The area around the Oldkathe is quiet, sitting high above the nearby office builds, only the farms providing shade. The elder shapers traditionally use this space when something of great importance happens to demand they convene. Such things haven't happened in more than a lifetime, with even the oldest of the healer's only remembering stories from their youths of a time when the elder shapers of that era convened, so more often than not the Oldkathe is left empty. The air is cool, almost cold, and is deathly still.

It is appropriate that such an event is about to happen right here.

Seemingly without warning, a region of the air at the center of the Oldkathe blurs, quickly becoming a circular window of indecipherable grayness. Then with a shrill whistle, an aperture forms inside that window. Air rushes out and howls through the stone arches of the Oldkathe as the window opens more fully, becoming a light-ringed portal into another world, one both foreign and yet strangely familiar to the people of the shapers' dominion.

Though none see it happen, and few hear the howling on the mountaintop, a strange sensation resounds through the earthsense of each and every shaper in the realm. Most dismiss it as nothing, but a handful of the most ancient elders know what it means. They will convene, and soon.

Tentatively people explore the area around the portal seeing a sky without a dome for the first time.

Is anyone nearby? They might see a bunch of young men approaching by flight.

As the strangers look up, they find a sky that is, perhaps even stranger than their home's enclosure. Higher even than the mountaintop which they first found themselves on were great pillars of stone, sparsely placed across the land, each holding up a large platform covered in green foliage. As they looked further up, towards the apex of the sky, there was the sun, but also two other, dark spheres, one seemingly above the sun and the other below, casting huge shadows across the sky and ground respectively.

Down below, in the shaper palaces which crowd the base of the First's mountain, the shapers' servants, families, and retinues are beginning to catch on that something is going on. There is an air of activity, and the sounds of people moving about, of speech at varying levels of hush, all which stops, briefly, before resuming with a fever pitch as people are spotted floating down from the Oldkathe, some riding stones like shapers, others simply on the air, or on platforms of ice, or atop shining lights. As the strangers glide smoothly down to the ground, they are quickly greeted by the nearest shaper, a young man of the name Buangun Nagubal, who is flanked by another young man, Trenyk, and a seemingly middle-aged woman of the name Znelaar. The young shaper launching in a mix of welcoming pleasantry, questions regarding where the strangers came from, and unprompted biographical exposition, all in a language which the strangers probably don't understand, would be a bit much if there hadn't been anyone with a strong connection to the Mind element among them. Trenyk and Znelaar stand by, not speaking up but with looks of apology on both of their faces.

Everything is really weird, but at least it's the novel sort of weird.

The strangers tentatively approach and pay attention to whatever has been spoken. They... appear to be getting some of it, more than the language barrier should've allowed. One of them approaches and raises a hand to his head.

His eyes briefly glow white-purple, and they hear a voice up in their minds. Like a thought, but with a distinct voice to it.

"I am Esreno. Do you understand me?"

The young shaper and his cohort froze as as Esreno's eyes glowed, and were silent for a moment before Nagubal spoke a response, quickly followed by an attempted to think one 'at' Esreno.

"Yes, I understand. What kind of Illusion is this, that it didn't require you to move to cast it? And, why did you make your eyes glow? And, why speak via Illusion in the first place?"

"This is not an illusion as you know it. I am using mental-magic so we can understand each other."

Another young man takes a step forward (well, he is flying, but similar effect). "We are from another world. It's possible our kind of magic is different than yours."

Nagubal's smile fades for moment, and he shares a look with Trenyk, who can only shrug, and Znelaar, who nods and steps forward, before 'speaking' to the strangers. "You entered our world through the Oldkathe, what you might call our world's center, or origin. Such a thing happening would seem to imply that the First Shaper left the key to enter this world with you, or your forebears, so it is surprising that your magic and even your language would be so different from ours."

Nagubal nods, and speaks again next. "Please, come with us. The other Shapers here in the mountaincourt are all in a fuss about your arrival, so we need to go explain the situation to them."

After a moment he realizes that the situation hasn't been explained to him yet, either, and so he asks, "Where are you from, anyway, if you're not from the Old World?"

"Presumably, yet a third world. More specifically, we have been locked inside a magical dome that's been up since before I was born. There was a war and we don't know what happened to the rest of the world, but we have had no contact since we got locked inside. After many attempts we decided we might try bypassing the dome by leaving the world, which was still very tricky. I wouldn't be surprised that our attempts at slipping past our barrier somehow bypassed yours too."

"The war was what caused the dome to go up." Esreno clarifies. "Our town was being used by one of the sides to host future soldiers."

The younger shaper nods, he and his retinue seemingly all caught in thought. Their contemplation is interrupted as other people begin to arrive at the strangers location, and soon there is a crowd forming around them.

"We should get going, before it gets too hard to meet up with others." Nagubal says, voice quivering just a little. Znelaar nods, before gesturing to the strangers to follow her and then beginning to forge a way through the crowd, deeper in to the palace whose courtyard they'd landed in.

"I shall take point then."

There is some quiet communication between the group and someone departs, presumably to inform the others.

"Where exactly did we land?"