Wrath of the Extra-Chapter 5: Abyssal Narnia

┌─────═━┈┈━═─────┐

*The Dim Transfer Portal*

User→ Auren of Ovine (Aspirant Access)

-Select Destination

► Columbia

► Port Westergard

► Flores

► Straw Ridge 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

► Realm Transfer

└─────═━┈┈━═─────┘

The guards give me some weird looks as I click on the last available destination, Straw Ridge, and hobble through the portal.

The transition is seamless. In the blink of an eye, I have traveled 4200 miles to Straw Ridge, which would be central Alaska on old Earth.

I ensure that my watch is disabled. Both the Cabal and the nobility have ensured that, when disabled, the watches have no tracking capability. It’s far too invasive for anyone’s liking.

It’s the type of cold that tingles the skin, as one could guess for the Alaskan Autumn. The sun has even darkened, despite it only being early afternoon.

The guards manning the portal here in Straw Ridge give me a look that is even stranger than the Dim’s guards. They’re just midborns. Lowly bastards. I would beat them bloody if my hands weren’t extremely preoccupied.

The area near the portal caters purely to transportation. Translucent blue Pteigeist, domesticated Corrupted bison, pull merchant wagons. They rumble all around me, either picking up or unloading goods.

They make their way along thick arteries of newly renovated stone roads toward the city’s massive walls.

Along the wall, airlifts whir up and down, going to and from the airships parked at the top—an air harbor of sorts.

The top of the surrounding walls is obscured by the vast plane of grey-white clouds, but I know the airships are there. They act as an airport for airships in every walled city.

Several minutes of walking later, I find myself on the stone streets of Straw Ridge’s central. Quiet, and purely residential—completely opposite of the portal area.

It’s as if small-town America and an impoverished medieval village had an incestuous baby.

Modestly poor. A bit grey, dull, and sad. But humble and charming in its own way. Much more than what I had growing up in Shacktown, though that’s not saying much.

The townspeople’s clothes are meek in the same strange mixture of old styles and modern materials. Colors of black, red, white, brown, and grey make up the thick tunics and dresses to combat the cold. The women’s hems are tinged with mud from the ground. Children trample through the streets, playing, obviously intrigued by my sight. Hell, some of them have probably seen me here before.

These kids know better than to mess with a man cloaked in all black, carrying a dozen bags of god knows what. Plus, I have my Shiv on me. I’ll stick the little bastards if they try anything. You don’t fuck with the Cabal’s money, you don’t fuck with the Dim’s, and you don’t fuck with my money.

After about half an hour of walking through the corridors of medieval-style homes, I arrive at a peculiar building.

It is the most sketchy, obviously a cover-up building ever; an abandoned church on the highest hill in the area.

I struggle to open the door with all the bags wrapped around my now-tired arms. But eventually, I swing one door out and hold it open with my foot before squeezing inside.

It’s dusty for an Interrealm Hub entrance. Lesser known. More frequented by Cabal members. We keep a tight counter-surveillance operation in the area as a result. They’ll see me coming, but won’t say anything. I’m on a mission in more ways than one.

Rays of light beam in from the side windows, illuminating the floating motes of dust in their wake.

One window has been broken and boarded up. No light seeps through its cracks.

I walk up to the window. It’s dead silent. Yet, there’s a faint buzz in the air for the perceptive. A wrongness to it.

With a sigh, I momentarily set the heavy bags down and put a white t-shirt over my head. I’ve folded it in such a way that it is more or less a ski mask.

Anonymity isn’t exactly the rule, but it is expected as part of the culture. Mask-off would out me as an attention whore, which is not entirely true.

TAP TAP.

Two clicks of my foot in hasty repetition unlock a non-existent door.

In the blink of an eye, the window has transformed into an abyssal rectangle.

I step forward into nothingness. It hugs me, frigid and terrifying.

The feeling reminds me of my rebirth. Considering that this doorway concerns travel through a Detached Dimension, maybe the process isn’t so different from transferring a soul between universes.

Everything is indiscernible for a short amount of time. Then light bleeds back into my retinas once more.

I find myself transported into a familiar market center.

This Detached Dimension, home of the Interrealm Hub, takes the form of a cavern. Bulbous alien fauna glows along the cavern roof in whites, reds, blues, yellows, and greens, pulsing gently like stars in the night sky.

It’s almost like a carnival here. What, with the tents and stands scattered about. Certainly, the wacky and diverse roster of customers and shopkeepers alike reminds me of a circus.

It isn’t as busy as usual. They’ve had to cut some entrances off; the Royal family has really hounded this black market for political purposes.

Even if everyone’s masked or cloaked, you can generally tell the race of each customer from their frame.

You really can. What’s so wrong about that? I’m technically a racist, after all. To be fair, that label is just baggage from my "all Humans need to die" rhetoric.

I pass a singular towering Orc, a few stumpy Dwarves, and a lanky Elf. It’s a bit hard to tell Humans, Demons, Beasts, and Elves apart sometimes.

Mutants are the easiest to spot.

I pass a rare sighting; the Mask Maker passes me, surrounded by a diverse coterie with whom he discusses intensely.

His main body is massive and completely shrouded in a cloak tinged with a wispy cloud of darkness. A dozen lanky arms protrude out of his back idle, following the vertical, aggressive, somewhat shrewd bobbing, walking motion.

I shiver so close to him. His mere presence turns the air he occupies cold. It’s not every day you see an S-rank being, though he is the Interrealm Hub’s owner.

But I’m not here for him, nor am I here for anything in this central area of the market.

On the outskirts of the central market area, I enter a raggedy grey tent.