Galyn stood proudly in the cockpit, standing before a fancy table. On the table, a glowing, holographic grid hovered, mostly flat aside from a couple of odd circles and lumps here and there. With a smile, he greeted the three young Decay Lords who had just entered the room.
“Huh, you redecorated rather quickly!” Retvik remarked, admiring how everything was now various shades of black, grey and gold, with the occasional green highlight. Not too long ago, this room was a rather boring silver and nothing else.
“I have! Now I have full control of this ship, I can customize the colours as I please. When you three take over, assuming you do not decide to buy your own ship, you will be to do the same. Now, all of you come here and come have a look at this navigational chart!”
The three Decay Lords did as requested. Retvik and Litvir both inspected the hologram with curiosity, but Arkay was busy trying to get a chair to stand on. He was just a little too short to see.
“Our plan out here is to go back to our original plan. The Kiniseon Corner is mostly unexplored and completely unknown!” Galyn started to explain. “While we could spend a long time bouncing off signals and searching the old-fashioned way, we are going to take the fun route and explore these sectors in person. In the process, I will be teaching the three of you how to pilot a ship over Void-space distances, as well as how to properly navigate and chronicle our travels.”
“Sounds fun…” Litvir’s voice and hesitation betrayed the words he was saying. “We are going to explore this large, empty map?”
“It IS called the Void…” Retvik retorted. “Of course a map of it would look rather empty!”
Galyn nodded. “You are correct, Retvik. But there is definitely a lot to investigate. The Periuniversal Void is vast but there are strange anomalies within it. Most of it however is nigh impossible to see. Between a complete lack of natural light, the collisions of universes at its edges and the huge amounts of Black Matter, expeditions must be made to uncover the truth. My question to you three today is, where do you want to start?”
The holographic map lit up briefly. A tiny spec in the corner closest to Retvik lit up, marking their current location. Nearby were several little islands of activity, a Life Oasis and a freshly build DL Hub, which they had left several hours prior.
“I do not see anything on this map…” Litvir muttered. “Most of it is empty. Yes, I know it is called a void, but I genuinely cannot tell which areas have and have not been explored.”
Galyn flipped a small switch on the side of the table. The map zoomed out, to the point where the small islands were now tiny specs. On top of this, two overlays appeared, one in a light green and one in a dark blue. The dark blue covered most of the map.
“Anywhere that is blue is undiscovered or unknown territories.”
“Huh…” Litvir trailed off, gobsmacked by the huge area. “So… I think I may regret saying this, but what is the… scale of this map?”
Another button tap. A pink, irregular circle overlay appeared. It wasn’t very large, only covering a small corner of the map. Next to it, a smaller yellow circle appeared, about an eighth of its size.
“The pink circle is the size of the average universe around here. The yellow represents the size of your old universe.”
“Wow…” Litvir and Retvik both gasped, then fell silent, barely comprehending the scales displayed in front of them.
Galyn grunted, giving the two former mortals some time to digest their new knowledge, and turned to Arkay. “Where do you think we should go?”
Arkay thought for a moment, then smiled. Summoning a small pair of inky, black, energy-laced wings, Arkay hovered over the table and pointed to a dark spot right in the middle of the map.
“I want to go there. I don’t know what’s there, but I bet it’s either going to be empty or really interesting.”
“Alright!” Galyn clapped his hands together, happy to have a decision made. “Get your little tail into the co-pilot’s seat, and we shall get going! Adventure awaits!”