The portal in the dungeon

Chapter 4

The tunnel was different this time.

Not the light, not the colors, not the speed — those were the same. But the darkness surrounding them had a different density, thicker, as if the wormhole had taken them to a part of the universe where light was an infrequent visitor. Teresa looked ahead and saw nothing to suggest there was an ahead.

“This place looks a bit… different,” she said quietly.

“Wormholes can be erratic,” replied Nefer. “No two are exactly alike.”

Teresa nodded. She kept looking at the darkness.

And then, at the far end, a point of light.

Small at first, the size of a star seen from a distance, but growing fast. Teresa felt the relief before she could name it.

“Looks like we’re almost there. Wormholes are genuinely incredible — in a matter of seconds you cover distances that no spacecraft could ever—”

The ground arrived without warning.

The impact was blunt and absolute: both of them shot out of the portal and landed on solid ground with roughly the grace of two bags of flour. Teresa fell on top of Nefer, who ended up with his head literally buried in the earth up to his ears.

“Sorry, Nefer, I didn’t mean to,” she said, getting up quickly.

A tug. A sound not unlike a cork leaving a bottle. And Nefer emerged from the earth with his fur full of dirt and an expression of absolute resignation.

“I think it’s becoming a habit that I’m always the one who gets the worst of it.”

It was then that both of them noticed the silence.

Not the silence of an empty place, but the silence of a great many people who have all stopped talking at the same moment. Teresa looked up.

They were surrounded by a crowd. Men with wolf features watching them with ears pricked up, women in witch’s robes and wide-brimmed hats pointing at them in murmurs, minotaurs blocking the sunlight by sheer presence, elves with eyes too large to be human. All motionless. All watching.

“They fell from the sky,” someone murmured from the crowd. “Could they be angels?”

Teresa looked around slowly, processing. Processing. And then something clicked.

“Beast-folk. Witches. Minotaurs. Elves.” A pause. “This is an isekai!”

“Ow!” exclaimed Nefer, still shaking dirt from his fur. “Instead of going on about your weird stuff, could you check whether my celestial face survived the landing?”

“How am I not supposed to react like this when we’re in an isekai?!”

“Aren’t you already neck-deep in one since you arrived at the palace?!”

“You’re not seeing it — this one has all the essential elements!” Teresa pointed in several directions with an energy that did not suit someone who had just crashed into the ground. “That over there is an adventurers’ guild. That looks like a magic shop. And that house up on the plateau — I’d bet anything a witch lives there. All of this, with a clearly medieval aesthetic, is a textbook isekai.”

Nefer observed her in silence for a moment.

“You watch too much anime,” he concluded.

“Let’s go to the guild!” announced Teresa, grabbing him by the paw and setting off before he could object, while Nefer apologized over his shoulder to the bystanders who had witnessed the landing.

* * *

The adventurers’ guild was exactly what Teresa had expected, which didn’t make it any less impressive.

The ceiling was high, the beams of dark wood, and the air smelled of leather, hot metal, and something that might have been beer or might have been something else that had no name in any language she knew. The tables were occupied by figures that made the crowd outside look ordinary: warriors with armor bearing too many dents to be decorative, mages poring over scrolls with worried expressions, a creature Teresa couldn’t classify that was drinking something from a bowl with intense concentration.

“Looks like it’s a busy day,” Nefer observed, and Teresa noticed his tone was slightly more serious than usual. Something in the atmosphere wasn’t exactly tense, but expectant — like a room before a storm starts.

A woman pushed her way through the bustle and planted herself in front of them with the manner of someone who has things to do but decides to take a moment anyway.

“New faces,” she said, looking them up and down. “Here to register?”

“Yes!” replied Teresa.

“No,” replied Nefer at the same time.

“Apologies for the commotion,” the woman continued, ignoring the contradiction with professional diplomacy. “A strange portal appeared in one of the dungeons and everyone’s in an uproar.”

Teresa turned to Nefer, her eyes lit up in a way he already recognized and that never boded well for a quiet afternoon.

“We could become adventurers!”

“No.”

“Please?” And she deployed the look. That specific look, with the wide eyes and the expression of an abandoned puppy in the rain.

Nefer held out for exactly three seconds.

“We didn’t come here to play,” he said, though with less conviction than before. “Besides, these people have already found the portal for us. We should go straight there.”

“What if you join the investigation group heading out in an hour?” the woman proposed. “The dungeon is beginner-level. No real risk.”

“See? You’re out of excuses.”

Nefer looked at the ceiling. Looked at Teresa. Looked at the woman. Exhaled.

“Fine. We’ll join. But when we find the portal, we leave without argument.”

“Deal,” Teresa agreed.

The woman smiled with the restrained satisfaction of someone who keeps a running tally of her recruits.

“My name is Maya. Follow me for registration.”

She produced blank cards and a pen that left marks with a metallic sheen too impossible to be ordinary ink.

“Teresa: human, specialty undefined, level one.” She handed over the card. “There you go.”

Teresa held it as if it were a relic.

“Incredible.”

“Next. Nefer: race, magical creature—”

“I beg your pardon?!”

Maya took a step back instinctively.

“I am a god! A very powerful god, for the record!”

Teresa stepped in with the speed of someone who has learned to anticipate these situations, and leaned toward Maya’s ear.

“Just go along with it,” she whispered. “It’s easier that way.”

Maya blinked. Nodded. Corrected the card without asking further questions.

* * *

Three figures appeared through the guild’s back door just as Maya was putting away her pen.

Two women and a man: all three wearing the look of people who had slept too little or eaten too much, or both. The one leading the way wore a slightly guilty expression that she was attempting to conceal with nonchalance.

“Looks like there are new faces,” she said, looking at Nefer and Teresa with an interest that stopped just short of friendly. “Maybe we should welcome them.”

Nefer assessed them in silence with the expression of someone calculating how much patience this interaction is going to cost him.

“You three were late because you went to the new bakery,” Maya told the newcomers, in the tone of someone who already knows the answer before asking.

“Karol and Alicia went,” the man corrected, with the resignation of someone who has spent years being the only responsible one in a group. “I was waiting for them.”

Nefer turned his head.

“Did you say bakery?”

“Yes,” confirmed the man, somewhat thrown by the sudden interest from the cat.

“Where?”

“The next street over, turn right.”

Nefer took Teresa by the hand and pulled her along before anyone could say another word.

“Hurry up, Teresa. I haven’t eaten since we left the palace and this is an emergency.”

“Wait!” Maya stopped them. “These are Dominic, Alicia, and Karol. They’re the adventurers going with you to the dungeon.”

“A magical creature will come in handy,” Karol remarked with the lightness of someone who doesn’t know they’re stepping on a landmine.

The veins in Nefer’s neck tensed in a way that would have concerned someone who knew him less.

“I won’t say anything because I have desserts pending,” was the only thought that stopped him from saying it out loud.

“We meet at the north gate in an hour,” said Dominic.

Nefer was already at the door. Teresa said her goodbyes with an apologetic smile and followed him out.

* * *

The bakery was visible from the other street thanks to an enormous sign depicting a three-tier cake and a pastel pink facade that literally smelled of vanilla and butter from the pavement.

Nefer rubbed his paws together.

“The smell reaches all the way out here. Perfect. Let’s go in.”

“Nefer,” said Teresa, “we don’t have money from this world.”

“I’m a god. I’ll figure something out.”

Inside, a young girl in an apron received them with a welcoming expression that lasted exactly until Nefer pointed at the display case full of tarts, cakes, filled breads, and pastries of every variety.

“Give me all of that.”

The girl blinked.

“Sir… that’s half of everything we have on display.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

The girl looked at Teresa. Teresa returned a smile that said ‘I’m sorry, he’s always like this.’ The girl nodded with the resignation of someone who has decided this is not their problem and went to fetch trays.

The baker — an older man with flour-dusted hands and the eyes of someone who has spent decades doing what they love — came out from the back at the sound of the order and stood in the doorway watching as Nefer settled at a table with the naturalness of a king on his throne.

What followed was a display of digestive capacity that defied any reasonable notion of bodily physics. Nefer ate with half-closed eyes of pleasure, whiskers smeared with cream, and an expression of concentration Teresa had only seen from him before when tracking portals.

“Old man, you’re a genius!” Nefer proclaimed between bites, pointing at the baker with one paw. “This is the work of someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“I’m glad it meets your approval, sir,” replied the old man, with the quiet honesty of someone who needs no greater recognition than that.

Teresa watched him with a fondness she didn’t try to hide.

“What are you smiling about?” asked Nefer without stopping eating.

“The fact that you have the body of a house cat and eat like you’re ten of them.”

“That’s because you’re an amateur.” Nefer reached for another pastry. “The day you see Palas at a table, you’ll fall over backwards. Next to her, I eat nothing.”

When the plates were empty, the server approached with the bill and the expression of someone who no longer expects anything reasonable from this table.

Nefer removed a bracelet from his front paw and set it on top of the bill.

It was gold. With a diamond set into it the size of a fingernail.

The girl froze. The baker, who had come closer on seeing the movement, froze equally. The silence in that corner of the shop lasted several seconds.

“That’s enough to cover it, right?” asked Nefer.

“Sir,” said the old man very carefully, “with this I could buy a full year’s supply of ingredients and still have change.”

“Then keep it in mind if we come back. Oh, and could you wrap twenty of those cream buns to go?”

They left five minutes later, Nefer carrying a bag that smelled extraordinary and wearing an expression of satisfaction that softened every feature of his face. The granddaughter and the baker stood in the doorway watching them walk away, neither quite recovered yet.

* * *

Dominic had been waiting at the north gate for exactly thirty-two minutes when Nefer and Teresa came around the corner.

“Finally,” said Alicia. “About time.”

“The first ones to be late to the guild this morning were you and Karol,” replied Dominic, without looking up from the map he was studying. “So don’t start.”

Teresa stifled a laugh.

“You three have a very entertaining dynamic.”

“I don’t see it that way,” said Dominic. “Being these two’s big brother is a full-time job with no days off.”

“Let’s move!” interrupted Karol with the urgency of someone who wants to change the subject before Dominic can embarrass them further.

“Agreed,” said Nefer, taking the lead on the path. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we leave.”

* * *

The road smelled of damp earth and tall grass. The wind was constant but mild, enough to ripple the grass on the plains on either side without bothering anyone. Teresa walked with her hands loose at her sides and her head up, taking in everything with the full attention she gave to things she liked.

“Look at those animals,” she said, pointing to a herd grazing in the distance. “They’re beautiful.”

“Look over there instead,” replied Nefer, pointing to a hill on the other side of the road.

At the top, a griffin of considerable wingspan was finishing off what remained of one of those same animals with an efficiency that left little to the imagination.

Karol watched it with the expression of someone who has seen this before and still hasn’t gotten used to it.

“I just hope it’s not still hungry after.”

They kept walking.

The hours passed with the regularity of a road in no hurry: a goblin that slipped between the bushes at the sight of the group, a pair of minor creatures that Dominic dispatched with a few movements before anyone had time to worry, the sun dropping until the sky took on the color of rusted copper.

They made camp at the edge of a stream whose sound filled the silence with an almost domestic kindness. Alicia prepared dinner with the ease of someone who has done it hundreds of times, and the smell of hot food brought the group around the fire with the naturalness of something that doesn’t need to be decided.

“Where are you two from?” asked Alicia as she passed out the plates. “It’s obvious you’re not from this region. Teresa’s clothes aren’t like anything I’ve seen.”

Teresa hesitated for a second.

“I come from a very distant country. And Nefer… Nefer comes from a place mortals rarely reach.”

“A place mortals rarely reach,” echoed Nefer, calmly taking a cream bun from the bag. “That about sums it up.”

“I think I’d rather not ask any more questions,” Alicia decided.

“We’re the children of a well-known adventurer in this country,” Alicia offered, changing direction. “Dominic is the oldest, Karol’s the middle one, I’m the youngest. Dominic is very strong — you’ll see tomorrow.”

“That’s enough,” said Dominic, without heat but firmly.

The conversation died with the fire, and when the flames had reduced to embers the group began settling in to sleep.

Teresa turned to Nefer with the most carefully calculated expression she had ever worn.

“What do you want now?” he asked, without looking at her.

“Could you grow bigger so I can sleep against your fur? Just for tonight.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

Teresa said nothing. She just waited.

“Fine,” Nefer conceded. “Just tonight.”

He grew to the size of a horse and lay down beside the fire. Teresa settled against his side with a sigh of pure satisfaction.

“It’s like sleeping on a cloud,” she murmured.

Alicia and Karol, who had watched the whole exchange from their blankets, looked at each other.

“Us too?” they asked at the same time.

Nefer looked the other way.

“Come over before I change my mind.”

The two of them nestled into the soft fur of the cat god with the quiet gratitude of people who have just discovered something. Karol was asleep within seconds. Alicia took a little longer, but not much.

Dominic watched them from his blanket, considered the situation, and decided that sleeping on the ground had its own kind of dignity.

* * *

The dungeon rose at the foot of a great mesa like something that had not so much been built as excavated: dark stone columns framing an entrance that time had covered in moss and lichen, with torches on either side that someone had lit recently, which meant they were not the first to arrive that day.

Nefer looked up at the structure.

“Finally. The next stop has to be Earth. It has to be.”

“By the way,” said Dominic, looking at the cat and Teresa with the expression of someone who has been putting off a question, “we’re here to investigate the portal. But what’s your interest in it?”

“We need to use it to reach our destination,” replied Nefer, plainly.

Alicia and Karol looked at each other.

“Can you really do that? So the stories about people going in and out of portals are true…”

“Yes,” confirmed Nefer, and walked in.

* * *

The dungeon’s main hall had the characteristic smell of places that haven’t seen natural light in a very long time: damp stone, moss, something metallic that could be mineral or could be something else. Three corridors opened from the center, each lit by torches in a trembling orange.

“Follow me and stay together,” said Dominic.

What followed was a methodical descent through the dungeon’s floors, the three siblings clearing the way with a coordination born of years of practice: Dominic at the front with the great sword, Alicia flanking with the bow, Karol closing with fire spells. Bats of unusual proportions, skeletons moving with the mechanical clumsiness of the dead who don’t know they’re supposed to stay down, goblins that shrieked and vanished into the cracks in the stone.

“They’re incredible,” said Teresa, watching as Alicia dropped three skeletons with a single volley. “Right, Nefer?”

“If you say so,” replied Nefer, who was bringing up the rear and finishing the last cream bun from the bag.

Floor by floor, corridor by corridor, until they reached a door larger than the others, its edges rimmed with a light that came from no torch.

And behind it, a sound.

Deep, rhythmic — like something very large striking the floor in a cadence that made the stones underfoot vibrate.

“This dungeon is beginner-level,” said Alicia, in the voice of someone reconsidering several things at once.

Dominic put his hand on the door handle. He turned to the group.

“Behind me.”

He opened it.

The final chamber was large, high-ceilinged, with walls of black stone that absorbed the torchlight without returning it. At the center, in front of the portal pulsing with a cold blue glow at the back of the room, stood a giant.

Not in the figurative sense. A giant in the most literal meaning: twenty meters tall, skin like tree bark, a club that appeared to have been carved from an entire boulder, and small yellow eyes that swept across all of them with the indifference of something that perceives no threat.

Dominic studied it for a few seconds, brow furrowed.

“I’ve been an adventurer for years and I’ve never seen anything like it. It must have come through the portal.” He readjusted his sword. “Doesn’t matter. We attack.”

He lunged forward. The club came down with a speed that didn’t match the size of the arm swinging it, and Dominic had to leap sideways to avoid it: the impact against the ground sent stone fragments in every direction and left a crater where he had been standing. The counter-slash rang out with a flat metallic sound.

“I didn’t do anything to it! Its skin is like steel!”

Alicia and Karol tried from a distance: arrows that bounced off, fireballs the giant didn’t even blink at. Dominic reset his stance and breathed.

“Stand back. I’m going to use everything I’ve got.”

“Dominic, if you do that…” Karol began.

“Teresa.”

Nefer’s voice was calm. So calm that Teresa turned immediately, because she had learned that Nefer calm in a tense situation meant something was about to change.

“Step back,” he told her. “You too, hero. I’ll handle this.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Dominic, not quite moving.

“You’ll see.”

The giant brought the club straight down. The energy barrier Nefer raised stopped it with the solidity of a granite wall, and the force of the rebound was enough to throw the creature off balance — it fell backward with a crash that shook dust from the ceiling.

Nefer flew up until he was level with the giant’s eyes. The two of them regarded each other.

“I’m sorry you’re in my way,” said Nefer. “Don’t take it personally.”

The giant tried to crush him with its palm. Nefer sidestepped with a movement that looked more like a dance step than a combat maneuver. Then another swipe, another equally elegant dodge, while the giant began to visibly frustrate itself at its inability to hit something the size of a cat.

“I’m in a hurry,” Nefer announced. “So let’s end this.”

Three rings of energy appeared around the creature: one at ankle height, one at the wrists, one encircling the torso. The giant looked at them with its small yellow eyes, not entirely understanding what it was looking at.

Nefer snapped his fingers.

The rings closed.

The giant went still on the ground, immobilized with the surgical precision of something that requires no effort to be decisive. The silence that followed was absolute.

“Done,” said Nefer, landing.

“That was…” Alicia began.

“…incredible,” Karol finished.

Dominic took a moment longer to react, looking from the immobilized giant to Nefer with the expression of someone revising his assumptions about the world.

“I didn’t expect him to be that strong,” he admitted.

“It was nothing.” Nefer crossed his paws. “By the way, the monster’s yours to keep. It’s probably not from this world and the guild might find value in it. It came through the portal, so there’s a good chance no one’s catalogued it yet.”

“So you’re leaving,” said Dominic. It wasn’t a question.

Teresa looked at the three siblings and felt something she hadn’t expected: the specific weight of a farewell that matters.

“Next time we come through,” she told Alicia and Karol, “you’re both coming with me to find an adventurer’s outfit. Both of you.”

“Whenever you want,” replied Alicia with a smile.

Karol didn’t answer because she was crying too hard to speak.

Nefer approached the portal, which was still pulsing with its cold light. He turned to Teresa.

“How are you doing?”

Teresa thought about the question for a moment, as if she wanted to answer it properly.

“Nervous. But ready.”

“Good.” A brief pause. “We’re going home.”

“Come back soon,” said Dominic from behind them.

Teresa nodded. Then she turned to the portal and jumped.

Nefer jumped right behind her, and the blue light enveloped them both at the same moment the room fell empty.