by Eddie Patin
Monster Lore. I love monster stuff. Most of the books I write involve monsters of some kind; usually the more fleshy beast-like sorts and aberration-types rather than common undead (although sometimes I have zombies and more creative things). I'm always listening to YouTube videos about various types of monsters from DnD, folklore, video games, and other sources to help fuel my ideas and flesh out my own monster appearance in fiction. I've listened to plenty of channels, but one I'd really like to mention for being an extra-awesome source of monster ecology is "The Mighty Gluestick" Channel by AJ Pickett. Keep up the awesome videos, AJ! I'm also happy to thank MrRhexx, who also has good monster lore videos, as well as the channel Mythology & Fiction Explained.
Running Appendix
This is Book Three in the series, so this section is a little different than the equivalent Appendix and Notes section in 'Minotaurs'. Every time you see this 'Appendix', it should grow a little bit with knowledge you should have by the end of the last book. This will also serve as help to anyone jumping into the series without reading the previous books (if anyone's crazy enough to do that!). As I mentioned before, if you ever need to look up a character, or which universe is which, or clarify what dimension does what, check the back of the book to see this section. I don't want to spoil anything for later, so you'll find each Appendix limited to the stuff you'll learn in each book.
The Characters
Jason Leaper 934. This is the series main character. He starts the series at thirty-three years old, living in a fictional Colorado mountain town next to Lake Granby called "Ridgeview". When he was eighteen years old, Jason's family went down in a plane crash on the way to Alaska. His parents were both killed and Jason was crippled for life. After that, he dropped out of college (Physics major) and spent the next fifteen years of his life distracting himself with games and friends. He lives in his parents' house, which he inherited. All Jason Leapers have the ability to 'rift'—to manipulate dimensions to move between or inside different universes and multiverses. Jason's very smart and has a lot of capability. He can invent solutions to his problems from limited resources and imagination, and is fairly skilled with firearms as a hobby. At the end of Wyvern, Jason is given a previous Jason's OCS—Omniversal Cosmic Scanner—which allows him access to any information he desires and can help him rift through an elaborate coordinate system. After the events of Wyvern, Jason is a changed man, no longer wanting to waste his life with distractions. He joins the Reality Rifters and went on his first 'bounty hunting' mission. After the events of Minotaurs, Jason has learned more about his powers and how to use the different higher dimensions for travel. He's also figured out how to orient his rifts to be horizontal instead of vertical.
Riley Wyatt. Riley is a cyborg for a technologically-advanced planet in universe 244, starting this series at the age of twenty-eight. He was one of the Reality Rifters under Jason 113, and Jason 47 before that. In his past, he was a mercenary for a more famous merc team called The Ninth Fists, and before that, he was a Dust Angel (special forces) in his planet's military. A very skilled gun-fighter, Riley possesses many cybernetic augmentations that enhance his physical and sensory abilities, as well as his ability to survive. I've written a free short story about Riley's first mission with the Ninth Fists from back when he was twenty years old called "The Helion Depths". (Click here to find it). Riley says some words and figures of speech quite differently than Jason 934 because of his different culture. In Book 2, Riley was really struggling with his place in the Reality Rifters and the death/absence of Jason 113 and didn't want to be the leader. Over Book 2, he became impatient with Jason 934 and made mistakes that put them all in danger while reluctantly acting as leader. When Jason saved Riley's life and killed one version of Nargog the alpha minotaur (with the help of two other versions of himself from parallel worlds), the soldier developed a new respect for Jason moving forward.
Gliath Voidheart the Deathhand. Gliath is a Krulax from the planet Luva in universe 679. He is a powerful leopardwere; a shapeshifter with regenerative powers and great strength and speed, and is Riley's constant companion and bodyguard. It's easiest to think of him as a werepanther; however, where a werepanther is a human that can shift into a panther, Gliath is instead an intelligent panther that can shift into a human. Gliath has three forms: his human 'pretender' form, where he resembles a severe Native American youth; his seven-foot-tall man-beast 'warrior' form; and his 'primal' form, where he looks like a normal (large) black leopard. Learn about how Riley and Gliath met and partnered up by reading my free novella, "A Bond Between Man and Monster" (Click here to find it). After the events of Minotaur, we've learned that his human form is called his 'pretender' form. Jason has also seen that Gliath can continually regenerate as long as he has energy (food) to support it, and can regenerate far more quickly if he takes the time to actively shift his forms.
Morgana Soloster. Morgana is a new character from this book (Necromancer). She's the last survivor of her family (the family that built and led the village of New Bozeman) and is always in trouble with the cult that runs the town now. I'll avoid putting any spoilers about her gear and history here, since it's in this book. Will be elaborated in the appendix of Book 4.
Jason Leaper 113. The older, bolder version of Jason from universe 113 that almost led the entire Reality Rifter team to their deaths in universe 1240 before the very beginning of this series. As Jason 113 lay dying back home in universe 113 as his universe and the Reality Rifter base was being destroyed by the open rift to universe 1240, he sent Riley and Gliath (the only survivors) to universe 934 to find Jason 934 and start over.
Jason Leaper 47. This was the first Jason that Riley and Gliath worked for. Jason 47 introduced Riley and Gliath (and the other Reality Rifters) to Jason 113 after the accident on the Night Hag mission in "A Bond Between Man and Monster" (Click here to find it).
Zayden Skinner. Skinner is the mysterious and powerful manager of the Bounty Boards in the Market on Churn, universe 12. The limit to his power is unknown, and he is the final word in assigning jobs and paying for bounties at the Bounty Boards. By now, the characters have figured out that Skinner can read their minds. Zayden Skinner is a huge man built like the statue of a god with jet black skin, a grinding-stone voice, glowing eyes, and hair literally like a flickering rainbow fire. He wears ornate red-gold armor. In Book 2, Riley became very preoccupied with getting back into Skinner's good graces (after Jason 113's failure) so that he could go back to doing 'exclusive' jobs—bounties given to mercs with proven reputations that wouldn't be shared with other teams—like he had grown accustomed to.
Ben Jackson, Amanda, and Tom. Jason 934's DnD friends. They've been gaming ever since high school. Amanda and Tom (married) move away in the beginning of the book, and Ben is Jason's only friend remaining. In Book 2, Jason discusses the idea with Ben about going into business producing and selling 'infinity chargers', free power devices Jason invented using infinity crystals from the Wilderlands. With Jason's history of not taking things seriously and wasting his life, Ben is skeptical, but is impressed when shown an infinity charger.
Zelda. Jason's cat. She's petite and mostly white with a splotch of brown-orange on her face.
Ghrag Chaukchew and the Nothrix Reapers. Ghrag is a bug-man, a strange and nasty species of insectoid bipedal creatures that give the Reality Rifters trouble in Book 2. His species is called 'Nothrix' and Ghrag is the leader of the mercenary group, the Nothrix Reapers. In Book 2, Ghrag and his group murdered Riley's friends to steal their minotaur hides, then attacked Jason, Riley, and Gliath when they learned what had happened. The last time Jason saw Ghrag was when he shot one of his wings off during their ambush on the bug-men when the alpha minotaur ambushed the Reality Rifters in turn.
Dave Baylor. Owner of Baylor General Provisions, Dave is a friend of Riley's from his military days (he also spent a short time with the Reality Rifters in the past), and is the only human merchant living on Churn.
Relevant Universes
Universe 12. Churn. The planet of Churn is a Tabula Rasa world where the Market sits under a pink and yellow sky. The Market is an interdimensional hub for entities from all over the Omniverse to get together and trade. It's like an exotic bazaar full of shops and services, the most notable of which being 'The Bounty Boards'—a popular place run by the mysterious Zayden Skinner. The 'Bounty Boards' is a temple-looking structure where planeswalkers and mercenaries and monster hunters take jobs that usually involve traveling to strange universes to hunt mythical beasts and creatures, usually for monster body parts for anonymous employers that need things for one reason or another.
Universe 113. Also Earth, slightly different. Jason 113's world, destroyed in the beginning of Book One.
Universe 312. The Wilderlands. A very different parallel to our world where the dinosaurs never went extinct and humans never developed. There are also very different aspects that don't mesh with Earth's normal laws of physics. For one, many mythical creatures (like the wyvern) exist there that would be impossible on u934. There is also something Riley calls the 'Vitality Element', which lets all living things on that world constantly regenerate and avoid infection. The strangest thing about the Wilderlands if the vines. No unnatural structure can survive for long, as it will eventually be pulled apart by tiny vines growing out of the earth. Also a great source for Infinity Crystals.
Universe 244. Ebonexus. Riley's home world. Book 3 involves a visit to this cyberpunk desert planet.
Universe 408. Maze World. A lot of Book 2 takes place here. Jason goes to Maze World to hunt minotaurs—his very first bounty with the new Reality Rifters. It's a really weird place where the underlying structure of everything leans toward maze-like lines, from the clouds to the leaves of trees to the insides of transparent slime monsters.
Universe 679. Luva. Gliath's home world. Learn about this world by reading "A Bond Between Man and Monster" (Click here to find it).
Universe 936. Primoria. This is the universe that the characters go to in this book to hunt for Golem Hearts. There are many hints and details about this version of Earth in this book, so I won't put anything about it here until the Appendix of the next book.
The Omniverse and the Ten Dimensions
Universe. A single infinite space where we live. Jason starts the series living in Universe 934; a number previously designated by Jason 113. A universe is big—infinitely, mind-bogglingly so. Most sci-fi stories—those with starships travelling across space and galaxies—entirely take place in one infinite universe.
Multiverse. A collection of universes (each infinite in size) that all obey the same laws of physics. Every multiverse contains an infinite amount of universes—parallel worlds/timelines/realities—all branching out in infinite directions based on probability space. Traveling between universes within the same multiverse is possible via the fifth dimension or any dimension higher than that, although traveling along the sixth is the best way to access alternate universes within the same multiverse.
Omniverse. The Omniverse is the all-encompassing collection of infinite multiverses. Different multiverses pop in and out of existence in the quantum foam. All multiverses across the omniverse are (at least) slightly different from one another in their laws of physics, with endless possibilities available, most of which would be completely incomprehensible to the human mind and instantly kill visiting humans from our universe because of simply incompatible physical laws.
1st, 2nd, and 3rd Dimensions. These are the physical dimensions that we're all familiar with. The first dimension is a line connecting two points. The second adds an extra dimension to allow for sideways movement around the line of the first. The third is the physical dimension we humans live in, adding the extra dimension of depth. If you remember the 'line, sideways, and depth' concept as a 'set', it'll be easier to visualize the higher dimensions beyond the third. You can also think of the first dimension as forwards/backwards, the second as adding side-to-side movement, and the third as adding depth (or height, depending on how you look at it). Contrary to popular belief, we don't actually exist in only the third dimension. We physically exist in the third, but we also perceive time—the fourth dimension—as we move forward toward entropy. Without the fourth dimension, the third (and first and second) only exist in single frames—like photo snapshots—called Planck frames. This becomes relevant to Jason when he's learning how to rift through third-dimensional space. The first or second dimensions aren't really used in this series—there's no real reason for Jason to access them ... yet.
4th, 5th, and 6th Dimensions. Probability space. These are temporal dimensions that involve accessing the infinite universes all within the same multiverse. Just like with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd dimensions, it's best to think of this set of the 4th, 5th, and 6th as a line, sideways, and depth. Riley discusses the hose, ant, and fly analogy in Chapter Two of Book 2. The fourth dimension is a line, going forwards and backwards in time. We perceive the fourth going one way toward entropy, while fourth-dimensional creatures would actually physically exist there, being all versions of themselves throughout their lifetime simultaneously while also perceiving the fifth! That's not really relevant to Jason (yet), but just stop and think about how cool that is for a second. ;) The fifth dimension is where you start to access parallel universes; namely, alternate worlds very similar to your own. Imagine your universe constantly branching off in different directions—into parallel worlds—whenever you make a different decision or when different things happen. Traveling through the fifth dimension would let you access different universes that follow the same logical chain as the universe you're in now, such as a universe like ours where you made a different decision in life when you were eighteen, or where that airplane didn't crash randomly into your house a few minutes ago. Such travel has to follow a universe's adjacent 'branches' though, so trying to find a universe where, for instance, it's 2018 and dinosaurs never went extinct would be really tedious and difficult. That said, the sixth dimension—aka Phase Space—can be used to 'add depth' to interdimensional travel and just go anywhere and anytime you want within the same multiverse. That's the easiest way to travel to any parallel world without going into other multiverses with different laws of physics. Jason uses the temporal dimensions in the climax of Book 2. Time travel is weird shet. More on that in later books.
7th, 8th, and 9th Dimensions. This is how to travel to entirely different multiverses—anywhere beyond your wildest dreams—with different laws of physics (dramatically different or hardly different at all) and all of the extreme dangers that come with it! To break out of a single multiverse, you need to use these highest dimensions. Using the same 'set' concept again, the seventh is a line, the eighth adds sideways movement, and the ninth adds depth, letting you go freaking anywhere. There isn't much use for traveling along the seventh or eighth dimensions since you can just hop around into any conceivable dimension using the ninth. The seventh dimension, as a line, is easiest to imagine using if you wanted to find a multiverse a lot like yours, but travel along a spectrum of a single variable, like how gravity works, or like how the flow of time works (like Jason 47 planned to do in the free novella, "A Bond Between Man and Monster" Click here to find it). Accessing the seventh dimension is for very specific applications of looking for a similar multiverse and/or manipulating a single aspect of a physical law. The eighth dimension is similar in use, but allows plotting courses anywhere along a combination of two variable spectrums; barely any practical applications. Finally, the ninth dimension is how to travel anywhere, to any universe in any conceivable multiverse. The vast majority of multiverses different than our own would be outright deadly to a mere human being. Just before being killed by such an incompatible universe, Jason 113 actually installed a 'block' into his OCS to prevent Jason 934 from accessing any universe through the ninth dimension t
hat would be outside of a 95% compatibility threshold with his own. He did this to help prevent such a calamity from happening again, which not only killed Jason 113, but also destroyed his universe. Even though the ninth dimension is 'limited access' with his OCS, however, Jason can still travel through the ninth to anywhere—compatible or not—using focus keys.
The 10th Dimension. The entire Omniverse—which includes every possible multiverse and all of the infinite universes within each—is represented as a single point in the tenth. It would be impossible to travel through the tenth dimension without simply being shunted off to a lower dimension. Since the tenth dimension holds truly everything as a single point of data, the only practical use for the tenth is for accessing information. Jason's OCS has a direct conduit to the tenth, allowing it to act as an 'encyclopedia of anything' across the entire Omniverse.
Other Stuff
OCS. The Omniversal Cosmic Scanner. This device is part encyclopedia, part rifting focuser. It looks like a large electronic tablet (like an I-Pad), extra-thick with an extra rugged frame. At the end of Wyvern, Jason 934 is given the OCS that used to belong to Jason 113 before he died. As Jason experiments with the OCS more in Book 2, he learns about the 'block' installed by Jason 113. Before dying in Book 1, Jason 113 programmed a 'block' in the OCS to prevent using the higher dimensions to access multiverses outside of a 95% compatibility threshold of u934's laws of physics. He'd also assigned the 'informational set point' to universe 934, so that whenever Jason scans anything, it'll be run against the knowledge base and lore from that universe's Earth. Jason finds that he can scan things, creatures, rifts, etc. with a targeting laser built into the OCS to pull up whatever information is available according to his universe's data. He can also input coordinates, set bookmarks for places where he might want to rift back to (including their position in time if desired), and save notes. Over Book 2, Jason learns a lot about scanning (he learns the names of a lot of dinosaurs he had to deal with in Book 1), how to travel through the 3rd dimension (via pre-existing bookmarks) to 'teleport' or dispose of bodies. At the end of Book 2, he finally learned how to create a horizontal (vs vertical) portal. Over Book 3, he begins to learn how to use the OCS as a weapon...