--- FORA ---

A vast desert surrounded me, broken only by rocky outcroppings and even more rocky mountains. There were forests in the distance, but they too seemed inordinately dry, a nearby river was—also—dry.

I gazed at the unfamiliar landscape, tilting my head at the red rocks and red sand, even the sky was tinted slightly red, like an almost pink bubble, devoid of the blue color that I’d come to know.

I blinked at it slowly, remembering the stories about Arithren.

As I gazed into the sky, I finally understood why they always said you could nearly walk to Arendi.

Hanging in the sky, like an enormous moon that took up over half of the available space, there was a green planet, lush with water and fluffy clouds, similar in some ways to Virna if it weren’t for the enormous mountains and large craters that marred its surface.

I stared at it for a long long time, my mouth working slowly into an O shape.

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After a long moment I leapt into the sky, cheering. I re-cast Geneseri, which was much easier with that time affinity. In fact, I wasn’t sure how I'd never seen it before but if I did this a bit differently and added this little addition…

A perfect clone stood in front of me a moment later.

After a second she opened her own eyes, blinking at me. “Wow.” She said, “Now that is trippy.”

She was very right. I don’t recommend seeing through two pairs of eyes at once, it’s very strange.

She turned to look up at the planet in the sky before tracking her gaze back down to the land around us. After a moment we both grinned at each other. “This.” I said, “This is going to be awesome.”

“It would be more awesome if that dragon is here somewhere, but I completely agree.”

We saluted each other and marched off in separate directions, intent on finding some locals.

The end of Book 2