The transition wasn't a journey; it was an amputation. Verrin hadn't traveled to a place; he had been violently torn from his existence and dumped here, a biological byproduct of a catastrophic planar failure.
The last sensation was the grinding of the Rift-Scar, a dimensional fissure that sounded like grinding teeth and smelled of ozone mixed with dying starlight. Then came the impact—hard, cold, and utterly mundane.
Verrin lay sprawled on a sheet of wet, oil-stained asphalt. The air, heavy and saturated with water, clung to his clothes and skin. He was paralyzed, not by injury, but by a sudden, total void in his environment.
The Ether-Thirst.
His body, a complex bio-magical engine native to a realm saturated with Ether (the fundamental energy of creation and decay), was screaming a silent, internal alarm. The Human World was an Etheric desert. The air was inert, dead. It was the equivalent of being an aquatic creature dumped onto dry land.
He forced his lungs to take a breath. The oxygen-rich air burned, not with heat, but with a sterile emptiness. The faint, sweet, metallic scent of Rust-Ether—the residue of decay that fueled his kind—was entirely absent.
"Stabilize," Verrin whispered, the sound a ragged cough.
His immediate, primary defense mechanism was the Glamour. It was an energy field woven into the very structure of his being, a perfect, resource-intensive illusion of humanity. It disguised his true, ethereal, and shadow-based form. It also served a vital secondary function: it acted as an atmospheric containment suit, slowing the dissipation of the residual Ether stored within his core.
But the Glamour was designed to function in an environment where ambient Ether could be passively absorbed to top up the shield. Here, it was running entirely on the battery—his internal, finite core reserves—and the drain was catastrophic.
He raised his right hand. It was pale, thin, and disturbingly normal. But as he watched, the skin on the back of his hand rippled, blurring like heat haze over a desert road. A single, dark crack appeared, running from his wrist to his knuckle, and through the crack, a brief glimpse of reality—a shifting, violet-black void.
The Flicker. Exposure Danger: 100%.
Verrin slammed his hand back onto the ground, focusing every scrap of mental discipline to pour reserve energy into the failing seal. The crack vanished, the flesh stabilizing. The effort was agonizing, pulling energy from deep in his reserves and leaving a searing pain behind his temples.
He pushed himself to his feet, leaning against the cold, grimy brick of the alley wall. The sights of this world assaulted him.
Sound: A constant, overwhelming roar. Engines, sirens, the incomprehensible chatter of human voices, all layered on top of a low, invasive electrical hum. It was too loud.
Light: Not the diffuse, beautiful bioluminescence of the Tainted Aetherium, but harsh, directional, and aggressive light. The yellow sodium lamp flickering overhead created aggressive, sharp-edged shadows.
Emotions: A cacophony of undirected, messy, weak emotional energy. Fear, hunger, minor stress, excitement—it was like listening to a thousand out-of-tune instruments playing simultaneously.
Verrin checked his internal clock. Based on the rate of Ether dissipation, he had approximately forty-seven minutes before the Glamour would fail irrevocably and his true, unshielded form would manifest, causing physical trauma to himself and potential panic-inducing horror to any nearby humans.
He had to get off the main street and find a place of Stillness.
He stumbled out of the alley mouth onto a concrete pedestrian sidewalk. He forced himself to adopt the posture he recalled from his studied archives: The Default Human Shuffle. Head slightly lowered, shoulders slumped, eyes not engaging. Look down. Look tired. Do not exist.
He spotted a derelict service passage tucked between two high-rise buildings—one of glass, one of dull, stained concrete. The air here smelled of stale cooking oil and neglect.
He found a loose metal panel, a discarded ventilation cover leaning against the wall. A small, dark void beneath a concrete slab.
He channeled the barest minimum of Ether—just enough to slightly compress his physical form—and slipped into the gap. The metal panel scraped shut behind him.
The darkness was instant and thick, a comforting blanket against the visual aggression of the city. He collapsed into the crawlspace, letting the Glamour relax to a minimal, base-level state. The human face remained, but his eyes glowed a dull, heavy hazel, and his skin was unnaturally pale.
He had secured Concealment. Remaining objectives: Information and Sustenance.