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Post by Van on Aug 15, 2008 20:46:08 GMT -5
"Whoa! That's quite a lot to process, Mikhail. So are you saying that this Chamois is actually an older you from the future? And you think he traveled into the past to change something? It's awfully dangerous to tamper with time. He could have changed something that would even erase him from existence. Mordrammo wants you and Samandra dead. Do you think he knows that your older selves traveled into the past and wants to prevent you from doing it by killing you both in the present?"
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Post by David on Aug 15, 2008 22:57:20 GMT -5
Mikhail cocks his head to the side and answers, "well, like I said, I don't know for certain, but it sure seems to make sense of the facts."
"I mean," the young psi continues hesitantly but with growing confidence, "for some reason, my very soul is attuned to two of the ancient gems that are part of the Baklunish Tower of Illusion. My mother, a very confident and power spell-caster herself, nearly fried her brain trying to attune one of the gems, but I've felt a connection to them my entire life, yet only touched one once and only after I knew it was safe. The only way that makes sense is that my soul had already linked to the gems -- either I'm the reincarnation of some ancient mage or sometime in the future I'll travel into the past and attune the gems before I'm born." He grins.
"Add to that that one of the other minds I can sense is Samandra who I've personally sensed move through time AND who was just a newborn when I felt her presence. Yeah, yeah, I know, she's older than I am now. That's cuz she and her family got displaced in time...by the same guy who disappeared from reality at the same moment. The guy whose mind felt like a weird, distorted reflection of my telepathic self. A mysterious guy who wasn't intimidated by Andar, knew my mother, and made a point of kidnapping Samandra when she was about the age I was when I first started having the dreams..."
"For whatever reason, my mother has always avoided my questions about Chamois -- even more than about my father. And it doesn't take an empathy to tell that Andar was holding something back when I asked him about it. Since I gained the spell, I've tried to scry Chamois a hundred times, but NEVER gotten the slightest hint of a connection. I once asked Esmerelda and she said he must either be dead or doesn't exist any longer.
"But I do know that neither Adama nor Borlon knew anything. She couldn't have kept it from me and he would have told me. So, other than Mom or Andar, I don't think there'd be many people who could tell me for certain. Maybe Samandra's dad -- he has pretty special senses. Or his buddy the Flan priest guy, Kicking Blackbird, or something. But on the whole, it seems to be a major secret. If Asfaloth was still around, I'd ask him; he's always had a way of knowing things he shouldn't. Maybe Kephanlonia might know; she's sneaky like that."
The young man shrugs, "but, yeah, I'm guessing."
DM's Note: One thing that is consistent cross-culturally, both with magic and psionics, is that time travel INTO THE PAST is NOT POSSIBLE. My world uses a version of time travel similar to Marvel Universe -- there are an infinite number of alternate universes (or probabilities), each forming a potentially different timeline; what appears to be time travel is usually a visit to another probability (Clanndennagh's training by Dinesh Prandoori COMPLETELY jives with this!). In the history of Oerth, there HAVE been a handful of occasions where true time-travel might have happened but each time it was a major event, usually sponsored by a deity such as Istus (Our Lady of Fate) or Lendor (Master of Time) or Ptah (Architect of Reality). On that last note, Mikhail adds cryptically, "yes, I know for a fact that my body did travel backward in time to take the Staff of Law from the Nereganti god, Ptah, in a pocket reality known only to him. To be honest, I'm certain that I was successful only because he wanted me to be; I may have been possessed by the ullitharid's essence, but I still have some memories of those events. And I do know that I disappeared from reality for more than three years."
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Post by Andy on Aug 16, 2008 1:29:38 GMT -5
Oooh - I love flashback tidbits. You hear some yelling from a distant Polynesian island.
So, to sum up, Mik, the Tower and its gems are all caught up in yet another potential past recursion predating the apocalypse we just avoided by a decade or more. The main thing is that Mikhail was instrumental in preventing the most recent apocalypse by combining 3 artifacts with his own nascent time abilities....that apocalypse was designed by the EEG.
Most likely scenario is that a more recent change in his life (perhaps Mikhail's turning away from the gods) has given him some potential that the EEG / Modromo fear being used against them in the future. However, the Communies offered by Stephanos did not support that theory... :/
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Post by David on Aug 16, 2008 11:06:32 GMT -5
Glad to please, AndyElf...
Something Mikhail adds, "I don't think killing me would prevent the change to our timeline that's Chamois came back to cause. I mean, it SHOULD, but our timeline is already different; that's why he went home. So by that very fact, Chamois should have prevented his own existence. The fact that he didn't means something, I'm sure. By the same token, then, killing me wouldn't prevent Chamois from having existed and having done whatever he did. So there's some comfort in that..." Mikhail feebly smiles.
"For what it's worth too, if Mordrammo wanted to knock me off cuz of what Chamois did, then why target Samandra? Or anyone else? If anyone, he should target my Mom and Sam's parents; they helped him do his thing. Samandra was a five year old at the time..."
Mikhail cocks his head and ponders for a moment before adding, "you know, my mother knows a LOT of the people on that list, come to think of it. Beyond me, Sam, Rufus, and TC, I seem to recall her talking about adventuring with a whiny, cowardly, overly-cocky dwarf and smart, overly-brave elven mage. As I recall, the dwarf read a cursed scroll or got killed and is now a dryad on some island...
"Next time we head back to Klarr, we should talk to her about the list and see what she knows. Like Asfaloth; she's good at learning about stuff," he grins.
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Post by Andy on Aug 16, 2008 23:25:39 GMT -5
"Well Duh..." says Jellie, conveniently stepping out of invisibility. "He already existed, changing the his past isn't going to just make him fade away. Still doesn't exactly make sense though. Hmm..."
"But ooobviously..." She says with a cat-eyed grin, "...Madaromo's interest in you now has something to do not with the past, but something you are likely to do or something he can steal from you by your death..."
Her attention strays for a moment as a butterfly flutters past.
"Oh - I know - tell us more about this Tower of Illusion! Where is it? Why are there gems involved with it, and how do they relate to your, Sammandra and the Skowta's souls?"
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Post by David on Aug 17, 2008 13:19:27 GMT -5
"Well, I don't know much, really," Mikhail begins. "When they brought me to Eon, I was still pretty much in shock from being possessed by the Annulus, so I didn't really pay much attention. Months later, when Black Robe told us we could go home to Oerth, it was Jessica, Sam's mom, who activated the Tower. I was in Chipping Dale with my sister. I felt the presences from my childhood again, but this time I was old enough to pay attention. Not to mention, since the Apocalypse, they'd winked out, so I was mindful of their return. A ring of 'flickering lives' appeared and then I knew the Tower of Illusion was on Eon. Andar felt it too -- I could sense it through his gem. He used his clairvoyance to scan where the Tower appears and sure enough, it was back.
"After a reunion in town, Jessica gathered her family and reactivated the Tower back to Oerth. Yeah, I suppose that's what you want to know. It's an ancient Baklunish portal between the Five Worlds. It manifests on Oerth in the heart of the Bright Desert, in the ruins of the city of Leum. When it materializes on Eon, it's in the woods, about a half day from Chipping Dale by foot. Thanks to Jessica and her family, the ten gems which form the tower are set as is one 'within' the Tower so it's permanent in time. Jessica took out the gem which Chamois used to set the Tower in space -- it no longer allows transit from any world to any other world. Now the Tower manifests on one of the Five Worlds at all times, but only moves when the stars are in the proper alignment or when one of the gem holders wills it.
"That leaves four gems left. Jessica and Samandra share one although Sam has it most of the time. Theirs is the one which Chamois used to trap the family in the past. Andar has another, which he's had for decades. Tyris=Flare has the third, although she no longer is attuned to it. And the fourth is in the hands of an ancient Suloise lich, the Skota, who rules a tribe in of cannibals in the Bright Desert.
"Although I've handled Sam's gem, I've never invoked it's power. The person who would know all about the gems really is Andar. One of his talents is to read the psychic impressions left by people as well as to read the imprints left by great events. I'm sure he's thoroughly scanned his own gem as well as all the others. He may not know much about magic, but the man's a cunning genius..."
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