The Void II

They entered the hallway of what Frost initially assumed was some sort of hotel. The amount of heavily armed individuals moving around convinced him otherwise, though. It appeared that they were in some sort of infirmary or barracks. It lacked any militaristic design, and seemed to be some sort of repurposed manor. The wallpaper was golden and the wooden trims had strange swirling designs.

Frost noted with great interest that the lights here were just like the ones on Earth, and that electricity existed in the Void. This made sense of course. The waystop between worlds would surely be the amalgamation of their technology… Hopefully it avoided being an amalgamation of their flaws.

"So. How'd you get here exactly?" Frost asked Klein as they walked.

"I awakened while we fought the wyvern back then," Klein replied, looking proud.

Come to think of it, Klein took a pretty massive hit when he helped Frost block the flames from that damned wyvern. The Void was supposed to select those with powerful personalities, though… What was it about this guy that was special? An average Joe among average Joes, and a father to boot. He needed to go home rather than being here. 

"You–" Frost started. As he opened his lips, his top chatter seemed to sense what he was going to say.

[Checkpointer20: I wouldn't suggest telling them about your meeting with Eternity.]

Hold on a minute. How did this guy even know about it in the first place?

[Checkpointer20: That God only shows his face for cosmically concerning individuals.]

[Checkpointer20: This is the last place in the universe you'd want to identify that way.]

Frost couldn't argue with that logic. Everyone around him including the supposed 'leader' Belleram were either carrying weapons or emanating Void energy that seemed a weapon in itself. The advice of this particular chatter had been good, so he'd continue to take it for now. Belleram and Klein were looking at him, waiting on his next word.

"Did you not have to enter the Void to awaken, like I did?" Frost asked. Decent save. Belleram looked a little suspicious, though.

"No," she cut in. "It isn't exactly a preliminary. A distortion has the properties of the Void itself. It is… Something like an extension." They turned right and walked down a grand staircase with both Belleram and Klein watching Frost to ensure he didn't fall. "You two are making me remember just how big of a pain it is to be an instructor."

"My sincerest apologies," Frost mocked. Only an idiot wouldn't ask questions in this scenario. As someone with a firm interest in staying alive, Frost wanted to know everything.

They opened double doors out into a courtyard while Belleram continued talking. "I'll just give you the shortest version possible of the mission statement, alright?"

Frost shrugged, and Klein nodded.

"Void – which is essentially like the fundamental stuff of our universe – also happens to grant abilities to certain people in the right circumstances. It's also destructive under the right circumstances, ones which we haven't fully mapped or determined yet. It creates distortions, which can only be engaged upon by people like us, Voidhunters. Anybody else within the range just becomes…"

"An object of the distortion," Frost finished her sentence. He recalled the message in his vision about the wyvern.

Belleram looked slightly impressed by that. "That's right. So it's up to us to clear the distortions, reap the rewards and get rid of them… If we don't, then… Well…" She made an uneasy expression.

"Well?" Klein asked.

"The planet sort of implodes," she finished.

"Implodes?" Frost asked. "Is that some sort of weird lingo?"

Belleram looked him in the eyes. "I mean it in a very literal sense, I'm afraid."

For a while they walked across the courtyard in complete silence. The weight of the realization weighing upon their heads. Around them were heaps of men training, dueling against each other using Void energy and strange abilities fuelled by it, or doing obstacle courses and crunching weights. Frost thought he understood this place now. These were the men and women that trained day in and day out to destroy the distortions and… Save the universe? It was quite the responsibility when he put it that way.

Why are they all using swords, though?

The Void itself was strange. The sun above seemed to be in a permanent eclipse, which gave the entire place the hue of a world stuck within a permanent sunset, wherein everything was a colour it shouldn't be and the world was just a little more grey. Frost felt paralyzed, like he was staring at Medusa and his body was turning to stone. Of course, he overcame this feeling and carried on.

"You know this, how?" Frost wondered. The other side of his mind was occupied with visions of a planet imploding. What exactly did that look like?

Belleram cast her gaze downward. "How do you think?" They were the words of a woman who'd experienced an unfathomable failure before. Was she truly carrying the weight of an entire planet's destruction on her shoulders?

"I'll do my best," Frost said. It was strange to find such words coming out of his mouth. Some tragedy was too large for even himself to excuse. What if Earth just went poof. His parents were probably still there. There would be no one to prove anything to. Billions dead. No orphanage. No Krista. All of it would've been for nothing.

"You don't know that," Belleram replied. "Not yet. The job will be a lot easier, too, if you don't go around and create more."

Frost recalled the way this conversation started. "Right. You blame me for the ordeal back on Dragonsfold, but why?" All he'd done was throw a slave owner off of a cliff, and if he was to be punished for that… Frost Direshard would have another enemy.

They exited the courtyard through yet another set of double doors and began climbing a winding staircase decorated with what appeared to be portraits of previous important people. Frost read a few of the names off of them, and most were incredibly alien sounding. Belleram, too, was clearly not a name from Earth.

"You violated their ruleset. Anything that the world would consider unnatural draws the attention of the Void. I'm told you used your new powers to throw that slave owner off of the mountain," Belleram noted dryly.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Klein glared at him knowingly.

"Right, well it doesn't matter, just don't do it again. When you go back to Earth, too, no using your powers to do anything that might affect the future significantly. Especially no using it in front of any dustless."

Frost sighed. "Right. Alright. I got it." He definitely didn't get it, of course, but he would withhold that information and deal with the consequences later.

They reached the top of the staircase, Frost doing so with great difficulty. He realized now that they'd entered a much more mundane section of the Realmguard's complex. It was, frankly, an office block like the hallways containing the professors' various offices back at university. It had drab brown walls and a grey carpet, becoming pointedly dimmer with only a few lights about every ten metres. It was as if the designer had wanted the people working here to feel depressed about it. Perhaps it was a fitting mood for the people behind the paper and books of saving the universe.

They passed briefly by a room filled with chaos. Paper was flying everywhere and people wearing business casual outfits were yelling at each other, one even threw a pen that flew narrowly past Frost's head. The voices, though loud, were being drowned out by futuristic looking printers that were shooting out paper after paper filled with words every half-second or maybe less. The workers in action hardly had a moment to react to their boss passing by before they'd already disappeared from Frost's view as he struggled to keep pace with Belleram.

Belleram continued to a door at the very end of the hallway. This particular one was clean and much better kept than the others. It had a name on a golden plaque, Acting Headmaster Belleram Medeara. Just how long had the previous Headmaster been away that they gave a plaque to the acting one? Why not just name her the Headmaster at this point? Frost had a lot of questions.

"It's not an office in the type of locale I'd expect for the boss," Frost said. And indeed, it was in a dingy corner of the building that took awhile to get to. If he was given a choice, this would be his last office of preference.

"I don't exactly use it much," Belleram explained, "so I chose the worst one. The actual Headmaster's office is upstairs and has quite a nice view."

"And you've brought us to your sparsely used office, why?" Klein ventured.

Belleram nodded at that and opened the door innocently. "Gentleman. You've probably guessed that awakening doesn't come without its consequences. It's time to make the most important choice of your life."