Chapter 9.4
(Part 2)
***
Words alone are unable to do your vision justice - especially not English, which has so many dumb rules you still have problems with it. Thankfully, you don't have to rely on
just words.
"FOR YOU ARE EXALTED."
It loses something, nonetheless, in the re-telling. Your
Radiant Iconography Array is capable of bringing forth the vision that was burned into your mind less than an hour ago, to the point that your own body fades away into the vision until each person (and screen) in your audience is alone with the Great Maker in the void. Manipulating the charm to mimic the chorus of mechanized sounds that make up Autochthon's voice is difficult, but you manage to match what your own mind could comprehend.
As painful as it is to re-live, you reveal how your sister's soul was torn away from you and cast down into the machine-planet's surface.
But the Great Maker's words - spoken in their original Old Realm - don't quite have the consciousness-shattering
power that you felt within the vision. You suspect it's not a matter of the charm being uncalibrated or your own skills being insufficient; in the vision, you had somehow known that there was more to the voice than you could ever comprehend, and your mind is only capable of remembering mere echoes.
You find yourself shuddering more than once during the re-telling, but you manage to get through it all without the vision - or your own composure - falling apart.
You let the all-consuming darkness that those final words were spoken into linger for about five seconds, then release the charm and let the room fade back into existence...
Miss Militia's eyes are wide and unfocused, while Glenn and Legend's own eyes are hidden behind glasses and a half-face visor. Lord Grasp, somehow, has also been stunned into speechlessness.
The screens on the far wall, however, reveal that the vision wasn't quite so overpowering across the PRT's teleconference network - well, aside for Chevalier, who just continues to look like a silver-gold full-plate helmet. Dragon is blinking rapidly in a way that you suspect means she's thinking hard, while Taylor's face has turned off again… while her 'top' eyes swivel erratically.
Chief Director Costa-Brown is giving you a calculating look as she peers at you from behind her steepled fingers, but the other PRT Director in attendance isn't so composed.
"Christ," Director Uriel sighs, rubbing his face with his left hand while wincing. "I need a drink."
All at once, his utterance seems to break the spell of shock hanging over the audience. Miss Militia and Legend snap out of it in silence, blinking and turning away as if to consider what they just saw in their own heads again. Glenn slowly removes his glasses, but focuses entirely upon them with a considering look on his face while he cleans the lenses on his shirt. Prayer and Chevalier remain silent monoliths of armor, while Taylor opens her mouth to speak-
"That-that was Great Maker's world-body jotun!" Lord Grasp wails, waving his pincers in the air while his tail flutters around morosely. He skitters across the table, up to where you are standing at the head.
"Not since the Three Spheres Cataclysm have I seen him in such ruin, such pain, such grief! How has he allowed his illness to overtake him so?!"
"Weaver, did this translator have any errors?"
Director Costa-Brown's voice cuts over Lord Grasp's fretting, and you absently pat him on the back while you turn your eyes to look at the exchange going on between screens. The Chief Director's eyes are flicking down past the screen occasionally as Lord Grasp mutters to himself, while Taylor herself seems to be looking between two different screens as well.
"Ah… no... Director, I-" she says, frowning and narrowing her eyes at... well, at her screen, probably - you think she's not actually looking at
you, right now. Her pause hangs as her eyes widen just a fraction, before all her 'top' eyes swivel to look at the camera and her face briefly starts to contort into naked confusion.
Then the moment passes - barely longer than a few heartbeats - as Taylor shakes her head and clears her throat while turning her attention to something off-screen again. "Sorry. No, there were no errors, Director, but I'd recommend using the more 'desperate' contextual meanings in those final statements."
What... was that? It looked like Taylor realized something, maybe even multiple things, but then... quickly had to hide it? Why would she be hiding something?
Dragon's avatar fluctuates slightly to show her frown slightly, but a quick glance at the other screens and everyone else doesn't reveal that anyone else noticed that abrupt shift on Taylor's part. Director Costa-Brown's attention is still mostly somewhere below the camera, but she grunts as Taylor finishes.
"I thought so. Dragon, you're free to bring up translations for everyone else. Update the official translator after the meeting."
"Of course, Director," the avatar nods, just as you see the tabletop in front of everyone sitting down peel away to reveal an inset screen with writing rolling across it. Then, to your shock, she switches to Old Realm.
"Excuse me… Crushing Grasp?"
You can almost hear the tiny little gears in your mechanical companion's head screech to a stop at the close/familiar address, and his gem-like eyes flash with mixtures of confusion and surprise.
"Who would address a Lord Destroyer with such ungranted familiarity?!" he huffs, spinning around to face the screen - his distress at Autochthon's dire state all but forgotten.
"And just what is with this realm and their nonsensical accents?"
Out of the corner of your eye, you notice Prayer nod her head sagely for some reason.
"Ah-...," Dragon blinks, mouth curling up into a bemused smile.
"I'm sorry. Lord
Crushing Grasp… would you like a translator for English to Old Realm?"
"You have an artifact that will spare me the headache of making sense of these beastial grunts?" he sighs, waving a pincer at the humans in the meeting. At Dragon's nod, a section at the head of the table peels away to reveal another inset screen - probably designed for the presenter to read from, but it works for Lord Grasp as well.
He recoils slightly and leans down on his legs while poking at the transparent screen as it lights up with the… huh. Old Realm looks like that Aztec language you read about in school, now that you think about it.
"Astounding! Your breach of etiquette is forgiven, Miss!"
"Ms. Kurosawa," Director Costa-Brown grunts. "Is your…
companion going to keep interrupting us?"
"N-no, m'am!" you gulp, smiling too hard while sliding up to the table and slapping a hand over the screen before Lord Grasp can read the translation. "Just a moment!"
Then you quickly lean down and whimper at your compatriot with a face full of shame and panic
"Lord Grasp! Please!" you plead in a whisper. Begging Eyes, activate!
"These are some of the most powerful people in the world and they only have a few minutes for this meeting! I know you have lots of experience with wars, but can you just… I don't know, tap me if you have something important to say?"
The gilded scorpion glints his gemstone eyes at you dangerously, and you can almost hear his mandibles clicking open and shut as if he is barely restraining himself from taking you to task… but eventually he puffs out a puff of steam from his mouth and spins around to face away from you again as you pull your hand away from the translator.
"Very well, Warden," he mutters
"but we will have words
later."
Since Lord Grasp didn't even
try speaking quietly enough, Director Uriel sighs audibly again. "Tatsu, just teleport your pet out of here."
Nope, hand back on the screen.
You're just going to ignore Lord Grasp's frustrated tapping on the hand while also using your Body Language charm to yell at Dragon - wide eyes and a shaking head communicating without words:
Don't translate that!
"Ah, Director Uriel…" you cough after Dragon nods in alarmed consent. You turn slightly and bow your head in apology at the screen with your bored-looking superior, "Lord Grasp can… block me from doing that if he wants. He is also very picky about how people address him."
Director Costa-Brown flicks her eyes to the side. "Stop being suicidal, Martin."
"Oh, this group has just brought me nothing but joy," he grunts, monotone, while resting his cheek on his right fist. "I'm especially looking forward to the
next Youth Guard shit-storm when Weaver hauls off Vista or Who for pod-robot replacement."
You cast another hurried glance to Dragon and make a helpless, panicked shrug.
Just make something up!
You see Dragon nod again and Lord Grasp doesn't explode in righteous fury when the translation starts rolling across the screen, so you decide to leave Director Uriel's fate in Dragon's hands.
"Director… just...," Taylor sighs, closing her eyes momentarily in exasperation while pinching the bridge of her nose, "… I'm not considering Vista right now. Not until she's fully recovered."
"No more Wards, Weaver," Costa-Brown glowers, lowering her fingers enough to reveal her tight frown. "No more
children."
Taylor matches the stare with
all her eyes.
"Chief Director, respectfully, that decision should rest with a Ward's guardians."
"Ano," you interject with a politely-raised hand, cutting in before either side digs in even deeper, "Chief Director?"
The head of the PRT's strong jawline flexes in a way that you think means she was about to tell you or Taylor off, but after a brief moment she nods slightly. "Go ahead."
"Well...," you begin, scrunching up your nose a bit as you finalize your train of thought. "I know a lot has happened since I… got captured…" you shudder, but a quick breath lets you rally. "Taylor said that she had to be able to trust that a person would be…
loyal. That they'd trust her, like
Autochthon is trusting her."
Which… well, it had seemed like a weird idea when Taylor had said it during her presentation, but now you have a deep, overwhelming sense of awe at that fact. Even together, you and Sakura would probably have just spent the first month in your Safe Place if you'd been who the Great Maker picked first.
Prayer nods in her chair, arms crossed. Her crystalline voice is even as she openly considers what you're getting at.
"Do we have time for such tests of character?"
Eyes turn to you, but you shrug uncertainly.
Everyone turns back to Taylor.
She holds up a finger to stall, looking to the side while worrying at her bottom lip absently. After a few moments, she nods and turns back with a thoughtful frown.
"First: Iris says this is a matter of him falling back asleep completely, not him dying in the next few months. If that happens, no more Alchemicals and no more Cradle since we don't have a way to open it from this side. Asleep, he might succumb to his sickness anywhere between the next few centuries to a few more millennia-"
The PRT's Chief Director hums. "So we have time, then."
Taylor turns all her eyes back to the camera, the glowing veins at the edges of her face pulsing with her slowing heart rate.
"
After which, he won't just
die. Iris says he'll become a... 'Neverborn', which is like a super-powered, unkillable,
undead version of him. Our only way to tell when that happens will be when he comes tearing through a
new Cradle to devour our entire multiverse."
In the horrified silence that follows, Director Uriel rolls his eyes, reaches off-camera, then pulls out a bottle and shot glass. As he unscrews the cap he considers the glass.
"Nothing but joy," he sighs, before simply taking a pull from the bottle.
***
fun
