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I come to a halt almost immediately after crossing through the swirling, white, misty portal, my mana washing over everything in a wide area around me, and through it I get my first sense of the new world around me.
Dunes of golden sand sparkle in the sunlight, and though my observation doesn’t reach high enough to detect clouds themselves, the light levels tell me that the sky above is free from them completely. I can also determine, by the occasional grains of sand being blown across the ground, and by my feathers ruffling slightly, that there is a soft breeze.
I don’t “feel” the breeze, in the way that mortals generally would, just as I don’t technically “see” the landscape around me, but an innate, extrasensory ability provides me with a flawless, three-dimensional picture of the world around me, complete with sounds and smells.
My kin and I refer to this sense as “S3 Magicka”, as it is clearly magical in nature, and as it serves as a replacement for three senses common to many mortal races; sight, sound and smell. With S3 Magicka, it’s all but impossible for me to miss anything that happens around me, no matter how subtle, as it meticulously depicts every minuscule detail, extending out to a range of several hundre-
Wait. Just two hundred metres, give or take a few? That can’t be right, surely. My sense should reach significantly further out than that. Could something be inhibiting my magic?
Despite the obvious issue that I’ll be far more likely to end up dead with my power weakened, I can’t help but feel a jolt of excitement at the thought. Whilst it is known to be possible to artificially deaden magic, such spells are beyond my race’s ability to replicate, despite us being gods, and examples of such things on the worlds we have taken are tremendously rare. It’s also entirely feasible that this could be a natural consequence of crossing into an alternate dimension with different laws of physics.
So either way, I’ve found something extremely interesting, though of course I’m hoping for the latter. Portals to others woulds are always amazing, but portals leading to altogether different planes of existence are the rarest of the rare!
Ah, I feel so extraordinarily fortunate to have come across this po-
Uuum… hold up a moment.
Where is it?
I don’t need to turn back to face the way I came to see what's behind me, thanks to my aforementioned extrasensory magic… so how the heck did I not notice this sooner!? The portal isn’t there! It’s completely vanished!
Was it a one-way portal? Or a single-use portal? Do either of those even exist!?
My shoulders slump. I suddenly feel rather crestfallen. It’s not the significant increase in my odds of dying a horrible death that’s bothering me, but just an overwhelming sense of disappointment. Does this mean that no one else will ever be able to come visit this plane? Or does it mean that they can come here, but none of us who do so will ever be able to leave?
Well, it might still be possible to at least send back records of my findings, so I should test that out. If I can do that then this won’t be so bad, I suppose. It’ll be a pity if I can’t see any of my siblings in the flesh ever again, but so long as we can keep in contact somehow, that will be enough for me.
It’s not like we met in person all that often anyway. The last time I was within sensing range of another god must’ve been, what, near two hundred thousand years ago? Yeah, something like that.
I raise a hand and make a few quick gestures, just as I did several minutes previously, on the other side of the portal. This time, however, the spell construct fails to form, its matrices sliding apart faster than I can establish them. I sigh uncomfortably. I guess this confirms that my power has been severely downgraded as of arriving here.
The silver lining is that at least my failed attempt at establishing contact with the others consumed only the most indescribably negligible of amounts of mana, so presumably my near-endless stamina hasn’t been too badly afflicted by the transition… or by whatever anti-magic effect is active here, in the event that such is the case.
Unfortunately, the dark, looming and immense thundercloud which the silver lining outlines is that I may never be able to contact any of my kin ever again, for as long as I live.
That’s pretty depressing to think about, though, so I push the thought from my mind, reminding myself that I’ll also never see any of them ever again if I die, and I knew I was risking that outcome when I strode through the portal. Sheesh, I was risking death just to sate my curiosity long before I found the portal. Actually, risking my life has never really been an uncommon thing for me, ever since my flock reached our galaxy and began our explorations of it, all those many millions of years ago.
Yes, there’s no need for me to get all worked up over nothing. If this isn’t an another realm then all I’ll need to do to make contact will be to escape the area of effect of whatever it is that's inhibiting my magic, and even if it is a separate plane, if there was a portal leading here, even if only a temporary one, then I ought to find a way back if I look long and hard enough.
That said, spending all my time in this new and potentially wondrous place just looking for a way out would be practically criminal. Imagine if I actually made it back after dozens or hundreds of years and the only secrets I could share were the details of my escape route. Ugh, that’d be utterly humiliating.
Darn, I’m getting embarrassed just thinking about it.
Okay, so here’s the plan: go out and explore the new place as normal. Attempt to confirm whether it is truly another universe, and if not, contact the others whenever I’ve reached an area where I can use magicomms again. And if it is another universe? Just keep on exploring until I stumble across a way back, I guess. Or until something kills me, of course.
With that cheery thought, I flap my wings once and soar upwards, stopping to hover in midair once I’m several dozen meters above the sand. I pause for a moment, wondering where to head now; dunes stretch out as far as I can sense in every direction, offering no clues as to which bearing might lead me to something of interest.
As I don’t tire, or require sustenance, and won’t suffer in the scorching days and freezing nights typical of deserts, I don’t suppose it really matters which way I head. If this planet has anything worth finding, I’m sure I’ll come across it eventually. Given that, I just pick a direction at random and, with another beat of my wings, I swoop off through the air.
Dunes of golden sand sparkle in the sunlight, and though my observation doesn’t reach high enough to detect clouds themselves, the light levels tell me that the sky above is free from them completely. I can also determine, by the occasional grains of sand being blown across the ground, and by my feathers ruffling slightly, that there is a soft breeze.
I don’t “feel” the breeze, in the way that mortals generally would, just as I don’t technically “see” the landscape around me, but an innate, extrasensory ability provides me with a flawless, three-dimensional picture of the world around me, complete with sounds and smells.
My kin and I refer to this sense as “S3 Magicka”, as it is clearly magical in nature, and as it serves as a replacement for three senses common to many mortal races; sight, sound and smell. With S3 Magicka, it’s all but impossible for me to miss anything that happens around me, no matter how subtle, as it meticulously depicts every minuscule detail, extending out to a range of several hundre-
Wait. Just two hundred metres, give or take a few? That can’t be right, surely. My sense should reach significantly further out than that. Could something be inhibiting my magic?
Despite the obvious issue that I’ll be far more likely to end up dead with my power weakened, I can’t help but feel a jolt of excitement at the thought. Whilst it is known to be possible to artificially deaden magic, such spells are beyond my race’s ability to replicate, despite us being gods, and examples of such things on the worlds we have taken are tremendously rare. It’s also entirely feasible that this could be a natural consequence of crossing into an alternate dimension with different laws of physics.
So either way, I’ve found something extremely interesting, though of course I’m hoping for the latter. Portals to others woulds are always amazing, but portals leading to altogether different planes of existence are the rarest of the rare!
Ah, I feel so extraordinarily fortunate to have come across this po-
Uuum… hold up a moment.
Where is it?
I don’t need to turn back to face the way I came to see what's behind me, thanks to my aforementioned extrasensory magic… so how the heck did I not notice this sooner!? The portal isn’t there! It’s completely vanished!
Was it a one-way portal? Or a single-use portal? Do either of those even exist!?
My shoulders slump. I suddenly feel rather crestfallen. It’s not the significant increase in my odds of dying a horrible death that’s bothering me, but just an overwhelming sense of disappointment. Does this mean that no one else will ever be able to come visit this plane? Or does it mean that they can come here, but none of us who do so will ever be able to leave?
Well, it might still be possible to at least send back records of my findings, so I should test that out. If I can do that then this won’t be so bad, I suppose. It’ll be a pity if I can’t see any of my siblings in the flesh ever again, but so long as we can keep in contact somehow, that will be enough for me.
It’s not like we met in person all that often anyway. The last time I was within sensing range of another god must’ve been, what, near two hundred thousand years ago? Yeah, something like that.
I raise a hand and make a few quick gestures, just as I did several minutes previously, on the other side of the portal. This time, however, the spell construct fails to form, its matrices sliding apart faster than I can establish them. I sigh uncomfortably. I guess this confirms that my power has been severely downgraded as of arriving here.
The silver lining is that at least my failed attempt at establishing contact with the others consumed only the most indescribably negligible of amounts of mana, so presumably my near-endless stamina hasn’t been too badly afflicted by the transition… or by whatever anti-magic effect is active here, in the event that such is the case.
Unfortunately, the dark, looming and immense thundercloud which the silver lining outlines is that I may never be able to contact any of my kin ever again, for as long as I live.
That’s pretty depressing to think about, though, so I push the thought from my mind, reminding myself that I’ll also never see any of them ever again if I die, and I knew I was risking that outcome when I strode through the portal. Sheesh, I was risking death just to sate my curiosity long before I found the portal. Actually, risking my life has never really been an uncommon thing for me, ever since my flock reached our galaxy and began our explorations of it, all those many millions of years ago.
Yes, there’s no need for me to get all worked up over nothing. If this isn’t an another realm then all I’ll need to do to make contact will be to escape the area of effect of whatever it is that's inhibiting my magic, and even if it is a separate plane, if there was a portal leading here, even if only a temporary one, then I ought to find a way back if I look long and hard enough.
That said, spending all my time in this new and potentially wondrous place just looking for a way out would be practically criminal. Imagine if I actually made it back after dozens or hundreds of years and the only secrets I could share were the details of my escape route. Ugh, that’d be utterly humiliating.
Darn, I’m getting embarrassed just thinking about it.
Okay, so here’s the plan: go out and explore the new place as normal. Attempt to confirm whether it is truly another universe, and if not, contact the others whenever I’ve reached an area where I can use magicomms again. And if it is another universe? Just keep on exploring until I stumble across a way back, I guess. Or until something kills me, of course.
With that cheery thought, I flap my wings once and soar upwards, stopping to hover in midair once I’m several dozen meters above the sand. I pause for a moment, wondering where to head now; dunes stretch out as far as I can sense in every direction, offering no clues as to which bearing might lead me to something of interest.
As I don’t tire, or require sustenance, and won’t suffer in the scorching days and freezing nights typical of deserts, I don’t suppose it really matters which way I head. If this planet has anything worth finding, I’m sure I’ll come across it eventually. Given that, I just pick a direction at random and, with another beat of my wings, I swoop off through the air.