The fifth crack in the sky was making music.
Not good music, mind you. It sounded like someone was trying to play a flute while being strangled by an angry goose. But it was definitely music, and it was getting progressively louder as Kael approached.
"Fascinating!" Corny was practically vibrating with excitement as he scribbled in his notebook. "Harmonic dimensional resonance! The fracture is creating audible frequencies as reality substrates oscillate between—"
"It's loud and annoying," Kael interrupted. "That makes it bad."
"But the theoretical implications—"
"Still bad."
Kael wound up to throw his axe, but Al the wizard suddenly jumped in front of him, arms spread wide.
"Wait! Stop! You can't just throw your axe at a harmonic resonance fracture!"
"Why not?"
"Because if you disrupt a harmonic dimensional frequency incorrectly, it could create a feedback loop that—"
The musical crack suddenly belched out what appeared to be a small, floating orchestra. Tiny musicians no bigger than Kael's thumb were playing miniature instruments while drifting around the camp like confused musical notes.
One of them, a minuscule violinist, floated directly in front of Al's face and began playing what sounded like a funeral dirge.
"Oh, come on," Al said.
Kael reached out, gently plucked the tiny musician from the air, and held it up to eye level. "Excuse me, little music man."
The violinist stopped playing and looked at him with eyes like pinpricks of light.
"You're making too much noise," Kael explained patiently. "People are trying to have a conversation."
The tiny musician seemed to consider this, then nodded and gestured to his floating colleagues. They all stopped playing immediately.
"Thank you," Kael said politely, and gently released the violinist back into the air.
The entire miniature orchestra gave him what appeared to be a respectful bow, then flew back through the crack in the sky in perfect formation.
"There," Kael said, dusting off his hands. "No axe needed."
The camp was doing that staring thing again.
"You just... negotiated with trans-dimensional musical entities," Al said in a strangled voice.
"I asked them to be quiet," Kael corrected. "Worked, didn't it?"
"But you can't just ASK dimensional anomalies to—"
The crack made a polite little chiming sound and sealed itself shut.
Al sat down heavily on a nearby rock and put his head in his hands. "Twenty years," he mumbled. "Twenty years studying dimensional thaumaturgy. Twenty years of complex theoretical frameworks. Twenty years of precise ritual magic and careful mathematical calculations..." He looked up at Kael with haunted eyes. "And you're fixing dimensional fractures by being POLITE to them."
"Not all of them," Kael said reasonably. "First three needed hitting. That one just needed asking."
"How do you KNOW which approach to use?"
Kael shrugged. "Same way you know whether to pet a dog or run from a bear. You look at it and figure out what it wants."
"DIMENSIONAL FRACTURES DON'T WANT THINGS!"
"That one wanted to play music," Kael pointed out. "Once I explained that wasn't working out for anybody, it was happy to leave."
Corny looked up from his frantic note-taking. "He's applying intuitive social dynamics to trans-dimensional entities! It's like he's treating them as... as people!"
"They're not people!" Al protested.
"Some of them seemed people-ish," Kael said. "Little music folks were definitely people-ish. Purple furry thing was more animal-ish. Those first three were just broken-ish."
"You're categorizing dimensional anomalies based on... on social interaction patterns?"
"I'm looking at stuff and figuring out how to deal with it," Kael said. "Same thing I've always done."
Beltran the merchant had been watching this exchange with growing excitement. "Kael, my friend, I think we need to discuss your future career prospects."
"What about them?"
"Well, there are reports of dimensional instabilities appearing all across the kingdom. Major cities are panic-buying protective amulets. The King's own Royal Wizard is reportedly offering a thousand gold pieces to anyone who can—"
"A thousand gold?" Kael perked up. "That's good money."
"Indeed it is. And that's just for fixing ONE dimensional crisis. There are apparently hundreds of—"
A new crack suddenly tore open in the sky directly above them, and something the size of a house began trying to squeeze through it.
Whatever it was, it was big, angry, covered in spikes, and making a sound like an entire army of angry cats being put through an entire army's worth of trumpets.
"Now that one," Kael said, hefting Skullsplitter, "definitely needs hitting."
He wound up and hurled his axe with all his strength. The weapon spun end over end toward the emerging creature—
And bounced off harmlessly.
The thing finished squeezing through the crack and landed in their camp with a ground-shaking thud. It had too many teeth, too many claws, and what appeared to be an attitude problem.
"Huh," said Kael.
The creature roared at them, spraying everyone with what smelled suspiciously like sulfur-flavored spit.
"New plan," Kael announced, and charged straight at the monster with his bare hands.
"That's not a plan!" Al screamed. "That's suicide!"
"Details," Kael called back over his shoulder.
The creature saw him coming and swiped at him with claws the size of sword blades. Kael ducked under the swing, grabbed the monster's arm, and used its own momentum to flip it over his shoulder.
The creature hit the ground hard enough to knock everyone else off their feet.
"Good reflexes," Kael admitted, dusting off his hands as the monster scrambled back upright. "But terrible balance."
The thing roared again and lunged at him. Kael sidestepped, grabbed it by what might have been its tail, and began spinning it around like a very large, very angry hammer.
"This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen," Al muttered from where he was lying flat on his back.
"Working though," Beltran observed.
Kael released his grip. The creature went flying through the air, back through the dimensional crack it had come from, and the fracture immediately sealed itself shut.
"There we go," Kael said, retrieving his axe. "Sometimes you hit them, sometimes you ask them nicely, sometimes you have to wrestle them a bit first."
"You threw a house-sized dimensional entity back through a reality fracture," Corny said weakly.
"It was being rude," Kael replied. "Didn't even introduce itself before trying to eat us."
He looked around at the now-clear sky with satisfaction. "Right then. Where did you say those other dimensional problems were?"
Beltran grinned. "Pack your things, my friend. We're going to make you very rich."
Al just whimpered.