Was this happening at all, or was it just the infection raging in Darlac's blood? Or a crazy dream, the sort she used to have in her childhood, before her father's death? She imagined she'd actually made it to the monster hunt and sustained a serious injury, losing her consciousness along with her short-term memory. She would come to in a minute and see Maegar by her bedside, welcoming her back to the waking world with a loving, relieved smile. But until then, she had to deal with this dreamlike, random world her mind was powerless to shape and her body was too ill to navigate.

  Rain began to fall, or rather rise, as the drops of precipitation travelled skywards from the soil. At first it was funny, but it soon became irritating instead. Out of habit, Darlac crawled under a rock outcrop to find shelter. As she got there, she realised that it was actually the mouth of a passageway into the bowels of a hill.

  Soaked to the bones by raindrops viciously climbing upwards under her clothing, Darlac stumbled into the cave. A horrible stench flooded her nostrils, so pungent that it made her retch. Alas, she was in no shape to walk away and find another, less stinky shelter. Beggars couldn't be choosers. Soon enough she would be another rotting corpse, anyway, adding her own part to the smell.

  As her eyes got used to the darkness, she saw the outlines of colourful, fluorescent plants that seemingly didn't need light to thrive, lining a little underground brook. If not for the smell, it was an ideal hideout. Along with the smell, it would make a nice tomb.

  Something rustled in the dark, like a rodent chewing on something.

  Darlac took a few tentative steps forward, using the plants for orientation. The unidentified animal stopped its munching and fled. Its fur brushed against Darlac's ankle as it dashed past her, making her yelp in surprise.

  An unexpected sound responded to her voice. A soft clink of metal, coming from further inside the cave.

  Darlac felt being targeted. Invisible fingers were feeling out her mind, making their way inside her very essence to grasp the set of core values that determined her. She instinctively balked at the intrusion. Detecting another person's alignment was not a polite way to initiate contact. Still, there was one reassuring thing about it: fey usually didn't bother to do that.

  Darlac decided to take the leap of faith and reveal her true nature. She tapped into her heavenly heritage and activated her halo, bathing her head in holy light. It didn't make her feel any holier, but it helped a lot to see in the dark.

  The cave floor was strewn with animal carcasses. Five or six furry, wolf-shaped things. That explained the smell.

  Something black stirred in a corner, reshaping itself into a human form slumped to the ground. Metal clinked again, this time louder.

  Darlac ventured closer along the wall of the cave, stabilising herself with her good hand. The thrill of discovery was a welcome distraction from the waves of heat and cold that took turns washing over her, either as a part of First World randomness or due to fever.

  The dark shape tried to speak, but the attempt ended in fitful coughing and retching. Slowly, Darlac walked up to it, fighting the weakness in her knees for each step. It was a human, not much older than herself, and in even worse shape. His angular face was pale and worn, with dark circles under his eyes, a thin but steady trickle of blood seeping from his nose. His entire body, except his head, hands and wounded right leg, was covered in black, spiky armour. His hand, twitching from time to time, rested on the grip of a halberd. A horned helmet lay face down by his side.

  What was a hellknight doing in a random cave of the First World?

  Dying, apparently. Just like Darlac herself.

  At the edge of Darlac's vision, there was a source of faint light that drew her attention. Further back in the cave, in a nook invisible from the entrance, a blue oval shape was hanging in the air, its edges flickering.

  A portal, soon to expire. Either another trick of this world, or a way home.

  The man stirred again.

  Darlac gritted her teeth in helpless rage. If only she hadn't screwed it all up. For a full-fledged paladin, it would be so easy to pump this man full of healing energy, help him to his feet, cross the portal together, then shake hands and walk away, each on their own mission. Instead, she was trapped here with another person she had to watch die, her only solace being that perhaps she would be the first to perish.

  At least she could try to help, to do something good, however little, one last time.

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  She braced up against her weakness and shambled to the brook to fill her canteen. A drink of water would probably ease his suffering. She scooped up a little water in her hand and took it to her lips. It tasted like bile. Still, the first gulp made her realise how thirsty she was. She lowered herself to the water and drank deep, then filled the canteen and returned to the man. If half the things she'd heard about hellknights were true, he probably wouldn't be fazed by an unpleasant taste.

  Holding the canteen to his lips, Darlac realised that she was too late. The man's eyes were already glazed over. He must have passed while she was fumbling at the brook.

  A loud sizzle, and the portal winked out of existence as well.

  Darlac dropped the canteen, letting its content spill out with a gurgling sound. Her vision blurred, whether from tears or fever or something worse, she didn't know. She curled up where she was, on the hard, rocky ground, her body shaking uncontrollably, and pressed her hand on her wound, hoping that pain would help her stay conscious. It didn't. Darkness took over.

  Next morning, Darlac woke – not in Pharasma's Boneyard, but in the same grotto she'd passed out in. The distant sun of the First World sent a ray through the entrance, creating a reflection on the opposite wall. Motes of dust were dancing in it.

  Darlac's foggy brain was slowly clearing up, and her wound felt healthier. Still raw, but at least not festering anymore.

  It must have been the water.

  She rose to her feet, collected her canteen and hurried to the brook to refill it. The taste was the same as before, so she hoped the effect would be the same, too. She drank her fill and cleaned off her wound. Her body still felt a bit wobbly, but survival seemed certain.

  And now she had to make this cave actually habitable.

  Her health slowly returning, her newfound purpose gave her strength. She dragged the smelly carcasses out of the cave and piled them up at a little distance from the entrance, for lack of a better idea. Then she sifted through the dead man's possessions in search of items she could use. As expected, he had been well-prepared for any eventuality, other than ending up in a First World cave full of stinky wolf-things. Darlac provisioned herself with a fresh set of clothing (for gents, but who cared, the size largely fit her), a spare canteen, a shovel, a shield, enough rations for a few days if consumed sparingly, and an amulet that hid its wearer from chaotic creatures. She found the man's dogtag, too. Kyle Virroll, Order of the Nail. Otherwise, there was nothing personal. Not a single useless thing of beauty, not a letter from a beloved one.

  Unless...

  In a hidden pocket of his backpack, she found two folded pieces of paper. One was a rudimentary map of the Stolen Lands, with special regard to Glenebon. It showed four circles near the Pitaxian border and one close to the East Sellen, the river that constituted the border between Glenebon and Nightvale. Scribbles on the top edge said: Purple worm sightings in Glenebon, 4710-11 AR. The map showed settlements of Pitax in some detail, but practically nothing in Hannis Drelev's territory, apart from the circles.

  The other was a familiar-looking missive, with a broken seal depicting a pair of rampant leopards, its edges brown with dried blood. As Darlac opened it with fumbling fingers, a well-known invitation looked back at her from the worn piece of once expensive paper, addressed to Baron Hannis Drelev.

  What was this all about? Had this hellknight belonged to a squad Drelev had sent to the monster hunt? Then again, it was highly unlikely that a member of a hellknight order would ever end up in service of a petty ruler like Drelev, unless his organisation had serious reason to allow that. Of course, bringing the blessings of civilisation to the Stolen Lands with flame and steel fit the profile of the Order of the Nail perfectly. It made sense for them to try and gain a foothold in the area infested by bandits and monsters and inexperienced rulers. The Nail was even rumoured to have a branch of professional monster hunters. Whether Kyle Virroll had been sent to Nightvale by Drelev or he'd got his hands on the invitation in another way, he (and his less unlucky companions, if he had any) must have been heading to Baroness Guelder's aid, probably expecting to oblige her enough to let the Order of the Nail strike roots in Nightvale and accept their help in civilising her lands. Darlac couldn't help but wish it had been Varnhold. The alliance of hellknights was a double-edged sword (what a stupid saying, who wouldn't want a sword to be double-edged?), but their brutal methods notwithstanding, there was a lot to learn from them.

  Darlac's next move was to bury the dead man, putting the shovel to good use. With every chunk of earth she moved, she felt her strength return. Still, it was a chore to drag the corpse to the grave she dug outside the grotto, careful not to impale herself on the spikes of the armour in the process. It might have been wasteful to commit the armour to the ground along with its owner, but even the thought of claiming it for herself felt fundamentally wrong. Perhaps, if Kyle guarded the entrance to Darlac's temporary home in full gear, six feet below ground in the cosy grave she'd made for him, she would be protected from unwanted visits of fey or other monsters. She found a little comfort in the idea.

  But not as much comfort as when she started training with the shield.