Chapter 269: Amazing navigational skills (Patreon)

Entering the interstitial space together is a surreal experience. There’s the usual bombardment of white noise and flashes of light, of course, but that part isn’t too bad.

It’s nothing compared to the chaos in the actualRealmvoid, anyway.

The part that makes it so weird, and slightly nauseating, is that the direction each of us is pulling in seems to change every other second, like we’re all being dragged in random, constantly changing directions.

Well, this is getting us nowhere fast.

First things first: let’s find out what the hell’s going on.

To that end, I quickly whip up a simple metaphor, and spread it all around us.

A split second later, we’re freefalling through a void.

An empty void, thank you very much.

With the annoying sounds and flashes gone, we’re left with the few things present in this metaphor: our spiritforms, and our destination, presented by a spot of light.

Well, actually... three spots of light, each representing the direction one of us is trying to move towards. A blue one to represent Kaitlynn’s body, a purple one to represent mine, and of course a cyan one to represent Suri’s.

The problem immediately becomes obvious. Our respective goals are moving.

And they’re not just neatly travelling on a shared plane or anything like that. No, that’d be too easy.

They’re swinging around us.

Kaitlynn looks momentarily surprised to be able to see, but that quickly fades into frown as she glances around. “Now what?” she asks, her voice echoing oddly in the void.

“I’m not sure,” I admit. “Wait for the directions to align?”

However, as we hang there in the void, holding on tight as we each pull in a different, changing direction, it soon becomes obvious that that’s not going to happen.

Whatever the rules are behind how they move, the three spots of light seem to almost repel each other, slipping to wherever there’s space, but never stabilising or stopping with moving in an ever-changing, dizzying pattern.

“I’m not sure if this going to work, dear,” Suri chimes.

I shrug. “Me neither, but I’m not done trying.”

It remains silent for a moment.

I clear my throat. “Ehm. Any suggestions?”

Kaitlynn scrunches up her nose. “Can we try a different metaphor? I don’t feel so good.”

I blink. “Actually, that’s a pretty good idea!”

Closing my eyes, I start to concentrate on a new metaphor. One with a little more... complexity.

Literally. ’Cause it’s going to be a maze.

When I reopen my eyes, our feet are on solid stone.

Well, Kaitlynn and mine are. Suri just hangs there.

I release her, letting go of Kaitlynn’s hand as well, as we’re now solidly entrenched in the interstitial space by my metaphor, and no longer need to keep pulling towards the distant resonances of our bodies.

I can still feel the resonance I have with my own body, of course, but to be honest, it doesn’t seem to have any direction I could point out.

I guess that sense must be obscured by the many solid stone walls I Imagined into being around us on all sides.

And I do mean all sides, because it seems my maze offers more choices than just left or right.

Kaitlynn sinks down to her knees, releasing Suri as well, and takes a few deep steadying breaths. I quickly step over to soothingly rub her back.

Meanwhile, the Peilor reforms her human conjuration and uses it to glance around with a frown. “Well, this is certainly less disorienting, but it’s supposed to help us reach our goal... how, exactly?”

“I, ehm, figured we weren’t getting anywhere, being bombarded with information like that,” I reply, taking in the stereotypical, temple-like walls I Imagined, full of runic markings. It’s more like a labyrinth than a maze, really. “So I tried to make a metaphor that would translate the puzzle of figuring out what direction to head in more physical.”

“That’s pretty smart,” Kaitlynn says with a sigh, as she gets to her feet, still a little shaky, and glances around. And up. And down. “Are you sure this is going to help though? It seems pretty difficult... I mean, did you have to make it three-dimensional?”

“Yeah, that just kinda happened,” I admit sheepishly. “I guess the problem was too complex to translate into a two-dimensional maze.”

“Interesting...” Suri chimes. “You know, I wasn’t too sure about this idea of yours, but if your metaphor adapted itself to the situation like you claim, that would suggest there actually is a solution to this maze.”

“Yeah, there’s at least three,” I reply dryly. “The question is if there’s a fourth.”

“Perhaps...” Suri chimes thoughtfully. “However, each of our resonances provides a straightforward connection; there’d be no need to solve a maze to follow it. No, I believe this maze should only have one exit. Hence, perhaps, why we can no longer sense the exact direction of our bodies.”

Hmm. That’s an interesting take.

“Wait, how are we supposed to navigate if we can’t sense...” Kaitlynn trails off, pointing at a nearby wall. “Wait, is that... supposed to be a hint?”

I look over at the section of wall she indicates, but I can’t really make heads or tails out of the pattern of repeating symbols, seemingly in random order. “Ehm, could you be a little more specific?”

She raises a brow at me. “More specific? It’s literally a figure pointing to the right...”

I look again, scanning the carved runes one by one, then shake my head. “Where do you see a figure in this mess? It’s just symbols, repeating over and over...”

“Interesting,” Suri chimes. “I see neither of those things, for me the walls are carved with crystalline structures.”

My eyes widen. “Oh shit, of course! We’re each sensing the resonance to a different location, so we’re all seeing different things!”

It turns out Kaitlynn sees a kind of cave drawings of figures engaged in various activities, with some of them pointing at various hallways, and others signalling near them in either a positive or negative manner.

Suri sees crystalline structures made up of simple lines and dots, with fault lines that appear to give her a sense of direction as well.

It actually takes me the longest to figure out my own pattern, even though—or perhaps because—it’s actually pretty simple. Different carved runes occur more frequently around certain hallways, seeming to indicate what can be found in that direction. And one of those, seems to be a stylised depiction of a female body, in a kind of Vitruvian Man pose.

Once we’ve all figured out how our patterns work, we each conjure a glowing, floating symbol in front of the hallway ours seems to indicate, only to come to the conclusion that they all point in a different direction.

Looking at my floating Vitruvian Woman, Kaitlynn’s large pointing hand, and Suri’s arrow, I scratch my head. “Well... shit. Now what?”

“Hmm, I believe I was mistaken before,” Suri chimes. “This maze does have multiple exits. It’s simply that the directional information has been translated to these markings. Following that logic, these should be the paths that lead directly to our respective bodies.”

“That doesn’t really help us, then, does it?” I ask folding my arms across my chest with a frown.

“Not directly, no,” Suri chimes.

“But you think we can solve it?”

“No,” Suri chimes. “I think I can solve it. No disrespect dear, but I don’t think the human mind is particularly suited to the task.”

A muscle twitches next to my eye, and Kaitlynn snorts, clasping a hand in front of her mouth in an attempt to hold in her laughter.

To be honest, if this was the old me, I would definitely not have listed navigating complex three-dimensional mazes as one of my strengths. However, that was before my journey to the lower Realms, and before experiencing the mind-boggling Escherian architecture of the Realm of Pathways. My mind has grown a lot during my travels.

Literally.

“I’m sorry, you think you’re better than us?” I reply, narrowing my eyes at her and folding my arms over my chest.

Kaitlynn glances at me, eyes wide.

“I said your mind may be less suited to the task, dear,” Suri chimes haughtily. “Not that it was inferior overall. Do try to listen, I detest repeating myself.”

Her tone rankles me, but at the same time it’s liberating to be arguing with her again, for once, and not have to suffer through her overly polite bullshit.

I shake my head, tutting mockingly. “Honestly, Suri, I’m disappointed. I thought you’d learned better than to underestimate us by now, but perhaps your mind simply isn’t that suited to the task.”

Kaitlynn quietly groans and starts rubbing her temple.

Meanwhile, Suri raises a brow at me. “Is that so? Well, then, by all means, lead the way.”

Well... shit.

Not knowing what else to do, I pick a hallway roughly in the middle of the three indicated directions.

Perhaps due to my thinking about Escherian geometries as I brought this metaphor to life, whatever surface we set our feet on becomes the new ‘floor,’ with gravity automatically adjusting.

Our personal gravity, even, which leads to some interesting experiences.

It’s quite odd to see someone walk down a ‘wall.’

At first, we make good progress towards the vague direction I’m leading us in—albeit with some dead-ends and backtracking, and after a while, I’m even starting to feel some optimism about my method.

That lasts about until Kaitlynn opens her mouth to say, “You know, this room looks awfully familiar...”

I glance around, a sinking feeling in my stomach, but the mess of symbols looks the same pretty much everywhere. “You sure?”

Kaitlynn walks up to a wall and squints at it. “Yeah, pretty sure I’ve seen this drawing before. And that one. In this exact configuration...”

I close my eyes and groan. “I’m leading us in circles, aren’t I?”

“Oh my, having some trouble, dear?” Suri chimes innocuously.

I take a deep breath, pushing down on my irritation.

The truth is, while I generate plenty of Espir, keeping up this metaphor is still slowly draining my Pool, so if we don’t succeed in solving this maze, we’ll eventually have to turn back so I can recharge.

And I really don’t want to.

Honestly, there was no need for me to get into a grudge match with Suri. She’s a mind born of a living crystal. Odds are she really is better suited to the task of solving complex three-dimensional mazes.

I just wanted to needle her a little. Guess the joke’s on me.

I let out a sigh. “Fine. Yes, I’m having trouble with this damn maze. Suri... will you please help?”

Suri is silent for a moment. Her conjuration opens its mouth, closes it again, then at last speaks. “Of course, dear. I’d be happy to.”

Author's note:

Thanks for reading! ^^