Arrival

[Amaterasu]

"Well..." Amaterasu started, then didn't continue. She needed a moment to think this over. Then she just smiled. "Actually, no. I believe that one of the friends I have brought along is better suited to explain this. Urist?"

The dwarf blinked, but stepped forward. He stroked down along the full length of his beard as he eyed the grinning figure atop his throne, the black orb strangely out of place in such a white, golden and otherwise light-colored world, and opened his mouth a few times only to close it again without saying a word. "Ah... me name's Urist McGlodsson, an' me da' is Glod McJerrowsson... 'e engraved an image into tha walls o' Dwarfholm, 'e did. An' there was this thing..." He thought a moment, to find words for what he wanted to say. "Ehh, we can't see tha summits o' the highest mountains, because o' the clouds. Bu' me da' engraved a rip inta the stone, aye? 'e said tha' the mountains reach so high up tha' they cut open tha... tha bubble tha's all around the Fields."

One did not need to be an omniscient deity to see that the dwarf was struggling with this. "'e got called a madman fer it, he did. Woulda been fine if 'e 'adn't insisted tha' the image was real... bu' 'e's never seen tha summits so 'e had no way o' knowing, an' yet 'e went stubborn like granite. So tha dwarves think 'e's a crackpot, now. Ain't colorin' off well on me either." He looked back to Amaterasu and the others, then back at Omni. "Ama... she's seen somethin', ah think. In the carvin'."

"That would be about right", admitted the Kami. "I did not know what we would encounter, but we did not undertake the journey solely to prove Urist's father to have been right all along. I thought that there may be... perhaps an exit out of the Omniverse, or the revelation of what lies beyond the verses. If they are like nine bubbles hung in space, what would be beyond them?" It was only the partial truth, but she was waiting for her turn. Right now it was Urist's.

"Aye... an' ah'm thankful ta all o' you", Urist said towards Amaterasu, Oki and Fiara. Then he faced Omni yet again and fidgeted. His next words were spoken with a greater amount of nervousness than he'd already shown so far. "Bu' even if ah've got three witnesses now, it ain't like me fellow dwarves couldn' jes' say tha' they're lyin' fer me, their friend. So, eh, if ah may be so bold... could ah ask ye fer a favor? Some... some sorta proof tha' ye've put a portal up there, tha' ah can show to Dwarfholm?"