Ylondas Gatekeeper
Gatanea is a major world, with several nearby satellite worlds, visible and therefore partially accessible from the edge of the main pillar. However, as the trek down and back up is treacherous at best, the Gataneans largely left the people of the satellite worlds alone.
However, Ylondas (later known as the Gatekeeper), and elderly patrician and powerful Sorcerer, had built himself a proto-Gate in his pantry cupboard. Being an older gentleman, much retired from public life and determined to enjoy his remaining years, he had discovered the way to lodge a permanent tesseract in his cupboard, which connected his house to one particularly grassy field in a satellite world. He then would escape for hours and sometimes days at a time, laying in the fields and enjoying the blue sheep that were native to that place. However, Ylondas' daughter, newly married to a rising patrician, discovered her father's Gate and decided to use this knowledge to bargain for advancement within the militaristic government. It wasn't long before Ylondas found himself before the Tribunal, being asked to provide a demonstration of his Gate - and soon after, being commissioned to create official Gates between the capitol and every satellite world. Unsatisfied with this, the Emperor demanded that an entire Coliseum of Gates be constructed to connect with every known and unknown world. |
A stand alone-chapter, exclusively on Patreon. Set in the world of Arianja, a young man and a wild woman journey to the edge of the world, and discover one of Ylondas' Gates.
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At first, Ylondas relished the work. He was given nearly limitless resources, including an entire exploratory team comprised of cartographers, Sorcerers, ambassadors, military personnel, and assistants who catered to his every dietary whim. He was feted by the best families in town, and his every discovery of a new world (increasingly achieved by trial and error, and no little loss of life) was the talk of the town. However, as they kept discovering new worlds and doing the work of anchoring tesseracts - a feat which required considerable strength and energy from the Sorcerers - some of the Gates grew unstable. A permanent power source was required to keep those Gates open. And it wasn't long before Ylondas saw poor Sorcerous wretches from Gatanea and other worlds, too, being chained to individual Gates with no hope of release. Worse: the Emperor began sending Paladins through the Gates, rather than explorers and ambassadors, to begin the process of conquering all the worlds. Nor could Ylondas' quit: as the Emperor promised personal retribution upon the Gatekeeper and his family. All seemed lost.
Until one day, one of the imprisoned Sorcerers disappeared. Ylondas presumed she had merely slipped her chains: altered the metal, or even translocated herself from them. He set to work putting a mental inhibitor in the cuffs, so that the imprisoned Sorcerers could only function as conduits for their Gate - no more. And then another imprisoned Sorcerer escaped. And another and another. And news came of someone strolling in - day, night, whenever nobody was really looking - and unlocking their chains and sending them through the closest Gate. The news reached the Emperor. Ylondas was told to solve the mystery in peril of his and his family's life. The search began in earnest, even as day by day new Sorcerers were chained up - including Ylondas' own grandchildren - and day by day Sorcerers went missing. |
Learn more of the science behind the sorcery.
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Ylondas began keeping a journal of their escapes. It seemed whomever was rescuing these Sorcerers could anticipate Ylondas' every move: even making daring rescues while the Gatekeeper was gone for mere minutes. In desperation, Ylondas began keeping a journal of each disappearance and where he himself had been...and it wasn't long before he recognized the pattern. And realized the man who was undoing his work was none other than - himself.
The question of whether it were possible to travel in time as well as space had always intrigued Ylondas but, first through sloth and then through overwork, he had not pursued the question. Now, he studied it in earnest and discovered that if he went fast enough, he was able to go backwards in time. Through his experiments and the use of his journal, he made sure not to come within a certain distance of himself - since the meeting of matter and antimatter caused the Thing itself to annihilate. And one by one he reversed the wrong he had done, by removing the Sorcerers. Only the matter of his own grandchild remained.
Having removed himself from the timeline, Ylondas took shelter through one of the Gates, passing the years going forward until he came to the point of time where he had begun to jump backwards. Returning to Gatanea, Ylondas confronted his daughter, begging her to take her family and come with him through to a distant and yet undiscovered world. But Ylondas had overstepped his timing - waiting several years past his own seeming disappearance - and his eldest grandchild had grown in power and influence. No longer an enslaved Sorcerer, but a master of slaves, second only to the Emporer himself. Gatanea had begun a conquest in earnest, and his family had flourished at the expense of others.
Defeated, Ylondas left Gatanea not through a portal or even his old cupboard, but beginning the long, arduous, impossible journey down to the True Earth, in search of a cure of the evils of mankind.
The question of whether it were possible to travel in time as well as space had always intrigued Ylondas but, first through sloth and then through overwork, he had not pursued the question. Now, he studied it in earnest and discovered that if he went fast enough, he was able to go backwards in time. Through his experiments and the use of his journal, he made sure not to come within a certain distance of himself - since the meeting of matter and antimatter caused the Thing itself to annihilate. And one by one he reversed the wrong he had done, by removing the Sorcerers. Only the matter of his own grandchild remained.
Having removed himself from the timeline, Ylondas took shelter through one of the Gates, passing the years going forward until he came to the point of time where he had begun to jump backwards. Returning to Gatanea, Ylondas confronted his daughter, begging her to take her family and come with him through to a distant and yet undiscovered world. But Ylondas had overstepped his timing - waiting several years past his own seeming disappearance - and his eldest grandchild had grown in power and influence. No longer an enslaved Sorcerer, but a master of slaves, second only to the Emporer himself. Gatanea had begun a conquest in earnest, and his family had flourished at the expense of others.
Defeated, Ylondas left Gatanea not through a portal or even his old cupboard, but beginning the long, arduous, impossible journey down to the True Earth, in search of a cure of the evils of mankind.
(c) Emily C. A. Snyder