The trio of Silus, Terra, and Selene slowly made their way to the first floor of the Domain. Selene was tightly gripping her uncles hand along the path as she tried to maintain a strong facade. Silus couldn't help admiring his niece as she was clearly frightened recalling everything that happened once the shock came out of her system.

Terra was being patient and spoke in a gentle tone with the little girl, but there is only so much a stranger can do during an unknown situation to calm her nerves. Thankfully the fairy knew how best to distract and warm up to the girl, trying to improve the girls mood by even just a small bit.

If the occasional small smile and giggles were anything to go by then it was working.

Silus smirked to himself. Seeing his niece opening up to someone new was always an interesting sight to see. Selene can't really be considered an introvert as she is far too energetic around those who she familiar with. However the girls personality changes, being quiet and shy towards any new face she meets.

It has been something that has slowly been going away as the years progressed and new friends were made. Still the lingering shadows of fear and distrust can be seen in the girls eyes if you look close enough.

Looking ahead of them, Silus could see a strange box-like building that was a blue and cream color. 'Strange. I don't remember commissioning this built,' he thought. As the three drew closer a contrast could be seen on the buildings design. Nearly everything that the blue paint touched was smooth and pleasing to the eye. After what would be the first floor a series of cream ridges that reached the dark green roof.

Just as Silus was about to comment on the new building he could feel his arm start bouncing. Knowing why, he looked down to see his little niece giving an excited grin. ‘Well looks like she recognizes whatever this is,’ the wizard thought to himself. Giving her a look for her to begin explaining words started pouring out of her mouth.

“This is so cool! I didn’t think it would just show up, but if more space just showed up that makes sense. Wonder what else is going to-“ And with that Terra and Silus were lost as the girl continued on without actually saying what it is they were looking at. Seeing that she wasn’t going to stop anytime soon Silus lightly coughed into his other hand to get the girls attention.

Getting cut off Selene looked up to the raised eyebrows of her two companions. Blushing she stuttered before composing herself once more. “W-well that looks like the Route Tunnels.” The three could almost hear crickets in the surroundings as her uncle and his fairy continued just staring at her. Clearly they expected to hear more than just that.

“Um, well the game is divided into different routes that each have their own Pokemon. Most times that a route changes there is something that you enter to cross between them. So um, yeah?” She looked up to her uncle with hope in her eyes that this was a sufficient explanation. Thankfully it seemed so.

Nodding, Terra turned to Silus with understanding dawning on her face. “Makes sense that this was first materialized. To get from the different floors or Routes as I guess they will now be, there needs to be something to separate them. This is to help with the management of each as well as ensure that creatures from the previous floors don’t invade into newly established ones and ruin the balance.”

Realizing how sensible it is that a mechanism be put in place to facilitate inter-floor travel Silus nodded as well. With the new information he narrowed his eyes to either side of the tunnel. At the edge of the building one can see a slight shimmer in the air which he now recognized to be the border of this floor. Taking closer steps oddly made the shimmering less noticeable.

“Perhaps this is just a formality?” Muttering to himself, Silus tried to walk through the boundary rather than through the established tunnel. Stepping up to the side fo the building he placed his hand on the wall as a kind of safety net. Slowly he crept forward, step by step, until he reached the invisible border…And smashed his face against a wall.

Landing on the grass, Silus rubbed his nose and was trying to ease the pain. Internally he was cursing the fact he could not see any visual indication that there was something in front of him. “You know you could have just walked forward with your hand in front of you.”

A snippy joke at his expense courtesy of Terra caused the man to jump to his feet and whirl around. Facing his niece and fairy companion the first thing Silus noticed was that both had tears in their eyes from trying not to laugh. Selene’s cheeks were puffed out and squeaking could be heard through her attempts at holding back. The Domain Companion was marginally better with a hand covering her lips, but he could see the shaking in her shoulders that gave her away.

Three words escaped his mouth in response. “I’m an idiot.” Analyzing what it was that his dear fairy had said made the man want to slap his face. ‘Why did I just walk face first into a clearly invisible wall. Not like I didn’t already know that something was there.’ The Hufflepuff raged in his thoughts, wanting nothing more than to smash his head against the wall again for his stupidity.

Thankfully his Chief of Security chose this time to report on the situation. Coming up from behind the girls, Gregory was jogging to along the path. The former Auror stopped in his tracks noticing a new face among the crowd. He looked towards Silus with a raised eyebrow and frown present, an unspoken question present on his face. Seeing that his employee was going to pull his wand out should he not answer Silus explained what was happening so far.

Having lived in Magic Britain for most of his life the pure-blood was quite familiar with various forms of magical creatures, but seeing an actual fairy was not something that the man could have expected. Sure most magical at some point or another have seen lesser Fae like the various Pixies and the Goblins at Gringotts, but Fairies had not been seen for at least five hundred years and even that is contested.

Wanting to ask more questions, Gregory opened his mouth to speak when he remembered why he was currently standing there. When shaking his head to forcefully re-align his thoughts didn’t work, Chief Bridget stood at attention and began his report. He listed off the predetermined observation objectives first, in order of priority, then continued on his personal assessment of the situation.

As Silus listened to the happenings of the creature reserve he found that strangely not much damage was sustained by the beasts themselves other than the initial panic from the social quakes. Although this is the ideal outcome there is a taste of unfamiliarity in the air of the situation. Never would any animal calm down so suddenly when there is a disaster occurring which only becomes worse when there are other species in the vicinity. His mind could not comprehend how it was that the more violent creatures would not just rampage within their pens to break out and reach a safe distance away.

Terra decided that this would be the best time to break up the two and bring the discussion around to the original topic. “Perhaps we should focus on the matter at hand? There is much that you will need to be briefed on to properly manage this Domain and fix all the problems are popping up.” Both men frowned at how quickly they lost sight of the issue right in front of them.

“Right, my apologies.” Silus apologized to her and Selene then turned once more to Gregory. “Please do accompany us to the first floor-” Selene interjected that it was a route. Glancing at his niece, he continued in an annoyed tone, “sorry route. We’ll need an extra set of eyes to help analyze the situation.” Getting an “yes sir” from the chief brought an end to that discussion.

The four walked up the steps of the strange building that led to the first route. Reaching the top they saw that a pair of glass doors at the entrance. Selene, wanting to do something useful, ran ahead to push the doors open for her uncle. And received a clunk sound. Blushing, she slowly pulled open the door while the adults chuckled lightly at the innocent mistake.

The interior to the tunnel rather plain. They walked on a brown rug that led to an identical set of doors on the other side of the room covering a white tile floor. In between there was an empty reception desk that are commonly used in muggle business office buildings with a blue counter top and details. The sides and ceiling still kept with the cream color that was seen outside with a dim yet calming light. Overall the place was rather underwhelming when considering it is the passageway between routes.

“Hmm, not bad.” Terra contemplated with a hand on her chin. The little fairy was sitting on Silus’ shoulder, when she got there the man in question did not know. “Honestly it could be worse, you could be stuck with a boring staircase like what most start with.”

“What do you mean start with,” Silus questioned.

Not even looking at him the fairy explained that every Domain automatically establishes an indicator that one is traveling between floors. She however also mentioned how rare it is that the automated system actually gives something personalized to the overarching Type of the the core. Normally most are given stone stairs of various quality until they can pay to change it.

“Regardless,” the security officer broke in. “We should get this over with as quickly as possible.” The man was in a hurry to return back to those under his charge.

Silus agreed and decided to go first. Pushing open the doors to the first route resulted in the squad seeing a small area of sparsely placed trees. “Is that it?” Similar thoughts echoed in the heads of the others.

“Core, how big is the first route?” Learning from earlier, Silus just decided to ask through his connection to the magic orb.

Route 1 is currently an acre in size.

And that was it. That is what all the problems came from? Surely not. “Core why was there so many issues if this is just one acre?”

Each floor, now renamed route due to the influence of the Domain Type, is rated by potential. However, there needs to be an established pre-requisite to draw upon. Depending on the Route Theme it will absorb part of these foundational floors to facilitate a possible evolution or merger of routes. Further explanation can be found within the Domain Guidebook.

Well great. “And where is this guidebook?”

The guidebook can be viewed in the Core Room.

“Are there different copies for Domain Host and Companion?” This came from Terra as it seemed that she had not heard of this either.

There are additional copies for Host and Companion. There are different editions that can be obtained at later dates with updated and advanced information.

Both those connected to the core sighed at how it seemed they would be doing a lot of reading in the coming future. Silus saw this as the perfect reason to return to the constant headache that never seems to go away. Just as they were turning around to leave, the Host stopped in confusion.

Floating in front of him was a box of text from the Core.

Beginning Monster Generation…

Synchronizing Domain Type… Complete

Synchronizing Theme… Complete

First Spawn Rarity Increase…Complete

Assessing Adequate Power Level… Complete

Pokemon Selection…Complete

Generating Pokemon to Route 1.

Awaiting Host permission to proceed.

Well this will be interesting.