Flux Wanderrift's Arc

Chapter 1 of 18

Flux Wanderrift wanted to tear down the cosmic council, and they still didn't know where the council met. That was the problem. The council decided which dimensions could touch which. They locked doors between worlds and called the locking peace. Flux hated locked doors. But you can't topple a throne you can't find, and blind portal-jumping had already stranded two travelers Flux knew in dead, airless dimensions. Flux stood on a cracked platform between worlds. Their pet perched on their shoulder, a lean three-eyed creature in a jester's cap. It swore softly in its private tongue and pointed one clawed finger. "You feel a portal?" Flux asked. The jester nodded and grinned. Its third eye glowed. It always knew where the seams between worlds ran thin. Flux trusted that nose more than any map. Ahead loomed a huge grey building, stranded in the empty space between dimensions. Its walls screamed with painted banners. OBEY THE COSMIC COUNCIL. NO FLUX ALLOWED. FLUX IS CHAOS. The council's diamond insignia sat above every door. A storage vault, official and smug, floating in the dark like a warning. Flux laughed. "They named it after chaos and mean me. Rude." The jester tugged Flux's collar toward the vault. The portal it sensed led inside. Flux weighed the risk. Break into the enemy's storehouse, or keep jumping blind and dying. They chose the door. Inside, shelves stretched high, packed with confiscated things. A sentient carnivorous plant hissed from a locked case, its swirling bloom snapping at the glass. On another shelf, a many-headed creature offered tiny cookies from a dozen smiling faces, roots trailing off into thin air. The council had caged every strange, joyful thing it feared. Flux felt sick and furious at once. The jester leapt down and scrambled to a low pedestal. It chattered fast, three eyes fixed on one object. Flux followed. On the pedestal lay a pendant. Silver spikes ringed a swirling star of glass. Runes circled its edge, and a small crescent moon floated inside the stone. An old relic, the kind a council of stars might wear. Flux lifted it. The runes warmed under their thumb. The glass cleared. Inside the stone, a map bloomed. Not roads, but a coordinate, a single bright point far past the dead dimensions. A hidden fold in space with the council's diamond marked on it. The place they met. Flux's breath caught. "That's it. That's where they sit." Then the vault shook. Red light washed the shelves. A flat voice boomed through the walls. "UNAUTHORIZED FLUX DETECTED. SEALING VAULT." The door behind Flux slammed shut. The portal the jester had used flickered and died. Flux gripped the pendant, now knowing exactly where the council convened, and locked inside the very building built to hold them. The jester swore. Flux grinned anyway. "New problem," they said. "Better than the old one."