When Galileo walked into the cafeteria there were suspiciously many people sipping at their steaming drinks. As he sat opposite to Quinn it had become obvious that something was not quite right. Her expression was grim as she didn't even greet him. In fact, she avoided his gaze entirely. There was only one reason why she would act that way, so Galileo was kind enough to turn around to order two cups of coffee and giver her the opportunity she needed. When he turned back there was a barrel pointed directly at his forehead, firmly held in Quinn's hand. There was a tear running down her cheek as she stared Galileo directly on eyes.
"You lied to me, all along," she whispered an accusation.
"So did you, Wisdom," Galileo whispered back, low enough that no one could hear him. When he had attempted to influence Wisdom the previous day he had realised that she was immune to mind magic, just like Quinn. Once he had began to suspect, it was not difficult to affirm that it had indeed been Quinn behind that ceramic mask.
"Please, just surrender," she said, drying of the tear with her sleeve.
"Do you believe you can make me?" Galileo smiled.
"No, I cannot," Quinn shook her head, "But I know two things: You are reluctant to kill me and you want to meet with the Immortal. So let's make a deal. You will come along and tell me what I want and in exchange, I will make arrangements for you."
"Sounds enticing," Galileo laughed as he reached into his clothes, pulling out an illusion of a pistol, aiming at Quinn, "However, it's far too boring," suddenly almost all the people present jumped up, pulling out their own weapons and all pointing then at Galileo.
"What else can you possibly want," Quinn gritted her teeth as the coffee owner began to scream in the background.
"For starters," Galileo let the weapon dissipate, instead manifesting a chess piece, the white king from the set he had previously gifted Quinn, "A match of chess," he then put of both his hands forward, "So go ahead and take me away before another whim changes my mind."
"Just play along," Quinn whispered as she took a pair of handcuffs from her handbag, still keeping Galileo at gun-point "I will take care of everything else."
"Don't move!" one of the nearby men stepped closer and put a rough sack over Galileo's head as soon as he was restrained while another attached and electrical collar around his throat. Now with his hands tied and vision obstructed someone forcefully stood him up.
"Not as stealthy as I would expect from the Foundation," Galileo chuckled, sparks of electricity surging from his collar, though they could not properly pass through his skin.
"Shut it!" someone harshly called out.
"Stop!" Quinn commanded and Galileo felt a breeze hit his cheek, probably from a halted punch. That was good for the man since if it had connected his fist would have at the very least cracked.
"Who are you to give me orders?" the man seemed angry.
"You would be surprised," Galileo laughed, adding a bit of wood to the fire.
"Enough," another voice sounded, apparently not in the mood for the other man's temper issues. Though there was an angry grunt the conflict had stopped. Next Galileo was rather roughly lead outside the building. He had decided that he would maintain the silence of his escort as he curiously listened to the outrage of the cafeteria owner. The woman had guts to yell at an armed group passing right by her.
Soon enough Galileo was moved around the streets. To deal with the boring downtime he tracked their location, especially after their group casually walked through a wall on his mental map. Perhaps he just misremembered the layout, but it was more likely that they had just gone through some sort of a secret entrance. They walked for almost twenty minutes through some sort of underground corridors when they had stopped.
"Who are you?" One of Galileo's escorts exclaimed loudly.
"New orders from high up. We are taking over the prisoner," a calm voice from up ahead sounded and something flew through the air. Galileo also noticed that Quinn utilised the distraction to slip away.
"These are legitimate," a voice sounded right beside Galileo as the man audibly waved a small stack of papers.
"So what," the man who had nearly punched Galileo earlier scoffed, “We have orders from a faculty director.”
“Not high enough,” Galileo chuckled as he stepped forward, “Wha…” the temperamental man attempted to say, though he was apparently stopped by someone as he did not finish his sentence. No-one stopped Galileo as he exchanged his escorts and they took off into the tunnels.
“Who exactly are you?” one of the man said, perhaps surprised at Galileo’s ability to walk along them despite the sack on his head.
“Sorry, Wisdom would probably get mad if I were to tell you,” Galileo decided to leave Quinn a bit of minor annoyance to deal with later as a form of retaliation against this needlessly long walk. Perhaps the man would ask questions later. He unfortunately couldn’t see the soldier's grimace. After another long while, they finally left the tunnels, at least judging by the breeze that welcomed them outside. There Galileo was seated in some sort of vehicle.
“Leave us be,” he heard that familiar mechanical voice of Wisdom from in front of him.
“He is not properly restrained,” one of the man objected.
“Did I stutter?” somehow even the modulator could not completely eliminate the outburst of frustration.
“No. I am sorry for speaking out of the line,” the soldier apologised and closed the door behind himself.
“We are alone,” Quinn spoke, her tone back to normal, “You can remove all that now.”
“Why the parade?” Galileo asked as the sack and his fetters evaporated.
“I have to also cover up my traces as Quinn,” she replied, “Had I not done that it would have made things much more difficult for me in the long run. But I should be the one asking questions”
“Remember what you promised me,” Galileo seated himself more comfortably, staring into Quinn’s eyes.
“I am not stupid enough to go back on a deal with the devil,” she stared back grimly.
“Although it’s a common mistake, I am technically not a devil,” Galileo decided that it was about as good time as any to deny that wrong title often attached to him.
“Bullshit,” Quinn shot back, “What are you then?”
“As I have never undergone a legitimate apotheosis, I could still be mostly considered a human,” Galileo explained.
“Humans cannot survive getting run through by a railgun,” Wisdom did not seem satisfied.
“Not those of this era,” Galileo admitted, “Though, as you might have guessed, I don’t exactly belong to this time.”
“Yes. I had suspected you were from the ancient times,” Quinn nodded, though her expression was still rather desolate, “How old are you then.”
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“That is hard to say,” Galileo shook his head, “I had stopped counting long ago.”
“Approximately,” Quinn stared at him harshly for that.
“Somewhere on the edge between tens and hundreds of thousand years,” Galileo eventually decided on that rough guess, “I look rather young for that, don’t I?” he attempted to jest.
"How is that even possible?!" However, Quinn seemed far too alarmed to pay attention to his humour, "That makes no sense when put into an account with history."
"I wouldn't know how your history was written,” Galileo shrugged his shoulders, “But from what I have read it didn’t seem very accurate. I am not even among the oldest. For example Angelica, the angel that scoured that facility from the map. She is about as old as it gets, though she doesn’t really show it. She has at least a few millennia on me.”
“We named her Archangel,” Quinn nodded, “And I assume it is not a coincidence that the two of you had appeared together.”
“You would be correct in your assumption.” Galileo nodded, “Our relationship had been… Let’s say complicated. You see, I had always been know for my morbid curiosity. The indomitable desire to understand things that should be beyond comprehension. I would consider it merely a happy coincidence that it had lead me down the path of immortality and power beyond reckoning. At one point I had taken interest in the celestial flesh of angels and demons, so I figured: What better specimen than the first living angel? I had captured her, completed my experimentation and then swiftly forgot she was even in my capture, as had happened many times before. I won’t go into needless detail, but two millennia had passed when I had decided to return back to the world and released Angelica in the process.”
“You had captured, That?!” Quinn seemed to forget even her dark expression as she yelled out.
“She had been heavily injured beforehand,” Galileo shook his head, “I couldn’t do it again without making unbearable sacrifices.”
“Why did you release her in the first place?” Quinn seemed almost furious over that.
“I had no idea the world no longer had any gods at the time, and killing the right hand of the most powerful deity is just not something I wanted hanging around my neck, especially considering I thought I would have to deal with the consequences of imprisoning her for such a long time.”
“You say there were multiple deities?” Quinn seemed particularly shocked about that part.
“If my count is correct, there were about 12 deities and 7 devils alive at the time of my departure, though only about 3 in the mix were actually deserving of that title.”
“You keep mixing together deities and devils,” Quinn frowned, “Explain that first.”
“It is a tall task to explain logarithms to someone who cannot recognise numbers,” Galileo shrugged, hoping that his remark made sense since it was based on something he had read on the internet, “I think I have to begin with the source of all power. Mana,” he said and for illustration manifested a small circle of green flames above his palm, ”It is the driving force of magic and all things supernatural. Although there are many complexities and tidbits, those are not particularly important for now. What you have to know is the basic property of mana: The division of chaos and order. Divine power is mana which is born purely of order and abyssal energy is a force of untainted chaos, everything else is a combination somewhere in between. The division between deities and devils lies in that difference. Deities are Gods of pure order while Devils are any Gods in the middle between the two.”
“What about Gods who utilise only chaos,” Quinn seemed interested enough to slightly reduce her angry expression.
“There never had and never will be such a being, thus there is no name for it,” Galileo shrugged and continued when he saw Quinns questioning eyes, “Unmitigated chaos has the side effect of driving one insane. Some described hellish monstrosities gnawing at their bones in their dreams or unbearable phantom pain in limbs they never had. Such suffering would eventually just create a complete unpredictable lunatic and that is basically mutually exclusive with the requirement of apotheosis.”
“And what would those requirements be?” Quinn asked.
“There are 3. First, a being must be powerful enough,” Galileo complied, “That means around the peak of what we used to call the 5th leap. For comparison, the strongest being I had witnessed since my return had barely qualified at the peak of the first. Second is the potential: Some people are simply born superior to others and possess so-called gifts. And among those with gifts the most powerful are Godseeds. When a Godseed is born the universe itself celebrates, calling down great supernatural phenomena which shake the earth and brighten the skies. Other than Godseeds few can break the gap to Godhood. For example, despite all her power, the Archangel, as you came to call her, will never be able to reach Godhood.”
“Were you a Godseed,” Quinn’s expression turned grim again as she perhaps remembered how mad she was about being lied to.
“Of course,” Galileo smiled, “I was told that my birth had been among the most marvellous in history.”
“Then what is the reason you still haven't become a God?” Quinn now actually appeared slightly curious rather than scheming.
“The third condition, of course.” Galileo nodded, “One must encounter a tremendous loss. Something that will fracture their mind and allow it to be reforged. I personally pride myself as someone with only my life to lose and since I am not particularly interested in the side effects of a divine form I had not taken any drastic measures yet.”
“Then let’s return to why you wish to meet the Immortal,” Quinn nodded and changed the direction.
“I had met him many times in the past, long before the cataclysm,” Galileo recalled, “He was my first guess when it came to surviving an event which killed anything resembling powerful and since I am rather interested in what caused such a tremendous catastrophe he is my best option.”
“Why was he your first guess,” Quinn wanted to confirm.
“As you know, his body is covered in strange runes,” Galileo tried to redraw one of them from his memory using his green flame, “Considering his strength to bent the hardest metals with his fingers it would be reasonable to believe that each of them empowers his muscles. However, upon studying them I have noticed something absolutely terrifying: The runes are not empowering him. Each of them is a seal which burns away his magical power in order to reinforce his physical form, ensuring he cannot use any magic. That muscle power is merely a side effect. It is not just you who was unable to leave a dent in his skin. He had been known for being utterly indestructible even among the Gods. Moreover, the sheer power sunk into those seals also impacts the very reality in a thin layer around his skin. Any magic that as much as touches him is instantly disrupted and goes completely out of control.”
“If all those are seals, just how powerful would he be without them,” Quinn realised the real question.
“I have done the calculations many times,” Galileo nodded, “And the results were so nonsensical that even I cannot believe them. For comparison, the strongest being in the ancient times had been the God of creation. If every single living human in the ancient world possessed power equal to the God of creation, their sum would still be significantly inferior to what I concluded the Immortal’s power had been without the seals. For that reason and many others, I have come to a conclusion: He is not someone from this world. I don’t know how he did it without magic or where he hails from, but he must be an outsider. Someone as progenitor as time itself.”
“Then who could have sealed him?” Quinn naturally asked
“Something even more powerful than him. Perhaps it was the universe itself, assuming it is even conscious enough to do that. My knowledge of its greater picture is currently quite lacking.”
“Then the last thing I need to know right now,” Quinn breathed out and stared Galileo directly in the eyes, a glitter of moisture even appearing in her gaze, “Why did you spare me? Why did you keep coming to our meeting and keep challenging me?”
“Do you truly need to ask,” Galileo stood up walked over to Quinn, holding up her chin, “You have done something unimaginable. You have made me suffer defeat. Not in brawn or dexterity, but in an honest a pure battle of wits. And you did it over and over again. As I have said before, I am controlled by my morbid curiosity. And I will not let go until I understand everything there is to know and more once it ignites.”
“I am Wisdom, an overseer of the Foundation. A guardian of mankind,” Quinn kept staring at Galileo, unmoving, though long-suppressed tears began to rain down her face, “I will not accept you and your evil power. I cannot!”
“Power is not evil,” Galileo shook his head and placed his other palm on Quinn’s forehead, “Intentions are.”
“That is too easy for you to say,” more and more tears ran down her cheeks, “All my life I have seen it. Magic used by evil for evil. That horrendous power to break and mutilate. You have done it yourself, you had killed people for your own benefit.”
“So did you,” Galileo shook his head, “The world is not black and white. You are wise enough to see that, yet you keep your eyes shut in front of what you don’t want to see. I cannot drown whatever demons haunt you, but I can at the very least help you open them,” Galileo said as he removed his hand from Quinn’s forehead. Beneath it appeared a tattoo similar to an eye. It flickered for a moment and then disappeared from sight, though the effects remained.
“What have you done to me?!” Quinn exclaimed as she undoubtedly felt the change. Her mind was suddenly clearer and faster, as she began to perceive things beyond perception. Walls were no longer a barrier to her eyes, minds were childish puzzles rather than entangled wines and magic began to unravel before her stare.
“As I have said. Some people are born superior to others,” Galileo smiled, “I had merely helped your gift manifest. You should rest now and think about this for a few days. We can speak then,” he said and applied a bit of pressure throughout Quinn’s body, making her pass out as gently as he could before she could react. Catching her body, he placed her ceramic mask back on and laid her down on the bench attached to the vehicle's wall. Then he returned to the opposite bench, though Galileo did not rest as he would need to wake Quinn up upon their arrival.
“I hope I have not completely screwed everything up,” he sighed as he looked over at Quinn in the black robes and mask of Wisdom. He knew that perhaps only time would tell.