The Tilean Kingdom could be better said to be a Proto Empire. They owned the whole Continent and had outposts on the connected Continent. Their Wealth and knowledge was unrivalled.
Then the Seers of the Kingdom had found out about the End of their Kingdom. Happening through their Miasma by way of a Lord of the Demons. A Demon controlling and ordering other Demons came to be and will be their end. Magic would not work against it as it would it only strengthen it. Physical strength would not help much, as it had a total domination Aura that would weaken every Fighter of this World.
It was a Cheat, but one the Kingdom accidentally nourished themselves. Using their Powers of calling to the God Aldrin they asked for a Miracle. He could not give such a Miracle but gave them a way out out of pity.
Summoning Ritual. Nothing on their World was able to cut Strings of Fate, but pulling a being from another World would be able to reshuffle those Strings. A being not from this World can beat the Demon Lord as it is not tethered to what the Future originally had planned.
Everything growing has to ebb, and the Kingdom refused to die, when it was their time so they Summoned a Hero. This Hero was the one who would destroy the Demon Lord and reshuffle the Deck in Favour of the Kingdom.
But Fate is not to be cheated like that. The Summoning made the Mana into Miasma and the Fields dried up while the Kingdom was plagued by Monsters.
As their Fate was reshuffled the Kingdom started anew with Determination. Their Magic and the knowledge of Technology from the Hero combined created Miasma Filter. The Miasma got collected, sorted, stored and slowly returned into Mana.
The Fields bloomed again and the Technology grew further. But Aldrin gave another Warning, as they have to break their Kingdom up and become humble. This time the Kingdom, long after the Hero died did not listen to their God and worked on higher peaks.
The Seers now able to see the Future close to perfection saw the rise of a Fungal Infection from deep below. It was more than their time to perish and Fate had it in for them. While they knew they could not cheat Fate just like that someone came up with an Idea. If they ‘accidentally’ use that place as the unfiltered Miasmic storage place, it would not be against Fate… directly.
The Plan was slim and obviously dangerous, but the Fungal outbreak was unable to digest Miasma in any Form, so the Seers told. The new King made the Order to reroute the Miasma.
The lower Tunnels of the Fungi flooded with bound Miasma in some kind of Oily substance. Not only was the Miasma taken care of, but the Fungi could do nothing and nearly fully perished before even breaking out.
As Miasma was bound in this substance, Mana got thinner and thinner on the World. Below, the Miasma could not return to the natural state of becoming Mana and although the Fungi was beaten, Seers suddenly saw nothing of the Future.
After a specific Time Frame it just stopped like everything vanished. To find the Reasoning the Seers ordered to build a new specific Temple for concentrating all the Scrying Magic and even the filtered Miasma with the most potent telling of the truth. The next King acknowledged the need, as it sounded like a new Danger was looming.
Finished Building they found the truth in a Flash of Light, something hammering from the Firmament and making a gigantic Crater with a wave of destructive Miasma killing most inhabitants instantly.
The Warning came and as the Kingdom of Tilean wanted to take shelter the bright light illuminated the Night and afterwards a Miasmic Winter buried the way too old Kingdom for good.
…
“So you are saying…”
“Yes, the Star that fell was their own Fault. They tilted the Scales so much to their favour, Fate snapped those scales back with vengeance.”
That is insane but might have a kernel of truth in them. Flip a coin and you get heads of tails. Do this a million times and you get half time heads and half time tails. Now we have flipped the coin half a million times and always got Heads, everyone would think someone has cheated. But we now have a World with Magic and there might be even an Entity ruling over probability to make everything fair.
This Entity lays out the play board and throws the Dice. Okay, the players use a small boon to change the Die roll, nothing to worry, it is fair play. But if they do it over and over and over again, I would be angry too. On a million sided Die only one million would be a good outcome and someone nudged it on a million, the next one million Die I would throw would only have the Number One on every side.
“This explains the Crater, but not your meddling.”
“It does. This is the place, where the Temple was built.”
“Hang on, we are at Ground Zero?!”
“Null, what are you talking about with them?”
“Remember the Ruins we explored? They were the Remnants of this lost Kingdom. They messed with something they should not have messed, as they bent the Laws of Probability too much and it messed them right up. This place was the last Straw, and made the Crater we are living in right now.”
“So we are in danger?”
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Snow took out her Claws. They are reinforced, and will not break that easily any more, as I infused them with every magic Metal I could shove into them.
“You are not in Danger beautiful Rat Empress. The place was destroyed Millennia ago. Fate slowly brings all back to where it should be. We are just remnants and not change but follow the way. If the Fate deems us to die, we die, if it deems us to lead, we lead.”
“...Fate is telling you to tell me this?”
“Indirectly. You are already working on what you are doing. We give you a boon to let the Fate be balanced again.”
“And what is the thing in the Crater slumbering?”
“...the second calamity if the first would not have eliminated the Kingdom. It was not needed, luckily.”
“And… What is it?”
“We don’t know. It never will awaken, if you survive it.”
“If I survive… Hang on, why suddenly that ‘if’?”
“While you should contain it, if you do not, the thing will do your work and this World will go a completely different way we can not even see if we try, as we are all dead, such is Fate decided to be.”
Okay, that is way too ominous! So they see me beating it, but sounds like by the skin of my teeth! If I slack I will just be removed and nothing comes out of it. What the heck!
…
Understanding the Cult of the Dreaming Machine is impossible. They told me their secret, that this is the source of the dreams the Shamans of the Steppe have. They are at the source and are now enslaved to it.
Those who do not want to bow to their visions this place gives them breaks their Mind and goes crazy. Those People are forsaken by Fate, so the Cultists say and either die or bring misfortune to their Tribes, if they find their way back.
We are immune, as we are not born here… so they say, but staying here on the place where Fate is residing is not really comfortable, as stepping accidentally on her toes might make her angry.
Especially, as I want to make my own Fate. I do not want to be a plaything any more!
Right on cue an Elder came in. This one is a Ferret elder. They have all kind of Beast People here.
“Do not worry, Visitor from another World. Your Fate is still your own. What you are doing is just cleaning up a bit, while you are here. Whatever you do is that what you decide, if you want to do something different, this will also be acceptable.”
“Yeah, like you knowing what my worry is. It feels like you read my Mind.”
“We do no such thing, we just say, what we are supposed to say, and do what we are supposed to do, as we are already trapped in the weave of Fate to never do something on our own. You on the other hand are not.”
“...is Fate a Spider, creating a web?”
“No, but you can think of it like that, if you will. If you want to know what Fate really is, just ask, and I will be answering.”
“If you already know everything, does that not mean you know my answer already?”
“Yes, but the notion to ask is still needed, or the answer will not be able to be given to whom would ask.”
“But you just came in while I did not say… And just answered something I did not… I give up, I do not understand you at all.”
“So do you want to know…”
“No! Some things are better not known. Even if it is not a Spider, knowledge of something far beyond the realm of my own being, might damage me even worse than the Void did.”
“A wise choice… and by the way, you are right.”
I DID NOT WANT TO KNOW THAT!
…
“If you are so anxious, I feel anxious too, Null.”
“I know, but I can not relax here in a place, where they know everything like they are at a knot of all the knowledge in the World.”
“But you could ask them how to get back where you want to go, no?”
“...Yes, but that frightens me. I feel like I am right now on a gigantic Game Board and am so small. If they really are truthful, they know how and when they will die, and what they will do until then.”
“So? What is that problem?”
“Imagine you knew already, you will see Anna die in front of you or I will be going somewhere where you will never see me again. Would you be calm about that?”
“WHAT!? No! Of course not! I would do anything to stop that from happening!”
“Those guys… They know about what will happen. Every good thing, every bad thing. They can not change even one Iota without going insane, so they accepted their now linear Life.”
“I could not do that. If I knew, you or Anna or Spot would get hurt, I would change that!”
“But they can’t. If they do, they get some kind of backlash. Going insane and worst of all, they said if they got back home ill will happen to the people around them. Those people either go die alone or bring suffering to their loved ones. They are not Cultists… they are Prisoners.”
“...and you can not help them?”
“No, I would not even know where to begin to help them. How should I do that? I do not even know what Fate really is, and if I knew it could not only endanger me but everyone I know…”
“We can not help and if we try we could get in danger. Now I am anxious like you, too.”
“Sorry, but… I have the inkling if we would see beyond the Veil of what is really here… beyond the place of what we can sense, we would see something that we should not perceive.”
“You think so?”
“I am sure about it. This was a place, where highly advanced Seers tried to see into the Future of something that did not exist any more. There was not a single thing, that tethered Fate into this. Also this place is way too far out the reach of the crate for it to be so heavily damaged, that it just deteriorated itself. The other place we were was way more stable than this… hole. This place looks like… something has slammed right into this place after they were peeking. I do not believe the Seers had a chance to tell the Kingdom before they were themselves extinguished.”
“What do you mean? I am getting scared…”
“What I mean is… Whatever Fate is, it was angry and stomped them dead.”