Orvath

The Orvath is one of the immense creatures of the Void dimension — a power so far beyond the Expanse''s usual horrors that most people file it under rumor. The Void Hunters do not.

One property of the Orvath matters more than all its terror: when an Orvath takes grievous harm, a Void Gate tears open for a short time — and it allows exactly one person to pass through, back into the real world. Every verified return from the Void traces to this. The Returned are rare because the price of the door is a wounded Orvath, and almost no one survives the attempt to buy it.

The records connected to Rovan Vyr''s death describe a lesser spawn of the Orvath line, and what it cost to stop even that. Of the Orvath itself, the honest entry is short: it is real, it is in there, and it is the only key anyone has ever found.