It has been a couple of weeks since my family moved in with me and started working on the farm, Julie dove head first into helping with the Kwehs and now that she can use her powers more freely without the restraint that Earth was putting on her, she was developing at an excellent rate. I’m just sitting here taking a break from chores while watching Julie play around with Shadow and Boney.

  So far she has been able to consistently using her healing powers to heal anything from a small bruise to a light cut in seconds, anything deeper than that and she has to focus for upwards of 5-10 minutes… I know this because I was training with my pets and I caught a stray claw from Shadow as we practiced fighting together… Not there yet, but improving haha

  Anyways, as for her other abilities that I think stem from War? But she can enhance her physical abilities by at least 1/4th and can hold that state at around 4 minutes as of yesterday.

  Hector and Jasmine have taken a couple hunting missions so they are off doing that for right now, they are expected to be back…… Hmmm, now that I think about it, they should have been back by now… I should call HQ about this.

  “Hey Julie?” I call out as I pull out my phone. I’m thinking we might need to take a trip into town, and she should pack a bag just in case.

  Julie comes running up to me with a huge smile on her face and Shadow and Boney are on both sides of her. They already know that we are about to leave thanks to our telepathy.

  “Yes, big brother? What’s up?”

  “I need to head to HQ in town so go pack a bag so we can head out.”

  She got a slight twinkle in her eye as I said that. “OOH Yay! Are we going shopping? Mom and dad told me all about the awesome things that the market had! I can’t wait to go see what’s there!”

  She races inside and runs up the stairs to her room while I call.

  “HQ this is Missy, What sup Jimmy?” Missy says as she picks up, her usual happy tone clear as day.

  “I wanted to check up on Hector and Jasmine’s mission timeline, I thought they should have been back by now?”

  “Hmmm, one second…. yea, it says here that it was slated as a 1-week round trip, but they might have encountered some more monsters and are just catching up on some rest before coming back, you know how it goes sometimes so I wouldn’t be worried.”

  “Missy…. You rambled a little bit, what’s really going on.” Missy was always straight with me and I figured out that when she is hiding something she starts to ramble to try and throw you off.

  “Wha~~t I think your just imagining things. They are just fine I promise, let’s give them another few days before we start jumping to conclusions.” Her voice started to rise an octave and with every word I felt more and more worried.

  “Me and Julie will be there in a few hours.” I hung up and just in time, Julie came running down the stairs with a backpack.

  “You made sure that it’s got everything you need, and not just random stuff?”

  “Ofcourse! I got a change of clothes, some travel rations and even a lighter!”

  “What about bandages and things like that? Remember Jules, this side of the portal isn’t 100% safe, we have to stay on our toes even in town. So out here in the wilderness even more so.”

  “Ugh, I got it and yes, I got everything ready. So, let’s go!” She ran outside and was waiting for me next to the road to town. She was hyper to go, and it just made me smile. I made sure my own backpack had some extra before I left and made sure that the fence was turned on before I left. It was expensive but worth it if it meant the Kwehs were safe while we were gone.

  We left the farm and was walking down the road when Rhonda nudged me.

  ‘I can carry Julie on my back. I’m sure I can handle that much.’ She spoke through our link.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “Huh? What did you say?” Julie asked.

  “Oh, Rhonda was just saying how she was sure that she could handle you riding her.”

  Julie got a real big grin when Rhonda walked over and crouched down for her. Rhonda looked over at me with a glare that said ‘get on with it.’

  “Welp, there’s your answer, let’s get you situated.” I pulled out a rope from my bag and tied it around Rhonda’s body then Julies. It was the only thing I could do in the moment, but atleast it would be better than leaving it to chance whether she would fall off or not. I didn’t take long before the rope got its first stress test as Rhonda took off at a slight jog and Julie without holding onto anything, started sliding off the right side.

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  I laughed watching her scream at Rhonda to stop as she was riding sideways now. After getting her back up and making sure that Julie was grabbing ahold of something this time, I let Rhonda go and she started off by first walking, then after a few minutes of that she took off. I was worried and panicked slightly at first but soon after I started to hear Julie Laughing with joy as she felt the wind and freedom of riding on a Kweh… I was a little jealous to be honest.

  ---

  The trip to town was longer than expected since Julie and Rhonda was having a lot of fun basically just doing circles around us, it took the better half of an hour before Rhonda was tired enough to fall in step with the rest of us. Shadow and Boney wanted to run around too, but I needed them to stay alert so they unfortunately were stuck next to me. Or partway resting on my shoulder and backpack in the case of Boney.

  “That was amazing Jimmy! Thank you.” Julie said and her smile just beamed with happiness.

  “No problem, it was all Rhonda’s idea to begin with, I just put the ropes on ya that’s all.”

  As we made it into town we headed for the HQ immediately. I needed to figure out what was going on as soon as possible, only afterwards could I take Julie shopping like she wanted. Opening up the doors I spotted Missy first thing and walked over to her.

  “Hey missy how are ya? That’s fantastic, now spill.” I said quickly while getting right to the point.

  “Spill what dear? I don’t know what you want?” She nervously said while looking around.

  “Don’t give me that, come on don’t act like I’m a stranger, just be straight with me like always.” My emotions were starting to get a little heated but I kept my cool as best I could. But soon a familiar voice rang out.

  “Why don’t we head up to my office Jimmy, it’ll be better there.” I turn around and ofcourse Rob was right there at the entrance to the stairway, It was like he had a tracker on me and was just waiting for the perfect moment to make his entrance. I sighed but followed while I had Julie stay with Missy in case there was something bad going on.

  As we got to his office he waved his hand and I felt as something settled into place around us.

  “Just to make sure nothing said can get out and nobody can hear or see us… This is a sensitive topic.”

  “OK? Your just making me even more worried about what’s going on… I thought that Hector and Jasmine were on just a regular hunting mission?”

  “Ehhh, well in a way yes? It is a hunting mission per say. But not what you think… See they are on an expedition into a dungeon that was recently discovered. It seems like this was some sort of portal that had materialized a part of whatever was on the other side, into an actual location here…”

  “Hold on… So this world gets portals too? I thought it was only Earth that did?”

  “That’s what we thought too, however a week ago we got a reading from some old tech we brought from Earth that scanned for portals. But it’s old tech from when the first teams came over to this side, we assumed that there wasn’t any portals on this side because even after a full year we never got any hits on it… But like I said, a week ago that changed. Suddenly everything lit up and was reading that multiple portals opened but after sending out response teams but nothing… That was until one team never came back.”

  I sat there just processing everything for a few minutes. “Hold on, so your telling me that Hector and Jasmine are the rescue team? I guess in a way, yea they were right when they told me they left on a hunting mission… But dammit this is something big! When’s the last time you got anything from them?”

  Rob sighed as he shook his head. “We haven’t heard anything from them after their last transmission, they let us know that they arrived at what was supposedly the portal site but all they found was the entrance too what we started calling the dungeon. Here take a look, we got some recorded footage along with the transmission.”

  After a few keystrokes on his PC, he pulled up a video log that showed Hector and Jasmine in a party with 3 other people, it looked like a tank and maybe a couple swordsman but the main thing was the giant steel door in the side of a rocky cliff face. It was up atleast 30 ft up the wall so they had to scale the wall. The party climbed the wall and when they came close to the door, there was a red light that flashed from the doorway and afterwards the two doors started to slide open. The video followed up until they fully entered the doorway then cut out. Inside the doorway was a solid black wall but from the audio it seemed like the party could see what was inside.

  “So, as you can see we are a little stumped on what to do… I mean do we assume it’s a dungeon like what every nerd or otaku does and wait hoping for good news? Or do we send another team to go in after them and possibly risk the death of more people?” Rob sighed and laid his head in his hands. “I am the one that is supposed to make the call since this potentially has something to do with Avatars and the Deities that govern them, but what do I do? Usually I send in more people if it were a usual case where a team got ambushed by monsters… But this is a dungeon, it could be the kind where different parties start different instances which would be bad, or the kind that every party goes through the same run which is still bad but there’s a bigger chance we can help if the team needs rescue…”

  I was just as stumped as Rob as I didn’t know what to do either. But I had to do something that was for sure.

  “I’ll go.” I looked up and set after resolving myself. I had my pets, I had food and water, I was set.

  Rob shot his head up and looked at me in surprise. “Jimmy, this isn’t a normal trek through the woods. This could cost you your life if things go wrong.”

  “I just need you to watch Julie and I’ll go. Someone needs to go either way Rob, why not send one lone farmer to take that risk.”

  Rob looked at me a little but after staring eachother down, he finally sighed. “Fine, but I’m going to have a team go with you. Partly for safety but also for setting up a post in front of the entrance and start working to make it safer there. Me and Missy will watch over Julie and your farm while your away, I don’t have any idea on a timeline so I won’t even guess… But this could be a big one Jim.” He looked at me with a serious look that shook me a little but I was resolute in going in to rescue the rescue team. If something bad were to happen to them… I atleast want to find something to bring back for Julie to remember them by…