Chapter 4: The Landscape, and Strange Light-4
The man gestured downwards. "Look carefully, because this is where your new life shall begin!"
The group looked down, a strange feeling that they shouldn't challenge this magic-wielding stranger all that stopped some like the large tiefling from yelling at him to "Fuck off and don't tell me what to do!"
The foxkin observed the ground below.
It was a coastline, land against the sea, with the land almost entirely towering above the sea in a long cliff that fused with a mountain towering over the water, the cliffs about even with their position.
Directly below them was a mountain, which stuck out as a cliff over the ocean. It leaned out over the water, like a rock ceiling above the water below. A crevasse led from a soft white sand beach up a small river feeding into the ocean to eventually draw even with the mountains foot, a natural path to the sea. The small river originated from a lake near the mountain's peak, the river bending halfway down to circle the mountain while continuing its way down to go into the ocean when originally it was going down the opposite direction.
The mountain led down into the edge of a flat land, a plains that led to a city of white stone built on a lakeside of a large lake as wide as the mountain itself as seen from above!
'We musy be quite high up to see so far... so that city has the lake and cliffs of stone from the lake as a natural defense, makes the front the only part reachable easily from land. Good, defensible... sea is close enough to get to and fish, I can see a dock down on the white beach, and some boats in the water, they use the crevasse in the cliff as a path, walking alongside the small river I would guess.'
His mind kept working as he looked to the other side of the crevasse from the mountain.
A forest began past that, growing on the land and leading right up to that cliff that continued into the distance, while dark red-purple clouds shrouded the distance in that direction.
A shudder worked down his spine as he looked at those malevolent red-purple clouds. 'What the hell is that?'
He looked the other way, and the other side of the mountain continued into the plain between it and the city, extending far that way before reaching a full true river further away, probably quite a distance.
That river went right off the cliff as a water fall into the sea.
Past that river the land sloped up into a ridge line of small hills... and then sloped down until the cliffs became beaches further that way.
He could just barely see another settlement down on that beach far away, looking like a small wooden fishing town maybe.
A few of the boats from the large white-stoned city's dock and the fishing village were mixing it looked like, at least a few were in the middle of the coastline between the two.
'Is that it's own settlement? It's small... maybe it's just an outpost between this city and another further away?'
The foxkin made guesses as to the nature of the things he saw, and finally turned his attention back to the large white city and its massive lake behind it, past that lake were a few mountains and between those he saw another forest and between two specific ones he saw a rocky landscape of many crevasses.
'Interesting...'
He turned to the sea, and far, faaaaar out there he saw an island with a green line shooting straight up into the sky from it, a pillar of light.
"What the heck? A magic signal maybe?" He muttered.
"What is?" Michael the automaton next to him asked.
"That pillar of green light."
He pointed, and the batgirl, Michael, and even the parrotkin all looked as they were all close enough to hear as the others muttered to each other in their own small groups.
"I see nothing friend." Michael said, shrugging in apology as he looked at the foxkin.
"Nothing there at all." The parrotkin affirmed.
"M-maybe it's that mana talent thing he mentioned?" The batgirl asked after a moment. By now she'd let go and stepped away, blushing slightly from grabbing him so tight in her fear and fixing the front of her shirt which had been pulled a little too far down. 'Thankfully nobody saw.' She sighed in relief, unaware of a pair of sky blue eyes observing her and her generous chest with a strange light in their eyes.
The foxkin shrugged, stepping over to the owlkin who was close enough.
"Hey, you also felt the magic making the door disappear right?"
The owlkin looked up from studying the ground, light gray feathers like sideburns framing his face from the dark brown fur on top of his head.
"Yes... a strange sensation, at first unfamiliar, but then quickly you feel like you always could feel such things. Not the first time this strange phenomenon occurred for myself today, I assure you."
"Ah... well... can you see that?" The foxkin pointed.
"Of course? It's an island."
"No I mean-never mind." He stepped away and went back to the other three.
'Why can only I see that light beam?'
"You really see a green light there?" The parrotkin asked doubtfully.
The foxkin nodded, opening his mouth to speak-
"Alright, now that you've had a chance to see the lay of the land..." the masked man suddenly spoke loudly, attracting everyone's attention as he clapped his hands, a flash of lilac light coming from the act.
The foxkin blinked as he felt a weight settle around his neck, and looked down to see a small wooden tag attached to a string around his neck.
He lifted it and saw the strange characters-
'Wait I know this... right? It's not strange. Why would I think a language I know is strange? Did I not know it before? Agh! Stop doing this to me, brain!'
The characters said this; "Kai, Foxkin".
He looked at the character for "Foxkin"... read another way, it would be pronounced "Kitsune", but the words meant the same thing.
His knowledge of the language made himself think for a moment.
'Bearkin also can go by Ursa, as their character also can be read both ways.'
"The tag has your name and race, though you can just ask someone else to look at you to get the race and your name would eventually slip out I'd guess for most, this still saves you time."
The kitsune looked again. 'My name... is Kai?' It felt... familiar. Right. Yes. Yes it is.'
The masked man rubbed his gloved hands together. "So, let me explain some important points; you may say phrases or think things you don't remember the source or meanings of. This is from your subconscious which still remembers your old life, and phrases you said very often are more likely to come out by accident."
"Secondly... you chose to give up your old life and have this new one, in this new world. Nobody forced you. And you also knew that your memory would be wiped as a consequence of your soul being shaped to perfectly suit your new bodies... you've been given the bodies that best suit your soul, but a compromise still had to be reached, the most compatible body and slight changes to your soul."
'...sorry. Changes to the WHAT NOW?!'
The large tiefling as always was more vocal.
"You... changed our SOULS?! The FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU CUNTS?!"
The masked man waved a finger. "Tsk tsk tsk... you're the one who gave us permission! And don't worry, your personalities are the same thanks to the unconscious being largely untouched. Anyways, you may find that certain races among you feel some emotions more easily than others, like tiefling and fire genasi feeling anger, frustration, or greed. Conversely, aasimar and winter fae are usually more calm and coolheaded."
"Isn't that just stereotypes about races?" The summer fae with pink hair interjected.
"Y-yeah! S-shouldn't you be good and n-not j-judge by race?" The rabbitkin stuttered nervously, yet forced it out, showing a surprising amount of care for the subject.
"No no, it's literally because those races have souls that more easily feel certain desires and emotions, while others are dulled. The soul is more capable of range in certain things while limited in others, from race to race. So an aasimar being calm is almost always a simple fact unless a specific one goes out of the norm with their development. Soul does grow and change during childhood after all, just like the body, so mutation is possible theoretically!"
The man cheerfully said, then leaned forwards toward the rabbit girl. "Does that satisfy your curiosity miss?"
She nodded abashedly, stepping back behind Nick the air genasi right next to her who smiled still.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
ShadowQuill
ShadowQuill Ooooh... strange lights only our MC can see... plot armor? Or is there an actual reason?
Also changes to the soul. Soul been modified. All of their souls. Yeeeeep.
Oi! Get off you foxes! Fine! I’ll stop drawing this author comment out! Geez... lemme have my fun!
Please do comment and fuel the foxes happiness, and give me something to laugh at or respond to!
(Please, the foxes will be sad if you don’t leave comments on paragraphs or the chapter.)
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