"Underworld" crypt layout issue - advice request

[Ixthos]

Hi everyone. I'm codifying a lot of elements in my setting at the moment, and there is one particular issue which I think would be fun to get some advice on. Most of the other elements I'm keeping my own council on, and I don't want to get into too much detail here because it will take a long time :-P the topic I would like advice on related to the setting's underworld.

 

In the setting - which has multiverses as not the highest level of structure, but actually one of the middle tier layers - that is multiverses form larger structures that themselves connect across to one another, covering multiple timelines, universes, and realities - there is a single special structure outside of every reality [Edit: to clarify, it is the same structure] that exists to house the dead. Though not the only structure outside reality tied to reality, it has entrances that have a presence connected to every universe, in the part of that universe where, if someone knows that they are doing, they can create a necromatic web to allow the formation of undead, allowing one to prevent the deaths from taking them to the crypt like structure.

I don't want to go into detail about the appearance of this place or the other beings that live around and outside it, including its defenders, but I do need to explain a little bit about its nature so as to ask for advice.

The structure is truly massive inside, housing everything that has died, and is a labyrinth, dark and cold in the hallways, sleeping dead on slabs in each room, the dead feeling nothing and knowing nothing, but capable of being awakened. They are protected both outside the structure and within, with the protection within being powerful shadows that will hunt down and "kill" any intruder who disturbs the dead from their rest, placing the intruder on a slab within to so they can then sleep. The only defence against this is to follow special rules - normally you aren't allowed inside, but if you are you are warned by the deaths, who themselves can only enter to deposit someone on a slab, though whether they enter peaceful sleep calmly and in peace or from horror fading to peace depends on which death does so, the kindest death giving the most helpful advice while the cruellest of the three giving no advice at all, the deaths always waiting outside the entrances, though they are not its guards. Keep to the torch light and only awaken at most one sleeping dead to converse if you must, but even this isn't certain not to result in drawing the defenders. Also, NEVER try to bring someone back from inside. Only ONE person is allowed to do this, and if you want to bring someone back and aren't that person, do it from outside the structure. Trying to escape with someone who is dead will draw attention.

(I'm still debating if the spirits of the dead are still active, or if the spirits sleep within the soul of the dead - spirits and souls are not the same thing as everyone has both, the soul being the part that thinks and feels and wills while the spirit is the body in the spirit world and is one's nature, their conscience and intuition and capacity to worship. If the dead wake and their spirits aren't present that might explain why one can ask them what they know, but it they try to leave with the dead ....)

 

Now, on to the request for advice. I want the labyrinth to have structure to it, and it can be non Euclidean, though each hall should seem like a normal hall, albeit dark, vaulted, and cold, the only warmth - a true warmth that is pleasent rather than just warm in comparison - is from the torches. The non Euclidean nature is where halls can seem to run back across where another hall seems to have been, like walking down a hall, entering another, entering a third from that one, and seeing it having a corridor running right through where the first should be. MAYBE overhanging walkways as well and maybe seeing in open areas halls running along the sides, but that is mostly not related.

So, what should the nature of the crypt be? Each room should have multiple dead, each room being a type of hall, but there are two major conciderations

1. How should the relations be of the rooms in space?
2. How should the relations be of the rooms in time?

There are several planets, several dimensions (layers), several universes, several multiverses, and several nodes, all spanning across multiple types of reality as well. And some beings that died are microscopic, while others are larger than universes. So, how should they be grouped? Now, this place isn't supposed to be visited, it has halls but those are mainly for the defenders - I'm actually debating about why there even are halls. Perhaps they normally don't exist, but come into being because sometimes the [spoilers removed :-P sorry] can bring someone in to show them things, sometimes taking them directly to a slab, sometimes just to show them the size of the place and to indicate that the dead are being cared for, and besides, this is more of a waiting area, this isn't where the dead are to remain forever. Oh, yes, this isn't where the dead remain forever, but rather a place of rest, but rest does require they eventually get back up.

Either way, for the first question, the issue is that of both physical space - should some rooms be truly massive for the dead who were massive, and others small for the dead who were small? (Basically if you were friends with a self aware microbe - your own cells are actually tied to you as a person, so they would't go here until your soul died, though that then raises questions about what happens if someone dies but some of their cells survive, or their cells in anothers body if they donated organs - if your friend was a microbe good luck fitting into their room to try to talk to them again. Though again this is very rare, the living doesn't normally come here, and it is actually one of the most difficult places to reach while alive). And if you were friends with something larger than a universe .... [Edit: this also raised questions for hive minds and other composite life, but that is for another time :-P]

Also, if you are walking the halls, should the dead be grouped by planet, and planets by dimension, and dimension by universe, .... and if so by where you lived, or were born, or died?

 

The second question - time travel. That is a big part, and this structure is partially in time, but not entirely. Should visitors only be able to visit the part in their timeline, where they were from? If they travel to the past, should they not be able to visit the dead in the future, or in other timelines - though how other timelines are covered basically involves them being "shadows" of real people, not actually alive, tied in part to dreams and imagination of what could have been, though I might change this.

Also with regards to time, should the dead be grouped by "when" they die? If two people died at the same time on opposite sides of a planet, should they be placed together? Or if two people died in the same place a hundred thousand years apart, should they be in the same place?

 

Of course, there is a possibility, and this is the way I'm considering going, but I would like advice. What if ALL of these apply. What if the slabs represent abstractions of "where" the dead are. You see, the structure, while outside of reality in part, is located in The Place Where Things Go When They Cease To Exist. A dangerous place to visit. What if the halls, and the path taken, vary depending on what you are looking for - that the same slab can exist in multiple locations, but still be the same slab. The dead don't see or hear, they don't know who is sleeping next to them, so what if no-one is sleeping next to them? You enter a room, walking the halls for people who died on that planet during that event, and see several slabs, including theirs. But you also could have gotten there by walking across the lines of their family, and then their parents and grandparents are in the same room and none of the others from before. But they don't see them, they only see you, and if you try to leave and take them with, then only does the room resolve from shadows for them, though for you it was a dark chamber that they are now walking in.

 

What do you suggest?

Edited July 11, 2020 by Ixthos
Clarifying

[Gears]

1 hour ago, Ixthos said:

What do you suggest?

I think that it should be all of them at once, but each individual can only see one grouping. If you think the rooms are based on location, time, family line, etc., they will be grouped that way. This could force each traveller to go to the crypt alone. 

Edited July 11, 2020 by Gears

[Ixthos]

1 hour ago, Gears said:

I think that it should be all of them at once, but each individual can only see one grouping. If you think the rooms are based on location, time, family line, etc., they will be grouped that way. This could force each traveller to go to the crypt alone. 

That could work. That can even be the normal rules - after all, rare in a multiverse can still cover thousands of visits - with possible exceptions in some stories if someone can find a way to bind others to themselves while travelling. I'll need to think on that. It can add to the unnatural feeling, the paranoia and fear of awakening the monsters that protect the dead.

[Frustration]

What about being located based on where the body is buried? So you have to memorize the real world layout and then retrace your steps to find who your looking for. Hallways crossing the multiverse would still be needed but other than that.....

[Ixthos]

10 hours ago, Frustration said:

What about being located based on where the body is buried? So you have to memorize the real world layout and then retrace your steps to find who your looking for. Hallways crossing the multiverse would still be needed but other than that.....

That ... hmmm ... that could work. Though not every body would survive, as some weapons completely destroy the body. But as both final resting places for intact bodies, and places where the dead died, whether or not the body was later moved ... that actually can tie into some other elements I'm not getting into right now, but that could work :-) thanks!

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, Ixthos said:

That ... hmmm ... that could work. Though not every body would survive, as some weapons completely destroy the body. But as both final resting places for intact bodies, and places where the dead died, whether or not the body was later moved ... that actually can tie into some other elements I'm not getting into right now, but that could work :-) thanks!

Your welcome.

[+Invocation]

4th dimensional space! 4th dimensional space! 4th dimensional space!

[Ixthos]

29 minutes ago, Invocation said:

4th dimensional space! 4th dimensional space! 4th dimensional space!

But of course :-P