It was not always good to disappear out of thin air, especially if it happened against one's will, it was terrifying. The team of four did not only disappear, but they seemed to have teleported in some way as well!
The good thing was that they were conscious though, and Tim had been the first to complain as soon as he noticed what had happened. Well, he hadn’t caught up entirely, but he still had this inward sense that they had teleported, he was sure of it.
“If we're in an even smaller universe, help me god… I'm going to lose my shit!” He complained.
Tim perhaps overreacted, as it wasn't the worst thing in the world to pierce through universes, no. It entirely depended on how hostile the universe was, and as far as he was concerned, he was not in danger right now, but rather, he was just engulfed in utter darkness. This was a little scary, but he didn’t really feel endangered, though it didn't take long for him to get weirded out.
When Tim mentioned universes, something strange happened. A tiny universe of sorts appeared on his palm, and he found himself holding his hand out to ‘hold’ the tiny universe - it emitted just enough light for him to see what was going on.
This tiny universe looked like a ball full of clouds, but inwardly, he knew exactly what it was. For a second he even felt like a god, but then he couldn't help cracking jokes about it, he couldn’t take this thing seriously.
“If this is my universe, then every duck shall have two cocks!” He giggled.
“Quit talking about those, please, sometimes I think that you don't like women at all.” Arvena interrupted him, though he could not see her.
“I like women, obviously, but ducks with two dicks would look really funny! Hahaha!” He countered.
“Forget about the ducks,” She scolded, and then added. “I think I know how this place works, we don't have to be in the dark.”
Just after she said the latter, the crippling darkness that surrounded them swiftly disappeared, just as she hinted. Everyone's eyes ached afterwards, as the light that had popped up above their heads, felt brighter than the sun itself to them, they had to cover their eyes!
Arvena then somehow flicked the source of light away from her and the team’s close vicinity, she pushed it upwards as if she had sent it towards the sky, where every huge source of light was supposed to be. Then, as the team rubbed their eyes to view their surroundings better, a lush, green field materialized around them, it simply faded into existence.
“This is starting to look like a fever dream,” Tim sighed, his eyes still hurt.
“Tell me about it,” Ortana added, as she nodded at a single, brown duck that was in the middle of the field.
“No way! I summoned the dual-dicky duck!” He weirdly celebrated, “Yeah, I'm starting to understand how this universe works as well.”
Tim did not in fact understand. He just assumed that he could summon everything he wanted here, and although that was true in a sense, he was overlooking every other potential that this place offered. This wasn't some sort of small universe either, as he had assumed, no, it was just a place where all forms of energy were non-solid, until proven otherwise. In other words, he was in a pocket of space where everything and almost nothing existed at the same time - One may even call it a two, three and four dimensional space, it wasn’t easy to understand it fully, quite impossible really.
Arvena was the most informed one here, but of course, she couldn't put everything she knew into comprehensive words, so she put it in terms that everyone was familiar with, regardless of how much she understood herself. She felt almost burdened with this information, and this was not something where she could benefit from if she kept it a secret, her friends had to understand where they were, because that way, they may be more likely to survive whatever was to come next!
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“This is an energy pocket, guys, I think it translates into that. Energy is used on everything, one can even use it to revive themselves, because if you suddenly die for example, the energy imprints would hang around your lifeless body for a while, and if those imprints are strong enough, you can bring yourself back to life. I understand that even that simple example is confusing, but you'll understand the concept of energy a lot more after you escape the god's punishment realm of mana, I assure you.” She explained.
Furthermore she added, “Since we're in an energy pocket right now, we can literally be immortal if we tell our bodies to not get old, our energy imprint is undying, it does not dissipate here. Though… I'm guessing that we won't be here for long, so such immortality is only theoretical - don't listen to me, I've read one too many scrolls back home.”
“Well thanks for all of that, Tina, but I still don’t understand anything.” Ortana admitted.
“You don't need to understand all of it, we will either be banished from here, or get harvested by this energy pocket if it suddenly decides to harvest us, we can all be ducks with two cocks if things go wrong. Either way we won't be here for long, I hope not, so don't worry about it.” Arvena added.
The team wasn't a fan of what she just said, but at least she was being honest for once. Though, the situation also managed to escalate here nonetheless, because it seems that even Arvena didn't know what to do in this situation that they were in, even though technically she was the one that brought them here. She did not guarantee their survival.
Anyway, they explored the grass field for a little bit, and realized that they weren't really going anywhere within this energy pocket space thing. Arvena had ‘summoned’ the field, so it didn't feature anything beyond her imagination, it was an infuriatingly limited space.
These limitations forced the rest of the team to be more imaginative, since there was nothing else for them to do. They felt like they were lost in space, so they couldn’t do anything other than imagine things, they were enthralled to do so.
Ortana imagined a fever of small, blue stingrays. She made them float above the ground, and this developed into quite a majestic scene, because twelve or so stingrays were floating about, in perfect harmony, and they were also a bit luminous. This reminded her of home, a fever of stingrays had that calming effect on her, regardless of how she had assumed the form of many other creatures before she became a stingray ~ this form felt closer to home, and it was perhaps because of the memories she had back on the reef, that could be what influenced her.
It was a beautiful scene, but then Skendus managed to make the atmosphere a lot weirder in mere seconds, after he summoned a bunch of eyeballs! He summoned eyeballs from multiple species, including those of goblin's and rat's because those were the kind of eyes that he was familiar with.
Now he didn’t summon these things just to freak everyone out, no, rather, it was because eyeballs bore this great value to an illusionist. The eye(s) were symbolic in that branch of magic, and in this case, the multiple eyeballs also gave him many, literal perspectives for him to view. He could observe the world with them, and although he could do this back in the real world as well, it did cost a lot of mana to summon them, and it was often not worth the expenses, though here he realized that mana was virtually infinite, so he experimented with powers that he wanted very well to spend more time on!
Skendus was happy, but little did he know, by using his imagination as well, he had triggered a response. The energy pocket responded to his, and everyone else's collective use of imagination!
Everything that they had imagined suddenly expanded and multiplied, until they were surrounded by a world based off of the four physical things that the team of four had summoned. Their four, distinctive imaginations created a great world around them!
Then, three pyramids suddenly appeared in the sky. They were very visible, because they were huge, glowing, and they summoned nighttime as well. Their radiant glow was now impossible to miss!
Their presence caused the ground to rumble, and as they spun in a strict circle, it was very apparent that these pyramids were trying to summon the orb as well. It was materializing right in the middle of the rapidly-moving pyramids, its appearance was expected!
A horribly loud sound emitted from those pyramids afterwards. It was truly loud, but also comprehensive, it spoke in their current, goblin tongue!
“Your presence has been noted, and your forms of symbolism acknowledged, travelers. Though religion eludes you, we must still evaluate you as if you praised a god, for we are not shallow enough to discriminate against you based on faith alone.” They said.
Furthermore, they added. “We shall judge what you have presented to us, that being; A field and its comforting sky, a fever of stingrays, a swarm of eyes, and… a duck?”