Teleportation and Interplanar Travel

From the perspective of an Exalted Archmage

(...) Yesterday, we were bound to the ground, shackled by our limited knowledge. We could only look upwards, towards the Gates that connect Exarhi to the Continent, and marvel at the ingenuity of our forefathers and foremothers. Today, we stand in front of an apparatus whose working principles were lost to time; today, we follow in Kohimo's footsteps and begin to unravel the mysteries of teleportation. Behold! The Twin Gates! (...)

— Elder Ghiirada, Pillar of Materia Research, speaking at the Annual Exarhi Science Fair

Teleportation is one of, if not the hardest aspect of magic one can master. All the legendary archmages of Aclara had one thing in common, and it wasn't the scale of their achievements, the recognition and respect earned during their lives, nor was it the destructive power of their spells. It was the ability to travel wherever they pleased and whenever they wished to do so; unconstrained by space, they were able to expand their horizons and learn a hundred times more than the rest. Of course, these spells and techniques were well-kept secrets - most archmages would only give their knowledge to their most trusted apprentices, or write down the information in their scrolls and hide them in secret stashes.

Depending on the interpretation of the word "teleporting", there are three main categories of teleportation spells: matter displacing, psychic binding and tunneling. Each method is equally viable (if the spell arrays are correctly built, of course) and, under ideal circumstances, one should not be able to tell which method was used. In practice, perfect teleportation is almost unachievable - most spells use many kinds of shortcuts, some of which will be explained below.

Matter Displacing Spells

Before exploring this first form of teleportation, there is an important clarification that must be done. The term "matter displacing" was first used during the Old Medeean Empire and it referred to spells that can disintegrate and rebuild objects. Over the decades, as mages researched magic array composition and gained a deeper understanding of mana glyphs and arrays, a new form of travel was invented: by folding space itself, two distant points (and the neighboring regions) could be overlapped for a brief period of time, allowing one to simply step through the overlap and travel over very long distances in a blink of an eye. From a technical point of view, both spell types are displacing matter; thus, mages began using the original term to describe both versions.

Classic Matter Displacement is a category of spells that are used to decompose objects and rebuild them in a different place. The core principles are rooted in the ancient practices of alchemy, and the efficiency of the spells has increased as more and more information about the laws of physics and chemistry were uncovered by scholars. Out of all forms of teleportation, CMD is the furthest away from true teleportation, since it's just alchemical dispersion and congregation hidden underneath one coat. As it affects the physical component of reality (or acts upon the mundane expression of Celestial Salt, if you're reading the deciphered interpretations of ancient alchemical texts), CMD should never be used on living beings. Since the spell does not alter the mental or the spiritual components, it would instantly kill anyone being "teleported" and would leave behind an exact replica of their once living body.

Voraask's Matter Displacement refers to the research of Archamage Voraask and their followers and contains all the spells that alter the very fabric of reality, forcing it to bend, curve, overlap and even fracture. Its usage has been banned by the Exarhi Council because it requires extremely precise calculations in order to succeed. As Meumerat of the Old Aegis explained in his Studies Upon Nature of Arcane, spellcasting is ultimately dependent on precise positions and angles - one small mistake can make the difference between teleportation to a neighboring city and teleportation above or below said city. After enough foolish mages attempted to master this method of transportation (and subsequently drowned or died by falling), the Council issued a formal ban on any usage of this spell on living beings.

Psychic Binding Spells

Psychic Binding is a discipline that branched off from Summoning and aims to enhance the usefulness of golems by adding the mental body of a person to them. The result is that the person will live as a golem for as long as the bind persists; if enough damage is dealt to the golem (and depending on the precise nature of the binding spell used), the person's mind can return to their body in the best case, it can simply cease to exist or it can be fractured into pieces, forcing each splinter of conciousness to live as a mere shadow of the original. Among its practitioners, the most notable ones are the warlock cults that are already well-versed in vessel creation and psychic body manipulation, as well as the Followers of the Saint, who use amplified and extended versions of Astral Projection to "insert" themselves into any willing host. While PB is not outright banned by the Council, the Exalted community views such practices as "unnatural" and "tainted".

Tunneling Spells

Tunneling spells are pretty straight-forward to understand: take two identical objects with open space inside of them, give them identifiers according to Jorthunn's Identification Theory, then use each identifier in the other object's array to "trick" them into linking the open space. The results can either be a two-dimensional gate or a three-dimensional room that can be used to travel to its designated pair. From a technical point of view, one must note that both versions are, in fact, three-dimensional; in the first case, the orientation direction can be ignored - as a result, one of the gates may or may not be "reversed", which in practice does not impact the usefulness of the gate. Out of all variants, only tunneling spells require the caster to be present at the destination; these spells are also the only continuous ones, since most mages expect these gate to function for as long as they remain standing. From a traveler's perspective, the gates are the safest way to travel; they are the most reliable variant and have a long history of working as expected. Unfortunately, gate technology was last seen during the construction of Exarhi Plane, when Koshimo the Spatiomancer carved the pocket dimension and linked it to the most important capitals of the Meridian kingdoms.

Small Notes on Interdimensional Travel

While the existence of other realms has not been fully confirmed as of yet, there are enough clues that point towards this conclusion. The most important clue is the phenomenon called "spatial fissure", a tear in the fabric of reality that can occur sometimes naturally, but mostly during misuse of VMD. It has been noted that, from time to time, unknown animals and even intelligent beings would fall through these "holes in reality". Some foolish mages have even ventured into those "holes"; obviously, they were never seen again. On top of that, some Followers of the Saint have said that, during intense periods of meditation and Astral Projection, they were able to travel to unseen worlds, alien to us both in their form and in their content. If their stories are to be trusted, we may live in a world that's surrounded by many others, all full of intelligent species, beings that may be more evolved and/or advanced than us. We should be more prepared for such situations; either we settle our disputes and unite the Continent under one goal, or we increase our arsenal and become the first ones to initiate contact.

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This article is an entry for the Twelve in Twelve - January Challenge!