Northern and his crew were required to stand at the center of the gate: a golden pillar that arched over them, with a piece of the same crystal in the center of the arc.
They waited a little bit for the whole mechanism to start. Northern could hear a soft whirring sound that slowly built up, but all of a sudden there was a crack in the build-up, then it slowly dropped.
At that point, Northern figured, 'Oh shit… there's a problem.'
And he feared that the source of that problem would most likely be him.
A couple of seconds later, the whirring sound started building up again, then the same thing happened. There was a crack, and the build-up began to drop.
The official approached them, politely saying, "We would like to test the functionality of the gateway on other travelers to figure out if the problem is with the travelers or the gateways."
