Chris jolted awake, briefly pausing as he took in the strange scene around him before dismissing it as he focused on his space, letting out a breath of relief as he found it perfectly intact, then freezing as he found it… well, frozen. “What the-” Chris frowned, turning his attention to his spatial awareness and finding the foxkin frozen as well. “Is this what happens when you die?” He looked around at the strange room he'd found himself in, noting the throne he was currently sitting in, along with the other three… people? in thrones of their own, though they all appeared to be completely unconscious. “Hm… can't help but feel there might be something else going on here.”
First things first, Chris tried to open a portal, and… nothing, which he pretty much expected given the fact that his space was frozen. He got up and took a walk around the room, taking a closer look at the others. The four thrones were arranged in a square so they were all facing each other and each one was a different color. His own throne was white, the one to the right of him was red, the one across was black, and the left one was… gross. Some kinda pale, sickly green that made Chris feel like he'd catch something just from looking at it. Which made sense, he supposed, considering the throne's occupant. It looked like something out of a horror movie, like some weird chimera made out of a dozen different insects and a handful of mammalian type creatures, and the fact that it was wearing a t-shirt and jeans just made the whole thing even more disturbing. Though maybe it would have been better if the clothes weren't warped to fit the dozen or so extra limbs the thing had. The person in the red throne was better, though still somewhat disturbing, though more for the implications than their actual appearance. They looked like someone had split two people down the middle and sewn two halves together, one male, one female. As for the person in the black throne, they just looked like a guy.
Unfortunately, that was it. There was literally nothing else in the room besides the four thrones. Chris frowned slightly as he considered his options. His portals weren't working and a quick test of the walls proved they were more than sturdy enough to stand up to anything he could do to them. He tried just willing himself out of the room, but that didn't work either, not that he'd really expected it would. His only real option seemed to be waking one of these people up and seeing if they knew a way out. “Guess I'll start with the normal looking one.” Chris muttered, walking towards the black throne. “I just hope this isn't some kind of test designed to teach me not to judge people based on their appearance.” He shook his head. “Should have just given up on escaping when that foxkin's attack affected my space.”
Chris placed a hand on the guy's shoulder to try and shake him awake, only to pause as he felt a… connection. Not to the guy, but through him. He focused on it for a moment, trying to push his way through it or something, thinking maybe this was how he was supposed to leave, but no matter what he did, nothing happened. Chris clicked his tongue in disappointment and gave the guy a shake.
Greg's eyes popped open, looking confused for a moment as he just stared at Chris, who simply took a step back, waiting for some kind of response. “Can I help you?” Greg asked tentatively. “Where- holy fuck, what is that!?!” He yelped after glancing over to see the chimera.
Chris sighed. “Apparently not and I have no idea.”
Greg tore his eyes away from the chimera to frown at Chris. “Eh?”
Chris shrugged. “I was hoping you'd know how to leave this place, but if you've never seen that thing, I figure the odds are low.” He paused. “Unless… maybe you've been here before, just with different people?”
Greg gave him a weird look. “You didn't bring me here?”
“No. You were here when I arrived, I just woke you up.” Chris explained.
“That's weird… I was just-” Greg cut off as his thoughts wandered to the Archmage and he realized he could still see her through his other self's eyes, she was just frozen, mid sentence. “Huh… So time is stopped out there? Or at least it's passing really, really slowly…”
Chris blinked. “You're aware of things outside here?”
“Yeah, I have another body out there.” Greg replied vaguely. “Sort of my thing. Well, no, my thing is turning stuff into smoke, but I can use smoke to make bodies, so same difference, you know?” He paused. “That still doesn't explain how I got a body here though…” He raised a finger, trying to turn it to smoke. “And it isn't even smoke! Shit, I don't even have any smoke! That's- not good.” Greg frowned, looking around the notably exitless room. If he had some smoke there might be something he could do, but without it… he didn't like his chances.
“My ability doesn't work in here either.” Chris muttered. “Is this some sort of prison?”
“It better not be.” Greg growled. “Being trapped in a timeless void with some weird horny elf, a shemale, and whatever the fuck that this is is not my idea of a good time.”
Chris frowned. “Horny elf?”
Greg waved his hand dismissively. “Whatever you are. To me you look like an elf with horns.”
Chris reached up to feel his head, finding that he did indeed have sharp ears and horns. “Why would I be here in this form?”
Greg cocked his head. “Do you have more?”
“I have three.” Chris replied. “Human, half-elf, and a co-” His voice cut off with a hiss. As he'd talked, his form had flickered, changing to human, then back to half-elf, and finally into his combat form.
“Huh…” Greg grunted as he looked Chris over. “Not gonna lie, I preferred the horny elf.”
Chris grunted, frowning down at himself, trying to figure out how he'd transformed in the first place. All he'd done was think about his combat form! He paused, then thought about human form. “Huh… transforming is surprisingly easy here. But why can't I do anything else?”
“Well, if this is a prison…” Greg trailed off. “I got nothing, actually. This place is just confusing.”
Chris grunted in agreement. “We should try waking up the other two. Hopefully one of them will know what's going on here, but even if not, it'd be good to have a couple more minds working on figuring out how to get out of here.”
Greg nodded. “True. But we're saving that for last.” He gestured to the chimera.
“Agreed.” Chris grinned slightly as they moved over to the red throne. “Oh, by the way, I felt some sort of connection when I touched you before, but it didn't seem to do anything. Want to see if you can do anything with it?”
Greg raised an eyebrow as Chris held out his hand. “Sure?” He took his hand, looking a bit surprised as he felt a connection as well. He messed with it a bit, but he didn't get anything more than Chris out of it. “Sorry, nothing.”
“I figured, but best to make sure.” Chris sighed. “Alright, let's wake them up.” He placed a hand on the male half of them, pausing as he felt another connection. “Huh… There's a connection here too. Though that probably should have been obvious… it would have been weird if it was something only the two of us had.”
Greg narrowed his eyes. “I wonder…” He put a hand on the female half. “Ha! It is stronger!”
“Still doesn't do anything though.” Chris muttered, giving the connection a few tugs.
“It doesn't do anything yet.” Greg corrected. “But if we used all four of us…”
Chris nodded. “It's something to try, at least. But first we need to wake them up.”
“Right.” Greg agreed, pausing as a thought occurred to him. “What's your name?”
“Oh, it's Chris.” Chris replied. “You?”
“One moment.” Greg raised a finger as he shook the fe/male, their eyes blinking open. “Hi there! I'm Greg and this is Chris.” Greg greeted them with a grin. “You wouldn't happen to know how to escape this timeless void, would you?”
Tori screamed. “No! No, I am not going through this shit again!”
“Oh good, you do know what's going on!” Greg clapped. “So, how do we get out?”
Tori glared at him. “How the fuck should I know?!?”
Greg blinked. “Because you've done this before?”
“No I- Damn it, I just escaped a time dilated trial!” Tori groaned, slumping down in the throne. “Fucking- ugh, how did I get pulled into this one? Is it because I'm following the path of True Ascension?” She asked in a defeated tone.
Greg scratched his head, turning to Chris. “Did any of that make sense to you?”
“All I get is that they have no idea what's going on here either.” Chris replied. “Which means it's time to wake up our fourth.”
“Damn it.” Greg sighed. “What do you think the odds are it'll be violent?”
“More or less the same as yours?” Chris shrugged. “Being ugly doesn't mean it's evil.”
“See, you say that, but it's pretty much guaranteed that the uglier a feral is, the nastier it'll be.” Greg pointed out.
Chris paused. “What's a feral?”
“You know, the people driven wild by mana.” Greg explained.
“I have no idea what you're talking about.” Chris frowned. “What do you mean by mana?”
Greg blinked. “You don't know about mana? Did you not get taken when the aliens came to Earth?”
Chris stared at him for a moment. “I have a feeling we aren't from the same place, because everything you just said sounds like complete nonsense.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“That-” Greg began, cutting off as his eyes widened. “Oh… shit, I might know what's going on here. Not sure what to do about it, but… hold on, let's wake up this thing first. Ah, but before that, what's your name?” Greg turned back to Tori.
“It's Tori.” Tori replied, frowning at the two of them, still trying to piece together what the hell was going on.
Greg looked a bit surprised as Tori became fully female. “Huh… Alright then.” He turned back to the chimera, hesitating as he looked for a good place to shake it. “Damn it, I'm either in an armpit or on its neck.” Greg grumbled, grabbing the closest approximation of a shoulder he could find and shaking it. “Uh… shit, I can't tell if you're awake or not.”
“Who- what- why am I-” Andrew stammered, cutting off with a groan. “Cathryn is going to be pissed if I reincarnated as another monster.”
“Try thinking about your preferred form.” Chris offered.
“My preferred form?” Andrew frowned as he changed into his tigermonkey form.
“Interesting.” Chris muttered. “Are you one of the Kin?”
“What? No, I- hold on.” Andrew muttered as he examined himself, focusing on being human. “Okay, there we go.” He sighed in relief. “Now, what the hell is going on here?!?”
Greg sighed. “And that's oh for four. But I think I might have an idea of what's going on here. Let me ask, do all of you have abilities that don't exactly… fit? Like they're something more than what a normal person should be capable of?”
“I do.” Chris replied easily, figuring his space had something to do with this anyway. “I control a space.”
Tori hesitated. “I have a system?”
Andrew shifted awkwardly. “I- can control my aura.”
Greg nodded. “And I control smoke. Which, I recently learned, is because I'm a piece of the sovereign of physicality. Not that I have any idea what that means beyond the fact that it gives me control over smoke, which is apparently the essence of physicality, but since it is literally the only reason I can think of for why I might be involved with anything regarding other realities, I figure it might have something to do with all this.”
“Wait, other realities?” Andrew interjected.
“Yeah. At least I think so.” Greg shrugged. “I'm from a reality where Earth was driven into an apocalypse type scenario by the arrival of mana. It drove half the population crazy and transformed them into super strong mutants, which the rest of humanity could only face because a small portion of the population got superpowers. Of course, some of the mutants got superpowers too… Anyway, point is things got rough for a bit, and just when things were settling down, aliens showed up and abducted everyone, supposedly to save them from what would happen as mana took a more significant hold on the planet, but they ended up killing half the population so who knows?”
“I'm from a world called Azza, where humanity lives in an underground city underneath a gigantic labyrinth called the Maze.” Chris offered next. “Though I have traveled to a world that is also called Earth, but none of that happened to it, and it's somehow connected to Azza, because it has a video game called ‘The Maze’ which is practically an exact copy of my world.”
“I- also come from a world called Earth…” Tori began tentatively. “It was pretty unremarkable until… I started to spread my system and some sort of god showed up, killing everyone. I somehow survived, getting sent to what I can only assume is another reality, where people cultivate using Runes.”
“Those are definitely different realities.” Andrew muttered. “I'm in one where Earth is a pocket dimension of this place we call the Outside, which is full of Beasts that get stronger by consuming the ability crystals of other Beasts. I'm also in one where a system splits people into monstrous and noble races and people can level up by using skills or killing.”
“Oh, shit, like a litrpg?!?” Greg asked excitedly. “I love those!”
Andrew blinked. “A- a what?”
“A litrpg? It's a type of book where the story is set in a world that has a system, so the characters level up and whatnot as the story progresses. Like a video game, I guess?” Greg explained.
Tori frowned. “Can we focus on the stuff that will help us actually leave this place?”
Greg coughed awkwardly. “Well, about that… I'm not sure we can.”
Tori froze. “Excuse me?!?”
“Wait, wait, hear me out!” Greg waved his hands placatingly. “I don't think we can leave, because I don't think we're actually here. At least, not physically. Maybe mentally? I mean, none of our abilities work, time out there is frozen, and we can change how we look with a thought, which to me seems to indicate that this is a non-space, something that only exists because of us. To connect us.”
Chris raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Greg grinned. “Because we're sovereigns.”
“Why does that mean we need to be connected?” Andrew asked. “Also, how are we sovereigns?”
“Okay, maybe you guys aren't sovereigns, though I think it'd be weird if you weren't, but as for why we're connected… Chris, what happened before you woke up here?” Greg asked.
“A foxkin hit me with an attack that shook my space so hard I was worried it would break.” Chris replied.
“Ha!” Greg clapped. “There! You were in danger, so you woke up here, so you could get us!”
“Get?” Tori frowned. “I'm not going anywhere with you people! I have my own shit to deal with! And none of this is explaining how we get out of here!”
Greg sighed. “Dude, time is literally frozen out there. What is your hurry?”
Tori gritted her teeth. “I just spent over a year in almost absolute isolation because time passed faster in the place I was than it did outside, and all I want to do right now is be with my girlfriend!”
Greg paused. “Okay… Well, Chris and I figured out that when we touch, there's a connection and it gets stronger as more of us touch. I figure we just do that and follow the connection to wherever we want to go. Which, admittedly, is probably all our own realities… I have shit I need to handle in mine as well. Our ship literally just crashed on a wild alien planet that we are so not prepared to deal with.”
Andrew frowned. “I guess I wouldn't mind sending my system world self to one of you if you need it… I'm not terribly invested in that one. But I'm pretty sure if I leave Beast world my girlfriend dies. Though I might be able to just send one of my cores…”
The other three turned to stare at Andrew. “Wait… you're in both realities? Like, simultaneously?” Greg asked hesitantly.
“Yes?” Andrew confirmed tentatively. “My ability lets me gather cores, which are essentially the things that keep people alive as far as I can tell, which lets me have multiple bodies.”
Greg raised an eyebrow. “I can have multiple bodies too, but it doesn't let me control all of them. I need multiple minds for that- hold on, how did you get to a second reality?”
“I drained the aura out of a core and it disappeared, then a week or so later I was born in another reality.” Andrew explained, giving Greg a weird look.
“Interesting…” Greg muttered.
Tori sighed. “Does any of this have a point?”
“Well if he can be in multiple realities at once, what's to say we can't too?” Greg pointed out. “See the problem is the extra mind, but if whatever process bringing us to another reality creates the extra mind, then there's no problem! Not that it will, but hey, I'm an optimist.”
Tori glared at him. “I don't want to be in multiple realities. I just want to be in my reality!”
“Well, I want to be in a litrpg, so nyeh.” Greg stuck his tongue out at her. “You know, as long as it doesn't involve leaving Tessa.”
“Alright, I don't think anything productive is going to come from continuing this.” Chris announced. “We don't even know what's going to happen, so everyone just hold hands and we'll figure it out from there.”
Andrew nodded, Greg shrugged, and Tori grumbled under her breath as they all came together, grabbing each other's hands. They all felt the connections come into sharp clarity, and then… disappear. “Greg.” Victoria growled, squeezing his hand hard, as if she was trying to crush it, which she was. “Why are we still here?”
“Okay one, ow.” Greg grimaced, pulling his hand out of her grip and shaking it. “And two, I have no idea! I have theories, not facts! Though, if I had to guess, there's no way to avoid being in multiple realities now… You know, as long as we can get out of here.”
“I will kill you!” Tori snarled.
“You can try.” Greg chuckled. “Hey, maybe that's the answer! All we have to do to leave is kill ourselves! Now all we need is a g- huh.” Greg blinked at the gun that had conveniently appeared in his hand. “You know, I was joking, particularly since I'm pretty sure we can't die, but now I kinda want to try.”
Tori snorted. “You're a child.”
“Hey!” Greg protested, then pausing and shrugging. “Okay yeah, kinda. But I prefer the term goofy.”
“Hm. I wonder if we can just go back to sleep.” Chris muttered. “I mean, I assumed I appeared here after what happened, but what if I've always been here? What if we all have, and we've just been unconscious? It's pretty clear Greg is right and we're all connected somehow, and this room is emblematic of it. Particularly since it's very clear we aren't physically here. Maybe we just have to mentally withdraw from it.”
Tori glared at him. “So, what you're saying is that you woke us all up and most likely forced us into multiple different realities for no reason?!?”
“In hindsight, yes, but it isn't like I knew that.” Chris shrugged. “I woke up here just as confused as you.”
Tori continued to glare at him for a moment before letting out a groan. “Whatever. I just- ugh, I fucking hate my life. It seems like it's designed to fuck with me.”
“Mine does that too!” Andrew exclaimed, coughing awkwardly as the other three gave him weird looks. “Sorry, I mean- I get it? Whenever my life starts going well, something always comes along to mess things up again.”
Chris cocked his head. “I wouldn't necessarily say always, but there have been a number of unfortunate coincidences in my life… though arguably equally as many fortunate ones. The only reason I'm even here is because I ran into the one person who could actually cause me any issues, and even after I escaped him, a random encounter threw me right back into his grasp.”
“Huh.” Greg grunted. “Narita did say something about realities making the lives of people like us more difficult… I honestly haven't seen much of it personally though.”
Tori frowned at him. “Didn't you say your ship just crashed?”
“Well, yeah, but shit happens, you know?” Greg waved dismissively. “That doesn't necessarily mean reality is fucking with me.”
“Even if it is, it's reality. What are you going to do about it?” Chris agreed. “Might as well accept it and move on.”
“Ugh, you sound like my parents.” Andrew grumbled, before letting out a sigh. “Which means you're probably right too.”
Greg chuckled. “So, shall we try going back to sleep? If not, we can always give this a shot.” His chuckle shifted to something a bit more sinister as he waved the gun around.
“Yes, let's try it.” Chris agreed before Tori could snap at Greg again, heading back to his throne because, real or not, he didn't like the idea of being passed out on the floor. The rest followed suit, all of them getting settled as they focused on falling unconscious, until everything began moving again.