Langor: Scorched Sands

{Attunement}

The first thing Volta noticed was the heat. It bared down from above as it wafted up from the sandstone ground wrapping the Festenian inventor in a tight embrace. He was already out of breath from planeswalking and the heat made him instantly uncomfortable. Volta tugged at his collar as beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

"Why did we come here, again?" He stammered, looking up at his traveling companion. Myriada gazed absentmindedly across the sandstone cityscape calm and relaxed against the backdrop of the ferocious heat. She somewhat lazily uncrossed her arms, took the cigarette holder out of her mouth, and exhaled a wispy puff of smoke into the air. It was an internal battle for comfort against the sun, and for a moment Volta thought the sun was about to lose. She gave one last longing glance at the glittering buildings before breaking under the pressure.

"On Angels' Wings, I did not expect it to be this hot," she looked to Volta and proclaimed. "Well, we've arrived."

"Noted," Volta grumbled. "It was hard enough to follow you, why did we need to go here?"

"Well, you said you needed more energy." Myriada pointed at the sun. It sat alarmingly closer to the horizon than any sun Volta had ever seen before. "You never finished your story, but perhaps you can make use of that?"

"You cut me off," Volta chastised, tugging uncomfortably at his sleeves. "It feels like I'm melting."

"First order of business then, little one, is to find more comfortable clothing." Myriada fanned herself with an open palm as she left the alleyway they had arrived in. Volta struggled to keep up with her brisk pace and ran into her when she stopped abruptly. Myriada's attention had been captured by a pastel green top on display inside a nearby shop. Myriada disappeared inside the store while Volta contemplated how the garment would be long enough to cover any significant part of a woman.

Sometime later, Myriada came back out dressed in the more traditional, vibrant colored, garments. They were a matching light, flowing skirt and top, partially concealed beneath a white cloak meant to keep the sun from her skin. Volta was alarmed at how much more revealing they were than traditional Festenian clothing.


"Myriada..." He stuttered "your midsection is bare."

"Yes, I have a stomach." She retorted, "Amazing, isn't it? Will wonders never cease?"

Volta grimaced as Myriada pushed him inside the shop. "You need to dress better or the heat will surely kill you," she chuckled.

Much to Volta's chagrin, his friend eventually convinced him to buy baggy pants that tied off at the ankles and a vest that was far too small to button from the front. Volta's pale skin shone like a beacon and his face was flushed the same color red as the overcoat he now wore. Volta tugged at some of the gold stones embedded into the coat's cuff. "I look like a fool," he muttered sheepishly.

"Nonsense! You look good, little one," Myriada laughed. "Now, tell me again exactly what's happening."

---

"It's île lune. I can't find it."
"Can't find your own island? Could you be sailing past it?"
"Wha... How is that? You can see it from Tholough Dam."
"Then why can't you find it?"
"Look can I tell this story?"

. . .

It was two summers ago. A few days after that Zevya girl was found dead in Saigura Town. Galvani said he wanted to see me and that it was urgent. So we had lunch at Candy Carnations, that place on the Karloni waterfront-

"Is this part of the story necessary, little one?"

Can you not do that? Anyway, he told me about strange energy readings coming from île lune. He said the test doors we developed weren't cooperating. That there were unpredictable spikes that our failsafes couldn't contain. He said he was moving important documents and furniture from the laboratory, but when we went back that afternoon, it was gone. Well, not completely gone...

"Ah, that's why you moved to Vitora, isn't it?"

The island was nothing but a crater- as if the land itself had been erased from existence! Galvani theorized that because our prototype door was old and barely functioning, it became unstable when we stopped maintaining it. He thinks it created some sort of... Opening? Something that transferred île lune to another plane. But if it happened once, then we can possibly recreate the effect.

---

Myriada looked at him with bated breath. Volta's story ended abruptly, and she was quietly waiting for him to finish.

"So... You..."

"If I can harness enough energy and focus it through some kind of filter, or maybe a lense, I could potentially pull île lune back through the aether," Volta droned on. Myriada smiled and rolled her eyes. Of all the things the man was, a storyteller he was not.

Being erased from existence was nothing new for Myriada, but the idea of reversing it was. Her eyes lit up as the pair pushed through a gathering of people. She was searching for a way out of the city, but the buildings and roads seemed to fold over on themselves. The crowds were unusually thick too and Myriada became more focused on watching Volta than listening to him. She realized if either of them got lost in this city it could be the death of both of them. Being responsible was hard work, Myriada thought to herself.

Something from behind her made her shudder and she subtly motioned for Volta to stop. There was a sudden change in the atmosphere, an almost hushed murmuring that ran through the crowd. Myriada reached out with her mind and felt a raw swath of mixed emotions greet her.

"Do you feel that?" She whispered, scanning the faces in the crowd. Volta nodded. He was no mage, but Myriada could tell he sensed the change in the atmosphere too. Pressed together in the crowd the sun felt cool. There was an unsettling agression radiating from the crowd, but nobody looked at them, nobody attacked, and nobody spoke.

"We need to get out of this city," Myriada stressed. She grabbed Volta's hand and the two quickened their pace. Gold-tipped spires rose above the buildings around them, but they dropped off further along the horizon. Faces and bodies went by in a blur as they pushed their way towards what Myriada hoped was an exit. At one point she thought she felt someone tug at her free hand. A lifetime of wading through Festenya's undercity never prepared Myriada for this lurching feeling in her gut. She was trying to speed up, but Volta stopped dead in his tracks.

"Did you hear that?" He quavered.

She had hoped it was nothing. She had hoped it was a trick of the wind, or the heat was playing with her mind.

But she heard it too.

Outsiders.

All eyes were turned towards the pair of planeswalkers on foreign sands.