I’m not at all sure outer gods are smart, wise, or rational in the way you and I would think of those attributes. In fact, they strike me more as cunning animals than anything else.
— Excerpt from Notes For Newstar
Day 35255 1:35 PM
Point stumbled from the sky again, and for some reason I enjoyed making the prego gag more than I should have. The thought of making it real somehow made the entire con funnier.
“I won’t be going with you this time,” Point said. “You have further to travel, and I don’t think I want to see Maelstrom dead after talking with her for two days.”
I nodded. “That’s reasonable. Do you want to discuss anything or do anything that won’t have any real, lasting consequences? Something even you won’t remember, but I will?”
She just gave me a flat look. “No. What I want to do is go through everything you know about meditation, realm sculpting, spell seals, and everything else that might be relevant for my future. Then, before you leave for the Explorer’s Gate group, I’ll give you an hour-long summary I will want to hear. That way, we’re not wasting time.”
It wasn’t a bad idea, and in part it helped with what I confessed to Point was my biggest problem with looping - the conversations and emotions that are going to disappear. Those only I would remember.
This way, we’ll be able to have a more genuine exchange in the last loop. One I could only hope she would survive.
“It’s a great idea. Do you want to start now, or tonight, after we make camp?”
And so, days passed in purely professional exchanges, Point showing all the reasons I had grown to love her.
Limited time together really does wonders for your love life, I thought as I left the Swordpeak camp and went to arrange things with Newstar. A lump I couldn’t swallow choked me, but there was nothing I could do. Death was inevitable, and the feelings I had for those I would leave behind by far outweighed my fear of a death spiral.
Behind me, a red flare sprang to life; before me, the Explorer’s Gate group was breaking camp.
“Get ready for battle!” their leader shouted, but he was too late; the cultists were already upon them.
They burst out of the canopy to the north, flying forth without sparing mana, to finish off their enemies as quickly as possible. Unlike with the other groups, the cultists didn’t outnumber Newstar’s group exactly two to one.
They have eight exemplars, against the three the Explorer’s Gate has. I thought sitting in ambush when I realized why. They think Newstar’s at the seventh realm?
That kind of offended me. Why didn’t they mistake me for an exemplar?
I watched them clash and then took my chance. For the third time, I teamed up with a different force to slaughter the cultists, and soon enough, the only ones still standing were the good guys.
“What are you doing here? What of the Swordpeaks?” the expedition leader asked.
“I warned them and scribed some defensive spell seals on their behalf. They were prepared, and they should still be alive. Otherwise, they are dead, sacrificed so that the cultists can summon their dark god.” I said, as if delivering a market report, and a part of me enjoyed their terrified expressions.
Point was right, I do take too much pleasure in shocking people.
“They what?” the expedition leader stuttered, and I tried not to sigh at the predictable conversation.
“They are summoning an outer god, a being from beyond this reality, by using people as sacrifices. Turns out that’s what they have been doing all these years, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. At least that’s what the cultist I tortured told me while screaming how the victory was theirs and how they would reclaim their rightful place. Crazy fuckers.”
A few jaws dropped at that, but I kept going.
“I would retreat if I were you. You have completed your mission as bait, and the rest of the imperial forces will soon attack the cultists. Unfortunately, they will be too late to stop them from performing their rituals.” I turned to Newstar. “Newstar, we need to talk about something. You remember that time when my brother got you drunk and talked you into stabbing me dead? Yeah, we need to talk about that.”
A dozen confused gazes shifted from me and landed on Newstar. He stared at me in confusion, then nodded and followed me a bit away from the others.
While the others were busy shouting and packing, I drew a privacy screen.
“What does it have—?” he started, but we didn’t really have that much time.
“It wasn’t a dream, Newstar. You killed me, ran me through with that silly sword of yours, hurt like a bitch, but you don’t know what a bitch is, now do you?”
He paled and stared at me with clenched fists, knuckles so taut they turned white.
“I don’t mind,” I said with a reassuring smile. “I’m close to immortal, closer than exalts, really, but in a different way. You see, when I die, I explode, and I go back in time two weeks, with all the knowledge of what will happen. That’s how I found you back when your order suffered the cultist attack. Searched half the border before we found you. But there’s a problem. The outer gods I mentioned just now know that time was turned back. Worse, they see a whole lot more than two weeks—”
“Wait. Stop. What are you talking about?”
I stared at him briefly, my mind working together timelines. He knew in my past. He fought them in my past, but for him it was a future, and just because he would one day face them didn’t mean he understood what I was saying.
“Yeah,” I chuckled, “it must seem like nonsense to you. I’m not crazy, well, I’m not lying at least, and I ask that you trust me. I have everything written down for your benefit, but what you have to know is that the next two days we spend together won’t happen. Not really. You will benefit from them, you will remember everything that has happened, but in two days’ time you and I, we’re going back in time two weeks, and you have to do everything the same as you did this time round. You can’t warn anyone, because that would change what the cultists do, and that might make things worse.”
I ran him through the conscientious time-traveler one-o-one slowly, like a child. Despite doing everything in my power to keep things simple, he drifted away almost immediately.
“Focus,” I barked. “You can reminisce once the two weeks start over. Now, in two hours or so, the sun will dim, and something will come through the void and into this world. You’ll believe me then. Now, we have much to talk about, and only two days to go through it all…”
I was losing him, and I stopped with the theory and time travel, and I just explained who I was, how I got where I was. Everything, really, save for the vision I had of him and of the battle for the world’s future. I feared telling him might change the events.
I didn’t get to tell him everything in detail when I checked Redo’s timer.
It’s time.
I dropped the privacy screen and called for attention.
“Come, everyone, you want to see this!” I flew into the canopy. If hiding didn’t help and the hag could find me easily, I could watch the show.
With a creeping feeling of dread, the golden crack appeared in the sky once more.
“She will need two days to reach us,” I said, giving her the finger. Nobody noticed; they were too focused on the rift.
A giant eye looked through it, scanning the world in an attempt to find me. She found me near immediately, focusing on me and glaring with malice and anger. She was getting tired of my little tricks, and that was good. The angrier she was, the more prone to mistakes she should be.
“That’s the second time I’m seeing that,” I said to the group.
“When was the first?” the Explorer’s Gate’s expedition leader asked, but I ignored him.
“It opened somewhere towards the empire, close to the border. She knows her prey is with the force the cultists have failed to sacrifice.” I looked at the expedition leader, lying without him being able to catch me in it. “I suggest you split up and scatter. They will probably hunt you down if you stay together, but if you disperse, some of you should survive long enough to meet up with the reinforcements.”
I turned towards my not-so-young friend.
“Newstar, whichever group you join, they are dead meat, so you’re staying with me.”
“What are you—” the expedition leader tried to protest, but I shut him up with a glare before looking at Newstar with warmth. “Please trust me. There’s a lot at stake, and we don’t have much time. She’s already hounding me.”
He looked at me, then at his friends.
“Please do as he says, Lord Darksong. I’m certain Dandelion means us no harm.”