315. The Onion Layers


    Year 284


    <i>Twinspace.</i>


    The shipyards and drydocks of Port Tarfa were almost entirely new, and yet in the past six months, the twenty new shipyards each made a new warship every month. Each warship was able to ferry 100 to 150 battle ready warriors, along with all the new supplies. The warships were modifications of an existing design, aided by a few of the Order’s shipwrights.


    The new yards, piers, drydocks, and structures made Port Tarfa the singlergest port on this side of the main inhabited continent of Twinspace. The first of many more toe, but the first 30 or so warships would set sail for the inds located along the path would form the First Exploratory Fleet, while the remaining ships would undergo more preparations.


    They would set sail for the string of smaller inds that existed between the two continents and reim the string of volcanic inds from their native monsters. The fleet would then spend some time there and build those inds up, if they found a suitable location, and transform them into one of Aeon’s outposts.


    The sea-facing frontage of the port city was crowded, as tens of thousands wanted to watch the great sendoff.


    Three seamanders would receive blessings today, from Hoyia herself, and through Hoyia, they would all receive a [ss Seed]. The [War Admiral] ss would elevate their existing [Captain] variant sses and make them more effective for their assigned mission.


    On thergest pier Hoyia stood on a tform specially constructed for her, as she revealed her relic for the first time. Even if it was just a fragment, a fragment of god was still a fragment of god.


    The entire city could feel it as Hoyia channeled her priestly powers and stood in front of the three seafarers. Shemanded them to consume the ss seed, encased and fused into a fruit. The priests began to sing, and the three dug in and ate the fruit, unsure of why they were told to do so. But it was then that all three of them felt their sses change.The surprise in their eyes was all the answer anyone needed. They were chosen as they were part of the loyalists. One of them was probably a skeptical believer, while the other two were zealots.


    The true zealots wept openly as they felt their [Captain] sses evolve, and they openly praised their god. They screamed, and one of them turned to face his ship.


    “Sailors, warriors! Today we are blessed. Today he has made me an [Admiral]. And today, we set sail for the cursed continent and drive away the demons!”


    The crowds went wild, and the rumors flew.


    “Did you hear that? The Captain has an [Admiral] ss!” Merchants said as the stories spread.


    “This god ims to have the ability to evolve our sses?” The tales began to spread. They were whispered in the taverns and crowded inns of Twinspace. Rumors regurgitated by merchants as they walked the busy trading routes.


    “I saw it happen!” The merchant answered. “I was there at Port Tarfa, and I couldn’t believe it! It’s real!”


    “You know there are abilities that can deceive your eyes!” The other merchant was skeptical.


    “But the Saintess Hoyia, I cannot imagine it. If you’ve seen her you will know!”


    “You’re really smitten with that woman.”


    “You’ve just never seen her.”


    ***


    Back on the main continent of Twinspace, Hoyia continued to add more cities and nations into her growing Holy Empire, where she and her high council of priests existed as a ruling cabal.


    A holy empire, and again, in another year, she now controlled half of the Continent. The other half raised an army against her and promised to brutally ughter anyone who spread her dangerous ideology.


    But they couldn’t stop ideas whispered secretly. Kings and Lords themselves met Hoyia and found themselves impressed by her presence, some charmed, some smitten. Thepetition for her attention only drove up the desire to prove their use.


    Her army grew, and her priests continued to spread. Hoyia had to call on a few of her peers back from the School of Treeology to set up a small school in Twinspace to train the next generation of priests and to continue carrying the ideology to even more ces.


    ***


    Meanwhile, the journey to the inds took about three months, and the ships were about a third of the way to the cursed continent.


    The three newly promoted [Admirals] crushed the monsters along the path easily. The sailors and soldiers they brought were all around level 25 to 40, but the presence of a few Order operatives and priests ensured that victory was all but ensured.


    The archipgo was located somewhere close to the middle of the ocean. The ocean that separated the tworge continents was generally known as the middle Ocean. The inds of the archipgo emerged from the oceans fromyers andyers of underwater vegetation and corals. So, the surface of the ind itself wasn’t sand, but instead, small, disintegrated chunks of corals and other forms of decayed vegetation.


    Thergest of these had risen over the years into a small hill. It didn’t have regr trees found on the main continent, instead, and-adapted variant of the underwater corals were the primary form of vegetation on thergest inds.


    An actual forest ofnd-based corals made for an ind filled with bright colors and unusual shapes.


    It was fascinating, and the few priests quickly ordered that samples be collected for further study. The ce itself was magically quite dense, and so the monsters that spawned in the area were magically strong.


    In a different world, this unique ce would likely be preserved as some kind of national park or ce of interest.


    “We could raise the earth and create artificial inds, like we did on Treehome.” One of the priests suggested to Hoyia. “It may not be necessary to tamper with the surreal beauty of this ind just yet. Aeon would prefer to have such beauty remain untouched, as we did on the other worlds.”


    Hoyia thought about it and realized raising the earth in a ce where the seabed isn’t so deep was feasible.


    So, a few Valthorn Earth mages warped in and found a patch that wasn’t that deep. The unique corals were quite spread out, untouched for centuries if not millennia because no one actually came here, and so, we selected a patch of soil and raised it up to serve as an outpost. We would need it in the future to supply ships and patrol the seas.


    The artificial ind amazed the sailors, but they had to quickly get to work. The druids and mages quickly used magic to form structures, and the few builders also got to work setting up housing.


    The artificial ind would be sufficient to house about 10,000 people once fully developed, but for now, all it needed to do was to provide anchor and shelter for the 30 ships.


    ***


    <i>Void Layers</i>


    <i>Ste and Lumoof</i>


    Meanwhile, Ste and Lumoof took the opportunity to revisit the voidyers, and we returned to find a ce different from what we visited originally


    “This ce looks different.”


    “I thought we went to the same ce.” Ste double checked her magical calctions. “Strange.”


    “I’m guessing our rules and magic don’t apply anymore?” Lumoofughed as the pair wandered around the different ces. The realm around us twisted before our eyes. The skies twisted, as if changing to be thend, and thend became the skies. There were rivers of color that seemed to stretch, and thenterpress into veins that flowed in the sky.


    Ste looked around. “Was it like this thest time we’re here?”


    Lumoof shrugged, as he began to walk. Though he walked forward, somehow he went upwards, as if the reality itself shifted him higher.


    Ste blinked, a little amused to watch Lumoof float upwards entirely caused by the world itself reacting to his movements.


    But just as suddenly, it stopped, and then he walked forward normally again. That made Lumoof stop, take a step forward and find himself moving normally.


    “Wild.” Lumoof said. Through our senses, it was hard to know what was changing, but we could feel it was. Our domains could assert our hold on the realm, but it was like trying to hold sand. A wave would just wash it away.


    Lesser beings, those who were not protected by the domain, or close to it, might experience rapid deconstruction.


    Thest time we came to the voidyers, we left a small artifact here, which we hoped to use to measure the voidyers and what it was. The small artifact would collect magical readings and record it within a set of crystals located within.


    We couldn’t find it at first, until we suddenly recognized a massive, unusual object that was warped beyond its original shape. It was twisted, and transformed into a gigantic crystal filled with strange twists and turns to its shape. It was as if the crystal was a living octopus.


    The only thing that made us realize it was the artifact we left behind, was the small logo carved onto its being. The twisted object lunged at him, clearly corrupted and twisted by the powers of the voidyers.


    Lumoof could easily still activate his abilities, but then we immediately noticed something. Our attacks changed when they interacted with the energies of the voidyers. Our roots turned into something else, and then crumbled.


    We felt it again, a sudden shift in the voidyers, as if a new set ofmands or rules swept through thend. The crystalline octopus froze, and exploded.


    It transformed into a frog, and jumped.


    “You know.” Ste said. “I recognize this sort of thing. It’s like those cartoons where things get deconstructed.”


    “I do not understand-” Lumoof said briefly, before he took in a bit of my memories and understood. “Oh. Ooooh. This ce is the factory of worlds and so it is anything and everything, but nothing is permanent.”


    “Unless our domains exert our will over it.” Ste said. Our objects resisted the effects of the voidyer slightly, but the longer they remained here, the more they changed. “It is wise that we erred on the side of caution.”


    It was a different form of divinew. Just as some worlds had divinews weaved into their entire world and forced things to operate in a certain way, the voidyers were the primordial soup and those without domains could not walk this space.


    Lumoof paused and looked at Ste. There were weird puffs of smoke and clouds. They popped out of nowhere. “Aeon theorized there could be a way back home, through these voidyers.”


    “Ah. Yes. I thought about that as well.” Ste looked at the crystal frog, which suddenly transformed again, as if agitated by our presence. “But I don’t really want to go back.”


    Lumoof said nothing, and merely just nodded. How deep did this ce go? “Well, let’s keep exploring.”


    “There should be a way to use these voidyers as a way to skip the regr distances of the void sea.” She tried to meddle with the space, as if trying tomand the environment to change for her.


    It didn’t work.


    Or more like, there were too many other things for it to work. The voidyers wereyered with multiple changing energies. Different strands of fundamentalws of reality that imposed itself on the voidyers. Some of thosews vanished, and new ones took their ce.


    There was no air to breathe.


    The two could walk the space because they were domain holders, and their existences could be sustained by magic. Both knew that their abilities allowed them to operate without air or water.


    “Let’s just follow the pulses.” Ste pointed, but even that direction was not a good guide. Direction was strange in the voidyers, they could walk left and move right. The pulses came from the front, and suddenly they’d walk into each other.


    It felt like months. But it was only for a few days. The voidyers. My senses through Lumoof were strained when he was in the voidyers. It was as if I was dipped in a dark, pitch-ck pool and I could sense nothing beyond the thin barrier created by our domains.


    We arrived at a gaping hole, where the only thing we could sense was more unusual energies. It wasn’t really a hole. Not always. It looked like a rift in space, and then its shape kept changing. But in all forms, it took the shape of a door. A hole. A gate. A crack in space. A small valley. Even the size changed all the time.


    From that gap, I could feel something constantly pushing against us. It sought to impose its will on us, but it couldn’t.


    Strangely enough, the system gave us a title.


    [They who Saw The Void Layer Gates]


    “You got that?” Ste said.


    “Yeah.”


    “I’m going in.”


    “You’re not worried you’ll be sent back home?”


    “I don’t think so. Come with me, Lumoof.” Ste said, and we went in.


    ***


    We were in another ce, but it was the same. Well, different, same. For reasons I couldn’t understand, it felt like it was both at the same time.


    The Void Layer Gates sent us through instantly.


    We were now in a ce with strands, strings made of things I do not understand everywhere, and we were floating. It felt like being in the middle of a constant flow of strings flowing around us. Though there was no light around us whatsoever and our senses were limited, somehow, we just knew they were there.


    We floated, and here, we moved with thought.


    Strands. It’s as if they spoke of their presence to our souls directly, and thus their appearance took this strange form.


    These strands were everywhere. Ste used a small [light] glowing from her hands, because the spell copsed the moment it left outside the protection of her domain.


    But the light from her hand allowed us to see, and the strands were all of a different set of colors. Some were rainbow colored. Some were pitch ck. We were trapped in the middle of a constantly flowing river of strings, but there were little gaps here and there. Through the gaps, and through the little holes created as the strands stitched together, we could see little bubbles of worlds, and when we tried to walk towards them, or reach out to them, we couldn’t.


    It wasn’t real. It was as if we were touching projections of light.


    “So, what do you think we’re looking at?” Ste said, as we kept walking. The path must’ve led somewhere, even if there was no reason for it to.


    Lumoof now wanted to touch the strands that were in front of him. They were so close, but they somehow instinctively moved out of the way. As if space itself bent to create space for us. We couldn’t touch them. Even if they felt like they were in front of us, no matter how far we reached, it was always outside of the way.


    But even observing the strands themselves, we noticed they were only sometimes real.


    They flickered. Turning on, and off. Randomly. Sometimes for long stretches of time, they remained real, the others, some of these strands withered away like dry sand in the wind.


    “I have no idea what we’re looking at.” Lumoof said.


    “Let’s go. It should lead somewhere. Somewhere the voidyers want us to be.” Ste sighed, as she floated. I wasn’t sure if we were moving.


    “Now you’re saying the voidyers want us to be somewhere?” Lumoof looked at the woman. The woman seemed sure. Suddenly. As if she felt something. “Are you hearing something?”


    “Maybe.” Ste said. “Like, there is a voice somewhere. Let’s go.”


    “Where?” We had no sense of direction. I couldn’t feel much beyond the boundaries of my domain, and what we saw changed all the time. The strands rotated, moved, and fluctuated. The only clue that we were moving was that the things just flowed out of the way.


    “Let’s just follow me.” Ste said, as she held Lumoof’s hand. It was like swimming in an infinitely deep and wide ocean, filled with strings. Ste led us through the strands all around us. But we didn’t know how far we were. There was no frame of reference, while the strands surely changed, but what and where were we going?


    They continued for days. And then the days turned to months. From afar, I was unsure whether we were moving.


    But Ste assured us we were. The voidyers had a waypoint somewhere. It had a marker that she could feel, and we were getting close.