Located in the center of the Great Blue is the great World Tree, Laerad, the home of the Mediator. This area includes the protective Laeradborg Reef, with it’s windstorms and waterspouts, and the islands of Alfheim as well as the World Tree itself. (This place is really, really hard to get to.)
This tree is surrounded by the islands of the elven kings and a great barrier reef with its whirling winds and water spouts. Few ever get to its massive roots, so how would they be able to climb up to even its first branch? (Though OOC's don't find this difficult at all, and often intrude, some even living there and given moderator powers. One such was once called Felix Octavius, who is almost never seen, carrying out his duties invisibly.) Its trunk is large enough to hold the largest cities, and its branches literally reach up into the heavens. Its topmost branches reach into the dimensions of the Soul Society and Huecho Mundo, and into the Digital World, while its roots stretch beneath the earth into every corner of the world. In the heights of this tree lives the Mediator, goddess and creator of this world, with her faithful servants Ratatosk the red squirrel and Verdfolnir the golden hawk. The tree has huge, deeply palmatified, leaves (like hands) and bears very large golden acorn or hazelnut like nuts which Ratatosk loves to eat. Under the earth by its roots sleeps the dragon Nidhoggr, a remnant of the great evil that once destroyed Primavaldia. Ratatosk periodically carries a sleeping potion down to it to make sure that it stays asleep.
Ratatosk came into the room and saw the Mediator looking into her mirror at a man floating down river on a log. "That's one of those OOC's isn't it!" he chattered, still in squirrel form after having gone for breakfast out on a limb. "Isn't it dangerous to have some one like that just wandering around? Remember that other guy who made that island with the tree that was supposed to destroy your world."
"He's my husband," said the Mediator. "He wants to explore the world I made."
"So... he doesn't seem to want to talk to anyone does he," observed the squirrel.
"I guess not," sighed the Mediator. "This is the second time he's gone right past an inhabited area without stopping."
"The river's got new fish in it though," said the squirrel.
"That it does..." said the Mediator.
"But it looks like he's lost all his stuff..." said the squirrel again.
"So, he left the world already?" said the squirrel.
"Yes," said the Mediator with a sigh. "It was too difficult for him to maintain a presence in a world such as this. It made no sense to him."
"But how?" said a confused Ratatosk. "He was an OOC, a creator..."
"Is it so surprising that there are creators that are more at home in the world we inhabit rather than in one of the ones we create? He is so grounded in our reality that he finds my creations difficult to deal with, and he has his own duties in our world too."
"I guess it never occurred to me..." said the squirrel. "I never think of you living in another world than this... It's the only world I know... Are you... are you different in that world?"
