Chương 73: The dimension of friendship and rainbows.

There are countless methods of transportation, but the holy grail of magical abilities is teleportation. Countless variations exist – each with different names, methodologies, strengths and weaknesses – but besides the "quick movement" variants that aren't really teleportation... some part of their underlying reality is the same. By that I mean all teleportation magic involves passing through the void for a short period of time.

While some teleportation spells involve compressing or briefly transforming the user into some magical being – and while they all have various "rules" on where or when the spell can be used... and how to determine the destination – the underlying path that a teleported creature travels is the land of demons. Because of that reality – besides the difficulty of casting nearly all teleportation spells – most sapients cannot or will not attempt to teleport before they are a high level.

Of those that do so at a lower level, over half disappear and never reach their destination. The following section is a list of several common teleportation spells and their capabilities. Shadow step/Shadow shift/Shadow drift all must have the beginning start in – and the destination end in – a shadow. Some variants only allow one to travel to linked shadows almost instinctively, while others work based off a methodology that all shadows in the world are linked.

Typically while transferring, a user is partly shifted into a being of shadow that can both fit through the dark mist like substance that forms the passage – as well as gain senses with which one can understand the shadows and actually reappear on the other side. Arbor commune – nearly exclusively used by elves – this spell seems to create a filtered portal that only teleports their soul, forcing them to recreate their body on the other side from an acorn or similar tree seed.

Has the effect that one must both be touching a tree near the start of the process and appear in a tree at the end – elves are notoriously unwilling to explain if there are any other weaknesses. Save soul – the most popular teleportation spell for items, this spell usually involves first laying a "safe" point somewhere… well safe – and then retreating to that point at a moment's notice.

The most common case of this spell being used is in single use "save stones" sold for high prices in most high leveled dungeon cities. These stones allow delvers to retreat should their life be in danger. The most popular items include an automatic activation that saves someone near death and teleport their charges into pre prepared healing rooms filled with overlapping lifesaving capabilities and staffed by high level healers.

Random Pop: Both used in some instinctual short ranged manner by gnomes and gremlins, and in long ranged elaborate but easy to set up variants. This spell transfers the user somewhere – anywhere – with no ability to affect the destination. Survivors from the longer ranged variants have reported appearing everywhere from their bedroom, to the top of a building, to totally different continents or the bottom of dungeons.

"Perfect" Teleportation – typically seen as the pinnacle of teleportation spellwork, this spell allows its user to travel to any place they have visited since they gained the ability to use this spell. Its major weakness is the unavoidable pain that accompanies its use – typically users claim it feels like their very being is ripped into little tiny particles and then reconstituted on the other side.

Most users of the spell claim it's not worth it, while most people without the ability claim it can't possibly be that bad. Excerpt obtained from the "A wizards handbook - 452nd edition". Doc explained what he had done while setting up the system with Innearth. ZeMadDoctor: Okay. So. Let's ignore trying to split a portal singularity into more than two entrances. Portals have two sides right? And are bound to two objects? ZeMadDoctor: To make multiple entrances into the void.

I've figured out how to bring one of those gate entrances through a portal and open it on the other side – I have to protect it with a bit of space mana but it works surprisingly well. Innearth: So that works indefinitely? ZeMadDoctor: In lab conditions it does. Every additional portal. Pulls the space around and makes it more dangerous. But it's stable and can be done somewhat indefinitely. As Doc talked, he sent Innearth a pair of balls. One black and one blue.

ZeMadDoctor: Blue ball is an eventual potential adventurers entrance. Black ball is hopefully the influence entrance. ZeMadDoctor: The influence entrance is set to only open to 3cm in diameter. That should be enough to spread through if you use a circuit. The other entrance can open to various sizes to accommodate various sized adventurers and monsters like normal. Make sure to keep them at least a token distance from your other portals so they don't clash too badly. Innearth: Got it.

Once again picking an empty spot in his suppression array Innearth finished his preparations. He then opened the influence tube and worked towards expanding through it in a calm but focused manner – his frantic nervous void expansion had already been tempered by his previous times in the Void. Immediately once he was on both sides of the portal, Innearth turned and began pulling through premade parts and completing a "dungeon flesh circuit".

He was using a design he had been testing out recently – one based on experiments in monsters. Essentially Innearth created a sort of fiber optic cable of several individual crystal threads tied together tightly. He then shoved that bundle through the gate and "slightly shrunk the bundle in one direction" to increase their efficiency. The distance was so short this shrinking didn't really change the distance too much – but the act of shrinking it mattered from an intent perspective.

On each end of the cable, Innearth made a defensive support to hold the bundle in place and protect the passage. He then claimed and passed his influence through the relatively small portal – weakness removed. At this point he probably could have expanded through a hole even smaller than 3cm but it was always nice to surpass the requirements. Flowing out into the space, Innearth worked quickly – speedrunning the defenses he had prepared.

Several kinetic based turrets were printed immediately into the space around his void entrance – Innearth had queued them up and allowed most of their construction time to be done beforehand meaning they all appeared in the entrance almost instantaneously. After abusing the system to set up turrets he set a dozen void circuited snakes – his comfort monster tweaked slightly to make use of his new materials and with fins to better swim about in the Void.

He then pushed outwards vibrating his influence in all directions as he worked to claim the area. As Innearth expanded further away from his portal entrance he found the space felt… strange. He kept trying to pinpoint what the feeling was – is it a tingling? A feeling of being held? It was only when he grew close to the other end of the passage and felt the space directly around Doc's door that he realized what it was. Innearth: Doc, is that you? ZeMadDoctor: …

hmm, based on articles I read I was under the impression we could not expand into the same area. Let me finish repairing the initial kinetic cage and we can run some tests. Immediately around Doc's entrance, Innearth felt like he was squished up against a bubble. Attempting to expand just pressed his influence into Doc's ineffectually. In the middle of the "hallway" however, the strange state of the Void had their influence mix like two dyes in a liquid.

Perhaps it was closer to two coloured sands being stirred together – for Innearth could tell they were "technically" not combined completely… just so twisted about it felt like they were. Looking around, Innearth could tell the continental gate was in a much "deeper" Void than the passage that was a meter or two in reality – the one that contained his bastion.

Considering how different the distance between the two gates was, the density wasn't nearly as drastic as it could have been – only about twice as dense for millions of times as far. It was almost just a curiosity… but it did mean Innearth had a harder time visualizing the space he was in and there were more demon incursions. Innearth: It's weird watching you work. Effectively having claimed the same area Innearth could see nearly invisible tendrils of mana – Doc's mana – move in a looping pattern.

It looked almost like Doc was bending kinetic mana into a chain-like fence with linked perfectly circular and spinning loops. These kinetic structures were then "blown" with blasts of different gasses that somehow "set" the constructs – leaving them floating in the void like magical cloths. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Each patch of kinetic cloth was thrown over the tattered holes in Doc's initial structure – and they appeared to blur into the recognizable shape Innearth knew them as as they combined with the existing defences. The tube around them was mostly intact – but absolutely shredded with holes. Innearth spent some time just watching Doc work while building snakes. He watched as first one, then two, then a few dozen small demons floated through and were absolutely torn to even smaller floaty bits.

Finishing his void snake "stock up" Innearth began working on creating solid and void stone bricks to supplement Doc's defences. Not wanting to interfere with Doc's web, Innearth made his walls a few millimeters away from the construct – making sure nothing touched and potentially broke something The two dungeons worked in silence. They built around one another and secured this new location while occasionally interacting in small ways.

Innearth: Hey doc, this part seems especially weak Innearth sent while throwing some crystal mana around a tattered portion of the web. Easily seeing the side light up with his mana vision, Doc turned his attention to the spot building a new patch. ZeMadDoctor: Correct… thanks. Slowing down from building bricks, Innearth watched as more and more demons began battering themselves against the space.

Long thin hammer-shaped demons and masses of feathers, boxes and eels, pocketed and "barnacle" incrusted floaties or hard-shelled squids – the demons were nothing if not varied. These periodic attacks sharply spiked as destroyed demons floated out into the surroundings but the defences Innearth and Doc had made were stable. At some point, Doc had stopped building walls and switched to more offensive defences as well. Doc's turrets were much more sophisticated than Innearth's.

Instead of making them the best he could and then giving up when their strength started reaching diminishing returns like Innearth had. Doc had iterated their design as much as – if not more than – his monsters. A web of kinetic triggers infused the whole device with such a density Innearth couldn't tell what was happening. Parts were constantly in motion winding up springs and more magical batteries before releasing all their strength at once.

Materials were shipped through the portal – Doc opened his second one for half a second each time he transferred a bead through – and placed in the device. It looked like Doc had some sort of yellow liquid generation material that flowed down into a kinetic mould triggering… something. Then a spinning bit made a whirlpool of the liquid in its mould – while a second unique material on a pendulum swung over and sort of…

"transformed" the liquid in this whirlpool while it grazed the side. The liquid turned an incredibly dark orange and solidified over the course of half a second – like a sped-up view of ice forming. Another part then spun about and knocked it into a "storage container" with a sharp tap. This whole setup was on a perfect loop – making identical bullets at a rate of one every 5 or so seconds.

Theoretically, there was a way to stop the creation of bullets if its storage got full, but the highest number of bullets that formed usually only reached around 50 before they needed to be used. The whole turret also had 360 degrees of horizontal movement and could aim up and down by 70 or so degrees – pumping its whole store of spiral bullets into anything that moved. While mostly mundane in nature, these bullets were fast and plentiful – and actually damaged the demons in a way more magical effects did not.

Innearth: I've never noticed how detailed those are. ZeMadDoctor: Yeah. Should be mostly done. I think the attacks shouldn't get too much worse than they are currently. ZeMadDoctor: Want to start performing some experiments!? I thought we would test out what the shared space means for our spells. Innearth: Sure!

The next several days were spent first making materials and monsters individually and comparing how they faired against similar constructs inside their own dungeon and void strongholds to see how they compared. Everything appeared to work fine – besides the difference between stuff made in the Void and outside of it. They then attempted to use Space and Void mana.

Innearth could unroll the Void just fine – to a much higher degree in the deeper void – but after reaching a certain level of "unrolledness" it started to squish Doc in a manner he stated was uncomfortable. Besides' that test, they found they could not both use mana to alter the structure of an area – not without either "breaking the others space" or failing. If Innearth unrolled an area and then stopped affecting it, Doc could then claim it just fine however.

Space mana was hard for Innearth to even see and the feeling of his influence being inside a place that "grew" was… not uncomfortable but decidedly "off" as if he shouldn't be able to feel it. They then moved onto attempting to collaborate on different creations – using the same space to build a monster or combining two of their mana types simultaneously to make a joint material was a similar "off" sensation.

In comparison to the way dungeons could use the system to collaborate, doing it manually felt like repeatedly brushing up against one another – or bumping the other's effects occasionally breaking one of their concentration. After roughly 3 weeks of doing this, the demon incursions started to brush up against the limit of their defences.

It felt like over half of their effort was put into repairing walls and monsters that were destroyed and Innearth made the executive decision to move his roach knight into the new space. Not wanting to just abandon the original bastion out of hand Innearth first commissioned several turrets from Doc and then set two of the hydra's familiars to guard the space. They can regenerate after all – still can't figure out how to replicate whatever that group did – and are cheap defences all things considered.

Considering I haven't needed them all to defend the other portals at once before I think it's a good experience for them. Worst case I'll cut the bastion off but incursions have slowed down slightly since I stopped expanding and building stuff in there. Oh. I wonder if cutting off the bastion while one of the hydra's familiars is still there would break their bond. Should make sure to let them retreat – or die and transfer back to the group – before shutting it for good. They are irreplaceable right now after all.

Happy with his plan, Innearth swapped personnel around before returning to his joint experimentations. ZeMadDoctor: Okay! Now we should test what happens if we both try to give life to a monster at once! Innearth: Oh? That's an idea. I'm in! With smaller monsters, whichever spark was given first would take even if done within milliseconds of one another – while with bigger and denser monsters, sparks introduced at opposite sides the two would sort of struggle over the body before one came out on top.

Partway through this series of experiments – they were making a monster with two cores and both giving life to a different core – and the two realized they were being called repeatedly in the group chat. Abe: So… when can I join? Brutality Queen: I want to join first! It's been ages. Are you guys ready yet? ZeMadDoctor: I believe we should introduce new cores one at a time. We should be good now however. So as long as you decide who's joining first we can probably make it. Innearth: Yeah…

I don't want to pick between the two of you – you are both my good friends – so you should decide amongst yourself.:) Abe: wow… and you've known me longer bro. Brutality Queen: Alright, Abe – I challenge you to a monster duel. Strongest monster wins! Fated Eternal Design: If you are doing that you should at least make the show fun for the rest of us – oh! Let's make a duel similar to the dungeon games. Abe: … so we make a nice little game out of it? Sure… that's fine. How about a game of exploding dodgeball.

We set up monsters that can chunk bombs at each other and see which one lasts longer. Brutality Queen: … That is too obviously one-sided. How about instead of playing to your strength we make an obstacle course and let our monsters rush through it. Like the race from the games but we put more defences for them to get through. Or maybe we just do a race but without any rules – our monsters can tunnel through the ground or something? Abe: Oh and that's not just playing to your strengths?

I know you like using mud and that can probably slide through a lot of defences. How about we remove the exploding part and just make ranged attackers? I can still use bombs that way but you can do… whatever it is you do. Shoot leaves or something? Amy: Guys, don't fight. How about this. Instead of playing to either one of your strengths, we focus on something both of you are equally bad at. Aesthetic. We can set up a monster beauty contest and decide which of you makes a more interesting or fun-looking monster?

Fated Eternal Design: Oh! I like this idea. I assume the rest of us are judges? There are… 4 of us. So you have to have 3 judges vote for you to win? ZeMadDoctor: I can sit this one out. Three judges is better no? Just tell me who wins and I'll set them up. Innearth: Don't take too long: 3 Let's say, three days? No, two days to make your monsters and then we'll judge them. Brutality Queen: Works for me. Abe: Oho… you're on.

Amusing himself with imagining what the two could come up with, Innearth puttered about his dungeon – making small tweaks while imagining what he would bring to the table if he was competing as well. Triangles are pretty so the monster would have to be shaped like a pyramid. Oh! I could resurrect the jumper schematic and give the pyramid a single hopping foot. Lasers? The pyramid would have to be a giant crystal obviously… OH! And it needs to include a spinning bit on the top.

That would complete the look perfectly. Making his monster and then scrapping it when it didn't look nearly as cool as what he was picturing, Innearth was glad he didn't have to compete when the judging started – leave Amy to pick such a hard topic. Abe: Ayyyo. Okay. I'm first. I call this monster. King Explosion Murder. His stream flicked on showing off an incredibly furry ball constantly sparking as lightning mana travelled up its hairs and shot off into the surroundings randomly.

On the top of the fuzzball, a giant cannon was mounted and a crown somehow floated above the whole monster – twirling slowly while smouldering constantly. Abe: Boom. You like it don't you. It speaks to you huh? Really makes you want to set it off. Without waiting for a response Abe said something to his monster – prompting them to begin shooting slightly dangerous-looking fireworks like a chaingun.

Colourful explosion after colourful explosion wracked the room he was using to show his monster off – and the whole screen shook repeatedly in a manner Innearth suspected was slightly fabricated. Abe: Bro. Don't leave me hanging. Where's my win. Amy: We have to see queen's monster as well. Thanks for sharing! Silently Queen flicked on her screen showing off a massive creature easily the size of Innearth's roach knight – uncompressed and with fewer details but still massive.

The monster looked somewhat like a small island on a hundred legs and despite being shaped like a walking bowl, somehow managed to look like it was covered in muscles. The top of the bowl contained several miniature "monsters" that were attached by nearly invisible threads to the island below. … to make them count as a single body and single monster that could be presented? Around these small tethered "monsters" a miniature forest complete with small pool of water and looping creek was artfully arranged.

Somehow the little Bonzai's were simply limbs on the island – for as the group watched the island trundle about, veins shot out of the miniature canopy's fake trees. Wood mana materials broke apart into a set of splintering teeth and a small hole in the center of the island extended a leafy tongue dripping viscous sap. This island then snagged a small bird as it flew past – reeling it in and munching loudly before returning to its terrarium-like state.

A moment later the island burped and feathers dropped out behind it – the only sign the bird had ever existed. Then – after a solid beat for all the dungeons to process this monster – Queen commented on her showing for the first time. Brutality Queen: I'll take my win now please: 3