Good morning, good evening, and good night ladies and gentlemen! If you're here then you've likely been reading A Dark Key to Bright Places. Below I have a list of worlds that could feature in said story. I thought I'd go ahead and list worlds that may feature, will feature, and will not feature in that story. Feature does not mean visit. Just that it will at least be mentioned. Also I have a number of worlds in the "May Feature", that I've already decided will feature but for the sake of the story I will not reveal until I post the chapter. Those that will not feature have been lost. Much like Kingdom Hearts though, certain characters from those worlds may be relevant. Beneath the lists I will post a spoiler free version of the timeline I've written. Keep in mind that I made it for my own reference so there may be some grammatical or spelling errors. Marco already has access to the library of the Mysterious Tower and will have read most of the info that is presented here soon. So I don't feel it will reveal anything that Marco and by extension my readers wouldn't know.

XXXX

Will not feature:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

Sleeping Beauty

Nightmare before Christmas

Cinderella

Tarzan

Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Hercules

Little Mermaid

Mulan

Lion King

Bambi

Peter Pan

Magic Kingdom

One Hundred and One Dalmations

Sword in the Stone

Winnie the Pooh

Beauty and the Beast

Aladdin

Hunchback of Notre Dame

Pirates of the Carribean

Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VIII

Final Fantasy X

XXXX

Will Feature:

Star vs. the Forces of Evil (duh)

Zootopia

Black Cauldron

Final Fantasy III

Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy XII

Wreck-it-Ralph

Tangled

Frozen

Maleficent

Brave

Moana

XXXX

May Feature:

Talespin

Darkwing Duck

Gargoyles

Recess

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command

Kim Possible

Dave the Barbarian

American Dragon: Jake Long

The Replacements

Phineas and Ferb

Gravity Falls

The Jungle Book

The Aristocats

Robin Hood

The Rescuers

The Great Mouse Detective

Oliver and Company

Pocahontas

Dinosaur

The Emperor's New Groove

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Treasure Planet

Brother Bear

Home on the Range

Meet the Robinsons

Bolt

The Princess and the Frog

Big Hero 6

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

A Bug's Life

Monster's Inc.

Finding Nemo

The Incredibles

Ratatouille

Wall-E

Up

Inside Out

The Good Dinosaur

Coco

Spirited Away

Castle in the Sky

Howl's Moving Castle

The Cat Returns

Kiki's Delivery Service

The Secret World of Arrietty

Final Fantasy IX

Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XV

XXXX

A DARK KEY TO BRIGHT PLACES TIMELINE

B.A. = Before Awakening, before Oswald’s awakening in the Realm of Darkness

A.A. = After Awakening, after Oswald’s awakening in the Realm of Darkness

2700 B.A. – The Master of Masters discovers the Core of existence. Dubbing it Kingdom Hearts the Master is made its guardian through unknown circumstances and gifted the X Blade.

2548 B.A. – The Keyblade War begins between the five orders founded by the Master's five apprentices.

2534 B.A. – The conclusion of the Keyblade War as the Master returns with the X Blade and lays waste to his former students’ forces before splitting the X Blade to prevent access to Kingdom Hearts.

2534 B.A. – The Master vanishes, the X Blade is split into twenty pieces. Seven pieces of light and thirteen pieces of darkness. The light would find residence in exceptional individuals usually in positions of power. Typically unknowing of their gift these people would stand as beacons to leave their marks on histories throughout existence. The darkness would take the form of weapons that spread throughout the stars, found by various warriors to weave checkered histories.

2400 B.A. – The last remaining order of keyblade wielders disbands. The tradition of a singular master with a handful of apprentices would prove the norm from then on. Orders of Keyblade wielders would not reappear for ages to come.

1819 B.A. – Birth of Grand Sorcerer Yen Sid.

1776 B.A. – Yen Sid manages to reverse engineer a method to allow travel between worlds, through the legends and fables of The Master of Masters.

1763 B.A. – Injured during his travels amongst the worlds, Yen Sid awakens in the care of The Master of Masters. Offering guidance and knowledge, Yen Sid is quick to accept.

1750 B.A. – Yen Sid appears in his home world a marked keyblade master. The knowledge of what he learned in those thirteen years, he would take with him to the grave.

1733 B.A. – Yen Sid’s name is known throughout many worlds, his vast, ever growing library of knowledge sought out by hundreds. However whispers begin to circulate as it has become apparent he has not aged a day since his return to his home world.

1700 B.A. – Numerous incidents of grievous misuse of his knowledge see Yen Sid create The Mysterious Tower. Moving his library and works, Yen Sid all but vanishes from the public eye.

1490s B.A. – A necromancer titled The Horned King uncovers the secrets to creating and binding heartless. He begins to create an army of heartless in secret to supplant his standing undead army.

1446 B.A. – The Horned King unleashes his armies, his own world falls to his might soon afterwards. Within the year a dozen more worlds would succumb to his forces. The Crypt Wars begin.

1445 B.A. – The actions of The Horned King cause panic throughout civilizations with knowledge of the worlds. By the end of the second year of the Crypt Wars the Horned King will have conquered twenty-eight worlds in total.

1444 B.A. – Yen Sid gathers the largest force of Keybladers seen since the Keyblade War. With their combined might and the armies of several worlds they began to push back against The Horned King.

1444 – 1434 B.A – The Horned King’s advance is halted but no significant headway is made into the conquered worlds. For ten years the two sides would skirmish between worlds, neither side gaining the upper hand.

1434 B.A. – On the Horned King’s home world a ragtag group of would be heroes lead by Assistant Pig Keeper Taran and Princess Eilonwy uncover the source of the Horned King’s necromantic power, The Black Cauldron. They plan to destroy the Cauldron and remove the threat of the undead.

1432 B.A. – Fashioned through unknown means and fueled by essence of the thirteen pieces of darkness Yen Sid unleashes the Espers upon the Horned King’s forces. For the first time significant headway is made and worlds suffering under the yoke of the Horned King’s tyranny are free once more.

1431 B.A. – Tarin and his group, with the power of the seventh and ninth pieces of darkness, manage to destroy the Black Cauldron. The Horned King’s undead thralls cease to function, falling to dust once more. The endeavor is not without consequence, Gurgi the beastling loses his life in destroying the Black Cauldron and Fflewddur the bard is gravely injured in their escape.

1431 B.A. – With his undead forces unraveling everywhere the Horned King returns to his home world in a rage in order to discover the cause. With his forces lacking in his power and direction they are unable to hold out against the might of Yen Sid and his allies.

1431 – 1429 B.A. – With the apparent retreat of the Horned King, Yen Sid’s armies gained a significant boost in morale. Striking forth with renewed fervor their momentum would not be lost until striking against the necromancer’s final three worlds. The Horned King meanwhile had been furious with the loss of the Black Cauldron. Knowing his enemies were closing in, the Horned King began to pull more and more from the realm of darkness. Turning his first three worlds into bastions of heartless that would blanket those worlds in shadow from pole to pole.

1429 B.A. – Weary from the years of war, Yen Sid’s generals urge him to relent and allow the three worlds to fall into the realm of darkness as they were sure to do. However, Yen Sid was unwavering in his belief that should the Horned King be left to his own devices he would eventually come back from the realm of darkness many times more powerful than he was now.

1428 B.A. – Yen Sid splits his forces to attack all three worlds at once, all thirteen of the Espers would lay waste to one of the worlds, and the second world would be attacked by the majority of Yen Sid’s armies. Lastly the final force consisting of his finest warriors and Yen Sid himself would attack the Horned King’s home world. The final battle of the Crypt Wars was set to begin.

1428 B.A. – What would become known as the Battle of Graves began when the Espers made landfall on their assigned world. Cutting through vast swathes of heartless and changing the landscape forever the Espers were sure of their victory and unready for the trap they had stepped in.

Lead by the paladin Cecil Harvey, Yen Sid’s secondary army awaited the complete entanglement of conflict between the Espers and the heartless on their target world. With that in place, Cecil led his forces into the fray and began to unleash a devastating blow on the heartless of his target world. Having been in the midst of preparing to attack the Espers the heartless were caught flat footed.

Meanwhile Yen Sid and his four greatest apprentices Arc, Refia, Luneth, and Ingus were assaulting the Horned King’s home world, assisted by no less than fifty keyblade masters. The enemies they faced were monstrous, the heartless unleashed against them that day had no equal in any that came before. Ultimately they made it before the Horned King, though not without loss of life. Only half of the masters that had come with them that day made it to stand against the necromancer.

The Horned King was not done yet however, all of the endeavors that Yen Sid and his group had worked through were part of an elaborate trap. The blood of fallen keybladers was used in combination with the collected darkness of the downed heartless to power a ritual that would destroy worlds. The moment that enough fell, the Horned King used this power to shatter the world the Espers were fighting on. Scattering them and the world they were on amongst the stars.

All sides could feel the power unleashed in this act. Yen Sid and his group hastened to end the necromancer. Cecil meanwhile struggled to rally his men and keep them fighting on.

When confronted the Horned King showed how far to the darkness he had truly fallen. None that would leave that day would speak of the atrocities committed and few would ask. In their final confrontation Yen Sid would be pushed to the limits of his power and in saving his student Arc, would suffer a blow that would plague him for the rest of his life. Were it not for the arrival of Tarin wielding the seventh piece of darkness then the battle might have been lost.

At the end of that terrible day hundreds of thousands lost their lives. Yen Sid, his four apprentices, Cecil, and Tarin would have their names engraved in history that would pass into a legend and remembered even in present day.

Of the Horned King only his hooded cloak remained. Any color it once had bleached white by the powers that laid him low and its edges stained black with soot. What became of it was a mystery, which would in turn spawn its own legends. Grim fables that would be used to scare children into behaving for just as long as Yen Sid’s tales of heroism were used to inspire.

1408 B.A. – Having spent twenty years contributing to the rebuilding of the worlds conquered by the Horned King, Yen Sid vanished from public life once more. Leaving his work in the capable hands of his apprentices.

1370 – 1270 B.A. – Having reestablished themselves a golden era of peace reigns throughout the worlds. The heroes of the Crypt Wars and their lineages are looked to as guiding lights.

1259 B.A. – A series of vicious and brutal heartless incursions spreads fear with no clear indicator for the reason in their resurgence. Accusations of sabotage or the beginnings of war begin to spread.

1256 B.A. – The first instance of a world closing itself off occurs. A keyblader forcefully jams any method of travel to or from their world. No contact is possible. Soon other worlds follow suit seeking both sanctuary from further heartless incursions and the protection from possible attacks from other worlds. Unknown to those outside, the worlds that choose this method begin to forget the existence of other worlds. Like a bad dream.

1250 B.A. – A group of keybladers seeks to exploit the chaos and begins raiding and extorting different worlds. Offering protection to those that pay them and destruction to those that refuse. More worlds have their keybladers close off their worlds.

1249 B.A. – In ten short years since the beginning of these woes inter world communication is all but ceased. Public opinion of keyblades and their wielders is at an all-time low. A rumor begins to circulate on those worlds that have yet to close themselves off. The keybladers are the ones who started the heartless incursions, in an effort to gain more power over their worlds.

1235 B.A. – Worlds still open turn on their keybladers. Many escape, too powerful to be stopped, but others are less fortunate and find themselves executed, or worse, for their crimes; real or otherwise. Some search for the grand sorcerer but none are successful. A few band together and create worlds such as Radiant Garden. Others go into hiding.

1157 B.A. – Yen Sid returns from his self-imposed exile. The reason behind his forced solitary is unknown to all but his former students. The injuries he sustained at the hands of the Horned King were beginning to eat away at him. During this time he had attempted to remove the affliction to no avail. The progress has been slowed but not stopped. Eventually it will consume him and in his place will stand a heartless the likes of which would cause devastation that might put the Horned King to Shame. Now he seeks to find a worthy successor before that time comes. The vast new state of the worlds shocks Yen Sid and he is unable to find any trace of his former students or their lineages.

1087 B.A. – The Magic Kingdom experiences an epidemic. Its spread is rapid beyond the people’s ability to combat. Within six months nearly ten percent of the population is infected. Quarantine is placed into effect, slowing the spread.

1086 B.A. – Still open to inter world travel the Magic Kingdom sends messengers amongst the stars to obtain assistance.

1085 B.A. – Birth of Oswald

1083 B.A. – Birth of Mickey

1081 B.A. – Mickey’s parents become infected. Oswald’s family takes in the young mouse. Neither of his parents would last the year.

1081 B.A. – A messenger sent out to retrieve assistance returns, Yen Sid himself in tow.

1079 B.A. – For two years, Yen Sid helps research and combat the illness. His efforts prove fruitful and by the end of the second year a cure is produced.

1078 B.A. – Distribution of the cure is harried and inefficient. While officials and nobility are quick to be treated, quarantine zones are slow to receive aid. News of the cure spreads more quickly than the cure itself and unrest turns to rioting. Many perish during this time, including Oswald’s family.

1077 B.A. – The cure spread throughout the world, and the illness was removed. Yen Sid saw to assisting the reform of society.

1075 B.A. – While attending the entrance exam for one of the world’s schools of magic, Yen Sid uncovers what he has been searching for, for nearly a century. Two young protégés are found, Oswald and Mickey. Each showcasing an innate connection with the magic of worlds and a desire to explore the stars.

1075 – 1070 B.A. – Oswald and Mickey are taken back to the Mysterious Tower. There they are taught a vast array of subjects by their new master. Included in these lessons are the history of the keyblade and the responsibility that each wielder has. During this time familial bonds are formed between the three and the boys are adopted by Yen Sid.

1070 B.A. – Oswald is given his keyblade. When given the option of taking up the duties of a keyblade wielder he readily accepts. Travelling to distant stars to provide aid wherever he could and keep the light alive. While sending reports back, Oswald does not visit often.

1068 B.A. – Feeling abandoned by his brother, Mickey throws himself into his studies but habitually over steps his abilities. Causing accident after accident. When granted his keyblade and given the option of following after his brother, Mickey refuses and instead returns to the Magic Kingdom.

1064 B.A. – Returning home for the first time in six years, Oswald is dismayed that his brother was not there, nor had Mickey left to join him but instead had returned to the Magic Kingdom. A world that despite being his birthplace, Oswald refused to set foot on. The memories of his family and their deaths still painful. Oswald leaves the tower angry and refuses to seek out his brother.

1064 B.A. – Mickey meanwhile had spent four years amongst the people of the Magic Kingdom. With his education and skills he is able to make a life for himself. Indulging in his own happiness and establishing friendships that would last the rest of his life.

1063 B.A. – Growing weary of the indulgences of youth, Mickey is convinced to join the musketeers by his friend Goofy. There they meet the cantankerous, and magically gifted, Donald Duck. While initially at odds with the two, the fowl would warm to them over several months.

1068 – 1062 B.A. – Oswald travels throughout the stars keeping to his duties to keep the realm of light clear of darkness. His name becomes well known amongst many worlds. Drifting thoughts have him checking on his brother’s wellbeing on two separate occasions. The first finds Mickey doing fine and gallivanting on a steamboat of all things. Oswald leaves disappointed in Mickey, but relieved in his safety. The second time Oswald finds his brother working for the musketeers, in the princess’ royal guard. On this occasion Oswald leaves in both rage and disgust. He has never forgotten nor forgiven the royalty of the Magic Kingdom for allowing the delay of the cure that might have saved his family’s lives. The one shining ray of light in this visit finds Oswald, after a heavy night of drinking, leaving the Magic Kingdom with a girl that wants to see the stars, Ortensia.

1060 B.A. – Upon receiving a request to return to the Mysterious Tower, Oswald is quick to finish his current endeavor. Causing perhaps a bit too much collateral damage in his attempts to answer his adoptive father’s call. Once arrived with Ortensia in tow, Oswald is greeted as warmly as might be expected from the aged sorcerer. That is to say a pat on the shoulder and the upturn of one lip corner. His only response to Ortensia being a raised brow and eyes that might have shined for the briefest moment. Oswald had been called home for the Mark of Mastery exam, Yen Sid fully believing that it had actually been a long time coming. And so that year saw the introduction of one more Master Keyblader as Oswald passed with flying colors. With Yen Sid’s blessing, Oswald and Ortensia would return to the stars and far distant worlds.

1059 B.A. – After serving the royal family faithfully for four years, attending to their safety, and watching them as a family, Mickey’s guilt over his actions so many years ago can no longer be ignored. Hanging up one blade for another, Mickey returns to the Mysterious Tower. Yen Sid waits with a stern face, but open arms. His son come home, Yen Sid is only too happy to see his wayward child and protégé onto the path of a keyblader.

1057 B.A. – Marriage of Oswald and Ortensia.

1056 B.A. – A vile demon lord by the name of Chernabog manages to break part way free of his imprisonment. Even weakened Chernabog is a deadly threat and wreaks havoc upon not only his own world but several others. Pulling upon the powers of darkness, his own demonic minions are supplanted by heartless.

1056 B.A. – Responding to the spread of darkness and suffering Mickey is quick to arrive and confronts the forces head on. Cleansing world after world, he is only stopped when Chernabog himself intervenes. In the following fight, Mickey is defeated but saved by his brother. Oswald stepping in to prevent his brother’s demise. With Ortensia’s support; Mickey joins the fray soon after. Between the three of them Chernabog is vanquished and sealed once more in the pit that crawled out of. To the slight dismay of both Mickey and Ortensia; Oswald leaves his brother on rather chilled terms. While not unexpected Mickey leaves bruised both body and heart.

1055 B.A. – Birth of Oswald Jr., Grover, and Susie Tlaw, two bunnies and a little kitten. An attempt to name them all Oswald Jr. goes over about as well as a flying skillet. Much to the pain of Oswald’s throbbing skull.

1055 B.A. – With the birth of his children, Oswald puts away his keyblade. The choice of where to settle is a point of big contention for Oswald and Ortensia. He would like to have them all move into the Mysterious Tower so he could continue to assist Yen Sid, where as she wants to return to the Magic Kingdom to allow her children a more stable and well-rounded environment. In the end Ortensia returns to the Magic Kingdom and Oswald follows suit a few days afterwards. His attitude towards the authority of the Magic Kingdom never dwindled but he would restrain himself for his family’s sake.

1042 B.A. – Birth of Sora.

1038 B.A. – Events of Birth by Sleep

1028 B.A. – Events of Kingdom Hearts 1, Chain of Memories, and 358/2 Days

1027 B.A. – Events of Kingdom Hearts 2 and Dream Drop Distance