The Vortex Between Universes

What is

The Vortex is natural phenomenon of Sharitarn Universe, it is fixed on planet Sharitarn and affects it in a way more intense that it affects any parallel planet. Sharitarn can be and often is defined as "The Planet Blessed by the Vortex", it also is defined as "The Planet Cursed by the Vortex". All that because as the phenomenon takes people, animal and objects from other universes it only affects them for a brief period of time, on the other hand it is fixed on Sharitarn for good and that is where the Vortex drops all. Another popular title of the Planet Blessed by the vortex is "End of the Sewer".
This phenomenon became active when the planet gained its esferoidal shape, long before the evolution of living things on Sharitarn. Connected to the planet the Vortex brought only lifeless matter back then.

First Complication

Was a long period of time, 345 billion years, each one about as long as the years of our planet are now. That already begs one question: how the planet on the End of the Sewer did not grew in mass and size and became larger than all the rest of its stellar system?
One property of the Vortex is that it do not raises the mass or the size of Sharitarn. Instead, it creates Mirror Dimensions.
As new matter is deposited on the planets surface a equivalent mass 'slides' from the core region of the planet to what Scholar Castes today call "Mirror Dimensions". Those places are not other universes, there is nothing else on them, only the mass that came from Sharitarn, slowly falling in non-existence one layer at the time. Unlike other Universes is possible to reach Mirror dimensions on purpose or by magical accidents, but is impossible to leave Sharitarn universe by any mean.
All Universes touched by the Vortex are identical in astronomical scale, but took far longer for life to show its subversive face on Sharitarn than it took on the parallel planet know as Earth or in most others with similar laws of nature. The instability caused by the arrival or alien matter, and random pieces of physical and chemical principles as well, made harder for organic proteins find their way to living organisms. When that happened there was few of the original matter natural of the Universe left.

And Then There was Life

As happened on Earth, and on many other Parallel Universes primitive organisms evolved small and simple, and grew in complexity and size. On Sharitarn however, they where not alone.
As soon as the primitive forms of live appeared the Vortex started affecting living things in other Universes, capturing them to bless Sharitarn. Creating challenge, but also opportunity. The Vortex in this period did not captured what we would call "sentient" or "intelligent" creatures, and Sharitarnes call "talking beings". You don't see the natives of Sharitarn using the word equivalent to "creature" to refer living things unless they are deliberately created magic. That because creation implies deliberate design and Divination spells made them aware very soon in their History that_ at least in their Universe _ no intelligent telos was behind the beginning of live.
During this period of 62 billion years live flourished in intense competitions, with mass extinction phenomenons happening far more frequently than they happen or Earth.
Most Universes touched by the Vortex do have basic constants close to those of Sharitarn Universe, but few are completely identical. In some cases, nature may go wildly far from what Sharitarnes and Earthlings would recognize as natural. When that happens something must give up. The first non talking being, object, or person brought by the Vortex from a Universe generates a mix between the laws of his home Universe and the laws of Sharitarn Universe. That unique anomaly will be the guiding line for all things from the same Parallel Universe, but they do not affect all planet, much less all Universe of Sharitarn, they only have effect on the involuntary immigrants from that same Universe.
So life spread to far above the ground, and far bellow the surface. Through the Oceans and Continents.

The Only Talking Natives of Sharitarn

You may disagree with the affirmation above if that pleases you, and perhaps you will find plausible arguments for that here. However, is not in question the fact that humans are the first talking specie evolved on Sharitarn. That is extensively proved by Divination Magic. In account of that humans who inherit the blood of those original Sharitarnes consider themselves the rightful owners of their planet.
That article is not about what humans think and do, suffer or conquer. It is about the natural phenomenon. Humans deserve mention here because the Vortex is connected to the specie in a special way. As it is connected to live in general, but more so.
Most matter in a Universe touched by the Vortex is not organic, but when live evolved on Sharitarn the proportion of it brought by the Vortex became higher than random accident could plausibly explain.
Following the same blind logic, when humans evolved on Sharitarn humanoids became the most common living things captured by the Vortex, followed by other humanoid races. The Phenomenon didn't 'choose' in literal sense, but it is tuned to the End of the Sewer in that specific way.
Unfortunately for the primitive humans on Sharitarn the Vortex does not discriminate between technological levels or magical knowledge. The first humans served as cattle and slaves for the first involuntary immigrants arrived who had advantages over them. In some cases those advantages where natural capacities, longer lifespan, hive-minds, stronger bodies, telepathy and many others. In some cases those iis had magic in their home universes and that magic was close enough to the conditions of Sharitarn to be adapted and used here. Technological levels where of course also a strong advantage well used by many masters of humans. In some cases the species arrived had all those above average.

The Big Problem

Most iis do not like the fact that they have been taken from home and deposited in a strange alien Universe. For whatever reason they may have, they complain against bad luck to whatever deities they may follow. To most that is all they can do, and as time passes frustration fades away, the adoptive Universe starts feeling more like home. However, when intelligence comes to play we must consider those species who knew what Universes are even before they met the Vortex.
In that group there is some who had means to travel between Universes, or where about to develop them. Those means are useless, because the End of the Sewer is just that. Nothing leaves this Universe except to non-existence. The iis have no way back their former homes. That is not something all accept in good mood, and since the beginning of talking life on Sharitarn we do have involuntary immigrants trying to brake the most basic rule of the Vortex.
Those attempts have no consequence, until they have some. When that happens a heavy price is paid by all on Sharitarn.
Up to this point none succeeded in leave the Universe.
The one time when someone came close to open a "Inverted Vortex" the passage did not reached an other Parallel Universe. It reached a empty place between realities. Unfortunately that place was not fully empty, and what was there found a way to use the opening to reach Sharitarn.
When Altair was looking an english word to translate the one used in Merchant Language of Sharitarn for what came from the Vortex he based himself in a broad approximation of the few descriptions he managed to force out some mad Scholar. The word he used was "Spiders". Because of that all involuntary immigrant Earthlings adopted that word, and also because of that I call the period that follows the arrival of those beings Age of Spiders.
The physical emotion that accompanies the actual Sharitarne word (assuming panic is an emotion) cannot be captured in the word "spider" but that is what we have.

Precarious Solution 

 
   Once the Age of Spiders ended, and they somehow disappeared, all species who survives made a pact. More like a implicit imperative: NEVER AGAIN. No one can be allowed to mess with the Vortex in a way that may result in a new Age of Spiders, that must be prevented at any cost.

A Final Detail

   The Vortex tunes one Universe at the time, except for the periods of transition it only affects one planet in each Universe. Specifically the parallel planet, the one in the same position of Sharitarn, which in the case of our Universe is Planet Earth. The Phenomenon do takes involuntary immigrants from other Universes while it is tuned, but in small quantities and less frequently. 
     The involuntary immigrants often ask themselves about the consequences of their disappearance, and why they had never heard about the Vortex before reach Sharitarn. Earthlings, for instance, have difficulty to accept the information that their planet was touched by the Vortex around the Earthling year of 1500, and became tuned around Ey 1700. They imagine someone on their home planet should have seem and registered occurrences of this amazing swirl opening in the air and sucking people. 
      That is a property of the Vortex as well, it leaves no register  behind, not even in people's memory. People on Parallel Universes do remember who was taken and do notice their absence, but they usually find more plausible explanations than a phenomenon from other Universe which leaves no trace.         
      Only in the rare case of parallel planets where the presence of each living person is registered every minute by a flawless system the Vortex do leaves a evidence, because in those cases and only in those cases the mere absence of someone is prouve of something that cannot be explained by natural means. If people in one of those universes has knowledge of other Universes and technology to travel beyond their own is not impossible for them to imagine a phenomenon like the Vortex, as unlikely as it is.   
     However, even in that extreme hypothesis would be hard to do anything about the abductions. At very best they could send agents through the Vortex if they can register and reach it fast enough, after deduce its existence by logic. That would still be a one way travel for those agents.

Manifestation

The Vortex appears as a hole in the air, a spinning swirl that attracts anything nearby, and any one. Size can vary greatly, from the size of a grain of sand to one large enough to transport entire continents. However, is very rare for the vortex to be larger than a industrial complex or small town, and more often than not it is only large big enough to carry between one and half a dozen humanoids.
     One thing about the phenomenon that is important to remember is that those who see it do not remember anything about. Unless they are close enough to be captured, in that case they keep the memory but will keep it on planet Sharitarn. 
     The parallel planets tuned by the Vortex are left with no register at all. No magical, biological, technological or even divine mechanism can register the Vortex. The only evidence left by it is the absence of what the Vortex transported.

Localization

Planet Sharitarn, surface: is where the Vortex delivers what, and who, it caught. Most occurrences of the phenomenon happen on t the magical lines of grass created by the Mage's Brotherhood precisely to help Sharitarn natives to cope with the constant arrival of unpredictable new elements. They are named "Vortex Lines", or "Green Lines".  
   The Vortex do exists in all Universe where Sharitarn is, and existed before Sharitarn itself was formed. However it only manifests at planet Sharitarn, and on the Parallel Planets of it in other Universes that are identical to Sharitarn Universe in astronomic scale.

Imagine two worlds. They both have the same size of Earth and about the same number of people. On both of them there is normal humans, more or less like the ones you know from streets and mirrors. Also on both worlds there is about 60 thousand individuals born with potential to develop huge power. 
   Those 'hu-wers' (just came with the world, from "huge power") are somewhere around DC Comic Superman, Marvel Thor, or the deities in Homer's Iliad. To place it in Dungeons and Dragons vocabulary is a world where all character are level zero, perhaps a small number of levels 1 and 2, hardly a character level 3. And in the middle of that world you have the 60 thousand huwers who are between Levels 25 and 30. They are not born that way, but they are born with that potential that normal people has not. 
   All that is the same in both worlds, continents are different, different oceans, other nations, but no meaningful particularity worth mention up to this point. 
   In one of this worlds, Galfhea, the huwers are hereditary. They are born only from two huwers, and each couple can only generate two huwers, no matter how many children they have. The heirs are revealed only when their parents die. Number of Huwers never goes up. It tends to remain stable in this world. 
   On Elafaka the number of huwers also continues constant, up there the new huwers only get their chance to develop their powers after the other huwers die. However, unlike what happens on Galfhea, the power on Elafaka isn't hereditary. When a huwers dies a children is conceived with the potential to develop the power. There is no connection between the dead huwer and the future one, they may be from the same nations, from enemy families, or for opposite sides of the globe. 
   What consequences would that tiny detail cause in the organization of society? How common people would deal with those powerful individuals in one case, and in the other? 
   Questions like that are not exercise of imaginative fantasy for Scholar Castes on Sharitarn. Thanks to the Vortex they have several examples of cases that are similar in most aspects to Galfhea, and others that are similar to Elafaka. Their comprehension of reality takes in consideration only their own planet in some aspects, but in many others it has a far richer basis for reference. Involuntary immigrants are neither perfectly objective nor always well informed when they describe their home Universes, but they do provide a lot of information.                From compare the references of billions of different Universes, all identical in astronomic scale, the greater minds on Sharitarn identified tendencies and exceptions. A work without practical application. Still, despite being useless that investigation do has some effect in all Sharitarnes, both native and adopted residents. Just that effect is subtle, at times contradictory, not easily defined.   
   Some have called it cynicism, other cruelty. Or even nihilism. Some have called it wisdom, or even agape.

A Small Piece, of A Small Piece, of Something 

     One important detail about the Vortex is that it do not reaches the entire Multiverse. Those Sharitarnes who study the phenomenon understand that. Some iis brought information about different realities not reached by the Vortex, and bridges between Universes that cannot reach the Universe of Sharitarn. 
      The Vortex only reach Universes that are identical to the Universe of Sharitarn in Astronomic Scale. That is not the totality of Multiverse, far from it. 
       There is register of cases where the parallel planet of Sharitarn had two or more natural satellites. Those planets would never had been touched by the Vortex if those natural satellites has not been carried away, erased from existence, or eaten by ants. The different satellite does not have to be natural, it does not have to be on the parallel planet of Sharitarn either. Any difference in the Universe places this Universe beyond Vortex reach, if that difference is as large as a Moon: could be in a different Galaxy even. 
       Many Universes are younger than the Universe where Sharitarn exists, our own seems to be in this category. Some are likely older. Therefore, by logical necessity, Universes enter the reach of the Vortex for limited periods of time. Is impossible to say how many Universes are in reach at any given time, it may be a far larger number than the number of Universes touched by the Vortex at each moment. 
       In any case, the Universe where Sharitarn is does not behave like other know Universes in one sense. Beings who came from Universes where technology or magic allowed them to study the Multiverse and travel between Universes find out that they cannot apply their knowledge from Sharitarn. That Universe is "the end", really. Or at very least it seems to be, as far as anyone was able to verify. 
       There is no way to make a bridge leading from the Universe of Sharitarn to any other. The rest of the Multiverse lays beyond the Vortex, and beyond the reach of those who exist on Sharitarn. 
      Only parallel dimensions that can be reached are the Mirror Dimensions, and they are not other  Universes, just echoes of Sharitarn degrading into non-existence. Slowly, but without interruption.

Type

Natural