This time, the "teleport", I hesitate to call it a true teleportation, as it was more of a flight than a true teleport, was more eventful than my arrival to this colorful land of creeping wrongness.

I stayed conscious in the swirling vortex of colors, lights, and curiously, darks, which rippled along the outer edge of the teleport conduit. The transference from one plane to another was a quiet thing, the darkness you were thrown into an inky sort that dampens all noise, while this one was much more... violent. I spun madly out of control, one hand on my staff and the other gripped around the black bird, my hair whipping around my head in the obscene winds.

Nevertheless, it was over before I knew it, and even though the landing was not as hard as the previous had been, it was still enough to make me stagger out of the standing stones we'd arrived in. Catching my breath, I finally let myself succumb to shock, and shouted out my general disapproval of everything elven into the sky, where it was quickly carried away by the wind above.

When I'd sufficiently calmed down and eaten a stress-meal with slightly shaky hands, I set off on the small, but well-preserved road linking this circle of stones to the next part of elven civilisation.

***

The small city I arrived in was different from the tiny farming village on the island that was now plummeting into an unknowable void, but still small. The architecture looked different as well, just... newer, for one. None of the wood was as dry, the roofs weren't as yellow, the streets were fully cobbled, and the obelisk at the center of town was more extravagant.

Figuring that exposure therapy was the way to go if I didn't want to spend my time here in constant irritation, I settled on one of the benches facing the obelisk. They were arrayed around its base in a radial fashion, all facing the thing itself - in fact, I recalled something similar in the little village, only that there, the seating was less permanent. Those people apparently had to make do with chairs woven from plant fiber, while these folks got actual masonry to sit on.

The obelisk itself had also gotten a massive upgrade, with not only the crystal topping it being much larger and slightly luminous (even in the later afternoon sun), but the pillar itself being more than a rough cylinder-shaped slab of white stone. This obelisk was chiseled to resemble something like the pillars adorning many ancient greek and roman temples, but without the top flaring out like the bottom, instead petering out and melding smoothly into the crystal.

Curiously, the feeling of wrong was much less pronounced at this obelisk, in fact, this entire village - something which surprised me enough to ask Myself in the Mirror. My Reflection? Ref?

Before I could finish that line of thought, I was interrupted by her voice.

"Did we make it? We made it!"

Oh right, I hadn't talked to her after coming here... what the hell?

"Oh thank the gods, I thought it was all over. And after we got so far! I can't believe it's already this bad. We have to move faster."

"Hold up, this bad? You mean you know that that... thing," I gesticulated wildly into the air "would happen, and you didn't say anything?"

"Well, yes," she looked sufficiently shocked by my outburst, "I didn't think it would happen this fast, you know! It's way too early for the world to break apart like that, even down here."

"Alright, calm thoughts, think positively," I mumbled to myself as I breathed in and out, calming myself.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the entire universe will break apart like glass, gotta go fast~!

Another deep breath. Innn, and ouuuut. Calm. This constant adrenaline is really doing a number on me.

"If you know, what exactly is it? How do we avoid it?"

"I think I can tell you. Let me know when you experience localized memory failure, alright?" She instantly snapped into lecture-mode, hands spread wide apart.

"You remember back on Earth, when we had to avoid those cracks in the ground, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, but always as though the ground was breaking apart like ice?"

I only nod, the connection already forming in my mind.

"So... whatever that thing out there was, it's just... what, the other end? Or the same thing, but amplified by our... unique... environment?"

"Precisely. Well, precisely your second guess. This plane is somewhat lax with its logic, as you've no doubt noticed - the thing making these cracks happen is exploiting that. The anomaly on the way to our departure circle was exactly the same thing as those cracks back on Earth, or how they would have looked and acted if a few key Things were missing. Things necessary to prevent them from forming properly."

"Hold on a second... if, as you say, the breaking-apart-at-the-seams thing is amplified by how deep down you are, is the same thing happening below us? Maybe even more violently?"

"Most likely, yes. Just like the effect was greatly pronounced on the second level, it has likely caused unfathomable amounts of devastation down below. Actually, it would surprise me if no realms below had not yet completely collapsed."

I blanched. Collapsed? Worlds could collapse? Disappear, forever?

"Yes, it's almost inevitable, if the process is this far along already, there's no telling the kind of destruction down below," she continued, apparently heedless of my nauseated expression as I envisioned yet darker fates for an ever growing number of hypotheticals.

What happens to a world that collapses? Cracks leave fragments, right? What happens to those? Are they ground to dust, or do they scatter into the void?

A snap tears me from this grim line of thought, my reflection lowering her fingers.

"You need to pick up the pace. No more pauses, you need to jog on, lass."

"Is it really that bad already?"

"Yes. If I'm right, then we have very little time before this plane becomes... untraversable, to say the least."

***

In the following days, I brushed up on the cardio training I had so slothfully abandoned a few years before. I used to run daily, around the block, in central park, wherever, but my studies put an end to that. Let's just say you don't have time to run if you have to drive to school in the morning, come home for dinner, and then work yourself to death over assignments and bone charts until midnight.

It's a wonder I had a halfway decent social life, considering.

We crossed the entire island in a few short days, my supply of water dwindling much quicker than it had before. I wasn't sprinting, but it was still exhausting. Before long, I had no water left. Even though I appreciated the lightening of my pack, It was still a problem - considering we'd only caught a measly three funnels, which carried me mere fractions of the distance the first one had. They were much like waves, in that you had to catch them at the right angle and in the right moment, and the ones I was in the position to use were mostly weak, having travelled a long time before finding me.

Still, I eventually reached the other end of the island, muscles sore, water long since replenished from a small spring (Thirst eventually won out over faint disgust), and stood within the next circle of stones, these ones much cleaner and less weathered than their predecessors.

I actually used what I consider "proper technique" this time, one not born from desperation or ignorance, and the transport was much smoother. The colors and lights dulled and desaturated to a pleasant level, the wind of travel a light breeze rather than a bloody hurricane, and the landing a smooth one as my body simply got accustomed to solid ground once again, rather than violently slammed into the floor.

***

The general theme of improvement carried on on this island as well. Though much was still grassland and forested area, there were large patches of violet, yellow and a deep sort of green visible to the sides of the road. Farmland, I realized, though I didn't exactly want to test the biocompatibility between humans and elven crops, so I left it alone.

The previous pathing had given way to a cobbled road, smoothed by centuries of foot travel, winding lazily through the countryside.

It would have been a beautiful scenery, had I not been forced to jog it with sore muscles and exhaustion like a lead blanket upon my back. Sadly, my reflection demanded nothing but the best, and she had the uncanny ability to just tell when I was faking an ache in my leg or side to take a breather.

That evening, I slept like a stone after dropping everything into a random house on the outskirts of the medium-sized city we'd arrived come nightfall.

This city was quite a bit more sophisticated than any of the others we'd passed through, even in size, something which mine and Raven's scouting confirmed. It seems that this city was somewhat of a trade hub, with the central square housing the local obelisk being a hybrid sacred square and marketplace, the stalls arrayed a respectful distance away from the seating arrangements, but circling the entire thing.

I travelled the rest of the distance with the help of two funnels, one caught by accident which nearly slammed me into a tree (at what felt like superluminal velocity), and one caught dead mid-stride, which stretched my knee over several kilometers before the rest of my body snapped into place.

We eventually reached the next step on our journey, a small circle of stones chiseled with various symbols, polished and still glinting with morning dew. I activated this set of stones with a gentle touch compared to what I'd done with the one back on the doomed island. I was familiar with the process now, and simply did nothing unnecessary. Where I plunged my entire hand into the metaphorical lake before, I simply touched a finger to the water and watched the ripples form, which then swept us away in a flash of light.

***

I barely felt the arrival this time, the sensation of solid stone beneath my boots never quite having gone away, at least not entirely. I still felt a small jolt as my feet touched the ground, but nowhere near the lurching sensation that had accompanied the transport from the doomed island.

After I shook the building soreness from my legs, I looked up, and was struck silent by what I saw.

The island we were currently on was normal enough, though all the grasslands had given way to multicolored fields of produce, and the single town in its center, perhaps five kilometers away from where I was standing, being much more sophisticated, its obelisk glinting in the early morning light.

No, what stunned me was the sight beyond. For beyond this little, insignificant island, was a City. I knew at once that this was our goal.

It stretched the entire vista of the sky, from left to right, all balanced precariously on a gargantuan slab of rock that seemed much too small for it. The skyline held a rough conic shape, the towers in its center much higher than anything around it, and some of the buildings on the edge teetering off a little. I actually spotted a couple of towers that were literally chained to others further inwards through massive black bindings, presumably to not break off and fall into the void.

The entire thing glinted in the light, a thousand windows catching the sun and throwing its light back at me, whith others angled away, giving a strange sort of contrast between glinting spots and shadowy ones on the sides of buildings.

From the very center, an absolutely titanic tower climbed upwards, built like everything else from white marble, and adorned with the biggest example of the small crystals topping the derivative obelisks on the various islands further out. It pulsed with a white glow, visible despite the sun hitting it directly, its rhythm like a beating heart.

We'd reached the Fae Capital.