The portal blinked out of existence behind me, giving me a chance to see my new surroundings.

It was night with a bright full moon overhead piercing its silver rays through the thin veil of clouds. I found myself standing on a pavement of what seemed to be a normal suburb as a chilly wind began to pick up. The road curved away to the left, eclipsing what lay beyond. To my right were rows of houses, with not a single light on inside.

Yellow streetlights illuminated the road itself, their flickering a sign of their age. The silence was crisp, as though a single movement of mine would shatter it like a thin sheet of ice on a frozen lake. Turning around, I sensed a bus stop behind me, with posters in the glass so worn the words could not be made out. I walked towards it and stood leaning on the inside for fear of damaging the worn-out red bench.

Before long, I heard the sound of an engine, as a red bus emerged from around the corner. The yellow lamplight reflected off the top of the bus as it travelled between shade and illumination. A green digital number reading '413' was above the dark tinted windscreen, presumably where the drivers seat would be.

As I waved it down, the warning of the figure at the desk sounded in my head and, almost reflexively, I checked the back of the my ticket. The same three numbers were written quite clearly there, in bold writing next to a small barcode.

The brakes hissed as the bus came to a stop in front of me and the doors opened. Surprisingly, it was bright inside, although that would have made no difference to my blindfolded eyes. The drivers area was enclosed and just as I was about to extend my senses past the tinted screen, I heard a voice:

"I wouldn't do that if I were you", it spoke from my right, "the driver likes her privacy, you see".

The voice came from a relatively old man, his head balding with few strands of white hair meticulously combed across the top. His beard, however, suffered from no such problem as it reached down to his chest. He wore a black suit with a white shirt and a handkerchief in his front pocket. His thumbs were in the pockets of his bulging waist coat and he had a black hat underneath one arm.

He leaned in conspiratorially and lifted a white-gloved hand to one side of his mouth before whispering, "She's a bit shy, that's all".

I nodded my head to indicate my acknowledgement and he straightened up. As though having spoken nothing, he continued in a professional tone, "Ticket please".

"Yes, of course", I replied, placing it in his outstretched hand. He took a cursory glance over it before handing it back to me with the words, "You're off at the second stop, I'll remind you when its time."

"Thank you", I responded, keeping the ticket in an inner pocket of my brown cloak.

I walked past him and sat at an empty seat towards the latter half of the bus. The fabric of the seats were worn down, the patterns barely visible while miscellaneous solids were littered over the floor.

I looked out the window as the engine sputtered to life and the bus started to move. The trees stretching their bony hands towards the sky began to blur as the bus accelerated, seemingly without end, until nothing could be made out except a blur.

"Strange, isn't it", a baritone voice sounded.

"How so?", I turned my head to see an floating trench coat and hat sitting on the seat on the other side of the aisle.

"A bus well past its use by date operating on a strange, interdimensional route", he mused.

"I suppose, that clerk was strange as well.", I replied.

"Clerk? What clerk?", he asked in a confused tone.

"He was the one that gave me my bus ticket", I responded.

"Strange, I found my one in some ruins on a barren wasteworld", he said, lifting up a sleeve to stroke his non-existent chin.

"All rivers flow to the sea, perhaps there are even more ways to access this place", I said while thinking "Even with a ticket, you would need to find the right bus stop - or maybe such restrictions do not apply to a service such as this."

"That is certainly true", he said chuckling "I thought nothing could surprise me until I realised I had been blindfolded by my pride the whole time", he turned his invisible head to notice my blindfold and continued, "nothing personal".

"Not at all, I agree.", I said to him before continuing tentatively "Have you heard of a place called Dusk, a desert world with strange buildings and structures?"

"I can't say that I have, but I'll certainly be on the lookout", he replied with a shake of his invisible head.

"Interesting, he isn't lying", I thought "I met the clerk by knocking on a structure on that planet and he was the one who gave me the ticket. However, here is a man who simply found one in some ruins?

"Furthermore, I have never met nor heard of him, so he cannot be from the Candlelight Multiverse and he is not from Dusk, so where could he have originated? My travels exceeded the boundaries of the void and through the various planes yet I have not heard of him".

Conductor's voice sounded, interrupting my thoughts, "Stop X, Bielon Telephone Exchange"

I looked outside to see the surroundings had unblurred as the bus came to a stop. We seemed to appear in the middle of a bustling marketplace, with various stalls set up selling strange trinkets. The noonday sun shone unhindered by clouds yet the temperature inside the bus remained cool.

None of the people around seemed to notice, or care, that a conspicuously out-of-place bus appeared in the middle of the square. The trench coat and hat stood up from his seat.

"Well, this is my stop.", he said handing me a transparent card. "My name is Thirion. Take this card, anyone using this bus must be worth getting to know", he continued.

I took the card and placed it safely in an inner pocket of my cloak. I stretched out my hand and gripped his sleeves activating a [Runesign - Contact].

A glowing symbol appeared on the trench coat before disappearing, as though it were never there.

"This is my mark, I'm sure you understand its functions. Don't hesitate to use it if ever the need arises. I'm sure we'll meet again, someday.", I spoke.

"Genesis runes", he muttered, "It appears your means far exceed mine".

Bowing sincerely, he then turned and walked to the front of the bus where the conductor waited. He handed the ticket over to the Conductor, who stamped it as the doors hissed and opened. He stepped out of the bus, and into the throng of people outside.

Outside the window, Thirion took one last glance and waved his hat off as the bus started up again. The crowds of people blurred and condensed into a thing string of colour as the bus accelerated.

The next stop appeared not soon after as the Conductor's voice rang out.

"Stop Y, Field of Dancing Pixies".

Walking to the front, I nodded to the Conductor and the driver before handing my ticket over to be stamped. As I stepped out of the bus, I seemed to see some shadowy tentacles waving at me from behind the drivers screen.

"Safe travels", the Conductor spoke before the doors hissed behind me and the bus quickly vanished.

As I took my first look at the new world, I couldn't help thinking with a sigh "My new journey begins from this moment. It has truly been so long".

The bus had deposited me in a field of flowers during night. The sky was clear as the stars shone unobscured by the light of any moons. Nonetheless, starlight was more than enough to give the field an ethereal glow.

Green dots of light floated with the wind above the ground, adding to the mysticism. "Forest pixies?", I thought to myself in surprise, "But I've never seen so many outside their home world".

A few lights, attracted by the novelty of my presence approached my and landed on my outstretched hand. I heard an airy laughter, before the motes of light left, as though bored already by my presence.

Walking forwards, I noticed a forest not far in front of me. Their trunks were immense and reached several hundred metres towards the night sky as though searching for answers among the stars. Touching the trunk of one tree, a softly glowing green light ripple across the tree from my hand.

Extending my senses, my awe only grew, "Such strong life energy in one place and it seems to amalgamate at some point on the other side of this planet".

A deep, rumbling voice sounded directly in my mind, ⌈ The pixies speak well of you traveller and their instinct is rarely wrong, else the punishment for trespassing here is severe ⌋

****************************

1st Monarch, 1446

The first chasm will be reached tomorrow according to my calculations and my unease grows. Yet I have done my part in guiding this vessel and I can only leave the fate of our safe emergence to the others. Even so, the Dream Weavers are terrible foes indeed...

- Extract from the diary of S. Kyssus entry 4, Archive File #P1D9*****