In the last days of 1800, five circles of engraved and ornamented metal appeared in five different places on Earth. Called the Great Gilded Gates, they offer access to a strange dimension, or maybe a set of interconnected dimensions called the Infinite Labyrinth. People appear to be evaluated on their intrinsic “potentials” on a 10-20 scale, and only those with 18 or greater in at least one of these can cross the Gate to enter the Labyrinth – about one in every 350 people on average qualifies.
For the lucky few, they are granted a Descriptor, a view of their identity, and then a Profession, a category allowing them not only to acquire strange skills but to improve their potentials and raise their vital levels: health, mind, endurance and a strange aether, a source of magic energy.
18 years later, while its economy and progress have been supercharged by the output of materials from the Labyrinth making their ships unrivalled, and their skyships sole masters of the skies, the British Empire is pressed from all sides. While it is currently at peace with its former colonies of the United States of America more than ten years after they removed its rule in Canada, the United Kingdom is clashing in Asia against a resurgent Qing Empire, and locked in a semi-hot war with the French Dominion, who has absorbed most of Europe under the rule of a Profession-empowered and highly ambitious Tyrant: Masterful Watchman Napoleon Bonaparte.
Napoleon and his right-hand man, Jacques Deschanel, concoct a dastardly plan: to shut down access to the Great Gilded Gate of London, deprive and starve the British Empire of its necessary materials, and launch a final invasion on British soil against a weakened United Kingdom. French saboteurs infiltrate London, despite intelligence reports… and manage to destabilize and catastrophically shut down the Great Gate, as hapless London citizens flee and try to take cover, while Deschanel and a high-powered team led by Imposing Knight Augusta Cowen engage in battle.
While hundreds get killed in the cataclysmic fight for the Gate, six young men and women get caught in the Gate’s backlash and survive by pure chance the shutdown itself. The hidden mechanisms of the Infinite Labyrinth adjust them so that they can legitimately remain in the parallel dimension, before dumping them seemingly at random in a remote corner of the Labyrinth, in acute pain from being forcefully altered in ways that are clearly not standard procedure.
Trust without guidance and support, the six survivors team up to explore their surroundings, trying to find a way back to London, and figuring out the rules of the Labyrinth. Although one of the survivor’s cousin is a Professional himself, they lack knowledge of what most Professionals are taught, and have to improvise.
While they slowly test their new world, improving their skills, potentials, and vital levels to survive increasingly powerful challenges, a frantic British Empire, and an isolated Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, second in line to the British crown, attempt to restore communications by the way of the only semi-neutral point they can, the Great Gilded Gate of Manhattan. Uncoordinated, a team led by Careful Tactician Louisa Grey sets out from Gatepost, the capital of the British section of the Labyrinth, and Cowen’s team ships out of London to persuade the government of the USA that the threat of the French is more important than the risk of letting British Professionals romp across their starting zone.
After discovering they are completely locked in a small corner of the Labyrinth, the six shanghaied young Professionals set out to conquer and exit their isolation. As each zone requires more and more “lair” completion to allow access to the next, they take risks, sometimes even dying – for death in the Labyrinth is temporary as long as enough members of the team survive and have enough time to resurrect the fallen. They emplace wood signs at each exit point of the zones, in the remote hope of being noticed by other Professionals.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
While they are getting access to new, improved Professions, and discovering that the Adjustment they had received is an ongoing process, their signs are noticed, and a rescue mission launched. The fact that six people escaped London’s attack, but ended in a remote corner of the Labyrinth rather than the zone next door is an anomaly that Calculating Tactician Charlotte of Wales feels she cannot ignore, in agreement with Cowen’s team strangest member, Imposing Physics Blair Habborlain.
After weeks of painstaking progress, the six of the Adapted Team are finally ready to attempt to move on to the next stage of the Labyrinth in tier three, when they meet up with Cowen and her own tier-six team. Ensue an exploration of the differences between normal Professionals and the ones with Adjustment III, as Cowen is the first to slowly realize how powerful these six might become in time.
Under orders of getting them back as fast as she can, she power-smash the six through the tier three zones of the Great Line, a long string of zones across the extent of the Labyrinth, qualifying them as fast as possible for each successive zone until they finally re-enter the British area of influence.
There, they meet up with Guss Fullmore’s cousin, who had immediately pitched in to help get them back to civilization upon hearing of their plight. As they finally reach the “London Borough” of Gatepost, team leader Jonas realize that their goal remains elusive – the Gilded Great Gate remains locked and access to London is impossible.
While the British heir and the scholar Resilient Spellwrangler Charles Babbage try to figure out what role their special abilities may play, they try to adapt and understand the ordinary life of a British Professional, which is full of strange little quirks and twists imposed by the very nature of the Labyrinth.
Finally, as the Gate has fully recovered its integrity on the London side, the British authorities hatch a clever scheme to power the Gate again. Alas, their attempt is unsuccessful… until a frustrated Jonas kicks the gate and gets killed for its attempt – and the Gate attempts a restart.
It takes all six Adjustment holders dying to perform a full reset of the Gate and force a reconnection of the two Gates, restoring, finally, the access of the British Empire to the Labyrinth, and negating the plans of the French Dominion. And while death can be a temporary condition for a Professional, that forceful restart has left its mark on the Adapted Team, triggering another step in the Adjustment process.
After realizing, in various – and sometimes painful – ways that the life they had before Professional ascension is gone, the six get another surprise. One of the highest honours of the Kingdom awaits them, and they find themselves named Knights and Lady Commander of the Bath and paraded in the streets of London, becoming, at that moment, some of the most popular subjects of his Majesty, on and off Earth.
Under the official employ of the Duke of Wellington, they now have a mission: improve themselves as much and as fast as possible to avoid being vulnerable to a French assassination, and help solve some of the mysteries of the Labyrinth, who still has many, small and large, strange and frustrating.
One of these arises from the Gate restart itself, for it is apparent that the Gate attempted to reconnect to many Gates already in use… far more than the five known. Not only that, but the now invisible – for non-Adjusted – descriptor indicated an Earth 113 designation for other Gates, and 113, rather than applying to which Gate on Earth it is… might refer to an entirely different aspect of the Gate.
But, before diplomacy can arrange for the six to visit the USA safely and check their Gate numbering, they have a simpler task to do.
Go back into the Labyrinth.