Aaron stared at his king from across the crowded room. Its circular design spoke to a time when all voices were meant to be heard equally. That would be centuries ago, now. It was easy to see the new fabrication compared to the original construction. The old style was subtle, understated, but still incredibly precise and masterfully crafted, with perfect acoustics, at least until they began adding new sections on. The new style was all gold, and gems, and garishness. A sign that this country's ideals started to become corrupted long before they made the ill-advised move to attack Ilera.
And now he stands here, trying to ignore these fat politicians and the constant barrage of blame shifting, and finger pointing, and making excuses, all while his king sits stoically in the middle, trying to untangle the mess that was this Council State's politics.
Suddenly, he hears a sound like nails on a chalkboard and the air in the room cracks and tears open into a vortex of color, from which a person runs through. On her arms are spiraling veins of fire like nothing he's ever seen, but it's somehow comforting and familiar, like what you'd think coming home after years away would look like if you distilled it into a color. She stops, panting and leaning on King Faron's desk, facing the portal. A man casually strolls through, like he owns the world. He has those same fiery veins, but these are different, strange, other.
"Did you really think you could run?" The man asks.
The woman, previously panting and sweating like she'd been running for kilometers, suddenly straightens. With a twist of her hand, the portal vanishes, and the mans veins lose their fire as he falls to his knees. "No," she says simply. "I'll give it to you, you're smart, skilled, well-trained. Xi-Hillcrest must have paid a pretty penny to get you. What did they offer? VIP access to their network? Exclusive permissions? No mana cap?"
It is the man's turn to answer simply. "Yeah," he says, struggling to stand. "What did you do? What is this place?"
"You ever heard of a Null World?"
The man's eyes widen. "No."
"Yeah, no," the woman laughs. "This place isn't that, or I wouldn't be able to use magic either, obviously. No, this place is just an uncharted world. I found it... Ooh. Long time ago, now. The natives hadn't even invented writing yet when I tapped their world."
"Uncharted? And immortality? That's-"
"Illegal, I know. What? You think your bosses over at Xi-Hillcrest don't have a few private worlds stashed away, just in case another Nexus War breaks out? Nobody's dumb enough to put all their eggs in one basket twice. Why do you think they sent you after me? I found some of them."
"You're going to kill me. That's why you're telling me all this."
"That's the best part! I don't have to. I can just leave you here."
"What if I tap the world myself?"
"You can try. I put a taboo on it. Not magic itself, or mana. But trying to put down any more taps. Poof, instant death. Worlds that have magic will always have some 'innovator' type who has some vision of how to tap into that world's mana, but if I show up in their prehistory, put down my own taps, and then lock anyone else from tapping the world, then I get it all to myself. I've got a few dozen of these in my network."
This flowed better in my head. There's a lot of worldbuilding that I came up with, but I'm not good at writing exposition without it coming off as a lecture. If anyone wants the rest, you can DM me.
