A Place like Home: Barren, Empty, but White.

[Vel'Koz]

"This... This world..."

Vel'Koz squinted under the brightness of the Nexus, struggling to adjust. He looked around at the bare plains surrounding him, attempting to make sense of the lack of environment, especially since the entire thing is white.

"That creature was right, this is certainly not Runeterra... The energy shifts and coalesces in various different capacities. The gravity feels correct... But odd..." Vel'Koz noted, letting his left tentacle slowly move down and touch the blank ground beneath him. He quickly recoiled it as contact was made, noting the lack of texture in this barren landscape. "Hmm... Odd..."

Turning around to look at the structure behind him, the Fountain of Infinity, spewing crystalline water. As useful as water may be for other subjects, this was not the substance that the child had showed him earlier, so he turned back around and looked upon the distance. Focusing his eye, he looked upon the portals in the distance, noting them for further evaluation.

It then occurred to Vel'Koz to consider what he'd actually been told by the omnipotent subject. A colourful substance capable of fulfilling the wishes and desires of those who hold it. Omnilium. He first began experimenting with improvements to himself and other upgrades he could produce. His reserves were found to be too low.
Next, he attempted creating a portal to the Void, but his attempt fizzled out practically before he started. Realising his disconnect to the Void here, he decides to open a portal to a nearby area but that also quickly fizzles out.

"It seems I will require more Omnilium if I am to continue my experimentation in this category."

After making sense of his previous results, he attempted summoning, as considered to be an appropriate next step. Floating down to the ground and coiling his tendrils around in a circle, he rested on the ground, his larger eye closing while his other three eyes looked around.

Vel'Koz, as can be imagined, is not a creature that frequently uses transportation to move. But without frequent use of portals and a connection to his home, The Void, he would have to require other methods of movement if he is to travel efficiently. Without much inspiration for suitable transport, he looked upon the mindless creatures that inhabit his home plane alongside him.

And as such, after 7 minutes, a bestial Xer'Sai was born from his own mind. A creature of the Void. A snarling beast of a hunter standing at 9 foot tall on its hind legs, adorned with naturally-produced Void Crystals in which it stores its boundless energy. A horrifying monstrosity, more so than any animal, best suited to the spawnless sands of The Void or a desert, but still capable of carrying him quicker than he himself would normally move.

He quickly mounted the crystalline back of the creature, comfortably wrapping his tentacles around the creatures arms and shoulders, slotting his body behind the creature's head.
"Growl at my research subjects and I will be forced to euthanize you, Xer'Sai."
The creature snarled in response and set off towards the Western portal.

[Vel'Koz]

Vel'Koz had stood before the portal for some time now, scanning it with his violet spotlight while his Xer'Sai mount lay to the side, clawing and gnawing at the strange ground. He had realised his ability to use Void energy had been... erased, in some form. Not in the sense that it was taken, but... It had just disappeared. Vel'Koz' manipulation of such energy had left upon disconnect with the Void itself but Omnilium is an unsurprisingly useful substance, as the god-child-creature had explained, in the sense that he was able to replenish his reserves by calling upon it using Omnilium. The substance turns out to be stranger and stranger as its uses expand, limited only by Vel'Koz' imagination.
Unfortunately, a Voidborn instrument, built for learning and destruction, has little in the way of creativity when it comes to using other-worldly substances, so while the god-child's speech held to be true, it was up to the Voidborn to figure out how to use the potent substance.

It was at this moment Vel'Koz' truly understood his own predicament: Trapped, not just in another plane or realm or planet, but in an entirely different universe where his Void, his home, was a concept left to the fruitful imagination of the odd creatures of blood and flesh he had witnessed steer away from him as they entered or exited the portal.

"Fearful... It seems that my presence causes them... Distress."

He debated whether or not to enter the portal, unsure of what laid on the other side, and it seemed that Vel'Koz wasn't going to gain any help from the various roamers and travellers that did their best to avoid coming within ten feet of his appendages, much less meet the gaze of any eye he possesses.
He stopped scanning the portal and turned to a passing horse-pulled caravan, moving Northwards around 10 meters away. The head of the carriage and possible merchant was adorned with royal purple and gold clothing while the four caravan guards wore thinner, white clothes with choice pieces of leather armour and blades of a low-angle curvature.
"What else can I discover?" Vel'Koz spoke to himself with a low, intelligible grumble, his eye growing brighter until a wide ray of purple light enveloped the caravan and its guards, causing them to recoil in shock and cover their eyes.
Their yelling fell on deaf ears as Vel'Koz scanned them for their worth, organising his thoughts neatly as more information beamed to him.

"Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Mammalia, Thera, Eutheria, Primates, Anthropoidea, Homindae, Homo..."
"... Homo-Sapiens...

Vel'Koz ended his scan, only to be met by angry homo-sapiens brandishing the odd blades of extensive curvature previously noted. They yelled in medium-pitch, seemingly furious, raising their swords to the Voidborn. Their screeches were annoying and Vel'Koz chose to block them out, running another scan on the ones fast-approaching him.

"Hmm... A spike in adrenal gland activ-"

A clang rang out as a sword connected with Vel'Koz' carapace, the blade scraping his exoskeleton as it slid off. Vel'Koz quickly lashed a tentacle at the attacker, knocking them up and away. While the homo-sapien flew through the air, Vel'Koz' eye grew hotter and brighter, charging with Void Energy until a burst of plasma emitted from his central eye, flying outward at speed. As the culprit landed between two other humans, the plasma bolt hit, searing and burning the flesh of the guard, causing her to scream in agony. The bolt split, hitting the two beside the female human, the assault of plasma energy striking into their sides and melting holes in their central organ compartment, exposing the creature's endoskeletons. They screamed low-pitch wails and fell to the ground, clutching their sides as their blood weakly leaked from their almost-entirely cauterised flesh.

The Eye looked at the scene surrounding him and noted that the caravan, remaining guards, merchant and the entire surrounding populace had fled from Vel'Koz during the examination, for some reason. He chalked it up to the previous observation of distress and turned back to the three subjects. One them had already perished, so two subjects and tapped the male's internal organs, causing him to weakly cry out in pain. He noted the pitch and then looked at the female and noted her third-degree burns. He examined the female to find a second-degree burn and, upon success, tapped it, causing her to cry out in pain in a different pitch. He noted this as well, taking a moment to process this information.

"It seems that genders are more easily discerned by the pitch of their cries."

He left the near-deceased subjects to their infuriating wailing and approached his bestial Voidborn mount and adorned it with his own exoskeleton, taking off to the next portal.

[Vel'Koz]

After Vel'Koz' previous display at the other portal, humans were avoiding him now more so than before, oddly enough. Seems he definitely would not be able to rely on them for information. His Xei'Sai lay curled up on the ground near him in slumber while he remained still in place, scanning the second portal. It was functionally identical to the other portal previously scanned but emanated a different variation in the performance of the rift energy, particularly based on electromagnetic oscillations, which acted in a more heated manner, moving quicker but not sharper. This suggested a hotter environment on the other side when compared separately to both the ambient temperature of the nexus and the behaviour of the previous portal.

"Fascinating. The humans here have mastered the concept of rift management, creating unending passages into other... Realms.
"Unless the god-child made them..."

Vel'Koz chuckled lowly. "Hmm hmm hmm hmm..."

The Voidborn took another look around at the Nexus, looking upon its travellers, and noted the lack of structures in the entire environment, apart from the Fountain itself. Considering the nature of the portals, the variety of exotic travellers and the inherent lack of permanence apart from a central component, it was obvious that this place was not a place, but a path to other places in particular. There would not be much else for Vel'Koz to gaze upon if he stayed in this realm, other than the monotonous amounts of humans and other animals to scan.

He would have to travel somewhere.