Two days after the disappearance, Barran is ready to commence her journey through the Nexx, to find Ani. Despite protestations from her father, the king, she is determined to go. So, two days later, she sets foot into the room of the Nexx with her mouth set in a grim, determined line.

She has with her a traveling pack, and a sword. Her clothing is similar to what she was wearing the day of the disappearance, but not quite as fancy looking. It is clearly more functional than ornamental. She has also discarded the gold band around her forehead.

As she steps into the room, the Nexx flares with power that she unconsciously feeds it. As soon as she sees this, she concentrates, and the power feed cuts off abruptly. Barran watches in glee as the Nexx shrinks back down to its previous size. Then she sets her face back into its determined mask and steps forward to address the keeper of the Nexx.

"Kam," she says formally. "By the pact which I made with you upon assuming the position of Guardian, I call upon you to do my bidding."

"Yeah, what do you want?" a lazy male voice says from the thin air. The voice seems to surround Barran, but she seems unaffected by it.

"You took my beloved," she says. "I want to follow her."

"You're no fun," the voice says. "Why don't you just find some other pretty girl and give Ani up?"

"Kam!" she exclaims angrily.

"Fine, fine," Kam says. "But it's going to be a lot of hassle for me to open the Nexx for you."

"Look at it this way," she says. "Either you open the Nexx for me so I can go search for Ani, or you lose protected status in this realm."

"Your father wouldn't do that," Kam protests.

"He will if I refuse to remain the Guardian," she says. "Merely because there's no one else to do it, and Father's not stupid enough to let you stay here without a Guardian, even if it's only temporary. So, are you going to open the Nexx or not?"

"Fine, I'll open it," Kam says reluctantly. "But you owe me now…"

"No I don't!" she exclaims. "It's your own fault that Ani got sucked into the Nexx in the first place! You could have prevented it, and you know it! Unless you're not as much of a god as you claim to be that is…"

"I'm more of a god than you are," Kam says, sounding annoyed. "And since you're being so childish about it I'll open it for you. Stand back."

As Kam says those two words, the glowing sphere of light that is the Nexx when closed suddenly expands to a diameter greater than any human is tall. Barran's hair begins to float as the Nexx begins to try to suck in everything around it. Barran stands her ground, until the edge of the Nexx stabilizes, seeming to not be affected by the pull of the Nexx, with the exception of her hair.

Then, with one motion, she moves to the edge of the ledge that runs around the perimeter of the room and jumps toward the Nexx. She hangs in the air for a moment, keeping herself afloat by the power of her mind and her "magic." Then, she lets the pull of the Nexx affect her, and she starts to float toward the Nexx. A few moments later, she enters it, and reality twists around her.

She wakes up a few hours later, in the middle of a desert. It is dark out, and she is all alone. There is no sign of the Nexx anywhere near her as she sits up and looks around. Her pack is laying next to her, somehow having been ripped off her back during her trip through the Nexx. She groans faintly as she levers herself to the ground, and as her head rises she becomes aware of a deep throbbing pain in it.

She can see huge buildings only a few miles away. She stares at them in wonder, especially at the lights that light up the whole area. To her, the lights seem like thousands of stars glittering in the darkness, and she wonders if they are all kept going by magic, since they are definitely the wrong color to all be flames.

As she stares, a dark figure rises from the ground near the buildings and flies out over the desert, right over her head. She ducks in fright, thinking that it is a dragon. But, as it passes over her she sees that it is nothing like a dragon, and more like a big metal bird. Its wings do not flap, and so she decides that it must run on magic as well.

Impressed by the level that magic must be at in this world, she picks up her pack and starts toward the buildings. Her head is still throbbing in pain, but she tries to ignore it in favor of starting her search for Ani. She makes the buildings, which turn out to be a huge city, in a short amount of time considering she is on foot and her head is still throbbing painfully.

Before she reaches the huge buildings she enters a region of smaller buildings surrounded by grass, flowers, and trees. The grass around the buildings, which look like houses to Barran, is trimmed to a short length all around, taking away any feel of nature that it might have had. Every now and then she sees a few children playing near the houses, but as she passes she sees worried looking mothers, and occasionally fathers, pull the children inside at the sight of her. No one says a word to her though.

As she starts to enter the area with the huge buildings the grass slowly disappears. It gets dirtier around her everywhere she looks. She stops seeing children long before the streets get dirty, but it isn't until the air itself starts to smell of smoke, filth, and worse that she starts to see the beggars on the streets.

They call out to her for help, in words she doesn't understand. They are all dirty, poor, and very hungry looking. They cry out as she passes, but she ignores them, both because she doesn't understand what they say, and because she has neither the time nor the money to spare on them. She also hears their angry cries as she ignores them, but she continues to walk.

Finally, about ten minutes after her first beggar sighting, she is confronted by a group of angry men. They block her way as she tries to continue forward, using knives to enforce themselves. They shout angry words at her, but since they are in the same language as the beggars have been using she is unable to understand. Instead she shakes her head at them, saying "I don't understand. Let me through," and tries to continue in her search.

This angers the men, who attack her as she tries to pass them. She fights back once she realizes that she cannot avoid the fight, showing a considerable amount of skill. She is outnumbered six to one though, and unarmed, and is quickly beaten to unconsciousness. The last thing she sees as the world goes black around her is the gloating face of the beggars who are moving to surround her and loot her body once she is down.

Lisa knew something was up as soon as the beggars started gathering their rougher friends to beat up on someone. Thus, she started following them to see what was going on, only to find herself heading into the rougher parts of the city. As she follows, occasionally signaling to one of her friends to follow, she sees the pretty blonde, wandering around the city in strange clothing and obviously a stranger to the area. The beggar's friends are gathering like sharks, and she is obviously their mark.

The girl is ignoring the beggars as she passes them, looking confused every now and then as they cry out to her. Lisa knows that this is only angering the beggars, who run the slums of the city, to an extent, and take by force what they feel is their due, if necessary, using their rougher friends. The girl, who isn't giving money to a single beggar, is practically begging for enforcement of this unwritten rule.

So, Lisa, and the three others of her "gang" who gathered as she called to them, are not surprised at all when six of the beggars' friends block the girl's way, demanding her money. She is unarmed, while the men all have knives, yet still she tries to push forward, saying some odd words in a strange language as she starts to move.

This fails, of course, the strange words only serving to anger the men more. They attack her, while it occurs to Lisa that the girl wasn't being foolish by not heeding the beggars' pleas, but rather that she didn't understand what they were saying. She fights back, quite well considering that there are six of them and only one of her, but she is soon taken down.

In that instant Lisa makes a decision. There is a girl in front of her, being beaten for ignoring the beggars that Lisa figures she couldn't understand in the first place. The men seem to angry to realize this, and probably would care anyway. Because the girl looked so out of place in the city, Lisa decides that she should prevent them from harming her any more than they already have, especially considering they would try to rape her once the beggars were done with her.

Nodding to her friends, she starts forward. There are more than six men near the girl by then, but only the original six are toughs, and the beggars of the city are all afraid of her and her "gang." Also, Lisa and her three friends will be more than a match for the six toughs. So, the four of them advance to surround the girl right after she drops.

"If you lay another hand on her, you'll have to deal with us," Lisa challenges.

"She's none of your business," the leader of the toughs says angrily. "She owes our pals money. You know as well as everyone else that no one gets away without helping our pals a little."

"Didn't you notice that she didn't understand you?" she asks angrily. "Anyway, it's hardly fair, setting six of you on one girl, now is it?"

"There've been more and more witch women around recently," the tough replies. "She's probably one of them too!"

"I don't care, you're not laying a hand on her," Lisa says. "Got it?"

"Fine," the tough replies. "But she still owes."

"I'll see she gets something to you later," Lisa says before turning to her friends. "Okay, brothers, let's get this one back home."

As the others pick up the girl, Lisa notices an interesting expression on Terra's face. Terra being their group's own personal witch woman, a useful girl to have around no matter how much Lisa professes to hating witch women herself, Lisa figures there is something more to this girl than it seems. She makes a note to ask Terra about the girl as soon as they are back home.