An Age of Mysterious Memories

B 3 C 21: Naga Society Part 2

Inevitability. That’s what we find on the other side of the door. At least, that’s what I think to myself as I have deja vu flashes while the stone wall rotates with us.

I find myself looking out across a tiny forest, the trees barely come up to my toes, but in the center of it stands a beast that looms over everything else. It seems to be part mud golem, part serpent, part dragon. It takes no action as Lil and I peer at it from the entrance.

As we begin moving, it starts pounding on a tiny orb, something like a snow globe. The globe shatters, cracks, and the world around us begins to fade in an all consuming light.

Really? This nonsense again? Past me, hold up, light is eating everything again. It’s time.

Inevitability. I hear “Past me, hold up, light is eating everything again.”

Sighing, I gaze around, coming to terms with what I see. Lil is about to hop forward into this miniature jungle, but I hold them back with a hand.

I caution, “Something isn’t right buddy. That thing doesn’t even care about us in the slightest. You see that little glint over there? There’s some kind of little orb. What do your senses tell you about it?”

Lil, peering intently in the direction I motion, states, “Hm, seems like some kind of toy, like a glass ball with a little statue or castle or something in it. Is that important?”

I shrug, “I’m not certain, not yet anyway. We’re probably going to be here for a long time, and a lot of loops, until we figure this out.”

I testingly try to throw up some umbral protection around the globe, US copies of stonework in a tetrahedron. The beast’s attacks are held at bay only momentarily. Its fury grows until the umbral shielding dissipates, and it finally destroys the globe. The light spreads in from all around us once more. I huff as I let past me know that didn’t work.

Coming through the door rotated by the two hourglass statues, I think only one word, inevitability. I’m greeted by a curious scene, and several messages from my future self. Crap. Before Lil can even try anything, I fire off everything I have at the monstrous beast. It doesn’t even look my way or flinch. The beast proceeds to break the globe once we’ve stepped closer to examine any damage we might have caused it. Well past me, that didn’t work either. You’re going to have to try patience again, you and Lil are going to be here for a long time.

As we arrive, I think only one word, inevitability. I’m inundated with message after message from future versions of me. Apparently Lil and I have been at this for days, maybe months already.

I ask, “Lil buddy, you up for maybe trying to ride this out for a few decades, see how powerful we can become?”

Lil nods affirmatively. Alright, us from every timeline, let’s do this.

We’ve been training for years, decades at this point, and we’re running out of food and drink. We messed up once, and tried to get sustenance from the tiny jungle below, but that triggered the events, so we had to reset and begin again. We know that we have to do this in a single go.

It’s done, this is as long as we can possibly push back our confrontation, we won’t survive much longer without sustenance, even as powerful as we’ve become. I stroke Lil’s talon next to me. Lil is currently what they like to call a greatwyrm. I’ve taken on my monstrous fourth evolutionary stage, and still I stand only to their ankle.

As far as the evolution of our abilities, Lil’s breath can break through my beyond-diamond-density Sub Absolute Zero Armor, my SAZA, but only barely. Lil thinks I should call it my BASZAA, Beyond All Sub Zero Absolute Armor. It’s cute, but a bit pretentious. We can both teleport through different means, Lil has learned to harness other elements in their breath, and they’ve even safely gained my space skill. We’re both able to make dozens of Umbral duplicates of ourselves. Our mana pools and regeneration rates are sickeningly high, and with Lil basically producing endless heat to ridiculous levels, I can sap that heat for nearly limitless mana. We’ve molded and shaped our abilities to extreme levels, challenged and changed ourselves and our skills, but even still, I worry that it won’t be enough.

Lil shapeshifts into a humanoid figure about my height, we embrace tightly, and share a soft kiss, knowing it may be our last moments in this timeline together. We’ve spent so many years preparing. I rest my forehead on theirs, heaving a sigh. We both know we have to at least try.

Lil resumes their ungodly powerful greatwyrm shape, assuming the form that feels most powerful to them. It is a marvel, but judging by the distance between us and the beast attacking the tiny globe, Lil is still a miniscule fraction of their size, a mosquito comparatively. Lil and I summon as many duplicates as we can handle, and teleport forth, in the way of the beast and its attacks. I summon umbral copies of everything in my inventory in the order of thousands, and each of my duplicates do the same, we fill the skies with unbreakable objects aimed at the incoming fist. Lil’s duplicates, my duplicates, and all my objects are swept into the creature’s bodyparts as they swing our direction. Even if we’re scratching its surface, it doesn’t even slow the creature’s assault in the slightest. Lil and I evade, teleporting towards what we assume to be its head or heads. We let loose everything we can muster, beams, breaths, item copies, duplicates of ourselves, Flash Freeze Storms, every possible method of attack we have at our disposal. The creature is unrelenting, and it’s mere fractions of a second away from shattering the orb once more.

Sighing, Lil and I both engage limit breaks and call forth umbral duplicates of ourselves worth millions of mana, enormous copies of ourselves to strike back against the beast. We’re able to grip one of its limbs and hold it back, but our own forms plow along the ground, destroying the entire landscape below, barely missing the orb. As a last ditch effort, we try to engage a limit break climax to whatever effect the world thinks might help us. Lil’s own body, energy, soul, everything is spent and absorbed into the fist of my duplicate.

Lil! No, no, no. Okay, we’ll reset after we try this, just, just keep breathing. Don’t give in.

My enormous umbral duplicate raises its fist and unleashes all of the energy its climactic act can muster, Lil’s entire being pours forth as weaponized radiant energy, and it causes a fracture along one of the creatures limbs, but nothing more, though the beam carries off into the endless horizon as my arm is knocked to the side. Where the beam connects with water and land somewhere in the far distance is met with unending explosions, steam, and mushroom clouds as of a billion nuclear detonations. All that, all that, and Lil’s sacrifice, and this is all we managed to do.

My umbral duplicate is slammed downwards into the orb, crushing me between the monstrosity’s fist, and the orb. This snowglobe shatters, and the light begins to consume everything once more. Alright past me. This is unwinnable, once again. The outcome is inevitable.

Inevitable, that’s the word that comes to mind as I enter an empty room with Lil at my side. Well, not empty, featureless. I’m inundated with warnings and messages from dead versions of future me from failed timelines, but I don’t see anything that sounds like what they describe. Nor what appears in my logs.

Lil and I glance at each other. Lil reads my log and looks worried. If this was a test, I think we failed. I have to shunt aside and redact memory logs of millions of attempts between the first room, and this one, in order to reduce the explosion my brain feels like it’s constantly experiencing.

My vision fritzes slightly. Ahead of us is a walkway across a chasm over a river, it leads to an alabaster dais upon which stands six pedestals. They’re similar in size to the one that held a tome with Lil’s memory log in the chameleon village. Curiously, we cautiously cross the stone walkway, and stand before the pedestals. Sure enough, they have space for tomes of identical size, and there are roman numeral style engravings inlaid in the areas set for placing the books.

I take out the IV and the VI book and set them in their slots. Lil takes out the I book and sets it in that one, but nothing happens. I heave a sigh and let myself huff for a moment.

I call out, “I guess we failed, huh? Are we going to be worthy to talk to the Naga people or no?”

The figure, our tester or quester, whomever they are, approaches. There’s something about their cocksure gait, the way their form is unreadable beneath their clothing, their prehensile tail, just something about every bit of them that seems familiar. They respond, “This test was not to fail or pass, simply for you to one day understand. Not now, don’t think too hard on it now. You did marvelously. By now, you’re some of my oldest friends, my strongest allies. Thank you for taking care of things I wished to accomplish.”

My face screws up in a quizzical expression, “Staff Ninja?”

Lil looks at me in surprise while the figure chortles. The being replies, “Yes, and no. Like many of us, I did not have a name, I still don’t. The being you know as Staff Ninja most certainly perished fighting the serpent. Yet that being’s desires and gratitude reside within me. I suppose who I am now you can continue to refer to as Tester or Quester. Or perhaps one of your quaint acronym nicknames, TQ sounds pleasant, does it not?”

Lil and I exchange a glance before I reply, “Uh, yeah, TQ sounds fairly cool. Do you, does the being or desire that resides within you, want the thunderstick back? I mean, the lightning and thunder staff.”

TQ chuckles while shaking their head, their face still hidden beneath the low-lipped brim of their round hat. TQ then looks about, worriedly, “Hm, it seems we haven’t as much time as I’d like this time. Do not worry, you’ll know when you can come back, when you need to come back. You already have the five souls of origin, though one might be a smidge hard to convince. And of course, the original soul.”

I can tell that somehow, beneath the brim of their hat, TQ is gazing intently at Lil as they say the original soul. The micro muscles beneath my skin still ache from the extended rapid use of my chromatophores and iridophores from the previous day’s journey, so I find myself massaging my jaw, shoulders, neck, and chest.

I clear my throat to ask, “So, do we just leave? Have we passed the tests enough to earn the Nagas’ trust? I’m grateful to learn that my time skill had a price, and that now only I pay its price, as well as the ridiculous amount of practice I’ve gotten with it, but it wasn’t exactly why I came here. Or well, why I intended to try to come where I thought I was going to be. I still desire my family’s safety above all else.”

TQ responds, “Wasn’t it though? Hm, no, I suppose you wouldn’t have been convinced of that reason. Some old gecko telling you what you needed to hear it seems. I apologize, that’s insensitive, chameleon. Amazing how much they were able to absorb from a book not meant for them. Tsk, it shouldn’t have been there, but no matter, you recovered it, with no loss of life, perhaps new allies to boot. If you truly desire your family’s safety, and I know you do, you’ll need the other three tomes. The elves should have some clues as to their whereabouts.”

TQ pauses before adding, “When you leave, you’ll round a few corners, and spy a familiar face. Her telepathy is as strong as you believe it to be, the strongest I’ve ever known. I bid you farewell for now, I haven’t the energy to stick around any longer. I should be rested enough to help you when next you return.”

TQ ushers us to return the way we’d come, and while I’d like to protest, we all know that I want to ensure the safety of my family as swiftly as possible, and to keep peace in all our lands. Lil has been mulling something over silently, and reading years upon years of my logs of our futures together that we’ll never have lived. We turn to express our gratitude to TQ, but they’re nowhere to be found.

Lil breaks the silence as we proceed to the final, or first door, however you want to look at it. The one that will lead us back to the Nagas’ temple. Lil mumbles, “How am I supposed to be the original? Huh? Lots of things are older than me. I think. I don’t get it pal. Did we do good? We failed, but, but I thought we did our best.”

I lift Lil into my arms to snuggle them tightly, I smooch their forehead repeatedly. I blush remembering that Lil, in our longest dead timeline, is someone that I shared more tender kissing with. The only comfort I can offer is my love for Lil, my agreement that we did our best.

Is there going to come a day, an inevitable day, when our best isn’t good enough? When no matter how hard we try, that’s it, that’s the end of it all? The first and last test seemed to indicate such a possibility, but at least the first test didn’t end until I had decided to sacrifice myself, for the merest chance that my family could live on. We didn’t even get that chance in the final trial.

I heave a sigh and let my brow rest against Lil’s. I mumble, “I love you to death and beyond, Lil, buddy. Thank you for being here with me. Going through that, twice, alone, would have been a special kind of hell.”

Lil nuzzles against my head in return, “I know pal, I know. I’m sorry that this me wasn’t really there with you through it all. I’ll only ever know from the me in your memory logs.”

I gulp down a breath and nod slightly. It’s true, it seems like I’m the only one that comes back, or messages from me come back. But how does that work with Luni though? It’s more like I sent her entire future-self back to her, sometime around when she first evolved. So many times it has seemed like she’s had personalities from different periods of her life piloting her actions and emotions. Early days, near anyone other than Lil, Teuila, or myself, she’d stutter and mumble almost every sentence, and sometimes even with just me, or Te. Ever since she evolved though, Lu has been able to swap back and forth between extroverted, confident Lu, and shy introverted Lu, at the flip of a hat. Drop of a dime? Drop of a hat, flip of a dime. Something or other.

Lil chuckles at my distractibility, “Yeah, Lu’s special, I guess I didn’t really notice the differences, since she’s always open around me, sorta. But she has something even more special with you. Kinda makes me jealous pal, but also kinda doesn’t. Like, she doesn’t get nervous with me, but she knows she can let go with me, too. I’unno pal, it’s weird, and stuff. But, like, like, like, best buds forever, right? And, and Gal-Pals, and It’s-A-Secrets, and, and stuff.”

I smile wide to my eyes as I continue to nuzzle Lil and kiss their cranium, nodding all the while. We exit this temple of time, after I’ve recovered the stone I used to block the rotating entryway, and begin wandering a bit, seeking out the turns that TQ mentioned. Before long, a gorgeous Naga with long dark tresses can be seen approaching us followed by two guards.

I slump to my knees and raise my hands palm forward in a sign of peace.

Telepathically, I hear, “I was surprised you were so adamant to head down to some old ruined arena with a dilapidated temple to prove your carpentry. That’s generally not how we judge the worthiness of strangers.”

My response is confused, incredulous at best, “Buh, huh, bwah, what? Carpentry? Dilapidated temple? Floating islands! Crazy space warping! Time flipped on its head!”

Dehlia replies, “Did you suffer a head injury in the ruins? Falling stone is a constant hazard within.”

My index claw raises as if to make a point, and my mouth tries to form words, but my index claw can’t decide whether to point or pinch or purse near my scaled lips. How do I tell Dehlia that I did suffer many head injuries over several decades, nay, centuries, within? How do the Naga people not know about a crazy time warping temple?

Dehlia states, “It seems you’re delirious, perhaps hospitality will aid your recovery. You have been a source of constant curiosity since first we met, Reggie Shellcracker. And now here you are, a draconian, or dragonborn, or draconoid, something or other. Did doing this to yourself scramble your skull? Addle your brains?”

Lil starts laughing across our mental wavelength, and I begin to complain, but even Dehlia eventually snickers along telepathically.

I sigh, and try to push all other thoughts aside. I came here with a single task. I request of Dehlia, “Dehlia, would you be willing to tell me about your society? Its hierarchy, its structures, who I would talk to to ask for sanctuary, who I would speak with to parley or negotiate peace, things like that?”

Dehlia ruminates, and she waves the two guards away behind her. They slither away down the hall to their posts I assume. Dehlia looks to be spending a great deal of time in consideration, her face hanging low. More and more of her hair spills forward, and she frustratedly grips all of it to tie in a swift bun behind her head. Even that has several feet of hair draped along her back. As she straightens up, I’m treated to the sight of her bare torso, I gulp, blush, and avert my eyes. It’s micro-scales that mimic human epidermis, and small curves in approximations of human proportions, nothing more, but my buggy memories slam me with a sense of guilt, shame, and impropriety for viewing someone’s bare torso. Dehlia squints one eye at me while raising the other brow. I know she can essentially read my thoughts if she’s listening, I hope she knows I have the utmost respect for her and her incredible powers.

She chuckles, “Flattery will get you nowhere, Reggie. Well, maybe a few feet closer. Come here, let me show you around. May I carry your Lil? I’m surprised, and happy, to see them recovered so swiftly. I thought it would take them years. I’m both ashamed and proud of my part in their, hm, current state.”

I start to say that Lil isn’t mine, but Lil bounds ahead into Dehlia’s arms. Dehlia virtually babies Lil, cradling them with one arm, stroking their tail with her free hand. Lil blurts out, “Thanks sweet sexy snake lady!”

My expression becomes mortified as I facepalm. Who taught Lil to talk like that? That’s not even an adjective that should have any meaning to critterkin since we don’t have, y’know, sexy stuff. Dehlia looks stunned for a moment before she bursts into laughter. Whew, okay, at least she took it well. I guess it was kind of funny after all, heh.

I don’t want to imply that the tour we get from Dehlia is boring, far from it. Her description of every bit of her culture as we pass by any given object, engraving, sculpture, building, member of her extended family, or anything else, is utterly fascinating. There’s just so much information being passed my way, that it ends up in a sub log within my memory journal, devoted solely to the Naga city and its society. Since her telepathy is so strong, she isn’t limited to just speaking telepathically, she can pass me entire histories of a thing that we’re discussing or looking at, all in an instant.

It’s almost like we have a version of our accelerated thinkspace, but only Dehlia is accelerated, and she can dump dozens of times quicker speech into telepathic contact than I can respond to or even digest. She even seems, almost giddy to be sharing all of the information with pride. Some of the standout features to me are scriveners and scribes who work at determining functions of magic, and documenting them. I may one day be able to learn how to create new identification scrolls from them, since I’d destroyed the last one unintentionally when trying to learn its secrets.

For now, I’m far more interested in her governance, or well, her discussion of the Naga society governing structure. It’s an elected panel, three trios who provide checks and balances against one another, rarely do they all handle a single matter, but matters of great import will require a tribunal of all nine. To even have a chance to request a full tribunal though, one has to have acquired a sort of mark of importance. These are given out to people in the top of their field, the best craftsman of a given type, the best athlete, the most accomplished scribe, the most accurate soothsayer, and on and on. They may only be used once in a lifetime, before needing to be earned again. It sounds like to earn them again, every other Naga in your field must earn and use up their own mark of importance before you’re allowed to again, so you have incentive to train and support everyone who was previously beneath you, to help them ascend to your level of talent.

The only way for an outsider like me to earn one, would be to demonstrate my mastery of a field, and for the top Naga in that field to acknowledge me, and willingly hand over their mark of importance. The problem is, I’m not a master of anything. The only thing I’m even sure I’m good at is one on one combat. I don’t think any individual Naga is capable of slaying me if I fight with the idea of going all out, with life and death on the line, but I don’t want to challenge someone to a duel to the death. That doesn’t seem like the way to earn a peace treaty, or pledge of sanctuary.

Dehlia did reiterate her warning. The warning that if I wasn’t so obviously scalekind, currently, all of the guards would have reacted much more harshly to me zipping about their territory. Also, a reminder that many of them have powerful magic. I’m so glad that most of their magic seems to revolve around fire and cold, though there are plenty of specialists in acid and toxins as well. There are several that have minor gravity powers, and I really wish I could invite Teuila here to show off hers. At least, hers at the height of her power, when we were still using radiant transformations.

I ask Dehlia for her opinion on which mark of importance I’m most likely to be able to earn from someone else, based on what she knows about me. Her response is, “Hm, you’re nimble, powerful, able to take a beating. Do you know how to play ball?”

The turn of phrase strikes me as funny, but Dehlia did describe their sporting activities to me. The wildest of which is almost no-holds-barred combat. I say almost, because injuring or killing the other team is punishable by the same, so players tend to avoid using their magics directly on one another. Honestly, I think she’s right. If my life were a comic, manga, or anime, I’d be about to enter the silly arc that seems like it might be filler, since it revolves around sports, but turns out to be massively important anyway.

Dehlia informs me that I’ll have to challenge enough teams to even be considered a worthy challenger to be allowed to make a challenge of the current master in the sporting field. My big choice is whether I make the challenges solo, and face the solo master, or in a pair with Lil, and we eventually face the duo masters.