“Huh?” I said stupidly.

  I looked down, seeing the halfling. He was dressed in some kind of casual clothing. Pants, jacket, shirt. I wasn’t sure if it was cotton, wool or something else. What it was was very colorful. He had a wild mop of black hair, pointed ears, large eyes, a big nose and wide grin.

  “You just look like one of those new folks. Must be from that new planet Terra. Am I right? It opened to Crossroads today.”

  “Uhm.. yeah, I guess so.”

  Took me a bit to understand what the guy was saying. First, he was speaking fast and had a strange accent. Second was that it took me a bit to understand that he was speaking English, or really the System Standard, the universal language that we’d been told by Notifications was spoken by everyone in the Multiverse. Third was that he had called Earth by its multiversal name of Terra.

  All worlds had a different name but apparently they all translated to Earth. My world was called Terra and I was a Terran.

  “Good that you met me,” the halfling said.

  “And why is that?”

  “Why because there are some nefarious people in the Crossroads and they would take advantage of a naive young newcomer like yourself.”

  I had to wonder if that line really worked on people. It probably did or the guy wouldn’t be trying. Felt bad for the folks that didn’t realize this halfling was one of those he was warning me about.

  “I think I’m good,” starting to walk past him.

  “Hey now, hold on,” the halfling said, catching up to me. “This is obviously your first time in the Crossroads. Do you even know where to go?”

  I thought about that for a second. Did I? I glanced up at my HUD. It was something the System had given us. I’d gotten used to it. This guy would know I was a Level 100 Adventurer and would have a compound assigned to me. He would figure that would be my first destination since the System Notification said there was a Guide assigned to me.

  So he had a very short window in order to try to scam some credits off me.

  The System used Credits, but had informed us that the Multiversal Nexus, apparently nicknamed Crossroads, used Multiverse Points. A slightly different currency. But out of Crossroads, every planet in the System used Credits.

  “I think I’m good,” I told the guy, giving him the look.

  He raised his hands.

  “Hey now, no problem, hope you don’t get lost. If you ever need anything, come find ol’ Newt. I’ll be in this area,” he said walking away.

  I used Evaluate on him as he walked away. He’d probably used it on me. Evaluate was a System-Granted Skill, meaning it was something everyone that went through, survived, the Integration was given. It was a simple Skill that told me how strong something was when compared to me and gave me basic information like name and race.

  NEWTON GRACEBERRY, HOBNITAN HALFLING

  Hobnit had to be the guy’s home planet. No information on Faction, but that was understandable. He might not have one or it could be hidden. Evaluate gave me the feeling that he was a lot weaker than me. Which was why he had so quickly walked away. Probably had some kind of Mental Influence Essence set and found out it didn’t work on me but would on most Level 100. I was glad that one of my Support Essence was Resistance.

  The guy had to be a Guest of an Adventurer, since he was under Level 100. That was the only way a non-Adventurer could get to Crossroads, as a Guest of an Adventurer. As a low Ranked Adventurer first time in the Nexus, I would only have two available Guests. I already knew who they would be, but we had all decided to not bring them with me for the first trip.

  Just in case things didn’t work out the way we hoped.

  I kept walking down the street, amazed by the sights, trying hard not to gawk but failing miserably. Thankfully no one seemed to notice. First time visitors were probably pretty common.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The people were as varied as the buildings. Elves, dwarves, more halflings, what I thought were gnomes, minotaurs, centaurs, so many kinds of beastfolk, even wilder beings. And some humans. Not Terrans but from other planets. Apparently humans were a fairly dominant lifeform. High reproductive rates, average lifespans. We tended to spread out across the multiverse.

  They moved in and out of the various buildings. Of course no one carried anything since another thing granted by the System was our Spatial Storage. I assumed all the buildings were merchant shops. They just had that feel.

  I reached a four-way intersection that had an obelisk in the middle, watching a party of five touch the obelisk and disappear. Three lion-men, an elf and a gnome. The obelisk was some kind of portal apparently. The streets were made of a common yellow cobblestone like material. Looking down the other streets, I saw more stores like the first street. As varied as possible.

  The obelisk was gray and looked kind of like the old Washington Monument, except with words carved into the side. They were in System Standard, so I could read them.

  WELCOME TO THE MULTIVERSAL NEXUS

  THIS PORTAL STONE CONNECTS TO ALL FOUR QUADRANTS AND THE INFINITE TOWER. TOUCH THE STONE AND PICK YOUR DESTINATION.

  The Obelisk said to touch it, so I did, laying my palm on the stone’s surface.

  WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO:

  ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICT

  FACTION COMPOUNDS

  ARENA AND TRAINING

  INFINITE TOWER HUB

  I thought of the Faction Compounds and felt myself fading away.

  ***

  And then I was somewhere else, standing in front of another obelisk. It had the same writing as the other. I turned and looked around, expecting to see four streets like the Market District, with a wide variety of homes and such down the streets.

  But this was not that.

  There were streets, but they were more meandering and with large stone blocks forming the streets. Grass and trees were spread out, leaving little areas to stop and rest while walking. It was like an old style neighborhood. The paths did spread out in four directions from the obelisk.

  I could see some of the compounds. Each had their own wall that divided it from the open area. There was space between them. Some closer than others. Looking past, I could see other compounds up the side of hills, along the shore of a lake in the distance. Those appeared to be much larger and fancier.

  Every place was different, just like the shops. I saw some mushroom caps with walls made out of vines. Large trees towering over their walls. Stone walls with castles beyond. A mountain surrounded by a gorge with a single bridge.

  I turned a circle, wondering where I was supposed to go. And in answer, I got another Notification. The System was a pain in the ass sometimes, and it had destroyed my world, but it could be very helpful.

  When it wanted to be.

  WELCOME TO THE FACTION COMPOUNDS OF THE MULTIVERSAL NEXUS. EACH FACTION LED BY AN ADVENTURER HAS A COMPOUND. ALL COMPOUNDS START AT RANK ONE AND CAN BE UPGRADED WITH USE OF MULTIVERSAL POINTS GAINED THROUGH THE INFINITE TOWERS.

  A MAP MARKER HAS BEEN ADDED TO YOUR SYSTEM GRANTED MAP INTERFACE. ONCE YOU HAVE CLAIMED YOUR COMPOUND YOU CAN START SPENDING MULTIVERSAL POINTS TO UPGRADE THE COMPOUND. ONCE YOU HAVE CLAIMED YOUR COMPOUND YOU CAN CONNECT IT TO THE MULTIVERSAL NEXUS OBELISK PORTAL NETWORK.

  I pulled up my mental map. There wasn’t much shown, just the obelisk and the immediate area. Most was covered in the ‘fog of war’. I saw the little dot up in the upper right which was supposed to be my compound. Moving around the obelisk, I started walking that way.

  It didn’t take as long as I thought it would. From the map and the scale, it looked like my place was about three miles or more away. Not that long a walk for me at my Level, but should have still taken longer than the five minutes.

  But then it appeared that the Nexus was in some kind of other dimensional place, since the Compounds area wasn’t anywhere near the Market District. So yeah, the System was messing with distances.

  I stopped where the map icon told me to and saw nothing much. There were trees on either side. Thick and heavy pines, reminding me of the woods outside of Solace. Probably done on purpose. I wasn’t sure what to expect but had thought there would be some basic buildings and walls. But nope. Nothing. Just a hovering door-sized green portal.

  This door didn’t give off any feeling like normal ones did. Most portals had a weird feel that I’d taken to associating with travel, moving from one place to another. It was a strange unconnectedness. This portal had nothing like that.

  I shrugged and walked forward. The map said this was where I should be, so I figured the portal would go to my compound.

  For the second time in about an hour, I stepped into a portal.