Fate is a fickle thing.
Even in years of yore, the gods of destiny and the weavers of preordination were not omnipotent. Such is the great weakness of all Heavens, after all, for the conceptualization of all-knowingness remains beyond even the genius of the minds.
And no god has ever managed to reach such heights, though their ambitions drive them to seek it.
Despite this, limited hyper-awareness is possible, and the secret to manufacturing prophecy is quite simple, in fact.
Maintenance.
The ultimate insurance towards seeing your desired outco made manifest is maintenance. Conceptualize the future. Create a subreality mirroring the world that is and allow it to progress with assud variables. Designate essential characters, events, objects, locations to form your miracles around.
Then, use ti itself as a buffer against any intruding elents. Often, when sothing happens makes all the difference between what follows, and a threat displaced often is a threat neutralized.
Indeed, when built correctly, this does not even produce much entropy. Take the Augurshields afforded to the FATED, for instance. A slight imbuent of probability to ensure all the safety they need, protecting them from “ill fortune” and or stray bullets.
The difficulty of creating such a Heaven, however, loops back to matters of complexity, and informational deficiency.
For even the supposed gods of foreknowledge could not predict the Godsfall. For what did they know of Jaus? For how could they have noticed his machinations with their sacrifices already tainted with Ignorance?
Hence, when building a Heaven of Destiny, you must not be confused. You are not creating an omnipotent system. That is the illusion at play. Sothing beyond the demands of mortal ken. But what you must demonstrate is nonetheless difficult, for are tasked with the functional manifestation of a dynamic subreality capable of detecting, intercepting, and removing variables you deem intrusive.
The passing qualification is simple: you each will select a specific tree from an enclosed bio, and at year’s end–or when you believe your design is ready–we will release swarms of gnarlflies infested with barkrot into the ecosystem.
Ensure the survival of your tree.
You will be getting a list of pairable Domains. This Heaven may not exceed the demands of a Second Sphere Liminal Fra. This Heaven may not be paired with another Heaven. This Heaven may not interface with outside technologies or machinery beyond the enclosed bios. You will each be given a stipend of a million sacrifices, and should the need arise, you may officially request more.
…Oh, and a contract of their choosing to any of you that successfully completes the project faster than the current record holder: [2 WEEKS, 1 DAY, 14 HOURS, and 35 SECONDS - KAE KUSANADE (FIFTH KNOWING)]
Good luck.
-Agnos Yue Reason-Bearer to her novitiates
21-12
The Paths of Futures Broken (II)
“Would you,” Zein said, her words colder than the kiss of a blade, “like to learn about the Paths? I believe that was sothing you desired to learn about.”
The miracles of her Heaven poured forth from her ontology, building as a golden pool around her being. A weave of rippling chronology slowly encroached, filling the command nexus, and with every inch did tension rise.
Now, more than ever before, Avo felt the threat that Zein posed–how much harm she could inflict in a heartbeat.
He danced on the edge of manipulation and provocation.
Draus cast him a thought and her words echoed across to the cadre. Careful. I’m ready for this, but Kae and Tavers need out if we’re about to find out who’s gonna light the wick. Passages are ready. Be sure about your words.
Avo grunted.
He stood on treacherous terrain, but he needed an edge. Playing passive ant surrendering Kare–and all self-determination–to Zein. His understanding of her deeper nature remained blurred, but it was becoming increasingly clear that unless one posed a requisite martial or taphysical threat to Zein, she would regard them as more playthings than people.
This was a dangerous ga he played, but passivity would betray his own actualization–and what he wanted for the city. Besides, it was Zein’s nature to battle. Learning how to direct her focus would be invaluable for the future.
“Yes,” Avo finally replied. “Going to show now? Use it to explain why you have to kill my Paladin.”
Inside his mind, Kare shivered, uncertain how to feel about the ghoul’s possessiveness, terrified of what the Godslayer intended.
“Among other things.” Zein’s face took on a curious quality, rage flattening to sothing inquisitive. Seeking. “Your Paladin. Truly, you are Walton's child. All he could infiltrate, he thought to be his, caring nothing for soone else's opinion. Or will.” She chuckled. “A comndable belief. And true.”
She released her umbrella, and it fell from existence, vanishing in departing threads.
Lifting her now-emptied hand, she extended it in greeting, expecting him to grasp it.
His claws were large enough to wrap around her forearm twice over, but still, he committed to the awkward action, thinking himself prepared for whatever may follow.
As his splinters were scattered across the face of Idheim and his original body in the enclave, the only ones truly at risk of cessation were his cadre, but with how Zein’s eyes were locked solely on him, he doubted she would strike at any of them as a ans of retribution.
It ultimately didn’t fit her behavior. She was a duelist before a Godclad, and she t her challengers thusly.
Nervousness and tension exploded through his templates. Entire portions of his mind rose in parliantary whole, so begging him to refrain and to stand back, others rely quiet, awaiting what happened next.
Avo himself knew the potential risks. Hers was the future unfettered, and she could do any number of things that he wasn't prepared for.
But he too was a Godclad, and where she held ti as a blade, he was a predator apart from all others in the fathomless ocean of cognition. Their arms t and their ontologies rang like clashing blades, made symtrical by infusion of chronology.
The weave of coalescing ti tightened around all those present. A lurch passed through their beings as Avo felt interference crackle through his mind as ti dilated unnaturally.
Existence transford. The world was as it was, but there were threads of resplendence that ran between the seams, stitched into the tapestry of reality–pulling and twitching in places.
The blood within Avo shivered as he used the Woundmother to sense the material composition of the room. “Master… there is sothing else in the patterns. Like sothing is actively supporting it.”
The Fardrifter felt it too. As did the Techplaguer.
Ti was a foundational Domain. The future was always coming, and nothing was exempt from its presence. Matter could be destroyed. Energy could be expended. Ghosts could fragnt into specks of madness.
But ti? Ti always continued.
[Or does it,] Lip asked, dread tinging her thoughts. [She’s gotta vent soti, right? What the hell does that look like?]
Avo didn’t know exactly, but he had his suspicions.
{Yes,} Calvino said, confirming his thoughts. {She can do that. She can cast you backward. Or hold you in place. Of course, you know there’s nothing there but oblivion, but that’s the efficient part. No evidence. And it’s hard to recall soone partially eradicated from ti itself.}
Stolen from its original source, this story is not ant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
It was a disquieting realization, learning that Zein could have eradicated him and his entire cadre in an instant. They had all co far, forcing her into a prolonged battle, even. But they needed counterasures. Sothing to deploy in case she wielded the worst of her abilities against them.
And then ca the intrusive thought: a mory of how to nurture dragons into existence. With the Domain of Chronology fused to his very Soul, he might be able to twist the fabric of ti and affect the dragons–extract aspects of their ontology before implanting the harvested materials in communities. Engineer major cultural or societal events to cause more dragons to sprout forth.
Sohow, he knew how to culture dragons, and with these ans, he could create new cyclers–or potentially even a tunnel toward the future should he face Zein in earnest.
But these were nebulous thoughts, his knowledge coming through a haze, its source unquestioned.
A gesture from Zein broke him from his considerations and called his attention back to her. “We stand now in a simulation, a place ford by my Heaven, using the world around us as a template–a canvas. Just this little chamber and all the things and people in it, we have created a root: a point from which new events will transpire. And from here, we can discover almost any outco should we have the proper information.”
Without warning, existence divided in two. Avo’s perception blurred as he found himself staring down at Zein from two pairs of eyes, receiving sensory input from two different sheaths. Both monts continued, but in one her hand shot out. Such was the last thing he saw before that version of himself died.
The stream in which he still lived clipped over the one where Zein had killed him. Across his splinters, other mories leaked over–recollections from each mber of his cadre. Dice and Draus attacked imdiately, supported by a stream of Rend from Tavers. A whirlpool of penises and raging water ca from Kae and Chambers next. Denton, ever the pragmatist and most familiar with Zein, simply turned the smart matter hull separating the nexus from the darkness beyond into gold bars, allowing the starving shadows to invade.
In retrospect, instead of living two lives at once, it was more like to concurrent recollections stacked right over each other.
Either way, it was more than a little overwhelming.
“Hells,” Draus said, shaking off her disorientation. Errors populated her cog-feed. “What was that? Felt like part of got pulled out and slotted by in.”
Zein smiled coldly. “It’s just a possibility. Of what could be. Should I choose it to be so. The lives you just lived in parallel were not your own. Rather, they are echoes–constructs molded from what I know of your behavior and capabilities. They are more like puppets or programs if you will.”
Calvino expanded a pop-up window to indicate what a program was and Avo humd. “But only draws from what you’ve observed. Your understanding of the world.”
Silence. The crone regarded him as a nu-cat would a fleeing aratnid. What master would give away all their secrets so easily?
“This is what you used to decide Kare Kitzuhada had to die?” Avo asked, pulling them back into dangerous waters.
“The simulations I ran for her are larger and more expansive.” Ti stread forth from Zein and the command nexus around them peeled away, the waters of ti bringing them to the interior of Scale.
A clash of sound and violence prevailed.
Thunderous clashes between warring Godclads of every Guild and the Paladins themselves raged across the vastness of the courtroom. Reality wailed–and tore. Entropy spilled from taphysical ruptures as Rendbombs were detonated, destabilizing existence itself.
A haze layered the chaos, a fog of war that left the details unclear but the battles undeniable. At the heart of the chamber were three bodies. The first was Elder D’Rongo–a mber of Ori-Thaum’s inner and outer councils, and first representative of her clan. She lay in strips of mangled flesh, her body brutalized by gunfire, blood pooling in her plasteel holding cell anchored to a podium. Across from her was Abrel Greatling, dead from a miracle, but resurrecting.
Outside her cage, however, Kare Kitzuhada had taken fatal damage on her behalf–a point-blank detonation of several Rendbombs built specifically to overload each of Abrel’s cyclers.
Sothing later revealed to be delivered by Ori-Thaum assets from an unknown source.
Everyone was back in the command nexus again, the transition more jarring than even the last. There was no prelude to their restoration. No progression or pause. It was just like a vicarity running its course, returning a mind back to the palace.
[The fuck…] Abrel breathed.
[What… was that?] Kare muttered, mind whirling at the ss of mories she was just faced with. There were things she saw– the entire cadre saw–that they understood, but also information that was just known. Like a retrospective update.
I hate it when she does that shit, Draus growled, thinking back to how Zein just threaded information from the paths into them before their attempt on Mirrorhead’s life.
“Is this supposed to be what happens?” Avo asked.
“It is an unfinished scene. One I’m currently scripting.” And she said no more.
Avo prodded further. “Why? Why does this mont need to happen?”
“To provoke sothing between the Guilds–a temporary accord and a mutual cleansing. As Highfla has Chivalrics to purge, so too does the Overclan of the Ori have corruption it must uncover. Think of it. Think of the mont. The resonance. A daughter of the Ori-turned-Paladin giving her life for a prisoner–a disgraced Highfla Instrunt.
“Her father and uncle will be distraught of course. But pliable towards new… persuasions.”
Avo considered the scene she was painting, and his templates filled in the details.
Most were confused, but between Banhata, Abrel, and Elegant-Moon, a potential picture ca together.
This was about politics–most likely ant to provoke a mont of uneasy peace. Kare Kitzuhada just proved to be the most effective sacrifice on the altar.
Her worth ca in three parts: she was a Paladin; she was of a major Ori clan; and she was related to Shotin Kazahara. For the first, it would spark her comrades back to war footing. Scale would likely be locked down, the other Godclads banished and viewed as outright adversaries.
[Making sure that no one can get close to the Gatekeeper,] Benhata theorized.
Then, the Ori themselves would have sha to match Highfla. With the spearheads of each major alliance undone so publicly, there were good odds of a restructuring happening. A removal of “problematic” elents. The ones replacing them thereafter would likely be more to Zein’s liking. Especially if she wanted to engineer a prolonged period of disorganized peace.
If Avo had to guess, this was a delaying strategy to get more of her sches in place and ensure so kind of advantage when the Ladder returned.
Finally, there was Shotin Kazahara. His rage and retribution would be certain in the aftermath, but even Kare wasn’t sure why Zein wanted to use him in such a manner. Planeshift was a volatile enough character on his own. Perhaps the death of his niece would make him reckless and willing to–
[Vulnerable,] Elegant-Moon whispered, her mind glittering with fascination. [She wants him to make choices so severe he would otherwise never commit to them. She plans to disfigure his heart and replace its driving motion with her hand. Maybe she wishes to recruit him. Him and the Ambassador.]
On the throne, Chambers’ eyes swung from place to place. “I’m completely fucking lost again. Why’s the druggie wanna kill the glasser again?”
“Peace,” Avo answered, testing the waters. The thinning of Zein’s lips told him he was right. He fed his conclusions to his cadre through his Splinters and made a show of addressing them directly. “This is supposed to be an engineered mont of armistice. Disarray will grip both Guilds. Very similar kinds of disarray. Old factions will be replaced. And the sacrifice of an Ori to protect a Gold will strike at the heart of the conflict. It will sha the Guilds in a way they couldn’t ignore.”
Just as he had struck at Zein with words she couldn’t turn aside from.
There was ant to be a way to things. A foundational concept. To say that she was a coward and bending before the world was to claim all she was but a lie.
The sa thing applied to the Guilds.
Saintists and Massist were supposed to be at war. The war of all wars. Eternity was at stake. Utopia. But being forced to see the narrative break within the halls of Scale? For who was friend and foe to be so muddled from the act committed?
That struck at a civilization’s heart.
But there was just one thing Avo had to say about that: “I can make this worse. I can make your plan better. And we don’t need to waste an asset.”
“Oh?” Zein asked, surfacing from ire to curiosity once more. “And what can you add that I have not already accounted for?”
Arrogance. Arrogance and self-assuredness.
For all Zein’s skills, she was really too stubborn. Ever the warrior, she treated her sandbox as a chanism to deliver her outcos and situations in the most direct ways possible: shock and blood.
Avo had nothing against violence, but the craft that defined him–that was his father’s legacy was one of subtle betrayals. “You’re looking only ahead. Just the future. You forget about history.”
“History?” Zein asked.
Finally, Avo turned to Kae and let his excitent run over to her. The Agnos was confused for a heartbeat, but when the rest of his thoughts arrived, her eyes widened, and she understood what he intended.
“There is a unique opportunity before us,” Avo elaborated. “One that can achieve the false-peace you want. And more. One that allows her revenge to be sated. And her na to be made just again in society.”
A beat passed. Threads of gold drew taut around Zein as her brows furrowed. Then she saw. Then she rembered. “Ah. The Trident. The information you stole that day.”
“Yes,” Avo said. “There are Paladin killers still unpunished. D’Rongo’s soldiers. Know where they are. Can access the sleeper identities they’re hiding under. Track them. Take them. Use them. It will all make for a better design. A more calculated approach.”
As he finished speaking, Zein mulled on his words, let out a small breath, and nodded.
“No.”
The “future” washed over them again.
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