9 Portals

Threshaven

First Edition

THRESHAVEN

Thomas P. Walton

Written for 9portal RPG and rogue gamer advocates!

The Story Behind the Greater Portals of Power

Mount Threshaven is the suspected birthplace of the nine greater portals of power. It is more likely, however, that the gods built this ominous mountain of portals to escape all worlds when temporal technology emerged from super-science, and the gods’ worshippers turned against the ancient race. Either way, the portals in all the realms, of all universes, exist solely because of Mount Threshaven (or so this wizard has divined from many an ancient tome, and devoured knowledge by entreating the stone monoliths on the dark sphere, the Diablocleuse. Having found ancient lore in the chaos computers on Zorbos--where the dwarven berserkers were fool-happy with their find of adamantium—, it was I who hath read through the sinister archives of lost souls!).

Over the eons, Mount Threshaven ceased to overshadow the prehistoric creatures; primitives who huddled around clusters of bon fires, and those who made dwellings of caves or in small huts of mud and twig.

Alas came the day when the primitives fled from their caves, and abandoned their filthy straw homes for safety under the arm of a new lord of the land—a mighty King. Fear of monsters grew from the unearthly undulations rising from deep crevices in the heart of the tribal caverns of the wild folk. Never would they return to those dwellings of rock and earth, where hidden things dwelled, and where goblin enemies lurked, relentlessly raiding and killing the humans’ offspring.

Under the protection of the king, the peoples of Gaiasar grew into civilization. Those remnants of the cave dwelling folk were occasionally seen on the borderlands or the outskirts of the Kingdom. Many cave dwellers were believed to be in league with earth demons; and thus many were slain on sight. Scholars, however, realize the true fear the people see in the primitives—it is a link to their past, a thing civilized man wishes to forget, and the wretches remind them of what they once were before the days of the mighty King from across the sea.

In a thousand years come to pass the great flee from the caves. Adventurers returned the lands of their cave-dwelling ancestors… seeking treasure, of course.

Futharion, king of the planet Gaiasar, hired the sage Malar to venture out to the ancient caverns of Diabiscus, wherein it was long said to house the ancient tunnel of dreams; a place that was - on Gaiasar, but not of Gaiasar.

(It is written by one scholar who had—in his youthful days of adventure—set foot within the dream tunnel, and stepped out upon a field of vibrant light. There before his eyes rose the mountain of the gods, and a great door leading deep into the earth. Gathering his courage, the young adventurer entered the massive doors of Threshaven. When he came inside, he found himself at the foot of massive steps. He climbed, and he labored his way up massive stone steps. Reaching a nexus of doors he entered the one where the light came from. Upon exiting this door, he looked out—and then suddenly down, far down the side of the mountain. It was a different scene than the one he’d seen an hour earlier. Instead of light green fields of luminous rock and weed, the scholar perceived an icy desert. He was further up the mountain than a man could possibly climb in a single day. With great effort, the scholar hid the passage to the dream tunnel, and refused to tell of its location—even under the painful threat of death, and the hours of torture under the King’s dungeons.).

The good king was perplexed by this seemingly simple riddle, but having himself neither an understanding of science or any talent in the arts, he did not bother to fathom its meaning for himself. The King was rich, and hiring those to think on such manners as ancient riddles was not beneath his integrity. And, so it was done.

Malar went about his task of selecting seven of Futharion‘s strongest diggers for the purpose of unearthing the ancient entrance to enchanted places wherein men were not meant by the gods to see.

Upon the hour of their mark, setting down the flag of their lord and king Futharion in the soil of their ancestral caverns, a grim reception awaited them.

Tiers of metal rose high into the hidden shafts of an adjacent chamber, where upon each level hung ornaments of sinister and macabre decor. Alcoves lined the concave interior of the cavernous realm. Upon these many shelves lay the preserved skulls of humans--some being horribly molested. Malar would have guessed that his ancestors hand practiced a rather odd form of burial rites if it were not for the way in which the remnants of ancient Gaiasar were arranged in these odd vessels of transparent material.

Most of the skulls were preserved well, save for a few of the transparent containers having been cracked or destroyed altogether. Screws and prongs protruded from the skulls, as if the ancestors had been brutally disfigured and then carefully restored by the fastening of bolts and metals of exceptionally fine material. This conjecture proved to be more probable upon Malar‘s next find in a chamber running deeper into the darkness.

They found the secret entrance to the dungeon by following the series of cords running from the bolts and containers of the skulls to a crevice in the floor. It was here that the party became aware of undulations in an ancient language rising from depths of darkness. It took all of their courage, and the promise of treasure to drive the party of miners, diggers, and scholars into the next chamber where the great dungeon entrance lay in an obscured design far more primeval and primitive than the constructs in the first subterranean chambers.

After a lengthy and laborious dig, the earth gave in, and the entrance to the lower realms yawned widely before the scholars and workmen.

None of the men would enter the dungeon corridor, and so it was with great perseverance that Malar managed to take the first step into that lost world of melancholy. The other men lowered Malar into the ancient gap with rope and pulleys. A time of uncertainty passed before Malar touched with both feet on the tiled floor many tens of feet below. It seemed to him that voices called out his name, and the names of other members of his party. They even seemed to speak the name of the king, and of kings long before him.

As soon as Malar had arrived, the terrifying undulations ceased altogether. This sudden discomforting quiet nearly stopped Malar’s own heart cold.

Striking a post and banner of the king into the tile floor took some time doing, but it was task for the common diggers--who were more than willing to stay behind a while longer to perform the ceremonial rite in honor of the lord of the land.

Malar was at the head of the smaller band of specialists. He was flanked by his pupil, Alfonso, who scribbled notes when they afforded him time to draw his ink and quill from a case rolled in elegant layers of silk (a gift from the king, and a reassurance for the king that all findings would be dutifully noted).

Additionally, the elder sage brought with him two scholars; Marcus of Carrib, and Noor of Figgs. A warrior who gave only his first name as D‘mede walked alongside Malar. D‘mede, a dark skinned man of great physical strength, came to Gaiasar by way of the barren dessert to the far east. He had an array of knowledge regarding caves and subterranian caverns, which made him a good selection for the campaign. D‘mede wore a curved sword he called a scimitar, and a nearly identically marked sword of greater thickness, nearly an axe blade, for which he remarked was for cleaving only. For the narrow passages he slung the heavier blade over his back. Alfonso, having curiousity, asked about the crafting of the heavier blade, and learned its proper name to be a falchion. Aside from the darkman‘s prized sabers, D‘mede carried three concealed daggers, a throwing knife, and a brass vessel on his sash. His vest inner pocket concealed an ornamental device with a small wick or fuse, a barrowed end, and curved handle. Malar hadn‘t the foggiest what Alfonso found so interesting about the warrior‘s weaponry. In short words, Malar ushered them onward, and reminded them to watch their step, and to keep an eye to the side, and to mind their other senses, and so on.

The corridor stretched endlessly for such a length that the party grew anxious to get out of it. Yet, Malar advised his team to keep mindful of their footing, and not to exceed their pace. We must arrive at the end with some strength for investigation, or so he anticipated there would be an answer for the curiosities they discovered in the previous chambers above.

Decorations and signs along the corridor were difficult to read, since most of the engravings were very high along the corridor walls. They were crude engravings, even for the artisanry of primitive man.

Alas when they had reached the end of the corridor the party came upon a great stone door. D’mede gave Malar a pair of hands to hoist the elder sage high enough to read the plaque on the door. Alfonso handed the torch to the elder Malar so that he could have more light by which to read the plaque.

Clearing the cobwebs, Malar read aloud the engraved plaque, “Lord Trull“. No one could place the name in any page history, nor had there been a common language like their own so long ago. Judging by the craftmship of the door--its machine cut panels, the quality engraving of the plaque to lord Trull, the cast which must have made the solid handle--Malar decided that this door was the work of fairly recent years, despite the cobwebs. The one thing that Malar could not account for was the earth which had covered the great under halls which--Alfonso had noted the corridor step by step, inch by inch--stretched literally over three hours by way of foot. D’mede offered that perhaps the passage had not been used, and this door left only as a marker for this hidden realm. Malar sniffed audibly. He offered no argument.

At length they tried the door. It wouldn‘t budge. Malar and Alfonso pressed against the door with shoulder. Put your back into young scholar; the secrets of the universe are afoot! D‘mede suggested that they try the handle first. Perhaps the door swings only outward. He reasoned that this door was unlikely an entrance, but rather a secret exit of some kind.

Malar tried the handle. The warrior was right. The door did not open fully, but the resistance was less if Malar pulled upon it. The rattling of a bolted chain on the opposite side confirmed that the door was barred from within. Still, Malar found it to be an odd fashion for a door within such a grand hall to not open inward.

As the three men headed back to fetch the diggers, Alfonso offered along the way that if the door was indeed an exit, then perhaps the hall itself was of an older civilization altogether; barricaded on the other side of time.

PART TWO

Alfonso left Malar’s campaign as instructed, carrying with him maps (which you will see in the appendix of this tome), a journal, and the seal pressed leaflet of Malar, to the King. Alfonaso made his journey with all haste.

It is the last record given of any word from Malar. What it was that Malar and Alfonso uncovered is subject for the scrutiny of historians of our universities. The only thing which remains clear is that Alfonso did return to the elder mountains; that he did record such things as he saw or imagined them, that Malar’s party never returned to Gaiasar; and that at length Alfonso fled the company of the king when a reconnaissance party was being called to the audience of the king.

The King Futharion left no written records—himself being no scholar and renowned as an impatient ruler. What is left to us by the good king is a record log of all he owned and operated in the land of Gaiasar.

THE DESTRUCTION OF GAIASAR

Revenue fell under the heavy expenses of Heir Othelan, Lord and King of Gaiasar. Othelan’s father, Futharion, had passed away without ever knowing the secret of the hidden realms within the mountain, nor of the findings of the excavation team, nor of the return of the reconnaissance party. Othelon kept a diary, being more patient with literature and writing than his father. And when Futharion passed on from this world, he was given the ritual of elder kings, but it was a rushed and dressed event. Othelan had heard that rumor of which he was too eager to take up his father’s seat in the great halls of Gaiasar. Yet, such was often the rumor of the peasantry. As grand, but as quickly as the funeral had been, Othelon wrote only of Threshaven. Some excused the young King’s obsession with the wicked mountain of the gods, saying that the good king ‘felt his father’s wound from the failure of the initial expeditions’, and that he only wanted to ‘succeed in putting his father’s spirit to rest’. And this latter rumor is the one which Othelon encouraged; that not only his father’s soul could not rest, but that the people of Gaiasar would not rest until Threshaven was discovered. So it was that the people of Gaiasar felt a wound in their own pride, and took up the call to serve King Othelon the best that they could.

Truth be told—most of the people of Gaiasar would have happily forgotten Threshaven, and simply let the mysterious under halls of those mountains fade from memory. But they could not forget, for their very economic state was at the fault of their king’s obsession with the god mountain. Over time this detachment of the king from his people lead the kingdom into disharmony.

Scanning through the journals of Othelon we come at length to passages which finally return the eye of the king back upon his people. At length the kingdom of Gaiasar was overrun by mutany—which shamefully evolved into complete anarchy.

During this time of great revolution, and terrible anarchy, the hordes swooped down from their chariots in the sky and beasts upon which they rode. The evil armies fell their mechanical monstrosities upon the kingdom of Gaiasar.

Having no kingdom, no army, and only a corpse of a king--Othelon having been slain by his own hand and bodyguard--, the people of Gaiasar were prone to the attacks of the mountain ogres; huge cybernetically enhanced cousins of the giant races. With them came the trolls, and at their flank orcs carried the banner of Lord Trul.

Remaining in the mountain halls were the tribal goblinoids, but of a mechanically and cybernetically augmented race such as never seen before in the realm of Gaiasar.

Humanity in majority were reserved for entertainment in the fighting pits, or kept in livestock pins for Lord Trul’s consumption. Humanity, however, would emerge from the doldrums a transformed species with the aid of a new ally.

Word reached the ears of the evil dwarves of Salamandar Canyon, hearing humanity’s call for aid. A handful of barbarians from the north joined the refugees of Gaiasar on a quest to save the remnants of the humans enslaved by Trul. These would-be warriors no doubt made a bold stand, having the protection of their new barbarous escort. But when they cam to Salamandar Canyon, which was named Salsmandrei by the dwarves who dwelt there wherein the earth breathes fumes and flames from porous caverns, humanity died for the second time on Gaiasar.

Alas, to better understand their terrible fate, and of my people of the Gaiasar, one must imagine the circumstances of the time, for we are a cursed species who hold the front at Gaiasar against an unfathomable foe of such evil—an evil greater than the one which allows us all to live and breathe as we do now.

I return your attention now to the overthrown Gaiasar…

THE REIGN OF LORD TRUL

Lord Trul is a monster beyond most Gaiasarians’ imaginings. Standing at nearly fifteen feet in height, a giant troll crushed the throne of Gaiasar as he attempted to sit his bulk of cybernetic torso and robotic limbs into the seat of the dead king of Gaiasar.

He named himself lord Trul. Cyborg ogres served him as body guards. Dark gnomes labored on strcuting lord Trul’s factory and other technologies more advanced than our ancestor’s could have fathomed. Lord Trul himself was literate, and he could speak common Gaiasarian with some difficulty. His minions devised for him larger variants of the new super technology they stole from some distant civilization among the stars, making it into weaponry for the giant ruler to wield in combat—or in sport. His power seemed limitless.

Our remnants of humanity lived half lives in slave pens, wherein they breed and multiplied, and gave themselves as food to lord Trul and his minions.

THE DARK HOPE

The evil dwarves of Salamandar Canyon agreed to side with the barbarians and the refugee humans against lord Trul, but on one condition… Gaiasarians would unite their kingdom with the Salamandarians, and sacrifice a first son from every newly wed of Gaiasar who bore any sons.

So it was done. A pact was formed between barbarian—what was now the only true free human—and the evil dwarves of Salamandrei, who were thereafter known as the Salamandars.

The Salamanders showed my people to the secret of the elder mountain—a place we had long avoided since our defeated Gaiasar.

THERE at the deepest, and the utmost darkest depths of the canyons did we approach the foot of a strange mountain. At its base rose steps up through the darkness, where phosphorescent moss covered the sculpted steps. It was easy to follow the low-light glow of the stones up to a loft, wherein was an alcove.

Reaching the alcove was the easy task. It was fulfilling our oath to traverse the great unknown which was daunting. At length we arrived at the metal door within the stone wall. It was as if some alien craft had smashed into the mountain, and that the earth had burred all but the door leading… somewhere within… within some ‘thing’.

Mount Threshaven lay awaiting us on the other side of that metal door. It was an other-worldly place where the doors of the universe awaken and open for the one who calls them by their names, knowing when to speak, and the manner, and the hour, and so on.

We stepped through that metal portal as humans, beaten and defeated. But we emerged as the mechanical things we are now.

PART THREE

RISE OF THE MECHA

I was selected to remain behind my fellow humans. It was not to be made known to our contractors, the evil Salamandars, of this final decision. Yet, it was necessary to breach our agreement in secret, so as to retain any small remaining piece of what we once were. I was to note our history should the brave men and women who entered that door of space/ time emerge without their full capacity, or if they were not to return at all—if we had been lied to.

The last of free Gaiasarians entered the metal portal. I could not bare to look, upon their grim faces, especially the young warriors. Yet I could not tear my gaze from them as they dragged their hopeless bodies beyond the portal threshold of that evil forging of alien metal.

My passing hours were in places somewhere between sleep and wake. I could not remember at times why I was waiting in that forever twilight grove of glowing moss and rock slime. Then, as I wearily turned my head to see around me, my eyes came once again upon the metal door.

My thoughts fluttered like the wings of a butterfly. I began to wonder if anything I recalled had actually happened. I saw nothing of the dwarves—but I felt that they were certainly below in the deeper darkness.

As with something of a sigh, a portal yawned in the empty space before the door of metal. Out from it came men or machines which resembled men. Those who emerged from the arch were temporarily surrounded by a surge of electrical energy, and then immediately their feet transformed from metal hooves into treaded boots; seemingly adjusting form for the terrain under the mountain.

After the passing of energy clouds I deemed it safe enough to stand, so as to better observe the group of machine-men. They regarded simultaneously, and just the same way ignored my presence—as if in unison they’d silently agreed that I was not a threat. Yet, I recognized their faces. They were the last of Gaiasar; those brave and grim faces who once walked through the metal door as the last of humanity’s warriors.

The men and women who stood upon the loft of the mountain were fearless bodies, as opposed to those who had first set in to that door of strange time. It was the familiar face of our captain, Furiak, who I managed to catch attention. His face regarded me coldly, as if he did not recognize me. I asked him if he remembered his name. He made no answer. None answered. When at last I pondered aloud would ‘Gaiasar be saved?’, it was then that the men and women of metal bodies turned to me.

“Take us to Gaiasar” the mechanical Furiak reverberated from some metallic disc in his throat. “WE GO TO GAIASAR” the others fell in.

((End of fragment from anonymous))

CURTAINS FOR LORD TRUL

The mecha campaign poured over the devil palace of lord Trul, in small numbers at first, primarily on a reconnaissance mission. Taking humans from the slave pens, the mechanical men bore the men away to Salamander Canyon, where they offered up the first born or the eldest son. They then proceeded to mount Threshaven by means of the secret passage revealed to them by the dwarves.

More machines emerged as full battle-ready cyborg commandos. Women who were taken did not return to Gaiasar, but remained in an alien world where their bodies were merged with different machines for purposes unknown to the borg and human alike.

Gaiasar never became as it once was long ago with all its glory and beautiful gardens and glistening towers, although the remnant humans were grateful to the machine-men and their great sacrifice for Gaiasar.

Lord Trul was gone. And that is all that any human of Gaiasar cared about. They were free!

PART FOUR

THE NECROCRACY

IN the midst of building our wondrous new land, and freedom for all men and women who were elected (or perhaps rejected by the machine-men) remained human in Gaiasar, the dark dwarves disappeared from the lands. The Salamandar Canyon fell through the earth in a grand catastrophic event, a spectacle of electromagnetic waves and pulses rippled across the planet, shaking the foundations of Gaiasar.

The surviving dwarves departed from the land of men, seeking refuge in their haunted mountains.

As scholars and techno wizards uncovered hidden aspects of the portals, a new prestige class emerged from the arcane school of Talos, a land claiming the peninsula of Gaiasar’s southern border with the wild lands.

In Talos, the monks of various disciplines lived simple lives, and the mages of Talos shared knowledge in exchange for barley, tea, butter, and other monastery harvests and goods. This relationship between Talos mages and the good monks of various divinities made Talos too independent to be of honor to Gaiasar’s new and self-proclaimed emperor, Konrad Veximus.

Alas the portal technology of the machine men waned without the power glyphs of the portal wizards, who mapped the cosmos. And use of the portals of mount Threshaven became impossible without the diviners of Talos; as the great halls of mount Threshaven were in a constant state of flux, and were given to change location without foretelling. The machine-men remained ignorant of any technological means for calculating the routes of the portals, and could not quantify the portals by any means logical.

And so it was that the peace between free-living mages of Talos and the lawful abiders of Gaiasar’s emperor Veximus lasted for centuries.

Then came forth from Threshaven a most terrifying portal; one yet to be discovered by the mages of Talos. It smelled of decay, wreathed of fumes from dead orgone exposed bodies, and gave off no light other than a sickly pale luminescence like a submarine light scarcely breaking the surface of muddy waters in a swamp.

It is a dark day upon which the necromancers of D’hern took up residence in the free towns of Talos. They dwelled in their own series of dark towers further south from the other temples. They eventually seeped into every nook and cranny of the grand city that had replaced the kingdom of Gaiasar centuries ago. The D’hern renowned for their technology, wisdom, and vast knowledge of the realms beyond Threshaven, were welcome by emperor Veximus; who secretly plotted on laying siege over the mountain of Threshaven, and enforcing taxes upon the free towns of Talos.

Dark siddhis surrounded the D’hern, setting them apart from the respectable intellects of Talos. Once, perhaps, some unfathomable eons ago, the D’hern were more like other men. The citizens of Gaiasar and Talos did not share closed-quarters with a necro—what laymen call the sorcerers of the D’hern; and rightfully so, for they were indeed necromancers of the blackest sort.

D’hern resembled men, but had additional limbs like tentacles, and some rather unusual augmentations—commonly noisome breathing apparatus, which some claimed was necessary after their adjustment to different atmospheres in other worlds. There were also those necros who took to the air, but not elegantly as the bird. It was a ghastly sight to behold creatures—for certainly they could not be true men—take to air like wraiths on blackened wings, or others still, those necros which traveled within whirling vortices of gaseous clouds, spinning them off into the void. Those with multiple limbs and tentacles claimed that such transformations were the natural outcome of evolution—and that, furthermore, such limbs allowed for the D’hern to perform ultimate magic (a magic greater than high magic), consisting of rituals beyond the knowledge of the elder mages of Talos. And it was this claim that had the elder mages on guard.

Of all the times recounted by the great Emperor Conrad Veximus, he could not recall from record or memory storage any time in which graves sprouted up here and there, and spread across the flourishing lands of Gaiasar faster than their harvests of food and power crystals.

In time, the machine-men of the hive mind began to fall to unforeseen ill fates, such as diseases which had not existed prior to the arrival of their necromancer neighbors. All machine-men were assumed to be immune to the illnesses of the flesh, despite their fleshy counterparts merged within the machine body.

Accusations certainly were weak at the start, but took on some added strength as the portal wizards developed new devices and mecha for the craft of war. Their hidden prize, the telepad, was a device which could be placed as a beacon any location within a preset range (x number of spans). When a portal wizard stood upon a teleport panel, he would then materialize to the telepad in the blink of an eye.

Telepads would revolutionize portal technology in years to come, as no ritual was needed to use them, and aligning the entrance port with the exit panel was more convenient than using a traditional magic portal.

The problem was that necro elites had developed their own portal technology, and long before the ancestors of the portal wizards had crossed that threshold of the elder mountains in their trek for wisdom.

Worst of all, the D’hern did not share knowledge of their portal technology with anyone outside of their clan—not even with the emperor Veximus.

UNAVOIDABLE MEANS

The unavoidable day finally came, when men had to face their destiny in Gaiasar. That destiny, as a matter of course, was entirely subject to the wisdom of Conrad Veximus, Emperor of Gaiasar, and eldest of all cyborgs on Gaiasar. It was rumored that Veximus was older than any cyborg beyond the metal portal as well.

No cyborg doubted Emperor Veximus; though human counterparts living in Gaiasar’s city-state had more freedom in their lifestyles, as they were not entirely subject to the hive-mind conditioning of the metal-men.

Never-the-less, Conrad Veximus was emperor, and as emperor his word was the law.

Thus, when the rise of zombies became a daily concern for the metal-police, Emperor Veximus realized the frailty of his fleshy counterparts; the human sectors of Gaiasar’s hive cities. This ‘weakeness’, as the emperor apparently saw it, of non-converted humans, would only add to the growing number of zombie infestations.

The word of the law rang out to the citizens of Gaiasar all prematurely—for Conrad Veximus had been all too machine-like in his rule, forgetting what it once was to have clung to mortality, and of the loss of those material pleasures the Gaiasarians so loved.

In no time sooner than the order had come for all males of age to report to the hive coordinator for metal body conversion, did the populous cringe and revolt. The wiser humans simply found a convenient opportunity to flee to Talos.

The child-mind or machine mind of Veximus was surprised at the refusal of his human citizens to convert to machine men upon his instruction. His word was the law, so Veximus reflected. It made little sense for anyone to refute his ancient wisdom.

Long protected and sheepish were the average humans of Veximus’ rule in Gaiasar. Few, however, did see the nobility and wisdom in converting to full metal machine-men. After all, it was the machine-men who had saved their people from certain destruction. It was their great leader Veximus who had pulled the weak and miserable humans up from the dunghill.

Still, the majority of people attempted to flee. Many became refugees seeking exemption from the law. Talos was after all the one place where the word of Emperor Conrad Veximus had no authority.

While the hive-mind set out upon its task of quarantining the remaining citizenry, a series of conversion matching (the right body for the right genetics) ensued the processing of human escapees.

Elsewhere, war erupted. Many humans fell to the might of Veximus and his cyborgs. Talos was at a potential advantage, however, with their greater use of telepads, giving them swift movement across the cities and surrounding wilderness.

Veximus was not of Gaiasar, and he had fought enough battles beyond the boundaries of Mount Threshaven. It was simple child’s play for Gaiasarians to contest with his metal warriors.

The emperor’s first counter against the rebellion of Talos was to quickly take out all operational teleporters and telepads, thereby rendering the portal wizards immobile on the battlefield.

Supplies had run incredibly low for the portal wizards, and for those refugees nested in Talos’ fortress and keep. The wizards had to accept that their position was now the reverse, and that the opposing force of Veximus held the advantage.

“The advantage, however, is merely a tactical advantage,” the eldest wizard, Wendelin, encouraged his pupils. The wizards looked confused.

Setting down a long curved pipe, Wendelin drew a circle in the air. “We’re besieged. This is true. The emperor, however, will not move from his position. He expects us to surrender when our supplies have been utterly spent.”

A younger pupil raised his hand, and nodding his head in the tradition of Talos wizards to show respect for the wisdom of others, spoke the question on his mind. “Master Wendelin’s observation is true. But now I wonder, what would our—are we to move against the emperor then?”

No one moved. No one spoke.

“Our advantage, I simply point out, is that Veximus will wait for our move,” the elder answered after an interval of silence.

The wizards contemplated whether or not they could prolong their rations by means of meditation, altered states of consciousness, and—well, then that’s when a really bad situation turned into a complete nightmare!

Necromancers from the surrounding lands who had conveniently emptied the cities before Veximus’ manhunt had been conceived finally returned to Talos. With them a hideous new machine reared its ugly head at the fortress of Talos, and at the legion of cyborg warriors who encompassed it.

The machine rolled its arch on wheels up to a bridge of Talos peninsula.

With a loud crash their landed the giant doors upon the bare earth. Others landed in the paved roads, cracking the foundations of adjacent buildings. Black veins grew into the earth surrounding the base of each portal.

Wendelin threw open the window of his high tower. Reluctantly, his pupils gathered behind him, but Wendelin knew that Veximus would not open fire upon the tower. Instead, he beheld nine great constructs planted into the ground like giant shards of metal, bone, fire, ice—and still other materials which he’d know knowledge of their origin or making.

The portals formed a perfect arch around the city and the battlefield. It was a powerful technology indeed which Wendelin perceived.

Nine portals opened from within each shard of mirror, metal, bone, and other materials which comprised the towering constructs surrounding the besieged who were now trapped with those who had besieged them.

From the portals poured out the worst of the nine realms. It was a kind of undead beast, and yet cybernetically enhanced. A variety of necro borgs spread out across Talos.

The necro borgs were invulnerable to all weapons that the metal men fired upon them. Very soon there were metal warriors being pulled into the dark depths of the necroverse through the portals.

The D’hern borg were immune to most attacks, save one—the portal projector.

In minutes the battle field lit up like a storm of portals tearing apart the ground, pulling at the black archs of the necro gates.

Men and machine, necros and Talosians, and all living things of Gaiasar fell into the temporal storm of wormholes upon the battlefield.

Antigravity charges were fired, vaporizing some of the necro borgs, but also many of the Gaiasarians and Talosians. Warriors of Talos were pulled right out of their armor in a flash of lightening, and swallowed in a thunderous whirlwind of dimensions.

The emperor was perplexed. For although ancient Conrad Veximus had fought many battles in the dimensions beyond the metal portal, he was not entirely accustomed to battlefield warfare as the ancestors of the people of Gaiasar and Talos once were.

Most of the converts had lost their human spirit in the great communion with the hive-mind on the other side of the metal portal. Yet, as these machine-men had grown to love Gaiasar, their human spirit rekindled deep within the vessel of their metallic torsos.

Independent thought crept back in to some of the machine men. The essential human spirit or soul was the weapon most needed in Gaiasar’s final hour, on this battlefield. The wise fled where the men of metal had fallen from their posts surrounding the fortress. All Gaiasar had left was its last technological weapon, its doomsday vorpal machine—the portal projector. Gaiasar was a broken society, a broken spirit.

As wormholes collided with the nine necro portals, a new phenomenon occurred before the eyes of the wise tower of Talos.

The ground broke beneath the foundation of the city. Overhead, the sky swirled into a maze of eddies. All seasons struck the earth at once, like a bolt of energy from both polarities of the cosmos; fire and ice devastated all that could be seen.

Hail fired down from the heavens like a gunship projecting many torpedoes. Dimensional doors opened and closed frantically, causing the fabric of Talos to shred into pieces.

Most of the country of Gaiasar broke into islets. Sailing away into a colossal cyclone of space/ time, ice, and fire.

This war marked the first appearance of a smash portal upon Gaiasar, and brought with it most of Talos—taking all, living or otherwise, into the firmament of the smash-verse (a universe existing between the absolute void of chaos and the realms of order).

FRAGMENT OF THE SURVIVER

Chaos was all around me. I flicked the switch on my mechanical staff, and before my feet weaved in and out of existence the prototype for our first chaos beacon. It was worth a try, and did save my life. As the world around me scattered into oblivion, and as my beloved Talos fell upward into the smash portal, I found myself drawn into the air above. Time seemed to flux, and my mind could not manage the linear direction of my thoughts. Even my mind scattered into the ether.

The only thing which saved my life was an unconscious twitch of my thumb against the device in my hand, the rod and scepter of cosmic power. And quite suddenly I found myself back on the ground.

I was on the ground with the chaos beacon under my boots. But, I looked upward expecting to see the great portal and the ruins of Talos, for which I saw neither. Rather, before me lay vast lands of blackness and bone-cobbled paths. Indeed I stood upon the beacon, but I did not stand on Gaiasar!

I made my way through the grim lands of the necroverse with caution, for I gathered that this must be the place where I had fallen.

Each step was a brand new menace to my prowess, for the earth was filthily riddled with bones which crunched audibly under every footstep, or tripped me along my path.

In the darkness I pondered my escape from the cyborgs and the D’hern. Was it luck?—fate? Certainly, the chaos beacon had saved my life, but even the chaos teleportation technology is apparently unable to escape the powerful smash portal. Two universes collided, and I found myself pulled into this one.

ESCAPE

Multiple realms were visible from where I dared to climb and look upon the scrap yard blight of impenetrable darkness. I stood aloft a mountain of skulls and heaps of metallic junk; war mecha of other times, ancient weapons, relics from alien worlds all in one big mound beneath me.

My left foot broke through the skull of an ogre or some giant creature. And my right pressed upon the chest of a long dead cyborg—the face still attached to the neck and torso seemed hauntingly familiar.

Realms of fire were on the horizon, which seemed to be the only beacon of light in this side of the necro-world. Worlds of ice drifted on the empty spaces of the black vault of the cosmos.

Without warning, fluids poured over my helmet. Looking up, I beheld a life-filled aquatic realm looming overhead like a still-life sculpture; but life was in it.

Translucent beasts swam within airborne seas. Flying creatures dived into deep oceans of stardust. Eddies popped in and out of existence along streams and rivers, which divided masses of ice and islets among the cyclopean monsters who inhabited their black wells.

All of these creatures I could see through the dimensional rifts which whirred and popped like an electro-static orchestra in the universe.

Techno worlds smoldered in the distance.

PATH OF THE RIFT ROGUE

I have traveled much since I last wrote of my arrival in the smash realms—for now I understand that I had mistakenly took this plane of existence to be the infamous necroverse of the D’hern. Quite far from it!

I have acquired more than experience while here in the smash realms. I am transformed.

There is little use for keeping a journal in the time that has transpired. Yet, there is much worth noting from my shorthand scribbling.

I travel now with my new companions, Broden the dwarven portal berserker, and a droid who responds to the name PAWN. Together Broden and I search the lands of the smash-verse for necrogs or necroborgs.

PAWN scans the wide and narrow bands of the ether for portal activity before we enter any new territory.

My party has survived nearly three years, although Broden has been on the hunt for a much longer time.

Broden has taken down only four of the necrogs since we formed a campaign to retire all of the D’hern and their monstrosities on this plane. I agreed in part because I had nowhere else to go, and in part for revenge for what happened to my people of Gaiasar.

The necrogs are hard to kill, and one must flee when there are in numbers. That’s the tricky part. Necrogs do not work well as a unit or even in small bands. Yet the combined might of their evil presence is overwhelming even to a portal berserker. So, as they do not work well as a team, their raw psychical presence does their wicked kind some credit as formidable foes.

The portal berserkers are a few hundred at most, and because necrogs are created from the dead, their numbers overshadow the efforts we make.

When portal berserkers first arrived on this plane, two hundred necrogs were slain in the first year alone. But, a dark alliance with the necromancers who created the necrogs overturned the berserker army. Broden is the only living berserker on this side of Zorbos—the realm on this side of the Smash-realm plane.

Zorbos is a strange cloister of asteroids orbiting a dark sun, and is said to have been born from the collision of two universes eons ago (though I suspect that in some strange workings of time/ space that one of these universes was my own).

The worlds where super smash portals arrived were torn and flung into the void of the smash-verse,--a universe where fragments of different worlds are pulled together (the opposite of the chaos theory, where nature moves toward a limited direction of order as opposed to disorder) and exist after being transformed by the smash portal.

Being but a minor front against the D’hern, our one advantage over the necrogs is the PAWN unit. We have learned that the necrogs cannot detect the presence of droids—or perhaps they merely ignore them. Yet, living beings within an unknown radius of the necroborg will awaken them and their ilk (for far worse creatures, to my surprise and horror, exist as allies to the necroborg and the D’hern).

With our droid unit we peer into necrog strongholds without being detected. If there are living survivors of any of the light born races (those born from the planets orbiting stars), we can attempt a rescue once we’ve breached their slave pens.

There is a triad, a dark alliance between D’hern and other races. Without such an alliance, the necrog alone would be unable to hold prisoners for any length of time. The Drow, on the other-hand, are masters of imprisonment and torment.

FELLOWSHIP ENDS

The triad has left this rock of Zorbos for another realm. The Drow, necromancers, and necrogs departed on a vessel of some kind—one which took to the air and then transcended the forever dark space above.

Broden passed beyond my reach as one of the great ships lifted into the sky. I could not keep pace with my companion, and fell behind miserably.

I witnessed the dwarf climb inside a shaft on that vessel. The space vessel darted off into the heavens. A great battle ax fell at my feet, burrowing its blade deep into the earth.

The PAWN unit and I waited for a length of time immeasurable; but alas, our companion was never to be seen again.

NEW HORIZONS

Hefting the dwarf’s battle ax over my shoulder, the droid and I set out a course over the barrens, a place just north-east of the dark elves’ empty shipyard. I was eager to be rid of this place, for an aura of evil lingered long after the Drow’s departure from the space vessle graveyard.

Over a long stretch opened canyons like deep veins in the earth. The north was impassable. But, our luck improved when the droid’s sensors picked up life-forms to the east. This meant the possibility of food and water; something I was desperately in need of.

We came upon an encampment, but all signs of life were now gone. A rail cart remained fixed to the tracks leading in the general direction we were headed. Scrutinizing the control panel for a means of activating the mechanism for piloting this rail cart, PAWN’s extensors went straight into action.

The cart jolts. Quickly I open the side door which has a wedge. The droid rolls up into the cart. Closing the door, we are set. The cart builds up an electromagnetic field, and we are lifted into the air, flowing along the railing as silently as a ghost.

The grim lands of the Drow fell from my sight. I was glad to be rid of the place.

Ahead was a stretch of moon rock. All that could be seen was a blanket of white rock along the ground, which contrasted eerily with the vast blackness above.

I dozed off in the backside of the cart, seeing that it was twice the size of a man, and had just enough room for the droid at the operating panel.

PAWN would alert me to any danger. So I slept rather peacefully as we hovered along the monorail through space.

GAIASAR DERELICT PLANET

A rift rogue and a small droid appeared on the horizon, riding in a Drow skiff. The tiny craft skimmed across the waves of the infernal ocean of what was once the peninsula of Talos. Great arched doors rose high into the sky, and were translucent, or perhaps at times they fluxed like ghostly holograms of portals that had ceased to exist on the physical plane. The rogue in his flying ship counted nine great portals in all.

RUINS OF GAIASAR

What was once a grand array of towns surrounding a great series of towers, which extended out into the sea was now swallowed by the lava and gaseous oceans aflame.

Beyond the tattered islets of Talos lay the ruins of the mighty cities of Gaiasar, which surrounded the old castle of the last good king of Gaiasar, Lord Futharion.

A skiff settled somewhere in the ruins of the city, only a walking distance of some spans from the derelict castle.

From beneath the hull opened a narrow ramp. Descending first was a droid, which paused at the base of the ramp, turning its pie shaped head from side to side. The droid clicked, whirred, and sped down the slope of the street, making short adjustments to its bi-articulate walkers, converting them into wheeled feet for which to travel more effectively.

Behind the droid came a man, or what looked like a man. His leather variant of a Barbute helmet contrasted with his priestly garb—of which consisted of a tattered dishdana or hooded robe. He wore a hybrid armor of hides, leather, and padding, and a heavy medallion bearing the glyph of the ox and the hawk within concentric circles that he wore across heart, and which digressed, by means of additional linkages down to his abdomen, into a variety of pendants and amulets. Additionally, the ranger from beyond the stars carried a pendulum of ebony opal which hung from a platinum chain around his neck.

The rogue hefted a heavy ax over one shoulder, which further contrasted with his scholarly attire, but which complemented his armor. It was a dwarve forged weapon of fine craftsmanship. A pair of cables ran along the rod of the ax, between the handle and the blade. The head of the ax was heavier than an ordinary battle-ax, as if made to accommodate other working components. The ax resembled some lethal gadgetry more than it did a medieval weapon.

In the rogue’s other hand, he held on to a staff made of metal and switches. A clear chamber under a crest of quartz-crystal contained a black diode, which was suspended in the small space between a pair gold wires.

The rogue trailed after the droid casually, and on occasion turning his head over his shoulder to see around the blade of his ax. When he didn’t spot anyone else, he often caught look of the key-switch on the head of the ax—the self destruct mechanism Broden mentioned something about many years ago. To himself, the rogue ventured a thought, I wonder if I’ll ever have to use this?

What remained of the city streets was more than what fragmented islets had become of Talos. Most of Gaiasar was in complete ruin, but here and there the rift rogue found an intact chamber or construct—mostly the reconstructed domes and pyramids of the cyborgs from the metal realms. It only made sense that the structures built by the gear-heads would outlast the relished cobbled squares and tiled courtyards of the Gaiasarians. Cyborgs built only out of necessity; and everything they built was functional, solid, and impervious to nature’s upsets. But, ironically, their indestructible city built over Gaiasar’s lovely gardens never expected the disaster of the supernatural—the smash portal.

Some of old Gaiasar remained. Mostly the walls, the perimeter of homes, were intact, but the rooftops were crumpled or simply missing. Age swept swiftly over the metal bridges, and nature had enough time to retake much of the streets, overturning cobblestones, and running its dark green veins through every nook and cranny in the elder walls of Futharion’s castle.

At the bridge of the ancient castle the rogue stooped to one knee. He bowed and touched his breast plate of hide and leather. Before him yawned the great gate into the outer courtyard of Lord Futharion’s castle. And it was open.

The pendulum around the rogue’s neck became very heavy, as if gravity worked at unfastening it from his neck. The rogue depressed a switch on his walking staff, which followed a retracting of rods within the shell of the staff. The staff was now a small, six inch rod—which the rogue quickly shifted into his belt purse.

Setting the ax down by his boot, the rogue spoke commands to the droid at his side to be still. The man held the pendulum up before him, and with a few deep breaths said unto the air magic words which stilled the wind. Eerily, the pendulum leapt up at a ninety degree angle, pointing directly to the castle.

Patiently, the portal ranger waited. The presence inside was moving around, for as he read the dance of his pendulum with care, he noted the way it shook wearily to one side of its initial direction. If he read correctly, it appeared that what force was inside the old king’s castle was active.

Grimly, the man of Talos closed his eyes. He calmed his mind, and gradually his inner eye awakened. At first the inward screen upon his skull was filled with fleeting streaks of light, gleaning whirls, and distant twinkling stars. But, within minutes his second sight pierced through the veil perceived by his ordinary faculties, and he beheld the pendulum flaring out wildly in his mind’s interpretation. It pointed like a spectral finger up, up, high aloft a towering window. He followed its direction in his mind, and his focus brought his psychic presence into the room of that great window.

A vision exploded in the mind of the Talosian rogue—a great hulk of a creature reared up back at him, as if aware of Talosian’s ethereal gaze upon the creature.

Time to move! The Talosian ushered his droid companion. Hefting the burdensome ax, the rogue depressed a button on the butt of the handle. First, a vibration ran through the ax. Then, a humming sounded from the center of the rod. And finally the blade blazoned like a flash from the sun.

Quickly, the rogue moved onto the bridge, running for the great door of the castle. The space between the door and the bridge filled with the sounds of heavy footsteps. The ground nearly trembled.

“For Gaiasar!” The man from Talos growled.

OLD ENEMIES

Three giant corpses lay in distorted slumps among the ancient corridors of King Futharion’s inner halls. With a grunt of disgust, the man of Talos wiped clean his blade on the hide of one of the ogres. Their mechanical limbs twitched now and then despite being severed from the body. The rogue rested in a corner with his ax against his chest. Then, with a vengeance he pushed away from the cold stone wall.

Step after step, he followed the audible breath of the beast through the inner darkness of the castle.

PAWN was set to guard-mode; and he waited at the courtyard’s entrance, ready to sound alarm if any more ogres should advance on the rogue’s flank from the ground level.

“Who’re ye, stranger?” groaned a half mechanical and partly animal voice in the darkness.

At length the rogue reached the last flight of stairs. At the top, mostly concealed in shadow, towered a biomechatronic monstrosity. Its face was hidden, save for a red eye that peered through a metal plate, which partially covered its face.

“I came from Talos…” the rogue began.

“Talos is dead. You come not from Talos, unless you are dead. Yeeessss?” the monster hissed sadistically.

The rogue reached for the back of his utility belt. Felt the cold steel roll into his hand.

“No, I am not dead. I am Malar,” the rogue retorted.

“Malar? What is a Malar?” inquired the creature. Its mechanical limbs were clutching at something near in the darkness.

“Malar the scholar, the portal wizard, the ranger, the rift rogue… ” Malar went on.

The creature grunted, and again came the sound of something mechanical scraping metal in the darkness.

“I came from Talos, but I am from Gaiasar.”

The mechanical sound ceased. There was a silence. “Gaiasarrrr… yesss,” hissed the creature in the shadows.

“And a servant of King Futharion!” Quickly the rogue shifted his footing as he hurled the canister in his hidden hand at the darkness.

Simultaneously, the creature lurched forward, taking a full hit from the day-glow capsule. A greenish silhouette shrouded over the creature as it came forward. The light confused and blinded it, but Malar had shielded his own eyes from the blast.

What remained of the light was an outline around the creature. The intensity of the flash, however, had a lasting effect on the low-light vision of the creature. It’s one red eye was stunned, and as it came forward it slipped in its footing.

With a great clamor and cacophony the great beast fell. Malar jumped into the pane of a boarded up window to avoid being drawn down the steps with the creature. The rogue quickly planted a small clay object onto the ledge of the window. Pressed down on a small button for the count of three, and then released it.

Now I have the high ground, Malar reasoned to himself. He hefted Broden’s vibro ax into a striking position, and trailed after the creature.

As the creature continued to fall, rolling and slipping as it tried to regain its ballast on the treacherous steps of Futharion’s castle, Malar followed with the ax raised in position over the creature’s ugly head.

Having his first chance to see the creature in full light coming through the courtyard entrance, Malar recoiled before he could take the first strike.

The creature was a hideous troll, but of a size and species unseen in all of Gaiasar, save for one place—the dark mountains where his party had discovered the relics of the ancients.

Lord Trul, the words inscribed upon the door far below the ancient excavation site, returned to Malar’s memory. It was like a wasp had stung his inner ear at the mere thought of the name. The companions he’d lost, the lives that were taken and tormented in those dark places. For those ogres in mechanical bodies wore a strong resemblance upon their faces for which only now Malar dared to compare with his fallen comrades. Mutations, he realized. Lord Trul and these ogres are all the product of a much darker secret, Malar realized.

Then Malar found himself off-guard, busy with his recollection. In this time Lord Trul had managed to still his fall, and was attempting to regain his footing.

“Lord Trul, may I presume?” Malar shot a fiery gaze upon his opponent.

Still pulling himself up on his artificial legs, which were huge bi-articulate mechanisms, the cyborg troll grimaced. He had a changed expression in his red eye; the other was an empty, blackened socket in a thick green, bumpy skull. The cyborg troll heaved a deep breath, but did not strike. It appeared to be more cautious of its prey this round.

Malar adjusted a switch-lever on the hand of the ax, decreasing its weight (which would return when the blade came down in a striking motion to make the impact very strong). As he moved the ax behind himself with one hand, Malar also adjusted his distance from the troll.

Lord Trul moved up the stairs, testing each step until he was certain the stairs would hold him. The troll’s mechanical claws stretched out before his armored body.

Once the troll realized it could ascend safely, it disregarded all caution, and was once again a beast without reasoning. The green cyborg rushed up the stairs with hideous speed, like a mechanical spider. Clunk, clank, scrape! Lord Trul advanced swiftly despite all his commotion.

Malar reached back with his other hand to a remote on his utility belt. As the rogue dived off the stairs for one of the grand chandeliers in the chamber below, he depressed the button on the remote.

Kaboom!!!

The window frame, wall, and a good portion of the stairs exploded outward, carrying the terrified Lord Trul into moat far below the backside of the Castle.

So that’s a gravity grenade, Malar mused. The blast of the gravity grenade was pointed away from his position, but had nearly pulled Malar from the chandeliers with its g-force.

It will be a grand day in Gaiasar if we never see that Lord Trul again, Malar patted PAWN on his pie shaped head. The droid unit beeped twice and whirred about on its wheels and gears.

Scanning the moat, Malar found no sign of the cyborg troll. In the castle, there appeared to be no other menace—save for rats! And a shame it was that Malar was no expert in terminating rats, for such a noble house had been Futharion’s castle in the days of old.

After paying his respects to the burial yard of the Kings of old, Malar continued his quest to find what King Futharion had originally hired him to uncover. With his droid companion, Malar set out to find that most elusive mountain of the elder gods—Mount Threshaven.

There were nine greater portals of power. Threshaven is where all portals are one. They are all in one place, one space, and one time. No force of nature could destroy the mountain that was at all times and places whole unto it self. To the observer, Mount Threshaven is said to appear in a state of transformation. All seasons whirl around the colossal mountain, like a halo of madness. Yet, as the scholar had begun to understand, anyone who was on the soil of Threshaven would be in the same time and place as the portals of power. The secrets of the universe were cultivated within the mountain by intelligences beyond human knowledge. This… this is the secret that the King Futharion and his son Othelon sought with all their gold and all their might. And in the end it cost them the bloodline of their great house.

Malar produced his rod, and transformed it into a staff with the flick of a switch-dial. Before his feet appeared the disc of chaos. Malar motioned to the droid, and together they flew through space/ time, seeking the ancient mountain of the gods. It came to Malar that the first place to seek out the means to finding Threshaven would be through the mountain passes of Diabiscus… the very place where his first expedition had been destroyed by Lord Trul. And yet, there were still far darker things therein the vaults and mazes beneath ancient Gaiasar.

Resources:
RPG 9Portals.com
RPG 9portals.blogspot.com

eBooks http://bit.ly/thomaspwalton

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27 January 2012

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Threshaven book one: Kingdom of Gaiasar

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