Through the hole is -

Empty sky? No, there's a small ledge of rock with a few plants clinging stubbornly to it, but beyond that... To the left and the right, above and also below as if perched on an impossibly high cliff, blue-tinged sky and clouds. Floating specks are visible in the distance here and there.

That is already very promising! They double check the portal's stability while using various elemental senses to look beyond the portal. Felkris creates a "mirror" and uses it to look around the portal's surroundings.

The portal's surroundings appear to be a fifty-foot rock floating in midair. There are two trees on it, a few bushes, a spattering of strange grass all over. Birds and some sort of nonbird flying creature are visible.

They check and a floating island sounds... extremely unusual, but not impossible. Not even before the war, when so many impossible things happened.

And since the portal is stable they send a small group of explorers to go through the other side.

The other side continues to contain a floating island.

The winds are fairly strong. It's nice and warm, at least.

Felkris taps the island for it's rather pathetic amount of ground magic. He also taps the ambient light for the sun magic (much better).

Feros notices the sun magic being tapped and absently taps it too. Also tapping for sky magic.

He does that again to double check how far up in the atmosphere they are.

Wherever they are, it is high, high above ground. Despite having surface-equivalent air pressure and temperature.

He reports this. "We did guess the world could be very different while still being able to let us live in it for a short while."

"Not only for a short while. The plants and the birds are very similar to us. I think we could even settle here if we find more of those islands."

"I think we should stick to the plan and create a second portal. But I see your point. How about the nonbird flying thing?"

"I, the poor innocent and busy healer, have yet to get around to test the flying nonbird. Or figure out how to capture one."

"I can do that for you." Felkris shoots a hand made out of solid fire to capture bird.

It tries to get away, shooting off surprisingly quickly with a loud squealing noise.

When that fails it flops around in paralyzed panic inside the fire hand.

It's some kind of... Flying manta ray? Almost flat, with a long tail and big floppy wings, two bulging bags on either side of the main body, colored light gray and pale blue like the sky.

It's still panicking and fighting as it is drawn in.

Meguto looks at Felkris face as the thing squeals. "Gods around us, Felkris. No need to be heartbroken over the thing."

When the thing is close enough. Meguto locks it in place with stone and then evaluates it's living essence.

Its living essence is strange! ...It's surprisingly familiar given that it feels like some kind of alien. Probably edible. Probably.

Heh, they are far from desperate enough to resort to bizarre nonbirds. Meguto will keep the thing to study. It's fascinating.

More mages pour out. Curious about the other side of the portal. The ones adept at construction start creating a small shed around the portal.

Some circle all around the floating island thing. Trying to figure out how it floats. Does it look worked over or natural? Any obvious signs of the magic that keeps it afloat?

The manta ray thing continues to panic and flail around and squeak! It's doing it slower now. Tired? The two gas bags are less full after it emits a burst of foul-smelling gas. Which catches fire.

There are no obvious signs of magic in the area. As they start constructing, the whole fifty-foot rock tilts to one side a bit as the weight goes unbalanced.

He decides not to tell about the fact that the gas was foul-smelling and flammable. The others will never stop with the poor-taste jokes.

Either this weird than the though or someone went through the trouble of disguising the magic very thoroughly and then made a poor job at making the thing stable... which is not technically impossible.

They try to compensate the balance through a combination of weight distribution and temporary magical anchoring. They can't anchor the thing relative to this place's ground, but they can anchor it relative to the ground on their side of the portal (After some complicated math to compensate the weird geometry).

Arion is curious about this place's surface and flies down.

Anchoring it relative to the ground on the far side of the portal works pretty well! It still tilts a little bit.

There's a lot of down to be had. He passes other floating rocks and flying creatures. Some of the floating rocks have towns and cities and farms on them.

It gets hotter and there's a strange feeling to the air. Those dark, evil looking clouds far below do not look inviting. There's a flash of lightning from one of them.

Some of the perfectionists in their group still try to fix the tilting, but eventually decide to do something else more productive. Like figuring out how the thing floats.

Evil looking clouds sounds tempting. But Arion will be too excited about towns and cities and farms. He will fly towards one.

The town is built as much vertically as horizontally, four or five of the big floating rocks tied together and then built up and down and out. Bridges become streets with apartments and workshops. Long wooden masts with airships tied to them swing cargo on and off with nets. Farmers work something halfway between a field and hyrdoponics with hand tools.

He can find a clear spot near the docks to land, but he generates a fair bit of alarm. The area is more or less evacuated in a bout of fear and people leave him well alone. One of the ships shoves off and starts going away, crude engines churning propellers with a lopsided rumbling sound.