Chapter Thirty-Three

Vekk did what every intellectual, well-reasoned, and intuitive person did to an uncooperative piece of delicate technology…

… he smacked it.

He had found the remote scanner… not that it did any good, as it was covered in rust, the internal power supply completely dead. Had he not known the unit was dropped roughly one day ago, he would have thought it had been lying there unattended for years.

Which begged the natural question of what in the name of the Eternal Alchemy was going on, and why… and led him to trying to contact Headmaster Coran, with absolutely no luck. Any communications link was sporadic at best, and he could only hope his signals were getting through to someone… or anyone at this point.

"Headmaster Coran, do you read me? Please respond… oh!"

His entreaty fell short when as if turning an invisible wall, Coran and Devona appeared directly in front of him. He normally hated such uncanny sequences of events, as it made it difficult to deal with the unenlightened who felt the hands of the gods interwove into everything. But… in this case… he certainly wasn't going to be picky.

Coran himself seemed slightly disoriented, which Vekk supposed shouldn't be terribly surprising. The headmaster was looking back and forth between his belt and Vekk, his eyes furrowing increasingly in concentration.

"Coran… are you all right?"

Devona flushed in embarrassment, and explained, "I… might have introduced my hammer to the top of his head…"

"I said I'm fine… that has nothing to do with it." Coran retorted, even as his voice sound as if in a daze. "I think… maybe… I'm starting to get a grasp of this space we are in."

"Your input would be appreciated on this." Vekk noted, pointing towards the corroded remains of the remote scanner.

That only served to conclusively reinforce the hypothesis that had formed in Coran's mind over the last thirty seconds. "I'm not sure exactly how… but it appears to me we are in some form of physical space where the physical laws we are used to do not apply. Time and space are behaving very differently here than what we are accustomed to."

Devona blinked, hopelessly lost in the conversation that soon erupted.

"I think you're right, headmaster." Vekk mused thoughtfully. "It could take some time, relatively speaking, of course… but we should be able to define the pattern of this space… provided we don't create some paradoxical situation where we meet ourselves at some point."

"Hopefully, there is a state of relative time that prevents such a happenstance. I've heard plenty of theoretical results to such a meeting, and I'd rather leave them in the realm of hypothetical."

Vekk nodded, "So… what now?"

Coran sighed, "Hopefully, the rest of the team has the sense we don't have and stay where they are. Nonetheless, that is our first priority, to reassemble our numbers… then locate the source of this chaos."

Devona and Vekk silently exchanged glances, but Coran caught the silent question. "We still have a task to perform here, and we still cannot afford to let those questions go unanswered. The Seer we fought clearly was undaunted by this space, we must be the same."

Devona linked her left arm with Coran's, and reluctantly offered her free hand to the Asura. "We believe staying in direct contact will help prevent us getting separated again, Vekk." She explained when his eyes furrowed quizzically.

This time Vekk and Coran shared a silent conversation, and the Asuran genius complied, feeling quite silly and suddenly very small as his hand wound up above nearly above his head. He felt like a child all over again which, considering his early family life, was not a good thing.

"Out of curiosity…" Devona began shortly after the very universe itself seemed to alter itself around the trio. "What sort of things are supposed to happen by meeting yourself?"

Coran shrugged. "No one can say for sure. The normal, natural flow of time prevents such encounters. Considering accepted Asuran knowledge isn't even certain of the relation of normal time to space, musing of ways to thwart such relation was considered fantastical musing at best, not fit for proper scientific discussion and reserved for late night, semi-drunken chatter after a few pints of ale were passed around."

"That didn't really answer my question, dear one." Devona insisted, having to admit she found the idea of stark drunken Asura stumbling and stammering half coherently even to those who understood their babble to be quite amusing.

"The theories ranged anywhere from non-existant, to tame, to outright catastrophic." Vekk added, deciding it did little harm to humor the warrior. "Some claimed it would do essentially nothing. Others suggested that meeting yourself would cause your spirit to rip in half trying to fill two bodies at once, effectively killing you. Finally, there was the theory that it would weaken the very fabric of the universe itself, much like a small rip in a piece of clothing. The weakened reality would slowly get larger, until the entire universe was torn apart."

"And now you know why neither Vekk or I are keen on testing these theories." Coran said with a roll of his eyes as Devona boggled. "Because if there is one thing I've discovered, its that reality can sometimes be even more bizarre and unpredictable than theory."