Eren was nothing more than a stableboy from Humzali, and until the day he went off a cliff by accident, destined for a lifetime of shoveling manure. If his writings are to be believed, he was known amongst the villagers for his shaggy black hair, a mane so thick it often concealed his face. We could imagine that nobody could read his face the day it happened. Perhaps, if they had seen the incredulity etched into his smooth cheeks, they might have taken him seriously. Instead, his father whipped him for telling lies.

We know that right after he was whipped he went to AurAlta, and we know little about what he did after returning. At this point, he would have had some exposure to psychic and fire essence. It's possible that he put the village to the torch; maybe he recruited some of them for his operation on the Cliffs of Kedren. All we know is that interplanar teleportation started around 1517. Horses were run off the cliffs with passengers destined for a few of the planes he had encountered, most for AurAlta. Bones discovered in the valley beneath the cliffs revealed that many of the passengers didn't make it. The horse had to be traveling at a land speed of over twenty-five miles an hour, which was a lot.

Interplanar travel was also confirmed in AurAlta's historical record, which has the sudden introduction of horses in that time period. The beasts turned the tide of the Source wars in favor of the blue Seekers, who held power for two and a half centuries afterward. Unfortunately, we were unable to find any records of Eren himself; we suspect that he would have been too unimportant to record, or that he left the plane as soon as he found a suitable cliff.

The operation at Kedren only lasted four and a half months, and we wouldn't know anything about it without the recovery of Eren's writings at Blacktide. It's the only recorded instance of interplanar travel occurring to and from your planet. Those of your species who've studied the site have concluded that drought was the cause of death of both men and beasts. As expected. You'd have no reason to suspect that interplanar travel would have been possible.

We're not sure of Eren's motivations for telling his find to the locals. A sense of insecurity would best explain it - he wanted to prove his worth to those who had made fun of him, although this is not for certain. It could have been possible that he quested them with tasks to do on other planes, offering rewards that would not have been possible in their otherwise primitive lives.

If the latter point is the case, he wasn't successful. When we tracked down those that made it through the portal, we found that they often assimilated poorly into their new environments. 98% of the known teleporters were dead within the first 600,000 ticks of the multiversal clock. Only a few were able to cope with environments often far more technologically advanced than their own. None of those went on to any kind of notoriety, which makes Eren more special in the sense that somehow he rose above his station.

"I have no idea what you just said," the President told scholar Architus as they sat in the West Wing.

"I'm trying to tell you that a man from the place you call Turkey 500 years ago opened up an interplanar portal and now threatens to become the grand ruler of the multiverse. If he accomplishes that, your planet is surely finished."

"Are you saying we need to go to war with Turkey?"

Architus facepalmed. "You're surely doomed anyways."

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r/StoriesToThinkAbout