Azimuth: The Elden Throne

417 A second meeting with the Karkavan Part 3

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[DING]

{Main Quest, Fate read by the Stars has activated}

{Amidst turbulent times, those chosen to tread into the undisclosed, be it by their own choice or that of others, have begun to take their first steps toward the unknown horizon.

Champion in the making, the Stars have prophesied the future.

Face it… Or change it.

*There are no final rewards for this Quest, but appropriate rewards will be issued based on Quest progression and completion Rating.

}

A magnificent, gleaming window with a dark golden hue materialized before Dale. It unfurled from a fabric as dark as the night sky, as if the very cosmos had been woven into silk.

The words within the scroll pulsated with power, the air and space around them seemingly twisting in response to their presence, like a vortex threatening to swallow him whole.

But alas, that was all an illusion from his perception.

'... This is the second time I've seen this unique Quest window.' Dale thought with a calm expression as he felt the world momentarily slow down around him

'The other one being the Quest to turn Erile into a proper saint. Given to me, most likely by Ju-Arkesios herself. However, it is clear this Quest wasn't issued by her, that much is unlikely.'

'But ever since I returned from Babylon… No, ever since I turned back time, I haven't had a lot of contact with her.'

'I mean, David has spent much of his time besides Erile, so he can't speak on her behalf anymore, but still…'

'If it wasn't her… Then who…?'

Dale remembered the visions he received when he went to the Crucible in South America.

The entire tale passed by his eyes...

The Stars in the sky, one being shot down, its heart remade into a sword…

/Tack.../

'Maybe it's all connected… Somehow…'

The world resumed its pace with the faint echoes of wood creaking, pulling him back from his thoughts to reality.

"... Thank you for agreeing to my request… It's time I gave you a proper reward for your generosity." Kuddan spoke on the side as he raised his head to look at his strange machine

"Reward? For what?"

"I've yet to give you anything for your past help. It's been weighing on me for a while, and now I think I know what I must do."

"Are you talking about the Great Devil? I thought we already settled that out."

"You already gave me a lot, I don't…"

/Shake/

Kuddan shook his head in disagreement.

"The Karkavan's support and cooperation are natural given our circumstances, but so far, we have received much more than we have given. Such a relationship isn't stable, and neither is it appropriate."

"You may be fine with it, but what about your people? How would they feel upon witnessing their hard work go towards someone else?"

"A leader must look beyond themselves, onto the world around their feet and the one around those that follow them."

"That's not the image we wish to display the world… So this time, albeit little, allow me to give you something in return for your actions."

"This is also necessary, as the path ahead will be swarming with danger." He said as he walked past them

"My people have much to recover and do, I'm afraid I have few to rely upon aside from you, as out of everyone I know, few can grow and support the weight of what I'm about to do."

"Give me a moment to gather some materials. I'll be back in a moment." /Clack clack…/

With the clacking of his walking cane against the ground, Kuddan vanished as he went downstairs, leaving a pensive Dale and a curious Hina behind.

"... Hm…"

'Once again, things have changed. Kuddan never rewarded me… Well, he did. But not like this…'

'Before, I asked him about my Spear's origin and what was going on with it… Kuddan offered to study and improve it, and in the end, he succeeded.'

'Technically speaking, at least from his words, my Spear is… Alive.'

'It is growing, but at the same time, it is not. With his knowledge, Kuddan had difficulty explaining or understanding what he was looking at.'

'After much deliberation, he performed several rituals and improved the Spear, transforming it into a Totemic Artifact as its growth path went according to the Karkavan's ways.'

'Usually, such a process cannot be done while the owner of the Artifact is alive, it isn't possible to purify the Vitality within the item, but since the Spear was an entity in itself, he changed part of the process to suit a living organism instead… And it worked. Partially…'

'Failure was improved, and I was satisfied with the result. But from the looks of it, Kuddan seems to have other ideas for me…'

'This is a bit troubling, I was counting on that Spear Upgrade.'

"Psst!"

"Hm?"

As Hina lightly hit her elbow on his waist, Dale was once again interrupted, being pulled from his thoughts.

With a weak frown, he turned to her, asking:

"What is it?"

"Come on… Don't act as if you don't know!" She said as a smug smile formed on her face

"Aren't you going to keep me updated on your conversation? I feel as if I understood nothing! No! I actually understood nothing…"

"But really! Ever since we got here I've only been a prop!"

"What was that about Devil? What is a Devil? And the Stars, and the Spirits, and..."

"Oh, sorry for that, it's mostly things that happened in the past… I'll tell you more about it, but for now, I need to think."

"I can't order you to share these things, so it's fine... Anyhow, are you thinking about what that old man said?"

"... Don't call him an old man; it's disrespectful… At least use an euphemism… Like Uh... Elder."

"Sigh... Yes, that's what I'm thinking about."

"The things he said... What was that about the Stars… Like… 'The' Stars? The cosmic bodies tens of hundreds of thousands of millions of kilometers wide?" She asked as she touched her nape

"I… I don't know. That's an issue I've been pondering about for a while."

"I need to think about the Quest I just received as well."

"What? You received a Quest?!"

She turned to Dale, her eyes blinking like those of a puppy...

"..."

He didn't really mind displaying the Status window for his Quest, so he showed it to her, distracting her while he focused on his thoughts once more...

"A Main Quest?!"

Or maybe not...

...

Stars...

Beings named after celestial bodies represented as shining dots in the sky…

During the vision of the Jade Tablet, when the arrow was shot towards the Heavens, one of them was struck, eventually falling to the world below.

The skies turned dark as all Stars vanished into the dark cosmos… Fearful of the arrow's power.

Maybe they were true Stars, self-aware, giant cosmic bodies… "Living" entities in the dark, gargantuan space.

The idea that the Stars were self-aware or that some of them may be cosmic horrors mimicking their light is ancient in itself, so Dale wasn't sure what to think.

From the fable he saw from the Jade Tablet, one star was killed, and then a giant blacksmith reforged its heart into a sword, giving it new life.

But no matter how little a Star may be, its core cannot be so small unless it's but a fragment of it… Or the concept of a Star within this universe wasn't equal to that of Earth's.

Dale used to think it was all figure of speech, after all how could a Star be shot down?

But Kuddan's words said otherwise. That the Stars above may be the very concept he was trying to avoid thinking about.

If that was the case, what did it imply? What did his newest Quest tell about the changes in the timeline?

'Sigh… Everything's a mess…'

'If turning back time wasn't enough, now I know I may not be the only one aware of the future.'

'The moment I came back here… No, that's not the right way to start.'

'Me turning back time can be seen as a trigger, one that cascaded into a series of events beyond my understanding and span the past and future alike.'

'Maybe... All of this was prophesized from the beginning...'

'In the first place, I'm unsure how I experienced the future, I assumed I traveled back in time, but it could've also been a vision of some sort.'

'If so, that would be a type of prophecy.'

'And if there's a being capable of precisely prophecizing a future, then why couldn't there be more than one?'

'My return caused the Stars to communicate with Kuddan, something that didn't happen in the past, which means my time traveling rippled beyond the opening of Babylon.'

'Kuddan said he tried to read the Stars after he saw the White Comet, but he never mentioned this to me when I visited him in the past, so I can only assume that in the alternate timeline, he tried to read the Stars but got nothing in return.'

'His disappointment led to him forsaking the matter altogether.'

'But now, the Stars shared a future with him… And that future is most likely the one I lived through, just from another perspective… The Karkavan perspective.'

'It can only be that. Why would the Stars show another diverging future?... Unless they showed Kuddan the future I'll lead the Karkavan towards.'

'A future I'm unaware of... I feel like a puppet on a stage.'

'I'm still sorting through most of my memories, and I don't know much about the Karkavan to say if something bad happens to them in the near future, but depending on how much Kuddan knows, I could possibly cross-reference his knowledge with mine to paint a clearer vision of the nearby future.'

'Assuming this future the Stars showed him is the one I experienced… Or close enough.'

'This also opens the doors for other… More terrific possibilities.'

'If the Stars know of the future. This could imply several possibilities.'

'The Stars can see the future and speak of it to those observing it… There is no lack of Divining methods that use the Stars as the base of the process, so maybe there's something to be said about it.'

'Another possibility is that the Stars exist outside of time, at least, the time that affects this world. Allowing them to see both past and future simultaneously like two movies rolling out side by side.'

'Then… If they can do so… Is it possible that other beings can also?'

'The Gods… Ju-Arkesios… I'm not worried about her, but if other Divines or whatever's out there in the dark can sense something's wrong or worse, pinpoint the source of the changes… Wouldn't that make the future even more unpredictable?'

'Worse... What if there's a God out there that can see far into the future, and whatever I do suddenly clashes with their own goals? Wouldn't they wish to remove or interfere with me before said thing happened?'

'And I look at it from that perspective; certain individuals I've met beyond the scope of Azimuth itself start to become suspicious...'

'Time… Isn't something to be dabbled with so carelessly.'

'Of course, I could be wrong about all of this. Or just overly paranoid. Maybe both... Certainly the latter.'

'If I never messed with time and everything I experienced was just a very vivid vision, then the fact I witnessed it might've caused some conditions to be fulfilled, allowing the Stars to share it with others.'

'However, I would have to change my perception of that strange being...'

'Regardless, it would be just as bad, since whoever can read the Stars could peer information from me and those I'm connected with.'

'This is quite problematic… Is there a way to prevent the Stars or other beings from interfering with my activities?'

'I know Ju-Arkesios can prevent others from observing me when I'm in her territory, and since David is an expansion of that, he can also prevent others from ogling me when I'm carrying him around, but I can't be so paranoid as to carry the Divine Relic of the Chuch everywhere I go.'

'... Great, just what I needed. More things to worry about.'

/Creak…/

Moments after Dale sorted his thoughts, Kuddan returned from the third floor. A large box of items on a basket as he climbed the stairs, step by step…

It was time for his reward, the first step in Kuddan's plans to alter his people's Fate!

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