Prompt 2: Knowledge is Power

Things were looking a little scatty.

My library was a mess from my intense searching last night. Why had I never gone to the bother of actually organizing it? I'd spent over nine hours looking for one book. It couldn't be missing - my books never left the library. After all, it was a private library.

I had to find it. It held the secret to everything. The Origin, Adaption and (most importantly) Magic.

A polite, quiet knock came from the door, breaking me out of my mad scramble.

"What is it?" I called, voice hoarse from a night without sleep.

The door clicked open and a maid came in. She was young, not yet thirty, with a full and voluptuous figure that most women would kill for.

"The Queen requests your presence, High Scholar." She said, with a hint of urgency in her tone.

I cursed. My research would have to wait, but if it did I was likely to forget what I'd been searching for.

"Now, High Scholar." The maid said, a little more forcefully.

I sighed. "You've been through too much already, young one. I still remember the day I met you. Half-starved, naked, about to die on the streets."

I sighed again. Such simple days were gone. The days when I could satisfy the people as a healer, using herbs and drugs to help the many.

I walked to the door, limbs like lead.

                                                ***

"I asked for you almost two hours ago." The Queen said imperiously when I arrived.

"Forgive me, Your Majesty." I replied. "I only received the message a few minutes ago."

She waved her hand, as if brushing off dirt. "Yes yes, very well. I require your assistance."

"Realm-Tearers?" I asked. It wouldn't be the first time the interdimensional parasites had forced their way out of the Void to terrorize the inhabited Multiverse.

"Not this time." She replied. "No, what I need from you, is Knowledge."

Knowledge? A Primary Source? She knew I didn't have that sort of power. I was knowledgeable, yes, but I didn't have Knowledge.

"Knowledge? You know I don't possess that power. Indeed, since the Adaption none in this dimension have been able to use any of the Primary Sources; Knowledge, Word and Form have been inaccessible for centuries.

"However, I believe I have a way of finding more Magic. The Multiverse is pock-marked with holes, little rips in the very fabric of Space and Time. It is my belief that these holes, these Rifts, are what allowed the Tearaways into the Multiverse in the first place.

"Last night I didn't sleep. I was researching. It seems that these Rifts -"

"WorldGates." The maid interrupted. "They are called WorldGates."

"I beg your pardon?" The Queen and I asked simultaneously. How could such a young girl know of this?

"These 'Rifts', as you dubbed them, are actually WorldGates. Doorways between Worlds." She continued. "Doorways to all Worlds."

When she showed no sign of elaborating further, I continued. "It seems that these 'WorldGates' are a byway for energy to run through the Multiverse, just as the veins are a byway for your blood. I believe that if we could harness this power and Travel to another dimension, we could take some of the magic that encases that World and use it to re-establish our own System."

The young redhead laughed. "Not too bad a theory, except for the fact that this Magic System is the original. Why do you think it's called the Primary Sources? This was the first place to develop Magic."

"How do you know so much?" I asked incredulously.

She smiled. "Knowledge."

The Queen and I stared blankly at her for a moment that lasted eternally.

"Let me tell you a story." The girl said.

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Once, many, many aeons ago, the Author of All Things Wrote the Multiverse.

He created each World in turn, giving it its own System of Power, its own life, its own identity.

Soon, He withdrew from the Multiverse, choosing to become a spectator and simply observe His creation. He appointed Gods to each World to make sure nothing devastating would happen.

That was when the Voided Ones first attacked.

They came raining down on the Multiverse like fire from the sky, bringing death and destruction wherever they went.

The Gods tried to stem the tide, but weren't powerful enough, and were swallowed by the Void. Nobody knows what happened to them, but I know that at around the same time the Gods disappeared, the Demons arose.

They marshalled the Tearaways, having them seek out beings from across the Multiverse. Beings of power.

These people were said to be the Author's last gift before He left. Tiny slivers of his own soul, little sparks of light in the Shadow of the Corruption.

____________________________________________________________

"The Corruption?" I interrupted. The girl nodded.

"You call it the Adaption, the time when Magic became dangerous to use. Its TrueName is the Corruption, because it was the Void that caused it, contaminating the natural wells of Power scattered across the Multiverse."

____________________________________________________________

These pieces of the Author Himself, these Slivers, were one and the same, yet also wildly different. They were different aspects of the same personality, capable of destroying each other or perfecting each other simultaneously.

These people were - are - the Multiverse's last hope. If I cannot find them and bring them together, all is lost. They are the last ones capable of saving everything. Having been partially Corrupted themselves, they are immune to the madness and evil that overlays Magic.

____________________________________________________________

I sat i stunned silence for a moment longer. The last hope of the Multiverse? Corrupted by the very thing they were to destroy?

"Who are you?" I asked. This was the most important question. If she was to be believed, she would need an adequate reputation.

A small smile. "Who am I? I could go into a whole speech explaining exactly who and what I am, but since that ship already got sailed somewhere out there, I'll be brief. I am a Foreseer, dreaming of what has happened and what is to come. I am a WorldBreaker, opening doorways into other dimensions. I am Krystal Blazebringer. Krystal the Knowing, Krystal the Fiery. 

"And I'm also the only one with the capacity to bring the Slivers together."