Fortuna Verto

46-Predictive Analysis

Lyun lead Xwyrh to a specific room of the archives which had been an area of high traffic of late. Fortunately, the area had calmed down in the time since, the halls once again still and quiet.

"Hells, please don't tell me you have more work for me to do now." "Relax, Ezhyrae, we're just here to talk..." "Thank..." "... about ersatz." "I hate you right now." "Xwyhr here is a student, studies cosmology of all things, which might be pretty neat. Her studies involve the state of worlds, which is a pretty big deal." "I can see why she went to you for help, miss world traveller." "Well, here's the thing, we landed the most interesting question. What criteria would an ersatz have in figuring out if a world was good?" "What? Ersatz don't have their own criteria, they just do the stuff they are supposed to do." "So why did an ersatz choose this world?" "Ah, so you're not asking about just any ersatz, you're talking about the first ersatz. That was.. a special case. That was the only ever known instance of an ersatz having an actual living essence. More than that, she was almost a well of essences, very attuned to the concept as a whole. Legends say that her own essence even came from the terran mythos, but I'm not sure how believable that is. However, the seed she brought would have come from the heart of a world, so she at least had an essence in tune with the essence of worlds. Quite rightly, there isn't a single person in the ersatz field that hasn't tried to appeal to such a profound greatness, but there simply is no way to compare." Ezhyrae was even zoning out, reflecting upon the memory of divinity that had once walked among people for Lyun. Lyun was seeing that this was another magnified aspect of history that caused those interested to remain blind to simple reason and understanding.

"So, someone who was basically an essence expert gauged the quality of this world within reason towards that status. If such an essence was an expert in essences, then they could have gauged world essences, or some quality that vouches for capacity. But.. if there was something obvious that determined the potential for an essence in the husk of a world, that would have to mean there was something observable in what had come before. I.. I.. I mean, essences are things people are supposed to have too. If a person dies, they would lose their essence, and be nothing but a dead body. The person would then disappear forever once their essence moves on, and their body and mind begins to fade. To know how much value a person held, how they would work with a new essence.. it would be important to still see signs in how that person was in the life they had last held. That would mean that someone with a vision of essences had enough ability to witness traces of how this world was when it held life. If there were traces of essence left, there were traces of life left, enough to hold enough promise that some sort of essence infusion would work. The world.. was never completely dead, it was just on its last threads, with almost nothing left to give." Lyun was doing her best in trying to figure out all of this weirdness. She wasn't at all versed in essences or anything, she was honestly quite bad with measures like death, but her chaotic experiences had taught her a thing or two about bodies and potential. To totally believe that bringing back a world from death would save it, that would mean there were enough signs that a second chance might be enough opportunity to do the right thing.

This in turn reminded her about a discussion from before with the temporal lady. This world had faded, but the other world had endured.. so there really was something distinct here. Was it a matter of chaos, or had that been a result of the aftermath rather than the original cause? What exactly had brought death to this world, to have left it in a state that it could even be so restored? Axon was more worried about the sort of people that had been here before, but the lessons of such people might actually be the important thing here. Something had gone terribly wrong, and absolutely no one was worried about making sure that history would never repeat itself.

"Wow, so this is all really neat, and would probably make for a great essay for my teacher. It's definitely a neat thing to consider, even if it would be asking far too much for one or two people to look into all on their own. That's generally the whole point of civilization, teamwork. We work together, do our thing to better society, trusting others to pitch in so that the weight of responsibility doesn't break us." "Except this involves..." "Everyone, right? Heck, I can tell you believe your otherworldly knowledge grants you an edge in all of this stuff, but that's just you being a stupid genius again. Just because you know a lot, just because you can go everywhere, even if you could do more than anyone else.. you shouldn't be trying to do everything. If you can already tell something is up, then the first step is to bring everyone related up to speed, so that many people could help out. There is no chance you're going to notice everything, and asking you to do everything is going to crush you, we already talked about how that was the wrong idea. Don't start planning how you will fix everything, figure out how people will start fixing things together." "But, if we don't look into this, history could repeat itself." "And.. that's why everyone should know, right? We look into things, we learn about the truth, we all make things happen. This is everyone's problem, so each of us have the right to help make things better. Trust that you're never alone." Xwyhr wasn't even giving Lyun the chance to build a counter argument at all.. but maybe Xwyrh had a point too. Making people aware of their circumstances would only help, awareness had itself been her greatest resource though everything she had endured.