Once I got past my shock at the fall, and the lingering fear that my slide was going to end in my untimely second death, the crystalline slide was actually kind of fun. Rather than a straight shute down, it quickly turned, once, then again, the broad curves reminding me of a water slide more than anything else.

  Logic said that the friction of the ground should’ve been burning my skin down to the bone, as there was no water to ease the rapid slide, but it didn’t. The ride stayed cool and easy and smooth, and at some point I found myself cheering, my brain apparently having run through its reserves of anxiety and fear, forcing it to instead tap into a sort of woozy exhilaration.

  And then, very abruptly, the ride was over. At the very least, it didn’t end in another jagged set of crystal teeth, waiting to rend me into shreds, nor a lethal drop, nor even just a simple wall. Instead, I suddenly found myself plowing through the surface of a pool of water. Surprised, I snorted a breath of liquid into my lungs, and my brain managed to dig out one more scrap of panic–but then my feet found the bottom of the pool and I stood up.

  I gasped for breath as I looked around. I had landed in a cavern as shrouded in the ever-ubiquitous crystals as the tunnel above had been, although the pool of gentle, warm water was new. It was so clear as to nearly blend in with the glittering walls of gems, the boundaries of the water only obvious because my arrival had stirred it up. The pool was shallow, and the water itself was warm and refreshing.

  I knew from my moronic choking that it tasted sweet and clean, and I couldn’t help myself. I bowed my head, cupping my hands to take a sip of delicious water, feeling my body relax a little as it got some life-giving liquid. I felt like a sponge, soaking up enough to make me more than a shriveled little thing. It was a few minutes before I was finally content and began to wade out of the pool.

  Although about five feet deep where I had landed, letting me just barely touch the bottom without my head going under, the floor rapidly rose as I walked forward, forming a gradual incline. As if timed by some sort of celestial lifeguard, I had just barely sprawled out on the smooth crystal floor when a much-less exhilarated scream informed me that, one, Fallon was coming down the slide, and, two, her supply of panic apparently went much deeper than mine.

  I sat up in time to see a splash and catch sight of a drifting puff of blonde seaweed making its way towards me through the water. Half a foot shorter than I was, Fallon had to swim a little closer before she could touch the bottom of the pool, and the sight of the gorgeous girl standing up out of the water, her dress clinging to her skin and her curly hair soaked into a tail that nearly reached her butt, almost made the nightmare of the entire day worth it.

  “Hey Fal,” I greeted her casually.

  The wicked look I gave her as I was helpless to stop myself from leering at her body drew two points of color high on her cheeks–but I noticed her looking over me just as intently.

  “Have a fun ride?”

  “I want to get out of these damn caves,” Fallon groused.

  I lay back down, taking a moment to enjoy being clean, and cool, and refreshed, and as close to safe as I had been since I woke up.

  #

  Our wonderfully weird magic clothing continued to prove more resilient than either of us could've expected, quickly drying as if reluctant to retain any water. The air was also as temperate as the water had been, keeping our surprise soaks from chilling us to the bone. Unfortunately, however, there was nothing to be done for Fallon’s hair, which had been slicked into a smooth, wet mass of burnished amber, a couple shades darker than its normal dark blonde.

  Soon thereafter, we continued down the only tunnel that was available to us, leaving the slide and the pool behind us–but unlike our previous treks, this journey proved a short one, only a few minutes passing before we emerged into the fourth large, domed cavern I had seen in the past few hours. Still, despite the general shape being familiar, there was no comparing this cave to the others.

  The sheen of crystals continued to coat everything in the room, with the splintering bursts of crystals, like razor-tipped coral, appearing again on either side of the chamber, leaving only a single smooth path accessible, leading straight through the cavern. Unlike the others, this one was apparently a deadend, but that wasn’t what arrested us.

  At the far end of the clear path, the biggest obelisk of crystal I had yet seen jutted up from the floor, perfectly straight and tinged faintly blue. More opaque and solid than the glowing ones we had seen so far, the column of faceted, glass-like crystal was large enough that, had it been hollow, Fallon and I could’ve stood inside of it with room to spare. Our own images were reflected back at us, the corner of two facets splitting our images in two slightly different directions.

  At the obelisk’s base, rising to about waist-level, was the first non-crystalline surface we had seen since we had fled from the lizard-shadows above. It was a blunt, square-sided slab of stone that I could only call an altar, despite its complete lack of decorations. To all appearances, it was plain, dull, remarkable only for its geometric edges. Nonetheless, it exuded a sense of ineffable importance that surpassed anything I had ever laid eyes on.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Wherever we were, this world Fallon and I had found ourselves in was undeniably a place of magic. This altar, such an obviously holy object, made me wonder for the first time if that meant there was some sort of god in this place as well.

  Atop the altar was, at this point unsurprisingly, a small handful of crystals, in a variety of shapes and sizes. If there was a god in this world, they apparently liked minerals.

  On the edge closest to us was a pair of small, nearly-flat gems, each about the size of my palm. Perfect hexagons of glassy, translucent crystal, they didn’t glow or look magical at all, instead looking more like garish paperweights of quartz. Their facets rose slightly to meet at a defined point, but they were only perhaps an inch tall.

  Behind those two was a line of four more, these also carved in similar fashion to each other. They looked like a child’s idea of a crystal, six-sided and perfectly geometrical, complete with a little pyramidal tip. At first, they looked to be flat-bottomed, but on closer inspection, it appeared they were each slipped into a slot on the altar shaped to hold them perfectly vertical. On each face pointed towards us, there was a slightly different design, all senseless sets of lines, and each glowed with its own slightly-hued light–crimson, magenta, indigo, and cerulean.

  Finally, there were two more, significantly larger than the others and significantly more natural-looking. Uneven and lumpy, each was about two feet long, placed into much less well-fit alcoves, more like half-cylinders dug vertically into the altar’s surface, bracketing the more geometrical sets between them.

  Fallon was the first of us to find her voice. “It’s… beautiful.”

  I was surprised by the faint hint of worship in her voice, and only became more shocked when my glance spied a sheen of tears in her wide, overawed eyes.

  I turned back to the altar, and to the room at large. It was, undeniably, a beautiful place, but it was only as stunning as it was unnatural. Something about the place set my teeth on edge–it felt safe here, sure, and it felt like this was always where we were supposed to end up, but somehow, those feelings didn’t feel like they were mine.

  Before I could voice my concern, though, Fallon was moving forward, toward the altar. I followed her closely, inspecting the collection of gems with a suspicious eye. None of them moved, or changed, or did anything else to justify my suspicion.

  An urge suddenly struck my brain to reach out a hand towards the closest crystals, the flat little hexagons, but I consciously resisted it, still unsure if the instinct was a product of natural curiosity or… something else. While a thousand images of rolling boulder traps and alarm klaxons flashed through my mind, stalling my actions, Fallon reached forward with a dream-like grace, and, before I could do anything, laid her hand over the gem closest to her.

  My eyes flashed from the altar to Fal’s face to the room at large, half-expecting the whole cave to start collapsing while an off-screen orchestra struck up a riveting tune, but nothing happened. Except that, slowly, Fallon’s look of wonderment transmuted into one of puzzled confusion.

  “Fal?” I asked. “Everything okay?”

  “I… have no idea,” she told me. I relaxed a little at the words–they were frank, her worshipful tone and body language evaporating like morning dew. “You try it.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it, Dani.” Fallon never looked at me, her eyes focused on the middle distance.

  I wanted to ask more questions, but I realized that level of switching places might be even more unsettling than the compulsions I had felt moments earlier. Instead, I shrugged and reached forward, mimicking Fallon’s gesture and resting my palm lightly on the pointed tip of the gem.

  I didn’t know what to expect. Flashing lights, visible only to me. Further compulsions, trying to direct my actions. A little holographic woman saying “Help me!”

  Any of those options honestly would’ve made more sense than what actually happened.

  A square little screen just popped into existence, floating above my hand, centered over the crystal I was touching. It was faintly blue, just dark enough that the white letters on it were easily readable.

  [Danielle Starcrossed]

  [Level: 0]

  [Primary Class: Civilian]

  [Status: Lightly Injured]

  —

  [Abilities - Unavailable]

  [Equipment - Unavailable]

  [Class Pool - Unavailable]

  [Action Log]

  “What…the… fuck?” I didn’t even notice that I was whispering as I read over the words on the little screen.

  I tore my gaze away from it to look over at Fallon. Her eyes were still locked in the middle-distance, but now I understood what she was looking at, at least. Our screens must’ve been only visible to ourselves.

  Noticing my look, Fallon’s eyes darted over to me before returning to the general location of her own screen. “You can see it too, right?”

  “If you’re referring to the weird hologram stat screen, yep.”

  We compared the information on our windows quickly, finding that we had the same information across the board–even our names showed the same last name, Starcrossed.

  “So what?” I asked her. “We’re some sort of queer Romeo and Juliet reboot?”

  Fallon responded with a flat look. “Or it’s referring to us having crossed the stars to get to this world?”

  I pursed my lips, looking Fallon over, before announcing, “I like my idea better.”

  “Degenerate.”

  I winked, catching the playfulness in her tone. There hadn’t been much time for flirting, given our situation, but I was increasingly sure that there was something between us, boiling just beneath the surface.

  “What do you think the rest of these are?”

  “Only one way to find out.”