Karon turned the rune-inscribed cube around in his hand, doing his best to discern a pattern from the symbols, hopefully one that might reveal how it worked. After a couple of minutes, glaring at the thing without success, he put it back down on the table and gave the merchant standing behind it a quick nod before walking away.

Around him, strange and alien beings trickled back and forth, a menagerie of creatures that were all gathered in the same place as Karon for a single purpose: to shop. He looked around the market for any sign of Trixie, and, to his great annoyance, she was nowhere in sight, despite having promised him to stick close by. But, as was now the norm, she had once again run off in search of something exciting and had left Karon to shoulder the burden of being responsible and pulling her out of trouble.

“You know things are going to end really badly when I'm the one that has to play the voice of responsibility.”

“Loosen up, we're here to have fun and explore!”

“And end up running for our lives if Trix is left unchecked for too long.”

Karon sighed and looked up at the surrounding buildings. Tall spires stood next to small tents, and huge mansions of lavish design stood side by side with rundown houses. Every geometric figure imaginable could be seen in one, or several forms, depending on where you looked, and from time to time one of them would just vanish, leaving an empty space that was soon filled by a new building.

Through the crowd, Karon caught a glimpse of what he thought was Trixie. He hurried over and found her standing in front of a window, behind which several statues stood, all of them crafted from unknown material and shaped into the forms of unfamiliar beings.

“What was that again about sticking together?” Karon asked when she noticed his presence, tapping his chin like he was trying to remember.

“Don't be so grumpy. I haven't managed to trip and break my neck yet, have I?” she told him with a raised eyebrow.

“Give it time,” Karon muttered.

“What was that?!” Trixie asked sharply.

“Ehh, gibbet lime … it's a human thing, you wouldn't understand,” he answered with a quick smile.

“Uh-huh. You do remember I spent almost two years on Earth, right?”

“You spent like half that time rotting your brain in front of a TV,” Karon told her, and the two of them started walking down the street without taking their eyes off each other.

“Exactly. I know all about humans now.”

“Somehow I think that you've gotten a skewed representation of our species through reality shows,” he said dryly.

“No, I think I got a pretty good idea of what you're all about.”

Karon considered that for a moment, and eventually he was forced to admit that indeed, she might be on to something. They followed the street until they reached its end at a platform that stretched out from the mountain. The view was extraordinary, and so they stopped to look and take it all in.

The Bazaar. That was what it was commonly called. It had other names as well like the Night Harbor, the Day Harbor, the Divine Market and many more. It was the go-to place for all of your extraordinary shopping needs. There, you could find more or less any item from any world if you looked hard enough. Everything from the dreams of sleeping gods to used old rocks was traded, and the haggling was intense since there was no one accepted system of currency or exchange.

Karon had heard rumors about the place while in The Walker's Rest, and once he'd told Trixie about it, their next destination had been set. The idea of a place with millions of objects and creatures from all the corners of the universe had been one she hooked on to viciously. Reaching it had not been easy, though, even with the access the omnipresent road of The Walker's Rest offered.

But eventually they had found a way in, and now they stood at the edge of a cliff jutting out from a section of mountains, forming a circle around a deep set valley. The mountains were carved into plateaus leading up to one another, like huge stairs upon which thousands of buildings stood. From the top of the mountains, a green-blue liquid poured down through rivers and out into aqueducts suspended in the air, each of them leading to a small lake at the center of the valley.

It was an extraordinary view, and around them, the sound of thousands of voices mixed together and breathed life into the city-like market. But what truly separated the bazaar from every other place Karon had ever seen was the sky.

A great, fog-like spray hung over the bazaar, shielding it from the four suns, which were visible through the haze and capturing the light they gave off in a display of explosive colors. And where the fog, one moment, was swirling in a deep, red glow, it soon was overtaken by green and blue, and so on it went, with the light fracturing in a constant struggle and different colors replacing one after another.

The suns themselves shone through the mist without their color changing, hanging in opposite positions from each other. They ranged in size and color from the huge blue sun through red, yellow and finally the small white.

Karon looked up towards them without fear. Their light would not be enough to hurt his eyes, and he was curious as to what significance they held. In a place like bazaar, what was seen was symbolic, a representation of something far greater. What you saw was not even half of the real picture.

But the suns, much like everything else in the bazaar, remained a mystery to him. Although Karon found the mystery enthralling, Trixie began squirming impatiently at his side, and when he looked down to her, she gave him a demanding look.

“What?” he asked.

“Come on, let's get down there. I want to see what's in that lake!” she answered giddily.

Karon shrugged at the suggestion, for a lack of anything better, and together they attempted to find their way through the winding streets of the bazaar. The path down appeared plain at first and open stairs led down the different plateaus of the mountain, while thousands of other visitors passed them by. Red robes, green skins, blue skins, yellow light, black eyes, the bazaar combined all that it held within and mixed it together into a pandemonium of sounds, sights, smells and psychic impressions.

As they descended down from the high places of the market, the background noise of the loud murmur gradually passed into that of distant hushed voices, and in far fewer numbers. The streets became shaded by tall buildings of solid stone, metal or other, unknown material, and they gave off a feeling that wasn't as welcoming as the upper districts had been.

Karon noticed the change, and his eyes started to scan their surroundings more with narrowed suspicion than with wide-eyed wonder. The change was entirely lost on Trixie on the other hand, or she chose not to care about it; she skipped forward with the same eager steps as before.

“Trix, slow down,” Karon said.

“What?” she turned around and asked, stopping for a moment to allow him to catch up.

“Maybe we should take greater care not to get lost. I'm not sure if you noticed, but if the bazaar has a slum, we're now in it,” he said and caught a flicker of movement in one of the windows looking down at them.

In his right hand, Promise reacted to his nervousness with a reassuring impression, telling him that she would be all too happy to slaughter anything that would even consider harming him. Trixie didn't seem as worried.

“Come on, Karon. It's nothing we haven't faced before, even if things get a little messy. Besides, that trader back at the inn said there was a truce or something here, right? As in, 'don't start trouble or you'll vanish without a trace and never be seen again'.”

“Yeah, well I'm not sure how much I would trust him. And just because fighting is forbidden doesn't mean there won't be other ways to harm someone,” he said and glanced back the way they came.

“Like what?” Trixie challenged, and Karon got the impression she would have been standing with her hands on her hips had she been human.

“I don't know. That's why I'm worried.”

Trixie smiled at him with a mixture of encouragement and condescension before she answered. “You're being paranoid, again. Even if something happens, it will just make the trip more exciting. Between the two of us, we can handle pretty much everything anyway.”

She didn't let him give any further argument, and turned around without letting his worry bother her in the least as she continued her joyful path down the dark streets. Karon hurried after her, but he didn't let go of the tight grip he had around Promise or the nagging sense of unrest poking at him from the deep corners of his mind. His sense for trouble had only grown sharper over the years, and he had learned to listen to it.

They passed by several creatures on their way forward, but nowhere close to the flood of alien beings that they had encountered on the upper levels. It was hard to determine if they actually looked less trustworthy than the ones they had seen before. In a place like the bazaar, appearance was the last thing one should rely upon for information, but the general feeling of something being just a little more shady - both figuratively and literally - was hard to miss. That is, unless you were a unicorn with delusions of invincibility.

The few years she had spent on Earth had changed Trixie in more ways than Karon could keep count of, or maybe it had just stripped away the hard outer shell she had built and allowed something else to surface. She had grown both in skill and power, but in Karon's eyes, she treated it much like a child would treat a flamethrower. And there would be plenty of things in the bazaar that would be fireproof.

“So, just keep a close eye on her. This place wouldn't last a day if there wasn't some kind of safety measure against violence. Probably very strict, unforgiving and painful for anyone that would try and start something … so, uhh, keep a close eye on her so she doesn't start anything.”

“Yeah there's probably something, but we have no idea how it works or ways to circumvent it.”

“Uhm … are YOU planning to do something?”

“Of course not. But a trickster's strength is in deception, trickery and just plain cheating.”

“So?”

“How the hell am I supposed to cheat if I don't even know the rules others play by?”

“Okay, that might actually be a valid concern. It's one thing when you're just bitching about… well you bitch about everything. It's another thing entirely when we might not be able to cheat our way forward. Unthinkable!”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“Who? Me?! Would I ever?”

“I'm going to ignore you now.”

“Wait, maybe we can buy ourselves out of trouble. We still got plenty of golden trinkets in our bag. Bribery is universal.”

“Firstly: there isn't enough gold in this entire market worth more than me, I'm very precious. Secondly: There is no set currency to compare value with here, so our trinkets might be worthless or invaluable depending on where we find ourselves.”

“Well maybe we can-”

Karon was forcefully torn out of the internal dialogue, when a loud clattering sounded to his left. He jumped from the fright, and came down with Promise pointed straight at a tent standing between two tall buildings of dark gray stone. He breathed a sigh of relief when he realized they weren't under attack, and a few seconds later Trixie came back to stand beside him with an amused look. Sheepishly, Karon gave her a smile and pulled back Promise, trying not to lean on the spear too obviously as he waited for his heart to stop racing.

From inside the tent, more sounds of stuff crashing could be heard, joined by unintelligible cursing. For a moment, Karon forgot his worry about their location, and he took a step forward to investigate what was going on inside the tent.

He stopped, though, when instead, a creature came stumbling out from inside with a loud growl, and quickly regained its balance and brushed dust off a garish set of clothes. When it noticed Karon and Trixie standing in front of him, its thin lips broke out into a smile, showing off sharp looking fangs, and it stepped forward with open arms and a look of relief on its face.

“Excellent, excellent. Bitz still is a fast hunter, even if a less agile one. So worried you would have time to go away before he reached outside. Come in, come in,” the creature said and waved them towards the flaps of his tent.

Even Trixie looked towards the tent and creature doubtfully, and next to her Karon was gathering energy to give off a burst of light to blind it, hoping that wouldn't count as starting a fight.

The creature must have understood, because it stepped forward with his claws open and spoke in a reassuring tone. “Ah Bitz sees, Bitz sees. Weary travelers that know the dangerous roads of the Starlit Path yes? Good, good, Bitz is happy to see candle is still working and not junk yet. Fear not, Bitz is humble hunter now, and has customer in need of you.”

Karon couldn't help but raise his eyebrows, and he looked at the creature carefully. It wore horribly colorful clothes, and Karon noticed after a few seconds that they weren't really clothes as much as several layers of cut fabric he had draped around himself. Its body was lean, and the legs were bent backwards, ending in feet with three large toes with talons in the front and one in the back. Its hands had only four fingers, each one with a claw, and on top of its head sat two short, forward curving horns. It had orange eyes, not much different from Karon's own, and almost unnaturally smooth looking skin with a bronze sheen. Shaggy, dark hair framed the top of its head from which the horns protruded, and the overall impression Karon got was that of something savage trying to be civilized.

But who was he to judge? Tricksters didn't enjoy the finest of reputations themselves.

“And is there a particular reason why it's us you want to enter your tent?” Karon asked.

“Bitz asked the candle, and candle showed you two. Now come, enjoy Bitz’s fine hospitality, famous through all the universes as the best to find. You will be able to tell others that you have experienced it yourselves, and gloat at their jealousy!”

The creature calling itself Bitz turned its back to them and went inside the tent, which looked barely large enough to contain all three of them at the same time, even less so if he already had customers inside. What worried Karon, though, was how he had referred to himself as a hunter, rather than a trader or merchant.

Such petty concerns were apparently beneath Trixie, and she followed after Bitz without a second thought. Karon watched as she vanished into the tent, and he took a moment to let out a long sigh before hefting his spear and going inside himself.

He stood stunned when the flaps opened up to reveal a grand room at least as big as any mansion's dining hall and filled with all kinds of curious items. Bookcases stood against the tent's walls filled with either books or jars, containing what looked like different herbs or organs floating in liquid. Tables and display cases stood spread out across the room, with items ranging from trinkets to weapons displayed proudly, and from the walls, light trickled in as if a sun was shining through despite the fact that the tent was sitting in deep shadow.

Several pillows laid in a circle towards one end of the room, upon which a normal looking human female sat clothed in a blue dress and wearing a troubled look on her face. Bitz was standing beside her, right next to Trixie, who he looked to be introducing. All three of them then turned to wait for Karon to approach, and when he came to stand before them, Bitz clapped his hands together happily and spoke.

“And this is...” he said and rolled his hand to let Karon answer.

“Karon,” Trixie answered for him and smiled.

“And what are you?” the woman asked, her voice melodic and sweet sounding, but with a note of sadness in it.

Karon looked into her deep blue eyes, surrounded by pale skin and framed by golden hair reaching down to her jawline. She was pretty in a certain way, but there was something wrong with her aura that made Karon want to wince. If the sound of nails screeching across a blackboard could be made into a feeling, that would be it.

“I'm a trickster. Used to be human,” he answered truthfully, and saw how her eyes widened.

“I have heard of such creatures. Why would you want to help me?” she asked carefully.

“Actually, I have no idea what this is all about,” he said. “But I am willing to hear you out,” he added when he saw desperation flash across her face.

“Yes, yes. They are the ones to help; the candle never lies. Bitz never fails a hunt and these were the prey no doubt,” the unknown creature said and smiled broadly.

“Well we already know your name, but what are you then?” Karon asked.

“Bitz is Vesh, best hunters of all hunters. Alas, Bitz days of flesh and blood hunting is over, now he only hunts for the BEST prices and SWEETEST deals in all the bazaar!” he announced proudly, and Karon saw the woman's lips twitch at the description.

“So you're a trader?” Karon asked.

“That's what it's called, but I don't trade, I hunt,” Bitz said with overwhelming patience in his voice for the poor fools who didn't seem to get the difference.

“So what do you want with us?” Karon continued the questioning.

The woman's face twisted into a pained expression at the question, and Bitz patted her on the shoulder a few times before answering.

“I want to send you out on a hunt for Bitz. You see, poor, poor Selena here is a friend of Bitz, and it is known to her of Bitz's excellent connections and unequaled hunting skills. Which is why she came to see Bitz after something very precious was stolen from her by a thrice-spat-on thief. But Bitz can't leave Bazaar to go hunting for the blood of the thief, and ehh … Bitz is afraid the accursed thief might not be so easy prey for an old Vesh. So, Bitz used his candle to find someone that would be able to find the thief, and retrieve what was stolen for honored customer, Selena.”

“So you want to hire us to track a thief and retrieve something, because a candle told you so?” Karon asked slowly.

“Yes, the candle has never fooled Bitz before, and honored Selena needs help. Will you accept Bitz’s most gracious offer?”

“I...” Karon said, and turned to Trixie with an uncertain expression.

She in turn looked, furrowed her brows, and looked to be in deep thought for a few seconds, and then she looked back up and shrugged. Karon snorted and shook his head, then turned his gaze back to the trader and his robbed friend with a slight smile.

“We've got nothing else going on,” he admitted, and his new employer grinned.

“Bitz is pleased with this! Now, honored Selena will show you to her home world, and together you shall track this villain most foul!”

“What of our payment?” Trixie was quick to ask.

Bitz blinked like a deer caught in a headlight, and remained stunned in silence for a long time before he replied.

“Payment? Why … every other adventurer and traveling hero does not ask for such things. They are content with the experience they gather. It seems to hold some value to your kind which Bitz cannot discern. I think they talk about keeping score and compete for points. It’s all very strange and confusing.”

“Well, our help doesn't come for free, and we're not exactly heroes,” Trixie explained, then hesitated and looked up to Karon. “Does this make us mercenaries?” she asked him.

“I think so,” he said without missing a beat, and they both turned to look at the squirming merchant pointedly.

Sitting with her legs crossed on a cushion, the woman named Selena frowned at the two with a reproachful look. Karon caught it and held his hands out openly, and said. “We're happy to help, but this sounds like it could be dangerous, and we need to eat.”

She nodded in understanding, but still looked a little less relieved than she had been a moment earlier. Beside her, Bitz appeared to be going through several stages of denial, but he eventually sighed and gave the two a tiny nod, barely perceptible. Karon and Trixie saw it none the less, and Trixie pressed on. “So? What kind of payment can we expect?”

“Bitz will grant you anything from his collection of wares equal to the value of what you recover, and the danger you will be put through. Bitz will barter with you of what exactly that might be after honored customer Selena has what was stolen back.”

“So … what is it that has been stolen exactly?” Karon asked.

Selena looked down to the floor with a haunted expression, and when she answered it was with a voice that made Karon think it caused her pain just speaking of it.

“My destiny.”

                      *****************************************************

The look on Karon's face as they passed through the buzzing crowds of the bazaar was one not often seen on him; a look of humbleness. He couldn't describe it in any other way, as he caught a glimpse of himself in the reflective surfaces they walked by. They had left Bitz's tent behind after a brief assurance they would indeed be paid, and swearing to do all they could to help Selena in return.

As far as contracts of service went, Karon thought it was kind of flimsy. But like so many others things concerning the bazaar, The Walker's Rest, and the grander universe in general, he just didn't know what to compare the standards with. He had walked in a world of colorful ponies and experienced some of the strangest things in his entire life there, but he had walked mostly confident and unafraid, arrogant even. He had known things they didn't know, done things they didn't understand or could do themselves.

He walked an entirely different kind of walk through the bazaar. His steps were more measured, and his look of haughty amusement had been replaced with one of marvel and nervousness. He tried to hide the slight shake of his hands by gripping Promise harder, but he couldn't fool himself so easily, and every time his eyes meet that of another strange creature he felt a shiver.

“Get a hold of yourself. You're embarrassing us.”

“I'm trying.”

“Try harder.”

He cleared his throat and turned to the woman, Selena, walking beside them with a faraway expression, and said, “Would you mind telling us more about what happened? Details would be nice before we go after this thief.”

She blinked like he had brought her out of a deep reverie, and she spoke hesitantly.

“It's hard to remember. He must have drugged me, or maybe used magic to confuse my mind.”

“Still, any details you could provide will help,” he pressed on, and didn't take his eyes off her.

Walking a little ahead, Trixie overheard the conversation, and slowed her steps to let them catch up.

Selena looked to be pained by speaking of it, but she nodded in understanding and continued. “I was our matron mother, the helper of our town. I am supposed to help solve trouble, give advice, and help maintain the peace. I don't know very much of the arts, and I am not a user of magic myself; I am just another person in our community.”

“Then how come you even knew about the bazaar, or were able to get here?” Karon asked.

A smile graced her lips, and she explained.

“It was through Bitz. I met him when he was very sick and wounded. The farmers outside our town had found him sleeping in the woods, and beaten him. However, they had not dared kill him for fear that the 'demon's' death would bring a curse down on them, so they brought him to me for advice. I didn't know what to do, and when Bitz woke up he used a ring to speak our language and explain that he meant no harm and was just passing by. After I admonished the farmers, I let him stay with me until he got better.”

“I don't think Bitz would be so easy to hurt that a few farmers could do it,” Karon murmured, and Selena nodded.

“I thought so, too, which helped me realize that he truly meant no harm, since he could probably have killed them if he wanted to. After he got better, he left, but he gave me a kind of necklace that would help me reach him if I would ever need to see him again.”

“That was very brave of you; coming here, I mean. No magic and relying entirely on a talisman is… almost suicidal.”

“I needed to see him. I know of no one else that could understand what has happened. Who else would believe that such a thing as destiny could be stolen?”

“Still, in this place you are helpless. Beings that could overpower you without any difficulty at all pass you by every few seconds. How can you be so calm?”

“I trust Bitz, and I have given no reason for any of those beings to harm me. Besides, Bitz told me it does not matter how powerful you are, if you try to bring violence to the bazaar, you will simply vanish.”

“There are ways to work around that I'm sure,” Karon said.

“It does not matter; there are always those that are stronger. That is no reason to be afraid, only cautious, and weigh one's actions with care.”

“I can see why people wanted you to be the one to come to for advice,” he said jokingly, but looked away thoughtfully still.

They were heading up towards the tip of the mountain by way of the many stairs that could be found leading from plateau to plateau. The crowd had grown more in size the further up they went, as did the brightness of everything around them. It had eventually started to dwindle down, though, as they reached the uppermost sections, and the beings that they saw were almost always heading downwards.

It took a long time of walking in silence before Karon remembered that he was supposed to be asking about the theft.

“So what happened when you had your destiny stolen?” he asked.

Selena opened her mouth, and then closed it again several times, like she had difficulty finding the words to describe it.

“I don't know how it happened. I was simply saying good bye to a family I had helped, and then I got sleepy, and things went dark. When I woke up, I was lying on a floor somewhere else, a basement. There was a man standing in the shadows, and when he saw I was awake, he started to laugh. He said he wanted to thank me, that thanks to me he would now be able to get what he truly wanted. I was afraid and asked him what he meant, and what he'd done. Because I knew something was wrong, I could feel a chill inside me, like a draft through something empty.”

She shivered visibly while describing the events, and Karon listened carefully with Trixie doing the same.

“He … he said he had taken my destiny. That I was supposed to become our land's first great leader, and bring about a rule that involved all of the cities. I don't know how … I have never thought of doing anything like that, but I could feel the wrong inside me, and I knew he was right when he said it. He let me go after that. I never saw his face, before you ask. He was dressed in black clothes with a hood that left him in shadow, but he did give me a name. He said it was Nagrosh the Dark.”

The solemn moment was shattered into tiny little pieces when Karon's sputtering laughter rang out, and next to him Trixie made an exasperated face. Selena watched him nearly fall over with confusion written all over her face, and after several minutes of belly deep laughter Karon regained his composure, and wiped the tears out of his eyes, while Trixie was shaking her head at him.

“Sorry, it just ... Nagrosh the Dark. Seriously? Suddenly I am a lot less worried about this guy,” Karon said while his shoulders still shook with suppressed giggles.

“Are you truly so powerful then? That you have no concerns about facing a man able to steal destinies?” Selena asked with a tilted head.

“Well, we have seen some trouble, yeah,” Karon told her.

“Oh, so you believe it won't be difficult reclaiming my destiny, then? I was certain you were afraid when you spoke earlier, but maybe it's just that you are different from the ordinary people I advise,” Selena said thoughtfully.

“Yes, that's probably it,” Karon agreed, but didn't miss the suspicious glance he received from Trixie.

The remainder of the conversation was irrelevant small talk between Selena and Trixie, which Karon allowed to pass by as just more background noise. The idea that any dangerous opponent would ever stoop so low as to refer to himself as 'Nagrosh the Dark' was ridiculous. The more he thought about it, the more Karon came to expect that this Nagrosh would probably be a black clad teenager, wearing too much eye-liner and trying to defeat them through shouting bad poetry, which he probably wrote himself.

“Maybe that is a teensy bit of an exaggeration, but I think you got the gist of it.”

“Then it should be easy, we've almost definitely seen more action than him. Hit hard and fast and we should be able to take him just by shock and awe.”

“Don't get overconfident. There's still the matter of tracking him down, though if he actually uses that horrible name outside of villain's expositions where he laughs at the brilliance of his own plans it shouldn't be too difficult.”

“And if not?”

“Then we might actually have to work for our pay.”

“Wouldn't that be a shame.”

The three of them came to a halt when they arrived at a tunnel stretching into the mountain, one that was incidentally positioned right below the blue sun and filled with a swirling blue fog of the exact same color. Selena took out a small copper disk inlaid with runes of gold, and from it came a faint humming sound that the woman appeared to be listening intently to, until she turned her eyes to Karon and Trixie and said, “This is the way I came from, and it should take us back home if we stick to the path the talisman lead us on.”

“And you're sure it will work? I don't think things work that simply around here,” Trixie said and gave Karon a worried look.

Both of them thought back to the paths they had been forced to take in order to gain entrance to the bazaar. Sure they might not have had a talisman to guide their path, but even with one it wouldn't have been an easy or pleasant road. And once they had left it behind, they'd agreed never to speak of it again.

“I think so, too, but this is telling me that the way home is the same way I came. And I think it’s right because, well the way here was filled with red fog, and now it's blue. Maybe that means it is the opposite?” Selena finished and looked at them expectantly.

Karon and Trixie gave each other an almost identical look, and when neither said anything they turned back to the woman, and shrugged in unison. In return, she swallowed visibly and appeared nervous.

“Well there's only one way to find out,” Karon said and took a step towards the tunnel.

“Uh, no, actually there's several. Like asking for directions,” Trixie interjected.

“That would just be awkward,” Karon said and dismissed the foolish notion with a wave of his hand.

He expected to hear some kind of retort involving how ridiculous he was, instead Trixie ran right past him with a laugh, and before she disappeared in the thick blue fog she looked back and stretched out her tongue at him.

“If I die it's your fault!” he heard her call back, and his mouth went suddenly dry. He took a few quick steps forward, then turned to Selena and told her briskly. “Let's hurry, we can't lose her.” He then set off after the unicorn, not once looking back to see if Selena followed.

The blue fog swirled in a thick, syrupy movement, and seemed to swallow him almost hungrily as he stepped inside the tunnel. There was a sense of displacement, lasting for only a second, and when it receded, Karon found himself standing in an open field. All around him, the blue fog lazily drifted back and forth on soundless winds and underneath his feet some kind of pitch black dirt stirred like dust as he took a step forward.

Selena appeared out of nowhere and came to stand right next to him, wearing a confused expression that soon cleared as she looked around. Karon, on the other hand, had his eyes darting in every direction, searching for any sign of Trixie. It was impossible to say how big the clearing they stood in truly was, since they could only see a few meters before the fog became too thick to see through.

Then Trixie appeared abruptly from the depths of the fog, and gave them a wide smile while Karon breathed a sigh of relief.

“Don't do that again,” he threatened as he walked over with Selena following behind, the talisman still firmly in her right hand.

“Come on, I only took a little look around. Not that there is much to see. The fog is everywhere and there's no road or anything, just this black stuff,” she said and scraped a hoof on the ground.

Karon turned to Selena. “Does the talisman say anything about where to next?”

The woman furrowed her eyebrows and looked to be biting down on her tongue, and stared hard at the small object in her hand. Eventually she opened her mouth slightly, and said in a calm, almost serene voice. “Move forward towards the blue sun. When we are in a place with the right tone, the pathfinder will sound, and a path will be made open.”

Selena closed her mouth, and blinked rapidly before she turned her eyes to Karon, and she gave him a nervous smile. “I think we have our way home.”

“Did that happen the last time you used it, to reach the bazaar I mean?” Trixie asked and looked at the talisman in her hand.

“Yes, though it didn't make me talk. It was just kind of like a feeling, a sense of where to go and what to do.”

“Well it would be a good idea to follow the instructions since we have no other way of making sure we don't get lost,” Karon said and looked up into the sky where a blue sun - the same they had seen in the bazaar - shone visibly through the fog.

“Judging from experience, I'd say there's a fifty-fifty chance we get lost anyway and end up running for our lives,” Trixie said cheerily, and Karon wondered if he'd at some point accidentally cursed her with some kind of permanent high.

Selena looked back and forth between the two, and Karon could very well guess that she was questioning just how smart it had been hiring the two of them.

“Don't worry; we'll get you back home and retrieve your stolen destiny,” he assured her, and gave Trixie a meaningful glare.

The unicorn in turn only gave him an amused look, then turned around and walked forward with the blue sun as her guiding star. Karon and Selena headed after her, and soon all three lost all sense of direction to the fog, the sun remaining as their one point of stability.

The company continued on their path, Trixie looking around with an almost bored expression, while Selena was lost in whatever brooding thoughts being fate-less brought. Karon, on the other hand, was busy looking around with a curious expression. It hadn't taken long before he'd noticed that the blue sun wasn't the only sun visible through the fog; the red, yellow and white suns were there as well, clinging to separate ends of the sky, like they marked its corners.

However, that was not all. Trixie had made substantial progress in her abilities, but it had become painfully obvious that she was nearly the exact opposite of Karon in regards to what kind of magic she had an affinity for. She took easily to the hard, almost brutish, baser energies one made use of while manipulating the physical or just generally breaking things.

Karon wasn't like that. His affinity was for the softer energies, those that saturated the dreams, thoughts and emotions of other creatures, something that shouldn't be surprising considering his trickster nature. He could of course deal with the more 'brutish' ways, as energy was energy of course. But his aura, his being, attuned and channeled the softer kinds more easily, and since they themselves were more subtle in their ways, he was left with sensitivity to all forms of energy. It was what allowed him to sense the shifts and flows of the forces that drove the blue fog that swirled around them, while Trixie barely seemed to be aware of it at all. And it was also what made Karon feel a slight tingling in his fingertips when it changed.

The fog had been thick, almost liquid, and flowed with a kind of grace that was both light yet stable. And there were currents that ran within the fog, not in a physical way, but rather like it made the individual particles the fog consisted of phase in and out of different states. However the change was nothing like that. No, what Karon felt was nothing like that at all, and the sensation was more akin to something very slimy parting the fog and reaching out for the three travelers.

For a brief moment Karon felt like something coated in acidic slime ran its bony fingers over his face, and he saw that both Selena and Trixie simultaneously shivered. The sensation withdrew almost instantly, but it had been enough to leave Karon feeling queasy. All three of them stopped, and Trixie gave Karon a questioning look. He swallowed and looked around, then returned her stare and nodded.

They didn't need to say anything out loud; instead they both flanked Selena, with Karon taking position at her left, and Trixie at her right. There was no change in the fog slowly drifting around them, only a small shiver of tension that Karon doubted the other two could feel, not yet anyway. The feeling seemed to be growing stronger ever so slightly, and the only reason it should be doing so was if the source of the disturbance was approaching them.

“Let's go, we should try and keep moving,” Karon said, and the three of them continued forward with hurried steps.

“What's happening?” Selena asked.

“I think something has sniffed us out,” he responded.

“But nothing is allowed to harm us here, right?” she asked, fear making her voice quiver.

“We're not in the bazaar anymore,” Trixie told her.

The trio fell silent, and hurried forward as quickly as possible without actually running, eyes constantly searching for anything that might be hiding in the fog. Karon kept his focus divided between going forward and lightly stretching his senses out towards whatever was approaching. It was all in vain however as he could find nothing, though if it was because of the mist or whatever was following them, he didn't know. Whatever the case might be, the result was the same. All his attempts at sensing the unknown being or beings didn't work, and the only indications they had that even existed came from the effects their pursuers had on the surroundings.

The fog drifted as lazily as ever, but the feeling of something sickly pushing its way towards them grew, and even Trixie and Selena could feel it now. Selena was the first to break, and her hurried walk turned into a run as her face twisted with fear. Karon and Trixie didn't hesitate, and ran after her, not making any attempts to slow down or stop her once they caught up.

The feeling might have grown to the point that even someone as ungifted in the magical arts as Selena could feel it, but that also meant that it became easier and easier for Karon to sense whatever it was that approached. To his disappointment, the nature of their hunter eluded him, but his senses had been strong enough to leave him with the impression it was still a fair distance from them.

They continued running, all the while time stopped having any significance. They simply ran, and behind them the unknown was gaining with a slow surety.

“Please tell me it's not much further!” Karon shouted.

“I don't know! It's supposed to be making a sound when we're getting close!” Selena shouted back, her voice infused with panic.

“Why are we running? Why don't we just stay and take care of whatever is coming?” Trixie asked loudly, and started to slow down.

The others followed suit until they were all jogging at a steady pace. Karon's legs were burning despite the relatively short run, and his breath came out far more wheezing than he thought it should.

“Too much sitting around with Varsif.”

“Yeah it's been, what, two years since we last had to run for our lives properly.”

“Well there was those times when Trixie-”

“That wasn't really running for our lives, and invisibility was enough to slip away then.”

“Think it'll work now?”

“Maybe wait until it gets closer, we won't be able to keep all three of us cloaked forever.”

“Karon!” Trixie shouted straight into his ear, and he stumbled to the side with a loud “Ack!” He managed to regain his balance in time, and all three stopped for a moment to catch their breath.

“What?” Karon asked Trixie and rubbed his ear annoyed.

“I said: what is the plan?”

“The plan is to keep going, and see if we can get to Selena's world in time before whatever that slimy thing is catches up,” he said.

“Your usual brilliance at work,” Trixie drawled slowly.

“If it does manage to catch up,” Karon continued while giving her a hard stare, “I will cloak us, and we'll continue while the slimy thing hopefully thinks it lost us, and leaves.”

“What if it doesn't track that way? And why would it leave when it could sense us from so far away, a couple of minutes of running won't put enough distance from it,” Trixie argued.

“Do you have a better suggestion, Trix?” Karon asked with all the patience of the world.

She tilted her head and grinned hungrily, “Let's kick its flank.”

An approving feeling ran up Karon's arm from Promise, and he shot the spear a dark look.

“Trix, this isn't the little league of Equestria anymore, or any other local world. This is the greater, the grand arena, the great game. For all we know what's stalking us might snuff us out like candles, or it might do something far worse than killing us.”

“Since when did you start to worry about things like that?” she asked with a crooked smile.

Karon glared at her, then turned his head in the direction he thought the creature was coming from. It was like trying to deduce the origin of sound when standing in a pitch black cave, with the echo betraying you at every turn. Even so, Karon knew that it was coming closer, and increasing its speed, on account of the strength of the creature, sending out ripples of power through the mist simply by being.

And a creature like that was not something he wanted to try and 'kick the flank' of. For all he knew it might not even be corporeal. It could be an invisible, untouchable, hunger, simply out to devour everything it came across, blind instinct being the only state of mind it knew.

“Conjecture, guesses and poetic imagery. Unless you want to find out, I suggest you haul ass.”

Shaking his head to clear it, Karon turned to Selena and asked in as confident a tone as he could muster, “How far to the point where we can enter your world?”

“I told you, no idea. There was no sense of time when I went through here last time, and the sun doesn't move from its seat in the sky,” she responded, a hint of irritation creeping into her voice to join with the fear.

Karon made a frustrated sigh, and then looked up towards the blue sun. “Fine, we keep to my ill-conceived plan then. And we do so fast,” he said, and they all took off running again.

The only way to measure the passage of time, and any progress made, was through intensity of the burning that spread through their muscles, and how much sweat started pouring down their cheeks. Which was how Karon came to the conclusion they must be doing something wrong, when his legs started moving forward in jerking motions, rather than the fluid grace he liked to think he possessed usually.

Next to him, Trixie ran on all fours with far more ease than any of her two bipedal companions, although the flush of her cheeks, and the sweat dripping from her muzzle told him she was feeling the fatigue as well, determined expression or not.

Selena looked the worse, and Karon suspected her regular duties didn't involve a lot of running, or maybe she just wasn't used to dealing with the panic that comes from feeling death's breath on your neck. It was probably both.

What was worse, the presence of whatever stalked them had grown from more than just leaving an icky feeling, to making the fog itself twist and coil in protest. Whatever it was that hunted them, the energies binding the fog together wasn't fond of it. That alone was more evidence than Karon needed to convince him he didn't want a fight. Upsetting the flow of energies binding entire worlds together couldn't be easy, and it spoke volumes of the nature of the hunter.

“Which can easily be condensed down to 'stay the fuck away.'”

Karon was about to shoot back some kind of clever comment he had yet to think of, when a sweet chiming sound started ringing out from the talisman. At that moment, Karon wanted to grab the thing and kiss it repeatedly, but he managed to refrain from doing so. It might take offense, and it would probably lead to some jealousy from Trixie. Or just plain weirdness.

“We're almost there!” Selena shouted, and in response Trixie started to laugh loudly.

And then another sound reached their ears, a screech filled with rage and, just as Karon had suspected, hunger. It must have somehow sensed its prey was about to elude it, and now whatever sick pleasure it had taken in the hunt was put aside for the raw need to feed.

All three of them had frozen as soon as the sound hit them, and they remained frozen, like terrified field mice when the hawk decided to announce its presence. Karon could hear Selena swallow hard even over the sound of the soft chiming and the distant screech.

“Move! Now!” Karon said, and forced his legs into motion.

Selena seemed to follow just on reflex, driven perhaps mostly by the fear of being left behind. Trixie reacted in the opposite way, and when Karon glanced over he could see both fear and exhilaration in her eyes.

The chiming sound remained clear, despite the angry screeching, and as they ran it gradually gained in strength. But so did the screeching, and when Karon turned his head, his legs started pumping twice as fast on principle alone.

The blue fog was filled with dark shadows, flickering about behind them like a swarm of hungry piranhas. There wasn't just one, not even just a group. No, whatever the creatures were, they hunted in the hundreds. From the brief glances Karon managed to get through the fog, they remained indiscriminate in form, and appeared like nothing but tattered shadows, trailing small black tendrils behind them.

“Hey, I saw a hentai like this once.”

“Shut up!”

“Wanna know how it ended?”

Trixie caught Karon's no doubt paled face, and she looked behind them too, only to turn her eyes back forward and keeping them there with her jaw visibly clenched hard. The run turned into a frantic scrambling forward, with the music of the talisman spurring them forward, and the screams of monsters with empty stomachs making sure the proper motivation was there.

“It's time, cloak us! Make us go poof!”

Karon had practiced his skills endlessly underneath Varsif's tutelage, and the skills of a trickster he had learned were focused into true art instead of the meager learn-by-trial ways he had picked up during his stay in Equestria, and so it took him only a few seconds to cast a bubble of energy around them, making sure every bit of sound, smell and sight passing out was marked as unimportant, and just another part of the environment.

It usually worked, but then again, that was against creatures that used a brain as a processing tool. And it was with a dread feeling in the pit of his stomach that Karon saw that the cloaking didn't deter the creatures at all. It only seemed to make them swirl around in their flock ever more frantically.

“Wait, we can go through here!” Selena shouted happily and came to an abrupt halt, a huge smile plastered on her face. Then she spun around and saw the great horde of hungry creatures, and her smile was lost instantly.

The sudden stop gave Karon and Trixie only a few seconds to react before they knew they would be overrun, and so he gathered all the energy he could summon and shouted to Selena, “Then get the gateway open right now!”

The hungry creatures swarmed like a pack of crows above them, circling them with unwarranted screeches of glee, Karon and Trixie were far from being food yet. Or at least, he really hoped so.

The creatures broke formation and swarmed down towards them with no sign of their earlier cooperation, and the slow were left behind in favor of the strong and quick; first come, first serve.

Trixie's reaction was a perfect mirror image of her own self. Her horn lit up, and from it sprang a long lash of rainbow colored energy. It sung as it swung through the air, and the wraiths, or whatever they were, hesitated briefly when it cut close to them. It started swirling around like a jumping rope, scattering the wraiths and breaking their momentum.

Karon took the opportunity to improvise his own defense, and the energy he had gathered didn't lash out in some simple form like Trixie's, just to bash at the wraiths. It sought out the connections that hid inside the fog, the connections to millions of worlds, and thoughts, and dreams and deaths, all joined in together and trapped in a single droplet of energy given form as water. And there were a lot of drops in the fog around them.

He drew from those trapped sensations, and the combined experiences of countless beings across countless worlds bombarded the wraiths, trapping them in illusions they blinked in and out of each moment. Karon had no idea how the wraiths operated, but judging from the confused way they moved, and the furious cries they made, they weren't immune to the wonders of illusion.

Despite the quick thinking and improvisation on their part, it was plain to Karon and Trixie's eyes that they were fighting a losing battle. The wraiths were temporarily confused and receiving a beating from Trixie's whip. However, the massive strain of channeling thousands of experiences from creatures both familiar and utterly alien had left Karon with a hollow feeling, and images kept trying to force their way to his mind's eye. And though Trixie might deny it, the colorful display of magic she was using wouldn't be easy to keep up.

“How are we doing!?” Karon shouted, and dared to throw Selena a glance.

“Almost ready!” She shouted back, and a shivering in the air in front of her said she was telling the truth.

“Trix, you go in after Selena and I make sure we're covered from behind!” Karon said to the unicorn, and she laughed loudly when she heard it.

“No way, this is too much fun to give up!”

“Trix!” Karon began to admonish, then he felt the illusions the wraiths were trapped in run dry, and the energy binding them together shattered.

“Oh, shit!”

“Selena!” he screamed.

“Soon!” she shouted back, her voice matching his own high notes.

The wraiths joined together, and the sound that came out of their throats was not a screech, but a roar. They came crashing down on Trixie like a tidal wave, and her frantically clashing whip couldn't keep them all away.

Karon screamed in anger and Promise only enhanced the emotion, and through him the spear channeled its own blood lust. The lightning that sprang from the tip of the pointed spear arched itself across the space between the targets, lashing out in a flurry of sound, heat and the smell of burnt flesh.

It made Karon's heart skip a beat. If the creatures were made out of flesh, they would feel pain more intensely. However Trixie was not a victim, and the whip still channeled from her horn still whipped across the sky and struck into the wraiths, crackling loudly and spewing tiny sparks of energy whenever she hit home.

Karon snarled when one of the wraiths managed to evade the whip and came barreling down on top of him, extending slimy, brown coated hands ending in two hook-like claws towards him. As soon as he felt the creature's touch, a chill spread through his body, and he could feel the warmth of his blood being stolen, literally.

With a rage so intense it was like standing beneath a dying sun, Promise flew up towards the arrogant spirit, and buried its midnight tip in its center. The wraith shrieked, and retreated quickly with a brownish fluid dripping out of the wound. The spear itself wasn't so much used by Karon now, as much as it was using Karon as a means to bury itself into any spirit daring to approach its master, killing anything that got close with murderous glee.

However, the spirit had tried to steal Karon's heat, and that gave him an idea of how they were being tracked. He mentally took charge of his own movement again, something that elicited a feeling of disappointment from Promise, and he pointed the spear towards the sky.

From its tip red blobs of light sprung out, and started dancing around in the air, mixing in with an almost beautiful contrast to the blue fog. The wraiths reacted instantly and started chasing after the light, giving confirmation to Karon's suspicion. The creatures wanted to steal heat, and they tracked their prey by body temperature, probably so well that they could notice any shifts in the fog covered area instantly. Like sharks and blood.

“Sele-!”

“It's done!” Selena shouted back, interrupting Karon.

He turned to watch as a shimmering curtain of green and brown liquid stood before the woman, and he quickly ran to Trixie and screamed to her, “Go after her, I'll make sure they don't follow through!”

She didn't like it at all, but the unicorn must have realized it wasn't the best time to be raising arguments, and she complied. Selena had already darted inside the gateway as soon as she'd told Karon it was opened, and Trixie followed through.

Karon remained where he was for only a few seconds. The wraiths were still chasing the nearby lights, but a few of them had already been caught, and so he fired off a couple more before turning around and running towards the gateway. He closed his eyes on reflex as he passed through the liquid-like portal, and only when he felt fresh air brush against his skin did he open them.

And got a very close look at the tree he ran straight into.

Next Chapter: Four Suns (Part 2) Estimated time remaining: 11 Hours, 42 Minutes