"Toying with forces beyond your ken, you courted danger like others courted maidens."

The Clown spoke first and thrust the bouquet at Resil and he accepted it without thought. The grave blossoms smelled faintly of death and decay as they filled his grasp. Next one of the three puppets rose up, the ladybird spoke before the other puppets joined her.

"The seeking man travels far and wide, his quest uninterrupted."

"A town under siege and a shard on the way."

"A choice to make either way."

The Moth and Scarab puppets added their predictions and Resil turned to look at the Tarot Reader who never read her cards, she merely flipped three cards out on her board. She smiled at him with yellowing teeth and adjusted the face-down cards.

"The world rejoices for an evil shall fall. In its place who knows who takes it all?"

"For what has come and been sent has been worse, than any evils of this world wrought."

"A candidate builds themselves, they are legion, and they are one."

The Tarot Reader was followed up by the Clown and the Moth puppet and Resil decided that he had enough of this ominous prattling.

"Yesyesyes I understand that doom is on the horizon, the future is never static so let us just move on shall we. I am here for information and if you see then you know what I want."

The puppets, the Puppeteer, and the Reader all smiled broadly at him response. No mirth was in those smiles, only horrific hunger. But Resil knew monsters and he was worse than anything these three charlatans could unleash so he ignored the two who smiled and the Clown who never moved his mouth.

"Conquest"

"Context"

"Consequences"

The three spoke almost at once in response to him before they let the Puppeteer take over the show as all three puppets began to move. First, the moth flew up as if guided by invisible strings. The grey cloth and wood almost glittered in the gentle light within the mausoleum. Second, came the Ladybug as it climbed up along a wall after jumping from the sarcophagus. Lastly was the scarab who slowly floated up and slowly rotated around like a man hanging from a noose.

"I am the death to all things, the conqueror of all, an apocalypse forged in a place above the end. Never flying because now I am everywhere and nowhere."

"I am life itself and what a terrible thing I am, all life is me and I am eternal."

"I kill the world and become it, all is reborn."

Resil gestured impatiently to the three figures and let some of his true nature show through the human guise he affected. A sight that had made Heroes and Archmages run away in fright only caused the assembled Carnies to giggle before the Clown took to the stage.

"Your past is set and that is all, death is coming for us all-"

"Trying to rhyme a word with itself is bad poetry, can we get to the point. Do you know how I can find the seed or do you not?"

"Fool! You have tangled with forces far beyond this world. A mere god cannot hope to wrestle with the Forger's Get and expect to live. Your past is set and your path is set, the Harbinger was no more and have been gone as you understand it. A Woodsman who listened through the mushrooms and roots had a dead family!"

The Clown practically screamed in Resil's face and seemed clearly offended by the interruption. Spittle coated his face but he knew better than to offend them further, as annoying as the three were they had abilities that would make tangling with them...inconvenient. So, rather than replying, he looked over to the last of the Carnies to hear what she had to say.

"What does he mean that it is gone? A Conquest Seed should be indestructible, all that I have read has indicated as such."

"Little boy that might become true from your perspective, but in reality that will be false. As for this one destruction is not the issue, that which will live still has a part to play. The hope of the world or the enemy of all will depend on your perspective. A reply to your question is going to arrive tonight if you hurry you will hear the creator's answer to your plight."

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She spoke with almost a hushed whisper and the reply made Resil think and decide he needed to leave but he would ask them one last time before leaving. He sincerely doubted that they would tell him anything useful

"Do you have the means to find the Seed?"

"You have decided to not speak and therefore so have we. A final parting to thee: Do not open it."

The three figures spoke at the same time and next when Resil blinked they were gone and he was once more alone in the mausoleum. He sneered and almost spat upon the floor in disgust, what a waste of time that had been. It had been not worth the effort to travel here, but he could at least conclude that the reply to his message would come this day. Whatever the Carnies were, accurate about times was usually one of them. Their predictions on the other hand...not so much.

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"And so his role has ended"

The Clown stated matter of factly as they felt the fallen god depart the city through the same means as he had arrived. Each of them occupied a different point in space as they plied their craft over the city. All in all, they were one in that they fulfilled their purpose as observants of the story, but each had a different take.

He stood before a dark alley holding his balloon watching a woman run away screaming while the Tarot-Reader whispered over the crib of the future King. She was the one to reply as she flipped the cards back into the deck.

"The world will rejoice and cry out in despair. Our newest player of the game will grow and have respite. A Sovereign who will play a longer game than most."

"So we play the same, we move two pawns in place. A third-rate Sorcerer and a broken man with blood in their veins and misfortune on their back."

"They died in their way and danger is all they knew, first the past, then the present, then the future."

Puppets sang and a Clown concluded as the first prediction came. The Clown disappeared once the mugger left the alley after failing to stab anyone that day, he flicked through the spaces between things and landed on a field not too far away from a former Conquest Seed.

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Resil was in their private ritual chamber when it came. It came with a rift in space, through which not even his eyes wanted to see, as the raw magic of the Ethereal burned those who were not specifically accustomed to it. Through it, a blacked shard of some kind of glass fell to the floor and the rift closed itself behind it. He could remember that the rift he had created to send the message was identical to the one that had just appeared, so it gave him hope.

He gingerly bent down and picked up the shard and felt it cool against the touch of his flesh. There was power in this artifact, was it perhaps created by the Seed-Maker to track wayward Conquest Seeds? Or was it just containing information or a mere message in reply to his plea.

A few muttered spells and some channeled power were enough for him to try and make sense of the foreign energies that permeated the shard, made of a magick that was not meant to function in this universe. It had a name scorched into it, a name that was hard to pronounce but which Resil presumed was the activation phrase.

"Leringexis"

Resil said solemnly while pushing some of his mana into the object to provoke a reaction, and he felt the spoken word slide into the item like a key into a lock. And his eyes widened as he felt the door open and remembered the final warning.

"Don't open it...well gods damnit"

And with that Leringexis the Shrimp-Demon entered the world of Eria and immediately fought against all that was nearby. The first was a god that suddenly had to unleash all of their stored power to keep himself from being massacred as their battle shook the very mountains themselves. As a large being of coiling flesh and an enormous shrimp from a world with monsters that made Conquest Seeds seem benign.