Events in time are not always set in stone. Some people find ways to change seemingly normal and inconspicuous situations into a divergent path that results in a temporal anomaly that affects the future, but there are others who knowingly alter the past to affect the future itself based on their biased reasons. There are many methods to travel back and forth through the fourth dimension though not every traveller is willing to break the rules for their own selfish gains for who would be reckless to do so? This is one such story involving a world where one impossible event set into motion the personal intervention of a powerful deity and the awakening of a legend from another world.
==+==
“So it has begun,” a mysterious voice echoed out through the void as its crimson eyes gazed upon a world which lay within his palm. Countless variations of this same world orbited the main world itself, but there-within the endless void itself-a new variation appeared which made the entity speak. Not even this entity was completely aware of what had caused such an occurrence to happen, but it did know-however-that something had been altered. A specific event in its history had been changed to remove an important central figure from the world itself before its legend truly began, yet something about this confused the entity.
“This has happened before, but why did they get removed?” It asked itself. This entity then decided to dive into this new variant timeline a few moments before the pre-ordained moment which shifted the world’s balance forever.
==+==
A massive entity stood within the depths of his home-sensing the invading forces and his guardians battling it out while the one person he was expecting had made it past them all. This person who was sensing everything was the god Guthix himself and he was currently maintaining the shadow anima barrier around the world he so loved. He was fully aware his time was coming to an end and wanted to appoint a World Guardian for his beloved world, but there was no suitable candidate for his blessing anywhere on the planet which was odd. He was certain there would have been someone suitable for the task during this period as Nature dictated, yet there was no one. It made Guthix rather confused, but that confusion would not last for too much longer as something impossible happened.
Everything stopped. Silence had returned to his humble abode, but it was not alone. Guthix felt even Gielinor itself stop as if something suspended everything but himself in time. Why wasn’t he also frozen in time like so many others?
He soon found his answer as he saw an entity far above his own tier of divinity standing before him with its eyes glowing emerald green. It was not any deity Guthix knew or understood, but the power it held did suggest at least Transcendent-tier of divinity. That was enough to put him on guard for a brief moment, but this entity didn’t do anything to him-let alone even prepared a spell.
“Be at peace, Guthix,” the entity spoke with a clear masculine and authoritative tone. “I am not here to cause you ill, but to offer you salvation for a problem that if not corrected shall spell the doom of Gielinor in the coming eras.”
That both shocked and surprised Guthix though he didn’t let it show. “What do you mean?”
The entity snapped its fingers and a powerful illusion wove itself together around them both-showing the future of this variant timeline. Guthix saw blood, fire, and ash as a new God War wreathed its destruction across the landscape unabated-turning the beautiful lush landscape into a dominating hellscape where even the humans are hunted down for sport or sustenance. He saw multiple atrocities committed by the various godly factions and even saw Gielinor’s destruction by the Elder God eggs hatching. It wasn’t until the entity before him spoke with a calloused tone which held its disgust towards the images shown that Guthix finally managed to look away with tears streaming out.
“Without a World Guardian, Gielinor would become a battleground for a new God War and a disaster which sentences all life to extinction,” the entity began. “But this was planned to happen because someone messed with this world’s Timeline. Certain events have been altered to benefit the people behind this as they obviously seek Gielinor’s destruction at all costs, but they did not count on outside interference.”
“Who would do such a thing?” Guthix asked himself. He knew it couldn’t be the main culprits who are infamous in Gielinor’s history for being in conflict with each other through their ideologies, yet it couldn’t be discounted.
Unabated by Guthix’s mental discussion, the entity continued. “If you are willing, I do have a solution which may be able to help remedy this situation before everything goes horrendously wrong.”
Guthix quickly looked at the entity with a gleam of hope. “What do you suggest?”
“Simple,” the entity said as the illusion disappeared to show another world-one Guthix was very unfamiliar with. This world was Earth in the twenty-first century where Guthix could tell at a glance that there was no magic to tap into and humans were the dominant species. It was very odd to see a new world where humans reigned supreme, but he knew he was still on Gielinor. It was a very intricate illusion the entity created, but there was a sense of familiarity for the imagery to be so crystal clear that Guthix could not help but notice. “Not all of them who reside within this world I show you now are aware of this world, but those who do know of Gielinor treat it as a game with their own version of World Guardians. Millions of them.”
“Millions?!” Guthix mentally said with shock, but the shock was not over yet.
“I know it may come as a surprise to you, but even the few millions of humans who play the game are a sparse few in comparison to the well over several billion people who live on the planet,” the entity said.
At this point, Guthix was feeling like someone hit him with a powerful [Earth Strike] upon hearing that the world this entity was showing him held over several billion humans. He knew Gielinor had about a hundred thousand humans spread across the land, but it was mind-boggling to the deity to hear of such a grand number on a world without magic. Giving himself a moment to recover from the shock, Guthix implored the entity to continue.
“At this point, you can only collect one person from this world to aid you in protecting this world. This is the only chance Gielinor has and only at this moment where everything is set to change,” the entity warned. “To make everything easier for you to choose your World Guardian, Guthix, I have run through the possible candidates to a hundred and one people who fit your criteria. I have their real names and usernames they use within the game version of Gielinor in a list that we shall go through.”
This criteria Guthix has for his guardian was relatively simple to understand. First, they had to show knowledge between right and wrong while having the desire to keep the chaos of the world in order. Second, they needed to have a strong mortal soul tempered enough to withstand the spell Guthix would leave upon their souls. Lastly, they had to have some workable knowledge of Gielinor’s history and lore.
The entity was aware of all of the requirements, but ‘he’ added a secondary requirement of his own which helped to whittle the listed down to a hundred and one names. They all had to reach a tier of completionism within the gameworld where they completely maxed out each skill to 200 million experience points as well as gained the trimmed completionist cape. These requirements were insanely hard to accomplish, but they weren’t working on data presented in later times.
Meanwhile, they had gone through a hundred names of potential candidates and Guthix was not seeing the potential in any of them. Those “unlucky” one hundred people were mainly stay-at-home adults who hardly went outside or children far too young for the responsibility being the World Guardian entailed, but when they landed on the 101st name-the very last name on the list-Guthix saw the potential.
“Silver Tyr, also known as TierSi1v in the game, had reached full completion recently and hosted a full party for his completion within the Varrock museum as he acquired the Completionist Cape. He is eighteen years old and has little social presence outside of a family member and a small friend group. One of the candidates for transmigration,” the entity said as he read off the dossier to Guthix.
The illusion then shifted into Silver’s real and in-game appearance. Both appearances were vastly different to each other as the real Silver looked to be slightly lean with some muscle definition along with his black to blue gradient hairstyle and silver white eyes (hence the name). His in-game character appeared much more well off as a slightly buff character wearing the War Robes of Guthix override with the Garland of Remembrance headpiece and the trimmed Completionist Cape. His hair was silver colored with green eyes, slightly tan skin, and the hairstyle set to the dragon variant with a clean shave.
Guthix viewed both and felt that this “Silver Tyr” person was just the person he was looking for and well-suited to the responsibility of being his Guardian unlike all of the others. Upon seeing his real form, Guthix could tell this boy had the opportunity to become a legend with a heavy Providence, but even with his future Guardian in mind, there were only two questions left on Guthix’s mind.
Fortunately, the entity had given him the answers to both questions as if expecting them.
“For your Guardian, we will prepare to summon him directly here to Gielinor and to help guide him properly, he will be given something no other person on Gielinor shall have nor completely understand. On Earth-his homeworld-there are stories involving transmigrators to other worlds and how they are given a ‘System’ which allows them to keep track of their progress along with other functions. For the rest of his journey, Silver Tyr will be given a System of his own which shall enable him to grow in power and accomplish feats which not many can do,” the entity responded to the unspoken questions.
Somewhat understanding the concept of a ‘System’ that the entity spoke of, Guthix posed the question. “Who shall administrate such a System?”
The entity only smiled at Guthix's question as if leaving it unanswered.
==+==
Within the frozen temporal aperture at the moment where the world of Gielinor itself begins to wake, two powerful deities began to construct a powerful complex yet adaptive System that would go on to help change the future and potentially bring it back on track. No one else in the whole world was even aware of such a momentous change in the Timeline and it all began with an impossible event.