AetherHaven: The First Dome
Renaldo stood in the barren desert—endless sand stretching in every direction. This was where he would build it. The first dome. The prototype. A town that would sustain the weapon he had broken.
Xanther lay in magical coma in Nexus, his life force barely flickering. Without the Obsidian Heart and his primal magic, he was dying. The chaos magic had left a taint—a corruption that demanded feeding or it would consume what remained of his soul.
So Renaldo would build him a feast.
The Design
A CITY OF CONVERSION
The dome would harvest Order from the surrounding dimensions and convert it into Chaos. A perpetual energy source. A self-sustaining infrastructure that would feed Xanther indefinitely.
At the center: a tree. Not organic—a magical construct that would serve as both anchor and conduit. Xanther would rest within it, sustained by the chaos flowing through its roots.
At the perimeter: sentinels. Metal giants with arms outstretched, frozen mid-motion, generating the dimensional boundary and performing the conversion.
The geometry was complex.
The Construction
Renaldo raised his hands. Reality bent. The desert erupted with flashes of magic and strikes of electricity. The ground split. From nothing, a forest grew—ancient trees materializing in seconds, cobblestone streets threading between them, towers rising with impossible speed.
The sentinels emerged from the earth itself, metal constructs that glowed with ethereal light. They took their positions around the city's perimeter, arms outstretched, creating the dome's boundary.
And at the center, the great tree grew. Its trunk was massive, its branches reaching toward the sky. And within it—a chamber. A door. A place for Xanther to rest.
"AetherHaven," Renaldo named it. "A place where all that you thought you knew is questioned, tested, and proven to be subjective."
The Activation
Renaldo transported Xanther's comatose form from Nexus and placed him within the tree. The magical construct responded immediately, roots connecting to his essence, beginning the feed.
The sentinels activated. The dome shimmered into existence. Order began flowing in from surrounding dimensions, converting to Chaos, channeling through the tree to sustain Xanther.
It was beautiful. Perfect. A masterwork of dimensional engineering.
And then something went wrong.
The Flaw
⚠️ THE FIRST DOME WAS FLAWED ⚠️
The memory effect was unintended. People who approached AetherHaven found their memories of its creation erased. They couldn't recall when it appeared or how it came to be.
Those who ventured into the city's depths never returned. Not dead—but trapped. Lost. Absorbed into something they couldn't escape.
The chaos flow was unstable. It fed Xanther, yes, but it also leaked. The city itself became saturated with necrotic energy. The trees whispered with consciousness that shouldn't exist. The streets shifted when unwatched.
AetherHaven wasn't just a dome. It had become a labyrinth.
Renaldo observed his creation with fascination. The flaw was unexpected—but not entirely unwelcome. He had learned something crucial about dimensional architecture, about chaos containment, about the relationship between Order and memory.
He would build the others correctly.
But AetherHaven remains.
The Mystery
Nestled eerily at the edge of memory and reality lies AetherHaven, a city that materialized where once a barren desert stood. Just days prior, locals could have sworn the land was nothing but endless sand. Now, a mystical city teems with life and energy, yet its origins are shrouded in mystery.
No one recalls when AetherHaven emerged or how it came to be.
All they know is that those who venture into its depths never return.
Encircling the city are strange, glowing devices, resembling metal giants with arms outstretched, as if frozen mid-motion. These silent sentinels add to the enigma, casting an eerie glow over the cobblestone streets and ancient towers of AetherHaven.
What secrets do these metallic behemoths guard, and what fate awaits those brave enough to seek the truth?
The Legacy
Xanther rests within the tree at AetherHaven's center. Sustained. Sleeping. Dreaming dreams soaked in chaos.
Renaldo went on to build many more domes—correctly this time, without the flaws. Each one converting Order to Chaos, each one feeding the network, each one expanding Xanther's power even as he sleeps.
But AetherHaven remains special. The first. The flawed. The interesting one.
And sometimes, travelers find it. They see the tree. They touch the door. They wonder what lies within.
Very few discover the truth: that the King of Nexus—the apocalypse who shattered Order itself—sleeps at the heart of this labyrinth, fed by chaos, dreaming of the dimension he destroyed to set everyone free.