[teleporting from here]

The dizzying, whirling sensation that characterized teleportation on Gant's first night was just the same as he remembered it. However, after a minute of stumbling into the new area he was still just as nauseated as before, and worse.

"Lan--" Gant interrupted himself with a watery cough. Falling to his knees, Gant clutched at his chest as the pain from the attack suddenly came into sharp focus. Another cough racked his body and he dropped the gun from his hand, reaching up to cover his mouth. He felt wetness and tasted copper.

Damn it. Another round of coughs and Gant was reaching for Lana, trying to get her attention. "Lana... Lana, I..." He could barely breathe. He was bleeding profusely from the hole in his chest. He thought maybe his lung had also been punctured in the fight. What a cheap shot from that mangled hodgepodge of a monster.

He was going to die, wasn't he?

[from here]

"Well, now," the boy murmured, voice filled with dry humor. "So you have a creature from myth, trials of combat, and now puzzle pieces to fit a door. And what next?"

It was a small and slender hallway, that at first glance, seemed to lead nowhere. Albedo moved further in, the group behind him almost forgotten. For therein laid the other puzzle. Beasts and creature alike, and where there should have been a door, there instead was a head of a serpent. With such a clear explanation in regards.

His hand moved without a thought for the moment after, finger pricking on the fang nearest to him. For who else to have wound themselves than the one who could regenerate it away? With that thought, he turned to smirk at Yomi. Her, too. She was the other one who would have no problem with this. And didn't she want to see where this led?

[from here]

Billy. Kirk was tempted to ask the man where exactly he was from — the accent was English, distinctly out of place in the pseudo-America of Landel's world — but he figured he'd leave that question to Wichita. As before, Kirk was surprised by how quickly the young woman went from distraught to composed, but he hid it better this time, nodding when she insisted on sticking together. He held the door open with his shoulder, and did his best not to wince at the way it jostled his arm when the other two went past him into the kitchen.

"It's a portal ring," he answered, lifting his left hand to show them the silver ring on his finger. In the slot where previously a red stone had been set were smudges of Kirk's blood. "You both must be pretty new if you don't remember when Landel handed these out. Break the rock and it's supposed to transport you to the last place you... well, long story short, it worked." He grinned, not a little recklessly. "It's my first time ever using one."

And if there were catches (this was Landel's Laboratory; of course there would be a catch), Kirk could deal with them as they came. For now, they needed to find something to treat their wounds — or, failing that, to get Wichita to a proper doctor before things got worse. Kirk knew of only one he trusted, but it was a risky trip to Bones' room, without even a guarantee that Bones would be there.

Or Spock, or Uhura. Whatever the case, he hoped they were together, and taking care of themselves. Kirk had taken only two steps into the spacious kitchen before he halted, one arm automatically going out to stop Billy and Wichita's advance.

A young man — a teenager, really — stood at the side of the room, dressed in the Landel's greys and appearing intensely focused on the arrangement of white cupboards above him. Kirk stared another silent second before asking: "Chekov?"

Kirk hadn't seen him in over a week (not since night with the "portals," in fact) but there was no doubt over who he was, not with that curly mop of hair. As if Kirk's idle thoughts of crew had summoned him, except now the ensign showed no sign of hearing or seeing his captain. "Hey—" he tried again, and without warning, Chekov bolted, tearing from the room at full speed...

...and right through the wall, as if he were no more substantial than a ghost.

[from here]

It was a small box of a room, dark, smelling of wood and gasoline. There wasn't much space to walk. Her light hit more objects than it did walls, and more large contraptions than floor. Her blood and snow-crusted boots made wet prints on the wooden floor. Not much moonlight chased them inside, but enough reflected off the snow to give the place shape to navigate. As was to be expected, she did not recognize the great majority of what lay here.

The girl looked over her shoulder to her companion. "Do you know what this is?" she asked, the beam of her light indicating everything more than any one object.