Zac watched Lucian and the other guy run off and said, "Huh. Maybe I should've told them the core was okay, now. Didn't think it'd freak them out that badly."
Turning to his audience, he said, "Trust me, I've been traveling between worlds for the last three years. I know a thing or two about it. I don't mean to bash all the time and effort you obviously put into your raft, but it just won't work. So, I'll go ahead and give you and anyone else a crash course on sailing the Ocean Between, as it's called."
He reached into his apron and pulled out a blue marker. With it, he drew some figures on the wing of his ship: a stick figure and a few uneven circles. Pointing to the stick figure, he said, "This is you or anyone else who wants to travel..." he pointed at the circles, "And these are the other worlds you wanna get to. You might think it's as simple as jumping on a raft and going wherever you want, but it isn't. For one thing, unless you're protected by a ship like mine or something like it, you're not gonna get far before it wipes you out." He drew squiggly lines around the stick figure before adding little x's where the eyes would go, emphasizing his point. He also added a little rocket ship, like what you would see in a cartoon, and drew a little checkmark next to it.
"Secondly," he continued as he drew a circle around each of the worlds, "The universe doesn't really like it when worlds mingle, so each one is isolated from all the others. In order to get to a world, you need to know the route to it and a certain condition has to be met for the barrier around the world to disappear." He suddenly paused as something occurred to him and a thoughtful look crossed his face. Speaking of which, why was I able to land here? Does that mean this world is... He shook his head, pushing the though from his mind. He would deal with that problem if and when he had to.
He drew arrows between each world as he continued, "That said, you're both right. There's another way to a different world that bypasses the barrier and the need for a route. If you can find or make an opening into these 'corridors,' then you can go wherever you want, no problem. The issue with that is that it's much, much, much more dangerous than using a ship, which is why I rely on Sigrid to get me where I need to go. That, and I don't know how to make one of these openings. And I'm not equipped to handle that kind of journey."
He pointed his marker at his audience and said, "I don't know about those of you who weren't born here, but your friend either wound up lost at sea or they stumbled through one of these openings." He thought about adding that there was no way of knowing where the guy's friend ended up or if they even made it through safely, but, besides feeling that he had hammered that point home effectively enough, a nagging thought kept pushing into his mind. He capped his marker and asked, "That said, I have something very important to ask you all. Have you or any of your friends noticed anything odd? Other than me crash-landing, I mean. Feelings, strange dreams, odd figures? Particularly in the shadows?"
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