Caroline Echo, the Sage of Persuasion, knocked on a nondescript wooden door within the quiet sector of the Svarga embassy. She pushed some illusory energy into the physical act through her domain as she would empower a ritual, guiding it with the persuasion insight encoded into her realm. The occupant of the room should perceive her imposition to be a welcome interruption. She usually endeavored to be subtle with her mental manipulations, but sometimes simple and blunt was best. Everyone expected her to play with their thoughts anyway.
“Enter,” Earnest called. When she pulled open the door, the expectation on his face faded into concern. “Persuasion. This is certainly unexpected.”
“I’m not so frightening as your manners might suggest, Transit.”
Earnest folded his arms. “What is it you want me to do?”
“Are you really so busy you cannot have a polite conversation with a fellow sage?” Her talent worked best when applied obliquely rather than directly. A nice chat was so much better than blunt speech. A fact her peers were well aware of. It made things difficult at times.
“It is not that I am busy at the moment, Persuasion. It is that I am a key asset in the reconquest of Aes and suspect you would make other claims on my time. Speak your request so that I can decline it.”
Caroline laughed, putting a hint of flirting in there. She caught the slight blush of his cheeks and knew her manipulation had landed. Before he could question his reaction, she spoke again. “Why would I want to pull you away from the reconquest?” She pushed a hint of guilt towards him with a deft touch. Too much and he’d know it was artificial.
“Then we are in agreement that I won’t leave my post?”
“Won’t leave your post? Earnest, you are the Sage of Transit. You can walk between worlds as easily as I walk between rooms.” Feel pride, Earnest.
He leaned back in his chair and kicked his feet up. “I am a sage, after all.”
“Do you exhaust yourself opening portals? Or is it all resonance with your true insight?”
Earnest shrugged. “It does use some illusory energy. Far less than a portal ritual – even the variation that uses the soil of another world for a sympathetic bridge. Even the Lord General can’t move between universes for free.”
Caroline’s eye twitched. “I’ve recently had the pleasure of making Thrakkar’s acquaintance.”
That earned a laugh from Earnest. “You poor thing. A Xian lord must be completely immune to your mental manipulations. My advice is to avoid him in the future.”
She might as well strike now, since the conversation had wound close to where she had intended to steer it. “The Lord General is joining us on the latest campaign of the Coalition Army. I’m joining them to ensure Kevin and Thrakkar don’t kill each other.”
Earnest’s forehead wrinkled in surprise. “War Barge Kevin and the Lord General are going to be part of the same army? Why? Couldn’t you dissuade them?”
“The Lord General respects Kevin.”
“He spent half a century trying to murder him!”
“And he failed every time. I’m convinced that Thrakkar views his rivalry with Kevin as a high stakes game they played together. I can’t touch Thrakkar’s mind, but I don’t think I need to keep him in line. If I prevent the Jinn from overreacting to any of the inevitable provocations, the alliance should hold strong. We’ve all agreed to kill monsters, not each other.”
Earnest snorted. “Good luck with that. Wait. Are you the only sage joining the Coalition Army for this campaign?” He looked appropriately concerned. Caroline would have been panicking if she didn’t have any muscle representing the Arahants.
“Hardly. I am bringing Conflagration.”
“Oh. Wow. I thought he was meditating on the flames at the natural gas crater.”
The Sage of Conflagration was a unique existence, obsessed with fire to a degree that made many question his sanity. True insights could grow stronger with study, it was true, but the investment of effort was immense and not guaranteed to produce fruit. Insights came on their own schedule. Trying to force them was a fool’s errand. Though she didn’t think Conflagration a fool. The man’s fascination with fire simply could not be satisfied.
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Getting Conflagration to leave behind the eternally burning crater had been quite a victory for Caroline. Her persuasive talent didn’t allow her to puppeteer a powerful existence into doing her will. She had to find an argument capable of convincing him before she made a push. And she’d found one. When the Coalition Army found worlds too far gone, the Jinn torched them with antimatter. Conflagration had never seen an entire planet burn. Not yet, at least.
“Conflagration understands the danger we’re in,” Caroline said. “Every unempowered world that has its soul corrupted creates additional waves of monsters. We need to stop the chain reaction before it spreads too far.”
Earnest nodded. “I understand that. It’s important work, Persuasion. But I’m not going to join this campaign of the Coalition Army.”
“Why do you think the reconquest of Aes is more important than stopping the propagation of monsters? That world is already lost.”
“You see, that’s the thing. It’s not lost yet. It’s in the process of being lost.” Earnest balled up his fists. “You should be convincing the Coalition Army to focus on Aes. We can never allow a true world to be corrupted.”
Caroline thought of all the objections she could make. The miasma was so thick on parts of Aes that not even Xian Lords dared step foot there. Certainly Jinn weapons and Arahant rituals couldn’t influence reality through the chaotic haze. Not only was Aes certainly lost, the reconquest would never be successful. The Sage of Transit had to constantly cycle warriors in and out of the battlefronts so that they could recover from miasma exposure before redeployment.
“Why such loyalty to the Aes campaign, Transit? It’s been close to half a century now. In all that time you’ve only taken brief breaks to restore your energy on Maya. People say you have gone native from all the time you spend on Union Central. Surely that isn’t true.”
Earnest folded his arms. “I am following the directions of Foresight.”
Caroline stared. Levinia had set this up? That bitch. Playing her games even from the grave. “Foresight is dead, Transit. She doesn’t dictate strategy any longer.”
“Maybe not for anyone else.” Earnest shook his head. “Not even you will be able to move me on this, Persuasion. There are only two ways I will ever cease my efforts. Either I die or the reconquest succeeds.”
She gritted her teeth. “What did Levinia tell you?”
“If any true world falls, humanity ends everywhere. She asked me to keep fighting for Aes no matter what happens.”
“Was this before she died on her ill-advised sightseeing trip to Aes?”
“She gave me my instructions the day before she departed.”
Caroline’s laugh sounded forced even to her. It hardly mattered. She doubted Transit would be swayed no matter how hard she pushed. Reality warped around level ten souls in a manner that was as undeniable as it was subtle. If Transit was dead set on his course of action, Caroline’s efforts wouldn’t change his core convictions.
Still, Caroline wouldn’t pass up a chance to insult the memory of her one-time friend and long-term rival. Levinia screwed her over too many times and her final act screwed over the entire multiverse. “You realize that her sight isn’t foolproof, don’t you? Foresight waltzed right to her death.”
Earnest looked to the ground. “She knew what would happen.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Caroline shook her head. “Levinia was overconfident. She made a mistake.”
“She told me she had to sacrifice herself. It was the best future she could bring about.” The man still looked down and now Caroline saw tears dripping from his cheeks.
“How is this the best future? We are constantly on the verge of disaster, Transit. Do you know that the isolationist wing of the Mercom Jinn almost gained a majority in their last election? If they pull their war barges from the Coalition Army, we lose the ability to purge corrupted worlds.”
“Foresight… she said if humanity lasted a single decade, her gamble was worth it.”
The room suddenly grew cold. They were approaching the fifth decade since Aes fell and Levinia passed. By the holy ones, did she commit suicide? Were things really so bad, even back then?
Earnest gestured towards the door. “You should go, Persuasion. I won’t abandon my post. No matter how much I hate sending the weak fools from Union Central to their deaths.”
Caroline put a hand to her forehead. “Command refuses to spend more lives on Aes. I can’t change their minds on such a firm position any more than I can yours. Even if it is as dire as you say.”
“If you want to help, tell the government of Promise City that the reconquest is important. Public support is declining.”
She sighed. “I can do that much for you.”
“Thank you, Persuasion.”
“I am happy to be of service, Transit.” As Caroline left behind the embassy, she felt the weariness in her heart grow deeper. Events constantly spiraled downward. Her best efforts did no more than delay the inevitable.
They needed the Xian to be more involved in the Coalition Army, so she had to leave Maya for a time to prevent conflict between Thrakkar and Kevin. While she was gone, the Assembly of Svarga would be certain to move deployed resources back home to protect the world of Maya. In the long term, that was only placing the home world in more danger. Yet the Representatives would bow to the fears of their constituents without her there.
Everything was bad and getting worse. Caroline squared her shoulders as she planned how she would scare the government of Promise City into providing more soldiers for the Aes reconquest. However dire things might become, she wasn’t going to give up. Nor would she let herself believe that Levinia had done so.