Chapter 5634: The Provenance of Existence! II
Chapter 5634: The Provenance of Existence! II
The quaking had begun to settle, but the questions had not.
A system did not become real by being announced. It became real by being tested, and Noah had a hall full of instruments, a bound Enforcer with thirty-one Moirai already weighed upon him, and no intention of learning the Ruling’s shape the way the rest of existence would learn it, by stumbling.
So he turned to the most richly weighed being in the room.
"Mahishasura. What have you done across your long life? What are you doing still? Proclaim it, and let us see what this new Ruling makes of you."
The Enforcer straightened his torn coat, and lifted his chin, and spoke!
"I am Mahishasura, Enforcer of THE Serenaros." The soft voice carried through the marble hall, and something in it began to resonate!
"I have held a mountain, and from that mountain I have ordered the Wardens sworn beneath me out into the reaches of existence. At my word, they have stripped the authority from countless lifeforms unworthy of holding it. I weighed them, and I found them unworthy, and I had them subtracted."
His amber eyes did not waver!
"I have taken the mighty out of the hands of the helpless. I have emptied the skies of appetites. I have caged what could not be reasoned with and carried it away from everything it would have eaten."
...!
The hall held still.
And then, from above, out of a pretend sky that had no above to offer... a golden shield descended!
HUUM!
It was vast and slow and utterly silent, a sigil of deep gold in the shape of a great shield, turning gently as it came down through the air over the Enforcer’s head, and light poured off it in soft sheets, and every being in the hall felt existence itself lean toward the marble floor where one bound Descendant stood proclaiming.
|The Ruling has heard a proclamation, and weighed it against a life.|
|Descendant Mahishasura has been recognized. He now wears the Mantle of THE SHIELD.|
|THE SHIELD: the Protector’s role, worn by all who stand between harm and the held. What THE SHIELD guards, existence shall help him guard. His EXISTENTIAL MOIRAI shall gather from his actions and from the results of his actions: every harm turned aside, every held thing that endures, shall be weighed and paid. While he acts in accordance with his role, his power shall be amplified tremendously. And should a wearer of THE SHIELD face an opposing role in contest, existence itself shall lean, and probability shall bend, to ensure the victory of one of THE ORDERED.|
|Should Descendant Mahishasura truly and fully live his Mantle, deed upon deed upon deed... he may one day be granted his own unique Ordination.|
...!
The golden sigil settled, sinking into the air above his shoulders until it hung there faint and turning, a quiet crest that did not fade. And Mahishasura stood beneath it surrounded by a grand descending light, gold pouring over the torn black coat and the pale hair, and for a moment the bound, hateful, coup-broken Enforcer looked almost exalted, a figure existence itself had chosen to illuminate!
Noah looked at him, and slowly shook his head.
His eyes flashed.
|Descendant Mahishasura|:: VERITAS: 40 (34). PROVENANCE: 0. POTENTIA: 40 (32). PONDUS: 40 (33). MOIRAI: 31, and gathering. He wears the Mantle of THE SHIELD.|
Forty. Across the board!
The parentheses held what the Descendant truly was, and the Ruling had simply written larger numbers over them, granted for nothing more than proclaiming a life and being found in accordance with a role.
His cold gaze swept the hall. "The rest of you. All of you. Proclaim what your existence has been doing so far! Let us see just what role, just what archetype, each of you holds!"
WAA!
Baelgrim went first.
"I am Baelgrim," the mountain rumbled. "I have no grand record of order. I have only this. For all my Ages, when something came for my kin, it found me in front of them. Before the curse, I stood in front. That is all I have ever done."
HUUM!
A second golden shield descended, vast and slow, and settled turning above the mountain’s shoulders, and Baelgrim looked up at his own crest with wonder.
|Descendant Baelgrim has been recognized. He now wears the Mantle of THE SHIELD.|
|VERITAS: 30 (24). POTENTIA: 30 (23). PONDUS: 30 (26). MOIRAI: 14, and gathering.|
Sylvaine stepped forward with her eyes set, and proclaimed a harder life!
"I was made to end things. I have ended tyrants and ended innocents and ended whatever my masters pointed me toward, and when the ire of THE Immense Ones made me feel every wound I authored, I authored them anyway, when the cause was worth the cutting. I am not a protector. I am the thing protectors send. I am the edge that goes where shields cannot."
...!
No shield came for her.
Instead, a slender sword of white gold descended point-down through the pretend sky, keening one soft note as it came, and hung turning above her head.
|Descendant Sylvaine has been recognized. She now wears the Mantle of THE BLADE.|
|THE BLADE: the Ender’s role, worn by those who cut what must be cut and carry the cost of the cutting. Her Moirai shall gather from every ending that spares a greater one. While she acts in accordance, her power is amplified tremendously.|
|VERITAS: 30 (27). POTENTIA: 30 (25). PONDUS: 30 (24). MOIRAI: 11, and gathering.|
Kharvel did not step forward at all. He proclaimed from where he stood, quiet and level.
"I have watched. Nothing under my watch was ever lost that I did not see lost. Nothing approached that I did not see approach. I have been the one who does not look away, in a hall of beings who could afford to."
An unblinking eye of pale gold descended over him, lidless and serene, and hung turning.
And it did not stop pouring.
Where the others’ lights had settled, Kharvel’s deepened, gold flooding down over the watcher in sheet after sheet, and the whole hall turned to look as the amplification visibly climbed!
|Descendant Kharvel has been recognized. He now wears the Mantle of THE WATCHER.|
|THE WATCHER: the Witness’s role. What he watches, existence shall keep watchable. His Moirai shall gather from every warning that arrives in time, and every truth that is seen before it is suffered.|
|His life and his role can scarcely be told apart. The Ruling has weighed this, and paid accordingly.|
|VERITAS: 35 (29). POTENTIA: 35 (27). PONDUS: 35 (28). MOIRAI: 22, and gathering.|
...!
Thirty-five, where every other cured had been given thirty!
Noah’s cold gaze narrowed slightly at the parenthesis and what sat outside it, and the mechanic assembled itself plainly enough. The Ruling... paid alignment.
Othrys proclaimed next.
"I have wandered. No home held my name. No road kept my footprints. I walked out of every memory I entered."
A staff of worn gold descended for him, a traveler’s staff, turning slowly.
|Descendant Othrys has been recognized. He now wears the Mantle of THE WANDERER.|
|THE WANDERER: the Roadless role, worn by those who belong to the going rather than the arriving. Ways open for him. His Moirai shall gather from every path walked that no other could have walked.|
|VERITAS: 30 (21). POTENTIA: 30 (22). PONDUS: 30 (20). MOIRAI: 9, and gathering.|
The shadow-cursed lounger proclaimed the years she had wrapped her dark around her loved ones, before her curse taught the dark to strangle, and a third golden shield came down for her, and she wept beneath it.
The quiet lounger, the one whose curse Noah had unwritten without ever naming it aloud, proclaimed softly of a long life spent putting broken things back together, beings and bonds and Dimensions cracked by wars she had not started, mended with hands the record never thanked. A golden thread descended for her, stitching slowly through a ring of light.
|Shenara now wears the Mantle of THE MENDER.|
|THE MENDER: the Restorer’s role. What she mends, existence shall help hold mended. VERITAS: 30 (22). POTENTIA: 30 (21). PONDUS: 30 (23).|
And another one of the 7 Cured Descendants proclaimed grandly, at length, of deeds and stands and sacrifices.
And...
Nothing descended.
The hall waited, and nothing happened as it seemed that one still needed to have had significant actions to back their claims, and could not simply bullshit their way to a Mantle!
Which left one being in the hall unaccounted for.
"Warden." Noah’s voice stayed level. "Proclaim what your existence has done."
The empty instrument that had been Yrsa stepped forward at the command and proclaimed in a voice with no resonance in it at all.
"I am Warden Yrsa of THE PAX. I hold the rank of Warden. I execute collections. I maintain Records. I obey."
The hall waited.
Nothing descended again!
|The Ruling has weighed this proclamation.|
|It has found no one.|
...!
Noah held the prompt in his cold gaze for a moment.
So the Ruling did not weigh bodies, or ranks, or obediences. It weighed selves!
And where a self had been erased, the grandest system Those Who Remain had ever imposed looked into a standing, speaking, breathing being... and found no one home to give a role to.
Noah watched the hall wordlessly after that.
Three Shields, a Blade, a Watcher, a Wanderer, a Mender. Golden crests turning over seven of his nine, one Descendant unweighed, one instrument unfounded!
Existence itself leaned into the room the way a patron leans into a shop it has decided to fund.
The boosts were terrifying! Under these new scales, these new Rulings of Those Who Remain, a proclaimed life was worth more, and if a wearer met one of the Willful in contest, probability itself would take a side.
Even he, standing outside every framework existence had ever offered him, looked at the boons... and was tempted.
But no.
He had cast out borrowed thongs and he had not done it to kneel at a newer, grander one. He had to generate something of his own. Even if he tapped into this vastness, and he might, because this was a new makeup of existence itself that even he could not deny, it would be on his terms, through his own works, worn as nothing existence could revoke.
Because that was the fact under all the gold: existence itself... deferred to this new system.
And even now, watching the crests turn above the proclaimed, Noah felt he was only beginning to grasp what Those Who Remain had imposed upon all of existence.
...!