This wasn’t a trap, this wasn’t a space created by liberty’s ies, this wasn’t some trick or nonsense or anything like that. This pce was very, very real. What’s worse, Sonya kly where she was. She hadn’t wao believe it for the first few minutes of wandering the endless halls, running at top speed. Yet the more she traveled and the strahis pce became to her eyes, the more she had to accept it.

  I’m in the Bas, the pce that Non-Euclidian travels through. Whatever happened, it happened while I was in the process of telep. No other expnation. A god damned ce.

  She wasn’t even sure if it ossible to leave even if the cooldown on her disabled ability ehat thought alone drove her to keep looking, to keep searg through the endless bnk halls that ged every time she turned a er. Sometimes they looked like the corridors of an office building, other times they were that eerie white-gray stone, and others they looked like something far older. Something a.

  A ay. Not a soul, not a trace of anything living. She was alone here and with Ishtar silent aing she didn’t even have ao bounce her ideas off of. So she ran, and ran, and ran, flying where she could. Every ounce of power put into speed to explore every inch she could traverse, searg for something more thaireless madness of this pce.

  Tch.

  Sonya clicked her tongue as she rounded another er and found nothing but a seemingly endless hallway stretch out ahead of her. She hovered in the air for a moment, fuming, and gnced back over her shoulder. Do I double back? She swore and checked the clo non-Euclidiaivation. Only an hour had gone by sihe power had been shorted out by whatever the hell kind of force had acted upon it. Like hell I’m staying here for twelve fug hours. I o get back.

  She looked up at the ceiling and held her hand out, a steady beam of hardened light ng out from her fiips and crashing into the surface. She held it for several seds, her eyebrows furrowed in tration before she released it and dropped her hand to her side. She spat on the ground. No damage whatsoever. Whatever this pce was, it was resilient. It was also impossible. The ahe shapes of the rooms, where the rooms led. None of them made any sort of rational sense. She could walk into one room, turn a er into another, and then again and find herself in a space that was entirely different from the one she’d started in.

  And everything is just… white stone. If I wasn’t pressed for time I’d appreciate the post-moderhetic but seriously! I barely make heads or tails of where I’m going.

  She pressed her lips together, I could call up a few Legionnaires, send them out in different dires. But would I be able to get to them if they found a? She scratched her head. She’d heard of some pretty impressive abilities but this was far beyond that. The world around her was vast and painfully real and she got the sneaking suspi that the bas were some kind of dungeon. Which also doesn’t make any sense, I dider a dungeon portal, I entered my portal.

  She drew herself up and zipped down the new hallway, her eyes sing her surroundings for anything that seemed even reasonably like a or a new sort of path. She was only half-way down when something else caught her attention, a feeling of something else moving in her immediate viity, and moving fast. She snarled and spun, throwing her hands out and f a panel of light just in time for cws to snap out in her dire. The bded limbs collided with her barrier and instead of stopping, pushed. She let out a gasp as the force of the collisio her hurtling through the air before crashing into a wall.

  “G-ah!” She gasped, pain rag up her spine. She created a berry in her mouth and quickly chewed as she scrambled to her feet. Her eyes snapped around, searg for the source of the attack but there was nothing there. What?

  A thrill of sensation spiked in her mind and she threw herself forward, spinning and blog with both arms as a pair of scythe-like limbs swept together, spindly arms extending out from within the white pster-like wall. The surface of the wall rippled like water while something i shrieked in displeasure before retrag stick limbs ending in dozens of long thin bdes. She panted and wiped her upper lip before examining her arms. Small cuts adorned her usually impervious skin.

  Sonya swore, “I ’t be wasting my time here!” she shouted and lifted herself off the ground with her flight power before resuming her charge down the hallway. “What if something happens at the camp? They’ve got to be in deep shit by now.”

  She felt another rush of movement and dove this time, sliding across the ground and rolling once before hopping to her feet, the cw-like limb of whatever it was had reached out of the ceiling this time and was already retreating. She threw her hand out and a of light attached itself to the creature's wrist. “Oh no you don’t!” she belloulled, yanking it and the rest of the monstrosity out of the wall. It slipped out and… kept slipping out. Soon a creature se it barely fit in the hallway was crammed in there with her.

  It had long, spindly legs and a tube-shaped body that was about as long as a man was tall. The legs were so grotesquely long that they bent at several segments as it struggled tht itself in a space that was too small for its limbs. Its forearms were those same bded hands while its face was nothing more than a mprey head, rows of razor sharp teeth in rings. Her lips curled ba disgust. Definitely not some kind of ability. Is this really a dungeon? This pce just doesn’t feel like a dungeon. It’s like a real pce. they be one and the same?

  “Anyway,” she rumbled, setting aside the existential fusion this pce was causing and pointed her fi the creature, “Now that I see you…”

  It coiled its limbs just as she gestured at it, the folding segments making its body small enough to get into some modicum of a standing position. It let out a shriek e just as she released a narrow ray of light, the beam puncturing it from mouth to end. Food measure she created a dozen bdes around it as well, g her fist and carving it to pieces. The meaty ks nded on the ground in a stinking pile as bck ichor spilled out around it. She wrinkled her the remains and turned away, gotta keep moving. Hang on guys.

  Another half-hour went by without any good fortune, she was attacked twice more by creatures much like the first before she finally stumbled upon something new. An archway that led into an open space filled with, for ck of a better word to her mind, junk. Old wooden tables and chairs were scattered about everywhere and ks of wood were piled up in ers. There were a few bits of stone furniture as well but it looked like it was made of something that had been dug up rather than out of the same material the pce was made from.

  She ted the furniture, “Some kind of dining hall?” she said aloud, walking inside. She rubbed her neck as she looked around, “Dammit Ishtar, would you wake up already?” she grumbled only to get that same cavernous silen response.

  She sighed and marched over to one side of the room, lifting up one of the tables and peeking at the wood. Her senses and cyberic brain told her that the wood had to be a but somehow it was still intact, if not pletely uhered. She sniffed and tasted the air. No humidity at all, no wind, nothing. I suppose it makes sehat this stuff would take forever to decay. More importantly, the wood ine. Genuine pine wood. Not some strange alien species of tree.

  Someone’s been here before? Who? She shook her head, Stop getting distracted.

  She walked past the table and searched for something, anything else to give her an idea of how to get out of here. She needed a route to take. She searched the piles of wood and bits of stone furniture until she stumbled upon the sole pieetal present besides the nails that held the tables and chairs together. It was a disk, smooth as a pearl and perfectly round. It was just an inch or so smaller than a pact disk. She tur over in her hand and tried to exami with her senses but got nothing out of it save for a familiar feeling.

  “It’s receptive to mana,” Sonya said thoughtfully and frowned, “Great, I’m talking to myself again,” she tilted her head up, “Ishtar I could really use some pany here!”

  Still nothing, damn it, she thought, scratg her head and turning the disk over. There was no way of knowing what the thing did, it could be a bomb for all she knew. On the flip side it could just as easily be some manner of clue to help her navigate this maddening pce. She’d been flying at breakneck speeds for almost two hours now and she was growing tired of the maze. She o take drastic measures if she was going to get back before things grew any worse. She steeled herself, Nothin’ to lose, everything to gain.

  Using magic tools wasn’t difficult, she’d used plenty in her past life and had a few eclectic items she’d acquired from a small sele of dungeoher she or the ASTA guild had quered. One in particur was a doll from a cavern filled with goblins. The doll was capable of creating a temporary illusion of ohat would move freely in one dire while rendering the user invisible and allowing them to move elsewhere. The illusion was simple and could break down easily, but even seds could save a life. It was a shame it would only respond to mana once a week otherwise she’d keep it on her person more often.

  Also it’s kind of ugly and hard to hide, she thought with mild irritation.

  Regardless, she held out the disk and trated. The most basistinct of using ones abilities was the innate knack for drawing mana into the body to supplement the use of ones powers. Normally it was just a matter of using ones ability and the draw would happen naturally, ag on one’s stamina. It was involuntary. The trick to using an object like this was to, essentially, breathe manually. It wasn’t the same as hua or Lillian’s cultivatiohods where they could pull it in, store it, and vert it into growing power though. That required a deeper framework and an innate ability as far as she was aware.

  Draw it in, push it out, she thought as she felt mana move through her body like an odd tingling through her muscles. It exited her fingers and the sensation faded. For a moment, nothing happened. Hmm? Oh e on- The disk fshed, light rising from its surfa a narrow disk of its own before slowly parting at one side. The ribbon that formed slowly shrank until it was the width of her finger, pointing back towards the door she’d ehrough.

  “Aha!” She ughed, “A pass! Woo! Go Sonya!” she shouted, throwing a fist into the air. She stopped half-way through her celebration and sobered herself.

  If I have time to be joking around, I have time to be moving, she grumbled as she made her way to the door. She hurried out and checked the light h over the disk again, it had clearly moved to point in a new dire. I wonder where it’s taking me.

  She kicked off the ground and pulled herself into the air, levitating once more before ung down the hallway with renewed vigor. Every thought in her head was focused on the camp, oing back, on doing anything she could to throw a wrento what Liberty had e up with. Her immediate instinct was to just show up and start bsting things, but she knew better. If she suddenly showed up in full regalia that would raise a lot of questions. It wasn’t like the location of the camp was a big secret anymore, but why would someone like Ishtar bother to get involved?

  Just to interfere with Liberty? She shook her head, No, if I o e up with a logical expnation for her to be there then it’s better that Ishtar remains in the background, she tried to think rationally even as tiny moments of panic kept w their way into the back of her mind. What if her people are too much to handle for them? What if hua holds baubsp; what if- she grit her teeth, her heart pounding even faster than before. I am never letting myself get in this kind of shit situation again! She promised herself as she accelerated dowest hallway.

  The hallways wound and twisted, she passed more strange rooms that she ignored in favor of expediency. She o follow this arrow to its destination and make new pns from there. She didn’t know when whatever Liberty was scheming would take pce but the longer she spent ihe less time she would be with the others and what aid she could. She o move, faster, faster!

  She was like a streak of form rather than a person as she darted around one er after another, sometimes quite literally smashing through one of the spindly mohat appeared to attempt to entrap her. She ighem, solely focused on her destination. e on, e on e on e on! She thought, trying harder and harder to quell the rising panic. Give me something! She furiously pushed harder, wishing she could turn into a streak of light like Marta, wishing she could teleport, wishing there was some way she could-

  She paused.

  There. She felt it but she couldn’t believe it for a moment. She o be sure. She darted around the test in a thousand ers. Up a set of stairs and panning to the right. The strange hall opened into another passage. She slid to a stop, catg her breath and waited to feel that sensation one more time. Her hair shifted a little, a fragment of movement, a breeze.

  Wind.