"The Hermit," said Guybrush.
They needed to track these portal stones down from the source. The Hermit, presumably, knew which trading post had sold them off. It was the best lead they had, or so Guybrush said.
"But it'll mean using our portal stone," said Wally.
"Well, the Hermit said he found these about thirty years ago. Probably nobody ever used them before us. The guy I got this one off didn't have a clue what it was," said Guybrush.
"How is that possible?" wondered Elaine.
The others took this as a rhetorical question, and turned to the navigation controls. Elaine sighed.
Twenty minutes later, Boss Hog rotated into position. It paused, then
vanished.
Immediately, they were in the midst of a giant storm of whirling asteroids.
Guybrush dived to one side to allow the more dexterous Wally at the
controls. Rocks the size of houses whizzed past them at thousands of miles
an hour. Boss Hog joints and panels creaked, Wally pushing its construction
to the limit as they banked and jinked and rolled.
"What is this?" said Elaine, gripping the back of Guybrush's chair tightly. "I thought the Asteroid Belt was supposed to be mostly bare space."
"It is," said Guybrush, gripping the same chair from the other side. "Most of the time your nearest asteroids are hundreds of miles away. But we're in the arc, which is an enormously dense shell of asteroids that seems to rotate around empty space." He winced as a particularly large asteroid whizzed right above them.
Elaine looked at him questioningly.
"Well, it's not totally empty, the Hermit's asteroid floats in the centre of it."
"What's special about the asteroid?" asked Elaine.
"I don't know."
"Why not?"
Beside them, Wally executed one last manoeuvre, then sat back and wiped his brow. "We're clear."
The viewscreen in front of them showed black space. Right in the centre of the void was a tiny speck.
"Whew, that was close," said Guybrush. "Guess our little rigged teleportation system isn't quite accurate enough yet. Any damage?"
"Nothing being reported," announced Wally. As they talked, the tiny speck slowly grew in size. It became a slightly irregular floating sphere, half light brown, the other half cast in shadow. A slight bump on the horizon looked a little like the Hermit's dwelling.
"So, what's this Hermit like?" asked Elaine.
Guybrush looked at her. "You haven't heard of him?"
"Well, I've heard people talking about a hermit. You know, like you might talk about a proctologist. What's so special about this guy?"
Wally peered closer at the shadowy bump of the Hermit's dwelling. It looked a little more... angular than he remembered.
Guybrush couldn't believe her ignorance. A little annoyed, he said, "He's only the-"
On the asteroid before them, a red light suddenly winked into existence. Before anyone could react, a pulse laser blasted through the viewscreen.