The Keystone

The multiverse is immense, or at least, it WAS once.  Every choice leading to a split, a parallel world, a new creation running right outside of another's notice.

Until they created the gate.

It was created with materials that current technology could never break, but back then they knew how to craft such things.  They made flying ships, battles the space dragons, went to different universes and wound up unleashing terrible beasts that were so powerful that it took armies to wipe them out...if at all.

But long after those technologies were all but a distant memory, the gate still stood as a reminder that one should not cross between worlds, buried so deep below the surface that most didn't even realize it was still there.

So the universes lived in harmony, completely unaware of each other for thousands of years.

But each one has a keystone, a single point of light that kept the world from crumbling apart.  They were all connected, one single being, a small part of them in each universe, holding it all together.

But each time a part of that keystone died, it took the universe with them.  The world's existence depended on them.  Without them, it just ceased to exist entirely.

With no knowledge the other parts of them existed in the world, the keystone lived on, slowly becoming less and less of themselves, never realizing that the despair, depression and emptiness they felt were the parts of them they were missing.

A mad scientist and a historian discovered the keystone.  To fill the emptiness, they had discovered how to turn the undead alive again, and thus could keep their pieces from death and destruction of the universe.

Over and over again they'd save this creature, and eventually they learned to save the other pieces too by travelling to other places via other gates.

But although they could save the keystone most of the time, they were also realizing they needed to recruit others who could save them because evening they would not be able to live forever.

This was the start of the first Explorers Guild.  Bring in heroes, send them into the world, go help the keystone, keep the universe alive, and send them into other places as well, keeping the pieces alive.  

Then the keystone itself walked in one day.

They'd kept them alive from afar, but now THEY wanted to adventure, to get into danger, to do the things they were supposed to be kept safe from.  But the keystone also was really good at it.  And maybe the two could somehow keep THIS one alive?

The only problem was, after a few years of keeping this one out of danger, they'd spent less time reviving other pieces and those universes faded into oblivion.

There was the mushroom copy that their keystone had briefly watched.  The one on the island and kept a lighthouse.  The witch who could fly on her broom.  The farmer who lives in the pumpkin patch... All gone.

They tried to save the flower one from a curse, and had been successful, but that one got curious and travelled to another world outside of her own and died.  They tried to save her, but the force there was too strong.

They needed to know why, so they sent the keystone.

Their own world would not last long without the keystone, so they told her to build a new guild, recruit new help, and they'd have to move there soon.

They couldn't revive the one there without the body.

But they didn't tell the keystone to look for that part of herself, so they hoped they would find it with the help of the others.

If not, then there would be one less.

But how many pieces were still there?  They really didn't want to find out.  The historian was fairly sure there couldn't be much more than a handful and they were having trouble finding the others now.

Everything depended on keeping THIS piece alive.