Arson sighed. The looks he was being given made him feel awkward.

He stood in line at the Hall of Realms. A dome shaped building with balconies enclosed by plants rather than metal guardrails. Cultivators could be seen leaning on the beautiful weave of plants, that must serve the same function from what Arson could see.

Atop the building sat a rune that Arson was very familiar with through his more than illegal trips to many different realms. It was the runic symbol for Destination, in Uni-Vare. A large rotating X spun backlit by an ever-changing blue sky filled with stars that froze him no matter how many times he saw it.

“Hey, you’re holding up the line, my guy,” said someone behind Arson. He glanced back at the disgruntled young man who looked a moment away from walking around Arson; his hand gestured toward the gap between them and the people in front of them both.

“My bad, got lost in the rune,” said Arson with a smile before he stepped forward. Moments later, Arson was startled free from another intense inspection of the rune above. A question coming from behind him as he took a few steps forward up sandstone steps, still in the very long line to enter the building.

“What are you looking at so hard up there?” asked the stranger. Arson glanced between him and the rune, and shrugged before he pointed at the symbol for The Hall of Realms. A gush of water splashing across the buildings top momentarily, the building's vegetation fed by a moving waterfall that rotated on a nearby rooftop. The strange boy gave Arson an even stranger look, and Arson turned back around slightly confused himself. It wasn’t until the electronic brochure pinged onto his watch when he finally managed to enter the building, that he understood why he’d received such a look.

“Check the boxes that apply to you. Did you see our Hall's symbol if so you will be asked to describe it in vivid detail, check. Do you have any mana foreign to our own realm that could destroy any of our sensitive scanning equipment, I don’t know so I assume yes, so check. And does your spacial inventory have any artifacts or potentially hazardous electrical equipment or systems that may damage our own if interacted with, also don’t know so... check I guess,” muttered Arson to himself aloud as he read. Anastasia swirled into view on his submission of the form, and gave him a smile and a nod. He again felt shrugged at by the Ai, who apparently wanted him to return to Endless where she was free to have a body.

“You still want this silly license? You have probably been to more realms in the last season cycle than some of these people will visit in their entire lives,” said Anastasia seriously. She didn’t see the reward in a badge that tagged him as someone outside of a realm, when Arson often needed his anonymity to complete tasks assigned to him by Endless.

“There are perks to this and you know it, now keep it down, I’m in enough trouble already, haven’t been a minor since my core started to manifest.”

“Not my fault you needed a toughening up. Maiden’s light, I love the sparks on that woman, did you know that she beat—“

“Anastasia….”

“How rude, I was in the middle of telling you a story, ya know, you aren’t going to get many of those kinds of chances out of me,” retorted Anastasia.

“Will knowing this story in any way put me in potential legal trouble for having said knowledge in a court of law?”

“Ehh… potentially…?”

“No thank you, Anastasia, oh hello,” said Arson. His wrist lowered from view once he was able to approach the front counter.

“Good morning, Mr Gestalt, it seems that you have checked all the boxes,” said the male attendant behind the counter. The Entrance area split visitors into many different lines in an effort to delude congestion and wait times within the facility.

“Yes sir, is there an issue?”

The attendant laughed and shook his head. Before a few buttons seemed to be pressed on the man’s screen and he waved him toward the door behind himself.

“Next!” Arson frowned at the still laughing man as he walked by and into the doorway. The glass door slid away to grant him entry into a room filled with circular platforms. The large open room was filled with even more people being directed to lines that led up to the scanning areas. Cultivators seen in every direction enclosed in metal rings that lifted and rotated up and down the lengths of peoples bodies while they stood there.

A woman with a staff shirt on waved Arson over, she looked up over his shoulder and read something, which Arson glanced and saw was the number door he exited from.

“Okay number 13, you are supposed to head to the last platform on the right,” said the woman, who also laughed oddly when she pointed toward the stage Arson was supposed to use.

He immediately felt odd himself, remembering that someone was supposed to ask him something about the Destination runes description, but walked over to the stage he was directed towards.

“Ready?” asked the engineer next to the platform. His station-table was filled with various controls, all of the devices features accessed through the holographic dials, buttons, and levers projected above the surface of the electronic equipment in front of him.

Arson hadn’t had to wait long in this line as it was the shortest one in the room. It was this fact alone that made Arson believe that maybe he had been taken serious, and that nothing would go wrong.

Then the scan began and Arson sighed for the second time that day. His eyes closed to the sound of the metallic ring used for scans; forced to suppress the closed eye dominion so he wouldn’t bear witness to the damage being caused all around him. A multitude of echoes could be heard as the rings of all the scanners struck the stages now inert and no longer working.

He didn’t know what caused the systems in the building to shut down. Power to temporarily shut off. Alarms to be triggered.

“Anna,” asked Arson while he lifted his watch to speak to her. He opened his eyes.

“Yup," responded Anastasia. Arson’s eyes squinted unconsciously when he felt an odd sense of glee from his runic library.

“This was our fault, wasn’t it?”

“Yup!”

“How, I told the attendant—“ tried Arson but Anastasia laughed at him before he managed to get the words out.

“The sparking idiot didn’t believe you. Are you sure you shouldn’t just walk around with your crown doing that cool drinking mana out of the air thing, it's real intimidating, the small little girly circlet on your head is cute and non-flashy, but leaves a bit to be wanted, don’t you think?”

“Anna, what does my crown have to do with anything?” Arson could no longer hide the physical piece of his core, but he could and had reduced its design and size to be more simplistic, which had been the only problem he’d ever had with his crown in the first place.

“I’m just saying,” retorted Anastasia. Arson only then looked around at the collective of gazes that had landed on him in that moment and forced down another sigh. The instinct to run from his trial days flared to life but mentally laughing that decision off kept him grounded as he remembered what he’d already been forced to face.

Security rushed into the area, and power slowly came back on piecemeal throughout the room.

“Could you at least point me in the right direction,” asked Arson in a whisper to Anastasia.

“Their system was shut down by me of course, the power grid was a friction with an aspect of your mana, and the scanner system may be fried too, uhhh inventory stuff,” whispered Anastasia back in a rush.

“You, young man,” said a stern faced official flanked by a team of guards.

Arson stepped down from the scanner’s stage. Each step taken slowly and to express his non-threatening demeanor at the forefront of the encounter. Being tall often made him an easy target, and his tendency to let his hair curl regardless of how clean it remained was rarely ever received well.

“Hi sir, I’m unsure what happened but—” Arson was cut off when the man read over a tablet that buzzed with sounds that seemed to be in competition for the man's attention.

“Stellar mana, Flux mana, Polar mana, I don’t even know what that last one is, we could have destroyed most of our equipment if the scan managed to get to your core,” said the angry faced man, who lifted an image of Arson’s half scanned body up to his waist, both hands also visible; the tablet pushed close enough to make Arson lean back forcibly.

“Your spacial inventory somehow manually reset our systems and—” said the man before he cut himself off and read silently.

Arson looked between the half formed image of his skeletal structure and wondered what the man read about him that made him stop talking so suddenly.

“What, am I going to die or something?” asked Arson as a joke, but the look the man gave him made him worry for his own life.

“Who the sparks are you, kid?” asked the brown haired old man with a line of grey going through his long hair, who now gave Arson a puzzled look.

“Carter Gestalt sir, I checked all the boxes, and wasn’t asked anything about your symbol,” stated Arson simply with a point toward the ceiling. Strange looks came from most around Arson and the man, but Arson ignored the people who he felt must not be able to see the rune.

“Your registration form says nothing of the like, and by the stamp on your neck I’d assume that you may not have the cleanest spacial and realm travel records,” said the man with a gesture toward Arson’s newest tattoo. The brand of a criminal, that would either disappear with time, or remain permanent with the addition of more sentences against Arson’s name.

The eye roll he gave the man was stitched into his DNA at that point, and a scatterings of memories filled his mind in a blink where his mother had reacted in the same way.

I can see how that could get annoying…

“Anastasia, I don’t have time for this, show the man my conversation with the attendant, please,” said Arson, and before the man could ask questions, a literal hologram of Arson and the front desk employee played out before those gathered.

Arson began to worry with how many guards had filled the area by that point, but Arson could understand why. The Hall of Realms was one of the most important places in the entire realm, as it was the only available public access to off realm portals.

Surprised they haven’t attacked already… thought Arson trying to force a smile off his face at more memories that filled his mind. He may have been cuffed, but the fight with RaidCorp’s guards had set his soul ablaze in a way that excited him for another potential fight.

Naw… These guys may protect a few portals, but it doesn’t look like they’ve ever stepped through one, thought Arson, waiting to see how the man in front of him handled the situation.

After an uncomfortable amount of time and silence, Arson decided to speak up. He had nothing to lose in the situation from what he could tell, and didn’t want this to become something that slipped free of his own control. As the situation felt like the various eyes on him had no intention of offering any real help.

“I think I should call Graveyard, this is starting to feel like I could end up in a lot of trouble or find myself financially responsible for whatever kind of misunderstanding… this is?”

“Ha, street rat thinks he can scare us after he caused all these problems, go ahead and call, boy,” said one of the guards behind the man. More comments of the like could be heard, and knowing exactly where this was going, Arson called his newest contact in Graveyard, the sergeant that arrested him.

“Hey sir, sorry to bother you, but do you mind sending an officer to the Hall of Realms building in downtown Maelstrom, I think I am about to be wrongly accused, and being a tournament participant, I can’t have anymore marks on my name, or I’ll lose my position in the tournament,” said Arson to the hologram of the officer that was projected above his watch, even as more of the guards joined the mob in harassing him.

“Of course, Mr Gestalt, I have an old friend in the building, I’m sure I can get this cleared up without sending an officer, just call me back if things aren’t cleared up shortly,” said the sergeant before the man hung up and Arson lowered his watch once more.

The man in front of him seemed to receive a flurry of messages not even a handful of breaths later, and Arson could see concern twist his features into worry. Until the chatter behind him became too much while he read and he erupted.

“Silence!” The brown haired older gentlemen in front of Arson stopped the growing momentum of the group's accusatory onslaught; Arson completely surprised by the man’s next words.

“”I apologize for the actions of the staff, we just don’t come across very many people who are honest about those kinds of things, especially with your…” Arson managed barely not to roll his eyes when the man glanced at Arson’s neck again.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m just here to do the right thing, it would be small-minded of me to be bothered by petty opinions made by those who know nothing of me,” said Arson with a smile. The brown haired man nodded and extended a hand to Arson. Arson reached out and shook the man’s hand, wondering again what the man’s tablet displayed that made him change his orientation In Arson’s direction so drastically yet again.

“My name is Amethyst MirrorLight, of MirrorLight Industries, my family has managed this hall for generations, and trust me when I say this, I know all the families with access to personal portals in the realm, so when I ask you who you are, and how you have rare mana types running through your veins, it is not without considerable knowledge on the subject,” boasted the man. Arson nodded and wondered who between himself and Amethyst had more knowledge on Realms after Arson’s travels.

“Well, I’m here to take my exams, and would also like to schedule a trip to CloudLake City, I have an orientation that I cannot miss, or my mother, one of the realm's experts on realm traveling, is going to skin us both alive,” said Arson with a laugh. Amethyst wore a face of disbelief and scowled at Arson’s comment in near disbelief; the man even scoffing rudely in his direction, at least until he glanced once more at his tablet.

“Hmph, we’ll see about that…”