Kahli saw the scenarios before her - and it had indeed been so long since she'd actually experienced them that she had to do a bit of a double take to reorient herself and remember what happened in all three of them. After all, she'd gotten herself into a bit of a catastrophic mess that had only just cleared itself up after going into a nested timeline and twisting things up - and then, later on, working through an arrest with Time Cops of all things. At least she'd gotten a [class] out of it. And Kahli had to admit, it felt absolutely bitching to be a [Time Manipulator]. What a cool name for a [class].

It was all coming back to her as Kahli looked at the greyed out scenarios under her big left foot. The first scenario had ended with her dying, so that was an obvious no. The second scenario had ended with her almost destroying Sch'laong, and had cut short of him explaining what he was a protector of. Okay, that was... somewhat intriguing, though these scenarios seemed to be falling in step with the all too common pattern for timeline scenarios. Of course, as Kahli had considered time and time again by now, it wasn't that the timelines always matched this pattern, more that they often did. And how much of that was a self fulfilling prophecy, now that Kahli knew that her own thoughts and preparations before viewing a timeline could indeed impact how it turned out?

So then there was the third scenario. This was the one where a fight never really happened, as Sch'laong became convinced that Kahli was an envoy of, well, the Supreme Time Protector. With that, she felt like it was probably the most effective timeline for her and Froufrou's goal of not dying. With that, she focused on the third scenario, ready to finally stop this endless nesting of timelines and get back to the real timeline.

----------------------------------------

"So?" asked Sch'loang impatiently. "Are you going to show me the scrollwork you have relating to your approval to touch the obelisk? As you know well, there are serious properties at play here in these ruins. You can't just go around touching obelisks willly-nilly without consequences."

Kahli tried not to give away on her face that she absolutely did not know that there were serious properties at play there in the ruins and honestly had no idea she wasn't supposed to touch the obelisk until Sch'laong had started fussing over it at her. And still, the real problem persisted - she did not have any scrollwork to show this ornery entity.

But Froufrou was squelching around in her purse, looking for something. See, Froufrou was already thrilled that she'd put all her [attribute] points into [LIN], the [attribute] known also as Lineality that allowed her to reach her tendrils through different timelines and retrieve physical items from those timelines. Using her [LIN], which was one of Froufrou's highest [attributes], she was able to reach through time itself in search of a timeline wherein she and Kahli both, or possibly at least one of them, had remembered that Sch'laong had been looking for scrollwork with the Supreme Time Protector's signature on it before they left the [checkpoint], and with it the presence of the Supreme Time Protector.

As Froufrou reached a tendril through time, she noticed a number of things. The first was that it felt at once terribly hot and dreadfully cold. That is to say that the key experience Froufrou noted as she reached through to another timeline was that it was physically uncomfortable. She also had no way to even feel anything other than these wildly varying temperatures. That is to say that Froufrou had no idea whether she'd produced the paperwork that Kahli would need when she finally did pull her tendril out of the timelines and indeed produced from thin air a signed bit of scrollwork. Still, it had to be worth something, right? It was worth the effort, anyway. She handed it up to Kahli through the hole in the top of the purse and hoped for the best.

Kahli beheld the scrollwork that Froufrou had produced from thin air, squinting as she skimmed it. It definitely looked like the sort of thing that Sch'laong was looking for, so she passed it forward to the construct.

"Thank you," replied Sch'laong in the most respectful tone of voice he'd ever used as a vine shot out from his hip, snatched the scroll, and held it up to his planty face. "Now, let me just look all this over real quick."

"Sure, you got it!" said Kahli, putting on a pained faux-smile. She watched intently as Sch'laong read over the scrollwork for what felt like far, far too long. Still, he didn't seem angry.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Alright, good deal, you're clear," replied Sch'laong matter-of-factly. "That's some nice scrollwork paper, by the way. Where'd you get it?"

"UH," Kahli cleared her throat and coughed. "Department store?"

"Classic," said Sch'laong with a shake of his head. "You know a large bit of my family runs a smaller Mom n' Pop store called Papers Is Us. Check it out if you ever get a chance, okay? I promise it's not a front for hungry, carnivorous plants to feed off taumans or anything."

Kahli didn't know everything but she knew that Sch'laong was not a wholly honest entity, so she let it go.

"So, what do you think Quantimidas is going to say when he wakes up?" asked Sch'laong matter-of-factly.

It took everything within and indeed everything outside of Kahli for her to force herself not to burst out in some sort of a gatcha or aha moment on hearing this. That is to say that she was at once fascinated, overjoyed, and terrified, but she could truly express none of those things without blowing her cover, so she seemed to try and just be excited instead.

"Um, I think he might have a headache," said Kahli with a little chuckle. She'd heard all the stories about Quantimidas, the giant, sleeping ruler of Nomachiato, and even though she believed in his existence she didn't know much about him.

"A headache, that's not a bad idea," replied Sch'laong. "Yes, he probably will have a headache. That's what sleeping for centuries gets to you in the end. Other than that, what do you think he'll do with Nomachiato? It didn't specify a cause in your scrollwork for why you're activating one of his obelisks."

Kahli was, internally, screaming as loud as possible. The obelisk was one of Quantimidas' obelisks? She was beyond words. Kahli had no idea how this had come to pass, but she knew she needed to extract from Sch'laong as much information as possible. But how? It wasn't like she could just tell Sch'laong she was confused and had no idea what he was talking about. Unless...

Kahli cleared her throat, prepared to put her [Tale Teller] [skill] to good use. "Um, Sch'laong, can I level with you?"

"No, I don't have enough [XP] right now," replied Sch'laong with sorrow. "However, I have heard that there are some plant elementals lurking around the ruins today. If you can find them for me and bring them in here, I'll fight them. A good fight would give me plenty of [XP] to level around with."

"Sorry, I meant figuratively level with you. Really, I just wanted to admit - because I'm pretty embarrassed about this - that I don't know how exactly the obelisk works to awaken Quantimidas is all. All I really know is that I got approval to interact with it using with scrollwork."

Sch'laong regarded Kahli with suspicion for a brief moment, but after another cursory glance at the scrollwork, that suspicion changed to a look of amusement.

"Oh! Hah! That's so classic of the Supreme Time Protector. Send one of his envoys out to rustle up some drama at the old ruins, while not even telling you what he really sent for, eh? Well, I'm happy to break it down. See, there are ruins much like this one all over the globe of wider Nomachiato. Each ruin houses at its center either an obelisk, or something akin to an obelisk that holds within it the same properties. When all of these obelisks are activated, much like the obelisk you just activated yourself, Quantimida's slumber can persist no longer, and he'll have to wake up."

Kahli didn't know how to feel about all this. Quantimidas, whom she'd already establish before was indeed real despite what anyone else had to say to the contrary, was a nebulous and imposing figure. And what's more is that Kahli had no idea where Quantimidas was. How would activating the obelisks wake him? She had so many questions to ask, but none of them seemed to be something that she could easily fudge in order to make it seem like she wasn't really asking a question, which meant that she couldn't rightly ask them. All that said, Sch'laong eventually handed the scrollwork back to Kahli, who handed it to Froufrou with a myriad of praise.

Then, the plant construct nodded at the two of them. "Well, it is my time. I'm glad that I didn't have to kill either of you, I absolutely despise causing deaths, but I shall if I must."

Kahli and Froufrou did their best not to snicker at this statement - they both knew all too well that this was the advantageous timeline for both them and for Sch'laong, as Sch'laong was also at risk of being brought to his knees if they did indeed get into an altercation.

"Oh, you know what?" Sch'laong stopped himself from congealing into a mass of plants and leaving the room. "Sorry, I forgot that while I was reading the scrollwork you provided it defined that I'd have to help you out in your quest to activate all the obelisks and wake up Quantimidas."

Kahli felt that was a little presumptuous - how did Sch'laong know for certain whether she'd want to wake Quantimidas? Regardless, Kahli was interested in whatever help the plant construct could give.

"Here, take this," replied Sch'loang, producing a small scroll. "You'll need it."

Kahli unfurled the scroll and gasped. "Oh, wow! A map?"