Moving spheres

[Ebiris]

Marie subtly rubs a finger over the side of her mouth matching where Chrona just drooled on his own.

"So were I to ever meet a time traveler who claimed to be from my future - their Present. The present, would there be a way to verify it?" Alicia asks, digesting that explanation as much as she can.

[Anastasia]

Chrona reaches up and wipes it away without comment.

"Yes, to discern if you are in the present or the past. As you are in the present and time travel is forbidden, such a spell is not needed. But if you do, it is named Detect Temporal Position. It should be trivial for you to emulate with your divine will. You are free to do so."

[Ebiris]

Alicia attempts to do so, exerting her will on that basis and looking at Marie, Chrona, and the ruins ahead respectively.

[Anastasia]

It is as if a part of you that was missing is found. A section of the Weave, usually gone and lost to you, flares to your will. It is a beautiful thing, shifting power and magic, all around not space, not reality, not energy or healing. It twists around time itself, as you can see everything is bright and vital. You know in your bones you are in the present.

Syala bends her will as well, "So then, are we ever aware of what we do in the theoretical past?"

"You can, but it is irrelevant. The divine is immune to paradox and temporal manipulation. You ARE." Chrona 42 says, "Time could change around you a thousand times in an instant and you would still be yourselves."

[Ebiris]

"Ah," Alicia says softly, smiling at this new discovery. She deeply wants to experiment and run wild, but of course she has a willing teacher right here. And of course she can only really use this here, not in her myriad battles elsewhere.

It's still exciting.

"But not so for others. Before the temporal compact, one could go to the past, change something, and then find the present altered, right?" she asks.

[Anastasia]

"Yes," Chrona 42 coughs lightly, at least no green stuff coming up this time. "Have you been told of what those days were like, before the Compact?"

"I've heard," Syala smiles a little bit, "Sharess started clawing things and pacing when she really got into it."

[Ebiris]

"In general terms," Alicia adds. "Nothing was stable, because anything built could be undone at a moment's caprice as if it never was. As it never was, even."

[Anastasia]

"That is correct," Chrona 42 says, "Marielle, were you not Alicia's proxy, you could in a moment go from this position to a captive of Hell or even a fallen, as if it always was, and you would never know it had been otherwise."

Syala frowns deeply, "Then I wouldn't tolerate it, nor would Alicia. We'd want to change it back to have Marie back."

"So it would be, and then again another to try and reinstate the change because it benefits them," Chrona 42 declares, stepping forward. "Because the game is played, you must play it as well or be doomed by the advantage it gives to the players."

[Ebiris]

"Ah, I wanted to ask about that!" Marie perks up. "I heard about the retroactive causality-immunity for deities. Like even before the Compact came to be, it wouldn't matter if someone went back and killed Alicia as a child because she's a goddess. So wouldn't the fact that I'm her proxy - even if it's revokable later, protect me for all time backwards and forwards? Same for anyone Alicia's made into a proxy previously?" Because she passed around that first proxy spark quite a bit before settling on Ebony!

[Anastasia]

"Yes," Chrona says, "You need not worry of that fate now, Marielle."

[Ebiris]

"You can't proxy just anyone, but still it's a way to keep your greater servants safe just by passing them the proxy marker even for a moment," Marie suggests. "Actually you could even mess with time to boost someone up to a level where they're strong enough to endure being a proxy first then do it."

"Food for thought, should the Compact ever be broken in the future," Alicia says, appreciating Marie's cunning there. But then when you can manipulate time and causality, it's very easy to come up with plans that always succeed. "Anyway!" she shakes her head, "Lets learn more by doing before we discuss it further. Lets go into these ruins and see what our first obstacle is?"

Since all temporal manipulation is magic, arcane sight should be sufficient for her to see any areas of altered time just as well as any other sort of magical wards or traps.

[Anastasia]

Ahead is a series of ruins - crumbled houses and the outlines of them, as well as an intact hall near the center. It's sprawling and sand covered, the night sky clear and cool, the heat of the day already fading.

You can see it ahead - time shifting subtly, the magic of it writhing 20ft away. An outer boundary where time will become malleable, twisted and damaged.

[Ebiris]

"It looks like time is damaged there," Alicia points ahead. "Less like a structured deliberate effect and more like... well, I once fought something from Outside Creation that had a similar effect on space. Is there a correlation?" she asks Chrona.

[Anastasia]

"Possibly," Chrona admits, coughing lightly once more. This time he wipes away green splatter and says, "What was it and how did it do it?"

[Ebiris]

"It was known as a Q'Pa," Alicia states its dread name. "It warped and broke space with its passing, creating impossible geometries where space no longer lined up as it should - things passing through would go in the wrong directions, and be damaged both physically and mentally for the passage."