Chrysalis

“Hold, dammit!” Brilliant roared.

“I’m not sure it can take it,” Assistant cried out. “It’s going to overflow!”

“It needs more power! Give it everything you’ve got!”

“We can’t do any more, the matrix will collapse!”

“A little further,” Brilliant urged as the mana surged and frothed. Dimensional boundaries were cascading around them and she could peer into them all, flashing images of twisting reality that bent and warped themselves around her.

They were so close!

“It’s gone! Run!” Assistant shrieked, and Brilliant was vaguely aware of her followers ducking for cover or diving into the blast cages. She herself didn’t move, of course, transfixed as she was by the beauty she beheld in front of her.

“So beautiful,” she whispered.

A moment later, she was spear tackled and knocked from her observation platform.

“Experimant! What are you doing?!” she yelled.

antennae with irritation. “It’s a little difficult to make use of your

pains to

boasted, “I see it coming a full stratum

for Experimant to yank her back to the ground. Then the explosion finally happened, the

muttered. “Forgot about

emerge from the reinforced concrete bunkers someone

enthusiastic tap with an antenna. “Fantastic experiment, another rousing success! We are getting

as the last few sparks danced across the walls. “It seemed like it went rather poorly to

have to teach you? Only a truly successful test will end with a multiple manifold-collapse. We were able to peer deeper into the weave than ever before! Our goal

didn’t share her clarity of vision, she raced to the enchanted array embedded into the floor beneath the great stone edifice she had dubbed the rift-arch. Reinforced behind thick layers of hardened ice and embedded within a holding structure of living stone,

the readings! One-two-three… sixteen identifiable threads. Our spatial pathway managed to make it a third

Experimant drawled, “which means any ant who travelled through it would be

great strides. Great strides. You don’t discover the secrets of teleportation magic without exploding a

brain

antennae swinging low. “If we only want to travel

contempt evident in every line of her carapace, but

thing as r-regular space. It is a dimension. Everything i-is a dimension.

declared, sliding the protective screen clear and fiddling with the delicate instruments attached to the matrix. “It’s almost as if we aren’t looking to find a destination in three dimensional space, but rather find our way back to it. Right now, all we are doing is shooting bright light into the dimensional weave, illuminating the darkness