Chapter 736 – Catching The Scent
Once the selectively perceptible Divine is accepted as an independent actor capable of creating change on Arda, we are actually able to answer questions without creating hosts of others. Not only that, but a selectively perceptible Divine can be used to not only solve the mystery of the Age of Monsters but also the mystery of the World holding together during Worldbreaking. We can even go further, such a creature could exist as a maintainer of the Dwarven Highway, although in that, I feel I am getting ahead of myself.
Nevertheless, there is a problem that comes about with this. Divines rarely have multiple powers and when they do, then one is the ‘showcase’ power that everyone associates with the Divine and the rest are supplementary: Kassandora serves as the pinnacle example of this phenomenon. War’s Orchestra is what the woman’s power actually is, her ability to summon Joyeuse is merely supplementary to her. In this, selective perceptibility would have to be the supplementary ability, although I do not see how it is possible for something so defining as the unicorn’s talent of disappearance be a mere “addition” to another.
There is also the case of power, for such a Divine would need a tremendous level of ability to be able to actually affect Arda at large and affect the course of history. The Age of Monsters would not have been any different had fifty-four Divines been present rather than fifty-three. Additionally, although here I am running off on speculation entirely, we would not come any closer to figuring the questions of Worldbreaking.
Ultimately, there is a large issue I have presented in this theory, which I call the “solve-everything Divine”. That is what I have started searching for. Ultimately, the theory solves everything because I want it to solve everything. The issue is that the Divines have demesnes and I would need to find a Divine with a demesne capable of doing such things. We would be looking at an entity that would put Irinika, Allasaria, Elassa and Olephia to shame, simultaneously. The level of power required would…
Well, it is farcical. There is no demesne which can provide a level of power on that level. We are talking about total manipulative ability over the entire world. The monsters couldn’t have ended in a hunt, it would be logistically impossible for a single Divine to do that. A Divine (save for Anassa) can only be in one place at one time. Monsters on the other side of the world would return to repopulate the lands they had been scoured from. The Divine would have to be so grand, so powerful, so total that it would span the entire world.
We are talking about an impossibility, it would be easier to assume that instead of a single entity or an army of these invisible, selectively perceptible Divines, the entire worl
….
…
..
.
Oh.
- Excerpt from the notes written by God Saranael, of Knowledge.
Helenna looked up at the statue of herself. What a magnificent creation, it was easily one of the best statues in the entire Empire. There was no debate about that, the marble was finely sculpted, the artists had managed to carve and capture the flow of her dress as if they had taken a snapshot of reality and saved it. She poured herself some wine.
This was the life.
There had been a time when she wanted to rule the Empire. Thousands of years ago, when Arascus had first come to her, she had quite possibly said the most stupid statement of her entire life: And why will I not be the Empress? The God of Pride had looked at her, had sighed and had said it would not happen, and that there was no way he could explain it to a level that would satisfy her.
That was true, back then, there was no way that Helenna could have been satisfied. She had turned Arascus down, the Great War had happened. Half the reason for joining the White Pantheon was to get revenge on Arascus in the first place for not choosing her. Then the White Pantheon had won the war and she did become Empress, or the equivalent of.
Helenna’s Empress-ship had lasted all of a dozen years, when the Pantheon had embraced the democratic council model. It had quickly turned around though, after Maisara, Fortia and Allasaria realised as a three that Helenna was getting she wanted and they were getting nothing. The return to Allasarian leadership had sent Helenna crashing from the peak of her power to the very bottom.
And so the time had passed. Kassandora had been freed, Arascus returned, the Empire was rebuilt, everyone knew the story. Helenna swivelled around in her desk and sipped her wine. She glanced down at the reports, those constantly flooded in. Every few hours, one of the workers at the Donut would bring yet another set of reports from their successful missions. And Helenna would pour herself another celebratory drink.
One thing was terrible indeed. The worst. So terrible that whenever Helenna thought of it, her stomach wanted to turn into a knot. But it was true. The ambition to become Empress had died. The Goddess of Love plucked at her white shirt as she spun back to look at her statue again. Empress was not the job for her. She did not want to handle the Empire’s economy and the less time she spent with Kassandora and Fortia and the military, the better.
No, Arascus would give her what she could do, diplomacy, propaganda and spying, and she would be fine. Her apotheosis had been precisely for the purpose of giving humanity those things, and there was no reason to do anything else. The Empire would be here tomorrow, Helenna may as well enjoy herself today.
Her door swung open, Of Love did not even have to ask what sort of idiotic creature had just entered her lair of a demesne. There was only one such fool on this world. As always, the intruder stopped at the door, closed it, then opened the drink’s cabinet to fetch herself a bottle of high-end vodka. “You know, I’m going to move that cabinet.”
“That’s very much like you.” Malam said.
“And that means what exactly?” Helenna asked.
“That you like being annoying.” Helenna slowly use her boots to spin herself around so that she could face the Goddess of Hatred. Malam wore her black coat, her black skirt, her white shirt underneath, her heels and her stockings. It was a thoroughly unprofessional look, the sort that would be better reserved for an assistant too young working with a boss too old.
“Why is your shirt dirty?” Helenna asked as she stared at the red mark around the woman’s stomach. It was flecks of what could only be… Was it blood? It was visible on her black coat too.
“I was at work.” Malam said dryly as she unscrewed the bottle of vodka and poured herself it straight into her mouth.
“Was that work dealing with the succubi you have chained up in my headquarters?” Helenna asked.
Malam smiled and sauntered closer to the table. “She is not chained up.” Helenna didn’t know or care. None of her IBI agents were allowed anywhere near that room, and the SIS had a constant security watch on them. It wasn’t even about the fact that Helenna wanted to be secretive. She had nothing to hide from Malam, if Of Hatred asked for information, then she would receive it. Rather, it was the principal of it. Helenna would not allow spying on her in her own demesne. “She is very cooperative at this point. I’m even starting to believe the things she’s saying.”
Helenna did not ask, she did not want to know. The constant deliveries of MisseM pills to that room confirmed what was happening anyway. “Is she still sane?”
“Sane enough.” Malam said. “Although she is starting to lose it. I’m thinking we’ll lose her by the end of the week.”
“Then what have you learned from her? Anything actually good and worth our time or not? I have more reports here for you.” Helenna tapped the papers strewn across the table. That was all new information from this week, everything from minor robberies suspected to be succubi to data analysis on what schemes they could be cooking up.
“Oh fufufu Helenna.” Helenna stared at Malam after listening to that disgusting, terrible sound the woman had just made. Now that she had stopped reacting at the sex jokes, Malam was going to start this pretentious noblewoman routine? Seriously? “Fufufu indeed.”
“Fufufuck yourself Malam.” Helenna replied dryly and Malam burst out in laughter. Of Hatred actually doubled over and slapped her own knee. “Fucking hell Malam don’t spill the drink.”
“That was sharp.”
“I’m glad.” Helenna said with some satisfaction at finally being acknowledged. So? What did you little treasure tell you?
“They’re organised in teams.” Malam said. Helenna’s hair went to a perfect, unimpressed grey. The exact same colour as concrete.
“Is that supposed to be news?” Helenna asked. “Am I supposed to be impressed? They’re organised in teams.” Helenna leaned back. “Believe it or not, I could guess at that without even capturing one of them.”
“But do you know that they have one central leader on Arda?” Malam said. “I bet you did not.”
“I did not.” Malam admitted. That was something that was actually good knowledge. “What else?”
Malam took a swig of her vodka. “Is that all? No thank you? No telling me how great I am?”
“It’s your job.”
“Well maybe I won’t do that job then?”
“Well maybe I should be ringing Arascus then?” Helenna asked.
“Oh I’m sure you’re spending lots of time ringing Arascus.”
“Next time you see him, he’ll tell you to call me mother.” Helenna replied dryly. The pair of Goddesses stared at each other as Helenna realised she had won yet another engagement. Malam was actually speechless. It was always satisfying to get the better of the creature on the other side of the table. Of Hatred took another drink from her bottle. That was the true confirmation she had been utterly defeated if she was drinking instead of being able to say anything.
“Since when did you get this sharp?” Malam asked.
“I’m the Goddess of Love.”
“You weren’t like this when we met.”
“I didn’t realise I was allowed to.” Helenna said, her fingers made a rhythmic tapping along the table. “Now what else? They have one boss? Where is it?”
“That, no one knows.” Malam said.
“But we can assume they use phones, right?” Helenna said and Malam nodded.
“My men have scoured her apartment, she had nothing on her. They did find a phone that could have been used for that sort of communication but the device was wiped. I honestly don’t know how, whether it’s a deadman’s switch or whether it was my lot that fucked it.”
“I assume the latter.” Helenna said. “Send it to the IBI, I assume we can make better use of trying to recover the data.”
“We’ve already ran a bit-by-bit analysis. It was wiped, nada, set to zero everywhere.” Helenna leaned back and spun on her chair as she tried to think. “Do you have the locations of other succubi?”
“Of course I do.” Malam said.
“Don’t kidnap these, let my men try to surveill them first.” Helenna said. “And give me their fucking locations for fucks sake. It’s a group project!”
Malam made a smug expression. “It’s a group project is it now? I remember someone saying that we only have this problem now because we let them escape from Arseille.” Malam pointed her finger at herself. “Oh! That was me!” She made a stunned expression. “And I remember someone saying we should let them escape and then clean them up.” The finger turned around and landed on Helenna. “Oh! That was you.”
“If you have nothing smart to say, go back to feeding your succubus pills Malam.” Helenna said dryly. Her hair flushed a deep dark red of fury. It wasn’t at Malam, it was at herself. Evacuating Arseille had been the correct choice, but the way it had been done gave them utterly nothing to work with after the fact. Even the housing card scheme that Helenna thought she could exploit to track the refugees turned out not to work when the succubi weren’t exactly settling down here.
“I can’t believe you didn’t even ask me the most important question.”
“What is that?”
“I’m pretty I found out who pretended to be me.” Malam said. “And I’m pretty that’s their boss here.”
“Oh? Who?”
“A Princess by the name of Belili.” Malam’s smile grew wicked. “Don’t request help, I want to handle her myself.”