[Warpworld] Ch 33 – The Offer
Added 2025-03-29 04:29:34 +0000 UTC« Chapter 32 | Index | Chapter 34 »
“Their method is not working, then,” Master Artlis nodded in satisfaction, while the junior elves all looked a bit fatalistic that they couldn’t sense any of the actual magical interplay of what was going on at all. The wiser among them realized that they didn’t want to, and left the matter at that, even if it was a human showing them up.
The lizard men found it passing curious, the shamans with them somewhat more so, but for them, belief and purpose was more important than the how and why of such things.
“What will they try next, then?” Master Sethanon asked, intensely curious.
“Temptation would be my guess.” I considered the seething energies in front of us. “My guess is they will offer entire worlds of altered timelines to you, places where you made the right decisions at the right times, saving your people and those you love, winning the battles you desired to win, and making of your world a paradise of your own imaginations. They might even truncate their own involvement in such a place, content to let you live out a blissful, useless eternity in a severed chunk of timelessness, until you fade away like the dream you are... or they corrupt it underneath you, whichever allows them to gloat the more at your weakness and ultimate failure.”
The elves and saurids alike shuddered at my tone, infused with magic that was front-running the lies ahead of us, showing them that ideal world, and just how much of an illusion it was. Even if it was totally real, it was still a lie, still powered and given to them by the Warp Gods, granted at their unholy whims and just as easily taken away.
And when it was taken away, what could they do about it?
Warlord Rixugor hissed as he stared ahead. “A world where the whims and mad dreams of the Muudr are no more...” he whispered under his breath.
“Which would also be a lie,” I murmured back to him. “As I said before, the reason the Muudr are mad is because they predate the Warp Gods. Every time the world falls, the Muudr die, and then time is rewound and reset, and events play out again. They remember the shadows of what came before, treat it as prescience, and their souls buckle under the strain of so many years and being slaughtered repeatedly after striving for all they can.
“If the Muudr are not mad, it is because they are not reliving their lives again, and that means they are not the Muudr. What they would be... I leave to your imagination.”
He rumbled inside, easily able to see where such things were going. “Painful truth and blissful lies. It is no wonder life is harsh. It is the only way to see the false for what it is...”
Now there was a warrior-philosopher. “Aye, we humans strive so hard to make a better life for the generations that come after us, this kind of thing is particularly tempting to even the noblest of us. A place where our children can live without having to deal with the slaughter and pain of a hostile world...”
“We have no... children,” the reptoid general murmured at the end, waving a clawed hand. “Only those who come from the birthing pools, fully formed and grown. Not like the creatures of the wild, even the ancient beasts we respect so much. This protective instinct, it is understandable. It is how weak things survive until they are stronger, protected by the strong, yes?”
“Yes. At the same time, both a great burden and a great joy. Many would wish one without the other. Yet without the labor, the joy would be meaningless, and turn in upon itself, as the Warp Gods well know.” I lifted my head up. “It comes now, with claws of silk and poison and sibilant, gracious lies, everyone. Be aware, for it is not Truth.”
And just before the lies of jRaztl and Amourae could sweep across them, elves and reptoids and dragons and phoenixes all lurched under the power of a Word of Creation, and the illusions stole across us.
---
They were VERY good, which was completely unsurprising. One of the weavers was a master of magic and beguilement, and the other a master of temptation and desire. Their magic combined was meticulous and alluring, boundless in depth and enticement, potent in realism and unspoken promises.
But it was trying to build on the echoes of Truth, which unfortunately for it, labeled all of it absolute lies.
Loved ones long dead rose and entered happy embraces.
A lie.
Wars were fought, great victories won with superhuman heroics, foes forever vanquished.
Lies.
Secrets of the universe were unearthed and laid bare, the future was opened and the ways of the multiverse beckoned.
Lies.
The acclaim of family, friends, clansmen, one’s whole species rose to sweep one up in rewards material and spiritual, placing one at the apex of one’s people, acknowledged by all as sage, mage, wise ruler, leader, commander...
Lies.
Families and friends surrounded one in love and pleasure, boon comrades and eternal soulmates at your side for the countless years ahead of you all, and your children and their descendants would also rise to greatness in time, under your parentage and tutelage...
Lies.
Peace. The battles were won, prosperity would return, and the doom on the horizon would be banished forever. You would see your people and civilization grow to new heights, new wonders, that would eclipse all that had gone before, and you would be there to see it happen.
Lies.
LIES.
LIES!
-------
I gasped and knelt as the remembered embraces and intimacy of Diana’s arms was ripped apart, shown to be woven from my own memories and injected with addictive pleasure and sensory input... which could not hide how subtly inaccurate the projection of her chi was, how it could not be replicated by magic or memory, and how Diana was Diana, her Face and Name hers alone, and not even a godspun illusion could pull off faking her successfully.
There was a cry off to the side, one of the elven riders screaming wild-eyed, tears flowing from him, drawing his sword while power sizzled at his side, new gifts to make his dreams come true...
His head vanished as the Shards slammed into his skull, and his body went sailing out over the sloped sides of the Warpeater Pyramid. The power of the Warp blew all of him into stray atoms, resulting in a hundred-foot explosion of mutating energies that was devoured by vivus even as it manifested and harmed nothing, while the living bomb, the elf consumed by his dreams and desires, was eaten in turn.
Nobody was on their feet. Gasps and sobs, and the equivalent sounds from the reptoids, their own inhuman dreams no less compelling than us monkey-types, rose in low groans from their throats.
“That... was horrifying,” whispered Master Artlis, blood actually leaking out his eyes, dripping on the stone beneath where he knelt on all fours. “Every single dream and desire I might have had, pulled out of me with such ease, offered up so beautifully.
“It is a fine, FINE lesson, and I thank the gods of the Warp for showing me so kindly where I am weak,” I murmured, Focusing with terrible, grim purpose, the manafield crystallizing around me and making even the reptiods gasp as a single sharp Note tumbled through it, slashing and hacking into those dreams and wonders. “THANK YOU! I HOPE YOU APPRECIATE MY COMING GIFT IN RETURN!” I snarled at them.
Growls and curses arose. Elves and reptoids looked at the ash of their dreams, and felt the searing mockery rising from beneath and behind them.
Indeed, what were they to the Warp Gods, except entertaining little diversions? What did their hopes and dreams mean to such things? Nothing but toys to play with and dispose of as the gods saw fit.
Except. Except NOW, they were returning that contempt, that scorn, and that disdain. Vivus was feasting on the desires and ambitions of the Warp Gods, derailing their schemes, undercutting their entertainment.
And from that vivic consumption, licking at the power that had been used on them, and was now being consumed from them, they could feel Truth, and that Truth was fear.
The Warp Gods were afraid of the vivic fire of the Mortal Realm. They were afraid of the all-consuming hunger of an infinite realm which would be happy to devour their own, were it only alive and aware to do so... and they had expressly made it unaware here, in this pocket realm they were playing with, just so they did not have to fear!
It was we who held the power, we who were the threat, and it was why the gods were striking at us so!
“Truth. Hope. Valor,” I Said, and those around me rocked and breathed as the Words broke over them, each with their own unique way of stabbing back into the heart of what the Warp Lords are and were.
Away with jRaztl’s unending games of lies within truths. Away with Amourae’s self-fulfillment, actually nothing more than gluttonous obsession and unbridled lusts. Away with Riggibuhl’s acceptance of inevitability and the abandonment of dreams. Away with Klaw’s battle and combat for the sake of war and naught else, raising it to something that could indeed be noble and grand, and not just gratuitous.
“TREMBLE!” I Shouted at them, and I knew they Heard. “WE COME!”
Elves and reptoids, dragons and phoenixes all screamed defiance at the things waiting ahead of us. Chaos danced in the sky, was consumed by a swirling hurricane of vivus being drawn to the Warpeater Pyramid.
If we advanced no faster, it did not matter. The Domain of the Pyramid was waxing stronger and stronger, the spike it was driving in growing wider and harder as we did, and the Lands of the Warp were dying back, being consumed wholesale, and what could the Warp Gods do about it?
They were certainly going to try something else, but that was fine. We were waiting for it. We were expecting it.
And the Land, the Land was on our side. And if the awareness we gave it was artificial, buoyed by vivus so thick it was basically liquid rivers in the sky at this point, that very artificiality made it aware enough to hunger for being true and real, and there was indeed a hunger mightier than anything mortal could conceive there, wanting to come alive and alight.
And I, I was going to help it!
They were just the Warp Gods, minor entities playing at their captive realities, careful to stay below the notice of the true powers of existence. Reality itself was their enemy, and we, we were the immune system thrown at it, this time armed with the right counter-virus and white blood cells necessary to treat the disease and infection they so aptly represented.
The Warp Zone roiled ahead of us, churning with fear and dismay. The ground, saturated with corrupt energies, was Burned into a blanket of thick mist, unclean snow and soil alike steaming away as they were cleansed and purified. It flowed past on either side, popping and swirling, a sea of churning white which would devour anything with the touch of the Warp on it, should they dare to enter.
They would certainly try to think of something else to forestall us. I was looking forwards to seeing it, and Burning that away, too...
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