Chương 62: 61-Peace Negotiations

Bob managed another perfect shot from one hundred feet away. His arrow stood in the center of the target, two inches from Aram's. Aram was a damn good bowman, but Bob's skill came from magic—centuries of practice would make Aram as good as Bob, but not better. They had both decided to relax this way after yesterday's dreadful events.

"Are you going to do what you discussed tonight?" asked Aram.

"Yes," answered Bob.

"The royals, Dignity, Dawn, and us. Dawn thinks she actually has a chance to convince Arimel, or Necessity, as we know him, to sign a peace deal."

"What makes her so sure?"

"They go a long way back. He also screwed off badly with the Answer. She thinks he may be more amenable after that." Bob changed the subject. He did not really want to think about tonight's meeting.

"How is Elena taking her new situation?" Bob asked.

"Quite well. She wants to try a lot of things she couldn't before. Yesterday we went for a walk through the forest. She can no longer see it, but she loves the feeling of her bare feet walking on grass. She wants us to learn dancing." Bob was flabbergasted.

"She lost her sight, Aram. She can't be casual about that."

"She can always choose to get it back in one year. We both know she will have to pay another price for it, but she does not seem to mind. I will overcome, she says." Aram smiled. Bob remained silent for a few seconds, trying to wrap his head around it.

"I really, really hope you appreciate what a lucky bastard you are, Aram," he finally said.

"Believe me, I do." ◇ Calamity Jane hugged Dawn as she readied to leave Babylon. They had formed a brief but firm friendship during her stay in the city.

"Do you really have to go?" Alice asked her. She liked Jane. She made her feel safe.

"I have to. Milwaukee is free from the Answer. Lots of people will flock there, seeking the protection of the Halls of Law. The vigilantes have to be there. We have to take care of them." Both Alice and Mary Beth were now staying with Dawn. The first Alpha had built her class around the idea of helping the young zealot, and she had sworn not to reset herself before Mary Beth had fully recovered from her experience with the Answer.

Mary Beth remained quiet, never going far from Alice or Dawn, a scared child with eyes that were too old. Dawn gave Mary Beth a quick hug and left her with Alice. She wanted to talk with Jane alone.

"How is she doing? Does she remember anything?" Jane asked.

"Thankfully, no," answered Dawn.

"Most of it has gone away. She is still very traumatized, but I am sure I can help her overcome it." Calamity Jane approached the child and bent down until her head was level with her.

"I promise you I will look for your mother, Mary Beth. I will return to Babylon with her." She felt a pang of pain at Alice's calm demeanor. She could not promise anything to this one. Both her parents were dead. Still, she could not have left her in better hands. The three of them watched Jane walk away. She waved once as she went through the gates.

"Alice, I am going to need you to take care of Mary Beth tonight."

"Are you meeting someone?" Alice, an incurable gossip, asked her.

"Yes," Dawn admitted.

"Someone I would rather avoid." ◇ Night came, and with it, obligations. She gave one quick hug to Mary Beth and Alice before she left. It felt good. It reminded her why she fought. When she arrived at Dignity's house, the Royals, the Losers, and Dignity herself were already there.

"Let's get on with it, then," Dawn sighed. She was not going to enjoy this.

"I have been trying to talk with Necessity every day for the past two months. He has never picked up the phone. What makes you think he will answer you?" Dignity asked.

"Curiosity. That is the one vice he is not able to overcome," Dawn answered her.

"Pass me the phone." Dignity gave her the Icosahedron. Dawn held it in her right hand and then spoke with a clear, resonant voice.

"Arimel. I want to talk with you." Nothing happened at first. After a few seconds, the air began to shimmer, and a rift appeared in it. Necessity was standing on the other side, seated on a comfortable-looking chair. He was alone. Was he really Arimel? The loose, hooded robe he wore did not reveal any part of his body.

"Talk," the hooded figure said, in Dawn's own voice. Dawn sighed. She hated this man with a passion, but this could not go on.

"Arimel, this must stop. You nearly wrecked the Universe with that Answer stunt. Again. We must stop fighting. Nothing good will come of it, and our goals are not so different." Necessity remained silent. Well, at least he is still listening, Dawn thought.

"All of us here want to protect the Universe; we just disagree on how. You are convinced that committing the lesser evil, feeding a whole civilization to the Compendium every now and then, is the way to do it. We want to try something different. It is true, we do not even know the chances of it working, but it is a path we can follow without demeaning ourselves." Necessity said nothing.

"I know you have heard these arguments before, and you remain unconvinced. But there is something more. You are a scientist, Arimel. A scholar. A seeker of forbidden knowledge. I know you. You could live for one billion Aeons and you would not be able to erase that part of yourself."

"Think about what we want to do. We want to face Limbo. And in so doing, we will learn about it. The greatest mystery. The one riddle no one has ever managed to solve. If we win, we will learn its secrets. Its nature. Its relationship to the Compendium. How it came to be."

"I know you, Arimel. We want you to be a part of this. Help us. Help us learn." Necessity stayed silent for a few more seconds. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Then he answered.

"No."

"You are not Arimel, are you?" Dawn asked sadly. She had heard that no before, and not from Arimel.

"Very good," answered Necessity, still using Dawn's voice.

"What gave it away?"

"Your choices," Dawn said.

"He would have made different ones."

"What do you want, then?" interrupted Dignity.

"You already know—return the Icosahedron to me," he answered, now with Dignity's voice. That set Jenna on edge.

"Enough with the parrot act!" Jenna snapped.

"Parrot act?" said Necessity, changing to the Primordial's voice.

"Oh, dear, dear Jenna. I am afraid it is a bit more complex than that." Then he did something he had never done before—he lowered his hood and showed them all his face. It was Jenna's.

"What does this mean?" asked Dawn.

"I think it should be obvious by now," answered Necessity, both his voice and face shifting until they became Dawn's. Necessity transformed into an exact copy of the person he was talking to.

"Are you mocking us, Necessity?" Elariana asked him.

"You may be a god, but I am still a queen."

"I think an explanation is in order," Necessity said, using a conciliatory tone.

"When I ascended, I was under the effect of a magical debuff that made me lose control of my powers."

"I learned a valuable lesson then—if you ascend under those conditions, the debuff will become a permanent part of you. The Compendium cannot distinguish temporary conditions from natural features when rebuilding you into godhood. And so I have spent all eternity, continually shifting my shape."

"Your powers?" asked Dawn. She felt a cold sensation creep down her back. She had already guessed who she was talking to.

"Show me your true face," she demanded. Then, she added, "Please." Necessity hesitated for a moment. Then he shrugged.

"It's all right. I think you deserve this, anyway. I can only do it for a few seconds, then it becomes too painful." He concentrated as his face shifted into that of an attractive young man.

"Ahura," Dawn gasped, as she recognized her long-lost boyfriend.

"Hello, Dawn," he answered.

"Long time, no see." A long, long time ago. Ahura shifted his shape as he ran, turning into a winged missile. Many levels ago, he had left behind the requirement to base his shape on existing models. He could now assume any form he could think of. He flew like a torpedo toward the basalt tower Arimel had created. Altar: Experience released inside this dungeon through violent means is not instantly converted into essence.

If the dungeon implodes while filled with Experience, it will be absorbed by any Experientials present inside it during the event. The conversion ratio is very low. Most of the Experience will be lost. That bastard. His smooth talk. Those meetings with Necessity, that strange being from the future. He had bought into it all. Maybe Arimel had just made him up. His gullibility was going to make him complicit in the murder of more than one hundred students.

He entered the tower, blinking into his natural shape in an instant, as his feet touched the ground. Inside, the dungeon looked like one of the University's labs. A lab filled with the bodies of dead students. There were a few still walking around, but none looked like they would survive for long. A young, plump woman swayed toward him. He recognized her as Blalla, one of the cafeteria helpers.

"Help me. Please help me." Dawn had granted her some power over insects, if he remembered correctly. Then she screamed in agony as she held her hands to her throat. She exploded into a thousand different insects. Dun, a third-year student who could control metal, wept as his body slowly turned into a metal contraption. Then, the transformation was over, and he wept no more. Ahura observed the dead bodies: at least half of them had been transformed or blasted into oblivion.

Bloody Arimel had found a way to make the enhanced students' own powers turn against them. He could do nothing for these kids now, except grant them revenge. He shapeshifted his eyes and his visual cortex as he studied the building. The tower rose hundreds of feet. It lacked any features, except for inner balconies that held cages of animal specimens. It was an animal rights advocate's nightmare come true. There. One of the balconies was lit. Arimel must be in it. How was he supposed to get up there?

There were no stairs or lifts available. He mentally kicked himself. He was not going to make it if he kept reasoning like his old, weak self. He made two large bat wings grow on his back and had them carry him towards his goal. How had Arimel killed the students? Was there some kind of vector in the area? Perhaps a gas? He entered the balcony. It was filled with empty cages, but it also held the entrance to a passage leading into the tower. He felt something sting his neck as he approached it.

He used his enhanced reflexes to catch the attacker in his palm before it could fly off. It was some type of fly. The building must be full of them. A biological agent, after all. Then, he screamed as the venom entered his system. He crawled along the floor, his body shifting randomly between various shapes. God. It hurt. This must be what those poor kids felt before dying. The scant twenty feet separating him from the inner room felt like twenty miles to him. He finally crawled into the room.

Arimel was checking on the unconscious form of a mutated gorilla, lying on a gurney. He did not want to beg, but he was writhing in agony.

"Arimel, please help me," he blubbered from the floor, as his face shifted through the visages of all the dead students he had seen downstairs so fast that it blurred.

"But of course, I will help you, Ahura. This is what this is all about. Helping you. Helping you to achieve your destiny," Arimel said kindly as he approached Ahura. Suddenly, the pain was gone. Ahura rose as he faced his former teacher. He saw his reflection vaguely in a mirror at the back of the room. He had transformed into Arimel.

"This poison will not kill you, Ahura. I designed it specifically so that it would not. It will only cause you great discomfort if you do not use your shapeshifting powers constantly. It affected the others differently, but, alas, it was necessary. I had to do it—I had to force you into my own shape."

"Why?"

"You do not need to ask me, Ahura. You now have my powers. You can look into the future and find the answer yourself." And he could. The future was open to him, like a book, if books had an infinite number of pages that constantly split into new ones. That book always told the same tale, with many different beginnings. A tale of destruction and death. Wherever he looked, the future plunged into darkness like a diver into a dark, hungry pool. Did Arimel have to see this constantly? No wonder he was mad.

"Look better, Ahura. Look closer. There is a way out of that maze. Can't you see it? A single timeline, shining among the others, like a light in the dark." And he could. There was a timeline that did not end in destruction. That timeline revolved around the actions of a single powerful being. A being he recognized from his talks with Arimel. Necessity. Necessity could save them all.

"See. If he comes to exist, the universe will be saved. Otherwise, Limbo devours it. We must make him real," Arimel told him, not unkindly.

"How?" croaked Ahura.

"Did you never wonder why I always asked you to be present when we contacted him? I could only do so through you. I had to focus my power on you to call him."

"He is your future self. He will only come into existence if you transform into him. Only you can save us, Ahura, but you have to become more than what you currently are." Ahura turned his prophetic powers on himself and saw that Arimel was telling the truth. He saw everything that would happen in the next few minutes: the poisoned gorilla finally dying and revealing itself to be the Core, the dungeon imploding, the Experience siphoned from the slain students entering him.

He saw what he was going to become, and why. He also saw Arimel's final act of sacrifice.

"Why? Why are you going to do this, Professor?" Ahura asked in a weak voice.

"We have destroyed our world, Ahura. With our curiosity. Our recklessness. Our lack of restraint. I know you only followed me. I am the greater culprit and deserve the greater punishment."

"Now watch, a secret shared with me by your future self." Arimel held the Icosahedron in his right hand: "I swear by the Icosahedron I will never renounce it." Then he gave it to Ahura.

"I will suffer forever, Ahura. And so will you. I will suffer in Limbo. You will suffer in the hells of your own making. We deserve it. No one has ever deserved it so much as we two."

"Dawn will die. She is the luckiest of all three, and I am happy for her."

"Goodbye, Ahura." A hole opened in the ground, and magical tentacles dragged Arimel into Limbo. The Core died, gasping on the table as poison finally took away its life. The tower imploded. Experience flew into Ahura's body. He screamed as his mind, body, and soul evolved until he hit level 100. A dreadful voice, seeming to come from everywhere at once, spoke for the first time. It was fated to speak many more times. YOU ARE THE OMEGA. CHOOSE YOUR NAME. How could he say no? How after what Arimel had just done?

How after the crimes they had all committed? He felt his soul crushed by the weight of the enormous debt he owed to all living beings. Ahura gasped, still in Arimel's shape, still using Arimel's voice.

"My name is Necessity." Now"Why?" Dawn sobbed.

"Why, Ahura, why?" Ahura's gaze registered a brief flicker of pain. Then it hardened again as he answered Dawn.

"It was necessary."