Take Two... and ACTION!
~~~
Alex Xanatos found himself drinking a rather pleasant cup of Chamomile tea on a rooftop café in Paris. It was about midday, he surmised.
Thing is, there were a couple of problems with that.
The first was that, mere moments before, he had being curling up for sleep in his bed. His bed on Mars. He most certainly hadn’t been wearing his best suit, either.
The second was that this was not the Paris he was familiar with. He may have never visited the City of Lights before, but even he knew that the sights and skyline – or lake thereof – that he could make out from his vantage point were completely wrong. Anachronistic, to be precise. Everything he could see looked like a movie set made up for the turn of the 19th Century.
I must be dreaming, he thought. Strange. I’ve never had a dream where I was aware of what it was before. He glanced at the tea he’d just sipped. Rather detailed, too. I can taste the tea, smell the horse manure and burning coal, even feel the slightly nippy breeze and uncomfortable seat.
“Would you like some more, sir?” the waiter – wasn’t there a proper term for waiter at a café? – asked him.
I smiled. “Yes, thank you.”
He added a third problem to the list: he was hearing, understanding, and now even speaking French.
He knew English. He knew Japanese, damn those kanji. He did NOT know French.
As the waiter walked off, Alex sighed… and then nearly screamed as he noticed a man sitting opposite him that had definitely not been there a moment ago.
“Sorry about that, and all of this,” the man smiled sheepishly. He reached out his hand. “Permit to introduce myself. I’m Death.”
The Drunkard’s Walk Forums present
A Fenspace Alternates production
In association with some people withtoo much time on their hands
Strange New Worlds
Episode 1: “Don’t Fear the Reaper”
Alex blinked as he stared at the man he was shaking hands with. He had rather Mediterranean features and dressed in an almost stereotypical Greek toga, the image on the bronze clasp just below his left shoulder confused him until he realized it was a lit torch, albeit upside-down.
“Well,” I started casually. “If this isn’t just a dream, you certainly have a rather pleasant way of informing someone they’ve passed on.” I gestured at the environ with the hand holding my cup of Chamomile.
His sheepish smile became a slight grimace. “Yes, about that – we don’t have nearly as much time as I’d like. I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you the shock and awe treatment rather than ease you into this not being a dream.”
I chuckled before I responded to this admittedly entertaining figment of my subconscious. “I’m having a cup of tea in late 19th Century Paris while chatting with Death? It’s going to take quite a bit to convince me this-”
There was up and down and right and left and backwards and forwards and #%$^ and &#&$-
I was gazing at the first Martian sunrise I had ever seen over the Vallis Marineris – I was delivering what had to be the umpteenth Publisher’s Clearinghouse letter that day – I was whining for Mommy because I was hungry – I was reading online about some sort of miracle substance while examining a coffee can full of an identifiable goop that had been labeled to an address that no longer existed and had no return address – I was receiving my BS in Religion from the dean as my parents looked on – I was saying goodbye to all my friends at Pre-K before summer break started – I was saying my vows to the supposedly plain, but oh so beautiful woman who had agreed to become my wife –
There was a smelly shade of blue – a hot shade of brown – a black so bright it was blinding – a green so wet it slid around me –
I was on a rooftop café in late 19th Century Paris as a man in a Greek toga gazed apologetically at me as I held a cup of tea in a suddenly unsteady hand.
“What,” I choked out. “What was… what was…”
“That was what happens when a mind used to interpreting things in four-dimensions suddenly tries to interpret input from several more,” the man explained calmly. He then adopted a wry smirk. “Still think you’re dreaming?”
I shook my head.
“Good. Now finish your tea and try to calm down before talking again,” he politely but firmly suggested.
I did as suggested. While I did so, he ordered a cup of tea for himself, asking the waiter to ‘surprise him’ with what type of tea he was brought.
Several minutes after he was brought his order – I never did find out what he got, not that it mattered – I felt composed enough to talk again.
“So,” I began, addressing the being I now had very little doubt was who he’d said he was. “I guess this is where I’m taken to my judgment?” I hope I see Airi again…
The reply was as simple as I’d expected, but that was about all I had gotten right.
“Nope,” he said simply.
“…Huh?” I responded eloquently.
He smiled. “You’re not dead. You’re also not dying – well, unless you’re one of those defeatist sorts who say they’ve been dying since the moment they were born, but you don’t strike me as the emo type. No, what you’re here for is for the two of us to have a chat… and for me to request you to help me with something that will also help you.”
I tried to digest that. “What could you – being Death – possibly want MY help with?” I then winced. “Is it the name I chose when I moved to Fenspace? I swear, I was just coming off from watching too many old cartoons on bootleg DVDs. I didn’t even know about the whole Xanatos and Thanatos thing until I Googled it one day!”
Death laughed. Which, despite the image those two words together conjure, was not as creepy as you’d think. “No, no. Nothing like that. Speaking of the whole Death and Thanatos thing, though…” He looked down at himself and shrugged. “Just being called by my position is a little annoying to me. And seeing as you don’t worship the Olympians, this form is actually rather inappropriate, isn’t it? Perhaps this form would make you more comfortable?”
And he changed.
There was no flash, no ripple, no hazing – it was like watching something on TV changing from one camera perspective to the next. One second I was sitting across from a man of Mediterranean descent with long blonde hair and sea green eyes wearing a toga, the next I was across from another man in a toga, but this one possessing short, curly black hair and with a complexion that would fit just about anywhere in Europe in origin, but with a Roman nose and sharp blue eyes.
Oh, and there were two pure white wings coming out of his back.
I looked around to see how the few others on the roof with us had reacted. They hadn’t.
“They just see and hear two locals having a friendly chat,” he said with same voice as his previous form. Somehow, that freaked me out more than the change itself. “This is actually the form I usually – if that term can be used – take when I interact with those of most Christian persuasions Please, call me Azrael. This is going to take a few minutes to explain, though, so bear with me.”
He then sighed. “I’d like to give you a bit more of an explanation, but as I said before – we just don’t have the time. I’ll try to summarize. A short time ago, a number of fragments of destroyed and altered universes were about to collide and merge with you universe. If they did, they would have altered your timeline severely.”
I stiffened and sat up a little straighter. “What happened?”
He chuckled and shook his hid. “No mortal language exists that would allow me to explain the hows of twelve-dimensional actions to a four-dimensional being. However, I can explain the results. First of all, my divine fellows and I were able to keep out both the largest of the reality shards as well as the ones which would alter the paradigm of your universe too much. Once this was done, we prevented the shards that did make it through from merging with the Earth’s timeline. At that point, though, we had actually do something with those shards as they could no longer be tossed back out of the universe. So, we decided to use the majority of them to form another Earth.”
I stared. “I beg your pardon?”
“Ever hear of that debunked theory of another planet on the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth and sharing its orbit? They called that planet Counter-Earth. Again, the concept was disproved. Well, that is no longer the case. Now there actually is such a planet. Another Earth, one which has its own history – mostly similar to your own – and, as far as everyone on it are concerned, they have always existed, and have always been the sole Earth of their solar system. Of course, as far as the rest of your universe is concerned, they haven’t.”
Azrael shook his head and took another sip. “Oh, I do not envy the world leaders on either Earth for the first short while after the new one appears – the questions about religious authority alone…” He groaned.
“Okay,” I said. I probably hadn’t finished absorbing all that I’d heard, but I’d gotten enough to have a question. “I’m probably still in shock since I haven’t got anything to say right now about this whole Counter-Earth thing. Still, I have a question. If you and… the others like you have fixed the problem – and I don’t see any way I could helped out with that myself, of course… just why do you want to talk with me about it?”
Azrael took another sip of tea. “Did you notice how I kept referring to myself and my compatriots as divine?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the opposite of ‘divine’?” he asked me.
“It’s in…” my eyes widened as I trailed off while considering the answer.
“’Infernal,’ right? That’s correct. While so many of we divines were all working on making Counter-Earth – and your Earth and theirs are really going to have to come up with better names to call one another – the Other Side was busy. Specifically, my own infernal counterpart: Samael.”
“’Samael?’”
A humorless smile. “If you want to try to imagine him, one of his overself’s other avatars was responsible for a little thing called Blackest Night a couple universal clusters over.”
I blanched.
“Exactly. Samael, in his various reflections, is responsible for all of the decidedly less pleasant forms of death-related magic throughout Creation. Inventing them made him a celebrity in the Pit, and one of our own side’s most wanted with his head on a platter. Fortunately, he’s nowhere near able to exercise his power in a universe like yours the way he did in that one.”
I think my heart started beating again at that point.
“Which doesn’t mean that what he was able to do was wasn’t bad enough on its own. While I and everyone else were already distracted by the reality shards situation, many of our counterparts started making blessedly minor trouble elsewhere throughout this skein of universes. Trying to correct all of the problems they were causing naturally increased our workload; made us distracted from what they were really after.”
Azrael finished off his cup and set it down it the saucer.
“As I said, all of what the other infernals were doing to distract us was minor in scale. That should have tipped us off, but it didn’t. The reason it was all small potatoes stuff was that while his fellows were playing Who Can Cause the Most Chaos, Samael was pooling all of the energies, favors from other higher dimensionals, and what-have-you to perform a freaking Grand Boon Grant,” he spat out.
“A what grant?”
“A boon is a gift or favor granted by a celestial power to a lower dimensional being – say, a human – and can be either a physical object, a blessing, or something else of that nature. These alone are rare. A Grand Boon Grant, though, is something that hasn’t been done in ages from MY relativistic perspective. It involves granting multiple boons, always a set number, to a single individual. These boons can be minor or major in their scale, but each always has specific limitations on what each boon is capable of granting. That’s not the kicker, though. Each of these boons, unlike what happens in normal circumstances, Is Picked Out By The One Being Granted The Boons Rather Than The Granter.”
I couldn’t help but whistle low at the thought. Imagine being granted five opportunities, regardless of their limitations, like that? Wait! What did this have to do with -
“Either side,” Azrael continued, “of the divine/infernal divide can start a Grand Boon Grant. In response, the granter’s counterpart on the other side must also select an individual to do the same. The starting side selects the number, type, and limitations of each boon. The responding side must use that same criteria in their boons to be granted. Samael chose his grantee… and I have chosen mine.”
I raised a shaking finger to point hesitantly at myself.
The Angel of Death nodded.
“Why-,“ I croaked hoarsely. I cleared my throat. “Why ME?!”
“Because the goal of the divine in any infernally-started granting of a boon is to try to mitigate said boon’s effects as much as possible,” he said seriously. “On top of being a generally good man, you are familiar with the other grantee and can hopefully anticipate his desires enough when you name your boons to counteract his own.”
“Who?”
“Who would you, personally, least like to see be the other grantee?” he said carefully.
“Hitler?” I tried.
Azrael rolled his eyes. “I said you’ve met the other guy.”
I had to sit back and think on that for a minute or two. I didn’t exactly try to mingle or make acquaintance with the kind of people the folks that run Hell would like to see get their wishes granted. Hell, I became even more careful after the whole thing… with…
“…No.”
“Yes.”
“Not. Struve.” I managed through grit teeth.
“Yes, Struve,” Azrael responded. He then continued, not unkindly, “I’ve rented out the top floor suite of the hotel to your right for the next month, not that it will be needed that long. I want you to take the rest of the day to think of the boons you want granted. Keep in mind that we need to try to anticipate and counter Mr. Struve’s own boons. I wrote out the boons and their limitations on a set of papers I left on the desk in there. Just write out what you want the boons to be. I’ll be back at around ten tomorrow morning to grant them.”
I could only stare at him. “You’re just going to leave me here?”
“I’ve already paid for the tea,” he waved it off. “That, and I figure you’ll want some time to get your thoughts together about all of this and consider your options for the boons without me or some other celestial breathing down your neck. Like I said – ten tomorrow morning!”
And he was gone. Vanished.
~~~
Seeing as I couldn’t exactly call for a ride home, I did indeed go to the hotel next door to consider my options.
I’d like to say that I spent the remainder of the day – and the night, and the early morning – considering just what to write in the almost hilariously bland boon-granting documents Azrael had left behind for me. I’d like to say that.
What I really did was spend half of that time staring blankly at the papers before me, having a silent panic attack aside from the occasional whimpering sound I’m pretty sure I made.
And if anyone ever tells me they wouldn’t react in a similar manner in this situation – assuming that I ever tell anyone about what happened – I will personally display the reason why postal workers in the U.S. are given such nervous looks whenever they purchase firearms.
Still, in the end I did manage to fill out that form. I also managed to overfill the trash bin next to the roll top desk with scratch paper from trying to cook up just what to write down.
It was probably a good thing that I didn’t think to call room service for some dinner. I probably wouldn’t have been able to keep it down.
And don’t even ask whether all the stress gave me a headache. Just… don’t.
As the clock on the mantelpiece in the luxurious sweet I hadn’t even bothered to explore ticked itself the last few notches towards 10am, I looked over the results of the previous hectic hours before me one last time.
Boon #1: Reality itself shall be altered in a manner of your choosing (Any choice which goes beyond the scope of this boon’s power will vanish from the paper):
In case anyone wonders, yes, I did throw up at the mere thought of what Harry would put down for this. Even with the so-called limitations placed on it, I couldn’t help but wonder just what the Hell the folks in… well, in Hell were thinking when they offered such a carte blanc boon.
Needles to say, I made a point to be very thorough in my response to this boon. Keeping in mind that I had to try to at least mitigate if not outright cancel out Struve’s own boon, I tried my best to think of the worst possible outcomes he could have asked for and how best to counter them.
After I’d finished throwing up again, I filled up about half of that rubbish bin I mentioned earlier before I had come to the unfortunate conclusion that, since I could not guess exactly what Struve would ask for, I had to focus my efforts on countering the worst possible outcomes of any possible boon he could ask for.
I finally wrote down what had to be the most carefully worded statement I had ever made. All of what had been up to then merely idle talks with Giles, Jenny, and my lawyer going into it.
#1: None of the boons granted to one Harry Struve, except in a decision made after the granting by the free will of a sapient individual, shall cause, either directly or indirectly, the cessation or alteration of existence of any sapient individual m existence prior or concurrent to the granting of said boons, whether that be in a physical, mental, or spiritual manner, with physical alteration including a sapient individual’s body, home, property, or finances, and with mental alteration including a sapient individual’s personality and the existence and recollection of memories.
After that came…
Boon #2: You may make a physical or mental alteration to yourself (Any choice which goes beyond the scope of this boon’s power will vanish from the paper):
I actually didn’t have anything much to say for that one. I was rather happy with my mental and physical state, thank you very much.
#2: I would like any current or future health problems I have to be gone.…
Yes, I did later regret the wording I used. Sue me.
The next boon I had to rewrite after I realized from reading the boon after it that magic was going to somehow be involved with Struve’s boons.
Boon #3: One metric ton of a substance of your choice in a condition and location of your choice (Any choice which goes beyond the scope of this boon’s power will vanish from the paper):
I actually consider the answer I gave to this one to be rather clever.
#3: Element 676, also known as Nth Metal, specifically the Bruce Timm DC Animated Universe version, in 2oz ingots in a NERV Headquarters secure store room.”[/i
]The last boon actually counted as two boons, and involved a list of books that had been left behind with the “Wish List,” as I called it.
[i]Boons #4 and #5: Choose two non-living sources of magical knowledge from the list of pre-approved selections provided:
Oh, you have no idea how hard this choice was. It was the hardest right after the very first boon. The list of pre-approved books provided said books’ name, author (many listed ‘Multiple,’ annoyingly enough), and a short description. It took all my will power not to select things like The Complete Collection of the Standard Books of Spells: Grades 1-7, or books written by the likes of Myrdin Emrys, Stephan Strange, Gandalf the Grey, or Elminster of Shadowdale.
As the case with the first and third boons, I decided to again focus on a defensive strategy, seeing as I didn’t know what Struve would choose.
#4: Mind Magic Counters for Dummies by Augustine Millbrook (Winner of the Coveted Arcanist-General’s Award for Magical Self-Protection Instruction: The New Amsterdam Times Best Seller Three Years Running)
#5: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Wards and Their Creation and Maintenance by The National Warding Society of the Reborn Roman Republic.
*knock knock*
I glance at the clock. 10:03.
I guess even the divine can be tardy…
Somehow, this made me feel a little better.
When I answered the door, it was indeed Azrael. Wings and all.
He glanced at the paper in my hand. “You ready?”
“Not really, but it’s finished,” I responded as we walked out to the street in front of the hotel.
“Sorry I’m late,” the angel apologized as we exited the building and I handed him the Wish List. “I had to prepare several things for what’s about to happen.”
I frowned as I jumped out of the way of someone rushing past us. There seemed to be some sort of commotion going on. I couldn’t see the source of the panic, though. “How could you prepare if you didn’t know what I’d choose?”
He looked at me confused for a second, then his eyes widened in realization.
“Oh, I wasn’t preparing for that! I was preparing for that!” he said the last part as he pointed upwards.
I followed his gesture and found myself looking at… a distant, angry red sphere that appeared to be getting larger.
“What the Hell is that?” I demanded.
“That would be the asteroid that’s about to make this Earth do a repeat of the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction Event,” Azrael answered calmly. “Almost all of humanity in this universe will cease to exist over the course of the next century.
”I could only sputter slightly as I tried to think of something to say. He noticed my horrified expression.
“In the infinite vastness of the multiverse, this kind of thing just happens sometimes,” Azrael continued sadly, still looking at the approaching dino-killer. “Nothing I can do about it without directly preventing it. If I were to do that, the Other Side would be able to cause a similar disaster elsewhere. Still, this world won’t be forgotten by mankind. In, oh, a hundred and three years I think it is a group of world jumpers have a high probability of stumbling across it. Label it Lucifer-1, or some such thing.”
He looked away from the fireball and at me and smiled. “Time for you to go back home, though.” He then perked up. “Oh, right. I’ve got something for you.”
He tossed a small box at me. I caught it reflexively. When I opened it, there was a generic-brand flash drive inside.
“What’s this?”
“If for whatever reason you ever have to explain what happened here to anyone without you being locked in the padded party room,” he responded, “that there contains an MKV file of our conversation yesterday.” He grinned mischievously. “When whoever watches reaches the part where I blew your mind with my This Isn’t A Dream trick, the same thing’ll happen to them.”
I gulped slightly in remembrance of the event in quest.
“And now… you go home.”
~~~
I shot out of bed so fast I almost got whiplash. Panting, I reached over to the clock on my nightstand and pulled it to me.
11:37pm. May 31, 2025.
Just an hour and a half since I went to bed after the Seele Council meeting.
“Heh…Heh, heh, heh… Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…It was just a dream! Just a weird-ass dre-“*clonk!*
Something hit my head from above.
“Ack! What the hell… was…”
On the floor at my feet was the flash drive box Azrael had given me.
“…Oh, boy.”
Unnoticed for now, two books abruptly popped into existence and plopped onto my bed.
~~~
11:59pm GMT – 31 May 2013
At the instant the clock struck midnight, the universe changed.
On the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth, a mirror image of that world was suddenly just there.…
And then the boons kicked in.
Power on the infernal and divine sides of the celestial divide began to enact changes to the universe in question.
When the program, for lack of a better term, on the infernal side began to carry out the execution of the boons, there at first seemed no trouble. It performed the simpler and less power consuming tasks first.
Two magical tomes – So You Want to Be a Combat Wizard… and The Arts of Necromancy for Fun and Profit: A Grimoire for Beginners and Adepts were delivered to the grantee easily enough.
So was the introduction of a moderately-powerful magegift to said person’s genetics.
A metric ton’s worth of handwavium promptly appeared on the newly arrived world, “distributed in a manner similar to how it was on Earth, and in a way that I will find most entertaining in the long term,” as the infernal grantee put it.
And then it hit Boon #1.
When asked for his answer to this boon, Harry Struve had written quite simply, “The environment of Mars shall be altered to create the maximum amount of long-lasting chaos possible in a manner which I shall find entertaining.
”The program rewriting the universe to meet this desired outcome slammed headfirst into what was effectively a firewall program due to the wording Alex Xanatos had used in his first boon. Constraints as to just what the first program could now do to Mars and the people on it in carrying out its function were slapped onto it with a force that shook the space-time continuum.
So constrained, the program considered its options – for it was a very smart program – and came to a conclusion. The easiest route of causing chaos on Mars, altering those already there, was no longer available to it. However, the vast empty portions of the planet were still open game.The question was: what to do to it? Well, obviously empty, lifeless real estate was non-chaotic. Well, what was chaotic? It answered that question as well: life is chaotic. But the creation of life was out of the bounds of its capabilities. So what could it…
If a program-that-wasn’t-a-program could have smiled, this one would have.
A number of reality shards that hadn’t gone into creating Counter-Earth abruptly vanished from the nothing-place they were being held while a decision was being made as to what to do with them.
Celestials, needless to say, took notice.
Uriel made a mad grab for some of the fragments to prevent their use.
…and Mars changed.
Samael stared and palmed his face.
Dantelion chuckled a bit.
Azrael stared and groaned.
Janus burst out laughing.
Uriel sighed in relief that he’d at least been able to prevent any more than 4,400 non-native people from being manifested on the now living world. This was going to be such a headache…
Many others sighed in relief that all of the shards capable of altering the universe’s paradigm had all been tossed back out of that universe.
The Red Planet was no longer red, for the most part. White and green and blue now dominated. The settlements on Mars now had only a meter of the red Martian dust past their boundaries. A certain Trekkie settlement found itself sitting atop a granite spire of an island sticking out of a new ocean.
In Port Lowell, a man stared out a shop window as a herd of sheep at least a hundred strong, bells a clankin’, wandered past. He looked down at the coffee in his hand and walked over to the sink to dump it out. He then turned off the Open sign, locked the door, and walked to his apartment upstairs. Clearly this was a sign to not work such late nights.
Geothermal activity increased to levels not present in geological ages as tectonic plates were rearranged – though, in a manner not conflicting with Alex’s first boon’s wording.
R. Rupert Giles and R. Janna Kalderash-Giles shot up in their bed as the single most powerful wave of magic they’d ever felt washed over them. The same was true of other (unknowingly) magegifted on Mars, though these were confused by why they’d awoken.
The PKG now had almost waterfront property.
Tharsis Mons erupted, albeit slightly.
Numerous atmospheric sensors started having fits.
Several mountain ranges and foothills and valleys sprung into existence where flat plain previously dominated.
Odyssey personnel jumped as a device labeled DQS started spewing sparks and smoke while giving off an almost pathetic whine.
A mountain that hadn’t been there a moment ago was suddenly inundated in a rain of a certain type of breakfast food, leading to its future name of Mount Eggo.
A woman living on the outskirts of Helium and had gone out for a walk found herself standing in a grassy clearing next to her home, a wallaby and an antelope and a unicorn staring at her spacesuited-self and each other with a ‘what the heck is this thing’ look.And, indeed, chaos reigned.
~~~
Alex Xanatos found himself drinking a rather pleasant cup of Chamomile tea on a rooftop café in Paris. It was about midday, he surmised.
Thing is, there were a couple of problems with that.
The first was that, mere moments before, he had being curling up for sleep in his bed. His bed on Mars. He most certainly hadn’t been wearing his best suit, either.
The second was that this was not the Paris he was familiar with. He may have never visited the City of Lights before, but even he knew that the sights and skyline – or lake thereof – that he could make out from his vantage point were completely wrong. Anachronistic, to be precise. Everything he could see looked like a movie set made up for the turn of the 19th Century.
I must be dreaming, he thought. Strange. I’ve never had a dream where I was aware of what it was before. He glanced at the tea he’d just sipped. Rather detailed, too. I can taste the tea, smell the horse manure and burning coal, even feel the slightly nippy breeze and uncomfortable seat.
“Would you like some more, sir?” the waiter – wasn’t there a proper term for waiter at a café? – asked him.
I smiled. “Yes, thank you.”
He added a third problem to the list: he was hearing, understanding, and now even speaking French.
He knew English. He knew Japanese, damn those kanji. He did NOT know French.
As the waiter walked off, Alex sighed… and then nearly screamed as he noticed a man sitting opposite him that had definitely not been there a moment ago.
“Sorry about that, and all of this,” the man smiled sheepishly. He reached out his hand. “Permit to introduce myself. I’m Death.”
The Drunkard’s Walk Forums present
A Fenspace Alternates production
In association with some people withtoo much time on their hands
Strange New Worlds
Episode 1: “Don’t Fear the Reaper”
Alex blinked as he stared at the man he was shaking hands with. He had rather Mediterranean features and dressed in an almost stereotypical Greek toga, the image on the bronze clasp just below his left shoulder confused him until he realized it was a lit torch, albeit upside-down.
“Well,” I started casually. “If this isn’t just a dream, you certainly have a rather pleasant way of informing someone they’ve passed on.” I gestured at the environ with the hand holding my cup of Chamomile.
His sheepish smile became a slight grimace. “Yes, about that – we don’t have nearly as much time as I’d like. I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you the shock and awe treatment rather than ease you into this not being a dream.”
I chuckled before I responded to this admittedly entertaining figment of my subconscious. “I’m having a cup of tea in late 19th Century Paris while chatting with Death? It’s going to take quite a bit to convince me this-”
There was up and down and right and left and backwards and forwards and #%$^ and &#&$-
I was gazing at the first Martian sunrise I had ever seen over the Vallis Marineris – I was delivering what had to be the umpteenth Publisher’s Clearinghouse letter that day – I was whining for Mommy because I was hungry – I was reading online about some sort of miracle substance while examining a coffee can full of an identifiable goop that had been labeled to an address that no longer existed and had no return address – I was receiving my BS in Religion from the dean as my parents looked on – I was saying goodbye to all my friends at Pre-K before summer break started – I was saying my vows to the supposedly plain, but oh so beautiful woman who had agreed to become my wife –
There was a smelly shade of blue – a hot shade of brown – a black so bright it was blinding – a green so wet it slid around me –
I was on a rooftop café in late 19th Century Paris as a man in a Greek toga gazed apologetically at me as I held a cup of tea in a suddenly unsteady hand.
“What,” I choked out. “What was… what was…”
“That was what happens when a mind used to interpreting things in four-dimensions suddenly tries to interpret input from several more,” the man explained calmly. He then adopted a wry smirk. “Still think you’re dreaming?”
I shook my head.
“Good. Now finish your tea and try to calm down before talking again,” he politely but firmly suggested.
I did as suggested. While I did so, he ordered a cup of tea for himself, asking the waiter to ‘surprise him’ with what type of tea he was brought.
Several minutes after he was brought his order – I never did find out what he got, not that it mattered – I felt composed enough to talk again.
“So,” I began, addressing the being I now had very little doubt was who he’d said he was. “I guess this is where I’m taken to my judgment?” I hope I see Airi again…
The reply was as simple as I’d expected, but that was about all I had gotten right.
“Nope,” he said simply.
“…Huh?” I responded eloquently.
He smiled. “You’re not dead. You’re also not dying – well, unless you’re one of those defeatist sorts who say they’ve been dying since the moment they were born, but you don’t strike me as the emo type. No, what you’re here for is for the two of us to have a chat… and for me to request you to help me with something that will also help you.”
I tried to digest that. “What could you – being Death – possibly want MY help with?” I then winced. “Is it the name I chose when I moved to Fenspace? I swear, I was just coming off from watching too many old cartoons on bootleg DVDs. I didn’t even know about the whole Xanatos and Thanatos thing until I Googled it one day!”
Death laughed. Which, despite the image those two words together conjure, was not as creepy as you’d think. “No, no. Nothing like that. Speaking of the whole Death and Thanatos thing, though…” He looked down at himself and shrugged. “Just being called by my position is a little annoying to me. And seeing as you don’t worship the Olympians, this form is actually rather inappropriate, isn’t it? Perhaps this form would make you more comfortable?”
And he changed.
There was no flash, no ripple, no hazing – it was like watching something on TV changing from one camera perspective to the next. One second I was sitting across from a man of Mediterranean descent with long blonde hair and sea green eyes wearing a toga, the next I was across from another man in a toga, but this one possessing short, curly black hair and with a complexion that would fit just about anywhere in Europe in origin, but with a Roman nose and sharp blue eyes.
Oh, and there were two pure white wings coming out of his back.
I looked around to see how the few others on the roof with us had reacted. They hadn’t.
“They just see and hear two locals having a friendly chat,” he said with same voice as his previous form. Somehow, that freaked me out more than the change itself. “This is actually the form I usually – if that term can be used – take when I interact with those of most Christian persuasions Please, call me Azrael. This is going to take a few minutes to explain, though, so bear with me.”
He then sighed. “I’d like to give you a bit more of an explanation, but as I said before – we just don’t have the time. I’ll try to summarize. A short time ago, a number of fragments of destroyed and altered universes were about to collide and merge with you universe. If they did, they would have altered your timeline severely.”
I stiffened and sat up a little straighter. “What happened?”
He chuckled and shook his hid. “No mortal language exists that would allow me to explain the hows of twelve-dimensional actions to a four-dimensional being. However, I can explain the results. First of all, my divine fellows and I were able to keep out both the largest of the reality shards as well as the ones which would alter the paradigm of your universe too much. Once this was done, we prevented the shards that did make it through from merging with the Earth’s timeline. At that point, though, we had actually do something with those shards as they could no longer be tossed back out of the universe. So, we decided to use the majority of them to form another Earth.”
I stared. “I beg your pardon?”
“Ever hear of that debunked theory of another planet on the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth and sharing its orbit? They called that planet Counter-Earth. Again, the concept was disproved. Well, that is no longer the case. Now there actually is such a planet. Another Earth, one which has its own history – mostly similar to your own – and, as far as everyone on it are concerned, they have always existed, and have always been the sole Earth of their solar system. Of course, as far as the rest of your universe is concerned, they haven’t.”
Azrael shook his head and took another sip. “Oh, I do not envy the world leaders on either Earth for the first short while after the new one appears – the questions about religious authority alone…” He groaned.
“Okay,” I said. I probably hadn’t finished absorbing all that I’d heard, but I’d gotten enough to have a question. “I’m probably still in shock since I haven’t got anything to say right now about this whole Counter-Earth thing. Still, I have a question. If you and… the others like you have fixed the problem – and I don’t see any way I could helped out with that myself, of course… just why do you want to talk with me about it?”
Azrael took another sip of tea. “Did you notice how I kept referring to myself and my compatriots as divine?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the opposite of ‘divine’?” he asked me.
“It’s in…” my eyes widened as I trailed off while considering the answer.
“’Infernal,’ right? That’s correct. While so many of we divines were all working on making Counter-Earth – and your Earth and theirs are really going to have to come up with better names to call one another – the Other Side was busy. Specifically, my own infernal counterpart: Samael.”
“’Samael?’”
A humorless smile. “If you want to try to imagine him, one of his overself’s other avatars was responsible for a little thing called Blackest Night a couple universal clusters over.”
I blanched.
“Exactly. Samael, in his various reflections, is responsible for all of the decidedly less pleasant forms of death-related magic throughout Creation. Inventing them made him a celebrity in the Pit, and one of our own side’s most wanted with his head on a platter. Fortunately, he’s nowhere near able to exercise his power in a universe like yours the way he did in that one.”
I think my heart started beating again at that point.
“Which doesn’t mean that what he was able to do was wasn’t bad enough on its own. While I and everyone else were already distracted by the reality shards situation, many of our counterparts started making blessedly minor trouble elsewhere throughout this skein of universes. Trying to correct all of the problems they were causing naturally increased our workload; made us distracted from what they were really after.”
Azrael finished off his cup and set it down it the saucer.
“As I said, all of what the other infernals were doing to distract us was minor in scale. That should have tipped us off, but it didn’t. The reason it was all small potatoes stuff was that while his fellows were playing Who Can Cause the Most Chaos, Samael was pooling all of the energies, favors from other higher dimensionals, and what-have-you to perform a freaking Grand Boon Grant,” he spat out.
“A what grant?”
“A boon is a gift or favor granted by a celestial power to a lower dimensional being – say, a human – and can be either a physical object, a blessing, or something else of that nature. These alone are rare. A Grand Boon Grant, though, is something that hasn’t been done in ages from MY relativistic perspective. It involves granting multiple boons, always a set number, to a single individual. These boons can be minor or major in their scale, but each always has specific limitations on what each boon is capable of granting. That’s not the kicker, though. Each of these boons, unlike what happens in normal circumstances, Is Picked Out By The One Being Granted The Boons Rather Than The Granter.”
I couldn’t help but whistle low at the thought. Imagine being granted five opportunities, regardless of their limitations, like that? Wait! What did this have to do with -
“Either side,” Azrael continued, “of the divine/infernal divide can start a Grand Boon Grant. In response, the granter’s counterpart on the other side must also select an individual to do the same. The starting side selects the number, type, and limitations of each boon. The responding side must use that same criteria in their boons to be granted. Samael chose his grantee… and I have chosen mine.”
I raised a shaking finger to point hesitantly at myself.
The Angel of Death nodded.
“Why-,“ I croaked hoarsely. I cleared my throat. “Why ME?!”
“Because the goal of the divine in any infernally-started granting of a boon is to try to mitigate said boon’s effects as much as possible,” he said seriously. “On top of being a generally good man, you are familiar with the other grantee and can hopefully anticipate his desires enough when you name your boons to counteract his own.”
“Who?”
“Who would you, personally, least like to see be the other grantee?” he said carefully.
“Hitler?” I tried.
Azrael rolled his eyes. “I said you’ve met the other guy.”
I had to sit back and think on that for a minute or two. I didn’t exactly try to mingle or make acquaintance with the kind of people the folks that run Hell would like to see get their wishes granted. Hell, I became even more careful after the whole thing… with…
“…No.”
“Yes.”
“Not. Struve.” I managed through grit teeth.
“Yes, Struve,” Azrael responded. He then continued, not unkindly, “I’ve rented out the top floor suite of the hotel to your right for the next month, not that it will be needed that long. I want you to take the rest of the day to think of the boons you want granted. Keep in mind that we need to try to anticipate and counter Mr. Struve’s own boons. I wrote out the boons and their limitations on a set of papers I left on the desk in there. Just write out what you want the boons to be. I’ll be back at around ten tomorrow morning to grant them.”
I could only stare at him. “You’re just going to leave me here?”
“I’ve already paid for the tea,” he waved it off. “That, and I figure you’ll want some time to get your thoughts together about all of this and consider your options for the boons without me or some other celestial breathing down your neck. Like I said – ten tomorrow morning!”
And he was gone. Vanished.
~~~
Seeing as I couldn’t exactly call for a ride home, I did indeed go to the hotel next door to consider my options.
I’d like to say that I spent the remainder of the day – and the night, and the early morning – considering just what to write in the almost hilariously bland boon-granting documents Azrael had left behind for me. I’d like to say that.
What I really did was spend half of that time staring blankly at the papers before me, having a silent panic attack aside from the occasional whimpering sound I’m pretty sure I made.
And if anyone ever tells me they wouldn’t react in a similar manner in this situation – assuming that I ever tell anyone about what happened – I will personally display the reason why postal workers in the U.S. are given such nervous looks whenever they purchase firearms.
Still, in the end I did manage to fill out that form. I also managed to overfill the trash bin next to the roll top desk with scratch paper from trying to cook up just what to write down.
It was probably a good thing that I didn’t think to call room service for some dinner. I probably wouldn’t have been able to keep it down.
And don’t even ask whether all the stress gave me a headache. Just… don’t.
As the clock on the mantelpiece in the luxurious sweet I hadn’t even bothered to explore ticked itself the last few notches towards 10am, I looked over the results of the previous hectic hours before me one last time.
Boon #1: Reality itself shall be altered in a manner of your choosing (Any choice which goes beyond the scope of this boon’s power will vanish from the paper):
In case anyone wonders, yes, I did throw up at the mere thought of what Harry would put down for this. Even with the so-called limitations placed on it, I couldn’t help but wonder just what the Hell the folks in… well, in Hell were thinking when they offered such a carte blanc boon.
Needles to say, I made a point to be very thorough in my response to this boon. Keeping in mind that I had to try to at least mitigate if not outright cancel out Struve’s own boon, I tried my best to think of the worst possible outcomes he could have asked for and how best to counter them.
After I’d finished throwing up again, I filled up about half of that rubbish bin I mentioned earlier before I had come to the unfortunate conclusion that, since I could not guess exactly what Struve would ask for, I had to focus my efforts on countering the worst possible outcomes of any possible boon he could ask for.
I finally wrote down what had to be the most carefully worded statement I had ever made. All of what had been up to then merely idle talks with Giles, Jenny, and my lawyer going into it.
#1: None of the boons granted to one Harry Struve, except in a decision made after the granting by the free will of a sapient individual, shall cause, either directly or indirectly, the cessation or alteration of existence of any sapient individual m existence prior or concurrent to the granting of said boons, whether that be in a physical, mental, or spiritual manner, with physical alteration including a sapient individual’s body, home, property, or finances, and with mental alteration including a sapient individual’s personality and the existence and recollection of memories.
After that came…
Boon #2: You may make a physical or mental alteration to yourself (Any choice which goes beyond the scope of this boon’s power will vanish from the paper):
I actually didn’t have anything much to say for that one. I was rather happy with my mental and physical state, thank you very much.
#2: I would like any current or future health problems I have to be gone.…
Yes, I did later regret the wording I used. Sue me.
The next boon I had to rewrite after I realized from reading the boon after it that magic was going to somehow be involved with Struve’s boons.
Boon #3: One metric ton of a substance of your choice in a condition and location of your choice (Any choice which goes beyond the scope of this boon’s power will vanish from the paper):
I actually consider the answer I gave to this one to be rather clever.
#3: Element 676, also known as Nth Metal, specifically the Bruce Timm DC Animated Universe version, in 2oz ingots in a NERV Headquarters secure store room.”[/i
]The last boon actually counted as two boons, and involved a list of books that had been left behind with the “Wish List,” as I called it.
[i]Boons #4 and #5: Choose two non-living sources of magical knowledge from the list of pre-approved selections provided:
Oh, you have no idea how hard this choice was. It was the hardest right after the very first boon. The list of pre-approved books provided said books’ name, author (many listed ‘Multiple,’ annoyingly enough), and a short description. It took all my will power not to select things like The Complete Collection of the Standard Books of Spells: Grades 1-7, or books written by the likes of Myrdin Emrys, Stephan Strange, Gandalf the Grey, or Elminster of Shadowdale.
As the case with the first and third boons, I decided to again focus on a defensive strategy, seeing as I didn’t know what Struve would choose.
#4: Mind Magic Counters for Dummies by Augustine Millbrook (Winner of the Coveted Arcanist-General’s Award for Magical Self-Protection Instruction: The New Amsterdam Times Best Seller Three Years Running)
#5: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Wards and Their Creation and Maintenance by The National Warding Society of the Reborn Roman Republic.
*knock knock*
I glance at the clock. 10:03.
I guess even the divine can be tardy…
Somehow, this made me feel a little better.
When I answered the door, it was indeed Azrael. Wings and all.
He glanced at the paper in my hand. “You ready?”
“Not really, but it’s finished,” I responded as we walked out to the street in front of the hotel.
“Sorry I’m late,” the angel apologized as we exited the building and I handed him the Wish List. “I had to prepare several things for what’s about to happen.”
I frowned as I jumped out of the way of someone rushing past us. There seemed to be some sort of commotion going on. I couldn’t see the source of the panic, though. “How could you prepare if you didn’t know what I’d choose?”
He looked at me confused for a second, then his eyes widened in realization.
“Oh, I wasn’t preparing for that! I was preparing for that!” he said the last part as he pointed upwards.
I followed his gesture and found myself looking at… a distant, angry red sphere that appeared to be getting larger.
“What the Hell is that?” I demanded.
“That would be the asteroid that’s about to make this Earth do a repeat of the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction Event,” Azrael answered calmly. “Almost all of humanity in this universe will cease to exist over the course of the next century.
”I could only sputter slightly as I tried to think of something to say. He noticed my horrified expression.
“In the infinite vastness of the multiverse, this kind of thing just happens sometimes,” Azrael continued sadly, still looking at the approaching dino-killer. “Nothing I can do about it without directly preventing it. If I were to do that, the Other Side would be able to cause a similar disaster elsewhere. Still, this world won’t be forgotten by mankind. In, oh, a hundred and three years I think it is a group of world jumpers have a high probability of stumbling across it. Label it Lucifer-1, or some such thing.”
He looked away from the fireball and at me and smiled. “Time for you to go back home, though.” He then perked up. “Oh, right. I’ve got something for you.”
He tossed a small box at me. I caught it reflexively. When I opened it, there was a generic-brand flash drive inside.
“What’s this?”
“If for whatever reason you ever have to explain what happened here to anyone without you being locked in the padded party room,” he responded, “that there contains an MKV file of our conversation yesterday.” He grinned mischievously. “When whoever watches reaches the part where I blew your mind with my This Isn’t A Dream trick, the same thing’ll happen to them.”
I gulped slightly in remembrance of the event in quest.
“And now… you go home.”
~~~
I shot out of bed so fast I almost got whiplash. Panting, I reached over to the clock on my nightstand and pulled it to me.
11:37pm. May 31, 2025.
Just an hour and a half since I went to bed after the Seele Council meeting.
“Heh…Heh, heh, heh… Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…It was just a dream! Just a weird-ass dre-“*clonk!*
Something hit my head from above.
“Ack! What the hell… was…”
On the floor at my feet was the flash drive box Azrael had given me.
“…Oh, boy.”
Unnoticed for now, two books abruptly popped into existence and plopped onto my bed.
~~~
11:59pm GMT – 31 May 2013
At the instant the clock struck midnight, the universe changed.
On the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth, a mirror image of that world was suddenly just there.…
And then the boons kicked in.
Power on the infernal and divine sides of the celestial divide began to enact changes to the universe in question.
When the program, for lack of a better term, on the infernal side began to carry out the execution of the boons, there at first seemed no trouble. It performed the simpler and less power consuming tasks first.
Two magical tomes – So You Want to Be a Combat Wizard… and The Arts of Necromancy for Fun and Profit: A Grimoire for Beginners and Adepts were delivered to the grantee easily enough.
So was the introduction of a moderately-powerful magegift to said person’s genetics.
A metric ton’s worth of handwavium promptly appeared on the newly arrived world, “distributed in a manner similar to how it was on Earth, and in a way that I will find most entertaining in the long term,” as the infernal grantee put it.
And then it hit Boon #1.
When asked for his answer to this boon, Harry Struve had written quite simply, “The environment of Mars shall be altered to create the maximum amount of long-lasting chaos possible in a manner which I shall find entertaining.
”The program rewriting the universe to meet this desired outcome slammed headfirst into what was effectively a firewall program due to the wording Alex Xanatos had used in his first boon. Constraints as to just what the first program could now do to Mars and the people on it in carrying out its function were slapped onto it with a force that shook the space-time continuum.
So constrained, the program considered its options – for it was a very smart program – and came to a conclusion. The easiest route of causing chaos on Mars, altering those already there, was no longer available to it. However, the vast empty portions of the planet were still open game.The question was: what to do to it? Well, obviously empty, lifeless real estate was non-chaotic. Well, what was chaotic? It answered that question as well: life is chaotic. But the creation of life was out of the bounds of its capabilities. So what could it…
If a program-that-wasn’t-a-program could have smiled, this one would have.
A number of reality shards that hadn’t gone into creating Counter-Earth abruptly vanished from the nothing-place they were being held while a decision was being made as to what to do with them.
Celestials, needless to say, took notice.
Uriel made a mad grab for some of the fragments to prevent their use.
…and Mars changed.
Samael stared and palmed his face.
Dantelion chuckled a bit.
Azrael stared and groaned.
Janus burst out laughing.
Uriel sighed in relief that he’d at least been able to prevent any more than 4,400 non-native people from being manifested on the now living world. This was going to be such a headache…
Many others sighed in relief that all of the shards capable of altering the universe’s paradigm had all been tossed back out of that universe.
The Red Planet was no longer red, for the most part. White and green and blue now dominated. The settlements on Mars now had only a meter of the red Martian dust past their boundaries. A certain Trekkie settlement found itself sitting atop a granite spire of an island sticking out of a new ocean.
In Port Lowell, a man stared out a shop window as a herd of sheep at least a hundred strong, bells a clankin’, wandered past. He looked down at the coffee in his hand and walked over to the sink to dump it out. He then turned off the Open sign, locked the door, and walked to his apartment upstairs. Clearly this was a sign to not work such late nights.
Geothermal activity increased to levels not present in geological ages as tectonic plates were rearranged – though, in a manner not conflicting with Alex’s first boon’s wording.
R. Rupert Giles and R. Janna Kalderash-Giles shot up in their bed as the single most powerful wave of magic they’d ever felt washed over them. The same was true of other (unknowingly) magegifted on Mars, though these were confused by why they’d awoken.
The PKG now had almost waterfront property.
Tharsis Mons erupted, albeit slightly.
Numerous atmospheric sensors started having fits.
Several mountain ranges and foothills and valleys sprung into existence where flat plain previously dominated.
Odyssey personnel jumped as a device labeled DQS started spewing sparks and smoke while giving off an almost pathetic whine.
A mountain that hadn’t been there a moment ago was suddenly inundated in a rain of a certain type of breakfast food, leading to its future name of Mount Eggo.
A woman living on the outskirts of Helium and had gone out for a walk found herself standing in a grassy clearing next to her home, a wallaby and an antelope and a unicorn staring at her spacesuited-self and each other with a ‘what the heck is this thing’ look.And, indeed, chaos reigned.