Sell you a Bridge chapter 161

February 7th 2011 New Genesis 11:00 AM EDT

The  inside of the Gummi Ship was, to my complete lack of surprise, bigger  than the outside. It was basically a given considering the size of the  thing, but it was still pretty jarring to experience when we walked  inside. The space was massive and as we walked in Serifan bounced to the  head of the group. "Ok, I'll be leading the tour. I realize we can't  leave right away because y'all have things going on here, so we don't  have to do all of it now, but I figure I can give you the low down on  what all is in here."

He led us  through an area with an open layout and grated metal floors. "Now this  here is out entryway, main area, and cargo bay. It's pretty much  independent of the outside so it's mostly stable even when something  shoots at us, which doesn't happen much. Even when it does we have  shield Gummis so it usually doesn't get through. We don't haul cargo  much or anythin' so we mostly use this space for supplies or interestin'  things we find while exploring. We found some really neat obsidian on  this last trip that seems to be much sturdier than most rocks, so we  brought some back with us."

He  gestured over to a few large wooden chests that were lashed shut, then  led us to the middle of the room. It was wide and open, and I could see  multiple doorways and exits from the place, leading off to other parts  of the ship. Serifan noticed me looking and grinned. "This is the  largest cockpit Gummi we could get our hands on. New Genesis has started  studying how to make them actually, and though we're still a ways off  from something like this, some of the work our people have done have  inspired the engineers from the Wildlands."

I  raised an eyebrow at that. "You all are still in contact with them?  Dreamer made it sound like your visit was brief?" Though thinking back  she hadn't mentioned anything about not being able to talk to them  again. Did the Genesisians have some way of maintaining contact across  dimensions? I supposed they would have to, considering the traveling  they did. I knew the Mother Box wasn't exactly standard issue but even  without that Sphere was absolutely massive, the would need to be able to  keep an eye on territory near theirs.

Serifan  grinned. "Oh sure. Communication Gummi's came with the ship. The mouse  king's engineers, a set of twin chipmunk people, are brilliant. The  Gummi ships can travel dimensions when needed, and they already figured  out an effective, albeit limited way of keeping in contact.  Communication Gummi's can be formed in pairs, allowing them to contact  each other over any distance, and they gave us one when we left so we  could keep in touch. They've been invaluable for upgrading the ship,  helping us learn to make low level Gummis of our own already."

He  lead us through the cockpit, showing off the space available, before  bringing us through one of the side doors. "Here we have the galley. A  crew flies on their stomach, especially Bear, so we keep this thing  stocked. The food storage uses Gummi technology to keep the ingredients  fresh. The same Curaga Gummis that they installed in the med bay for  some reason. I don't know how it works exactly but its damned useful."  He brought us to a bunch of other places on the tour, engineering, the  bunks, even a training room.

Finally  we came to the end of the road as he led us into the bridge, an  absolutely massive room with a half dozen chairs at multiple consoles.  Vykin and Bear were waiting for us when we came in, both of them smiling  when they saw us. Bear, as his name suggested, swept us up in a big  friendly hug. "Welcome to our ship friends! It will be good to have  other warriors onboard. You certainly must be strong to have caught the  interest of our Dreamer. She's always been picky." Dreamer glared at him  from off to the side, but he didn't seem to notice.

It  was sweet seeing them interact, their auras made it clear that they  cared deeply for each other. Bear treated Dreamer like his little  sister, and while he knew she could take care of herself, the  opportunity to mess with her was too good for the big warrior to let  pass. He was much less simple than he acted, and knew that people tended  to underestimate big brawny fighters. In reality he was plenty  intelligent, he just didn't care much for niceties and being blunt and  simple was an easy way to bypass them.

Dreamer  was actually blushing at the teasing, which was adorable, and I saw  Zee's aura spike with the emotional equivalent of one of those anime  characters who screamed 'KAWAII' whenever they saw a puppy. Despite the  entertainment value of teasing the new girlfriend I turned to Vykin with  a questioning look. "So Dreamer said this thing can get us to the  Magiclands, do you have a map or something we can check out?" I didn't  want to rush them, but I was worried about this trip and the sooner I  got more info the better I would feel.

Vykin  nodded seriously. "Ah of course. Come." He led us over to one of the  consoles and typed in a few commands. When he finished typing a huge  holographic circle popped up above the console, the colors riotous as it  showed us the layout of the entire multiverse. The thing was...odd to  look at. It was basically divided into four spokes, with several layers  of circles inside those spokes to represent different layers. Each spoke  had a plane listed on it, some sort of pillar maybe? and the plane we  were in was labeled 'The Skylands', while the one opposite was 'The  Underworld'.

Vykin  gestured to where we were. "Now, as you may notice we are technically  within the Skylands. New Genesis has it's own area here, so not everyone  really counts us as such. Similar to how...the Enemy is technically  within the Underworld, but is considered to have their own area of the  Sphere. The Wozenderlands are here." He pointed to a general area in the  top quadrant. "This is the Dream, and it's connected to the collective  unconscious of the mortals. Their placement in the Dream is why the  Wozenderlands have seeped into popular culture on your home planet."

He  zoomed the map in a bit, showing the area between the two. "One of the  main reasons Dreamer picked the Wozenderlands was because of it's  placement. There are many terrible areas in the Sphere, and entering  most of them is dangerous even for us. The Wozenderlands however, are on  the opposite side of Heaven, a vastly preferable shortcut to many other  routes we might have needed to take. We can cut through that plane as  long as we avoid the Silver City, as New Genesis and Heaven have an  understanding with each other, so the trip will be much safer than  most."

I  nodded. "Sounds good to me, we appreciate the help. How long do you  expect the trip to take? I'm not really clear on either the distance  involved or the speed of travel so it's hard for me to get an idea of  the duration." It was frankly difficult to wrap my mind around the sheer  scale of the map I was looking at. My brain wasn't used to registering  entire planes of existence, not to mention that space between them was  even bigger than expected. Which brought to mind a second question.  "Also, will we be flying through the Void? I know that it takes up the  space between worlds."

Vykin's  eyes widened and he shook his head. "No, that would be incredibly  dangerous. The planes in the Sphere all have passages between them that  have been formed over the eons. Direct Void travel is horrifyingly risky  for any but the most powerful beings. Metron is the only New God that  regularly makes trips through the Void. The God of Knowledge is one of  the wisest and most powerful of our number, and Highfather's personal  advisor, so you can infer just how terrifying the Void is." He  shuddered. "The beings that inhabit that place are twisted, unnatural  things."

I  winced at his reaction, probably best to keep the Void Shaping thing  under my hat then. I had to hope that they didn't recognize what Patches  was, though Dreamer definitely hadn't, or had just trusted me to know  what I was doing. Regardless I knew more about the Void at this point  than the forever people did. The Void was omnipresent, and while there  were portions of it that housed horrible eldritch abominations, those  were mostly the parts beyond the outer limits of reality. The portions  between the worlds mostly just had your basic predatory Void Beasts that  wanted to eat your soul.

Patches  and his ilk came from the sections of Void that had been somewhat tamed  by overlaying realspace. the connection with reality stabilizing them  and keeping the worst of the horrible beings out of them. I didn't  really know what those beings actually were yet, because I'd made it  through one page of that damn book so far and I still had a LOT to  learn, but the basic layout of the Void was one of the earliest points  covered in that first lesson that prepared me for the cornerhound spell.

We  went over the trip in detail, Vykin answering my question about trip  length with the helpful information that we would be traveling the paths  at warp speed so the trip itself would only take a few days. Then he  took us through the various places we would pass by, making sure we were  aware of any possible dangers. His face was deadly serious as he filled  us in. "While Heaven and New Genesis are allies, you must be aware that  no part of the Sphere is really 'safe'. There are many powerful beings  who live independently among the planes, and they are all very  dangerous."

Finally  we finished going over everything and headed back outside. Artemis and  Wally had waited out here, wanting to give Zee and I time to hang around  with Dreamers friends and get to know them without distraction. I  suspected the adorable game of peek a boo Artemis was playing with  Patches was also a motivator in the decision. Once we caught them up we  started getting ready to leave packing everything up via spatial ring.

We  left the store full of the magical gear we made, though we locked the  place up. We handed the key over to old Stanga and told him he could  could keep half the profts if he sold it off for us. Stanga was kind of a  local icon so he would probably manage it better than us, and it wasn't  like our lease would be up soon, land deals in New Genesis lasted for  millennia, a consequence of dealing with immortal gods. Still, we said  our goodbyes sadly, Stanga was a good guy and had really helped us out,  plus the man was a great cook.

Finally  though we finished packing and got everything sorted out. We planned to  come back someday to visit, Supertown was gorgeous and the people were  nice, a vacation here would be great if we weren't stranded. After we  said our goodbyes and took one last look out at the massive metropolis  of gold, we climbed aboard the Gummi ship Highwind and prepared to set  out on our journey. Vykin and the others were waiting for us on the  bridge, where we'd headed to see liftoff through the front windows, and  as we set forth from New Genesis, I reflected on everything that had  happened. This place had changed our lives quite a bit, and our journey  was far from over.