I
The Gateway
“You may have walked past the threshold countless times and never realized it. Who’d stop to investigate that tattered door- its paint peeling off from years of neglect? Many have attempted to anchor it in place, but those candlelit halls are elusive. It’s older than magic, older than us. We may need to accept that it’s always been there. A quiet companion on our eternal journey, a story to tell in our time of need.”
Imagine if you would, that you’re an adventurer, lost in the depths of a forsaken labyrinth. The particularities of this labyrinth aren’t important, only that your supplies are exhausted and your resolve is broken. You need to rest, but your enemies are closing in. Now only moments remain until your torch is extinguished. Out of sheer desperation, you push forward, plunging through a shattered door with what could be your last breath.
What you find beyond, defies all explanation. You’re in the midst of a bustling tavern, nestled beside a roaring fire. Its patrons speak in languages long forgotten, and swirling elixirs line the shelves- casting the halls in shifting otherworldly hues. Despite all of this, you are welcomed with open arms, and before you know it you’ve found travelling companions for the long road ahead and a tankard of mead in your hands (or your beverage of choice, we aren’t one to judge…)
If you stay long enough, you might just catch a glimpse of the tavern’s elusive proprietress, though she disappears again before you can offer your thanks.
Once you’ve rested enough to continue your journey, you leave through those same doors and find yourself in the labyrinth once more. You search desperately, but there’s no trace left of the tavern that had been so alive with song mere moments ago.
An unlikely story, perhaps. One you might even begin to doubt yourself as time passes by. Yet this tale appears time and time again across the myriad dimensions of the multiverse. An unlikely tavern sequestered away in an ever-shifting pocket dimension. A place of companionship and refuge against the dark.
There’s always a door, and a story waiting to be told.