What the hells?
I’d seen hints of this before. Glimmers of a past that cast Thoth not as an enemy, but as an ally. But from the way we talked, how that version of me felt, we weren’t just allies.
We were friends.
More than that, I was an agent. In that timeline, I’d taken part in the Metamorphosis society’s conspiracy to ward off Ragnarok. From the sound of it, I was one of the first. Same as Thoth. There wasn’t a lot of hard information about the cult, there never had been, and Thaddeus’s absence had severely impeded any advancement in that direction. But from what Ralakos had told me, it wasn’t a small undertaking. They intended to use children with high potential for magical talent—one of many tensions that eventually led Ralakos to walk away from the project—and from the way he’d described it, there’d been far more than three.
My predecessor seemed saddened by the loss of the elf, but not at all surprised. More disquieting was the sense of finality to the proceedings.
Had every other looper shared the same fate as the elf? Lost their minds over hundreds of iterations, countless wasted decades fighting against an enemy that could never truly be vanquished?
As the hemorrhaging husk of my soul loomed over me, swimming in the nothingness of eternity, it left me with a final, unanswerable question.
What the fuck was I supposed to do?
No, really.
I was approaching the limits of plausibility here. Even if I exploited every loop with potential, used vurseng to increase the time I spent conscious, squeezed every drop of blood, potential, and effort out of myself until there was nothing left, it still wouldn’t be enough. I’d lost, at the very least, centuries of experience. And the real number was almost definitively more. And assuming the absolute best case—that Thoth somehow hadn’t reached the unknowable upper echelon of power my previous self was striving for—she’d still have a far better grasp on her power than I did.
It was unwinnable. It always had been. There were plenty of signs to that effect, ample evidence to draw from. I’d been here before. But before, it was different. I’d always been able to find the one reason to push forward, the one small, key, sliver of hope to keep marching forward. To keep fighting. Now there was nothing. Just a vacuous hole, as dark as the void that surrounded me.
Hate her. Stoke the fire until it’s so hot you can barely stand it.
Clarity stilled the darkness, terrifying in its intensity. For all her self-righteous grandstanding, Thoth was the one who had betrayed me. Whatever our bond, whatever her history, it was the only explanation. My previous self hadn’t intended to leave the loop indefinitely. His mind was shielded, but of that, I was sure. It was a temporary reprieve, one that carried with it the chance of ascending to a higher level of power. I couldn’t imagine being willing to give up everything I’d built. So, when she removed me from the loop, potentially the same way she’d removed Ume, I’d trusted her to bring me back in. And she hadn’t.
It wasn’t until either by chance or outside intervention I’d kept my memories of a loop, and been granted an ability that in some small way countered Thoth’s that I’d been able to offer any opposition at all.
My essence moved back and forth in the spiritual equivalent of pacing, as I tried to put myself in the headspace of my unknowable patron.
Again, why? Why bother? They must have known there was little to no chance of my offering all but the most token resistance. That the best I could do within my smaller loops would ensure my survival to the end, that even if I used every smaller loop to the fullest I’d only reach a fraction of her centuries of accumulated power. Gods were not known for bestowing frivolous boons. Well, to some extent they were, but the boon I’d received was anything but frivolous. If my gift was divine, given in a time where the gods themselves were fading from this plane, it was almost assuredly astronomically expensive, even by divine standards.
So why? There had to be a reason. Something I had now that the previous loopers didn’t.
When we are born, our souls are pure. When we die, our souls are damaged. Pure arcane energy repairs the soul—whether you want to call that god, or the devil, or whatever else—but it doesn’t do a perfect job. Residual magic left behind after repairing a soul is where manifested elements come from.
A chill cut through me, as Ralakos’s words surfaced in my memory. The foraminous soul. The rational reason my previous self wanted to be removed from the loop. He said that nothing affected him anymore, implied that the accumulated numbness stunted his ability to break through. To what, exactly, I still didn’t know.
Slowly, I raised the memory orb, studying it silently. I had embedded it within my soul. If it wasn’t for the extensive damage and my attempts to stabilize myself, I would have never found it. And I was becoming increasingly convinced that I—rather, my predecessor—was the one who’d hidden it there as a message, hoping it’d eventually be found.
And as far as I knew, I was the only person who could find it.
Not giving myself enough time to reconsider, I struck outward towards the center of my soul, five sparks of absolution forming apparitional fingertips. Soul matter trembled beneath the fire, cleaving.
“What are you doing?” The demonic eye squealed, shuffling toward the sudden blaze.
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“Something I should have done a long time ago.” I shoved further inward, carving out another section. This was what I’d been missing. The reason I was chosen. Numbness aside, the centuries I’d lived before the loss of my powers and memories had not been without cost. With the current state of my soul, I could sense the potential for another awakening years from now.
And that wasn’t good enough.
I needed more power, and I needed it now. That was the advantage I held over the previous loopers. Perhaps, the only one. They needed some soul damage to reach arch-mage status, but their preferred method was erosion. Realistically, with potential centuries ahead, they couldn’t hasten the process without risking a collapse several iterations later.
But no matter how much the days, weeks, and months I repeated added up, I only had one life to live. Reincarnation meant little when my soul’s future resting place was consigned to the hells. There was no guarantee I’d keep my memories in the event of a true restart. If beyond all odds I did, it meant that I’d lose.
Everything.
At first, I tore away almost mindlessly, a dark glee driving me forward as I carved piece after piece free from the whole. There were sections, places that when I neared them, a primal instinct warned me to leave alone. I had enough mind left to heed those warnings and sometimes carved around them, sometimes cut through the surrounding matter and moved them.
Dimly, I remembered several diagrams I’d encountered doing research on the soul in one of the many pocket libraries filled with ancient texts, scattered around the Sanctum. Diagrams of souls within them were grand, luminescent things, imparting a far more heavenly image than the dark-red-reality of the construct before me. The text itself was a necromantic bible, delving far deeper into the forbidden magic than anything I’d found in the more carefully censored sections of the Infernal libraries. The author was clearly a necromancer, and it was implied—though never directly stated—that the diagrams of souls she’d transcribed were from kidnapped subjects, all with varying degrees of magic potential. Of her many, many victims, one stood above the rest. A powerful mage the necromancer believed to be reaching the end of his reincarnation cycle.
The uniqueness of the subject’s soul extended beyond the potency associated with age. Because unlike common souls, it kept a distinct shape. She’d described the shape of his soul as a spiral, completely hollow at the center, encased by rings of soul-matter descending towards the base. The base itself never returned to a discernible whole, rather it appeared to be composed of increasingly smaller rings, eventually growing so tiny they were impossible to discern even with the necromancer’s considerable abilities and equipment.
And in the center, a core of pure, primal mana, encased within the rings.
The structure gave an obvious advantage. Over the course of a typical reincarnation, a soul's reconstruction was imperfect. Mana filled the gaps. The captured mage had somehow manipulated his soul to force a far greater quantity of mana towards the center. Over the remaining pages, before she moved on to the next section railing against the then-current practice of ritual sacrifice, the necromancer spent a lot of time engaging in frustrated hypotheticals.
For one, she wasn’t certain that a soul with such heavy modifications could survive the process of reincarnation and being transplanted into another body. It was likely too tampered with to be viable by the divine powers that decided such things, and would instead be sent to its final rest.
She admitted there was a possibility the mage might have intended to use whatever method he used initially to restructure his soul to something more passable before he reached his end, but without knowing the method, that was more conjecture than anything else.
My movements and adjustments became more calculated, intentional, as I continued to mutilate my soul, forming the top part of a spiral according to the diagram. It felt unstable, like it wouldn’t take. I hesitated, not sure how to proceed.
“Stop!” The eye squealed again. Seemingly at the end of its patience, one of the infernal chains came loose, snapping over the spiral and clamping down, holding it in place.
An idea formed. I floated above the eye, staring down at it, hoping my presence communicated disdain. “I wonder what Ozra will do to you if you fail this simple task.”
“Many bad things.” It snapped. “Awful, awful things. And you will be dead. Very dead.”
“Then help me. And we both get what we want.” I communicated the structure I intended to form, and the ideal way for the infernal bindings to be rearranged. Unless the mystery mage had been an infernal with dantalion flame, we were probably using different methods here. I didn’t have access to whatever esoteric magic he’d used, that was apparently obscure enough that it stumped a necromancer powerful enough to capture him. What I had was a demonic contract, and the reinforcing binding that supported it.
The eye buzzed unhappily. “No. Too risky. Far too risky. I’m not allowed to adjust the terms of the contract.”
Interesting. Even in its demonic, tangible form, the eye-parasite still considered the chains as terms.
“Even if the soul itself is under threat?” I asked.
No answer.
“Shame.” I shoved fingertips of fire into the depths of my soul, intentionally brushing against one of the vital sections. Up to then, the entire process had been unpleasant. Painful. But the pain had receded into a dull buzzing. That dull buzzing suddenly exploded into a deep vibration, rumbling within me.
“WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?” The eye shouted.
I withdrew the fire and plunged it in once more, directly beside the previous point, creating two cavernous holes. “Because this is required. I will not stop. I’ll keep at this until I reach the end, or there’s nothing left.”
It seemed to regain some backbone at the threat. “A bluff! All things fear their undoing. You would not dare.”
I tore out the barrier between the two, leaving a crater. “You’ve been with me since the Enclave. I’m guessing you’ve seen much. My battles, my actions, my choices. You’ve had a front-row seat for all of it. So tell me. After everything you’ve witnessed. You think nothingness is what I fear?”
There was a long silence. Long enough that I withdrew the fingers of flame, and prepared to plunge them in again, tearing the vital section free. Suddenly the eye disappeared, reappearing directly in the path of my ghostly hand. It squinted, the red iris barely visible.
“If this turns out to be some sort of ploy to escape your contract—”
“It’s not.” I interrupted.
“—I will be punished. Severely. But the retribution I face will be a pittance compared to the penalty you’ll face in the hells.” The eye said. Despite its pathetic appearance and voice, the threat carried enough weight that I got the impression it was probably telling the truth.
Slowly, the chains unfurled, creating a spiral trellis.
We built.