Silver Cord/Spark of Life/Divine Tethers
In every person there is a spark of life, a silver cord, a tether that connects one’s soul, one’s mind, and one’s physical being to reality. Sometimes these sparks can be seen in times of near death experiences, or out of body transits. The uniqueness of the tethers is as varied as the individuals they belong to, thus explaining the divers names given to them. For some, they resemble an electric spark arcing from body to soul, for others they are a thin silvery gossamer. Different cultures throughout history have had theories or stories about the silver cords. Sometimes they show up in holy books, other times in carvings or paintings, or in old tales and folklore. In almost all cases there is a consistency of belief. If the cord is severed, if the person has traveled to the end of the cord, either through time or distance, then individual is no longer able to reside on the mortal plane. Their life is ended.
There are rare times when an individual’s silver cord ties not only the individual’s essence to the mortal plane, but it is stronger and it is tied to both the individual and another sphere of reality to the mortal plane. When this occurs the individual blessed (or cursed depending on their perspective) becomes a physical representation of that sphere of reality in their world. They are a connection point, a tether between realities. If their silver cord has reached its end through long life, if it has been severed and cut short, the sphere of reality bound by the tether is released and its influence, its expression on the other reality is ended. When these events occur frequently the sphere will form another bond with a living being, usually an individual of similar spirit or resonance with the sphere of reality seeking a tether. If the bond is not formed the sphere of reality may eventually drift far enough away that it can no longer renew a tether.
Currently the prime sphere of reality lying at the center of twelve other surrounding spheres is a nexus, a criss-crossing webwork of silver cords, each one bound to and empowering representative individuals who spin and dance through their lives never aware of their connection to entire Other realms.
There is a flaw however; an inherent mistake in the loom of existence. Every few millennia an individual acquires a unique ability, a powerful and reality altering ability. They are able to collect the tethers of others and in doing so, when they collect another living being’s tether they can end that person’s life as surely as if the tether had been severed. When a collector gathers tethers to themselves, if they chance upon or seek out one of the gifted, a representative with a tether to another realm, the collector can take those tethers just as easily, and if they do, they sever the connection that tether had to its sphere of reality and the connection that sphere had in any other tethers it had bonded with. The sphere may not be set loose at that point however. If the collector desires it, they can use the connection to the other sphere at will as their own if they know how. Or, more tragically, they can choose to break the tether completely forever drifting the sphere away to no longer be able to bond with the prime sphere.