The inside of the spaceship wasn’t too out of the expected, visually. Sleek lines and rounded corners, all in various shades of gray. Lights and panels here and there. Five small bedrooms, an area for sitting and eating, then the rest was a long room with the actual controls - as well as a window currently looking out at the interior of the hangar.

  “I was actually thinking you’d go for a cat pun,” Edward said, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

  Sally looked up from Archie on her lap and pulled a face at the demon. “Why would you think that?”

  He opened his mouth, but promptly closed it and let that conversation go.

  Humphrey had been pacing up and down the bridge, his heavy metal feet clunking against the floor, until he stopped by the two of them. “Omen is a rather simple name, but carries a certain gravitas to it.”

  The zombie nodded. “In all capital letters, though. Another faux acronym to really confuse everyone.”

  She ignored the rolled eyes of her companions and glanced at the mission briefing folder on the table. Even with all the weird adventures she had gotten herself into, flying in a spaceship was something else. Chuck had explained that they weren’t really going into space… the Sea all the System worlds sat in was more of an infinite void. The viewing window across the front of the Omen would act like more of a monitor and show a created cosmos, but mostly for the sanity of the group onboard.

  Although, looking at them, there weren’t exactly a great amount of brain cells to be saved. It just made the process a little more comfortable compared to traveling in a sealed metal box.

  “Feels like way too long since I got into trouble,” she murmured to herself.

  Archie looked up from her lap, his bright green eyes shimmering. “This isn’t supposed to be trouble, is it?”

  “Eh.” Sally shrugged. "I’ve been through enough to know this isn’t going to be a simple thing. If I turned up, killed some roaches, and ‘ported back home without issues, then… well, why would you be sending me if it was that easy?"

  The cat didn’t respond, but his tail snaked back and forth as he smiled at her.

  “It’s not often we need a full Party,” Humphrey agreed. “Given that I’m allowed to go on the mission and put a pause on my role in Sanctuary, it must mean that there’s more to it than we’ve been told.”

  Edward sighed deeply, but didn’t add a comment.

  “I assure you,” Archie began, “we wouldn’t hold back any information from you. This is a rare opportunity to learn more about the enemy intending to siege us. Success is paramount.”

  Sally prodded his ginger fur. “Then why not send Theo as well? You know the pair of us could make it through anything.”

  “As you have been told, it is equally important that we gain allies through powerful Players from other worlds. The trio Theo is meeting are on a level above anyone we have come across so far.”

  “Fangs is slightly better at diplomacy,” Jackie offered. The mobster was sitting down at the other end of the room, doing some maintenance on her weapon. “Which ain’t sayin’ much.”

  Sally pulled a face. They weren’t wrong, and she was certainly happier to be dropping into a fight rather than having to butter up some potential new pals to help defend Sanctuary. The ache of why the roaches felt they could even win a fight here was…

  A flash of blue interrupted her thoughts as Chuck appeared on the ship. He turned and clasped his hands behind his back. “How are you all settling in?”

  The murmurs in response weren’t too encouraging.

  “How long is the travel time?” Sally asked, a grimace on her face.

  Chuck shrugged at first, his face going through several emotions. “It’s… complicated. Time is irregular in the Sea, and you’re not physically traveling through it. The whole spaceship getup is rather performative—for your comfort and sanity—and this method is actually slower than our usual way.”

  “Because it is safer, correct?” The Death Knight tilted his head and the flame coming from the back of his helmet flickered.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Correct. We are essentially transporting a small bubble of Sanctuary across the Sea to join up with the bubble of the world you are traveling to.” The Architect relaxed. “Your bodies will experience about a day of travel before arriving.”

  Sally furrowed a brow. “Will it also be a day for you here before you see us arrive?”

  Chuck nodded slowly.

  “Then… it sounds like it just takes a day.” She rolled her eyes and deflated in her chair.

  For all this time, Bully hadn’t felt like getting involved in the conversation. As soon as the frogman had set foot on the OMEN, he had set himself up in the corner and produced a table of his own, upon which he was working on some potions. Or making lunch - Sally had tried to guess but had long given up.

  “How do items and things work in the unconquered world?” he asked, his bulbous eyes now swiveling to the blue form of the Architect.

  Chuck turned his head. “We aren’t conquering the world. Please try to appear like you are the good guys…” His eyes moved between each of them, realizing how unlikely that was. “Do you mean how the conversion between the two Systems works?”

  The frogman nodded. “If I take a potion that gives a boost to Guile, but they don’t have Guile as a stat… or what if they give me a potion that increases a stat that Sanctuary doesn’t have, like… Obliqueness.”

  “Essentially, your interactions would convert things to something the STAR System understands where possible.”

  Edward grinned, revealing his sharp teeth. “So you’re saying the STAR System conquers theirs?”

  “I don’t know why I bother.” Chuck threw his arms up in resignation, while the others grinned.

  Sally smiled, but her thoughts were elsewhere. While his excuse as to why time was different but the same didn’t make much sense to her, all it did was make her think of Theo and the two notable times he went back to the past. Glancing at the lack of a window to her side, she wondered what the fanged goofball was up to now.

  Theo wiped the blood from his eyes, trying to gain his vision back. A cut across the forehead wasn’t exactly ideal, and the punctured lung was even less so. As a crossbow bolt struck him through the thigh, piercing through to the other side, he raised a healing potion to his lips with a shaking hand.

  “This seems really inefficient,” a voice came from his side. “And potentially masochistic.”

  He finished gulping down the warm red liquid and gasped, dropping the empty vial to the blood-soaked grass. Still half-blinded, he caught the swing of a sword, the blade biting into his palm.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Theo said, grinning so widely that his long fangs were exposed. “Why don’t we finish this, then?”

  A burst of energy radiated from the vampire in an instant, vaporizing the blood in a five-foot area. It became a faint red mist that swirled around him. With a quick flick of his wrist, he twisted the sword away from his assailant, breaking the arm of the bandit before shoving it back through their throat. He then spun and launched the blade out like a throwing weapon, impaling the second bandit holding a bow.

  His eyes now clear and burning red, he tilted his head to the side to grin at the speaker as the mist of crimson faded away.

  The woman didn’t share his sense of humor, and stood with her arms crossed. She was a gnome, her head bald and tattooed with interlacing patterns. Other than the mass of gemstones she wore around her neck, her outfit was a rather simple swathe of brown leathers and dark furs.

  “Sorry, Dee,” Theo said, standing back up straight and straightening his suit out. “I had hoped grinding out some skills would help me get off this starter island quicker.”

  She didn’t adjust her posture at all, but narrowed her hazel eyes. “You get skills by leveling up. You can get off of the island once the quest chain is complete. Once you’ve looted that heirloom, we can head back and-”

  “No offence,” he cut her off, “but I get my skills a different way. That said, getting maimed wasn’t really helping. I had hoped there would be region specific upgrades or something, but it’s just the same defensive abilities which I already have near maximum.”

  Dee exhaled through her nose. “I’m still not sure I believe your story, but you are way too powerful. Even the best monks and brawlers from my tribe wouldn’t be able to go up against your fists.”

  Theo smiled again, the light catching his fangs. “Oh, I’m no martial artist. I just haven’t felt the need to bring out my actual weapons.”

  Some of the disdain left the gnome’s face to be replaced by confusion. “You’ve just been… playing this whole time?”

  “Not exactly. We both arrived at the same time and you wanted to quest together, but it would be rude for me to figuratively carry you and ruin the experience.” The vampire put his hands in his pockets.

  “Ruin the experience? I don’t want to even be here!” Dee threw her arms up and sighed. “You were rambling about being from a different world. I took pity on you as you’re clearly insane.”

  Theo shrugged. “How can you believe that you were taken from your home world to be placed here, but I can’t have done the same, just from another world like this one?”

  Exasperation was the only response given.

  The vampire smiled and looked over to the side as the bandit boss had just respawned. A brute with a large axe, guarding the treasure chest in this small camp. With an outstretched hand, a warhammer was summoned into his grip from his Inventory. A simple weapon with a thick, brick-like end made of dark metal. As he pointed it toward the man, who now noticed them standing there, a pink sheen ran down the shaft toward the head.

  Theo smiled. A burst of energy pulsed from the end of his weapon, burning the air and blanketing out sound for a brief second. The space between them shimmered with intense heat, as his opponent was now left completely missing any body from the waist up. A long spray of red painted the dirt and grass for a good forty feet away from the inert opponent.

  As the remnants of the bandit leader flopped over, the vampire spun the warhammer around before resting it over his shoulder. He looked back at the shocked gnome and grinned.

  “C’mon then, let’s quest. I need to go find those three heroes on the mainland.”