Chapter 299: Like a brick house (Patreon)

The fabric wobbles and trembles as we slowly pull it into the Yin-Yang Realm. Or on top of it, is perhaps a better way to put it.

Regardless, it doesn’t seem to hurt Elysia, just make her uncomfortable. Like wading into a cold pool of water. In response, I slow down my crew, giving her some time to get used to the ‘temperature’—so to speak—of the Laws of Being.

However, her hesitance isn’t the only source of resistance. As the overlap between the Realms becomes greater, the force pushing back against us grows larger. It feels kinda like trying to push a beachball under water in a swimming pool.

Soon, we hit an equilibrium, where we can only hold our position, but not get an inch farther. Judging by the sense of distance I get from my anchor, we’re pretty close to actually overlapping Suri’s location, but those last few yards might as well be a concrete wall.

After a minute or so of maintaining this stalemate, I’m forced to make the call.

“Okay, we’re backing off!” I shout over the sounds of my straining and panting crew. “Slowly let your tether slacken a little—I said slowly, Whiskers, don’t just let go!”

Hiccups aside, we manage to return Elysia to her resting position within the Realm of Imagination. Only then do I signal Suri by allowing a magenta shell to Fade.

That one’s meaning is very simple. Failure. Mission aborted.

I can’t help but let out a sigh of disappointment. Still, this was a good attempt. It felt like we were really close, to be honest. Maybe all we need is just a bit more muscle... But who can I still ask for help?

“So,” Agath asks gruffly, the outline of her twelve-pack quivering against her poor suit, the threads connecting to the buttons performing Herculean feats to protect her dignity. “I just pull on this?”

She lifts the thick steel cable, the anchor of which I’ve already brought to the Yin-Yang Realm.

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” I admit. “But just follow my instructions, and you’ll do fine.”

More than fine, actually, I suspect.

Bringing in just one additional crewmember may not seem like much, but at about 17.000 motes, out of all the beings I’ve met, Agath’s Espir Pool is second only to Goddess. Adding even another dozen of Trisha’s drones would not have as much of an impact.

It’s gotta be enough, right?

A lot of wrangling and organising later, we’re finally into our third attempt. Elysia is noticeably more relaxed this time, allowing us to go even faster, at least until we once again reach the edge of the Yin-Yang Realm.

“Steady now!” I call out. “We’re taking it slow from this point, no rushing.”

My stomach is in knots as we continue our slow descent, quickly reaching the point where we last got stuck... and then easily surpassing it.

And that’s where things get weird.

The Cold of Spatial Energy are the first things I notice. Next is the dark, which somehow overlaps with the bright light shining down from the top of Elysia’s sky dome, to form a kind of half-bright, half-dim environment.

Finally, in a sudden rush, something seems to snap into place, and a cyan crystal appears hovering over the beach.

“Suri!” I call out happily at the material crystal hanging before us.

[Ah, there you are,] Suri chimes. [Took you long enough.] Her words may be casual, but the thrum of excitement she says them with gives her away.

All across the beach, excited whooping and cheering erupts.

“Okay!” I shout across the noise. “Everybody please stay on the beach and maintain your grip. We’re going to run some trials and then slowly back out again. And then we celebrate!”

To be honest, by the time we’re done, I’m too excited to celebrate. Instead, I immediately seek out Suri in the Yin-Yang Realm to discuss our experiences.

Our first conclusion is that it’s possible to overlap the Realms for a while, but it will probably never turn stable. The Laws of Being and the rules of the Imaginary Realm remain in a state of constant flux, as they try to ‘win out’ over the other, and that conflict is probably the cause of the repulsive force I experienced.

More interesting—and weird—is what happens inside of that area of conflicting laws. To our surprise we found that it was possible for Imaginary stuff to affect physical matter in this state of superposition. Similarly, physical attacks seem capable of damaging spiritual things.

As for which of the two gets damaged when a spiritual and a physical object collide, that appears to be a little complicated. From what we can tell, it’s in part a conflict between stats. Spiritual attacks mainly rely on Willpower to do damage, which physical objects defend against with Toughness.

On the flip side, it’s the Toughness and Strength of the physical creature versus the Mental Fortitude of the spiritual one.

For purely passive collisions of physical and Extant objects, it appears to be Espir density versus Toughness that’s most important.

However, in all of these cases, there is also a conflict of Laws.

It reminds me of when Yog tried to use Gravitational Energy to redirect my spiritual attacks, and I managed to push through his attempts.

Anyway, the most important, final conclusion that we draw is the following: we can use this. Our crazy, far-fetched plan suddenly looks a lot more feasible.

Of course, we’re still far from done here. We have more experiments to run, and more practising to do with Elysia. And after that, there are still a couple more hurdles to jump...

While Suri and Herman work on expanding Elysia to the kind of size we require her to be—with Suri there to run the calculations, and Herman to do the encouraging—I take some time to report to Goddess.

Of course, I still can’t show up in any visible places, so I instead get a room in Trisha’s Teahouse and have her come to me.

Sitting in a comfy chair, I turn my head to look at an empty spot in the room. Without speaking a word, I get up and bow in that direction.

A split second later, Goddess appears there, hanging perfectly still in mid-air. She nod at me, smiling faintly, then speaks. “So, I hear your test was successful.”

“It was indeed, Your Highness,” I reply, before laying into the details. She listens quietly, but her dark eyes glint.

“Good,” she intones when I’m done, her voice like a forest brook. “You cleared your first hurdle, met your first deadline, with still some 44 Earth days remaining. It appears you’re ahead of schedule.”

“We are, Your Highness,” I reply. “And now that we proved the feasibility of our plan... It’s time for the next step.”

That step, is calling in the cavalry.

Goddess sighs. “Right. I suppose I ought to contact little Bhat now.”

I curiously take in her micro-expressions. “Do you... feel guilty towards the raptors, Your Highness?”

Dark eyes lined with white brows fix on me. “Wouldn’t you?” she asks, her voice a whisper of wind through trees. “If a people worshipped you, zealously did your bidding, your dirty work, while you barely lifted a feather in return?”

She turns to face a window with drawn curtains, her white wings drawing in closer so I can still see her appear to stare straight through them. “I sit up here, on my grand throne, in my grand palace, preaching nonviolence, while they secure our peace through organised bloodshed, on my orders. What can you call that but hypocrisy?”

I hesitate for a moment, as it appears to be a rhetorical question, but in the end I shake my head. “A truly nonviolent solution wouldn’t be so easily achieved, Your Highness. Rehabilitation might work for some of the Ascendants, like Akir, but most of those creatures are likely beyond saving, lost in their lust for power and bloodshed. In the end, the system you set up protects the peace and security of your Realm, and that’s all your people could ask of you.”

“And the cost of doing right by my people?” she asks, turning her head a disconcerting amount to stare back at me. “You don’t think it’s wrong to have another people pay that?”

I fold my arms across my chest as I consider that for a moment. “I won’t say it’s perfectly fine... but I do think the raptors are capable of making their own decisions. They are a proud people, with their own culture, their own collective identity. They’d have to deal with the constant influx of Ascendants one way or another, and I don’t think their current way is a bad one. Honestly, I think if you’d want to do right by them, you should contact them more often and treat them more sincerely. You know, thank them, praise them... that sort of thing. By feeling guilty, or worse pitying them, you’re doing them a disservice.”

Goddess is quiet for a good while, her eyes locked on me, but I’m not too alarmed, as I get the feeling she’s looking through me more than at me.

“I see,” she finally says. “Thank you for your candidness, Emma. It is somewhat of a rare treat for me. Now, I suppose I better keep my end of the bargain.”

A wave of her wing produces a pair of gorgeous white scrolls sealed with a pitch-black dot of wax that’s stamped with a magnificent owl. A second wave causes one of them to disappear into thin air.

Mere seconds later, the scroll still hanging in front of us unfurls, showing us Bhat, whose expression flickers between thrilled, surprised, nervous, and embarrassed.

I have to suppress a smile when I notice he’s in his grand, heated bath. It shouldn’t be too big a deal, seeing as the raptors have no concept of a nudity taboo, but I suppose it’s still probably not the most comfortable time to be contacted like this.

“Ah,” Goddess intones awkwardly, seeming to have realised the same thing. “It would appear I’ve caught you at an inopportune time...”

“It’s no trouble, Divine One,” Bhat hastily reassures her, as he gets up from his bath with a splash. “No trouble at all! Ah, I wasn’t talking to you, Yexl, just—I’m not to be disturbed, is that understood?”

Oh? Sounds like Yexl got promoted...

“There,” Bhat growls, taking a deep breath and managing to regain a measure of composure as he primly sits down on a stool next to his bath. “How may I be of service, oh Divine One?”

Goddess is silent for a moment. “You already serve me well, little Bhat,” she intones. “Know that I am grateful. However, if you and your people are willing, I have need of your aid... in battle.”

Bhat’s eyes light up. “I could think of no greater honour, than to ride into battle by your side, Divine One. Command us, and we shall obey.”

Goddess nods slowly. “Good. However, the details you’ll have to discuss with my new General.”

It’s not until she shoots me a pointed look, that I parse her meaning. A flush of warmth passes through me, which I mask by clearing my throat.

“Hey Bhat,” I say, stepping into view next to Goddess with a big smile. “Long time no see.”

Author's note:

Thanks for reading! ^^