It wasn't subtle. It wasn't a gentle vibration like an item responding to proximity. It was a violent, insistent rattle, like a trapped animal trying to bite its way out. Ludwig stopped mid-step. His shoulders stiffened. The portal's light flickered once, a faint hiccup like it had been interrupted.
He pulled it out, it was the cube he obtained from killing the Duke of the house Drak and the Seer.
The Dimensional Cube sat in his palm like a mistake that had survived judgment. Smooth edges, impossible angles, surface catching light in ways that made the eyes want to slide off. Even now, even after all the killing it had taken to claim it, it didn't feel like an object so much as a rule made solid.
Just then, the portal that was leading outside morphed and changed shape, no longer did it reveal the long walls, but instead a golden domed palace that rose above a high mountain.
