Bit disappointed that no one gathers everyone together and reads new history aloud to an audience. That was always a high point for me and it was quite exciting watching everyone's reaction and comments after the reading. (Even after the STRONG hint Morkarion got to do that, I guess that just doesn't go over well these days!)
Bit disappointed that no one gathers everyone together and reads new history aloud to an audience. That was always a high point for me and it was quite exciting watching everyone's reaction and comments after the reading. (Even after the STRONG hint Morkarion got to do that, I guess that just doesn't go over well these days!)
=((
You just gave a book of all sorts of secret knowledge to a guy who despises or distrusts roughly half the Basin =p
Also I must have missed the hint, this was the vision I got:
You are suddenly assaulted by a temporal flashback, and find you are back once again fighting the Greater Nightmare of Lirangsha. After the killing blow, you are visited by a Time Dame and notice she had inadvertently dropped a book among the swirling confluence of clouds. Time suddenly returns to normal as the temporal flashback recedes.
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Bit disappointed that no one gathers everyone together and reads new history aloud to an audience. That was always a high point for me and it was quite exciting watching everyone's reaction and comments after the reading. (Even after the STRONG hint Morkarion got to do that, I guess that just doesn't go over well these days!)
=((
You just gave a book of all sorts of secret knowledge to a guy who despises or distrusts roughly half the Basin =p
Also I must have missed the hint, this was the vision I got:
You are suddenly assaulted by a temporal flashback, and find you are back once again fighting the Greater Nightmare of Lirangsha. After the killing blow, you are visited by a Time Dame and notice she had inadvertently dropped a book among the swirling confluence of clouds. Time suddenly returns to normal as the temporal flashback recedes.
You also got this when you went back to Glomdoring:
A shadow faeling walks in, glances at you, and says, "In the old
days, when new books were found, people would gather others at the Great
Library and read it aloud." He then shrugs and departs.
Bit disappointed that no one gathers everyone together and reads new history aloud to an audience. That was always a high point for me and it was quite exciting watching everyone's reaction and comments after the reading. (Even after the STRONG hint Morkarion got to do that, I guess that just doesn't go over well these days!)
=((
You just gave a book of all sorts of secret knowledge to a guy who despises or distrusts roughly half the Basin =p
Also I must have missed the hint, this was the vision I got:
You are suddenly assaulted by a temporal flashback, and find you are back once again fighting the Greater Nightmare of Lirangsha. After the killing blow, you are visited by a Time Dame and notice she had inadvertently dropped a book among the swirling confluence of clouds. Time suddenly returns to normal as the temporal flashback recedes.
You also got this when you went back to Glomdoring:
A shadow faeling walks in, glances at you, and says, "In the old
days, when new books were found, people would gather others at the Great
Library and read it aloud." He then shrugs and departs.
I missed that in all the excitement spam Sorry!
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Bit disappointed that no one gathers everyone together and reads new history aloud to an audience. That was always a high point for me and it was quite exciting watching everyone's reaction and comments after the reading. (Even after the STRONG hint Morkarion got to do that, I guess that just doesn't go over well these days!)
=((
You just gave a book of all sorts of secret knowledge to a guy who despises or distrusts roughly half the Basin =p
Also I must have missed the hint, this was the vision I got:
You are suddenly assaulted by a temporal flashback, and find you are back once again fighting the Greater Nightmare of Lirangsha. After the killing blow, you are visited by a Time Dame and notice she had inadvertently dropped a book among the swirling confluence of clouds. Time suddenly returns to normal as the temporal flashback recedes.
You also got this when you went back to Glomdoring:
A shadow faeling walks in, glances at you, and says, "In the old
days, when new books were found, people would gather others at the Great
Library and read it aloud." He then shrugs and departs.
I made him an extra copy of the book, and one for the library; he did say IC that he was considering doing a reading of it.
So the book's not lost! Even if it resets, he's still got his copy.
Yeah, well, it's just that I miss the excitement and buzz when someone calls everyone to the Basin for the first reading. As soon as a copy is made (and posted on the forums *cough*), there's really no big reveal because most people would have already read it.
And, yes, I'm being selfish because it's the only enjoyment I get after writing these things (which takes an inordinately longer time than you may realize where I could be doing other things!).
Yeah, well, it's just that I miss the excitement and buzz when someone calls everyone to the Basin for the first reading. As soon as a copy is made (and posted on the forums *cough*), there's really no big reveal because most people would have already read it.
And, yes, I'm being selfish because it's the only enjoyment I get after writing these things (which takes an inordinately longer time than you may realize where I could be doing other things!).
(Glomdoring): Nocht says, "Perhaps you should share nothing, little one."
Well I tried
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Ah, then I am sorry for spoiling it for you; I will say that just reading through these things is amazing as far as the richness goes, and how it builds on things.
Djarrakh the Goloth? That explains things.
Why Crazen didn't act like the other Soulless, and became obsessed with Shanth and the Aslaran? Along with enslaving the krokani instead of eating them? Now we know!
Hallifax and Gaudiguch nearly killed us all. BURN THEM.
And you have to wonder what would happen to player-Krokani if Crazen ever did get out. Or changelings..!
They also apparently have no hope / chance of releasing Crazen himself (so apparently via the Wheel, he seems locked away for good), they were just trying to make the best of life without him.
... and I really, really want access to that Fortress, by the by.
Edit: But I'll try to keep that in mind for the next history-book I get access to; I haven't really attended the 'readings' so I didn't really think of it, but it is a good point. I've almost always just read 'em when they were posted up, so that's what I went to do.
You know what; I just edited the story out. Some people will have seen it and there's not much that can be done about that, but the bulk of players won't have. That will give time to actually have a more in-depth review of it somewhere where people can still be surprised, if such is desired.
The problem is, people seem to try to keep the books to their orgs. There isn't a real reason to share the information around. Though someone from Celest was attempting to sell the previous one for gold.
I can understand the desire to see such things revealed and explored in-game rather than out. I personally agree with it too, whatever my own preferences in getting to read such things early. It certainly will give the game a little more of that special sense of fantasy that most of us play it for. Of course, the bulk of that has to be sought after by players, not just by restricting access to a wall of text in OOC web resources, but it does help a little. If nothing else, holding back on OOC avenues to find and read such things for a week or two after they are released is a good way to get the player base looking for it in-game, and perhaps finding some new avenues for RP or fun, as they should.
Eventually, we do want such resources to be readily available, either via the in-game public library or via OOC web resources. Either for quick reference, or for just leisure reading. Could even be used as advertisement, but we're getting a little far afield.
At any rate, what I'm trying to say is that the freshness that comes with new reveals and releases are sometimes a good source of mystery for the players. It can certainly frustrate those who do not have as wide a network to tap into, and some other individuals will naturally be left out (those who don't know an event went down, and don't know who to ask about to find out more etc) but as long as the information is not kept locked out of OOC resources indefinitely, I don't see a problem with temporarily restricting access to it outside of the game environment.
The problem is, people seem to try to keep the books to their orgs. There isn't a real reason to share the information around. Though someone from Celest was attempting to sell the previous one for gold.
I was selling copies of it to everyone that wanted them. You just got in trouble for sneaking into Celest to get a look at the library copy.
I think selling copies is a good idea, provided it isn't too expensive. I was intending to say that you selling them was a good and useful thing!
And, I got in trouble? No one told me I got in trouble for 'sneaking into Celest'. I walk through it all the time when doing pilgrims. Even shop there sometimes.
Yeah, well, it's just that I miss the excitement and buzz when someone calls everyone to the Basin for the first reading. As soon as a copy is made (and posted on the forums *cough*), there's really no big reveal because most people would have already read it.
And, yes, I'm being selfish because it's the only enjoyment I get after writing these things (which takes an inordinately longer time than you may realize where I could be doing other things!).
Estarra, gotta agree with that. I'm finding it harder and harder to find people willing to talk and instead go to forum rp. With the visions for instance everybody wanted to keep them secret within their orgs but every one was posted here and on Facebook. The only one I got IC confirmation on was my own when somebody sent it to me IG. Thankfully, I got some folks to show me the new area and fill me in on the battles.
I don't understand why ever org is so secretive. I could understand a single org like, say, Glomdoring, but it's like people want to both share the lore OOC and keep it private IC. That leads to meta-gaming and "having your cake and eating it too" IMO. I was hoping somebody would discuss them at my "not actual Thanksgiving" feasts, but alas. Even the public news boards are shunned nowadays--the little IC war over the new area is the most active I've seen in a while. I would think some orgs would want to share, at least in terms of being boastful if not based on true altruism--publish a translation of it in the library, get IG benefits, for instance.
I managed to read the project cloudspout work to all in game (being the lucky guy who could read Orclach) and it was enlightening, and I had fun with it. Maybe you need to create a new language that only Weeky or Miska can read, so someone has to take it there to be translated the first time.
I understand the player enthusiasm and the want to discuss outside the game though--this is kind of why I also ask questions like "how are we changing how we play the games" and "why AFK seems more commonplace" or "why use of news has gone down over the years". I truly wonder if the Internet is changing how we interact with media and sometimes I think we're getting afflicted with some kind of ADHD sort of complex.
I sent a wheel vision that mentioned angels to Telperion. And then promptly felt kinda traitorous about doing it, because no one else seemed to be sharing them.
And now, I can't work out how to get hold of the new book. I missed whatever readings were done, and I'm not even sure if I can start asking people about it, because IG my character hasn't even been told there's a second book...and she has no real reason to think there is one, as the Time Dames didn't strike her as the type to keep diaries.
"Diary of a Time Dame", By Kesisha, the First Dame (Page 1) "Time Dame Kesisha," said Goloth Maxyenka to me, striding into the laboratory, his great eye gleaming with a preternatural emerald glow. "I await your report."
"The time lock is stable, master," I said easily, letting my confidence sooth the Goloth.
Before bearing witness to the Glory, Goloth Maxyenka was once a krokani, as we all were, though back then he was a thin and hunched scholar. Now, though, he radiated the power of the Glory, his form fleshed out with a barrel chest and limbs like pillars of stone, dressed in the black armour and the golden cloak of a Goloth. I noticed the two other Time Dames, Stepasha and Rusacha, standing at attention in their white metal coats. They glanced nervously at me, which was unacceptable. As First Dame, it was up to me to make sure they served the master without the distraction of emotion. I let them know my displeasure with a hot spear of thought thrust into their minds, reminding them of their duty to our master. Time Dame Stepasha swallowed hard, so I raised an eyebrow and gave her mind a harder twist. Her face slackened and her thoughts became placid. Better.
I rose up smoothly from the array of spinning globes that I was adjusting and bowed low to the master. Beneath cropped black hair, Goloth Maxyenka's burning gaze swept over the cavernous stone chamber with its high vaulted ceilings and windowless walls. In the center of the chamber rose the Wheel of the Goloths, so huge it nearly filled the entire chamber, its spinning rim edged with occasional flashes of energy. We had spent centuries building and perfecting the Wheel, the machine that would transcend time itself.
"Time Dame Ludlya is within the time lock, master," I said. "She is making the final adjustments to the temporal dampeners and setting up the stasis fields."
"Satisfactory," said Goloth Maxyenka, and I felt his tension ease somewhat, though his mind still boiled with apprehension, flickering with the distant presence of the Glory. Turning to Time Dame Stepasha, he commanded, "What is the probability of the third eventuality."
"Seventy three point three," said Time Dame Stepasha, and then I understood her prior emotional lapse.
"What!" shouted the Goloth. "It was under fifty percent this morning. Let me see."
He strode over to the controls and shoved Time Dame Stepasha away. His long fingers darted over the temporal panels, each touch causing cascades of probable futures to flicker over their surfaces. I yearned to help the Goloth, but knew I could not. His great intellect was endowed with the power of the Glory, beyond anything I could imagine. Though we all were touched by the Glory, only a few were blessed to be channels directly into the heart of that awful cosmic beauty. Before the Glory was revealed to us, back when we were mere krokani scholars researching dimensional and temporal rifts, Maxyenka was a rare genius.
"Seventy four point one," Goloth Maxyenka said finally, his mouth twisted in distaste.
"Has the Glory been apprised," I asked lightly, sending soothing thoughts.
"The Glory knows all I know," he said bitterly.
"Of course," I said. "Forgive my impertinence."
Just then, the Wheel of the Goloths turned, the twisting energies within flickering with patterns of grey light. Cold mist swirled around the rim as a figure in white metal robes stepped out. As the mist cleared, Time Dame Ludlya was revealed, her great eye blinking and red hair .
"Goloth Maxyenka," said Time Dame Ludlya saluting with a fist over her eye when she saw the Goloth. "The temporal knots are all set. The time lock is stable. The stasis field is readied, may it never need to be used."
"Excellent," said Goloth Maxyenka, the storm of emotions within him calming once more.
We felt the call of the Goloths, a ringing mental command that all who were touched by the Glory heard. With an effort of will, Maxyenka smoothed his features and masked his thoughts behind a bland expression of neutrality. Of course, as his Adjuncts, we did what we could to help him compose.
"Attend me," he said finally, his voice now smooth and serene.
Pulling his golden cape tight around, he strode confidently out of the laboratory. With a quick gesture, I beckoned the other Time Dames to follow me as I trailed several paces behind the Goloth. The laboratory was in the depths of the Fortress of the Glory, which itself stood in the Valley of Rumidia. The Fortress was once one of the greatest of the krokani cities, with thick stone walls reinforced with steel and mystic runes. Soaring towers and battlements could house a population of almost a hundred thousand. Beyond the walls were miles of farmlands and smaller villages. I could barely remember the time when we lived here before witnessing the Glory, but how foolish to think our city could withstand the might of the Soulless Gods. How pointless were the armies that had trained for decades or the research poured into defeating that which could never be defeated. In mere moments, all the armies and research and preparation came to nothing as soon as the Glory revealed itself.
Saluting with fist over eye, armored Dominators stood aside as Goloth Maxyenka strode through the many corridors, up winding stairs, past the breeding pits and munitions dumps, and the ignoring the doors to other laboratories Finally, we came to the great bronze doors that led to the Hall of the Goloths. The Dominators standing guard at the door saluted as we entered. Within was the long black table that stretched the length of the enormous hall. Several Goloths were already seated down either side. At the head of the table presided Goloth Djarrakh, his great eye blazing like a crimson beacon. He was the oldest of the Goloths, how many centuries he had lived, thanks to the blessings of the Glory, probably not even he could remember.
Goloth Maxyenka took his position towards the end of the table. It gutted me that he no longer sat near the head, but much prominence was lost in the Disaster at Corinthan. As First Dame, I took my position directly behind him, just as the other First Adjuncts of the Goloths stood behind their masters. The other Time Dames sank into the shadows behind me. Out of the periphery of my eye, I noted which Adjuncts glanced our way and which pointedly ignored us. So we navigate the politics of factions within factions.
When the last of the Goloths arrived, the bronze doors swung shut, their great weight scuffing across the floor. There were about two dozen Goloths in all, each a conduit of the Glory. Goloth Djarrakh was grim faced, as he always was. Around his neck were the ears of aslaran rajas and shahs, the feline race which obsessed him. Before the Glory revealed itself to him, Djarrakh was a krokani tribal chieftain, long before the Rumidia Fortress was even built. His dispute with aslaran tribes carried over even after he was taken by the Glory, and that obsession became shared by the Glory. I wondered, briefly, if by dominating the krokani, the Glory of Crazen was somehow in turn dominated by us. It was often speculated that, as the Soulless God Crazen revealed His Glory to more and more krokani, we in turn changed his nature. Certainly, it was said in ages past, he simply fed upon the mortal races like the other Soulless Gods, but now, through us, he bred mortal flesh to feed upon and used us as an extension of his power. And so he also shared Goloth Djarrakh's obsession with the aslaran. It was not an obsession shared by the other Goloths, certainly not Maxyenka. Could we influence the Glory of Crazen in other ways? Ah, but that thought was heretical and I pushed it aside.
The power of the gathered Goloths throbbed around us, and I knew that, like me, the other First Adjuncts stood behind their masters and exerted psionic fields to insulate them from the emotional storm that came from the other Goloths through their channels to the Glory. It was said in the old days when the Goloths gathered, several had been literally incinerated from the crossfire of power of so many in close proximity to each other, not to mention fights that broke out among rivals because they could not keep their thoughts secure. Shielding my master from this overcharged maelstrom was draining, and I drew strength from the Time Dames behind me.
"Today we meet for a Reaping," announced Goloth Djarrakh, standing up and leaning forward with his fists on the obsidian table. "We have reports of a krokani settlement in the Plains of Farincorea. As you know, this territory is claimed by the Soulless God Muud, but as Muud has disappeared, perhaps even defeated by the Vernal Demons, his territories are now open to the Glory of Crazen. Once those krokani have seen the Glory, Goloth Ivanencha will send in a squadron of Dominators to do the reaping and collect the new subjects. Goloth Anayenta, you will prepare to receive the new recruits and rank the strength of their bond to the Glory. I am hoping there will be a significant percentage that will become Dominators. I understand from Goloth Nurevya that the breeding pits are at capacity so we will need to consider sending any particularly weak in the Glory to the feeding troughs. Let us hope there is not a new Goloth for I do not think there is room for another chair here."
The Goloths drummed the table and roared approval. Next, conversation turned to troop movements in the southern hemisphere. Goloth Ludmilla made reports in her low monotonous voice, and as usual, I had to protect Maxyenka from the revulsion towards her that emanated from the gathered Goloths. She was a large, ugly woman of late years, her aged form was not because she enjoyed many centuries as a result of the increased lifespan that came with the blessing of the Glory, but rather she was already old when she was reaped. She was difficult to look at, not because she was ugly or old, though she was, but because there were ancient scars under the upper right and lower left corners of her great eye, the mark of someone who at one time sought the damnation of the Eyeless, forever curse them. Why she was so strongly chosen by the Glory was not for anyone, not even the Goloths, to question, though that did not keep their disgust of her at bay. I glanced at her First Adjunct out of the corner of my great eye, Alexender, First of the Southern Conquerors, was almost as ugly has his mistress with grey hair and a craggy face. Sweat trickled down the side of one brow as he shielded her from the antagonism of the Goloths.
Then, it was our turn. Goloth Djarrakh turned his blazing red eye onto my master, whose own eye shone with an emerald light. I felt the Time Dames behind me send a stream of strength into me, which I in turn used to support Maxyenka.
"Goloth Maxyenka," said Djarrakh, his gravelly voice soaked in contempt. "I suppose we must endure your report on this Reaping."
"I urge caution in the Reaping," said Goloth Maxyenka carefully. "Indeed, I recommend this Reaping be delayed. There is now over a seventy percent probability that a level five calamity may befall the Glory ..."
"Caution! Delay!" scoffed Goloth Djarrakh. "We listened to your recommendations at Corinthan and where did that get us? You claim to peer into possible futures to help lead the Glory to preeminence but often as not your advice is flawed."
"I had an excellent record until Corinthan," shot back Goloth Maxyenka, his anger bubbling up which we had to tamp down. He took a deep breath and said more levelly, "In any statistical model, there will always be a some chance that even the smallest probabilities will win out. We can only recommend based on the highest or likeliest probability"
"To the Void with your math!" shouted Djarrakh. "We may as well flip a coin as listen to you. We will give your 'recommendation' as much attention as it deserves.
The hostility now directed at Maxyenka nearly took me to my knees but I managed to stay upright as I protected him from the worst of it. To his credit, Maxyenka's roiling emotions were masked behind a calm exterior as he nodded and leaned back in his chair.
*First Eventuality.* Maxyenka said within the minds of his Time Dames. *The Goloths have ignored our warnings. Be prepared.*
"Diary of a Time Dame", By Kesisha, the First Dame (Page 2) Suddenly, each of the Goloths sat upright, the glow in the eye of each blazing with a new brilliance. As one, they slapped their palms down on the obsidian table. The presence of the Glory filled the chamber as the Goloths became one enormous channel to Crazen's will.
The top of the obsidian table shimmered as vague outlines formed and then slowly focused into fleeting images snatched from the view of one of the eyes of Crazen. The angle was from on high as Crazen looked down onto a valley. He must have broken through the crust of the earth atop a hillside for the perspective was higher than usual. Down in the valley was a tribe of krokani, several dozen modest buildings, better constructed than expected, and some surrounding farms. The smell of krokani filled the air as we shared a portion of Crazen's senses. Perspectives began to shift, as the village became larger and larger, as Crazen rolled down the hillside. Stopping just short of rolling over the entire village, Crazen became still, his eyes roving to catch the krokani, to let them partake of the Glory.
But nothing happened. Whenever there was a Reaping, we would all feel the collective power of Crazen grow with each new krokani who joined us in the Glory. There should have been hundreds of new reapings, but there was not even one as Crazen towered like a mountain before an entire village of krokani. Images of specific krokani began to zoom in as Crazen focused on individuals. They were all Eyeless and thus immune to the Glory. They were traitors to the heritage for which they were born. We noted the buildings were also all too new and the individual krokani were all dressed as warriors. Did they think they actually had a chance to confront a Soulless God with spears and swords?
Pain lanced through all our minds as Crazen was attacked from behind. We even heard muffled screams of Dominators from beyond the bronze doors whose small connection with the Glory was enough to feel the burning agony. Images upon the table whirled around as Crazen became aware of what was going on his rear flank. A great host of hulking knights riding horned beasts had charged down an opposing hillside. We knew them as followers of the Vernal Demon Shallah. Crazen desired to find her above all others. But these knights were no true threat. Crazen would be able to defeat them easily enough. But this was not the sign we were waiting for. Perhaps the eventualities would not come to pass.
Even if there would be no Reaping, there would at least be a feeding. Images flashed over the table of the Eyeless succumbing to the lashing tendrils of Crazen, which pulled them into his flesh to feed upon their souls. The Knights of the Order of Shallah fared better, though many of them went down as well. The battle would have ended quickly except that a lone shining figure appeared on the horizon. The Eyeless and Knights of the Order of Shallah began to draw back as he appeared.
From our vantage, we saw the eyes of Crazen began refocusing and zooming in on this figure. It was that of the feline form of an aslaran. Focusing closer, we could see fur as black as pitch and grey luminous eyes, dressed in a simple dun colored vest and britches. A nimbus of power surrounded the figure, the signature of which we all recognized. It was a Vernal Demon we all knew too well.
"Shanth!" roared Djarrakh, which startled everyone. It was unheard of that a Goloth could speak during communion with the Glory, but such was Djarrakh's hatred of Shanth that he could break through even that.
The battles between Goloth Djarrakh and the Vernal Demon Shanth were legendary, dating back to when Djarrakh first saw the Glory and began the Reapings. As the population of Dominators began to grow, they also needed to be fed, and so Goloth Djarrakh began his campaign to enslave the aslaran race, his fanatical hatred towards them dating back to before he saw the Glory and had disputes with aslaran tribes. When the Vernal Demon Shanth appeared, he subverted everything that Djarrakh did, forcing Djarrakh into tactical retreats. Eventually, he had to divide his forces again and again so Shanth could not undo everything in one blow. Only Djarrakh knew how many secret castles and fortresses he had squirreled away to house the slave pits that provided flesh for the Dominators and souls for the Glory.
Now, here was the Vernal Demon Shanth within reaching distance of the Soulless God Crazen. Goloth Djarrakh's hunger to destroy Shanth permeated the connection with the Glory which became magnified as Crazen took on the hunger for himself. The Eyeless and Order of Shallah were forgotten, as Crazen began focusing entirely on Shanth, rolling towards our nemesis at unimaginable speed.
*Second Eventuality.* sent Maxyenka to us. *A lure appears that cannot be resisted and hooks the Goloths. Time Dame Stepasha, open the bronze doors and make preparations.*
Even as the other Goloths were mentally roaring in outrage, Maxyenka kept a center of calm and rationality with his hands still glued to the table top. Such was the strength of our master. I felt Stepasha break the psychic link among us, as she moved away to follow orders.
Crazen carved new chasms in his wake as he rolled across fields and valleys, leveled hills as he smashed through mountain ranges, and created new forks in rivers as he tore through waterways. But no matter how fast Crazen sped, Shanth always managed to stay half a league ahead, a taunting beacon dangled just within reach. Hours passed as the chase continued, until finally Crazen had Shanth cornered at the base of a deep ravine. In triumph, Crazen rolled forward, intent on destroying the Vernal Demon once and for all.
But then the image of Shanth disappeared from the tabletop. It took a moment to realize that Crazen was falling, and we felt his rage turn to confusion then turn to something akin to fear. The Glory was being sucked down into some kind of funnel of liquid, his tendrils unable to find purchase in the earth that gave him strength. Looking up, he saw the Vernal Demon Shanth hovering high above, becoming smaller and smaller as Crazen dropped further and further down.
"Diary of a Time Dame", By Kesisha, the First Dame (Page 3) Then such pain I have never known. The screams around me were deafening as the channel to the Glory was suddenly severed from every Goloth and every Adjunct and every Dominator. It felt as though I was decapitated and still able to see but not feel my body. I don't know how long I lay on the floor but slowly, I got up, the aching numbness reaching deep into my soul. I could no longer feel a connection to the Glory, though a small spark of the Glory still remained within me, giving me strength to continue.
The Goloths had all fallen forward onto the obsidian table. There was an uncanny silence in the chamber. I was distantly aware that Time Dame Rusacha and Time Dame Ludlya were helping me to my feet.
Other Adjuncts of the Goloths were also rising, shakily, some even beginning to sob. It took me a moment to realize the Goloths were not moving at all. Indeed, they were shriveling up before our eyes. Their skin was sinking in towards their bones, hair smoldering and shriveling as though caught on fire.
I knelt beside my master, careful not to damage his quickly desiccating form. He was whispering over and over, "Third Eventuality. The Glory falls and the Age of Goloths ends. Stasis Chamber. Stasis Chamber. Stasis Chamber."
"Help me," I said to the Rusacha and Ludlya. "We must get him to the Wheel! Immediately!"
The three of us each gently lifted Maxyenka and carried him out of the chamber, his weight alarmingly light. I noticed some of the other Adjuncts also conveying their Goloths out of the great hall. Some Goloths were beyond hope, however, for they were turning to dust in the hands of their Adjuncts.
As we raced towards our laboratory, the Dominators reeling about in confusion, though a few trailed us briefly calling out how they could serve the Goloth. Eventually we were alone as we sped down the lower levels, eerily empty of anyone. With each step, Maxyenka's body shriveled a little bit more.
Finally, we reached the laboratory, and thankfully Time Dame Stepasha had the portal within the Wheel of the Goloths open and the stasis chamber prepared within the time lock. We hurried in and laid our master down in the bed prepared months ago when we foresaw this possible future.
The stasis field enclosed about our master, who was nothing now but a skeletal husk. His dried and crumbling skin hung like rags wrapped loosely around brittle bones. His lips were shriveled and drawn back to reveal tombstone teeth, discolored and cracked. The glow in his great eye but a bare glimmering ember. We had saved him, but in doing so had consigned him here in this timeless void between the last two beats of his heart.
How long we stayed within this pocket outside of time and space was perhaps meaningless, but it seemed to us at least a year. During that time, severed from the Glory, Goloth Maxyenka's thoughts raved endlessly, but eventually his shattered mind began to knit back together. We rejoiced to find he retained a portion of the Glory within him, a thrumming seed which we were able to channel through psionic amplifiers, and which ultimately enabled him to project a psychic simulacra of himself. He was repulsed by his own decaying body, so we hid that deep within the timeless void, and he floated among us as a ghostly presence.
"We must find a way to free the Glory," said Maxyenka, his semblance pacing back and forth across the chamber.
Being outside time, we could peek at all of history, speeding up to view the future or slowing down and even reversing to see ages and eras gone by. The study of time was fascinating, for the future was slightly altered with each viewing cycle, and we knew this proved the future was constantly altering, timelines always shifting and recreating themselves. This was the basis for our study of probable futures but being outside time itself focused our perception of the temporal stream beyond imagining.
But this was nothing next to Goloth Maxyenka's greatest discovery. He found cracks in time. The creation of this lock in the timeless void had formed cracks in time itself. Not many, and they were scattered outwards into the near future, but certainly it was enough that we could not only predict and thus change the future but travel there as well. We would become like the fabled Weavers of Fate, able to alter the tapestry of life itself.
But our experiments showed that there were limits to how malleable time was. We could not travel backwards in time, for this opened into a world grey and frozen. We could anchor a doorway in a point of time, and travel forward in that timeline, altering the future from the anchor point. However, this could only be done once or twice before the anchor became frozen as a point in the past. Thus, we could make several attempts to change the future before having to give up and travel forward to change it more. There were also a limited number of cracks in the timeline we could exploit, and trying to create new time locks would not create more cracks. Still, the power this gave us was that beyond the gods but limited and not inexhaustible. Our first practical experiment involved the consolidation of the Dominators.
The Time Dames and I stepped out of the Wheel of the Goloths in a point not six months after the Fall of the Glory. Our laboratory was stripped bare of equipment and dust had settled in a thick coat over the floor. We made our way up through the Fortress, noting the Dominators saluting us and having some semblance of purpose. Even though we were a research arm of the Glory, we had a small squadron of Dominators under our control. Time Dame Rusacha went off to inspect which of those Dominators remained. Time Dame Stepasha and Ludlya went back to the Wheel.
It was in a small meeting chamber that I found the remains of the Goloth Empire. It consisted of three of the First Adjuncts of the Goloths and a smattering of lesser adjuncts. The leader seemed improbably to be First Purveyor Glovinich, the First Adjunct Goloth Ludmilla. With him were First Breeder Zexavich and First Slayer Bedelia. From what I gathered, most of the areas they controlled collapsed after the Fall of Crazen. What Dominators could made the journey here to the Fortress. They were expecting a siege eventually from an army forming in the neighboring region to the southwest. Unless they had support from the Vernal Demons, it was unlikely they would be much threat from the trained and still highly disciplined Dominators. My first meeting with Glovinich was at least somewhat polite.
"Time Dame Kesisha, said Glovinich when he saw me striding towards him, "we have not seen you since the Fall of the Glory. You come to help?"
"How many Goloths survived?" I asked
"Goloths!" he laughed, then frowned and peered at me. "Where have you been? Surely you know that there are no more Goloths. It is the Age of the Adjuncts of the Goloths!"
"Goloth Maxyenka lives," I said, which shut him up and caused several Dominators nearby to stop what they were doing and lean forward.
"What?" said Glovinich. "Where is this Goloth?"
"He is gravely wounded. I cannot reveal his location, for reasons I would think are obvious even to you."
"Then take me to him," he said, narrowing his eyes at me.
"That would not be possible at this time."
"How convenient for you," said Glovinich, then seemed to relax. "We cannot sense this mysterious Goloth of yours. You say he cannot come here and you cannot take me to him. Why exactly are you here, Kesisha?"
"To take control of the Dominators," I said with a smile. "If Goloth Maxyenka is the last Goloth, then all should submit to him."
"Perhaps," he said. "Though he would need a new First Adjunct, I would think. Leading the Dominators needs someone who knows how to command the legions. How many legions have you commanded, Kesisha? Oh, I forgot, you were in research."
"I am Goloth Maxyenka's First Adjunct," I said coldly. "But what you say makes somewhat sense. I will take counsel with the Goloth."
After saluting each other, I left Glovinich to check on Time Dame Rusacha. I found her back in the laboratory with two Dominators at attention before her.
"How many Dominators do we have?" I asked.
"Two dozen," she answered. "These two were the highest ranked so I have introduced them to Goloth Maxyenka. They were very eager to serve a Goloth."
"The Last Goloth," I said with emphasis for their benefit. Two dozen Dominators? So few.
"You may be interested in the total number of Dominators that have gathered here," said Rusacha.
"How many?
"Over five hundred thousand."
"Five hundred thousand." I said. The numbering was staggering. "How do they keep them fed? Will they be ours."
"I think food will probably become a problem soon. The feeding troughs are reported to be running low," said Rusacha. "However, I am not sure they will be ours. They have to actually enter the time lock to sense Maxyenka and getting 500,000 through could be somewhat of a logistical issue."
"Once in, we could put them in stasis so food would not be an issue. Certainly, the space they take up wouldn't matter in the timeless void."
"Will they follow us?"
"There are three other Adjuncts. Without their own Goloths, they have their own agendas and, without the Glory to guide them, their loyalty to Maxyenka would be questionable."
"I take it you want to get advice from our master and perhaps model a few probability cycles."
"Diary of a Time Dame", By Kesisha, the First Dame (Page 4) In a few days, we prepared the Hall of the Goloths for a meeting with the First Adjuncts. It was cleared of all debris, cleaned until it sparkled. Goblets laid out for wine. Of course, it would be sparsely attended , with only four of the First Adjuncts to be seated, myself included. The other three adjuncts had brought small squads of Dominators loyal to them. They agreed that the Dominators would wait outside while we met. As predicted, they had never returned to the Great Hall where their masters had died and were both nervous to return and awed to be seated as masters themselves.
"Please sit down, comrades," I said as they milled about.
Glovinich was the first to sit, taking Djarrakh's front chair as though he were leading the meeting. Zexavich and Bedelia sat where their own Goloths had sat, looking wistful. They began talking of troop movements, sightings of Vernal Demons, the slave pits and feeding troughs. I let them drone on and on, glancing at the timepiece I carried on a chain around my waste. Just as the conversation was winding down, I stood up.
"All these plans are well and good, but wouldn't our priority be to release the Glory?"
This took another round of discussion. I let them continue, glancing at the timepiece at my waist, smiling blandly. Three hours had passed.
I glanced at the others seated around the table. I stood up.
"Where are you going, Time Dame," croaked Glovinich.
"We are done, Adjunct Glovinich. The meeting is over. I am taking control of the Dominators."
It was amusing watching his mind process that I said. He glanced at the other First Adjuncts, glaring at them. Bedelia fell forward, her skull cracking open as her face hit the table.
"You've poisoned us!"
"Don't' be absurd. The gift of the Glory protects us from such crude dangers." I kicked over the chair on which slumped Zexavich, noting impassively as his chest caved in as he rolled along the floor, his flailing arms breaking in a dozen places.
Underneath the chair was a spider, its bulbous body pulsating with pale blue glow as it struggled helplessly because its eight legs were stapled to the bottom of the seat.
"I'd like to introduce you to one of our useless experiments, comrade. We call it a chronospider. We found at the end of its life it generates a small, localized, but extremely powerful, aeonic field."
Glovinich growled, his lips curling. His hair fell away like strands of dusty webs. His palsied hands shook as they tried but failed to lift him out of his chair.
"We've always been curious how long our lifespans were extended by touching the Glory, especially now that our connection to the Glory has been severed," I said, doing some quick mental calculations. "You've each aged about three thousand years, comrade. Most enlightening."
Thus, we commandered an army of half a million Dominators, stored in stasis chambers within the time lock, to release at our will. However, exploiting the limited cracks in time proved to be unproductive. We could find no point in the cracks of time available to us where Crazen was freed. We could look far into futures where that could become a possibility but those timelines were so distant and beyond us that we could not even guess how to alter the cracks in time to make them actualize.
"Diary of a Time Dame", By Kesisha, the First Dame (Page 5) Eventually, we had to exploit the cracks or wait forever in an endless void, we opened the Wheel and sent out small squads of Dominators to collect information but they were almost always met by the Knights of the Order of Shallah. Somehow they knew where our time entrances would open and had generations to prepare for us. I wanted to release our entire army of Dominators to wipe them out but Goloth Maxyenka felt this would be imprudent.
It became apparent that we would never release the Glory, so we focused on how to cure Maxyenka so he could be freed from the state of timelessness.
"I must be healed," he would say. "I cannot be stuck here forever!"
This new goal produced interesting probability models, showing possible futures where Maxyenka and the Time Dames would dominate the world. Why serve a Soulless God when we could use our armies to take control ourselves! The mortal races would grovel at our feet and we would vanquish the weak gods who appeared in many future scenarios. But the problem was that there were no cracks in time where we could enter these intriguing future timelines.
Eventually, we meddled too much in the time cracks we had available, and we became locked in a forced paradox, frozen beyond time and space. We became observers of eternity as it passed on by, unable to break out into any of the tomorrows. First, Maxyenka's simulacra faded as he became lost in his calcified dreams. The other Time Dames soon followed suit, frozen at their displays, turning as grey as stone.
Perhaps I was grey stone as well, I only know that I watched the view ports into timelessness for what seemed like an eternity. When I saw two stars appear in the timeless void, I had no idea what I was looking at. But as my mind shook off the stupor, I realized that these were two temporal anomalies, creating new cracks in the timeline which we could exploit.
The anomalies turned out not to be stars, but rather two entire cities thrust into the timeless void, locked in some war, awaiting to be slingshot back into the timestream where they would create a series of new time rifts for us to exploit. One was a city of pyramids and the other a city of crystal. The cities were called Gaudiguch and Hallifax.
So here was the entry into the future where the Last Goloth could be cured and the Time Dames would rule the land. Maxyenka needed to wake up and form his simulacra again. I went to the stasis field that held his mummified form. Looking at him, I allowed a brief wave of nostalgia to pass through me. How many millennia now had we been together? We were partnered even before we witnessed the Glory, two scholars researching obscure subjects, back when we were mere mortals. Back when I was his wife.
I shook myself. It was time to wake up and rule the world.
I must say a huge thank you to whoever took the time to sit and write that. When I was reading through it I was utterly gobsmacked at the sheer length and depth to which it went.
Then I realised that was only page one o.O
The divine voice
of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations,
Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Comments
No Diary found.
If you'd like to help us out we'd appreciate it though!
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Bit disappointed that no one gathers everyone together and reads new history aloud to an audience. That was always a high point for me and it was quite exciting watching everyone's reaction and comments after the reading. (Even after the STRONG hint Morkarion got to do that, I guess that just doesn't go over well these days!)
=((
Also I must have missed the hint, this was the vision I got:
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
You also got this when you went back to Glomdoring:
A shadow faeling walks in, glances at you, and says, "In the old days, when new books were found, people would gather others at the Great Library and read it aloud." He then shrugs and departs.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
So the book's not lost! Even if it resets, he's still got his copy.
Yeah, well, it's just that I miss the excitement and buzz when someone calls everyone to the Basin for the first reading. As soon as a copy is made (and posted on the forums *cough*), there's really no big reveal because most people would have already read it.
And, yes, I'm being selfish because it's the only enjoyment I get after writing these things (which takes an inordinately longer time than you may realize where I could be doing other things!).
Well I tried
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Djarrakh the Goloth? That explains things.
Why Crazen didn't act like the other Soulless, and became obsessed with Shanth and the Aslaran? Along with enslaving the krokani instead of eating them? Now we know!
Hallifax and Gaudiguch nearly killed us all. BURN THEM.
And you have to wonder what would happen to player-Krokani if Crazen ever did get out. Or changelings..!
They also apparently have no hope / chance of releasing Crazen himself (so apparently via the Wheel, he seems locked away for good), they were just trying to make the best of life without him.
... and I really, really want access to that Fortress, by the by.
Edit: But I'll try to keep that in mind for the next history-book I get access to; I haven't really attended the 'readings' so I didn't really think of it, but it is a good point. I've almost always just read 'em when they were posted up, so that's what I went to do.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
NARF!
Eventually, we do want such resources to be readily available, either via the in-game public library or via OOC web resources. Either for quick reference, or for just leisure reading. Could even be used as advertisement, but we're getting a little far afield.
At any rate, what I'm trying to say is that the freshness that comes with new reveals and releases are sometimes a good source of mystery for the players. It can certainly frustrate those who do not have as wide a network to tap into, and some other individuals will naturally be left out (those who don't know an event went down, and don't know who to ask about to find out more etc) but as long as the information is not kept locked out of OOC resources indefinitely, I don't see a problem with temporarily restricting access to it outside of the game environment.
And, I got in trouble? No one told me I got in trouble for 'sneaking into Celest'. I walk through it all the time when doing pilgrims. Even shop there sometimes.
Estarra, gotta agree with that. I'm finding it harder and harder to find people willing to talk and instead go to forum rp. With the visions for instance everybody wanted to keep them secret within their orgs but every one was posted here and on Facebook. The only one I got IC confirmation on was my own when somebody sent it to me IG. Thankfully, I got some folks to show me the new area and fill me in on the battles.
And now, I can't work out how to get hold of the new book. I missed whatever readings were done, and I'm not even sure if I can start asking people about it, because IG my character hasn't even been told there's a second book...and she has no real reason to think there is one, as the Time Dames didn't strike her as the type to keep diaries.
"Diary of a Time Dame", By Kesisha, the First Dame (Page 1)
"Time Dame Kesisha," said Goloth Maxyenka to me, striding into the
laboratory, his great eye gleaming with a preternatural emerald glow. "I
await your report."
"The time lock is stable, master," I said easily, letting my confidence
sooth the Goloth.
Before bearing witness to the Glory, Goloth Maxyenka was once a krokani,
as we all were, though back then he was a thin and hunched scholar. Now,
though, he radiated the power of the Glory, his form fleshed out with a
barrel chest and limbs like pillars of stone, dressed in the black
armour and the golden cloak of a Goloth. I noticed the two other Time
Dames, Stepasha and Rusacha, standing at attention in their white metal
coats. They glanced nervously at me, which was unacceptable. As First
Dame, it was up to me to make sure they served the master without the
distraction of emotion. I let them know my displeasure with a hot spear
of thought thrust into their minds, reminding them of their duty to our
master. Time Dame Stepasha swallowed hard, so I raised an eyebrow and
gave her mind a harder twist. Her face slackened and her thoughts became
placid. Better.
I rose up smoothly from the array of spinning globes that I was
adjusting and bowed low to the master. Beneath cropped black hair,
Goloth Maxyenka's burning gaze swept over the cavernous stone chamber
with its high vaulted ceilings and windowless walls. In the center of
the chamber rose the Wheel of the Goloths, so huge it nearly filled the
entire chamber, its spinning rim edged with occasional flashes of
energy. We had spent centuries building and perfecting the Wheel, the
machine that would transcend time itself.
"Time Dame Ludlya is within the time lock, master," I said. "She is
making the final adjustments to the temporal dampeners and setting up
the stasis fields."
"Satisfactory," said Goloth Maxyenka, and I felt his tension ease
somewhat, though his mind still boiled with apprehension, flickering
with the distant presence of the Glory. Turning to Time Dame Stepasha,
he commanded, "What is the probability of the third eventuality."
"Seventy three point three," said Time Dame Stepasha, and then I
understood her prior emotional lapse.
"What!" shouted the Goloth. "It was under fifty percent this morning.
Let me see."
He strode over to the controls and shoved Time Dame Stepasha away. His
long fingers darted over the temporal panels, each touch causing
cascades of probable futures to flicker over their surfaces. I yearned
to help the Goloth, but knew I could not. His great intellect was
endowed with the power of the Glory, beyond anything I could imagine.
Though we all were touched by the Glory, only a few were blessed to be
channels directly into the heart of that awful cosmic beauty. Before the
Glory was revealed to us, back when we were mere krokani scholars
researching dimensional and temporal rifts, Maxyenka was a rare genius.
"Seventy four point one," Goloth Maxyenka said finally, his mouth
twisted in distaste.
"Has the Glory been apprised," I asked lightly, sending soothing
thoughts.
"The Glory knows all I know," he said bitterly.
"Of course," I said. "Forgive my impertinence."
Just then, the Wheel of the Goloths turned, the twisting energies within
flickering with patterns of grey light. Cold mist swirled around the rim
as a figure in white metal robes stepped out. As the mist cleared, Time
Dame Ludlya was revealed, her great eye blinking and red hair .
"Goloth Maxyenka," said Time Dame Ludlya saluting with a fist over her
eye when she saw the Goloth. "The temporal knots are all set. The time
lock is stable. The stasis field is readied, may it never need to be
used."
"Excellent," said Goloth Maxyenka, the storm of emotions within him
calming once more.
We felt the call of the Goloths, a ringing mental command that all who
were touched by the Glory heard. With an effort of will, Maxyenka
smoothed his features and masked his thoughts behind a bland expression
of neutrality. Of course, as his Adjuncts, we did what we could to help
him compose.
"Attend me," he said finally, his voice now smooth and serene.
Pulling his golden cape tight around, he strode confidently out of the
laboratory. With a quick gesture, I beckoned the other Time Dames to
follow me as I trailed several paces behind the Goloth. The laboratory
was in the depths of the Fortress of the Glory, which itself stood in
the Valley of Rumidia. The Fortress was once one of the greatest of the
krokani cities, with thick stone walls reinforced with steel and mystic
runes. Soaring towers and battlements could house a population of almost
a hundred thousand. Beyond the walls were miles of farmlands and smaller
villages. I could barely remember the time when we lived here before
witnessing the Glory, but how foolish to think our city could withstand
the might of the Soulless Gods. How pointless were the armies that had
trained for decades or the research poured into defeating that which
could never be defeated. In mere moments, all the armies and research
and preparation came to nothing as soon as the Glory revealed itself.
Saluting with fist over eye, armored Dominators stood aside as Goloth
Maxyenka strode through the many corridors, up winding stairs, past the
breeding pits and munitions dumps, and the ignoring the doors to other
laboratories Finally, we came to the great bronze doors that led to the
Hall of the Goloths. The Dominators standing guard at the door saluted
as we entered. Within was the long black table that stretched the length
of the enormous hall. Several Goloths were already seated down either
side. At the head of the table presided Goloth Djarrakh, his great eye
blazing like a crimson beacon. He was the oldest of the Goloths, how
many centuries he had lived, thanks to the blessings of the Glory,
probably not even he could remember.
Goloth Maxyenka took his position towards the end of the table. It
gutted me that he no longer sat near the head, but much prominence was
lost in the Disaster at Corinthan. As First Dame, I took my position
directly behind him, just as the other First Adjuncts of the Goloths
stood behind their masters. The other Time Dames sank into the shadows
behind me. Out of the periphery of my eye, I noted which Adjuncts
glanced our way and which pointedly ignored us. So we navigate the
politics of factions within factions.
When the last of the Goloths arrived, the bronze doors swung shut, their
great weight scuffing across the floor. There were about two dozen
Goloths in all, each a conduit of the Glory. Goloth Djarrakh was grim
faced, as he always was. Around his neck were the ears of aslaran rajas
and shahs, the feline race which obsessed him. Before the Glory revealed
itself to him, Djarrakh was a krokani tribal chieftain, long before the
Rumidia Fortress was even built. His dispute with aslaran tribes carried
over even after he was taken by the Glory, and that obsession became
shared by the Glory. I wondered, briefly, if by dominating the krokani,
the Glory of Crazen was somehow in turn dominated by us. It was often
speculated that, as the Soulless God Crazen revealed His Glory to more
and more krokani, we in turn changed his nature. Certainly, it was said
in ages past, he simply fed upon the mortal races like the other
Soulless Gods, but now, through us, he bred mortal flesh to feed upon
and used us as an extension of his power. And so he also shared Goloth
Djarrakh's obsession with the aslaran. It was not an obsession shared by
the other Goloths, certainly not Maxyenka. Could we influence the Glory
of Crazen in other ways? Ah, but that thought was heretical and I pushed
it aside.
The power of the gathered Goloths throbbed around us, and I knew that,
like me, the other First Adjuncts stood behind their masters and exerted
psionic fields to insulate them from the emotional storm that came from
the other Goloths through their channels to the Glory. It was said in
the old days when the Goloths gathered, several had been literally
incinerated from the crossfire of power of so many in close proximity to
each other, not to mention fights that broke out among rivals because
they could not keep their thoughts secure. Shielding my master from this
overcharged maelstrom was draining, and I drew strength from the Time
Dames behind me.
"Today we meet for a Reaping," announced Goloth Djarrakh, standing up
and leaning forward with his fists on the obsidian table. "We have
reports of a krokani settlement in the Plains of Farincorea. As you
know, this territory is claimed by the Soulless God Muud, but as Muud
has disappeared, perhaps even defeated by the Vernal Demons, his
territories are now open to the Glory of Crazen. Once those krokani have
seen the Glory, Goloth Ivanencha will send in a squadron of Dominators
to do the reaping and collect the new subjects. Goloth Anayenta, you
will prepare to receive the new recruits and rank the strength of their
bond to the Glory. I am hoping there will be a significant percentage
that will become Dominators. I understand from Goloth Nurevya that the
breeding pits are at capacity so we will need to consider sending any
particularly weak in the Glory to the feeding troughs. Let us hope there
is not a new Goloth for I do not think there is room for another chair
here."
The Goloths drummed the table and roared approval. Next, conversation
turned to troop movements in the southern hemisphere. Goloth Ludmilla
made reports in her low monotonous voice, and as usual, I had to protect
Maxyenka from the revulsion towards her that emanated from the gathered
Goloths. She was a large, ugly woman of late years, her aged form was
not because she enjoyed many centuries as a result of the increased
lifespan that came with the blessing of the Glory, but rather she was
already old when she was reaped. She was difficult to look at, not
because she was ugly or old, though she was, but because there were
ancient scars under the upper right and lower left corners of her great
eye, the mark of someone who at one time sought the damnation of the
Eyeless, forever curse them. Why she was so strongly chosen by the Glory
was not for anyone, not even the Goloths, to question, though that did
not keep their disgust of her at bay. I glanced at her First Adjunct out
of the corner of my great eye, Alexender, First of the Southern
Conquerors, was almost as ugly has his mistress with grey hair and a
craggy face. Sweat trickled down the side of one brow as he shielded her
from the antagonism of the Goloths.
Then, it was our turn. Goloth Djarrakh turned his blazing red eye onto
my master, whose own eye shone with an emerald light. I felt the Time
Dames behind me send a stream of strength into me, which I in turn used
to support Maxyenka.
"Goloth Maxyenka," said Djarrakh, his gravelly voice soaked in contempt.
"I suppose we must endure your report on this Reaping."
"I urge caution in the Reaping," said Goloth Maxyenka carefully.
"Indeed, I recommend this Reaping be delayed. There is now over a
seventy percent probability that a level five calamity may befall the
Glory ..."
"Caution! Delay!" scoffed Goloth Djarrakh. "We listened to your
recommendations at Corinthan and where did that get us? You claim to
peer into possible futures to help lead the Glory to preeminence but
often as not your advice is flawed."
"I had an excellent record until Corinthan," shot back Goloth Maxyenka,
his anger bubbling up which we had to tamp down. He took a deep breath
and said more levelly, "In any statistical model, there will always be a
some chance that even the smallest probabilities will win out. We can
only recommend based on the highest or likeliest probability"
"To the Void with your math!" shouted Djarrakh. "We may as well flip a
coin as listen to you. We will give your 'recommendation' as much
attention as it deserves.
The hostility now directed at Maxyenka nearly took me to my knees but I
managed to stay upright as I protected him from the worst of it. To his
credit, Maxyenka's roiling emotions were masked behind a calm exterior
as he nodded and leaned back in his chair.
*First Eventuality.* Maxyenka said within the minds of his Time Dames.
*The Goloths have ignored our warnings. Be prepared.*
"Diary of a Time Dame", By Kesisha, the First Dame (Page 2)
Suddenly, each of the Goloths sat upright, the glow in the eye of each
blazing with a new brilliance. As one, they slapped their palms down on
the obsidian table. The presence of the Glory filled the chamber as the
Goloths became one enormous channel to Crazen's will.
The top of the obsidian table shimmered as vague outlines formed and
then slowly focused into fleeting images snatched from the view of one
of the eyes of Crazen. The angle was from on high as Crazen looked down
onto a valley. He must have broken through the crust of the earth atop a
hillside for the perspective was higher than usual. Down in the valley
was a tribe of krokani, several dozen modest buildings, better
constructed than expected, and some surrounding farms. The smell of
krokani filled the air as we shared a portion of Crazen's senses.
Perspectives began to shift, as the village became larger and larger, as
Crazen rolled down the hillside. Stopping just short of rolling over the
entire village, Crazen became still, his eyes roving to catch the
krokani, to let them partake of the Glory.
But nothing happened. Whenever there was a Reaping, we would all feel
the collective power of Crazen grow with each new krokani who joined us
in the Glory. There should have been hundreds of new reapings, but there
was not even one as Crazen towered like a mountain before an entire
village of krokani. Images of specific krokani began to zoom in as
Crazen focused on individuals. They were all Eyeless and thus immune to
the Glory. They were traitors to the heritage for which they were born.
We noted the buildings were also all too new and the individual krokani
were all dressed as warriors. Did they think they actually had a chance
to confront a Soulless God with spears and swords?
Pain lanced through all our minds as Crazen was attacked from behind. We
even heard muffled screams of Dominators from beyond the bronze doors
whose small connection with the Glory was enough to feel the burning
agony. Images upon the table whirled around as Crazen became aware of
what was going on his rear flank. A great host of hulking knights riding
horned beasts had charged down an opposing hillside. We knew them as
followers of the Vernal Demon Shallah. Crazen desired to find her above
all others. But these knights were no true threat. Crazen would be able
to defeat them easily enough. But this was not the sign we were waiting
for. Perhaps the eventualities would not come to pass.
Even if there would be no Reaping, there would at least be a feeding.
Images flashed over the table of the Eyeless succumbing to the lashing
tendrils of Crazen, which pulled them into his flesh to feed upon their
souls. The Knights of the Order of Shallah fared better, though many of
them went down as well. The battle would have ended quickly except that
a lone shining figure appeared on the horizon. The Eyeless and Knights
of the Order of Shallah began to draw back as he appeared.
From our vantage, we saw the eyes of Crazen began refocusing and zooming
in on this figure. It was that of the feline form of an aslaran.
Focusing closer, we could see fur as black as pitch and grey luminous
eyes, dressed in a simple dun colored vest and britches. A nimbus of
power surrounded the figure, the signature of which we all recognized.
It was a Vernal Demon we all knew too well.
"Shanth!" roared Djarrakh, which startled everyone. It was unheard of
that a Goloth could speak during communion with the Glory, but such was
Djarrakh's hatred of Shanth that he could break through even that.
The battles between Goloth Djarrakh and the Vernal Demon Shanth were
legendary, dating back to when Djarrakh first saw the Glory and began
the Reapings. As the population of Dominators began to grow, they also
needed to be fed, and so Goloth Djarrakh began his campaign to enslave
the aslaran race, his fanatical hatred towards them dating back to
before he saw the Glory and had disputes with aslaran tribes. When the
Vernal Demon Shanth appeared, he subverted everything that Djarrakh did,
forcing Djarrakh into tactical retreats. Eventually, he had to divide
his forces again and again so Shanth could not undo everything in one
blow. Only Djarrakh knew how many secret castles and fortresses he had
squirreled away to house the slave pits that provided flesh for the
Dominators and souls for the Glory.
Now, here was the Vernal Demon Shanth within reaching distance of the
Soulless God Crazen. Goloth Djarrakh's hunger to destroy Shanth
permeated the connection with the Glory which became magnified as Crazen
took on the hunger for himself. The Eyeless and Order of Shallah were
forgotten, as Crazen began focusing entirely on Shanth, rolling towards
our nemesis at unimaginable speed.
*Second Eventuality.* sent Maxyenka to us. *A lure appears that cannot
be resisted and hooks the Goloths. Time Dame Stepasha, open the bronze
doors and make preparations.*
Even as the other Goloths were mentally roaring in outrage, Maxyenka
kept a center of calm and rationality with his hands still glued to the
table top. Such was the strength of our master. I felt Stepasha break
the psychic link among us, as she moved away to follow orders.
Crazen carved new chasms in his wake as he rolled across fields and
valleys, leveled hills as he smashed through mountain ranges, and
created new forks in rivers as he tore through waterways. But no matter
how fast Crazen sped, Shanth always managed to stay half a league ahead,
a taunting beacon dangled just within reach. Hours passed as the chase
continued, until finally Crazen had Shanth cornered at the base of a
deep ravine. In triumph, Crazen rolled forward, intent on destroying the
Vernal Demon once and for all.
But then the image of Shanth disappeared from the tabletop. It took a
moment to realize that Crazen was falling, and we felt his rage turn to
confusion then turn to something akin to fear. The Glory was being
sucked down into some kind of funnel of liquid, his tendrils unable to
find purchase in the earth that gave him strength. Looking up, he saw
the Vernal Demon Shanth hovering high above, becoming smaller and
smaller as Crazen dropped further and further down.
"Diary of a Time Dame", By Kesisha, the First Dame (Page 3)
Then such pain I have never known. The screams around me were deafening
as the channel to the Glory was suddenly severed from every Goloth and
every Adjunct and every Dominator. It felt as though I was decapitated
and still able to see but not feel my body. I don't know how long I lay
on the floor but slowly, I got up, the aching numbness reaching deep
into my soul. I could no longer feel a connection to the Glory, though a
small spark of the Glory still remained within me, giving me strength to
continue.
The Goloths had all fallen forward onto the obsidian table. There was an
uncanny silence in the chamber. I was distantly aware that Time Dame
Rusacha and Time Dame Ludlya were helping me to my feet.
Other Adjuncts of the Goloths were also rising, shakily, some even
beginning to sob. It took me a moment to realize the Goloths were not
moving at all. Indeed, they were shriveling up before our eyes. Their
skin was sinking in towards their bones, hair smoldering and shriveling
as though caught on fire.
I knelt beside my master, careful not to damage his quickly desiccating
form. He was whispering over and over, "Third Eventuality. The Glory
falls and the Age of Goloths ends. Stasis Chamber. Stasis Chamber.
Stasis Chamber."
"Help me," I said to the Rusacha and Ludlya. "We must get him to the
Wheel! Immediately!"
The three of us each gently lifted Maxyenka and carried him out of the
chamber, his weight alarmingly light. I noticed some of the other
Adjuncts also conveying their Goloths out of the great hall. Some
Goloths were beyond hope, however, for they were turning to dust in the
hands of their Adjuncts.
As we raced towards our laboratory, the Dominators reeling about in
confusion, though a few trailed us briefly calling out how they could
serve the Goloth. Eventually we were alone as we sped down the lower
levels, eerily empty of anyone. With each step, Maxyenka's body
shriveled a little bit more.
Finally, we reached the laboratory, and thankfully Time Dame Stepasha
had the portal within the Wheel of the Goloths open and the stasis
chamber prepared within the time lock. We hurried in and laid our master
down in the bed prepared months ago when we foresaw this possible
future.
The stasis field enclosed about our master, who was nothing now but a
skeletal husk. His dried and crumbling skin hung like rags wrapped
loosely around brittle bones. His lips were shriveled and drawn back to
reveal tombstone teeth, discolored and cracked. The glow in his great
eye but a bare glimmering ember. We had saved him, but in doing so had
consigned him here in this timeless void between the last two beats of
his heart.
How long we stayed within this pocket outside of time and space was
perhaps meaningless, but it seemed to us at least a year. During that
time, severed from the Glory, Goloth Maxyenka's thoughts raved
endlessly, but eventually his shattered mind began to knit back
together. We rejoiced to find he retained a portion of the Glory within
him, a thrumming seed which we were able to channel through psionic
amplifiers, and which ultimately enabled him to project a psychic
simulacra of himself. He was repulsed by his own decaying body, so we
hid that deep within the timeless void, and he floated among us as a
ghostly presence.
"We must find a way to free the Glory," said Maxyenka, his semblance
pacing back and forth across the chamber.
Being outside time, we could peek at all of history, speeding up to view
the future or slowing down and even reversing to see ages and eras gone
by. The study of time was fascinating, for the future was slightly
altered with each viewing cycle, and we knew this proved the future was
constantly altering, timelines always shifting and recreating
themselves. This was the basis for our study of probable futures but
being outside time itself focused our perception of the temporal stream
beyond imagining.
But this was nothing next to Goloth Maxyenka's greatest discovery. He
found cracks in time. The creation of this lock in the timeless void had
formed cracks in time itself. Not many, and they were scattered outwards
into the near future, but certainly it was enough that we could not only
predict and thus change the future but travel there as well. We would
become like the fabled Weavers of Fate, able to alter the tapestry of
life itself.
But our experiments showed that there were limits to how malleable time
was. We could not travel backwards in time, for this opened into a world
grey and frozen. We could anchor a doorway in a point of time, and
travel forward in that timeline, altering the future from the anchor
point. However, this could only be done once or twice before the anchor
became frozen as a point in the past. Thus, we could make several
attempts to change the future before having to give up and travel
forward to change it more. There were also a limited number of cracks in
the timeline we could exploit, and trying to create new time locks would
not create more cracks. Still, the power this gave us was that beyond
the gods but limited and not inexhaustible. Our first practical
experiment involved the consolidation of the Dominators.
The Time Dames and I stepped out of the Wheel of the Goloths in a point
not six months after the Fall of the Glory. Our laboratory was stripped
bare of equipment and dust had settled in a thick coat over the floor.
We made our way up through the Fortress, noting the Dominators saluting
us and having some semblance of purpose. Even though we were a research
arm of the Glory, we had a small squadron of Dominators under our
control. Time Dame Rusacha went off to inspect which of those Dominators
remained. Time Dame Stepasha and Ludlya went back to the Wheel.
It was in a small meeting chamber that I found the remains of the Goloth
Empire. It consisted of three of the First Adjuncts of the Goloths and a
smattering of lesser adjuncts. The leader seemed improbably to be First
Purveyor Glovinich, the First Adjunct Goloth Ludmilla. With him were
First Breeder Zexavich and First Slayer Bedelia. From what I gathered,
most of the areas they controlled collapsed after the Fall of Crazen.
What Dominators could made the journey here to the Fortress. They were
expecting a siege eventually from an army forming in the neighboring
region to the southwest. Unless they had support from the Vernal Demons,
it was unlikely they would be much threat from the trained and still
highly disciplined Dominators. My first meeting with Glovinich was at
least somewhat polite.
"Time Dame Kesisha, said Glovinich when he saw me striding towards him,
"we have not seen you since the Fall of the Glory. You come to help?"
"How many Goloths survived?" I asked
"Goloths!" he laughed, then frowned and peered at me. "Where have you
been? Surely you know that there are no more Goloths. It is the Age of
the Adjuncts of the Goloths!"
"Goloth Maxyenka lives," I said, which shut him up and caused several
Dominators nearby to stop what they were doing and lean forward.
"What?" said Glovinich. "Where is this Goloth?"
"He is gravely wounded. I cannot reveal his location, for reasons I
would think are obvious even to you."
"Then take me to him," he said, narrowing his eyes at me.
"That would not be possible at this time."
"How convenient for you," said Glovinich, then seemed to relax. "We
cannot sense this mysterious Goloth of yours. You say he cannot come
here and you cannot take me to him. Why exactly are you here, Kesisha?"
"To take control of the Dominators," I said with a smile. "If Goloth
Maxyenka is the last Goloth, then all should submit to him."
"Perhaps," he said. "Though he would need a new First Adjunct, I would
think. Leading the Dominators needs someone who knows how to command the
legions. How many legions have you commanded, Kesisha? Oh, I forgot, you
were in research."
"I am Goloth Maxyenka's First Adjunct," I said coldly. "But what you say
makes somewhat sense. I will take counsel with the Goloth."
After saluting each other, I left Glovinich to check on Time Dame
Rusacha. I found her back in the laboratory with two Dominators at
attention before her.
"How many Dominators do we have?" I asked.
"Two dozen," she answered. "These two were the highest ranked so I have
introduced them to Goloth Maxyenka. They were very eager to serve a
Goloth."
"The Last Goloth," I said with emphasis for their benefit. Two dozen
Dominators? So few.
"You may be interested in the total number of Dominators that have
gathered here," said Rusacha.
"How many?
"Over five hundred thousand."
"Five hundred thousand." I said. The numbering was staggering. "How do
they keep them fed? Will they be ours."
"I think food will probably become a problem soon. The feeding troughs
are reported to be running low," said Rusacha. "However, I am not sure
they will be ours. They have to actually enter the time lock to sense
Maxyenka and getting 500,000 through could be somewhat of a logistical
issue."
"Once in, we could put them in stasis so food would not be an issue.
Certainly, the space they take up wouldn't matter in the timeless void."
"Will they follow us?"
"There are three other Adjuncts. Without their own Goloths, they have
their own agendas and, without the Glory to guide them, their loyalty to
Maxyenka would be questionable."
"I take it you want to get advice from our master and perhaps model a
few probability cycles."
"Diary of a Time Dame", By Kesisha, the First Dame (Page 4)
In a few days, we prepared the Hall of the Goloths for a meeting with
the First Adjuncts. It was cleared of all debris, cleaned until it
sparkled. Goblets laid out for wine. Of course, it would be sparsely
attended , with only four of the First Adjuncts to be seated, myself
included. The other three adjuncts had brought small squads of
Dominators loyal to them. They agreed that the Dominators would wait
outside while we met. As predicted, they had never returned to the Great
Hall where their masters had died and were both nervous to return and
awed to be seated as masters themselves.
"Please sit down, comrades," I said as they milled about.
Glovinich was the first to sit, taking Djarrakh's front chair as though
he were leading the meeting. Zexavich and Bedelia sat where their own
Goloths had sat, looking wistful. They began talking of troop movements,
sightings of Vernal Demons, the slave pits and feeding troughs. I let
them drone on and on, glancing at the timepiece I carried on a chain
around my waste. Just as the conversation was winding down, I stood up.
"All these plans are well and good, but wouldn't our priority be to
release the Glory?"
This took another round of discussion. I let them continue, glancing at
the timepiece at my waist, smiling blandly. Three hours had passed.
I glanced at the others seated around the table. I stood up.
"Where are you going, Time Dame," croaked Glovinich.
"We are done, Adjunct Glovinich. The meeting is over. I am taking
control of the Dominators."
It was amusing watching his mind process that I said. He glanced at the
other First Adjuncts, glaring at them. Bedelia fell forward, her skull
cracking open as her face hit the table.
"You've poisoned us!"
"Don't' be absurd. The gift of the Glory protects us from such crude
dangers." I kicked over the chair on which slumped Zexavich, noting
impassively as his chest caved in as he rolled along the floor, his
flailing arms breaking in a dozen places.
Underneath the chair was a spider, its bulbous body pulsating with pale
blue glow as it struggled helplessly because its eight legs were stapled
to the bottom of the seat.
"I'd like to introduce you to one of our useless experiments, comrade.
We call it a chronospider. We found at the end of its life it generates
a small, localized, but extremely powerful, aeonic field."
Glovinich growled, his lips curling. His hair fell away like strands of
dusty webs. His palsied hands shook as they tried but failed to lift him
out of his chair.
"We've always been curious how long our lifespans were extended by
touching the Glory, especially now that our connection to the Glory has
been severed," I said, doing some quick mental calculations. "You've
each aged about three thousand years, comrade. Most enlightening."
Thus, we commandered an army of half a million Dominators, stored in
stasis chambers within the time lock, to release at our will. However,
exploiting the limited cracks in time proved to be unproductive. We
could find no point in the cracks of time available to us where Crazen
was freed. We could look far into futures where that could become a
possibility but those timelines were so distant and beyond us that we
could not even guess how to alter the cracks in time to make them
actualize.
"Diary of a Time Dame", By Kesisha, the First Dame (Page 5)
Eventually, we had to exploit the cracks or wait forever in an endless
void, we opened the Wheel and sent out small squads of Dominators to
collect information but they were almost always met by the Knights of
the Order of Shallah. Somehow they knew where our time entrances would
open and had generations to prepare for us. I wanted to release our
entire army of Dominators to wipe them out but Goloth Maxyenka felt this
would be imprudent.
It became apparent that we would never release the Glory, so we focused
on how to cure Maxyenka so he could be freed from the state of
timelessness.
"I must be healed," he would say. "I cannot be stuck here forever!"
This new goal produced interesting probability models, showing possible
futures where Maxyenka and the Time Dames would dominate the world. Why
serve a Soulless God when we could use our armies to take control
ourselves! The mortal races would grovel at our feet and we would
vanquish the weak gods who appeared in many future scenarios. But the
problem was that there were no cracks in time where we could enter these
intriguing future timelines.
Eventually, we meddled too much in the time cracks we had available, and
we became locked in a forced paradox, frozen beyond time and space. We
became observers of eternity as it passed on by, unable to break out
into any of the tomorrows. First, Maxyenka's simulacra faded as he
became lost in his calcified dreams. The other Time Dames soon followed
suit, frozen at their displays, turning as grey as stone.
Perhaps I was grey stone as well, I only know that I watched the view
ports into timelessness for what seemed like an eternity. When I saw two
stars appear in the timeless void, I had no idea what I was looking at.
But as my mind shook off the stupor, I realized that these were two
temporal anomalies, creating new cracks in the timeline which we could
exploit.
The anomalies turned out not to be stars, but rather two entire cities
thrust into the timeless void, locked in some war, awaiting to be
slingshot back into the timestream where they would create a series of
new time rifts for us to exploit. One was a city of pyramids and the
other a city of crystal. The cities were called Gaudiguch and Hallifax.
So here was the entry into the future where the Last Goloth could be
cured and the Time Dames would rule the land. Maxyenka needed to wake up
and form his simulacra again. I went to the stasis field that held his
mummified form. Looking at him, I allowed a brief wave of nostalgia to
pass through me. How many millennia now had we been together? We were
partnered even before we witnessed the Glory, two scholars researching
obscure subjects, back when we were mere mortals. Back when I was his
wife.
I shook myself. It was time to wake up and rule the world.
Then I realised that was only page one o.O
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!