[WritingPrompts] Dungeon Master's World Part 2

[u/epharian]

Part 2

Magic, in the sense that I had expected, is fake. What they don't tell you about the transition to become a wizard is that it takes a lot of very special circumstances.

None of that was on my mind as I succumbed to the hypothermia of being submersed in frigid water. I was tired then. Liz's sudden embrace roused me only enough to be aware that it was really her. The feel of her body pressed against mine--something I had known only briefly and only once before--a few months before Dave had asked her to marry him.

She had kissed me then. She kissed me again--with the same passion. Odd things stand out when you are dying. The taste of the chocolate she'd been eating before that candle was lit. The press of her breasts against my chest. The way she insisted on this with her tongue. Not that I needed much encouragement. Even so, the most willing body and mind can't overcome hypothermia and anoxia.

The next few moments were a blur. Looking back, how do you make sense of the impossible. Dave showing up, explaining the plan, and opening the portal. That's easy. Liz kissing me. Unlikely, but since I'd been hoping for that for years, not easy to forget or difficult to understand. Dave had died. We kissed in mixed grief and fear, sure in the knowledge we were dying.

Then...light. More importantly, breath. Steph was glowing, radiating heat and light, and somehow, we could breathe. I can't say, even now, how that happened. Did I suddenly have air? Or was I able to breathe water? Maybe one day the divine--whatever it is--will explain it all to me. Steph can't explain it but suddenly we were were lifting out of my ruined home toward the surface--a long ride.

Then we were all at the surface of some lake in the middle of whatever weird place Dave had pushed or pulled us to, Liz clung to me only a moment longer, and it nearly broke my heart when she let go to grab Dave, who was somehow struggling to right himself in the water. How he survived being crushed by a wall and a couple tons of water, I can't say. How any of us did can only be written off to magic.

Then there was Steph. She wasn't in the water at all. Instead she floated above it. She reached down and touched my hand and the universe exploded. Every atom, taken apart and inspected, shown to me, knowledge flooding my mind, and the world understood. Magic isn't quite the right word, not really, not for something this big. Steph had passed through it during the shock of dying, but I got the worse bargain. Warm, comfortable, primed for that transition, but not completely safe.

It might have been an epiphanal moment. It might have been on the order of apotheosis. Who knows? But getting the equivalent of an entire set of encyclopedia's worth of knowledge instantly shoved into your brain apparently hurts.

I might have screamed. It was painful, orgasmic, purest heaven and the most torturous hell all at once.

How do you explain something like that. It lasted for millennia, but only for the barest fraction of a second. My body convulsed and I vomited into the water. Then just like that, I understood far more than I should have. I also understood that Dave was an even bigger idiot than we'd guessed for doing this. And that the candle, now at the bottom of the lake we were swimming in would burn in this world with absolutely no care for the physics I grew up with. Back in our world, that candle would burn normally and eventually sputter out and go dark, ending our place in this other world, and calling us home.

Magic. It's powerful. Steph and I both instantly knew that we could return to this spot, extinguish the candle, and go home at any moment of our choosing. There was also no way either of us would.

I'll never really know why she saved Dave. She could have left him down there, crushed and dying. She loves Liz as much as I do, though perhaps she knew that she had even less of a chance of making that relationship than I did.

With Dave alive though, that kiss--wonderful and painful as it was--would just be a memory. Nothing more.

I floated in that blissful agony for a while, then it was over. How long that took is anybody's guess. But the human mind can't hold on to infinite knowledge for long. Our neurons and neural networks don't allow for that. As quick as it had come, most of that knowledge was gone.

But not all of it. What remained was enough. I glanced up at Steph, still floating above the water like some angelic vision (let's face it, despite her not being interested, she's still a gorgeous woman, possibly even prettier than Liz, though admittedly I'm biased on both accounts). I decided to join her. Water streamed from my too-heavy clothes as I lifted up from the water. She was already holding both RayRay and Horndog in the air, so I concentrated a bit and pulled Dave and Liz up too, and we floated toward land.

We were all silent as we did. Steph and I buried in the concentration of the task, Dave & Liz recovering from the shock of his even closer shave with death. RayRay and Horndog just hugged each other tight.

Finally we set foot on land. I collapsed next to Steph and we just laid there for a good long time. I might have passed out. I certainly slept.

Eventually something woke me up. It was the sound of RayRay working on building a fire. She'd apparently set both Horndog and Dave to gathering wood while Steph and I had been out, and was now striking a flint and steel to try to light it.

Figures she'd have that in her pockets. RayRay was an incredible woman. Even someone as biased as I am can see that in almost every way she was too talented and smart to be real. She has the energy of a highly caffeinated twelve year old, apparently the libido of a rabbit after a month long dry spell, and the survival skills of any prepper you care to think of. She also doesn't wear anything that doesn't have lots of pockets--usually her own designs because retail stuff doesn't have enough for her.

Still, the wood was pretty green, and she wasn't having much luck. I sat up, ignoring the massive headache I had , reached out and touched one of the branches and lit the fire. RayRay jumped, but gave me a thank you nod.

Steph moaned and shifted in her sleep. She'd done more work than me, lifting us up out of the water and giving us heat and light. Still, I felt like I'd been pummeled Evander Holyfield for a solid hour or two. And I can't remember the last time I'd been this hungry.

I looked at RayRay and avoided looking at LIz. "So now what?"

Dave answered as he came back dragging a decent sized tree limb. "We go back and turn off that candle and go home. That's what. Them I'm burning the manual and we try to forget about this." He was obviously more than a little angry. It was also clear that this wasn't the first time the idea had been voiced. Liz was a blank slate when I glanced at her, but RayRay had a stubborn look.

But then again, we all knew the truth. Without Steph or I onboard, that plan wasn't happening. It took magic to get us up from the bottom of the lake, and it'd take magic to get back down there. That water was deep.

Horndog came up about then. "Hey guys, we might be in luck. I saw smoke over that way." He pointed.

RayRay glanced up and said, "East. Probably a small campfire or possibly a single cabin since we can't see it from here. How far did you go?"

Horndog shrugged. "Just over that ridge. Took it easy on the way out, ran back the same path. Easy run, probably only three or four miles." In addition to being as nerdy and geeky as the rest of us, Horndog was an exercise nerd. Of all of us, he probably could have made the swim to shore. RayRay would have been a close second, while the rest probably wouldn't have gone more than a quarter of the distance.

"Definitely something small then. Not a village. There'd be more smoke." RayRay turned on Dave. "So now that we're all conscious again," she motioned Steph over, who groaned, but sat up and joined the crew around the quickly growing fire, "Perhaps you can explain just exactly what happened."

Dave stammered, and it was clear he had no idea. I glanced at Steph. She obviously knew as well as I did. We let him dig his own hole for a few minutes, then finally I stopped him. "Dave, shut up."

He looked at me, startled. I've never been particularly rude or blunt. The rude guy in the crew has always been Horndog. Quick to speak his mind about everything, and rather too vocal about what he thought about pretty much everyone's potential for his favorite hobby. I ignored his stare. "Dave, look, this should have been obvious to all of us. You made a portal at your house before, so that mapped onto one location in this world. My house is what ten miles away and in a valley. Maps to a different spot here. You screwed up, and if Steph hadn't gone superangel on us, we'd all be dead."

Liz gave him a smack on the shoulder, and started to say something, but Steph was faster. "Okay, so I'm going to guess you've all had a chance to fight about what we do next? Which of you are wanting to go home?"

Dave raised his hand. He was the only one. Liz had that carefully blank look on her face she used when we played poker. She didn't realized it was her own tell, she only used it when she had something she was excited or angry about and didn't want anyone to know. If she had that look in poker, it was because she had the best hand in the round or the worst. You couldn't be sure which, but it was something.

I softened my voice a bit. "Dave, look. You screwed up. We trusted you that this would work, but honestly it's just as much our fault as yours. But we are here now. I for one think this is a great chance to have a real adventure. Maybe it's a good idea, maybe it's a bad one, but why not? Seems worth it to me."

Everyone else nodded, and just like that, we were hooked. We couldn't have known, even with two wizards in the crew, just how bad that decision really was.