“Gasp! Where am I?”
Well, I just heard this exact phrase a few moments ago, but! I was the one that said it this time around however, trust me on this, it fits this scenario quite well. I will explain it then, as you can probably guess, I’m not where I was supposed to be. Kiana just had that weird dream, one that resembles the same ones that I had thanks to The Void Empress. We were supposed to sleep and then wake up, but no, of course not, why didn't it even cross my simple mind that this ordeal won’t be this straight forward?
It first felt as if I was out of air, as if I were mere moments from drowning but was quickly dragged to shore preventing that from happening. I quickly open my eyes as I recover my breath and I instantly see that; Kiana is nowhere to be seen. In fact, in front of me, I have the same ol’ chessboard from the beginning. You could think that, I woke up and I’m back to reality however, it couldn’t have been any different.
Still a little dizzy, I carefully inspect the chessboard. There are no pieces on it, I don’t think that I threw them away when I fell asleep either, which means that someone removed them from play. Or maybe it’s another chessboard that looks the same as the one that The Void Empress had, after all, the place I’m currently in, it’s another unfamiliar place to myself. I look down and I see my hands, my gauntlets in this case, after that I keep on looking down, seeing the rest of my body. Yep, I’m not the “Narrator” neither am I a light orb. I’ve gained my body, or in other words, my consciousness is back to my real body.
“This is good to know but, seriously, where am I? This place feels so out of place and yet, familiar…”
Ah, I still haven’t described the area I am currently in, but I do mean when I say it feels familiar. As I said, right in front of me there is a chessboard, past that there is a chair, one that looks to be the same as the one I’m currently sitting on. To my left there is an empty area but further down you can easily see a wall. I’m inside of an open room since there is no ceiling, but one that seems to have the shape of a hexagon. I’m currently next to one of the six walls, contrary to the other five walls, this one is rather empty, in other words, rather than being a normal full wall, it is instead a half wall, one that has a height of around 1.30 meters. The other walls seem to be well over 3 meters tall. This should be enough to give an idea of the layout of the room, but let’s go deeper a little more, this room really is eye-catching to say the least.
To my right said half wall is present, however I would describe it better to be a railing rather than a brick wall for example, at the top of the railing there is a line of bushes that goes from one side to the other, hitting what seems to be pillars on both sides. The aesthetics of this seems to follow the same one as when I was in the weird world, the one with the Crystal Whale. The bushes are green, a soft healthy green colour, they are around 30 centimetres tall and with maybe 20 centimetres or so of thickness. They also have flowers here and there, ones that have several colours to them but ones that all belong to the same colour. What I mean is that, they all are red however, they differ between shades of red and some even seem to mix with other colours. They seem to be Roses, different types of them should describe it better. Since there is a decent opening to the outside, what do you think I can see from here? Well, you won’t expect what it is, that’s for sure. I can see the vast sky and horizon, nothing more, nothing else. It still has the same colours from the fantasy world so, I’m really starting to guess that, I’m actually in the same fantasy world but in a different place.
“Now that is something interesting to say the least, but with it a new question appears. Why?”
Exactly, why? I definitely won’t find any answers standing, sitting in this case, in the same spot. I should get up and while I walk around here, I will give out my well thought of descriptions of this place. To start off, this place seems to be around 900 square meters, not small at all. In the six walls of this hexagon room, three of them are “empty” while the rest have doors on them. What grabs my attention the most are actually the areas of the “empty” walls, they sure have some nice things next to them. Alright, before I get moving, let me situate myself in this room. The wall in front of me, one that is quite the distance from me, there is what seems to be a rather large door, one that follows the same design that I’ve seen in this world, one with a leaf shape to it. Although in this case it seems to be even fancier than those ones. The walls to my right and left, they both have doors on them, on their case they both are smaller than the one in front of me and they also follow the same design. The walls next to where the giant door is, they are the “empty” walls and that are the areas I will explore first.
The one in my right, there is a sofa, a table in front of it, a small bookshelf next to said sofa and a floor lamp on the other side of the sofa. Mind you, the sofa, the bookshelf and the floor lamp, from where I stand, seem to be right next to the wall. The wall to my left, there seems to be a kitchen in there.
What?
I’m not joking, I’m not lying and I hope I’m not seeing or imagining things. Is this some type of lobby? I didn’t mention but right in the middle of the room there is a massive pillar that seems to support nothing, since there is no ceiling-Actually, there is a damn ceiling…
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“I’ve never seen glass so transparent like this, it really seems there is nothing up there. Fascinating.”
Maybe this isn’t glass but some type of crystal material? I don’t think it is the same one as from the Crystal monsters but I wouldn’t be so surprised if it was the case. Actually, now that I’m looking at it better, thanks to the pillar in the middle of the room, one that is much taller than the walls themselves, easily reaching around 6 meters or so, it seems thanks to it, the “roof” is something akin to a dome. Huh, now I wonder how everything is being held back together but oh well, no point in trying to figure it out in a place where you have floating buildings if not, islands. The pillar is not only tall as I mentioned before, but it is also quite thick, easily a square with 2 meters in all directions, except the height of course. The pillar and the walls, they are coloured the same way as the walls from before, the ones that are fancier to be more precise. However, what’s in front of the pillar, around is more accurate, it’s something that caught my interest to say the very least, in other words, it’s beautiful.
Around the pillar there is a bush that goes all around it I would guess since I cannot see the other side, however in the part in front of me there is a patch of flowers in said bush, ones that seem to also be roses and several types of it. All of this is slightly raised up, they are at a top of what seems to be a small “cube” that goes all around the pillar. This “cube” is around 50 centimetres tall and a meter or so of width. Since the pillar is 2 meters in all directions, if we had the “cube” to it, it would make 3 meters instead. The bush is around half of the cube, there is a line roughly 20 centimetres wide that goes all around this “cube”. This line is maybe 10 centimetres deep into it, the reason for it is because said line contains water on it, water that mind you, it’s as transparent as water itself can be. Seriously, it’s beyond clean. This cube breaks the colour pattern of the pillar, instead it seems to be made of stone, stone bricks should be more accurate. However, it does fit well with everything.
Well then, with this extremely precise, accurate and well thought out description, I probably should get moving but before that, something else. The floor is different in some areas. What I mean is that, I’m a few centimetres from the chessboard, the floor in this area is a rather white-snow marble tile rather than the checker pattern tile from before. In fact, this checker pattern is still present here but, there are some areas where said pattern is not present such as this one. The other ones are where the sofa and the kitchen are, those ones from here they seem to have different tiles, both different from each other and from the ones I stand. It seems a little bit weird but oh well, it’s not like I was who designed this.
Moving on, this time for real.
I finally got my feet moving but only after using my Magic Sense skill first, after all, I’m far too unfamiliar with this place even though it resembles the world I was once in. I did find a few things, a lot of them in fact, but at least in this room, there is nothing for me to worry about. So, with this in mind I decide to first have a look at the sofa area. My footsteps do echo quite a bit easily telling me that I'm indeed inside of a closed room rather than an open one. Either way, after walking for a few seconds I’m near the sofa area and just like I said, the floor here is different. In this case, it seems to be wood tiles, ones that are a dark brown, maybe even teak wood.
“Now I’m closer, all of these seem to be way too high quality and even fancy looking for something so random.”
I mean it when I say this, the sofa alone is enough to give out that feeling. It reminds me a little bit of the same sofa as the one in the room where I first met The Void Queen. It is coloured in a snow-white colour, made of leather that seems to belong to the highest quality of cow that you can think of and comfortable as a bed itself, one where only kings themselves sleep on them. The sofa is not that big but neither small, easily with 3 meters of width and a meter or so of length. There is however, a part of the sofa where it’s longer, so much so that I could almost fully lay down on it, this part is to my right where the floor lamp is. This floor lamp also seems to follow the same pattern in terms of quality, it has a simple design but as I said, the materials that the lamp is made of, they really seem to be expensive.
To my left there is said bookshelf, one that is normal size to be honest, it’s not that wide, only with a little more than a meter, however its height is taller than I am, being around 2 meters tall. The bookshelf of course, it also seems to be extremely expensive but just like the lamp, for the simple design with dark colours to it that do create a good contrast with the sofa and even the floor. For last, we have the small coffee table, one that is just shy of smaller than the sofa, being with 2.7 meters of width and 50 or so centimetres of length. The height does match the sofa height, in other words, it matches the height where one would be sat on, where the bottom “cushions” are. The coffee table is made of steel, one colour in black, but between the top and the floor, there is glass on it but this one, it does seem to be plain glass.
“Well, while I would love to sit down and read a book for a few minutes, I should get going with my exploration. But, before that…”
I have to the very least see what the bookshelf has on it. Who knows, maybe it will be just like the newspapers and I will be able to find some useful information about all of this. I walk up to the book shelf and once I was closer, I started to see what books it has there. The bookshelf is rather empty, I did count how many books there are, that alone should tell you how “many” they are. It’s thirteen of them and to my unexpected surprise, they are light novel books. Huh, this easily tells me that this area is actually used for leisure, not only that, there’s a good chance that this belongs to someone. I doubt it will be The Void Queen but, at this point I wouldn’t doubt if it happens to be true.
