Tinnitus

The group continued walking at a slow pace, the injured members slowing their progress significantly. Soon night begins to roll around, and the group find their gazes shifting upwards at the twilight sky, and then at the stars that reveal themselves.

Michael gapes as he looks up, the others looking nonplussed despite the sight, simply due to them not knowing anything different... But he knew. Above them were thousands of stars and what looked like nearby nebulae that shined with a rainbow of colours... Not only that, there were two moons overhead, though, both looked distinctly different from the two moons from Halkeginia.

In fact, they looked like actual moons. The white globes he was used to seeing in his original world, instead of the radiant blue and pink things hovering in the sky in Halkeginia. This'd thrown him completely off, as he didn't remember any world that possessed two moons... Or maybe he was just overlooking it? Perhaps they were in a world that he had no knowledge of whatsoever... Honestly, the chance of them randomly going to a world from his memories was slim to none.

He lets out a sigh, mist escaping his mouth as his warm breath hits the air. "We should find shelter for the night, I'm wearing two cloaks and I'm still freezing." he says, glancing at Charlotte who seemed somehow comfortable in this temperature... Was it due to her proclivity towards ice magic? If so, he'd have to get himself some of that.

"Hn, mother will not last long in this cold." Charlotte affirms, "There." she announces, gesturing over at the horizon with her staff where a run down-looking tower stood. From what Michael could see, its top half had collapsed, and the rest of it was slowly getting reclaimed by the forest.

The group speed up their pace and eventually reach the half-destroyed tower, Michael eyes trailing along the moss-ridden stones comprising it. "Huh, so there are people in this world... Though... Maybe they're not around anymore? This tower looks ancient."

*Bbbbbbbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

...

"You guys hear that?" Michael quietly murmurs, alert and examining the surroundings for whatever was making that peculiar noise.

Charlotte nods, allowing her mother to stand on her own as she readies her staff.

*BzzzzzzzZZZZzzzzzzz!*

Michael's eyes focus on the tower as green light approaches the entrance from inside, the strange buzzing sound only getting louder at its approach. Soon enough, the group spot the thing that was creating the disturbance.

It slowly, jerkily steps out of the tower, its gnarled bark skin covered in swirls and marks that almost look like tattoos. Its form is humanoid and strangely female, the wood comprising its form creating a mock-simile of breasts. Its head looked like a mask of a females face, decorated with horns and hollow lifeless sockets.

Bright green glowing fliies cover its form as if it were a walking hive, entering and exiting its body from the holes in its bark flesh. Last but not least, its hands didn't match its attempt at mimicking the human body, instead looking like fierce wooden claws that began to glow green as it approached the group.

"What in Brimir's left testicle is that!?" Derflinger exclaims fearfully.

The group stays silent, and Michael feels his throat go dry as memories strike him like a hammer. "Spriggan." he whispers, barely loud enough for the others to hear him.

"Spriggan?" Charlotte parrots, still looking unsurely at the creature, her magic ready to strike at any moment.

Michael nods, "Spriggans. From what I remember, are like feral nature spirits. They attack people on sight if you approach their domains. I for one don't want to have swarms of insects shot at me, so..." he licks his lips, slowly pointing his fingers at the creature as to not cause it to attack first. "Shock." he casts, causing many bolts of orange lightning to strike it, their fire and electricity affinities dealing huge amount of damage to it.

Many flies die and pieces of bark are torn from its body as the spell hits, causing the spriggan to stumble backwards, an unearthly growl leaving it as the hive's buzzing increases in volume.

"Shock."

*Crack!*

Its wooden mask-like face cracked down the middle as another spell hits it, forcing it back even further.

"It's tough... I didn't think it'd still be standing." he mutters in slight curiosity. Usually green spriggans were the easiest to beat, breaking like rotten twigs with a good hit... "Shock."

Finally, the last Ether Shock blows it to pieces, the glowing green flies dissipating as if they'd never existed at all.

"Partner, how do you know what that thing was? Shouldn't we be in another world?" Derflinger quickly asks as Michael walks towards the spriggan corpse.

"We are in another world, it's just that I've heard of this world before... We're in a place called Tamriel, on a planet called Nirn." he glances at Charlotte with a steadily growing smile, "Good news, Charlotte, this place just so happens to have the best healers around. Alchemy is common, healing magic slightly less so, if all else fails... We could probably just ask one of the gods here to heal your mother."

"G-gods?" Derflinger asks, Charlotte and Illococoo looking equally shocked.

Michael nods as he wrenches his hand backwards, extracting the heart-like taproot from the spriggan's chest, "Gods. I'd be careful about which you interact with though. As far as I can remember, there are two kinds of gods here. Aedra, and Daedra. Don't ask me to list all of them because, again, I don't remember. That, and I'm pretty sure they know when people are talking about them... I'd bet they'd be more than interested in using Tiff's powers to extend their influence over multiple worlds... So yeah, no talking about inter-dimensional travel while we're here... At all." he orders, sending hard looks at everyone here to make sure they keep quiet.

He wasn't afraid of the common populace finding out... They could be dealt with the same as any other mortal. But he doubted he'd stand a snowball's chance in hell if the Daedra were to set him in their sights.