Outside 48: Hotter than Inside

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Secluded Desert]

The Icon never ceases to be a curious...thing. Grasping one's mind around it in the first place is already quite the thought exercise, one that the mage had spent a significant amount of time on.
Doing things with it and being aware of it changing are even wilder to comprehend.
So that's one fun revelation Xeni has here, that there's some abstract change happening.

Mutated rabbits and essentially blighted landscape is significantly less surprising. He knew there'd be a bit of that, it's why he came here after all. Deliberately seeking out an area where he theorized to be Empyrean influence.
Bright side? His theory was absolutely correct and that is fantastic.

The price seems to have been the fact that said Empyrean influencer is still here and very very large.
"Oh crap, Godzilla got snapped up."
Obviously, initial instinctual terror requires stupid (yet alarmingly accurate...) jokes, while the smarter and more disciplined parts reach out for literally any defensive magic that seems convenient.
Probably just going to be a oh get very very far away teleport, but then it is abruptly less hostile, more weird, and just familiar enough to make him less existentially panicked.
More socially panicked.

Somewhat shakily, he stands back up from where he definitely fell on his butt in surprise and tries to pretend he's feeling more confident than he is.
"Ah...Zee? Is that you cosplaying as Spacezilla up there?"
He squints into the 'censoring' on Zee a bit, very briefly contemplating how hard it would be to breach it before deciding that that is probably a rather bad idea.

No, he's not really immediately afraid for his life anymore on purely hostile-monster grounds.
But he is still kind of a bit scared of some impending conversation points that are probably inevitable at this point.

"Why are you cosplaying as Spacezilla?"