The Route

The Route is a permanent Gateway to the Grand Bazaar. It has no fixed location or means of traversal, rather existing as snippets of hidden knowledge of the location of scattered microportals that eventually lead to the Bazaar.
Gods and mortal merchants of sufficient skill and experience have an innate knowledge of the Route. In order to use it, they must perform various secretive tasks and journeys, collecting 'keys' and 'passwords' from various 'informants' in the world around them, such as the sound of the wind, the song of a bird, or the roll of a particular set of dice, all at a particular time and place. Once they have acquired the correct key or password, a traveller is enabled to enter a specific microportal into an empty Sphere, which quickly leads them through other microportals and empty spheres into the Bazaar.
The Route is extremely unstable, and collapses when observed by anyone to whom it has not revealed itself. For this reason, mortals wishing to enter the Bazaar or engage in trade with it must be very careful to hide themselves and smuggle their goods, lest their keys become useless and their passwords rejected. 
Each merchant has their own secret Route, but sometimes it also reveals itself in the same way to several merchants who are in cahoots, especially if they have been acquainted in the Bazaar. These occasions are the only currently known way for mortals to collaborate in interdimensional dealings with the Bazaar, at least without the aid of a god.
Deities can easily recognise keys and microportals, and their presence has a natural stabilising effect on the Route, albeit not so much that they can afford to be careless.
Category:Gateways
Category:Choppy's Mistakes