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I looked up. We stood in the entryway of a house. The walls were coated in lichen and mold. Thick blisters the size of my head protruded here and there, caught in a net of plant roots. The liquid inside them glowed with dull phlegmy light. Flesh-colored slime dripped from between the gaps in the crown molding.
Where the hell were we? It was like we had landed in a petri dish with a bacterial colony grown from a swab taken at a truck stop bathroom.
I glanced over my shoulder. Behind us, the portal was a perfectly round, vertical puddle of pale pink on the wall. The holographic readout in the top of my faceplate was green across the board. The atmosphere was safe to breathe and free of contaminants, despite all the bizarre growth.
Magic slid around me, dripping from the walls, creeping just inside the floor, a revolting miasma, like decomposing body fluids.
It didn’t feel right.
The magic sensed me. The nearest stream curved, angling toward me. The entire wall around the portal was covered with it. It poured out like a foul waterfall. I took a few steps away from it.
The revolting magic bubbled up through the gap in the floorboards and touched me.
The world swam. Blood pounded in my ears. I couldn’t catch my breath. I gasped, but there was no air. Black circles crowded at the edge of my vision.
My stomach jerked.
I slapped the side of my helmet. The faceplate and the respirator retracted in a flash, and I vomited onto the floor. A horrible stench bathed me, a cloying, sickening odor of decay, and mold, and rotting wood, like the inside of a grave. I planted my broom into the floor, clung to it, and retched.
The magic spiraled around me, clamping at my feet, trying to get at my soul. I reeled. I had to get out of here. This was wrong, so very wrong. I had to get away! I had to—
Sean caught me by my shoulders and pulled me to him. Gradually his voice penetrated the haze, calm and steady. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. Breathe.”
I sagged against him, shivering. The magic pooled at my feet, and more was coming, rushing toward me. It veered around Sean and went straight for me. Despair rose from it like a tsunami and dragged me under. Spasms rocked me, and I cried.
“Take your time. It will be okay.”
This was so much worse than the corruption I had felt in the dead ad-hal. This was something deeper, more obscene, more horrifying, worse than anything I had ever experienced. Worse than the baby inn dying, worse than…
Sean clamped me tight. “Does it hurt?”
I tried to answer, but only sobs came out. I felt so sad. All I could do was grieve. I shook and shuddered, but the tears wouldn’t stop.
Sean turned me and stepped toward the portal.
“No,” I managed.
“You’re going back.”
“No—”
The wall to the right burst open. Two corrupted ad-hals rushed at us. Sean fired. The weapon whined, spitting a stream of supercharged plasma. It took the first ad-hal in the chest. The creature shrieked, throwing its clawed hands in front of it, trying to conjure a barrier.
I had to help. I forced myself upright and stabbed my broom into the floor. My magic swelled inside me.
A slimy, rotting tendril burst out of the wall behind me, caught my waist in its loop like a lasso, and dragged me back. My feet left the ground. I flew backwards, through the house. Sean spun toward me. I saw his face, bleached with alarm and shock, and then walls snapped closed between us one by one, as the tendril carried me through the rooms, right, left, right, ripped the broom out of my hands, and hurled me into darkness.
I tucked my head in as I fell, rolled across the floor, and came up to my feet. The practice sessions with Sean paid off. I’d have a few bruises, but nothing was broken.
I was in a small room. The lights came on, the same nasty blisters. A trail of smashed fungi and moss darkened the floor where I had fallen. My broom was nowhere to be seen.
I wiped the nasty smudge off my cheek with the back of my hand and turned. A doorway formed in the wall in front of me, a rectangle of blue-green light.
This was an inn. I was sure of it. The rotting corpse of one, but still an inn. Somehow it was here, inside the Dominion’s mining facility, slowly decaying, decomposing into sludge.
Who would do this? This was monstrous.
Magic spilled from the walls. The floorboards sweated it out in large beads. It streamed to me. I understood now. I was an innkeeper, and this wretched abomination of an inn knew it. It was beyond healing, but it was reaching out just the same, like a dying dog, crawling to a human for one last pet on the head. Dragging itself, battered and broken, for just one more cuddle to ease the pain.
