Since Jenny had decided she was going to spend her time working on the Enterprise, there was no instantaneous teleportation to their destination for Vivian and the others. Instead, they were taken out by Ivan the crystal man on a hovering glass disc that looked a bit like a flattened hamburger in certain angles of light. There were no natural seats on the disc, so Dracogen Enterprises had fused a few reclining sofas to the top so passengers could enjoy their flight in comfort.
Only Caspian seemed to actually be comfortable. Vivian, Tippi, and Cosmo were holding onto the cushions for dear life while Data kept his gaze as blank as always.
Ivan, to his credit, didn’t have traditional facial features so it was hard to tell what he was feeling, but his sagging body posture indicated he found the entire ordeal boring and tedious.
They blasted over the plains of the Ninth World, hovering over mysterious pits of discarded shrapnel, ancient robots that walked in circles, floating trees that lashed out at whatever passed, and even a surging cloud of all-devouring shrapnel. The variety of the Ninth World never seemed to end, always pushing the perception of what was considered ‘normal’.
“Hello there, brain-vat tadpoles from the day after last week!”
Vivian turned her head to the side sharply, taking in the being floating alongside their hovercar; a robed figure with no visible limbs, only a strange fogged window where she expected a head to be, giving it the appearance of having only one eye under a dome.
“What is that!?” Vivian asked.
“It’s just Ezermond,” Ivan said. “Ignore him, he never makes sense.”
“The last known checkpoint in the maze can be found in orange,” Ezermond agreed.
“I find this cryptic entity concerning!” Caspian said.
“He’s harmless,” Ivan said. “Also, you can’t get rid of him until he wants to go. Trust me. I’ve tried. Most tenacious philethis in existence.”
Ezermond floated slightly above them. “Screw in the lightbulb and hold a pow wow!”
“He does seem…” Cosmo scratched her chin. “Out there.”
“Turn it into a peach and avoid chaotic party blowers!”
Vivian tried to ignore the creature, but it only leaned in closer to her, as if it were trying to get a closer look at her individual strands of hair.
“Love covers all. See the forest from the trees. Claim your heritage,” it said. And then it was gone.
“Uh…” Vivian glanced at Ivan with concern.
“Don’t try to figure it out. It’ll only bring you pain.” Ivan let out a deep sigh. “Trust me.”
“O...kay.”
“We’re almost there, anyway.” Ivan took the hover disc down toward a somewhat tall hill in the middle of a grassy field, atop of which stood a small cathedral composed of an alien substance the color of burnt amber. While it was solid, it also appeared as though it was flowing with the refractive patterns of a watery surface. In front of the main double doors there were two humanoid guards, one with the head of a fish-dog and the other of a hairless bear with tusks.
Ivan stepped off their glass hoverboard and opened a trunk he’d kept under his seat. “You’ll be needing these.” He provided them four gold circlets with a purple crystal shard set in them. Cosmo, Vivian, and Caspian all put the circlets on their heads, finding that they shrunk to fit perfectly. Ivan had to put one on Tippi, but it shrunk perfectly to fit the little point of rainbow light that served as her head. “These will keep your thoughts muted in Celerillion. They won’t do anything until you get there.”
Data took his but didn’t place it on his head, rather simply hanging it off his uniform next to his phaser. “I will be sure to use it if needed.”
“You should be fine,” Ivan said. “If you can keep your thoughts in check.”
“I am an android. I am aware of all my thoughts. There will be no subconscious interference.”
“Yeah…” With a sigh, Ivan turned to the guards of the mysterious cathedral. “Right. I’m Ivan. Remember me?”
The guards stared at him blankly.
“...I was with Dracogen Enterprises when they came through here and helped Provenance?”
This got the guards' attention. They both nodded in unison.
“These people need passage. They won’t be asking her for any wisdom or favors.”
Nodding in unison once more, they reached for the doors and pulled them open, revealing an interior made of the same amber substance but filled with a soft, puffy mist that limited visibility.
“Good luck,” Ivan said, walking back to the hovercraft.
“Wait!” Tippi called. “You haven’t exactly told us what we’re even doing!”
Ivan sat back down in his chair and facepalmed. “You’re at the Cathedral of Provenance. Go in, talk to Provenance, she’ll get you to Celerillion. You know what to do once you arrive.”
“Yes, bu—”
Ivan took off, leaving them behind.
“For the love of…” Tippi let out an exasperated grunt and flew through the doors. “Let’s just get this over with.”
The moment she entered the mist, a hazy image of Ivan getting smashed to bits with a hammer appeared. Tippi sputtered and backed out. “Th-that’s not fair!”
“It appears this place shows what we are thinking,” Cosmo said, reaching out a hand to brush away an image of her bound and gagged, being loomed over by Dark Oak. “However disturbing that may be. And because we know it reveals what we’re thinking, we immediately go to what we don’t want others to know we think.” Her image quickly became an image of herself, except very, very confused as her mind was turning into a literal pretzel.
Vivian’s thoughts ended up being of her mother, the Shadow Queen. However, the apparition couldn’t say anything, merely looked angry and aggressive—and slowly mutated before her eyes into a bird-like being of chaos. Caspian showed remarkable control over his thoughts, focusing on an image of Aslan that prowled around him protectively.
Data’s thoughts held so many ideas at once that, when he entered the mist, he was surrounded by a bunch of tiny apparitions. Vivian could pick out Twilight, Picard, Enterprise schematics, the circlets they were all wearing, and a mental map of the Cathedral with dots where everyone was currently standing. “Wow. Impressive.”
Data cocked his head. “How so?”
“Just… you think about so much.” Vivian smiled. “And your thoughts say a good bit about who you are.”
“Does that have anything to do with the mental image you have of me serenading Twilight under the moonlight?”
“AUGH!” Vivian waved her hands in a panic, turning her thoughts back to her mother. The nightmares are a lot more preferable.
“Let’s hurry through this,” Tippi said, brushing past an image of Count Bleck looking strangely nice and comforting.
They soon made it through the mist and arrived at a set of marble double doors. Pushing through them, they ended up in the main sanctum. Once, this brilliant room had appeared to be made out of light coming directly from heaven itself, filled with pillars of pure sun and clouds that led up to a brilliant throne.
Today, it was an ordinary marble hall with a hairless, dark-skinned woman in orange clothing snoring loudly on a plush, velvet couch precariously set upon a boring and nondescript throne. Her arms were exposed, revealing strange orange markings that appeared similar to circuitry, though it looked like a natural part of her arm rather than something grafted on. Curiously, she wore one of the circlets everyone but Data was wearing.
“Provenance?” Data asked.
The woman opened an eye and closed it again.
“...Hello?”
“I’m retired,” the woman groaned. “Get your god-business elsewhere. I’ve got serious sleeping to do.”
“But we require your assistance.”
“Did you not hear me? I’ve retired from the whole ‘god’ thing.” She sat up, rubbing her eyes. “I thought I had Jenny send that message across the whole Steadfast and Beyond…”
“Jenny is the one who sent us here,” Tippi said.
“Oh. Her. Of course she still wants favors from me.” Provenance threw her head back and started scratching her ear. “You can tell her I’m done doing her favors. The debt has to stop somewhere.”
“Please, Provenance,” Vivian said, coming forward and bowing. “We are on a quest to save all worlds from destruction.”
“Aren’t all the heroes, these days…”
“We need passage to Celerillion. Ivan said you’d tell us how to do that.”
Provenance stared at her in disbelief. “That’s… that’s it? You just want to use my portal?”
“You… have a portal?”
Provenance pointed at an orange door on the side of the chamber. “Celerillion is on the other side of that door, knock yourselves out, I don’t even have to do anything.”
“Thank you!” Vivian said, scurrying to the door.
“We are in your debt, fair maiden,” Caspian said with a nod. “Though, if you have a portal to Celerillion…”
“They didn’t tell you anything, did they?” Provenance let out an amused laugh. “I have a portal because I’m originally from there. I’m a Tonbrium, a creature that has been taught to shape reality with her mind by the world of dreams. I have to wear this,” she tapped the circlet, “because that power got away from me in this realm. When you go in there, your thoughts will be able to kill you. You seem prepared enough… though I hope your talking machine has a very stable imagination. Otherwise, poof, everything could explode.”
Data nodded. “We were briefed on that particular aspect of the mission. I assure you, I have several self-control protocols enabled. Though, while we’re here, have you heard of anything called a Pure Heart hidden in Celerillion?”
“Nope!” Provenance laid back on her couch, closing her eyes again. “Your best bet for tracking down some legendary lost treasure is to find a cerebral husk—you’ll know it when you see it, since unlike everything else it’s eternally unchanging—and see if you can find one that still has knowledge locked in it somewhere. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“It sounds like we may be going on a wild goose chase,” Caspian pointed out.
“You might be,” Provenance yawned. “Now get going, I’m still learning to appreciate the joys of the sensation of sleep…”
With a shrug, Vivian opened up the doors and stepped through.
She ended up on top of a rippling ocean that, while it appeared liquid, was somehow solid. Numerous geometric shapes floated past her, several of which had wolves sitting on top of them. The sky was blue in one section, orange in another, and was replaced by a massive trail of food in between. Above all, however, there were eyes. They opened up in random locations across the world, looked around, and then closed as if they’d never been there. Fish flew overhead and beneath the waves while massive humanoids with spidery legs ran around, shrinking the closer they got to Vivian. A golden whale floated in the far distance, letting out a beautiful song that filled the hearts of all with great sadness, prompting a mountain with a face to throw a flaming boulder at it.
It was a realm of dreams. All thoughts realized to their fullest extent.
The thought both excited and terrified Vivian.