793 - Answers From On High
Solvei’s resurrection. A new body. Control of his tulpa, and the ability to have it spontaneously manifest things at his command. All bounties that Lex had received from his pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Starless Sky and subsequent sojourn to Darkest Night, the realm where his goddess dwelt.
But while all of those had been purchased at the high cost of realizing that his heart’s desire – to truly understand others, and be understood by them in turn – was something he’d never have, Lex considered it a worthwhile trade. For his gains had come with several indirect benefits as well. His new body had increased magical capacity. Solvei had Akna’s form, and likely her powers as well. And with his tulpa finally under his control, he could at last sleep peacefully.
That last one had been a hidden benefit which Lex had been looking forward to ever since realizing that the partitioned fraction of his mind was no longer rogue. After nearly two years of nightly distress, chased by horrific dreams that made him hesitate to close his eyes, he’d eagerly anticipated sleep once again being a form of respite, rather than another source of pain.
But after having returned from the Shrine’s claw-shaped cathedral with the Libram of Ineffable Damnation, reading its pages even as he and Solvei had retired back to the building they’d formerly shared with Fail Forward, Lex had come to realize that his anticipation of a pleasant night’s rest was premature. Because with the turn of each page, the secrets revealed in the Libram caused his unease to grow, Lex recalled that even with his tulpa reined in, there were plenty of things which could still cause him unpleasant dreams.
He was more right than he realized.
“How dare you...”
Lex had no reaction to the words, refusing to turn his head. Instead, he steadfastly stared forward, gazing at the wall of blue flames that sprung up from the featureless blackness beneath him. Even when the barbed wire around his hoof constricted to the point of cutting into his leg, he made no sound; that particular pain was something he’d felt often enough that he’d since grown accustomed to it.
But the Night Mare was not content to only show her anger through the holy symbol embedded into his body, growling as she stalked closer to his unprotected back.
“After all the favor I’ve shown you – naming you my champion, lending you my power, helping you to cultivate your own strength – this is how you repay me?”
A hoof struck the ground – or whatever it was that he was standing on – behind him, and the force of it made him brace himself, the blue flames around him flickering from the strike. “How many times did I lend you my aid, above and beyond the terms of our original covenant? I gave you a resurrection spell when you failed to protect my first true cleric on your world, allowing you to raise not only her, but the others whom you allowed to be slaughtered.”
Another strike, closer this time. “I withdrew Severance when you could no longer countenance its presence, even though it acted more directly in my interests than you did, for the most generous of terms.”
Again a harsh blow made the blue fires shiver, and now Lex could feel the goddess standing over him, the weight of her anger almost a physical thing, causing him to clench his jaw as he refused to be cowed. “Offering you my counsel again and again, granting you wisdom and revelations which guided you to victory.”
The barbed wire clenched harder then. “And that was before I saved your wretched, misspent life, bringing you here so that you could at last shed your weakness! It was through me that you found the courage to take a servant eternal! Through me that you confronted the truth about yourself! Through me that you uplifted your body!”
When next the goddess spoke, it was in a harsh whisper that came right next to his ear. “I even granted your request to pull that faithless whore of yours back from the edge of oblivion. All of this I’ve done for you, and yet now you stand there, prepared to repudiate me, knowing the consequences of such disloyalty! This, I will not tolerate!”
This time she didn’t wait for him to reply – or perhaps she knew that he had no intention of doing so – and a bat-like wing of gargantuan proportions scooped him up, curling around him with a dexterity beyond what such an appendage should have had, pinning his limbs painfully against his body as the Night Mare turned him to face her.
“YOU WILL SPEAK TO ME!!!” she thundered, red eyes glowing brightly as she bared fangs that were larger than he was. Malice radiated off of the enraged deity in waves, causing Lex to flatten his ears involuntarily. “CEASE THIS AFFRONTERY AND RECOVER YOUR TONGUE, LEST I BRING MY WRATH UPON YOU FOR YOUR PERFIDY!!! SPEAK!!!”
And then, Lex did.
“Is it true?”
Around him, the Night Mare’s wing squeezed him harder, nearly driving the breath from his lungs. “HOW DARE YOU ASK ME THAT?! HAVE I NOT EARNED YOUR LOYALTY?! YOUR DEVOTION?! YOUR FAITH?!”
“This is my faith,” countered Lex, meeting the Night Mare’s eyes unflinchingly. “Tell me that what’s written in that book is false, and I’ll believe you. But if you can’t say that it is...”
The Night Mare hurled him to the ground so fast that he didn’t have a chance to brace for impact. That he managed to right himself after only bouncing once was more due to his new instincts than his defiance, somehow managing to arrest his momentum before he careened into the blue fire surrounding them.
“Tell me!” he repeated. “Is the Libram of Ineffable Damnation full of lies? Or is what it said about you and the other gods true?”
Above him, the goddess’s eyes glowed redder even as they narrowed. “You think you can issue me an ultimatum, as though I were one of those pathetic mares clinging to your cloak like so much refuse?!”
“This is not an ultimatum,” countered Lex. “I’m simply using the resources at my disposal. That book made an accusation, and since my goddess has seen fit to visit me personally, I want to hear her response to it.”
“A response that you’re prepared to abandon me over!”
“Yes, I am,” admitted Lex. “And I’m only willing to take such a drastic measure because I know you’d never tell me a comforting lie, regardless of the consequences. As I said, that’s my faith in you.”
This time the Night Mare was the one who fell silent, the barbed wire around his hoof slowly starting to ease its torturous grasp as Lex met her eyes and waited.
Finally, after an interminable period of time, the Night Mare spoke. “It is a half-truth.”
The answer brought a scowl to Lex’s lips. “A half-truth?” he sneered. “That book alleged that mortal souls which go to the realm of a god don’t remain there forever, but are eventually devoured by the deities who rule those realms, and you say it’s a half-truth?!”
“You wanted me to answer your question!” thundered the Night Mare. “Now resume the silence you clung to so obstinately and allow me to do so!”
Letting out a slow breath, Lex held his tongue and waited.
Waiting just long enough to confirm that she wouldn’t be interrupted again, the Night Mare continued. “I told you when we first made our pact that the souls of mortals who revere a god – or who possess a piece of their essence, as I gave to you – go to that god’s realm when they die. Once there, a number of possible fates await them. Some are selected for higher purposes, transformed into proxies who work the will of their divine masters. Others are lost to those who trespass the realm, slain or abducted by the invaders. But most continue their spiritual evolution until that journey reaches its natural conclusion.”
Lex’s brow furrowed at that, and he wasn’t surprised when the goddess anticipated his next question. “That conclusion is what that tome of yours disingenuously described as being devoured, a term which blasphemes the sacred union of the mortal with the divine.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that the soul merges with the god, becoming an infinitesimal part of that divinity. In that way they continue to exist forever, a literal part of something greater than themselves.”
“And does their consciousness survive?” pressed Lex. “Or do they cease to exist as anything other than a final source of sustenance for you after taking in a lifetime of their faith?”
“Their consciousness transcends the petty mortal concerns that they had in life,” corrected the goddess. “They no longer fixate on petty matters such as survival or breeding; they experience only the fulfillment that comes with being an aspect of a higher form of existence. It’s a union which brings them beyond their limited selves, and is undertaken of their own accord, developing a deeper understanding of what their deity truly is as they prepare to become part of them.”
“And for that, they sacrifice their memories of when they were alive, as well as a chance to continue existing for eternity as independent beings?” Lex snorted. “Tell me, would anyone worship you if they knew that was the choice they were being offered?”
But rather than grow angrier, the Night Mare laughed. “It’s clear you haven’t finished reading that book of yours,” she sneered, her voice taunting. “Otherwise, you’d never have made such a foolish assumption.”
Lex frowned. He knew that mortals who didn’t worship a god went to one of the Outer Planes after death, gravitating to a realm which matched their numinous gradient. But he’d simply assumed that – notwithstanding those who were slain, or who wrapped themselves in the substance of the plane in order to become demons, angels, and similar beings – they remained there forever, fully aware of who they’d been in life. Even after what the Night Mare had told him, there was no god for those souls to join with, so what else could have awaited them?
“Do you really think the souls of those who die without faith end up any differently?” scoffed the goddess, as though aware of his thoughts. “All those who die lose their memories when their souls transition to another realm, shedding them alongside their bodies so that they can focus on purifying and refining their souls. Only theirs merge with the plane itself, rather than a god.”
That was news to Lex. “What? I thought-”
“You thought,” interrupted the Night Mare, “that they got to live a static existence, forever aware of who they’d been, making new lives for themselves in realms of like-minded fellows.”
Again, the goddess leaned her head toward him, wearing her scorn openly. “If that were the case, then the Outer Realms would have been overpopulated to bursting eons ago. What happens is that the souls simply become part of those worlds, becoming submerged in the concepts each such plane represents, like a corpse in the mortal world being broken down and turned into so much fertilizer, their energy wasted as their journey comes to an end.”
“And what of the journey you’ve had me on?” shot back Lex, changing the subject abruptly. “All of the parallels to my old life that I’ve experienced since coming here? Is that all part of my ‘spiritual development’ also?”
Although it had nothing to do with what he’d read in the Libram of Ineffable Damnation, those questions had been weighing on his mind for some time now. Despite having to put those questions aside in favor of a slew of more immediate concerns, it hadn’t escaped his notice that his time on Everglow had mirrored his recent return to Equestria in many ways. Too many to be simple coincidences.
On both worlds, he’d been in the company of a mare only to come across a monster that he’d tried to slay, his female companion staying his hoof long enough for him to find out that the creature needed his help, turning them into an ally as they faced a much greater threat.
On both worlds, he’d stumbled across a group of ponies trapped in an ecological disaster, terrorized by monsters that shouldn’t have been there, and who had no one else to turn to for help.
On both worlds, a devil had sought to take advantage of the disaster in order to pervert the souls of ponies using guile and deception, doing terrible things to someone he cared about before being slain, mocking his victory with a final revelation about its schemes.
And those were just the most obvious comparisons. There were numerous others of a more subtle variety, ranging from his finding new ways to use the Charismata during a crisis to his taking a new lover and coming to regret it. But while he suspected that at least some of those correspondences were the product of his own mind, the greater ones were too blatant to ignore. Now that the Night Mare was here, he could at least confront the question why he’d been reliving new variations on old events.
But as much as he’d found those oddities to be inscrutable before now, the Night Mare seemed far less impressed with them, making a dismissive gesture with her hoof. “Don’t be foolish, of course it was.”
Lex’s eyes narrowed. “So everything that’s happened has been by your will?”
“I set none of the events you’ve gone through in motion,” retorted the goddess. “Nor did I engineer the circumstances you’ve found yourself in. I simply placed you in an area where you’d be best positioned to develop your faith, which necessarily involved you applying the lessons I’ve taught you to situations you’ve already experienced. All of it – learning to better use the Charismata, realizing that you should slay only those for whom there’s no use subjugating, using others to overcome your weaknesses rather than hiding them – led you here, to where your faith could be properly tested. A test which you passed.”
She folded her wings back to her sides then, flashing her teeth at him as a snarl crossed her lips. “So you can imagine my irritation when my champion’s newfound faith is suddenly threatened because he found a book I’d hoped would be permanently lost.”
There was nothing Lex could say to that.
But there was still one more question he needed answered. One last revelation to which he required the insight of his patron deity. “And what about Kara’s blessing?”
A grimace of distaste flickered across the Night Mare’s face. “That meddling trollop was called upon by your first paramour, and had already begun interfering in your life. Given how lacking you were in attracting capable servants, particularly since you were so lacking in curiosity about how to use the Charismata, securing a blessing from her was the best way to put her to use.”
“I don’t want it!” shot back Lex. “That her influence has been affecting everyone around me has tainted every relationship I’ve been in!”
The Night Mare shrugged. “I made you vow to abstain from all formal ties of romance in exchange for removing Severance from your world. If that wasn’t enough to blunt the drawbacks of Kara’s meddling, then perhaps you should have focused more on using her blessing to be a leader of ponies and less on acquiring your stable of harlots.”
For a moment Lex seethed, but his anger was directed at himself more than the Night Mare. As much as he hated to admit it, she was right; the same way he’d made a mistake in getting involved with Nosey – and that he regretted how much he’d made a mess of Thermal Draft’s life simply by association – he’d made his relationships with Sonata and Aria as much of a priority as building his powerbase. He’d very nearly lost the loan he needed from the ponies of Vanhoover because he’d flown into a jealous rage at hearing someone else make Sonata moan.
He might not have known that Kara had given him a blessing, but he’d still had no compunctions about putting it to use for his own enjoyment.
Which he wouldn’t have done if he’d paid more attention to what the Night Mare had been trying to tell him.
Once again, she’d been looking out for him, but he hadn’t had the wisdom to recognize that.
The Night Mare cocked her head then, seeming to sense the change in his demeanor. “Good. Your faith is finally returning. You’d best put it to use very soon, my champion.”
The blue fires all went out as one then, plunging the area into darkness so deep that even with his improved vision, Lex couldn’t see through it. Only the glowing red eyes of the Night Mare remained visible. Even those seemed to waver as Lex felt his consciousness start to grow hazy, realizing that he was beginning to wake up, the goddess’s last words following after his fading awareness.
“You still have much work to do.”
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Lex is fortunate that Night Mare recognises him as the best Fool she has ever had?
11491068 I suspect the gods of goodness see it that way. To them, the Night Mare's "embracing harsh truths" probably looks a lot like "giving up on yourself."
Looks like Lex is going to be focusing even more on the important matters at hand though he'll likely be wary of interacting with other people due to Kara's blessing since as evidenced by Sanguine's Disposition's...well, disposition, it doesn't only affect the opposite gender. At least Fail Forward is out of the picture so he doesn't need to play nice if things call for it.
As for the revelation Lex learned as well as the Night Mare's own response, especially about the bit concerning overpopulation, it implies that there planes are finite or at least the thought of so many souls from the beginning of time sticking around is rather mind boggling.
11491742 Lex does indeed have other matters to focus on, since he's still committed to ending the threat posed by Sissel and the rest of her clan. Plus saving Thermal Draft, since her current status is only a stopgap measure. As the Night Mare said, he does indeed have work to do.
Insofar as Kara's blessing goes, Lex's discomfort with the fact that it can potentially affect anyone (since it affects anyone who could love him, drawing that out) comes largely from the fact that he views it as artificial in nature, making those feelings "false" and so, in his eyes, worthless. Naturally, this bothers him a great deal, since he adheres closely to the Night Mare's doctrine of a harsh truth being more valuable than a comforting lie. As someone who took a great deal of comfort in the few people who actually loved him for him, this revelation hurts him a great deal.
As for the planes...those are harder to quantify, insofar as the Outer Planes essentially being manifestations of ideas/beliefs/feelings (or rather, dedications of the soul), and so can't really be quantified in terms of space; how "finite" can feelings of hatred, freedom, love, order, etc. truly be? In that regard, I suspect that the Night Mare's statement was meant to relay just how many mortal souls have died over the eons; the idea of an endless space being filled to capacity might sound contradictory, but physical rules are less important on the Outer Planes than metaphysical ones.
Of course, there was a time before mortals existed. But that hasn't really been broached yet...
Merging with the god you align the closest spiritually to is better than many alternatives only trumped by becoming a higher being yourself. You can see it as a continuation and self gratification that your beliefs were the right ones, that they are an integral part of reality and in ways even trump it with. You will become a part of even if infinitesimally small what you believed in all your existence.
There are some caveats here tho, for any god there is his mirror opposite, and we can't forget that the gods groom their subjects to become what they desire spiritually in a self reinforcing cycle of putting them where their are validated in their beliefs. A sort of custom made echo chamber that you can't dodge.
But who cares about that in a world where miracles are real zealotry all the way baby !
What do you think Alzrius, you agree or disagree with the current system perpetuated in the realm of Everglow? I think it's pretty neat you just have to find the right god for yourself.
11492033 Well, it's not so much an "agree or disagree" issue, at least for the people living in that multiverse; to them, that's just how it is, whether they agree with it or not. Though I should reiterate that this is, essentially, the default everywhere; while there are certainly areas where things work differently, either because of local conditions (e.g. if you somehow end up on Athas, the world of the Dark Sun campaign, it doesn't matter what you believe or what your alignment is; souls go to the Gray), or because a different system is imposed (e.g. on Toril, the world of the Forgotten Realms campaign, if you don't believe in any gods you go to the Wall of the Faithless, whereas if you betrayed your faith and never atoned or found another, you're punished as one of the False).
But for the most part, you go to either the realm of the god you worshiped (presuming that they accept you) or, if you worshiped none or were cast out for whatever reason, then you go to the Outer Plane that best matches your alignment. And really, whether you're merging with a plane that represents an idea/belief/feeling, or merging with a god, the end result is that you're becoming part of something greater than yourself...though the similarities there give rise to some interesting interpretations as to why that is; did the first gods see the progression of souls and figure out how to divert it to themselves? Or does the nature of merging with planes mean that the planes of existence are cosmic entities beyond that of even the gods?
Either way, it's important to note that these aren't the only things that can happen to a soul. Over the course of several editions of D&D, and in Pathfinder 1E, multiple alternatives have been touched upon. For instance:
Absolute destruction: Contrary to popular belief, souls can be destroyed. This typically takes powerful magic, though certain creatures such as devourers can do so as well. In such a case, direct divine intervention can usually bring a soul back, and sometimes even mortal reality-warping magic (i.e. a wish spell) can do the same, but there are some methods of destruction so great that not even (most) gods can undo it.
Undeath: The classic form of avoiding your eternal punishment (or reward). Souls that wrap themselves in negative energy, either with a body or without, don't go anywhere. While undead creatures with no Intelligence score are just automatons animated by negative energy, those with the ability to think are actual souls that are unable or unwilling to move on. "Killing" them means damaging their repository of negative energy to the point where it can no longer contain the soul, sending it to its natural destination.
Reincarnation: Typically the province of a reincarnate spell, reincarnation is theoretically possible via sufficiently-strong belief; after all, if a soul can chart a course to the afterlife of its choosing (via altering its alignment while alive), or even gather negative energy around itself after dying (i.e. becoming a ghost or other undead which requires no magic or special processes to create), then why can't it redirect itself into a new body growing inside a pregnant woman? Of course, if that is possible, it presumably makes little accounting for things like race or sex.
Artificial receptacles: These include things like using soul bind and trap the soul, as well as archmages and other powerful magic-users who deliberately place move their own soul (or that of another) into a soulbound construct.
Shade: This is one of the more esoteric forms of avoiding death. It essentially involves removing the positive energy that living creatures have, and replacing it with "shadowstuff" (i.e. the essence of the Plane of Shadow), which is essentially an admixture of positive and negative energy (though you have to combine them in the correct manner; you can't simply throw the two together and have that be that; which is to say, this isn't what Lex had the Night Mare do to Thermal Draft). The result is that they become a shade, a being of shadow, which has no natural death (but can still be killed).
Nihilism: AD&D 2nd Edition noted that a person who died truly believing that nothing awaited them after death, not reincarnation, not a home with a god or on a plane, nor even a vague belief that something happened, would essentially believe themselves out of existence. It was only toward the end of that edition's life that the truth was revealed: such a soul was sent to the very bottom of the Nine Hells, where Ahriman (the true form of Asmodeus) would devour their souls and consume them utterly (in a way that had nothing to do with merging) over the course of many pain-filled centuries, using them as fuel to heal his ancient wounds.
Apotheosis: As you noted, becoming a god yourself is one of the more ideal ways of ignoring the progression of the soul (and indeed, has you become a destination for the souls of those who worship you). It's also the hardest to achieve.
That's just a sampling; there are still other possibilities, such as creating a clone body for yourself in case your current one dies, ending up in a personal mindscape if you faithfully follow the prophecies of Kalistrade, etc. Really, as long as people have feared death, they've looked for ways to sidestep it, or at least alter what happens afterward into something more preferable. It's why certain inevitables take it upon themselves to make sure that mortals who try to cheat death fail (as Willow told Twilight at the end of Chapter 447).
But I'd wager that the author of the Libram of Ineffable Damnation thinks that letting yourself be food for a god, or fertilizer for a plane, is for suckers.