Chapter Text
The Warrior of Light, slayer of countless Primals, Ascians, voidsent, sin eaters, dragons, hunt marks, random thugs, and any other thing that got in her way. A near deific, unstoppable force of nature, now brought low by a single set of doors.
She grunted as she rammed her shoulder into the door again, to no avail. She didn’t even feel the doors vibrate with the impact. How? She made contact, or she would have phased right through them. She stopped and looked down at her partially transparent arms again. This was exactly what Elidibus told her to expect would happen when she went back this far in time, but it now occurred to the Warrior that she knew next to nothing about the mechanics of being, for lack of a better word, a ghost. Her only experience with a similar entity would be Ardbert, who, she realized, she never actually saw use any doors. Ardbert had simply appeared in her room at the Pendants when he wanted to and disappeared the same way. She sighed and leaned a hand on the unmoving doors. Ardbert had been unable to pick up objects like food or tankards, but he also didn’t phase through the floor and fall to the ground level. How on earth did incorporeal entities work, then? She had been way in over her head many times before, but this was a new experience unlike anything she had ever dealt with.
After a few more fruitless pushes at the doors, she decided there was nothing else to do but wait until one of the more proportionally sized Ancients opened the doors to enter or exit and let her scurry through. She hoped they wouldn’t accidentally kick her. Could they kick her? Who knew how long waiting on one of them would take though. It could be in a few minutes or a few hours. She looked in her bag. The same old junk she brought with her everywhere was still there. At least she had food. …Did she need food as a ghost?
That thought was interrupted by the sound of two people arriving via the aetheryte-like object she’d identified in the middle of the lobby. It seemed she wouldn’t have to wait long after all.
“And here we are, Elpis.” She turned to look at the source of the voice only to see two hooded black-robed Ancients with their backs partially to her. She turned back to the door with a sigh. She wasn’t sure what else she expected to see—all the strange giants here dressed the same anyway. There was something oddly familiar about that voice, though…
“Well well, how rare to receive you in person. To what do we owe the honor?” she heard the itinerant masked ancient ask.
“Oh, just a few odd tasks,” the familiar stranger’s soft voice replied. “We’ll be here awhile.” Could it be Hythlodaeus? It would be nice to be able to follow around the one singular Ancient (or memory of an Ancient) that had only ever been unambiguously kind to her.
“You’re welcome to stay as long as you see fit, of course. As a manner of procedure, however, I must ask that you kindly remove your masks.”
“Come now, is this truly necessary? Surely you can tell who we are…” the second visitor said.
The Warrior of Light’s eyes widened. That voice. That voice. There was no mistaking that voice. No forgetting it.
“Who you are, perhaps, but I am far less infamous,” the familiar stranger said. “Regardless, if we do not follow protocol, ‘tis our hosts who would be held accountable. So please, do favor us with your handsome face.”
The Warrior turned to look. She had to know. The masked man sighed and shrugged in an all too familiar gesture. He pulled down his hood to reveal shoulder-length white hair, and removed from his face a distinctive red mask. A mask marking him as a member of the Convocation of Fourteen. Hades’ mask.
The now unmasked man crossed his arms and looked away from the Elpis official, right near where the Warrior was standing by the doors. His golden eyes locked onto the Warrior staring back at him, and the Warrior felt something like a static shock pass through her as she flinched.
“Oh no, no no no nononono–!” The Warrior of Light turned and clawed at the door like a rat stuck in the hold of a sinking ship. This had gone from a best case to a worst-case scenario in the span of a few seconds. She glanced back. If the man had noticed her, his expression hadn’t changed. He turned back to the Elpis guide.
“...Satisfied?”
The guide nodded. “I thank you for your cooperation. You are free to go about your business.”
With that, the two of them headed toward the door, the man with the kind voice leading the way. She didn’t recognize his face, but somehow she was sure all the same the man in front was Hythlodaeus. He had a friendly face with soft features and long lilac hair pulled forward and braided down his shoulder. The Warrior scampered out of their way as they neared her. She would follow them through the door and observe their business as long as needed and then get out of there. That was the plan now. This was fine.
The familiar stranger stopped in front of the door without opening it. “By the by…” he started and turned back to his companion. “You see it too, yes?”
The Warrior looked up at the white-haired man in the back, heart beating in her throat. But this time he did not return her gaze. He turned away and said, “I haven’t the foggiest what you’re talking about.” The Warrior let out her held breath.
“Hmm? That’s odd.” The familiar stranger turned and looked directly at the Warrior, although his gaze was far less intimidating. He knelt and tilted his head as if he were trying to coax a stray cat over. “It’s right here. A bit thin in the aether, but there’s no mistaking it—the color of its soul is almost identical to Azem’s. Do you suppose she created it? Rather unusual for a familiar to have a soul, though…” The Warrior blinked in shock. Should she say anything? Could they even hear her if she tried? She was here to only observe, after all. The course of history was not within her power to change. Or so she had been told…
The second man looked at her again, frowned, and looked away. “Don’t ask me. All I know is that it’s trouble—doubly so if it’s her spitting image.” Her spitting image? So Azem of the Convocation of Fourteen did look like her. “So let’s leave it be. Come, now.”
“Wait!” The Warrior of Light shouted, though what for, she wasn’t sure herself. She tried to talk to the familiar stranger kneeling by her directly. “Take me with you. No one else can see or hear me. I won’t get in your way.”
The familiar stranger squinted at her. “It’s trying to say something…but it’s literally too intangible to form words.” She stood back up. “Why don’t you give it some aether? Spare a snifter of your bounteous reserves?”
“Who do you take me for?” the second man complained.
That’s fine, the Warrior thought. She didn’t want any of his aether anyway.
A wry smile crept across the familiar stranger’s face. “Why, a dear friend, of course! One who wouldn’t let acts of kindness—such as my accompanying him on errands to far-flung outposts—go unrewarded.”
The man sighed and looked down at the tiny Warrior. “I suggest you close your eyes, or this may be…unpleasant.”
A defiant part of her told her to keep her eyes open anyway to see what was so unpleasant, but she decided now was not the time for that. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes while the looming man above raised his right arm.
Snap.
A wave of cool air washed over the Warrior as if she had been in a stuffy closed room for hours and just stepped outside. Everything suddenly felt much more tangible. The room had a scent where there was none before, crisp and fresh. She could feel the humidity against her skin where there was no sensation before. Even the background noise of the lobby seemed clearer somehow.
“You may open your eyes.”
The Warrior examined herself to see that she was now as opaque and corporeal as she was used to being, and much less tiny as well.
“Oh, you even adjusted its size,” the familiar stranger said.
“The better to indulge your whim. This way it will be easier to communicate.”
“How very thoughtful of you. And may I applaud your artful reinforcement.”
The Warrior noticed that while she was more in proportion to the building they were all in, she was still shorter than the two tall men in front of her. Part of her wondered if she was made a bit shorter on purpose. But what sense would that make, she thought. This man didn’t even know her.
“Without further ado, then… Greetings!” The familiar stranger smiled at her. “I am Hythlodaeus, chief of the Bureau of the Architect. Sulking beside me is the most honorable Emet-Selch of the Convocation of Fourteen.” She knew, of course, but the Warrior wasn’t about to interrupt. “And how might we address you, my new friend?”
A good question. This adventure had already gone off the rails so far. Was there any harm in giving them her name?
“Call me █████,” the Warrior answered.
“A fine name. And I’m pleased to see you understand our words. So tell us, whence have you come? The thinness of your essence suggests you weren’t created here…”
“I, well… Hmm…” The Warrior looked at the floor. “That’s…uh…” Now that she was corporeal, the thought of kicking a stray pebble and somehow altering the entire course of history seemed like a much more real possibility than it did moments ago. She was here to observe, nothing else, she told herself. And even if she’d answered, “I’m from the far future,” would they even believe her? She imagined Emet-Selch would shrink her back down and throw her in the nearest waste bin if she said something so outlandish.
“You do not know…or cannot say?” Hythlodaeus guessed. “Hmm. Allow me to ask a different question then. What brings you here?”
The Warrior thought about her words carefully. “I seek a man named Hermes,” she answered after a pause.
Hythlodaeus looked surprised. “Well now, the same as us…” He turned to Emet-Selch. “Perhaps Azem wished to come too, but had to settle for a familiar.”
“If she truly wished to be here, then she would be,” Emet-Selch stated matter-of-factly. The Warrior couldn’t tell if he sounded disappointed or relieved.
Hythlodaeus shrugged. “Right you are…” He turned back to the Warrior. “My apologies if we’ve given offense. The two of us can discern the color of souls, you see, and yours happens to resemble that of a friend. And with your purpose matching our own besides, we jumped to a hasty conclusion.”
“No, you’re not wrong,” the Warrior said. “I am…a piece of Azem, you could say.” It wasn’t a lie. Emet-Selch looked doubtful but said nothing.
“Well, good to know it’s not our sight failing us,” Hythlodaeus said. “Anyway, we are here to speak with Hermes, the chief overseer of this facility, which we also intend to tour in order to gain greater insight into the man’s work. ‘We,’ I say, though this is Emet-Selch’s charge. I am here only to serve as his guide. And I should be happy to serve as yours as well, █████.”
“Wait, are you suggesting that we bring it along on official business? This thing which claims to be Azem’s that we know next to nothing about?” Emet-Selch protested.
“If you harbor suspicions, better to keep it close than leave it to its own devices, wouldn’t you agree?” Without waiting for an answer, Hythlodaeus opened the doors to the outside. “Besides, having a mysterious life-form in tow is the norm rather than the exception here.” The three of them stepped outside together as Hythlodaeus swept his arms out in a flourish at the beautiful vista in front of them. “Welcome, my friends, to the testing ground of creation at heavens’ edge: Elpis!”