Luckily, nobody was around to hear my terrified squeaks, squeals and whimpers as the world below did its best to shake me off my tower. Intellectually, I knew that the tower wasn’t moving all that far or that fast but just the bit of erratic movement was enough to completely throw me out of balance, to the point that I was just hanging on to the railing for dear life, Bullet Time active as my mind tried to find a way to save me if I were to fall. All the various ways I could have done so while on Mundus flashed through my memories, from Shadow Stepping, to conjuring up a pair of wings or even creating a platform that hung onto the tower, while I considered which ways might be possible with my current magic skills.

What would happen if I were to conjure water below me, as I was falling? Would I fall into the water and slow down, or would the conjured water match my velocity as I conjured it? I wasn’t sure, nor did I know how to test it, I hadn’t even tested whether the rules of magical flight and transfer of momentum were still in effect. I was relatively certain that I didn’t get pushed back if I pushed my Frozen Shuttle forward, but I had never tried whether I could push myself upwards, by standing on a magically controlled shuttle. I knew it didn’t work on Mundus, but what if the rules on Terra were different?

“I’ve got you, love,” I heard Sigmir’s quiet voice in my mind, felt a gentle pair of arms wrap around me and despite knowing that she couldn’t be here, my mind started to relax and slow down, no longer racing at the speed of thought through countless scenarios that luckily weren’t needed. As my mind relaxed, I could feel the world around me again. Without panic gripping my mind and muting my thoughts, I realised that the shakes were already fading, that it seemed like the tower would withstand the quake without problems.

“Thank you, dear,” I quietly thanked Sigmir, despite knowing that she wasn’t actually there with me. But even just imagining her arms around me, or maybe feeling an echo of her embrace, was enough to give me comfort while the foundations of my world were crumbling. Or at least shaking.

“If only Lenore was here with me, her wings would be incredibly useful. And she’d be able to give me good advice,” I grumbled, remembering the sensation of shifting into my Hallow and hiding there. To simply take wing and let the world tremble far beneath, allowing me to remain unburdened by it all, it would be wonderful. Alas, I no longer had my companion with me, the bond gone and merely an echo of our connection remaining.

But if there was an echo, maybe I could still shout into the void and my friend might hear me. If the gods could hear the prayers from some distant plane and place, hear people they had never heard of or met, maybe I could reach my old friend, call out to her and at least give her my greeting.

Feeling the shaking beneath me stop, I decided that I was in the perfect place. In addition, my legs were feeling rather wobbly, so I wouldn’t be able to climb down the ladder anyway, meaning I had more than enough time to send out my mind. But first, I had to calm down a little.

Closing my eyes, I let my mind start to drift, my focus widening as I started to delve into the Astral River. It wasn’t as smooth or easy as it normally would be, my mind was far too agitated for that, but I could reach the borders of it without too much trouble.

Only, what I normally perceived as a smooth, gentle flowing stream of various flavours of Astral Power was itself rather agitated. As I was watching, I could feel a wave ripple through the river, churning the waters further and causing the entire balance to wobble and shift. Even at my distant observation spot, I felt shaken and weakened, a headache forming from being drenched in Death. I had no idea why a wave of death had rippled through the Astral, but I doubted it was anything positive. But just because it likely wasn’t positive didn’t mean I wouldn’t be able to learn something new about the Astral River and how the Universe was fundamentally held together.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

And so, I started watching, observing as the strands of power kept vibrating, twisting and changing. I had no idea what prompted the ripple, if the earthquake was a symptom of the ripple, or the ripple a consequence of the earthquake or both effects caused by a third, as of yet unknown, event. Whatever the case, just watching what was happening was quite interesting, the effects so widespread and impactful that I wasn’t sure where to start considering them. As I was watching, my mind began to start constructing hypotheses, especially when I realised that the ripple had subtly but likely permanently altered the Astral River. Driven it deeper into the fabric of reality, to the point that I wondered if what I was seeing at the moment was merely a temporary state, a web spread across the first of possibly many layers of reality that made up Terra. Akin to liquid getting absorbed into a sponge, the sponge getting heavier with each dose of liquid that was absorbed, each absorption sending ripples through us, who were living on top of the sponge. Or maybe I was speculating completely off-base and imagining connections where there were none. With only my own perspective, it was difficult to separate what was caused by my interpretation of reality and what were actual facts about reality.

Finally, after about an hour of watching the strands of power vibrate and quite a few new strands carrying Death Astral Power form within the layer of reality that I could currently look at, the Astral River was quiet enough that I began considering how I could reach Lenore.

If I used the logic I had used back on Mundus, when trying to talk to the Grandmother at a distance, I would have to travel through the Astral River in an attempt to reach her. But that didn’t feel like a possible solution, at least not with my current level of power. I had barely been able to reach the Grandmother when I was half a continent away, with a much higher level than I currently had, so trying to reach Lenore when she was in an entirely different world, likely a different iteration of reality or however the separation worked? That didn’t seem feasible.

But I still had the memory of my bond, an echo that I could feel even now. Back on Mundus, we had been tightly linked to the point that, if we moved our minds together, there was little separation between them, even without shifting into our Avatar Form. In the Avatar Form, we had been one.

Drawing from deep within me, I tried to send power, infused with a strand of my thought and memories, through the bond I remembered, the phantom sensation still present. The process was similar to the way I had communicated with her while we remained bonded, only that now, I was adding a large amount of Power, shaped with my Mind Magic, to the impulse, simply to cover the distance. I had no idea if what I was doing was feasible or if I was simply sending Astral Power, thoughts and memories into the void, to never be seen again. I was somewhat confident that I wasn’t just sending them into the Astral River, the mental direction for that wasn’t quite right, but I had no idea where the power actually went.

I couldn’t smell it in the air around me, so I was somewhat confident that I wasn’t just sitting in a cloud of my own Astral Power but that idea only went so far. I could feel the drain on my Astral Power, so I knew I was sending it somewhere, but if things worked out as I wanted? I had simply no idea and no way to check.

And so, after some ten minutes of shouting into the void without getting a reply, I calmed my mind once more, letting the Astral Power I had expended get restored by drinking from the Astral River. The river tasted of far more Death than it had before, and a little more than I was comfortable with, but it wasn’t bad enough to harm me.

Shaking my head, I opened my eyes once more, leaning against the tower and staring back out into the night. Somehow, it seemed the night was a little brighter than before, but I wasn’t sure where that could be coming from.

Alas, it wasn’t about to become clear because I was sitting up on the maintenance platform and so, after another thirty minutes of staring into the void and letting my mind roam, I started to make my way back to the ground and towards my lair.

It had been an interesting night. Weird and scary but interesting.