Liam stood over the smoking remnants of his leather trousers, the Chronos Shard clutched tightly in his Iron Talon Gauntlet. The sheer, overwhelming warmth in his lower legs was already dissipating, replaced by the sterile calm of a completed objective.
"Objective complete, Elara. We have the Chronos Shard".
Elara, whose scream had just faded into the high chamber's echo, rushed forward. She didn't look at the prize; she looked only at the damage.
"Your legs, Liam! They are fried!" she whispered, her voice a mix of terror and professional urgency. She fumbled in her satchel and pulled out a tightly wrapped linen roll. "Sit down. Now. I need to apply a basic cauterization spell before the Arcana seeps deeper."
Liam remained standing. "Negative. Sitting is not required. Motor function is Green. We need to secure the Shard and return to Aethelburg before the Council begins tracking its signal".
Elara ignored his protest, grabbing his arm with a fierce, almost desperate grip and forcing him onto a cold stone bench. "Stop being a machine for two heartbeats, O'Connell! You can't inventory yourself out of third-degree burns!" As she unwrapped the linen, revealing a dull, silver paste, her eyes welled up. "This is what I mean, you great fool. You don't feel the pain, so you don't recognize the damage. You just let the world destroy you".
Liam watched her work. The paste was cold and strangely sweet-smelling, and where it met the blistering skin, it hissed, pulling the moisture out of the wound. He felt the cold, but nothing else. He looked at Elara's face, tracing the line of her cheek, and for a split second, he registered her fear as a physical weight—a weight not of injury, but of vulnerability.
"I cannot be destroyed if the mission requires my continued function," he stated, his voice softening just a touch. "I rely on your monitoring, Elara. You are the superior sensory array."
"And you are relying on me to save your life every five minutes," she shot back, tying the linen tight. "That is not a fair trade, Champion. I need you to want to survive, not just succeed."
He opened his mouth to formulate a logical response, but before he could speak, the Chronos Shard pulsed a brilliant, unstable silver in his gauntlet. CRACK-FZZZ-BOOM
The sound was a combination of shattering glass and electrical discharge. The silvery light, identical to the light in Quartermaster Storage B-7, exploded outward. The Chronos Shard, now integrated with the Plane-Jumper Nexus, had initiated an unscheduled jump—and Liam, holding the catalyst, was the target.
The air turned from ozone and brine to something acrid and metallic. The stone floor of the Sunken Temple vanished.
When the light faded, Liam was no longer standing. He was falling.
He landed with a jarring thump on a surface that felt like warm, grooved plastic, immediately dropping the Gauntlet and the Shard. Elara landed hard right beside him, letting out a winded groan.
"That... was not part of the plan!" she gasped, pushing herself up.
Liam blinked, taking in their new surroundings. They were in a narrow, brightly lit alleyway. Above them, towering structures of glass and chrome scraped a sky that was permanently twilight-blue. Everything glowed with neon light. Strange, cylindrical vehicles zoomed silently by on tracks suspended twenty feet above their heads. The air was thick with synthetic smells and the hum of unseen machinery.
"Observation," Liam said, his academy training kicking back in. "The environmental parameters have shifted. Location is no longer Eldoria. Architecture and technology are non-medieval. Atmosphere is pressurized."
Elara stared up at a massive, flashing sign that read 'NEO-KYOTO SECTOR 4' in a language made of glowing symbols. "A dimensional shift," she whispered, her eyes wide with academic wonder despite the immediate danger. "The Plane-Jumper is functioning—erratically. It yanked us mid-argument!".
Liam looked at his Gauntlet, which was still gripping the Chronos Shard. "This artifact does not appear to be a simple compass, Elara. It is a portal generator. And the rules of my reality no longer apply here."
"The rules of any reality no longer apply here, Liam," she corrected, picking up the Gauntlet and the Shard and stuffing both into her magical satchel. "We're in the multiverse, Recruit. And you just gave the High Council of Eldoria the ability to follow us. We're on the run."
She looked at him, her face grim.
The Data Spire and the Pattern of Worlds
Neo-Kyoto Sector 4 was a city built from contradictions—strict logic wrapped in uncontrolled neon chaos, order suspended inside a storm of information. And Liam, with his CIP-steady heartbeat and relentless objective focus, walked through it like a machine dropped into a parade of blinking circuitry.
Elara struggled to keep up, limping slightly from their rough landing. Her magic was still useless; every time she tried to cast even a minor detection spell, the air snapped with static and a streetlight died.
"Whatever this world runs on," she muttered, rubbing her stinging fingertips, "it hates Arcana."
"It is not hatred," Liam corrected, scanning the skyline. "It is incompatibility. Two operational systems with conflicting parameters."
As they walked deeper into the district, the buildings grew sharper and taller, the neon lights brighter, the flow of people faster. Holographic signs flickered overhead, advertising synthetic noodles, cybernetic hair implants, and discount exosuits.
A towering crimson spire punctured the sky ten blocks ahead—the Data Spire. Their destination.
The Slow March
Elara checked the stolen tablet again. "Okay. According to this… the entry point to the Spire's lower grid is near the plaza. But remember: anything that moves too fast gets turned into confetti."
"Understood." Liam slowed his pace. "Maximum speed reduced to seventy percent efficiency."
"That's not slow enough, Liam."
"Fifty percent efficiency," he corrected.
"Slower."
"Thirty percent."
"Think… elderly librarian slow," Elara instructed.
Liam considered this. Then began walking at a pace so slow it bordered on theatrical.
"Acceptable," Elara decided.
Citizens walked around them in a blur of synth-leather and glowing cyber-tech. Some stared. One person took a picture. Liam didn't notice; he was studying the building patterns, counting exits, and mentally mapping the safest infiltration route.
"Observation," Liam said. "This city rewards precision but not speed. It operates under urban discipline."
Elara gave him a sideways look. "You admire it."
"Yes," Liam answered honestly. "It is structured."
"Neo-Kyoto would love you," she sighed. "You're basically a person-shaped barcode."
The Plaza Anomaly
The plaza surrounding the Data Spire was huge—an open field of polished metal pathways, holographic billboards, and a river of people moving like synchronized water.
And in the center stood the Spire:
A monumental structure of black chrome and pulsing crimson veins, humming with digital life.
This was the nexus.
"This is definitely where the Plane-Jumper locked on," Elara whispered. "This much concentrated energy… Liam, this world runs on pure information. It's like standing on the heart of a god that speaks binary."
"There is movement," Liam noted calmly.
A squad of patrol drones drifted overhead. Sleek, black, insect-like machines with rotating red eyes and thin, retractable arms.
"They're scanning everything for anomalies," Elara breathed. "If they detect Arcana, they'll—"
BZZT.
One drone paused overhead.
Its red eye dilated.
Elara froze.
Liam did not.
He stepped in front of her, positioning his body directly between her and the targeting beam.
The drone blinked.
Analyzed.
Beeped.
Then drifted away.
Elara exhaled shakily. "That was way too close."
"Negative," Liam said. "It was an acceptable proximity margin."
"You're not allowed to use the word acceptable when lasers are involved!"
The Spire's Hidden Door
The tablet's map guided them to a service access hatch on the Spire's east wing—an inconspicuous metal panel half-hidden behind a vending unit.
Elara knelt beside it, shoving her hair out of the way. "Okay… the diagnostics say this panel controls the Spire's firewall relay. If we can access the relay, I can re-sync the Chronos Shard to the Jumper's baseline signature."
"Which will allow us to redirect the next jump," Liam finished.
"Exactly. Instead of being flung into random worlds… we'll be steering."
Liam nodded. "Proceed."
Elara placed her hands on the panel—but magic fizzled uselessly in her palms.
"Ugh! This world is allergic to me!"
"Step aside," Liam said.
He braced his hands against the access hatch and began applying controlled force.
The metal bent.
Screamed.
And popped free.
Elara blinked. "Did you just… brute-force a firewall door?"
"Yes."
"That was… effective. And deeply concerning."
Inside the Data Spire
The service tunnel was narrow and filled with pulsing conduits, glowing with crimson light. The air vibrated faintly—a continuous hum, like the city itself was whispering.
The deeper they walked, the more the humming grew into a rhythm.
"Liam…" Elara whispered. "This place is alive."
"No," Liam corrected. "It is functioning."
"But listen. It's almost like—"
She froze.
Liam didn't.
His hand clamped onto her shoulder, pulling her back just as a thin red beam swept across the hall.
A security sensor.
"Movement triggers the disintegration field," Elara whispered. "We need to be extremely slow."
Liam nodded and motioned for her to follow his lead.
They moved together, inch by inch, navigating under the sweeping beam. Elara held her breath as it passed a hair's width from her nose.
Finally, they reached the relay hub—a panel of floating digital screens and glowing crystal-like nodes.
"This is it," she whispered. "The tether point."
She pressed her palm to the panel. "I can stabilize the Shard's signature from here. But… there's a catch."
Liam waited.
"Elara?" he asked.
She didn't look up.
"The next jump is already charging. The Spire is feeding energy into the Nexus. We can't stop it. We can only redirect it."
"Understood," he said.
"And… Liam… the Council's energy signatures are on the network."
Liam's posture stiffened.
"They're coming through after us," Elara whispered.
"They followed the Shard's wake," Liam concluded. "Logical."
"They're only minutes behind."
"Then accelerate your process."
"I'm trying!"
The relay panel flickered violently.
Electric arcs crackled across the room.
The hum of the Data Spire grew into a roar.
Elara gritted her teeth. "Okay— I can lock the next jump to a stable plane. But wherever we land… we're landing with company."
"Acceptable," Liam said.
Then the floor trembled.
The air dissolved into silver light.
The Chronos Shard detonated in a burst of dimensional energy—
CRACK—FZZZT—THOOM.
The city vanished.
The world folded.
And the Plane-Jumper hurled them into the next reality.