Regarding Sanctions (Shortly after the Glatisant fight of the Rise Era)

[youandyoualone]

Although I know that clean-up from the battle with the Glatisant and the message gleaned from its remains is likely of the utmost importance as of now--as well as the matter of the unintelligible Familiars and Spirit Companions--I do have some news that I hope will aid in improving the lot of the Adversaries of the earliest era.

Before her vocabulary became limited to a single word, the vixen who attached herself to me instructed me on how I might use Oracular knowledge to glean further knowledge on Sanctions. What I have learned is this:

These Sanctions use the power of existing bonds between people, either the ones doing the Sanctioning or those bonded with the person Sanctioned. As these bonds are real in the Realm of Dreams, they can prevent action just as well as rope or shackles might--although 'tis only acts with intention they can prevent, not accidental acts, for it is the dream of action that they prevent.

They can be entered into willingly and with consent, but unless that consent was explicitly and deliberately part of that Sanction, rescinding consent would not break the Sanction.

After learning this, I wished to know more of how one would break the Sanctions and Fidelite, who was then still in possession of her full vocabulary, advised me to build a Dreamcatcher and have it gather energy in the Questing Country of the earliest era for roughly a week. Fortunately, I was already there after the bridge broke.

Shortly before the battle started, my Dreamcatcher was deemed sufficiently filled by my still-coherent Familiar, and now that the fighting has concluded, I have had time to look within to see what might break the Sanctions. That information was granted to me in a series of three visions:

The first, of bitter and acrimonious arguments between Champions and Oracles, leading to the severing of a bond group, also severing all Sanctions they created.

The second, of a cabal of Adversaries furtively meeting, banding together, forming a fresh bond--overwriting the Sanction with the energy of their alliance.

And the third and most intriguing, of a heavy, metal-hafted mace, light wavering around its head like one reads in reports of desert mirages.

Comments

[youandyoualone]

I did not find out about it until after I died and was brought here. But yes. She--that is, my old friend and lover--was in conspiracy with the man whose hired men killed both my former pupil and myself. I do not think she meant for us to die, but even so.

[triggerhappytraitor]

That...!

[[One moment, he's just...]]

For what reason would someone...?!

okay let's assume this thread is going to be spoilers forever for the first kushiel book

[youandyoualone]

What other reason but to gain the throne? Or so I was told by others who knew the end of the matter.

[triggerhappytraitor]

...Just a throne? Just to rule a country?

[youandyoualone]

[His mental voice is very dry.] For the man whose hired men killed me, it was a single country. For my old lover, who later betrayed him, it was two.

... to be fair to her, I do not think she wanted me to die. Just the man who carried a message for me.

[triggerhappytraitor]

[[Pardon him, he's just... trying to wrap his brain around this all]]

Even for two...

It... just seems such a small thing to risk the life of someone you've cared for over.

[[Coming from the man who couldn't even bring himself to seal the Joker Undead to save the world, because a small girl cared for him.]]

LET'S GO FULL IN WITH THE SPOILERS AND NAME NAMES

[youandyoualone]

[Oh Tachibana you sweet summer child.]

You've never met Melisande, I'm afraid. Games of thrones and crowns were her truest love.

SPOILERS. SPOILERS EVERYWHERE.

[triggerhappytraitor]

...things like that aren't games.

[[a little bit of an intensity there.]]

[youandyoualone]

Not to you and I, no. For myself, such things were always deathly serious. And as I was trying to see the Dauphine safely to her coronation, I suppose we were always destined to clash.

But what of you? What did your employers do to you?

[triggerhappytraitor]

[[There's a moment's pause.]]

...He restarted the Battle Fight, the way that the dominant species of the Earth was chosen, in my world. We had thought it had been an accident, and that we were trying to end the Fight and save the world from destruction, but he claimed our job from the start had been ensuring his victory in the Fight, so that he could become a god and remake the world how he wished.

[youandyoualone]

Blessed Elua.

... I see why Melisande's motivations seem petty to you.

[triggerhappytraitor]

Even Hirose-- the Trial with Hirose's father's memories-- was working to unlock the secrets of immortal life. [[a wry note there, considering the ichor currently in his veins...]]

[youandyoualone]

I see...

Perhaps he ought to have asked a vampire for aid.

[triggerhappytraitor]

That sort of thing doesn't exist back home. Just the Undead. And I doubt any of them would have been willing to help a human like that.

[youandyoualone]

... I thought vampires were a kind of undead?

[He is Slightly Confused now.]

[triggerhappytraitor]

It's something different. The Undead of my world are immortal creatures, created to do battle for the species they represented in order to determine the dominant species of the world. The name Undead refers to their immortality, and that they never can die.

[youandyoualone]

Elua's balls. And this Battle Fight you mentioned, that is how they accomplish this?

[triggerhappytraitor]

Yeah.

Originally, it was at the start of the world, before there was any other life on the planet. So the Battle only affected those who were part of it.

[[a long, deep, exhausted sigh follows]]

Having it restart in a fully populated world...

[youandyoualone]

... seems a recipe for disaster.

[triggerhappytraitor]

...Yeah.

[[Disaster seemed... somehow too mild of a word for what it all had been]]

And the only tool we had to fight them with was still just a prototype at the time. We were lucky that the Undead were in a bit of a state of shock when first released, and just ran for freedom. By the time the Fight started in earnest...

[[He had had what, a week of training before the first time the Searcher had gone off? Less? He couldn't even remember any longer. It had felt like barely hours...]]

[youandyoualone]

What did you fight them with? Swords? Guns? [Some other, more sophisticated future weapon?]

[triggerhappytraitor]

In a way.

The only thing that can harm an Undead, enough to defeat it and seal it-- is the power of another Undead. With the Rider system... the power of the Undead can be borrowed, used by someone who's compatible with the Ace.

[youandyoualone]

The 'Ace?'

[So Tachibana was borrowing the power of monsters for his own. Interesting.]

[triggerhappytraitor]

Category Ace. The Undead each have a suit and a level, like a deck of cards, and each card has its own ability that it can grant when Rouzed. For the Ace, it's 'Change.' [[There's the impression that that word is actually in English, rather than just translated]]

[youandyoualone]

How does one Rouze?

[He may be making mental notes on this to attend to later. The standard deck of cards did not exist when he comes from. Playing cards themselves are a novelty for the wealthy, brought back from far-off Khebbel-im-Akkad.

He's played card games by now, but those happen to be the Eurogames that Alcuin's lady has brought back to liminal space. Which means he's played a lot more Dominion than anything else. (He's very good at it.)]