12 hours later

 

Ravela sat up abruptly. The sun had not yet risen. It was still night outside. Ravela got into her combat suit after spending some quality time in the bathroom. She opened the door to her room and peeked carefully outside. Empty hallways were a good sign in her book, she made sure to get her key and made her way down to the lobby. The lobby was rather spacious, something she had ignored when she arrived. She wandered around admiring the artworks in the various smaller lounges and walkthrough galleries in the hotel.

 

Each showcases art with a theme, be it sculptures or paintings. After hours of lounging in different rooms, studying the art, and searching for information on anything about the city's situation later, Ravela’s stomach grumbled. Outside small slivers of sunlight began to creep up on the horizon. The Gargoyles began to take spots in trees and on the park fence and in facades. Ravela meanwhile strolled through the hotel on her way to the dining hall. Robots had already arranged a magnificent breakfast buffet.

 

She took note of the increase in quality compared to the restaurant in the residential area. Stopping mid-meal Ravela amended her thought. They were both great buffets but breakfast buffets were more her thing. Being honest and not tarnishing a perfectly fine buffet felt right. It did lift her spirits immensely.

 

While Ravela was eating, the shutters opened up.

 

“Disengage shields. Prepare to investigate with a broad spectrum scan.” Ravela ordered the drones of her imaginary spaceship. Life was too short to grow out of silly. Her laughter reverberated through the buffet room. It sounds almost childlike in its glee the slight vibration in her voice now seemingly intent on amplifying on letting it echo.

 

She emptied her plate and got up. Walking carefully to the exit she looked for the predators of the big city jungle. She spotted one of the flying city killers petrified atop the entrance to the park.

A sigh of relief escaped her as she put on her helmet and stepped outside.

 

“Good morning, honored guest. The current number of citizens is zero. The current number of guests is three. We are currently enacting a strict curfew. Please understand that security is on high alert.”

 

Her stomach immediately felt numb. sixty-seven people died the night she slept in a cozy bed. Not everybody found a place to hide. Then she realized something. This announcement was spoken in a language she understood. For some reason, this citywide announcement was comprehensible to her. It had been as well when she arrived.

 

She shook off the mixed feelings that haunted her. No sense lingering on could haves and would haves.

 

What to do in a shopping district which by all accounts was filled with goods from multiple worlds and or dimensions? She never was big on shopping but this would change today. She began to stroll down the street she so hastily jumped through. Looking down the side streets each lined with shops. She spent the first hour just picking candidates she wished to visit.

 

She stopped in front of a screen showing a lizard-like humanoid putting on a ring and becoming human. Ravela's eyes were glued to the screen. The ring came off and went back on again and once again their exterior changed. 

 

All the listmaking went out the door. She wanted to clean out that store. On the inside waiting for her was a treasure trove of jewelry. Sections of different races with a wide variety of looks. Ravela stopped. She needed a bag first. With childlike excitement, she ran and got herself what would be considered a pretty normal backpack. Strapped over one shoulder and beneath the other was a pack that didn’t fit a whole camping gear but it would fit a boatload of rings.

 

Returning to the jewelry store she began to raid the displays. She picked up a ring from the human variety. She took off her helmet and slowly walked over to a mirror. Placing her helmet on a chair to the side she unlocked her gloves and detached them and put them down beside her helmet.

 

In front of the mirror, she placed the ring on her right ring finger. Instantly a different person stared back at her. Blue eyes in a spotless white sea. A man in his late thirties with blonde hair and the aura of either a banker or maybe a con man. Her clothes hadn’t changed. Touching her face she was flabbergasted by the texture of the illusion. 

 

Ravela ruffled her hair and grinned as she felt it between her fingers. Then her fingers went over the curvature of her ears and she was again stunned. No longer pointy but round, these rings weren’t just illusions, they were true transformations.

 

Going behind the cashier's table Ravela got a small ring box and put the ring inside. Then pulled up a bunch more and put them on the counter. She began to walk to and from the display to the mirror and then the counter if the ring's transformation agreed with her.

 

Many different humans but also one of the lizard humanoids. Wandering the store she came to one display that had five elegant rings in them. Five different colors and exotic materials. Each could be considered the apex of beauty in their race if the human preview was anything to go by.

The previews showed five females in their natural environments. A humanoid with gills and blue skin played on a beach, when she and her friends went into the water they dove down and back up at speeds that Ravela knew to be fatal for any non-aquatic humanoid. She seemed to control the water to some extent as the swimming speed couldn’t possibly come from muscle alone. Then there was the human woman.

 

Hesitation followed. She wanted to try out those rings. If only to see the full transformation. The human ring found its way into her palm. She walked over to the mirror. A beautiful diamond framed by a golden band. She looked if this ring would fit on any of her fingers. To her surprise, the band widened and tightened as soon as it touched a finger fitting itself to the finger's size.

 

Ravela slowly put it on her right ring finger. Her hand transformed the nails now painted with a glamorous black polish. Her eyes wandered up to the mirror. There stood in her armor suit a woman with short black hair human perfection, at least to her mind. Green eyes looked back at her.

 

Ravela kept staring at...well herself. This was a woman she would conquer worlds for. Not that her true self was anything short of otherworldly but well she wasn’t a Narziss. The heartbreak she felt from the mere fact that this woman was a mere illusion puzzled her. Human perfection wasn’t something that could be gazed upon often.

 

She felt her breasts pressing against her armored suit and watched the most beautiful blush appear on her face. For the first time, another feeling mixed into it a bit of...envy and irritation. Her subconscious seemed to take offense at having smaller breasts than the mirage. Odd, peculiar, even amusing. 

 

Then it dawned on her. She had been a bit slow but the realization hit her. She could feel them, they were real! They were no mere illusions, this was a complete transformation! She grinned at herself.

 

“You’re beauti-”, she sputtered and shut up gasping. Her voice had changed too. No longer was there a slight reverberation coming with her words. Something that made her sound like some being from spheres that were not worldly. Even in total confusion this woman in the mirror still looked alluring.

 

The others were less appealing to her and looked alien.

 

Taking off the ring she ran over to the prepared boxes. Putting these prized possessions into the fanciest boxes she could find and fished out the first ring again.

 

While putting on the other rings she kept talking to herself. The rings went on and off and her voice kept changing. She jumped through the shop like a child that had found the secret button on a toy that lit up all its lights. These rings were awesome.

 

She jumped behind the counter again trying to figure out the register. It was surprisingly easy to hold it over a scanner. In response, the number went up, and she kept going until all her rings were rung up and in her backpack. Twenty-one rings for her to treasure. Registers in this dimension seemed to roughly work as Ravela expected. She entered the sum display on what she recognized to be the input on how much money was paid and low and behold there was a receipt printed.

 

Into the backpack, her purchases vanished. She went back to the hotel for lunch. There was no good reason to skip a meal.

 

What followed next was a shopping spree through a magical and sci-fi shopping heaven. A box with several flasks that endlessly supplied certain liquids. Among these flasks, one was special more than the others. This flask had a certain divine look to it. A healing potion, a swig could regenerate and rejuvenate. Sadly, this flask was not bottomless and the only one of its kind Ravela could find. The infomercial for that particular flask advertised sternly that it was single-use only. 

 

There was a workshop she had spotted that would inject knowledge through a cocktail of what, in the infomercial, seemed like nanites. Ravela stormed that treasure trove like it was the castle of her worst enemy.

 

Languages: Cheers.

 

There was a funny tingly feeling spreading from her neck to Ravela’s head and from there through her whole body. She now understood what she purchased.

Next, she picked Art, Gardening, and Cooking. Ravela had always been a warrior. Only ever fighting through everything. She yearned for more.

 

There was an orange warning flashing.

 

Warning: With this dose, you’ll reach your monthly absorption limit! Be advised this dose will feel nauseating.

 

Ravela hesitated, for a moment. The urge to benefit from this forbidden apple of free knowledge however was a temptation she couldn’t resist. Downing that the third vial had an instant effect.

 

A huge headache, a feeling of disorientation, and visual flashes of light. Ravela wondered when she decided to lie down. Her arms twitched impotently. Jolts of nerve impulses flashed through her body.

 

Ravela couldn’t tell how long she lay around helplessly. Cursing her dumb ass for not drinking this hemlock's mug in the hotel. This could have been her death, Ravela realized. After the pains subsided she lay on the floor for at least one more hour exhausted and shivering.

 

After she got up she realized her inability to take another of those drinks of knowledge. One month till she could take the dose of Craftsmanship and Technology. Ravela got that vial from a different station. Her steps were still somewhat wooden and unsteady. Taking from her backpack the only empty and normal flask, she carefully filled the contents of the vial into that flask. Sealed it and put it gently into its spot in the flask casket.

 

Her backpack wasn’t quite full yet but she decided it was full enough and carried it back to her room. Ravela went back out to the streets with an enthusiastic vigor she could only describe as euphoria. All but forgotten the agonizing torture that she just went through of her own free will.

 

Clothes, futuristic electronics, and guns. She made a great many trips back to her room loading off all the items feeling like a child bringing home more and more toys as if she was on a drug high.

 

When the sirens began blaring once again she was already having dinner in the hotel restaurant. She used the bathroom and after celebrating the absolute splendor she was now surrounded by. Ravela slipped under her blanket and was asleep.

 

She could get used to this, Ravela thought as she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

 

Ravela turned on her bed. Under the blanket, she was drenched in sweat.

She opened her eyes.

 

“Wha-” Blue cloudless sky. Ravela's eyes flew fully open. The air distorted in front of her.

 

“NO!” She sat on her bed in the middle of a burning hot desert.

 

“Welcome to ‘Iz Baksin - Desert of the Forgotten’, Wanderer. This is no place for you. Civilizations that died or never were riddle these sands you’ll find-”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” Ravela roared against the voice.

“-Empires of Possibility, Nations of Probability, Faiths unborn, and People never united. Forbidden knowledge, secrets that remain unshared, and Artifacts which never were forged or maybe just lost to time and as such ended here. You might shed tears at the paradises lost and hells averted. Come and see, Wanderer.”

 

She jumped up a raw scream breaking free from deep within her. Garbled anger. Transported together with her bed. Ravela would suffer an aneurysm if she gave further into her rage.

 

Naked, she cursed herself for letting down her guard. On the foot of her bed lay her bodysuit. She put it on while still on the bed. She hates sand. It is rough, coarse, and gets everywhere. No need to have it in your only clothes.

 

After putting on everything she first enjoyed the cold encasement her eyes went to the bedpost. Her backpack! She nearly cried from pure joy. The rings! Her beautiful flasks too were inside that backpack. She hugged the backpack like a dear relative. She rechecked the content of the backpack taking stock of what she had left for her day in shopping heaven.

The rings. Her flasks. Two revolver-like energy pistoles in their futuristic holsters. She liked those for the simple fact that they made a pleasing humming sound when cooling down. She had simply forgotten to take them out after spending the late afternoon raining havoc with the other guns she had acquired. She felt the sting of loss when thinking about the fun she had with all these left-behind treasures.

 

She put on her backpack after stowing her treasures away. Her mood changed from shattered to relieved. Of all the things she got this loss would have hurt the most. Ravela frowned at her weird ladder of priorities. The hoverboard would be much more useful here. Thinking about the few hours she had with that wonderful machine nearly made her cry. She felt genuine loss over this technological beauty. Somehow however she was more attached to the rings and just glad to still have them. Plus she probably could build her own one day. One day! Ravela pointed up to the sky as if to threaten the voice: “ONE DAY!”, she declared with conviction.

 

She took the pillows from the bed, rolled them into the blanket, and started walking with her newly improvised camping gear under one arm.

The blistering sun was making things hard on her, but she soon found that this desert wasn’t empty. It was full of buried cities and ruins beneath the sand.

Instead, after reaching the top of the dune, the view that greeted her was surreal.

 

Temples, Castles, other buildings, wrecked ships, cars, and planes with designs the kind of which, to Ravela’s knowledge, didn’t exist. All sat perfectly above the sands of this vast desert.

 

She watched as one of the many castles slowly sank deeper into the sand. She walked down the dune into the weird mixture of ancient graves and civilization so alien to her that she wondered what event would have led them to develop in such ways.

 

As she was slowly passing further and further into this field of mysteries one ruin suddenly began to rapidly sink into the sand. Ravela watched on as the ruins began to deteriorate while sinking into the depths. Pillars cracked, and large gashes split parts of the stonework. The sand began to swallow the ruin, running into it like water just as the last stones were about to disappear. Ravela thought she saw plants beginning to sprout.

 

That just didn’t compute. ‘Where would overgrowth come from in this environment?’ Either her mental state began to seriously deteriorate or the desert played tricks on her already. Neither option was good. Ravela roughly estimated that it had been two hours since she had awoken to this new nightmare. Her shoulders slumped as she cursed her tormentor for divorcing her from the breakfast buffet in such a rude fashion.

 

She spotted a temple-like building made entirely from black basalt. Walking up the stairs, Ravela saw that the building went down several levels, as behind the entrance waited for a broad spiral staircase that wormed its way down. The amber crystals above the open door. Something in her wanted these crystals. She needed them all. They were as big as her fist, and her first thoughts regarding them were pure greed. Pictures of war flooded her mind of fortresses being stormed for such a crystal but infinitely smaller. What lined the entrance here could have made a dynasty or undone one. She broke all of these crystals off. Three beautiful crystals found their way into her backpack. ‘What civilization would waste such treasure as lighting for a doorway?’

Ravela was intrigued and entered. On her way down there were different chambers lining the stairway down.

Each contained a sarcophagus with complex carvings. The painted walls tell the life story of whoever got buried inside.

 

On the ground floor, Ravela took note of the beautiful statues at the foot of the stairs. Ravela followed the hallway into a big hall-like chamber. In the middle of the room stood a sarcophagus that in contrast to the others lacked any ornaments purely out of the same basalt as the rest of the building.

 

There was a slight tremor running through the ruin as Ravela began to look at the paintings on the walls. She frowned when she realized the paint was beginning to peel off.

 

*Fizzle* *Crinkle*

 

She turned to the stairs just in time to see sand flooding in. The sunlight faintly reaching down was cut off as the sand began to flood down in force.

She was in disbelief. How did this building sink without any rumbling until it was already too late?!

The statues by the stairs, which should have shattered just by the force of the sand, looked fine at first. Then she saw the ages rush over the statues' paint rolling off them. One of the statues began falling apart while the other remained mostly intact with just one arm breaking off.

 

It was time for panic. She began looking around the hall. As the sand crept down the stairs and into the hallway Ravela realized that she was in every sense fucked.

 

Just then a portal opened at the far end of the chamber promising her a way out. She took three steps toward it before an insane thought entered her mind.

 

“Civilisations that died”, Ravela said pondering the implications out loud. What had just invaded her mind could only be two things: genius or insanity.

 

She turned away from the portal. She would either escape her tormentor or die trying. With this determination, she walked up to the sarcophagus. She telekinetically lifted the heavy lid stone. Inside the body of a male human seemingly freshly deceased. She worked quickly to take off valuables, took the one-handed sword, and when she saw the golden laurel she took off her helmet and put the laurels on her bald head. Not able to resist the urge even though she was on the clock.

 

As she picked up the body and put him beside the tomb. Creeped out, she tried to move on then looked back down.

 

“Sorry, friend. I am sure you would understand.” Ravela apologized. As expected she didn’t get approval for her desecration. She took off the laurel and put it into her backpack. “Please don’t haunt me for this act of desperation.”

 

The sand now flooded the chamber, and Ravela put her helmet back on. Placing her blanket into the sarcophagus followed by the pillows, between which she sandwiched her backpack. Lying down inside Ravela clasped her hands over her abdomen while holding on to the sword in the sheath. The valuables floated to her sides.

 

Slowly she lowered the lid fighting the flaring up of claustrophobia. She could hear the sand wash over her tomb. Ravela felt a rumble and blacked out.