Trying his best to keep his anxiety out of his expression, Skylar focused on observing his surroundings as he followed closely behind Reine and Levan. The city Reine had called Shala'kaitya was even busier and more bustling than Gavispar had been; dozens of citizens of all types -- human, Alvatri, Loathborn, and even some weirder things like the little goblinesque creatures Aymon had called Mukati -- were everywhere, minding shops, running errands, or even just lounging about. Skylar did his best not to gawk. The future version of me I switched places with had obviously just come from here, so I need to act like this is old hat. He began scanning the surroundings for restaurants or food stalls, noting with interest that the building materials were different here; though the great bone-like towers formed the most noteworthy elements of the city's construction, there were many buildings of wood and stone all intermixed haphazardly. Guess wood isn't as scarce here? Then he passed by a stall that was closer to their path than the others, and everything changed.
The smell which hit Skylar's nose at first was drowned out among the other smells of the city, but as he drew nearer, it asserted itself, and before long he could think of nothing else. Potatoes. Dear Gog, roasted potatoes with butter. Just kill me now. His mouth began to water so furiously that he thought he might drool if he wasn't careful; he swallowed cautiously before opening his mouth. "Hey, uh, Levan, you got any of the local money? I'm kinda hungry..." The light here. They can grow plants. They can grow potatoes!
The Loathborn rolled his eyes. "I just gave you a bunch of money. You can't have spent it all already!"
Skylar flinched, trying his best to look guilty rather than stupid. "Oh, right, that money..." Out of habit, he patted his pockets as if to search for it before making an excuse, but stopped short when the action produced an unexpected clinking sound. What the... Shoving a hand into the pocket of his coat, Skylar fished around a moment before withdrawing, with a fair amount of astonishment, a handful of odd gray and brown coins; he caught himself staring at them and quickly made a show of counting them instead. I don't understand how these got here. Is it some kind of time thing, or...
Abruptly, it came to him; When I used the Kalativa, it should have taken me back to my previous usage, fighting skeletons -- which means the one I just used wasn't the same Kalativa I arrived with. The other Skylar must have pickpocketed it and slipped in his own so I'd get taken back here, and gave me some Shala'kaitya coins as part of it; but how? He never got within a foot or two of me.... Skylar cursed as he realized he'd taken his eyes off the other Skylar when he'd looked back at the door with the others. Son of a krepnak. He knew I'd do it, too, which means I'm going to have to do it. He sighed before looking up at the potato vendor, who appeared to be a short and chubby blonde woman with rosy cheeks. "How much for one?"
"Two grems, love, that's the brown coins," she replied indulgently; Skylar swiftly handed them over and received a dangerously-hot cloth-wrapped package in return. Ducking Levan's annoyed glare, he scurried to catch up with Reine, trying to get at the coolest edges of the potato while he reviewed the stream's comments. The first bite was heavenly, and his eyes crossed with pleasure as his mouth filled with salty, buttery, potato-y goodness.
Not that I know of, but every additional follower is a slightly lower chance that my stream gets cut off if other people get bored and wander off. Beyond that, I have no idea.
Beats me, but hopefully that doesn't happen -- I haven't noticed it deteriorating or heating up or doing anything else ominous. Plus, if all the other me's running around are any indication, it has a lot of work to do still.
This is very high on my list of priorities, believe me. As far as I know, the only things I have to do are throw myself off the bridge in Gavispar, rescue myself from throwing myself off the bridge in Gavispar (requiring me to learn how to use Alzasch much better than I currently can), and rescue myself in Saro's cabin just now (after apparently having mastered writing and pickpocketing). Something tells me I've got some unpleasant subjective experiences ahead of me.
Skylar stopped dead in his tracks; his mouth fell open and a little bit of roasted potato fell out to go splat upon the street. I'm so stupid. I'm a complete korskak krepnak, dumber than any human who has ever lived. Numbly, he pulled the Kalativa out of his pocket and flipped it over to the mirrored backside; sure enough, the face that looked back at him was identical to the faces of all the other Skylars he'd seen -- the same as his original face in his old life. My face. It's been literally staring back at me all along. This is my original body, or at least a de-aged and significantly more thiefy version of it -- so I've been transmigrated and not reincarnated, specifically. Well, that was a disappointing reveal, especially since I could have figured it out a day ago.
I'm going to continue to try to avoid this, since the note said I should try to avoid ontological paradoxes -- but these coins and the Kalativa swap tell me authoritatively that if that was a future version of me, I can definitely bring or send objects into the past or future with me or other versions of myself. Until I subjectively become one of those future versions, though, this is all still speculation. He sighed and returned the Kalativa to his pocket, hurrying to catch up with the others again.
They wound their way through the streets for nearly a half-hour, passing by all kinds of thriving markers of civilization -- street repair workers, warehouses and carts, and even a theater or two -- before finally arriving at a sizable brutalist-style building of shaped stone. Skylar gawked; that's not concrete, but it looks really close. I saw some other shaped stone in Gavispar too, but nothing else in their technology level indicates this type of capability; I wonder if it's magic or something? Reine, looking fatigued, dropped her hands and her eyes reverted to normal; she nodded at the others. "Go on. I'm gonna rest out here." Stepping to the side of the door, she slumped down on a bench and put her head in her gauntleted hands for a moment; Skylar was shocked to realize how small she was in comparison to him. She's like five feet tall, tops, and maybe would weigh ninety pounds without the armor and gear. Didn't she call me 'shorty' once? But, just as swiftly, the moment passed; her body seemed to fill with strength again after another few seconds, and she sat up more straightly and began to gaze around with a pleased expression. "A few minutes in the Light will replenish me."
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"Uh... okay." Skylar stepped around her, weirded out by the lack of krepnak-vibes in direct opposition to his preceding experience; he lurked behind Levan as they entered. The interior of the library was cool but well-lit, with great glass windows above catching and channeling the light from the orbs overhead into warm sunlike beams that drifted pleasantly over the open spaces within; the effect was incredibly soothing, and Skylar noticed several other patrons drowsing or outright napping at various tables and chairs.
Ahead of him, Levan flagged down a severe-looking librarian in a white dress. "Hey, hi, it's us again. Can we get that book on Halhafish history again, please?" He gave the librarian a sheepish grin in response to her annoyed expression. "Trying to settle an argument, you know how it is."
Skylar watched, amused, as the librarian turned up her nose and drifted away in search of the promised tome; as he did, a young boy appeared out of nowhere and tugged insistently at his sleeve. "Mister. Hey, mister."
Skylar restrained his initial reaction, which was to shriek and punt the child away, and instead turned with a calm expression and a raised eyebrow. "Yeah?"
The child, a chubby boy clearly no older than ten, held out a thin and roughly-bound volume. "My book. You said you'd give me a grem if I let you read it later."
"Oh! Oh, yeah, sure, I totally did say that." Skylar fished another of the small brown coins from his pocket, suspicions forming in his mind, and held it out to the boy; the youth practically shoved the book at him, snatched the coin, and bolted for the door without a backward glance. Little gomdak, Skylar smirked to himself as he inspected the book.
As he'd guessed, it was a child's picture book; simple but beautifully-rendered illustrations of common objects such as cats, apples, and other easy-to-pronounce words graced the cover, and he swiftly jerked it open and began reading at a voracious pace. His other hypotheses were swiftly confirmed; the spoken language here was essentially identical to his native tongue, and the odd markings were simply a different writing system which expressed the same sounds and grammatical markers he was used to. Curiously, some of the punctuation symbols seemed identical to ones he was familiar with, but in different roles -- for example, periods and spaces seemed to have switched functions -- but by comparing the phonetics to the word an illustration represented, he was quickly able to puzzle out simple substitutions and even read a little, very slowly. Setting this up for myself on a future pass is going to be a pain, but hard to argue with this payoff...
He was deep in the thorny distinctions of plurals and the accusative case when he noticed Levan giving him an odd look; amused, he stood up and pocketed the little reader. "What's up?"
"Why are you reading a kid's book?" the Loathborn asked him in confusion. "Why are you so weird?"
"I'm a weird guy," Skylar replied unconcernedly. "That's also a super hilarious question coming from a hairy dude with red eyes descended from a demigod of darkness. Why are you so weird?" Levan snorted, but Skylar noted a small curl at the corner of his nearly-invisible mouth; interesting. Maybe he doesn't hate me as much as he just has a very acerbic disposition. A glimmer of guilt shot through Skylar as the events of the graveyard boiled up in his memory, but he forced it down mercilessly. Did what I had to do. Still am.
A moment later, the librarian reappeared with a thick leather-bound book; Levan thanked her and toted it easily to a nearby table, thunking it down and startling an Alvatri grandmother out of a snooze. "Sorry," he winced at her irked expression, then hurriedly opened the tome and began searching for a particular section. "Fifteen forty-two... fifteen forty-three... here we go! Fifteen forty-four, death of Lord Nightstar in the town of Halhafen..."
"Killed by Saro Cramwell. Uh, Cromwell," Skylar read over his shoulder, marveling at how easily his comprehension was adapting. Eight minutes of practice and I can already read this language. That's insane. "Isn't that how it was before?"
"You know it was," Levan huffed, slamming the book closed and leaning back as he crossed his arms in frustration. "I don't get it. We were there, we killed the guy; you saw it happen, for Lucia's sake."
"That doesn't mean it's what history recorded," Skylar replied, sitting down across from the stocky man and trying to keep his voice companionable as he thought through the complexities of the situation. "Saro Cromwell was presumably running around and found out about it later; who's to say he didn't just take the credit? Even if you really did change the past, the effect might be the same."
Levan raised an eyebrow at him. "You're saying time might, what, try to fix itself or something?"
"I don't know," Skylar admitted. "But anything's possible. Maybe we can change the future, but the lowest-entropy state is the same future we came from; or maybe when we change the future, our memories change with it, so we don't know anything's changed. For all we know, this book used to say Lord Nightstar was killed by somebody else, but we remember it saying what it says now because --"
"Because our memories change to match the past, yeah, I get it," Levan replied, waving the idea away. "But if that's the case, we wouldn't remember our trips to the past."
"Not necessarily," Skylar disagreed. "We'd remember that we took them, because we did take them to change the past, but we wouldn't remember a time when we didn't take them, because that sequence of events would have ceased to exist for us. But there's a third option you're not considering."
"Get off it," the Loathborn growled, his thick eyebrows drawing together. "Your crazy theory is just fatalistic defeatism to justify inaction, and you know it. If we keep trying to change the past, we'll either fail or succeed; but if we don't try, we'll obviously definitely fail." He sighed, looking up at the ceiling. "Vishnat it, how many times do we have to have this conversation?"
"Probably a couple more," Skylar murmured thoughtfully, looking down at the history book. Halhafen. Must be what he named his little sanguinary empire. "But I think you're right. We should keep trying." I don't know what theory subjective-future-objective-past-me was trying to get him to accept, but I can guess. I'm starting to see how all this fits together. He flipped to the back of the book, noting that as of the year 1594 Halhafen was still a thriving hub of agricultural and military power. Heck, Cromwell might even still be alive. Wouldn't that be crazy?
This is theoretically possible, but it's not something I want to gamble with; it's also possible that dying before I can complete a time loop might destroy this entire-brux universe or something. Not worth banking on even remotely. He leafed back and forth through the history book for a couple more minutes, marveling at how he could contextually puzzle out symbols from just a few basic reference points; with every line he read, his comprehension grew, although he knew he'd still need some practice writing. Note to self, buy a journal.
"Hey." Skylar jumped as Reine appeared at his left elbow; he flinched, but she ignored him and sat down as though he hadn't moved. "What'd we find out?"
"Nothing," Levan replied sourly, glaring down at the history book. "Culty here thinks that even if we can change the past, we might not be able to remember it, or that time might try to fix itself. I think that's skek, but right now the evidence seems to be supporting his arguments."
"It is eminently more probable," Reine yawned, "that he is crafting spurious arguments to fit the evidence as he becomes aware. A noted area of expertise for Zuzans." Skylar rolled his eyes, but internally marveled at how accurate the accusation was. "Shall we continue on to seek the Regent's counsel?"
"Might as well," Levan grunted, standing up and moving the book to a return-cart. "Don't even think about stealing that other book," he warned Skylar, jerking his head towards the cart; Skylar obediently pulled the little reader out of his pocket with a sad expression and placed it on the cart obediently, then purloined it again the instant the other two had turned their backs and shoved it back into his coat. Thief skills, go! Heh heh.
Outside, Reine invoked Humoil again and began leading them in another direction, towards a part of the city where the bone towers seemed the most tightly clustered; Skylar marveled as the architecture began to change around them, transitioning from modern-looking structures to older, blockier stone shapes and eventually merging with the towers themselves to become round, bubble-like protrusions which spiraled around and up the heights of the strange protrusions. This is real, real weird. Like aliens built this place or something.
Eventually, their path terminated at a great wall, which encircled an enormous space; a huge gate, made of silver and jade, blocked the path into the interior, but a guard standing nearby nodded to Reine as though she had been expected and moved with unhurried deliberateness to open the massive door. Skylar's jaw dropped as he saw what was within.
An gigantic greensward, easily a mile across, filled the expanse within the huge annular wall; a silvery pond dominated the center, out from which several picturesque rivers trickled to the four cardinal directions in complete defiance of fluid dynamics. Above the pond, supported on curving ivory columns which arced out over the water from pylons upon the shore, was a great silver dais nearly two hundred feet in diameter. A winding path, formed of shimmering golden sands, led from the gate to the base of a great set of silver stairs which ascended to the dais. Skylar gawked in every direction as the justiciar advanced, with Levan trailing behind and bearing a discomfited expression. Holy skek. This is majestic AF.
As they approached, Skylar noticed that a throng of people were gathered on the dais; they were all talking, arguing, and declaiming at various volumes while clustered around some central structure he couldn't quite make out through the press of bodies. As he reached the top of the stairs, he stepped to one side to let Levan pass while admiring the view all around him; the elevated platform gave a spectacular vantage point for gazing out upon the entire expanse of lush plant life, so rare in the barren darkness he knew presumably lay outside the city.
"Your Regency," Reine declared, overriding everyone else's speech with her justiciar's certainty and ego, "we have returned. As before, we request your boon; the Loathborn and I have already made our requests, but a third member of our party has not. Will you hear his boon?" With a sweeping gesture, she flung her hand back to point at Skylar, who blinked.
Directly in front of him, the crowd of now-silent attendants parted like the curtains before a play's opening, revealing a towering golden throne and a slender figure perched atop it. The white-haired, white-robed figure which reclined there sat up sharply, her hand gripping a featureless white spear as her brows pulled together and down into an expression of rage. "Korskak it, not again," Skylar groaned as the robed-woman-who-might-or-might-not-be-Amara leapt to her feet and charged at him, spearpoint-first.
HOW WE GONNA PLAY THIS, CHAT?
