The only way in and out of The Scholar’s Rift, this swirling unstable portal only opens for those deemed “worthy.”
The Rift Gate is the first and last test for all who seek knowledge, power, or just really bad life choices.
The paradox was born when Nokk embarked on one of his many reckless expeditions into The Dense, an act that only the most foolhardy scholars dared attempt. Unlike others, however, he was not lost within its folds. Instead, he moved through it as though it bent around him, his body flickering between locations that no two observers could agree upon.
At the peak of his exploration, something went wrong—or perhaps, went exactly as it was meant to.
Nokk attempted to harness the resonance of The Dense itself, but the reaction was far more violent than he anticipated. A massive arcane pulse rippled outward, merging two points of time into a single point. Reality itself seemed to buckle, and when the rift finally settled, scholars across Etheria realized that something had changed. The Rift Gate—long believed to be an ancient construct—had been stabilized at that exact moment.
Yet historical records made it clear: The Rift Gate had already existed before Nokk’s birth.
To complicate matters further, ancient texts discovered within The Scholar’s Rift describe a blue-skinned figure standing at the Gate’s creation—a figure resembling Nokk in every way. Whether this is proof of time-looped causality, an artifact of the Rift’s own nature, or something beyond mortal comprehension remains unknown.
Nokk himself has stopped trying to explain it. Instead, he accepts the paradox as an immutable truth—one of many mysteries he is determined to unravel.
If the Rift Gate rejects someone, it does so in a manner that is deeply personal, highly inconvenient, and usually humiliating.
"We appreciate your enthusiasm, but unfortunately, your application has been denied at this time."
"Try again next ARC."
"Hey, don’t look at me. It let me in, so clearly, standards are weird."
All in all, being rejected by the Rift Gate is either a mild inconvenience or a soul-crushing existential crisis, depending on how much you wanted in.