Origins

They had come full circle. It had taken seven days (minus a few hours) to get back to this bench. It was him, Lydia and Romulus who sat on it. Everyone else was around as well. Stirwin had jumped into the pond and playfully chased some ducks that the emperor was feeding with crumbs of bread. The fact that neither Sol nor Luna had said anything about the ‘celestial devourer’ made John pretty certain they didn’t know that title. He would keep it that way.

“Before I begin to tell you the story, I need you to understand that you cannot share what you are about to learn with the outside world,” Romulus said; “For I fear what happens when people realize the truth about Gaia’s powers.”

Everyone gave their word. “It is a terribly old tale,” the emperor continued to warn them nevertheless, “and filled with personal regrets. Just another reason to keep it quiet from most people.” He looked at the crocodile snapping at one of the silver headed ducks.

“But let us no longer wait, for I am sure that you have waited for this tale for a long time. I must disappoint you, however, and tell you that this story doesn’t begin with Gaia herself, but with me… and my brother.”

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“What useless thing did you create this cycle?” Romulus jokingly asked his twin Remus. They were both good looking young men, olive skinned and muscular as was needed for the time, although Romulus had his brother beat in sheer mass. The future emperor had always been the hunter while his brother had been a craftsman.

This was reflected in their individual powers as well. Romulus was the ultimate devourer of powers, a hunter of things magical. Remus, on the other hand, was blessed with the power to create things from fate. This power had been unimpressive at first, when all he was able to create were short-lived talking plants or other such cheap parlour tricks, but soon they had become something more.

As far as Romulus knew, they were the only two people who were born with powers of this magnitude. Most people could fling a little fire or make their arrows hit more accurately, but that was about it. The only way to create people with inborn powers was for the mother to absorb magical energy before her kids were born. This meant that they needed to hunt and kill magical beings, which were extremely hard to track and to kill. Even then it was all but guaranteed. The chances were slowly rising throughout generations, but that didn’t help much.

The thing in question today was a sack. Romulus undid the bindings and looked inside, finding seeds. His brother’s hand quickly snatched it from his comparatively brutish sibling. “It is a hope for the future,” he berated his brother and tightened the rope around the soft leather again. Sacks like this were just one of the many things Remus was inventing in this hiding hole.

They had both been born as part of a tribe, but Remus had opted out of the tents and endless migrations. Instead, he had his older twin brother wrestle this cave from a bear and then lived in here on his own. This meant that the two brothers were separated for most of the time, but every year the tribe would settle close to the cave over the winter, and Romulus would visit his brother during these times.

“I have been giving life to seeds and made them run around the world to find people and present to them the idea of agriculture,” he explained, “because the idiots aren’t able to figure it out themselves.”

“As misanthropic as ever, I see. No wonder you keep sitting in this cave,” Romulus said, attempting to sit down on a crudely crafted stool. It was kicked away from under him, and he planted his butt firmly on the stone floor. “Was that really necessary?”

“You can take a fall every now and then,” Remus decided and then gave his brother the mean but playful smile that siblings sometimes shared. “That aside, you should just settle with someone already. It would be interesting to see what kind of children you produce.”

“I actually have my eyes on two lovely ladies,” Romulus said; “Although it seems that I need to reconcile them; they get along like night and day.” He chuckled over a joke only he understood. “You will see when I can get them to fall in love with me. Which I will, eventually.”

“It is nice to hear that you are as confident as ever,” Remus said; “Must be nice to be all powerful, although that sounds like you already tried and failed.”

“I did once, but you know that I always try thrice. Also, my power is a privilege that I am sharing, brother,” Romulus answered, “something that you should learn to do as well. Instead of discovering things for yourself inside this cave, come with us and share them with the people.”

“I can share from here, without engaging with those sheep,” the younger twin shook his head. “And you know as well as I that there is something here that I cannot leave out of my sight.”

“About that…” the future emperor left the question unspoked, this was just part of their ritual. Remus nodded, and they both stood up and went deeper into the cave. It wound deep into the earth, their steps echoing on the natural stone formations around them. Nothing here had been touched by Remus’ hands, unlike the living area close to the entrance of the cave.

It was only a light radiating from Romulus’ fist that guided their path for a long time. Then the world around them suddenly shifted, and they stood inside a perfectly cubical room. The floor was like a black mirror while the walls reflected everything in a dark purple.

In the middle of this room hovered a golden sphere. It radiated no light, reflected none; it was a simple existence of gold. Romulus concentrated mana on his feet and flew up to the sphere. “It was the size of a pebble when you created it, and now it is taller than I am,” the future emperor said.

“It WAS a pebble when I created it,” Remus reminded him. “You remember that it was a safety precaution in order to make sure no living thing ever gets this amount of power, right?”

“Well, you definitely succeeded,” Romulus said and punched the sphere. It didn’t even budge in the slightest; all he did was make his whole arm hurt from the rebound. “Even I find myself unable to steal its power. I would need to damage it to do so, and the power concentrated on a single spot is too high to even budge it. It’s like trying to damage a diamond with a toothpick.”

“You have enough power without being the god of gods. That aside, you know as well as I that its purpose is for your vision as well,” Remus said. The god of gods, or, to put it more correctly, the god of faith, that was the true nature of this sphere.

It had been something that Remus created under great strain from his powers, after decades of practice. He had been using a theory that magical energy just whirled around in the atmosphere on its own. He had been half right at that point, the idea that it was human thought that created magical beings had been undiscovered at the time. So, he had gotten the ‘where from’ wrong but not the ‘where right now’. As a result, he had created a focal point for magical energies to travel through a single point, and every bit of energy that travelled through this sphere left a bit of it behind.

However, this god was without sapience or perhaps it would have been correct to say that it was without the capability to set its own cause. It just existed, like a computer with an endless power supply but nobody operating it.

“So, you noticed no change?” Romulus asked.

“None, it just continues to be, and I remain unable to influence it properly,” Remus said, “The only way we could use it for your suggestion, to enable all of humanity to bear children with innate abilities, would be if we could program it. For that we need a human who can connect with it, and for that we need a human who has that same energy inside them.”

“A natural who has the same energy inside them,” Romulus corrected, “otherwise I’d be able to do it.”

“Yes, which was what I originally hoped for,” the younger twin sighed heavily, “but it just doesn’t work and humans cannot take in this kind of energy naturally for some reason. It is a disastrous waste of potential, but this power source is unusable for us. It could have erected a second layer of reality.”

“What would you need that for?” the future emperor asked as he landed back on the polished floor. In his furs he looked incredibly out of place. “All we want is for all people to become strong.”

“Yes, but until then we need to protect those who aren’t from those who are,” Remus argued; “We should create a two-layered society. One for the people who already have power, to induct those who are granted new powers from those in the normal world.”

“All you will create is two separated instances of society, not two layers to one,” Romulus returned. “They will never mingle unless you let them.”

“If you just leave the strong unchecked they will never become one because the powerful will slaughter the weak like cattle. Not everyone is as nice as you are, Romulus; we need rules enforced by a central authority!”

“Maybe, but not an unquestionable membrane between worlds!” Their voices became shouts, and they stared at each other.

“…this talk is for naught anyways,” Remus finally decided and walked away. “It won’t work; I am going to see you again next year.“

If the emperor had known then what his brother was planning, then he could have stopped him.

And one year did pass, and when Romulus returned, his brother was no longer alone. With him was a child, with hair and eyes of green. At the time the god-eater didn’t think much off his brother’s child, neither did he care a lot where she came from. She was an energetic child and Romulus liked visiting his brother more now that he wasn’t just brooding around.

However, there were many weird things about little Gaia. Remus never mentioned who her mother was or what happened to her, neither did he really answer why her aura looked so split or why her eyes had that black ring inside them. All Romulus got were dodged questions, but that was just the brother he knew, and even though that was bothering him, they were the only family they still had, having lived for longer than people in their time were supposed to live already.

It was 22 years later that Remus finally revealed the truth when Romulus visited.

“Where is my favourite niece?” the future emperor shouted when coming into the cave, finding it empty. It was devoid of all people, only the lines of magical items on the wall even attesting to the fact that someone had lived here.

Something was wrong about the cave that day, very wrong. “Remus?” he shouted away and went deeper into the cave. Maybe he was with the god of gods, or the world soul as they had dubbed it nowadays.

Romulus took the one step that normally brought him into that separated space and stopped. Stopped inside a dark cave illuminated only by his magic. Nothing had happened. ‘What did you do, brother?’ Romulus thought and immediately turned back.

He looked with all the senses, godly and mortal, that he had for traces of his brother. He hadn’t even been in this part of the cave in months, judging by smell. With the nose of a wolf, he found and traced his brother’s steps back to the magical items and lastly to an hourglass.

Romulus stretched out his hand and was immediately transported. It felt like he was being drawn into an elusive copy of that barrier that had surrounded the world soul, and then he found himself on top of a rim of glass around a maelstrom of sand so fine it appeared liquid to his eyes for a moment.

“TURN BACK TIME, FERIKRONA!” he heard his brother shout, “I DEMAND IT! I HAVEN’T FINISHED THE PROJECT YET!”

“What project?” Romulus asked; “Where is Gaia? What is this place?”

“Brother, I cannot deal with you right now,” Remus reprimanded him without even looking at him; his voice was hoarse; apparently, he had been shouting for hours. “FERIKRONA! YOU CANNOT RESIST ME, I HAVE BUILT IT INTO YOU!”

Being ignored like this was unacceptable to the man who could get everything he wanted, and he grabbed his brother by the furred leather covering his chest. “Answer me, brother, before I destroy this place with my powers; you know I am capable of doing so.”

That only got a smile, “You know what, fine, I will tell you. Not like you can stop anything anymore. To put it bluntly, Romulus, I found a way to use the god of gods, but I have done it my way.”

The future emperor clenched his fist harder and waited for the explanation his brother gave him with a smug expression. He told Romulus everything, from how he had tried to create a human god again and again only to fail on the boundaries of the soul before finally arriving at the attempt to combine the strongest source of power he knew of with a fresh corpse.

“The soul needs to defragment just enough to let in the godly essence but not far enough to leave behind only a corpse, you see,” he explained in a proud tone. At that moment Romulus realized that his brother had never truly cared about humanity, only about his research. He was bereft of all morality.

“You killed a child to create a human god?” Romulus asked.

“I stole her from nobody; I legitimately got someone to love me and then produced an offspring. She died in labour, but that wasn’t important,” Remus stated and then raised an eyebrow as he was lifted off the ground; “Although you seem to disagree, brother. Always the sensible one. I just needed an easily influenceable god, what easier way to ensure that than using a baby?” This person, more scientist than human, presented that without any care. “I even did what you wanted, through the permeation in the air of the world, every human now has a chance to have magically gifted offspring, isn’t that wonderful? Over the coming hundreds of generations – safe thanks to the implementation of my genius – everyone will be powerful. Humanity itself will ascend thanks to my work.”

He glanced at the maelstrom of sand, “Although Gaia didn’t like that when I told her what rule she should program into the world soul today. Silly girl. I will just have Ferikrona turn back time and explain it to her more sensibly. It worked in the past.”

“Rules, what rules?” Romulus asked, but he was already certain that it was what he least wanted to hear.

“Magic may not be practiced in front of unknowing people, that’s the most important one; the protection of Gaia and the world souls connection is another one. You would need an insane amount of magical energy to even attempt separating that.” Remus’ arrogant grin made Romulus want to bash his teeth, but he needed to know everything. “Although I had my little girl create other systems to support all of those. Ah, I can’t wait to see how humanity will use all of this, the few gifted that rise from the endless muck, that is. I so hate repetition. A shame the rules seem to only implement themselves slowly. It’s like a spark in a forest, you know? The fire needs a bit to spread, but once we get there, nobody will be able to stop it, least of all the fire herself – Even if she wanted.”

“How did you hide her from me? I am able to sense godhood easily, not that it is hard in the first place,” Romulus wanted to know; “If she was god, I should have been able to steal her powers.”

“I would love to know that myself, but it seems that human gods are just an exception to both of our powers,” Remus exclaimed; “Maybe you would be able to take over if you killed her? Not that you ever will be successful in that; every attempt will be countered by the world soul. Anyway, it was nice telling you all of this for the thirtieth time, but I have to insist now, Ferikrona, that you turn back time to yesterday now.” The smile on his face stayed even though nothing happened. “Come now, Feri,” his voice became angrier. “You must be in a lot of pain by now, I made you to obey me, SO OBEY ME!”

“Did it cross that brilliant mind of yours…” Romulus growled as he dangled his brother over the edge of the pool. He had no idea what it would mean for anyone to fall into this maelstrom, but cold rage consumed his caution, and the fearful glance at the pool gave him all the indication he could ever need that it wouldn’t be a good thing. “…that Gaia now got your little scheme and has used the power of the world soul to forbid meddling with time?”

Remus opened his mouth and snapped it shut again like a dumbfounded fish.

“You have fallen, brother,” Romulus said; “You have fallen so far. You never liked people, but at least you had something to offer to them. Now you condemned them to a life without the healing touch of magic. Your actions today will ripple through history and kill millions… unless I succeed in killing Gaia.”

The idea of killing his own niece pained him, but it was nothing compared to the suffering his race would have to endure.

“I would love to see you try,” Remus said and glanced again at his dangling feet. “She and the world soul are basically one now.” Then he took a relieved breath when Romulus drew back his arm.

“You won’t get to,” the future emperor announced and threw his brother as if he were as light as a feather. He wasn’t as aerodynamic as one, however, and so he flew and flew until eventually landing in the greedy turn of the maelstrom.

“I spent the next ten millennia trying to free the Abyss,” Romulus finished; “Obviously to no avail. I faced Gaia once shortly after the events of that day. First, I tried talking to her, then I attacked, and she fled. The second time I almost got her was when Nathalia’s eruption intervened. I will try a third; Remus’ world must be undone.”

“But is that such a bad world?” John had to ask while stomaching the information contained within that story. There were revelations in there he would have to think about, but for the moment that was the question his mind turned around the most. Sure, the methods were bad, but the result was here to stay, so it was important to find out.

Romulus’ gaze turned to him with cold fury. “How many people die of cancer or other illnesses? How many starve? How many live in poverty? Magic could fix all of these things, if only I was allowed to do so!” the emperor bellowed.

“Not all of them,” John said, “that’s just the thing. You cannot be everywhere, and your brother already told you that not everyone is as great a person as you are. Slavery is a common thing wherever you don’t rule the Abyss. Also, humans have come a long way under the necessity of survival, maybe it was only the loss of magic that made us ultimately discover technology?”

“Are you saying that Remus was right?” the emperor was dangerously quiet when asking this question. It seemed that he had dug himself into a trench on this position, but John still furthered what he wanted to say.

“I am saying he had a point, even if the means he used to get there were absolutely reprehensible,” John stated. “From what I understand, the plan Gaia has will eventually achieve what you want anyway, right? If every normal person has a chance to have abyssally talented offspring and more families get inducted into the Abyss than there are families dropping out, then eventually everyone will be in the Abyss. All that will have changed is that the structure of those with powers grow steadily instead of having to deal with a sudden and massive influx of powerless people.”

“The chaos of one, two or even three generations’ duration will save more lives for the dozen of generations that have to survive without miracles,” Romulus stated.

“Maybe,” John said; he had no idea what the correct position was to have here, both sides had arguments that made sense. Was the temporary chaos worse than the terrible conditions that normal humans faced?

It was weird that Romulus was so cemented on this issue. Generally, it seemed like this man had already learned what the Father of Light had attempted to drill into John’s mind just yesterday: That there was no way to be certain that your way was the best way available. Here, he was relentless.

John leaned more towards Gaia’s side of things. For a start because living in the modern world was already pretty great even without magic. Then because he could not imagine a transition that could take place without the loss of billions of lives. Literal billions. Maybe the initial separation was unjust, he was on the fence about that, but the modern situation would mean catastrophe if the two sides met again suddenly.

“Maybe…” Romulus repeated in a slightly dismissive tone. “Well then, what do you plan to do with this information?” That was a question in his normal voice; at least he didn’t dwell on it and tried to convince John further like a true zealot. It seemed there was yet hope to talk this out.

“Nothing much,” John said, “I just wanted to know things.”

“Yeah, not all that useful knowledge,” Rave exclaimed, “but nice to have, I guess.”

“I just want one more thing clarified: do you want to kill Gaia?” Lydia asked.

“I will kill her if necessary, but separating her from the world soul would also do it,” Romulus announced; “Whatever breaks the current tranquillity on the world, for it is unnatural and unjust.” The conviction in his words made the Gamer shiver.

‘I will need to hear the other side of this story, now how do I get Gaia to come to me again?’ John asked himself when he stood up. “I hope you don’t mind if we stay a bit longer Romulus,” he spoke out, “at least a few more days to make sure that Eliza is stable.”

“You are welcome to stay as long as you need to, John Newman; my palace has enough rooms,” Romulus answered, and they said their goodbyes for the day.

“Thanks, but I will be staying in the mansion in the sky,” the Gamer said and waved as Romulus vanished behind some impressively cut bush work. ‘And that’s that,’ he added in his mind, ‘my job here is done, I am debt free, and now Eliza seems stable… this is all remarkably stable.’ That was a nice note to end this chapter of his life on.

End of Season 2