“I guess I’ll just follow you then admiral”

“Just call me Caesar at this point, that or big boss” Caesar looked at Elliot with a deep laugh.

“I won’t call you boss,” Elliot stated.

“Big Boss.” Caesar corrected. “If you want to, I can call you sweet cheeks, so we both have a great nickname.” Caesar solemn tone filled Elliot with a shifting uncertainty of what this man was. His neurotic tendencies shifting like a summer sand in the wind.

“He’s flat and little more than a dense tooth pick.” Linea spoke up, seeing a chance to jab at her new friends. She smiled. They all continued down the path that Caesar led, they were flanked by a select squadron of elite soldiers that had a military ATV following ahead. Only one of the troopers had an exo-mech suit that had a pretty light kit.

“Well, here we are.” Around them was a plethora of beautiful flora, and trees. Plants that drifted with a mind of their own. Bulbous calyxes shooting from the ground, with small tendrils waiting for a bug come by. Other plants that produced enticing aromas with a small mist that emanated from the colorful pools on their petals. The sound of toucan-lemurs singing over the canopy. Traversing their habitat with a swing, swing, and then a glide to a tree just out of reached. Soon a clearing opened around them that had the ruins of a black stone structure. The charcoal walls etched with weathered, sigils and glyphs lost to time. Arranged in the form of a circle with a stone alter in the middle inset into an obsidian epithet. Someone seemed to have drilled into the ancient structure, leaving translucent tubes injecting a blue liquid into the ruined pillars. The whirr of hydraulic drone over the place, emptying into a pool of the blue inky substance around the alter.

“Alright sweet cheeks its your turn, work your magick baby.”

“Huh? What?” Elliot stared at the neurotic man wondering if this was another bit. After a dull in the conversation Caesar spoke up again.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Sweet cheeks this your element I can’t do anything here, I can provide lip service only” Caesar said deadpan. Elliot knew there was no way that man could be joking without also laughing himself. He looked to Linea for answers.

“I think that you just have channel at the stone and whatever it is we’re here for should function”

“Channel?” Elliot was lost.

“You need to take your internal power and move it throughout yourself.” Linea explained,” Just imagine it how you feel It best and move it out from that place.” She added a variety of useless hand motions that’s helped her explain, but caused him more confusion.

‘I think I get it; I just have to get my second heart to beat a bit more.’ Elliot thought. There must be some way that he could get his hearts to send that life-blood feeling throughout his flesh. He had felt something like what Linea explained when he was in the golden oil. He walked up to the black stone alter, that seemed to be ornately carved from some kind basalt. There were two hand prints on the alter. Placing his hands on the alter he noticed that it seemed like it was like a conduit. He searched himself or that second heartbeat and he felt its song reverberated through his chest. As a gold energy flowed his system. That then was absorbed with the alter, siphoning out and to the pillar that helped contain and amplify it. The glyphs and sigils on the side of the epithet shone with powerful energies. The pool of blue liquid evaporated in the light. As the space around the alter rippled and then space tore around it.

“Ruun now!” Caesar shouted, as a torrent of wind whipped around him throwing all the soldiers around to the ground. The spraying their guns into a crossfire of blood. The friendly fire immediately killed some of them, as a gust pushed behind them aiding Caesar and Linea into the torn space. Elliot took the que and jumped into the torn space. At the hope of answers, he could deal with this.

Traversing the space was like falling into a pool, twisting your ankle but before you hit the bottom of the pool gravity was reversed and you fell to the surface. Once on the other side it was like breathing for the first time as the air sang in his lungs. The grass under foot was a royal purple the sky was a crimson bubble. There were plants the drifted on the wind with balloon-like projections thin jet like whirring from them could be heard. What Elliot failed to understand yet was that this feeling of awe was actually a minor addictive aerosol that was in the atmosphere.