Applying Exotic Metaphysics (Return, 18.6)

I’d been wrong, from the very start.

I thought I was some kind of special badass, a human from earth. I’d gotten sick. My body was based off a wholly different kind of alchemy -a magicless chemistry-  and I’d gone on a quest to fix it.

But now, with all the changes I’d been through, after all the reality-warping shit I’d shoved myself into… Was that still true? Was I still me?

Was I ever?

Did I just emerge from the Eye of Lyg, fully-formed, after Jsashe woke it up? Did the Hist, Manatsoni, forge me with a history already-brewed?

When had the world- the Godhead- dreamed me up?

At the thought, my form wavered at the edges. I flickered. I ceased to be for a moment- and Lyg dragged me back again.

I barely had enough time to bring Shadowrend between me and another powdery-white blade. I thrust it out, barely comprehending what shape the weapon was in.

Another moon-demon crashed back, its arms and legs dissolving into white powder and bone as it did. Another of the tall, lanky creatures reached for me. I beheaded it as well.

Kill, and kill again.

The sand continued to clump together. The ancient, half-rotten bones continued to get up. I continued to smack it down.

The Grove of Reflection couldn’t show me my shadows. It couldn’t show me a copy of me, because I was every copy of me.

So it showed me something I’d never been- something I could never be. Dagoth. Maria Dagoth.  It made her real, and somehow, I’d lost.

A talon ripped through more moon-demon, white ash and powder drifting free.

I was tugging at the weight of my power, my stolen legacy filled me like a wineskin. I was bursting at the seams. There was too much of me. Too much of Maria in the world.

“Dyus, you asshole.” He’d promised I’d learn something from this. And instead the fucker lured me into Zero-Sum.

Again, the moon-demons raised themselves out of the sand and ash, out of the bone of what was once Lorkhan’s Body. All of them, at once. Readying themselves for a fight. A battle for the ages. More and more piling up behind them. An enormous semicircle. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands.

An army.

I could raise my own. Shadowrend twisted in my grip. New, infused with whatever Dagoth had happened to me. It could become more things. It could become anything. Bodies, for those left in Lyg, those inside of me. It could become an army. I could wage war, all by myself.

But I was starting to think I was done fighting.

I was tired of it. I didn’t want to fight anymore. I never wanted to fight in the first place.

I didn’t need to fight anymore.

I took a breath.

The other Maria- the Dagoth-Me- had been able to use Shadowrend to create anything. Even something that should have been Forgotten. If that’s so… I should be able to as well.

Shadowrend twisted. It expanded. A sphere- a perfect globe. An orrery from the outside, through which four points of lights burned.
Shadowrend as The Serpent hissed. Spread its touch.

One after the other, the moon-demons began to fall. Paralyzed, poisoned… something in-between. Tired. Just as tired as I was.

An identical constellation rolled along my shoulder, the effect washing off of me.

It was the Serpent eating the Shadow. It always had been. A mark to myself that I would always be who I was. That I’d never lose myself.

With a start, I realized.

The Jill wouldn’t give me that if they were putting me in the world retroactively. It would have been cruel… and I’m not sure they could have. I’d carved into myself the memories of being who I was. Even before Manatsoni. Memories from sitting out in Tel Fyr, looking out at the Black Marsh. Mooning over the Rift, the beauty of the Ghostgate and Dagoth Ur. The crystallization of my determination not to give up. Not to die.

I was still me. I’d been me.

I looked out, at the beauty of the moon for a moment. Down at Tamriel. At Sedna, which looked so close that it seemed like it would fall at any moment.

If Dagoth-Maria was right, if I could zero myself out, which I almost had…

Then didn’t that mean I could do something else?

I could just… reach out, and…

“But it isn’t quite time yet, is it?” Someone asked.

No. It wasn’t time. I had other things to do.

In fact, if Shadowrend was more complete now, more powerful… I wouldn’t have to wait.

I opened a Shiftgate, back to Tamriel, and stepped through. 

I barely spent a second in Tamriel before I took another step- this time, back to the Shivering Isles.

***

The obelisk of Order wasn’t anything special. The priest- one of Mania’s populace, hiding behind a mask that made it impossible to see their face or expression- stood by, fist clenched and ready to attack should I do anything untoward. 

The knights stood in place, soulless puppets that reminded me more of the moon-demons than anything else. Like someone had ripped out the part of their souls that stored the daedric animus, and replaced it with something else- a list of instructions, perhaps.

Shadowrend twisted in my grasp, a sphere of darkness hovering over my open palm. I wasn’t even holding it anymore. I wasn’t sure I had to. Our shadows were touching, so we were touching.

“Jyggalag,” I hissed.

The obelisk started to quiver. I could feel a pulse of something cold. Something certain, something determined. Something orderly.

I took that feeling, and funneled it through, into Shadowrend. It twisted, contorted- and became the Sword of Jyggalag.

From there… The Daedric Prince’s shadow stepped out of the obelisk. I could only just see his helmet, his form. But I could hear his voice.

“Sheogorath lives, and yet I walk.” His voice comes out slowly. 

Simultaneously, all of the knights- and the priestess- fall to their knees like puppets with their strings cut, bowing their heads.

“But I do not walk,” He says, a moment later. His shadow’s head tilts.

“Not yet,” I responded.  “This is-”

“A mere transient reflection of the entity I am due to be,” Jyggalag says. “Utilizing the nature of my own stability to allow this falsehood to persist.”

“Yes,” I said. “... Do you know what Sheogorath is attempting?”

“Sheogorath attempts a madgod’s fusion of the Enantiomorphic Concept trying to cast himself in all three roles, a clumsy rendition of Identity Mantling, and other Mysteries which are too minor to speak of,” Jyggalag says. “You are a thing of interest, godling, because you have not been predicted.”

“That’s your way of asking why I’m here?”

“Yes.”

“Dyus of Mysteria once told me that you have no such thing as choice. That as powerful and mighty as you are, you’re limited to doing only precisely the exact optimal goal for achieving your goal.”

“Yes.”

“He also said that your goal goes beyond mere Royalty.”

There’s a pause.

A long delay. Exactly ten seconds.

“... Yes.”

“Right, then.” I said. “Why did you choose Amaranth to begin with?”

“That is the purpose of the universe, as you know.” Jyggalag boomed. “I simply follow that purpose.”

This was like pulling teeth. Jyggalag had wants, I was sure. He had needs and desires. He just couldn’t show them. Couldn’t let them surface.

“I’m going to give you a choice.”

“You cannot. Even you lack the power.”

“Consider the following as a… fictional, hypothetical situation,” I said, slowly. That should be enough for him. “The results of Sheogorath’s attempts will result in something impossible. Something you may be fundamentally unable to believe, because it cannot be predicted.”

“I understand and interpret your falsehood,” he says, though I can tell there’s a bit of a tremble there, a struggle. The sword is shaking in the air, slightly. He’s struggling not to dismiss it out of hand. “Continue.”

“This fictional situation diverges. Option one. Another entity takes on the name and mantle of Sheogorath, leaving Jyggalag free from the curse of madness, but banishing him from the Shivering Isles. Jyggalag leaves, to another plane of Oblivion, and continues to be a being of pure order. He will never change again. He will never be altered. He will remain perfect in perpetuity, until the end of all things.”

“That is the option this falsehood with my namesake would take.”

“I’m not done. In the other option, Sheogorath’s plan fails. The greymarch comes. The Isles are destroyed. But in time, the madness returns. Sheogorath surfaces to the forefront of Jyggalag’s mind, and the cycle continues”

“That is not the preferred option.”

“What if, in this falsehood, it’s the only way to reach Amaranth?”

There’s a distinct clink as the fists of each of the Order Knights’s gauntlets, simultaneously, clench.

“The falsehood with my namesake… would be unable to take that option.”

“Because it means y- he would stop being perfect.”

“Yes.”

“Even if that means violating what you called ‘the purpose of the universe?’”

“Yes.”

“... Fine, then.” I said. I started to smile. “What about a third option?”

“Indicate the parameters of this third option.”

“Through completely unknown and impossible mysteries, Jyggalag finds that the madgod’s scheme has stripped him of all daedric power. Leaving him as a mere mortal. One of the races of man, let’s suppose, but with the memories and mental capacity he once retained.”

“This mortal variant would go immediately mad. The false Jyggalag would not pick this option either.”

“Also, due to a ‘curse’ from Sheogorath, he is prevented from going mad,” I continued, thinking quickly. “Someone this mortal Jyggalag has no reason to disobey asks him a simple question- what did Jyggalag want? What was his real goal, the one hidden beneath his nature?”

“Th-the purpose of-” Jyggalag started. The shadow trembled, and he trailed off. I was close.

“What would the mortal respond? With his so-called free will, with a miracle that made the impossible possible, what would he say?”

“He would say that he wanted to know how it felt. To be mortal. To be mad. To be flawed. He wanted to understand.” The daedra said- and for the first time, there’s an inkling of emotion there. Sorrow.. “Why did Shezarr sacrifice itself for this thing called Mundus? This thing called Mortality? We just wanted to know.”

The sword shuddered again. I reached out and grabbed it by the hilt.

“Alright,” I said. “I’ve just tricked you.”

“You have not.”

“I tricked you into making a choice.” I popped my neck, and pulled the sword out of the altar. “Option two it is.”