The square still smelled of smoke and blood. Villagers were on their knees, patching wounds, pulling rubble off the injured, whispering prayers that sounded more like desperate bargaining with the sky. The ogre had limped back into the forest, leaving a trail of black sludge like tar. Zeke stood in the middle of it all, shirt torn, wrists raw, six chambers empty.
For a heartbeat, nobody moved. Then the voices started.
"Did you see—?"
"He killed it! With the Fang of Thunder!"
"No man should wield that thing…"
Zeke holstered his revolver, ignoring their stares. He'd been looked at like a demon before, back in towns where his bounty posters hung crooked in every saloon. But this was different. This wasn't fear of a man. This was fear of something they didn't have a name for.
The mage shuffled closer, robes dragging across the ash-stained dirt. His eyes glowed faintly in the torchlight, though Zeke wasn't sure if that was real or just his imagination playing tricks.
"You could have fled," the old man rasped. "You could have left us to be slaughtered. Yet you stood."
"I didn't stand for you," Zeke muttered. He thumbed the revolver's hammer back, checked the empty cylinder, then spun it again. "I stood for the kid. I ain't about to watch a child get eaten."
The mage smiled, but it was the kind of smile that didn't quite reach the eyes. "Compassion and firepower. A rare combination."
Zeke's jaw tightened. "Cut the sermons, old man. You've got questions, I've got answers: I don't know how I got here, I don't care about your monsters, and I sure as hell ain't your savior."
The mage ignored his tone and motioned toward the crumbled hall at the edge of the square. "Come. The people are shaken. They will not sleep tonight. But you and I—we must speak."
---
The hall smelled of dust and herbs. Strange sigils burned faintly on the walls, carved into the wood long before Zeke's time. Villagers gathered outside, whispering through the windows like children crowding around a campfire tale.
Zeke leaned against the long table, spinning his revolver idly while the mage lit a bundle of incense.
"You've a dangerous talent," the old man began. "The weapon you carry—it is not mere steel and powder. It is prophecy."
"It's a Colt," Zeke snapped. "Model 1873. Steel, powder, lead. Nothin' more."
The mage chuckled softly. "And yet it killed what our spears could not scratch. You wield fire as lightning. That is not nothing."
Zeke didn't answer. He simply flicked his cylinder open again, staring at the empty chambers. Six little mouths begging to be fed. He was running low, and he knew it.
Finally, the mage leaned across the table, his voice dropping. "The village owes you a debt. But debts are not why I ask this. More will come. The ogre was not alone. This forest… it has grown darker, fouler, since the Black Dragon stirred. If you stay, if you fight with us, we may yet live."
There it was—the offer.
Zeke holstered the Colt and shook his head. "Not my fight. You got swords, bows, and whatever mumbo-jumbo you call magic. You don't need me."
The mage's eyes sharpened, cutting through the haze of smoke. "And where will you go, wanderer? You do not belong here. Your tongue is broken in our mouths, your clothes mark you as a ghost from elsewhere. You cannot even ask for bread without confusion. Alone, you will starve."
"I've starved before," Zeke said. His tone was calm, but his fingers drummed against the table, restless.
Silence stretched. Outside, the villagers murmured, the fear in their voices thick as the night.
The mage sighed. "Then tell me. What do you want?"
Zeke didn't hesitate. "A way home."
For the first time, the old man's smile disappeared. His gaze dropped, and when it rose again, it burned with something heavier than mere wisdom. "Then you seek the same thing I do."
Zeke squinted. "And what's that supposed to mean?"
The mage straightened, robes brushing the floor. He raised one bony hand, and with a flick of his wrist, the air shimmered. In the space between them, an image appeared—like heat rising off desert sand. A jagged mountain peak, blacker than midnight, wrapped in stormclouds that pulsed like veins.
"The Hollow Peaks," the mage whispered. "Within those mountains lies a relic. The Kunci Dimensi. The only key that can tear open the veil between worlds."
The image faded, leaving only the faint smell of ozone.
Zeke froze, his heartbeat loud in his ears. The phrase cut through him like a spur digging into flesh. A key to open worlds.
The mage's eyes locked onto his. "If you want to go home, cowboy… the Dimensional Key is the only way."