Editing Magical Realm Cyoa/Diaspora (section)

== '''The Portals''' ==
[[File:Diaspora_portal.jpg]]

The portals which connect the worlds are only slightly more numerous than the worlds themselves.  These gateways between realms are a fundamental element of the realms to which they are linked.  They cannot be moved, destroyed, or unlinked from the realms they are home to.  Not so much physical artifacts as fundamental aspects of reality, these portals are about as eternal and integral as a thing can be.

For all that, they are fairly obstinate and inconvenient devices.  To operate a portal, one must get to the lowest edge of one to access the control panel.  This panel consists of a pad with 17 characters plus a multicolored central button and a pair of green buttons.  To operate the portal, one enters a sequence of exactly seven  different characters and presses the green button.  Entering more or less than seven characters will clear the device.  Pressing the multicolored button will clear the device.  Entering seven characters that do not correspond to another gate will clear the device.

[[File:Diaspora_portal_panel.jpg]]

Fortunately, the gate address of each gate is clearly displayed on the panel - so you will always know the address for your home.

Once a good sequence has been entered, the portal will attempt to connect to another gate.  If that gate is in use, no portal will form.  If the target portal was accessed from a different portal in the past ten minutes, no portal will form.  If the gate that is being used was used in the last ten minutes, no portal will form.

Once a portal does form, it remains open for exactly one hundred seconds.  Anything that is not all the way through the portal is left partially in one location, and partially another - this is generally fatal, and at the very least uncomfortable.

Overall, portal travel is regarded has finicky and hazardous - but it is also the only really usable means of getting from one realm to another.  It is possible, just, for a single person to transport themselves to one of the realms.  But due to the constant fluctuation of the realms, the arrival point cannot be determined in advance.  This is regardless of skill, power, capability or what have you.  The metaphysics of why this are true are hotly debated, but generally the magic inherent in the realms themselves prevent pinpoint teleportation between them.  The result of this is that if two people teleport together from one realm to another, they are likely to end up tens of thousands of miles apart, and neither anywhere near their destinations.  This effect also prevents further teleportation into or out of a hundred-mile-radius area of the teleporter's destination, as well as their starting point if it was within Diaspora, which lasts for one hour.

Most troublesome of all, it has been determined that, no matter where the teleporter was intending to land, they invariably end up in some form of dungeon, pit, or other hole which is difficult to escape from.  Fortunately, even the most junior of mages capable of the feat of teleporting between realms has reported that they were up to the task of escape, though they all found it difficult.  Of course, that was only the ones who made it back...