Attack on Sylica

[Ebiris]

Alicia rises up and turns around, leaning into Syala's always naked body. "I could do with blowing off some steam. Lets," she agrees, pushing the white-haired angel against the trunk of a nearby tree and searching out her lips.

[Anastasia]

A good time is had by all. You drowse in Syala's arms, enjoying the simple peace of it afterwards, the two of you wrapped in a blanket as you sit against an apple tree.

You're semi asleep, abilities working on automatic, seeing to things with the grandeur this day deserves. That's when..."Ahem." Antenora's voice, "I'm not interrupting, am I?"

[Ebiris]

"Just resting," Alicia says as her eyes open fully and she sits up a little straighter, blanket still keeping her decent. "I can refer you to my avatar if you'd prefer to speak with a more composed version," she adds with a bit of playfulness. "Adapting to everything okay?"

[Anastasia]

"I've lost count of the times you've gotten more than wanted from Marie or comign too close," Antenora waves it off, going to sit at a tree nearby.

Syala stirs and smiles, "Such is life."

"I'm fine, or will be," Antenora says, "One against everything. One against all. One. One. One. The ability to alter reality with a whim, here or in the Far Realm. So close I can feel it inside of me, dormant and waiting."

[Ebiris]

"You're about where we were after we first founded Sylica," Alicia confirms. "It took a while for that seed to properly blossom, but there's nothing that can stop it now."

[Anastasia]

"How did you advance it?" Antenora asks, a hand to her chest. "I feel it but I can't do anything with it."

[Ebiris]

"Part of it's just growing, which takes time. Spreading your faith helps - I've been singing your praises pretty hard today for that reason, though also because you deserve it," she smiles. "And then there's the Competition. The thing is, because your divinity came from Beyond it may not work precisely the same way. Like how Eblis is physically and magically puissant far out of proportion to the strength of his divinity. That's something worth asking about when you see him."

[Anastasia]

"I will," Antenora says, "I'll be ready tomorrow." Slowly Antenora looks up, "What are we, Alicia? Are we mere shepherds of souls, or something more put into this role by the Incarnations? Syala and I had a conversation about this earlier today, and now I wonder."

[Ebiris]

"Mystra is a tool put into her role by the Incarnations. Shar, Lathander, Selune, all the primordial deities were given roles and offered their own choice of how they would go about it. We are variables thrown up by the long experiment. Remember, if the Incarnations knew how everything would end up, they'd have no reason to make Creation - they'd already predict the Answer," Alicia says, reasoning her way around things.

"Why they chose to make a Creation with both Gods and mortals I don't know. It's possible we're not the first Creation. Perhaps there was a Creation with only mortals, or one with only Gods, and they didn't like how it turned out? Mystra told me time was more fluid at the very beginning, as things were changed and shifted around based on new concepts like Good and Evil."

[Anastasia]

"That..." Antenora considers, "Logically then, they can't predict all the actions mortals and immortals take, or perhaps in conjunction with one another or in certain combinations. So while they are omnipotent or close enough to it for our purposes, they aren't omniscient. So we have to be the variables they didn't plan for, that they were hoping to produce. We're the entire point of it, something unknown that may provide them an Answer. That gives us freedom compared to the ancient powers created at the beginning, as they were created, made for a purpose. We have the freedom of coming from nothing. In fact, Creation's entire purpose should support us in various ways. We have the ability to arise to this if we prove worthy to an Incarnation - it's only the fact that Ao's the only one responding that spoils the process."

Thinking aloud, Antenora looks up, lost in her own ruminations. "Creation's out of balance. It feels like it was designed for Three Incarnations to be playing a role, not one or two or whatever the Arbiter is. It's always three, after all. One into three and three into one. That bit of wordplay feels more important as I go around and around with this. Three into one - perhaps the Incarnations would become one with an Answer? Perhaps they need us for some sort of completion that can only be provided if the questions of law vs chaos and good vs evil are settled? Perhaps this is some manner of them growing, as I grew out in the Beyond. If nothing else, Beyond seems to be unlimited potential in any direction, even directions we aren't equipped to comprehend. That's why we can't understand Far Realm creatures, isn't it? They've grown in entirely different metaphysical and mental ways, so much so that they're alien to us."

Syala listens to all of that, "How much of that do you think is accurate?"

With the faintest blush Antenora shrugs. "I don't know. I'm, ah, brainstorming."

"Is that what they call rambling these days?" Syala's lips twist upward into a smile, "Still though, it's as good as anything we've thrown around so far."

[Ebiris]

"Three into two and one into three," Alicia says, correcting the wordplay they heard from the Neverborn and from Eladi. "It's possible there was One incarnation then either through its own ruminations or exposure to something else, it developed the concepts of Law and Chaos. And Balance. This split it into the Incarnations who created Creation - possibly even against its will. And if it finds the Answer, all three will rejoin into a new Incarnation representative of that answer. But... yes, this is all just rambling. We don't know the truth of these things. We only have a few fragments and our own inferences. Which even if they're logical ones, we're up against something that defies logic."

She looks up at the glowing sky. "It's like looking at the shadow on a wall from a man walking by and trying to explain what you're seeing without ever having seen a man before. The references and dimensions of Beyond are things we simply don't have the experience to comprehend. That's why those who try so often go mad, their Creation-made brains simply incapable of accepting that information and putting it back out in a way others can make sense of."

[Anastasia]

"Then Beyond isn't truly hostile - it's simply incompatible," Antenora murmurs. "I wonder how we appeared to those creatures you fought out there?"

[Ebiris]

"They might not even have perceived what happened as a fight," Alicia agrees. "Still, remember Zetsoboku? Don't give them too much benefit of the doubt."

[Anastasia]

A thought at that, a pause. As Antenora grapples with that?

"She seemed somewhat naturalized," Syala points out, "She was able to present a coherent front to us, rather than being completely impossible. She'd learned."

[Ebiris]

"One might even say she'd found her own Answer," Alicia muses. "Though her conception of Good was still certainly alien, she put up a good surface image and spouted the right rhetoric."