The Terral Gate

Chapter 6

"Tell me about The Terral Gate again, Isaac."

Lodi wriggled his body around until he was absolutely comfortable under his sheets in bed, surrounded by stone walls and stone floors and not much in the way of toys, but equally full and exhausted from what turned out to be a rather significant birthday. It wasn't really his birthday, though. Nobody could know when that was, but it was the 7th anniversary of when Isaac found him as a baby and he was no more than a year old then.

"Again? Well, I'm glad you find it so interesting!" Isaac genuinely smiled. He was, after all, a high general of The Order and hoped that Lodi would someday follow in his footsteps. He didn't know anything about Lodi's real family, but could tell from the moment he picked the boy up as an infant that he was destined for something great. "In fact, I have one more present for you, before I tell the story...if you want it." Isaac was as good a father figure as Lodi could have asked for. He taught him, kept him safe and healthy, and even let him practice with a wooden sword next to the fortress' soldiers when they did drills sometimes! Lodi sat straight up, completely ruining the fluffy blanket-cocoon he had wrapped himself in. His eyes widened.

"Really? What is it? What is it?!" He couldn't help but let a giggle escape.

"Typically, when a young man or woman from a family in The Order turns 10 they are eligible for apprenticeship. Seeing as how today is your 8th birthday, and we're going on a 3 year expedition next month-"

Lodi cut him off. "-to lay ground for a new Temple of The Order on rivers of Sothena so that we can do more farming!" He wasn't wrong.

"...I thought it would be fitting to allow you the chance to start...early. What do you think?"

Lodi's eyes managed to widen even more. "Yeah! Really?! Yes, I am SO ready! I'm going to be the best apprentice you could ever ask for. I'm going to be patient and I won't get frustrated and I'll be super safe with my sword and I won't complain if my armor doesn't fit right and-"

Isaac's grin grew as a chuckle escaped his breath. "Alright, okay okay! Settle down, my son. That will all come with time. The most important thing, and the first thing we're going to do, is get you in the right.....?" Isaac leaned his head forward with an inquisitive look to allow Lodi to fill in the blank.

"Mindset!" Lodi's toothy smile tightened to a firm smirk as he stared through Isaac militarily.

"Yes. Mindset. Alright. Very good. Now...let's hear about The Terral Gate and the beginning of The Order, shall we?" Lodi started re-settling himself in bed as Isaac looked towards the walls, deciding on the best words to describe what was a legend to many, truth to some, but an unwavering and absolute life commitment to those like Isaac.

"Thousands of years ago our world wasn't here. There are other worlds. Some of them may be much older than ours, or have people like us, or have been made by the same people, but this one was not here and none of us, nor our parents, nor our grandparents, nor anyone before them were here. It was just nothingness in space.

  There's something more than just the worlds and the space, too. It is another plane of existence. This place we cannot see in the way you can see the forest when you look out the window. No...this plane is home to gods that we couldn't see if we tried. For one reason or another, the Terral gods wanted to create this world amongst all the other worlds out in space, so they reached out from their plane, bringing some of the fire and rock and stardust with them, and made our world. There was a magnificent collision of energy and, in a cosmic flash, here we were. The gods withdrew to their plane and watched our world develop, watched us come along and stake our claim to the land, watched us overcome our struggles…”