Astravel

Legend

“The Boriac were the first to use the leaking rifts to the Astral as doorways for the instant shift of distant locations in The Void.”

“Silently it stepped out, looked if anyone had noticed, and walked away.”

—Skjald Ulrich

 

Description

Astravel is about travelling from one location to another distant location in the void or on the world, using the astral as a shortcut. Or entering the astral seek out someone or something there. Astravel requires knowledge about how and where to travel, or it is most likely certain death due to the dissolving effects the Astral has on matter. But there is several guilds, Astraliis Arcanum, who offers just that service, at a high price.

“She handed him the two promished Shards, and as he smiled—they moved.”

—Skjald Sigurd

 

History

Existing alongside the void was the Astral, now lingering inside our world, contained within the world’s surface. It consists of Mana as raw floating matter or thick swirling gases.

Those with a strong enough mind, body, and skills are able to enter without dissolving. Those entering it from one location in our world, with a single or few steps, can navigate the swirl and come forth tens or hundreds of kilometres away in our world—in a second. Travel distance and time spent depend on one’s skills.

The locations in our world giving access to the astral are Earthnodes with tiles, centre, and outer pillars Astral Sites/Gates, allowing for controlled access and Astravel.
The tiles indicate the site’s main Colour and the centre pillar is the sub-colour. The surrounding pillars indicate colours to be used for travel in that geographic Direction.

“Stepping onto the tiles, he began filling shards into the mouth of the pillar; violet, yellow, orange, and red. All to build the desired path.”

—Skjald Vinotis

 

Organisation

Scholars have due to observations Yell'a'Beard made in Outlands, and those Sessy, Themac and Zyr 'O' Loth made below The Rim. I figured that not only The Realm but the entire world are divided into a grid. In each grid, there are eight sites with the same coloured tiles, each with a centre pillar in a different colour.

This complex and intriguing system allows a aspirant to activate the site, set destination prime and secondary, and then pass into the astral through the coloured ‘aura gate’ and land at the specified coloured sub-coloured pillar.

The skilled can build up paths of immense length before setting the journey in motion. Using the Astral Site/Gates as navigation points for their’stepping in and out’ to the astral. These steps, taking one through astral to an astral site or gate in our world and maybe onwards, are so brief that not even Gods can interrupt.

Above are shown such travels from A to G (using pink and violet), to M (using pink and orange), to S (using pink and red), and to Y (using pink and orange). Thus did the traveller go Directions. 4 times through known sites, ending at the preferred orange subbsite of pink.

Activating an astral site or gate seems to somehow distort its neutrality, and it somehow becomes unusable until the Magic Shard Colour energies have been completely soaked up. The larger the group of living beings that travel, the longer the period.

“Suddenly it shimmered bright, and on its tiles appered thousands of invaders in a daylong stream.”

—Skjald Sejrik

 

To build up this travel, shards of the required color(s) are used, either magic shards that are consumed when travelling or divine shards which the user may retain for further use, as they persist during the travel. How these are transported from the start pillar to the end pillar is still a mystery. There also exist some extremely rare multicolor shards that are half crystalised half swirling, these are the most divine shards one can get. Some say these act as wildcards for any aura colour, but so far only a few has worked with these.

“Inserting the swirling end, the pillars head blew apart—and her arms vanished.”

—Skjald El Mary

 

Special

The danger of travelling is that the longer the travel, the higher the risk of dissolving and the higher the risk of encountering Monsters. Thus, few use it often and even fewer in long travels across several earthodes. Some, like Black Pelvis, have suffered physical and mental damage from excessive travelling.

“Oh had that evil creature but ended his days the first time, then all would be better.”

—Skjald Yell'a'Beard