Wasteland, Baby

It was supposed to be fun. An exciting tournament, no death on the line, in a new, beautiful place. Nel had strategized about how to stay in the shady part of the arena for the fight so that she could still see. Her opponent was a good sort.
 
Then the area changed. There was a blisteringly hot, bright haze, each drop of -- was it dust?-- in the air a tiny mirror shining the punishing sunlight at her in miniature, brighter and stronger than a clear summer day. She recognized the place immediately from the portal Aaboli had sent the ursan femur through. The dry air, the cracked earth, the unshakable stench of death and dry decay. It was the Wastelands. Why were they in the Wastelands? Had she taken too long rescue her people? Had Aaboli managed to conjure her there? Where was she -- where were all of them? In a rush of panic she forgot completely about the tournament, about her opponent, about Vodacce. All she knew was they she was somehow in the Wastlelands and her family was nowhere to be seen. She'd taken too long. They had trusted her and she had let them down. Let them die. Or worse.
 
Then a small blur swung a sword at her and she remembered the tournament and swung back, disoriented and confused -- until the next time the wind shrieked again and her nightmares about letting her people die in the Wastelands came back to life again.
 
The fight continued like this, in and out of her deepest fears, until the gallant dwarf offered to let her yield. It was just the tournament. She accepted, setting down her battle axe.
 
Normally she would have cared about failing so hard and so publicly in representing Eisen. She would have cared that thousands of people had watched her lose her mind. But none of that mattered. Because Aaboli and her kin were still waiting. And her friends were still willing to go her to to rescue them in that deadly place. And she knew, after just a few minutes in this version of the Wastelands, that she had no chance of being of any help to anyone in that bright, hot, evil place.