Author's Note

I still plan to post more of Cloak & Laser, but I managed to finish this part despite it all.

The Realmwalkers: Intro Part 2

It was the way he had said, "nothing" that caused Jaya to bate her breath for a moment. She felt a bit overwhelmed, and as she tried to see the details of his mask which seemed to elude her focus every time she tried, she suddenly felt herself go faint.

Her eyes began to roll back and her body was quickly succumbing to gravity. She felt herself tilt and wane, but then she froze slightly tilted, head beginning to roll back. Her mind couldn’t really think of thoughts other than what was currently happening. Her eyes had rolled back enough that everything was blurry and distorted, but she heard the Leywalker clearly when he spoke.

“Good. Now that I have the attention of your subconscious.” He then reached into his cloak and pulled out a small, flat, rectangular device. The top of it bulbed out into an oval spheroid that lit up at the top. He aimed it toward her temple, and she could feel a strange tingling while it was close. He pressed a very shallow button that, due to its matte grey surface, looked almost invisible.

Jaya heard a tiny, high-pitched whine that quickly rose in pitch until it reached a frequency too high for her to hear. The light brightened until it blinded her distorted view as her mind suddenly became flooded with strange visions that felt like memories, but it was all coming so fast. It was an exhilarating feeling, though she remained frozen in her slight fall.

She kept feeling blips of emotions, never enough to really discern what type. It felt more like an undulating wave of initial emotional responses, and at the same time, she felt as though there were a million voices all trying to speak at once, only it sounded like a white noise. She could tell that she was still frozen in place, but in her mind, it started to feel like she was on a boat on choppy waters, slightly nauseating, but slightly exciting in the sense of the challenge of maintaining your balance.

It was disorientating, but it all suddenly felt like it was coming to a corporeal head. It suddenly felt more visceral, prickling her skin, prying at her thoughts. Jaya then felt as though the entirety of her creation was going to be ripped apart and crushed at the same time, when it all suddenly stopped. In her mind, she was floating in a nothingness with a bright, white line in the shape of the infinity symbol that felt far off in the distance, but also seemed to be massive, or she understood its immensity. It was floating, and the more she concentrated on it, the more she could see that it wasn’t a line, but an innumerable amount of bright objects moving along the line. They were making the line with their own light.

She went to move, perhaps fly, but, instead of moving, she was suddenly at a different point looking down at the line. She could see now that it was a continuous wavy, symmetrical line that intersects with itself, creating a shape with two peaks and two troughs. She was then suddenly aware of the Leywalker’s presence floating next to her. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Yes. That is The Spine of Creations. The leyline that holds the entirety of reality together. Some refer to it as: the space-time continuum.”

Jaya was slack-jawed, staring in wonderment even though she was somehow remembering this. Not just the leyline, but this entire moment as though it had already happened. Her brow creased slightly, not sure how to explain how she felt to herself.

“That is something to which you will become acclimated, much like how one becomes nose-blind to foul odors.”

That was when she saw it, remembered it, and immediately understood that she was looking at an imperfection. A glitch in the flow of the space-time continuum; a three-dimensional rift spewing out bright red lights that quickly fizzled out as they entered the nothingness. “Wait, why don’t I understand what’s causing that?”

“It is something I chose to withhold. I am currently working on fixing that. There is no need to concern yourself with that, however, the reason I brought you here is to monitor The Glade while I am gone.”

Just as he had said, “The Glade”, she could see it appearing in the middle like gentle rolling hills of soft, tall grasses and clover and wildflowers. The most beautiful meadow she had ever seen, and with barely a thought, they were both there, standing on firm ground and feeling the gentle breeze and warmth of the leyline that was creating the ambient light that shone like the suns behind a thick cloud. Bright enough to see, but not enough to make you squint. From the center, the surrounding horizon looked like cloudy mist, obscuring what might lie beyond, though she knew it was void.

To Jaya, it felt ever-so-slightly surreal even though she could feel the breeze causing her hair to tickle her face, and she could smell the aroma of flowers she had never smelled, but now recognized. Flowers from beyond her reality along with a few familiar ones. She crouched to admire a thirteen-petaled, purple flower. Its petals were curled around under themselves to really bare its deep orange center rich with pollen. She smirked when she understood that it was enjoying her admiration, but still praying for a pollinator to happen by.

She lightly gasped when she realized that she knew it to be a fully graduated spirit, The Glade being the final resting place for souls that have experienced enough. 13,333 experiences to be exact, and her brow creased a bit at the fact that she somehow knew that, and she knew that she was on her first.

“Yes. First-timers are the only souls pure enough to experience The Glade how you are experiencing it now. Your soul is full of what most call, beginner’s luck.”

“But, I'm not here because of that, am I?”

“No. You are here merely as a precaution while I attempt to fix a problem that requires my full attention. Do you remember now what it is you’re to do here?”

She nodded. “I am The Gladewalker.” She then gasped as The Leywalker immediately vanished.

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