An Account of My Time with Saln Govran

This is the story of the discovery of the Gate technology.

Until the year 468 L.V., Mentor Sathya had not revealed what had happened to Saln Govran, the man who found a way to travel between two places without actually having to travel. During the Season of Skulls of 468, Sathya revealed the whole story to the public by publishing the following work titled, **An Account of My Time with Saln Govran**.

## Cortex Entries

Each excerpt from this work is obtained separately in the form of 14 cortex entries. Mentioning them above the excerpt would break immersion and flow. So they are mentioned in a separate list here.

* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (1)
* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (2)
* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (3)
* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (4)
* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (5)
* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (6)
* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (7)
* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (8)
* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (9)
* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (10)
* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (11)
* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (12)
* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (13)
* Cortex Entry: An Account of My Time with Saln Govran (14)

## An Account of My Time with Saln Govran

By Mentor Sathya

I will never know if my longtime teacher and friend died by my hand or his own. I am compelled to offer my account of the events that led to his fate because my time grows short. A diagnosis has confirmed a bestial illness long asleep will soon overwhelm me. My lifelong accomplices, guilt and fear, have worn me down and made me easy prey.

Long before my unremarkable time as an instructor at the Arcanist Academy, I was an ambitious and foolish student. With disdain, I looked at my fellow scientists who were satisfied with scraps left by history's greatest minds. I sought a truth that would change the world. I would accept nothing less.

Impatiently, I completed my training in the arts of scientific investigation. In my final years, I chose to specialize in the Theory of Matter Transfer, much to the dismay of my instructors. The theory proposed it was possible to transfer matter through the Gateway and instantaneously have it arrive at a designated location. My work was dismissed as a fantastical waste of time, but I would not be dissuaded. Scroll in hand, I left the Academy and sought the one man who would understand my singular pursuit: Saln Govran.

Of course, you know him. His name will forever be carved deep into our histories. As a boy, Govran outstripped his contemporaries at the academy. His unique mind would not be shackled by the cage of academia. He sought the truth and damn anything that stood in his way. Such was my ravenous ego that I immediately felt a kinship with him. What footsteps I would follow!

I found him in a well-appointed facility near a farming community on the outskirts of Heliost. He'd left academia and its narrow world behind. His rough study was more clutter and collections than sterile lab. To him, it was clear that ideas and action outstripped endless hesitation. Govran himself was a small man with wide and delighted eyes. He took my hand in a firm handshake and spent the day with endless questions about my own work. So taxing was the talk, I felt less examined in my final defense at the academy. Despite the rigor, I quickly felt a kinship with this warm and inviting scholar. I began my real education of our unsettling world. How very thin are the walls that separate us from chaos.

We fought as scientists do, bloodless and enthusiastic. Endless debates on everything—ideas, theories, experiments, and results. Everything was questioned. Every detail discussed. I delighted how my advanced training served only as the most elementary of foundations to what he called "the hunt." Over months, I grew to know the man as one who could not rest while his quarry, the secret of creating a Gate, still eluded him. Our tenacity would be rewarded. The exhausting pursuit began to show results. Our goal was within sight.

Our hunt was a success. The machine—a body of wires, metal plates, and chemicals—carried an object through space and delivered it to a designated area either nearby or along the far-flung horizon. In Govran's eyes, I saw the compulsion to end this pursuit with one final act. Without warning, he stepped into the machine's field. I cried out in horror. We had never sent living flesh through. I stood unmoving. My heart pounded. The air tasted of copper and ash. He was gone.

The seconds stretched out, slow and sinewy. My skin chilled. The air blurred and pulsed. An undulating shape appeared in midair no more than a few steps away from the machine. It oozed a dark red glow.
Mesmerized, I watched a figure emerge from the eerie swaying energy like a predator from tall grass: Govran. Pale, but unharmed, he turned his gaze upon me. I found no glint of awareness nor shared familiarity in those eyes. A second pulse, and the red light was gone. A gray silence followed. Govran blinked, uncertain of his surroundings, and collapsed to the floor.

It was clear my colleague's abrupt departure and triumphant return had taken an toll. He spoke not at all and slept fitfully. I let him rest, but remained watchful though that first long night. He awoke later the next day, his skin the color of wax but his eyes bright and his stomach ravenous.
As he ate, he related what little he could of his experience. I was crazed to know every detail, but could not move him to speak more than a few words. "It works," he declared, clearly growing tired of my questions. "Leave it at that." So tersely dismissed, I could only watch as his narrow gaze turned back to the machine.

We worked day and night to ready the machine for another flight. This time, Govran insisted I join him in crossing the unknown void, to find the truth for myself at last.
However, my reservations were profound—his behavior after his journey eroded my courage. The silence between us could last for hours, sometimes days. The once-raucous lab felt like a grave, as sat and stared at the machine, eyes unblinking. To rouse him from this state resulted in a terse reprimand—or a violent outburst—until I left him to his meditations. Something was desperately wrong.

My fears for Govran's mental state only grew in the hushed weeks that followed. He was impatient and erratic during our infrequent conversations. I caught him pacing back and forth in front of the machine like a caged animal, his anger clear and frightening. Despite this, the work was soon completed. With trepidation, I announced our machine ready for another flight. My dread at the thought of entering the Gate had grown, and my hands began to tremble. Deep within me, I knew the world-changing truth I had always sought—had built my life around discovering—was just a few feet from where I stood.
But lurking close to that machine was Govran, the only living thing to journey out and back, and his icy gaze chilled my soul. Without ceremony, he pulled down the brass handle until a floating red light began to form on the platform.

The ominous whirr of the Gate froze me in place like an animal in an unexpected spotlight. Govran turned and regarded the familiar yet alien light. For a moment, I thought I was seeing things, that the light had caused a particularly disturbing illusion of Govran's eyes as a featureless sea of blood.
But he turned, and I realized to my horror that my perception was correct. I could no longer deny the truth I had buried since his return: my friend was not damaged, but absent. Some horrific imitation had returned in his stead.

Seized with a hot certainty, I shook off the fear and leapt forward, pushing the creature into the cracking energy. With a silent pulse, he vanished. My fear primal, I turned and smashed the cursed machine. My rampage did not stop until I was surrounded by destruction and flames. Govran's study was ablaze, and our blasphemous work would soon be ash.

Years have passed since that black night. I returned to the Academy a reduced man, and I pursued a staid and steady life as an instructor. Any thoughts of uncovering what lay beyond vanished in a red wound of light. My illness felt a fair recompense for my arrogance.
I spoke only once of my experience with Saln Govran and our damned machine— to the elders of the great Arcanist Academy. The facts were plain, and those assembled wisely agreed that pursuit of such technology was too dangerous and would be discouraged at every turn.

In the end, my truth did change the world, but not for the better.