The loud noise of sirens could be heard as red lights flashed all across the bridge of the LKS [i]Genghis[/i], the Khan-class dreadnought that was the flagship of the Lanist Khaganate's Great Expansion Fleet. Yuri sat in the bridge close to the Captain's chair, and he could see the walls of the wormhole tunnel pulsate out of the bridge's windows as the wormhole generator failed to compensate for the strange enviromental conditions of whatever was inside of the wormhole or was outside of the wormhole's walls, whatever that might be. Wormhole travel had presented a solution to the whole "space is extremely large" problem that presented itself to the Lanist Khaganate and other burgeoning space nations, but the Khaganate's scientists had never been able to solve the issue that the enviroment inside the wormhole tunnel as well as outside of it could drastically influence the travelling experience of anyone who wished to use one. Wormholes became dangerous to use with large ships and fleets, so it was not a surprise for Yuri that something like this would happen. The strange enviromental conditions inside the wormholes combined with the fact that they were not completely stablized lead to one interesting thing though: Interdimensional travel. The Khaganate soon became able to travel to alternate realities, albeit it happened accidentally and was not really controllable. Yuri was soon rudely awoken out of his long drawn-out chain of thoughts by a lightning bolt that streaked across nearly the entire wormhole, followed by the [i]Genghis[/i] slowly turning sideways, unleashing a horrible creaking sound as if metal was scraping over metal and parts of the ship were being broken off. Yuri could see lights and screens flickering as entire systems started failing while the men and women ran around the bridge, unable to do anything. The gravity generators failed and people were sent flying while trying to run. Then, the wormhole generator that had to constantly endure the stress of the journey gave away, and the wormhole tunnel collapsed, sending the ships of the Lanist Khaganate's Great Expansion Fleet into the unknown... ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ [i]Beep beep beep[/i] was the sound both Yuri and many of the crewmembers of the bridge would first hear when they were woken up by it. The irritating beeping luckily didn't alarm them of any life support system failures or other catastrophic failures, but was merely a proximity alarm warning the captain, Yuri, and the bridge crew of an approaching asteroid field. The captain immediately started barking orders, and people ran around the bridge again, trying to find their designated seats they had fallen our floated out off. Eventually, the danger was averted, and to Yuri's relief, the fleet followed the flagship like baby ducks following their mother. "Check the damage please Captain." the Khan said, and the captain obeyed immediately, running several damage control programs. The captain answered "structural damage is limited, Sir, although our ship has taken some damage to the stern left main thruster when another ship rammed us during the wormhole jump, but repair robots are on the scene at the moment. Also.." The captain paused for a moment, not quite sure how to tell his Khan the news. "VIPs 45 to 47 have dissapeared." Yuri sighed. They had arrived in a completely unknown universe, again. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Drops of rain slowly started to fall from the sky on the stone wall the stranger was sitting on. It was a very old wall, not able to properly support the stranger's weight as it had been eroded over the years by the winds and rain that were common in that area of the world. The man heard the slow rustling of leaves as the storm began to pick up. He continued walking, seeing that he had to go inside to seek shelter from the coming storm. He had heard of a village that was supposed to be half an hour away. After 10 minutes of walking, he came across a crossroads. He ignored the sign, as the stranger knew exactly where he had to go. He pulled the hood of his cloak over his head as the rain began to pick up and kept on walking. The stranger had been a strange sight in the remote villages of the Wul Empire. Humans did exist in the world, but were a rare sight in the most western reaches of the Singular Continent. Humans, as it was well known, came from the south, and had only slowly spread to the rest of the world. The stranger passed a farm, and the farmer's wife and child that had been working the land ran away the moment they saw him. Unlike humans, the Wul were only small, with an average length of 4 feet. They had four arms, but could not best a human in combat despite having more limbs. The stranger was not there to burn down or loot their home like the bandits that were often humans in this part of the world, and so he continued on, unyielding. After exactly half an hour after he had left from his break spot, he arrived at his destination, an inn. He entered the large, wooden two-storey building and walked towards the bar. The Wul bartender looked up at the stranger, asking him "What do you want?". The stranger looked back, and under the man's cowl the Wul could see a stern face with hair white as bone and eyes as grey as steel staring back at him.