65 Experiments (1/2)
Zahaka placed a slender, clawed finger to her lip in thought. ”A prison, yes, though I should say the word is a little harsh.”
”No,” said Chi-You. ”It is what it is: an inescapable prison. No matter how much you clean and beautify this prison, it will still be a cell.”
”How long have you all been here?” said Li.
”Around a thousand years, perhaps?” said. Chi-You.
Zahaka raised a correcting finger. ”One thousand and eighty six years, to be exact.”
Li fished out memories of his conversation with Count Alarie about the origins of this world. ”Let's see, didn't you all arrive to the new world around a thousand years ago? You mean to say almost right after arriving, you came here?”
”Came here? That makes it sound as if we had a choice in the matter.” Zahaka flitted out a forked tongue and sighed. ”I will break it down for you. One thousand and ten years ago, we, the gods, and also the demons and beasts, arrived upon this strange new world. Do you recall the history of the old world? Of what our purpose was there?”
”I do.” Li nodded. ”Where certain spirits can be guardians of homes or forests or waters, you, the original gods, were guardians of the entire world. You were the planet's defense system, rising up when the demons threatened the world. You nourished life by guiding civilizations to grow, and then you ascended into Valhul, waiting to descend once more then the world came under threat.”
In the case of Elden World, the gods never moved from Valhul. Players could interact with them through a fast-travel system and challenge them to fights in Valhul in the endgame, but there was no such travel system in Eldenia. In fact, the only times the gods ever came down during the storyline was for final boss fights where the fate of the world lay in danger.
”Correct. Your knowledge is sharp. I fear you may take my place as god of insight.” Zahaka smiled for a faint second before reassuming a serious air. ”It seems that this new world has bound us as its guardians as well. When we first arrived, we saw that there were mortal civilizations.
Puny, primitive little things, and they would all fall to the might of demons. Thus, we did as guardians would, and fought off the demons and uplifted the civilizations, leading them out from their tribes and into great castles and kingdoms.”
”Those were the times,” said Chi-You as he cracked his knuckles, reminiscing of days gone by. ”Endless battle and then afterwards, endless teaching mortals – my two favorite activities.”
Zahak nodded. ”We did far more than teach, we etched the very concept of magic within the mortals, granting them the power to fulfill all their wishes. Alas, it is a cruel irony that our wishes are never heeded, for when life had been sufficiently nurtured and the demons – the threat to the world at the time – were dealt with, we were forced to ascend to Valhul, swept aside and locked in like old tools that one never has a use for again.”
”Surely, there would have been some world-ending threat that would have called you back over the course of a thousand years,” said Li.
”Oh, that is what we thought too.” Zahaka shrugged. ”Mortals and their fickle minds given the might of magic, and the demons sealed but still present: we thought that the perfect cauldron to brew a disaster. Perhaps in a century, perhaps in two, maybe three, possibly four or five. We were awfully cheery for those few hundred years too, ever hopeful that we would be called back oncemore.”
She shook her head. ”Yet that has not been the case.” She pointed to the basin at the center of the throne room. ”Through the well of souls, we may glimpse what occurs on the mortal plane. The demons rose, but they were crushed each time, and, in a cruel twist of fate, their invasions unified the mortals such that they did not fight among other, eliminating chances of devastating mortal infighting.”
Li came up to the well of souls, glimpsing the pool of moonlit water. ”According to lore, the well is also supposed to contain the souls of all the dead mortals, the noble and the damned alike. That implies it's some sort of passageway from here to the mortal plane.”
”The well was the first thing I investigated in my attempts to escape this accursed realm,” said Zahaka.
”But though some aspects of us, such as the duty which binds us to this realm unless the world needs us, remain the same as in the old world, others have altered. Where we once used to judge the souls of the dead through the well, we hold no such power now.
As it stands, the well is merely a looking glass to the other side. It is not by any means a passageway by which spiritual bodies may pass from mortal to divine or divine to mortal planes. It is merely a reflection.”
”There must be something to get you all out of here,” said Li as he turned impatiently back to Zahaka. ”I can't stay here forever. I have a farm to tend to.”
”A farm? That is what drives you?” Zahaka raised a brow and shrugged. ”I should not judge. Anything would be better than staying here forever.” She slithered towards Li and stopped in front of him, inspecting him. When she stood on outstretched coils, she was quite large, standing sizably taller than Li. ”Hmm, though we are destined to an eternity here, I believe you have a chance to escape. You would simply have to use Noctus's method.”
Chi-You jerked his head up in surprise. ”Are you certain, Zahaka?”
Li tapped his staff to the ground to command some attention. ”Noctus's method? So one of you has already escaped.”
Zahaka slithered away from Li, turning her back and crossing her arms. Her posture became still in thought. ”Oh, he has escaped, but I should not call him one of us anymore.”
She sighed, the snakes in her hair hissing before she turned back to Li with a wistful smile. ”I have spent hundreds of years studying the nature of reality, of the fabric of space and the flow of time, in an attempt tear open a passageway back to the mortal plane.
The results of my experiments have been varied. For one, I have determined that Valhul is its own enclosed dimension, and it is a small one, small enough that I have managed to knit several separate realms atop it, much like the layers of an onion.”
”And thank goodness for that, I would have missed my Arena far too much otherwise,” said Chi-You.