Mirror cloud paths

Kabeya entered the destination for the first test drive on the portal's control panel and stood in front of the gate, which created a silvery veil starting from the glowing edge. The air was suffused with charged particles as she dipped her hand into the liquid mass of the mirror for the first time. She felt a slight coolness and sensed herself being gently pulled into the portal until she disappeared completely inside. Then the veil detached again and Tylax, Kabeya's friend and co-inventor, stood alone in front of the portal.
Tylax could now look through to the opposite mirrow again, which the two of them had set up at the end of the meadow for the first test trip. He ran to the other side and waited until the second gate opened for the first time and Kabeya slowly stepped back into the light, covering her eyes.
“So, how was it?” Tylax wanted to know immediately.
I'm glad to have found the exit. Wait, I just have to get used to the blazing sun again!" She was surprised that the sun was still high in the sky and asked Tylax what time it was. Tylax didn't understand the question: "Why, you just went in?!"
That can't be right," she contradicted him: "When the gate closed, I stood in absolute black-gray emptiness. Only a small point of light in the far distance seemed to me to be the goal and so I tried to get there. I had the feeling that it took forever and it took me hours to reach the point. If we want to make our invention accessible to everyone, we have to take away the fear of the dark from travelers and give direction to their paths.

Kabeya Ziye & Tylax Mímtash during the testing phase of inventing the portals at 3,500 BEC

Illusory ecosystem

The illusionary landscapes between the Mirror Gates are called mirror cloud paths and they have been part of the portals' equipment since the beginning. Liridon Phîstra from the now sunken city of Lîs was responsible for the design. There have been repeated attempts to replace the original landscape with completely new illusions, but it is rumored that such a serious intervention or the great flood, which did not spare the cloud paths, led to the creation of will-o'-the-wisps, illusionary ghosts, cloud demons, which appear again and again haunt portals, and may have contributed to the expansion woes. For this reason, the illusion has been changed over the millennia only by designing the clouds, paths and using different colors. However, they always remained true to the original concept.
Cloud paths extend over wide meadows and fields where golden fairy hair grass grows, which, depending on the path, are crossed by clouds whose color palette ranges from white to pink to purple. The paths are not just founded on earth. In the case of portals between bodies of water, the path becomes a gently babbling river or a stream, which, depending on the destination, can also turn into a normal path. There is no other vegetation in the landscape that could distract you from the path or invite you to linger. As a traveler, you know the dangers that can lurk on the cloud paths and therefore avoid a longer stay as much as possible.

Mirrow Cloud Paths by Blue Fairy 74 via Midjourney

There is neither day nor night between the portals and the light shines like the rising or setting sun.

Beautifully shaped cloud formations pass the travelers in the sky, which are bathed in a particularly magical play of light and can take on different shapes such as animals, plants or other things.

It is said that glowstars are the only living creatures in this place. But there are also reports of cloud animals that accompanied travelers to the end.

"Wow, did you see the three-headed dragon that grew out of the clouds?"

"Come on, hurry up! We don't want the dragon to turn out to be a cloud demon."

Father and son between the portals -

"Who actually came up with the brilliant idea of growing this grass here? That's the biggest piece of crap I've ever come across! Damned landowners!"

Frustrated farmer -

Fairy hair grass is a golden yellow grass that is so fine and delicate, reminiscent of the thin threads of caramelized sugar. It grows everywhere - including on the banks of rivers and streams and does not seem to have any particular preference for specific soils.
The grass feels like a comforting blanket when you touch it with your fingers. It smells like sun-ripened, sweet, malty grain in summer and blooms all the time with small, shimmering golden flowers. Of course, there have been attempts to plant the grass outside the portals, but so far they have been unsuccessful.

Glowstars are small insects that appear to feed on the shimmering golden flowers of the grass and cavort in the rays of light above the grass.
There have been no studies or observations on reproduction or the life cycle because all of the captured specimens did not survive in the outside world.

"Professor, I brought some glowstars to study their life cycle."

"I wish you the best of luck, but the stars in the sky will probably go out before this glow things survive out here!"

Student and professor in conversation -

Crack after expansion by Blue Fairy 74 - Midjourney filtered

Dangers

No one wants to stay on the cloud paths longer than necessary, no matter how picturesque the landscape appears. Simple dangers are travel illnesses such as nausea, headaches or dizziness, which of course do not affect every traveler and which can be remedied with the cloud walking elixir, which is a must-have in any travel first aid kit today.
The expansion suffering of the illusionary landscape between some portals should also not be underestimated, as it can significantly lengthen the transit time, depending on how far the expansion has already progressed. The suffering can be recognized by the distorted images of the illusion, like in a distorting mirror. In the worst case, the illusion is broken and the traveler finds himself standing in the middle of the black-gray emptiness like the inventors once did. The researchers don't know whether the suffering is caused by the flood, the change in the illusion, or perhaps by the assimilated dead. The extent does not affect all paths. However, once set in motion, it progresses at a rate of about four centimeters per year and cannot be stopped or repaired - as if the suffering had a will of its own. Only with the emptiness does the expansion “die” and illusion designers can create a new mirror cloud path.

A far greater danger comes from the white to purple cotton clouds that cover the fairy hair grass and make travelers sleepy. Under no circumstances should you give in to tiredness and succumb to the feeling of taking a short nap on the clouds. Traveling alone is certain death as you will never wake up again. Certainly, it can be assumed that many people have already used this phenomenon who never wanted to wake up again and thus passed peacefully into the afterlife. What happened to their bodies after death? Well, no one knows, but researchers suspect that the cloud meadows assimilated their bodies so that not a piece of them remained. For this reason, your travel bag should definitely contain nightmare tonic, which you can take a sip of before entering so that you don't want to fall asleep in the first place.

Don't sleep here! by Blue Fairy 74 via Midjourney

The third and greatest danger are illusion spirits, will-o'-the-wisps and cloud demons. To this day, nobody knows how these dangers could have arisen or how they got into the portals.
Normally there are no forks in the path between gates, as the traveler must first imagine the destination while activating the portal. However, will-o'-the-wisps can create different paths that, in the worst case, end in nowhere or in a completely different place.

Illusion spirits, on the other hand, show the location of your choice, but can add hours or days to the traveler's journey to the exit, causing them to starve or fall asleep.

But the worst thing for travelers are cloud demons, which build up the clouds into true dark thunderstorm monsters and rush towards travelers to crush them like tiny ants. You can only escape from all three dangers if you run like hell and find the exit as quickly as possible. Otherwise you are actually lost.