It wasn’t long until a familiar landmark came into view. The pit that Mikayla had landed in, the Cavemaw Spider’s nest, and the decaying corpse of the first monster she’d killed in this world. There wasn’t much left of the body, merely a stain of viscera surrounded by bony legs. Clearly some other Kaiju had appreciated the free meal.

  It had been less than three weeks, yet it felt so long ago that Mikayla had blundered her way into killing that horrible creature. She’d come so far since then. It was baffling to think about.

  “And here we are,” The landing was much smoother this time, as Asika set them down gently and dismissed her Armour Core, depositing Mikayla and Keldryn on the topsoil. Kagura-no-Shibu immediately reformed around her at minimum size, and Asika spared them a brief glance. “This is gonna take a few minutes. Be patient,”

  “Is the rift still there?” Mikayla couldn’t see any sign of a spatial anomaly, but she had no idea what to look for.

  “We’re not looking for a rift, we’re looking for an echo,” Asika absently corrected her, raising one arm towards the sky and unfolding her Armour Core’s gauntlet into some kind of radar dish, while the other toyed with a System screen. “Give me a few minutes,”

  Before their eyes, a quivering, jagged tear in the world opened, projected by Asika’s gauntlets.

  “Alright!” Asika fist-pumped. “It’s working! It’s functioning properly!”

  “Epic! Asika, you’re the best!” Mikayla hugged her, and Asika gleefully returned the hug.

  “Uh, should it be getting wider like that?” Keldryn interrupted, his ears lowering warily.

  “Huh? No, it -“ Asika started as Mikayla looked up and saw that the rift had gotten much closer in the second she’d looked away from it.

  Everything went very, very colourful, but then everything went very, very black.

  <=====}—o

  Mikayla wasn’t sure where they were, but it was not Earth.

  It was far too warm, even for Australia in the middle of summer. Her Lock-cleared body was the only reason she could endure the heat wafting from the literal pool of lava that they’d appeared on the edge of.

  Keldryn stumbled, gasping for breath. “Seed of Chaos, you weren’t joking when you said it was hot in your world . . wait. Why are we on the other side of the rift?”

  “I think something went wrong with the rift. It’s unstable,” Asika was unperturbed by the heat, looking around.

  “This isn’t home. It might be the inside of a volcano on Earth, though?” Mikayla wondered.

  “Earth?” All three turned at the unfamiliar voice, and were shocked to find a woman with her arms submerged in the lava up to her biceps. A small ball of light was floating around her head. “Nope, sorry. You’ll want to head a bit more thataway,” she gestured vaguely in every direction with her head. “Or something like that,”

  Mikayla blinked. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Ilea!” The woman removed an arm charred to the bone to wave at them, and it visibly regenerated before their eyes. “And this is my friend, Baron Violence. He’s a Fae,”

  Asika squinted. “That is not a fae. I am a fae,”

  “Really? Cool!”

  Violence!

  Mikayla flinched as a foreign thought invaded her mind. “Was that telepathy?” Asika started. “That is super illegal,” She raised an armoured hand, then hesitated. “Wait. We’re outside my jurisdiction, aren’t we?”

  There was a rumble like an earthquake, and what Mikayla had taken for part of the cave wall moved. “Keep it down. I barely got the Trakorov to accept me hanging around, he doesn’t like guests,” Ilea whispered.

  Keldryn wiped the sweat from his brow. “I think that’s our cue to leave. Asika?”

  “Oh, hi! Another fox! Would you like a cake?” All three travellers were thrown by the complete non-sequitur, but Ilea was already walking towards them with - sure enough - a whole, delicious-looking cake in her hands.

  Keldryn hesitantly accepted it, ears twitching. “Er, okay. Sure,”

  “Rift’s open again,” Asika alerted them, and Keldryn bolted for the rift without another word, desperate to escape the heat.

  Ilea started as he vanished. “That wasn’t free,” she weakly protested.

  Mikayla cast her an apologetic look. “Er, sorry but I’m broke too. Thanks though! Bye!” With that, she followed after Keldryn.

  Asika shrugged. “Send an invoice to the Cosmic Isles and tell them Asika approved it, they’ll honour it. Sorry for the trouble!”

  <=====}—o

  When vision returned to Mikayla’s eyes, they were in a large, open parkground, which was full of people, most of whom were staring at her and her friends. For a second, she thought she’d returned to Earth successfully, but then she noticed that several of the people were distinctly inhuman, with a large number of what looked like angels and at least one giant lion beastkin.

  “. . Asika, we were supposed to be back in Old Hedrang right now, weren’t we?”

  “This rift is much more unstable than I realised,” Asika frowned, conjuring System screens around the lingering rift and fiddling with them. “Hold on a minute, I’ll see if I can recalibrate this,”

  A man with dark hair approached them, a thick black cloak hanging from his shoulders. “Hey there. I don’t know who you are, but anyone who brings cake is a friend of mine. Welcome to the barbecue!”

  Keldryn looked down at the cake like he’d forgotten he was holding it. “I’m, uh, going to put this down somewhere,”

  “You do that,” Mikayla decided it fell to her to take the lead in talking to this man. “Hi. I’m Mikayla. We’re trying to get back to Earth. This, uh, wouldn’t happen to be Earth . . would it?”

  “Sorry, no dice. It’s Pallimustus. Well, an unstable transformation space on the edge of Pallimustus. We’re taking a day off from fighting an undead army,” he explained as though talking about the weather.

  “Damnit,” Mikayla groaned.

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m Jason Asano, and I’ve been put in charge of building the bridge between here and there by a bunch of very important people,”

  “Great astral beings! Not really people! You should know, you’ve talked to them enough!” someone shouted from a few tables over.

  “Thanks, Clive!” Jason shouted back, playfully rolling his eyes. “Don’t mind Clive. He’s been like that since his wife left him,”

  “I don’t have a wife!”

  “You see? Poor guy’s in denial,” Jason shook his head ruefully.

  Mikayla raised an eyebrow. “Is this some kind of comedy routine?”

  A roar of laughter heralded the massive lion-man she’d seen before squeezing into the conversation by declaring, “She’s got you there, Jason!”

  Jason made a show of looking affronted. “Gary, I’ll have you know I am hilarious,”

  “You’re not,” Asika shouted over her shoulder. “I’ve only just met you and I can already tell that you’re really, really not,”

  Mikayla chuckled, and Gary laughed even harder.

  Jason suddenly snapped his fingers. “Say! Aussie isekai hero, yeah?”

  “Um, yeah that’s right. How’d you guess?”

  “Accent, magic rocks on your wrist, obvious adventuring party. You know what they say, like recognises like,” he grinned. “How’s the trip been?”

  “Violent and cold,” Mikayla groaned.

  “Ah, cold is the worst. My condolences. Stay right there for just a moment, I’ll grab you a bite of something warm,” He bustled off.

  Mikayla watched him go with a blink. “. . Okay, one of us is doing ‘being Australian’ wrong and I think it might be me,”

  Somehow, their little drop-in had turned into the three travellers joining their impromptu hosts at their barbecue. Which was perhaps the nicest and most mundane thing that had happened to Mikayla all month.

  “Okay, are we ready to go? Mikayla? Keldryn?” Asika checked as she opened the rift.

  “Yep, all good here,” Mikayla nodded, then did a double take. “Keldryn? Why do you have a moustache?”

  Keldryn didn’t respond, except for looking like he was trying not to laugh.

  Mikayla grew only more confused when another Keldryn appeared, flanked by a tall human who gripped moustache-Keldryn’s shoulder and squeezed. “Stash, knock it off,”

  Moustache-Keldryn suddenly turned into a puppy, but the man had a tight grip on the scruff of his neck and, despite his struggled, he couldn’t get to the rift. “But - but - other universe biscuits!”

  “What’s a biscuit?” Keldryn asked.

  Stash gasped. “Nevermind I don’t wanna go to a world where there are no biscuits!”

  Mikayla chuckled. “Okay, really though. It was nice to meet all of you but we gotta get going before the rift closes,”

  <=====}—o

  This rift also did not lead them back to the Kaiju Coast.

  They fell through the air, and for a moment Mikayla caught a glimpse of a shining white city laid out below them, unlike anything she’d seen in any world so far. Then she was hitting the ground - the highest level of the tallest building - and tumbling to a halt.

  She picked herself up and came face to face with the withered and decaying corpse of a very old man. A squeak escaped her throat and she scrambled away, standing up, and realising they were surrounded by people in what looked like religious robes and armour, presided over by a woman in white who just oozed power.

  “The Unbound!” the woman in white gasped. “Praise the Pathless! The Unbound have been delivered to us despite the interference of the Chanters!”

  “Whoa, hang on, I think there’s been a bit of a mix-up,” Mikayla raised her hands defensively. “We’re not -“

  “Capture them!” the woman added, and the three travellers were suddenly acutely aware of the heavily armed warriors surrounding them.

  “For the Pathless! For the Hierophant!” they barked in unison.

  “Do not resist, Unbound. You have been called to this world for the glorious purpose of becoming vessels for the Pathless, the one true god. You will be bound to his will and become the instruments of the world’s salvation from Ruin. Be honoured!” the Hierophant ranted as she advanced towards them.

  “I give this world zero stars. Let’s get out of here,” Asika suggested, already reopening the rift.

  “Seconded,” Keldryn concurred.

  “No complaints here,” No sooner had the rift formed than Mikayla was pushing the other two through it.

  <=====}—o

  They spilled through the new rift, finding themselves in a lush valley with a cabin in the centre. A shout of “After them!” had all three travellers rushing towards the cabin as the only possible source of shelter.

  When they arrived, they found a man resting in a chair on the porch and regarding them with more irritation than curiosity. “Hi! We’re very lost. And kinda on the run,” Asika waved.

  The man raised a bow with narrowed eyes. “Uh-huh. Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about Ell’Hakan?”

  The three of them exchanged mystified glances. “. . Who?” Mikayla shrugged.

  “You’re not assassins, then. That’s good. I’m supposed to be resting, not killing people,” He didn’t sound very happy about that fact.

  A roar from the direction of the rift drew the attention of all four, and they watched, bemused, as the Hierophant, flanked by a dozen Inquisitors in very fancy armour, emerged from the rift and began to march towards them. “Capture the Unbound!” their leader commanded.

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  “And who are they?” the hunter asked, regarding the Hierophant and her people dismissively.

  “No idea. They said something about binding us to the will of the Pathless? Sounded way too much like some kind of slavery to me,” Mikayla shrugged a bit.

  “Running seemed prudent,” Asika added.

  “Is that so?” In the time it took them to blink, Jake Thayne had drawn his bow and nocked an arrow. “I will not allow slavery on my planet,”

  The Hierophant opened her mouth to speak, and found that there was an arrow inside it. She ripped it out and her aura swelled with power, only to find that all of her Inquisitors had been shot through the eye and killed in the time it had taken her to do that. “How dare you? Your heresy will not go -“

  The man rolled his eyes and shot her with another arrow. This one exploded.

  Asika hastily threw up a System screen to shield herself from the splatter of gore that resulted.

  “Huh. Truly weak,” was the man’s only response as he turned back and regarded the three travellers more critically, focusing on Mikayla.

  She quailed under the intensity of his gaze. “Er, thanks for that,”

  “You have a touch of divinity. Weird . . you’re not a Chosen, not exactly. Is this what an actual Usurper looks like?” Jake hummed, then shrugged. “Whatever. Not my problem,”

  “How could you tell?” Mikayla blinked.

  “It’s obvious,” he brushed her off. “If you’ve got somewhere to be, you should probably get to it. I’m supposed to be resting and healing and not being disturbed, so if Miranda sees you she’ll throw a fit and you might get arrested,” the hunter waved them off, sounding exasperated by the thought more than anything.

  “Um. Yeah, sure, let’s get out of here,” Mikayla agreed, trying not to be terrified by the man who’d so casually slaughtered such powerful opponents.

  “Already on it, here we go,” Asika was gesturing them towards a fresh rift.

  “We could at least grab a snack if we’re gonna keep doing this,” Keldryn interjected. “Look, there’s a banana tree right there. I could go for a banana,”

  An arrow suddenly sprouted from the ground at his feet. “Firstly, not a tree. It’s a musa. Secondly, those are my bananas,” Jake coolly warned him.

  Keldryn backed off. “Okay, okay. Nevermind. Your bananas. I’ll find a snack somewhere else,” Without further ado, he leapt into the rift, and his friends followed.

  <=====}—o

  When the lights of interdimensional travel cleared, they were in a tavern.

  “Okay, I don’t know about you, but I think we need to just stop and sit down for a minute. Really make sure that we don’t screw up again,” Keldryn asserted, pulling up a seat at the bar and settling into it.

  Mikayla raised her eyebrows. “So what you’re saying is, snack time,”

  “I am saying snack time, yes,”

  “Fair enough,” Asika agreed, taking a seat next to him. “We can take five minutes to cool down. Clearly the rift isn’t going anywhere,”

  Mikayla moved to the seat next to the faerie, only to find that there was a bucket full of beer with an axe submerged in it resting on the stool. She made to pick up and move the bucket, only for the axe to speak. “Hey, hey, hey, hands off!”

  “Ah! Talking axe. Sorry, sorry, didn’t, um, realise,”

  “Axe of Unbridled Knowledge, thank you,” the axe in the bucket insisted. “But you are forgiven if you go get me another beer!”

  “Oh, er, yeah sure,” Mikayla wasn’t quite certain what the consequences of angering a talking axe would be, but it wasn’t their tavern so best not to take the chance. She waved at the bartender, who thankfully took the hint.

  “Say,” the axe focused on Asika, “that’s some pretty gorgeous code. I love your brackets,”

  Asika flushed. “Uh, thanks,” She looked around, finding a nearby woman was approaching them. “Hey, is it normal in this world to have a weapon flirt with you?”

  “Don’t mind Frank. It’s an occupational hazard of being in the same room as him,” the woman waved it off. “I’m Darling, by the way. Tell me more about where you came from, exactly?”

  Mikayla blinked. “Wait. Frank? Frank the axe?”

  “The one and only,”

  “Okay, hang on just one sec. Mana Assistance, Black Knight,” The black-and-red spiky armour formed up around her in a flash. “Hey, Nocty? This guy says he’s the Frank Axe you keep swearing by,”

  “Swearing by me? Hell yeah! Love meeting a fan!” the axe chirped gleefully.

  “You. You are the Frank Axe. The deliverer of cutting truths and painful knowledge. He whose beard is the envy of all real men,” Nocturnus regarded Frank critically.

  “Uh-huh, uh-huh. That’s me alright. So who am I making the autograph out to?”

  “Impossible. Your beard is not nearly impressive enough,”

  The axe spluttered in incoherent incredulousness.

  “You may be a bearded axe, but that does not make you the Frank Axe. The god whom I worship is, eh, taller. More impressive,” Nocturnus asserted.

  “Y’know,” a man picked up Frank and tucked him into a specially designed holster at his hip, “I’m not sure whether to laugh or be horrified by the thought that in your world there’s a Frank who’s even more Franky,”

  “Okay, I think I’ve figured out what went wrong this time! I’ve detected the System in this next rift, so it’s gotta be back to our world. From there we can recalibrate and trace the original rift signature to get to Earth,” Asika was already tearing open a new portal. “Come on!”

  <=====}—o

  As soon as Asika passed through the rift, she screamed and clutched her head.

  “Asika? What’s wrong?!” Mikayla panicked as she caught up, grabbing at her shoulder to stabilise her.

  “This - this isn’t our System - what the fudge is a Ruthless Heavens? - argh, it’s in my head!”

  “Not to interrupt you two, but we’ve got other problems,” Keldryn interrupted.

  Mikayla looked up, and realised they were surrounded by a ring of warrior women. “Um. Hi?”

  “Who are you and how did you get here?” one of them, who was presumably their leader, demanded.

  She raised her hands in a conciliatory gesture. “My name’s Mikayla, we’re trying to find a rift back to my home planet, but something went wrong and we’re kinda lost,”

  “You are trespassing on the core world of the Atwood Empire. That is not an offence so easily forgiven. Please come with us and do not resist -“

  Asika screamed, blue screens flaking off her skin and popping into the world around them, filling with gibberish. Thunder crackled in the skies above, and the warriors surrounding them looked up. Mikayla followed their gazes and blanched.

  Storm clouds were gathering overhead, crackling with an ominous purple light. “Is - is that Tribulation Lighting?!” one of the guards gasped.

  “Stay away!” Asika yelled at the sky. “You do not have permission! This - this thing you call a System is heartless! So much death, and all for what? Making strong warriors for some long-dead empire?! Who the hell cares?!”

  As if taking umbrage with her, the gathering clouds launched a bolt of purple lightning.

  Asika screamed, the screens around her exploding one by one as the lightning struck her and bounced around her interface. “No - nope! Too bad! I have a firewall!” Kagura-no-Shibu’s claws scraped at the ground and tore open a fresh rift under her feet, and Asika threw herself into it without even a second of hesitation.

  Mikayla and Keldryn, conscious of the hostile warriors backing away from the angry cloud that looked like it was ready to chase after Asika, leapt in after her.

  <=====}—o

  They landed in a heap on a beach.

  Mikayla sat up, spitting out chunks of sand. “Also not the Kaiju Coast. Also not Australia . . shit, Asika, are you alright?”

  The faerie just whimpered, rubbing her head.

  “Oh, shit. We need to get her some help,” Mikayla grimaced, looking around.

  She paused.

  There was a man and a woman eating fish on a small table under the stars. That wasn’t too strange. What was strange was the two crabs, the otter and the giant lobster who were also eating with them.

  The man was already moving towards them, carrying his plate. “You don’t look so good. What happened?”

  “We’re jumping between universes, trying to find the rift that’ll get me back to Earth,” Mikayla summarised. “An angry cloud or something electrocuted her in the last one we visited,”

  “Damn. Here, feed her some of this. It’ll help,” the man offered his plate to them.

  Mikayla blinked at the half-eaten plate of seafood, then shrugged and passed it to Asika, who clumsily accepted it and forced it into her mouth. “Smells good . . tastes good . .” An involuntary moan escaped her lips. “This - whoa. What is in this fish? I feel so much better!”

  “It’s cultivation. Or something. I’ll fry up some more, we can all have a bite to eat,”

  His wife - or so Mikayla presumed - had already run off and come back with three more chairs, and Mikayla helped Asika into one of them. The faerie leant on the table and nibbled at a chunk of fish. “Thanks for this. That last universe was very hostile. I’m Mikayla, and this is Asika and Keldryn, by the way,”

  “Fischer, the pleasure’s mine. Oh, and this is the most lovely Maria, Sergeant Snips, Corporal Claws, Private Pistachio . .” His voice was drowned out by the roar of frying fish as Mikayla focused on feeding Asika.

  At long last, she stretched and straightened up. “Ah, finally. Much better. This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted,”

  “Happy to hear it! There’s more where that came from,” Fischer beamed as he served up several fresh plates of fish.

  Mikayla knew they should be getting back to the rift, but the fish just smelt so good that she couldn’t resist. Her friends evidently felt the same, based on the way they fell on the food with wild abandon.

  Keldryn started. “I just gained a Level. From eating a fish,”

  “It does that,” Maria shrugged at him.

  “How?!”

  “Dunno. Magic,”

  “That is not an explanation,” Asika folded her arms.

  “Too bad, it’s all I’ve got,”

  Mikayla ate a bit more, relishing the texture and trying to ignore all of the strangely intelligent-looking animals staring at her and her friends. “Say, if you’re from Earth, you could come with us? We could bring you home too?” she suggested.

  “No thanks. Earth sucks and I’ve got family here now,” Fischer denied.

  Asika swallowed and breathed a sigh of relief. “Much better. I still have a lot of questions, but I guess this is just a quirk of this world,”

  “It’s quirky, that’s for sure,” Fischer agreed with a chuckle. “You should see the glitched-out mess of a System we have here,”

  Asika raised her eyebrows. “I would actually love to. I might be able to fix it. But I should finish the job I’m currently on first and get Mikayla here home,”

  “Totally fair,” Fischer nodded.

  “We’re getting by just fine without it, anyway,” his girlfriend chimed in with a dismissive wave.

  “Alright. Alright,” Asika took a deep breath and her armour formed up again. “We’ve gotta keep trying. Before the rift fades entirely. Otherwise none of us will ever get home,”

  “Yeah, but don’t push yourself,” Mikayla patted her shoulder.

  “We’ll all be screwed if you collapse on us,” Keldryn agreed. He glanced as Fischer and his family. “Could we maybe take some of that magic fish to go? Just in case?”

  “Sure thing,”

  <=====}—o

  This time, the rift took them to the bridge of a spaceship.

  Mikayla’s eyes widened, and she scrambled towards the windows, peering outwards in awe. “Whoa. Are we in space?”

  “Are those stars? What is all this?” Keldryn lowly whistled.

  “Oh, er, hi,” Asika’s voice drew their attention, and they found her facing off against a floating woman with a body woven entirely from blue-green light, with a crown of horns instead of hair and seven-pointed stars for pupils.

  “Who are you, and why have you boarded my ship?” the woman demanded.

  “Ooh,” Asika regarded her curiously. “You’re an AI too, aren’t you?”

  “You are technically correct. However, that is not to say that we are in any way equals,”

  “. . Noted. Let’s just do a direct data share, that’ll be faster than explaining,” Asika raised her hand, and the woman took it. “But I’m not dropping my firewall. Don’t ask me to,”

  “It makes no difference, but I have no reason to penetrate it regardless,” the woman took Asika’s hand and turned to Mikayla and Keldryn. “I am the World Spirit of The Last Horizon. My passengers generally prefer to call me Horizon,”

  “Nice to meet you,” There was something incredibly intimidating about Horizon, something unfathomable, more so than any other being Mikayla had ever encountered. The closest comparison she could make was to the Rainbow Ouroboros, but she couldn’t imagine him having ever been in the same league as this ‘World Spirit’.

  “Data share complete. You are lost travellers, then. How fortunate,”

  Horizon released Asika, and the faerie staggered. “Starring hell,” she wheezed.

  “What happened?!” Mikayla started, already beginning to conjure her Sword, but Aiko caught her hand.

  “Do not attack her,” Asika urgently warned. “I’m fine, but we won’t be if we provoke her. She’s a planet. A whole planet’s worth of magic. The equivalent of all the resources the two Systems in our world are fighting over, condensed into one being. We could throw literally the whole Ataraxian System at her and we’d lose. So drop it. I’m fine,”

  “Wise words,” Horizon looked amused at the byplay. She regarded the sword Mikayla had summoned like it was a stick in the hands of a toddler.

  “Horizon! Are you behaving?” The three travellers and their reluctant host turned to see a man wearing a blue coat over red armour emerging into the bridge.

  “Of course, Captain. I was merely attending to our uninvited guests. I have confirmed they are no threat to us and are attempting to return home through interdimensional rifts,”

  “Oh, is that all?” The words sounded sarcastic, but the tone wasn’t. Mikayla had the distinct feeling that for this man, dealing with something like this was just Tuesday. “I’ve got far too much to deal with already, so let’s just sort you three out quickly. Come with me,”

  Glancing between the strange man and the very unsettling demon-faerie, Mikayla knew who she’d rather be alone with. Her friends agreed, chasing after him.

  A quick recap of their circumstances had led to the man - who introduced himself as Varic, at which point Horizon had chimed in with “That is Sevenfold Archmage Varic Vallenar, Captain of the Zenith Vessel, The Last Horizon, to you!” - drawing a large and complicated-looking ritual circle with some help from Asika.

  “This all looks right,” Varic decided. “And with the lingering spatial instability around you three, we won’t even need that much power to fire it up. Wonderful,”

  “How much power will we need, exactly?” Mikayla checked.

  “Oh. About this much,” Varic snapped his fingers, a pulse of Mana flew from his hands into the ritual circle, and a rift blossomed in the centre of the room.

  “This is awesome. Thanks so much!” Asika beamed.

  “Yeah, this was turning into a mess. We’re very grateful for your help,” Keldryn nodded.

  “Mm-hm. If there’s anything we can do to thank you -“ Mikayla started, but Varic was already shaking his head.

  “Please, don’t worry about that. I can’t imagine we’ll ever see each other again, and I learned plenty just from having a look at those Cores of yours. Now get going, I can’t hold the rift forever,”

  “Alright. Thanks again!” Mikayla waved as she followed her friends through the portal.

  <=====}—o

  A frigid wind struck her before any of her other senses came back online, and Mikayla had a sinking feeling that she already knew what awaited her before she even opened her eyes.

  Sure enough, it was all birch trees and frost, and no Australian suburbia. They had returned to the Kaiju Coast.

  There was a crackle as the rift snapped shut behind them.

  “I never thought I’d be so happy to be back here,” Keldryn groaned. “. . Wait, Mikayla? You’re still here?”

  Mikayla twitched. “Argh. Damnit! That dumbass archmage sent me back to the wrong world!”

  So, this wasn’t planned. But Writathon started and I decided to see if I could knock out an April Fools short in a single day.

  Not only did I manage it, it got way longer than I intended it to be. Wow. I was in the zone on this one.

  Series referenced here, in order; Azarinth Healer, He Who Fights With Monsters, Unbound, Primal Hunter, Shadeslinger, Defiance of the Fall, Heretical Fishing and The Last Horizon. All among my personal favourites, all stories I would highly recommend. I could have (and would have liked to have) visited even more, but I set myself a deadline and this chapter got longer than I really expected it to already.

  I mostly picked the big names to make sure my readers would recognise them. This is all non-canon, I do not claim to own any of the characters in this chapter - except, obviously, Mikayla, Keldryn, Nocturnus and Asika - and if any of the original authors see this and ask me to, I will take it down or modify/remove the section referencing their work.

  All the same, hope this was fun!