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[Anastasia]

Thus Alicia and Antenora return to Sylica, heavy with what they have learned and choices. Needs loom before them - the only question is, which do they favor first?

You said Marie and Latha, so go ahead and decide which you want to deal with first. Or both at once for all I know.

[Ebiris]

While Marie continues her vigil in the desert, Alicia gathers Syala, Jessica, and Latha in one of Liberton's meeting rooms, warding it from eavesdroppers while relying on their usual precautions against divinations to prevent them or notice them if any get past nondetection or mind blank.

"We met Io and learned much, and there is a great deal to go over," she begins, sitting at the head of the table. "But a more urgent matter first. Marie has discovered a Sharran base in the southeast of the Desert Fiefdoms. She managed to survey their activities and scout out some of the interior, before she encountered a cultist muttering of 'missiles and force'. Divining his thoughts showed Shar or something very close to her was passing on divine messages relating to force spells. Considering Marie's speciality it seemed worryingly specific so she's backed off for now, but we're both concerned Shar knows of her activities and this was some sort of taunt."

[Anastasia]

"Then the answer is simple," Syala smiles in a not kind way at all. "Hellman and the Crimson Guard do adore crushing Sharrans. He could use the diversion."

"Unless we wish to root them out ourselves," Latha retorts, "But that is not the primary matter. It may well be that Marie has been identified somehow. Nonetheless, she has succeeded and found a Sharran base."

"Do you think this could be a trap, Alicia?" Antenora ventures, "Some measure of lure for us?"

[Ebiris]

"If it was a trap why warn her at all?" Alicia asks Antenora. "It would make more sense to have an avatar drop on her head and kill her by surprise. It definitely has the feel of a taunt from a position of unassailable superiority. As if she's saying 'look around all you want, but I know you're here and can remove you whenever I please'."

She nods to Syala next. "That was my thinking, delegate to the Crimson Guard with Marie available to support if something they can't handle shows up. But Shar calling her out like that throws everything in doubt. It's possible her divine portfolio of secrets is enough see through the entire Honey Belle spying exercise, the way I can sense the war between Cauldron and the Efreet just on a vastly more sensitive scale. I hadn't considered it before but it makes any sort of stealthy manoeuvring against Shar problematic if that's the case. Marie's stealth is too good for me to think she's been found out conventionally."

[Anastasia]

"There's another possibility, as adorable as all of you going full Antenora is," Jessica points out, a smile growing on her face.

Antenora turns to her, "Pardon?" she asks, not unkindly, but with a distinct hint of amused pique.

"What I'm thinking is that maybe it wasn't Marie in particular, but babbling about her power? Less identifying her and more simply realizing something vastly powerful was brushing by?" Jessica offers. "I think you may all be overthinking it."

[Ebiris]

"That's very optimistic, sister," she says, nonetheless hoping she's correct. "I suppose in the end we can't let it paralyze us - we must do something. I'll have Marie contact the Crimson Guard so they can get the practice and she can observe unless needed. Might bait Dragodan out."

Marie is given her marching orders and thus teleports off to do that, getting dressed on the way!

"Now then, Io," she takes a breath. "While the circumstances of the dungeon itself would surely enthrall Syala, I'll be merciful and get to the relevant points instead," she gives her wife an amused look before turning serious. "He has returned in full to Creation, but is keeping his presence circumspect for now. But he is aware of what the Arbiter charged me with twenty years ago, which I can now share with all of you because the same protection Syala and I had is now extended to all of us and Marie. Our true enemy is Ao - Shar is merely his chosen tool to end Creation, but he has committed to doing just that. Were you to speak of this to others not under the Arbiter's protection, Ao would notice, and may well choose not to wait on Shar. Do not speak of this elsewhere," her voice thrums with command, countenance stern. "I cannot overstate the importance of secrecy here, everything depends on it."

[Anastasia]

Syala smiles, but it fades as she listens. "Ao?" she asks, voice painfully soft.

"Ao," Antenora echos, "The reason why Shar is so strong, the reason why the Prophecy is so and the reason why without us, she WILL win."

Latha takes that with a steely gaze, "Then how do we make this right, Alicia? How do we win against an Incarnation? It's an impossible battle. Even hurting one is laughable - they created beings like Io and Lathander."

[Ebiris]

"We need the Incarnation of Law," she answers. "The Arbiter charged me with this task twenty years ago, to Find the Third. The phrase Three into Two and One into Three was used, which I believe means the three incarnations became two when one of them sundered itself into three parts, and that's why the Incarnation of Law has been absent so long. Somewhere, in some form, Ao's equal and opposite needs to be found and put back together again."

A long pause.

"I think, anyway. It's supposition. If the Incarnation of Law has left Creation to go elsewhere... well, I don't even know how to begin finding it. This explanation at least makes sense and offers hope."

[Anastasia]

"Daunting," Latha murmurs, "But at least that gives us something."

Jessica exhales slowly, "Why us? Why put not just divinity, but the fate of all Creation on our shoulders? Sister, twenty years ago you were still but mortal."

"I believe," Syala finally says, "That we go forward assuming Alicia's correct, because the opposite is essentially conceding defeat. So. How do we go forward from here? What do we do?"

[Ebiris]

"It was my own fault," Alicia smiles wryly. "It was actually just after I ascended, when the Arbiter's herald came to explain how I could no longer take part in Daa-vid's judgement. I effectively trapped him into admitting how nonsensical it was, how the judgement was flawed... and then he agreed and explained the whole thing was a distraction on Ao's part, as many things are, and that I had seen the truth of Creation."

"As for what to do? We keep looking for clues, and keep pushing Shar back. Shar is the weapon used to end Creation, so pushing her back buys us more time. I don't know what would happen if she were destroyed. Nor if the Answer was found - it's possible an Answer would satisfy Ao. Or it might leave Creation completed and thus no longer required, but Ao has already grown tired of Creation and decided on its destruction so I don't think it would make things worse.

"I think Chronias has something to do with it. Io said Zaphkiel won't speak to us until we're ready though, so... I'm sorry, even knowing what I know and having so long to look? Progress just hasn't come. I'm guilty of letting myself be distracted at times as well, but if the Competition lets me get stronger and I can use that strength in finding the Incarnation of Law, is it useful? Or is strength irrelevant and I just need to find the right clues and put them together?"

[Anastasia]

Antenora adds after that, sitting back in her chair, "We have to get better," she says, "I believe we'll fight Shar before this is all over, and we're not nearly where we need to be for that. That is the crux of what we have been told again and again."

"More reason to find 21 as well," Latha says, "21 could destroy even Shar."

"21 is the battle for a soul," Antenora says softly. "The only question is which soul. The soul of 21? Creation's soul? The soul of the Incarnation of Law? The Answer itself? 21 promises to do the impossible and plays a role in this. Or is the woman's soul who bears it even now, who Moore seeks to save? Yet no matter, it would be pursued regardless, because of how valuable and how mighty it would make us. No matter how loathsome a thing it is."

"What other ways can we strengthen ourselves, sister?" Jessica speaks up now, "Even if we do not win by force of arms, it can only help us, and we need strength to stop and set back Shar's machinations."

[Ebiris]

"As always the best way to grow stronger is by doing. Testing yourself and practising... but there is one other thing. The divine seed Asmodeus offered me before? Io was able to create one of his own in his long time away from Creation, which he has gifted to us. With three charges split between us, Seira's group, and Moore's group. One more deity could rise in Sylica's pantheon," Alicia answers, looking over the group.

[Anastasia]

That gets Syala to smile, "Well, more company and more help? We'd be starting to rival Brightwater in numbers."

Jessica is quiet at that, "Such an honor," she says, "Such possibility, to become such a thing."

Latha meets Alicia's gaze, "Then you need another to stand besides the three of you."

[Ebiris]

She'd been thinking Latha, but Jessica's reaction makes her reconsider. It is something she's been thinking seriously about and asking questions...

"Such a responsibility as well. A Goddess of Light or a Goddess of Shadow would join Syala, Antenora, and I. It would have to be one of you two, there are no other candidates."

[Anastasia]

Latha considers a moment, Jessica the same. As they do?

"This is not a light honor, but a great mantle," Syala says, "The power is wonderful, but I'm involved in so much now. This?" She gestures at herself, "Is only a small part of me. I'm providing blessings, seeing to my faithful, mourning my dead, welcoming souls, watching weddings, ensuring safe childbirth, waging war and so much more, again and again and again, forever."  With a heavy look, "Forever I am a part of my faithful, tending to them and preparing them places here for eternity. It is the busiest, most consuming and most incredible task one could ever have."