GatewayMachines
In the First Age the world was greater both in size and magnificance. Methods were mastered so a merchant deep in the east could quickly go to the west and sell his goods. Communication could be instantaneous and so could travel.
Gate Machines were devices connected to a series of arches through which an exalted could send those who walked through it to another gateway. A set of coordinates was used to choose the other gate to send someone to. Through this each capital of the provinces of the Realm was always connected to the capitol of Meru and many cities throughout creation could quickly move supplies, people and armies around.
A gateway pedestal, which controls the transport arches is a four foot high piller, the top slightly slanted. A blue crystal sheet covers this slant and tracing a finger along it leaves a glowing golden line or just a dot if touched for a moment. Dragonblood trained in the use of such things could choose the site to open a gateway too and could communicate to any other person who was at a gateway pedestal.
A single portal requires the user to expend 10 motes to power the gateway, by channelling and attuning their essence to the pedestal. Usually 2 or 3 were kept open at once to specific other gates. If the exalt leaves the area of the pedestals the attunement quickly breaks, far faster then with normal artifacts but would provide someone enough time to walk to a gateway before it closed.
There were several security and safety precautions in place. Any pedestal can be locked up, this will prevent any other gate from connecting to it and remains in place even after the person who set it to locked mode is no longer attuned to it. Destroying a pedestal prevents people from going through the portals from that end but people can still be sent to the site from elsewhere. If a portal closes while someone is partially through it they are pulled/ejected through to wear they are going and anyone trying to move begin movement through a closing portal finds it will not let them through.
The gateway arches are white marble archways, and can be made large enough to let 2 warstriders walk side by side comfortable through it, worked in runes of blue jade and orichalcum. When the gateway is activated you can see to where you are going, though there is a shimmering bluish tint to the what you see. The pedestal pillar is of black marble stone, the sides worked in runes of white jade and orichalcum.
When the First Age fell almost all of the archways that were used were destroyed by one side or another. Hidden security processes put in by the twilight caste caused the few that remained to be dangerous to try to use and so they fell to ruin, were burried or dismantled. Yet scattered throughout the world are a few remaining ones, still waiting to be used by returning solars if they can figure out how to work the controls.
