Axis Gate

Archivist's Excerpt from: Alone in the Cold: The Story of Orphan Towne, its Strange History, & its Stranger Occupants, CVI 42.4

"Niavellir" to the Galó of Jalóheim, particularly the adherents of Jalós Zealotry who believe it is the gateway on their Last Journey Home, called the "Way to Thule" to the missing (and presumed dead) Otto Vanderhill Heinrich of Orphan Heights, this strange place stands in the distant north of The Expanse, a place of legend and curiosity and, for most of Orphan and the Grand Colonial Academy of Science, nonexistence, in that it isn't actually there.

"That is where we go, when the Last Journey Home calls us, far away in the north, beyond Niavellir."

— Hana Sóholdt

The term "Axis Gate" itself is already considered a myth, an esoteric term for a doorway of sorts at the distant north of the world. Where it leads could be to many places, be they cosmic, spiritual, or even into the earth itself, depending on what mythology or religious or reference one references. There is evidence to suggest that the term is something of a triple entendre, in that there is a truer meaning of the term "Axis Gate," and then a truest meaning of "Axis Gate," because that's just how annoyingly elitist esoteric words tend to be.

In terms of a physical location, there are scattered reports of a central ruin around which the Old City stands in the Northern Steppes of The Expanse, but few have kept record of its details, if any. The Sordun Valley apparently lies "beyond" it, but this is now how it is thought of. There is nothing "beyond" this place, but the term is loosely used.

In every sense of the term, regardless of its true nature, this is both the top of and the end of the world. Overhead, the stars move tholiform, circular, like turning an umbrella over one's head, as was believed in the eldest days of man's history according to many religions and histories. There is little but columns and ruins and hollow winds under the aurora. If there is more, it is not for the inexperienced eye to discern.

Such is the way of old things.

Aftermath

Following the events of the , what with the utter destruction of The Expanse, the northern Axis of the world is left a gaping maw into the Interior of Agartha.