It was a bright, and sunny day... birds were singing, the grass was a verdant green, and the townsfolk were going about their work. The cliche could have been worse - it could have been a dark and stormy night, at the windmill on the outskirts of town. Although from Pryxan's point of view, the windmill would have been less hassle.
It started as it always did: a disembodied breeze began to blow in the otherwise still air. Stray leaves began to swirl, and the whistle of the wind became a low hum. An observant passerby might have noticed one of the town's strays suddenly arch its back in fear, before streaking down the nearest alleyway. The wind picked up speed, and the leaves began to swirl into the middle of the street, lazily circling round in a slow eddy. And then, the first spark lanced out of the air.
The first few random jumps of energy went unnoticed. But lightning arcing out of thin air will draw attention to itself no matter how small it is. And this lightning did not stay small. It intensified, growing in size and frequency, shifting in colour from pure white to lilac. Finally, at the zenith of the spherical storm of energy, a small orb of light began to grow, deep purple, completely opaque, giving no clue as to what it contained. The lightning was now lancing out sporadically, earthing into the cobblestones, the gutters, the walls of the buildings - anything within reach.
By now, all semblance of normalcy had long since left the town centre. Those that had not run in fear stood back from this clearly magical phenomenon, chilled to the bone by the raw magical power on display, yet at the same time fascinated, as all men are fascinated by the forbidden, no matter how much they despise it - curiosity being the strong motive force behind most foolhardy steps towards danger.
Finally, the dark sphere paled, becoming translucent, then transparent, and finally dissipating along with the sparking energy that had birthed it. The figure inside slowly lowered to the ground, straightening at its feet touched the ground. A long mane of silver hair fell down, sweeping round to partially obscure the legs - legs which were clearly not that of a human. Rather than toes, padded paws held the figure's weight, legs double-jointed like those of a cat. Above the legs, a white tunic covered the thin body, held in place by a thin gold cord around the waist. Above the waist, a pair of hands was now brushing down the flowing silver mane that draped around the figure's shoulders like a cloak, the arms themselves lost in the flowing hair that came from the figure's lean, wrinkled face. And the face.... as if everything up till this point had not been enough, the face of the figure was more lion than human, the silver mane radiating out from the leonine features to flow down the creature's body. Brushing the last few strands of hair into place, Pryxan looked up and took a deep breath.
"Aaaaaah..." he breathed, eyes closed as he drank in the surroundings. Yes, this was a magical world. The feeling was so strong as to be palpable. And it was not the cloistered, restricted magic of some worlds he'd visited - no, this magic was chaotic, free - just the way he liked it. Although there seemed to be a marked absence of it in his immediate area. Odd. With magic this unrestrained, it usually permeated every crevice. But he was certain he could feel... gaps. As if there were places that magic simply didn't exist. How mysterious. Pryxan smiled to himself. He liked mystery. This was why he never tired of travelling - there was always something in each world that he'd never encountered before. A new secret to find. A new riddle to solve. A new door to unlock. He had a feeling he was going to enjoy this place.
"Hmmm" Pryxan mused, almost purring in his contentment. Looking out at the stunned crowd before him for the first time, he gave a warm smile, waving genially. He was used to awkward welcomes. The jump between planes was a feat in itself - arriving in an unsettled area when you didn't even know where you were going was not a guaranteed occurrence. Pryxan found it best to just act like nothing was out of place. "So then" he said warmly, rubbing his hands to together. "Where am I, exactly? I mean, what country? What continent?" He looked around the assembled crowd expectantly. It took a few seconds of silence for Pryxan to remember what he'd forgotten. "Confound it" he said, snapping his fingers in an expression of mild exhasperation. "I forget to do this every time..." Reaching out one claw-tipped hand, Pryxan extended his first two fingers towards the nearest bystander. A thin white chord of magical energy streaked out, zig-zagging across the air like a firefly, before anchoring in the unfortunate person's forehead. A brief touch was all that was needed - no sooner had the streamer of colour connected than Pryxan's mind duplicated every linguistic pattern and piece of knowledge available to it. Now completely fluent in Common (Why were the main languages always called Common?) Pryxan tried again.
"Right, sorry about that - I always forget to pick up the local languages when I do a plane jump. So, asking again - where am I exactly?"
