A/N - Hello all, and welcome to the next story in the set that we're calling 'The Travelers' even if it's never really in the name of any of them! If you haven't already, please go read the previous stories (Not In Tamriel Anymore and The Beginning of Their Travels) so that the context of this one isn't completely lost to you. And as always, Lilith and I hope you have as much fun reading this as we did writing it :)
Between worlds, there was nothing to do but dream. So Amon dreamed of home, of the Sanctuary and her family. She dreamed of worlds she hadn't seen before either. But what she dreamed the most of was Garret. She watched him wake in his new body, she watched Brennah find him and the twins were made whole again. She watched as justice was done to Anders by his Commanders as they made him work to repay them for their lost recruit. But Amon also knew that eventually, she had to wake up. She struggled to wake as air flowed past her body then she was surrounded by cold fluid.
Amon awoke underwater, staring up at the blue sky through the crystal clear depths of what looked to be a lake. Being a vampire, she didn't need to breathe; and watching the clouds from under water was always very beautiful…but it was time to find out where she was and what out of place God from Tamriel was lurking in this new world. With a surge of strength she tore herself from the waters embrace and coughed any water from her lungs that she had breathed in on accident while looking around at the pristine forest she had come out in. Amon gave a breathy whistle of admiration; wherever this was it was beautiful!
"I wonder where Milah is…" The child vampire wondered to herself as she pulled her feet free of the clinking silt, mud, and sand at the bottom of the pond and heaved herself onto the grass; it seemed the forest she was in opened onto a large expanse of plains, while far in the distance a mountain of sand split the blue horizon. With a sigh and a quick check of her mana pockets to make sure she still had everything, the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood started off into an unknown world with only a bag and an overly chatty doll.
'It is too dangerous to go out into the open, this is a folly.' Justice nagged at Amon as she drew the hood of her Shrouded Robes up to shield her from the sun. She shushed him, glowering at him grumpily.
"Shut up, I am still furious with you for what happened to Garret. Do not think there will be no consequences for blowing up a place of worship. If you had done that to one of the Divines' temples you would have been burned at the stake." She warned, voice low and angry as she recalled the scent of burning human blood on the wind from the explosion: more than a few orderlies and the head Priestess. Though Justice only scoffed, the poison of Anders' anger still flooding his mind even as Amon shook her own silvered head in regret.
'It was necessary. It was an injustice to keep the mages like that.' He declared proudly. Amon raised an eyebrow before snorting; his head would EXPLODE if he knew she was a hired killer and also part of a race that was hated and unjustly hunted if found out. She set her face forward and sighed, pushing a branch out of her way until she could look clearly across the plains that wee strangely…blocky. Amon felt her face twist in confusion before she turned her head and noticed everything was like that. The branch she had pushed aside seemed to be an entire square shape made up of leaves. Even she had become…more block like. Her body had lost any curved definition and looked more like some strange artists early rendition of the human body, including tiny blocks that made up her bendable fingers.
"That…is not right. Where in the name of Sithis am I?" She whispered fearfully.
The pair had walked until the tunnel space between the worlds decided it would carry them itself, turning from a long and stretched out hallway into a dead drop that would have them falling for quite some time. Sleeping was the last thing on Milah's mind, but eventually she embraced it and curled her body into a tight ball so that she felt more comfortable. Somewhere in that slumber she and Amon became separated, though Milah did not notice until her body felt a change in her surroundings. The tunnel was ending, and as it did the sudden transition from inter-planar space to a new world was forcing the Khajiit into the waking world. She opened her eyes just in time to see the ground rushing up to meet her and she braced herself for it, though her landing was surprisingly soft; no more pressure than if she'd jumped from a tree. The portal that had opened in the sky receded behind her, closing itself with a noise akin to a great beast giving one last roar before it fell into the darkness of sleep. This was the new world, and Milah trusted that at least one of those they hunted was here…Somewhere.
Turning to take stock of her surroundings, the woman noticed that she had been put down atop what appeared to be a very large mountain of sorts. All around as far as her eyes could see were simply more of these mountains and then valleys so steep one could easily fall to their deaths with just a single misstep. It took her a moment to realize that Amon was not with her, though the fact did not surprise her at all. Neither did the strange new things that were bombarding her senses; sights and sounds so similar to home and yet so different.
Taking one step, Milah halted in her tracks and looked down at her feet. The world was strangely blocky, as if it had been built by a child simply playing with some very advanced building blocks. Each one was somewhere around three feet in all directions, making stepping down from her current position a bit more challenging than she would have liked. It was only then that she noticed her own body seemed to have become blocky as well, each part between a major joint simply a square or rectangular shape that bent on some kind of odd disconnected system. It seemed that whatever world they stepped into they adapted to, which sort of made sense to Milah but at the same time had her frustrated as she tried to get used to a body that wasn't as streamlined. Her first steps were wobbly but she did stable out after a while, managing to climb down the cliffs until the world petered out into more stable land.
Of course stable was relative given that it appeared to be a jungle of some sort with extremely tall trees choked with mass amounts of the blocky leaves, but Milah wasn't going to complain. Instead she grabbed hold of one of the vines that grew down the trunk of a tree and climbed her way up, reaching out to break the leaves as she reached the top. It was surprisingly easy to do, and as long as he avoided the hole she'd made the view was spectacular. Finally being able to see more than just the mountains, Milah noticed that the jungle also seemed to stretch on forever but right on the other side was an ocean.
"Oceans are good. People settle near oceans, or at least along the rivers that flow into them. Hopefully I can find a settlement of some sort nearby." She whispered to herself, making sure her blocky hood was secure before starting out among the treetops for the vast blue and hoping that there would be some form of life other than the odd chickens, cows, pigs and sheep she'd seen so far. The sun was still decently high in the skies and that gave her hope that perhaps she'd find a place to stay before nightfall. A place where she could ask, gather information, and better prepare herself for the challenges that this new world was sure to bring.