Surprisingly enough, when my eyes next opened, I was still… wherever here was. No dimension hopping, no holy chats, just the inside of a tent. I took a look around and found I was alone, having been the last to wake. After taking a second to stretch, I got up and exited the tent to find my travel companions sitting next to a fire, boiling some water.
“Morning, guys,” I said. “Got something good planned for breakfast? I assume we’ve got plenty more walking ahead of us for the day.” Oruan simply shook his head and stated that there wasn’t anything nearby to hunt. Apparently they had planned on just having tea for breakfast, which wasn’t going to cut it. Yesterday’s walking wasn’t difficult, of course, but with the amount of distance to cover, breaks were few and far between.
Oruan took the water off of the fire and Aniel added some tea leaves she had brought, while I fished one of the ration bars from my bag and split it apart to share. “I’ll warn you, it doesn’t taste great. Just made to keep you going, not for luxury purposes,” I explained. The two of them curiously inspected their portions of the bar before apprehensively taking a small bite. The looks on their faces clued me in to the fact that they were expecting an otherworldly food to taste much more interesting. I did warn you, I thought, with a small smile.
We sat in silence while we ate and drank our tea. The pairing was surprisingly nice. The tea was strangely sweet, for having nothing added to it, and was a pale blue color. It definitely didn’t resemble the teas of back home in appearance, but was rather similar in taste aside from the sweetness. The effects of the drink were quickly noticed as I continued to down it. My energy levels were rising rapidly, cutting through my morning haze, and filled me with a warm tingling. It felt much more potent than I would expect, yet I wasn’t getting the usual jitters caffeine would cause.
My face must have indicated that I wasn’t a fan, as Aniel decided to speak up. “Do you not have tea where you’re from? Or perhaps it is just not to your liking,” she asked with a mild hint of interest.
“Oh, no, we definitely have tea,” I replied. The interest in her expression was replaced with slight disappointment. “It’s pretty much the same back home, as far as taste goes, just sweeter. I’m just a little surprised. Didn’t expect it to be blue; or make me so energized, at that.” Oruan and Aniel exchanged puzzled glances, and, naturally, I joined in. “What, did you expect tea to be completely foreign to me,” I laughed out.
“No, that’s not surprising,” Aniel said. “I’m simply confused, as the tea is neither sweet, nor blue. It’s colorless.” That definitely took me by surprise. Peering into their cups, their tea was also tinted with the same blue color, so it didn’t appear that anything was specifically added to mine. Okay… Why don’t they see the blue, though, I thought.
“Well… is it at least making you feel wide awake, warm and tingly, too,” I asked, hoping that I wasn’t having an adverse reaction to the beverage. I didn’t have anything with me to alleviate an allergy, so things could go downhill fast if I misstepped. Aniel’s face lit up slightly.
“Ah, of course! The mixture I brought contains wakeright flowers,” she exclaimed. “They’re a flower that blooms in areas frequently exposed to harsh sunlight. They naturally consolidate ambient energies from the surrounding environment, which are extracted when used in teas. It makes them great for extended travel.” I relaxed slightly with the confirmation that I wasn’t hitching a fast ride to my grave.
“Okay, that’s a relief. Thought it was hitting me funny. It’s definitely not like tea from home; that doesn’t make you feel anything close to this,” I said. That still left the mystery of why the drink wasn’t blue for them. Weird fantasy stuff is all well and good, unless it’s only happening to you, then it’s a little more ominous. “That still doesn’t explain why it looks any different to me…”
After a moment of quiet contemplation, Oruan seemingly had an idea. Out of nowhere, his right arm started to glow a faint red. I immediately flinched away, and he looked at Aniel with wide eyes. The light quickly started to die off as Oruan began to speak. “We seem to have a savant on our hands.” I prompted him to continue with a look of bewilderment. “Those of us born into this world have a natural ability to vaguely sense the energies around them. You, however, seem to be one of the rare few that can see them as well. Tell me, does your world truly not contain magic?”
I returned the question with a flat stare and an exasperated shake of my head. “That would be correct. Otherwise, I likely would’ve been a little calmer when Edran shot fire from his hand. Everything we’ve achieved in my world has been through science and technology.” As I explained, I noticed Oruan and Aniel’s eyes drift to the pistol on my hip. “Ah, yes, perfect example.” I drew my pistol from its holster to use as a prop to aid me. “Guns operate kind of like a crossbow. You have sights, a trigger, and a projectile.”
To demonstrate, I ejected the magazine and racked the slide to eject the remaining round. I managed to not let the bullet hit the ground, so I gave myself a slight mental pat on the back for looking cool. Holding up the ejected round, I continued explaining. “Where with a crossbow you have a string and a bolt, a gun uses fire and a chunk of metal. This is called a bullet.” I handed it over so they could take a closer look. “Inside of there is a highly flammable powder that is ignited by an impact sensitive explosive on the bottom. The top there, where it’s a different metal, gets pushed by the fire about four times faster than a crossbow shoots a bolt.” They handed the bullet back, and I rechambered and reloaded, before storing my pistol again.
“The craftsman who made those should be proud. That’s incredible work,” Oruan said. I failed to suppress a small chuckle at the notion of someone slaving away to single handedly make thousands of guns.
“Yeah, they’re not exactly handmade. We have machines to do many things for us, as things like guns require very precisely manufactured parts. I don’t know too much about the process, though. Never worked in a gun factory before.” That was absolutely a lie, I was intimately familiar with anything to do with guns. When you spend a year with rebel fighters in South American jungles, you pick up a few ingenious tricks, and it can be surprisingly simple to put together something basic with simple materials. That’s not an experience they needed to be privy to, though, so I figured it best to leave the finer details out.
“Impressive, nonetheless. The fact that your people have figured out a way to have things make themselves sounds beyond something even magic could do,” he said, matter-of-factly. And when phrased like that, it did sound rather impressive. Also, it was slightly disappointing to discover that magic would have such a limitation. The inn had indoor plumbing, for crying out loud! How could they not have machines?
“Just imagine if we had magic, too. We’d probably have been colonizing other planets already,” I theorized. Scientists would probably jump at the opportunity to create a magic-fueled engine. Whoever made that breakthrough would never have to work another day in their life. The next Bill Gates. As thrilling of a thought experiment as that would’ve been, we still had somewhere to be. “Anyway… we should probably get going. Want me to take down the tent?”
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Oruan just gave a simple shake of his head. His body flared up with the dull red glow, and he packed everything up in a mere ten seconds. If we were on Earth, that no doubt would have set some sort of world record in the camping Olympics. I had to admit, I was jealous of the casual display of, to me, powerful magic. Being able to move that fast could have saved my ass in more situations than I could count.
“How do you do that? Cast spells, that is. I know I’ve supposedly done it, but I have no clue how,” I admitted. It was still difficult to believe I had subconsciously cast magic, but with how fast the knell moved, it was just as difficult to believe I escaped under the natural power my legs were able to produce. I was in good shape, but far from superhuman in even the most ideal conditions.
“Oh, it’s easy!” Aniel, eager for the chance to bestow knowledge, beat Oruan to the punch. “You just have to visualize the effect you want. With something like that spell, you’d just picture gathering energy around what you want to enhance,” she cheerily explained. “I would recommend closing your eyes to aid your visualization. That makes the process much easier for many beginners.”
I decided to close my eyes and give it a shot before we needed to get walking. Being able to speed myself along could make a days-long walk much more bearable. The only problem was that I have never been all too good at visualizing things. Guided meditation tapes made conjuring up a meadow of flowers sound like a simple task, but my greatest success was a vague mixture of flower-like colors. I tried to picture red energy gathering around my legs and taking a few steps. Unfortunately, while red was easy enough to achieve, legs were not. I felt no lighter on my feet than I usually would.
Feeling defeated, I suggest we actually get moving. As Aniel went to dump the rest of the tea from her pot, inspiration struck. Maybe some more energy would help. With that thought, I asked for the rest of the tea and happily chugged it after she handed it over. Still sweet and blue, but now more akin to iced tea, I handled the task quickly. The rush was much stronger than my slow drinking of my previous cup. I tried powering up again while she packed away her pot, but my hopes were dashed. There was more red than before, but the same amount of leg.
With no further reason to delay, we continued our trek North. It was another mild day, with the sun about halfway above the horizon by the time we got a move on. Back on Earth, it was mid Summer, but based on the weather so far, I estimated mid spring here. It made for much more pleasant travels, not having to deal with sweating a meager five minutes into activity. Still, though, that was a mild consolation to combat the fact that not only was I the first person to set foot on another planet, but an entirely different universe. Things were still going to be unpleasant for a long time, no matter what. Knowing I teleported to another world didn’t make it feel any less wrong.
One thing’s for sure. I’m not taking cars for granted anymore. Or even bikes. Or sidewalks… Maybe I should tell my boss to shove it and head out on a nice road trip when I get back. The idea of a nice long vacation brought me some peace of mind. Ultimately, that’s what drove me to accidentally bridge dimensions, after all. Hope that fucker’s dead by now. It would be nice to be able to make the vacation a little more permanent. I’ve been saving up for damn long enough at this point. The idea of retiring at twenty nine brought me from peaceful to blissful. I’d earned the right to take the rest of my life off by now, after all the shit I’ve had to deal with.
Much like the days past, today’s walk was largely boring. Trees and bugs can only be so interesting, no matter how new they are, and my guides seem to be content to travel in silence. Trying to stave off the boredom, I resorted to experimenting with magic again. I tried anything and everything I could think of. Fallen tree? Boost my legs to jump over more easily. Fly in my face? Enhance how hard I can blow with wind magic. Rock in the path? Move it with some telekinesis. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t able to properly conjure up the mental imagery, especially with my eyes closed.
I figured a change of strategy was in order, and decided to abandon closing my eyes. The next fly seemed to get pushed a little farther, the next jump slightly easier. It wasn’t significant enough of a change to be able to say it was actually working, though. For all I knew, I could be forcing myself into the placebo effect, and nothing was actually any different. It was beginning to look like I’d need to shelve the idea of controlling magic after another couple hours of trying. With one final effort, I tried to push a stick out of my path with my mind.
This attempt didn’t go like the others. A nearly imperceptible chill coursed through my body, and I watched in astonishment as the stick twitched. I couldn’t help but stop dead in my tracks and stare. That seemed like a bit more than placebo… I took a moment to slow my breathing and focus on the stick. I tried to burn its exact position into my mind. As ridiculous as it sounds, there may as well have been nothing else in the world aside from myself and that simple branch.
Filled to the brim with anticipation, I quickly swung my arm up to the side. The difference between attempts was jarring, for lack of a better word. If the chill that passed through me before was a gentle Spring breeze, this one was a whipping Antarctic whirlwind. This was accompanied by the incredibly repulsive sensation of the entirety of my skin collapsing in on the rest of my body like a black hole. All of that was quickly overshadowed by the stick rocketing through the canopy, a sonic boom thundering out as it took off.
The sudden rupturing of the sound barrier caused Oruan and Aniel to whip around, the hunter readying an arrow and the priestess casting some sort of barrier made of gray light. As much as I was also scared by the unexpected noise, I couldn’t help but break out into maniacal laughter. It didn’t take long for them to realize that I didn’t have my pistol drawn, and confusion painted their faces. Once I managed to calm down and stop laughing, I explained what happened.
“I did it. I finally fucking did it! I’ve been trying to get a spell to work all day,” I exclaimed. “I just threw a stick with my mind so fast that it broke the sound barrier!” This was possibly the most exciting moment of my life. It was almost intoxicating. Without a second thought, I screamed out, “YES,” and leapt hard into the air with a fist bump.
I was quickly severed from my state of elation as another chill swept through me and I shot into the air like I was trying to catch up to the stick I just threw into the sun. “OOOOOOOOH HOLY FUUUUUUUUUUUCK,” I screamed out in terror. “I’M GONNA FUCKING DIE!” It felt much like the first time I had a visit with Deimos, and he strapped me to a rocket and sent me to this world. The problem with that was that I was very much in my physical body, and very much not inside of anything meant to fly, let alone land.
As I reached the apex of my flight, so too did I reach the apex of my terror, and time began to slow. I’m not the best judge of distance in any world, but if I had to guess, I’d say I was a good sixty feet in the air. The slowing of time did absolutely nothing to assist me in figuring out if there was any way for me to survive a sixty foot fall. There’s no amount of training that could prepare someone to handle jumping twenty times higher than they’d normally be able to with no warning. Even worse, I didn’t manage to jump straight up, so my landing zone wouldn’t be clear.
Down below, I could see Oruan and Aniel in a panic, not sure how to try to save me. I could hear some indistinct shouting from the pair, but there was no way I’d be able to hear any instructions, between the altitude and the wind. Oruan’s entire body was enveloped in a red glow, and he looked to be preparing to try to catch me. Aniel’s hands shot toward me, and I started to emit a gentle green glow, accompanied by a pleasant tingling, similar to the healing spell.
It wasn’t entirely clear what they were hoping to accomplish, as I was set on a crash course for the trees, with no hope of being able to steer myself in a significant manner. I did my best to point my feet toward the ground, wrapped my arms around my head and neck, and closed my eyes. At best, I could look forward to breaking both my legs, and at worst… Well, I guess that’s something I wouldn’t need to worry about either way. It wasn’t long until I entered the treetops. Whether from shock or adrenaline, it surprisingly wasn’t severely painful, and all that could be heard was the snapping of branches. I opened my eyes, but it didn’t do me much good, as my head immediately made contact with a thick branch and I was out cold.