Applying Exotic Metaphysics (War, 17.1)

I walked.

The Hist, now, were gearing up for a fight in the future. Even now, the dreamsleeve was screaming. Encoded, hidden messages. Argonians being called back, new Warspores being dredged up from dreams, assembled in realms of Oblivion that not even Divayth had discovered. Memospores richocheted through time, weaving through the holes the hist had burrowed themselves into. Echoes from the future- a future where the Battlespire ruled on high. Where a war was happening, from their perspectives. Where Imperial soldiers, under Emperor Martin’s command, fought. Where Jyggalag had conquered the Shivering Isles, and his knights fought for the Empire- for a glorious, shining order.

It was a shadow war. One that I was, still now, pushing forward. With most of my magicka. All of my potentia. Pushing that possibility forward, They thought I was sitting at the top of the Battlespire, some dark sorceress sitting in her throne. I pushed forward an artificial future. One I’d tricked them into believing- that I’d attack one Hist, then the next, so on, into infinity. Shadowrend sat in my throne, held my tools, my weapons- held my shape. Sessalan stood at her side, commanding the war that wasn’t happening.

But I wasn’t there. I was walking. The water below me barely rippled, its tension enough to hold me up even without a waterwalking spell.

My shadow wasn’t with me. My body no longer blocked the sun’s light, even as it peeked through the trees. The slaughterfish, the fleshflies, the rootworms. Kaernyk Beasts couldn’t smell me. The tsaesci-bred water-hounds lapped at my feet, but passed by. Even the dead crawlers- the undead, crab-like servants of Thras- passed me by without noticing.

The present, meanwhile, was still peaceful. For the most part. The Battlespire still loomed over everburning Gideon. Sendrasa was gathering Hist Sap. Everything I needed was in place.

Almost.

Almost everything.

I was an echo. I was invisible. I was the queen of Lyg, and I stepped on the backs of the never-was. The dragonlings, the centaurs, the dreugh. If the gem on my brow could cast light, it would be gleaming blue. But I was invisible- intangible. Impossible.

It was a clearing, now. A familiar place. Rocks lay scattered among the swamp, all flattened and held in place. Bugs and squirming things lived in the ruins of a long-burned house.

Beasts stood before me. A line. Long-overgrown creatures with scintillating red huge creatures with enormous jaws and strong, powerful tails stood before me.

Their eyes locked onto mine. The only creatures to see me, when I was like this.

“Hey, little ones,” I said.

The one in lead- the alpha, the one whose teeth had once grabbed me by the leg- blinked, recognized me, and its mouth lolled open as I patted its snout.

Long, long ago, they’d fished me out of the swamp. They’d dragged me to their mother.

I walked. Past the lizards. Past the house.

Instead, I stopped at the stump of a tree. An ancient one. Charred black by fire, the Black Marsh had tried to reclaim it. Vines and new trees had tried covering it over. Moss had tried growing on the sides.

But I saw the marks of teeth, stripping them away. Sharpened claw snapping off new vines.

The little ones- Tsoka-Haj’s children- had been protecting it.

I looked down, into the hole I’d slept years away in. Beneath Mawaleel’s roots.

Where I’d died, where I’d rotted away, become reborn- become something new…

Inside was a clutch of eggs. A nesting Ancestor Lizard, fat and round, looked up at me.

Her scales were just as red as mine, and she could see me too.

I just knew it was here. As soon as I realized what I would need to find, I knew where it would be. Like she’d hidden it away, alongside the cultural memories, alongside the language of the Jel.

She never told me about it. She never knew where I’d go. That was the entire point. To violate the future, to become something that was impossible.

I couldn’t explain how I knew it was here. It couldn’t have been fate, or predestiny.

It wasn’t a future I’d seen. It was hidden from all possibility.

It had been lost, long ago, since the days of Cyrus. Since he’d stolen it from a set of ancient ruins, mere miles from here.

Cyrus the Restless, the Hoon-ding, had fled across the world for years after its theft. And ironically, of all things, the person to buy it from him put it right back here.

Mawaleel had bought it from him. And she put it here. Not because she thought I’d ever find it, that I’d ever progress far enough to need it.

She put it here because she hoped.

I stuck my fist into the muck, next to the eggs. Inside was an ebony egg. Old ebony. The type that had been liquid, flowing through Dagoth Ur when the world was new.

Under my touch, It cracked like it was paper-mache.

Inside, the Eye of Argonia glinted back at me.

=====

“We know you, now, Daedra Lord Manatsoni.” Came a booming voice. I glanced up, climbing out of the muck.

There was a virulent, purple barrier surrounding the clearing. A dome. A powerful shield, in fact, stuffed with so much illusion magic that it had hidden even from my perception.

Wizards. Mostly altmer. Some dunmer. A few men, mostly Bretons. None of their feet touched the ground.

While most of them were on the outside, there were four of the wizards inside the shield. Probably to prevent me from just smashing through.

They were wearing the yellow-white of Psijic robes. All of them but the man in front. He wore a starry cap. On his thick, woolen cloak, he wore three badges, just like me. Archmage. College of Winterhold. Psijic Order.

Thelen Kaarn.

“So you joined the Order, Archmage?” I asked.

He didn’t respond. A fight against him would have been a struggle, back before I’d found the Eye. Nothing, now

“Her spheres are Impossibility, Positive Emotion, and Magic.” He said. “Quarain, Ancano, Eleshin. You know what to do.”

Behind him, three of the Psijics began to cast, drawing glyphs in the air. Binding spells, warding ones.

“I’m not a daedra,” I said, but they ignored me. Instead, Kaarn’s eyes- too bright, too blue- glared straight into me.

I thrust a palm out, a telekinetic blast toward the Psijics. Kaarn slammed his staff against the ground. The waters of the Black Marsh began to shudder and shake, around him- and before my blast did anything, his staff absorbed the magicka, ripping it out of my hand. The asshole was holding the Staff of Magnus, and behind him, one of the psijics had a magic-resistant ward up.

Then I glanced behind him- at the altmer, one drawing a glyph in the air- a ritualistic counterfactual imprint of the essence of Denial, implanting the effect into the shield.

I recognized him. Not from the real world… but from the game. Skyrim. He’d been working for the Thalmor.

Guess I knew who’d been turning the Psijics against me, then.

“Fine.” I snapped. I reached toward my shadow, to draw a magic item- and my fingers snagged against space.

My fingers snagged against space, the shadowpocket barely shivering open, my Sea of Maybe trying to open- and failing.

The Psijics had finished casting a ward against Impossibility. Tweaked, in fact. Altered- designed to work against shadow magic.

I could just pour more energy into it, enough to break through… But at the same time, I couldn’t. I could just smash through- I could just destroy them. But that would break the image. Break the future. The Hist would know what I was doing.

“Fuck. Get me while I was weak, huh?” I asked.

“No responses. Give her no ground to appeal to emotion.” Kaarn said. “This is not an innocent woman.”

They knew me. They knew my weaknesses. What little were left. And they were capitalizing at the worst moment possible.

“... Boy, you guys really caught me on the wrong day,” I said. “You have one chance to surrender. I don’t have time to play around.”

There wasn’t a response. None of them moved. The casters continued to cast, while the other Psijics spread out, laying conjuration wards. Dismissal glyphs, both to open a hole to Oblivion, and to eject me there.

Something that would definitely disrupt my little temporal illusion.

I knelt.

Then pulled, from the ground, one of Tsoka-Haj’s axes. It was covered in moss. In muck. But it was still sharp.

From the muck, from the mud and the water, giant lizards began to erupt around me, stepping out of the muck.

Flanking me on either side. Kaarn’s eyes widened.

The Alpha waddled up to me, and dropped Tsoka-Haj’s other axe into my hand.

“Alright, little ones,” I said, lapsing back into Jel. “The Blood-scale tribe goes back to war.”