Tara, only barely cognizant of her surroundings after being slammed into the floor, slams straight into an intricate array of unique symbols carved into a circle. Still groggy, Tara opens her eyes and looks around.

Her bleary look quickly turns into a wince as they idly look at the design they land on. Looking at it makes it feel as if knives were being driven into Tara’s skull, and considering the fact that she had nursed a headache from before with all the blaring colors and speed in that cursed tunnel. Tara is in a world of pain.

Yet, weirdly enough, those knives that sink into her brain bring tantalizing information with them. Each stabbing wince gives off strange impressions of containment, holding, restraints, and redirection.

Which is frankly bizarre considering that she arrived here via a spatial tunnel. She doesn't know how this works, but shouldn’t there be summoning symbols? Or does this work in a different way?

Tara, regardless cannot bear to look at the strange design anymore and so she drags her head back up. As she does so, she gets a better look at the strange sight she peeked at through the tunnel.

She sees a strange bipedal fish figure with deeply set eyes, a pronounced muzzle that trails whisker-like tendrils, and a mantle of thicker leathery flesh that sweeps down their body like a royal cloak. Accentuating this is a series of dull patterns that sweep all over their skin. They also wear a magnificent set of scale mail, so detailed that it almost seems like a part of their skin.

Directly next to the fish person is a nervous yet enthusiastic-looking young human boy. A messy scoop of black hair frames an almond pair of brown eyes, and a messy hemp knee-length robe and trousers that seem a bit too big for him loosely frame his body.

And on the very end, there is a pile of slime? The slime is laid out on the floor like a puddle, but the puddle is vaguely shaped like the usual two legs two arm body plan that sapient beings tend to fall into.

Although I wouldn’t call a sentient pile of slime usual in any sort of way.

Tara, slightly bewildered, clears their mind by guessing that the slime might not even be sentient, although that does seem to be the pattern. And instead, they might be the remains or the failure of the redirection formation we stand on. Although considering all the strange things she's seen, like sentient emotion clouds, Tara shouldn't get too comfortable.

Tara, having gotten her bearings, unstable and strange as they are. Pushes herself forward. But as she does so, she is firmly pushed back into the center of the carved circle.

Tara, recalling the stabbing impressions of redirections, guesses that they must be installed to keep people inside.

Tara feels fear rise in her stomach, her hands clench, and her untrimmed nails dig deep into her palms. Why do they want to keep us imprisoned? How does it work? Am I going to die here? A heady cocktail of fear and panic rush through Tara urging her to slam into the barrier and break through. But Tara remembers her breath and takes a deep breath in. Then, as calm as she can, she begins to inspect her prison for faults.

Tara presses her fingers against the edge of the circle and gradually increases the pressure. As she does so, more and more pressure is placed on her fingers instead, unable to push past the drawn circle. Eventually, the pressure becomes unbearable, as if each push was pushed back with twice the force.

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Tara, confident in their sudden new theory, suddenly puches the barrier and winces when that fist is pushed back and hurts in the very same manner. She confidently pieces together that the redirection runes somehow, keep her in place by counterbalancing any attempts to break out.

But as Tara revels in her quick understanding of the diagram, she suddenly frowns as she realizes. Tara cannot think of a way to get out of a place when any attempt to get out is redirected. She doesn’t exactly have any way to teleport, and any more conventional movement is perfectly countered by this strange diagram.

However, as Tara’s heart is shadowed by this thought, the decidedly more nervous teen, shuffles up to the edge of his barrier and says, “W-what is your name, fellows? I’m not really sure what we could be described as, maybe prisoners since we’re in a formation, although we probably aren’t prisoners because who would imprison people who had just arrived? Maybe we are honored guests. We should be; it must be a storm of providence for us all to appear here, what are the chances right?”

Ooo, that simply stinks of desperation and fear. Makes a fair bit of sense for that to be the case since he seems to be some sort of teenager, and those are plagued by fear in general, and we are in some sort of trap. I doubt that they decided to make a prison for the sake of a laugh, so it would be extremely reasonable to be afraid.

The teen speaking up again, so soon that no one was even given a chance to respond, says, "Well, I might as well start I'm Wu Gu, I wonder where did you all come from, I’m from the Chu province nearby the Wei River.”

Hmm, it seems like Wu Gu is from an agriculturally focused region since Wu Gu thinks that a river is extremely important. Tara wonders if he is from one of the feeder planets; there aren’t many of them since most city planets can easily sustain their city, but some still exist.

Intrigued, Tara wonders if the other people are also from such an agriculturally focused culture or if this haphazard summoning grabbed a wider array of people. She presumes the second, considering that most feeder planets are in the center of the Earthling territories and so rarely, if ever, see any nonhumans.

Regardless, since Tara wants to get more information, she gets off the floor, her hair swinging to the more comfortable position of her back as she says, “My name is Tara, and well, you could say I’m from Earth, although frankly, it would be more accurate to say I came from the Astral Plane.”

Tara sees that the boy is a bit confused, which confuses her as well. Even the most isolated feeder planet should know the homeland of humanity.

But before Tara can tangle herself in confusion, the ooze, vaguely shaped like a standard galactic tool using biped, somehow emerges from the very shallow puddle into a diminutive human-like figure with a large sphere of ooze for a head.

While Taras mind is boggled, the slime person says, "God when do we get out of here, I can taste the floor, and it tastes like a mix of copper, despair, and ash. Oh, and my name is Neauclix; I’m from a frontier town somewhere in the Beast Guard’s Territories.”

Tara frowns. What the hell is a Beast Guard? Did someone somehow use the Astral to roid up some poor dog and unleash it on their foes? Her head still filled with confused and baffled thoughts, she forcibly stills the noise with a deep breath.

Tara looks toward the aquatic alien, since they haven’t spoken yet. Only to be quite surprised as a flash and a ripple of light communicate [-My name is Tealdara Coralhome, I see that I have stumbled into a new world.-] [-I should have known this would happen eventually, considering my husband.-] [-pause-] [-That one couldn’t sit still if his life was on the line-][-exasperation/love/fear-]. Nevertheless, I am from Vadi/Water-].

As the lights flicker on and off across their body, dim lights shining beneath their scale armor, Tara also hears a sheer trill, which communicates [-LOOK AT ME-] [-LOOK AT ME-] [-LOOK AT ME-]. In an incessant loop.

And before Tara can even get a break, without even turning the flashing lights, communicate to Neauclix. [-I understand your struggle, these dry and dusty floors are terrible for my-] [-SLIME LAYER-].

Tara's head, having recently had several other concepts and ideas shoved into it, bristles and throbs with pain. But her head soon swims in other ideas. Like the sheer utility of communicating through light. It’s instantaneous, hard to spy on, and doesn’t require any pauses for breath or any other resource.

Tara wonders what type of emotion might summon light. Perhaps she could replicate the light language by swiftly turning off and on a series of magical light panels. Morse code could be an effective stopgap language during the development of the new magic.

Suddenly, Tara feels slightly jealous that she doesn’t have a large set of unique light patterns splayed across her skin. Before realizing how inconvenient and alienating it would be to actually have it.

But before Tara can swim for too long in the wondrous advantages of light based communication, she hears the subtle clack of shoes on uneven stone.

Quickly twisting her head towards the sound, an elegant man practically glides into the room, wearing a pure white robe emblazoned with the simple image of an eye. He turns to us and suddenly smiles, the smile reaching past his silver eyes.

Spreading their arms out wide, they say, “There is no need for any pain any longer; come, come, children, we must have you all initiated."

And with those words, Tara suddenly feels that something isn’t quite right.