"Then why am I still tied up?" Gabriel blurted at the halflings. They'd just agreed to pursue a trade deal with Klain, yet he was still on the ground! "We're friends now, right? Friends don't leave friends tied up on the ground."
"It is not in our nature to trust easily," Tom explained, "but in the interest of moving quickly, we will make an exception."
"You untied me quickly enough," Victoria pointed out.
"We were confident of your inability to escape." Bran told her. Gabriel snorted, and Victoria tossed him a withering glance.
"Confident in my inability to escape? I've been outrunning you and Tom since I was a child!" She blustered.
"Victoria, it's fine. We're all friends now, remember?" Gabriel said in a soothing voice, trying to gain her aid without upsetting the halflings at all. "Let's focus on the important parts of this and just get me untied, all right?"
She huffed, but put down the bowl of stew and turned her attention to loosening his bindings. As soon as his hands were free, he got his ankles untied as well. Taking the bowl from Victoria, he began to wolf down the rest of the stew, to her surprise.
"I'm sorry, was I not feeding you quickly enough?" Her voice was tinged with amusement now.
"You were doing a great job, I'm just really hungry. And this is very good," He smiled at her around the compliment as he took another bite. It helped that he'd been subject to his own limited cooking for too long. "I've also gotten used to eating quickly so I don't have to share it with–"
A bark interrupted his statement. The halflings tensed as Evey ran into the center of the camp, tail thumping and something hanging from her mouth.
"Gross. Drop it, whatever it is, girl." Gabriel chastised her. "If you're going to catch your own food, you have to finish eating it before you come to see company. You're also terribly late. We need to have a talk about proper etiquette."
The small people looked at him oddly while Victoria cracked a smile. That is, until Evey dropped what was in her mouth. It was some sort of grotesque insect, but the woman acted like it was a live cobra.
"OH!" She scrambled backward. "That's just like the thing that Simone talked about! It hurt her horse!"
"Hurt her horse?" Gabriel leaned closer to the dog, and the object she'd dropped on the ground. Evey yipped in triumph over her conquest, clearly proud of what she'd brought him.
"Cut a deep wound across Bessie's neck. Took days to heal where she could be ridden again." Victoria explained.
"Oh, the Scarafs?" Bran poked it with a stick. "They're new, within the past couple of weeks."
"There are more than one?" Victoria froze. "We saw one come through a portal about three or so weeks ago, before attacking and fleeing."
"Perhaps it laid eggs. We have seen a few. Thankfully they seem to be solitary things." Tom pursed his lips. "One sting makes even the strongest animals we know of become reckless to the point of suicide. It's interesting that your dog could kill one without being hurt. Is the creature for sale?"
"She's a friend, she's not for sale," Gabriel answered confidently. Evey yipped again, her tongue lolling out one side of her mouth.
Victoria seemed perturbed by the dead bug, and Gabriel had to confess it was a rather unappealing thing to gaze at. Better to change the subject, move on.
"All right, when do we leave?" He asked.
"It is nearly sundown now. We will leave tomorrow." Tom decided.
Victoria glanced at Gabriel, and he tilted his head in question. "The others will be worried about me."
"Yes, but there's not much we can do about that, is there?" Gabriel shrugged. He thought about sending a messenger bird back to Klain with the news he had so far, but perhaps waiting for morning would be wiser.
He needed to find out as much as possible regarding the halflings' knowledge of the portals. There was no bird that could carry the comprehensive descriptions of everything he could learn, but perhaps the most important bits could be condensed enough to be tied to one of their legs for the journey home.
"The portals, you say there's a large one about to happen?" He turned to his hosts.
"The timing is uncertain, but it's coming, and it will be large." Bran stated.
"And do you have any way of detecting what world it will open to?" Gabriel finished his stew and set the bowl aside. Victoria picked it up to wash in the stream.
"The portals tend to open regionally in patterns, but it has become more chaotic in recent days," Tom replied. "We came North because the portals here were opening to places where strong winds would blow useful herbs and seeds through. Of course, the land is not good for farming here and supplies are rather scarce, so we engaged the services of the bandits to deliver us the necessities."
Gabriel blinked at the detached description of robbery, but reminded himself that halflings did not experience emotions the way humans did. It was wrong, but not necessarily surprising.
"Regionally in patterns," Gabriel repeated to himself, cementing the knowledge as best he could. He really wanted to take notes, but wasn't sure how the halflings would react to that. He would have to write it down later for the sake of not risking offending his capto—his hosts, he mentally amended.
His wrists were a bit sore from the ropes, and he rubbed them absently. Victoria frowned at him, and he realized the gesture might offend the halflings somehow. Oh well.
"So you cannot know for sure what world will be opened here?" Gabriel gestured in the direction they'd indicated the 'mountain' was forming.
"Our best guess is, nowhere good." Bran snapped.
"The Darkness?" Victoria asked, earning a sharp look from Gabriel. He would rather never hear that place mentioned if he could avoid it. Bran looked annoyed.
"What? No. What can that do? The Void can't come here without followers, and nothing else lives there, so what could happen?" The halfling shook his head as Victoria opened her mouth again.
"What if this isn't the only world where the portals are opening?" She asked softly, and everyone looked at her with various measures of confusion.
"They're opening from the other worlds to here," Tom said as if she were dumb. "The other side of the portal is open in the other world."
"No, I mean, yes, but what I mean is, if there are portals opening between the other worlds, directly between them, perhaps the Void has gotten new followers? Brought them to the Darkness or commanded them to march into and attack our world at the earliest opportunity?"
Gabriel took a deep breath. "That seems like something to let your brother worry about instead of you."
"I'm not a child anymore, Gabriel," The woman reminded him with a hint of irony in her voice. "I am free to worry about anything and everything I'd like to."
He felt a little bad suddenly. He didn't mean to infantilize her, but the thought was quite a heavy one. He looked down, keeping his mouth shut as he stroked Evey's soft head. The dog groaned softly, probably in embarrassment, and laid her chin on his knee.
"Worrying seems unproductive." Tom stated. "The sun is going down. Everyone sleep and we will leave in the morning."
"What about all your stuff?" Victoria looked around, and Gabriel followed suit. They did have a small fortune in supplies around.
"We will take what we can, but we cannot stay here for much longer. The risk of the great portal opening is growing daily." The halfling shrugged noncommittally. "We are not goblins, we are not greedy."
"Oh, there's another incredibly pleasant thing that might come through the portal." Victoria grumbled. "Next you'll be talking about gargoyles and things."
"We think those portals open closer to Ceto. Since your man mentioned a disaster there, I imagine a portal played a role in that." Bran banked the fire and stifled a yawn.
"Yes. A portal opened in the sky and dropped a poisonous mountain into the sea. The entire coast was wiped out by the wave, and now the sea is acidic and killing everything in it, as far as we can see." Gabriel's voice dropped as he glossed over what was the greatest level of disaster he'd ever seen.
A rather shocked silence fell on the group.
"So the portals are getting worse everywhere, then." Tom said quietly.
"It certainly seems that way, doesn't it?" Gabriel replied.
"Naomi, Caspian… are they…?" Victoria asked.
"They made it to Klain, along with many refugees." He assured her. "The city is caring for them all."
"Will the city stay safe? Is anywhere safe?" She fretted softly.
"I guess we'll be finding that out together."