Velvet rolled slowly over the ground, wincing in pain.
Well, not in pain. Actually, she wasn’t hurt, just confused. But the confusion was so big that it mentally harmed her, like waking up without knowing where, when, how or what.
As if she was a fish in the sea that got put in a cup and dumped on the opposite side of the world’s sea. Yes, she was still a fish in the sea, but with no idea about what happened.
The water was still salty and still cold, and yet, unrecognizable.
And there was sand. Not metaphorically speaking, but that she was laying on top of sand, on a beach, if the sound of waves was something to go by.
She had no idea of how she ended up here. Last thing she remembered was traveling back the Traversa’s pocket dimension, carrying Harlan with her. Then, as if someone had covered her with a cloth, everything went dark, and then, sandy.
Harlan was gone, and so was Tarderebusque, since Velvet couldn’t sense the demon anymore.
She sensed Hyde and Frenese, though, but the telepathically connection she had with each of them had been blocked. Well, not exactly blocked, since she didn’t feel any obstacle in her mind. No, instead, she could ‘see’ the mind connection, but every time she tried to touch it, it avoided her grasp.
So, more than being blocked, it was concealed. Whoever had brought her here was able to conceal not only her familiars, but her Esca too.
Velvet couldn’t access the Primeval Sea water through her Esca anymore, and, once again, the link wasn’t broken or blocked. She still felt it, but was unable to grasp it.
The passive skill of the Knowledge Paradigm, the perfect memory, was still active, but she didn’t know if it was because whoever brought her here couldn’t conceal it, or because they didn’t want to.
Taking into account all that mage had done, Velvet kinda leaned on the last option. And, since she had been laying on the ground unbothered all this time, whoever they were, weren’t in a rush to kill or interrogate her.
So, she should stop playing dead and get up. And shake the sand in her face off.
Slowly, she rolled over the ground until being face down, before using her hands to push herself away from the ground. Some sand had gotten into her mouth and hair, so she raised one hand to wipe her face.
When her fingers pressed against the sand grains, those disappeared, leaving no trace behind. Nor smoke nor particles, nothing.
What… She asked herself, repeating the motion. Once again, the sand disappeared.
Velvet then put some sand in her mouth, tasting it.
It has no flavor, not when it's sand, and not when it melts. Still, it's different from illusions of the Delusion Paradigm, since the sand on the ground does feel solid… Of course, sand is very small to be used as a test… Looking around, Velvet saw a coconut tree.
The tree was straight, making it impossible for her to reach the coconuts, but it didn’t matter. Velvet went towards it, scraped a piece of its bark and munched on it.
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Like the sand, the bark disappeared, leaving no taste behind.
As any scientist conducting an investigation, Velvet first tried to eat different parts of the landscape, before confirming certain conclusions.
One, she was in a pocket dimension. Looking at the horizon, she could see some symbols and sigils making a formation over the sky, shaped like a half sphere. With the furthest zone of the sea being fake, she guessed the pocket dimension’s size.
It was little, not even one kilometer radius, and some of that size was water, making the island even smaller. Also, like everything else, the sea water wasn’t salty, but tasteless.
Two, everything she broke and ate remained broken and eaten, which erased the possibility of it being an illusion. Illusion spells recovered their original shape when left alone for a while, as long as the charm, sigil or formation keeping it up was unharmed.
Since Velvet hadn’t touched or seen any of those options, the fact that the sand remained gone was a big clue. She could probably break the island on her own, but, with her Esca concealed, Velvet had the stamina and strength of an eighteen year old with no military or combat training. She would probably die of thirst and hunger before breaking even the ten percent of the island.
Knowing that, what options remained for the landscape to be made of?
Well, there was one possibility, but it was such… a wasteful option… the kind only available for the mages that had a lot of power and could afford to throw it away.
Because if that was the correct choice, this whole island, no, this whole pocket dimension was made with raw magic piled up.
If it sounded ridiculous, it's because it was. Magic didn’t have a physical presence, it couldn’t be stored in a bottle or eaten. Even miasma, which was like the residual waste of magic, was hard to store and examine (even when it was useless, since miasma had no use whatsoever).
The most useful way to make magic ‘physical’ was sigils, formations, artifacts, staffs, charms… all of them having one thing in common.
They were material objects, already existing, where magic made a path in a certain pattern to cause a predetermined reaction, but all of them needed to be supplied magic (staffs, artifacts, sigils), or had a short time to be used before weakening and becoming useless (charms).
So, for a mage to be able to make a whole island from scratch, it would be like piling up dust, if dust was ten times smaller, and if making that dust corrupted your whole existence.
In comparison, Velvet wouldn’t be able to make a single, inedible coconut by piling all her magic. And that was implying that she knew how to shape raw magic, which she didn’t.
So I really have no other choice than to walk and see if I can meet whoever lives here. With a newfound determination, due to having no other options, Velvet started walking towards the other side of the island.
It wasn’t that far away, but the island had a perpendicular shape, its height increasing the more Velvet advanced. Even so, it wasn’t that much of a difference, and it couldn’t be called a mountain at all.
That being said, it was kind of a dick move for whoever brought her here to drop her on the furthest side possible from her goal.
Maybe it was because they wanted Velvet to be awake and aware before meeting her, and not having to waste time by explaining stuff.
Or maybe it was simply a dick move. It could be anything, really.
Something about the island was that it had ‘life’. Velvet could hear birds singing, even when she was unable to catch one and see if they were real. Of course, since the island had no edible food and water, the birds probably were fake too.
I would blast one of them if I had magic… oh well.
Not that much time had passed when her walk came to an end, the sand under her steps disappearing, giving place to a marble stairway.
A stairway that didn’t take her to a house or any kind of building. No, the stairway ended in an open altar, decorated by marble pillars on each side.
Velvet climbed slowly, looking to the sides, just in case something happened, even when the space around the altar was clear, showing a magnificent view of the whole pocket dimension.
A small paradise built upon lies, where nothing was real.
Well, not everything was fake. One thing was real, the being in front of her, on top of the altar.
There, it was… Velvet looked at it for an instant, before quickly averting her gaze.
Something that should have been a human with long, black hair, but was no longer one.
A neck too long, a body too big for its head, legs bent up in places where they shouldn’t bend, the long, filament-like cloth it wore making little to hide the shapes that were under.
Only half her face remained, the other half warped beyond comprehension, to the point where one of its empty eyes went upwards.
Even so, when it ‘looked’ at Velvet, she could assure that it was seeing her, from the inside to the outside.
“Hello.” Velvet said, folding her arms behind her back, a tense smile adorning her face. “Hope I didn’t make you wait too long.”
“Not at all.” The being said, a voice too human, too clear in comparison to its body. “You arrived at the exact moment you were supposed to.”
“Oh, I’m glad that’s the case!” Moving a hand to her chest, Velvet made a slight bow. “Ah, even when you probably know who I am already, I would like to introduce myself. Velvet Consestella Dobastro, present.”
What she didn’t say, but implied with her words was: So, WHO might you be?
The being smiled, almost making Velvet flinch. “Carion is my name, but for you and everyone else, I am the Prophet.”
The one that sees the future, the one that knows the ending. Velvet finished the sentence.