GamingWolf
This is a long one.
Aperio tilted her head slightly as she observed not only the group of mortals at their very table, but also at least a hundred variations of them on different Earths. The reflections — as the Fae liked to call them — grew more stable, but also more in line with the original she currently inhabited. The different versions of the mortals talked the same, moved the same, and even looked the same to most of her senses.
It was only when she actually looked closer that she saw the first differences, the most obvious one the fact that the mortals in the reflections did not actually have their own Soul. They all linked back to the Souls in the corresponding mortals around her. That was not quite what she had in mind for a proper multiverse, but it would work for the moment. Stability is good for now…
That she did not trust herself with adjusting the Souls of mortals was something she did not want to admit, even to herself. She would have to do it one day or another, but for now it could wait.
Aperio leaned herself a little against her love, making sure that she did not actually use Caethya for any sort of balance or support. As strong as the Demigoddess had become, the All-Mother doubted it would be very comfortable for her to shoulder the...non-insignificant weight.
"How was it?" Caethya asked, getting a few raised brows as she did not speak English. "The Fae, I mean."
"Well enough," Aperio replied. "They are quite odd to say the least. I had not expected them to hold the key to actually making a multiverse, either. Especially not one I had made myself."
"I'm more surprised it was an actual object that helped you understand." Caethya gave a small laugh. "Makes me think more and more that you planned this, down to what you forgot and, somehow, how you forgot it. You removed a lot more from your memories than you seem to think. Well, the old you." Her love let out a small sigh. "Sometimes this gets really confusing."
"That it does," Aperio agreed. Of course, she also had the issue that she had all the memories of her past self in her mind, just hidden away for now. "But I also know I had planned to do this to myself. I know that I can never truly die, so I had to know that in the past as well."
"Logically yes, but you have the luxury of not caring about logic."
Aperio turned her head slightly to look at her love and raised an eyebrow. "And what do you mean by that?"
"That you are not bound by reality like the rest of us," Caethya replied. "For all we know, you could have planned your entire mortal life before committing to it."
The All-Mother leaned back and folded her arms in front of her chest. Her love was not wrong, but the memories she had gotten after she had taken care of her godly mistakes had made it quite clear that ending up a slave was more a subconscious choice than anything else. One she dearly wished her past self had not made.
"I likely could have, yes, but I know I did not. Not directly at least." Aperio shook her head lightly, both of her ears twitching as she could not help but hear the variants of the mortal conversations around them rippling across multiple realities. "It does not matter anymore, either. What happened, happened, and I have no interest in finding a way to undo it."
"Yes," Caethya agreed. "Focusing on the now is much more important. Like your whole multiverse thing."
"Do you want to see?" The All-Mother once more looked at her love, this time with a small smile gracing her face. "It is limited to Earth for now, but it is already quite… magnificent."
"Sure," her love replied, ignoring the glances they were getting from a few of the mortals. They were merely talking amongst themselves, and both Caethya and Aperio were more than content to just let them continue doing exactly that.
Aperio reached out, gently touching Caethya's mind with the tiniest sliver of her magic to convey her own perception of the ever-expanding tangle of Earths. Abstractions still had to be made, as she doubted anyone but herself would understand the actual way every single instance of Earth had come to exist, but it would be good enough.
The Earth they were currently on was the first one to exist; the origin of every other instance of it that existed, or would ever exist. With every passing moment, a new version branched off to follow whatever decision had been big enough to divert the possible future of that Earth.
Some of these reflections only existed for a brief moment, as the event that caused their creation was the selfsame one that ended it. Those versions of Earth flashed for but a single breath, their light fizzling out from the fabric of her creation like a dying star hidden within the vast expanse of Earth's own galaxy.
Others lingered in a stable fashion, long enough to create branches of their own. Yet more reflections simply stayed their course, holding no events major enough to birth yet another version of themselves.
As Aperio beheld all the current flickerings of was, is, and may be, she noticed a small but rather important detail. The tethers that linked every copy of a mortal being back to their original — and thereby the original's Soul — were no longer all properly connecting. In some cases, the tethers even became mixed up, linking back to the wrong Souls.
A thought of her own corrected the mana flowing from the various Earths, weaving the tethers back to their correct Souls of origin, but that was a stopgap solution at best. The Souls themselves were still not able to actually take in everything that was provided by the multitude of lives that they now lived. It would seem she would have to take care of this problem sooner rather than later.
"That looks wrong," Caethya said, her eyes unfocused as she was concentrating on the images Aperio was showing her. "Well, feels wrong is more accurate." The Demigoddess tilted her head slightly. "Those are Souls, right?"
"Yes," Aperio replied. "But a Soul is only meant for one life at a time. I have an idea on how I can fix this, but I would have to break my very own rule. I do not trust myself to properly fix it, either. I used to know how all of my creation worked, but it is broken as it currently stands. Why would I only now be able to do it properly?"
"Because you actually care about the people living in your creation now," Caethya replied. "And you also can know everything you did before. It's not easy, I know, but there aren't many options. You either have to strengthen every Soul like you did mine, stop this multiverse idea, or fix it in the way you think it will work."
"Giving everyone a blessing would not work," the All-Mother replied, her voice quieter than before. "It does not affect you, because there can only be one of you." Aperio let out a small sigh, teleporting both herself and Caethya into her Void after her love had agreed to it.
The All-Mother appeared a few steps away, an approximate projection of the current state of Earth and all its reflections surrounding her. More versions of the planet appeared with every moment, and she gestured at the various branches that had already been formed during the short time her multiverse had been implemented. "All of this is supposed to help the mortals become stronger. Give them more worlds with more experiences.
"I could just have new Souls live in the reflections of Earth," Aperio continued. "But that was not the point of making a multiverse. Every Soul was supposed to have access to more versions of its own reality, not just put new lives in the same worlds."
"And what was your idea for fixing the Souls?" Caethya asked, her eyes scanning the projection that continued to grow as it crowded around the All-Mother.
"Every Soul would have to be able to create a buffer of sorts," the All-Mother replied as she began to walk through the projection and added the various additional tethers that connected all the mortals and their reflections to their one Soul. The only difference this time was that she placed a smaller sphere in between. "But would that buffer not be a faux-Soul of sorts, created to be a slave to the original?"
"As much as the different branches of Earth would be subservient to the original," Caethya said with a shrug. "Or how everyone is bound to you. Technically, your will is law for everyone, but you do not exercise that power. The mortals of Earth would not have this power over their variations, but even if they did, they would not know about them. All this would do, is allow any mortal to ascend faster.
"Thousands of lifetimes worth of experience and strength would be in their Soul," her love continued, her eyes following the various lines Aperio drew to represent her idea. "I feel like that is exactly what you were trying to do, and it would only benefit people."
"Perhaps," Aperio replied. "But what right do I have to do this? Am I allowed to ignore my own rules just because nobody will ever be able to stop me?"
"Yes." Caethya gave a nod. "But that's besides the point." The Demigoddess stepped through the projection to stand right in front of the All-Mother. "What would you do if someone somehow figured out how to make the System better? A change that would affect everyone, but would greatly improve the lives of everyone in your creation at one point or another."
Aperio looked at her love for a moment, her head tilted slightly and her ears twitching a tiny bit as she thought. "I would examine the idea and, if it actually seemed to work as intended, I would consider creating something that would amount to the same result." She paused, spreading her wings for a brief moment before folding them back behind her back. "But you know as well as I do that that will never happen. You are beyond many mortals, and still you cannot truly perceive even the most basic parts of my System.
"Such an idea would, in all likelihood, not concern the Soul," she continued as she folded her arms in front of her chest. "If I make a mistake, it would permanently erase countless lives."
Caethya let out a sigh and gently pulled on the All-Mother's arms until Aperio relented. "You might not like it," the Demigoddess said as she gently held her love's hands, "but you know exactly how to prevent that. The knowledge is there" —Caethya pushed herself onto her toes to be able to tap a finger against Aperio's forehead— "it is simply attached to things you do not wish to see."
As Caethya lowered herself back onto her feet, Aperio's hands fell downwards to her love’s hips. The Demigoddess leaned back slightly, allowing her full weight to be supported by the All-Mother. "I know you can do it and I am here to help you with whatever you need." The Demigoddess looked up at Aperio, giving a small smile. "If you fear that I will no longer like you, you have nothing to worry about. The only thing stopping you from knowing all that you wish will only ever be yourself.
"I wish for you to be the best version of yourself," she continued, leaning in and pushing herself up once more. "Whatever you decide will be the correct choice." Balancing on her toes, she rose up as high as she could to place a tender kiss on her love's lips. "I'll be with you no matter what you choose to be."
The All-Mother blinked a few times. Every sense she had was focused on Caethya, trying to search beneath the warmth that seemed to be quite literally flowing off of the Demigoddess, but try as she might she found no other motivators for her love's actions.
"How can you be so sure?" she eventually asked, moving her hands to Caethya's waist and giving her a slight squeeze. "How can you know that whatever I choose will be right?" Aperio stepped back slightly, switching her hands for her wings as she rubbed her temples. She did not have a headache, of course, but the motion still helped. "Yes, I can force myself to know, but what if I actually agree with my past? Mortals are weak. Useless for most anything. There is no reason why anything exists besides the fact that at a point unfathomably long ago for a mortal, I decided that being absolutely nothing was not enjoyable and I made… existence."
Perhaps it was time she showed her love what she actually was. Caethya already knew, at least in terms of dry facts, but the All-Mother doubted that she truly understood what such things meant. Directly implanting a comprehensive understanding into the Demigoddess' mind went against what Aperio believed to be right, so that wouldn't do. There was only one option left for her to choose.
Aperio slowly let out a long breath of the airless nothing that filled her Void. Then, she simply let go of all the tiny thoughts that kept her powers in check. Caethya would not be harmed, as the core of her sense of self would hate to see her love in pain, but she had to show who she truly was. No glimpses for the Demigoddess this time. No oblique suggestions or subtle references.
Just her.
Caethya took a step backwards as reality itself fractured in front of her. Each splinter that came from the expanding fractal folded — was it backwards, or inwards? — into a space that occupied the plane that held Aperio's Void, but also simultaneously existed behind and in front of it.
In the middle of the phenomenon stood her love, looking much as she always did. The Amazonian Moon Elf still managed to look adorable, despite her serious face and the veritable flood of mana that surged outwards from her form. Caethya was absolutely not deterred by the fact that every one of her mortal senses screamed at her to run. She knew who she was looking at, and she had meant every word she had said to her.
A wave of mana — purer than anything else she had felt Aperio use before — washed over her, splitting the Void apart in its wake. Just like the first breaking of the Void, it moved in fractals, somehow overlapping itself in every direction while each layer was visible with perfect clarity.
The overwhelming presence that accompanied it all would threaten to crush Caethya into a fleshy jam, were it not for a thin film of nothing that hovered just above her skin. Despite examining the phenomenon, her mind did not seem to want to make sense of what she was seeing. It did not matter. Caethya could still clearly see her love at the centre of the ever-expanding presence; could feel how reality itself reached out hungrily, yearning to tether itself properly to its creator.
It could have been taken as a form of intimidation, but the Demigoddess knew full well that this display was a sign of trust. She smiled at her love, and offered her a wave. Aperio had chosen to show her true self, and not just a brief glimpse at her infinite mind but the full view. Despite the way everything she perceived was being read as wrong and impossible by her own mind, she still only had eyes for her love, who still stood there in her Void. She's finally taking a moment to not hold back.
Caethya understood her love's reasoning for never showing who she actually was, but did not like it much. Though she knew Aperio did not mind the way she inhabited her current form, it would be nice if the All-Mother could allow herself more chances to be who she actually was. It was just one more reason why the Demigoddess was in favour of that which had been set into motion.
"This is who I am," Aperio said, her voice echoing through the Void and Caethya's mind. It was quiet, yet perfectly audible and deafeningly loud. The All-Mother lowered her head, and her wings spread to their full length for a brief moment. The motion was accompanied by a quake so intense it almost threw the Demigoddess off of her feet.
In its wake, Caethya saw a blinding expanse of nothing behind Aperio, filled to the brim with her love's mana. It all moved in perfect unison to the All-Mother's every thought, each action a perfect orchestration of infinite power moving to fulfill a wish: a simple existence. No matter how hard she tried — no matter how much of her infinite strength she brought to bear — she could never grant her own wish. It would never work, as her love's very nature was incompatible with her desires.
In the blink of an eye, everything stopped. The Void snapped back to a restored state, and her love stood there before her, no longer in the centre of a fracture in reality. All was as it was before. Well, not quite. Like the last time Aperio had used a significant amount of her power, her body looked a bit more well-defined. More real, somehow. As if the universe yearned to manifest her love the way she saw herself.
Aperio ran her hands over her stomach, smoothing out a few non-existent wrinkles on her dress before she directed her gaze back onto the Demigoddess. "What I do not wish to be."
Caethya stepped closer, placing a hand on her love's chin so she was no longer looking at the ground but at her. "I know, and like I have said before, it does not change how I feel about you or what I think you should do."
"But what if I make a mistake?"
"You could always leave reality as it currently stands. However, Earth has apparently always had its reflections, and I think that having something like it for every world would be a good thing." The Demigoddess shrugged. "You've been planning this change for months, now. For you, it might not have seemed like much time, but it should have been more than enough to figure out whether you truly wish to go forward with your plan."
"And," Caethya continued, pulling her hand away from her love's face and instead taking her hands, "I know that you won't make a mistake."
Aperio gave her love's hands a gentle squeeze. She was right; she did want to do this. It seemed like the best choice to help mortals gain strength more quickly, as well as giving them quite literally infinite experiences.
Her little demonstration had also given her a much greater insight into how exactly the Souls tried to remedy the fact that they now had to deal with mortal minds from multiple worlds. At the moment, most Souls — especially of weaker mortals — were simply trying to delete old memories, overlaying them with the experiences they now gathered from the multitude of worlds.
"Why did I not do this before?" Aperio mumbled to herself. "Well, I did, but only for the Fae and only to offer them a temporary world to play in…" The All-Mother gave her love's hands a last squeeze before she pulled them back. "But that was quite specifically designed to be that way. Built on an entire version of existence, nonetheless."
"Yet another reason to do it," Caethya said with a smile on her face. "And another cause to believe that you will not make a mistake. The current flawed nature of the reflections is due to something you put in yourself." The Demigoddess touched the All-Mother's arm. "There also exists the possibility that Earth is not the only world this is happening to. Learning to fix this will always be the better option."
Aperio tilted her head slightly, letting a few threads of her creation connect fully to her mind to search for other worlds that were either in the process of creating — or already had created — a multiverse. It was something she should have considered and checked much earlier.
The All-Mother furrowed her brows as she found quite a few more worlds that behaved like Earth had before she 'fixed' it. Just like the world she had been on just a little while ago, these ones were also mana-starved and inhabited by mortals that were much too weak for her liking.
"I assume that means there are others," Caethya said, her eyes fixed on Aperio's own.
"There are, yes. Quite a few more than I would have thought, too."
She would be lying if she said she liked the idea of having more than a few worlds with this 'feature', but it did make her decision a little easier. What it did not make any easier was the fact that she had to actually change how Souls worked on a fundamental level. And for that, she would have to go and look quite closely at the places in her very own mind that she would prefer never to see.
"Well, you don't know everything about yourself — not consciously at least — so why would you know everything about your creation?" Caethya asked. "The universe and you are synonymous, after all." Her love gave a small nod. "You are both infinite and ever-changing. But you are also wholly separate. I'm still not quite sure how that works."
"Neither am I," Aperio replied. She had shown to her love that she was quite literally nothing, a nothing that had decided it wanted to instead be something, but it would seem that that concept was not yet compatible with Caethya's mind. "But it doesn't matter either, does it?"
"Nope," her love said. "Doesn't matter one bit. You are you, and that is all I need to know." She clapped her hands together. "Now, is there something I can do while you work your Soul magic?"
Aperio tilted her head slightly. After a moment of consideration she sat herself down on the nothing that filled her Void. She spread her wings and patted the vacant expanse next to her. "You can look at what I do and tell me what you see. It may not make much sense to you, but a different view might help."
"Projection, or mind stuff?" her love asked as she sat down and leaned herself against the All-Mother's wing with her full weight. She froze for a moment as Aperio shared her view of the part of the System that governed Souls. "This is a lot weirder than looking at you without holding back."
"Because you can understand a part of this. You are part of this, after all. Or were, at least. Your Soul is different now. Stronger. Unique."
"Thanks to your blessing, I assume?" Caethya asked as Aperio began to pick at the countless runes that made and maintained the Souls of every mortal.
"No," she replied, squinting at a set of runes that read 'buffer' and 'allay'. "Well, yes," she amended as she pulled those two runes out of the complex mesh. "But it was not needed to achieve the change you did. Most Souls on Verenier are similar, though yours is much stronger."
"How does that make sense?"
"Verenier is special." Aperio hesitated for a moment, glancing at her love in the brief moment before a new rune came into existence. Nestled between the ones her past self had made, it was strangely formless — not yet imbued with purpose. "It was always my favourite world in the past. A failed attempt at something I will once again know all too soon."
She already had a hunch about what it was that made Verenier special, but there was little sense spending the time speculating about it when it would be potentially confirmed before long. Aside from looking at the runes of her System, the All-Mother actively scoured her memories, forcing the ones that seemed useful to the front of her mind. Already she was regretting the decision, as she had stumbled upon pieces of her past that she would have very much liked to never remember.
Aperio saw herself erase the existence of an entire galaxy simply because the mortals spread across its planets had figured out a way to live an eternal life. One that came at the cost of drastically reducing their potential growth in power. She had eliminated everything in that region of space simply because the mortals there were too slow for her liking. Her — a being who, at times, could not tell a single day from an aeon.
She tore herself away from the memory, only to find herself in another one. A memory that was far too personal for her own liking. She watched as her past self, brimming with joy, ripped out the Soul of a God. Why she had taken an interest in this particular Deity was not included in the glimpse into her past; only the disturbing glee with which her old self wove the freshly-extracted Soul into a new one, destined to bring ruin to those who had worshipped the God she had just exterminated.
Why had she ever been like that? It just made no sense. If she had never cared for any of the mortals, why had she gone through all the trouble of making so many worlds for them to inhabit? Why had she even made the System for them? Entertainment might have felt like an answer, if it weren't for the fact that her old self had never really felt that entertained by her creation.
The All-Mother shook her head. It didn't matter anymore. The only things that did matter were how she had originally made Souls and, perhaps, the exact reason why Verenier was as special as it was.
A previous brief glimpse of a memory had given her an inkling, but she had dismissed it at the time. It was, after all, a ridiculous idea, and one that even she knew would never work. And yet, she understood all too well why she would have attempted something of the like in the past. She had given everyone a Soul...
It did not take long to find the memory she was looking for; the one that would let her imbue the exact meaning she wished to tether to the runes that were, at the moment, unused. Her past self had laid the groundwork for her plan, and all she needed to add were the finishing touches.
Aperio carefully pushed her will into the formless rune, letting it take the shape it thought best reflected her intention. There were no runes that fit the expression she wished to place into the works of her System, so a new one needed to be made. A thought here and there twisted reality into its new shape, the rune inching into its rightful place so it might enact her will without her conscious intervention.
The All-Mother could feel her love’s presence shift away from her creation, the Demigoddess likely not quite comfortable looking at the not-space of the System twisting to her whims. Or, perhaps, she was more interested in the faux-Souls Aperio had made to see how her actual changes should play out. With every alteration she made to the construct of her System, the projection she had made changed as well. It might not have started out as an entirely accurate view, but with every passing moment, with every bit of knowledge she forcibly recovered, it grew clearer.
Sadly, with every helpful memory, Aperio also had to remember what her old self had done elsewhere. How she had subsumed the Souls of the Gods she had created herself. She had known at the time that a Soul was born of her power and could never contain even a fraction of what she was, but she had seemingly not cared.
Her old self had tried idea after idea. Forcing Souls together into a greater entity, splitting them apart into fragments in the hopes that they would be easier to manipulate, even creating an entire reality separate from the current one filled with nothing but empty Souls she could pour herself into. None of it had worked. None of it had allowed her to have a Soul of her own.
Not even using the very first world she had made in the current iteration of her creation had been good enough to act as her Soul.
Aperio could only mentally squint at the actions of her past self. It was more than clear that such a thing could never work, and yet she had tried. And all that while knowing more than I do now...
Perhaps that had all been preparation for her attempt at a mortal life. After all, she had managed to contain parts of herself in those crystals for millennia. But then, they had always felt more symbolic than anything else. It was very much like what she was doing now. The All-Mother had always had the memories — it was simply that she had never truly wanted to remember. Now, all that had changed. She needed to know what her past self had done, and so she would know.
Aperio blinked as she reached for another memory, one she knew would contain knowledge that would help her at the moment. Bound to this particular fragment of her past was something else: bits and pieces of her own mana. They looked and felt an awful lot like the lingering remains of yet another reality. The only difference was that this one was quite clearly marked, and by herself no less.
The All-Mother reached out with a thought, an invisible hand grasping the fragment and pulling it closer. A small tingle ran through the All-Mother's body and mind; an attempt from her own memory to bring her to a different place. Figuratively, at least.
She let the fragment pull a part of her attention away, pausing slightly as she found herself in the expanse of black glass again. It was one she had observed once before, shortly after she had returned to Verenier.
Just like last time, a version of herself stood on the smooth obsidian sea, observing the shards that contentiously broke off in the distance and floated into the equally smooth and black sky. Neither she nor the memory of herself moved, both content to simply stare at the ever-moving shards of glass that always took away from the ocean but never diminished it.
A thought unravelled the mental plane piece by piece, the All-Mother no longer needing to piece the memory together like she had had to the last time she was here. Instead, she simply observed the weave of her own mind beneath; the flow of nothing that held so much knowledge, just waiting for her.
She looked upwards at the perfect copy of the obsidian sea. Nothing was there aside from a smooth surface of black glass that showed a reflection of herself looking up. And she is — I am, Aperio corrected herself, still here because I do not want to remember.
The All-Mother scoffed at the thought and dug into the tapestry that hid beneath the sea of glass. She did not want to remember, but she had to. The fragment of herself still stood motionless at the very centre of the ocean, showing no indication that it had noticed her here. That I noticed myself? Her last excursion into this plane had been rather confusing and Aperio hoped that this one would not be.
Her hopes were not high, however, as she began to truly grasp the mess that was responsible for governing this plane. It was quite obvious why she had left herself the clue to return here, but Aperio also wanted to give her old self a beating for making a realm like this. It clearly meant as much to her old self as her Void did her current self, but this dark ocean of glass was most certainly not stable.
If she were to ever physically go to that plane, Aperio was sure it would break. It could not hope to contain even a rather insignificant fraction of the amount of power housed within her body. And yet, despite its crude nature, every part of the infinite ocean and its continuously crumbling edges held the secrets the All-Mother had been looking for. Why would I ever use my own memories to build something like this?
It likely did not really matter where she put anything, as she existed everywhere simultaneously, but it still felt weird to have the entire realm that she had once called her home built upon memories. Memories of the very first Souls that had given everyone, besides herself, a chance at life and the option to grow.
As it turned out, the little trick that had caused her own memories to take form back then was essentially what she needed to create faux-Souls, ones that could take on the memories and experiences of every mortal calling a reflection their home and syphoning them to their actual Soul, housed safely and soundly in her Void. Not only would this approach actually help mortals become stronger as she wished them to, but it would also stop idiots like Epemirial from messing around with an actual Soul. They would have to get into her Void to be able to manipulate one, and that meant that they would have to be stronger than her. Which was very much impossible, as every last bit of power someone had came from the All-Mother.
Aperio let out a small sigh as she focused more of her attention back on the ever-expanding tangle of runes that governed Souls. A small smile graced her face as she felt her love poking around the System as well, trying to make sense of runes the All-Mother was quite sure she could not read.
A small thought directed at the Demigoddess brought with it bits and pieces of the knowledge she would need to at least form a basic understanding on how her own Soul worked. Aperio would love to explain each and every detail, but first she'd have to spend more time actually understanding things. Sure, she knew what was what and, thanks to the small excursion to her old home, also what she needed to do, but her knowledge levels had not quite reached the levels she wished to have. True understanding would take a bit more time.
For now, however, she had some mortal Souls to save from the dreadful fate of languishing in eternal mediocrity. A small flex of her mental muscles pushed the last bit of meaning into the rune she had come up with, then formed the ones she had once used for the obsidian sea. Now all she had to do was to place her updated System module back into the whole and watch it take root.
With another thought her changes slid back into place, melding with the rest of the System as if they had always been there. A surge of mana flowed through it, and the accompanying sensations made the All-Mother raise an eyebrow. Like many things she had relegated to her subconscious mind, she would be checking in from time to time to make sure that what she had thought up was actually working. Probably better that way.
While she was certain her changes would work — they had worked quite well on her own memories in the past — doing another check was best. She was about to break her own rules a little, after all. The least she could do was make sure it would work as she wanted it to.
Every Soul that lived on a world that had split into many copies would be subject to this change, while the others would be left untouched. It was the first of many things she would do in her quest to actually better her creation instead of giving up and starting over like she had done in the past.
Aperio leaned back to watch the change ripple through her creation. On every world that had, or would soon, split into a multiverse, every Soul stopped for the briefest of moments. Every time that happened, the All-Mother feared that something would go wrong. That the work she had done was insufficient; that she had made a mistake. But all proceeded as she had thought it would.
None of the Souls were touched directly. All she had done was add another layer around each of them, one that would help them grow stronger for every version of a world they inhabited. They would have infinite possibilities on infinite worlds.
All they now had to do was grasp the new chances that would present themselves.
GamingWolf
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GamingWolf
This is a long one.
Aperio tilted her head slightly as she observed not only the group of mortals at their very table, but also at least a hundred variations of them on different Earths. The reflections — as the Fae liked to call them — grew more stable, but also more in line with the original she currently inhabited. The different versions of the mortals talked the same, moved the same, and even looked the same to most of her senses.
It was only when she actually looked closer that she saw the first differences, the most obvious one the fact that the mortals in the reflections did not actually have their own Soul. They all linked back to the Souls in the corresponding mortals around her. That was not quite what she had in mind for a proper multiverse, but it would work for the moment. Stability is good for now…
That she did not trust herself with adjusting the Souls of mortals was something she did not want to admit, even to herself. She would have to do it one day or another, but for now it could wait.
Aperio leaned herself a little against her love, making sure that she did not actually use Caethya for any sort of balance or support. As strong as the Demigoddess had become, the All-Mother doubted it would be very comfortable for her to shoulder the...non-insignificant weight.
"How was it?" Caethya asked, getting a few raised brows as she did not speak English. "The Fae, I mean."
"Well enough," Aperio replied. "They are quite odd to say the least. I had not expected them to hold the key to actually making a multiverse, either. Especially not one I had made myself."
"I'm more surprised it was an actual object that helped you understand." Caethya gave a small laugh. "Makes me think more and more that you planned this, down to what you forgot and, somehow, how you forgot it. You removed a lot more from your memories than you seem to think. Well, the old you." Her love let out a small sigh. "Sometimes this gets really confusing."
"That it does," Aperio agreed. Of course, she also had the issue that she had all the memories of her past self in her mind, just hidden away for now. "But I also know I had planned to do this to myself. I know that I can never truly die, so I had to know that in the past as well."
"Logically yes, but you have the luxury of not caring about logic."
Aperio turned her head slightly to look at her love and raised an eyebrow. "And what do you mean by that?"
"That you are not bound by reality like the rest of us," Caethya replied. "For all we know, you could have planned your entire mortal life before committing to it."
The All-Mother leaned back and folded her arms in front of her chest. Her love was not wrong, but the memories she had gotten after she had taken care of her godly mistakes had made it quite clear that ending up a slave was more a subconscious choice than anything else. One she dearly wished her past self had not made.
"I likely could have, yes, but I know I did not. Not directly at least." Aperio shook her head lightly, both of her ears twitching as she could not help but hear the variants of the mortal conversations around them rippling across multiple realities. "It does not matter anymore, either. What happened, happened, and I have no interest in finding a way to undo it."
"Yes," Caethya agreed. "Focusing on the now is much more important. Like your whole multiverse thing."
"Do you want to see?" The All-Mother once more looked at her love, this time with a small smile gracing her face. "It is limited to Earth for now, but it is already quite… magnificent."
"Sure," her love replied, ignoring the glances they were getting from a few of the mortals. They were merely talking amongst themselves, and both Caethya and Aperio were more than content to just let them continue doing exactly that.
Aperio reached out, gently touching Caethya's mind with the tiniest sliver of her magic to convey her own perception of the ever-expanding tangle of Earths. Abstractions still had to be made, as she doubted anyone but herself would understand the actual way every single instance of Earth had come to exist, but it would be good enough.
The Earth they were currently on was the first one to exist; the origin of every other instance of it that existed, or would ever exist. With every passing moment, a new version branched off to follow whatever decision had been big enough to divert the possible future of that Earth.
Some of these reflections only existed for a brief moment, as the event that caused their creation was the selfsame one that ended it. Those versions of Earth flashed for but a single breath, their light fizzling out from the fabric of her creation like a dying star hidden within the vast expanse of Earth's own galaxy.
Others lingered in a stable fashion, long enough to create branches of their own. Yet more reflections simply stayed their course, holding no events major enough to birth yet another version of themselves.
As Aperio beheld all the current flickerings of was, is, and may be, she noticed a small but rather important detail. The tethers that linked every copy of a mortal being back to their original — and thereby the original's Soul — were no longer all properly connecting. In some cases, the tethers even became mixed up, linking back to the wrong Souls.
A thought of her own corrected the mana flowing from the various Earths, weaving the tethers back to their correct Souls of origin, but that was a stopgap solution at best. The Souls themselves were still not able to actually take in everything that was provided by the multitude of lives that they now lived. It would seem she would have to take care of this problem sooner rather than later.
"That looks wrong," Caethya said, her eyes unfocused as she was concentrating on the images Aperio was showing her. "Well, feels wrong is more accurate." The Demigoddess tilted her head slightly. "Those are Souls, right?"
"Yes," Aperio replied. "But a Soul is only meant for one life at a time. I have an idea on how I can fix this, but I would have to break my very own rule. I do not trust myself to properly fix it, either. I used to know how all of my creation worked, but it is broken as it currently stands. Why would I only now be able to do it properly?"
"Because you actually care about the people living in your creation now," Caethya replied. "And you also can know everything you did before. It's not easy, I know, but there aren't many options. You either have to strengthen every Soul like you did mine, stop this multiverse idea, or fix it in the way you think it will work."
"Giving everyone a blessing would not work," the All-Mother replied, her voice quieter than before. "It does not affect you, because there can only be one of you." Aperio let out a small sigh, teleporting both herself and Caethya into her Void after her love had agreed to it.
The All-Mother appeared a few steps away, an approximate projection of the current state of Earth and all its reflections surrounding her. More versions of the planet appeared with every moment, and she gestured at the various branches that had already been formed during the short time her multiverse had been implemented. "All of this is supposed to help the mortals become stronger. Give them more worlds with more experiences.
"I could just have new Souls live in the reflections of Earth," Aperio continued. "But that was not the point of making a multiverse. Every Soul was supposed to have access to more versions of its own reality, not just put new lives in the same worlds."
"And what was your idea for fixing the Souls?" Caethya asked, her eyes scanning the projection that continued to grow as it crowded around the All-Mother.
"Every Soul would have to be able to create a buffer of sorts," the All-Mother replied as she began to walk through the projection and added the various additional tethers that connected all the mortals and their reflections to their one Soul. The only difference this time was that she placed a smaller sphere in between. "But would that buffer not be a faux-Soul of sorts, created to be a slave to the original?"
"As much as the different branches of Earth would be subservient to the original," Caethya said with a shrug. "Or how everyone is bound to you. Technically, your will is law for everyone, but you do not exercise that power. The mortals of Earth would not have this power over their variations, but even if they did, they would not know about them. All this would do, is allow any mortal to ascend faster.
"Thousands of lifetimes worth of experience and strength would be in their Soul," her love continued, her eyes following the various lines Aperio drew to represent her idea. "I feel like that is exactly what you were trying to do, and it would only benefit people."
"Perhaps," Aperio replied. "But what right do I have to do this? Am I allowed to ignore my own rules just because nobody will ever be able to stop me?"
"Yes." Caethya gave a nod. "But that's besides the point." The Demigoddess stepped through the projection to stand right in front of the All-Mother. "What would you do if someone somehow figured out how to make the System better? A change that would affect everyone, but would greatly improve the lives of everyone in your creation at one point or another."
Aperio looked at her love for a moment, her head tilted slightly and her ears twitching a tiny bit as she thought. "I would examine the idea and, if it actually seemed to work as intended, I would consider creating something that would amount to the same result." She paused, spreading her wings for a brief moment before folding them back behind her back. "But you know as well as I do that that will never happen. You are beyond many mortals, and still you cannot truly perceive even the most basic parts of my System.
"Such an idea would, in all likelihood, not concern the Soul," she continued as she folded her arms in front of her chest. "If I make a mistake, it would permanently erase countless lives."
Caethya let out a sigh and gently pulled on the All-Mother's arms until Aperio relented. "You might not like it," the Demigoddess said as she gently held her love's hands, "but you know exactly how to prevent that. The knowledge is there" —Caethya pushed herself onto her toes to be able to tap a finger against Aperio's forehead— "it is simply attached to things you do not wish to see."
As Caethya lowered herself back onto her feet, Aperio's hands fell downwards to her love’s hips. The Demigoddess leaned back slightly, allowing her full weight to be supported by the All-Mother. "I know you can do it and I am here to help you with whatever you need." The Demigoddess looked up at Aperio, giving a small smile. "If you fear that I will no longer like you, you have nothing to worry about. The only thing stopping you from knowing all that you wish will only ever be yourself.
"I wish for you to be the best version of yourself," she continued, leaning in and pushing herself up once more. "Whatever you decide will be the correct choice." Balancing on her toes, she rose up as high as she could to place a tender kiss on her love's lips. "I'll be with you no matter what you choose to be."
The All-Mother blinked a few times. Every sense she had was focused on Caethya, trying to search beneath the warmth that seemed to be quite literally flowing off of the Demigoddess, but try as she might she found no other motivators for her love's actions.
"How can you be so sure?" she eventually asked, moving her hands to Caethya's waist and giving her a slight squeeze. "How can you know that whatever I choose will be right?" Aperio stepped back slightly, switching her hands for her wings as she rubbed her temples. She did not have a headache, of course, but the motion still helped. "Yes, I can force myself to know, but what if I actually agree with my past? Mortals are weak. Useless for most anything. There is no reason why anything exists besides the fact that at a point unfathomably long ago for a mortal, I decided that being absolutely nothing was not enjoyable and I made… existence."
Perhaps it was time she showed her love what she actually was. Caethya already knew, at least in terms of dry facts, but the All-Mother doubted that she truly understood what such things meant. Directly implanting a comprehensive understanding into the Demigoddess' mind went against what Aperio believed to be right, so that wouldn't do. There was only one option left for her to choose.
Aperio slowly let out a long breath of the airless nothing that filled her Void. Then, she simply let go of all the tiny thoughts that kept her powers in check. Caethya would not be harmed, as the core of her sense of self would hate to see her love in pain, but she had to show who she truly was. No glimpses for the Demigoddess this time. No oblique suggestions or subtle references.
Just her.
Caethya took a step backwards as reality itself fractured in front of her. Each splinter that came from the expanding fractal folded — was it backwards, or inwards? — into a space that occupied the plane that held Aperio's Void, but also simultaneously existed behind and in front of it.
In the middle of the phenomenon stood her love, looking much as she always did. The Amazonian Moon Elf still managed to look adorable, despite her serious face and the veritable flood of mana that surged outwards from her form. Caethya was absolutely not deterred by the fact that every one of her mortal senses screamed at her to run. She knew who she was looking at, and she had meant every word she had said to her.
A wave of mana — purer than anything else she had felt Aperio use before — washed over her, splitting the Void apart in its wake. Just like the first breaking of the Void, it moved in fractals, somehow overlapping itself in every direction while each layer was visible with perfect clarity.
The overwhelming presence that accompanied it all would threaten to crush Caethya into a fleshy jam, were it not for a thin film of nothing that hovered just above her skin. Despite examining the phenomenon, her mind did not seem to want to make sense of what she was seeing. It did not matter. Caethya could still clearly see her love at the centre of the ever-expanding presence; could feel how reality itself reached out hungrily, yearning to tether itself properly to its creator.
It could have been taken as a form of intimidation, but the Demigoddess knew full well that this display was a sign of trust. She smiled at her love, and offered her a wave. Aperio had chosen to show her true self, and not just a brief glimpse at her infinite mind but the full view. Despite the way everything she perceived was being read as wrong and impossible by her own mind, she still only had eyes for her love, who still stood there in her Void. She's finally taking a moment to not hold back.
Caethya understood her love's reasoning for never showing who she actually was, but did not like it much. Though she knew Aperio did not mind the way she inhabited her current form, it would be nice if the All-Mother could allow herself more chances to be who she actually was. It was just one more reason why the Demigoddess was in favour of that which had been set into motion.
"This is who I am," Aperio said, her voice echoing through the Void and Caethya's mind. It was quiet, yet perfectly audible and deafeningly loud. The All-Mother lowered her head, and her wings spread to their full length for a brief moment. The motion was accompanied by a quake so intense it almost threw the Demigoddess off of her feet.
In its wake, Caethya saw a blinding expanse of nothing behind Aperio, filled to the brim with her love's mana. It all moved in perfect unison to the All-Mother's every thought, each action a perfect orchestration of infinite power moving to fulfill a wish: a simple existence. No matter how hard she tried — no matter how much of her infinite strength she brought to bear — she could never grant her own wish. It would never work, as her love's very nature was incompatible with her desires.
In the blink of an eye, everything stopped. The Void snapped back to a restored state, and her love stood there before her, no longer in the centre of a fracture in reality. All was as it was before. Well, not quite. Like the last time Aperio had used a significant amount of her power, her body looked a bit more well-defined. More real, somehow. As if the universe yearned to manifest her love the way she saw herself.
Aperio ran her hands over her stomach, smoothing out a few non-existent wrinkles on her dress before she directed her gaze back onto the Demigoddess. "What I do not wish to be."
Caethya stepped closer, placing a hand on her love's chin so she was no longer looking at the ground but at her. "I know, and like I have said before, it does not change how I feel about you or what I think you should do."
"But what if I make a mistake?"
"You could always leave reality as it currently stands. However, Earth has apparently always had its reflections, and I think that having something like it for every world would be a good thing." The Demigoddess shrugged. "You've been planning this change for months, now. For you, it might not have seemed like much time, but it should have been more than enough to figure out whether you truly wish to go forward with your plan."
"And," Caethya continued, pulling her hand away from her love's face and instead taking her hands, "I know that you won't make a mistake."
Aperio gave her love's hands a gentle squeeze. She was right; she did want to do this. It seemed like the best choice to help mortals gain strength more quickly, as well as giving them quite literally infinite experiences.
Her little demonstration had also given her a much greater insight into how exactly the Souls tried to remedy the fact that they now had to deal with mortal minds from multiple worlds. At the moment, most Souls — especially of weaker mortals — were simply trying to delete old memories, overlaying them with the experiences they now gathered from the multitude of worlds.
"Why did I not do this before?" Aperio mumbled to herself. "Well, I did, but only for the Fae and only to offer them a temporary world to play in…" The All-Mother gave her love's hands a last squeeze before she pulled them back. "But that was quite specifically designed to be that way. Built on an entire version of existence, nonetheless."
"Yet another reason to do it," Caethya said with a smile on her face. "And another cause to believe that you will not make a mistake. The current flawed nature of the reflections is due to something you put in yourself." The Demigoddess touched the All-Mother's arm. "There also exists the possibility that Earth is not the only world this is happening to. Learning to fix this will always be the better option."
Aperio tilted her head slightly, letting a few threads of her creation connect fully to her mind to search for other worlds that were either in the process of creating — or already had created — a multiverse. It was something she should have considered and checked much earlier.
The All-Mother furrowed her brows as she found quite a few more worlds that behaved like Earth had before she 'fixed' it. Just like the world she had been on just a little while ago, these ones were also mana-starved and inhabited by mortals that were much too weak for her liking.
"I assume that means there are others," Caethya said, her eyes fixed on Aperio's own.
"There are, yes. Quite a few more than I would have thought, too."
She would be lying if she said she liked the idea of having more than a few worlds with this 'feature', but it did make her decision a little easier. What it did not make any easier was the fact that she had to actually change how Souls worked on a fundamental level. And for that, she would have to go and look quite closely at the places in her very own mind that she would prefer never to see.
"Well, you don't know everything about yourself — not consciously at least — so why would you know everything about your creation?" Caethya asked. "The universe and you are synonymous, after all." Her love gave a small nod. "You are both infinite and ever-changing. But you are also wholly separate. I'm still not quite sure how that works."
"Neither am I," Aperio replied. She had shown to her love that she was quite literally nothing, a nothing that had decided it wanted to instead be something, but it would seem that that concept was not yet compatible with Caethya's mind. "But it doesn't matter either, does it?"
"Nope," her love said. "Doesn't matter one bit. You are you, and that is all I need to know." She clapped her hands together. "Now, is there something I can do while you work your Soul magic?"
Aperio tilted her head slightly. After a moment of consideration she sat herself down on the nothing that filled her Void. She spread her wings and patted the vacant expanse next to her. "You can look at what I do and tell me what you see. It may not make much sense to you, but a different view might help."
"Projection, or mind stuff?" her love asked as she sat down and leaned herself against the All-Mother's wing with her full weight. She froze for a moment as Aperio shared her view of the part of the System that governed Souls. "This is a lot weirder than looking at you without holding back."
"Because you can understand a part of this. You are part of this, after all. Or were, at least. Your Soul is different now. Stronger. Unique."
"Thanks to your blessing, I assume?" Caethya asked as Aperio began to pick at the countless runes that made and maintained the Souls of every mortal.
"No," she replied, squinting at a set of runes that read 'buffer' and 'allay'. "Well, yes," she amended as she pulled those two runes out of the complex mesh. "But it was not needed to achieve the change you did. Most Souls on Verenier are similar, though yours is much stronger."
"How does that make sense?"
"Verenier is special." Aperio hesitated for a moment, glancing at her love in the brief moment before a new rune came into existence. Nestled between the ones her past self had made, it was strangely formless — not yet imbued with purpose. "It was always my favourite world in the past. A failed attempt at something I will once again know all too soon."
She already had a hunch about what it was that made Verenier special, but there was little sense spending the time speculating about it when it would be potentially confirmed before long. Aside from looking at the runes of her System, the All-Mother actively scoured her memories, forcing the ones that seemed useful to the front of her mind. Already she was regretting the decision, as she had stumbled upon pieces of her past that she would have very much liked to never remember.
Aperio saw herself erase the existence of an entire galaxy simply because the mortals spread across its planets had figured out a way to live an eternal life. One that came at the cost of drastically reducing their potential growth in power. She had eliminated everything in that region of space simply because the mortals there were too slow for her liking. Her — a being who, at times, could not tell a single day from an aeon.
She tore herself away from the memory, only to find herself in another one. A memory that was far too personal for her own liking. She watched as her past self, brimming with joy, ripped out the Soul of a God. Why she had taken an interest in this particular Deity was not included in the glimpse into her past; only the disturbing glee with which her old self wove the freshly-extracted Soul into a new one, destined to bring ruin to those who had worshipped the God she had just exterminated.
Why had she ever been like that? It just made no sense. If she had never cared for any of the mortals, why had she gone through all the trouble of making so many worlds for them to inhabit? Why had she even made the System for them? Entertainment might have felt like an answer, if it weren't for the fact that her old self had never really felt that entertained by her creation.
The All-Mother shook her head. It didn't matter anymore. The only things that did matter were how she had originally made Souls and, perhaps, the exact reason why Verenier was as special as it was.
A previous brief glimpse of a memory had given her an inkling, but she had dismissed it at the time. It was, after all, a ridiculous idea, and one that even she knew would never work. And yet, she understood all too well why she would have attempted something of the like in the past. She had given everyone a Soul...
It did not take long to find the memory she was looking for; the one that would let her imbue the exact meaning she wished to tether to the runes that were, at the moment, unused. Her past self had laid the groundwork for her plan, and all she needed to add were the finishing touches.
Aperio carefully pushed her will into the formless rune, letting it take the shape it thought best reflected her intention. There were no runes that fit the expression she wished to place into the works of her System, so a new one needed to be made. A thought here and there twisted reality into its new shape, the rune inching into its rightful place so it might enact her will without her conscious intervention.
The All-Mother could feel her love’s presence shift away from her creation, the Demigoddess likely not quite comfortable looking at the not-space of the System twisting to her whims. Or, perhaps, she was more interested in the faux-Souls Aperio had made to see how her actual changes should play out. With every alteration she made to the construct of her System, the projection she had made changed as well. It might not have started out as an entirely accurate view, but with every passing moment, with every bit of knowledge she forcibly recovered, it grew clearer.
Sadly, with every helpful memory, Aperio also had to remember what her old self had done elsewhere. How she had subsumed the Souls of the Gods she had created herself. She had known at the time that a Soul was born of her power and could never contain even a fraction of what she was, but she had seemingly not cared.
Her old self had tried idea after idea. Forcing Souls together into a greater entity, splitting them apart into fragments in the hopes that they would be easier to manipulate, even creating an entire reality separate from the current one filled with nothing but empty Souls she could pour herself into. None of it had worked. None of it had allowed her to have a Soul of her own.
Not even using the very first world she had made in the current iteration of her creation had been good enough to act as her Soul.
Aperio could only mentally squint at the actions of her past self. It was more than clear that such a thing could never work, and yet she had tried. And all that while knowing more than I do now...
Perhaps that had all been preparation for her attempt at a mortal life. After all, she had managed to contain parts of herself in those crystals for millennia. But then, they had always felt more symbolic than anything else. It was very much like what she was doing now. The All-Mother had always had the memories — it was simply that she had never truly wanted to remember. Now, all that had changed. She needed to know what her past self had done, and so she would know.
Aperio blinked as she reached for another memory, one she knew would contain knowledge that would help her at the moment. Bound to this particular fragment of her past was something else: bits and pieces of her own mana. They looked and felt an awful lot like the lingering remains of yet another reality. The only difference was that this one was quite clearly marked, and by herself no less.
The All-Mother reached out with a thought, an invisible hand grasping the fragment and pulling it closer. A small tingle ran through the All-Mother's body and mind; an attempt from her own memory to bring her to a different place. Figuratively, at least.
She let the fragment pull a part of her attention away, pausing slightly as she found herself in the expanse of black glass again. It was one she had observed once before, shortly after she had returned to Verenier.
Just like last time, a version of herself stood on the smooth obsidian sea, observing the shards that contentiously broke off in the distance and floated into the equally smooth and black sky. Neither she nor the memory of herself moved, both content to simply stare at the ever-moving shards of glass that always took away from the ocean but never diminished it.
A thought unravelled the mental plane piece by piece, the All-Mother no longer needing to piece the memory together like she had had to the last time she was here. Instead, she simply observed the weave of her own mind beneath; the flow of nothing that held so much knowledge, just waiting for her.
She looked upwards at the perfect copy of the obsidian sea. Nothing was there aside from a smooth surface of black glass that showed a reflection of herself looking up. And she is — I am, Aperio corrected herself, still here because I do not want to remember.
The All-Mother scoffed at the thought and dug into the tapestry that hid beneath the sea of glass. She did not want to remember, but she had to. The fragment of herself still stood motionless at the very centre of the ocean, showing no indication that it had noticed her here. That I noticed myself? Her last excursion into this plane had been rather confusing and Aperio hoped that this one would not be.
Her hopes were not high, however, as she began to truly grasp the mess that was responsible for governing this plane. It was quite obvious why she had left herself the clue to return here, but Aperio also wanted to give her old self a beating for making a realm like this. It clearly meant as much to her old self as her Void did her current self, but this dark ocean of glass was most certainly not stable.
If she were to ever physically go to that plane, Aperio was sure it would break. It could not hope to contain even a rather insignificant fraction of the amount of power housed within her body. And yet, despite its crude nature, every part of the infinite ocean and its continuously crumbling edges held the secrets the All-Mother had been looking for. Why would I ever use my own memories to build something like this?
It likely did not really matter where she put anything, as she existed everywhere simultaneously, but it still felt weird to have the entire realm that she had once called her home built upon memories. Memories of the very first Souls that had given everyone, besides herself, a chance at life and the option to grow.
As it turned out, the little trick that had caused her own memories to take form back then was essentially what she needed to create faux-Souls, ones that could take on the memories and experiences of every mortal calling a reflection their home and syphoning them to their actual Soul, housed safely and soundly in her Void. Not only would this approach actually help mortals become stronger as she wished them to, but it would also stop idiots like Epemirial from messing around with an actual Soul. They would have to get into her Void to be able to manipulate one, and that meant that they would have to be stronger than her. Which was very much impossible, as every last bit of power someone had came from the All-Mother.
Aperio let out a small sigh as she focused more of her attention back on the ever-expanding tangle of runes that governed Souls. A small smile graced her face as she felt her love poking around the System as well, trying to make sense of runes the All-Mother was quite sure she could not read.
A small thought directed at the Demigoddess brought with it bits and pieces of the knowledge she would need to at least form a basic understanding on how her own Soul worked. Aperio would love to explain each and every detail, but first she'd have to spend more time actually understanding things. Sure, she knew what was what and, thanks to the small excursion to her old home, also what she needed to do, but her knowledge levels had not quite reached the levels she wished to have. True understanding would take a bit more time.
For now, however, she had some mortal Souls to save from the dreadful fate of languishing in eternal mediocrity. A small flex of her mental muscles pushed the last bit of meaning into the rune she had come up with, then formed the ones she had once used for the obsidian sea. Now all she had to do was to place her updated System module back into the whole and watch it take root.
With another thought her changes slid back into place, melding with the rest of the System as if they had always been there. A surge of mana flowed through it, and the accompanying sensations made the All-Mother raise an eyebrow. Like many things she had relegated to her subconscious mind, she would be checking in from time to time to make sure that what she had thought up was actually working. Probably better that way.
While she was certain her changes would work — they had worked quite well on her own memories in the past — doing another check was best. She was about to break her own rules a little, after all. The least she could do was make sure it would work as she wanted it to.
Every Soul that lived on a world that had split into many copies would be subject to this change, while the others would be left untouched. It was the first of many things she would do in her quest to actually better her creation instead of giving up and starting over like she had done in the past.
Aperio leaned back to watch the change ripple through her creation. On every world that had, or would soon, split into a multiverse, every Soul stopped for the briefest of moments. Every time that happened, the All-Mother feared that something would go wrong. That the work she had done was insufficient; that she had made a mistake. But all proceeded as she had thought it would.
None of the Souls were touched directly. All she had done was add another layer around each of them, one that would help them grow stronger for every version of a world they inhabited. They would have infinite possibilities on infinite worlds.
All they now had to do was grasp the new chances that would present themselves.
GamingWolf
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