"I'll be right back," Crystal states after a they had reached the campsite and walks off into the underbrush, quickly disappearing from sight, leaving Sebarius and Aiko alone.

After Crystal is gone, Aiko takes off her cloak, revealing her full form and her strange-looking kimono, which appears to sit rather loosely, yet still covers up all the important parts without fail.

She wanders around a little, picking up fallen down branches and suddenly says without turning around to face Sebarius, "Maybe you'd like to draw a picture again, that way you can enjoy the sight a little longer."

Blood rushes into Sebarius' head and he looks down immediately when he realizes, that he had, in fact, been staring at her for multiple seconds without even noticing.

"I-I am terribly sorry. I-it's just..." he stammers, suddenly at a loss for words.

"Don't sweat it. There is a reason why we cover ourselves up like that and it's not just the ears and tail. You wouldn't believe the kind of looks and offers women like us are getting...but then again, I guess you would."

"I-I'm not like that, I swear! I just—"

"I just told you, it's fine. No need to get your pants into a twist."

Aiko walks over to Sebarius and drops the collected firewood in front of him before saying, "If you want to apologize, how about you get a fire going, while I get a little more to burn?"

"Um..." Sebarius starts, when Aiko realizes, that he can't even reach the ground while sitting in his wheelchair.

"Right, sorry about that. Hold on, I'll help you."

Sebarius feels her delicate hands reaching under his legs and behind his back and before he even knows what's happening, Aiko had already lifted him into the air princess-style and put him down on the ground, his limp legs stretched out.

"Don't go running away now, alright?" she then says with a wink while moving a strand of hair out of her face.

After that, she disappears into the nearby forest herself to collect more firewood, leaving Sebarius to wonder, just who or much rather what Aiko really is to be able to lift him like that without any problem.

After about ten minutes, Sebarius had built a campfire using the sticks Aiko had left him and was just surrounding the site with a few rocks he could reach from his sitting position, when Aiko came back with another good helping of firewood, which should easily last them through the night.

After another ten minutes, Crystal returns to the crackling campfire, holding a bunch of well packed items, Sebarius quickly identifies as 'field rations', like he had eaten himself while out in the field more than once.

While sharing their dinner, Crystal states, "Sorry for the meager meal, we weren't expecting to camp outside today, much less with company. These are kinda our emergency rations."

Sebarius shakes his head and replies with a smile, "I am very grateful that you're sharing with me in the first place."

After a few more minutes of silent eating and drinking, Aiko asks between two bites, "So, I think you were in the middle of telling us about the Freespirit compound, right?"

"Right, my story. I'm sorry, just give me a moment to collect myself."

Sebarius takes a few deep breaths, trying to sort his thoughts and after re-ordering the events in his mind and trying to push away the most recent events, he starts talking again.

As I already told you, the entire compound had gone dark, and it was not just the electrical lighting, but also the light the crystals had been shining.

I was momentarily disoriented, not knowing back from front.

A sense of vertigo settled in the pit of my stomach, as if I was being hurled around in the darkness, though I felt the solid ground beneath my ground at all times.

After the immediate sense of wanting to throw up passed, I remembered the equipment in my backpack, put it to the ground, and felt around in order to find the torch I had brought 'just in case'.

However while I still tried to incinerate the torch in the pitch black darkness, the next strange thing happened.

The voices which had only been whispers before were now much louder, however they spoke in a language I did not understand and could not repeat, even if I wanted to.

And if all of that had not been freaky enough, single crystals suddenly started glowing again, and a line made of light running along the wall, jumping from one crystal to another, quickly forming a circle in the darkness.

And within the circle, the darkness was suddenly replaced by a moving image of two people talking.

I could not just see them, but also hear them, as if I was standing in the same room, but once again, I did not understand a thing they were saying and they did not seem to be aware that I was there either.

The image and sound also was a bit muffled, as if we had been separated by a glass pane or something similar.

Just as suddenly as it had come, however, the image disappeared again, and a new circle began forming somewhere else in the cave, showing an entirely different scenery.

The circles came and disappeared with increasing speed, showing scenes from what I can only assume to be 'from all around the world', some featuring landmarks I actually recognized, but many showing almost mundane images I could not pin to any sort of location.

Finally however, all the crystals came alive, forming a huge circle in the middle of the room leading into what I can only describe as 'a void', a blackness like I had never seen before. What's more, the circle showing the void was expanding, with smaller circles still opening and collapsing and eventually being consumed by the bigger circle.

A sense of dread overrode my curiosity at the time and I knew that I would not live to tell the tale if I stayed, so by mere instinct I grabbed my backpack and started to run towards the way I had come from.

However it was not meant to be, for the ground started quaking, almost throwing me off balance and when I got back up, the entrance had been sealed by a rockslide, trapping me in the room.

I had no time to think either, for the void was ever encroaching towards me, so I took my chances and jumped at one of the windows, which featured a widespread meadow full of flowers.

The sense of vertigo came back immediately and when I managed to open my eyes again, I laid on that very meadow I had seen just instances before, my belongings sprawled out next to me.

Fortunately I quickly found a nearby settlement, with friendly people who let me stay and recover from the ordeal I had just gone through, without asking too many questions and I am very grateful for that.

Because just who would have believed me, if I had told them, that I had just traveled about a thousand kilometers in a matter of mere seconds?