Her perception adjusted to the fractal environment. Slowly.

  It hadn't taken her too long to identify how she had to orient herself. In many ways, the rules here operated similar to a pond—a flat, stable area when still but constantly shifting with even the lightest ripples. In the pond's case, the source of the ripple originated outside of it. A rock thrown into the water displaced the surface.

  Only, in her case, she was the rock.

  "So when I make a change here..."

  She shifted her body into a sprint and started running. As she did so, she caught images of herself blurring past her—in front, behind, and beside. Different iterations of herself in different poses that reflected how her body had been seconds before. Their motions appeared disjointed, creating a perplexing optical illusion as if the image from the mirror had snapped and distorted.

  Ebonheim gradually stopped running, her movements growing slower.

  "...It breaks apart again," she finished. "The parts separate."

  Looking over her shoulder, she saw multiple delayed reflections in constant motion—moving backward from her current position.

  "I must keep the movement stable."

  It had to be smooth, without jerking motions or sudden outbursts of energy. If she maintained that consistency, the layers would move in harmony and stop dispersing.

  Time and energy... She needed to conserve both while making as little impact as possible on the fractal layers. This should help her move through this distorted reality with less difficulty.

  However...another issue would prove to be even more pressing. The realm also presented hazards that could emerge when one layer encountered another.

  Ebonheim stared ahead at a colossal pillar of water towering into the sky. It gushed from beneath the fractured reality's surface as if unleashed from a previously dormant source. Yet as abruptly as it began, it halted—not merely splashing onto the surface but merging with another layer as though it were an invisible path, suspended in mid-air. A single beam of sunlight gleamed brightly as the watery column scattered its rays.

  The waters rose upward and extended ever onward.

  Yet the waves and ripples she could feel against her body had not dampened her clothes. Ebonheim's dress remained pristine throughout.

  "You can do this. Keep calm," she whispered. "This place requires both mind and body in sync."

  As Ebonheim aligned herself with her surroundings and slipped closer to the center of the space, the world's strangeness diminished. At least it felt less threatening, less unstable.

  Her entire body relaxed as her thoughts cleared, the muddled state lifted as the mirages faded out and her surroundings conformed to her expectations.

  Maybe things would work out in her favor and she wouldn't run into another obstacle. A change in her luck wouldn't be undeserved.

  "What's next?" she asked rhetorically.

  Ebonheim moved carefully, each step deliberate and slow, testing the space around her as if the ground itself might buckle under the weight of a misplaced footfall. The layers shifted with her movement but didn't fracture. The tension in her shoulders eased slightly. She kept moving.

  The rules here were not the rules of the world she knew. There was no straightforward cause and effect. Even the simplest of actions—raising a hand, taking a step—didn't always have an immediate or even a logical outcome.

  Instead, the results would scatter. Reaching for an object might make it appear a step to the left or slightly behind. Looking at something might cause it to multiply. Every time she looked for her double, they could always be found somewhere nearby. That pattern kept up too, despite the lack of logical consistency.

  She focused on the distant path, which seemed to spiral upward like a stairway made of light and water. The pillar of water she'd seen earlier was still there, suspended in the air like frozen glass, scattering sunlight.

  Something tugged at her senses—a ripple, a disruption in the layers.

  That was when she heard it: a note, soft and melodic, faint as the first whisper of a song carried on the wind.

  She stopped, listening.

  The sound drifted through the fractured air, a pure, harmonious tone that stood in stark contrast to the chaotic dissonance surrounding her. Ebonheim straightened, her head tilting slightly as she strained to catch the melody's source. The longer she listened, the more she realized it wasn't random. There was a rhythm to it, a pattern, like the gentle strumming of an unseen instrument.

  Someone's here. The thought was oddly comforting, like finding a familiar face in a sea of strangers. She began to walk again, this time following the music.

  The closer she moved toward the sound, the more the world seemed to settle around her. The jagged edges of reality, the unsettling echoes of herself that had followed her steps, began to fade into the background, replaced by a sense of serene, inexplicable harmony. The fractured reflections stopped shifting erratically and began to align with her movements, almost as if they, too, were responding to the melody.

  Ebonheim took this as a good sign.

  She walked faster now, with purpose, the earlier caution still lingering but no longer dictating her every action. The path ahead began to clarify, solidifying beneath her feet as if the space itself had decided to cooperate for once. The disorienting pillars of light and water that had once twisted the horizon now seemed distant, receding into the background as the melody became stronger, clearer.

  That was when she saw the figure.

  A single form stood at the center of a glowing platform that hovered above the fractured terrain. Light and sound swirled around her, coalescing into radiant waves that pulsed in time with the soft music that filled the air.

  Ariastra.

  Her presence here felt like the one stable point in a realm built of dissonance.

  Ebonheim paused, watching the other goddess for a moment from a distance. Ariastra's body, as always, was a seamless fusion of human and instrument, her strings vibrating gently with each movement, each note.

  The ethereal light that emanated from her form bathed the area in soft, soothing hues, casting away the harsh, jagged edges of the fractured dimension. It was as though the mere act of her presence was enough to bring order to the chaos.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  A calming anchor in a storm-tossed sea of uncertainty.

  She approached quietly, unsure whether Ariastra had noticed her yet. For a moment, she simply watched, mesmerized by the calm she emanated.

  The sound of Ebonheim's footsteps must have carried, because Ariastra turned toward her then, her eyes—a shimmering swirl of musical notes—locking onto Ebonheim's. Though her face bore no mouth, her expression radiated warmth.

  The two stood in silence for a moment, taking in each other's presence.

  Ebonheim let out a small laugh, the sound of it surprisingly clear. "I was starting to think I'd have to figure all of this out alone."

  Ariastra's reply was not so much spoken as felt. Her voice, though not born from a mouth, carried like the first note of a song.

  "You adapt quickly," she noted, her eyes flickered with something akin to admiration. "You've learned to stabilize the ripples in your wake."

  "I got lucky," Ebonheim admitted with a small smile. "I figured out that if I stay steady, the layers stay calm. But if I rush it, things break apart again."

  The weight of solitude lifted from Ebonheim's shoulders as she shared Ariastra's company again. Ariastra extended her arm towards Ebonheim.

  With her own movements slightly synced to Ariastra, Ebonheim linked arms with her.

  "This place..." Ariastra began, "It's not just fractured. It's...layered. Each part of it is trying to exist in harmony, but something is disrupting the flow."

  Ebonheim nodded slowly, her eyes taking in the surreal landscape around them. "Yes, that's what I also gathered. The way things keep splitting off... It's like the world can't hold itself together. Is that the disruption you're talking about?"

  Ariastra moved her hands through the air, her long fingers trailing a soft vibration. "Exactly. The different realities—what you see as reflections of yourself—are all variations trying to occupy the same space, but their movements don't line up. Time passes differently. There's a constant pushing and pulling in the dimension."

  The imagery reminded Ebonheim of a deck of cards—shuffled repeatedly while trying to deal from it. Except here, the cards represented alternate versions of space.

  "So...what are we dealing with? Do you know what's causing it? Or is this the nature of this pocket dimension?"

  Ariastra tilted her head as if listening to the rhythms in the air. "The misalignment isn't natural to this space. It's caused by a disharmony that interrupts the flow. Almost as though an unwanted external influence has found its way in..."

  "Unwanted? Like someone not meant to be here? Could someone have locked this place and meant for no one to disturb it?"

  "Not someone, something. A resonating source. When I began playing my strings, it started to respond. Mmm, how should I describe it? A sort of...reality filter, if you will."

  "A reality filter?" Ebonheim's brow furrowed. "What kind of filter do you mean?"

  "When you bring pieces of different realities in proximity," Ariastra explained, "sometimes, their intrinsic vibrations get mixed together. It's like notes in a chord, each playing at a different frequency. If they're not played correctly or not attuned properly, they clash instead of harmonizing."

  Ebonheim closed her eyes. This made sense but didn't quite click for her yet.

  She thought back to the numerous reflections of herself, the strange sensation of being in multiple places at once, and how some motions or actions would make the layers disperse. If she had to categorize everything by musical metaphor...

  She struggled to put words to the revelation she was trying to have. "So... You're saying the other ‘reality frequencies' got off sync and they have to be aligned to fix the problem?"

  Ariastra gave a subtle nod. "Almost. You've got the right idea. But there's another force distorting the vibrations. It's what I can sense beneath everything else. A foreign substance spreading into the heart of this space."

  "Then it's another lock like the ones we've come across before."

  "Yes."

  "But how do we find it?"

  "It's deeper in this dimension—before you arrived, I was tracing the threads of disharmony to their source. I have an idea where to go."

  Ebonheim inclined her head curiously. "Can you lead?"

  In lieu of a verbal response, Ariastra gracefully raised an arm and pointed towards the fragmented horizon, where the fractured reflections merged and blurred into an almost dreamlike distance. A ripple, barely discernible, moved from Ariastra and through the realm. The fractured landscapes shuddered but maintained their alignment.

  And, for a moment, she and Ebonheim stood at the center of a newly cleared path—a stable space amidst the roiling chaos.

  Ariastra's long, flowing hand hovered over her ethereal strings, a gesture reminiscent of a dancer waiting to begin their performance. Her fingers twitched slightly as the silvery-white instrument swirled with golden motes.

  "I'd prefer not to force my way through the distortions," she said. "Navigating these spatial anomalies requires a delicate touch."

  As the last word left her, a resonance echoed through the space, vibrating through them. The dimensional layers began to reposition, their chaotic shuffling slowing. Some began to align.

  Ariastra exhaled a silent breath and spoke. "Are you ready?"

  Ebonheim leaned in slightly at her companion and focused on her movement. "After you."

  Ariastra moved forward without another word.

  Ebonheim's lips pressed into a thin line. Despite her growing confidence in her ability to adapt to these disjointed realms, she felt woefully underprepared for this level of metaphysical displacement.

  Quick reflexes, sure. Instinct, absolutely. Solving relatively simple puzzles involving runes, she could do. But this? Definitely out of her wheelhouse.

  She remained keenly aware of how lost she would have been if Ariastra wasn't here. Had she been forced to figure this out on her own, she likely would have drifted into endless reflections trying to find a path forward. It might have taken her weeks, months, maybe years to unravel this spatial knot.

  At least Ariastra's presence was something Ebonheim could rely on.

  Together, they moved forward, each step deliberate, the music of Ariastra's presence filling the air with soft, resonant notes.

  Ebonheim kept her movements slow, focusing on the melody, on the rhythm that Ariastra was weaving through the fractured dimension. With each step, she could feel the tension in the space ease, the layers aligning just enough to keep the world from splintering.

  They approached a shimmering wall of light ahead, its surface undulating with an unsettling pulse. The distortion was stronger here, the afterimages of herself and Ariastra flickering more frequently, as if the dimension was fighting to keep itself intact.

  "This is it," Ariastra said, her voice reverberating through the music that surrounded them. "The filter should be on the other side."

  Ebonheim reached out and placed a hand on the wall. A cold tingle shot up her arm—a result of the foreign element repelling her touch.

  "How do we get past?" Ebonheim asked.

  Ariastra lowered her head a fraction and knelt by the edge of the distorted plane. "Remember, the key here isn't brute force." Her delicate hands spread across the plane as she traced the rhythm with her fingers.

  Then, Ariastra strummed her strings again, their sound clear and firm.

  The harmonies interlaced and shifted, subtly altering the rhythm of the space around them. As the notes swelled, the barrier before them vibrated, responding to the harmonic frequencies. Its once impenetrable surface began to ripple, its resonance matching the vibrations of the harmonies.

  Ariastra stopped for a moment and lifted a hand towards Ebonheim. Ebonheim carefully linked her arm with Ariastra's. She moved in unison with Ariastra now, the two walking together in a steady, careful rhythm. The resonance hummed between them.

  As they touched the barrier simultaneously, Ebonheim felt her surroundings shift and warp. She took a step forward and Ariastra followed along with her.

  Instead of colliding with the barrier, the two figures melted through the space.

  Their senses stretched, elongated, as they were drawn into a narrow thread, a sliver of space within the distorted reality, like passing through the eye of a needle. Instinctively, Ebonheim slowed her movements further to keep in sync with Ariastra.

  After a short moment of disorientating warp, the two goddesses found themselves on the other side.

  They stood in a sprawling courtyard beneath a shimmering canopy of fractured light. At the center, a series of archaic pillars seemed to anchor the disparate realities around them. And in the heart of the pillars: a twisting knot of void-like energy.

  It hovered there—spasmodic and volatile—its inky tendrils pushing and pulling at the surrounding space. Around the knot, reality itself appeared frayed—colors leaked and blurred from one plane into another as if painted lines had been smudged by a giant finger.

  "Is that...the distortion lock?" Ebonheim asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

  Ariastra nodded. "We found its origin."