In the Shadow called 'Crossroad' stands a monstrosity; what would be viewed in some Shadows (like our own) as an avant-garde dry-humor monument to post-Eisenhower construction. On a dry, wasted plan of scrub and sagebrush, littered with detritus and roadside garbage from half-a-hundred worlds, stands a monolith close to three hundred feet tall.
All in all, it looks like a massive interstate 'cloverleaf' junction, about nine levels high.
It is no normal juncture, though: if you look closely, you can see that some of the paved paths are made of set stonework, like ancient Roman highways... some (near the bottom and almost constantly shadowed) appear to be cobblestone, of all things... some are overgrown, some are crumbling, a few are even pristine...
And not one leads anywhere.
So it seems to the naked eye, at any rate.
If you can see with eyes that see the True Way of Things, however, you can see that each road (the number of which is almost impossible to determine) leads off across the waste: each with its own world wrapped around it, its own landscape providing a backdrop, and even its own junctures along its route.
Of course, if you have such eyes, you are probably going to be more interested in the knightmares and nightmares that crowd the shadows of the overpasses... and with the pillars of clear brillance that flicker at the center of this network of Roads.
This is Crossroad, home to the homeless: a once-bright world-turned-Shadow during the dark time when a prince's curse brought all roads under the sway of one Black One, one Black Road that superseded all others. One Black Road that ravaged or destroyed the lives of those in a thousand worlds...
Including this one.
This is Crossroad.
Imprint - Shadow move/Sense Shadow's Power (10) Walk the Roads (5) Run the Roads (5) Track User (5) Invoke the Crossroad (10)
Imprint/Shadow-move/shape
Before one can move along the roads in Shadow using the junctions (hitches) between shadow, you first have to learn to see and sense the power that lies behind all Shadow, and Realize that the
perceived differences in each Shadow are largely cosmetic. (They can still KILL you, but they're still basically cosmetic -- nightmare creatures have an odd way of defining 'cosmetic'.)
An initiate of this level canNOT create gateways to a known location in shadow, but can learn to sense the 'natural' openings that can be used to pass into another Shadow. However, even compared to someone who can 'walk the roads', this level of movement is painfully slow, and an initiate at this level has not yet learned to read the signs around a juncture to deduce whether the Shadow on the other side lies in the direction he needs to go, or even if the Shadow is inimical to the initiate's life. As such, this is a very slow, dangerous means to travel about, but a necessary step along the way to learning how to 'Walk'.
Walk the Roads
Learn to walk the roads of Shadow, learn to sense the various junctions -- the places where you can take a simple side-step, or a twist, or merely hold your breath at the right moment to visit the world next door. On a road, so long as you can move, it is possible to move through Shadow by 'Moving through Junctions'.
This is done by sensing and using the places in each world where an opening exists or can be made to another world. At one time, these points might have been random, but over the aeons, sentient will and superstition (mostly the later) have shaped the realities of each world, drawing these junctures to points of transition: through doors, gateways, beneath ladders...
...and over Crossroads.
Run the Roads
Simply put, a skilled user of the Junctures that lie along roads can manipulate and use these openings even when moving quickly or when not fully concentrating, which (at least when used in the 'fast movement' situation) allows the initiate to move much more quickly from juncture to juncture.
Track User
Higher levels of attunement allow an initiate to sense disturbances in the stuff of Shadow, allowing them to follow another initiate of the Crossroad, or to simply to sense other major disturbances to nearby Shadow (such as the passage of an Amberite Hellrider or Logrus Master).
Invoke the Crossroad
Some nightmarelings have made enigmatic statements that imply that it's possible to stand in the center of the Crossroad (the true Crossroad, not any random meeting of paths) and invoke its power -- some say it will take you
wherever you will, or wherever IT will... but the only beings Cal's seen enter the center of the Crossroad have vaporized, so the tales are either garbage, or there's more to it than just walking to the middle.