North

*"A mega-earth of suffering. A testament to evil. A world for the wicked, and a hell for the innocent.*"

**— Mr. Bones**

The **North**, known also as "***𐌰𐌽𐌳𐌰𐍅𐌹𐌶𐌽**"* (***Northern Gothic, "need, necessity"; Transliteration "Norl"***) is one of the 4 Cardinal Dimensions in the Penta-Dimensional Plane and previously served as the home world of the Northern Souls.

The North is an endless expanse of sand, seemingly without an exit or end. Stretching endlessly for billions of miles, it was home to the Northern Souls, a malevolent species of winged god-like bipeds.

The North had been almost entirely claimed by the Northern Souls during the Soul-era, with the land being dotted with massive edifices and citadels. Escaped Servant-species have small huts and villages, formed in the past in an attempt to leave their solitary forced lives of servitude.

Time passes at a pseudo-regular rate in the North, only passing with a slight delay of 3 seconds. Gravity also still applies in the same fashion as in the East (specifically Earth), remaining at a constant ***9.80665 m / s²***. The atmospheric content and density is also nearly identical to Earth's, making the North one of the most hospitable areas for humans in the Penta-Dimensional Plane, aside from Earth itself.

## Geography

Aside from architecture, the North is completely exempt from any defining geographic features. Endless sand dunes flow across the terrain infinitely, with no end in sight. It's believed that the vast amount of sand in the North results from the ability of Northern Souls to petrify themselves into volcanic rock upon perishing. The endless sands could simply be granular remnants of their corpses built up over time, rather than a genuine geographical feature. For unknown reasons, the sand in the North is impossible to imprint. Footprints are never left when the ground is walked upon, and attempting to manipulate sand simply results in it flowing back into its original position. This could be due to the high soul energy content of the sand, but its specific reasons for continuing this behavior are unknown.

The North is separated into 3 distinct zones, the **Far Sector**, the **Mid-Sector**, and the **Main Sector**. The Far Sector *(as of 2023)* is the least densely populated area of the North, with only 3 billion or so beings actively living within it. The Far Sector is known for its architectural and biological sparsity, likely due to the increased amount of heat within the area, a phenomenon that is difficult to explain. The Far Sector, on cold days, can reach almost **300°F *(148°C)***. These temperatures are nearly inhospitable for all creatures within the area, aside from some of the Northern Souls themselves, who could sometimes be genetically predisposed to hyper-optimal heat management.

The Mid-Sector is the most densely populated area of the North, serving as a hub for social gatherings and for market activity. It was previously the location of the "𐍃𐌹𐌻𐍆𐌽 𐍃𐍉𐍅𐍃 𐌰𐌻𐍊𐌴𐌻𐌹 𐌷𐌰𐍂𐌿𐍃𐌴𐌹𐍂𐍄 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐍅𐌲𐍆𐌰𐌹𐌼𐍆𐌹" (***Northern Gothic, "Alton Saula Energei Haírþandeiga Faihlitais"; Transliteration "Alton Soul Energy Harvesting Facility")***, one of the largest Soul-era soul harvesting facilities in the North. As of 2023, the facility is currently managed by independent Northern species, in an effort to prevent a complete societal collapse.

The Close-Sector is known for being one of the most soul-energy rich areas of the North, and for its irregular dune patterns. Soul energy in the Close-Sector is a 10x more abundant resource than other areas of the North, however, the difficulty in making it to the Far-Sector *(due to ancient barriers applied by the Northern Souls in order to prevent overconsumption)* overshadows its worth. The energy is contained mostly within the sand, however, some energy can also escape into the nearby air, allowing a more conventional way of extraction. The Close-Sector, surprisingly, is also one of the least-used areas for soul energy collection, likely in an effort to preserve the energy and reserve it for later use.

## Architecture

Northern architecture is known for it's less than conventional methods of construction. Due to the rigidity of Northern sand, it is not suitable for architectural use, and many buildings are constructed using rock collected from petrified Northern Souls. Dense shielding is compacted into shells and placed over buildings, in order to prevent excess erosion. This practice, however, has not protected many historical buildings from major structural damage due to weathering.

## Weather

The North can be incredibly hot at times, with temperatures in the Mid-Sector reaching highs of at least **120°F *(48°C)***. The Northern Souls and other creatures within and around the Mid and Close sectors of the North are seemingly unfazed by the fluctuating temperature extremes, likely due to their high durability and internal heat management. The North has no rain or storms, remaining in a constant dry season year-round. Wind is also prominent in the North, causing erosion to be one of the most common reasons for the loss of artifacts and historical architectural remnants.

## Outside the Desert

The North, while seemingly orbiting a star (*assumed due to the fact that the North has a 6 month day-night cycle*) has no visible point that denominates when space begins (*if there is space at all*). The North has no specific ending point or individual continents, and attempting to exit the atmosphere by traveling vertically either results in immediate vaporization or the object attempting to exit endlessly traveling upwards.

## Economy

The North is home to a relatively stable *(while strained)* economy, utilizing "*𐍃𐌹𐌻𐌿𐌱𐍂" (**Northern Gothic, "silver, coin"; Transliteration "silubr"**)* as a singular token-based currency. Contrary to its name, "silubr" is not made of the silver metal itself, and is rather constructed out of **Calfon**, an uncommon metal sometimes found in place of the heart of a petrified Northern Soul. Due to the annihilation of the Northern Souls in the early 21st century, the silubr economy has been strained and crippled heavily, with a deficit of coins due to the lack of Northern Souls. Creatures have resorted to scavenging the sands for remaining Soul corpses, a practice which has formed a viable market for petrified Souls. The North is home to a mainly capitalist-based economy, however, with some private areas adopting socialist or communist-like economic systems.

Much of the Northern market is occupied with the sale of consumption goods, recreational items, and tools for construction. Food and shelter form a relatively large market, with house-flipping and overpricing being a common practice in the North due to the strain on the silubr currency and the recent post-Souls era economic collapse.

## Culture and Species

The North is dotted with massive abandoned buildings, which were usually centers for Northern Soul activity. Northern Souls typically did not live in small homes, but rather grouped together in large citadel-like outposts. Small shelters can occasionally be found, usually built by servant species in an effort to escape the grasp of the Northerners. These shelters were typically found and annihilated immediately by surrounding Northern Souls, but now thrive after the extermination of the Souls. During the era of the Souls, there was an estimated **90 billion** Souls present in the far sector alone.

Many Northern species lived in a continuous state of servitude, providing for the Northern Souls as slaves. Those that were disobedient were usually vaporized, then replaced by another. It was common for entire species to be wiped out for the action of one, as the Northern Souls were infamous for their cruel, "group punishment" mindset. The Northern Souls ruled the North with an iron fist, commonly utilizing serfs and servantry for usually basic and monotonous tasks.

The most common language in the North is **Northern Gothic**, a language branching off from that of the Visigoths'. 60% of all of the North is fluent in Northern Gothic, with 5% fluent in modern/middle **English** and the remaining 35% being illiterate. Bilingualism is not common in the North, with many not undergoing the proper education to maintain knowledge of two individual languages. Systems such as education are not widespread in the North, with Souls-era education being limited to only the wealthy and Souls themselves, and modern formal education being independent and virtually-nonexistent aside from homeschooling. The presence of English and Gothic-inspired languages in the North is believed to be due to Northern-Eastern interaction throughout history.

## Power source

The North, rather than utilizing traditional methods of power *(such as electricity)*, is run off of pure **soul energy**, energy harvested from living beings and ran through diodes and reactors to be converted to motion and activity. Since soul energy is ultimately dependent on living beings for use, trafficking of living beings and harvesting was rampant in the North during the era of the Northern Souls. Living beings would be captured and would have parts *(or sometimes the entirety)* of their souls forcefully removed and purified. This process was incredibly painful and popular, with entire facilities and factories being constructed to go through with it.

The North has suffered several power outages and deficiencies recently due to hyper-depletion and the extraordinary need for soul energy *(likely due to several population booms post-Souls)*, with the remaining power unable to sustain the North at its size. This lack of energy has caused periods of famine within the North, with some species resorting to sacrificing themselves or others for a minutia of energy.

The sand of the North also maintains a close supply of soul energy, however, due to its compressed form and difficulty in being harvested, extraction of soul energy from the sand itself is not a common practice.

## Mr. Bones' Wild Ride

Between late 1996 and 1997, the North was used as a transitory space alongside the East in the development of the interdimensional "infinite" rollercoaster "Mr. Bones' Wild Ride" by American government research organization BonesTech, Incorporated. The "Tri-Dimensional Extension Device", an invention created and popularized by **Andrew Fey**, known more commonly as **Mr. Bones**, was utilized to create a small portal within the Eastern and Northern planes respectively. The track was run through the gateway, allowing an almost seamless transition through dimensions. This transition would be exploited in order to form the illusion of an "infinite" ride. Customers would request a length, and the cart would be run through the track at a speed that fulfilled that amount of time. The track was almost 30 miles long, with twists, turns, loops, and other features specially prepared to maximize customer enjoyment. The ride would be shut down in late 1997 due to power concerns and incidents that occurred on the property. People would enter the ride and suffer the risk of being thrown off and stranded in the North, or would request physically impossible lengths of time *(i.e. 1 second, 3 milliseconds)* and be killed instantaneously. The ride would also occasionally refuse to stop, leaving people left to die in the desert until the power source could be shut off. The Tri-Dimensional Extension Device was also experimental and prone to failures, due to the fact that the rollercoaster was actually secretly a test-run of the device on the general-public.

Today, remnants of the ride can still be found buried deep under the sand. While scuffed and eroded, the tracks are in decent condition, and the signature *"AF"* *(Andrew Fey)* can still be found scrawled in Sharpie on the 25th track segment to the right.

## Annihilation of the Souls and current state

In August of 2023, American scientist and polymath Andrew Fey, known better as Mr. Bones, in an effort to rid himself of immortality and void a curse brought upon him by the Northern Souls, would travel to the North and actively begin massacring the entire Northern Souls population utilizing homemade destructive devices and supernatural ability. In the span of 13 hours, almost the entire Northern Souls population would be obliterated, with Bones proceeding to target and eliminate high-priority targets. Government-ordered agents would be sent into the North by Russian-American scientist and politician Isaac Hazeltov to no avail, with the Souls misunderstanding the agents as accomplices of Bones and immediately obliterating them. After a battle lasting almost 2 days, Bones would finally succeed in the complete obliteration of the Souls, and was escorted from the Northern dimension by demigod and Penta-Dimensional Plane proprietor The Designer.

The events and destruction of the Northern Souls by Bones would have catastrophic effects, severely crippling the Northern political system, economy, and power supply. While the events served as a liberation for many Northern species, the negatives of the Northern-Bones battle are just as prominent as the positives, and the events have had an everlasting impact on the North as a whole.