Pain.

Tarvek awoke to pain, dizziness, and many, many, flashing lights in his eyes. That, it took him a few moments to process, was his heads up display inside the helmet of his power armour highlighting damage. Plenty of damage too judging from the series of yellows, oranges, and even red, on the HUD as his brain tried to understand what happened. And why everything fucking hurt. Especially when he started to move.

Even moving his right hand to his left wrist gauntlet was uncomfortable as he grit his teeth inside the suit, but it brough answers at least. Toggling the medical display showed he'd received quite the cocktail of stimpacks and burning out the inbuilt Heal spell to stay alive. He fallen. From a height clearly enough, or at least impacted something hard as he still lay on his back, grimacing inside the suit as….well, he'd been thankfully unconscious when he'd clearly broken the majority of bones in his body. And when the suit's emergency systems had activated tried to heal those near fatal injuries. The damaged suit, though not fatally either thank the Shrouded Lord, nor compromised either as…

"Arrhhhhhh!" he growled out as he forced himself to move. To stand. He was in vacuum. There was no atmosphere, just the void of space above him, though he was surrounded by….ruins?

'Ruins?' he wondered, then seeing the bodies of his would-be murders strewn out around him…and what might have been a vessel in the 'sky' above. Forcing himself up, tracking where he'd fallen, to where energy was displaced, and where a shatter wreck was split in two, with debris trailing out from it like a great and terrible wound…

'Think. Ignore the pain' he forced himself to do activating a painkiller as well through, as even some dulling of the senses was needed, unfortunately, now. Because he needed to move without wincing and halting, to see where he was and get his weapon back in hand 'Well…damaged, but functional. Just…need cut auto-feed and reload'

His heavy machinegun-shotgun was only a metre away, the ammo-feed still intact…sort of. It was wrecked, but like a string was still connected to it where it had smashed into greyish dust and hard rock. Luckily not breaking apart, though it was battered as he forced himself to pick it up, struggling with it even with the power armour's systems functioning on this plane of existence. Wherever it was. But there were concerning rents and dents as he managed to awkwardly up into a guard position, tearing out the current auto-feeder guides, then cutting off at an undamaged part from the feeder pack on his back, hating that it, too, was flashing orange warning signals shouting for repairs. Repairs best not attempt now, even if he could give them, as he managed to thread the feed, then getting a ping that the feed was functional and the weapon ready.

'Damn it to the depths!' he told himself as he was still forced to go to a knee in the guard position as he began to scan his surroundings for enemies. Or, rather, living enemies. There were many dead-ones around him, as any that would have been caught in the….dimensional breach…and survived their fall…

Fall?

Explosion?

He looked up again at the starship. The starship in a decaying orbit he suspected as it was far too fucking close to where he was, and he'd likely been thrown as much as much as fallen. It took a painfully long period of time to scan around himself, seeing what looked to be long-abandoned ruins of a town, city, or base, cover in the dust of ages and lack of vacuum. Was he on a lunar body?

Tarvek pushed that aside, as he pulled out his Compass from the secure pocket, placing it down on the dust covered rock beneath his kneeling form. Then willing some of his energy into it, his prayers and…

And….

He grimaced, gritting his teeth as his prayers and magic were not seeing anything, even vaguely, understandable about where he was. About getting back.

Oh, it answered questions he had. The who area was awash with dimensional and void energies, or 'Bleed Signatures' as some others called it. What had destroyed the ship had been a violent dimensional breach, likely caused by his actions and whatever the enemy had been doing. Probably trying to grab the items within the crates of the…the…wagons…

Tarvek's head snapped back up, scanning. The wagons. They'd grabbed one of the wagons with him!

Even if it wasn't his duty to protect it (or destroy it, if necessary) those crates would have things that might allow him survive for more than a few minutes or hours more. How long had he been knocked out? Minutes? An hour?

Less, more?

'This whole dimension is unstable' Tarvek understood as he forced himself up, taking up the Compass forged with his own blood and magic to be a Pathfinder. He had to lower the weapon unfortunately to hold the Compass in one hand, his power armour filthy and visibly damaged, but the pain-relief did at least let him function and walk at a steady, if slow, pace towards the dimensional signature matching his own. It had 'fallen' only a few hundred metres away thank the Lord he admitted, though it felt like miles as he had to stagger through grey dust-sand covered ruined walls. What had this place been?

Where was the atmosphere as the walls were clearly ancient, and had been meant for one…

'Question for not me' Tarvek thought then, pushing such pointless thoughts aside. Such destruction was likely why this place had been used by the raiders to access the Weirdlands 'What matters are the crates. Escape'

He looked up at the sky again. There was no way he was getting up to that wrecked vessel…

Then looked at the Compass, studying it…and there was little point. There was a Dimensional Breach there, and it was growing increasingly unstable. Enemy reinforcement might be on the way. He was Lost.

But it was best not to think on that as he managed to reach the crates, glad to see they were still bound together, intact, despite the wagon being utterly destroyed. Everything that had been the coverings, the wooden chest and wagon, the various disguises, were merely debris over the rectangular 'coffins' as Krull mockingly called the black, silver rune covered, transport crates. They were human-sized, roughly, and Tarvek studied the four carefully, confirming no breaches in their structure, and that his own power armour might be able to drag them with cable attachment. One of them was the wagons pathfinder 'pack' with supplies, and, despite being the least valuable for trade in Sigil, was the thing he most needed right now as he again looked to the skies. Watching debris continue to fall, fearing what could arrive at any moment.

He had to leave. Soon.

Where to?

Training dictated literally anywhere safer than a dying dimension with now an open dimension wound made by bandit raiders. Even if you got more lost those pathfinders that eventually managed to find their way home had needed to take stock and heal up rather than charging recklessly through dimensional breaches in the pathetic hope it was going to lead to the same place. Portals and breaches were frequently one-way after all, especially unstable ones…and walking his way through League trained procedures and his own duties helped calm him and in dealing with the pain as he connected cables from his back to the crates. Dragging them in this state wasn't going to be pleasant, and it wasn't Tarvek groaned as he had to use the suit's power to start pulling them free of the wreckage. All while activating the Compass, drawing power into it and to himself while seeking a way off this rock. With an active breach nearby that wasn't the problem, but rather actually connecting to a new realm without knowing exactly where.

Not without getting dragged along to potentially lethal places either.

So Tarvek focused on what he needed through magic, relying on instinct and training as he began to march away from the ruins, watching the skies and dead world around him for trouble. Instead the breach was the biggest concern, or something coming through it potentially, as he gathered his strength. He needed a breathable atmosphere. Human Earth Standards. He needed it not to be high magic, or at least too magic, while also not too energy strong for material sciences. No nano-swarms of murderous magic diseases by pushing away from such extremes. Earth as a reference. He could deal with that. It was an hour of walking and trying to search…

"Damn it all to the burning hells!" he growled as, perhaps another hour later something was shifting in the sky above him, flashing and being visible amongst the wreckage of the raider's vessel. Another ship perhaps?

Some horror from beyond?

Maybe even a friendly soul?

None of that mattered as he could not take such long odds. Not here. Not now. Instead he locked unto the best feeling dimension, activating a portal with the Compass that flared and flickered violently before him. Only a second or two, before it formed into a sphere, then a circle in the air before Tarvek that rippled and flowed like water. There was no time to hesitate, instead the exhausted and aching orc pathfinder moved forward as quickly as was possible; not quite a charge as four cabled crates were dragged behind him, but swifter than would haved seemed likely to an outside observer. With powerful strides the armoured boots drove him through the portal, Compass over his neck like an amulet as he raised his weapon at the ready with two hands. ESCAPE…

…and then was storming out into a place with a blue sky and green lush forests as he came out of a…

Circle of some sort?

That wasn't the immediate problem as Tarvek yanked the crates through behind him, and coming face to face with four humans in armour and armed with staves…no, energy-staves his HUD alerted him as he came to a stop before a crowd. Armoured humans with several dozen other humans in rags and generally looking of peasants and perhaps slaves?

The world stilled as they all saw him, as he saw them…

Then lowered those energy staves towards him, one of the armoured humans shouting something to close to the effect of "JABBA KWEE!"

Was this the Star Trek thing with the Jabba the Duck that Sasha spoke of?

It didn't matter. They were aiming their weapons at him, and were clearly hostile. His heavy weapon raised, exhaustion pushed away a moment as he locked unto targets with eye movements and blinks…

ZZZTTTT

Stepped to the right as an energy blast went past him, trigger active…

CRACKTHOOMM! CRACKTHOOM! CRACKTHOOMM! CRACKTHOOM!

The head of the first, nearest, armoured human exploded instantly, while the one beside was in the midst of an armoured helmet like an animal head started to take shape…

Before exploding along with the fleshy head as Tarvek's road exploded into it. Followed by the chest of the third armed one, and then a final CRACKTHOOMM! Bark of his weapon to kill the last one whose right arm had been blown off instead of taking him in the chest. Tarvek's last shot did that, exploding out of the man as Tarvek took a step forward, the other humans screaming and running in panic as best they could while in shackles and similar restraints. Behind him the strange circle that his portal connected too closed with an angry whooshing sound…

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