Morning light broke through the trees, casting long shadows across the clearing where they had camped. Birds chirped somewhere in the distance, and a gentle breeze stirred the grass. Matt yawned and stretched his arms, his muscles sore from pushing the cart all day. He glanced over at Dave's sleeping form under the blanket.
Something was wrong.
There were red stains—dark and splattered—soaking through the fabric. The blanket twitched slightly, as if Dave was shivering, or maybe convulsing.
Matt's heart sank. "Dave?" he said quietly, stepping closer. "Hey, are you alright?"
No answer—just more shaking.
Matt hesitated, then reached down and peeled the blanket back.
Dave shot upright like a spring-loaded corpse. His eyes were rolled back, showing mostly white. His face was smeared with dark red. He let out a wet, gurgling groan.
Matt screamed and stumbled back, his eyes wide with shock. "No—no, no! Not you too!" Tears welled up in his eyes as he fumbled for the pan hanging on the side of the cart. "I can't let you turn into one of them—Dave, I'm sorry!"
"STOP!" Dave yelled, suddenly dropping the act and waving his arms. "It's a prank! It's a prank!"
Matt froze mid-swing. "What?!"
Dave wiped his face with his sleeve, revealing a dumb grin under the berry juice. "I found these weird red berries on a bush over there. Looked just like blood. Thought I'd pull a little prank on you—y'know, lighten the mood after all the undead nonsense."
Matt stood there, shaking, eyes still wet. He lowered the pan slowly. "You… you absolute idiot."
Dave grinned proudly. "Got you good though, right?"
Behind them, a small clatter came from the pot they'd used for cooking. Nia's head rose slowly from inside it, her hair a mess and her expression groggy. "What… is happening?" she mumbled.
Matt sighed and dropped to the ground, rubbing his face. "He faked being dead. Covered himself in berry juice."
Nia blinked slowly, then dropped her head back into the pot. "Wake me when the world makes sense again."
Dave sat cross-legged, still looking pleased with himself. "C'mon, that was funny."
Matt didn't answer. He just sat quietly, breathing deep, trying to calm his racing heart.
Eventually, he muttered, "Next time you try something like that… I will hit you."
Dave chuckled. "Noted."
Dave was groaning for the fifth time in an hour as he dragged the wooden-wheeled cart along the dirt path. "My back's gonna give out before we even get anywhere worth dying in," he mumbled, wiping sweat from his forehead.
Matt walked beside him, skimming the guidebook and ignoring the complaints. Nia rode on his shoulder as usual, humming softly and occasionally pointing out strange plants or birds along the trail.
Then, in the distance, they saw it—a town. But not just any town. This one had tall stone walls, sturdy and well-kept. Guard towers were spaced along the perimeter, with armored guards patrolling the top. A line of people moved slowly through a checkpoint at the main gate.
Dave squinted. "Finally. A real town."
"It looks a lot bigger than the last one," Matt said.
"And it's got walls," Nia added. "That usually means it's important… or in danger."
As they trudged closer, an elderly man sitting on a rock near the path looked up and waved. His beard was long and white, and he leaned heavily on a carved wooden staff. He watched them with a tired but kind expression.
"Heading to the town, are you?" he called out.
Dave groaned, rolling his eyes. "If you're about to warn us of cursed gates, haunted watchtowers, or ancient plagues, save it. I'm not sleeping under the sky again."
The old man chuckled. "Nothing like that, lad. I was just going to ask if I could ride on your cart. My legs aren't what they used to be."
Matt stepped forward with a smile. "Of course. Let me help you up."
He took the man's hand and carefully guided him onto the back of the cart. The old man settled in with a grateful sigh.
Dave stared back at them, offended. "So he gets a ride, huh? My feet are practically mutinying and I'm dragging this thing like a mule, but noooo one offers to pull me."
The old man chuckled again. "If it makes you feel better, you're doing a fine job of it."
Dave grumbled under his breath, but kept pulling.
"Maybe when we're rich, we'll get you a cart of your own," Matt said with a smirk.
"Yeah," Dave muttered. "Pulled by someone else for once."
As the city walls grew closer and the guards came into clearer view, the group prepared to enter a whole new level of their strange adventure.
At the gate, two guards in polished armor lowered their spears to block the path. One of them stepped forward, eyes sharp but not unkind. "State your business in Emberhold," he said firmly.
Dave dropped the cart handles and leaned over, gasping for breath. "Yeah—I've got a very important meeting… with a real bed. And maybe food that isn't stew."
The guard raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"
Matt stepped up, more composed. "We're travelers, just passing through. Looking for rest and information. Nothing more."
The guard gave them each a once-over, then glanced at the old man sitting on the cart.
"They helped me," the old man said, raising a hand weakly. "Good folk."
The guard nodded, then moved to inspect the cart. After poking through the bags and checking under a folded blanket, he stepped back and scribbled something onto a slip of paper. "This is your pass. Don't lose it—required for inns, shops, and guild halls. Cause no trouble."
He handed the pass to Matt, who accepted it with a small bow. "Thank you."
As they stepped through the gate, the old man patted Dave on the shoulder. "Thank you again, lad. May your next stew be something better." With a wink, he wandered off into the crowd.
Dave stared after him. "That guy was alright. Heavy, but alright."
"We'll split up for a bit," Matt said, looking around the bustling streets. "You go find a cheap place to stay. Nia and I will check the library, see if there's anything useful."
Dave saluted lazily. "Got it. I'll try not to collapse before I find a mattress."
As he shuffled off into the crowd, Matt turned toward a nearby spire-like building with arched windows and stone carvings—a sign above the door read Grand Emberhold Archives. Nia fluttered slightly on his shoulder, eyes curious.
"Let's hope this place has something," Matt said.
"Or at least doesn't charge admission," Nia added.
Dave trudged down the cobbled streets, eyes darting left and right for any sign with the word "Inn" that didn't also look like it would charge a fortune. People bustled past him—merchants shouting over carts, cloaked travelers arguing at stalls, kids darting between legs.
Then he saw it. A crooked sign hanging by a single nail: The Sleepy Jug. The building leaned slightly, and the door creaked just from the wind brushing it.
"Perfect," Dave muttered, pushing it open.
Inside, the air smelled like old bread and damp wood. A tired woman behind the counter looked up from her book.
"Room?" she asked, already pulling a key from the wall.
"Cheap one," Dave said, dropping three of their recently earned coins onto the counter.
She handed over the key without a word, and Dave stumbled upstairs. The room was small, the bed looked like it might collapse under his weight—but it was a bed.
He face-planted into it and let out a groan of satisfaction. "Never leaving," he mumbled into the pillow.
The Grand Emberhold Archives was bigger on the inside than it looked. Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling, and quiet scholars moved around in long robes like they belonged in some fantasy movie. Matt felt completely out of place, but also kind of at home.
He approached the main desk, where a sharp-eyed elf woman looked up. "Can I help you?" she asked politely.
"I'm looking for anything about people coming here from another world," Matt said. "Accidentally."
The elf raised an eyebrow. "That's… specific."
"I get that a lot."
She thought for a moment, then pointed toward the back of the building. "Try the third shelf in the Mythic Phenomena section. You'll want volume twelve onward."
Matt nodded his thanks and headed back, Nia glancing around from his shoulder.
"This place smells like knowledge," she whispered. "And dust."
He smirked. "You should probably stay quiet. We don't want to get kicked out."
After some digging, he found a worn old book with a faded spine: Tales of Riftborn Wanderers. He sat at a reading table, opened it, and started flipping through.
Nia sat on the table beside the book. "Find anything good?"
"Some stories. A lot of nonsense. But a few pages talk about rituals, and 'world bridges.' It's not much, but it's a start."
"Think it'll help us get back?"
"I don't know yet," Matt said, staring down at an illustration of a strange portal surrounded by ancient symbols. "But I'm going to find out."
Matt and Nia walked down the quiet side street, the sun beginning to dip behind the rooftops. The wooden wheels of their cart were awkwardly jammed halfway up the inn's shallow steps, like Dave had given up on parking it properly and just left it there.
Matt sighed. "Yep, this looks like the place."
Inside, they found Dave in the common room, slouched at a table with his boots off and a plate of mostly-eaten bread and cheese in front of him. His face lit up when he saw them.
"Took you long enough," he said between bites. "Find anything useful?"
Matt pulled out the old book from under his arm and set it on the table. "Yeah. Maybe. It mentions a portal that's supposed to lead to our world."
Dave blinked, then grinned. "Seriously? You mean there's actually a way home?"
"There was," Matt said, sitting down. "But the book says it was lost a long time ago. No one knows where it is anymore."
Dave's smile faded fast. "Great. So, we've got a maybe on a missing door to Earth."
"Better than nothing," Nia said softly, hopping down from Matt's shoulder onto the table.
Dave leaned back in his chair, eyes on the ceiling. "Just once I'd like a straight answer. Portal lost, lich poisoning lands, stew for days…"
Matt opened the book again, flipping to a marked page. "There's more info about who built it and the kind of magic it needs to work. If we can find an archmage or some old ruin, maybe we can follow the trail."
Dave picked up a piece of bread and muttered, "At this rate, I'll be opening a restaurant before we find it."
"You should open one," Nia smiled. "Just not in the corrupted lands."
Matt chuckled. "Let's get some sleep. We've got another day of searching ahead."
Dave groaned but stood up. "Fine. But if tomorrow doesn't come with answers or actual flavor in the food, I'm rethinking the whole heroic journey thing."
The morning broke with shouting.
Matt blinked awake, still groggy, and noticed that even from inside the inn, the noise was loud—angry voices echoing through the stone streets. Dave was already at the window, wide-eyed.
"Something's going down," he muttered. "People are pissed."
Matt and Nia were up and out the door with him in seconds. They followed the shouts down the main street, where a crowd had gathered in the town square. Guards stood tensely in a line, holding spears and shields, trying to keep the crowd from pushing closer to a raised wooden platform. At the center of it—bound and bruised—stood the old man they had given a ride to just the day before.
A noose hung loosely around his neck.
One of the guards was reading from a scroll, though his voice was barely audible over the noise: "…for crimes against the people, for abusing power during his rule, for betrayal of trust and misappropriation of town funds…"
Rocks clanged off the guards' shields. People weren't throwing them at the man on the platform—they were throwing them at the ones sentencing him.
"That's the old guy," Dave said, stunned. "From the cart. He said nothing about being the former lord."
Matt stepped back into an alley, pulling Dave and Nia with him. "This isn't right. The crowd clearly supports him. Why is he the one with a rope around his neck?"
Nia peered over the crowd, standing on Matt's shoulder. "This feels like a power grab. If the people loved him, someone else might be trying to erase him to keep control."
Dave scratched his head. "Okay, so how do we stop an execution without ending up next to him?"
Matt's eyes scanned the square, landing on a wagon full of hay parked behind the scaffold. "Maybe we don't stop it directly. Maybe we cut the rope and let him vanish into the crowd."
Dave raised an eyebrow. "You want me to pull another cart?"
Matt smirked. "Just this once."