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"The Walk; Or, To Dream Amongst The Stars And Be Whispered Unto By The Ancient Unknowns"
In another time, and another place, far beyond the world you know, there existed the Other Realms.
There had been other universes before, and there would be others after, but as of the time of our story, the Other Realms were the picture at the surface of the palimpsest. Spread across stars, across eons, across iterations and glitches, the Other Realms stretched into a defined infinity with the vastness of all things lived within it, and within them, and without them just the same.
Before the Realm War came to wash them all away, and after the mists of ancient time washed away what had already been, or tried to, the Other Realms nurtured their lives in all their various worlds:
- In Inglenook, as humans sat by their fires and told stories of the chaos in the dark, while elves from other worlds mined for draconic oil in the ground below them all;
- In the Freelands, as the world that ruled itself crumbled and those that were left huddled in the wastes, clamoring for salvation from the growing entropy;
- In Spotlight City, as the remnants of a forgotten world no longer existing lived their lives pretending as though their lives were lived on a planet with stable ground, like any other, when in fact their world lumbered — an aging colony against the dark — through the Chasm of Stars, the warmth of a finite source of energy protecting them from themselves and the strange lifeforms that sought to invade their streets every day and every night.
And more, countless more, constantly more worlds, living and dying, breathing and drowning, as the thrum of the heartbeat of existence — the whispers of the universe — Zurzumzarazul — ancient and undying — always seeking, always finding — continued to wist away and waste through the Chasm and the Realms, unheard by only those who chose not to hear it, as anyone who was truly connected could awaken themselves to the whispers — to Zurzumzarazul — and breathe into the reality of the Other Realms beyond our own, and all of the stars beyond those.