Chapter 196: Chelsea Buns and Coffee


    It didn’t make any sense.


    If there had been an astral space aperture nearby, Nara would have sensed it. Her Gaze of the Boundary allowed for her to sense the coterminous space, and her Astral Traveler ability allowed her to enter them—But she still had to be nearby!


    She could enter her Astral Domain from anywhere as it was always coterminous to herself. She could enter an astral space from anywhere as long as she had been there before, using her Astral Domain as a travel nexus. But she hadn’t been to this astral space before. More importantly, it shouldn’t exist.


    According to astral theory, there were several causes of astral spaces. Proto spaces were temporary astral spaces, most often disappearing and collapsing within a few hours. Anything that didn’t leave before collapse was often killed by the sheer violence of the changing dimensional forces, so most monsters—or whatever else inside—made their way out of the space before it ended them. Very rarely, a proto space could stabilize and become a persistent astral space, but this chance was incredibly low.


    There were more stable varieties, those that formed and stayed around for months or years, eventually tipping over into completely stable or slowly losing integrity in a calmer and quieter manner before they eventually completely disappeared. Sometimes astral space in Erras just had very long half-lives, and would take centuries before they stabilize or degraded. Astral magic specialists would determine how long a semi-stable astral space was safe and how long it was likely to last.


    Those were the astral spaces that formed on Erras, which had a stable boundary, rather than the instability that was necessary to cause proto spaces. Even learning about proto spaces had been from the Celestial Book archives. Erras might have some incredibly niche research on the topic, but Nara hadn’t found it yet if they did.


    There were several other methods, ones Nara didn’t understand much of—transformation zones? What was that?—but the bottom line was that for a permanent or semi-stable astral space, magic was needed, and a stable enough dimension to attach and integrate into. If a membrane wasn’t flexible, an astral space shouldn’t be able to integrate in the first place.


    More importantly, the zone was massive. Nara made judicious use of her astral jumping and node-flying, and she still had not reached the end. Going any further had become an increasingly strenuous exercise in futility, so she sat down to gaze blankly at the landscape and contemplate her options.


    The increased Spirit of bronze rank had increased Nara’s precision and calculations, but jumping space made it rather difficult to keep track of distance. She could, however, use her portal range as a measure of distance.


    It had been around 6 months since Nara achieved bronze rank, and most of her abilities were around Bronze 5 or 6, with progress becoming increasingly difficult to come by. Cosmic Path, in particular, was Bronze 6. Portal ranges at base were 40km per rank in bronze (starting at bronze 0), giving her a total of 280km or around 170 miles, plus some range thanks to the legacy effect of Astral Affinity, now Astral Traveler.


    --------


    Racial Ability: [Astral Traveler]


    Transfigured from [Outworlder] ability [Astral Affinity].


    Increased resistance to dimension effects and astral forces. Dimension abilities have increased effect and transcendent damage is increased. This is a legacy effect of [Astral Affinity].


    If your body is discorporated, your soul will return to your [Astral Domain]. You may re-inhabit physical reality upon the recreation of a physical body.


    Within the astral you will be able to create and maintain a small zone of physical reality around you.


    Within physical reality you will be able to create and maintain a small zone of the astral around you.


    You are able to sense and enter coterminous dimensional spaces. Your presence stabilizes unstable dimensional spaces.


    You are able to enter and traverse the astral.


    -------


    So, estimating a maximum range of around 200 miles, if Nara maxed out her portal range (meaning, trying to conjure it further resulted in failure), Nara would have traveled more than her portal range.


    After two hours of experimentation, that was exactly what had happened. The massive tree, which Nara dubbed The Big Beech, was a convenient portal landmark. At some point, when Nara could no longer portal direct to The Big Beech, she knew that the astral space had surpassed 200 miles in radius. Casting her gaze to the horizon, she saw no flickering of the breakdown of reality to the chaos of the astral.


    She had one other idea.


    Nara chain node jumped higher and higher, the cold of altitude gradually biting into her skin. She slipped on her cloak from Kallid, shielding her body and trapping in her heat. The air grew thinner, but her outworlder body never grasped for breath, although her sharp senses noted the difference.


    She climbed, the forest falling behind clouds, white veiling their silver blue. This was the height airplanes flew at. There, beneath the clouds, unable to be hidden by the gauze of white:


    She saw the curvature of the Earth.


    *****


    In the next few days, up to the week time limit she had set for her family, Nara made her way to London.


    The question of the massive astral space still growled in her mind like some great chained beast, and Nara was suddenly beset with an issue of too many projects and not enough time. She still needed to return to Erras and retrieve Nirvana—although Sen had mentioned that a Knowledge priest had delivered it to them (taken off her dead body)—which she may have been putting off because of the inevitable confrontation with Knowledge. With recent revelations, she’d rather have her trusty formless weapon sooner rather than later.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    For now, she focused on returning John to his family, and Nara would like the backup on Earth. He’d be dealing with his own problems, but she knew she could count on John.


    *****


    “John,” Nara greeted him as he stepped through the portal, onto Earth for the first time in over two years. He could almost imagine the perpetual gray, the rain, but also the part and the city and the history that he was familiar with, rather than Erra’s nations of millennia upon millennia past.


    He stepped out into a family bathroom of a Nando’s.


    “Er, sorry,” Nara said sheepishly. “I figured a bathroom was the best place not to get caught by a security camera. Fancy a walk of the city? There are some things we need to discuss.”


    *****


    For the first time in over two years, John eyes took in the skyline of his home city.


    It was late July, which meant that the sun deigned to show itself above the skies of London, dispelling its characteristic cover of grey. A backdrop of blue contrasted with the off whites of Georgian and regency architecture, wrought iron fences and lamp posts as black details upon the pale.


    John felt his eyes well up with emotion.


    They took a stroll through the famous St. James Park, and John had a funny feeling she chose the park for more than just the scenery. She activated a privacy screen, and off they went.


    “I have managed to confirm that you are still considered dead,” said Nara. “It’s probably best for you to investigate it yourself. I’m not clear on the specifics. I’ve stalked your family a bit, they’re all alive, and all in the same place.”


    “Thanks for checking in on them.”


    “No problem,” she said, tipping her head.  “I’m called Nora here, by the way.”


    “Which would you prefer?”


    She shrugged, “I feel more like Nara, but Nora is still a part of me. Either works. Probably best to use Nora in public.”


    Something arrested Nara’s attention, and she skipped over to a café. She came back with two Chelsea buns, and a coffee for John. It was far too warm a beverage for the weather, but John could hardly care.


    “I’ve always wanted to try one of these,” she said, already biting into the sticky pasty of raisin, cinnamon, and glaze.


    John received the offering of his home with thanks. “You have money?”


    “Yeah. What I’ve earned before all of this,” she said, waving her hand at the general situation, “and my stepfather gave me a card. Oops well…I’ll have to tell him the charge in England isn’t fraud. It’s enough to last until I figure out what’s going on here, and get my accounts re-situated. You’ll probably have it worse off, being dead and all.”


    “What have you found out about this whole thing? Is there magic here after all?”


    “My suspicions grow that there must be some sort of magic organization. I’ve scouted the city—there a few buildings with array protections.”


    “That more or less confirms it then,” John said. The cup of coffee in his hands was a grounding of normalcy, although John was pretty sure his reality was about to become upended all over again, this time on Earth. At least he’d grown used to expecting it.


    She nodded. “There was one in Copenhagen, but London definitely takes the cake for density. Whatever organization or organizations likely has a bigger branch here. There’s also something going on with Earth. Something odd. Something big.”


    “Something related to your soul-knapping?” Nara tended to avoid calling it soul torture, shying away from referring to it directly, so John did the same, using one of the many more casual terms they had established for it.


    She made a face. “I don’t know if it’s related to that. Maybe.” She swept her arm out, gesturing to something John couldn’t see. “As far as I can tell, every single part of Earth is coterminous to an astral space.”


    John wracked his brains for his own astral magic schooling. “You’re saying there’s an unusual density of astral spaces?”


    “That would be the more logical conclusion. No, I’m saying there’s one continuous, massive astral space that encompasses the entirety of Earth’s dimensional membrane.”


    “That’s…” John trailed off, unable to make sense of it. He duly studied a bit of astral magic for the sake of keeping up with the work Nara had been doing for the both of them—he didn’t want to be completely ignorant in the matters that intimately concerned him—and he had never heard of such an occurrence.


    “Unheard of, I know. I’d like to get Aliyah over here, but I don’t want to split the team more than we have to. Taking the team’s healer is already rough.”


    John nodded. “It’s been discussed. The team was thinking of taking on another healer.”


    “Ah, that’s good, I’d rather they stay safe. Now—The most pressing problem is how to handle your death. There are a few things we can do. But, uh, let me know if you have any ideas.”


    John gestured for her to go ahead. Nara finished her bun, popping the wrapper in a nearby trashcan, but not before she muttered whether or not keeping the trash and destroying it in her Astral Domain would be better for the environment. Or if chucking trash to be annihilated in the astral would be considered littering. John had been savoring his coffee, still unfinished, since Nara had the foresight to buy him the largest size. Erras didn’t have coffee.


    “The first is to knock on the door and have your reunion,” Nara said. “That’s more or less going to happen in all the plans, it’s just a matter of when. But, plan one, meet your family and figure out what to do from there.”


    “That’s not much of a plan.”


    “Well, depends on if the Secret Magic Society notices your resurrection. Option B, I suppose, is to go through the steps to legally ‘undo’ your death. I’m hoping that would show up on some sort of system, and it would cause the SMS to notice you. More importantly,” Nara said, “I can remain a secret and investigate from the dark.”


    “Makes sense,” John said. “I suppose another plan would have you reveal yourself to the supposed SMS?”


    “Yeah. Walk through their front door and see what happens. Me and you, or just me. It’s unlikely, but it may be enough of a distraction that your resurrection goes under the radar. You’d need to think of some sort of plausible story, however, and figure out how you ‘died’.”


    “Either way, we need funds. I know you wouldn’t want to work an ordinary office job after all this.”


    “God forbid.”


    “Then contact with the organization is our best option. Although waiting to see if there are other options could result in a more competitive offer. We have information we shouldn’t give lightly.”


    “I’m hardly going to mention the library here.”


    “No,” John agreed. They would have to perform their own evaluation of Earth’s competence and level of knowledge concerning magic, but it was likely that: “Erras’ information will be enough.”


    “I’m partial to option 2 here,” Nara said. “I don’t know how much of a benefit working from the outside will be, for either of us. I’ve they’ve remained secret for so long, it isn’t something I’ll be able to find with my mediocre investigative skills. Finding the building itself was easy enough, but even I can’t see anything going on outside, unless I want to try an astral jump. It’s locked up pretty tight.”


    Which was standard for important buildings of Erras as well. If Nara could pinpoint their exact effects, however, then they lacked effect shielding and security.


    “And working through the official organization gives me an easier path to rejoining my family.”


    “That was what I thought. More or less.”


    “…One more thing,” John said, hesitant. He met her gaze, something apologetic there. “Knowledge is waiting for you.”


    *****


    There was one more thing Nara had to do before Plan go-through-the-front was put in action: A visit to Erras, long overdue.


    When Nara stepped back upon Erras’ familiar earth, she reflexively sought out the dimensional boundary, comparing as best she could its minute differences against that of earth’s. If Erras’ boundary was to be her example of a healthy, normal boundary, she best etch that nominal into her mind.


    She had manifested in front of Knowledge’s temple still behind the domain. It was, after all, the one place she could not astral jump to without permission of the presiding god. She hadn’t tested if Knowledge would give her permission, but she had no desire to jump straight into the fire.


    She dressed for battle: Her favorite semi-formal wear from her Pietro collection. A black shirt, asymmetrical in how it closed in front, sleek and sharp, brocaded with black designs discernible only with a shift in light. A black cloak-jacket, draped over her shoulders, underlining of a stark, rich crimson. Hydra leather pants (for dragon leather would be illegal (unless it was from a monster) and far too expensive,), just as black as her mood, a tassel belt of black edged with gold looped around her waist and hung aside her hip (It doubled as a whip. Pietro made Adventurer clothes.)


    She took a deep, fortifying breath, felt the reassuring lack of heartbeat—a lack of a vulnerability—clacked her sharp leather shoes once against the street, and stepped into Knowledge’s domain.