Glory Hole
Curtis had been walking aimlessly in the canyon for the better part of an hour, he was quite sure that this place shouldn't be real. A canyon shouldn't have been able to appear out of nowhere and it was certainly impossible for one to form in a mere decade. He wasn't a genius, not now, now even in his past life. But it didn't take one to know that this isn't normal, there had to be a reason for this place to be here, and he was keen on finding out.
Sure humans had been able to harness the power of the elements, he himself was able to freeze and set his surroundings ablaze, hell, he had been able to talk to the gods, it shouldn't have been too far-fetched for a place to suddenly pop out of nowhere.
He might have still clung onto his past life's norms, and even the notion that everything could have been explained through science too hard. But! It still shouldn't have been possible for a canyon to appear like this! Even a rock that is placed in a basin of water, no matter how carefully will still create some sort of change. Water will rise, or it could have created waves. But nothing as seamless as this should have occurred.
~~~
That rock looked familiar.
So did that pillar.
Hey, are those my footsteps?
By the second hour, Curtis was sure that he was going in circles, the canyon was like a maze, no matter the turn nor the direction he went, he would go back to the starting point. At least, he had the option to leave. From where he was standing he could see the way up the canyon, overhead he even thought he could hear the people resting at his behest, gathering their strength for the next leg of the journey.
As he pondered on where to go, to stick his nose into next, a rock fell from above, knocking on every piece of the canyon that was protruding from it.
tick
tack
tick
tack
It kind of had a rhythm to it, with each bounce it was knocked farther from the cliff, almost enough for it to fall directly down, but a piece of the canyon that was sticking out would knock it back near the wall.
tick
tack
tick
With a few more bounces, it would reach where he stood, it might even fall onto his helmet, but it was a small piece of rock, it wouldn't do anything to the armor he wore.
It was a bit of a relief really, for two hours Curtis had walked into the Canyon, for two hours his only companion was his thoughts and the sound of his footsteps. The monotone sound of his boots dragging and knocking on the cold hard floor was starting to get to him. For two hours he had tried to investigate the appearance of the canyon, and he had come up with nothing.
The lives of several hundred people were on his shoulders. And with each hour that they stayed here. It was an hour that their enemies drew closer to them. It hadn't hit him that hard as he had made plans and had solutions to the problem, but now that he was stuck, it was starting to get to him.
Snapping out his thoughts, Curtis looked around, he was still in the canyon, he was still sitting on the boulder that was laying in the crossroads of a sort into the entrance of the canyon. But something was missing.
"Where?" Curtis muttered.
The rock that was falling should have fallen right beside him, if not even on top of his helmet. Looking up, the rock that was supposed to have reached him by now was nowhere to be found. Not even the sound of it settling on top of a rock was heard.
A rock of that size should have made a noise as it fell, but it had just disappeared. Curtis grew curious, he picked up another piece of stone and threw it towards the top of the canyon, with his strength it would have no problem soaring over, but he had controlled his throw to just barely miss the top, so that it would fall back down, knocking onto the rocks like the earlier piece of stone.
And again, the rock began the rhythmic sound of knocking onto the stone and falling forward and back again.
tick
tack
tick
tack
tick
And again, the noise that the rock was producing had suddenly vanished, along with the stone that had made it. It had just escaped his gaze as it hit one of the recesses of the canyon's wall. Even then, it should have made a sound as it settled onto that piece of the canyon.
He could chalk up the coincidence of it just vanishing once, but twice? Nah, that wasn't likely, there had to be a reason that the rock had just vanished. If Curtis had to make an assumption, the second rock had vanished in about the same place as the first one. About halfway if he guessed.
Eager to find at least some explanation, Curtis scaled the wall. A piece of cake for someone of his level of fitness, a kick from the bottom of the wall would propel him at least 10 meters upward.
40 metes from the bottom of the canyon, Curtis found a small pocket, naturally formed from the looks of it. Signs of water erosion were visible on the floor of the cave. It had to lead to a body of water that helped develop the canyon.
The inner walls of the cave were smooth, no doubt from the passage of water, from what he could see it was barely a cave and more of a hole in the ground. From where he stood he could, at a leap reach the end of the small cave. But it didn't explain where the two rocks had gone.
Looking around, the place was empty. It could hide a person and keep him away from the sun, but it wasn't exactly a place where he could stash 500 people.
It was a dead end. Curtis was coming to blows with the thought of returning to the group and telling them that he didn't find anything in the canyon. Sure, it was possible for their group to hide in the natural wonder, but there wasn't an endgame for them there. They could get trapped in its maze-like structure, it might even help their enemy and trap them there, like fish in a barrel they would have no place to go.
tack
As Curtis was leaving the cave, the familiar sound of a stone bouncing onto stone was heard. Turning his gaze back into the cave, the rock was rolling over from the far side of the wall, it rolled towards him as if it had just hit the ground.
The wall was just that, a wall. But, was that all there is to it? He moved towards the wall, extending his right hand to the surface of it, he had expected to touch the cold hard surface of the stone. But, that didn't come. What Curtis felt was the familiar shifting of his hand.
His hand had vanished through the stone wall. He still felt his fingers, but he couldn't see them past the wall.
A portal!
Curtis's eyes brightened at the realization. There was a portal in the wall! No wonder the rocks before had vanished, it had been sucked in by the portal. Curtis fought the self-preservation training that he had gone through and went in.
By all intents and purposes he shouldn't have gone in blindly, there was no telling what was on the other side of the portal, it could drop him into the middle of a volcano if he was unlucky, or drop him into an island in the middle of the gobsmack ocean.
But from what he could gather, it should be fine. The cave he was in was definitely buffeted by water before, but not anymore, so the water that should have been passing through was certainly depleted, the rock that had returned from the portal looked normal, so there shouldn't be any strange circumstances on the other side.
As he passed through the portal he steeled himself, ready for battle. He wasn't dead yet so that was a good sign. No hostiles in the immediate vicinity. The air was dry but blowing gently, a welcome change from the almost no airflow from where had come from, and a barren land lay before him as he came out of a hole in the ground.
The portal remained in its place, visible from where he stood, the glowing blue circle of space hovered behind him.
"At least I can go back," Curtis whispered underneath his breath. Thankful that the portal seemed to be stable.
They would just need to hide the portal or block it from the other side, and they should be safe in this area for some time.
From the edges of his vision, he could spot a few green areas, and from a distance a few mountains that peppered the horizon.
It would have to do. He didn't have the luxury to survey the area first. He would need to move everyone here. It was better than staying in their current location. Chaos was hunting them, and they needed to flee less they want to ride their spikes.
~~~
Returning to the camp didn't take a whole lot of time. Barely 10 minutes had passed since he had found the portal and gathered the leaders of the town formerly known as Dierac.
"So you're telling us that there's a place we can go to in that canyon, that will hide us from the enemy?" Silva asked the question everyone wanted to ask, but couldn't give voice to. It was not really a believable statement, they had thought that they would just need to cross the canyon, and Curtis was just scouting a path ahead and that they would then move to hide in Shesari.
"Yes, again, I was lucky and was able to find a portal that leads to a different land, we could take refuge there, from the landing point I didn't see any traces of our enemy being there." this was the second time that he had explained the situation.
It wasn't exactly easy to say that there's a hole in the wall and if we go in, we're safe.
From any sane person's perspective that would just be a straight-up lie.
The three original protectors of the town looked at each other. It was a risk, but then again, they were already knee-deep in the shit. So they would take any band-aid solution rather than just laying down belly up and wait for the reaper to take their heads.
"I'll organize the people, we could probably make a few pulleys to lower the injured towards the uhh hole." Royce voiced out, still reluctant to use the proper term.
"Have them move out in 20 minutes, Silva we go in first, secure the area, we'll bring a couple of guards. Then I'll head out and secure our flank as the civs move in."
"Carter, you get me information on whether the riders we sent south are still alive."
"Royce get a group to build some pulleys for the injured."
Curtis barked out orders left and right, some even addressed to the normal guards resting outside their tent.
"Got it."
"Roger that."
Curtis' tone didn't really leave any place for negotiation, so the three had to accept his arrangements. They weren't bad orders per se, it was just that he had to be firm and the people taking them weren't used to be on the lower side of the pecking order.
By the end of his instructions, the whole camp had new life breathed onto it. The hope of surviving this ordeal had slowly spread to the people.