The five women were soaked and exhausted as they fought strong winds and stinging rain to scale the butte in the darkness. Their wet skirts clung to their legs as they struggled upwards. No moonlight shone through the thick, ominous clouds; only blinding flashes of lightning allowed them glimpses of their perilous path, which was littered with sharp crags that tore cloth and flesh alike.

"Where is he, Mohan! You said he would come! You said he would aid us!" the black-haired Ellarice shouted contemptuously at their leader.

"He will come!" Mohan yelled down through her matted blond hair.

Mohan reached the top first and helped the others, who each fell panting to the ground. "No rest," she commanded as she pulled the youngest of them, the red-haired Leisha, to her feet.

Ellarice raised herself on one arm and glared at her. "We must rest, Mohan, or you'll have accomplished Venger's task for him! Either we rest or we use our power—"

"We'll do neither!" Mohan said with finality. "Our magic marks us. Would you invite Venger to destroy all of us? Already we are too few!"

The dark-skinned Syanna stood over Ellarice. "Get up, or we leave you here for the Orcs or the Lizardmen — whichever find you first."

"No!" Their leader's voice was sharp and forceful, near desperate. "Drag her if you must! No one is left behind!"

Syanna made to lift Ellarice, but was pushed away. Instead, Ellarice rose on her own, shaking her hair from her eyes, and walked past her. She stopped to help the only one of them still on the ground, who looked ill from fatigue. "Up, Peia. If I must rise, so must you."

Peia lay supine, looking up at her. "So speaks the voice of reason?" she said weakly before being pulled to her feet. She wiped brown hair from her cheeks, and the two smiled at each other.

"There!" Syanna suddenly shouted.

Shielding their eyes from the wind and rain, they all raised hopeful faces to the glow emanating from the center of the butte's summit.

"The Dungeon Master! It must be! Come, sisters!" said Mohan.

With renewed strength, they quickly closed the distance to the guiding light.

"Hurry, my children!" the Dungeon Master called.

Mohan saw now that the light came from the bright sun of another world. A portal, she realized.

"Quickly!" he shouted with a gesture to the magical aperture.

As she reached him, Mohan threw out her arm, halting the others. "You said nothing of leaving the Realm!" she shouted accusingly over the storm.

"I can no longer protect you from Venger here."

"That much became obvious!" retorted Ellarice.

"Ella!" said Peia, looking aghast.

"But I don't want to leave the Realm," Leisha said worriedly.

Syanna placed a supportive arm around her shoulders. "Is there any other way, Dungeon Master?"

Dungeon Master and Mohan looked at each other for one brief but meaningful moment.

"No," said Mohan, resigning herself and delivering the answer in his stead. "This is the only way. We must leave the Realm," she told her following. "Go, my sisters. Do not look back." She stepped back so that she and the Dungeon Master stood on either side of the portal.

The fearless Syanna went first, followed by an indignant Ellarice and a reluctant Peia.

Leisha stopped at the threshold, keeping her tearful gaze ahead so as not to look back. "Will we ever see the Realm again? Can we ever come home?"

Dungeon Master hesitated. "Only time will tell, child."

"I'm afraid, Dungeon Master."

"Follow your heart, and you will have nothing to fear."

Leisha smiled, staring with glistening eyes into the strange new world, and then stepped through.

Dungeon Master and Mohan were now alone. Wiping her long golden hair from her face, she looked back at their ravaged home world. "My coven is destroyed. We five are all that remain . . . So few . . . Are we enough?"

The question went unanswered.

"I fear for our children," she added.

"As do I, Mohan."

The witch eyed him. "But the Realm must come first, above all else. We who serve the Realm understand this, and make our sacrifices willingly . . . I would not see our sacrifices made in vain."

"Nor would I. Your children shall be my pupils, and I shall guide them along their journey."