I step through the swirling purple portal. A wormhole opens and I am flung through it, the sound like the resonance a crystal glass makes from a finger being swiped around the rim.
I emerge into the darkness, standing in the damp clearing of a temperate forest. The tall shapes of towering cedars and hemlocks shadowed around me. It’s thoroughly raining. The amount where your clothes will actually soak through if you stand in it too long though.
I’m wearing a dark green cloak, the material I imagine is like the thick weave of Kylo Ren’s cloak. In reality it would soak up the rain quickly. But not in this reality. Here it’s the perfect attire.
I take a few steps out of the clearing and emerge onto a well worn path. Wide enough for two horses to trot side by side — even though no horse has ever walked these paths.
I look ahead. North, I think? Or maybe it was south. It’s been so long, and even my usually impeccable sense of direction is thrown off from years away from this place. Even through the darkness of early morning and rain, I can see the faint glow of torchlight in the distance, maybe four or five hundred feet away.
As I move along the path towards town, I place a hand on the hilt of my sword at my belt. It’s a straight blade impossibly separated by the hilt by a red diamond-shaped crystal suspended between each piece. The Atlan Sword.
As I near town, I make out the shape of a town sign. But it’s not until I get within three feet of it that I can see the sign reads “Holtburg” in the flowery, elaborate script of a children’s fairy tale book. The rain tapers off, and I can make out the torchlight from some of the town’s buildings.
I hear laughing and talkative voices from the pub to my right as I make my way down the hill through town. And as I near the northern end of town, the clanging of a blacksmith’s hammer on anvil. At this hour?
The sun has just started to rise as I reach the main square, and though no one is in sight except a lone cow in a flimsy looking pen, I finally feel at home.
