Toraport

I had always wondered how exactly I was accidentally banished to Earth.

By the time I was given authority to find out, I was head RRB Official of every war-torn system, plague world and barren world with a collapsed save-system that the Office didn't want to think about. Compared to old Earth, they were quite pleasant. This attitude of mine was what made my position as inevitable as deletion.

I was summoned to the Game Over screen. Upon arrival, I was immediately taken to a small room on the far end of the planet-sized office building, a place where nobody would dare interrupt us. Then they took out another teleporter. I was transported to the feared Dexcalibur, the highest security prison in the Universe, the security systems of which included six parallel narratives and a private bad ending. I already knew why I was sent there, a fact that, in itself, sent a shiver down Kobryn's spine.

I had already found out, through a series of accidents with boat timetables, that the prison contained a machine that was not just a time machine, but a narrative machine - a device that allowed one to travel backwards and forwards in their own life's story. Its misuse could destroy a Universe from paradox, but stored in the tiny intranet of the prison's six personal timelines, its power was neutralised. But in that dark corner of the prison, where the screams of the soon-to-be-deleted could be heard, the seal on the machine was broken. I was allowed to view, from outside my perspective, part of my own narrative.

What I saw happened thirty years ago now. I was still the leader of a twelve-strong adventuring party. My transition had been completely painless, like walking through a door, but this had only disturbed my mind more, for I stepped through that door to find myself in the middle of a raging battle - the grand finale of our first and last major campaign. The battle against the Three-Headed Dragon. I felt my sanity drain from me because I knew what was to happen. And yet, watching myself fight like a demon, the word 'surrender' utterly alien to my vocabulary, I was proud of what I was.

Soon the battle ended. Two heads of the terrible demon were destroyed and I, Diggory Doragor, leapt over the smashed skull of one to plunge my blade into the head of the middle skull, slaying the creature. Then it happened. My blade lodged into the skull of that terrible reptilian head, firmly stuck, and my hands were stuck to the grip of my sword, so that I could not move. I saw myself move to cast Egress - the simple traveller's teleport spell that any could learn from a wizard for a small fee.

But the spell I cast that day - it was not Egress. No, it was something else entirely. It was a rune, carved upon the surface upon the skull with the blade, etched in the dragon's blood... a rune that I would use now only on the most incorrigable of criminals, to damn them forever to life upon the lowest spheres of Gynoug... and then I placed the palm of my own hand on the rune... the dark portal opened under me, dragging me inwards...

What could possibly have driven me to use such a thing - even subconsciously, for I must have known, in some dark corner of my soul that should not have been activated, what I was doing - upon myself?

I swear - although nobody will dare verify this - that I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a Phane, a living bad ending, watching me, waiting, like a vulture watching its prey die. And I also saw one last thing before I left - another symbol in the air, one that means sacrifice, my own fate for the lives of my entire party, free from the shadow of my own doom.

Whatever the case, when I hit the switch for that machine to bring me back, after I had verified exactly what I saw, I was offered monetary compensation by the RRB Office. However, it never really sufficed, for I knew that only through prior manipulation - foul, unspeakable, inexcusable manipulation of my past- could I have ever gained the knowledge with which to do such a thing that I do not even have the means to do now.

All I really want now is to continue down this dark path I tread. As I climb higher, I come into the possession of more knowledge, and eventually I will learn the words to undo what I did that day - the day I banished myself to Earth.