Almost there. Come on. Here we go.

Rain kept his focus on the edge of the pipe, his goggles shielding his eyes from the fog of essence rushing out past him. He’d been building it for well over a week at this point, like some sort of obsessive-compulsive tubeworm. Before that, it had been endless trips back and forth on Big Gulp. The drudgery was getting really old.

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

Gods, I’m losing it...

Wiping the condensation from his goggles, Rain looked up, then did a double-take. A grin blossomed across his face.

Through the mixed cloud of chaos and essence belching forth from the pipeline, he could clearly make out the dark line of his patch against the blue sea of his paling.

He was there.

Oh, thank Dozer!

He looked down at the pipe, extending off into the chaos. The double-thick adamant tube led all the way back to the station in orbit of his core world. There, a boiler and a powerful turbine were sending a steady stream of vaporized essence through it to be used as construction material. Within a day or two, he’d have more than enough to get his paling into shape for a tier-four unlock.

And all I have to do is wait. Well, all I have to do is finish the pipe, build a condenser, wait, then complete the patch, but whatever.

Loosening the grip he’d been holding with his knees, he let the pressure of the essence waft him up and out. With this much of the stuff around, he was able to exert his will to keep himself from floating off into the chaos. Flipping himself over, he took a moment to refill his sub-core, floating obediently behind his shoulder, then began shaping essence into an adamant cable extending from the lip of the pipe. He descended like a spider, forming more cable as he went.

I want this connection made, NOW.

The haze cleared as he neared the surface, chaos giving way to fresh air and weightlessness to gravity. Above him, the outflow had formed a light-blue cloud in the orange sky. Soon enough, the entire sky would be blue, just as it was on his core world. He’d see to it.

Three... Two... One...

Rain’s boots hit the ground, and everything lurched.

The sensation was so disorienting that he was almost thrown back into his real body, something that hadn’t happened in a long, long time. Clinging to the cable for dear life, he was vaguely aware of his feet scrabbling on the metallic surface, more focused on the blossoming awareness in his mind.

He could feel the patch.

He could feel the pipeline, the orbital station, and his petite planet below with his core within.

He could feel it all.

Concentrating on his avatar, he welded its hands to the cable and its feet to the ground. Thus secured, he left it there, locked in place, while his consciousness flitted back to his core. The golden light of awe burst from his gemstone self as his senses became sharper still. Through his core, he could feel the connection to his body and the links to Dozer and his items, but that wasn’t all. Following the pipeline, then leading out through his paling, was another bond. He could feel Ameliah in his party, slumbering beside him in the real world.

Linksight was working.

A flicker of reddish annoyance momentarily marred the golden light of awe rolling off him.

THAT’S all I had to do? Connect my core and my paling together?

He’d tried for hours before giving up and working on his pipeline. Opening his airlocks and staring out at the void of soulspace had done nothing. Extending cables out into the darkness like antennas had done nothing, and they crumbled away almost instantly besides. He’d even stuck his avatar’s hand out, something he hadn’t ever dared to do before, then lost that hand for his trouble. Nothing had worked.

And now, apparently, he’d solved it by accident. Now, he was sure that if he stared into the void, he’d be able to see Ameliah’s soul. And so he looked. Rather than switching back to his true avatar, or even to the Stumps he’d left in one of the airlocks, he simply...looked.

“Ah!” he gasped, landing on hard ground with a thump.

His hands before him were glowing, blue and translucent. The ground was darkness. No, not darkness. Nothingness.

Holy shit! I’m in soulspace!

No sooner had he thought it than something pressed at his awareness, and a dialog appeared.

WarningUnauthorized Liminal Void ProjectionThis action has been logged