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”…and then Gemini tried flirting with the member of the Golden Order," Duskclaw reported with a clear tone of amusement in her voice.

“Of course she did.” Karna gave a frustrated sigh. “She’s been taking the opportunity to flirt with the representatives of every immortal group that passes through. Why would she deviate from that trend just because the other party is made up of ascetic monks?” She asked sarcastically.

“Well, she was actually having some luck. It could’ve gone a lot worse.” Duskclaw pointed out, finding the humor in the situation, despite the fact that she couldn’t really see her daughter. Karna had returned several times during the last year, but the visits had grown more sparse as time passed.

"I'm not sure if that's better. I’d rather her attempts all end up as failures. She’s setting expectations that I’m not sure I’m willing to live by.” Karna grumbled while putting the finishing touches on a gemstone filled to the brim with magic. She was currently carving a magical formation inside the stone. If anyone had seen the sheer complexity of the formation she was forcing inside a single gem, they would’ve been horrified.

“You can’t really expect her to do all that badly, considering she doesn’t look all that dissimilar to you.” Gemini had stayed behind in the Magocracy to deal with any questions the representatives of the Divine Planes might have about Karna, although most of the curious people had already moved on in the last two years and scattered to search elsewhere. Gemini had even stood in for her during the graduation ceremony from the Academy, wearing a very familiar veil, though Karna had personally returned for long enough to take the tests.

“Unfortunate but true.” Karna agreed without a shred of shame. “How’s Sahadeva?” Arjuna’s and Duskclaw’s son had been born as a High Human with very slight beastman features, so he’d been named by Arjuna, who once again showed his lack of naming sense.

"Still cries himself to sleep because his big sister is away," Duskclaw said with a sad voice.

“Uh-huh. And in reality?” Karma didn’t buy it for a second.

“He’s a little hellion. We really had things easy while raising you. A normal kid is much harder to deal with. And he does cry himself to sleep, though I think it’s mostly just to annoy us.” Duskclaw was complaining, but it was clear from her voice that she wouldn’t change anything. Except maybe the crying.

“That’s because you didn't really raise me if you’ll recall. Now you actually have to give some effort.” Karna teased. “How are Miralen and Sieg? And any word of Shaheera?” She hadn’t seen her friends for almost a year as she had to make a hasty exit when several immortals got too close to finding her.

“Miralen is working as a permanent ambassador with the High Elves now. Her connection with the young prince makes things much easier. I think the two might be secretly dating actually.” Duskclaw laughed. “Or maybe not. I wouldn’t put it past Miralen to just lead the prince on to keep his interest. The relationship between those two is weird. Sieg and Rein have both now joined their parents in traveling to different worlds to train themselves, though I heard they’re supposed to return in a day or two. The last I heard of Shaheera was that he has become the personal project of Ashanti. It seems that whatever foundations you forged into him were good enough that even the most fearsome Leonid in the world now finds him adequate.”

“That’s good to hear. Any other news?” Karna didn’t actually expect any, so she was surprised by Duskclaw’s response.

“Two pieces of news. One bad, one kinda neutral. I already know you want the bad news first. Travan is dead.” Duskclaw said with a sad voice.

“That’s a shame. What happened?” Karna actually halted her work to listen to the reply. While they hadn’t known each other for long, she’d rather liked the Sand Elf.

“One of his family members challenged him into a duel.” Duskclaw made an exasperated sound. “Not wanting to hurt someone he cared about, Travan didn’t even resist. I think he assumed his dueling partner would balk at taking his life, but he was wrong.”

Karna shook her head. This was one of those things. She could’ve easily altered Travan’s fate by simply spending more time with him to help him solve some of his issues, and maybe accompanying him home, but just because she was powerful, that didn’t mean she could solve everyone’s problems for them. She had tried in many of her lives, but solving people’s problems for them actually often had an adverse effect, as they never had to deal with the consequences of their mistakes. She was also much too familiar with losing friends. Travan wasn’t even that close of a friend, so his loss barely even moved her.

“What a waste.” Karna quickly moved on. “What about the other piece of news?”

“Tsumi and the leader of the Luminous Sect have finally managed to get some news of Mayumi. They haven’t managed to secure her return, but they did manage to confirm she’s fine. Wei-Jin has a large number of Yuki-Onna presence, and they’ve decided to take care of Mayumi. She should be fine.” Duskclaw’s voice hesitated a bit before continuing. “Tsumi also asked me to relay a message. Apparently, you'll need to put your plan into motion if we want to gain access to her."

“I already suspected as much. I’m almost ready.” Karna finished with the gem and slotted it into place. Tens of thousands of gems just like the one she had been working on were used to focus an enormous formation that spanned kilometers in all directions. If the formations inside the single gem had been complex beyond comprehension, the multi-layered formation that seemed to exist in different times and dimensions at the same time would’ve boggled the minds of even immortals. It had taken Karna a year to create after all, and there wasn’t a soul in the multiverse that could rival her when it came to complicated and primordial magic like this. “All I need now is the perfect opportunity.”

“Well, according to Arjuna’s calculations, you’re about to get one soon. The disturbances have started to become more frequent and severe. A big one should be hitting in the next few days.” Duskclaw wasn’t happy with the plan her daughter and husband had hatched as it would place both of them in danger and upset the balance of the universe.

“Tell both Arjuna and Tsumi that it’s time to give the universe a nudge.” Karna had a predatory smile on her face.

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When the spatial wave hit, most of the planes and worlds were already used to it. They’d seen other waves come and go, and despite the fact that the adverse effects were growing worse, they had also learned from the previous waves. They could anticipate when such waves hit with relative accuracy, so only the boldest and the most stupid ships were caught by the wave, while most ships capable of traversing between worlds stayed safely moored in the nearest harbor.

While the wave started just like those before, it didn’t take too long for everyone to realize something about this wave was different. Instead of swelling to a high point and then crashing down until the spatial forces abated, this wave kept growing and growing. After a few hours of constant growth, every spatial mage knew something was very different. When the wave finally hit its high point, everyone in the entire universe felt it. It was like the universe itself was being twisted and for a moment, people thought their eyesight and sense of balance had been damaged as almost everyone saw double and fell to the ground as if drunk.

Then came the release. There was no fanfare or widespread devastation to herald change, but everyone felt different. They felt more. They felt as if something inside them they hadn’t even known existed had been unblocked, and almost everyone feverishly tried to find what had changed. They didn’t get far before the feeling went away, but the memory lingered. It didn’t take long for the most intelligent people to realize that the feeling of being more didn’t stem from their own bodies, but the universe itself. They knew there was now more to the universe than there had been before. A lot more.

It didn’t take long for the empires, sects, alliances, and other powerful entities to realize that what they had felt was the Expansion happening. And it had come at an unprecedented scale. An uncountable number of ships on an endless number of worlds were launched to discover the new unknown. The problem with a universe like this growing larger was that it didn’t grow in predictable ways. There would be no handy-dandy spatial pathways to lead everyone to the new worlds. A handful of new worlds were relatively easy to discover, but entire planes? Those could be anywhere. The ones to reap the greatest rewards would be those that had the ability to launch the most ships to search and those that were favored by luck. In other words, those that had the greatest power or the highest karma would reap the greatest rewards.

The Magocracy was also quick to send their ships out, along with the other powers of their world. “Are you sure about this?” Karna asked, just to confirm. She was currently on a large and advanced battleship, designed for this very purpose, commanded by both Arjuna and Tsumi. Wolfgang had wanted to join them as well, but the absence of all three from the main fleet would make it too vulnerable. They were not the only rank 9 beings in the Magocracy, but they were the most battle-tested and the ones with the greatest potential.

“You told me that you could lead us to a place that would have much greater rewards than any other worlds brought about the Expansion. Of course we’re sure.” Arjuna nodded firmly. This plan had been more than a year in making, so it was too late to pull back now.

“Yes, but I also remember telling you that this world was on the border of the Divine Planes and the Higher Planes, which means we might be competing against immortals. The destination is really remote, so the odds of a large number of immortals being present is small, but…well…with our karma…” Karna grimaced a bit. She had already guided the Magocracy towards several juicy worlds but was saving the best for private exploitation. The reason she was aware of the locations was thanks to her little nudge, she had a much greater awareness of the situation. She didn’t know even close to everything, but she knew a heck of a lot more than anyone else.

“There’s always risk associated with reward. Even if we do run into immortals, we have some methods of defending ourselves. And we can still loot everything that we get our hands on, even if we can’t take permanent control of the world.” Tsumi reasoned.

“Fair enough. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Karna had been the one to suggest this endeavor, so she wasn’t going to back down. She just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of the risks.

Unnoticed by them, their ship had also acquired a few tag-alongs that knew to keep a respectful distance.

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Just because someone had a good idea where they were going didn’t mean it didn’t take time to get there. Even with Karna doing the piloting in her Tressym form, something that amused Tsumi greatly despite the fact that Karna was no longer the size of a kitten, it took them weeks of travel through the untamed and unstable wild space before they finally found something. And once they did find something, it wasn’t what they were looking for.

Most of the crew stared in confusion at what seemed like a large piece of debris from some sort of construct that defied any geometric sense. The chunk of metal was in stark contrast to everything they knew and understood, as the construct didn’t seem to have any sort of bottom and top, as if it had been designed to float in a void that didn’t have defined up and down. Those that had knowledge from other universes would’ve immediately recognized it as a piece of a space station. A very small piece of a very large space station.

“Is that what I think it is?” Karna asked Gem, while her eyebrow was twitching dangerously.

“Yup!” Gem replied happily. “It most certainly is!”

"Why though? The previous Expansions have never brought in things from other universes. All the worlds and their inhabitants have been created from essentially nothing." Karna wondered.

The Expansion didn’t create empty worlds and planes. There were no actual civilizations present, nor were there cities or even villages. That didn’t mean there was no intelligent life though. There were several magical beasts, some of whom were extremely intelligent. If you were to talk to one, they’d swear they had memories spanning entire lives, but the memories didn't quite add up. And those beings always felt a bit hollow. There were also ruins of civilizations and tombs of great masters ready for plundering on these worlds, but no real sense of where those tombs and ruins had come from.

“Well, this might be just my speculation, so just bear with me. Someone, and I’m not naming any names here mind you, gave the universe a bit of a nudge. Maybe the universe wasn’t quite ready, so it had to compensate. And it compensated with what was most easily accessible.” Gem was really enjoying the current situation. She’d always liked a bit of chaos, especially if it managed to exasperate her master.

“And so, we end up with a chunk of the Crossroads in the middle of nowhere in our universe?” Karna’s voice was filled with discomfort. The explanation made sense, though there could be a thousand other explanations. This piece seemed to be from a relatively remote sector near some docks, though there was no part of the Crossroads that was completely uninhabited.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more than a small chunk of the Crossroads in this universe now. This is just a tiny fragment. There’s no way we just accidentally bumped into the only piece, not even with your karma. How much do you want to bet that there’s a lot more scattered around the place?” Gem asked cheerily.

“Assuming your theory is correct, I think the correct word for this situation is: oops.” She covered her face with both of her paws. Luckily the two of them were alone for a moment as everyone else had gone ahead to wonder at the weird construct from the deck.

“Oh, it gets better. Think about all the races and all the people that accidentally arrived here. Some of whom have never been seen in this universe before. Most of whom are quite angry, very powerful, or very technologically advanced, even if some of that tech doesn’t quite work here.” Gem had realized several potential issues right away.

Most science-based vessels were designed to travel through the void of space. The spaces between worlds of this universe were not that. Traveling between worlds in this universe was more like diving deep underwater, except the water was trying to kill you. In these ‘depths’ laid shallows, reefs, spatial storms, cracks in reality, and even creatures that were better left unmentioned. While travel through normal space was far from safe, it wasn’t a constant struggle against potential death either. These new arrivals would eventually adapt, but it would take time.

“And they’re stranded here.” Karna gave a sigh. Travel between this universe and the Crossroads was extremely perilous, even if you had a very advanced vessel or a lot of power. “And I’m pretty sure there’s at least one very pissed off rank 14 being that was brought along with the rest of the Crossroads. Assuming there really are more chunks of the Crossroads here.”

If travel between normal universes was more about trying to chart the right path and avoiding most of the obvious risks like pissed natives and the Guardian of each universe, travel between this universe and the others was much riskier. There was a barrier of sorts that kept others away, and this universe had active defenses against intruders. On the other hand, leaving wasn’t a simple process either, as this universe seemed to have an odd need to keep the powerful people inside. Any that tried to leave would find that their path would be obstructed, and the safe paths would shift and change instead of remaining constant. Someone with enough power and determination could leave, but it would take time and effort incomparable to other universes.

“Ysendra’s gonna be pissed!” Gem crowed happily. She’d always liked the playful little dragon that had helped the Crossroads with her master.

“Ah well. She’ll get over it.” Karna stated with a less than confident voice.

Arjuna and Tsumi were both approaching her from the door of the bridge. “Should we not go to them?” He asked. “This might be an opportunity to both help and make contact with something we haven’t seen before.”

“No. Not for now at least. We have no idea if they’ll be hostile or their strength. Even if they aren’t, we do not have the time. Others might not be aware of our destination just yet, but that will soon change. And with the nature of the world in question, we’ll lose any advantage we have if we’re not the first to arrive.” Karna was sympathetic towards the people that had been pulled across space and ended up dumped here, but they seemed to be managing for now. And they couldn’t afford to spend what would likely amount to weeks negotiating. Especially since Karna was already quite well aware of what the other party had to offer. They might actually serve as a nice distraction for other interested parties.

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