The Smith rocks back and forth on His boot heels and tips, holding His sides in solemn mirth. His double-strike onto Darayat certainly set the Guardians on edge.
In the midst of the uproar, Ptolemaeus feels a familiar tingle. By the Gods, not now! But yes, now (and indeed, by the Gods). An emergency Notice from the Guardians to all operatives past, present, and future flashes into his Knowledge of All Things Bound to Time as if he had always known it, which in fact he apparently had. Why the Guardians seem to feel they can alter such things with impunity while forbidding it to the rest of the Multiverse is a persistent question that Ptolemaeus can easily ask, but knows better than to ask such a pointlessly lethal question.
However, this newly ancient Knowledge has more import than usual, because its subject is standing almost right next to him: Darayat.
It is therefore little surprise for Ptolemaeus’ TimeSight to now reveal the telltale bluegray stroboscopic flickering around Darayat’s movements, and the slight obscuration from bluegray swirls of Time Momentum gained and shed, as Darayat chooses his own path across Time.
The Destroy-On-Sight Order comes with a few official Cautions. A Caution about the presence of First Age Magic: Do not destroy Darayat’s posessions; the details are not clearly defined, instead the Guardians insist everything must be returned to them instantly for “further study”. A Caution that Darayat is Deity-Touched by a Being referred to as Varda, who Ptolemaeus not so easily recognizes as Skymother of a distant Prime Plane: It would be best not to approach that Plane after destroying one of Her favorites. A Caution that Darayat uses Time Stop himself: Thus the usual method of Guardians agents to gain the upper hand may not work well with Darayat. And especially a Caution that Darayat may alter Time on a small scale immediately around him, and on a large scale for a Demiplane: It is essential to ambush Darayat unawares so that an opportunity to exercise his will in this regard does not arise.
As Darayat begins to move, Gleron’s newfound TimeSight gives him a jolt: Darayat is stepping across Time too, some odd flashing images that are quite similar to what Gleron sees surrounding Star, and to some extent surrounding Ptolemaeus. Little jets and eddies of bluegray mist flow away from Darayat and dissipate almost immediately, blurring Darayat’s motion slightly; to a lesser extent these swirl around Ptolemaeus as well; but none around Star, whose motions are clean bluegray flickers of afterimage… or foreimage.
Gleron’s Timesight is new; perhaps Darayat was doing this all along, before Gleron could perceive it; Gleron has yet to learn to interpret it.
Whatever Darayat picked up from the maelstom of snapped TimeLines swirling around what was Bral, as the high priests of Dumathoin packed Life energy into him, it certainly seems to have changed his view of things. A flood of new skills, new techniques, new Sights (of which TimeSight is but one), and new Knowledge pours through his mind, so intense and overwhelming that only the steadying presence of Vilya, and through her, Varda’s everpresent lingering Touch, gives him a modicum of sanity.
On a grand level, the Architecture of the Planes stands revealed to him, in terrifying clarity, threads of Time and Elements and Life Energy carefully or carelessly bound into shapes and sizes that can be pushed and pulled by those who see how and where.
On a small level, the tiniest movements of Time twist and turn before him to his TimeSight, to be trod, and trod again, with dizzying alternatives spinning away in infinitely multiplying variations of past and future and present. Snatches of Knowledge surface and submerge again, talk of TimeLoops and Timelines and encounters in possible Times with strange creatures, none stranger than the two instances of Star floating nearby. Darayat can clearly see her transitioning from point to point to point, not following a Timeline at all, while the rest of the creatures around him ride on a bluegray inexorable tide… but not Ptolemaeus, solid as a stone, striding across Time with jets of bluegray in his wake… and not Darayat himself, stepping almost daintily from moment to moment, stirring swirls of bluegray around him.
Ptolemaeus… there has been mention of the Guardians, from Ptolemaeus. And in the same instant that Ptolemaeus receives his message, that particular twist to the Timelines arrives for Darayat too, yet another unintended and inevitable consequence of the Guardians’ view of Time and its manipulation. Their warnings permeate past, present, and future… Darayat’s past as well, and therefore, fully certain knowledge comes for Darayat about the warnings too.
Both Darayat and Ptolemaeus easily can know that they both know, and they both know that they both know, and they both know that they both know that they both know…
Star’s rich laughter spills across the Link.
< Darayat, congratulations!! Ptolemaeus, isn’t it delicious?!? >Then she continues only slightly more seriously, still chuckling,
< But Darayat, you may wish to be careful even with little TimeLoops; they have a way of getting bigger in ways we don’t expect. >Extra-D Trick, Double-Take, play through your turn for a second time, choose which take becomes the actual course of events. Principles, YGGD 371, set time trait of demiplanes.
Nuff said.
EDIT: Tpyos.