ETTING   OME   O   LFANDRA

---

Hespa's Story intro 1 - Something Very Bad

At the back of Hespa's Hoard ('Where you can buy, sell or trade ANYTHING (almost)'), something strange is happening.  *Clunk* and a vaguely saucepan-like object bounces to the ground.  *Fwoosh* - something jet-propelled does a few loops of the shop before settling.  Item after bizarre item is appears out of nowhere, followed at last by a familiar silver-green head.  Hespa is doing some re-stocking.

"Hmm," she murmurs, "that oughta do it.  Just a couple more items, maybe..."

Pulling her head back into thick air, Hespa looks around the vastness.  Off to her left, some 'distance' away (distance, like time, is only a matter of perception in this realm), something catches her eyes.  She glides over and inspects the floating object.  It appears to be some kind of ornately decorated box, made of an unknown metal.  Intrigued, Hespa pulls off the lid to see if there is anything inside.

Saffron-coloured smoke starts to pour out of the box.  Hespa stares, somewhat alarmed - it's not so much the smoke that has her worried, as the fact that it is leaving its container.  In thick air, removed from the constraints of moving time, smoke does not flow, any more than liquid does.  Yet this stuff is billowing out faster and faster, expanding as if to fill the whole realm.

The smoke washes over Hespa, stinging her eyes and nostrils and making her very glad she does not need to breathe.  At the same time, she becomes increasingly aware of something *wrong*, and not just the 'smoke'.  She gently feels around with the part of her mind attuned to this place.  What she gets back sends her reeling - anger, growing rapidly into rage.  Whatever this smoke is, thick air does *not* like it being there.  If it doesn't go away soon, something *bad* is going to happen... and very soon...

Moving with sudden urgency, Hespa  pulls open a thick air portal and tumbles through so fast that she doesn't have time to look where she's
going or prepare for a landing.  She hits the ground hard, rolls over, and looks up.

Anyone passing by would not understand her expression, which is absolute horror.  Only she can see her portal, edged with neon blue energy, start to expand and move on its own.  She sits up and reaches towards the portal, trying to bring it back under control, but as she does it slides away from her.  She stares as it spins dizzily across the sky and the ground, making her think of an out-of-control fire-hose from a Disney cartoon.  This looks equally comical... until it starts hitting Alfandrans and sucking them up.  Hespa leaps into the air, now on the verge of panic, trying to think of anything she can do to stop what is happening.  She soars towards the portal even as it veers back towards her, realising her mistake too late...

"Oh sh-"

The familiar sight and sensations of thick air pass by in a blur, and then she is propelled out again to land in - *splat* - mud.  Getting to her feet, she shakes her head dazedly and looks around.  Mud.  As far as she can see, nothing but mud and a few stunted trees.  And noise, loud, everywhere, a melee of thunderous sounds blending into one headthumping racket.

There are strange shapes in the mud, hard to make out through their filthy coating.  Wandering over to the nearest one, Hespa peers down and pokes it, before suddenly recognising it as a dead human.  In a sudden burst of clarity, she has a name to put to the scene - battlefield.

"Ugh," she mutters, grimacing.  "Where is this, 'Saving Private Ryan' maybe?"

A huge explosion to her right spatters her with mud.  Suddenly realising that the war is closer than she thought, too close for comfort, she pulls open a hasty portal and leaps through.

In mid leap it occurs to her that this could be considered leaving the frying pan for the fire, but thick air seems reassuringly normal.  There is no sign of the smoke, and a quick probe reveals only calm and normalcy.  Whatever the problem was, thick air seems to have dealt with it.  For a moment Hespa feels relief.  Then her smile disappears as she remembers the other Alfandrans she saw vanish.

A few twists of her hands (and her mind), and she is back in the familiar thick air territory within and around Alfandra.  Any Alfandrans entering thick air ought to end up around here somewhere.  She looks around, but although it is possible to see almost forever in every direction, she sees no one.

**I think something very bad has happened...** she 'says', to no one in particular.