The fighting turned into a blur of movement and the need to stay alive. Greg's arms hurt, his legs burned, and his chest felt like it was going to burst from the weight of everything that had happened, but he kept going and fighting because that's what he did.

That's what his family wanted him to do. Then, all of a sudden, they broke through.

The monsters just stopped following them when they reached the end of the hallway. They stood at the door, growling and pacing, but they wouldn't go into the room beyond. It was like something inside was keeping them away.

"What the hell..." Lylia put down her sword and took a deep breath. "Why did they stop?"

The room was different from anything else they'd seen in the temple up to that point. The walls were covered in old runes that glowed softly blue, like the ones they had seen on the beach that brought them here in the first place, but these were older and more complicated, and they seemed to have a power that made the air feel heavy.

There was a door in the middle of the room. Not a normal door. This thing was at least fifteen feet tall and ten feet wide.

It was made of something that looked like stone but moved like water. The surface rippled and flowed, giving Greg brief glimpses of something he couldn't quite make out.

There were symbols all over it, some like the runes on the walls and some that were entirely new to them. Hammy was right in front of it, chirping with excitement.

"There you are, Hammy. What a rascal running away like that..." Elwen said with relief as he walked toward the slime, but before she could get to it, the compass inside Hammy's body lit up with a bright light.

The door moved, and its surface shook even more. "Hold on," Greg said as he reached out.

"Something's not right. That door isn't normal. It's..."

He didn't get to finish. The door suddenly pulled on Hammy like a magnet, and Greg could see the air around it changing shape because of how strong the pull was.

The slime didn't fight back. It looked as if it wanted to go, bouncing forward as the door opened like a mouth.

"Hammy...!" Elwen lunged forward, but she was too far away.

The slime and the compass went into the door, and the surface sealed up behind it as if nothing had happened. No one moved for a minute. They just stood there, looking at the door that had just eaten their friend.

The runes on the walls pulsed faster, and the door's surface kept rippling, showing short glimpses of a different place. A place that was outside of this mountain, maybe even this world.

"Where did it go?" Hilda whispered, her voice small and scared.

Greg carefully walked up to the door and looked at it. The ripples showed pieces of something.

A huge area full of golden light. The ripples revealed shapes that could either be buildings or something else entirely. There was a constant sense of movement, as if thousands of objects were eagerly awaiting their turn.

He put his hand on the door, and it felt warm. Not threatening, but not very friendly either.

It was just there, as if it were alive and aware of him. The runes around his hand glowed brighter, and he felt a pull, the same force that had taken Hammy now calling to him.

"It's a portal," Lylia said as she stood next to him. "An old one, judging by how it was built..."

"These runes are older than the kingdom itself, even before the Royal Knights."

"Seems like it was a work from the pre-settlement era."

"Where does it go?" Elwen asked, but it was clear from her tone that she already knew the answer would not be what she wanted to hear.

Greg said, "There's no way to know without going through."

He looked at his team and saw how worn out, scared, and unsure they were. Hilda could hardly stand up because the silver markings made her look more like a walking constellation than a person.

Agatha's words had shaken Lylia's earlier confidence. Elwen was trying to be brave, but he could see that her hands were shaking.

They weren't ready for another adventure. Greg wasn't going to leave a family member behind, though. Hammy was on the other side of that door.

He said, "We go through," and we made the choice. "Together."

"We will face whatever is on the other side together."

"Are you sure?" Lylia asked. "We don't know what's behind that door."

"It could be anywhere! The door could open at any time and any size! People used old portals like this for many things."

"I know." Greg took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "Hammy went through for a reason."

"It came here because of the compass. We need to find something on the other side that matters. And also..."

He looked at each one of them in turn. "We promised to deal with everything together."

"That means we don't leave anyone behind, even if they're a slime that makes noise and has a hammer inside of it."

Lylia smiled anyway. "You're a fool."

"Yes, but I'm your idiot." Greg took her hand and then reached out with his other hand to Elwen.

The elf took it right away, and even though she was shaking, her grip was strong. Lylia took Hilda's hand, which made a chain between them all. "Are you all ready?"

"No," Hilda said honestly. "But I don't think that matters anymore."

Greg agreed, "It never did."

He stepped forward, pulling his team with him, and put his hand flat on the door. The warmth quickly spread up his arm and through his body.

The runes lit up so brightly that he had to shut his eyes. He couldn't resist the pull any longer until he felt his body being pulled toward the door, through it, and into the rippling surface.

Lylia's voice was the last thing he heard before everything went quiet. It was soft but strong.

"Together."

Then the world turned into golden light, and Greg fell through the portal into the unknown. He held his family's hands tightly in his own and followed a wayward slime toward whatever fate awaited them on the other side.

The door closed behind them with a sound like a sigh, and the room was quiet again. The evil creatures that had been waiting at the door scattered, going back into the deeper darkness of the tunnels. The runes on the walls slowly faded until there was only a faint glow left.

Marina held her communication crystal tightly in Meridian and felt the connection waver and then strengthen in a way that felt different. Not wrong, just different. It sounded like the signal was coming from a lot farther away than it used to.

She called into the crystal, "Greg? Greg, are you there?"

There was no response. Just a faint hum of magic moving across impossible distances, searching for a place to go that it couldn't quite reach.

The Calamity kept coming closer to the city, and now it was visible on the horizon as a dark mass that blocked out the stars. And deep inside the Howling Peaks, in a room that had been forgotten by time, an old door rippled again before stopping, keeping its secrets to itself.

The search for Veldway had gone in an unexpected direction, but maybe that's what had to happen. They may not have found the answers they were looking for where they thought they would.

Letting go and trusting that the journey would show the way could be the only way to move forward in Greg's new life, just like with so many other things. Even if that way took them through strange doors and into strange places, they followed a slime that seemed to know more about their future than any of them did.

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