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[afflatusexarch]

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[emet_sulk]

[ A few days after everyone returns from the desert region, a very reluctant message is sent privately to G'raha. ]

How much power would you estimate is required to transport dozens of individuals between worlds?

[afflatusexarch]

[ Actually, he had anticipated the question. But not necessarily WHO had been the one to pose the question. ]

More than the Crystal Tower could hope to provide. Transporting individuals from the Source to the First took a considerable amount of aether. It also required knowing and being able to seize the essence of the target. This is an incredibly difficult task, as you should note that I failed several times before managing to acquire the Warrior of Light.

Even then I wasn't able to bring him to my exact location.

[emet_sulk]

[ If the Crystal Tower can't manage it then it is most certainly beyond Emet-Selch's strength. Which is troubling. It means that whoever these gods are, they are not to be trifled with.

Which means...ugh. He will have to cooperate if a conflict arises. ]

'Him'? Don't you mean 'her'?

[afflatusexarch]

[ Oh yes. So, so unfortunate. ]

Nay, I mean "him." T'was a discussion that I had with another of your brethren, in fact. The Warrior of Light, at least the version I am accustomed to, is a Hyur male.

[emet_sulk]

[ There's a bit of a pause here as Emet-Selch digests this new information. Is this a good thing or a bad thing for him that there are multiple Warriors of Light? The Exarch he knows had most certainly summoned a female Au Ra. Does that mean there exists some manner of mirrored world outside of the one he knows?

Whatever the case, the Exarch claims to have been able to save Eitherys - which he still doesn't believe for a second, by the way. ]

Fine. Whatever. Then in your experience, those doing the spiriting away would need to be familiar with us somehow?

[afflatusexarch]

You realize I needn't share any of this information with you at all.

[ In other words: stop being so snippy! ]

But yes. Though that, really, should be apparent as we were all assigned a crime. 'Tis clear that they know who we are and what we have done with our lives.

[emet_sulk]

[ Not an old man here sourly thinking about his life and hating every moment of it. Nope. ]

Yes, yes, I am very grateful and so on.

I suppose we ought to look forward to being whisked away without a moment's notice then. Wonderful. I shall prepare my luggage at once.

[afflatusexarch]

You are the one that came to me asking.

Although, I do wonder if there isn't some sort of cooldown period. There must be.

[emet_sulk]

A moon passed between my arrival and that of those before me. 'Twas the same for yourself. And the others.

Make of that what you will.

[afflatusexarch]

An entire moon...

If that is the period of time that it takes, then another question is "how do these gods draw the required strength." There must be some method of extracting soemthing.

[emet_sulk]

From us, perhaps.

[ It would explain the decline of the strength of his magecraft. ]

[afflatusexarch]

Well yes. That crossed my mind. The question, I suppose, pertains to the method. 'Tis no easy task to extract aether, as you well know.

[emet_sulk]

'Tis infinitely easier when one isn't a sundered shard. But yes, I see your meaning.

For what it's worth, I vaguely recall some manner of room before I appeared here. Mayhap they took what they needed from us then.

[afflatusexarch]

They would need to keep taking something from us, would they not? Otherwise we would eventually recover.

[emet_sulk]

Hence our continued enervation. Which is then put towards pulling more hapless souls across the rift, I presume. Ahh, how devious!

[afflatusexarch]

Such is my thought as well. Yet it is still all conjecture at this point. To prove the theory true wouldn't be quite so easy.

[emet_sulk]

Regrettably.

[ He won't mention that his Sight has failed to pick up anything meaningful whilst he has been here. It's somewhat unnerving. ]

I suppose I should be glad you can't summon another Warrior of Light here yourself.

[afflatusexarch]

You realize just because I cannot doesn't mean that another cannot.

[emet_sulk]

I don't even want to consider such a possibility happening. One is quite enough.

[afflatusexarch]

You realize this also implies an infinite amount of possibilities, yes? Just hoe many could one place hold, I wonder...

[emet_sulk]

And I'm sure you would like to shut down every one which does not agree with your particular morals.

[ Such as the ones where Ascians triumph. ]

man remind me not to tag first thing when waking up. what a typo

[afflatusexarch]

No. 'Tis not my responsibility. I've already accomplished what I set out to do.

The star is safe and the first of its primals are no more. Now we are discovering the truths of the Twelve while simultaneously working to open a voidgate large enough to allow a dragon passage.

Surely my counterparts in these other timelines would feel the same. They, too, have made promises.

LMAO

[emet_sulk]

If there are indeed so many possibilities then the possibility that one of you failed is just as likely. What say you to that?

🫢

[afflatusexarch]

[ He knows what you're trying to do here, old man. ]

There likely is and in so doing, everything would be doomed.

[emet_sulk]

From your perspective, perhaps. Everything is the end of the world to short-lived things such as you.

[afflatusexarch]

I speak truth and you know it. T'was our actions that put an end to the Final Days. Even in other timelines where I had not succeeded, that threat would forever loom over your heads. You and yours would be perpetually chained to a Primal with no freedom from your shackles on the horizon. Is that truly living? Is that the fate which you so desire to bind our star to?

At the very least, we can proceed forward and carve out our own fates.

[emet_sulk]

Tell you what: you tell me how you managed it and I'll use your Tower to return to the days before calamity struck my people and avert the need to summon Zodiark at all, hmm? Then no-one need die and we all get to live happily ever after.

[afflatusexarch]

I was unaware you possessed the ability to harness Dynamis. Since you surely must, perhaps it is foolish of me to keep said secrets of my Crystal Tower all to myself.

[emet_sulk]

I don't need whatever that is. If this all began with a creation then I simply need to prevent it from ever being realised.

[ Such a shame he doesn't remember a single thing about that stint in Elpis. ]

[afflatusexarch]

I fear that it would not be as simple as you believe.

Though I understand needing that sort of comfort. The necessity of it.

[emet_sulk]

Don't act like you understand, Exarch, because you don't.

I will find a way to succeed.

[afflatusexarch]

Of course of course.

Do as you please then. 'Tis not I that will put and end to it.