I, uh, don't know what you're talking about. This is all perfectly normal. No tears in the fabric of reality or anything here, nope. Just, uh, this curtain which-
Look, Mr. Batig, as a custodian of this plane of being, it is my job to fix things like this. You are very much in trouble, but that doesn't mean that my intervention is bad for you. On the contrary, I am set up to turn a trouble of your well being in the presence of highly unstable magical energies to merely a bureaucratic imposition that can be calmly discussed as gentlemen.
...I don't much like bureaucracy.
And I don't much like gaping cuts into the void. The curtain is pretty much see-through, you know, and that's without the fact that I could peer through it on the astral layer. Now would you please, Mr. Batig, be so kind as to let me patch that up before it gets more out of hand?
Look, this is perfectly under control, mostly, and I was going to sew it back up in a few minutes. I don't really trust you. . .whoever you are messing with it. This thing is very carefully crafted and relies on a few theories that I put together myself, so its not really in the normal magical form, you see, and-
Then would you just close it now, or attempt to, if you were planning on doing so anyway?
Sure, fine, its even easier to do than the last one since I left more of the border on this one intact. I'm only doing it because you asked nicely.
. . .last one. Dear God, there's more of these out there? Have you been leaving a trail of these that I somehow missed?
No, no, of course not, I'm not stupid.
. . .
I'm not! I fixed each one up before I moved on. Wouldn't do to be leaving things open.
You missed a spot there. A gap under your left hand.
Oh, so I did. Fancy that.
Perhaps you missed other spots on the previous rifts?
Hah, I double check these. Also, it wouldn't matter if I did, they self-seal as time goes on.
Yes, Mr. Batig, but only if they are not left to fester. If they were, say just a bit open and some bit of void got caught in the opening it would grow and
Look, I was careful, Put a whole lot of stitches in them, like I'm doing now, and then I covered them, like I am about to, with some of this here paste. It's made of tree blood.
You mean sap.
No, tree blood. Some wizards prefer to call it magical phlegm.
Which doesn't come from trees, it is produced from magical auras of sentient lifeforms, which by the way makes it illegal to harvest in most countries on this planet.
Only one type of it, trust me, this is my life's research.
Very well, we will go over this later, once you have stitched up that tear in the fabric of-
THERE IT IS!
What? Beg pardon? There wh- WHY WOULD YOU STICK YOUR ARM THROUGH!
Just a little closer, come on now. . .
Mr. Batig, please tell me why you would be so insane as to have your arm through that tear in reality. That is a very quick way to get yourself killed, and me along with you, so if you would please PLEASE remove it from the portal-
GOT IT!
Got what, exactly? Is that some sort of twig, some form of void-creation? Put it back, sir!
No. No no no, this is just a wand of mine. See, I sort of dropped it out there a year or so ago on accident, so naturally I couldn't just leave it floating out there, and I had to reverse engineer the way to open these things in the first place, which was really quite diff-
Mr. Batig, you are telling me you have been opening these rifts because you dropped a small stick and wanted it back?
Well, yes? Its a rather nice stick, don't you think?
. . .I fail to see its charm. Why not just get another one instead of mucking with the cosmic balance of the universe?
Well, uh, that would have taken quite a bit of time and effort, plus I don't generally like the local yew suppliers that much. . .
Would it have taken, lets say, a year worth of study and travel time, plus another year of questioning and detainment by the council of magic?
. . .well. . .
Because you are most certainly getting written up for this.
Aww, c'mon, this was mostly harmless. Those chickens will be fine in a few generations.
The town of Klel's chicken population is one of the least worrying points about your whole endeavor.
The last time something like this happened, caused by not less than a fallen demigod, not some country wizard, it managed to cause a countrywide panic and minor entropic invasion. Deaths on the scale of thousands.
Oh, really? That sounds horrible.
Quite.
So, uh, the entropy things, they came through portals like this?
Yes, Mr. Batig, they did.
Would they happen to be kind of blueish, but more colored checkered than feeling like cherry?
. . .That is a fairly accurate description, yes. Have you perhaps heard of them before?
No, not really, but I think one just winked at me.
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