World Between Chapter 10 part 2

Burp. Sofia walked up behind Aaron, and leaned on the same balony he was looking over.

“Gonna gloat without your voice?” Aaron asked, looking over.

“Not much to gloat about. Voice or no voice.” Sofia replied. “Honestly, it got boring pretty fast. I was hoping to explore more when I first got here.”

“Well, you can now.” Aaron said. “Not sure why you’d hang around here.”

“Always so simple to you isn't it?” Sofia said, “Yeah just go travel the world while it’s in chaos and I have no idea how my magic works anymore. Sounds like a great plan.”

“Even if you get me to break the Soul Gem, that could be years.” Aaron said.

“Well, I have hundreds of those now.” Sofia stretched. “Seems at least a few old friends might be stopping by too.”

“No...um” Aaron stared at Sofia.

“They’ve known for a while now.” Sofia replied. “Might actually be more used to this image than me since we’re mostly online.”

“Well, hope they have fun, but I'm going home.” Aaron said. “ Soon as I figure out how.”

“The far seekers still have the portal open.” Lydria replied. “We weren’t actually done with the first wave, but we usually send more people out for the second anyways.”

“You were going to come back a second time?” Aaron asked.

Lydria nodded. “For the people we somehow missed, like Jen. And for those that would come over after people like Sofia do.”

“And how many more people will you be taking?” Aaron asked, turning around.

“It varies, but with a world like yours usually we end up shuffling a majority of people in. Thankfully the world still expands when we do. That wasn’t something we were looking forward to working out if we were wrong.” Lydria stated.

“Is that really something worth messing with?” Aaron replied.

“It was almost impossible.” Lydria explained. “It has always been a natural effect of this world, and we’ve known the Gems were an unnatural artifact for a while now. The stranger thing was finding them at all.”

“Deep underground in some sort of temple?” Aaron replied. “Plenty of those around.”

“Yes, and they were quite a pain to build.” Sofia answered. “I’m not even sure the stones in those rooms were made from here.”

“There not.” Lydira said. “There is record of the type of stone, but nothing about building a temple for magic conductors. Or what magic was like before, unfortunately, but apparently they were to be cared for…”

Sofia tilted her head as Aaron asked. “There was nothing about that.”

“There was a dead language. Along with arguments on how too. Seems they were an experiment themselves, but why still isn’t clear. May never be with how stange their lettering is.” Lydria explained.

“Okay… So why would I break this last gem, if it benefits this world?” Aaron asked. Lydria looked to Sofia about to ask the same thing, but she answered first.

“No say it was going to be you.” Sofia said. “Certainly doesn’t have to be, but I have a gut feeling you’ll join him.”

“Jared.” Aaron answered. “He was more set on doing this than anyone.”

“Talmo said Cain was going in as well.” Sofia added. “He just wanted to reach out to his brother and now he has.”

“Jen is staying, but she was supposed to come in the first wave.” Lydria summarized. “Cindy was ejected after her episode… Which just leaves Anna and yourself.” She said looking at Aaron.

“She was ready to go home long before I was.” Aaron said. “And last I checked in, she was starting to like it here.”

“Really?” Lydria asked. “Well, I guess we’ll see who shows up for a big finale, and why soon enough.”