As I came back to consciousness, I saw colors streaming by me like those that played on the surface of the sphere. Looking around, I found myself to be within a tunnel made of these colored clouds. The next thing I immediately noticed was my lack of a body. Looking down, I moved my field of view, and I couldn’t blink.

Looking past the cloud of colors, I could see distant stars and massive galaxies racing past me. The rate of traveling was astonishing. I knew the speed within slipstream travel was the speed of light times every hour you remained in slipstream until you reached the max rate of fifty times the speed of light. You were talking about two cycles to get that top speed.

At that rate of speed, we were able to reach the Lolth system in under two and a half cycles. The speed I was traveling through this rainbow-filled tunnel would have to be a multitude of magnitudes faster.

And yet still, for what seemed like an eternity, I watched galaxies fly by. Sometimes I barely skirted past expansive black holes, and other times, passed straight through solar systems. Each time I watched large gas giants and the stars at the center of the systems go by in a blink of an eye. I’m pretty sure I caught a glimpse of a Dyson Sphere around a system’s star at one point. I pondered what that civilization’s inhabitants would have looked like. Even our people had only proposed it would be possible to create a Dyson Sphere, and we were an advanced species, going out to the stars to meet others like ourselves.

Time seemed to have lost meaning for me. I had to have been traveling for many rotations at this point. Without a body, I never grew hungry or tired. I just had my thoughts and the ability to view my surroundings. On a multitude of occasions, I thought about nothing but the sphere. Was it a gateway to this rainbow bridge? How did it know I would die before it asked me to transfer? And what did it mean by transfer?

The only question I could answer at this time was that the anomaly must have transferred just my consciousnes. That was the only thing that made sense to me. Would that mean the poor commander found my body floating in the void of space? What would they do with the sphere? It never caused any harm, so they shouldn’t Null it. Would it transfer anyone else? Would my death be blamed on those in The Tower?

Eventually, my mind would always come back to the speed at which I was traveling. The limit of slipstream travel was close to fifty times the speed of light, or 49.6 to be exact. My race could never figure out why that was the case. Even after building bigger ships with bigger slip drives, that speed limit was never passed. The general agreement was 49.6 times was as fast as matter could travel, even in the protection of a slipstream.

The fact that my mind or consciousness was traveling at far greater speeds could mean that theory was true. I just wish I had someone else to talk to about these findings. The lack of anything resembling time had begun to weigh on my mind.

I had traveled for what seemed like many eons now in an expanse of void, with only the brightest of stars visible behind me. I truly felt like I passed the edge of the universe’s current expansion and was now leaving it altogether.

Outside of the rainbow tunnel was nothing but pure void now. I hadn’t been able to see a single star for what seemed like an eternity. Whatever had transferred my mind had built in some type of failsafe to protect it. When I got close to a mental break, I seemed to slip into a kind of meditation that lasted who knows how long. I would awake as fresh as my first day in the academy, ready to go.

The only issue is I had nothing to keep my mind from thinking the same thoughts. I could only begin the cycle of trying to figure out what the sphere was and why it had asked permission to transfer what I can only assume was my mind. After about the twelfth time I awoke from a forced meditation, I was greeted by another floating box ahead of me in the tunnel.

[ System Notification ]

Welcome to Universe Six.

You have accepted the transfer before being reclaimed by the Void.

Warning! The physical laws of Universe Six may not conform to the same laws as the first five universes.

As soon as I finished reading the box, it vanished, another taking its place. This one did not disappear after reading, and as it seemed to be waiting for me to make a choice.

[ Path Selection ]

As a new transfer, you may choose your path as an accommodation. Your choice is final and can’t be changed or altered until you reach a higher milestone. Please choose from the selections below offered to your race.

{ Physical }

Select a physical-based class.

Upon leveling, strength, and constitution, each gain a point, and you may also freely add three points into your other attributes.

{ Ranged }

Select a ranged-based class.

Upon leveling, agility, and dexterity, each gain a point, and you may also freely add three points into your other attributes.

{ Magical }

Select a magical-based class.

Upon leveling, intelligence, and wisdom, each gain a point, and you may also freely add three points into your other attributes.

{ Vocation }

Select a vocation-based class.

Upon leveling, you may freely add five points in any of your attributes.

Attention! An advanced option is available to you!

{ Classless }

No class selection.

You will forever remain classless but can grow in strength in any direction.

All abilities and skills may be learned, provided the minimum required system is upgraded accordingly.

Requires more significant amounts of Energy to level.

Choose: { Physical } { Ranged } { Magical } { Vocation } { Classless }

What the hell did all this mean? Was I in a new universe? I had to choose a class type? Did that mean the laws of thermodynamics would be different? I mentally asked if I could get some explanations, but nothing responded. The text box just hung at the center of the tunnel, as if it hadn’t a care in the world.

I hated the thought of anyone making decisions for me. I had enough of those back at the orphanage growing up. After much contemplating going back and forth over the different choices, the main questions I had were about attributes and abilities. What were the classes? I could choose magical or vocation. I had no idea what those words meant. I understood physical and ranged. Were classes like assigned jobs? Classless said I couldn’t choose a class, but I could develop all skills and abilities but required more Energy.

That led me down another spiral of thoughts which ultimately ended in another forced meditation. When I awoke, I concluded a class would just push me into a specific set of these attributes and abilities which I would have to follow. Being able to control everything was ideal for me, so I mentally chose the Classless option.

As soon as I mentally chose Classless, the box vanished, and another box came into view with a few what I would have called glyphs, runes, or symbols. After a few moments, I concluded it was a countdown. It didn’t take long to figure out the countdown was using eight different runes. The rightmost rune used all eight runes before resetting and causing the second from the right rune to tick down once. Waiting, I found the second rune used the same eight runes before resetting.

There was a small line between the second and third rune, fourth and fifth, and six and seventh. The third and fourth runes took some time to show they used the eight runes as well. After what seemed like an entire day, the fifth rune went around eight times, and the sixth went around thrice before the six rightmost runes reset back to the first rune. The seventh of the remaining two runes furthest left on the clock clicked down once.

Doing some math in my head, I came up with sixty-four seconds in a minute, then sixty-four minutes in an hour. There were twenty-four hours in a day. So whoever controlled my transfer also had close to the same twenty-four-hour rises. The rightmost rune went down once every time I mentally said one Kin-a-tor-ria and mentally clapped my hands, so the seconds were spot on to what we used. Whatever civilization had created this time system had almost the same amount of time in a rise. Would their cycles and rotations be the same?

So reading this timer, I now had just under nine of these rises left to finish my transfer to the new universe. That got me lost in thought. Why base eight? Did they have eight fingers on each hand? Or maybe they didn’t use base ten from the start. How did they consider cycles or rotations? They had to be smack dab in the center of the habitable zone, so their rotations couldn’t be much longer or shorter than ours back on Corellon. I started trying to run the numbers in my head but couldn’t develop anything that made sense.

Sometime later, after coming out of another forced meditation that only lasted two rises worth of runes, I noticed the void around me was beginning to fill with spiral galaxies and the twinkle of stars in the distance. There were also colorful clouds of gases spread out as I zipped by. Finally tearing my gaze off the wonders of this new universe, I checked the clock and noticed I had mere hours before the countdown hit zero.

A feeling of extreme relief passed through me at the thought of my traveling ending. Then a sense of dread as I realized that I didn’t have a body any longer. Would they provide me with one? Or would I become some type of conscious energy type? I heard of a race of plasma creatures that lived close to stars. Was that what I was to become?

As the timer closed in on my last hour of the journey, another text box popped up with an accompanying ping, pulling my gaze from a pink and blue galaxy in the distance.

[ System Error ]

WARNING! The Bifrost connection for 489-BhR-6X has transferred the allocated amount of race 489-BhR-6X-02. Your race 489-BhR-4U-03 has not been scheduled for retrieval.

My nonexistent heart skipped a beat. Did this mean the sphere transferred the Drow as well? Did it transfer those left behind who we couldn’t get off the planet and out of the system in time? Did this also mean it would delete my consciousness because I wasn’t meant to be retrieved?

The box disappeared a moment later, and another flashed into the tunnel. This box kept adding lines of text every few moments.

[ Life Protocol 7H initiated ]

Finding a suitable place to preserve life… Calculating…

Calculating…

Abandoned Hero facility found…

Attempting to repair…

Error! Not enough World Energy to repair the facility…

Pulling ambient World Energy from surroundings…

Creating the minimum requirements for integration protocols…

Again my nonexistent heart gave way, and I felt myself slip into a mental hyperventilation. I had traveled for who knows how long, only to be given the bare minimum at the end of my journey. I could only watch in terror as the clock slowly counted down to my fate.

As the timer hit twenty-two minutes, the rainbow tunnel that had been my constant companion vanished, and I began to slow down quickly as I came towards an ever-growing star. The vector of my travel began to swerve me right and around this system’s yellow sun. As I grew closer, I could make out solar flares coming off the sun’s surface, and as I began to curve around to the other side of the sun, one such burst spewed out into space as I traveled through the electromagnetic radiation unharmed.

I couldn’t get over what I was seeing! Even the best vessels couldn’t get within a few light seconds from a star before their shielding would be obliterated, and I just traveled through a solar flare! Turning back towards my angle of travel, I could see a tiny planet coming up. The planet was covered in a fog of greenish clouds with flashes of lightning below. As I continued to travel, I mentally froze at the next sight before me.

Three Corellon sized planets were orbiting around a tiny dark-purple moon at their center. Around these three planets extended a ring of red and blue asteroids with the three planets and a small moon at its center. There was no possible way they could remain in that orbit. The three-body problem that had astrophysics stumped for rotations showed that gravitational forces would throw the third body away. Yet there were four astral bodies, inside a perfect ring of asteroids in front of me. If only my commander could have seen this. This sight was better than any anomalies I had ever studied.

Realization hit me as I began to swerve towards the planet to my right. I was still traveling close to the speed of light towards my ultimate fate. I had seconds to think as my mind reached the upper atmosphere of the planet, and then my vision went black.