy says we’re getting feeds from the whole galaxy. The attack on House Yeltanzo is lighting up all the bands. Imperial Legions are mobilizing.” Merton took one of the armor sheets from Carlos. “And we’re stuck out here until we fix this ship up.”

“Right,” Carlos said, then turned, looking out at the vastness surrounding them. “It does creep me the fuck out.”

“Which puts humans one step above everyone but the dragons,” Merton said as he laid the armor plating down. The rectangle of hardened adamantine started to unfold as magic worked itself into the skin of the ship. The replacement hull plating slipped into the jagged line of damage and started to glow with a brilliant heat that was nearly comforting when compared to the vastness of the plane of negation.

“Hi!”

The voice that called to the two humans didn’t come through their space suited helmets. It echoed through the plane of negation as if it was just an ordinary room. Brash flew by the two of them, carrying one of the replacement components that Speccy claimed was needed to get the Talon-9 ready to fight another space battle. Carlos waved. But once Brash had dipped behind the ship, he turned to face Merton, then leaned forward. Their space-suit helmets clicked together as Carlos turned off the radio.

If you shouted in a helmet, you could be heard through the vibration of plastic and glass. And if your radio was off, it made for a nice and private conversation.

“So, are we going to talk about the fact that Planescape is real?”

“Not sure what there is to talk about,” Merton said. “We’ve got nothing to say beyond ‘gee, that’s fucking weird.’”

“Yeah, but ... like, it’s fucking weird!” Carlos said, his chubby cheeks shining with persperation that might have only half been the struggle of moving around adamantine hull plates in an ill fitting space suit.

“Okay, here’s my current theory,” Merton said. “Dragons learn stuff psychically, right? Maybe they broadcast it too, and the human race has been picking it up?”

“Why has no one else picked it up?” Carlos asked.

“We don’t know that they haven’t. Every other race we’ve run into has either been magic, which might fuck with the reception, or they’ve been enslaved by the FTE long enough to have their original culture buried underneath the draconic one.” Merton shrugged, then stepped over to the damaged part of hull. It had gone from white to red hot, and as he watched, even that heat faded, leaving a perfect patch-job. He gently patted it with the toe of his boot, to ensure that the material was hardened properly. He grunted, then flicked on his radio. “Okay, that’s one hole patched. How many more do we got, Spe, er, uh-”

“Two more,” she said. “And I ... am given to understand by Princess Relix that-”

“-piece of murder fuck shit crap damn tail eating scale rotting-”

Relix’s voice was filled with more anger and fury than Merton had ever heard in his entire marriage.

“-that I am to accept you calling me ... Speccy...” Speccy sounded less than pleased.

“Awesome, Speccy,” Carlos said.

“I better check on the waifu,” Merton said.

“Don’t you FUCKING DARE CALL ME THAT!” Relix’s voice boomed over the radio.

“Sorry, snoogums,” Merton said, grinning as he demagged his boots, kicked off the ship, then turned on the cold-jet thrusters on the back of his suit. He skimmed along the ship, leaving Carlos behind, holding the other armor plates. It wasn’t until he was nearly at the snout of the Talon-9 that Carlos realized Merton had left him with the hard job of lugging those plates around and started to shake his fist after him.

When Merton cleared the nose of his ship, he found his wife floating next to one of the exposed railgun barrels that she was trying to fix. A collection of parts were floating around her, glittering like stars in the light shining from the front of the Talon-9’s bridge, and she was using a wrench to try and undo a screw. Her muscles bulged as she gritted her teeth, braced her clawed feet against the hull, then strained even harder. Merton put his palm against the ship to slow himself down, and felt the low groan of stressing metal.

“This railgun shall bow before me!” Relix snarled.

“Honey, honey!” Merton started. “It’s-”

In the three way battle between Relix, the wrench, and the bolt she was working on, the wrench surrendered first. It bent with a squeal Merton could hear through his palms and the sudden relaxing of pressure sent Relix flipping back into space.

“-righty tighty,” Merton groaned. “Lefty loosy.”

Relix beat her wings, demonstrating why this place wasn’t a true vacuum, and flew back into the nose of the ship, where she wrenched the wrench free and started to shake it. “Traitor!”

Merton pushed himself down to float beside her, putting his hands on her shoulders. He pressed his space-suited helmet against her ear and whispered. “You do know that you don’t need to help, right?” His voice was soft, and it made her tense up as she lowered the wrench down, letting it fall from her fingers. Which meant it started to float away from the ship, gently carried away on the invisible forces that seemed to determine the drift in this place.

“I know,” she whispered, her voice husky. “But ... I’m not just a spoiled space princess. I can help. If Brash can help, I can help.”

“Brash seems to be preprogrammed with the engineering data on a worrying number of weapons,” Merton said, smiling as he squeezed her shoulders. “You, meanwhile, spent most of your youth learning magic and politicing and stuff.”

“Mostly dance,” she said, quietly.

“What?” Merton blinked.

“Dad’s been on my tail-scales since I came of age to attract a mate, honestly,” she said, shrugging as she glared at the bolt that had forced her wrench to surrender. “It was kind of weird, never really figured out why.”

“We’ll ask him,” Merton said.

A faint thump thump thump that he could feel through the soles of his boots made Merton look up. Up meant looking at the upside-down face of Lisa, because space. Lisa was on the bridge of the Talon-9, and Gunner had activated the forward window screen now that the battle had finished. Technically, Lisa was a few demiplanes away from the skin of the ship, but thanks to the magic of portals and advanced visual projections, she looked as if she was right there for Merton to talk too.

“You’re not going to fucking believe this,” she said, her voice firm over the radio.

“What?” Relix asked, looking up, her eyes narrowing.

“We’ve detected something on wide-band scrying,” Lisa said. “We confirmed it with the telescopes and LIDAR. It’s...” she made a face. “It’s a castle.”

“You gotta be fucking kidding,” Merton whispered. Then he swung his head around. He was getting the hang of asking his skin-suit to do something. But even so, it took a few tries to get a vision enhancing augment online. It zoomed in on the infinite blackness that wasn’t blackness and, there, on the edge of vision, he could see a grayish spec. It was definitely coming slowly closer.

“What is it?” Relix asked. “I was told nothing can survive in this plane. We’re only alive because of our reactor...”

“It’s...” Merton paused. “It’s...”

“What?” Brash asked, alighting on his shoulder. “Is it candy!?”

Merton scooped Brash into his arms and started to rub his belly. The tiny dragon immediately forgot all questions and started to bat at his fingers while giggling.

“It’s the Fortress of Regrets,” Merton said, looking at Relix.

A light brighter than the sun exploded into being. It cast shadows both jagged and curved with the starkness that only a truly bright light could perform. Dust swirled in the sudden heat-vortexes created where that point of brightness appeared. Then the point swept in a circle about a meter wide. Once it was finished, a muffled conversation could be heard.

“Can I knock?” A youthful voice.

“It’s not a d-” A gruff, clicking voice.

“Knock knock!”

The hammering booms that filled the Fortress of Regrets echoed off of the walls with such force that they almost obscured the crash of the wall falling inwards. Brash the Dragon hopped onto the center of the meter wide circle, saying: “A candy gram made of actual candy who also has sex with you named Pinkie Pie!”

“I told you you shouldn’t have shown him e621,” Carlos said.

“Who showed him e621!?” Lisa shouted from behind Gunner and his two armsmen, who hurried forward into the fortress, their laser rifles at the ready, sweeping them about to cover the large chamber that they had cut into.

“What’s e621?” Brash asked, then cocked his head. His eyes whirred and he went. “Ooooooh!” Then he paused. “Why bother looking at cuckoldry pictures if you’re just gonna complain about it? Also, blacklisted! Blacklisted! Blacklisted...”

“What’s he doing?” Trevor asked, stepping onto the door with Merton.

“He’s blacklisting kinks,” Merton said. By now, he was actually pretty used to Brash’s thought processes. It went candy, snuggles, pets, sex, roughly. The rest of the group stepped in. Thanks to the Ouster attack, the Talon-9 was really low on armsmen. That was why Gunner, despite his grumbling, had given impact armor and laser rifles to Trevor, Lisa, and Carlos. Of the three, Lisa was the only one who should really have been given a gun, which was why she was covering their asses. Relix brushed some dust off her cufflinks as she swept into the Fortress of Regrets.

The first chamber they had cut into was clearly an entrance. It was a hall, grand and alien in its design. Several ‘statues’ loomed throughout the area: Jagged and snarled looking things that looked more like energy cannons than anything decorative. Their barrels aimed into the ceiling or at one another. There were broad stairs that swept up towards landings that loomed almost twenty feet higher than the rest of the chamber, while broad doors made of metal thorns and flowing quicksilver were set into frames studded with black gemstones. The entire place was only illuminated by the circles of light that spilled from their laser rifles – giving everything a jagged, half finished look to it as the pools of light swept here, there, everywhere.

“What is this place?” Relix asked.

“Uh, if my information is right, a solidified fortress made purely out of the regrets of a very bad man,” Merton said.

“And how would you have information?” Relix asked, narrowing her eyes slightly. “Your people are mage blind. You don’t even fly in space.”

Merton licked his lips. Carlos and the others had every reason to not trust Relix, or any dragon. She had kidnapped them after all. He looked at Julia, to see what she thought. His girlfriend was leading up the rear with a four legged hamper that followed after her. She was holding a tablet in one hand and what appeared to be a plastic wand in the other. Merton was about to ask before she said: “We’re honestly not sure, Princess.”

Relix crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine, give your suspicions.”

Merton sighed. His hands slid into his pockets and he shrugged. “Human culture seems to have ... guessed ... a lot of what is going on in the galaxy. The split between prismatic and metallic. The existence of this place. The layout of the Planes, if not their exact names.” He pulled out his hand, waving it at the castle for emphasis. Then his hand went right back into his pockets. “I think that humans are picking up some psychic backwash from dragons. Like, a side effect of how you learn.”

“That’s not possible.”

Speccy had entered. She had her own four legged hamper following her, and was holding up something that looked like a rectangle with a glowing crystal orb set into the middle of a hole cut into it. She held it up like a Nintendo Switch and started to look through the crystal orb at the surroundings. “Dragon learning,” she continued. “Stops after they hatch.”

“Maybe Earth sits on a ley-line,” Trevor said, shrugging.

Merton looked at his most taciturn friend.

Trevor shrugged again. “Hey, if Planescape is true, Rifts might be.”

“God, I hope not,” Lisa said, shuddering.

Speccy lowered her device. “This place is clean. If anything lived here, it stopped a long time ago. I’m detecting several purely arcane portals linking to the Outer and Inner planes, though. Give me a day, maybe two? I can re-target them.”

“We can go home!” Lisa said, her eyes widening.

“Those portals are connecting right to House Castrovel holdings, their allies, and the Prismatic Throne,” Speccy said, her voice firm. “We have to get the warning to the Imperial House immediately that the attack on Yelnatzo was no pirate raid, no exterior invasion, but treachery.”

Trevor coughed. “If this place has multiple portals, you can spare one for us. Right?”

“No,” Relix said, her hand closing around Merton’s shoulder. Her voice was utterly firm. Merton looked at her. He smiled, his hand going to her hand. He squeezed it.

“Honey,” he said. “I’d be happier if my friends could go home. I can always visit them after we kick the bad guy’s butt.”

Relix blinked. Then she grinned. “Oh, okay, Speccy-”

Speccy’s teeth audibly ground.

“Get to work on the portals. Cite one on Earf.”

“Earth,” Merton whispered.

“No, I believe that it was pronounced Earf.” Relix lifted her nose. “Your concubine showed me the proper pronunciation by Earth’s mightiest warrior. He was very brave in the historical documentary. By the way, you never said that humanity stopped such a horrid race!” She shuddered.

Merton shot a look at Julia, who gave him two huge thumbs up.

Gunner sighed and stepped up. “Ma’am, before you do anything, I want to do a complete search. Lisa, set up the guard perimeter around this door.” He pointed a chitinous finger at Merton. “You? Suit up.”

Brash gasped excitedly. “Yes!” He leaped and before Merton could ask for him to not too, Brash had landed on his face like the world’s most adorable facehugger. Merton’s arms cartwheeled, but it was too late. Brash’s body shapeshifted into the skintight power armor that he had been genetically engineered to form. Once he had finished, Merton felt the faint sting of the connections clicking in, and suddenly, he wasn’t wearing Brash. He and Brash were one thing, fused together in a level so deep that Merton wasn’t sure where one started and the other began. He looked down at his scales and felt a curious thrill.

He was...

“Uh, dude,” Carlos said. “Pants.”

Merton looked down. Brash’s body had covered and subsumed his clothing. End result? Brash was showing off what a draconic schlong looked like. And the raw power that crackled through every single one of Merton’s nerves was having its natural effect on his manhood, meaning that he was popping almost eighteen inches of hard, red dick. He coughed and thought: Brash, can we have internal genitalia?

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand your request,” Brash said in his ears and Merton felt his balls grow slightly. Lisa was covering her eyes with her hand, but Brash helpfully highlighted her hard nipples in Merton’s HUD. Julia, meanwhile, had pulled out her cellphone and was tapping the picture button with the regularity of a metronome.

Brash! Merton thought.

“No hablo inglis!” Brash sang.

“Okay, we’re searching!” Merton said through Brash – his voice sounding deeper and more masculine than his normal voice did. He strode forward, hoping to find something to punch. He strode up one of the stairs and to one of the doors that looked like thorns and quicksilver and found the door opening for him automatically. Once he was out of earshot of the others, he whispered to Brash. “Seriously, dude. We need to work together.”

“Yeah, but sexy stuff is fun,” Brash said, cheerfully. “Also, as a dragon prince, you kinda lacked some of the abilities of a dragon ... until now.” He said those last two words like a movie trailer announcer.

“Like what? I already got the augmented donger,” Merton said, pausing to sweep his eyes around another empty room – this one looked like a bedroom.

“Like you can now secrete lust pheremones, add psychotropic precum to your cock, and can flavor your scales to taste like whatever! Chocolate! Butter! Bacon! Oh! Oh! Oh! Can we have some bacon!?” Brash asked. Merton laughed. He couldn’t not. It was nearly impossible. He shook his head and then stepped up to the next room. Another bedroom. Whatever this castle had been, it had been prepped to have plenty of people showing up.

“Once we get back to the ship, I will feed you a whole plate. If you give me an internal genitalia.”

“Aww...”

And that was when Merton turned around and came to face with a three meter tall, four armed walking blender made of evil, hate and spikes.

Lisa and Relix walked together. Technically, Relix was being guarded by Lisa. But Lisa was uncomfortably aware that she was less strong, less tough, less fast and less magical than the princess. The princess who was forcing Lisa’s opinion up, despite everything Lisa felt about being torn away from her husband, her cats, her comfortable apartment, her long running Facebook feuds with that neo-nazi, and her planet in general. For one thing, Relix wasn’t complaining, even though she was the one carrying the heavy magical machine that was apparently required to begin modifying one of the portals.

The conversation before the two of them had been sent off had been simple.

“We shall begin modifying the nearest portal,” Relix had said.

“We haven’t secured the castle,” Gunner had said. “Your husband is still-”

“The nearest portal is fifteen meters down that corridor. We’ll be in line of sight the whole time. And I want ... my ... husband’s friends to get home and safe,” Relix had said while patting Lisa’s head.

And lo, they had been set off.

“So,” Relix said. “Are you going to join Julia in my husband’s harem?”

“What? No!” Lisa exclaimed.

“But you’re an attractive woman, and he’s the head of the household!” Relix said, scoffing.

“I ... no!” Lisa shuddered. “Ugh. No. Fuck no. Jesus fucking Christ, absolutely not.”

Relix looked bemused. “Then-”

“No,” Lisa said, with such finality that it put Relix’s feathered crest back against her head. She snorted out twin rings of steam, then thrust her snout into the air.

“Pff!” she said. “As if I wanted to sleep with you anyway.”

“Fucking dragons,” Lisa muttered. Then she paused. She spun backwards, lifting her rifle – and the flashlight slung underneath it swept across a plain brick wall that had not existed five seconds before. Relix looked back over her shoulder, then snapped out her wings in shock. She spun around, setting the magical machine on the floor. She stepped up to the wall, then put her ear to it. Her eyes narrowed.

“I can’t hear them through it,” she said.

Lisa lifted her wrist. This part of her suit, she had been told, was the communicator. She tapped at the screen, then said: “Gunny? Gunny, can you hear me?”

The faint buzz of static was all that reached her. Lisa frowned. “Of course...”

Relix punched the wall. Her fist smashed into brick like a cannonball, and smoke filled the corridor, causing Lisa to jerk her hand up to shield her face. A few fragments pattered off the chest piece of her combat armor, falling to the floor with a sound not unlike rain. Coughing, Lisa said: “Did you get through?”

Relix frowned, then jerked on her arm. “I seem to be stuck.”

Lisa blinked, then swung her flashlight around to aim it at where the dragon princess had punched the wall. Her fist looked as if it had merged with the brick. Stone and motor pressed up against her wrist and she jerked back, trying to tear her hand free. But either she couldn’t get enough leverage, or the brick wall had decided to get its revenge. She gritted her teeth, her wings beating in agitation. “Come on...” She flashed with pale white light, and when the light faded, she had become a tiny kitten. Said kitten had its paw stuck in the wall. She transformed into an earth-worm, and that was half stuck in the wall. She resumed her normal humanoid form, looking a bit worried now.

“What do we do?” Relix asked.

“Shoot the wall?” Lisa suggested.

Relix looked at her. “Like a wall that can withstand my strength is going to be stopped by an anti-personal laser!”

“Uh...” Lisa paused. “We ... could ... uh...” She looked down at the laser rifle. Then at Relix. She squirmed internally. She hated the monarchy and everything it stood for. But looking at Relix’s widening eyes made her stomach flop.

Then a loud roar of gunfire, echoing from elsewhere in the castle, jerked Relix’s head up. “That was a spinfusor!” she snarled. “Cut it off! Cut it off!”

“But-”

“Merton is in danger!” Relix snarled. “It’ll grow back!”

Lisa nodded, then dialed the laser rifle from pulsed fire to a cutting beam.

“Wait!” Relix said. “Let me ... okay. Now.”

‘What did you do?”

“I removed the bone, most of the nerve cells, and as many blood vessels as I could. No need to actually have it hurt,” Relix said, flashing a toothy grin at Lisa. Lisa, despite herself, smiled back. Then she shouldered the rifle. She thought to herself: It’s just like cutting a rubber chicken in half with a lightsaber. She still closed her eyes as she swept the beam down in a smooth arc. The smell was intense – a stink of burning lizard – and when she opened her eyes, Relix was pulling her arm free. She flicked her wrist and a new hand grew out of the smoking stump.

“Jesus,” Lisa said.

“Oh, that’s not regeneration,” Relix said, turning and starting down the corridor – leaving the box behind her. “I just shifted the wound somewhere else. Come on!”

“Wait!” Lisa hissed. “Get the box!”

Relix glared at her.

“It’s an irreplaceable magical dongle that we’re going to need later. We bring the box, and I guard it when you fight-” Another rattling boom echoed out. “-whatever that is.”

Relix snapped her teeth, but picked up the box with a grunt. She heaved it onto her shoulder and started to charge forward. Lisa sprinted after her – her heart in her throat. And despite the fact that they were probably going to die horribly, part of Lisa had to admit...