The scene ended and Amelia was once again on the shore where, not long ago, merman had been swarming all over the place like ants. Not long ago, but at the same time, so much information had been dumped on her that she felt like it was ages ago. Epsilon stood stoically nearby, totally unphased by anything that transpired.
Amelia sat down. There was a lot to unpack from the entry that she had just seen. She was eager to listen to part II, but she felt like she needed to work through part I first. Pieces of information had been presented to her that she just needed to deal with before anything else. The sound of gentle waves pounding on sand did nothing to still the noise her brain threatened to drown her in.
“Okay Epsilon, let’s go over this together.” Amelia turned toward her defender and immediately winced. Epsilon had started to react to her name and then immediately lost interest. The way it just stood there waiting reminded Amelia of B-3, and that wasn’t really a calming or helpful influence.
“Yeah! Good thinking. Good question.” Amelia nodded, pretending that Epsilon had in fact contributed something useful instead of just standing there like a dead thing. “I had assumed, because I’m a narcissist, that I unlocked this event because I was one of the first people to do a profound thingamabob. I’m so great! Maybe I didn’t actually think that or say it out loud, but on some level I just assumed my self-importance as a given. Right?”
Epsilon didn’t respond like the catty thing she was. It wasn’t about her so she didn’t care. Typical Epsilon.
“But we’ve established that Aidan knew profound magic before me, and apparently there were a bunch of people that discovered it. Like, a lot of them right? So many, before me. Makes me feel kind of slow actually, hahaha. Of course, some of them told their friends but it is still new enough that it isn’t circulating wildly. Like hidden quests or spawn points, people were kind of keeping it to themselves. Of course, there weren’t like, a huge number of people. Just seems like a lot because all the big hitters are all, you know, trying to kill us for reasons. Like usual.” Amelia ran a hand through her short brown hair and sighed.
“Let’s think back then. When I made the heroic decision to try to use Aura, with muh mind, as Raven would say, I was spirited away by Ursula. Before that though, Forsythe told me there was an announcement saying that I’d unlocked Beginner 1 Profound, and that as a result there was some interference yadda yadda yadda and bob’s your uncle I’m being fireman carried through a wibbly wobbly timey whimey tunnel.” Amelia held up a finger toward Epsilon in an ‘aha’ fashion.
“But! But! Epsilon, and this is important I think. The announcement didn’t say that I was the first one to unlock it. Just that I, Empress of Amelia, god save the queen, had unlocked it. That triggered a thing and here we are, in the maw of this Research Facility that is starting to scare the hell out of me. It seemed cool at first, but the longer I’m here the more I think I should be anywhere else. Really, really soon.” Amelia frowned and was at a loss now.
“So, why did it trigger? Putting aside profound magic I guess the x factor is that I’m the Empress of Elysium? The Empress of Elysium, and the damsel in distress. There is a quest to come save me after all. Which, to my knowledge, no one is really doing at the moment because they’re swept up in Aspiria Civil War I.” Amelia stared blankly for a moment.
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A doubtful expression started to cross her face. “Okay, so if Civil War I hadn’t started there would be a bunch of people charging valiantly unto the breech because they liked me or because they wanted rewards.” Amelia shrugged. “Or they were bored.”
Amelia stood up and brushed her robes off as she mulled it over.
“Epsilon. Am I bait?” Amelia asked abruptly. “I don’t like that I think. I don’t like that all. Not just because I am apparently not very good bait. It also means that the conniving Mordred may actually have foiled a sinister game wide plot! That would really irritate me. Thanks for picking a fight with me, it worked out great!”
Amelia turned and stared at Epsilon and then sighed. It hadn’t been long enough for her to get another Clan Chat allowance. She was really kicking herself for wasting it now. Logging out to try to find someone to hash things out with wasn’t really appealing. There was still the next entry to get through and she was more questions than anything now.
“There are some contradictions too,” Amelia decided to just keep throwing things at the Epsilon wall. “Like, in the entry, it seemed like there was a portal or opening, whatever you’d like to call it, on the world where Perfidelia was. They treated it like a dungeon entrance that they needed to feed so it wouldn’t do… something? There must have been some sort of ‘or else’ attached to it right? On Aspiria, they just flat out kidnapped me. A bunch of really powerful looking guys said a bunch of stuff that didn't make sense and seems kind of untrue, now that I think about it. Which also seems to be what happened to Quark. Quark also mentioned that they were in contact with a lot of worlds and never heard about the Quester race. Perfidelia's world actually had people that came back though. It implies that some worlds get their people taken on the sly and the Quester want to hide their presence so they don't return them, and other worlds just get a door that sometimes people came back through with loot. What’s the difference?”
“Some kind of threat to the--.” Amelia frowned and her eyes widened. She jumped up and down for a moment and moved to Epsilon, grabbing her hands and jumped up and down with the unenthusiastic Storied Hero, raising her arms up and down like weighted ropes.
“Haha… I see. Hmm. We’re quite clever. So Epsilon, you may recall that B-3 is kind of hard to converse with, not unlike someone present I could mention. There was one time though that I said something that really irked her, I even got a warning. I started to ask a particularly fierce and testy goddess to come and help me and B-3 gave me the look. The ‘how bout ya don’t’ look. What do you want to bet that Vienne, maybe even the other gods of Aspiria, are a threat? Hmm? Interesting you say?”
Amelia stared at Epsilon expectantly and then after a moment her gaze soured. “I wish you were a soccer ball with a face.”
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“Ahh, that’s our cue.” Amelia sighed.
The good news was that when the door swallowed her, she should be able to go back to the room she shared with Quark and take a break from actual Questing. She would also get to talk to someone that would talk back. It was probably a bad sign that Amelia was turning so chatty with just herself as company.
“Ahh, it’s a nice feeling. Sure we’re in a nightmare dimension far away while our friends fight to make sure we’re not deposed. Sure you’re not much of a conversationalist. But that’s okay! I finally feel like things are starting to get under control!” Amelia gave Epsilon a thumbs up.
Amelia turned as the now familiar feeling of being pulled into a different space started to take hold. As the exit started to loom and expand growing ever wider in her vision, Amelia had a sudden burgeoning feeling of doubt. Her cheery expression started to fade as she heard Perfidelia’s voice in the back of her mind.
“In the beginning, everything will seem to be under your control. It is not. Control in that place is an illusion.”
As the door swallowed her Amelia felt her mood worsening. “Fudge.”