Order of the Universal Panacea Sanctuary of Apsu, Gynaikeian Gateway | 5:09 PM | First Day(From this point forward in this scenario, all further scenes with context provided will take place in the Sanctuary. As a result, it shall not be included as part of the location.)

In the present day, there were two methods understood by which a human being could be safely transported a significant distance by arcane means: Transpositioning, utilizing the World-Bending Arcana, or teleportation, using the Planar-Cutting Arcana.

The former functioned more or less as described in the name, 'bending' reality so that one area of space connected with another, but was limited in that it needed more or less a clear, uninterrupted area between the starting point and the destination, like the Aetherbridge had. It goes without saying, but if you pulled one section of space towards another and anything substantial happened to be compressed in the middle, bad (and more often than not, explosive) things would happen to all involved parties.

The latter didn't have this problem, instead slicing the target through a higher plane with greater than 3 dimensions, thus allowing them to move a lot relatively despite, from a human perspective, not really moving much at all. However, this process expended an absolutely ridiculous amount of eris unless it was mathematically refined to a degree that could take hours, even for a short distance. As a result, it was almost never employed for use on human beings, with the occasional exception of extremely high-ranking politicians.

The reason I bring this is up is because I'd been transpositioned innumerable times in my life, and teleported once, too (from one end of a room to another, as part of a university experiment back in Oreskios) but what I experienced in that moment was different.

First, there was a brief sense of upward movement, but not upward momentum. It was more like everything around me was falling gently downwards; the people, the room. But this lasted only a moment before the greater part began in earnest.

It was sort of akin to the experience of going under for surgery, except it stopped short just at the last moment. I didn't fall unconscious, but my thoughts became, for want of a better word, simpler. Like right before one falls asleep. I was in a place that was utterly dark, but I didn't feel afraid-- Rather, I could only think of the fabric of my clothes on my skin, the movement of my breath through my body. The lingering sense that I was forgetting something, but couldn't quite place what that thing was.

I'm not sure how much time passed during that moment. It felt like both quite a while, and not very much at all, as though every second was stretched out to last a minute.

Then, quite suddenly, the world returned. I was still sitting on the same bench, alongside the same people. I could still see the mural lining the sides of the walls. But now the view of the Mimikos below was gone, replaced with only hard stone beneath my feet.

I looked up, glancing around. Everyone else seemed to be in similar states of confusion and recovery. Kamrusepa was blinking and rubbing her eyes, Ran's head was lowered and she was taking deep breaths. Only Lilith seemed to have bounced back instantaneously, already looking at her logic engine as she had been a moment ago.

"Ugh." I recognized the sound as coming from Ptolema, who was looking around, squinting. "What happened...?"

"Our transportation happened," Kamrusepa said, trying to sit upright. "Evidently. Not quite what I expected..."

"No kidding," Ptolema said. "What was that?"

"Not normal transpositioning," I said. "That's for certain."

"Yes," Kam said. "It would seem I was off-base on this occasion, unless they did something to cloud our minds deliberately." She shook her head sharply. "Though that couldn't have been possible, not without us feeling our resistances break--"

To my left, Ophelia's aura of prototypical feminine beauty was abruptly shattered as she made a high-pitched retching noise, craned her head forward, and then promptly vomited all over the floor, causing everyone to let out various words of exclamation. Lilith, the closest in proximity, instinctively leaned away and guarded her logic engine with the fabric of her mother's clothes.

"Oh, gods," Kamrusepa explained.

"Uh, are you alright, Ophelia?" I asked.

"Y-Yes," she said, taking a few deep breaths. "I'm sorry, I just, um--"

"It's okay! You're good!" Ptolema said, looking concerned. "Are you feeling vertigo, other symptoms? Do you need me to cast somethin'?" She had a habit of slurring her speech a little bit whenever she was worried.

"N... No, I'm alright," Ophelia said, shaking her head. "That just... Caught me off guard, that's all. Oh, goodness." Her face flushed up. "This is so embarrassing. Right when we got here..."

"I'm sure it's alright, dear," Mehit said, now having recovered herself. Despite the strange experience, she appeared suddenly at ease now that our trip was over. "Don't get yourself too worked up."

"I-I need to change my clothes and take a bath right away," she continued, shifting away from where she was sitting. "And do something about, uh, the mess..."

"They'll have no trouble sending someone to clean it up, I'm certain," Mehit said, ironically sounding more motherly than she normally did when speaking with her daughter. "I'm sure this happens all the time-- Frankly, I felt a little ill myself."

"I'm not sure how I feel about not knowing what just happened to to us," Ran said, her tone grave.

I wasn't sure how I felt about it, either. Another basic fact about arcana was that it couldn't affect the mind directly - its creators in the Imperial Era had deliberately made that impossible because of how it could be be misused. So in order to create a change in our cognition, it would have had to impose some effect on the chemistry of our bodies. Either deliberately and directly, as Kam had suggested, or by doing something that would strain them so that it would happen incidentally.

The first seemed outright nefarious, while the latter simply confusing. Either way, I wasn't happy about it.

"Well, I shouldn't think we'll have to wait much longer for an explanation, one way or another," Kam said dismissively. "Now, then--"

"Wait," I said.

She turned, looking in my direction. "Mm?"

"Can you verify the time, again?" I asked, still not really certain why the words were leaving my mouth. I had only a jumble of vague thoughts, and an unexplainable sense of urgency. Like the window for something was rapidly closing.

She looked at me for a moment. "You're acting a little odd, Su. Are you feeling entirely well, yourself?

"I'm fine," I said. This was a lie, though largely in a technical sense, since I was pretty sure I hadn't felt strictly fine since I was about fourteen years old. "It's just... A thought. Please, it'll put my mind at ease."

She raised an eyebrow. "Why, are you suspecting some manner of foul play? That it's actually been hours since we were moved, and the purpose of that peculiar phenomena just now was to disguise the passage of time, for some equally dark affair?"

I blinked. That was actually - relatively speaking - a pretty logical explanation for my actions... But in truth, the idea hadn't crossed my mind consciously whatsoever. I'd been going completely off gut instinct.

"...uh, something like that," I said.

She narrowed her eyes. "Come on. You're not normally one for this kind of conspiratorial thinking."

"It's not conspiratorial, just... Speculative," I said. "Go on, you must be a little curious. It'll only take a moment, won't it?"

She contemplated this for a moment, then clicked her tongue. "Well, I suppose it's not entirely unfathomable. Perhaps if it was part of some kind of precautionary measure, or a side-effect of whatever means they used to transport us. After all, they've already been quite excessive in their caution..." She sighed, then lifted her scepter and spoke the incantation for a second time.

T i m e - I n f e r r i n g"...