Period of Draconium, 14th Rotation
Outer World Library – Inter-Realm Nexus, Interstice
It hit her all at once.
Reality fractured, folding in on itself like a wet cloth being wrung dry.
For a single impossible instant, her body seemed to stretch beyond its limits and compress into nothing at the same time. There was no sense of up or down, no certainty that she still occupied a physical form.
Colours burst behind her closed eyelids, shades that had no names and no place in any spectrum she had ever known. Fragments of light streaked across her awareness like molten stars, while time splintered, twisting and recoiling like gauze caught in a relentless storm.
Then the sensation intensified.
Pressure crushed her from every side.
Her lungs seized. Her heartbeat thundered. For one terrifying instant, she was certain she was being pulled apart molecule by molecule.
Then, as abruptly as it had begun, it stopped.
Her boots struck solid ground with a sharp, resonant clack.
The impact jolted through her legs and into her spine. She stumbled forward, barely catching herself before she fell. A wave of nausea surged up, sharp and immediate. She dropped to one knee, one hand pressed against the ground beneath her.
Stone.
Cold. Solid. Real.
She concentrated on that single fact while her body struggled to remember its balance..
She remained motionless for several seconds, breathing carefully through the nausea. Each inhalation steadied her a little more. Gradually, the nausea retreated from a violent lurch to a dull, persistent churn.
Only when the trembling in her hands began to subside did she risk standing.
Even then, she kept her eyes shut, clinging to the fragile sanctuary of darkness.
Beyond her eyelids waited an entirely unknown reality, and she was not yet certain she wanted to see it.
Around her, she sensed something vast.
The air vibrated with a presence that was both alien and strangely familiar.
Life.
The word surfaced unbidden.
Every inhalation seemed to carry it, dense and pressing, as though the very air insisted on filling her lungs with its weight. It rolled over her in waves, leaving her suspended between extremes: unbearably insignificant and yet impossibly vast, as if she were at once a single drop of water and an entire ocean.
She drew another slow breath.
Then another.
The pounding of her heart gradually settled into a steady rhythm.
At last, she opened her eyes.
Light struck her eyes like a blade—harsh and merciless. She recoiled instinctively as it seared across her retinas, wringing moisture that streamed down her cheeks.
She raised a hand to shield her gaze, but managed to resist the temptation to retreat back into darkness. Gradually, shapes began to emerge—jagged and indistinct at first, then slowly coalescing into recognisable forms.
The sight before her stole her breath.
All around her, portals fractured the air in cascades of brilliant, almost blinding light. From each rift spilled a new wave of arrivals—bodies staggering, tumbling, some collapsing outright—accompanied by startled shouts, ragged laughter, and muffled curses.
The low, resonant roar of countless converging multitudes pressed in from every direction, a chaotic tide of motion and noise that made her head spin. Her senses strained to process the scale of it, but she had no choice; she braced herself and tried to make sense of it.
She had barely begun to orient herself when a portal tore open less than a foot away.
The flare of raw energy hit like a blow to the chest, punching the air from her lungs. For one stunned heartbeat, she forgot how to move, her body caught between paralysis and panic. Then the familiar surge of fight-or-flight flooded through her. Skin prickled, senses sharpened, muscles strung taut.
A figure stumbled through the rift.
He managed a single unsteady step before his knees buckled.
Instinct overrode caution.
She lunged forward.
The stranger's weight slammed into her shoulder before she could fully brace herself. The impact drove her back a step, boots scraping against the ground as she fought to keep her footing. A sharp grunt escaped her lips. For a moment, she thought they were both going down.
Then she planted one foot hard behind her and held. Her arms locked around him as she absorbed the rest of his momentum.
He sagged heavily against her. Breath rasping in rapid bursts—the tell-tale aftermath of a rough crossing. Inter-dimensional vertigo, the body rebelling against the violent disjunction of portal travel.
She knew the sensation all too well now. The lingering aftershocks of her own passage still prickled. Yet what she endured was nothing compared to the torment wracking the man leaning against her.
A faint green glow gathered at her fingertips, seeping into him where her hands made contact. She wove her magic carefully, threading it through his disoriented body like a gentle, warm current, coaxing his nervous system back toward equilibrium.
Gradually, his breathing steadied, though the tension lingered, and faint tremors still ran along his limbs.
"Uh…" Her voice rasped as she tried to speak. She hesitated, heat prickling along the back of her neck. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to continue. "Are you… feeling any better? Can you stand?"
The words emerged rough and strained. She winced, wishing she could drag them back the moment they left her mouth.
If he noticed the wrecked state of her voice, he gave no sign. A low, wordless sound rumbled out of him, somewhere between a grunt and a hum; not quite agreement, not quite refusal.
He remained leaning heavily against her.
So she continued.
Magic flowed from her in steady currents, threading deliberately through the rigid knots of his muscles. She coaxed the tension apart, strand by strand, easing tremors and softening the painful stiffness locked beneath his skin.
At first, the changes were almost imperceptible, subtle as frost melting beneath morning light. Then, little by little, his body began to loosen beneath her touch.
His shoulders sagged from their tense hunch. Fingers that had clenched hard enough to leave crescent marks slowly unfurled. The taut lines drawn along his back and neck softened under the careful coaxing of her magic.
When she was certain the worst had passed and that he could keep his balance without her support, she slowly loosened her hold. Stepping back, she left a cautious buffer of space between them.
He swayed once, subtly, as though testing the ground beneath his feet. Her attention never left him. She watched every shift of his posture, every minute adjustment, until at last he straightened fully, standing on his own without wavering.
Only then did she allow herself a measured breath.
The breath stalled halfway through her lungs as her gaze truly took in his appearance for the first time.
At his full height, he was imposing, well over two metres tall.
His shadow settled over her like a mantle, and though reason insisted she was not small, nearly one hundred and eighty centimetres herself, brushing the upper bounds of the female average, his presence diminished her all the same.
Among Origin-Dwellers, such stature was hardly unusual. Augmentations for strength, agility, and endurance were commonplace. Yet whatever made him formidable could not be reduced to engineered biology or sheer scale alone.
Golden curls spilled to his waist in unruly abundance, restrained only by a crude twist of gold wire that looked more like a last-minute afterthought than a deliberate attempt at control. Several strands had already escaped, tumbling forward to frame his face and soften the more austere angles of his features.
Portal-light rippled through the coils of his hair, turning them molten.
His skin, warm and honey-burnished beneath the same radiance, seemed almost to carry its own glow, a living warmth against the cold cerulean light bleeding from the surrounding rifts.
Then he lowered his head, his gaze settling on hers with what felt like unnerving accuracy.
Her heart lurched.
The veil she wore, crafted to conceal every contour of her face, suddenly felt woefully inadequate. Beneath the weight of his attention, it may as well have been transparent.
His thick dark-blond brows drew together slightly, and beneath them his eyes, amethyst and softly luminous beneath the shifting light, studied her from beneath long dark lashes. Steady and arresting, they held her motionless beneath their regard.
Then the crease between his brows eased, and a smile spread across his face. open and disarmingly genuine. Not restrained. Not cautious. Open, immediate, disarmingly certain.
Dimples surfaced on his cheeks, softening his features, while the freckles scattered across the contours of his face and the slightly crooked bridge of his nose caught the light like flecks of copper.
He was—
A shoulder slammed into her.
She blinked.
The crowd had grown without her noticing.
What had been a tolerable scatter of arrivals had thickened into something far less forgiving. With each new portal flare, more bodies spilled in, and the space around them collapsed in slow, inevitable increments.
Elbows clipped her ribs. Shoulders brushed past with indifferent force. Heat and motion pressed in from every direction, carried on the restless surge of arriving bodies.
The small pocket of space she had been standing in collapsed in an instant, swallowed by the press of movement and heat.
She stumbled forward and collided against him.
A shiver raced down her spine, sharp and insistent, and every nerve lit with unease.
When she tried to step back, there was nowhere to go.
The throng closed ranks, compressing the world until she was pinned against him by the sheer density of bodies and movement.
He reacted at once, turning into the crush. His broad frame angled outward, absorbing the force of the crowd to shield her from the worst of it and create a narrow pocket of breathing room around her.
Air slipped between them, cool and sudden, brushing her skin like release after suffocation. Only then did she realise she had been holding her breath.
"Uh—hey." His voice thrummed through the narrow space between them, low enough that it was felt more than heard.
She tilted her head to look up at him, but the combination of proximity, motion, and their height difference made it difficult to fully meet his gaze.
He lifted a hand to the back of his neck, scratching in a gesture that looked almost awkward in contrast to his size. A crooked grin surfaced. "Thanks for, you know… taking care of me back there. Could've gotten messy without your help."
His eyes moved over the crowd, tracking the shifting press of bodies and the flickering portal light before returning to her. The grin faltered slightly.
"We should probably move. Looks like we're right in the middle of the portal drop zone, my dear Va—" He cut himself off abruptly, cleared his throat. "—my lady."
A faint tension flickered across his expression, then eased again into something more tentative. "If you want, I can get us somewhere less crowded. Unless, uh..." His eyes flicked toward their surroundings. "Crowds are your thing?"
Her lips parted to respond, but her reply never quite made it out cleanly.
Her throat seized. Words snagged behind clenched teeth as irritation flared sharp and immediate along her windpipe. She curled her fists tight, nails pressing crescents into her palms, jaw locked against the cough trying to force its way free.
For a moment, she simply endured it—shoulders rigid, breath stuttering—until the constriction thankfully eased.
"Yes," she managed. "I… please."
Even to her own ears, the sound felt frayed at the edges. She only hoped the surrounding din swallowed the worst of it.
He let out a short laugh. "Right then. Follow me, my lady. I promise not to get us lost. But…" his gaze flicked over the press of bodies, "…you may want to stay close."
He turned and began to thread through the throng, moving with a practiced awareness—shoulders angled just so, elbows shifting in subtle, measured corrections that parted the press of people without force or friction.
Every few paces, he glanced back to make sure she was still with him.
When the crush thickened, he slowed.
Without quite touching her, he adjusted his position at her side, lifting an arm just enough to create a corridor in the chaos—an unspoken barrier set between her and the press of bodies.
Protective, but not overbearingly so.
Gradually, the pressure around them eased. The air opened around them, and the space revealed itself—vast, cavernous, like the interior of an ancient colosseum.
Above, the ceiling dissolved into a diffuse radiance, where drifting motes of light shimmered like captive stars caught in a slow tide.
Obsidian marble stretched outward in every direction, polished to a flawless sheen that did not reflect light so much as swallow it.
Towering columns encircled the arena, each one carved with sigils that pulsed faintly, as though molten light flowed within their grooves.
Between the pillars stood colossal golden portals—far greater than the erratic rifts that had ferried them here—ringing the arena in a blazing circumference. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, each an aperture to another world, another reality entirely.
Once they were well clear of the drop zone, the man brought them to a stop and took a moment to take in the surrounding sights himself. He tilted his head back, eyes widening as a low whistle slipped between his teeth.
"See that?" he said, gesturing toward the hall. He pushed a few stray curls from his face, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Not bad, is it? I can't say I've ever worked with anything like it before."
His eyes continued roaming the architecture.
"Hm."
His gaze shifted to her, lavender eyes alight with curiosity. "So," he said, "what do you make of all this, my lady?"
She parted her lips, breath catching on the edge of a reply, when movement overhead seized her attention.
The air above them shimmered, then wavered as though reality had been brushed by an unseen hand.
In the space of a heartbeat, a towering holographic projection blossomed into existence, spilling pale light across the hall.
A woman emerged within it.
Lilac-haired. Golden-eyed. Smiling like a spark held too close to dry tinder.
Her hair rose in jagged lilac spikes, threaded with snapping arcs of lightning that hissed and coiled like restless serpents. They formed a crown both regal and untamed.
The woman's skin gleamed with a lustre that seemed carved from moonlight. A golden bodysuit clung to her athletic frame, every seam precision-tailored to suggest strength held in disciplined restraint.
Her gaze swept the hall, molten gold and predatory, as if measuring every soul it touched. When that gaze passed over Valeryon, it brushed her spine with ice, drawing a sharp, involuntary shiver.
Then the woman waved, as though greeting long-lost friends.
The effect was somehow worse.
"Welcome, Trainees," she declared, arms thrown wide. "To the two-hundredth Round of Inter-Galactic Origin Training!"
The announcement rolled through the cavernous hall, its echo swallowing the restless hum of the assembled crowd.
Shoulder to shoulder, Origin-dwellers from all thirteen galaxies pressed together, their anticipation crackling through the air like static before a storm.
"I am Agent Melody Skarsgard," she continued with an elaborate bow. "But you may call me Agent Mel." She punctuated the statement with an exaggerated wink.
A ripple of uneasy laughter passed through the crowd, suspended somewhere between amusement and apprehension.
Agent Mel straightened, looking entirely too pleased with herself.
"I will be your guide through this programme. Let's keep things simple. There's no need to drag this out unnecessarily."
Agent Mel raised her arm, drawing every gaze toward it.
Embedded seamlessly into the smooth skin of her wrist was a stone, flawless as polished marble. It pulsed with a gentle blue radiance, light rippling outward in rhythmic waves that bathed her hand in an otherworldly glow.
When she tapped it with a fingertip, the light flared briefly, casting arcs of brilliance across her golden suit.
"First," she said, "the Celestial Receiver."
Valeryon lowered her gaze to her wrist, where an identical device lay seamlessly embedded beneath the skin. Its surface was smooth and faintly luminous, cool against her touch.
When she mirrored Agent Mel's gesture, it responded with a pulse of light. A holographic screen unfurled before her eyes, spilling streams of data in a cascading flood too vast to take in at once.
"This little gem," Agent Mel continued, "is your lifeline. Your sole connection to Mission Central while you are stationed in the Outer Worlds. Communication, however, flows only one way."
A ripple of murmurs spread through the assembly. At first faint, like wind threading through dry leaves, it quickly gathered momentum as unease travelled from cluster to cluster of Trainees. Valeryon felt it resonate through her own body, a tightening band around her chest that constricted each breath. She shifted on her feet, as though movement alone might relieve the pressure.
Agent Mel raised a hand.
The noise died almost immediately.
"My dear Trainees," she said brightly, "there is absolutely no reason to panic. We will provide all necessary updates. All you need to do is check your Interface regularly."
With a flick of her fingers, an enormous holographic display appeared beside her.
"The current page is the Outer Worlds Library. Or the OWL for short, because apparently acronyms make people happy."
A few reluctant chuckles surfaced.
"Within it, you will find every Outer World currently open for entry. Each is catalogued and described for your convenience. When you have chosen your destination, proceed to the corresponding portal. Step through when you are ready, and your journey will begin."
Valeryon's eyes returned to the holographic screen before her. A cascade of worlds shimmered across its surface, each accompanied by a terse description.
She had only ever seen such visions in curated holo-programmes, spectacles designed for passive wonder, never for touch.
The thought of stepping into a world where she could finally live as others did sent a shiver through Valeryon—equal parts exhilaration and dread.
She had spent her life observing from a distance, studying interactions through screens, cataloguing emotion like an outsider mapping weather. But she had never been within it. Now she would be required to become it.
A sharp snap cracked through the air.
Valeryon looked up.
Electricity danced between Agent Mel's fingers.
"Ah, yes. One more thing," she said. "As you enter these worlds, you will assume the identities of native populations. To prevent unnecessary disruption, a Ban will be placed upon you, preventing all reference to the Origin."
A pause.
"Your past. Your life here. All of it is off-limits."
Agent Mel waved dismissively. "But don't worry. Once you are fully immersed in your new role, you won't even notice it. It's just a minor inconvenience, really."
Agent Mel straightened, clasping her hands behind her back. "Well, that is all from us, at Mission Central."
Her holographic form brightened, edges dissolving into prismatic light.
"Good luck, Trainees."
Her grin widened.
"May the Celestials shine upon you."
With a final, theatrical bow, her image dissolved into a cascade of scintillating particles, scattering like starlight fading into nothingness.
For a heartbeat, the hall hung in suspended silence.
Then anticipation and trepidation seeped through the room, settling over those present like a tangible, electric charge.
It did not hold for long.
The hall erupted into motion and sound—voices spilling into excited chatter and nervous laughter, tangled with the shuffle of feet and the rustle of fabric. Trainees clustered in tight knots, trading theories, weighing choices, speculating on what lay beyond the portals.
Their energy ricocheted through the vaulted space, rebounding off polished floors and high stone arches until the air itself seemed to vibrate with it.
She remained where she stood, anchored against the rising current of noise.
Slowly, she released a measured breath and turned her attention back to the Interface hovering before her.
The Outer Worlds Library stretched endlessly downward like an infinite scroll of possibilities.
Names of worlds cascaded downward, each marked with symbols: a red teardrop denoted bloodlines—worlds entered by her ancestors; a golden sword indicated combat-driven missions; a golden pentacle represented those with missions steeped in magic; a golden skull warned of death-heavy undertakings; and finally, a sparkling green tick marked those most compatible with her abilities.
Her gaze lingered on the red teardrop.
Something in her chest tightened. A thread of inevitability seemed to pull taut beneath her thoughts, as though the decision had been made long before she arrived. Before she could second-guess herself, she tapped the symbol.
The catalogue shrank, filtering away countless worlds until only a single entry remained: A Sorcerer's Legacy. Three icons hovered beside it: a pentacle, a skull, and a tick.
Her pulse stuttered.
Just one.
Out of everything contained within the OWL, only one world carried her bloodline.
That meant every predecessor who had undertaken the IGOT—the Valeryons, the Florians, and even those beyond the Great Clans—had chosen this same path.
Why?
What existed within this world that drew them back generation after generation?
Duty?
Tradition?
The interface unfurled in response to her tap.
The entry expanded.
Information unfolded across the Interface in layered windows.
Mission objectives appeared first.
The first mission: graduate from an academy of sorcery. The second: die of old age.
Additional files expanded beneath the mission parameters.
Cultural records.
Historical summaries.
Personal biographies.
Below that, the Narrative, a dense text rich with cultural notes and anecdotes, a portrait of a life lived.
The sheer volume of information threatened to overwhelm her. The words refused to settle into meaning, slipping past comprehension no matter how many times she reread them.
"Which world are you considering, my lady?"
Valeryon startled and turned sharply, her neck cracking faintly from the force of it.
Her heartbeat spiked. Every muscle in her shoulders tightened, a bowstring pulled taut, then eased as recognition replaced alarm.
The man from earlier.
The amethyst depths of his eyes captured her attention immediately, drawing her focus so completely that the rest of the room seemed to soften around the edges.
Now that he stood beside her, with no crowd to distract her, she noticed details she had overlooked before.
Polished black leather overalls fitted his broad frame, their surface catching the ambient light in muted glints. Fine runes had been worked into the seams, subtle enough to escape notice at first glance yet unmistakably deliberate, their purpose likely protective in nature.
Beneath them was a faded pink shirt.
The garment had clearly seen Cycles of use. The fabric was worn thin, stained in places by soot and dark scorch marks. Small tears punctuated the material, some crudely repaired and others left unattended. It was not the appearance of neglect, but of someone who valued utility far more than appearances.
Her gaze drifted lower, settling on the man's forearms where countless scars webbed across skin. Some were thin and faded, while others carved deeper paths through muscle in jagged lines.
Valeryon frowned.
In the Origin, where magic and technology had long since fused into seamless systems of near-miraculous restoration, such blemishes were an anachronism. Even inexpensive restorative devices could erase injuries before lasting marks ever formed.
What kind of circumstances could leave marks like that? The scars looked as though the injuries had been allowed to mend naturally, without medical intervention.
"Sorry, was that too forward?"
His voice pulled her back from where her thoughts had wandered.
Valeryon's throat tightened. Though they had already exchanged words earlier, conversation still felt like foreign terrain.
"Have you tried… filtering your options?" she asked.
She forced the words into a careful cadence, striving for control, though each syllable still betrayed the damage she worked so hard to conceal.
However, even as the effort of speaking pulled at her throat, she surprised herself with how easily the words came. She had not expected conversing to be so… not exactly easy… but well, it was not the impossibly steep hurdle she had made it out to be in her head.
The man's expression brightened.
"No, actually. I hadn't considered that." He laughed softly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Unfortunately, I'm hopeless with this sort of thing. If it isn't too much trouble, would you mind showing me?"
She hesitated only briefly before nodding.
Following her guidance, his large, scarred hands moved awkwardly over the controls, too forceful, too imprecise for the system's delicate responsiveness.
His unfamiliarity with such a basic, intuitive interface puzzled her.
As far as she knew, even the most remote colonies used some form of standard technology. Perhaps he came from a colony that resisted modern integration, where the old ways still prevailed? There were still planets where cultural traditions discouraged technological integration, favouring archaic methods whenever possible.
After several attempts, he finally managed the process himself.
"You have been incredibly helpful," he said. "Thank you, my dearest lady."
Valeryon inclined her head in acknowledgment.
She was about to return her attention to her own selection when he spoke again.
"What did you filter for?"
"Ancestry."
"Ah."
His smile faltered.
"Ancestry..." he repeated quietly. "I think I'd prefer to avoid those worlds."
After becoming accustomed to his smile at its brightest, she found the shift unsettling. After a moment's consideration, she pointed toward his display. "Double-tap the icon. That should exclude them."
"Really?"
He followed her suggestion.
"It worked!" he exclaimed. "Thank you."
"You are welcome," she murmured.
"There are still far too many choices," he said with a theatrical sigh. Then his eyes shifted toward her selection screen. "Which world are you entering, my dear lady?"
Valeryon hesitated. The endless possibilities loomed before her, daunting in their vastness. Every world represented a different future. A different path. A different version of herself.
The freedom should have felt liberating.
Instead, it felt overwhelming.
Compared to facing the infinite unknown entirely alone, following the path laid down by her predecessors suddenly seemed far less daunting.
Resigned, she made her choice.
"A Sorcerer's Legacy."
"A Sorcerer's Legacy?"
His fingers moved across the interface with growing confidence. As he scrolled through the information, something caught his attention. He paused.
His eyes widened briefly.
"Well," he said, looking up at her, "that's incredibly convenient."
Valeryon stiffened.
"Would you like to form a team with me?" he asked.
"Form a team? What do you mean?"
"I'm not entirely sure." He scratched his cheek. "Check your Interface. It should have notified you as well."
A new notification had indeed appeared:
[Increased harmonious interaction between Trainees has been noted. Would you like to form a team with Trainee Laurel Vesalius?]
[Accept] — [Reject]
"What does forming a team entail?"
"Beyond the obvious? No idea." Laurel shrugged. "But Mission Central would not suggest it without reason, right? It seems worth exploring."
She considered that. Mission Central had never been known to issue idle prompts. Every recommendation, however cryptic, tended to unfold into consequence sooner or later.
A team might mean advantage: shared knowledge, additional support, accelerated progression.
Yet uncertainty lingered, a fine static beneath her thoughts.
What did partnership mean here, beyond the abstract label? What obligations would it bind them to? Was the potential advantage worth the risk of aligning herself with someone she scarcely knew?
Her gaze flicked toward the man, then immediately away when she found his expectant eyes already fixed on her.
She lifted a hand, hesitating over the two choices for a heartbeat before finally committing to one.
A second notification appeared immediately.
[Team Established.]
[Members: Valeryon, Laurel Vesalius.]
Heat rushed to her face as laughter burst from him, warm and unguarded.
"Excellent. I look forward to working with you, my dearest Lady Valeryon."
He bowed with a playful flourish, one foot sliding behind the other in a gesture that was casual yet unmistakably formal.
Draconis Galaxy.
The style was distinctive enough that she recognised it immediately.
She responded to him with an equally formal gesture, pressing an open palm to her chest and inclining her head, as was traditional in the Orcus Galaxy. "Likewise."
With the formalities concluded, they reviewed the world information together.
Much to Laurel's satisfaction, none of his predecessors had previously ventured into 'A Sorcerer's Legacy'.
With their decision made, as they prepared to move once more, Laurel hesitantly extended a hand toward her.
"Here, uh… so we don't get separated."
Valeryon pursed her lips, blinking at the large palm offered to her as her heart began hammering once more.
The gesture felt too intimate, especially from someone she barely knew.
Perhaps customs differed more significantly between their galaxies than she had thought?
After a brief pause, she placed her gloved hand in his.
As their fingers intertwined, she marvelled at the unexpected coolness radiating from his skin, even through the barrier of her gloves.
His grip was firm yet gentle as he guided her forward with surprising ease, sending a strange flutter through her stomach.
"Careful, my dear lady," he murmured, steering her away from a column she had nearly walked into in her distraction.
Heat rushed to her face. She forced her focus back to navigating as they wove through the crowd.
Their destination soon came into view. The thirtieth portal from the left and the eightieth from the right, just as stated by the interface. Glowing script floated above its archway: A Sorcerer's Legacy.
Laurel released a slow breath. "Here it is."
"We should… enter."
"Yes, my lady."
Taking a steadying breath, she stepped forward.
She braced herself for the familiar, disorienting rush of portal transit.
It never came.
Instead, a pulse of energy flared at her wrist.
Valeryon's eyes snapped open.
She found herself suspended within what appeared to be the portal itself.
Brilliant currents of gold light spiralled endlessly around her, forming a luminous tunnel that stretched beyond sight in both directions.
She glanced to the side and felt relief when she saw Laurel still beside her. He appeared just as uncertain as she felt.
Only when she reached for her Celestial Receiver to make sense of their situation did she realise she was still holding his hand. A wave of heat washed over her, but she suppressed it and gently withdrew her hand as casually as possible before accessing her Celestial Interface.
The Interface displayed a new message.
[Temporal Entry Point Selection Required.]
[Before the Narrative]
[During the Narrative]
[After the Narrative]
Valeryon glanced at Laurel. "It seems we need to decide on a time period to enter."
Laurel frowned. "A time period? That's unusual. Which one do you think we should choose?"
"Did you read the Narrative?" she asked hopefully.
With everything that had happened, and with how bothersome it had seemed at the time, she had never gone back to read it properly after her initial failed attempt.
All she knew was that 'A Sorcerer's Legacy' was a world in which the natives spent a great deal of time studying at a magical academy, embarking on fantastical adventures, making allies, battling enemies, and learning magic.
She had not even paid enough attention to determine whether the protagonist of the Narrative was male or female.
Laurel shook his head. "No. Did you?"
"No... I thought it would be a waste of time, since we would learn about the world by immersing ourselves in it regardless."
Her response made Laurel burst into laughter, lighting up his features. "You make an excellent point, my lady."
His grin widened.
"It probably won't matter in the end. I'm happy with whichever option you choose."
She took a moment to considered the choices carefully.
"Before the Narrative. Even if it does not matter, we would be least affected by our lack of knowledge there."
"Agreed. Shall we then, my dear?"
Valeryon inclined her head.
Together, they selected the first option.
A blinding flash of light enveloped them, followed by a strangely disorienting sensation reminiscent of the sickening lurch of missing a step on a staircase.
Then, everything went dark.