The buzzing in Davin's head was annoying, like some kind of invisible static that only he could feel. Hugh had said that he'd heard it briefly, but it didn’t last that long… He was lucky, but Davin had the sound in the back of his head, like an old tube television left on and the broadcast that you'd had on it ended, like when a VHS tape had ended and rewound, a constant nagging sound that Davin could only ignore when he was deep in an activity, otherwise, it would pull itself to the forefront of his mind. There were several times throughout the night that Davin would have to walk outside the area of influence of the tear just to get a few minutes of peace, but he could only spend so much time foraging in the woods in the dark.

Hugh kept busy with his measurements and cataloging of the tear, the pulsing energy fluctuations seemed to have a pattern, the waves each causing an inch or so of the area around the tear to be claimed by the anomalies influence, seeing the sprouting of the 'film' like leaves as they morphed the plant life around it. Throughout the night they saw only about a foot of expansion, but the tear seemed to be more stable than they'd initially expected.

Davin was exhausted when he woke up, and a part of him didn’t think it was just the lack of sleep, opening his status brought a little light and terror to the situation.

Davin O'wild

Human Rogue (1)

Patron: Compass

AC: 15

HP: 4/4

Experience

175/300

Condition: Diseased

Unarmored AC: 13

Temporary HP: 0

Ranger *training*

Currently: Armored

Bonus: n/a

Seems the bites from the monstrous dog were a bit rougher than he'd thought, now he had the diseased condition, which seems to have lowered his current and maximum hit points. Focusing on his condition.

Diseased: Festering wound, max hit points will be reduced each day until cured.

The information sent another chill down his spine, knowing that his health will continue to lower till he expired… he'd not had a death in the afterlife yes, he was told that his spirit would break from his shell and he'd end up back somewhere that was in touch with the bastion, which would be Edges Rest, he really didn't want to do that walk all over again… especially, since all of his gear would be dropped where he… died? Davin thought it was weird that they still referred to it as death, even though it wasn’t as permanent as the classic that he was used to.

"How's your status? I've got a festering wound that is aching something fierce." Davin asked Hugh as he pulled himself out of the small tent.

"My status? Hmm, let me check." With that, Hugh waved his arm as if he was pilling up an invisible tissue. "Festering wound? Hmm, looks like I have it too, I'm guessing it was from the bites, doesn’t seem too bad though, looks like I'm only down one point of health."

Davin looked at him in disbelief. "Only one? Lucky bastard, I'm down five, that's more than half my health."

"Five? So I'm guessing there is some variance to the disease… that doesn't give us much to work with, I think from here the next settlement is about half a day's travel away. So in and out if we can? I don't want you keeling over on me." Hugh chuckled as he continued to look over his status.

"Thanks for the support man, glad that my well-being is on the top of your list of things to care about." Davin chuckled back. "Let me look in the log and we can be on our way, anything significant happen while I was asleep?" Davin pulled out his logbook.

Thirteenth entry:

Tear has shown no significant fluctuations. Please be careful, I don't know what lies beyond it, and cannot promise your safety. Attempt contact from the other side. Any information you can gather will be valuable. Thanks -C

"Nothing that we hadn't already seen." Hugh flipped through his pile of notes and sketches. "Anything new on your end?" Gesturing at the log book.

"Only that it's likely, not safe, no, but it should be stable, and he wants us to attempt to contact from the other side." Davin pointed at the tear in space that they'd been watching for at least the last eight hours if not more.

"As much as to be expected then, send him a message just before we go in, that way we should have a good idea if there is any time warping going on." Hugh gathered his notes taking them to the trunk that they shared.

Davin let out a small chuckle. "Time warp" Taking a step to the right. "Hadn't even thought about that as an option good call. So we set a time for contact? Say what about twenty minutes?"

"Good call, should give us enough time to get our bearings as well as start taking some measurements." Gathering the other odds and ends that he had spread around the camp.

"Fair enough, Breakfast?" Davin asked as he started pulling down the tent.

"Something light? We don't know what this tear will do to us as we pass through."

"Why are we both going in at once? That seems like a bad idea…" Davin asked as he started to pull out the dried oats he'd gotten.

"Well because of safety in numbers and do you honestly think I'd miss the chance to do this?" Hugh said with a mocking hurt tone in his voice.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

"Fair enough, I wouldn't want to go in without you either my friend."

They spent the next hour making some food for the road as well as cleaning up what was left of their campsite, and with a breakfast of mixed berries and oatmeal they stood at the edge of the tear, the static sound making Davin's skin crawl. Davin pulled out his log book, writing down his last response before stepping in.

Fourteenth entry:

Entering tear now, will contact you in exactly twenty minutes by our timeline to make sure this doesn't have any time-altering effects. We plan to only spend four hours max inside the tear, and will close if able. -D

Hugh held out his hand to Davin, the minor expression of fear plastered on his face, grabbing the proffered hand as well as one of the handles on their travel trunk. They stepped into what Davin thought of as a portal, his entire body feeling the pins and needles as if it had all been pinned and put to sleep making him feel as if the static was a truly real thing and not just a sound that he heard in the back of his mind.

The brightness of where they landed in comparison to the dark forest that they had been in was painful. At the same time nostalgic, like it was a type of light that he was familiar with. Then the smell hit him, a mixture of old popcorn and what he could only think of as day-old hot dogs and soda. When his eyes adjusted he was surprised by so many things, but a part of it brought a comfortable nostalgia with it. The lobby that they stood in was generically familiar, because they all looked the same, not entirely mind you, but close enough that there was no question as to where he was.

"A movie theater?" Davin said more than asked, his voice full of confusion and excitement.

"A theater?" Hugh asked, his hand still clenched tightly to Davin's, looking around as they stood in the middle lobby. "This doesn’t look like any theater that I have ever been to."

"This is just the lobby, the theaters should be around the corner." Davin looked around and passed the concession stand and ushers stand. "Over there, behind the doors." Pointing down to where he'd looked.

"What is making that light? Is it magic?" Shielding his eyes as he looked up at the glowing white boxes on the ceiling.

"Nope, my world didn’t have magic, or at least not in the same way that you had magic, that's just lights powered by electricity." Davin looked around for anything that stood out to him, the fully stocked concession stand stood out to him. "How long has it been?"

"Ah, good idea." Hugh opened his status and stated. "It's only been two minutes, so looks like no lost time from stepping through, now it’s a question if there is any difference while in it."

"Is time dilation common?" Davin made his way over to the concession stand.

"Some, there are a few dungeons out in The Wilds that have it, it's nothing significant, maybe a week to a day, makes for easy farming." Hugh noticed he was still being dragged behind Davin as he walked, instantly letting go, making it so Davin shook his now free hand. "I'll get started on our measurements." Walking back over to their trunk.

"While you do that, I'm going to see if any of these snacks are still in good condition." Walking behind the counter he started rummaging through the shelves.

"Snacks? We just ate breakfast, are you hungry again?" Hugh asked as he started to pull out the collection of devices.

"I'm not, but these are a bunch of things that don't exist in the afterlife…." Davin shook his head. "That was weird to say out loud."

"How could they not exist in the afterlife? Everything exists there." Hugh stated as if it was a well-known fact.

"This is going to sound hard to believe, but you don’t have the technology for it, some of these things can't exist in the afterlife."

Hugh started at Davin as if he was spouting some kind of tall tale. "How?"

"Gimmie a minute, I can whip up a few things and show you." Davin started pulling things out and turned on the popper.

Hugh went back to his work, setting up the multiple tools, and checking his time occasionally. Davin had the popper going in a few minutes, turning on the soda fountains and hot dog roller.

"It's been twenty minutes," Hugh stated as he looked over his shoulder to Davin. "What's that smell?"

"Popcorn!" Davin pulled out the logbook and jotted down a simple note.

Fifteenth entry:

Twenty minutes. It's in a movie theater, will have more info soon, and will scavenge what we can. -D

The short entry was more than enough Davin thought since he largely just wanted to make sure he touched base, but he had other desires in mind, and largely it was snacks, since from what Compass had said before that when a world was first starting to merge that they could be harvested and new materials could be gathered from them. So he was assuming that this place could have things taken out of it, and popcorn was going to make people's day, he didn't think that he could do anything about the soda fountain, but all of the candy and popcorn kernels were easily stackable. Gathering several cardboard boxes that he'd emptied from the cupboards that held the backstock of paper cups, filling them to the brim with everything that he could put his hands on. Staging his spoils near the place where they had come in seemed as good of a place as any since the tear was either not visible from this side or it had closed once they got in. Now that Davin was thinking about it, he started looking for it, hoping that the tear that would lead them out was just in a different spot.

Pouring out the popcorn into the bin. "Want to try popcorn?" Davin asked Hugh as he continued his monitoring.

"You know what, based on how excited you are about this, it will either be absolutely awful or amazing, you don’t seem to have much of an in-between. So sure." Shrugging deeply as he watched Davin fill a large paper bucket that had strange writing on it that he could only assume said popcorn.

Davin held the bucket of popcorn mouth slightly flapping as he struggled for what to say. Opting to shrug, he grabbed and filled another bucket. "Additional 'butter' is an option, but it's gross in my opinion, so I suggest trying baseline and deciding where you want to go from there." Walking over to Hugh's impromptu workstation and setting the large bucket in front of him.

"Did it need to be so big? That seems like a lot." Hugh reached out and picked up one of the warm fluffy 'popped corn' as Davin had put it, he'd been able to smell it since they'd entered the tear, so he was expecting the same smell that he'd been smelling, but as he pulled it closer to his mouth, the smell hit him, a mixture of salty with a hint of sweet all tied together with the creamy hint of butter. He put the piece into his mouth the biting salt surprised him, but as he chewed it all came together, and before he knew it, he had a handful of the stuff held inches from his mouth.

"Don’t overdo it, I don’t want you to choke, haven't grabbed any sodas yet."

With that Davin ran back over to the counter and a pouring hiss sound filled the air, what sounded like scoops of rocks being dumped and another hiss, as Davin made his way back, he'd grabbed some of the boxes that he was packing up bringing it with him as well. Setting the large cup in front of Hugh Davin smiled widely.

"Okay, so take a small sip at first, do you know how to use a straw?" Davin took a large swig from his drink, letting out a moan of pleasure.

Hugh eyed him dubiously. "You found beer?"

Picking up his drink, tried to sniff it through the straw, getting nothing, he shrugged and then took a sip. The cold sweetly acidic beverage surprised him, at first it tasted herbal and like something an alchemist would mix, his second drink was just sweet, and not overwhelmingly so, and it paired perfectly with the saltiness of the popcorn. Davin stared and smiled widely, holding out the brown box with more of the strange symbols on it.

"Try these next, start with one, and don’t tell Jes that I let you try them before she did."

Hugh felt overwhelmed, there was so much happening in such a short time he wasn't sure what to think, and now he wanted him to try what looked like brightly colored stones…

"What in the name of the Patrons is this one? And after this can we take a break from any new snacks? I haven't even finished the popcorn."

"That one is one of my favorites, it's called chocolate, there's some of that back in the afterlife, but this stuff is far different." With that, Davin tore open a clear brightly colored package of thick rainbow-colored ribbons. "Look! Gay bacon." And bit into the strange treat.

"Bacon? That doesn't look anything like bacon."

With that he did as he was told, opening up the box of colored stones, the clear package inside the box was rather annoying to open, but as soon as it was opened he could smell the sweet smell that he'd known a few times while he'd been on his way to the hall, but this was different. The sweet earthy smell was enticing, so the fact that he'd been told to eat what was inside was not a problem. The colors were brighter than anything he'd ever seen, not even flowers had colors this bright, he felt almost guilty eating them. Once it was in his mouth he felt like Davin was trying to trick him into eating a stone, it was hard and had little to no flavor, but then it started to melt, the bitter notes with what he could only assume was pure sugar, and then he bit, the wave of joy that crashed over him was far more than he could have ever expected from anything let alone something that looked like a stone.

"What the? What is that? That can't be chocolate." Hugh quickly dumped more of the treats into his open palm.

"Well they're made with chocolate, there is a lot more involved in them than the normal kinds of chocolate." Davin smiled wide as he took another of the bright ribbons into his mouth.

They sat and enjoyed their treats, the rhythmic crunching occasionally interrupted by a long sipping sound.

Davin checked his logbook, hoping to see something from Compass, but he wasn't sure how many messages could be sent in a single day.