Epilogue: A note from me, before I leave

I had been preparing for this day for a long, long time. When I concluded that the world was forfeit, I knew that any fight to try and protect it was useless. So why bother?

When I concluded so, all the futures ahead darkened even further, as if the end had arrived the moment I entertained that thought. I didn’t understand it at first, but it all became evident soon enough.

The end was fixed, always there, but I had a lot of time in my hands before then.

I had once sought immortality, but other options seemed more appetizing now that I knew the world was over. Truly, the world is so big and has so many places I had not seen. How could I waste time moping around?

When I managed to fully dislocate my soul from my body and split myself apart, the future ahead of me only seemed to be bright.

I saw everything, I traveled everywhere. Sometimes I went as myself, presenting as the Goddess of Wisdom and allowing myself to bask in the glory of my position. Other times, I simply took the form of a traveler, someone who could go around unnoticed and enjoy the more mundane aspects of life.

I have lived for millennia, but it was a single life. Now, I was living a dozen of them at the same time.

And then… what? What could follow?

Something I had noticed was how many people I had met since I started this journey. People of all places in life and in the world, with multiple goals. Some of them even managed to reach them in their lifetimes, and when death embraced them, they could leave with a smile.

That was something I did not understand.

As someone who wants to know everything, and to understand everything, it simply made no sense. And the more I saw it, the more determined I was to decipher it.

Eventually, I decided to help them.

The happiness they felt when finding an answer and sticking to it, the peace of someone who could die with no regrets in life. Would I feel it if I died? Certainly, trying it would be risky, so observation would have to do.

And then, the telchines came out to the world.

The people I had met started dying everywhere and I could do nothing to avoid it. The dreams I had observed had started shattering everywhere at the same time.

But for this, I had prepared. For decades I had.

I could not save everyone, but I could save a few. I would open my hands as much as I could, and take everything that my own power would allow me to grasp.

The Gods I had seen with disdain for so long, even with their differences, were my partners. At the very least, if they wanted to fight to the end, I could help them, and try to make them all reach peace before succumbing in battle, as they all would.

Atalan was the last one to fall, but the hope he had in his eyes I gave him the key to open the waters to bring the human army in… I can only hope that that feeling stuck with him in the great beyond.

And after that, there was Yatro. The biggest “hand” I managed to create. A place where people would be safe for the longest time, all their necessities sated, only having to deal with the biggest questions they had to ask themselves. After all, how can a person fulfill their goal in life, if they haven’t even figured it out?

Certainly, not everyone would be able to do it, but that was fine. Even imperfection has its perks, and variety always gives chances to learn new things.

At the very least, I know some people did manage to reach peace, and that was all I could hope for.

When the priest arrived to the city, before the land could fully sink in the water, he brought a calamity like no other. Just in front of the city, he fulfilled a blurring ritual, and just like he had unified the sea and the land, the day and the night, he joined the last thing that remained separate.

Three great Gods once existed in the pantheon, the God of the land, the God of the Sea, and the God of the underworld. For the first, and final time, they all were the same.

The world collapsed as the underworld fought with it for space. The river styx coursed through the remaining land, breaking all walls and giving free reign for the telchines to raze it all.

But in the end, they found nothing.

The streets? Empty, no one to run in fear for the beasts that had arrived.

The houses? Only people sleeping could be found. Some of them had been for a long time, some of them only recently. Whether they found it a preferable fate than waiting for the telchines, or they managed to feel satisfied enough with life to part, they all were gone now.

The priest could only look around in the city, to find out there was no one left to share his so-called love with. At the very least, he would face disappointment in the end, and with nothing else to claim, that was all he would have left.

Satisfied, I turned around. There’s a little something, a last something I prepared for myself when this moment arrived.

An enormous series of circles, full of intricate runes spread everywhere in the room around me. There was almost not a single free space in it, but finally, it was complete.

Having a taste on a mortal life and knowing the end was near was nice, but in the end, death truly is not for me.

If this world is forfeit, then I may as well just find a new one for me. In the sea of existence, in the foam that conforms all I can see, an infinite number of bubbles appear in front of my eyes. I have seen all this world had to offer, but how about the next one?

Oh, and I may not do so alone.

I can see someone coming here. A girl, with a mind that has been frayed by life, and still remains incapable of finding an answer. A girl I actually share a lot of similarities with, both of ancestry and origin, as much as that knowledge irritates me a little bit.

But if I were to leave that irritation behind, and she were to take my hand… maybe something new could happen.

I’ll see, if she chooses to, hopefully, the next world will be kinder with her.

Oh, it seems like we are running out of time!

So with this, I have to say goodbye. Who am I writing this for? I have no idea. But knowledge is never lost, and if I do the effort of recording all of this, I know it may reach someone one day. Somewhere, somehow.

With that said, goodbye, and good luck finding your own answer!