Ancient legends from thousands of years’ past once told of a magical portal that resided in a forest in the north. A tale that a portal as black as night which bore three rings on its frame would sing a song of chaos before unleashing forces of calamity upon the world. While this portal was easily found, every attempt to destroy the ruinous portal was left unsuccessful. Heroes’ swords would shatter upon its cold, metallic frame. Dwarven forged magma would cool instantly upon contact. No form of magic could move, much less scratch it. In the end, instead of attempting to destroy the device, researchers studied it in an attempt to reduce the damage of whatever could come from the other side.
Countless centuries had passed. The building that surrounded the portal had changed several times, from a temple of worship, to an altar to appease the unknown gods beyond, to a facility of study. Scholars, researchers, and the top scientists have come and gone. Even to this day, nothing could be figured out about the device. Its metal was stronger than any alloy ever known and its makeup couldn’t even be determined. The runes on its rings were never translated, for no correlation could be found from any written language. As time went by, people gave up and soon after, the legend fell into obscurity, the protection spells cast upon and around the portal had expired long ago, and the world forgot about the calamity that was supposed to come. The facility that now housed the ruins had fallen into disarray long ago. The only thing that remained the same was the black sheen of the portal’s rings, unmoved, untouched, and unchanged.
One day, a group of juvenile kids broke through the rusted doors of the facility, “You sure you know where we are going?” one of the kids, a teenage human boy, asked, “You said we’d find an ancient artifact, but all I’ve seen so far is a bunch of junk machinery.”
“Quit complaining,” a young elf boy replied, “I’ve been exploring this place for about a century and the building has been abandoned for longer. The artifact can’t be moved at all, so it’s not like it’s going to have gone anywhere.”
“So, what are we going to do with it that hundreds of adults haven’t done?” a tiefling girl questioned, “It’s not like we’ve got the ability to do much, Jaz. Seriously, only one of us is from a sorcerer bloodline, and he’s the youngest of us three.”
“That’s exactly why I brought him with us Tal,” Jaz brushed the comment aside as he shoved a sliding door back into its socket, “Erick isn’t just from any old sorcerer bloodline, but from a wild magic bloodline. While most people claim that there’s only a select amount of reactions that could happen when magic goes wild, my grandfather claims that to be untrue, so we’re going to test that theory tonight.”
The three trekked through the ruins of the derelict testing site, passing by multiple research halls and storage facilities holding ancient machines, artifacts, and constructs from generations’ past. Along the way, Erick spoke up, “Even if we do manage to activate the portal, what do you expect to happen? Wasn’t there an old tale of the portal bringing calamity?”
“Oh please,” Jaz waved Erick’s concerns aside, “That crummy old legend is so long overdue. If the portal was to bring the end times, it would have been done by now. I’m sure whatever that was supposed to come about had already done so before the legend was even created.”
“So, we’re opening a portal to a realm where an old disaster came from. I highly doubt anything would go wrong with that idea,” Tal mocked sarcastically.
“Sheesh, no one here has that spirit of adventure that we had five years ago, I see,” Jaz huffed to himself.
Eventually, after passing through expansive corridors, the three made it to the center of the building, coming across a pair of bunker doors, “Oh, wow. Looks like a portal, alright,” Tal deadpanned.
“Jeeze, no need to be an ass about it. I saw the portal frame beyond these doors by looking through reinforced glass on the sides of the room,” Jaz retorted.
“So why aren’t we going through those rooms instead of trying to bust our way through a heavy set of doors?” Tal asked.
“Because those pathways are nothing but catwalks above a pit I can’t even see the bottom of. And if I recall correctly, explosions tend to not be good on catwalks, and none of us can fly.”
“So we are getting through this door… how?”
Jaz smirked, “That’s where you come in. You know how your infernal powers are extremely potent? Strong enough to melt that old bunker tank we found a few months ago with ease?” Tal thought back to that moment and recalled how she melted a tank in several seconds while her other tiefling friends struggled to even warp the plating. “Well, if it’s strong enough to melt a tank, I’m sure it’s strong enough to melt a door. So give it a crack.”
“Fine, I’m not sure how well this will go, but I’ll give it a shot.” Tal passed by Erick and Jaz before stopping in front of the right bunker door. She rubbed her hands together before placing them on the metal front of the door, focusing on channeling her innate magic through her hands. Slowly, the area of metal she was pressing against started to give off heat, even turning red before Tal began to sweat from straining herself. With a gasp, she let go of the door, a faint pair of handprints barely indented the door, “That’s all I got. We ain’t getting through.”
“Seriously, Taffy? That’s all you got?” Jaz blurted out.
“Hey! Don’t call me Taffy! You know I hate that name!” Tal shot back.
“Oh, yeah? What are you going to do? Taffy!” Jaz mocked, “Ta-” he was interrupted by a fireball flying at him. Jaz barely ducked out of the way, singing his hair almost to the roots, leaving a giant hole in his hair and a large scorch mark behind him. “Oh it’s on.”
The two got in each other's faces, looking like they were about to trade blows. Meanwhile Erick simply studied the doors, tracing the exterior until he found a subtle mark in the corner. He gave it a closer look and found that it was actually a welding indent, probably hiding the wires that powered the giant doors. He traced them back several rooms to find an electrical panel. Upon opening it, he found that the fuses were all corroded heavily. Tossing the ruined material away, Erick found a set of wires that didn’t seem to have weathered much decay. Taking a deep breath, he focused his magic in his best attempt to keep it from going wild, stuck his hand into the panel, and cast his magic, causing a large surge of electricity to go through the wires. Red emergency lights turned on as a siren began to blare. Returning to the room in front of the doors, he found that the two had actually come to blows while he was gone. Jaz was in a half nelson grapple while trying to space himself by holding Tal at arm’s length by the chin, he had a large bruise on his cheek while Tal had a small chipping on one of her horns. The two apparently stopped when the doors were activated. When the doors stopped and the sirens returned to silence, Jaz and Tal turned towards Erick with their mouths agape, “There, solved the problem,” Erick said nonchalantly, passing by his friends and into the room ahead, “Now c’mon, we have a portal to activate, don’t we?”
Jaz and Tal shook their heads as they got off each other and caught up with Erick, only to find him at the top of a set of stairs with his mouth agape this time. They followed his gaze and reacted the same when they realized that the portal they’ve been after this whole time, was glowing, “That wasn’t how it looked like a week ago,” Jaz confirmed.
The glow quickly became an afterthought when the portal rumbled as the rings began to move for the first time in centuries. They slowly accelerated until the runes became impossible to track. Once the rings reached their apex speed, the droning sound of what sounded like chants were heard coming from the portal. The droning died out quickly as the rings quickly stopped, before turning the opposite direction and the droning began again. This became a pattern as more sounds followed in suit: ticking, clicking, scraping, hissing, chirping, and an eerie whistle all followed in a somehow harmonious tune, all following the chant of the portal.
“A portal that would sing a song of ruin before releasing disaster upon the world,” Jaz whispered.
“What do we do now?” Erick asked, “Should we get someone? Wasn’t this supposed to be a dangerous artifact?”
“I don’t know,” Tal breathed through clenched teeth, “Would anyone be able to react fast enough? Should we contact the magic council? I mean, we aren’t supposed to be here. What do you think, Jaz? Jaz?!” she turned to find that Jaz had turned tail and fled the scene not too long ago, “Jaz!” she called again. No response.
Not soon after, the portal’s rings froze in place suddenly, a moment of pure silence filled the room as the rings suddenly burst into its segments, all floating in orbit around its center. From each segment, a beam of energy emerged from it and coalesced into an orb of plasma at the center, slowly growing wider until it filled the original empty space the portal had. From within the ball of plasma, two beings emerged from its core. A man with jet black hair, tanned skin, and dark jade green eyes emerged first. His clothing looked like he came right from an apocalypse. He looked around the room before turning back around and reached back into the portal, pulling a woman out from the core. The woman had white hair, pale skin, and radiant purple eyes. Her clothing looked like it was in an even worse state, her black robes were completely tattered. She looked around as well before turning back to the man. The language she spoke was completely foreign to the two young teens. The man conversed in the same unknown language before turning back to the area around them. Eventually, the two beings found Erick and Tal. The kids were paralyzed by both fear and awe at what just happened, both holding their breath in hope that the two beings from beyond ignore them.
Alas, that hope was squandered as the two approached them. The man and woman approached the two, Erick locked eyes with the man as he stared through the kid. Irregular eyes was the first thing Erick noticed, his left being rectangular like an octopus, while his right was sharp like a lizard’s. The woman stared in turn at Tal, her purple eyes faintly glowed and revealed a sense of curiosity, the only emotion Tal could find on the woman’s face. With a breath, the man spoke, “Ahf' ye'bthnk ymg' ah ai, gof'n?”
Erick was stunned, he was expecting a language that would pierce the fabric of reality, or make his head explode. Instead, it was simply a sentence that he just didn’t know or understand, “Uh… um… I don’t know what you said, sir…” he wasn’t even sure if the beings were male and female at the time, or if they had a concept of gender where they were from, but he spoke on pure instinct, worried any word he uttered would result in the being to become enraged and turn him inside out. Tal eyed Erick with baited breath, hoping this encounter with the unknown wouldn’t result in either of their demise.
The result was a rather tame one compared to their wildest expectations. Instead, the male being studied Erick before clearing his throat, “Apologies, it’s been a few centuries since I spoke in this language. I didn’t expect the first people we would meet to be so young.”
“There’s a third, running away from here,” the woman pointed in a direction between the facility and the village the three kids were from, her eyes glowed brighter for a brief moment, “Older, age-wise, but still young physically and mentally,” her voice was monotone, like someone who couldn’t portray emotion.
The male nodded before turning back to Erick and Tal, “What’s this world like? Does magic exist here? Creatures of legend and beings as old as time?”
“T-there’s plenty of magic around,” Tal explained, “Almost every living thing has at least some magic within them.”
“And there have been times where the gods have roamed the land,” Erick added, “It’s not often they are seen though, mostly within or around the wizard council.”
The male hummed, seeming pleased with the answer, “It seems our hunch was right. I think we’ll be around for a while, Sister.”
“Very well,” the woman replied, “Let’s get settled, then.” The two proceeded to pass by Erick and Tal, heading towards the facility’s entrance.
“W-wait!” Erick blurted out, causing the two to stop and turn back towards the kids. As Tal looked like she was about to have a heart attack, Erick summoned the courage to ask, “There was an old prophecy, or I guess a legend about that portal,” he pointed back to the portal, which had now converted back to it’s original position, no trace it was active at all once more, “The stories tell that beings of calamity would come through and destroy this world. Are you two those beings of calamity?”
The two stared at each other before returning back to the kids, both speaking in unison, “We can be,” before turning back to the entrance and continuing onward.
Erick and Tal watched the two leave their sight before looking at each other with both confusion and dread. After several minutes, the rundown atmosphere started to get to the kids and they hastily took their leave. Upon returning to the village, they were promptly scolded by family members for being out so late, but both refused to tell any details regarding their adventure. They met up with Jaz the following morning and after a verbal beatdown for chickening out despite being the one to bring up the idea of going to the facility, Jaz confirmed that he didn’t tell anyone about what happened the prior day either. The three swore to not speak of the incident unless the world was about to end, for fear that they would be not believed at least, or ostracized for their actions at most.
Decades later, none of them spoke a word of that fateful day, but all three wonder what happened to the two that came from the portal, or where they could now be.
“Brother, I miss Glo, can I bring her here?”
The elder brother sighed, “Be thankful that your fire skeleton incident caused me to promptly fireproof my home. I’m sure a salamander wouldn’t burn this house down, but it makes me more at ease that your lover won’t cause me any financial pain. Sure, Aurora, you can bring Glo over here from now on. Just make sure she doesn’t damage the electrical plant.”
Aurora’s eyes beamed with joy, “Yay!” she threw her hands into the air, symbolizing the excitement her voice couldn’t portray, “Thank you, Arcturus.”
“Yeah, yeah, just don’t cause a mess.” Arcturus groaned as the doorbell rang. He got up from his sofa and approached the door, opening it to find a young man in a delivery uniform, “Grubber Eats order for… Arcturus?”
“Yep, that’s me…” he looked at the nametag on the guy’s uniform, “Erick? With a C and K?”
Erick sighed, “Yeah, the parents back in our home village had a weird tradition for giving their kids weird names, like Eric with a second letter that makes the same sound, a name that’s been long ago shortened to either a C or K mind you, or Taffy for my fiance’s name, but don’t tell her I called her that, she’s hated that name since our childhood.”
“Fiance eh?” Arcturus asked as he accepted the food, “This your primary job?”
Erick shook his head, “No, I have another as the village’s local sorcerer. Being the only one in my family to actually be able to control their magic tends to open a lot of jobs when most people there aren’t as magically gifted compared to other towns. This is just a second job for us to pay for a new house.”
“Well that’s cool. Good luck with your future endeavors.” Arcturus studied the man’s appearance, recognizing some features from someone long ago, “Say, any chance your girl is a tiefling?”
Erick looked stunned, “Why, yes… how did you-” he made a double take upon see Arcturus’ jade green eyes, “Are… are you that man that came from the portal a few decades ago?”
Arcturus laughed, “Yes, that was me, and my sister, Aurora. Nice to formally meet you, the name’s Arcturus Maestas, my sister still has the same last name, too.” Arcturus held out his hand.
Erick nervously shook his hand in return, “Nice to meet you too… You aren’t going to destroy this world any time soon, are you?” he asked, “Or your sister, or anyone you guys know?”
“No, nothing like that for a while,” Arcturus shook his head, “Our patron hasn’t scheduled any formal chaos within this universe from our end for the next…” he pulled out a parchment that looked both in and out of tune with the visuals of their current world, “collapse and reformation of the universe, plus one point seven trillion years. So basically around a similar time after this universe has reset itself.” The parchment disappeared as suddenly as it appeared.
“I… I see,” Erick laughed sheepishly, “Well, it’s nice to meet you again, Mr. Maestas. I should get going now,” Erick turned heel as he prepared to leave.
At that moment, Arcturus noticed something only he could see. After a bit of hesitation, he decided to follow through with it, “One moment, Erick,” Arcturus called out, causing the human to freeze and turn back around, “How are things going financially? You expect to pay off that house in a reasonable time?”
Erick paused for a moment, considering if he should answer honestly, “To be frank, no, things aren’t reasonable right now. Even with the payment from both of my jobs, Tal had to get herself some as well to keep up with expenses. Even then, our average profit is about a dozen gold per month. And we bought a house without a down payment for about thirty thousand…”
“Sounds a bit out of reach for someone like you two,” Arcturus admitted.
“It is, but it was the only one we could get within reason. Despite being of use to our village, my family has a reputation for its debt due to wild magic incidents. My parents both died recently, so the village placed the debt upon me. Fortunately, things could be even worse. I heard that small towns can still often find scorn against infernal beings like tieflings, so going beyond our village isn’t really an option for better housing of reasonable size. This is the best we can do without working ourselves to death or traveling farther than what we are comfortable with,” Erick lamented.
Arcturus thought for a bit before asking Erick to wait a moment. He ventured into his basement and pulled out a small bag of coins. Upon returning to the door, he tossed the bag to Erick, “Here’s a tip, twenty platinum should suffice,”
“Are… are you sure I can have this?” Erick asked as he counted the coin, to which Arcturus nodded, “T-thank you. How can I repay you for such generosity?”
“Like I said, it’s a tip, so that’s already paid for in just,” Arcturus explained, “However, I can offer more if you so desire. The only cost is you help me and my sister with some basic endeavors. You said you have been learning to control your magic?” Erick nodded, “Good, then you can help us with some things. We can pay you much more for much less than what your current jobs will force you through. Think it over. Come knocking again if you ever consider. There will be a bit of danger, so the pay will be well beyond reasonable if accidents do occur. I will ensure you’re not in mortal peril, though.”
“Really? Thank you. I’ll discuss this with my fiance. I hope to see you again, Mr. Maestas. Have a good rest of your day.”
“You too, Erick.” Arcturus waved the young man off before closing the door and placing his order on the table, “Food.”
Aurora stared at her brother, “Don’t incite the one word incantation, Arc. We don’t need him here right now.” Nonetheless, she got up from the couch and opened her share of the meal. “Who was that? I’ve never seen you give a courier such a generous tip before.”
“An old acquaintance from our early years here. He performed a favor for us greater than he even knows, I’m just simply offering to repay such generosity. I doubt he would have accepted the payment in full outright if I didn’t give him a job. The favor would be miniscule to him from an outside perspective after all.” Arcturus winked as three draconic eyes and a crown of jagged horns warped into the fabric of reality around him, giving Aurora a clear message of what he meant.
“I see. If we shall repay him, then we shall do so to what he would consider acceptable.”
And with that, their conversation ended. The two sat in silence as they ate while a couple of towns over, a recently engaged couple would soon discuss what fortune had been offered to them. Little did the latter half know what this fortune would truly entail, and that a lifetime’s worth of adventures would soon follow. Meanwhile in the forest of the north, the frame of the portal flickered to life once more, causing an eerie drone to echo throughout the facility.