Chapter 23: Thank you for the Info Dump
Elise set down her spoon gently and dabbed at the corner of her lips with a cloth napkin, her expression turning more thoughtful than usual. The flickering candlelight danced softly across her face, casting shadows beneath her lashes.
"All right," she said after a moment. "Let's start with the Abyss."
Inigo leaned in slightly, resting his elbows on the table. This wasn't just curiosity anymore—this was research. A place called the Abyss didn't sound like somewhere you could ignore.
"The Abyss is... complicated," Elise began. "To put it simply, it's a separate plane of existence. A completely different world, layered beneath our own. Not underground—deeper than that. Dimensional."
"Like another realm," Inigo said, recalling certain game mechanics from his old world.
"Exactly. But it's not stable. The Abyss shifts, changes. It's like an ocean of floating landmasses, broken architecture, and dark skies that never brighten. Magic is wild there. Gravity, time, even space—it bends differently."
Inigo frowned. "So it's not just another continent. It's truly another world."
Elise nodded. "That's why when the Demon Race first emerged from the Abyss... we weren't ready."
"Wait. So the demons came from there?"
"Yes. Over five hundred years ago, something happened in the boundary between our world and theirs. A massive rift opened—so wide that it swallowed part of the kingdom of Vareth whole. From it, the demons poured out—beings shaped by the Abyss, cruel and intelligent, wielding magic unlike anything seen in Eldrath."
Inigo's brows furrowed. "What kind of magic?"