The|MULTIVERSE

EPISODE 6: Hanakill

Pocket Dimension: Cruxhaven

The path of a multiverser was a path of infinite wanderlust, but the path of an aethric multiverser... That in itself held great responsibility.

Ricven had a job to do. He was tasked with many jobs, actually. As a conduit of aethra, he braved the worlds and thwarted that which opposed the universal balance. But when he wasn't piled to his neck with countless oppositions of evil, delivering damsels from said evils, bedding damsels, pissing off Fae, and collecting soul cores--his greatest task--from an even greater, unspeakable, evil, Ricven combed the multiverse for something special.

A particular lost plane of existence taunted his dreams--pressing him to chase it down and seize it for his and his companion's own. A nexus point, they call it, fundamental links that not only housed their own core planes but tethered to a system of world clusters comprising a multiversal network. A cosmic web collective of universes, in other words. Hidden from the mundane, they were, but with the power of aethra, the cosmic mesh of the worlds beyond exposed itself.

Ricven retained the means necessary to walk the multiverse without the use of devices with just a snap of his finger. Those void of aethra used linkgems, a crafty device of mystic technology enabling alternative methods of multiversal travel. With the right mechanism and an aethric one's special guidance, one could just as easily discover a nexus point without much strain.

And that was how Cornelius and the others discovered Cruxhaven, Ricven's tireless objective.

Discovering Cruxhaven was the best news Ricven heard thus far. The name itself a proper title, for it became their permanent base of operations, an impenetrable island mass the shape of a gargantuan throne suspended in a sea of stars.

The cathedra of stone was no doubt a mighty fortress, currently occupied by Ricven's gang. Its form indeed fit for some massive, unspeakable giant, but there lived no giant in this pocket realm, and Ricven was the throne island's new king.

He surely felt like a king the moment he stepped onto that island. Cruxhaven was no longer a dream.

The bastion's size too great for Ricven to muster with eyes alone. Stunned by its magnificent magnitude, he absorbed as much as the fort could give—its extent touching what seemed to be the clouds encompassing its ancient peaks—and it begged the question...

"Who in the fee-fi-fo-fuck actually sat on this thing!?"

Cornelius scoped out the bastion's pillar-strewn entry. Ricven's guess was just as good as his own. "The answer to dat', my friend, I'm sure awaits within its grand array of countless literature."

Ricven flashed his brows. "It has a library, too?"

"More than that!" Fae chirped from the top of his goggles.

"Aethenius' been holding himself up there," Cornelius paused for a second or two, or three...make that four seconds as he pondered that statement over and corrected it. "...was."

Ricven softly puckered a brow. "Heck you mean by 'was'?"

"It's best dat' Hanakin feel you in."

He, Cornelius, and Fae ventured ahead. They passed through the pillars of stone and ascended the long path of steps that led into the fort's leafy foyer. There dwelt an air of vacancy about the fort's inner chamber. Its vast interior empty, void of life save from the earthly elements that claimed its finely carved walls.

A colorful cluster of leaves and radiant berries seemed to pool from the foyer's high cracks and plunge thick along the cobblestone floor. Ricven stopped in his steps, caught by the comely flicker of berries that begged to be plucked.