Go Home History You're Drunk

The Resurrectionists of Animus are always busy.

They've been hard at work, as of late, with the city government on a number on undisclosed matters. Recently, a set of adventurers retrieved an item from the depths of the ruins of Genrivia, an example of temporal magics from a different system of magic than Rune's own.

The results are going to be discussed with both the city officials *and* members of the Guild of Explorer's. Representatives chosen from amongst their ranks to gain a wide variety of perspectives.

Thus, a meeting room is filled, and you're amongst that number.

Aryia was amongst the meeting room, the new hotshot colosseum coach sits with her chair leaned back and legs crossed. The mute mul has her shades atop her head, scarred face pulled down in ever present scowl. Her boots tap against the air. An update from the Resurrectionists is both an interesting and concerning thing. As annoying as it was to track down those objects.

Mikilos arrives a little early, grabbing a spot where he can see and be seen, but won't block the view of too many behind him. The wizard peers around as more people arrive, nodding hello to familiar faces.

Crik actually did not have a clear idea how he wound up in here. He was no mage, after all, and hardly an expert in magics of any kind. After all, when one swaps over an exceedingly fancy cloak over their head, to casually sneak with the group to just take a look at where they were going...

Yes, Crik had very unclear notion of how he wound up in this room, the corvid egalrin looking around nervously. Maybe if he took out a notepad it would deter people from asking questions? Look important and expensive? The hooded figure did just that in the shadows.

Reithak wandered in after some time to find a spot in the meeting room, and the egalrin drags out a chair to lean over and wait for everyone to arrive. The egalrin took a look around, and seeing as no one had started speaking quite yet, Reithak offered a wave to Crik before she pulled out some yarn to work on their knitting.

Griva Brassbringer arrives. The khazadi dwarf with her steel-grey eyes and her long braid is flanked by Farland, the colorfully dressed gnome who's her second. The two of them are approaching the table in front, where a few Guild rep officials are also seated. They are impatiently waiting for things to get under way.

Griva takes a seat and kicks back, a certain air of nonchalance to her despite the seriousness. Farland looks far more notably unnerved.

Aryia offers a faint flick of her fingers as hello to others, her focus turning towards Griva and Farland. The concern dripping off the gnome gets her to squint, but the egalrin knitting gets a curious and intrigued glance of glowy eyes.

Mikilos sits up a bit as the officals start to gather. Seems things are ready just yet, but soon. The unnerved Farland gets a curious glace, but, well, more information is why we're all here.

Crik straightens up and then slowly, with a severe look around the place - bops his head towards Reithak and then quickly starts jotting down something restlessly. He leans towards her after a few moments of awkward shuffling. "... do you have any idea why we are here?" He whispers with a deep voice.

Reithak pauses her knitting, tucking it into one hand as the people who called them there arrived. "You're pretty young, right? By mul'niessa standards, I mean." The egalrin points out. "Sorry, names Reithak. Reason I'm asking is since, takes an awful lot for a mul'niessa to look old, doesn't it?"

turning their attention to a corvid colored egalrin nearby. "I've got some theories about what may be relevant, but not a clue." She shrugs. "If it's related to anything I've been up to, figured I'd make myself available in case they need to ask me about any of it."

"Welcome, everyone," begins Griva, "It's good to see you all here. First, let us begin by breaking down where things are at: Some of you may know, or have experienced, issues with temporal magics, or time itself. These facets have been in Guild reports. Examples include localized time travel, temporal breakdowns, and the kind of temporal issues one sees in the Vast becoming more commonplace beyond that locale. Things 'slipping' through time. Navos, the God of history, seems rather busy these days. This issue no doubt stems back to the death of Animus and the adoption of his duties by Navos and Eluna."

Farland makes a face.

Aryia quirks a brow at Reithak, slowly nodding once about the question before giving a light huff, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. She fishes out a worn out sheet of paper and holds it out for them to see. It reads in Trade, "My name is Aryia."

The mute frowns at the news, her scratching her head. "Well that explains some bullshit," she signs, rubbing her face and sighing deeply. <Hand speech/Tongues>

Mikilos frowns and nods. His own adventures thru time documented as best he could recall in reports as well. Mostly involving fae BS. "Breaking fundamental roles of reality has consequences. Shocking."

Crik raises his head as Griva begins to speak - and then his feathers start to floof up, his beak opening. Time travel? They are talking about time travel. Even worse - ancient history! Tail bopping, he audibly makes notes on his notepad, waiting to hear more. His attention is then partly stolen by the hand signing and he casually glances over - then gets stuck looking at her. Wait, he understood that? "... you are supposed to understand hand signals?" He quietly asks by himself, shocked by this revelation.

"Sorry, just checking a theory, that that weird orb we found messed with aging, and not some other damage. I think they're doing better, so it's no lasting harm at least." The egalrin elaborates. Reithak pauses to listen, and the inquisitor huffs loudly. "Sounds like a right mess of things. Real big too, bigger than just Alexandria big. You let anyone else know, yet?" She asks. "You understood that Crik? Should show me sometime, I'm always down to learn something new."

Holding up a hand towards the egalrin, Griva points a finger at Reithak.

"Yes," she replies, "One of the reasons you were sent to retrieve it is because we knew that temporal experiments in magic existed before Rune was a glint in anyone's eye. That was one such experiment and while it isn't exactly what we were hoping for, it did help illuminate something: these problems exist beyond our own system of magic. It means it's not JUST the death of Animus.We don't really understand the nature of time, per say, but it seems like these problems are travelling backwards *and* forwards in time at the same time, as well."

Aryia just stares at the two birdfolk, before giving a slow, bewildered nod. "If one couldn't, then I'd be fucked," she comments with a flick.

She turns to the speaker in her chair, casting a look to Mikilos of 'you're one to talk'. She pinches the bridge of her nose. "So it's just beyond finding the pieces. Great." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Mikilos's frown deepens. "The problems are not traveling back or forward thru time. Travel takes time to happen. These ARE time. Any change isn't a change because it always was, instantly. The problems have, so far as temporal mechanics go, always been there. We're just getting better at detecting the effects of them."

Crik shies away from the gestures Aryia was giving, wondering how one could do such things with them in polite company. Then agian, it was not particularly polite company they were in. "... yes, maybe not." He answers Reithak.

Returning to the actual topic at hand, or hands, Crik tilts his head. Then he moves his notepad sideways to keep drawing the vertical line both ways. "What are we supposed to do then?" He asks then, then looks shocked. Oh no, he asked a question. He glances around, then moves behind Reithak to make it appear the taller egalrin asked it.

"Seems it was there for some time. It was, weird. Think the people who lived in those ruins might not have known everything either, given it was still there, and there was a container for moving it. Shame all the notes and things were illegible." Reithak sighs. "So if I get this right, you're saying that we've got more problems than just the big god of magic dying. I hope this doesn't mean you're all dusting your hands of the matter since it doesn't have anything to do with you still, right?"

"That's true to an extent -- but think of an earthquake. It radiates from a central point, and it takes longer for it to 'reach' its maximal extent. It might seem fast, but there's a non-negligible amount of transferrence of energy going on."

There's a blink at Reithak from her.

"... these problems belong to all of us."

Aryia, in fact, was not polite company. Said impolite company keeps her focus on the topic at hand, chewing the inside of her cheek in thought. A glance to Reithak before she flicks out with a hand, "So we got weird time shit being more prevalent. You say it's transferring. Do you have a location it's typically popping up at? Or just, I don't know, wherever? I really don't want to have to kick my own ass again." <Handspeech/Tongues>

"Good, glad we're all on the same page. People suffering from an earthquake doesn't mean a few brickyards won't raise their prices." The egalrin laughs. "Clearly you called people here because it's a concern, I get it. Hey, come on now, I don't feel like standing up and it's harder to hear behind me." She adds, trying to nudge Crik back from behind her. "So, I haven't seen anything about time moving forward. What's that about?"

Mikilos frowns again, but nods. "That's not a fully accurate metaphor, but TradeSpeak doesn't really have the words to be accurate. Even Eldritch or Kulthian only have phrases for the most core of concepts. But anyway, yes, of the observeable effects, what patterns or traits have been common, if any?"

"I suppose you only notice time has passed when you see the past." Crik points out to the other egalrin as he steps out. Continuing to scribble notes, he waits for the other more knowledgeable people to talk.

"Uh huh," says Griva with the sort of dismissiveness one Khazadi reserves for elves.

"/Again/," she says to Aryia, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"We believe it's mostly showing up in places where time is already damaged. The Vast, as I said, but we will start to see in other places. History itself could well be under threat. All it takes is one particular moment in time to ... dissolve, say, due to temporal interference, and the now could become untethered from the then. Something we may have to work to ensure doesn't happen."

She lets out a breath, thne continues, "As for the future, all I can say is 'be prepared' for oddities. Temporal oddities. Things popping up when you least expect them, people you thought dead might turn up alive with no explanation you can conceive of, and of course, you might wind up in a position to 'kick your own ass'."

Aryia holds up her hands. "I just figured there was more specific place in mind that you all figured out," she explains. "Rather than just the Vast. Because, it's, well, vast." A smile threatens to flick across her lips. Jokes, she's got them.

The thought of history being unraveled does get her a touch unsettled. As a long lived species, she's been through her fair share of historical events. And going through them again didn't sound... pleasant. Aryia leans forward, brows furrow. "Alright. That's good to know at least. Dead people might come back. And not just some undead invasion again. I just hope I just have to fight my future self. My past self would be.." She glances to the side. "... complicated." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Mikilos says, “Things that should be dead, or never have existed. Three minute eggs, done in sixty seconds. Effects that are yet to have a cause. Maybe for once work with yourself and team up to kick someone elses ass.”

"If I might be frank, hinging the stability of reality on a single moment is, well, that's right fragile, isn't it?" Reithak sighs, tapping one hand on the chair and stowing the knitting that was getting more and more crumpled in her hand. "Be better to fix things so a single point getting messed with doesn't ruin anything, but I suppose smarter folks know what they're doing, and that's easier said than done. It's easier to see things you know happened than something that you aren't sure is normal or is from a time you shouldn't know yet, that's true."

"... so all the digging of the past at home could be... of the future?" Crik attempts by himself, but then shakes his head, making another circular symbol in his notebook. But the corvid starts to slide back into the background, scribbling furiously at his notebook.

"Anything is possible at this point," replies Griva, rubbing an eye. "BEar in mind, too, that this doesn't just apply to us. One of the reasons we're not keeping it less secret is precisely because, say, Charn assuredly has its own people working on this to say nothing of the multitude of other threats in the world that have less relatively narrow ambitions about what could be done with access to the past and an ability to rewrite its future."

Aryia looks a bit pained at seeing the needlework getting crumpled and crimped. "This includes but is not limited to, I don't know, Animus not getting shattered. Or Charn deciding to not be a bunch of pricks and doing some whack political move. That kind of unraveling point of history."

She gestures a hand towards Griva. "Case and point. Basically: watch our past, present, and future asses." She rubs at her face, silently groaning before pulling her shades back down to hide her eyes. "Appreciate the heads up, Miss Brassbringer." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Mikilos nods. "Change of the past doesn't have to be bad things. But destabalizing the present causes problems that are seldom worth it."

"So... triple all... the guards..." Crik quietly continued to ruminate by himself - wait, if everything that happened in the past could happen in the future or vice versa - could he walk into a house that already had its alarms go off before he even went there?

Beak raising, the corvid looks around, and then bops his head at no one in particular, before he starts to half run, half hop off.

"Well, that's concerning, I can't say that all the unknowns are particularly comforting, if that's the case." Reithak nods. "So, what? No use bemoaning how hard it is, what can we actually do to deal with this? As gorgeous as I think past me is, I'd rather not deal with them if they're trying to kill me, even I've got standards after a certain point."

"Yes, well, it's what we've been able to deduce," replies Griva, rubbing her face. "It makes our work more urgent. I don't like that. We must also continue to look for the shards of Animus. THe more of those we can gather, the better. More are appearing all the time, now... something I do not like. Not one bit."

Aryia watches as Crik run-hops out, her trying to parse their antics before giving up and shaking her head. She gives Reithak a look, her gaze drifting up to the ceiling in thought before seemingly conceding something in her own thoughts.

Back to the present-- wait. "Of /course/ they're appearing now because of this," she gestures briskly before throwing her hands out, as if she was tossing the topic to the ground. "Great. And if some are appearing, that means they can vanish too." <Handspeech/Tongues>

Mikilos considers. "...maybe? 'Appear' might not be the best word. They become known to us. But, suppose is possible they end up becomming known to someone else first, who retreaives them instead of us in the first place."

"Well, I don't know. I don't think time was falling apart when Animus was here, so maybe it'd do some good to find them? Beats charn getting their claws on it." Reithak shrugs. "Oh, Crik, you're taking off? But what if I want to hear what Aryia's saying?" The egalrin calls out, but they're already hopping away. "Oh well, I'll just assume it's something crass."

"So, yeah, I don't know if we can deal with them all if someone finds them first. Not to mention how dangerous I've heard them to be."

Spreading her hands in a gesture of uncertainty, Griva Brassbringer lets out a breath, cheeks puffing. The dark circles under her eyes are made more obvious.

"Perhaps it always was. Perhaps Animus was always dead, yet lived. What time appears to be to us is not what it appears to be to the Gods, who seem to exist outside our understanding of it."

Aryia shrugs and splays her hands out in a similar manner to Griva. "Then we won't worry too hard with would have, could have, will be, can be's," the mute signs a bit bluntly. "We'll just worry about the now, and keep an eye out for more of those Shards. And get you some khazad coffee." That is, a stiff drink with a dash of coffee. <Handspeech/Tongues>

Mikilos nods. "Equally possible Animus is alive at all times, despite having died. I agree there's only so much that we, as mortal temporal beings, can know, much less understand. So focus upon the aspects we can grasp, do what we can, and pray that it's enough."

"Well, I suppose that's that, for now then. Time's weird. Life's weird, just gotta deal with it best as we can." Reithak relents. "That being said, I think I need more than a few drinks, and the dwarf in charge needs a good night's sleep. At least we know what to look out for now, right?"

-End Scene-