Workers
Together the pair of you walk through a courtyard in the midst of the temple building. Lira talks. Tells you of your job. Your life here, back when you were Serrin. But, you only half listen.
“We work here. Serve here, at the pleasure of the people. We guide visitors who wish to learn or grow from the worlds beyond, and in return we ourselves are granted the boons of living in such close proximity to such a powerful arcane source.”
Your eyes are fixed upward. Above the temple walls, staring at the cityscape to the north and west of this location. The temple looks ancient. A mixture of something like ancient Greek and Egyptian combined in design, but despite that and the classical attire in which you are dressed, the city beyond makes clear that this world is anything but backward.
Skyscrapers tower up through the clouds, glimmering in the light of the small but intensely bright sun overhead. At the peak of each one, a spire of some sort of crystal reaches higher still, and a crackling violet lightning arcs between the various rods, causing a shimmering field to cast a faint purple glow over the entirety of the city below. You see shapes darting between the buildings, too small to be aircraft but too large to be any sort of bird life with which you are familiar. Somehow, you can't help shake the feeling that they might be people. Flying, magically imbued people.
Only then do you turn your attention back to Lira, and jump slightly as you look down at where her hands are outstretched before you, a glowing, flickering ball of energy resting several inches over her poised fingertips. An orb of magical light in the shape of a planet. Flickering blue and green over sea and land with swirling white clouds over its surface. You look for familiar landmarks.
Continents you've known since you were a child. But of course, there's nothing remotely like your world.
Written by Jeeves on 11 September 2017