More Time

[death_gone_mad]

[ooc: Immediately after leaving Milliways to face its impending doom]
Home again, again, jiggity-jig.

With a swift kick, the pile of ashes that was the scarabite who saw too much is no longer a nice pile. It is just one more bit of choking pollution in the caves below Pollnivneach. ███████, the owner of the boot doing the kicking is only able to walk a few steps before a sudden increase in magical pressure from behind her knocks her down. The stolen goods spill out from the bag she carried in from Milliways.

"WHO DARES? WHO IS SO FOOLISH?" she yells out as she recovers, quickly turning around to roast her assailant.

She says it to an empty room. There is no one there to turn to ashes, no one there that could have knocked her down.

Except for herself.

She turns back to the bag and the contents that have escaped, sensing something wrong.

The devices. They are active. They weren't doing anything when she created them and had stayed quiet until now. Now they are anything but quiet. What spell is this? Like the devices she created and scattered about the grounds of Milliways, these were pumping out magic. But what kind? It was familiar in the details, but so foreign in the ... These things aren't alive, how can this be a spell? Sure, their creation required really rare elemental ore. But.

It is too loud. Someone will hear. Someone should have heard. The others, they will hear. And they will know

"They can't know, not yet, not this way," not while the apocalypse can still be averted. The wildly changing magic fields are making it hard to focus. She tries forming a fire spell, but it fizzles. Again she tries, but instead of a fireball forming between her hands, a mudball forms before her eyes and falls to the ground with a SPLAT.

Then, silence. Not only did the devices stop doing whatever they were doing; they also ... stopped existing. Everything else that was in the bag stopped existing as well.

The bag itself flickers in and out of reality. ███████ only has an opportunity to give the bag a quizzical look before it decides to stop existing as well.

Go home. There is more time there.

Then three great beasts appear. Monstrous gorillas, each wearing face mask representing the gift of the goddess ███████ stole to create each beast. The Blue Ear speaks first. "Mistress, what was that noise? Reality was screaming."

"It was singing, Eruni," says the Green Eye, "but how confusing the sight."

"It was heresy, Ayuni," say the Red Lips who had been watching her mistress while the others spoke. "But not as loud as the Word, and not as clear as the Truth. Mistress, whatever it was, it has been hidden from the other gods. No heresy can be louder than what I proclaim."

"Thank you for thinking ahead, Leeuni," says ███████. "I am not too sure it was heresy, though. It was something, though, that would have alerted the others."

"Is that not our goal? To alarm, to alert, to rouse to war?" asks Eruni, "If I have heard, and Ayuni has seen, they know, despite your bellowing, Leeuni."

"What you heard and saw was my bellowing," Leeuni answers curtly.

"Stop," commands ███████. "Indeed, we want to stir the gods to war, but not one united against me. It wouldn't be a war, even if Bandos got involved. Such a thing could finally convince him that he can't just breed an army and send them to die. It wouldn't be a war. Who do I have? You three? A few bugs I have misled?"

"Misled? You are showing them the true path," says Leeuni.

"You know what I am to the other gods? Minor. My whole family, minor. My father's stupid pets, even more so." ███████ looks down. "Who am I? Forgotten, nameless." ███████. That is her name. ███████. The name her father gave her when he still loved her. ███████. "It would not be a war. It would be a little nondescript box they would put me in until they where ready to destroy the world. Until they where ready to destroy themselves. Until they see no good in the world."

"Until they have their eyes opened," says Ayuni.

"The universe will be cold and my prison will be out of the reach of their frozen limbs by that time. What waste, so much effort to keep the warmth of the universe from consuming the universe. May their cold tears tear into their faces, if it comes to pass, while the only remaining fire in existence drifts beyond their reach."

███████ lifts her eyes. It is the hope of the gods that would keep her imprisoned, it would be their hope that would condemn the universe to cold, indifferent loneliness. But she has more than hope, she has seen the end of the universe. The fire is not imprisoned. The fire warms, consumes, and shows what mercy truly is. In the end, not everyone dies alone. The fire unites. They die together, fighting the end. United.

She stretches a hand to the machinery that has gained her entrance to Milliways so far. It rumbles, but does not awake. A second try, and the machine stirs, protests, and falls back asleep.

"The universe has been released from its prison, and has fallen to the mercy of the fire," she says with a smirk. "The end of the universe has ended."