“Now, make sure to keep all of your limbs inside the circle and any spells, magical abilities or similar are to be kept at a minimum.” The old wizard, probably someone's great-grandmother on account of the wrinkles and balding hair, told everyone as they stood on the teleportation platform. The platform itself was in a completely separate building behind the building where the reception was. Similar to a storage unit or gymnasium, there was simply a massive amount of space with multiple teleportation circles spread around the area of various sizes. Vita even noted some barely visible lines that could mean that the entire floor could become a teleportation circle if needed. Probably for emergencies, if those ever happened.
They all stood in said circle, with the only one not being nervous is Heracles, who is trying his best to reassure everyone that it is safe and that nothing will happen. Even using Vita as an example of how to stay calm. But why would Vita panic? If anything, this was an exciting new experience to live through! Worst case scenario would be that Vita fully died, but something told it that Bre would show up to speak with that weird voice of theirs.
Either way, the old wizard takes their time explaining all the little safety requirements one more time before stepping back and readying her old arms. She shook her hands, getting some blood into them, before starting to channel her mana through them. Gone was the somewhat childish look in her eyes, replaced completely with steel-like focus. Even Vita could tell there was mana being channeled on account of the purplish light starting to softly shine out of her hands and eyes. The same light then started to appear from the circle itself, first from the outermost parts, which then rose up in the air and formed a dome around them. The dome's light condensed further and further, until eventually the group found themselves in a dome reminiscent of a foreign night sky.
Every, bar Vita, showed various levels of stress and fear. Diana stood stock still watching it all play out, with her heart rate building up to worrying levels. In a rare moment of kindness, Vita reached out. A large, clawed hand instead of the usual vine. She took a moment to consider it, before slowly reaching out and holding on. It didn't calm her down completely, but the gesture was calming enough.
After a couple of moments later of standing inside the dome, it started to dissipate and surprisingly enough, there stood an old man with a truly massive mustache matched by his eyebrows. He had similar purple glow coming from his eyes and hands as well, carefully causing the dome to disappear. He raised his eyebrows is surprise seeing Vita, but quickly recovered.
“Welcome to Wolfheart, take a moment to reorient yourself over there if needed and enjoy your visit.” He said with practiced ease before shuffling over to another circle and starting to glow once more.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Every stepped to the side, letting Beatrice take a moment to calm down her upset stomach, before moving outside.
Diana, Heracles, Beatrice, and Earl all took a deep breath of the Wolfheart air before letting it out. Diana seemed almost giddy with excitement, stepping up in front of her friends with a smile.
“Oh how I missed the air here! Nothing beats the fresh smell of nature in the air. Come on, let's get to Old man Noah and get the details of our quest!” Beatrice tried to look as excited, but with her hand over her stomach and a tired look gave Diana pause.
“Or we could visit my place first. It's a few minutes walk away from here. And I could spend that time telling you everything about Wolfheart.” She finished speaking and every else followed after her. She pointed out various buildings she recognized and told her friends anything interesting about them. Like how the house with the garden had a couple that would sing poetry to each other loudly at night. Or how the blacksmith was secretly in love with the next door baker, but was too shy to express himself. And as they got closer to the adventurers building, she spoke about nearly every single bar fight that had happened in the nearby taverns.
Speaking of fights, out of a window, two men came flying out and crashed harshly into the house across the street. The men were adventurers, on account of their somewhat cheap armor and rugged faces. Despite fighting each other, and trying to pin the other man to the wall, neither drew their weapons and were clearly drunk on account of the strong smell of alcohol coming off their bodies and their awkward movements.
One of them managed to get a knee in, forcing the other to double over and vomit, slamming both fists into his back before grabbing him and throwing him hard into the middle of the street. He laid there, blood, vomit, tears, and snot covering his face as he tried to both wipe his face and get up off the ground. He staggered up, hands on his knees, as he vomited one more time and looked up.
Everyone was more or less disgusted by the sight, but not too concerned about the violence itself. The man squinted, mumbling something incoherent, trying to see who stood before him and if it was that other drunkard. And then he saw Vita.
His eyes went wide, adrenaline immediately washed away the drunkenness clouding his movement, and reached for his axe.
“M-monster!” he shouted as loudly as he could, terrified of Vitas form. Taller than any man, more eyes than needed, and covered in thorny vines and a crown of antlers. But the other drunkard quickly caught his fellow in a sleeper hold and a hand on the axe. He tried getting loose, but fell to unconsciousness soon after. The standing drunk with scars covering much of his body with small piercing eyes. But seeing Diana, a big smile, made him look less intimidating.
“Hey guys and gals! Diana is back, and she got friends!”