Uhrwerk as a whole was a peaceful world by design. Even the channels on the fringes were created in such a manner that reaching a state of post-scarcity, post-labour, civilized stability would always be relatively easy should the powers-that-be within those channels desire it.

However, despite being a big lover of peace myself, I knew that there were those who’d seek an outlet. There were those who would need an alternative means to progress and evolve beyond those of a peaceful society. If I didn’t provide a vent, my world would likely collapse as the war-mad, and repressed tore whole in the world in an attempt to force it to acknowledge them.

Besides, I’d often found that without a certain amount of strife and struggle in some form or the other, populations and people tended to stagnate. I was honest enough with myself to know that I was only as peace-loving as my mood would allow.

Thus after the age of myths and legends, I established the second means for the gods, immortals, and heavenly wills to progress, advance, through their power and guile. Thus I created the “Game of Doors”. A secret war that would be fought between the channels till either the end of time, or the end of Uhrwerk, whichever came first.

The rules were simple, the channels were all allotted a certain amount of points as a sort of budget. The heavenly wills at the helm of those channels could use those points as they wished. Either hoarding them for the channel’s use, or using them as a form of salary for the channel’s higher-powers and letting them play in the channel’s stead.

Every ten points that were given to the channels equated to either a door that could be created, or a “piece” that could be put in play. The doors and pieces were important because these were the two primary ways to play the game.

You used your pieces to attack the doors of a rival channel. You used the doors to defend attacks, creating small pocket dimensions filled with monsters, that had a core that could be destroyed...i.e. Instance dungeons.

Naturally, if you had the juice and the resources you could use your door to attack. Setting all sorts of horrors loose in the rival channel. Or you could use your pieces to defend. Sending them to hunt and destroy rival pieces, or using them to defend your doors instead of monsters.

Regardless of your strategy, the goal was to accumulate points by stealing them from others. If your points hit zero your channel could be subordinated, or it could fall in rank. Either of which would result in a rise in the overall level of chaos within the losing channel, and shifting of assets and resources to winning channels.

Of course, I set some limits. I wasn’t a maniac, nor was I so callous that I would allow a channel's immortal powers-that-be beggar the mortals that were haplessly trying to lead their lives. I made things so that the amount of potential collateral damage would be reduced to a minimum. I also set things up so that a channel’s loss in status and increased level of internal chaos would never become so extreme as to make the channel inhospitable.

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Enough losses in a row would surely leave a channel looking hellish. Thus I set up a final protection measure by automatically making it so that channels that fell past a certain level of loss would automatically be subordinated by and absorbed into the channel that beat them.

The mortals’ lives would be retconned and folded into a timeline where they always lived in the victorious channel. The immortals and gods would lose whatever status they had, according to the whim of the victorious channel’s powers-that-be.

A part of me wondered if the set reward for the victor, in the form of absorbing the loser’s base-line allotment of Uhrwerk’s resources and goodwill, was big enough to trigger a grand consolidation of the channels of Uhrwerk. I wondered if there’d ever be a day where only a single channel existed in Uhrwerk.

Involvement in the game of doors was mandatory. It was mandatory because the process of resource shifting was mandatory. It was mandatory because the heavenly wills were generally risk-averse and if I allowed them to have their way, their immortal subordinates would start stirring up all sorts of trouble to try and force the heavenly wills to change their stance.

To facilitate this, while the powers-that-be could set up an official means of entering the game. Less official means would be set up as well, resulting in the spontaneous creation of doors and pieces.

The “Game of Doors” App was one of these aforementioned unofficial means. All channels had access to the interface. And those channels were the tech was more advanced would have other computing devices as well. The app was transmitted onto all those mediums. If a channel were to hypothetically manage to seal away access to the interface and keep technology at a level far below that of your average smartphone, then the App would be converted into an easily doable, easily activatable, magic ritual.

I personally made sure that the rumours of the app and how to find it were made an indelible part of every channel’s collective unconscious.

Finally, I created the “Locksmiths” a subset of the Channel Moderating group that I’d set up to watch Uhrwerk as a whole. The Locksmiths’ duty was to observe the game of doors and act as judges to keep the mortals and higher-beings from cheating

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“Hey, Monty?” said Margot.

“Yeah?” I said. Looking away from the screen of a computer I was using to type the guidebook and manual that Locksmiths would be expected to follow.

“What do you think about online dating?” said Margot.

“Well, I already sort of agreed to do it the last time we talked about me dating so...I’m fine with it?” I said.

“Hm, okay then...I think I might be able to hook you up with some dates then...People are really reacting positively to that profile we set up,” said Margot.

“Mhn….Sweet,” I said. Smiling briefly before resuming my work.

It was only later that I’d remember what I’d just agreed to and indulged in a mild freakout. In the meantime, I’d need to fine-tune Uhrweek’s code to better accommodate the mechanisms of the game.

I was also fine-tuning the code on the Game of Doors APP. I knew that there wasn’t much to change at this stage but I wanted to be sure.

The House of Antipodes had decided to open Uhrwerk to the entry and interaction of certain outside elements. Thus making it all the more important that Uhrwerk be able to retain its stability regardless of what others intended for it.

It would be a dreadful waste of my and Margot’s time if the antics of a few free agents was enough to bring everything crashing down.