The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]

The issue of Aggriyana and Anassa is something that I doubt will ever be settled. Anassa is not forthcoming in her answers and when she does answer, she does so in ways that sound straightforward until the application of basic comprehension is used, after which they sound they like nothing but utter nonsense. Ascension into Godhood is one thing. Extracting, stealing & conquering a demesne from another are something else exactly.

I do not really care how promising she was as a student, I have killed other Divines for far lesser crimes. Yet likewise, she is too powerful to kill without risk. In that sense, she is exactly the student I have ever aspired to acquire. She is a wonderful Goddess, insane totally and unreasonable wholly. When the common man think of Divinity, they do not imagine Kavaa in her greys and her lack of smiles. They do not imagine Fer as she is, all laughing and giddy.

There are a few who fall into this category. The most obvious is Arascus, who is every bit the God that he makes himself out to be. There is Allasaria, who carries a certain optimistic energy about her. Irinika is another type. Fortia and Maisara are Divine. I would say I fall into that category, although it is the sort of thing that only another can describe you as.

Anassa is a stereotype of a Divine. She is every incomprehensible trait of ours amplified to a thousand. No wonder she came out of a mortal mind.

- Excerpt from “The Anassa Problem”, written by Goddess Elassa, of Magic, although never distributed. It is an internal piece, detailing the issues of Divinity that Anassa has presented.

Elassa touched down in Hallin’s marketplace. If there was one way to describe this city, it would be alive. Even in the early hours of the morning, maybe some thirty minutes before it got light, the city was in a restless sleep. From the massive roads, she could hear cars beginning to sound. The first train of the day had entered already. Tourists from all across the Empire were still here, whether up early or out late. The locals were returning from their parties and their drinking. Those that saw her laughed, or waved, or just kept on walking. One man shouted that his son had gotten into Arcadia.

Elassa ignored them all as she wrapped her thick, long blue overcoat tighter around herself. It had to be the fact she had spent so long at Arcadia and gotten soft, but those lands were simply warmer than Doschia. It wasn’t cold, it was just unpleasant. The Dosch built their cities how they structured their lives, all organisation and efficiency. If she took a wrong bend, then the wind would blow past her face.

But nevertheless, she had been invited out today. Which was surreal on its own, because Anassa had done the inviting. And eventually, Elassa would have to go and talk with Anassa anyway. They had too much history together to keep avoiding each other like this. It was simply… Well, it was something Elassa knew she had to do, and that did not make it any easier to do.

As always, Anassa simply appeared by Elassa’s side. Taller than her, more beautiful, more shapely, in a dress of crimson and radiating with enough confidence that she may as well have been channelling magic to improve her self-image. This is why Elassa avoided her, she avoided looking at the other Goddess. And the reactions of the crowd changed immediately.

Since when was Elassa the homely one? She was the grand Goddess of Magic and people felt safe enough to wave to her. Yet from the moment that Anassa appeared, the small gaggles of people here and there immediately started finding interest in the golden cobblestone that made up the market square. Or the skyscrapers rising in the distance. Or the statue of Saksma holding a greatsword above her head with just one hand, that they must have all seen a thousand times already. “It’s good you came.” Anassa said quietly.

“No problem.” Elassa said. “What did you call me out for?”

“Two things really.” Anassa said. “One more important than the other.”

“Those are?” Elassa asked.

“One, I’ve been made aware you’re investigating the curse.” Anassa said. “Two, I wanted to talk with you.”

“Oh.” Elassa said. “Yeah, I am. Arascus pulled me into it. What did you want to talk about?”

“Nothing in particular.” Anassa said. “Or maybe a lot? I don’t really know.” Anassa took a step and as they began to make a ring around the market square. Here, it was Imperial Decree that there be no shops and that it serve as a restaurant and party area instead. Some of the cafes were turning their lights on as the people inside prepared tables and did their morning checks.

“I know what you mean.” Elassa said. “No, but I don’t really know what to say. It’s just…” She trailed off. “I don’t know.”

“How’s the Empire treating you?” Anassa asked.

“Are you seriously asking me that?”

“Everyone has a favourite.” Anassa said. “I’m just wondering, I won’t put in a word for you, don’t worry.” Won’t? Excuse me? Elassa rolled her eyes.

“It’s fine.” Elassa said. “Arcadia is independent.” It was as independent as she could hope for it. Whereas the Imperial flags were distasteful, the students and staff were hanging themselves up. Gone were the times of an international free-college, and besides, in this era, a backer was needed to keep the lights on. “So what else am I going to say? How things are going is just…”

“It’s just.” Anassa said.

“It’s just.” Elassa confirmed. “It’s different is how I’ll put it. It’s not like after Reconstruction where there things to worry about. Now, it’s just the curse.”

“Mmh.” Anassa said. “Father told me that you were stuck. He did tell me to advise you where possible. I got permission from him to use my own budget for experiments.” That was a given, and besides, both of them had enough of a treasury that the budget wasn’t an issue. Arcadia had more than enough grants which could be pulled from, whereas Anassa supposedly was one of the cheapest Divines in the realm. It did make sense though, Sorcerers received no benefits nor salary from her, they were all contracted to the Imperial Military or some other institution. Elassa at least made sure that the mages under her got a bed to sleep in and a bowl to eat from.

“I’m stuck on that.” Elassa admitted and stopped before the massive building in the centre of the square. It was a city block in itself, complete with a cathedral that had once been to the White Pantheon, but now housed the Imperial daughters too. Its bell would ring soon, five times to mark the fifth hour of the day. “I was hoping to question you on it.” Elassa didn’t really know why she had not called for Anassa. Maybe it was because the woman hated Arcadia in the first place? But she didn’t really want to drag Anassa back there when Elassa had been the one to imprison her there in the first place.

“So?” Anassa asked. “Ask away.”

Elassa opened her mouth, and no sound came out. Anassa raised an eyebrow, her eye as crimson as her dress. Her hair smooth and silky and black. “I…”

“I know.” Anassa said. “Because it’s just one of those things.”

“It is.” Elassa said. “You can’t go back to when I was teaching you.” When Anassa was still Aggriyana, and when instead of being the stealer of a section of Elassa’s demesne, Aggriyana had been her most prominent prodigy to ever exist. And then she became Divine, and she singlehandedly upended the world of magic. Elassa had spent a century trying to crack the code, and Anassa spoke in just pure bullshit, and somehow, along the way, they simply stopped seeing each other.

“Well…” Anassa said. “I did beat you.” Elassa returned a flat glare with that comment.

“I can have an explanation, I’ve had one from the start.”

“But the explanation is worthless.”

“You’re insane.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Anassa said. “All Divinity is insane. It has to be.”

“No, you’re just mad. You understand exactly what I talk about and you refuse to follow the rules anyway. You won’t even argue with them.”

“Because the rules are correct.” Anassa said. “I’m just not part of them.” Elassa knew these lines, they had repeated this conversation thousands of times after Worldbreaking, and thousands more during Pantheon Peace. It was a replay of the same conversation. “A perceiver needs to exist to prove the existence of that which is not witnessed, else it does not happen.”

Elassa rolled her eyes. She knew how this line of dialogue went. Nothing existed until someone saw it. But closing your eyes did not mean that the world outside your eyelids suddenly stopped existing. “How do you exist then?”

“Because I perceive myself?” Anassa said. “It is that simple.” Great. Whatever.

“Let’s just save it for another time.” Elassa said. “I’m working the curse too. I want you to tell me about it. Everything you know.”

“About what exactly?”

“About your curse.” Elassa said.

“That, I can’t do.”

“Why not?”

“I’m forbidden answering general questions.” Anassa said. “I told you this once in the past, do you know.”

“I’ve forgotten.”

“We were arguing.”

“I don’t think you believed me.”

“Well I believe you now.” Elassa said. “Arascus has the same or maybe not the same, but it’s same enough. We’ve tested it with him. We know now what the edge of the realm is, what it refers to.”

“What is it?”

“Do you know not know?” Elassa stared at the woman. How could she not know?

“I always assumed it was reality.”

“It’s Arda.” Elassa pointed down towards the cobblestones. “Arda as in the planet, not our reality. Arascus had the sword appear over him when he tried to enter the Lighthouse-One. This pile of rocks is our realm.”

“Oh.” Anassa said. She looked around. “The whole planet?” She asked. “I didn’t…” Elassa found herself at that expression. That was a face Anassa had not made in thousands of years. Not before she thought she had worked everything out and didn’t have to think anymore. “Are we sure it’s the whole planet?”

“We can assume it is.” Elassa said. “Why?” But there it was, a smile that wasn’t Anassa’s but Aggriyanna’s. It was just when the woman had mastered a second element back then. She had even asked the same thing: ‘But why can’t you master two?’ Something inside Elassa clicked, an old piece of her that she didn’t how to awaken anymore. Other people had to do it for her. Kassandora had done it when she tugged on Of Magic’s strings and got her to crack Arika. “No.” Elassa said, smiling now. “No there isn’t. We have a realm on Arda that is not Ardan.”

“Under the water?” Anassa asked. They were indeed thinking of the same thing.

“Uriamel.” Their titans were called Starspawn, they had been Ardan a long time. And then those Starspawn had corrupted them. Anassa’s smile grew deeper, she nodded.

“And you missed what I said.” Anassa said. “I’m forbidden from answering general questions.”

“What’s a general question?” Anassa shrugged.

“Who knows?” She looked up. “But my blade is not above my head, so I can assure that question is specific enough to be worth answering.” Elassa stared at the woman, then up above her. Nothing there. Although she never saw the blades that everyone said they saw.

“If…” Elassa trailed off. Specific? Did it have to be specific? Or was that just what Anassa said it was? “How long does the blade last?”

“Until I forget its there.” Anassa said. “So typically somewhere between thirty minutes to two hours. Sometimes longer, I just choose not to look up.”

“When you split yourself, do you multiple of them?”

“I do.” Anassa said. “I am me, and all are me, and the blade is above me.” Elassa scratched her chin. In the past, they had played this game too. But it had been reversed, Aggriyana was the one pestering and looking to break the rules.

“Alright.” Elassa said. “I’ll work with that.”

“Will you?” Anassa asked. “I very much would like for that blade to go.”

“Where did you get it?”

“In another realm.” Anassa said. “Although you know this, in the room of elders, where all who travel from Arda go to.”

“We call it realm but do we mean realm?” Elassa stared at Anassa as she talked out loud. “It is a basic phrase, but it is there. Reality is a realm. No one would ever think to call Arda a realm.”

“No.” Anassa said. “Because Arda is all we know. It is reality.” She looked up at the dark sky. The stars didn’t shine above cities anyway. “At least until last week.”

“Until last week.” Elassa confirmed. “But when you travelled to your other realm but all sorcerers get trapped in this room?” Anassa nodded.

“It is the one constant across soul-realms.” Anassa said. “When I send them in, I do not know what they will see. Many humans talk of their being levels to it, that you can go deeper to other lands and so on.” She shrugged. “I do not know what my soul looks like at this point. I have not visited since I got banned from leaving Arda.”

“What was it like back then?”

“It was myself.” Anassa said. Elassa raised an eyebrow.

“What do you mean yourself?” Elassa said. “Like… Baalka’s was a swamp, Neneria’s is a library.”

“Mine is myself.” Anassa said. “I mean it literally. I am the universe.” Elassa raised her hand and shook her head. Anassa was obviously not the universe. Anassa was just delusional. But likewise, if that’s what it took for Anassa to be Anassa, then so be it. She wouldn’t question it.

“And you know how to send people there?”

“I would say I am the foremost expert on sending people there.” Anassa said. “Nevertheless, I cannot write it down. The blade appears then if I hold the pen and think of spreading the knowledge.”

“Do you think your soul exists somewhere up there?” Elassa gazed into the deep blue above them. The tinge of purple was starting to appear.

“No.” Anassa said. “I can confirm to you that soul-realms are not other planets or exist up there because of mine. My soul is entirely myself.” Anassa said. “It… Imagine me, huge. And you are not even a speck on me. But you just walk on me nevertheless.”

“You were never good at poetry.”

“That’s why I do art instead.” Anassa said. She waved her hand and a butterfly sprouted from inbetween her fingers. “No, I am not the sky, thus you can assume my soul-realm is actually a different reality else when you looked up, you would see me.”

“Alright.” Elassa wasn’t going to bother questioning that particular tangent into insanity. That was Anassa, not her curse, that was just how Anassa fucking saw herself. “And you saw these elders? Arascus told me he saw them too.”

“That is what I don’t understand, because to me, they made me sign a deal not to share the secret of how it was done, but it wasn’t ruthless. Arascus’ experience was far worse in fact, to me, they were polite.”

“Polite?” Elassa asked.

“Well they did not call me Godling.”

“You were Aggriyana back then.”

“That is what is said, yes.” Anassa said and then shook her head. “But I am Anassa now, and I am me. I was never Aggriyana.” Elassa was about to argue back when she saw the look on Anassa’s face. Was that nervousness?

“You are Anassa.”

“Aggriyana was part of me, but no longer, because I am Anassa, and Anassa is maintained. I hope we understand each other Elassa. Don’t… It’s not part of the curse. It’s how Anassa became Anassa. But nevertheless, one became two, and two became one, and one was not one, and the one that was swallowed is still there, but nevertheless, the one that is here is here because she was stronger than the previous.” Elassa took a deep sigh.

“You’re expecting me to understand something I don’t understand.” Elassa said. “No, alright, you are Anassa. I understand.”

“Thank you.”

“But nevertheless, they did treat me quiet well, with curiosity almost rather than anything.” Anassa chuckled. “Do you want to hear a secret? Something I’ve never told anyone?”

“What?”

“I’ve gotten worse at awakening sorcerers as time has gone on.” Anassa said. “So I have my own ideas on it, I do not think that room likes me. I awakened a hundred and forty-nine without them dying. One-fifty was the first failure. Then we had a time of troubles, then I had to sort of work out who to send but at the start, anyone would go through.” Anassa tapped her nose. “Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

Elassa stared at Anassa in silence for a while. “So they don’t like you personally?” Crazy. Delusional. Narcissistic. That was Anassa being Anassa. And yet, working off the frame that realms were real, material universes at least in part, why couldn’t a group of extremely powerful beings find distaste in a woman who broke the rules so much? But then her mind worked, remembering every old piece of text she had ever read. “No, I believe you, they don’t like you personally.” Elassa said. “Who passes?”

“The ones who don’t ask questions and do what I told them to do. And that is not to bring anything back.” Anassa put her finger to her lips. “But there’s a trick there, you know.” Her eyes suddenly went up. “Oh. It’s there.”

“That’s what it is.”

Anassa walked around, looking up at the sky. So her sword had appeared. “I am not talking about you, I am talking about myself.” Anassa declared loudly, then sighed. “That did not work. But nevertheless, that was the trick. I spilled it. I don’t think anyone but you will understand it.”

Elassa walked with Anassa in silence as they made another loop around the square. “You just told me.” Elassa said. “And I would understand it, and I would it understand it because, I presume, I know you. Because they listen to what they’re told, and they listen to you. But…” Elassa didn’t understand it whatsoever. “But you don’t listen to what anyone tells you.”

Anassa sighed. “Now that the blade is up there, I cannot share more. Or rather, I probably could, but then it would drop and I’m not fond of seeing what it feels like.”

“Have you tested whether you can touch the blade? Neneria can apparently.”

“Well of course, it’s part of the soul. That blade is me, to some extent.”

“How did you work this out?”

“Because when I split, as you call it, there’s more.” Oh.

“The blade being you does not help me Anassa.” Elassa said, said dryly, she was just deep in thought now. This fucking idiot had always been roundabout in her explanations. It was one of her worst traits. How did you break the habits that formed during the practice of one element and start anew in another? I just did. How did you break aging? I just did! How did you reawaken as a Divine? I just did! That was her fucking problem. She just did. She just fucking did things and didn’t think about them because no matter what anyone told her, she didn’t listen to anyone even though…

“It’s about listening to you and not listening to you.” Elassa said dryly. “That’s how you get in. You are…” Elassa’s eyes went wide. “Don’t fucking tell me you are doing what you are doing?”

“What am I doing?” Anassa said with a smile.

“You send them in, you make them certain that they can take nothing back, and then when they get there, they do drag something back. But in that first room when they get intercepted in this room everyone talks about, the whole goal is to fully believe you can’t…” Elassa’s eyes went wide and she burst out in laughter. “Why do you think they don’t like if your entire job is tricking them!”

“That question, oh great teacher, I am certain I cannot answer.” Anassa said, pointing up. She shrugged. “I…” And then she sighed. “It’d be fun to talk about it with you, I am certain it is the next step of magic, nevertheless, I am barred.”

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

“Because I was in prison?”

“Fuck off.”

“Well now I’m out and the Empire’s back and all my sisters are around so I suppose the waiting game paid off.” Anassa said smugly. “Also, you said something I’ve never thought about just then. That was the correct choice of language: intercepted.”

“You think?” Elassa had not even caught it.

“Well I don’t do it nicely, when I do it.” Anassa said. “There is some feedback.”

“When you send people over?”

“When Baalka pulled you in, she pulled you in. It wasn’t even…” Anassa trailed off. “Well, that was something I’ve never seen before. That was a leaving of…” Anassa trailed off, then looked to Elassa. “What curse does Neneria have?”

“She’s not allowed to speak about memories that aren’t hers.”

“Fuck.” Anassa said.

“Why?”

“Because that would have been a way to break the blade. But that’s something, I don’t even know how to replicate it. It happened in an instant, Baalka just pulled you into her soul-realm. When I sent Arascus in, his body stayed behind, only his soul moved. With you, it was something completely different. But it was good, the language is intercept.”

“Oh.” Elassa said. “So they intercept souls sent out of the realm.” Elassa said. “That’s something.” This conversation had been good. “We need to get to Uriamel and test out whether that is part of the realm or not.”

But they would not get to Uriamel. They would not even continue their conversation. An Imperial fighter jet shrieking from overhead, flying east, stopped them. Then another. And another. A fourth. A squadron of them. Something pressing was happening. Anassa heard her phone buzz. Elassa got it too. They both showed it to each other. Code Black: Arda Under Threat. And then a message from Kassandora. Elassa read the message on Anassa’s phone, and Anassa on Elassa’s. It was the same one. The Paradeisian Gate is opening. Prepare for War.