Chapter 3

At work the next day before I can ask for time off for the day my boss says he has a unexpected conference that day and I have half the day off. So at 1 I'm off and have time to shower so I'm not sweaty from work. I go over and she opens the door in similar clothes just different colors and designs. Even her hair was a different color.
"Hey, I see you got all ready to see me." she giggles like a kid.
"What? I'm dressed normal." and I was mostly just in stuff I have that's not too nice just a little better then me casual.
"I mean how you shaved and invisible hairs, showered, got only clean clothes, and deodorant."  She says as I walk in. The place is similar to yesterday only with half the stuff now in boxes.
"You cleaning or leaving?" I ask pointing to the boxes changing the topic.
"Leaving and I'm planning on bringing you with cutie. But first I'm going to read your fortune and show you that I'm actually a witch."She sits me down on her couch and sits rather close almost on my leg.
"um ok?" I say thinking about what she meant taking me with her.
"Here put this on and give me your hands." She says but actually takes them rather then me giving them to her.
"First lets go through the obvious of how you've been lonely and trying to stay alone since your parents died." She starts
"Wait. Wait. How could you kn-" I start
"Shh. Important one talking. Anyway what's more concerning you is your questions of why. I wonder though do you really want to know?" She stops looking at my hands then and stares at me intently. I decide not to wonder how she knew all this and actually think about it.
"I'm not sure" I admit
"Well I'll tell you anyway. It's because it would keep you from your path."
"What path?"
"You'll see."
"When?"
"That's up to you, but for now lets go."
"Go?"
"Yeah I'm going to take you to get some training for you to use on your path."
"I need training?"
"Yep. So come on."
She grabbed me and holds me and I see the world around me melt like it was all ice until all I could see was darkness. It wasn't the kind of darkness you can see from just turn off the light and closing your eyes. This darkness seemed like you could touch it. After a second I can see bits of green and blue and it seemed like it was going in and out of focus until I could feel grass under us sitting and smell the pines flooding my sense of smell. I don't see anything but grass so it's confusing that I smell pine.
"What happened? Where are we?" I ask
"What happened is that I teleported us and we are currently at a gateway in China." She pauses and stands brushing herself off. "Come on cutie let me show you a busy place."
We get up and walk through fields of grass until there's a clear patch and a hole in the middle that has a similar looking darkness where even 3 inches in you can't see anything. It's only about four feet round and Tea simply walks up to it and hops in. I shrug look around and follow. Inside I'm suddenly standing and in a clearing of the busiest place I could imagine. In every direction there's life, and most of it's going some place. I look left and see praying twenty foot manti talking in some language with hippos with horns, to my right there's spiders, fairies or sprites of all colors and small dragons. I couldn't see most of the sky but what I did see is two suns one purple and waxing like our moon while it rose and the other yellow waning  as it set. There were little lights everywhere that rose from the ground and went through everything like it ignored them. There were people that looked like ghosts and it seemed some sort of trick of the eyes how if you looked at them they disappeared but you could see them if you looked around them. There were also a lot of animals or creatures I recognized like gargoyles, monkeys that walked like people, snakes that hopped and glided with hidden wings while it slithered. Still there were just as many I didn't recognize which makes it hard to describe like the little bugs with human bodies, big heads, sharp teeth, and randomly strange extras. One I saw had three eyes on his little hand and another had fin like wings in front and behind him. There was a smell in the air like boiling honey with lavender and cinnamon. I was dizzy after a minute of looking around and felt like I needed to get out of the crowd. Tea seemed to notice and said something I couldn't hear. Then turned away and started to glow. These light balls started flowing from her and popped in every direction about four feet from us until it made a bubble and it picked us up as it carried us higher Tea turned toward me. I don't hear the noise of the creatures talking anymore and I'm not distracted by the amount of stuff going on. Some reason I could think clearly like I was no longer their but somewhere alone with Tea in that bubble.
"Well that was still as busy as ever." she brushes her hair back and smiles.
"What was that? It was so crowded with so many things I don't know."
"That was the cities center and market place. This city is called Rinpew center of knowledge galaxy and it's where you're going to get your training. Don't worry cutie we're going to a place more peaceful then that." She whispers "Usually" and I can't tell what she said really.
The bubble carries us through the sky until it's above the largest of the thousand foot mushrooms I saw and once above it I see on top is a disk like bowl and on it seemed like a peaceful town with a lake deeper then the bowl on a third of it. The mushroom was likely a mile high and two miles wide along with the disk on it. We float or fly in front of one of the buildings that looks like a boring brick building one floor with no windows. When the bubble lands silently there's someone in front of the building.
"Long time Tea. You find your hero?" He has a low cheerful voice and it seems to fit since he's about twelve feet tall and has six muscly arms. He has six curved swords on his back and leather straps to hold them but other then that only these plain dusty tan shorts. He has a long pony tail but no other hair on his brown but not tan body.
"Yeah I found him, but why are you that size?"
He looks at himself and shrugs and shrinks with everything on him to about my height.
"I was just practicing with Roxy." He smiles.