“So little ol’ me was minding my own business, sitting in my room. When suddenly, I slip, which is normal for me but this time instead of making a loud bang when I hit the ground, I made a very manly sound, and then before I know it, I am met by five other creatures. Two of the creatures looked like beast-men but for some reason wore what I think were formal clothes. The other three I think were human. Only ‘think’ though, as one of them told me my armor was ‘lit’, but I definitely was not on fire...”
-Excerpt from Lancelot’s Diary
Olivia felt her body hit the rough ground and she groaned. “That’s gonna be a bruise for sure.” She rolled over and a beam of sunlight stabbed her eyes causing her to squint before opening them. Once her eyes were adjusted to the light she saw that they were in some kind of... “A forest?” she said in disbelief. She looked around and caught a glimpse of Melody who was standing nearby in a small clearing looking away from Olivia, hands clasped to her chest. “Hey... are you... okay?”
Melody stiffened, wiping away a tear. “Yea I just... the last time I saw a forest like this was... back on my home planet.”
Olivia got up and dusted herself off before moving to stand next to Melody and take in the view. “What were they like?” She asked placatingly.
“Oh, they were beautiful! They were all so tall and strong. My favorite place to go was the woods. My siblings and I would play little games, hide, build little forts out of wood...” She said wiping away another stray tear. “That is until...” She trailed off.
“Until what?” Olivia asked, curious.
“Until they were all gone,” Melody said bitterly. “Removed for the sake of new buildings, skyways, roads, real estate……”
“Oh, I'm so sorry” Olivia gasped. She gave Melody a quick side hug.
“Thanks, I think I’m good now,” said Melody, her voice back to its usual sparkly self.
At that exact moment, they heard a loud crash from behind them and they turned around to find a very embarrassed looking Lancelot laying on the ground with Jason beside him.
“What took you two so long?” Olivia asked indignantly. “We’ve been here for, like, 5 minutes!”
“Time works a bit differently in the space between worlds,” said Gryphon as he appeared and landed sprightly on the ground, dusting himself off.
“Where precisely... are we?” Called down Cetiri from high up in a nearby tree.
“Wait-when did you get here?” Called out Melody.
Cetiri pretended to count on his fingers. “About a minute before these bozos.” He said pointing at Jason who was helping Lancelot up off the ground.
“To answer your question, we should be somewhere in the Endless Forests,” said Gryphon, glancing around.
“Endless Forests?” inquired Jason.
Gryphon frowned “Why do you all keep repeating the words I say? Yes. Endless Forests.”
“Well, will you please tell us what’s going on now?” asked an exasperated Jason.
“Certainly, but first, we need some wood”
…
Firewood was found very quickly and thus the adventurers were soon settled in a clearing as Cetiri and Gryphon set up the wood for the fire. Jason was sitting gathering his thoughts as he observed the group: Lancelot was polishing his overly shiny sword and armor for what must have been like the 100th time and Melody and Olivia were talking amongst themselves.
Jason watched as Gryphon moved his hand very close to the firewood and snapped, the wood immediately catching on fire.
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“How did you do that?”
Gryphon glanced up. “Oh, it’s nothing, just a simple parlor trick.”
Jason didn’t believe him but had no grounds to accuse him of lying so he let it slide.
“So, as much as I enjoy this pleasant evening in a forest that was accessible through an interdimensional hallway in my closet, I can’t help but think my parents would be missing me and wonder where I am.”
“Unless your parents are extremely light sleepers, I doubt they’ll be missing you for long.”
Olivia chose that moment to chime in. “Why? They’re not going to die are they?” She asked, voice rising in pitch.
Gryphon quelled that concern as quickly as it rose. “As far as I know, your parental figures are totally fine. The reason I said that you would likely not be missed is the way time works here. As far as any of us in the Interverse can figure, 1 hour in your world translates to one month here. In other words, you can spend 2 years here and have only been gone a single day there.”
This reassurance seemed to calm Olivia for a moment until she thought of something she hadn’t before. “Wait, can we-”
“Return?” Gryphon interrupted, “No, I’m afraid not, at least not yet. I don’t know if you noticed but almost all of the doors are unopenable.”
“Why is that?” Inquired Cetiri.
“And there we get into the meat of the matter,” Gryphon responded, pleased that someone asked the right question. “But before I answer that I must explain how the Interverse came to be.”
Everyone shifted closer to the fire, eager to hear what this mysterious place was, and why they of all people were here.
“At the beginning of time, there was only one world,” he began. “Your world in particular,” he added, nodding at Olivia and Jason. “For a long time that world flourished and slowly grew, becoming more populated. When one day, something happened at around 2700 BC. What, you may ask? The Epic of Gilgamesh, the first recorded story in history was written. And with it, man finally discovered the power of the written word. When this story was written, a new world formed, connected to the first. The world of The Epic of Gilgamesh. At first, none knew of the second world’s existence, until the creation of Stonehenge. Stonehenge was the very first entryway, door if you will, into the Interverse. The Interverse only exists because of stories. The more stories were created, the more the Interverse grew, the more universes had opened up.”
“So the Interverse is made of stories from their universe?” Melody asked, troubled. “So then what about us?” She said, motioning to Cetiri and Lancelot.
“You all exist in the universes created from the stories of the base world,” Gryphon responded as if expecting her to have already realized this.
“So… we don’t exist? We’re just… figments of someone’s imagination?”
“Hardly. Even though the universe you come from was originally thought up in someone’s mind, your universe, and indeed anyone’s not of the base world, are as real as all of us.”
“So why are we here?” Cetiri asked, eager to learn why they had all been yanked from their various universes.
“Well, a little over a year ago now, Interverse time, a massive shockwave was sent all through the Interverse, unbalancing, and warping the delicate stories and universes within. We believe the blast had come from the base world. As far as I can gather there must have been some sort of attempt by some unknown group to force their way into the Interverse, that backfired, sending a tremor and essentially ‘glitching out’ the Interverse.”
Jason’s face grew pale with realization. “The army…”
Gryphon glanced sideways at Jason. “What was that?”
“Today I read that there was a major accident in the army involving one of their top-secret projects. The project backfired, killing everyone in the facility, mutilating and twisting them horribly, sending some even through walls.”
“Ah… so they’re the ones to blame. They were most likely searching for a way to obtain weapons far beyond their time and ways to travel unrestricted.”
Olivia spoke up. “So what does this have to do with us?”
“The damage to the Interverse, though devastating is not written in stone. The Interverse spent this last year gaining just enough energy to open a few doors momentarily, the doors to your worlds.”
“Why us though?” Jason asked.
“That I do not know. I was sent to help you, but I know not why the Interverse chose you all. The reason remains to be seen.”
“How do you know so much about the Interverse? It seems most residents aren’t even aware of the other universes but you seem to be an expert.”
“Because I was from your world. I was born to a family of proud Vikings. However, I had disgraced them by stealing something extremely valuable. As a result, in the year 819 A.D. I was exiled to what is now known as Britain. I wandered aimlessly, left with little to no food when I chanced upon an interesting stone structure. So delirious was I with starvation and cold that I did not properly register that I suddenly wasn’t near the stone structure anymore and passed out. The only thing I did notice is that I suddenly wasn’t cold… I was warm. I found out later that the odd stone structure I had stumbled into was the legendary Stonehenge, one of the first doorways to the Interverse. Since then I’ve been stuck in the Interverse for roughly 876,731 years give or take a few hundred.”
“800 thousand years?!?!” Jason exclaimed. “How are you not dead?!”
“Not only time but aging works differently in the Interverse as well. Stories are timeless, thus they do not age in the manner you’d expect them to. Likewise for the residents of the Interverse.”
“But where do we play in all of this?” Cetiri asked. “What do we need to do?”
“As I stated before, the Interverse has gotten warped. Our job is to eradicate the defects, the things that don’t belong, or are changed. After we do so, the Interverse can safely essentially ‘respawn’ the correct versions of the flaws.”
“So we basically need to destroy or remove the flaws and the Interverse will automatically replace them with the right version?” Jason asked.
“Hold on, if the Interverse can replace the defects with the correct version, why does it need us?” Cetiri questioned.
“While the Interverse can spawn people and parts of the universes, it cannot remove the defects itself. It needs someone or something else to remove them in order for it to replace.”
The group sat silently, processing what they had heard. Gryphon gave them a moment before asking “Any questions?” The party shook their heads. Gryphon nodded his approval when suddenly everyone realized something seemed to be off. There was one person among them who hadn’t asked a single question the entire time and remained strangely quiet. They all turned to look where Lancelot was previously shining his armor and weapon to see their knight in extremely shining armor sleeping on the ground and using his helmet as a pillow.
“He was sleeping the entire time???”