Getting things started.

“So uh, I guess it’s about time we talked about the plan moving forward, huh?” I said and sat up a little.

“Yes, let’s.”

Even though she knew it already, I decided to just explain what I wanted to do; mostly just to organize my own thoughts. It was simple, I wanted to visit a multitude of fantasy worlds within the greater multiverse and go on adventures. With my planeswalking ability I could go virtually anywhere I could imagine, but I would still have to be careful. I might otherwise end up going somewhere extremely hostile to me, or someplace that was right in the territory of one of the several groups who’d be coming after me.

Luckily, Astrea reminded me that she had astral projected to many different universes ahead of time, and that was one of the many reasons why. She also explained that she had a method we could use to go to specific universes instead of just letting my imagination do all the work. This method would be a little safer, especially in the beginning.

“I agree,” I nodded, “so how does it work?”

Her signature smirk appeared on her lips, “Let me show you.”

She got up from the bed and walked toward the door. I followed, not bothering to put my clothes back on. I was totally comfortable around her, and besides, she hadn’t put on any clothes either. She led the way through the cabin, her shapely rear jiggling with each step.

“You see,” she began as she ascended the stairs to the second floor, “I’m pretty sure my method of astral projection is similar to your planeswalking ability in that both rely on our respective imaginations. In the same way that you can open gateways to other universes just by imagining them, I can send my consciousness to other universes with my imagination.”

I was only mildly distracted by the view as we climbed the stairs, but I also kinda thought the way she explained things was cute. She had otherwise been very quiet and calm this entire time, but as soon as she began talking about magic it seemed she got much more passionate. It was a welcome side to see in her.

When we reached the top of the stairs, she led me into the study. Once there, she continued her explanation. “I have found a method of revisiting universes I’d seen before. Every universe has one of these,” she reached down to the bottom row of the bookshelf and removed a book from it. All of the tomes on this row looked almost identical save for a unique rune on each of their spines. She opened it up to a seemingly random page and showed the contents to me. It was a very precise drawing of a symbol that I didn’t recognize at all. It just looked like a series of random lines in various configurations. She flipped through the book, revealing that each page had a different symbol on it.

“What are those?” I asked, curious.

“I call them Rune Keys,” she explained. “Every single universe in the cosmos has a unique one, like a fingerprint. You’ll notice that they’re all fairly circular, and there are two major ‘sections’ of each. The outer section represents a universe, and the inner section corresponds to a specific world within that universe.”

I nodded, seeing the distinctive sections now that she pointed them out.

“If, instead of imagining something specific, I just conjure the image of one of these Rune Keys in my mind as I cast my Astral Projection spell, I will be instead taken to the corresponding universe and planet. If I have a memory of somewhere specific in that world, I can imagine that place overlayed with the Rune Key and I will be taken there. This is massively important, because just as there are infinite universes, there are an infinite number of universes that look almost perfectly identical to each other. So, if we rely only on imagination, even if we imagine the exact same place that we’ve visited before exactly how it was, we might still be taken to one of these slight variations without meaning to. But with the Rune Keys, we will always return to exactly the same universe and world that we got the key from.”

“Oh,” I said, finally starting to understand. “So, when you visited different worlds using Astral Projection, you were also recording their Rune Keys as you went along?”

She smirked. “Precisely. And you don’t need to worry about accuracy, I have an eidetic memory, and with Transmutation magic I can recreate the symbols I remember perfectly without having to rely on my motor skills.”

“So, what you’re proposing is that I try to visualize these symbols when I activate my planeswalking power in order to ensure that I open a gateway to the right place?” I asked. “I have complete confidence in your ability to imagine those symbols, but I don’t have an eidetic memory. Are you sure it will work?”

“You won’t need to have your eyes closed when opening a gateway. You should just be able to do it by looking at the symbol as you use your power. Assuming that my hypothesis is correct.”

“You sound confident.”

“Well, it sort of has to be that way, right? I don’t know why else Veshra would grant me a version of the Astral Projection spell that allows me to see the Rune Keys of the places I go, or even how she expected me to be an effective guide if there was no guarantee you’d take us to any place I’d seen.”

“That’s a good point. Okay, I suppose I can give it a try, at least. I haven’t even tried opening a portal normally yet though.”

“Well, why don’t you try to open one now? Just use your imagination this time, just so you can see how it feels.”

I supposed there wasn’t any reason not to. I held out my hand, briefly wondering if that was technically necessary, and concentrated. Anything my imagination could conjure existed in some universe somewhere, so all I needed to do was imagine what I wanted, and the power would do the rest.

I closed my eyes and focused my mind. I heard a sparking sound in the middle of the room but ignored it for now. I concentrated on visualizing something specific. A rolling field of red grass and purple skies, with a white castle looming in the distance flanked by twin mountain peaks. Another sparking sound, this time it was longer, and a strange low hum was permeating the room. Behind my eyelids I could see that the room had grown brighter.

I opened my eyes and felt my jaw drop. There it was. The center of the study now held a neon red glowing square that was about seven feet tall and equally wide. But the square wasn’t the interesting part, because inside it was almost the exact image I had conjured in my mind, brought to life before my very eyes. I could even feel the breeze that blew through the red grass brush against my cheeks, proving that this wasn’t just a window, it was a door. It was a gateway to another world.

My lips curled up in a smile, I felt my heart leap with excitement. It was real, it was actually real!

“Wow,” Astrea looked pretty shocked herself. “I’ve always heard stories of Conjuration mages who could open doorways between the universes, but never thought I’d get to see it in person. Those mages had to spend their entire lives learning how to do this; you made it look effortless. Excellent work, Mistress.”

With a thought, I collapsed this gate and concentrated on opening another, this time I thought of an entirely different scene. I imagined one of my favorite erotic images I had saved on my PC back on Earth depicting a number of girls in a locker room all hanging out and chatting in various states of undress.

This time, I tried keeping my eyes open, and I saw bright red sparks erupt from thin air and fall harmlessly onto the floorboards. Then I saw a tiny neon light pop into existence where the sparks had emerged, and then widen on all sides until it was another glowing red border. The scene inside this one, for a wonder, was the exact scene I had just imagined.

There was one critical difference, of course, that being that all the women inside this locker room were staring at the opening, and at me through it, with mixed expressions of shock and terror. They didn’t even bother covering their sexy bodies, and I suppose I couldn’t blame them. If a gateway suddenly appeared in my locker room with a pair of naked weirdos on the other side, I would probably be stunned too.

“Uh, sorry!” I said, not even knowing whether or not they could hear or understand me. I then closed that gate pretty quickly.

Then I wondered just how specific I could get with what I imagined. So, I tried imagining that same scene again, but this time, I tried to imagine that the girls in the scene wouldn’t be disturbed by my sudden appearance, perhaps they were even happy to see me. It was a weird thing to imagine, and my brain hurt a little trying to even contemplate what series of circumstances would lead to that being the case, but I was just spit-balling here. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I opened this new gateway, and like before, the scene from the image was in front of me, a gaggle of half-naked or naked ladies going about their business in the locker room. This time, though, they were peering at and into the open gateway with wonder, rather than terror.

The looks on their faces seemed to betray a specific thought process. One after the other, and each in their own unique way, their expressions went from being slightly shocked by my sudden appearance to being excited about the idea of having someone magically peeping on them. Some of them went on to smile and wave, a couple blushed and hugged themselves but made no effort to conceal their nudity, and one of them even blew me a flirty kiss and a wink.

I got the distinct impression that they wouldn’t have minded terribly if I joined them, and frankly, I wouldn’t have either. For that brief moment I forgot all about my intent to prepare before taking the plunge and was about to walk forward into the unknown anyway.

“Good taste, Miss Percy,” Astrea said, knocking me out of my thoughts. I was prepared for her to be upset or even a little jealous, but she seemed to enjoy the scene just as much as I did. She even gave a few of the girls her own flirty wave before turning to me to see what I might do.

“Uh, gotta go ladies,” I called into the portal. “Thanks for the view!” I added then closed this portal as well.

“You have an incredible power at your fingertips, Mistress.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But we have to be careful, at least for now.”

She nodded, “The first step, I think, is to get you ready for battle.”

Oh, right; I hadn’t even thought about that yet. “That would be smart, would you be able to instruct me?”

Astrea shook her head, “I won’t have to; I already prepared something ahead of time. Come with me to the workshop.” She turned around then, and we went back downstairs.

I would have been ogling her rear this time too, but I was too distracted while thinking about the ramifications of my power. It was easy—way too easy—to pull off, and if she was right about the Rune Keys, there was a lot I could do with a system like that. Then something occurred to me.

“Do you know what the Rune Key is for this world? Also, I haven’t asked you what this world’s deal is yet. Have you explored it much? Does it have a name?”

“I do have the Rune Key recorded, yes, but I also have another method of returning here that I think will be far more reliable. I can show you that later, though. As for the planet itself, there isn’t much to tell. As far as I am aware, this world is in what you or I might consider a prehistoric era. There are no other sentient creatures besides us. There is fauna, but I’m pretty sure nothing has more sapience than the average animal from our worlds—unless they are very good at hiding it. So, no, I don’t think this planet has a name. I assumed we would come up with something on our own eventually.”

“Oh, so this place is like our own personal sandbox, cool,” I summarized.

I heard her chuckle softly, “It would seem so. It’s a good place for a base of operations.”

We arrived at the workshop, and with a simple arm gesture from Astrea, the lanterns in the room all lit up. “I will, of course, protect you with every fiber of my being,” she began, “but I may not always be available. And I’m sure it’s not really in the spirit of having an adventure if I do all the work for you.”

“Right,” I agreed.

“So, I have created a few potions for you.” In one corner of the workshop there was a small chest. She took it out to the central table and opened it up. Inside were a number of vials with brightly colored glowing liquid in them; each one had a different hue. “Inside each of these is the distilled knowledge, essence, and instincts required to wield a specific set of powers. The catch is that you can only drink one, if you drink more than one, bad things can happen.” She added, direly.

“Okay, so no take-backsies?”

She shook her head and confirmed, “No take-backsies.”

“What are my choices?”

“There are seven in total. The first three are one of three paths to power in their purest form: martial prowess, expertise, and magic. The powers they would give you would align seamlessly with one of the three fundamental adventuring archetypes: the warrior, the rogue, and the mage. Of course, they might present themselves in variable ways depending on your personality; for instance, the martial prowess potion might give you the knowledge to be a classical sword-and-shield knight, but it may also make you a powerful hand-to-hand warrior-monk if that’s more your style. Likewise, picking the magic potion will grant you access to a specific magic school, whichever one suits you best, and it may even make you more of a priest than a wizard.”

“And what about the other four?” I asked.

“The next three are hybrid concoctions drawn from two of the previous three. There’s one for a martial-expertise combination, a martial-magic combination, and an expertise-magic combination. Obviously, what you will gain in diversity you will lose in potency of your abilities, but you’ll still be really good at both.”

“Hmm, I see,” I rubbed my chin thoughtfully.

“The final potion, as you might have guessed, is a hybrid of martial, expertise, and magic. I like to call it the ‘hero potion.’ That one will grant you the fundamental knowledge of all three types, but each one will only be about half as effective or powerful as the more specialized potions. This one would be a good one to choose if you plan on exploring all three paths to power, or simply don’t know what you want to specialize in.”

This was a surprisingly difficult decision. “Is there anything you suggest?” I asked.

“Ultimately, I would recommend doing whatever feels like the right choice for you or whatever you feel like you’d have the most fun with,” Astrea said. “This isn’t a limitation, it’s a head-start. If you decide to drink the martial potion, that won’t stop you from learning magic at a later period, you’ll just have to do it the long way; and as an eternal being, you’ll have all the time in the universe to do so when you’re ready.”

Okay, that was good to know.