The ancient stone archway that marked the crypt's exit loomed ahead like the gateway to another world, which, considering my recent experiences with interdimensional travel, was probably more literal than I wanted to think about. Worn protective runes spiraled up the weathered columns, their faded carvings telling stories in languages that predated whatever civilization had built this place.
"Move it, stranger," Kira muttered, giving me another helpful shove between the shoulder blades. My bound hands made balancing a creative exercise in not face-planting into thousand-year-old stonework.
"Easy there, knife-happy!" I complained, stumbling forward. "Some of us aren't used to forced marches in medieval handcuffs! These ropes are cutting off circulation to my—"
"Shut up and walk," she interrupted, though I caught the faintest hint of amusement in her voice. Maybe she was starting to find my suffering entertaining. Great. Nothing like becoming someone's personal comedy show to really boost the old self-esteem.
Thane maintained her position at the front of our little parade, scanning the landscape with the kind of professional paranoia that suggested this world had more creative ways to kill people than ancient war constructs. Her silence was becoming unnerving. Either she was planning something unpleasant, or she was the strong, silent type who expressed affection through tactical awareness. Given my luck, probably the former.
The transition from the crypt's timeless gloom to the natural world outside was like stepping from a black-and-white movie into full technicolor. But it was the sunlight that hit me like a freight train made of pure photons.
SLAM.
I staggered backward, raising my bound hands instinctively to shield my eyes. The evening sun, golden and warm and absolutely real, blazed across my vision with the intensity of a small star. Which, technically, it was. But after... after however long I'd been trapped in that cosmic forge, natural light felt like a religious experience.
"Holy shit, that's bright," I gasped, squinting through my fingers. "When's the last time I saw actual sunlight? Feels like..."
The system chose that moment to helpfully ruin my day:
[TEMPORAL DISPLACEMENT ANALYSIS COMPLETE][TIME DIFFERENTIAL DETECTED][HOST HAS NOT EXPERIENCED SOLAR RADIATION FOR: 1,000 EARTH YEARS][PLANE-SPECIFIC TIME DILATION CONFIRMED]
I froze mid-step, my brain refusing to process the number floating in my vision.
"A thousand years?" I whispered, the words feeling strange and heavy on my tongue. "That's... that can't be right."
But even as I said it, I knew it was. The weight of that impossible timespan settled onto my shoulders like a lead blanket. A millennium. A thousand years of human history, of technological advancement, of people being born and living full lives and dying of old age while I'd been trapped in a cosmic workshop, hammering away at divine metals like some kind of interdimensional blacksmith.
I spent a millennium forging one hammer, I thought, the absurdity of it threatening to break something fundamental in my mind. One. Fucking. Hammer.
The grief hit differently than I'd expected. Not the sharp, immediate pain of losing someone you loved, but a hollow, echoing emptiness. My parents had been dead long before my little interdimensional adventure, car accident when I was twelve, followed by a childhood in foster care with relatives who'd made it clear I was an unwelcome burden. No family to mourn me. No close friends beyond my streaming community.
But my viewers... the people who'd followed my descent into forge-obsessed madness... they were gone. Not just moved on or forgotten me, but actually, literally dead of old age. Generations had been born and lived full lives in the time I'd been gone. Entire civilizations could have risen and fallen while I was learning to properly temper divine steel.
My eyes stung, and for a moment it wasn't from the sunlight.
The system, apparently sensing my emotional breakdown, decided to be helpful:
[IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION][PLANAR TIME FLOWS ARE NON-LINEAR][1,000 FORGE-PLANE YEARS ≈ 1 WEEK IN ALTERNATE DIMENSIONS][TEMPORAL MECHANICS ARE INCONSISTENT ACROSS REALITY][RECOMMENDATION: DO NOT THINK TOO HARD ABOUT THIS]
"Right," I muttered, wiping my eyes with the back of my bound hands. "Don't think too hard about time travel. Got it. Because that's totally how sanity works."
"What are you mumbling about, stranger?" Kira's voice cut through my temporal existential crisis like a blade through fog. I looked up to find her studying me with suspicious eyes, one hand resting casually on her dagger hilt.
"Just... processing some personal timeline issues," I said, forcing a weak smile. "Nothing world-threatening. Probably."
She tapped her blade against the leather sheath, the steel ringing softly in a way that suggested she had several creative ideas about how to solve the problem of suspicious strangers. "Don't try anything funny, or you'll be decorating the landscape with your internal organs."
Before I could formulate a response that wouldn't get me stabbed, Vex and Jorik flanked me with the protective instincts of devoted cultists.
"The Divine One requires gentle treatment!" Vex declared, positioning himself between me and Kira's threatening blade. "His thoughts are beyond mortal comprehension!"
"Perhaps the sacred wisdom is overwhelming his divine consciousness?" Jorik added, clutching his holy bell like it might ward off blade-happy rogues.
Great, I thought. My existential crisis is now being interpreted as divine revelation. This day keeps getting weirder.
"Come on," Thane called from ahead, her voice carrying the kind of impatience that suggested we were burning daylight. "We need to reach the mounts before full dark."
We walked for another twenty minutes through rolling hills dotted with strange, twisted trees that looked like someone had taken normal oak trees and run them through a fantasy-novel generator. Everything was slightly wrong in ways that reminded me I definitely wasn't on Earth anymore. The grass was too blue-green, the flowers had too many petals, and something in the distance was making sounds that definitely weren't made by any terrestrial animal.
That's when we reached the hidden grove, and I got my first look at creatures that definitely didn't exist in any textbook I'd ever studied.
"Oh my god," I breathed, stopping dead in my tracks.
Four magnificent beasts waited in the grove's shadows, and calling them horses would be like calling a dragon a large lizard. I had absolutely no idea what they were, but they were absolutely incredible.
Each one stood about the size of a large horse, but that's where the similarity ended. Their bodies were pure predatory muscle wrapped in scales that shifted colour in the dappled sunlight, deep blues flowing into purples that seemed to absorb and reflect light in impossible ways. But it was their heads that really caught my attention.
Picture taking the noble bearing of an eagle, the intelligence of an owl, and the predatory grace of a velociraptor, then having a master sculptor blend them into something that belonged in the halls of gods.
Large, golden eyes tracked our approach with obvious intelligence, while proud crested foreheads gave them an almost regal bearing. Feathered ridges ran along their skulls and down their spines, creating silhouettes that spoke of both beauty and barely contained lethality.
Their legs were built for both speed and stability, powerful, clawed feet that could probably disembowel a person with casual ease, but currently just shifted weight with the patient grace of creatures that knew they were apex predators and didn't need to prove it.
The riding gear was a work of art in itself. Masterwork saddles that looked like they'd been crafted by someone who understood both function and aesthetics, with tactical storage that suggested these weren't just transportation but partners in whatever dangerous work their riders did.
"What... what are those?" I asked, my voice cracking with excitement. "They're magnificent!"
I couldn't help myself. I lunged toward Kira, grabbing her arm despite my bound hands, my eyes probably glowing with the kind of manic enthusiasm that normal people reserved for winning the lottery.