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Chapter 259 - Alternate Paths
🕑 Added 2025-10-26 17:51:29 +0000 UTCMirian was examining the effect different glyphs had on air currents and considering how that translated into mathematics when Zhuan reentered the chamber.
“You’re a fool. They’re all busy maneuvering. You must know that the most important conversations within a governing body aren’t the official meetings, but what’s done in the backrooms and pleasant conversations, right?”
Mirian snorted. “My first lesson in government was that none of it worked like it was supposed to. Why does anyone bother pretending to be a republic, then?”
“Because it smoothly distributes power among the elite, leading to a larger power base. That power base has the resources to keep the rest of the population in line. Ideology is their first line of defense, but they can hire enough guns and wands to get the job done if that fails.”
“It’s not even stable. There’s Corrmier’s coup in Palendurio. I assume you watched that? I stopped paying attention last cycle as it got messy. Liuan was having trouble restraining her Akanans.” Liuan had apparently disabled the two airship dreadnoughts, but that hadn’t stopped invasion forces from landing in Cairnmouth and Palendurio. However, since the fighting had all been away from the Labyrinth entrances, Mirian hadn’t bothered to get involved.
“The elite will often have contests within their ranks. There’s a social pressure for there to be fewer elites, because then each one of them has more power. However, if there’s too much consolidation, the elite power base weakens and the power has to be distributed again. You read the chapter about that? No?” Zhuan sighed. “Either way, that’s only one of the dynamics present in Corrmier’s coup. This war is about converting an imperial entity into a colony.”
“But why would Corrmier help with that? He’s part of Baracuel.”
“No he’s not. He’s Decian Corrmier. He is part of the Corrmier family first. He’s friends with industrialists and landowners second, who are Akanan, Baracueli, Persaman, and even Zhighuan. You must think of the elites as a group, not as part of a country. If Baracuel collapses, the rich people here have the wealth and resources to move, or to simply dominate under new leadership. Even Gabriel would agree that the Lord Saiyal only cares about how many palaces he has in Persama, not about Persama itself. He props up the myths and history of Persama because it serves him. Sylvester Aurum does the same in Akana. Corrmier uses his patriotism for Baracuel as a rhetorical cudgel. The elites will fight among each other, but they’ll also work together.”
Zhuan paused. “I’m surprised you don’t like this material. Zoom far enough out and social movements can be turned into equations and tables just like the tides and seasons. It would make them understandable.”
Mirian shook her head. “Is that all we are then? Forces of nature that believe themselves sentient, but are no more so than sand moving down a river? Is not a single grain of sand different? Can none of us resist the pull of our base instincts, our greed—the lust for power?”
“There will always be those who lust for power. The question is what the rest of us do about it.”
“Then a new power comes in. The Zhighuan Empire was replaced by the Triarchy. The Triarchy, by Baracuel. And if the world doesn’t end, Baracuel will be replaced by Akana. Has there ever been another way?”
Zhuan was silent. “Maybe. The pre-Cataclysm records are sparse. I must believe there is.”
“I appreciate the honesty, at least.” How many impossible things? she wondered.
With a sigh, she levitated out of her chair and cast detect life. Once she could see people moving through the walls, she could get a sense of what was going on. Ibrahim was meditating on a rock, while Jherica talked to him—or perhaps at him. They might make more progress talking to the rock. Gabriel was talking to Xecatl, who’s straight posture told Mirian that she wasn’t pleased with whatever was being said.
There was one person Mirian did need to talk to. It was just the conversation she was least looking forward to.
“Aright,” she said, and levitated over to Liuan Var.
“You!” the man she’d thrown out of the meeting earlier said as she approached.
Mirian hadn’t learned his name and didn’t intend to. She cast zone of silence around him. “Prophet Liuan, I know we have you scheduled to report on your attempts to pursue this ‘Scebur,’ but I wanted to see if you need assistance with the matter.”
The man finally seemed to realize no one could hear him talk, and stopped, though his face had gone red.
Liuan glanced his way, then shook her head. “Always straight to the point with you. Fine, I’ll give you the summary now. They’re impossible to pin down. They keep acting through proxies, convincing powerful mages to do their bidding through that cult of theirs. I started scouring the continent for mysterious holes that appeared on the 1st of Solem, but they must have gotten wind of what I was doing, because all of a sudden my agents started seeing them everywhere. Obviously, if one appears in once cycle, but not another, it’s an obvious forgery, but… there’s too many things to keep track of. And then things change again.”
“Hmm,” Mirian said. She hadn’t actually answered the question.
“No,” Liuan said with a sigh. “Jherica and I have enough difficulties coordinating things so that I don’t confuse their changes as Scebur’s. I can get a firm enough control on the RID and, as you can see, the Senate is amenable. After all, they live on Enteria too.”
Mirian guessed that most of the people with her were politicians, then. She still had several priests and RID agents, but she was clearly expanding her control over Akana, step by step. Faster than Jherica. Should I be worried about the imbalance, or let them each specialize? Jherica was crucial in helping Xecatl’s research efforts. Take them away to contest Akana instead, and they’d be undermining the primary goal of getting spirit constructs to supplement the device. “I noticed attacks on the coast last cycle.”
Liuan clenched her jaw. “It’s never gone on that long before. How was I supposed to know some of my fixes wouldn’t hold?”
“Just a comment.”
Liuan cast her own zone of silence so that it encompassed the two of them. “I can try something more permanent to restrain Akana next cycle, but it’s high-risk, which is why I haven’t done it. I won’t bore you with the specifics,” she said, while glancing at her company.
Ah, best not rile up her temporary allies, Mirian thought. They do tend to get touchy when they realize how they’re being manipulated, or how there’s nothing they can do to stop one of us from changing our allegiance or reneging on bargains. “Why not experiment?” Liuan didn’t reply, so Mirian added, “Any insight on Scebur’s motivations?”
“No. Or perhaps… one of my priests has a theory. That it has to do with the Relics of the Prophets.”
Mirian kept her face blank. Emotions had become so much easier to suppress over the years. “Oh?”
“Each of the Prophets had a Relic of great power the Ominian gifted them. Which I still don’t understand—where are our relics? Or must we earn them by moving closer to the divine path? Either way, each one was powerful, suffused with divine magic that gave them powers that our own artifice can’t replicate.”
They’re just cobbled together from pieces in the Labyrinth, Mirian thought. Her father had used an Elder artifact to make his ring. Eclipse was just made of the soul-imbued metals doused in relicarium. Still, Liuan was the one she most wanted to keep in the dark about the relics. “Yet, we already know one core tenet of the Luminates and Church was wrong; the Prophets didn’t receive visions of the future, but lived them. What else is recorded but false?”
Liuan ignored the blanched faces several of her attending priests made. “I’ve been investigating, because I think Scebur may be after the relics. The problem is that there’s been several… forgeries.” She glanced back at one of the priests, who reddened. “It turns out there is quite an industry in creating fake relics and selling them to churches that don’t know better than to even talk to a single arcanist about dating the artifact, never mind consulting the holy records. But last cycle, I had a rare opportunity to visit the Grand Sanctum in Palendurio.”
“And?”
“Have you visited the Holy Vaults?”
Here, it wouldn’t do to lie too heavily. “Missing relics and more forgeries. I moved on quickly.” Except… now I recall the theory of where the real relics went was to Akana during the split with the Church of the Ominian. Does Scebur have one? Or does Liuan?
“Yes, the forgeries I expected. But why would relics be missing? The Luminates perform regular ceremonies blessing the vaults. That means two of the relics went missing within four months of the first loop starting: the Sword of the Fourth Prophet, and the Holy Pages.”
Mirian nodded. “Or, more worryingly, during the loop.”
“Precisely. Mirian—what if the relics are what we need to solve the crisis? Each prepared for us by the other Prophets, meant to be assembled by us.”
“I suppose certain relics could be combined. The Mask of the Fifth Prophet could be combined with the Skull of the Second Prophet. To what purpose, I’m not sure, but it would be simply done. But how would one combine, say, the Ring of the First Prophet with the Sword of the Fourth? Also, the attested powers of the relics have nothing that might stop a moon.”
Liuan shook her head. “You keep assuming it’s something to be stopped. Why put an impossible task in front of us? To get us to look elsewhere.”
Another voice chimed in. “So perhaps the solution is somewhere else. A mechanism in the Labyrinth?” Jherica was apparently done talking to Ibrahim and had returned.
“The Elder artifacts are useful, but nothing that can reconfigure the leylines.” I thought Jherica of all people understood what we were doing. Why are so many of them insistent on the problem being something other than what it clearly is?
“Yes, but maybe we haven’t gone deep enough. There’s a way to control the leylines, right? Hence the leyline repulsors those big floating boats use—”
One of the military men with Liuan burst out. “That’s top secret military information! Professor Jherica, you can’t simply—”
Mirian hurled him into the bay with a telekinetic spell. Some three hundred feet away, he came up splashing and sputtering. “Prophet Liuan, why do so many of these idiots think they can keep secrets from a Prophet?”
“They don’t fully understand the situation. Which is fine,” she said, hiding her annoyance. All of her advisors had taken a step back.
“Anyways,” Jherica continued, “I think there’s controls down there. If the Labyrinth is like a self-regulating mechanism—which it certainly seems to be, given what you told me about how it even affects the climate—it must have emergency controls. Even a Tyrcast engine has an override.”
“The Labyrinth is a death trap,” Liuan said flatly. “We’ll get what we need from it, but the minimum—no more.”
“But think about it! Our cycles are shorter than the others. Perfect for delving such a dangerous thing. Maybe that’s the sign.”
Liuan shrugged. “Why bury the mechanism, though? That would put it right next to the leylines, the same leylines that might burst apart the control mechanism. Where does a Tyrcast engine put the override?”
Jherica put a finger to their chin. “On the outside, of course. Where it’s easily accessible by… oh.”
“And if you were an Elder God, where is the easiest place to access something? ‘They shall endlessly course through the deep void, as a fish swims through the ocean; nothing is beyond Their bounds,’” Liuan finished, quoting one of the sacred texts.
“Luamin,” Mirian said. “Jherica already showed us that entire moon is covered in Elder architecture. Divir is reachable, though.” Almost. Just give me a few more cycles. “But Luamin… Luamin is significantly further away than Divir.” And yet, we know that people made ships that can make even further journeys. Zhuan has already explored a lot of the Viaterrian ruins. But maybe something did survive.
For the first time in a long time, Mirian felt doubt about her plan. If the answer was up there, that would be easier than building a city-sized device.
“You two intend to continue investigating the relics and moon, then? Jherica, you’ll want to talk to Zhuan about her discoveries on Viaterrian artifacts. I believe they had the means to build vessels to reach Luamin, which might inform anything you want to build. Hmm. The leyline repulsors could probably only bring an airship so high, but that could be the basis for an upper altitude launch platform for a smaller skiff. And you already have factories that can produce Tyrcast engines.”
From the looks the Akanan advisors were giving each other, there was a lot of skepticism in Liuan’s crowd, but a far less hostile reaction than to the revelation of the leyline regulator. If there’s an easier path, why not take it?
Liuan went back to talking with her advisors, with Jherica joining in. Mirian had worried Liuan might try to exclude Jherica from important discussions with the Akanan elites they were relying on, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
One less thing to worry about.
After a bit more conversation, she took her leave to talk with Xecatl.
“We may be in a connected spirit with the Ominian,” she told the Emperor of Tlaxhuaco as she explained her use of the violet focuses found in Zhighua.
The nagual listened to her theory and her evidence, then poked holes in her theory about how such a spirit construct might function through the temporal anchors.
“The temporal anchors return to the Ominian when removed. But where do they go when we merely die? For obvious reasons, I’ve been unable to test anything involving this matter.”
That was an interesting line of thinking. Mirian and the others knew from their subjective experience of the in-between time after dying that the temporal anchor went somewhere before the end of the loop. They knew from Celen’s fate that it left no trace of the soul.
“If it moves physically, it will be easy to detect, even in the fourth dimension. Prior to being embedded in a soul, we know that’s the case, hence the holes in our roofs. But while embedded, the motion is different. Whenever I killed Troytin, the anchor didn’t make a hole in the ceiling as it left. And if it were merely moving in the arcane dimension, Apophagorga presumably would have been able to capture mine when it killed me. If it’s moving like matter does through the Gates, I don’t know that we’ll even be able to track it.”
Xecatl contemplated that. “Perhaps another instance where spirits can be of assistance. Myrvites often have ways of detecting things we don’t even know to look for, like soil conditions, the saliva of insects, or subtle changes in ambient mana. If we can develop a specialized spirit…”
Zhuan had been right, it seemed. The more personal conversations were quite helpful.
Comments
FuriousDee
She seems to like the concept of humanity more than humanity at this point.
UraniumPhoenix
Fixed, thanks.
Mr NerfGun
Not before she creates her armor. Otherwise other Prophets, especially Liuan, will interfere with its creation.
Daniel Andrews
Miriam needs to come clean about the relics. That piece of information is going to come around to bite her at the worst possible moment. Right when she needs everyone to trust her, Luan’s going to figure out where the relics are and do something stupid.
Anotherb Account
As always, love it, love every second of it. Minor word correction: “one core tenant of the Luminates and Church was wrong; the Prophets didn’t rece…” I think you meant “tenet”
zoarian
Reading through the chapter again, it strikes me that this analysis by Zhuan could equally well refer to the Prophets: “The elite will often have contests within their ranks. There’s a social pressure for there to be fewer elites, because then each one of them has more power. However, if there’s too much consolidation, the elite power base weakens and the power has to be distributed again...” Also, Mirian is really quite unpleasant? Not only does she lie by omission, but actively deceives Liuan- with ease! She doesn't treat the politicians as people either, just uses her magic to get rid of them. I fear she's cultivating bad habits that will prove difficult to shake off in the future.
Mr NerfGun
Does the 'anti-gravity' from the levitation spell affect the whole body? If so, doesn't that mean that her hair is constantly floating around when she casually levitates like in this chapter ?
Rodmin
The nagual could potentially play a way bigger role in the future. Even though the would normally try to stay on their home island to give their memoried back to the tree before the loop ends it could sometimes be useful to send like a dozen of them all over the world to do work. People that can remember are maybe the most rare resource they have and does Liuan even know that they also can remember? How much can the tree send them? I think only Xhecatl remembers everything because she was in union with the tree at the start of the loop, but when they communicate they get some of their memories?
Enthernal
What a chapter. Although this one is more politics then discovery, it still touches on a lot of avenues. Time for some lists; - Mirian seems less and less convinced (and concerned) the war could/should be stopped. I feel this is a good development in a way. She has enough on her plate. If anything, she should see if she can find a way to lessen the impact of whatever wars will happen then try to prevent them. - Liuans "plan" still comes over as denial, but she may have some points. The relics stuff feels more like a jab at Mirian, but it does remind us that there are a couple more out there. More on that later on. - The Labyrinth path has more Merit, at the very least we know there's tools to find there, and we still don't know all the reasons for it's existence, trials, econodes, etc. The more she finds/understand it, the easier it might be to make the regulator. - The option of the luamin being a failsafe or control makes little sense either. That being said, I do feel it might be able to help them in a number of ways. If it is a divine artifact like the gates, it's on a way bigger scale and might have a much bigger impact on the leylines if they can activate it. - that also lines up with the issue with Mirian's plan. I doubt her current solution is the right one. I feel it'll be a mix of solutions. More gates to mitigate the stress. Perhaps the moon to help alleviate stress as well. And then a smaller regulator for the finishing touches? Now a couple thoughts; - Mirian REALLY should spend a couple cycles in Akana to get some reliable data/info on what Liuan and scebur are doing and check up on things like celen, gates, etc. - She should also be planning on how she would disclose some stuff like the relics when pressed by the other prophets. - Looking into the Luamin moon might actually be the better/easier option to get to the Divir moon. Say there's a gate or other way to get up there, she might have an easier time "dropping" to the Divir moon. I really love those kinds of combination solutions where it's not just brute forcing the obvious path. Same with the combination solution of it's activation helping to drain the leylines. One final thing I want to sum up, the prophets relics. I went back and read chapter 116 again and some things seem a bit off between that chapter and this. - In this chapter it is implied each Prophet had one relic, yet in chapter 116 the fourth prophet is linked to the sword (obviously) and the only one linked to the holy pages? From the multi loopers perspective that could make sense, but from the church/religious standpoint (only one prophet, so logically only one relic?) it doesn't. - In chapter 116 the relic of the first prophet seemed to be his finger itself. In this chapter they mention a ring? - There also is at least one other relic of a "nameless" god that was supposed to be in the 5th vault, but which we otherwise know little about. Could that have been the 6th prophets relic? But then it makes clashes with the chrunches denying/not knowing of his very existence. I also felt like the relic was older then that. So if we put it on a list: - 1st prophet: finger / ring?: she likens it to Gaiuses ring, so perhaps something similar? Or a sign of authority like the elder creatures mentioned? Now they winged it by making uncontested claims, but what if? - 2nd: skull: no clue here - 3rd: staff: What's a mage without a staff? - 4th: sword: no explanation needed. - 5th: mask: Disguise, protection, make the eye glow less notable? Or to hide a missing lower jaw? So many options. - 6th?: unknown relic?: actually a relic or something else? - ???: holy pages: perfect for book making. - All relics save for the skull (and the unknown one) could in fact be used by one prophet as equipment. - In fact I used to the think the holy pages were the second prophets relic and then it would've all made sense. If you read all the way to the end of this rant, props to you :D
copperspike
edit suggestion: "Why does anyone bother pretending to be republics" > "Why does anyone bother pretending to be a republic"
Michael Vonica
Xecatl already knows everything. Mirian should probably talk with her, and get aligned on what the best path forward is.
Noah
Miriam likely needs to reach at least Divr anyway though, even if they do go the societal upheaval route. It’ll be necessary for stopping moonfall. Directly Jherica, an astronomer, to help figure out how to reach the moons is a perfectly good use of his skill set. We also don’t know for certain what the other Prophets did. Stopping the invention of the spell engines is just Miriam’s hypothesis. Something on Divr, or the other moon, might be the evidence she needs to corroborate that theory.
Mountainking
Mirian needs to tell the others about the relics, even if she doesn't tell them how she keeps them. Too many secrets
Noah
I think it’s much more likely that Celen is Scebur, and he’s leaving a fake body at his house every loop. Is there any way Miriam and Co can actually confirm that body is Celen? If Scebur is Celen, then Liuan likely lied to Miriam about how closely she worked with Troytin. Scebur has been entirely focused on undermining Liuan, which suggests he has some reason to hate her. If Liuan worked with Troytin to torture Celen, in order to remove him from the loop, then that’d explain Scebur’s activities. It would also explain why Scebur hasn’t sought any of the other prophets, since the other prophets he met repeatedly screwed him over.
Noah
Miriam also needs to bring her father along with her to Arkana, so that she has someone trustworthy with slightly more political experience who can help ferret out Scebur. She and Zhuan should also spend a lot of time with the purple crystal, trying to find and communicate with Scebur in the dream world. Another solution would be to create some kind of large scale “soul needle” detector, so that she can map the prophet’s location. That might require getting access to Divr though. If all the needles are connected to Ominian, then there’s probably way to use one end of the connection (Divr) to find the needles themselves.
Noah
Miriam desperately needs to spend a number of loops in Arakana. Both to “officially” hunt down Celen, but also just to keep an eye on Liuan. I’m a strong believer of the theory that Scebur is really Celen, who’s been faking his death at the beginning of every loop. If that theory is correct, then Liuan is by far the looper who appears to be the biggest roadblock in Miriam’s long-term plans: - Zhuan has a one track mind, and her politics most closely align with Miriam’s - Xectal/the tree is probably Miriam’s best, and most consistent, ally - Ibrahim has no patience for politics, and Miriam can blow him out of the water in terms of direct power. Miriam can also make him an unshakable ally by just using a small bit of relicarum to help him save his wife - Jherica has the closest personality to Miriam and is focused on research. He could also learn to replace Liuan’s role in Arkana, if Miriam has to remove her from the loops - Gabriel is the next most dangerous looper, but he requires other powerful actors to do serious damage. Currently, the most dangerous thing about him is the worry that he’ll side with Liuan. He’s also a great foil for Zhaun, and their back-and-forth should lead to a more even keeled political approach. If Scebur is actually a potential ally of Miriam, then removing Liuan suddenly makes everything way, way easier for everybody. We know Arkana’s industrial spell engines are something this will be dealt with, and Liuan will never be convinced to let that happen. Gabriel also wants to maintain the status quo, but not due to ideological reasons. He just believes it’s dangerous.
Noah
I’ve increasingly become more and more convinced that Celen is the hidden looper. The way “Scebur” acts sure seems like someone who was traumatized by Troytin in a previous timeline. Scebur’s actions become even more understandable if it turns out Liuan has been lying, and was actually strongly allied with Troytin before Miriam removed his needle.
UraniumPhoenix
She did, in fact, do that a whole bunch. Then she realized it might tip her hand, and stopped doing it. Do any of the others know about it? Good question.
Alexander Dupree
Maybe more like a sentient nuclear weapon who’s obviously lying to several of them about being able to strip them of their immortality
Portalop
What if it was another one of her "subtle hints" that she likes to play, basically saying "I know about your relics and magically disappearing book and where they come from"
SlickMongoose
Hasn't Miriam spent a load of loops waving the sword around all over the place to prove she's a prophet? I'm very surprised none of the others know about it.
SlickMongoose
Someone stole the "Holy Pages" you say? And Miriam has this mysterious magical spell book that always returns to her and has a huge and varied repertoire? Nah, they can't possibly be connected.
zoarian
I think digging into the Labyrinth or the moons are extreme longshots with little support. Being from Akana, Liuan and Jherica are both motivated to find a solution that doesn't change the world order too much; a vague magical McGuffin fits the problem perfectly. Honestly, it reminds me of global scale carbon capture to prevent climate change - it's a pipe dream. The real solution lies in transforming society. It's a safe bet that at least some of the previous prophets also worked against the falling moon - at least one pushed back the invention of the engines. If there was a magical device that could stop this, Ominian would be a lot more direct in the visions. I'm sure there's useful tech to be found but a viable solution is already on the table.
miraca
who tf already liked this, i just posted ts 1 second ago wtf
miraca
Jherica being redirected from labyrinth to the moon is very fortunate for Mirian, this way there's less chances of him figuring out the divine artifacts and relicarium
miraca
if he was mass media and propaganda, then it only supports the theory of other commenter that Celen is Scebur. Liuan mentioned that he has a cult following, which is kinda propaganda and mass media thingy?
Ace
Couldn't Celen be Scebur? Someone mentioned that Celen could be faking his death since he explodes his head so you can't ID him, so couldn't Celen find some random guy that matches his build and leave his body there to trick the others? I don't think they checked if Celen is actually Celen, at least Mirian never considered it. So it's possible that Celen is the one moving around as Scebur. Overall the situation with Celen is suspicious, they should care more.
Pete Magnuson
Hmm, has anyone tried using the dream focuses to talk to the suicide looper when he's out of body? I seem to recall the occasional Dream popping up after dying in the loops, so he might be reachable there to explain how circumstances have changed. Do we know much of his specialization? I seem to recall him being involved in mass media, could be quite useful to sway large scale change and propaganda with interesting insight into mobilizing a population
tentacles4all
Oh , ffs Mirian! Did Liuan realize that she lied to her face? After all she has seen her spellbook. She must have some lingering questions about it.
Michael Vonica
If Liuan is Scebur, she's going through a lot of work to fake it. And if she isn't, Scebur is doing exactly what Mirian did to Troytin. Which should be driving Mirian into a panic, because that implies that Scebur is buying time to accomplish something that will allow them to overpower the other prophets. Also, it sounds like Scebur is either a master of recruiting and managing people in secret, or has some kind of magic or artifact that lets them do it incredibly fast.
Robert Mullins
For all her magical knowledge Mirian must come off as a violent brute to the rest of them. The strongest one there. Tossing people out into the sea when she gets irritated. No supporting personnel. Sees heavy thing falling and looks for most direct method of picking it back up.
Clara
Liuan getting too close for comfort to the truth
miraca
Thanks for the chapter
