B - 8 (no rope majority)
C - 4
D - 1
***
Chapter 6.15: A Void Full of Balls
"Hm." Having made up your mind, you step closer to the rift. Someone grabs your arm - it was Sekhenun.
"What do you think you're doing, Ean?"
"Oh, nothing, just checking out the other side."
She barks a short, sharp laugh. "You really are insane. The only thing we know about the other side is that it is full of the Terasphagos, and that's really all we need to know. We'll find a way to close this eventually."
"Well, if it's full of those things, I'll just clear them out. It'll be good exercise."
"I'm telling you, don't go in there. Don't -"
You don't hear the rest of Sekhenun's plea, as you jump into the hole. It might be insane, but if it afforded you a way to close the rift by finding the two Vajra pieces, you'd do it. Sure, it's not like you know if those two pieces were nearby beyond the rift, or if Zeus was still holding on to them, or if there was anything beyond except endless waves of Terasphagos - the idea became more and more crazy as you thought about it, but you were already through, and your feet touch air.
At the same instant, a swarm of Terasphagos assault you from all sides before you've even gotten a chance to get your bearings. In one hand you whip your sword through the mass of slavering claws and teeth that surrounds you, in the other you throw bolts of brilliant blue lightning that immolates any Terasphagos it hits. Even so, their attack does not let up - here and there, they manage to break through your defenses and draw blood for their efforts. As you fight on, you notice something strange.
Firstly, you had thought the things attacking you were just bird-forms as they came from all directions, but it was not so - there were plenty of other types, including some things you have not seen back on your side of the rift before, moving effortlessly in all directions as if swimming through the air itself.
Secondly, your feet still had not touched ground.
It was impossible to fight properly while floating in nothing. With a shout, you exert a telekinetic burst that shoves away the Terasphagos surrounding you before they overwhelm your defenses. You notice that there is a featureless, white expanse stretching out beneath you, and you push yourself with your telekinesis in that direction. You land, skidding across the white ground. As you look up, you notice that the Terasphagos are circling in the air around the rift, but not coming after you. You take the chance to quickly survey your surroundings. You could feel that the miasma was present here, but it was nowhere near as thick as it was on your side. Visibility was mostly unimpeded. In the distance, there were many round, white spheres floating in the blood-red, cloudless sky. It was an ugly land. There was no sign of the other two pieces of Vajra, nor could you see any sign of any one else. Even Ares would have been a welcome sight here. The ground you were standing on was perfectly smooth and white, similar to the spheres in the distance. It was unmarked and stretched out almost as far as your eye could see, though there appeared to be a slight curve to the landscape.
You gulp. If that was the case...
At that moment, the land rises all around you, bulging and contorting into familiar shapes. The white skin of the land shapes itself, and as the skin melts away, fully-formed Terasphagos bud from the ground, snarling and shrieking. As you prepare to do battle, the ground suddenly shifts under your feet, and you find yourself falling. Down and up had no more meaning for you, as countless Terasphagos slammed into you, pushing you away from what you now knew to be a sphere that you had landed on. As you flew further and further away from the sphere, more of it came into view. There were more of these spheres all over this empty void, countless more, scattered in whatever direction you looked. You notice that the spheres were gathered near tiny little seams like the one you had entered from. Most of the seams appeared only transiently, forming and dissolving in the fabric of the void before the spheres could send any through, but on occasion, some developed into cracks, and it was towards these that the spheres gravitated. Out of the corner of your eye, a massive sphere, far bigger than the one you had been on, reaches a seam, and it begins to force its way through, creating a terrifying shriek as the red void cracked open to let it pass.
A low grumbling turns your attention back to the closest sphere, the one right in front of you. As you watch on, in horror, the featureless sphere gains features. A nose. A mouth. Two eyes. It was a face you had seen in the copper mirrors of your palace everyday - yours. The sphere morphed into a gigantic, white fascimile of your own head, perfectly identical in all ways except for its sheer size. The mouth cracked open, grinning, revealing nothing but darkness within. The skin bubbles again, as more and more Terasphagos begin appearing from it. As the lips move up and down, you realize it is trying to say something... it is trying to greet you. You grit your teeth. You had not felt it touch your mind - in fact it has no mental presence you can sense. How did it know your language? The Terasphagos that had pushed you away now surrounded you docilely, as if awaiting further orders.
***
A. The sphere has moved itself to be between you and the rift. You cannot sense the other two pieces of Vajra anywhere here - they might have been eaten, or they might be somewhere else. There is no other path you want to take - you charge the sphere, fighting to get back to your own world.
B. Another seam had just formed behind you. It would be suicidal to fight through endless waves of Terasphagos - you were already bloody and bruised just from the initial attack, and the sphere itself might have other powers that it has not shown yet. Getting ripped to pieces here would serve no purpose. You jump through the seam before it disappears, no matter where it leads you.
C. You attempt sphere diplomacy.
