by Prax Venter
“You’ll find only death!” she screamed. “Your village needs you. Everyone that leaves us… hurts us.” She trailed off, and Mark could tell she was reliving a traumatic moment in her past. The pull to unpack those deeply hidden emotions was like not scratching a terrible itch, but he was proud of himself for consciously controlling his ability. Learis shook it off and continued.
“Stop being so selfish. You’ll find a mate when the time is right.”
“Easy for you to say- the whole town heard you just getting stuffed by these strangers.”
Mark snapped his attention to the previously content Lagomorph beauty by his side and had no choice but to see the searing-red rage she now projected.
“Take him,” she said quietly, her tan eyes focused on the young male. Learis let out a deep sigh, trying to reclaim some of the serenity she had felt only moments ago and then turned to walk away.
Mark shared some uncomfortable glances with the other villagers before he led his team over to the young rabbit in the graveyard.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Jezebel asked as they approached. “You may never be allowed to leave, see the sky again… see your children.”
The young rabbit looked up at her, and Mark knew there was nothing anyone could say that would change his mind.
“My father left me and my mother to go join paradise when I was born. She died before I could remember her face. I survived, and I am stronger for it. Why should I want to waste my time as a slave to some whelp for years of my life? What has the sky ever done for me that’s worth starving and dying like Gora, rotting and alone?”
Mark blinked down at the kid, stunned by his level of self-awareness. Pallum’s dark views might be twisted by tragedy, but he was honest with who he was.
“Okay,” Mark said nodding. “I know some powerful people in Starglade, maybe I can pull some strings to get you in a year early, or at least in with the other kids born there.”
The young rabbit’s eyes lit up, and his young soul soared.
“Thank you! Are we leaving now?”
“In a minute,” Mark answered, turning to face the glinting doorway in the Lagomorph graveyard. “I want to take a peek into another dimension first.”
“There’s a Wrongside portal here?” Jezebel asked.
“No,” Abby answered, and he noticed her yellow eyes were fixed on the glinting, mystical light over one of the older plots. “It looks different.”
“You can see it?” Mark asked, surprised that he was still capable of feeling surprise.
She turned to him, “Only when you are looking at it.”
Multiple emotions flooded their interconnected bonds, but the strongest was a new type of jealousy from Jezebel. He put his awareness of her feelings about their group dynamics on a shelf for later.
“Yeah, Abby’s right. It’s somewhere new. And now I can apparently Heal people and objects...” He started moving toward the portal. “Too much crazy shit going on right now to explore this new place I just unlocked, but it would be stupid not to pull open a flap and get a tiny peek while we’re here.”
Mark lifted his left hand, and black sparks of swirling magic whirled into existence before condensing down to form a second skin. With power granted from He Who Judges in exchange for making things right in the virtual multiverse, he tore open a peephole between worlds.
A burst of wind hit him instantly and caused him to wince his one good eye. He risked pulling it open a bit bigger, so the gusts weren’t as tightly focused and was able to see what awaited them in this new universe.
Mark stopped breathing when he saw that this new dimension was as mirror-like as the Wrongside. The hole appeared to be centered in a much larger graveyard on a hill that gave an amazing vantage on the vast alien landscape. Towering purple rock formations stretched a mile up only to break apart into enormous chunks of land inexplicably floating against a periwinkle sky. Down the hill to the left, Mark saw miles of farmland overrun with the familiar blue Garda Grass. To the right was an enormous Lagomorph village, with dozens of the white, furry creatures going about their business. A field full of children running and playing caught his eye, and Mark’s mind spun trying to understand what he was seeing.
“Is this the Starglade paradise?” Pallum asked from his side. “The wind… it sings.”
Mark looked down at the young rabbit and tried to hear any singing. His long white ears twitched, and Mark concluded that he wouldn’t be able to pick up what this ultrasonic creature was hearing.
“No, this is somewhere else, and I’m going to need you to run and get Learis. Now.”
The stunned teenage rabbit nodded slowly before dashing off and screaming her name. Mark’s Enthralled pushed in close to get a clear view just as a rabbit-person rode into view down a main road on a red-feathered bird similar to an ostrich, but thicker and more muscular.
The alternate-dimension mounted Lagomorph waved to some people as he passed, and it was hard to tell at this distance, but Mark guessed the rider was some sort of messenger or mail carrier.
“Their kind is not from here,” Jezebel said, putting down the bundle of crystals. “Not being able to eat the native food fits perfectly now.”
“I concur,” Abby said, looping one of her tentacles through Jezebel’s fingers. “This is their true home.”
“Yeah, but how did they get here and become livestock?” Sasha asked.
“I don’t know how,” Jezebel answered, “but the Kalorplast must have taken advantage of their inability to farm their only source of food without their help.”
“What have you done to our poor town now?” Learis said playfully as she jogged up with Pallum at her side. “He’s lost his mind over… singing…”
Mark watched her expression drop as she looked through the portal he was holding open. Her whiskers vibrated, and her ears twitched, but her eyes opened wider than he thought possible.
“The wind… it sounds so beautiful. Mark, what am I seeing? Is this vision the future of our village?”
“No,” he said. “In addition to all the other crazy shit I can do, I have the ability to open portals to other worlds. This one was hovering here when we arrived, and it’s to a world I’ve never been able to go to before. I’m almost positive that your potent milk was the key that allowed me to open this lock. And we’re all almost positive that this other world is your true home.”
Learis turned to face him. “Are you all gods come to take us to the afterlife?”
“Oh sweetie,” Sasha purred from behind her. “We aren’t from your world, but we aren’t gods, and you aren’t dying. By the looks of this place, quite the opposite.”
“Told you they’d end us all!” came Gora’s voice as he hobbled up to join them. “Pallum’s screeches ruining my nap is only the beginning!”
Mark smiled and waited for the old rabbit to join the others around the portal.
“What nonsense…?” he began as he approached the portal but quickly forgot what he was going to say as his venerable ears perceived the singing they all heard.
“We’re going in,” Mark said, pulling the portal down to the ground. “Sasha and Jez, you secure the area, then Abby. I’ll shove these guys through and be in after.”
His team nodded before the satyr and succubus pushed past the stunned Lagomorphs and through to the other side. After a quick scan, they both gave Abby a nod, who hopped through next.
“We’re… going there?” Learis asked, but before anyone could speak, Pallum jumped through after Abby. The beautiful rabbit-woman with the red ribbon turned to look at Mark, and they were so close, their noses almost touched.
“Can we come back, Mark?” she whispered as her eyes searched his, looking for some trick or flaw in him to explain the insanity he continued to rain down on her.
“There is an extremely good chance we can, but I won’t lie and say I fully understand how this works. Getting better at it, though.”
Learis looked back through at the thriving village ful
l of other Lagomorphs, and with a deep breath, she stepped through to join the others standing in the alternate graveyard on top of a hill. Mark turned to the stubborn old rabbit and saw his mouth working to make words his mind didn’t understand.
“Get back in your home, Gora,” Mark said quietly.
The ancient rabbit closed his small jaw with a snort as he turned to face Mark, ready to argue- but paused when he saw Mark’s expectant half-smile. He’d finally broken through the frail Lagomorph’s guarded exterior. Gora scrunched up his face and gave Mark an amused grin before setting his shoulders and stepping through the portal.
- 22 -
“We’re going to be okay,” Learis said, her back to the empty village where Mark had first seen her step from the shadows.
Mark and his Enthralled had waited by the portal on the other world’s hill while Learis went to speak with her long-lost people. Pallum crossed back over to gather the rest of the villagers, and he’d returned with everyone by the time she came back with a handful of native Lagomorphs. The leaders of this relatively large city regarded the newcomers with compassion and no small amount of reverence- they all did just step through a hole in thin air within a graveyard.
Learis’s whole village had decided to relocate and moved their meager possessions in the span of ten minutes- including Pallum.
“What you four have done to change the very nature of my reality… The universe would have to end before I could ever forget the names Mark, Sasha, Jezebel, and Abby.”
The shapely rabbit woman reached behind her head, untied the red ribbon from her ears and casually tossed it to the dry and brittle ground. Much of the buried anger she carried around fell to the dirt with the fluttering red strip of fabric, and the gusts of wind from the portal quickly pushed it away from them.
“We’ll still be back to visit,” Mark said with a smile. “Who knows, we might even start stirring up trouble in your home dimension as soon as we finish our current quest.”
“Are you going to try and fight for the freedom of your people in Starglade?” Abby asked.
“No,” she said, blinking up into the deep-blue sky for the last time. “We’re leaving this world behind. Those who chose to be livestock… they made their choice, and it’s not my responsibility to change their minds. Besides, no one knows how to open these portals but you.”
Mark nodded. “Either way, we’ll come to check in on you- hopefully soon.”
They all hugged the soft rabbit-woman with the huge chest before she stepped back over to the windy world, which they’d decided to call Lagos. Mark waved one last time and let the portal close between them.
“Well,” he said, clapping his hands. “That was one hell of an item-gathering mission. We ready to turn it in?”
Jezebel handed Mark the return charm before hoisting the bundle of pure harmonic shards back onto her shoulder, and he waited for his three loves to make contact before snapping the small plaster tree.
An instant later, they were standing in the haze-filled indoor forest of The Grove. Ashes still smoldered in the nearby brazier, and Mark followed the billowing cloud up into the darkening evening sky beyond the glass roof far above.
“Welcome back, Collector and Enthralled,” said a voice to his right, and he saw the wooden woman step out from the trunk of a thick tree as if it were merely water to her. As soon as she was fully past its gnarled surface, a face formed in the bark with a relaxed grin that Mark recognized as post-orgasm bliss. The sensuously carved woman drew a strange orange glyph in the air with her stick-finger, and the intricate pattern flashed once before fading away.
“Our friend, Klax, should be joining us shortly,” she said, in her slow smoky voice before she turned to Jezebel and saw the bundle she carried. The creature’s wooden eyes were usually half-lidded with a tranquil, knowing demeanor, but now they flew open as she took a step toward the strawberry-blonde satyr.
“It’s no wonder you four were gone for so long! This sizable haul should last us a full year. This way come.”
She turned and began striding deeper into the indoor forest. Huge trees rustled their leaves into each other as they moved aside to create a new path in her wake. Mark glanced at his bonded beast-women before moving to follow the Druid and felt the mindleaf haze start to gently cloud his thoughts. The thought that floated to the top was regarding his growing hunger. Maybe they could find a place in Starglade that served steak-
Mark’s wandering thoughts on food derailed when he thought of the Lagomorph slaughterhouse hidden deep within this mega-tree-city and made a mental note to make sure rabbits weren’t on the menu before they sat down to eat.
It was a short walk, and soon enough they all stepped out onto a large stone circle sunk into the grassy ground. Carved into the surface were rings and arcane symbols, and five ornate stone plinths stood equally spread apart around its circumference. Mark knew almost nothing about magic rituals, but if he had to guess, this was the perfect spot to do one.
“Place the raw reagents here, please,” Jayna said as she pointed toward a stone altar. On closer inspection, the tools and containers of powders implied that it was more of a workstation. The Tender of the Grove continued.
“I will begin preparing the Force Shift ritual. Please, rest. It will not be long.”
They all moved to the indicated spot at the edge of the forest, but Abby was the only one to take advantage of the nearby wooden bench.
“You ready for this?” Mark asked his shapeshifting satyr.
“No,” she said after a deep breath and an apprehensive glance at the ritual circle. “But I’m going to go through with it anyway. We could always use more abilities to help us break out of here before that poor admin AI does something worse than make us hungry.”
“Is it wise to show sympathy for the enemy?” Abby asked, one of her dark eyebrows raised. “Are we not to treat those who want to harm us in kind?”
“Abby,” Jezebel said softly. “The only reason she is fighting us is because…” The satyr shot a glance over to Sasha before continuing. “We have not treated her kindly.”
Both the horned beast-women unintentionally sent a burst of regret and self-loathing through their network of emotional tethers, and Abby reached out both her tentacles to them. Sasha and Jezebel each took one of her offered appendages, and Mark felt his Enthralled share a moment of bonding and understanding.
“Besides,” Mark added. “It’s always good to have a level of empathy for everyone, especially your enemy. Knowing how someone truly feels and what motivates them can give you an edge in a survival situation- if it comes to that.”
Abby nodded. “I see your reasoning. There are more paths to victory this way.”
“I’m glad you four aren’t dead,” Klax said as he half-jogged into the clearing, “But what took so long?”
“This,” Jayna answered, pointing to the pile of pure perfectly cut crystals.
“No…” he said before shambling his short, cloaked body over the worktable. “This is… Even one this size would have been too much! You really wanted to take me up on that extra gold, huh?”
Mark shrugged. “We’re adventurers, right? Work for anyone as long as there’s a payment at the end?”
The military mage nodded his pumpkin head and sighed.
“It’ll take forever to be reimbursed for this without drawing attention to the fact that we bypassed procedure, but I suppose you’ve earned your reward.”
Klax moved over to the bench where they stood and pulled out a leather bag from under his robes that seemed much too large based on where it came from. He reached inside and quickly counted out ten gold and handed the stack to Mark. He was slightly disappointed in the offered amount until the short pumpkin creature counted out ten more. Klax kept going like this until Mark had 50 gold weighing down his pocket. Maybe it was the growing effects of the tangy smoke he was breathing, but he was grinning ear-to-ear over the buying power they now had at their disposal.
The
cloaked mage nodded and then went to prepare the crystals they’d gathered, and as soon as their quest-giver had finished doling out his reward, Mark felt a fair bit of essence enter his body from the universe.
“Nice, so you did Collect some more juice for us from this fetch quest,” Sasha said from behind him, her tail swishing slowly.
Jezebel turned to face her. “You could detect Mark receiving essence?”
“Sort of,” the blue-eyed succubus said. “It was super faint, but I happened to be staring at his ass at the time, and the little clench helped me notice the sensation.”
Mark felt another flash of jealousy from his caramel-skinned satyr and could tell the root of her problem was that she didn’t think she was bonding with him as well as Sasha and Abby. She bit her lip and turned to watch the two mystics prepare the ritual that would make her more useful to the team.
Mark moved behind his armored satyr and encircled her waist as he breathed in her light strawberry scent from within the hair draped over the back of her neck. Jezebel rested her hands over his, and he held her tight against him as Jayna and Klax went about placing different reagents onto all five stone pillars around the circle.
The two Kalorplast checked everything twice, and once everything seemed in the correct place, the wooden woman approached Jezebel.
“When you are ready, please stand in the center of the ritual altar. Remove all objects and bring nothing in with you.”
With a nod, Jezebel started to remove her leather armor, and Mark helped where he could. After she was stripped bare, she turned to face him, her green eyes wide with fear.
He gave her a kiss on her freckled nose. “We don’t need to do this if you aren’t feeling it,” he said.
She kissed him back, but on the lips and with much more passion. Maybe Abby was right about the mindleaf smoke. This one kiss with Jezebel hinted at the single-minded pleasure they could experience when everything else on the edges of his mind took on a mental blur.
She pulled away and stepped her dainty black hooves into the center of the stone circle. Her round breasts with wide brown nipples drew Mark’s eye, but he also noticed that she was certainly more toned than she had been yesterday- especially her newly defined ab muscles.