Alexander stood in front of a Trinity Portal. He’d snuck into a Realm Travelers Branch to find the three portals that connected the three realms within their realm layer, and was stunned at the ease with which he’d been able to do so.
The cracker he’d been given by Alister Kim not only was able to unlock any door he’d come across, it apparently disabled alarms, sensors, runic systems and more. Alexander had no intention of returning the device, and had even dared asking where he’d gotten it.
He didn’t believe that the Cultivator had truly stolen it from a contractor he’d hired, but after some research had found his tale to be at least partially true. He had no doubt he would one day have need for the tinkerer he’d found that had truly built the product, laughing to himself knowing that his elder brother Auto would be jealous if he knew there was a talent with far more genius than his own in the Bronze Sector of Maelstrom.
Alexander looked at the Trinity Portal once more and took in its magnitude in wonder. He even thought momentarily about not following through as he took in the beautiful sight.
A series of stairs led up to what Alexander could only describe as three portals connected to form half of a perfect cube. The three portals like that of two sides and the roof of the boxed structure.
One portal lead to Cloud Lake City, another to Ascension, and the final to his new home Maelstrom.
One of these could be found at the center of all three of the Realm Travelers Branches for each realm in the realm layer. All realm layers were the same in this way, and Alexander didn’t quite understand the mechanics of what he was seeing, but knew the laws of reality prevented more than three portals being connected in this way to prevent something called dimensional folding, which Alexander was there to trigger with the use of the device created by the efforts of his peers and his actions.
“This should be fun…”
Alexander put the small black box he held back into his spatial inventory, and pulled free a small white box of equal proportions.
“By the will of Omen, may chaos reign supreme,” said Alexander, setting down the box and pressing the only button on the box. The golden X depressing as he took a step backward, preparing himself for what was said to come next.
His heart raced as a whirring sound slowly built. The sound continued, and after a while of nothing happening, Alexander frowned. He even let his invisibility drop, sitting next to the box, hoping that maybe a team of guards would see him on the security systems and come in to stop him. Yet… nothing.
“Well this is fun I guess…”
Alexander started to wonder if he’d been pranked by the engineer he’d abducted, paid for her services, and returned safely, until he felt an odd pressure build behind him.
When the prince turned back, what he saw took his breath away. At the center of the three portals, another portal was being ripped open. An untold amount of lost worlds able to be seen through its opening; the plethora of planes all flickering passed his vision in rapid fire.
“What the—“
Alexander stood, his thought cut off by the entire realm shaking and the sound of a very familiar roar booming from the new portal’s opening.
“Arson…?”
Alexander tried to take another step backward, but before he could, space itself stretched and he was yanked into the new portal.
The young Cultivator was bounced between the boundaries between realms and interdimensional planes. The sensations was like that of having mountains dropped on his body repeatedly, and before Alexander could even think to scream, feeling pain for the first time in his entire life, he was flung free of a portal and sent sprawling across the floor.
He groaned, hearing the sounds of battle nearby, blinking slowly as he sat up in what seemed to be a large atrium. Oddly enough as he looked around the sight beyond the glass walls seemed to be that of a beautiful summer's day, yet when he looked up all that was seen was an ocean of stars.
“What in the sparks is that about…”
More sounds of battle drew his attention and Alexander shifted his gaze downward toward a view that made his heart stop.
Before Alexander was an incredible throne room. Seven variously styled cathedras were positioned on the far side of the room, an unrivaled majesty being pushed into the area coming from the chairs. Yet Alexander’s attention was wholly focused on his brother.
Arson was being brutally beaten by a group of seven. A woman sitting on clouds manipulated the elements to blast him about with the use of clouds positioned throughout the room.
A demon in a suit teleported about, opening portals wherever Arson moved to reposition his brother in more advantageous locations for the attacks of the others around to land with utter ease.
A large armored figure swung a great sword as if it weighed nothing, each slice of the weapon causing paper thin cuts with a precision that told Alexander that the large fighter was intentionally not taking Arson’s limbs off with each swing.
Alexander’s head began to hurt as a woman with a halo sang ; the sound causing everything to vibrate in a way that made his teeth chatter, making it hard for him to think. He was able to tell the effect was far more distinctive and rattling to one’s concentration the closer you were to the sound, by moving his head the slightest bit forward, or even turning either ear toward her. Which only showed to him just how powerful the woman seemed to be as she continued to sing.
Arson was trying to dodge the attacks coming in from all around him, but illusions so lifelike that Alexander couldn’t tell they weren’t real until their own attacks passed harmlessly through Arson’s body distracted him. He could tell that Arson was struggling and the battle only grew more fearsome by the blink.
Arson tried to fly, but a person holding a book seemed to mumble the instance after he took flight, mumbling something about gravity not existing, making Arson weightless in the exact moment his brother attempted to aerially dodge; forcing Arson to collide with the projectiles sent forward by a robed man holding a bow made from what looked like wings.
If things weren’t bad enough for his brother, Alexander could tell that the group all held back. In fact they seemed bored, having a conversation casually as his brother was tossed about.
Though Alexander had never seen his brother fight at the level of skill he currently displayed, nothing seemed to give Arson a single advantage in the fight. Those he battled all more than enough to bring Arson down as individuals, yet they still fought him as group.
Alexander couldn’t understand why, as the task seemed as trivial to them as sitting unmoving beneath a tree and idling in the presence of a subtle breeze.
“Are they gods?”
Though Alexander asked the question, he felt he knew the answer. They weren’t gods, they were far above even that realm of power. Alexander had seen a clash of gods when he was much younger in the realm of Aspire, and this was beyond what was displayed even there. The group played with his brother like a toy as the sky above inhaled realities, entire plains of existence pulled from the sky’s edges and pulled toward a growing hole above them all.
Arson’s three living hand constructs fought alongside him, wielding various runes he’d never seen. Alexander was confused by the dazzling combat being displayed by the constructs wielding his scythes. The normally offensive martial forms completely defensive in nature.
From what Alexander could tell his brother was forced to fight on the back foot. Purely restricted to actions that would extend his life for that much longer, every choice made to breathe for a single blink further. Every instance in the battle one for his life as his soul hung in the balance.
“Can I help him…”
Alexander stood, taking a step forward to join, and Arson immediately looked in his direction. Their eyes met, and Arson shook his head, and was in the same moment struck by a purple thunderbolt from one of the clouds that drifted through the room.
“You don’t have time for distractions, boy…”
The woman made from the night sky itself spoke and Arson did his best to dodge the next attacks sent in his direction before he yelled what Alexander thought to be pure nonsense.
“Stream, get my brother and get the sparks out of here, I can’t worry over your lives and concentrate!”
“I’m not leaving you here!”
Another voice pulled Alexander’s attention away from Arson and he saw a large person with horns standing just outside the atrium he was now in.
“Do it now, and maybe I can escape this alive!”
“No Arson, I’m not leaving without—“
“Stream!”
Alexander looked back toward the giant and sneered.
“I’m not leaving either, you better not even try to—“
Alexander didn’t have a chance to dispute anything further. The giant closed the distance in an instant, and Alexander was lifted and tucked beneath the giant’s arm. His own profound strength nothing compared to the individual that now held him in place.
“You better not die rich boy, I’m going for Camilla, and once they're safe I’m coming back for you!”
“Let me go fool!”
Alexander kicked and screamed. The true reason he’d even been willing to work with his brother’s enemies right before him, seeming not but a few hundred yards away. He’d done all of what he had to return Arson to their home, knowing that the changes to his own life had something to do with his disappearance. Still, he’d fallen short of his goal, his brother’s life a knife’s edge from being ended before his very eyes.
“Arson!”
Earlier…
Stream finally made it inside the library and couldn’t help but pause at the grandeur to be found in every direction. The level of beauty in the hall he entered when climbing through the window seemed more suitable to those even more affluent than the group of elves that lived in the largest home within the City of Palaces.
Light suddenly filled the hall and Stream jerked backward to hide behind the drapes of the window he’d used to enter. His heart beat rapidly, but no sound of incoming footfalls alerted him to danger, which soon helped him calm down.
When he dared peek pass the drapes, he saw nothing which further confirmed his suspicions that the lights may have been triggered by a runic system design that was more popular in the homes of the wealthy.
“Doesn’t look like I’ll be able to hide my presence if my every step is being tracked by the bloody building…”
Stream settled on moving as quickly as possible and dashed down the hall in the direction he believed Arson would have headed.
His attempt at subtlety started out rather strong, but the further he went into the forbidden library left abandoned in his home city, the more captivated he became.
The artwork was refined beyond his wildest imagination. Paintings and sculptures of gods and worlds lost to time but not to space were depicted in every direction his eyes could travel.
After a while Stream entered a corridor with a series of spiral stairs that led up and down, the majesty of the building's spine larger even than his own home. He looked up and only saw a cavernous darkness above, but was awarded with the sight of illumination when he looked down.
“Please be Arson and not demons, please be Arson and not demons…”
Stream lowered into a crouch and made his way down the stairs as fast as possible, doing his best to make sure that he remained as covered by the sides of the staircase as possible even as the areas he traversed became lit by his movements.
He was lined with a layer of sweat by the time he reached the bottom, but was rewarded with the sight of Arson pacing in front of a doorway that seemed to emanate power beyond belief. While to the other side of the Cultivator sat a pedestal, that Stream couldn’t help but notice had an outline of dust on its surface in a perfectly rectangular shape.
It wasn’t until Arson turned in his direction whilst still pacing that Stream saw a large tome floating in front of Arson. The proportions of the book a perfect size for what was most likely missing from atop the pedestal.
The tome’s cover was unlike anything Stream had ever seen before. From the spine an ever moving spiral of white energy spun, tinged with multi colored sparks of lightning that spread across the face and back of the tome.
There were no words or runic symbols to denote what the tome held within, or even hint at what could be written across its pages, but when Stream looked into Arson’s normally star filled eyes, a foreign land was reflected there. A realm so vast and filled with magic that the mere reflection Stream could see from a distance took his breath away.
Then a crunch was heard, and Stream was finally able to look away, noticing that Arson held an apple. A very familiar looking apple, and Stream couldn’t help but groan at the sight below Arson.
Various apple cores sat discarded on the floor, emanating soft pulses of power from their remains. A venerable fortune of Ambrosia Apples had been consumed and scattered about the floor. The sight alone enough to make Stream’s stomach drop.
“What have you done…”
Arson looked up to see Stream, and the normal care free smile that the young Cultivator wore was there, but Stream could tell it was weighed down somehow. The normal joy shown on Arson’s face now balanced by a level of responsibility that Stream had never seen before on his friend's features.
“Oh, this…. Nothing, I learned from this book that after a certain number of apples are consumed a resistance to memory effects can be obtained, and its not like there aren’t plenty here.”
Stream tilted his head in confusion at Arson’s words, but the Cultivator merely pointed back toward another corridor Stream hadn’t noticed before. It was filled with trees. An orchard of Ambrosia Apples sat but a thousand yards from where Arson stood. The resource needed for his people to overcome hardship and defend themselves properly from their enemies sat in a seemingly uncountable abundance. Stream didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. The overwhelming feelings making him momentarily lost with the thought that his mother had died for but a few of the fruits, while this treasure trove was held at the edge of his home, a small trek from the hospital he was born in.
A sound like ripping sheets reached Stream and he was forced to look upward. He felt his eyes must be playing tricks on him as the cavernous darkness above had been replaced by what looked like a mid summer's day.
The ceiling was no where to be seen, only bright skies and a portal. A portal that grew larger and larger with every blink that passed.
To Stream’s horror, a very familiar gateway was drifting through the sky toward the growing portal that looked exactly like the distortion that led from the City of Palaces into the dense jungle where one of the Primes lived. It was followed by the distortion that led to the home of the DragonKin, which also held the tribes of nomadic giants. Which was then followed by a innumerable amount of spatial rips, gateways and other portal like distortions that Stream had never seen before.
Before Stream could even think to speak, a new voice entered the area and Stream was immediately unable to move at the power held by the person. Their tone incredible enough that it pressured Stream to make no moves in any direction. Even as he felt warmth trickle down his ears. The sound of what he believed to be that of trickling water, making him glance downward and see his own blood drip to the floor below. Stream's eyes returned to Arson who looked to be unaffected, his own gaze lifted from the tome once more to gaze over his shoulder at the winged elf who'd entered.
“Hello boy, what is your name?”