High Adept Ismene peered down at me over her perfectly straight nose. Her whole body, in fact, was symmetrical; a product of her specialization in life runes, no doubt. It never ceased to astonish me, the power that runes could have on the physical world. No other discipline, not even the kinetics, could create such powerful and lasting changes. It was what had motivated me to pursue runecraft. Well, that and my lack of talent for any of the other disciplines. 

When Ismene coughed impatiently, I realized my mind had drifted. Refocusing, and trying to ignore her pointed glare at my inattention, I clumsily pulled a tome out of the satchel at my side. Laying it on the long stone table between us, I couldn’t help but consider the importance of this moment. Ismene’s opinion, notoriously fickle, would determine my entire future. And, I realized with a trickle of sweat on my brow, I had begun our meeting with distraction. 

Hastily, I opened the heavy cover of the book, accidentally slamming it into the table. With a small glance at Ismene, I held my hand out in front of myself. All five fingers extended, I swept it up, and hundreds of runes followed it. They streamed out of the tome, glittering, phantasmal figures that danced through the air around us. The sight of them calmed me somewhat, and I began to speak.

“As you can see, I have arranged a three-tier tributary system of runes, with a decagonal base, expanding in a-”

“I can see full well what you have made, boy.” The woman cut me off, sneering slightly as she took in my runes. “The workmanship is… adequate, though the runes are somewhat simple. There seems to be little specialization even in individual runes, and as a whole it almost looks like a language unto itself. What were you thinking?”

She nearly spat the last words at me, and I took a step back in shock. While I knew my methods were unconventional, they hardly merited this kind of response.

“High Adept, my designs are optimized to allow me to do anything, rather than limit me to a specific field. While unusual, it doesn’t merit this kind of response.” I tried to remain calm, knowing that logic and reason would prevail. After all, this woman was a High Adept.

“Limit you? What are you trying to say? Where do you hope to find the power for your designs? Specialization allows us to become masters of a field, rather than lackluster generalists. Get out of this room, now. If you want to have non-specialized powers, go be a telekinetic, or something. Runecraft must be taken seriously if you hope to succeed.” By the end of her rant, she seemed more exhausted than angry, and even the disgust with which she said the word “generalist” couldn’t hide that she was feeling every one of her (rumored) five hundred years of life. But while I knew it was futile, I couldn’t resist trying one more time. 

“Please, if you would just-” She didn’t even wait until the end of my sentence to flick her hand, sending me tumbling backwards and out the large stone double doors at the back of the long, rectangular room. The back of my head hit the far wall of the narrow hallway with a clunk, as I slumped to the ground, dazed, the doors slammed shut, the accompanying sound carrying a sense of finality.

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I couldn’t even muster the energy to stand. Despondent, I looked down at the tome still clutched in my left hand. It was all over now. My years of study, painstaking hours crafting each of the nearly two thousand runes, careful nurturing of each one to a usable level, all down the drain. That door had been the only one open to me, it had just closed. I glanced up and down the deserted hallway, but found no more doors, no chances to plead my case. Now that the High Adept had rejected me, I would find no chances to pursue Runes. 

Eventually, I picked myself up, trudging down the seemingly endless hallway. The cramped stone architecture made me feel as if I were underground, though I knew this wasn’t the case. My thoughts wandered for a while, then. I thought of my mother, who I knew would be upset for me, but also happy. She had always wanted me to continue the family business of energy banking, redistributing psychic energy and keeping extra in reserve for powerful psychics. I thought of my father, who would understand my feelings well. He himself had once tried to become a full telepath, but ended up as a hostility-screener at a museum. I thought of Philomela, who was no doubt soaring through the sky in the mind of her pet nightingale.

When I returned to my senses, I realized that the hallway should have ended some ways back. Uncertain, I conjured my Detection rune, which sent out a weak pulse of power. It returned to me a faint impression of endlessness, warped space, curious, power. I quickly realized that I had been caught in a loop effect of some kind. Any space-time manipulations require immense energy, which I had no chance of overpowering. Instead, I tried the Reversal rune. Being barely strong enough to even manifest, it did absolutely nothing. I got the same results from Negate, Cancel, Location, Space, and Time.

At this point, I was starting to feel a little bit desperate. I tried all of my relevant runes at once, but nothing happened. They were only fledglings, not yet fed enough energy to become powerful tools. Finally, nearing panic, I poured all of my psychic energy, including what was contained in the pendant my mother gave to me, into a conjuring of the Space rune. As one of the 1st tier runes, it was already among my most powerful. Finally, I managed to distort the effect around me. 

First, the world seemed to wobble a little. Then, it shook. Then, cracks started to form around mem cracks in space itself. Through them, I could see nothing, and I was filled with an irrational fear. Plunging fully into desperation, I tried to cancel my conjuration, but it was too late. The world shattered around me, and I fell. Into the deep abyss of the between-space, I fell and fell. The last thing I thought, before blacking out, was that I was going to die a failure, with only a book full of useless runes to accompany me. 

I awoke, miraculously, to a young face, hovering over mine. I tried to startle, and jump back, but found I couldn’t. I was clutched with a bone-deep exhaustion that prevented all but the most minor movements.

“Claut sion vi? Vi neds help? Hello? Mister? Who are you?” Slowly, the words the boy was saying started to make sense to me. This must be the translation telepathy, I thought, still somewhat groggy despite my scare. I heard it works even for telepathic dolts, and I guess this proves that right. 

“Mister? Come on!” The boy continued to hover over me anxiously. “Who are you? Where are you from?” Those words triggered a realization in me. On Vioron, everyone spoke the same language. The Eminent Empire had long since established a universal language, before even the advent of psychic powers, and all other languages on the planet had faded over time. If this boy was speaking a different language, that meant that I… was in another world.