Desmond’s eyes snapped open as the vertigo seemed to suddenly vanish. What met his gaze was a vast starry sky far more beautiful than anything he could remember. The stars seemed to be bigger and more numerous, and they could be found in every color under the rainbow. They tended to group together in the sky, forming what looked like galaxies, nebulas, or even just hazy clouds of color off in the distance. Desmond was stunned by the sheer beauty and magnitude of it all.
Then an odd thought struck him. Desmond was sure he had collapsed face down, and even at this very moment, he could feel the ground press against his cheek. Moving his arms, he lifted his body up and found that he was indeed staring not at the sky but through the ground. He quickly orientated himself and found that no matter where he looked, all he could see was a stunning starry expanse. It was almost like he was standing in the middle of space, with stars and galaxies all around him.
“What the hell have I got myself into,” Desmond said with a slight concern in his voice. Did he go berserk after consuming only one beast core? But why would going berserk look like this? Why would anything look like this?
Desmond forced himself to calm down as he started to compartmentalize his situation. If he had gone berserk, there was nothing he could do about it, so he might as well just enjoy this view. It would likely take the Lodge a long time to hunt him down if he had gone berserk. He was so far into the Expanse that they might not even bothered with it. But it was still much better than turning berserk in a city where he would likely devastate the civilian population.
The Expanse was a large forested and mountainous area with much higher ambient mana than the rest of the continent. The closer one got to the center, the higher the mana concentration would become. With higher mana concentration came stronger beasts that would live off this mana. More mana also meant a higher chance for a creature to mutate. This far into the Expanse there was no civilization, only Lodge facilities and outposts set up here or there to house the hunters that would travel this deep in search of game.
Now then, if he hadn’t gone berserk. He needed to find out why he was here and what he was supposed to do. Feeling morbidly better, he started to study the starry space around himself. A few things stood out to him right away. The first and most apparent was that one particular star was much closer to him than all the rest. It was a yellow star with what looked like patches of blue light all over its surface. The yellow and blue light seemed to be swirling together but never actually merging with one another. It looked like a sun with glowing blue swirling lakes on its surface. It was truly beautiful and also felt familiar somehow, like he had seen it before. But Desmond knew he would have remembered seeing something like that, so it was a very contradictory feeling. This particular star appeared to be around five times larger than the sun appeared on Earth, though its light was somehow softer, causing him no discomfort when he gazed upon it.
The next thing Desmond took note of was that he couldn’t really see what he was standing on. There was definitely something there, as he could stand and even move around on this surface. He just couldn’t see it. It was dizzying to be surrounded by stars on all sides without any reference to what was up or down. The only thing that let him keep his balance, was that with each step a small ripple would form on this surface and travel outwards for a few meters before fading into nothing. It was kind of like standing on a plane of perfectly clear glass covered with a small layer of water. But when Desmond reached down to touch the surface, there was definitely no water. The surface felt hard but still rippled from where he made contact with it.
Satisfied that he wasn’t going to fall through this surface to some horrible demise, he turned his attention to the surrounding stars. Below the plane he was standing on, the stars seemed closer and more chaotic, filling almost all the possible space with different colors. It kind of looked like one large colorful nebula, but there were also holes and gaps in some places, and some groups of stars looked closer and larger than others.
Above the plane, there was far more black and empty space than below, with the stars grouping together in little galaxies throughout the sky. The space was still quite crowded, with tens of thousands of galaxies spread out. Some seemed close enough that he could almost make out individual stars, but others seemed so far away that they just appeared as a small white light.
Desmond thought about these facts while considering actual space as he knew it. This would mean that below the pane was his galaxy and above the plane were other further away galaxies. This was interesting to him but not exactly helpful at this moment. The only true landmark he had was the closer yellow-blue sun. As he focused on this sun, he felt almost connected to it in some way, and to his surprise. There was even a small tether of energy coming from this sun and connecting to Desmond’s chest.
With nothing else to go on, Desmond started walking, following this tether to the star. He was worried about falling off the invisible plane as he walked, but as he continued forward, the ripples just kept spreading out in front of him.
A little more confident, Desmond picked up into a jog, followed soon after by a full run. At this point, he was moving faster than the ripples could spread out and would, therefore, have no warning if the plane suddenly cut off. But if he was going to get all the way to the sun, he was going to have to run a lot.
After a few minutes of running, he was pleasantly surprised that he had been way off in the scale of this space. It was much smaller than he expected, and he was approaching the yellow-blue sun quickly. After a few more minutes, he was almost upon it and could make a few more observations.
The sun was only about the diameter of a 7-story building. The surface he was running on aligned itself right above the sun so that if he continued forward, he would end up standing a few meters above it. There was also something hovering above the sun that looked to be on the very same axis he was running on, though he could not quite make out what it was yet. Above this thing, floated three small orbs: gold, red, and blue. Lastly, the tether of energy emanating from his chest seemed to lead to the thing that was above the sun, and not to the sun itself.
Desmond was full of questions but decided it was best to approach the sun before contemplating them. As he drew closer, he could see what the thing above the sun was. It looked like shards of blue glass scattered across the ground. Or more like scattered across the invisible plane he was running on, as the shards seemed to be just hovering there in space.
He slowed to a stop next to these shards of glass. There were several hundred of them, and on average, they were about the size of a hand. They were spread out over an area of around a hundred meters squared. The tether of light from his chest seemed to diffuse into many little strings before traveling through each piece of glass and then down toward the sun. So the tether had been leading him towards the sun, just not directly.
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Desmond reached down to touch the nearest piece of glass, and when his fingers made contact, small images appeared on the glass plane. The image moved like a video, and was of him as a young boy playing little league baseball. He hit a high pop fly to right field, which should have been an easy out, but it was little league. As he rounded first base, the image changed. This time, the image was of him at around the same age, swimming in a pool with friends. They were all running or swimming around the small curricular pool in the same direction, determined to get a whirlpool going. Desmond moved his hand away from the glass. It was clear to him that these were his memories, not the memories from his current life as Desmond, but ones from his past life when he was known as Allan.
Desmond looked out over the several hundred fragments of glass. Were these all his past life’s memories then? Desmond reached out to several other fragments, trying to get a feel for what they contained. Some memories felt old like they were nearly forgotten, until he saw the image. Others, like his first kiss, he could still remember to this day. However, the details in the image were a bit different from how he remembered them. Desmond quickly put that piece down. It had taken him a long time to gloss over his awkward teenage years, and he had no desire to relive them at this moment. Moving over to another area of shattered glass, he finally found what he was looking for.
It was a simple memory from his childhood as Desmond. Proving that both his lives were contained in these glass pieces. He was out in the yard feeding the chickens when his Dad came by and told him they were doing some planting today. He had picked up a bag of seed that was almost comically large for his small frame, then set out following his father to the fields. The image shifted, and this time he was holding a bow with the arrow nocked. He drew slowly, careful not to strain the bow as he lined it up with an adorable-looking rabbit. After a moment of hesitation, he loosed the arrow, and it traveled like a bullet going straight through the cute creature’s head, causing it to explode in gore.
Desmond remembered this day clearly. It had been slightly traumatizing for him. He was eight years old that summer and had not wanted to kill the rabbit. But his father was there, and he wanted to disappoint him even less. In the end, he would say it was a good memory.
His natural-born strength had been a great help on the farm, but it also meant he broke stuff, a lot of stuff. His father had been exceedingly patient with him as a child, helping him learn to control his strength at his own pace. His mother was basically a saint, no few of these glass fragments will contain memories of him breaking some kind of her tableware, yet she never scolded him for that. Or maybe she had, and he had just glossed that out over the years as well. Either way, he liked his memories of his mother, so he would not go looking for that particular shard of glass.
Desmond’s hand moved over to touch another memory, and his mood instantly soured. In the image, he was sitting curled up on the cellar floor as smoke slowly filled the air. As the smoke got thicker, Desmond forced himself to stand. He then slowly made his way to the cellar door as smoke poured through the cracks in the wood. Throwing it open, he looked out into the burning ruin of his home. The walls, ceiling, floor, basically everything was on fire. Desmond climbed the stairs into the burning remains of his home. The thick smoke clouded his vision and caused him to cover his mouth and cough. Desmond put his head down and charged like a mad bull, going right through a wall and out into his backyard. The whole house seemed to give way as he went through the wall, and it collapsed in short order. The wood frame for the back of the house fell outward, right on top of Desmond’s head, knocking him unconscious and ending the memory.
Desmond retracted his hand from the glass. Much like how his considerable strength had always been with him, he was also much tougher than others. Desmond raised his hand to trace a long scar across his now bald head. His hair usually hid most of it, but it was feeling particularly pronounced right now. He had gotten this scar from where the frame of the house had landed on him. Being trapped under that burning frame had likely been the only thing that saved his life that night.
Desmond remembered back. His family had lived in a small village when he was a kid. Well, it wasn’t quite a village, just a dozen farmhouses built close together. It had been overcast all day, and the threat of rain was causing them to push back the harvest. He had been churning butter in the kitchen as his mother cooked when his father came in and told them that his uncle, who was the leader of their village, wanted everyone to gather up. He said there was a fancy noble here, and they wanted to see all the villagers in the square. He had wanted to go see this noble, as no one important ever came to their small village. But his mother told him to put the butter away and gave him a few other chores before setting off with his father. The chores would have taken him hours, so he promptly did none of them and set out through the back door. Sneaking around his neighbor’s house, he was able to see the square at the village center. There, he saw Ben, alongside three other figures in black robes. Ben was obviously the fancy noble as even back then, he liked his gaudy red robes.
Most of the Village had gathered in the square, and Ben was talking to his uncle. They seemed to be in an argument of some sort, but Desmond had been too far away to hear. Arguing with a noble didn’t seem like a good idea to Desmond. Just when he was about to come out of hiding and make his way into the square to join his parents, his uncle suddenly combusted. That had been the first time Desmond had seen real magic, and watching his uncle burn alive had frozen him stiff, hiding behind his neighbor’s house. Then the screaming started, but that didn’t last very long. A tsunami of fire swept across the square with Ben at its center, bringing silence once more.
Before he knew what was happening, Desmond found himself running blindly back to his house and taking refuge in the cellar. Unfortunately, Ben or one of his companions had set all the houses in the village alight. In hindsight, he suspected that Ben had done this to try and draw out anyone still living. Which would have worked on him, had he not gotten trapped and knocked unconscious by part of the collapsing house.
When he woke up the next morning, he was still under the frame and had a splitting headache. It had rained hard throughout the night, so all the fires had gone out. This was also likely something that played a role in saving his life, as the wooden beams pinning him to the ground were only lightly burnt.
He managed to push the beams off himself and get to his feet, noticing that he was covered in blood. Luckily, the wound on his head had stopped bleeding by this point, but at this exact moment, something else was occupying his thoughts. He could now remember his past life! Not perfectly, as the memories were a jumbled-up mess. Even his memories as Desmond seemed to somehow be out of order inside his own head.
He had initially thought of himself as Allan, who had just possessed Desmond after he died in the fire. He had more memories as Allan after all. Allan’s memories went from around the age of 3 to 26 before being suddenly cut off. In contrast, at this time, he had only lived 14 years as Desmond. This left his sense of self more heavily influenced by Allan’s ego. But this theory didn’t quite line up as both sets of memories, jumbled up as they were, felt like him. Rather than being Desmond or Allan, he felt like he was now some mix of the two.
After he had sorted through his memories a bit, he had gone around to inspect the village. Ben had burnt down all the houses, but the thing that stood out most was that there were no bodies anywhere. It looked like everyone had been spirited away, which was a better thought than what he knew had happened. Another thing he noticed out of place was some kind of magic ritualistic circle in the center of the village square. Desmond had decided to give it a wide berth while looking for survivors, as it had been giving him a very ominous vibe. Whatever happened that night after he had fallen unconscious had changed him somehow, turning him into what he currently was.
Desmond pulled himself from his reminiscing. That particular memory had put him in a very melancholic mood, which would not do! He still didn’t know where he was or how he was supposed to get back. It was time he got back to the task at hand.