novelraw Chapter 691: THE Gilded Games! I
Chapter 691: THE Gilded Games! I
The new Observable Existence they entered was grand as Achilles took it all in!
Rivers swirled out in front of him in every direction that direction was allowed to go. Gold rivers, blue rivers, purple rivers, green rivers, each of them wide as seas, each of them flowing in elegant patient spirals around land masse.
The land floated as vast plates of continent drifted in the current like petals on the surface of a pond, each one crowned with forests and mountains and cities that glittered even at this distance, each one catching the light of suns that were not one sun but many, arranged around the Observable in a pattern.
Wheels of Existence turned among the land masses, immense rings of structured light rotating in slow silent majesty, each wheel the size of a Star Sea back home and each one humming with a Civilization threaded through its rim.
The air here was so clear that the foundations of entire Civilizations sat in plain sight the way mountains sat in plain sight, on display for anyone who had eyes in their head.
Not a single atom of this was stunted. Everything in front of him had grown the way it had been meant to grow, unchained, uninterrupted, and the shape of that growth was the shape of a place that had never once in its history had to apologize for existing.
He kept his face calm as he felt angry just looking at all this fucking wonder.
Why did existence decide for this Observable Existence to be like this and his to be stunted?
Why was Existence so unfair?
"Welcome," Khaemwaset said from half a step ahead, turning finally, "to the Silver Philotimo. Please, take a moment and enjoy everything! Take in the sights. I find first impressions deserve the courtesy of a pause."
Achilles took the moment and moved the hell on.
"Lead on."
Khaemwaset smiled and began to drift down from the Span’s edge into the open air of their home Observable.
Achilles and Rose stepped off the bridge behind them, with THE Watcher silent at their side, and the Silver Philotimo received them.
---
The Silver Philotimo Observable Existence was unique, and Achilles moved through it simply watching.
Beings of power flowed around him in every direction his eyes could turn. Architects in robes of woven starlight drifted
Khaemwaset-of-the-Nine-Suns led them through it with a steady stream of pretentious commentary that Achilles, somewhere around the fourth or fifth grand pronouncement, began to tune out.
Why the fuck did one have to constantly be so prideful?
It was insufferable!
"...and you will note," Khaemwaset was saying as he gestured at a shining tower, "that the discipline of our Civilizations alone exceeds what most Observables produce across their entire lifespans."
Achilles simply continued on.
They were brought, after some time, to the foot of something that finally made Achilles actually look.
Another bridge.
This one was not obsidian and gold but every color the eye could hold and several it couldn’t, multicolored illusory light spun into a road that extended outward into the open air of the Observable and didn’t stop. It went, and kept going. His perception followed it for as far as it could follow anything and then gave up, because the bridge passed beyond the horizon of this Observable and continued past it, threading through distances that did not respect distance.
"This," Khaemwaset said, with the tender pride of a man introducing a guest to a favorite child, "is the Auric Concourse of the Hundred Glories."
Of course it was. my
"The Concourse spans the entirety of the Silver Philotimo. From the easternmost Glory to the westernmost Glory, no point of significance is unconnected to it. It is the road of our Collective, and it is also more than that. When THE Gilded Ones, in their grace, choose to descend among us, they descend here. Upon this Concourse. Their feet have touched these colors. Their authority has been pleased to walk where we are now walking. Some of us, the most fortunate, have even been permitted to approach within sensing distance of the prints they left behind."
He paused, and turned to make sure Achilles had caught it.
Khaemwaset led them onto the Concourse, and for a long while the tour continued in this fashion. Every few minutes, another monument. Every monument, another lecture. The disciplines of the Collective. The hierarchies of the Collective. The schools, the orders, the ranks, the rites, the eons of refinement, the abundance of Second Scale practitioners, the names of the Third Scale ones.
It went on long enough that Achilles started to genuinely wonder if there was an actual destination, or if the entire visit was simply being walked at.
They had walked for what felt like a small geological epoch when Khaemwaset, mid-sentence about the appropriate angle of bow when entering a hall consecrated to a Gilded One, raised a hand and gestured ahead with the flourish of a man about to bestow a gift.
"And so we shall pause our procession soon, that you may be cleansed and properly dressed, and then we shall convene at the Banquet of First Receiving. There you will be offered the privilege, the rare and considerable privilege, of paying your respects to the consecrated statues of THE Gilded Ones who have most recently graced our Observable. It is our way. It is what is owed."
Achilles had about enough.
"This is supposed to be an exchange of Civilizations," he said, voice flat and conversational, "right?"
Khaemwaset’s gold-flame eyes blinked once.
"I haven’t really seen much of one. I find the best way to exchange information is conflict. So how about a spar?"
He let it sit.
"A fight."
...!
Khaemwaset blinked again.
Then the delegation laughed.
It was a soft openly amused laughter that ran through the gold-robed line behind their Vilicus, and every face was smiling, and not one of those smiles was for him.
From somewhere behind Khaemwaset’s shoulder, one of the envoys, a heavily ringed Architect with shoulders like a war monument, called out cheerfully.
"Little Bro from a Stunted Observable Existence," he said. "You don’t really have much on your side, you understand. Nearly all of us here are at THE Second Scale of Existence. You are at THE First. A spar would not really be a spar. It would be a bloody battle, and brief."
...!
Achilles wanted to explore his limits, all of them.
"Let’s just set it up," he said grandly. "Any of you here against me. The first exchange of our Civilizations. Then we can really get to know each other."
...!
The laughter softened into something else.
Khaemwaset-of-the-Nine-Suns lifted his chin and began, slowly, to smile.
It was not a small private smile this time. It was a wide one. It spread across his face the way light spread across a blade being drawn from a sheath.
"If you insist," Khaemwaset said softly, "O Stunted Vilicus."
He spread his hands.
"We have some unique areas of competition for you to experience. We have... THE Gilded Games."
BOOM!