A number of weeks have passed, I bought a dozen gas masks and packed them as well as more snacks and food items like MREs. I had packed a month's worth of food. Then Thursday came and I shifted again. I was at the library when it happened. Looking at books. After I shifted I looked around to get my bearings. It didn't take long to know where I was. I was back in Rust. The books on the shelf on this side looked intact enough to read, the building in better shape than most.

I started looking through books, much of the text too faded to read. I moved from section to section trying to learn as much as I could about this world and what it used to be like. Then I heard a thud and stopped what I was doing. I heard footsteps and then a low and booming male voice. Translated through the glasses .

"Who are you, and what are you doing here "

I turned around to see an eight foot tall man covered completely in armor coated in rust. "I'm uhh... A traveler of sorts. Gathering information. Long story short, I jump from one world to another and have no control over it."

He sat down on a bench by a bookshelf. "That row is history, that one is mythology." He points out two rows.

I nod and check those rows and shuffle through a few books. Took me a bit to find anything useful or interesting. The row I was in wasn't one of the two he pointed but the one between them science. I found a book with a couple intact pages with images.

The book described a theory of the layout of the various worlds and their connection to one another. It depicted a light coming from a source and hitting what looked like a prism and splitting into seven colors with black behind the rainbow. The prism being one world and the seven colors being altered copies of the world represented by the prism. Being a reflection of some aspects of the center world. Then one world being an absence of light. This felt... Familiar somehow. But then a few pages in it talked about a new model. Two sources, one light, one dark. Each hitting the prism and reflecting back. Eight above, eight below. All but one above was labeled but only two below were labeled. One was labeled the same as the black section before. Unfortunately I couldn't make out any names. Seventeen worlds. But the older model had nine.

"What one of these is this world?" I pointed to the two pictures.

"In the older model it's the purple one. But I think it's the blue one in the second with the blue one in the first being changed to light blue."

I thought about it for a bit before asking "Why eight above and below? It could have worked with just seven. It's like they added an extra before mirroring it on the dark side."

"Basically what they did. I never understood why either. I think I have an intact copy of that one back home. Never had confirmation of the extras from what I remember. I think they might have done eight because in the old one it's eight plus the center. So they doubled how many worlds there were outside the center. But that model would still work with seven on each side. Would probably even work better because fifteen is divisible by three whereas seventeen isn't really divisible by a whole number."

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I shuffled through my stuff and took out a notebook and colored pencils. I then drew a copy of the drawing with seven above and seven below using the same colors from the first model. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink, purple. Then for the dark side I set it up to look like desaturated versions of the same colors. I showed it to the large man and he nodded in approval.

"So what made this person think there were more than none worlds?" I asked

"There was a story on one of the worlds of how they banished a tribe to another world. Although evidence of that tribe was supposedly recorded on that world, none was found elsewhere. There was a model with ten worlds with one being an "unseen light" if I remember correctly. That page must be missing from that version. Maybe that's why it was eight above and below in the final model."

"Maybe. Now the only thing missing from my little map is names. Let's see... If this was purple in the old model I'll keep that. I'm guessing red was the fire place and blue the ice. So Brimstone and Glacier, then Rust as purple.... I think I'll have green be the Shroomlands on this map. I'm guessing the swamp was the black place, it's desaturated yellow in the newest model in this book, so I'll keep that. I can't think of a good nickname for it though."

I kept going through books when the man spoke up again. "I remember when I was younger there was a belief that every five thousand years or so a great change across all the worlds would happen. That great war was supposed to be around that long ago. So maybe this will pass."

I looked up at him "Maybe. It's better than not being able to fix it and is less boring than my jumping worlds fixing it because the worlds were severed."

"I don't know, as boring as it would be, I'd love to see this place flourish again in my lifetime." The man takes off his helmet with a hiss. His skin is pale white like a crayon, with visible blue line like veins on his face. His eyes had black sclera and bright blue irises. If his height alone wasn't a dead give away, this man was clearly not human.

"If there is anything about any of these worlds you can tell me that would be helpful. Never know if or when I'll end up there "

"Well the lands of ice and fire are rather self explanatory. Some of my kind live in the ice area. The fire world was inhabited as well back then. A tribe of giants like myself but acclimated to heat. The swamp area you pointed out was a prison colony of sorts. One way trip to suffering. This place" *he points to the world indicated in orange* "was basically a mining colony, though it had natives. They traded goods made with the minerals they mined. This place" *indicates the yellow* "was home to the King of [untranslated]. A tyrant who saw all worlds as his by right. This place" *pink* "was home to a number of tribes of a people who often fell into internal conflict. There was a city, but much of the land was forest."

"King of what? That last one didn't translate."

"It's a type of bird. They are black in color. Clever little bastards."

"So a raven or crow. King of Crows flows off the tongue real nice. Luckily from what I could find this war was five thousand years ago, he's probably long dead."

"I'm not sure if pointing this out helps, but I'm a bit over five thousand years old. My people have a lifespan of ten thousand years."

"Fffffffff.... Mine live a century or so."

"Though if I remember correctly the King was killed in the war so yeah. He's dead."

"Well at least there is that." I sat down, the tiredness starting to hit me. "I really wish world hopping wasn't so exhausting. I've been flipping through books for hours now and I feel like I need a nap."

"So you have to sleep before you can world hop again?"

"Kinda. I didn't need to sleep the first time but I think my body might have jumped on its own to keep me from death the first time. I'm going to block myself in the bathroom and set up a bedroll."

He nods as I set up a place to sleep

After I woke up I climbed out of the bathroom and looked around. It was starting to get dark and the giant was grabbing stuff from the library and putting it into a cart outside. He waved at me when he saw me.

"Salvaging what you can, I see."

He nodded "maybe one day we will try to fix this place up, but for now I'm just grabbing anything I can use. Shelves, scrap metal, books if they aren't too worn out."

"I guess I can help you move stuff. I'm all packed up so I'm just waiting to jump home."

I helped him move stuff for a while. By the time we were done it was nice and dark. I waved goodbye as he carried his cart off. As he walked away I shifted again. Back home one more. I walked to my house to relax a bit before going to bed.