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Chapter 255: Be Prepared - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2024-06-07 06:49:34 +0000 UTCIt wasn’t until lunchtime that the group continued their discussion. As the group of three, plus Vance and Iselde, sat down with their meals, Miria spoke into Anise's mind again.
<We could try slipping information to a bunch of officials from different governments,> she said, as she stuffed a spoonful of soup into her mouth. <I could use my illusions and teleportation to deliver my messages anonymously. If the government is prepared and knows about the worldstriders, the worldstriders will have a harder time. Especially if they intend to attack everyone.>
<I think the government would be more worried about how you slipped past security,> said Felix. <I’m not sure if they would take your message seriously, even if you didn't get caught.>
Miria winced, and Anise felt a pang of guilt. If she weren’t here, Miria and Felix wouldn’t be so worried about the worldstriders, and Sallia wouldn’t have died. She had already watched one of her best friends die keeping her alive. She didn’t want to see Miria and Felix die the same way.
Miria suddenly leaned over and hugged her, causing Anise to jolt in surprise.
<You aren’t thinking about something dumb, like this is your fault, are you?> asked Miria, sounding a bit accusatory. <It was the decision of the worldstriders to go crazy for revenge when they saw you. It is not your fault that they decided to be massive jerks. If you’re feeling guilty, I’ll stuff you full of chocolate and hugs. You better not be thinking something dumb.>
Anise was caught off guard by Miria's statement.
How does she do that? Anise wondered. Sometimes, Miria’s ability to read people’s emotions was eerily accurate.
Miria’s arms tightened, and Anise saw Iselde and Vance raise an eyebrow at them. Since the three were talking mentally, the table wasn't very lively, unlike usual. Anise wondered whether the other two could tell that they were talking.
Of course they can tell, thought Anise, as she glanced at Iselde’s face. Vance had noticed something was wrong almost immediately this morning. Both Iselde and Vance knew about Felix's 'mental communication ability.' However, neither of them said anything about being excluded from the conversation. Anise felt bad about that... but she also felt grateful. When Anise saw Iselde’s face out of the corner of her eye, she looked worried, but not angry. Despite Iselde's general obliviousness, she was a good friend. When Anise looked directly at her, Iselde schooled her expression back into a normal, happy smile. Anise slipped Iselde her pudding as an apology for the group’s silence today. Including Iselde and Vance would be hard for real Market matters... but Anise still felt guilty.
Iselde eyed Anise, before she took the pudding and started eating it.
<Miria is right, Anise. Don’t blame yourself for the fact that the worldstriders chose to be jerks. That’s on them, not you,> said Felix. <Sallia died to try to save you. Don't feel guilty about her decision. Otherwise, the next time Sallia is awake she'll definitely yell at you.> Then, Felix snorted, although Anise could detect a great deal of fondness in his voice. <That battle junkie probably didn't even mind dying that time.>
Anise sighed, but nodded. Knowing Sallia's personality... Felix might not be wrong.
<The biggest problem with the worldstriders is that their body exists on a different layer of reality,> said Felix, after some more thought. <That makes a lot of the more conventional weapons of this world pretty useless. Shooting a worldstrider with a cannon or a rifle will just cause the bullet to pass through their body. That makes it difficult to handle with conventional weapons.>
Miria also pursed her lips in thought, while Anise frowned.
<Vance said that the alchemy of this world might be able to develop a way to fight against worldstriders,> said Anise. <Obviously, they don't have any countermeasures ready right now. Knowledge of Worldstriders seems to have been lost with the collapse of the Zelyrian empire. But once a fight or two happens, people will start inventing ways to handle the new threat.>
Felix frowned. <That… might be true. But it doesn't help us right now. I'd be happier if we had a way to keep you safe if they track you down tomorrow.>
Anise sighed, and nodded.
The biggest problem with the worldstriders was that they were on a different layer of reality. Different layer… different layer…
Anise started wondering how, exactly, the layers of reality worked.
<Come to think of it, do you guys know how layers of reality work at all?> asked Anise. <Was that a topic you covered while you were talking with the soul fragment while I was going through my surgery?>
<It is,> said Felix, after a moment. <It wasn’t covered in great detail, but… I believe you’ve heard the analogy that dimensions are like snow globes with cracks in them, right?>
Anise nodded, and caught Iselde and Vance giving her weird looks from the corner of her eye. She straightened her head.
<I’ve heard of it,> she said, making very sure not to move her head this time.
<Well, within these snow globes, sometimes, multiple compartments of reality form. All of them operate off of similar laws of reality, but they might have subtle variations. Gravity might be weaker or stronger, or things might be more prone to igniting. But they're still almost the same. The Worldstriders should be residents of a different ‘compartment’ of this dimension. They’re obviously very close to the ‘normal’ compartment, as well. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to see us, and we wouldn’t be able to see them.> Said Felix. <This dimension might not naturally have another compartment to it. The worldstriders could be using some shallow version of this dimensional division. If they have a few worldstriders who were at higher grades of skills, feats like creating an artificial compartment are possible. I can’t think of a way to exploit that fact to kill the worldstriders, though. If that's what you were going for, it's a good idea, but I don't know how to implement it.>
Anise sighed, but nodded. That had been exactly what she had been thinking of. Realizing it was hopeless felt rather disappointing.
<Are there any old Zelyrian artifacts that can hurt the worldstriders?> asked Miria. <I didn’t think about it at the time, but we still have all of those binding-essence lightning bolts we stole. We got them back when we were busting Felix out of the research facility. We never actually tested whether they can hurt worldstriders, did we?>
<We got too caught up in researching other stuff, like Anise's star paper,> said Felix. <But that's definitely something to consider. If we can use knockoff Zelyrian artifacts to hurt worldstriders, we would be in a much better position. The world would already have tools to combat the enemy.>
Miria frowned. <You know, now that I think about it... I doubt that Zelyrian artifacts are incapable of hurting worldstriders. The worldstriders are poorly understood to the modern world - but the Zelyrians knew of them. They were very intimately familiar with the worldstriders before their empire collapsed. There's no way that they didn't have ways to hurt the worldstriders if they fought. The lightning bolts are modern-day knockoffs of Zelyrian artifacts. But original Zelyrian artifacts should definitely be able to hurt worldstriders.>
<That… is distinctly possible,> said Felix. <I mean, the Zelyrians use a very different method of creating magic artifacts, so people can't copy them. But if we have at least a few tools that can hurt worldstriders, modern armies won't be totally helpless. And once people are motivated, they'll find more ways to innovate and improve.>
<What would those methods even look like?> asked Anise. <I wish we knew how to make more Zelyrian artifacts. But most of my textbooks are on actual spellcasting.>
Anise saw Felix pause for a moment, before he turned towards Anise.
<You know… speaking of Zelyrian textbooks,> said Felix. <Now that I think about it, on that mural we saw in the pocket dimension, we saw that the worldstriders and Zelyrians fought each other when they first met. And the Zelyrians crushed the worldstriders. This happened during the first contact between the two species. The Zelyrians wouldn't have special anti-worldstrider weapons then. How did they still win?>
Anise froze.
That… was a very good question. One that she hadn’t thought about before.
Anise doubted the Zelyrian empire could have won against the worldstriders if only a few Mages could hurt them. The worldstriders were reasonably intelligent and capable of combat, after all. So the Zelyrians should have had a commonly-used spell or artifact that hurt the worldstriders. If Anise could figure out what it was… that might create a decisive advantage if the worldstriders came for her again.
It also provided a bit more context for why the worldstriders were so determined to kill her. If Zelyrian magic had an easy way to counter the biggest advantage of worldstriders, it made much more sense for them to hunt her down and try to kill her. Removing their greatest weakness was just a logical thing to do if they had the chance.
There might be an accessible tool to fight against the worldstriders. She felt a glimmer of hope and excitement at that thought.
The worldstriders reappearing in the real world had felt terrifying. She had felt so stressed that she had revealed some secrets to Vance. But now, Anise had a different idea. One that was just forming in her mind.
The worldstriders had returned to the planet, and they might be coming for her. But Anise wasn’t going to be helpless this time.
She was going to find out how the Zelyrians had fought against the worldstriders. And if the worldstriders tried to hunt her down again, she would be ready.
Author’s Note:
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