Chapter 1: Chapter 1: The Gate

Chapter 1: The Gate

“Is this the gate you have decided on?” A shimmering figure besides me gestured to the set of double doors closed in front of me. I call him the Mysterious Astral Dude (MAD). At some point he may have told me his name, but time isn’t exactly linear here, and I was never good with names. I also may have imagined him.

 I had wandered a place beyond all semblance of time, material, and space – The Astral – as a disembodied soul in search of a path back to reality. Some cruel wanna-be-Great Astral Being had plucked my soul from my perfectly alive body to be reshaped or used for some nefarious purpose, without success. With great effort and trial and error, I had managed to escape its soul-pain-cage without its detection and slip into the astral.

After managing to slip after from the Astral-Piece-Of-Shit (APOS), I found myself in the wonderful, infinite astral. Which, while an amazing sight-to-behold, was something of a big fucking issue. You see, the astral doesn’t exist in reality. Physical forms cannot exist here. I was fine, as a soul. To get back to reality however, I needed a path from the astral to the physical. And, picky as I am, I had a few other criteria for said path.

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[Note]: Gate Criteria

• The gate must not be too far into the future.
• The caster of the gate should be a decent person.
• The planet on the other side should be sufficiently developed.

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I had spent an eternity in the astral (since time doesn’t pass), looking for the right door. Doors of past paths are lightless, grey, and immaterial. They had been sealed off by a proper GAB, the Keeper of Moments, who decided that travel back in time isn’t allowed. Sounds like a good call, since past time travel is a big mess. Cut the problem right out at the roots. I imagine enough timey-wimey bull shit and the universe starts to collapse in on itself like a bad apple.

I had finally found the right gate. It was approximately 6 months future relative to when my soul was first yanked from my body. The aura from the gate was calm, warm, strong, and kind. It radiated a great sense of steadiness and responsibility. The former of which yearned for, desperately.

The magic ritual of the gate was some sort of advanced material creation ritual. From the bit of ritual magic I had studied from MAD in the vast boredom of eternal time (ah yes, boredom, my familiar frenemy), I knew that such magic indicated a sufficiently advanced magic society.

The gates here weren’t actually gates. The great astral was incomprehensible for someone with as tiny a mind as I. So, my mind translated the magic into something I understood. Gates in a myriad of colors, sizes, and shapes.

I had tried a few times to directly materialize a physical body into reality without a gate. Mostly, I materialized into the dead of space. Creating a body there would have it instantly destroyed, and my soul returned to the astral. A few times, I made it onto a planet. Even those times, I ended up inside the earth, pressurized into a soul pancake, with no space to make a body. The chances of randomly hitting the surface of a habitable, civilized planet were minuscule. I had the time but not the sanity to repeat this approach. Searching the astral for a path had better prospects.

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The MAD looked at me and frowned. “I am not imaginary”.

Did I say that out loud? I wasn’t sure.

“You did.” He gave me an exasperated sigh, “That too. You should get going before you lose it all completely.” He next words were harsh, but his furrowed brows betrayed his concern. “I will be glad to be rid of you. And yet, I know you are hopeless without me.”

“Tsundere, you,” I giggled.

He rolled his eyes and gestured to something left beside the gate. It was a smooth, midnight-black ebony wood staff. Along the staff was delicate silver embellishments, the pattern of which seemed shift like clouds across a star lit lake. Hanging from the end of the staff was a small white gift box, tied up with an energy-flame ribbon. On it was a tag, simply reading “Gift” in Baroque cursive. At some point, this gift combo showed up in front of every gate I approached, seemingly meant for me. I didn’t have a body, but as I mentally reached for the gift, my Guide ability responded.

[Do you accept Gift? Y/N?]

I nodded, and the gift shimmered in a haze of rainbow light and disappeared into my soul-body. The MAD stepped back as I approached the gate. I gazed at his shimmering figure, and asked in a small voice, “Will I see you again?”

“You think I am imaginary. Then, we shall see.” He gave me what felt like a soft look, “I hope you find balance, Wandering Soul.”

In the next instant he was gone. Which made me wonder if he was fucking with me to make him intentionally seem more imaginary, but I’m sure he’d be upset with me if I told him that. I set my hand against the door, focused my senses, and phased through.

And that is how I ended up, tits out, bare ass naked on the floor in front of the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Then I passed out.

 

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