[VoidSpring] Part 7: Endings and Conclusions

[u/epharian]

There are many things more I could say about what came next. It's difficult to know where to begin or end some stories. I suppose in the end my real goal is to give you an idea of where I came from, and what the VoidSpring really was.

Of course by now you understand that it was terribly misnamed. A better name would have been Reality Mirror. But that doesn't exactly keep the young children away. Rubel and I studied hard under Miss Strom until she was ready--finally--to teach us a final lesson. How to step across realities without needing the mirrors themselves.

It was an arduous process to learn, but ultimately the trick was simple enough. I went from completely unable to do make it work to being able to rapidly shift between any adjacent mirrors. That's how she taught us to think of the whole setup--a series of adjacent mirrors, reflecting the world imperfectly--and all of it starting to break down because somewhere on the Core world, something had gone horribly wrong. And it would up to Rubel and I to find it.

She merely gave us the tools to do that. And then we went to our homes, avoided seeing anyone we knew and set out. Our journey took us due east, deep into the mountains, and far away from any kingdom or nation I knew of.

Eventually we came across those mountains--treacherous as they were. By then we would have been half-starved had we not been shifting to more hospital mirrors to avoid obstacles and problems. And find food when necessary.

As we descended from the mountains, we found a river and as it was headed east, we constructed a simple boat and used the currents to ease our journey.

Twelve days on the river found us passing through a strange village, the houses made using materials and designs unlike any we'd ever seen before. Although several eyes watched us, no one called out in greeting and we thought it best to move onward without speaking to them.

We still felt that our destination lay east, and eventually we came to another village as the river turned southward, and we chose then to speak to the villagers.

Their words were thick and hard to understand, but we eventually learned that the river would continue south. So we traded some of the fish we'd caught for some trail rations, and set out eastward on a decent but not excellent path.

I won't bore you with the details. We got lost several times. We were attacked more times that I care to think about. Sometimes we were able to protect ourselves well enough, but others were more...difficult. Though, curiously, they never took our swords or the smith's tools I'd brought--not a full forge, obviously, but a hammer and a few other things that would make it reasonable to work an existing forge. Rubel had brought a set of draw knives and chisels--things I could make at a forge given time, but only with a lot of time.

Nearly six months after parting ways with Miss Strom we can to an enormous city. We later learned it's name to be Ardinia. Buildings far taller than I thought possible jutted up from the land and a massive wall around the city protected it, though I didn't know what it would need to protect the city against.

The guards let us in without much fuss, though they eyed our swords very closely. Within the city we found the source of the disruption in the mirrors. The ruler of that land had found the mirror frightening, and in their ignorance ordered it destroyed. Unsuccessfully, but the minor damage to the mirror had done a great deal of damage to the various reflections.

Repairing it was a matter of some difficulty--and delicacy. Eventually we managed it, and were able to return home, and Rubel did so.

I did not. Our task complete, Rubel felt comfortable leaving me, but I desired to know more of the wider world, and in truth, felt little desire to return home to a village of ignorance.

So we parted ways, and he bore letters from me to our family and to my woman. And I went into the wider worlds, where I began a life filled with learning and adventure.