I blinked, then blinked again. Everything was very.. Dark. I waved my hand in front of my face. Yep, that's a hand. So it wasn’t like it was too dim to see or anything.

Actually as my eyes got adjusted. It wasn’t dark at all, mysteriously bright even. I was in some kind of forest, or thicket. Blades of grass underfoot, drops of dew on nearby bush leaves. Wide study looking trees scraping up into a sky I couldn't see. But there was a reason it took a few long moments of staring to realize it.

Everything was black.

Black leaves rustled in the wind on black branches melting into black trunks sitting on black grass. It was like someone had spray painted an entire forest in the same uniform black. If there was a sky above the treeline, you better bet it's also black.

“This is a tad darker than I expected.”

And there’s some wisecracking asshole to give me a headache.

“What did you expect? Like literally what? It’s a whole other world, that's the fucking point.”

“Don’t condescend me shitbag. Did you seriously not do the BAREST amount of reading of where this rift leads?”

I finally turned to face Castel, if I was gonna sock him, now seemed like the opportune moment.

“So what are we supposed to be looking at then smartass?”

I got a scowl back at me, it really suited that stupid face of his, whenever he smiled or relaxed he had some kind of old noble/princely look to him. But he was a trashy busybody at heart, and now he looked like the middle manager he was born to be.

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“Well.. Not like this… First timers usually bring hiking equipment, so I assumed it was a mountain. It's even called ‘the highest point of Alius’”

“Great. So you don’t even know.. Is it fun running your mouth all day? Afraid of shutting up every once in a while?”

Castel’s mouth spread to start his next turd of a sentence, but before that a golden light flashed between us, a soft, feminine voice ringing out without source, not quite sound, but like what I'd THINK a woman's voice sounded like.

||The Voices United welcome you, Champions of the other world. Beloved Alius and your outer world lay in calamities devious grip. With greatest respect we barter, our greatest gifts in endless faith of your prophesied might||

It was.. Well there's no way to describe it besides a text box. With pretty simple rounded UI, bold, gold lettering to go with its golden borders.

Despite the blasphemy of thinking something like this.. I couldn’t help but agree with Castel, this isn’t what I expected.

“So.. We need to save the world? Or I guess it's two worlds. So save the worlds”

“This isn’t enough information to go off of anyways. Taking a gift from the first thing that pops up is pretty reckless…”

Dammit. Another count of me agreeing with Castel. This world was already challenging all I knew.

||...||

||Your native plane lies in a path of direct collision. In meaningless time they will collide, it is fated. Only you two champions of the other world can save the hobbled occupants of your home||

The windows just popped up one after another like sequenced speech bubbles. Speaking in that imagined tone into my head. From the matching display floating in front of Castel he was getting the same spiel.

“Hate to be devil's advocate-”

“No you don’t.”

“Shut up. But isn’t this potentially really good? It’s not like it's asking for anything specific… whatever it is.”

||The Voices United offer gifts without recompense||

I stared down at the display, holding his chin and face furrowed in thought. It literally says they don’t expect anything, what else was he hoping for? Who the hell are we supposed to trust in a completely new world in the first place? Mysterious floating UI elements seemed to be as good as anything else where I was standing.

“The risks could be..”

“I’ll accept even if he doesn’t. Nothing to lose anyways.”

It seemed like that was good enough, the window split into two distinct sections, taking up a lot of space for the single word both golden buttons held emblazoned upon them.

|| Power || || Potential ||

“Well, at least that’s easy.”

“Hmm. Almost suspiciously simple, there's only one option.”

I scoffed at the options, and Castel did in turn. What was even the point of giving an option like this?

“Potential” “Power”