When they landed, he first saw Greg convulsing in Tyson's arms. Between nausea and bile rising, he managed to stand, bringing to bear his powers in case Oz landed them somewhere unsafe. Oz started shouting as loud as he could, startling Milo and making him even more on edge. The clinically white background and lack of resonance only exacerbated any hard feelings he was having while his friend was on the brink of death.

Only a few seconds between landing in the white void, Oz shouting, and the 9-foot humanoid with glossy reflective skin entering the space. Milo was numbed to other species, both familiar and foreign, but he hadn’t seen anything like this before. Proportionately, it was human but lacked all the defining features of humanity. Oz and the shiny being stared at each other for a moment.

“Move,” Oz commanded, “he's going to help Greg.”

Milo and Tyson didn’t have time to move before they were forced away as the floor rose, supporting Greg. About 6 feet in the air. The alien moved silently and seemed to be observing Greg’s condition. Suddenly, they raised an arm, and the room was filled with a bright color that shifted across the visible light spectrum before returning to the clinical white. The being seemed to be issuing silent commands into the air, and the area around them responded. A black ooze flowed from the ceiling and morphed into different instruments; some were familiar, and the work began.

Milo, Tyson, and Oz had resigned themselves to watching from the sidelines. Tyson and Oz joined Milo against the gently sloped wall that seemed to give way and warm to the touch as though to comfort them. Milo just watched; he didn’t know how much time had passed; he might have guessed days, if not hours. Oz had been talking with Tyson, trying to keep each other hopeful, and while he watched, he also listened to Oz.

“Yeah, we call him Bob in particular.” Oz explained, “We know very little about his species, and we have only speculated that he is a HE.”

“Were ya talking to them?” Ty asked.

“The most we can exchange are images, vibes, and emotions. They don't talk or eat like we do if they eat at all. I think they are truly immortal. Bob explained that they chose when they passed away and created a new being or offspring when they grew exhausted.”

“I can’t imagine living like this.”

“Bob here is an artist.” Oz smiled, “we slid into his world, where his curiosity led to our acquaintance.”

“What sort of artist?”

“He is very passionate about life itself. He gardens and cultivates life on planets in this dimension.”

“So… he's a god?”

“Well… he meets the basic description, I suppose.”

Bob, the alien, conjured an image of a foreign flower and the feeling of love and care where a creature of some kind consumed it and was consumed and on and on until the flower returned. At least, that's what Milo thought he got out of it. He thought it was beautiful and calming and believed that the hideous brutality of nature could be a necessary part of the larger world. Whatever was destroyed, consumed, or changed served to become the rest of the world in an endless cycle.

“I guess.. art is subjective,” Milo muttered.

“Yeah, I agree with ya.”

“Another time, I’ll show you around his garden when it is more appropriate.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Bob sent another, more uncomplicated, impression. A feeling of pure joy followed by an image of a small green marble in the inky black.

Bob the alien stepped away from Greg, and all his instruments returned to ooze and flowed back into the ceiling. When the raised platform lowered to their level, he was fully clothed in white gossamer material and healed entirely. Milo could wrap his mind around how Greg was healed so wholly when his body had been wrecked so terribly.

Bob must have caught on to Milo’s, presumably Ty’s, confusion and showed them a depiction of a thread of individual blocks bonding into place, followed by a blade. The blade was followed by even more interlocked blocks connected in a wide area, melding with the organic. Bob tried explaining advanced nanotech to them through a slideshow and impressions.

“Nanotechnology,” Milo laughed, “there's not even an ounce of magic involved. It’s the extreme of what science could theoretically be.”

“Correct.”

“An that's why ya brought us here instead of an Earth hospital?”

“Correct again,” Oz smiled, “Bob wasn’t going to ask questions when his friends were in need.”

Another rapid series of Images and impressions flooded through the front of Milo’s mind that he couldn’t decipher.

“Bob says something along the lines, ‘I'll watch him, keep him stable, find brain doctor,’ I think?” Oz frowned deeply, “I think he means he fixed his body, but there's something wrong with his brain..”

“We dunno what happened to him,” Ty spoke up, “but what if the memory of his experience left his brain- I mean- mind damaged?”

“Well,” Milo spoke slowly. Formulating a plan and hypothesis in tandem, “What if we get a magician who can change his memory? Like my Master.”

Milo watched Oz go through a pained expression, take a profound sigh, and what looked like a migraine in a passing moment. Milo was beginning to think his Master was not very well-liked on the magic scene. Milo had some very big feelings over others and his association with ‘Magical Consultations and Collaborations.’

“So,” Tyson broke the silence and rubbed his hands together, “What's the moves?”

“I’ll go talk to our favorite librarian.” Oz chimed in. “She is going to want to hear about her boyfriend.”

“I'm sorry?” Milo asked disbelievingly. He didn't think he heard the man right.

“Don’t worry about that,” Oz turned to Tyson. “Go get as many books as you can from Greg’s shop. We are going to need as many as we can get.”

“What if we had all of them and then some?” Milo asked.

“Whaddya mean, Bud?”

“Here, take my bag, Ty.” Milo slung his bag around to the bug guy and watched his confused expression morph into pure excitement.

“Well, gosh darn,” Tyson looked even more pleased than Milo recovered it. “How big?”

“Not sure. Have fun,” Ty said, slipping out of the current plane and off to Who Knew Where.

“We didn’t say where to meet up, did we?”

“No..” Oz frowned. “ I'm afraid the whole family may be like that.”

“Ok, I suppose you want me to handle Bill while you try to convince Batty?”

“Sounds good,” Oz said, “by the way, you should probably stop calling her Batty. Her name is Alice, and when she was put together, she's a very nice woman.”

Milo was taken aback by this; the last few days had been a whirl of activity, and he felt exhausted. The worst part was he didn’t see his week getting any better, and the only plus he had was that Greg would probably be fine. Milo could only voice one thought.

“5 years…”

Milo still didn't have a Beskers Crook that would take him back to Earth, but he could make the jump just fine. Milo had spent a long time in the library going over the mechanics of a crook and the principles of the jump, slip, or whatever else you wanted to call it. Milo learned that what he knew about magic was only the tip of the iceberg, and his Master’s hands-off approach was that ditching him with no way back was twofold.

Milo had a breakthrough. What he had been learning was new reactionary magic suited to defense. He wondered why no one had bothered to teach him about any circles, glyphs, or chants he had read about in passing. And that was for an excellent reason, it seemed to him. Magic was an art, and whatever means you employed dictated your style.

Circles, Chants, Glyphs, and gestures were all how each respective magician associated the workings of magic. Those were not magic; the thought techniques and how well you ingrained the process enabled you. Milo didn't need techniques exclusively because he only had to practice. But that did not mean he couldn’t benefit from them at all. Milo drew up the image of the solar system he learned to associate with Earth and slipped through the void.