A month had gone by since I had arrived at the Last Harbour. Had it not been for the intervention of the old man, I would have risked my plans going up in smoke. My intentions were to take a vessel, adventure myself inside of the hole, door to the Otherlands, and reach a destination beyond the confines of this land. Had I proceeded this way, I would most likely end up back where I started, unable to accomplish my aim of accelerating my growth via exposition to the atmosphere of outer places.

I had been naive, not taking into account the necessary details. The first advice the old man gave me was to walk around town and talk with as many people as possible and ask them to teach me the languages they had learnt during their travels. I hadn’t thought about the fact that the natives of the Otherlands would most likely speak idioms I didn’t currently know. In retrospect, it was quite obvious, but it hadn’t crossed my mind.

So in the first couple of weeks, I concentrated on learning various languages. Fortunately, since becoming an adult my memory had become extremely reliable, so it didn’t require long for me to become proficient in several different tongues. I limited myself to idioms a human would be able to speak with their vocal system. As a matter of fact, according to the old man they were the only ones I would need, as these days it didn’t happen that one would travel far away.

The successive week was spent on a primer about the basics of “noospheric navigation”. It took a while for me to become comfortable with the concept, as it was a more advanced setting than how I had originally envisioned my world, but it ultimately became clear.

According to the explanations of several people I managed to intercept, the hole in the sky was more akin to the physical representation of a concept than to actual physical reality. It was a passageway, a connection between the concrete and the abstract, a door that let the two blend together and become one.

Nevertheless, using it by itself was impossible, as normal matter would be decomposed down to its conceptual elements while an archuman, due to its natural resilience, would survive intact but still be repelled. This was the reason why the ships were necessary, as they behaved as some sort of insulator, maintaining a stable space-time in their interior while “moving” or, better, navigating across the noosphere.

It would be a lie if I affirmed I understood everything clearly. Summarizing, the hole in the sky was a conceptual tear maintained in physical reality by the obsidian rings surrounding it, while the ships were constructs which enabled physical reality to persist while immersed in the abstract.

It was extremely illogical, but it made somewhat sense if one took into account that all these devices were built by the Legion of the Black, whose “authority” was making things that didn’t obey the rules of the world, or “build miracles”, was how the old man put it.

“So the noosphere isn’t simply an abstract concept,” I told the old man while conversing with him.

“It may be, or may not. But that is not relevant. Even if it is simply an abstract concept, it doesn’t mean it isn’t real,” he responded, subtly pointing out to me that I shouldn’t consider real as a synonym of concrete and abstract as a synonym of imaginary.

"Is this the only possible way to reach other lands?”

“We tried. In the beginning, we set out to the stars but found nothing other than barren rocks. After that, we looked at contiguous branes inside the bulk but found none. So the fourth Black came up with this solution”

The details kept eluding me, but I ultimately decided to simply accept it as it was. Nevertheless, I was still curious about something.

“Why did you tell me to limit myself to human tongues?”

“It’s because at this point not much remains except our direct noospheric neighbourhood. The second age was very busy,” he answered with a nostalgic smile.

He was referring to what I knew as the Age of Plunder, the historic period in which archumans had razed to the ground countless civilizations. Combining the information I already possessed with what I had learned these days, the implications were quite serious. Nevertheless, I didn’t bother deepening the subject as it was outside of my interests.

The only thing that mattered was the procedures I needed to follow as a Merchant. After entering the hole, I would spend time navigating the noospheric void, until I reached a destination. Once I emerged on the other side, I would have to find a native and strike a deal, offering my services in exchange for appropriate retribution.

“In the past it was different. Although there were still restrictions for those who adventured in the Otherlands, they weren’t so severe,”

“That f*****g treacherous bastard and his f*****g Veil. These days, you can stay there only if some local f****r accepts a f*****g contract. F**k this Merchant f*****y, f**k contracts, f**k the locals and f**k this f*****g life,” commented someone passing by at that moment.

The last week of the month was spent accumulating the materials needed for my journey. Except for a few supplies, which weren’t strictly necessary but could still prove useful, I went around town looking for those who took care of the production plants to stock up on plutonium. The piston contraption inside the vessels was the propulsion system of the ships and it worked by inserting plutonium charges inside of the cavity and exploding them by a strong compression manually operated via the piston.

I found it to be a curious choice for a propulsion system, but according to the vulgar friend I had met along the way, nuclear pulse propulsion was physically and, most importantly, “conceptually” effective.

I deemed their words trustworthy, as they were my only source of information and, even if everything was much more complex and developed, it matched my original design.

And now, a mere month later, I was already ready to depart. The last advice the old man gave me was to accurately measure the worth of my services and ask for an appropriate price, as the constraints a Merchant was subject to were quite stringent.

“We were meant to journey, but the traitor was shrewd. They could not erect a barrier, as we would have broken through it, so they laid down a suffocating Veil. Do not ask for too little or the Veil will void it. Do not ask for too much or the contractee will refuse it,” the old man gave me his farewells.

I had spent a lot of time with him but didn’t know much about him, at least not officially. From the way he talked and from what he said, I had come to the conclusion that he wasn’t simply old, he was ancient, having lived for who knew how many millennia since the dawn of the new world. When I tried to ask him for his age, he simply responded with “No way to tell, time behaved bizarrely for a long while”.

“Don’t eat the contractee kind or their pets. The f*****s don’t usually like it and it can make things f*****g annoying,” was the advice given to me by the vulgar companion.

Armed with a lot of newfound knowledge and the same resolution of the past, I left behind the people who had helped me and made my way towards the beach. I found the ship I had taken as mine and which I had already loaded, I put it in the water and pushed it along the quartz coast. Although it was several metres in diameter and about twenty metres in length, bringing it into position didn’t prove to be a challenge.

I reached the waters directly under the ginormous hole and immediately felt a shift in the local gravity. I jumped out of the water and on top of the vessel as it was being raised in the sky. Via an unknown system the entrance to the inside of the vessel opened automatically and I used it to reach the interior.

It closed behind me and darkness wrapped around me. I oriented myself via the illumination provided by the infrared radiation emitted from my body and reached the containers of plutonium, all the while moving my weight around to orient the rear of the ship towards the ground, and the front towards the hole in the sky, as I had been instructed to do the previous month.

I reached the propulsion system, opened the cavity, positioned the nuclear charge and punched the piston hard. A strong pulse ensued and the vessel shot towards the sky.

Even if I couldn’t see outside, I clearly felt the moment I crossed the boundary between the reality I knew and the unknown.