[Freezair]

((Move to Fe'gan Mountains when the event ends))

It began as an ordinary day. Then again, most things did.

Farmers rose early, often before dawn, and Rygar rose earlier than that; he didn't like to get in the way while he was exercising. Dawn was an hour or two off, but in the heat of Sekudui, it was clammy and warm despite the darkness. Rygar stepped outside and began panting almost immediately. Running in such cloying heat would be excellent for building his stamina.

He set off down the perimiter of the Yingshee grazing fields, legs in perfect stride. He stared up into the night sky, taking in the stars while his heart raced.

But... he did not remember those stars. Nor the colors swirling between them.

And he had certainly never heard that voice before.

Come with me, the night whispered. Prove yourself. Show your might. Come with me.

[Freezair]

If Rygar had just woken up, Vermeer had not yet slept. It was rainy in Aldrect and his old bones ached him, muscles and tendons remembering how they had been torn long ago. He had learned long ago not to fight his body when it got like this. Instead, he prepared himself a bucket of tea (what passed for a cup at his size) and decided to settle in with a good, old book to keep him company. With any luck, the warmth in his belly and the words in front of his eyes would distract him until the pain went away.

He heard a knocking at his window.

What could it be at this hour? he thought. Possibly some hooligans, taunting an old Naga-turned-Paragon by throwing things at his window. He ought to spit a cloud of gas at them--nothing too toxic, mind, just enough to show them who was boss. But when he opened the window and looked down at the slick street below, he saw no one.

He looked up into the strangest stars he had ever seen.

Come with me, the stars whispered. Prove yourself. Show your might. Come with me.

[Freezair]

Someone on a far-off coast had sensed the changes in the air. She had pulled herself ashore from her usual wave-ridings to better observe what was going on. As a nature fairy, she was finely attuned to the balance of the world--and all of a sudden, the balance of the world had seen a sudden, drastic shift.

The mist that clung to the rocks tonight was not the usual sort. This was not salt and sea foam--this was something otherworldly, eldritch even; tonight the air tasted like worlds not her own.

She tried to feel what it was or where it had come from. But it was so completely other, her magic couldn't wrap around it.

A sudden voice shook her from her thoughts.

Come with me, the mist whispered. Prove yourself. Show your might. Come with me.

[Freezair]

Gizma had been shocked into wakefulness by the sound of every barometric instrument in her laboratory suddenly going haywire. Now she ran around the lab in the frenzy, trying to condense as much data as she could into her brain before this phenomenon came to an end.

"1000% increase in the rise of celestial energy! Superstring tendrils reporting vibrations across 24-dimensional space! Micro-wormholes are opening at an alarming rate everywhere in the vicinity! My remote sensors are indicating that this is going on for miles! WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON?! Are we witnessing the end of the world? Or the birth of a new one? This is unprecedented!"

She didn't even notice her tiny assistant Drakescale. He was perched on the windowsill, gazing deep into the night sky, letting its voice wash over him.

Come with me, the wind whispered. Prove yourself. Show your might. Come with me.

[Freezair]

The two siblings sat together beneath a tree, listening to the voices run over them.

Come with me, they whispered. Prove yourself. Show your might. Come with me.

The two of them exchanged glances. One look in the other's eyes, and they knew. The voice they heard was real. It spoke to the both of them.

Marion's muscles bunched and tensed even though she sat still. All of her energy went into twitching her tails fiercely. Kelly, beside her, looked more tired. Both of them had been awake, on a nighttime prowl. But he seemed to regard this otherworldly summons with exhaustion. Why should he follow this mysterious voice? What did following it even mean?

He looked down at his little sister. He could almost smell her excitement.

He gave her a slow, tired nod. Her whole face lit up as she grinned.

Together, they walked into the fog.

[Freezair]

Dinni was having the dream again. No matter how many nights he had it, the scenery never changed; the marble-white arena, the blazing sun overhead, and the cheering crowds always greeted him. And in every seat he saw a face completely unknown to him. Not only were they unfamiliar on a personal level, they were all beings--creatures--of a kind he had never seen before. It was as if the audience was filled with people from a hundred different worlds.

He looked down at this scene from on high, as he always did. He was in some sort of small room above the action, as he always was.

But suddenly, there was someone with him.

It was if a piece of the night sky had come to join him in his dream. It was in the shape of... something; another one of those creatures he could not name. Something big, vaguely draconian, yet humanoid at the same time.

It is time, it whispered. You are needed. This is your calling.

Come with me.

And Dinni went.

[Freezair]

The black mist was neither cool nor warm. It was not wet, nor was it dry. And no matter how far away it had seemed, as soon as its recipients heeded its call, it was directly beneath their feet. A dark, glittering road stretched away in front of them. With the first step onto of it, all outside sounds vanished. In another step, the sights beyond vanished, and the mist was all there was to be seen. From there, all there was to do was to follow the black road, like walking along the Milky Way itself.

Some hardly realized they were walking. Others surged along it, sure in their purpose and their destination. Whatever waited at the end, it was there they would prove themselves--and they had a lot of proving to do.

Despite his eagerness, Dinni moved with an unhurried pace. He didn't even realize he had awoken.

[Freezair]

The mist parted.

Those who had followed it found themselves suddenly in a chilly clearing in the middle of a forest. Tall pine trees swayed above, and the ground was rocky and covered with discarded needles. There was a faint scent of snow in the air.

Dinni blinked and looked around the clearing. Several other confused creatures peered around, assessing their surroundings. He spotted a Lucain, a pair of Kuhna, and other Paragon like himself, but other creatures as well. A few murmuring voices rose, and then conversations began:

"Did you follow the black mist here, too?"

"Yeah, I followed it. You hear that weird whispering?"

"Come with me... something. Cover me, hold me? Together we'll break these chains of loo-oove!"

There came a rustling, like someone moving through the trees. Everyone stopped and turned in the direction of the noise.

A brightly-colored, feathery head strutted out of the clearing.

"Hmm... THAT didn't quite go as planned."

[Freezair]

At first, Dinni wondered if this Soveris was the one who had summoned them there. But then he mentally compared her to the night-being he had seen in his dream. (He realized at some point that he had awoken. He wasn't sure when.) She was not in the least draconic--and none of the other Paragon here seemed to match that bipedal profile.

He wasn't the only one to wonder, however. A large purple Paragon walked up to her, creaking as if the damp made him ache.

"Are you the one who summoned us here?"

The Soveris was busy examining her foreclaws, testing the way they opened and closed. "Summoned? I'm afraid I've been summoned just like you were."

[Freezair]

The Paragon tilted his head at her. "Then... what didn't go as planned?"

She put down her claw, seemingly resolved to worry about it later. "Well, I AM a wizard, and I was in the middle of performing a powerful Gate working, with the intent of traveling to another world."

The blue Lucain looked up. "You are not from this world, then?"

"No, I'm not. I can tell by the auratic traces on you you're not as well. But my working was... usurped. As soon as I stepped inside, I could tell that an incredibly powerful source of magic--infinitely more powerful than mine--had stepped in and made my working its own. I can smell it all over this place. We've all been brought here with a singular purpose. What that purpose is, I have no idea."

[Freezair]

The Soveris chose the perfect time to stop, for at that moment, a tremendous crashing came from between the trees. Great, sorrowful howls echoed from between the trunks. Everyone in the clearing tensed. Dinni noted with some curiousity that most of them turned to face the noise with their claws out and in battle stances, ready to fight.

A great green Paragon suddenly burst out of the forest, her razor-sharp wings clattering. Great, sobbing roars came from her throat.

"What is wrong with this planet?! What is wrong?! WHAT IS WRONG?! The air is wrong! Why couldn't I fight them? WHY?!"

[Freezair]

The blue Paragon with towers of stone on her backs approached their terrified new guest. "Hey, hey!" She soothing, shushing sounds in her throat. Dinni swore the noises she made almost sounded like waves crashing on a shore. "Calm down. What's your favorite food?"

The green Paragon suddenly stopped. It was as if a switch had been flipped in her mind. "My... favorite food...? M-m-minerals, of course."

"That's good. And what's your name?"

"P-Pear."

"Well, it's very nice to meet you, Pear. I'm Simone."

Dinni made a mental note of it. Pear and Simone. That's names to two of the faces I've seen here, at least.

[Freezair]

"Now." Simone sat herself in front of Pear in an attentive pose. "Will you tell me what's wrong, Pear? What happened to you?"

Pear mimicked her pose and looked directly into Simone's eyes. "Well, I... I thought it was an ordinary fight. I sensed a blackness approaching and saw what seemed to be a Krawl fog approaching. I ran towards it to fight it, but... I found myself in a dark tunnel, like the night sky was beneath my feet, and... then I was here, on this strange planet. And the air here..." She inhaled deeply, letting her chest expand. "Well, it, I... I suppose it's not so bad, but it makes my skin feel... strange. It feels like it's crawling up and down, and my body feels... shaky..."

[Freezair]

The Soveris pushed her way into the conversation in a puff of feathers. "It's called being cold. You look like you're not used to it."

Both Simone and Pear turned to look at her. Simone had an ever-so-delicate and beatific expression of peevishness on her face. "Excuse me? How do you..."

The Soveris poked at Pear's side. "Judging from the waxy texture of your skin, the ridges on your body, and the--ow!--very sneaky little spines along it... I'm guessing you're some kind of wyvernic succulent multikingdom hybrid."

Pear blinked at her.

"...You're a cactus dragon."

[Freezair]

Pear's wings flared. The two Kuhnas at the side of her jumped out of the way to avoid their slicing blades. "Oh! You DO know about cacti on this planet! D-do you know of a nice sandy place where I could go? Perhaps you know of a spaceport I could get back to my home planet?"

"We have plenty of cacti here," the Soveris said. "But I think you're more than a few planets away from home, sweetheart. I suspect you've found your way into an entirely different universe."

Pear folded her wings in shock. "A... a different... universe?"