The Ringing of the Bells

Mage wasn't convinced that it would work, but he did as requested.

He walked through the doorway.

When he got to the other side, he turned back to see that Harry was still very much visible through it.

As expected, nothing happened and Harry sighed. This was going to be a long night.

"Hmm, well that didn't work, pretty much as expected, so I suppose we must now go for the other options, although I think only one option would work for you. But just in case, you ever heard of an Omegaversal Address?" asked Harry.

Mage gave him a blank look.

Then he shook his head.

"I...I know what an address is," he said, "but I'm guessing an Omegaversal Address about something other than a building's number and street."

"Well, I mean those two things are involved in it but yeah, you need country, continent, planet, uni/multi/mega/giga code, dim-re code and dim number," said Harry, "and I assume you haven't heard of any of those before, have you?"

Mage gave a tiny shake of his head.

Some of those did sound familiar, but the majority of the words were ones that he had never heard of before. He tried to stop himself from feeling anxious about that. There was no rush to return back to his world; no one was waiting for him there.

But it was strange being somewhere else for once in his life, and he didn't even have the comfort of stories to guide him through this. When he had left Infernum for Medium, he at least had stories about the humans up above. He knew nothing about the world he had just stumbled into.

"Thought so, but it was worth a shot," said Harry, "so that leaves us with one option. Figure out the thing that got you here, find out why its not working and then well, fix it. I haven't seen this exact design before but I have seen and used similar portals so I think I kinda know where to look for stuff but yeah I'm not sure...so...I think the best course of action is to hit the library, that is if you're fine with that and don't worry, no one here will give you a second glance."

Mage couldn't imagine not being given a second glance in a public place, but he had to trust Harry. He didn't know anything about where he was right now. Only Harry could get him home.

...Not that he had to be entirely okay with that.

There was, of course, one little problem with the library.

Kiera had taught him how to read, but he had never been the most fluent with the written version of the human language. It wasn't entirely different from how demons spoke, but there discrepancies that made his head spin every time he tried reading a human book.

"How far is it to the library?" he asked, trying to keep his voice from cracking again.

"I'll take that as a yes," said Harry, "and to answer your question, not that far away, maybe like forty, fifty miles if you count the distance we have to cover inside this tomb itself. How fast can you walk?"

Mage gave him a deadpan look.

"Not as fast as you think I can walk," he said. "It would take a long time to cover that many miles without any kind of transportation. Do you have a horse we can travel on?"

"A horse?" said Harry, "Yeah nope, that would be far too much time, not to mention they don't have horses out here anyway. We'll need to figure something else out. I could call my car...but umm...can you fly?"

The expression on Mage's face didn't change.

"I don't have wings like you do," he pointed out. He didn't know what a car was; he wasn't going to ask. But he was getting a sneaking suspicion that this whole situation was going to be even more complicated than he had originally expected. "I can't fly."

"Of course you don't," said Harry with a sigh. "Well I'll suppose I'll have to call Hydra then. Anyway, we're going to have to walk up to the surface so follow me. Then we'll drive the rest of the way back."

Mage was sitting in a strange carriage without horses.

And he still couldn't entirely comprehend how he had gotten to this point.

Harry and him had made their way through the ruins to what Harry called a car. Mage hadn't ever seen anything like it before. He was even more confused once he opened one of its doors and sat down inside it. There were strange cushioned seats in the back, and one cushioned seat up in the front. That seat - the one that Harry sat down in - was surrounded by boards that seemed to be alive with electricity.

And the car was moving, even though Mage couldn't see what was propelling it or tugging it along. It was like one of the automatons he had heard about. Mage hadn't ever seen one in person, but this felt like the same kind of thing.

"Are these normal here?" he asked.

"Umm...define normal," said Harry, leaning back in his seat and getting comfortable. Mage appeared to be sitting in the seat without attempting to run off, which was good enough. "This isn't your typical car but car's are quite common here."

"Hold onto something," he warned, " and don't scream, nothing bad is happening, I just want to go a little faster, and this way is safer."

He engaged the seat belt system in the back, the restraints wrapping themselves around the demon. He tapped the control panel in front of him, the lights of the car blaring to life to illuminate the road in front of them clearly. Another flick and the car's number plate changed to match the planet they were in.

"Hydra, disengage autopilot," he said.

"Disengaging autopilot, Harry," came the voice of the car's AuI.

Harry grabbed the steering wheel. "You may get pressed into your seat somewhat, this is perfectly normal and I apologize in advance for any inconvenience caused."

He pressed down on the accelerator and the car jolted forward noiselessly, and they accelerated easily to two hundred miles and hour. They screeched to a halt outside the public library where Harry quickly disengaged the seat belt system and turned to Mage once more.

"How was your trip?" he asked with a pleasant smile as the door to their left opened up.

For a moment, Mage didn't say anything.

He just sat there in his seat, his mind barely processing whatever that whole experience had been. He couldn't tell if he liked it. He couldn't tell if he hated it. He just knew his brain was so overwhelmed by everything that the car ride barely registered.

"It was a trip," Mage said, surprisingly quiet.

He stepped out of the car.

The moment both feet touched the ground and he went to take a step, he stumbled a bit. The entire experience was so disorientating. Mage felt like he had taken some kind of portal, but he knew that the car was more like a carriage than anything else.

Mage quickly caught himself.

Fingers shaking, he pulled up his hood so it was covering his (now very much blushing) face again.