Chương 64: 63-The Last Night at Home

Billy and Jenna sat on a bench in the park as they watched the sunset. Jenna looked at a tree laden with fruit—she recognized it as one Billy had planted in his Elven Gardener form. It had only been a few months ago, but it felt like an eternity. They both knew it would be the last moment of peace they would have for a long time. Neither wanted to speak first and break the moment. Finally, Billy did.

"Do you think he was telling the truth?" he asked.

"About what?"

"His abilities." Jenna sighed.

"Yes. I am afraid he was. We have just spent twenty minutes with the smartest person in the Multiverse."

"Scary fellow, wasn't he?"

"Yes, he was." That meant a lot when it came from Jenna. Two hours earlier"There is a way to achieve this—complete neutralization of the Icosahedron," said Exchange.

"I find that hard to believe," Jenna told him.

"Dawn here spent literally millions of years seeking ways to achieve that. The closest she came was resetting that thing, but not destroying it. I do not think it can be done."

"There is a way. She just missed it."

"And you just happened to stumble upon it. How convenient."

"I planned it. As for how I can do what she could not, the answer is obvious. I am immeasurably smarter than her. It is not a matter of time and effort—she can never hope to match my brilliance."

"I should have brought a puke bag," muttered Jenna.

"I will demonstrate," said Exchange, somehow projecting part of his status screen so that all could see. Exchange Level 100 Analyst Stat Matrix: Might (Inferior): 77 Dexterity (Inferior): 77 Intelligence (Dominant x3): 200 Charisma (Inferior): 77 Bob whistled.

"200 points in Intelligence. How is that even possible?" He examined the screen more carefully.

"You seem to have three inferior stats, and you have piled the benefits on Intelligence. I thought the rules did not allow you to choose Dominance more than once for the same stat."

"They don't," answered Exchange.

"This is a direct benefit of the patronage of my master. Rules tend to become laxer when he is around. I am the brightest mind that has ever existed. Not because of natural Talent, but because an exception has been made for me. I surpass my closest challenger by more than 70 points. Dawn could live a billion lives and still fail to grasp even the simpler patterns that are obvious to me."

"I have studied the nature of time and paradox and come to understand them fully. They are powerful weapons, as you already know, and no one can wield them more effectively than I can."

"You used the same trick Dawn used, didn't you?" Jenna said.

"You went back in time to think about this. You got yourself a few free centuries in which to design your plan."

"Don't be stupid, Jenna," Exchange scoffed.

"Why would I need to do that? I designed the entire plan this morning while having breakfast. Do not presume to know me, Jenna, or outsmart me. It won't end well. I am Exchange."

"That is why he chose you, wasn't it?" Jenna asked. Exchange did not answer.

"When you make someone who works for you incredibly smarter than anyone else, there is always the risk that you may end up working for him. But you are Exchange. If he treats you fairly and meets the terms you agreed to, you are forced to return the same loyalty. You are bound by your nature. You can't use your intelligence to find ways around it."

"Not bad," Exchange admitted.

"Explain your plan, please. I think we should hear it," Bob said.

"Very well. You three have some experience with time travel. You know that Dawn—or the past Dawn," he added, glancing briefly at the present one, "was an expert time traveler too."

"There is something you must have wondered—why try to destroy the Icosahedron when she could have hidden it in the past? The Continuum is vast. Necessity would have had a hard time finding the Artifact, as its beacon impulses do not travel through time."

"I hate it when he talks about me as if I am not present," complained Dawn. She decided to answer the question herself: "The Icosahedron is the most significant item in history. There is no way to place it in the past without creating a huge amount of Dissonance. The Keeper would send entire armies to drag it back into the present."

"Good," answered Exchange.

"Yet the Losers managed to place it inside the Web of Ananke."

"The Web is different," answered Bob.

"It does not operate by creating Dissonance, and the Artifact was inside a pseudo-past in which nothing significant happened for only a couple of minutes. Even so, I think Pob took a greater risk than any of us anticipated. Perhaps keeping the Icosahedron inside that pseudo-past for a few more seconds would have been enough for the Timespiders to attack him."

"Seventeen seconds more, to be precise," specified Exchange.

"You are all fond of charging blindly into situations you hardly understand."

"You surely do not intend to make us hide it in the past," said Billy, clearly worried. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"Not after what you have just explained to us."

"My dear Billy, that is exactly what I plan for you to do," answered Exchange. Now"Jesus, this whole plan is insane," Jenna complained.

"Just how insane, Jenna?" Billy asked.

"As insane as using a forty-thousand-verse poem as the motif for a dungeon, turning into a cockroach for seven years to create a perk, or becoming a six-story-tall version of your dead Aunt?"

"Fair point, I guess," Jenna admitted.

"Did you know I read the Pantean Saga when it was originally published on Royal Road?" she asked.

"I was a huge fan. At least at first. I lost interest when Brian, the Skillmaster, started humping all the females."

"I know. You did mention it."

"I dreamed of being the Everlasting. She was a girl in the saga. She had a lot of spunk, and I liked her powers. I read it on my phone during my lunch breaks in the Burrito. Now I have my own powers. We have gone through our own adventures. We have saved two worlds and helped create a third. Does it make me a terrible person if I miss my old life? Even with Alfie and Rosita leeching off me. Even with that asshole Brinkman stealing all my money."

"Come on, Jenna. This life is not so bad. It has its perks."

"Yes, it has," she agreed, resting her head on his shoulder. Ninety minutes earlier"There is a position in the space-time continuum in which the Icosahedron may be placed. Once there, it can't be removed. The same Dissonance that will try to stop you from placing it there will protect it," Exchange explained.

"But that position can't be reached in one go—paradox would destroy anyone who attempted it. As I reflected on the nature of temporal paradox, I made an important discovery—it can't increase indefinitely, no matter its cause. There is a mechanism of diminishing returns in effect; it has to be that way, or Dissonance would defeat its own purpose."

"That gives us a way to tackle this problem. I have mapped four different positions in the continuum. All of them are near temporal dungeons, not necessarily the ones you know."

"Are there more temporal dungeons apart from the Black Tower and the Web?" Billy asked in amazement.

"My dear Billy, your naivete is astounding. Nearly all realities have at least one of them. Many have more than one, as Belona does. We are going to exploit that fact," answered Exchange.

"I have designed a trip through time and space: four different realities, four temporal dungeons located in them, four trips. Each destination is a stepping stone to the next."

"You are trying to split all the Dissonance we would create in a single trip into four manageable chunks, aren't you?" asked Bob.

"If by manageable you mean the biggest fights of your life, chock-full of dangers and assassins, yes, that is what I am trying to do."

"I will give you dimensional coordinates so that you can reach the realities those dungeons are located in. I will also give you the keys to use those dungeons."

"You will never teleport directly to a dungeon, but to a specific point I have chosen in each plane. Reaching the entrance of each dungeon will be a life-or-death battle, as History sends assassins to seize the Icosahedron from you and return it to the present."

"This is necessary. Those fights are the means we will use to exhaust paradox. Survive those fights, and the final trip will take you to your destination. Believe me, it is the only way to reach it. Do your part, and this war is over."

"We need to think this over," Dignity answered.

"No, you don't. You are going to agree to this," Exchange told her.

"Necessity already tried that profiling shit on me once, to make me give him the Icosahedron," Dignity answered.

"It did not turn out well for him."

"Dignity, I do not need to study your log to get a sense of what you are like. You are like an open book to me. A jigsaw puzzle for a four-year-old. I only need to look at you for two seconds to correctly predict all the thoughts you are going to have in the next ten minutes, the dreams you are going to dream in the next ten years, and all the important decisions you are going to make in the next ten centuries.

I know you are going to agree to this because you have no backup plan and because, even though I have admitted we are not allies, my master has already saved your hides twice."

"What makes you think Necessity will not act on his threats?"

"Because they would no longer serve any purpose. No one could get the Icosahedron back, not even those who put it there. He would be acting out of petty revenge, not out of Necessity. He can't do that without breaching form." Exchange placed an ornate box on Dignity's desk.

"Here it is. Gems imprinted with dimensional coordinates for Jenna to take you to those planes. Keys for when you enter the dungeons in those realities, so that you can reach the proper points in the timeline. Some instructions to nudge you in the right direction. Scant instructions. You already knew Governance—when meddling with time, the fewer words, the better."

"If you are so clever, why don't you just calculate whether we will succeed? Could save us a lot of trouble if we don't," Jenna snapped.

"Because Limbo is a part of the equation. An extra variable that can't be solved. Even the strongest simulation must leave room for uncertainty when Limbo is involved."

"Do not leave now," Exchange added.

"Do so tomorrow at first light. Getting a good night's rest will actually increase your chances of success. You know how time travel works—time is the one thing you will not run out of. Good luck. You are going to need it. This is not a trap—we want you to succeed. It suits our purposes." Exchange vanished in mid-air.

"And there he goes," Bob protested.

"We did not even ask him who his master was."

"Bob, do you really think there was the slightest chance of him telling us?" asked Jenna. Now Jenna and Billy lay in each other's arms.

"You are troubled by all this, aren't you?" asked Billy.

"Who wouldn't?"

"I mean specifically the Mystic Storyteller part." Jenna sighed.

"You know me too well, Billy." Exchange's instructions were mostly ramblings that would make sense when the time came. She hated Vaguespeak with a passion, but she understood its purpose. One of the instructions had been clear, though—Billy was eventually going to use the Mystic Storyteller's powers. They had been spending the afternoon trying out Gestalt combinations that would negate the Storyteller's tendency to gravitate to Limbo.

She had lent Billy her powers of Visualization and watched as he tried to make various cocktails using Mystic Storyteller as a base. It was useless—the shape had a lingering aftertaste that could not be masked, no matter how many other components were added. That taste manifested as the Alpha Legacy. Billy would always return as a level 1 shape that advanced incredibly fast, but would fall into Limbo if it failed to fulfill the Oath it had to swear when first manifesting.

"I will be careful," Billy promised.

"That is precisely the problem, Billy. You can't be too careful. Dying without having first fulfilled the Oath counts as breaking it—you won't be able to discorporate. You will be caught in that frail, dangerous shape until we fulfill the Oath's terms."

"I am not afraid of going to Limbo. I am afraid of not seeing you again," Billy told her simply. Jenna hugged him fiercely.

"Do not worry about that, Billy. I promise you this—if you ever fall into Limbo, you will find me there, already waiting for you." Billy stiffened.

"Do not even say that, Jenna. I don't want it. And it is not possible to…" He shut up when he saw the determined look in his girlfriend's eyes.

"Damn," he said.

"You have already thought of a way."