Part 4
Adrian stood slowly, walking toward the open window overlooking the town square below. He rested one hand against the polished wooden frame as his eyes wandered across Stonehollow once more.
The banner bearing the town's crest fluttered gently above Town Hall.
A patrol of guards crossed the square in disciplined formation, Kael walking at their head while occasionally stopping to exchange a few words with passing citizens. Not because he needed to.
Because he wanted to.
Across the street, Borin stood atop a scaffold passionately explaining to three exhausted apprentices why "straight enough" wasn't actually straight at all.
Roxy emerged from the tavern carrying a basket of fresh bread, immediately handing an entire loaf to an elderly widower before pretending not to notice him slipping a few copper coins onto the counter.
No speeches.
No recognition.
Just kindness.
Adrian smiled to himself.
Stonehollow no longer felt like a town he was protecting.
It felt like a town protecting itself.
He hadn't noticed when that had happened.
Perhaps...
That meant they were finally ready.
Behind him, Elena quietly folded the last of the maps and returned them to the shelf.
"I'll tell Kael you'll be gone until tomorrow."
Adrian turned.
"So confident I'm leaving?"
She met his eyes evenly.
"You need to."
He sighed.
"I know."
"You've delayed it long enough."
"I've been busy."
"You've been hiding."
He didn't answer.
Because once again...
She was right.
There had been a time when returning to Earth had felt like returning home.
Now...
Leaving Stonehollow felt strangely similar to leaving family behind.
That frightened him more than he wanted to admit.
Not because he loved Earth any less.
But because somewhere along the journey...
Without realizing it...
He had gained a second home.
And every journey between them seemed to leave a little piece of himself behind.
He glanced once more toward the invitation resting on his desk.
Verdant Reach.
King Eldaron.
Politics.
A kingdom he had never seen.
Another responsibility waiting just beyond the horizon.
His shoulders felt heavier than they had that morning.
Not from exhaustion.
From expectation.
He was no longer simply travelling west as an adventurer.
He would be travelling as the Mayor of Stonehollow.
Every word he spoke.
Every decision he made.
Every promise he gave.
Would no longer represent Adrian Cole alone.
They would represent an entire town.
An entire people.
The realization settled across his shoulders like an invisible cloak.
Heavy.
Inescapable.
Real.
Adrian drew a slow breath before finally looking back at Elena.
"I'll head back to Earth."
She gave a single nod.
"When?"
He looked once more through the window toward the bustling streets below, committing the peaceful afternoon to memory.
"...Now."
The decision, once spoken aloud, seemed to settle something inside him.
Adrian remained standing by the office window for another minute, his gaze wandering across the rooftops of Stonehollow as though he could somehow commit every familiar sight to memory before leaving. The afternoon sun had begun its slow descent toward the western forests, bathing the town in warm amber light that softened the sharp edges of newly built roofs and freshly cut timber. Shadows stretched across the marketplace where merchants still bartered with customers despite the hour growing late, while laughter drifted upward from somewhere near Roxy's tavern as a group of builders celebrated the completion of another row of homes.
Only a few weeks ago those same streets had been stained with ash.
Now they carried children instead.
Adrian found himself smiling.
Perhaps Borin had been right.
Perhaps this was what victory truly looked like.
Not cheering crowds.
Not medals.
Not songs sung in taverns.
Just ordinary people living ordinary lives because someone had fought to give them that chance.
Behind him, Elena quietly gathered the last of the reports into neat piles before placing them carefully inside one of the office cabinets. She closed the wooden doors gently, almost as though she feared disturbing the peace that had settled over the room.
"I'll let Kael know you'll be away until tomorrow," she said, turning back toward Adrian. "If anything important happens, he'll postpone it until you return."
Adrian looked over his shoulder.
"You make that sound simple."
"It is."
"I feel like I'm forgetting something."
"You probably are."
He frowned.
"That isn't comforting."
"It isn't meant to be."
She crossed the room until she stood beside him once more, following his gaze out across Stonehollow.
"The town survived before you."
"It did."
"It survived during the war."
"It barely did."
"And it'll survive one day without you."
Adrian remained silent.
He wanted to argue.
To point out the unfinished walls.
The trade negotiations.
The rebuilding.
The invitation from Verdant Reach.
The endless stack of responsibilities waiting patiently on his desk.
Instead...
He simply nodded.
Because arguing would only be another way of pretending she wasn't right.
The silence between them lingered comfortably before Adrian reached beneath his shirt and rested his hand against the small pendant hanging from the chain around his neck.
The familiar warmth answered immediately.
The Door of Viscera.
To anyone else it looked like an ordinary piece of carved stone.
To Adrian...
It had become the bridge between two impossible lives.
He closed his fingers around it.
"I'll be back tomorrow."
Elena nodded once.
"I know."
There was no dramatic farewell.
No promises.
No emotional speeches.
They had crossed between worlds too many times for that.
Instead, Adrian simply smiled before allowing mana to flow through the pendant.
The familiar warmth spread across his palm almost instantly.
Then up his arm.
The room around him blurred gently, the polished walls of Town Hall dissolving into drifting streams of pale blue light. Stonehollow faded slowly from view—not torn away, but receding like a memory carried downstream—until the familiar sensation of weightlessness wrapped itself around him once more.
The transition had never become entirely comfortable.
Even after all this time.
For one fleeting moment...
There was nothing.
No sound.
No light.
No direction.
Only endless blue.
Then gravity returned.
A familiar ceiling greeted him.
Plain white paint.
A faint water stain near the corner that he'd been meaning to fix for nearly a year.
The quiet hum of an old refrigerator somewhere beyond the bedroom door.
Adrian blinked several times, allowing his eyes to adjust as the last traces of mana faded from the room.
Earth.
The word still felt strange.
Not because it wasn't home.
Because it no longer felt like his only one.
He sat slowly on the edge of the bed, rubbing both hands across his face before letting out a long breath.
The apartment looked exactly as he'd left it.
Books remained stacked untidily beside the desk beneath the window.
A half-finished manuscript rested inside his laptop, the blinking cursor patiently waiting where he'd abandoned it days earlier. An empty coffee mug still occupied the corner of the desk beside several crumpled pages filled with handwritten notes that had once seemed incredibly important.
Now...
He couldn't even remember what half of them referred to.
The clock beside the bed read 10:17 a.m.
He frowned.
Seven days in Eryndor.
Barely over a day here.
No matter how many times he experienced the difference, it still refused to feel normal.
The apartment itself carried the quiet stillness of a place that had spent too long without anyone living in it properly. Dust hadn't had time to gather, but the rooms felt... paused. As though his life here politely waited every time he stepped through the Door of Viscera.
He stood and wandered slowly toward the kitchen.
The sink contained exactly one plate.
One fork.
One coffee mug.
"...Past Adrian."
He opened the refrigerator.
"...You really should've gone shopping."
Inside sat half a loaf of bread, butter, two eggs and a bottle of milk that required immediate inspection.
He picked it up.
Looked at the date.
"...We're still friends."
The milk survived.
Barely.
He closed the fridge again before wandering toward the living room.
Nothing had changed.
The same worn couch.
The same television.
The same bookshelf overflowing with fantasy novels whose pages had once inspired dreams of worlds exactly like Eryndor.
Funny.
Back then...
He had wanted to escape reality.
Now reality was asking him to choose between two worlds.
The familiar sensation of weightlessness wrapped itself around Adrian once again.
It never truly became comfortable.
Each journey through the Door of Viscera felt like standing between two heartbeats, suspended in a place where neither world existed and yet both waited patiently on opposite sides. There was no sky. No ground. No sound beyond the quiet hum of ancient mana flowing through the impossible doorway.
Then...
Gravity returned.
Solid stone greeted his boots.
The circular chamber beneath his house was exactly as he had left it.
Cool air lingered within the underground room, carrying the faint scent of earth and polished stone. Weeks of careful Earth Magic had transformed what had once been an ordinary basement into something far more extraordinary. The walls curved naturally around the chamber as though they had always existed, every inch carved with painstaking precision before being reinforced with layers of compacted earth and enchanted stone.
Soft blue mana crystals embedded high within the walls bathed the chamber in a gentle glow, bright enough to illuminate the room without drawing attention from anyone upstairs.
Against one wall stood several sturdy wooden shelves.
Each had been built by Borin before Adrian secretly transported them back through the portal one piece at a time.
Camping equipment rested neatly beside carefully labelled storage crates.
Blank journals.
Medical supplies.
Bundles of preserved food.
Extra travelling clothes.
Several sacks of roasted coffee beans occupied an entire shelf of their own.
Adrian smiled.
Some luxuries were worth protecting.
At the centre of the chamber stood the ancient stone archway.
The Door of Viscera.
Its weathered surface shimmered faintly as the last traces of blue mana slowly disappeared into the carved runes surrounding the frame. The portal itself faded moments later, leaving only the silent arch standing alone within the chamber like a forgotten monument from another age.
Adrian rested one hand against the cool stone.
For a few seconds...
He simply stood there.
It was strange.
Every time he returned to Earth, part of him immediately began wondering how Stonehollow was doing.
Had Borin finally convinced his apprentices that measuring something twice wasn't an insult?
Was Kael already making another patrol schedule?
Had Lyra accidentally invented another ritual involving Gerald?
He laughed quietly to himself.
The thoughts came so naturally now.
Only a few months earlier he would have been desperate to leave Eryndor behind.
Now...
He found himself missing it before he'd even left.
"...You've ruined me," he muttered softly to the silent doorway.
The arch offered no reply.
With a gentle sigh, Adrian stepped toward the narrow stone staircase leading upward.
Before climbing, he placed both hands against the rough wall beside the stairs and allowed a small stream of mana to flow into the surrounding stone.
Earth Magic responded immediately.
The hidden doorway melted seamlessly back into place.
Stone flowed like water for only a heartbeat before hardening once again, leaving no visible crack, seam or hint that a passage had ever existed.
To anyone standing in the basement above...
Nothing would seem unusual.
That had always been the point.
Grandma Lilly could never discover this room.
Not because Adrian didn't trust her.
Because he couldn't bear the thought of dragging her into a world filled with monsters, magic and wars she had never asked to become part of.
Some burdens...
He was content carrying alone.