The world was color.
Through the cognitive realm, like a star or skystone shooting past the heavens, Geni, now clothed in a purple dress, giggled. It was a titillating sensation—the travel. The soft tinkling of unknowns over her skin, the gradual waning of Force as the mind slowly descended into insentience, the absurd variety of hues across the world—all of it. She smirked. As always, this was the most effective means of travel.
"Not that waygate thing!"
This was better—there was no sky, no earth, no sense of observable direction whatsoever. Just the chaos—the mash of shades that extended to all sides of everything. She enjoyed it, at least this version of it.
Not always though.
She paused, floating stagnant within the slightly spherical space; colors on all angles, distant shapes, things that faded in and out just out there in the distance. It was best not to dwell on them.
"Where is it?" She mouthed, feeling within the connection between her and reality. Her mystical compass. A rather easy thing to establish, yes, well of course, no one outside a SpaceRunner could comfortably achieve it. Such was the means of the orders. One did give up true omnipotence for mastery over one aspect. The orders were like that. The vielCounsels and their ability to sense the Shadow Symbols, and SpaceRunners and 'their' connection to all things space.
There was also distance, but seldom did anyone mention it. Although it seemed obvious by definition. How did one run without distance? In a way, that meant a mastered SpaceRunner could halt any motion they deemed so.
Really powerful stuff.
She chewed on the side of her mouth, eyes darting left and right—or what she believed was the directions. There was nothing.
"AH! I liked you better when you were an actual road!" She exclaimed. "It was harder, given all the walking I had to do, but it was also easier with the connection sensing."
But she knew better... The cognitive realm, for all intents and purposes, was like a ball of utter confusion, akin to the natural state of one's mind; ever changing, never once in a specified shape.
A weaker mind might look upon this collective of colors and call it the true form of the cognitive realm. She giggled. And they would be wrong.
Once a time, this space was a mountain range—an annoying travel that one was. Rows and rows of stone that required nothing but the sweatiest workout ever done. She had walked; lord's her legs were blistered.
Geni shivered. "Never again!" Which was an oddity, given that the cognitive realm is often shaped based on the thoughts and mind of the observer. So why a mountain range?
She looked down. "Oh, that's nice."
Lips were exuding from her mouth. Actual kissers, glowing in a subtle yellowish hue. Out they went, each time she spoke, emitting the exact shape the lips made with the word.
"Gobbling," she said, the mouths flowing out, emulating an O shape—floating away, fading into the hues in the distance.
She shrugged. "This place is weird." Then a pause. "Oh yes, the connection... Where is it? Wait, could they have somehow warded it against cognitive travel?" '
That she hoped against.
"Praetorian Daena will be so angry with me." She screamed. "Ah... mist it. Mist it! Mist it! Why is this happening? Those misting pirates!" She sighed, taking a wide stare of the cognitive realm, although some had taken to calling it the cognitive scape. Rather stupid, she always thought. Why call something a scape? What was a scape even?
"Is it like a flat board or?" She froze. "THERE YOU ARE!" She felt it—just then, the linkage that tethered her to the lands of reality. She had many of them—such connections scattered all across Eastos, even some places outside it.
Take the Redstones, the abattior, Driftpoint, all of them had a connection to her. Thus, from any point, anywhere in Eastos, she could jump into them.
"Really is the most effective way to travel." She dropped through the world, hurling again across the color-splashed space of this space. But now there was a destination—the connection within told of it. She felt it like a longing, a knowing of closeness. Here, there, two steps closer, two meters further, it told her of it. Feeding her awareness the data required for the voyage.
A wonderous thing!
Amazing... She perked up, down now she fell. The space funneling as though it was a tunnel of spiraling light. There, in the distance, was a brighter whiteness. A mind. The exact mind she had tethered her connection to. As was the way of traveling in the cognitive realm. It was in the name 'Cognitive', hence, without a living mind in the vicinity of the jump, failure is almost surely guaranteed.
The light swallowed her.
Then out she spewed, rolling across the hard solidity of a grey corridor. Dark, light spilling out from the lamps embedded in the wall bases, white. "I made it!" The walls, too, were scattered out with froststones, shiny.
Maybe I can take one?
But the scent, lords, was awful. Assaulting her senses, wetting her eyes, stinging down in the surface of her throat. Truly horrible.
"WHO IN DAMNATION ARE YOU!" A voice interrupted—a loud tone that ushered with that proud confidence.
Looking up, Geni noted at the end of the corridor, standing guard before a small black door were two men. Both dressed rather stupidly. One wearing a hat and an eyepatch, concluding it with a black coat and trousers.
The same man she had used as a tetter for her journey. "Well, at least something good came out of you... Being a filthy pirate and all."
Of course, the process of creating a tether was painfully tiring—there was the finding them, making sure they remain the position that is required, and keeping them alive enough till you're done.
"So tiring!"
"What?" The other one, not worth mentioning, pulled out a curved blade—seemed like something used in the Free Cities. Not that it mattered.
Geni stood up, dusting off what she imagined was a floor never before cleaned by anyone, which, of course, was expected, given that they are pirates. A funny word that is: Pirate. But they were also called Reivers in some smaller parts.
"I'm only going to ask one time, who are you, and how did you get here?" Said the eyepatch-wearing one, while the other, the one with a blade, paused, hesitating.
"Well, his clever." She muttered, digging into the pouch hanging around her neck. "You know something... I mean, you see a woman jump out from a flash of light, probably wearing a purple dress that mysteriously turned bl—" She looked down, on her body, reaching down to the ankles was a cerulean dress. Nice.
"So as I was saying." She bit on her lips, searching within her pouch. "You see a woman wearing purple suddenly change to blue, and you don't think, maybe she's something dangerous. I should stay away. Really, such stupidity is so cliché it's banal."
Now they trembled, both exchanging glances, stepping back.
"Oh, here it is." She pulled it out—and out it did: A long, broad sword the size of a full-grown man. Black. It hammered into the earth, caving in a patch on the floor. "Oh, it's heavy."
"What in the everstorm?!" The eyepatch pirate muttered, legs wobbling. His was edging closer to the door, fingers wrapping around the knob of the entrance.
"Wait, you're not going anywhere!"
He yelped, slamming up into the roof, pinned there, screaming. The other one, startled by the suddenness, turned to her, brandishing his weapon, trembling. "Who sent you? Was it Auron? Is the terror nearby?"
"The Odium boy?" She shrugged. "I haven't found him, you see..His really careful for a pirate."
The man gritted.
"Anyway," Geni waved the sword, its weight having been adjusted around. Casted of course, although the weapon itself was no sacred Relic, just a hunk of metal she was fond of using. The weight as was the same with the man clipped up, had been uttered. He, now, weighed something akin to air. Sameness with the blade.
She swung it around, the thing nearly twice the size of her body. The man, on the other hand, stared wide-eyed; they always do. Something about seeing something so tiny, being her, swinging something so big. Maybe the size difference affected some part of the human mind.
Who knew?
"Not that it mattered…What's use does a dead pirate have with a working mind?"
The man pissed himself, the dampness spreading over his trousers…Disgusting. He yelped, and Geni was already before him, her blade colliding slowly into the side of his head. Then that was gone; his head. Exploding into a spray of red and just a hint of grey. A splattering of sounds.
The one above, likely staring at the scattered bloody mess of his friend over the floor, screamed. "INTRUDER! INTRUDER! COME COME AND GET HER!"
Geni looked up at him, the sound of scuttling steps echoing out from behind the door. "You see what you have done?"
The fellow didn't care. "COME AND GET HER! SHE'S A CASTER! A SPACERUNNER I THINK!"
"You're giving out my order?" Her head tilted. "Impressive that you could deduce that, but not good at all. Not-good-at-all."
The roof above him exploded, the man shooting up into the dark, foamy sky, the sounds of rain and thunder flowing down into the corridor, drowning his abrupt screams. It felt like a drum, the lightning, a tune for a dance of sorts.
"Well, that's that." She breathed, listening to the nearing sounds of men and women—all pirates. "I should be quick before Daena comes."
She swung down!