The first beams of sunlight strike my face and I snap awake. I groan, rub my temples, and sit up in my bed. After I sit up I take a meditative position and focus on the mana built up in my body. I focus on pushing it out which causes the air around me to grow warm and mana tries to reenter but I force it from my domain. I continue to do this for a few more minutes before stopping once I’m at a safe level of mana. After this I get up and rub my temples, the more I purge the more tedious it gets, despite that I am likely never going to make the race change to elf, there are too many factors that I would have to account for.

I go to one of my clothing piles and pick out some decent clothes; a faded red tunic and some brown trousers. After getting properly dressed I toss some decent-looking shoes on and grab my bag. Once I gather everything needed into my bag I grab my quartz staff and a thin plate of polished silver, look myself over, and frown, my brown hair has a few gray streaks starting to occupy it. It’s clear the gray isn’t a result of age as my face holds very few wrinkles, it’s likely my work in a mana-dense environment catching up to me. I also review my facial hair, a considerable amount of stubble has built up, after rubbing it some I decide on shaving it later.

After deciding I look fully presentable I first head about three houses down to one of the two-story houses, it has a slate roof, glass windows, and is made of wood. It has a small booth in front of it with various fruit and jam-filled crates occupying it and the owner’s wife sorting some fruits.

I hear a cheery voice spring up from behind a stack of crates before walking over, “Hi Olen! I haven’t seen you in quite a bit!”

I grunt and respond, “Hi Beval, I went somewhere for work, it was quite far away.”

He chuckles and nudges me in the side, “Wish I had a job like that, would give me an excuse to get away from my wife.”

Beval turns and blows his wife a kiss before walking back over to the crates and smacking one, he grins and says, “The usual? I even happen to have some fresh bread ready after I just so happened to spot you walking home last night; I'm sure you've got something good brewing in that lab of yours."

I smile and respond, “Thanks, I think I have some silver-”

He puts a finger up to my face and interrupts me, “It’s free, just a little welcome-back gift.”

Beval grabs a few pieces of bread from the stand and grabs a Pella, one of my favorite fruits. He hands them over with a grin, I walk off, and he waves goodbye. A few more people also wave at me, though it’s mostly people I’ve met in passing. As I walk further away from the town, the houses grow smaller and less densely packed.

As I make it into the woods I decide to start eating my food. I pull a knife from my pack and pierce the Pella, as I do I round out an opening and smile as the fruit’s sweet smell hits my nose. I get some of the bread that was given to me and dunk it into the fruit, as it comes out the bread is soaked in jelly. There are some seeds but they aren’t very bothersome due to their small size.

I get about halfway through my meal and decide that I’m full; right as I do I make it to the laboratory. I kick the dirt off my shoes at the entrance and enter, as I do I hear some clattering and see my assistant shoot up from her seat.

I chuckle and say, “Fall asleep while working Selena?”

She blinks tiredly and shakes her head, “Not while working, I finished all of what I was planning to.”

I nod and respond, “What exactly did you make progress on, you didn’t tell me yesterday.”

She grins after hearing me say this and turns around to take something off the desk she was sleeping on. She pulls a large piece of paper off the desk and displays it, the paper has a large pattern accompanied by multiple markings displaying materials needed to create the pattern, there is also some peculiar runic on the paper, though it could just be chalked up to differences in education.

I point and say, “And that is…?”

She gives me an annoyed look and responds, “It’s what we’ve been researching for the past couple of months, dimensional travel! It turns out the main issue we were having was a lack of good material, and the mana-stone you got yesterday was perfect! In fact…”

She gets something else off the table, it’s a strange-looking mana-stone.

As she shows it off she grins and says, “This came from another dimension! It projects low-class, low-penetration mana, but it’s extremely mana-dense.”

I just look at her and blink and then grab the stone to inspect it. This feels somewhat like a dream, did she actually open a portal to another dimension?

I turn on my mana sight, the stone seems somewhat depleted, but it’s a stone nevertheless. After inspecting the mana-stone I set it down on the table and sigh, “Usually I would yell at you for attempting this important of a ritual on your own, but it did turn out fine. Start preparing another ritual immediately, I need to get a good look at this.”

She gives me a surprised look before nodding. She begins grabbing materials, mostly standard stuff, the only things that are out of place are about half a pound of the mana-stone accompanying the specialized chalk we normally use and a few strangely placed conduit runes. Once Selena has everything mapped out on the floor with paper and materials sitting next to the parts she wishes to add them to she glances at me, presumably for approval.

I walk over and inspect the placement of everything, after moving a couple of pieces of paper and quartz I nod and say, “Good work, just a few strangely placed conduits which I rearranged.”

She nods and responds, “Shall we make the actual ritual, or was this just a test?”

“We’re making the ritual,” I respond, “I must see what this looks like.”

Immediately after I say this Selena begins properly constructing the circle. It required a bit more mana-stone than what I’d normally be comfortable with, but it should be worth it. I activate my mana-sight, and everything seems to be flowing fine.

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After putting the last piece of quartz into the pattern she turns and says, “Ready? This is quite an experience the first time you see it.”

I step back from the circle and keep track of what she’s doing, though I’m not worrying much, she’s always been fairly good at rituals. As she pushes her mana into the ritual circle it begins to glow an enthralling blue. The glowing is great enough that I feel it’s making a reaction that could be seen with normal vision. The mana being formed attempts to push itself outside of the circle, but is instead guided by Selena with the assistance of the conduits. I can see her transmuting the mana into something I don’t quite recognize, the fact I don’t recognize this compound could cause an issue if I have to intervene if I don’t figure out its general properties.

I remove my quartz staff from my pack and begin focusing on some of the runes and begin testing, though as I begin to trigger my plasma rune I hear my assistant yelp, I look over and my mana sight catches the ritual pulling more mana then I expected it to, and judging by Selena’s panicked expression, more than she expected. Due to her being an elf if this pull on her mana keeps up she’ll likely be ripped apart, I’m going to have to take over for her.

I yell, “Selena, I’m going to have to take over for you!”

She shakes her head, a considerable amount of sweat is now occupying her brow, she responds through gritted teeth, “If you intervene there’s a chance you’ll be hurt!”

I sigh loudly and pick her up, and as I do I shout, “Yeah, no shit!”

As I pick her up I tap my foot to the circle, she yelps loudly and tries to fight my grip, but I drop her behind me and quickly drop into a cross-legged position next to the circle. The blue within the circle is growing even more now. I push more mana into it and focus on powering it, at this point, it’s going to outpace my ability to channel mana. I see the space within the circle crack and warp, and as I see that I begin thinking of what could be doing this. This makes me take a bit too much focus off of the ritual and it causes the mana flow to be disrupted, this forces me to push even more into it and the element in the center to become less stable than it already was. At this point, it feels as if my body is filled with fire and I feel something warm running from my nose, it's likely my blood. This is far more mana than a human body should be handling or projecting.

It feels like the pull of mana is becoming greater… no, it’s not that, it's pulling me in! I feel Selena tug on my tunic in an attempt to pull me back from the ritual as she sees me being pulled into the circle, I admire her drive to save me, but if she pulls me away this will turn out far worse than it already is turning out to be.

I push myself further into the circle to break free from her grip, and as I do she yells, “You’re going to get pulled through!”

I fully enter the circle, I feel my form being warped as I’m tugged away from the laboratory and into whatever is beyond this.

I quickly swivel and say, “Watch the laboratory for me while I’m gone, Sell.”

I feel myself get fully pulled through, a freezing feeling washes over me, and the perspiration on my skin starts to frost. A menagerie of color washes over me, and it feels like my mind is being overwhelmed. The freezing temperature vanishes, and heat graces my skin, but it grows too quickly. The colors begin spinning, I begin spinning, and I reach for something to grip but all I can hold is my staff.

Then two blinding blue lights, both sitting next to each other, appear before me. They are so bright that they appear close, but as I attempt to move toward the lights it feels as if they’re miles away. In a bout of frustration, I transmute mana, using both what is within me and what is around me, and attempt to propel myself with fire. The mana burns as it flows through me, my body having been damaged from handling the ritual. As the fire projects from my palms, I underestimate how much power I put into it and launch myself incredibly fast toward the lights. As I make contact I hear a loud yelp followed by another man grunting. I then faceplant into the ground, everything around me is extremely saturated with mana.

One of the voices pipes up, “The fuck was that?”

The other one says something else, “Pretty sure it was this; looks like a human,” I feel a foot prod at my ribs.

As I fully process what’s happening, I realize they aren’t speaking a language I recognize. As I realize this, my language enchantment kicks in. Once I feel it fully kick in I stand up, and the two men walk backward and start whispering. As I fully stand up and get a look at them, I realize they’re knights, or at least appear to be knights. The armor they’re wearing is strange and bulky, it’s taller than almost all men I’ve ever met, and piping is covering the helmet; it does not look at all comfortable to walk in. One of the knights has a long metal object pointed at me, the other knight grabs it and pushes it downwards.

I fully straighten myself up and talk, “Good day, sir knight! Might you know where-”

One of the men interrupts me by placing a large metal hand over my mouth and putting a finger over their mouth; the motion is strange, but I realize that they’re trying to shut me up. I raise an eyebrow and try to move their hand away from my mouth, it doesn’t budge.

The knight with his hand over my mouth turns to his partner and whispers, “What should we do with him?”

The other knight puts one of his hands on his face and attempts to rub his temples which just results in the sound of metal scraping on metal. After this, the knight sighs and whispers back to his partner, though this one whispers quietly enough that I can’t hear him.

The knight with his hand over my mouth removes it and begins speaking quietly, “Who are you with, why are you here, and how did you get here unnoticed? If your answers are good enough you’ll be free after we’ve handled the situation we’re in.”

I respond, “Well, I’m Olen and I work for myself, I’m not really here on my own accord, it was botched teleportation, and what do you mean by unnoticed? Is there something hostile nearby?”

The knights look between each other and shake their heads before turning back to me, one of them prepares to say something, but they’re interrupted by a horrible sound that sounds like the combination of gurgling and pained wailing coming from behind me. The knights immediately throw up the metal objects in their hands while yelling profanities; energy blasts from the objects and into whatever is behind me.

I quickly turn right as the creature lets a glob free from its face, I weave away from the glob and look back at the creature. As I do I gag, the creature looks to be an amalgamation of human body parts, its torso has a pale and completely bare head and body with tendrils flailing from the mouth. It is supported by arms attached to what looks to be an extended part of its torso. There are burns in its flesh from the energy that the knights loosed earlier. The creature begins charging forward, and as it does it releases a loud gurgle and a few more globs from its mouth, I duck and roll as I definitely do not want to be touched by it or anything that has come from it.

The knights launch more energy at the creature and it collapses and slides through the dirt right to my feet. As I prepare to back away from it, it releases a wail and grabs onto one of my ankles. I kick at it, but it’s far too strong and drags me to the ground, as it takes me down I kick off the ground to get closer to it and gather mana into my hands, as I do I place my hands on its head. It prepares to whip the tendrils in its mouth at me, but with a blue flash I transmute all the mana I gathered into plasma and melt into its skull, the smell is horrendous but it has gone limp.

I kick away from it and stand up, the knights step back and start muttering to each other again. After I fully get up, I point at the corpse behind me and ask, “What in the twin hells was that,” I then point at the metal objects in the knights’ hands and say, “And what is that?”

The knights, yet again, turn to each other and shake their heads before turning back to me, one of them steps forwards, points to the corpse, and responds, “That’s a Centaur,” They then point to the object in their hands and responds, “And this is my trusty laser rifle, and now I have a good question for you,” He points at the corpse, specifically the melted head and continues, “What the hell was that?”