Searching For Answers
Volume 6: The Mantling Ritual
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-Long, long ago, during the Eternal War-
"Pah!" Freyya spits with venom in her eyes. "This isn't a battle anymore. It's just plain torture! Stay out of the way, and don't tell on me!"
Das shakes his head. "I can't let you do that, Freyya. The Death King has gotten more strict with us lately. I'm afraid he's already watching us right now. Unless…"
The old man puts his finger on his lips and smiles at Freyya. "…Unless you've done something to Haalfrin's Fate. Why else would you be so sure that you can interfere with him without our boss's knowing?"
Freyya is starting to get a little nervous as Das keeps talking…
"…A Mantling Ritual, right?" Das smiles at Freyya. When he sees her eyes dilate, he knows that he guessed correctly.
….
The memory is blurry. What happened next?
…
With the Ant Queen behaving so completely unlike Drakavar, Freyya's Mantling Ritual is on the verge of falling apart.
...
'Ugh…, Freyya thinks, 'why is this part so hard to remember?'
'I remember that the Ant Queen was behaving very different from Drakavar, though I don't know exactly how. I need to know more. How could I have just gone off of this? Ugh… So frustrating.'
What happened next?
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After that, Das and Freyya fought with their avatars – Das trying to stop her from fixing the Mantling Ritual, and Freyya fighting to correct her mistakes.
'That's why my head hurts. That cruel god blew my avatar's head off at the end.'
'What do I do now? I need to find a way to communicate with my real body. I need to start working on a new Mantling Ritual right away… except this next ritual won't be so flimsy.'
'That means… while this avatar of mine sticks with Haalfrin in his battle with the Ant Queen, I can have my real body back at the Death Realm start searching for more information about Drakavar.'
'Once I know more about this black dragon, I can set up a proper Mantling Ritual – one too strong for Das to meddle with next time.'
And so, Freyya sat down cross legged in her soul Realm, and she spent a few hours gathering what remained of her Spirit Threads. She then reached out through the Spirit World and touched her real body – conveying the truth of what happened.
With her real body being alerted, Freyya finally sits back and relaxes. 'While I let my true body do the investigating, I'll spend my time with Haalfrin and keep him company.'
And thus, this is what Freyya's avatar did for the remainder of the Eternal war. She only heard from her true body near the end of the war.
She's not sure what her true body learned, but all she heard was, "I've done it. The next Mantling Ritual is set. Let Haalfrin know that I have everything figured out."
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When Freyya's True body heard about how Das ruined her Mantling Ritual for the Ant Queen and Drakavar, she was understandably angry at first.
Then, just like her avatar, she realizes that she failed because she didn't know enough about Drakavar, nor did she know enough about EXACTLY how the future unfolds.
You can't Mantle something if you can't imitate that event and the people acting out the events. You can't imitate them if you don't know enough about them.
And so, the goddess of Defeat spends the next few centuries painfully dragging herself out of her house to search for information about Drakavar.
This proves not only difficult, but seemingly impossible. The Universal Gods are taboo subjects, and Mantling them is strictly forbidden, due to how powerful Mantling is when the base of the Ritual is a being infinitely large like those Elder Gods.
To put it in perspective, if a normal mortal Mantles a god, then he's involving a powerful force in his Fate – drastically changing how his life is going to go. This is because gods are so much greater than the caster, and their Fates carry much more weight.
Now, the Elder Gods, or the Universal Gods, are far greater compared to the gods than the gods are to the mortals. Simply put, the Elder Gods' Fates carry so much weight that Mantling them is actually quite dangerous.
You could say that any information about an event involving an Elder God is treated like a weapon of mass destruction.
Hence, anyone who has any knowledge on these Elder Gods keeps these things secret. They don't want anyone using these powerful secrets against them in a Mantling Ritual.
Since information about Drakavar is so important and dangerous, why is Freyya confident that she can learn some for herself?
The only reason Freyya is even reasonably confident that she can find intel on Drakavar is because she, herself, is a high class god. Many doorways that would be closed to others are open for her.
Worst come to worst, if she finds someone who knows something about Drakavar, yet refuses to talk, then she can just bully the intel out of them.
Most of the time, though, she doesn't have to get violent.
For the most part, Freyya does favors for people left and right in exchange for information and bits of lore about Drakavar and the other Elder Gods. With how powerful she is, as well as her power over death, she always has something to offer people.
The easiest bargains is when Freyya offers to give someone a few free exemptions from Death in exchange for what they know.
Either way, Freyya slowly accumulates knowledge through trickery, violence, theft, and negotiation. Whatever method she thinks will work, she does without hesitation.
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During Freyya's centuries of relentless searching, she hears a rather odd account from a princess of a fallen god-king.
The former princess's name was "Rahwyn", and her father was the owner of the Aurelli Empire – the most influential empire in the Divine Realms of its day, a couple million years ago.
Freyya had always known that after a battle broke out on that empire's capital planet, the land was devastated, and its leading gods were slaughtered – including the ruling god-king – Rawyn's father.
New gods tried moving in to take the emperor's place, but that only created infighting. This led to the Empire slowly declining out of relevance. That empire doesn't even exist today.
Freyya, however, ended up finding the former princess in the Death Realm. They had a nice chat over tea about the day the empire effectively fell…
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On the day the Aurelli Empire fell, Rahwyn's father was doing some trade negotiations with a 7-Horned dragon god.
Apparently the negotiations turned sour when they discovered that Rahwyn had found a black gem housing an Artifact Spirit named 'Felkavar'.
Felkavar is, of course, an Elder God. Realizing how utterly priceless this artifact is, all of the gods in the room broke out in fighting.
What made this situation even more complicated is that Felkavar was originally Drakavar's possession, and the black dragon isn't fond of people taking her things.
… Needless to say, Drakavar unceremoniously slaughtered almost everyone in that room for daring to covet her things.
The only people to survive the encounter were a handful of god-kings visiting from neighboring clans – all of which had surrendered. Drakavar tends to spare people who submit to her, so they got to keep their lives.
The other survivor was Princess Rahwyn herself. Drakavar spared her because the girl obediently showed her where the palace was.
At the end of this princess's account, Freyya learned that Drakavar confessed to something nobody else had ever heard of before, nor heard since.
"I'm still not sure whether to believe it myself or not," Rahwyn had said shakily, "but Drakavar mentioned off hand that she's Mora's daughter."
Freyya spit her tea out at this. "The Creator God!" she exclaimed in shock.
Once Freyya wipes the spilled tea from her cheek, she calms down and says, "Well, that shouldn't surprise me. They're both Elder Gods, so it makes sense for them to all be related to each other somehow."
"THAT'S IT!" Freyya exclaims in delight. "I can just find Mora!"
"What are you…?" Rahwyn was confused by her guest's outburst.
"No time to talk. Thanks for everything! Bye!" Freyya spins around and runs out the door – ecstatic.
As she runs away to go gather her things for another journey, she thinks, 'Since Mora is Drakavar's father, then I can just go find him and ask him about his daughter's life! He'll know better than anyone!'
Her enthusiasm only wanes when she realizes something unfortunate. 'But… where does Mora live?"
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For hundreds of years, then thousands of years, Freyya scours the known universe for answers about Mora; she wants to know where the Father of all Gods lives, but no one seems to know; it's like he doesn't even exist.
It soon becomes clear to her that information about Mora is even harder to find that information about Drakavar.
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One day, Freyya trudges back to her home in the tree stump. Feeling tired from another wasted trip on a false lead, she just wants to take a rest and sleep for a few weeks… in between catching up on her favorite books.
After decades away from her house, most of her favorite authors in the Death Realm have come out with new books…
Before she can start ordering all the latest books to her house, Freyya finds a note on her bed. The only reason she doesn't mistake it for a piece of scrap paper is because she senses a magical seal on it.
Her first thought is, 'WHO DARES BREAK INTO MY HOUSE!? I'LL KILL THEM!' Her second thought is, 'Oooo! I wonder what they left for me?'
Her curiosity overcomes her anger, and she rushes to pick the letter up and open it.
There, written in sloppy, careless handwriting, are these words:
"I'm sorry it took me so long to notice you and reach out to you. The universe is such a big place that you can't blame me for not even knowing you existed until just the other day.
"Whatever. I've noticed that you've been snooping around about the Elder Gods – especially Mora and Drakavar.
"Normally, I'd have destroyed you, since people who snoop about the Elder gods are usually up to no good. However, I've looked into you and watched your Timeline. I've decided to help you instead.
"Don't go making strange assumptions about why I'm helping you. I know about the future you're trying to create with your husband, and I'd like for that future to happen. That means that it's better for me to help you then watch you embarrass yourself any further on a futile search for knowledge.
"To answer your question, most Events and places significant to the Elder Gods have been locked away in the Realm of Nowhere – a place no one can go to. This is why you'll never find much about them, so you can stop trying to waste your time searching.
"Anyway, you won't be able to get to Nowhere without help, which means you'll need me.
"Meet me at the base of the World Tree, near the roots.
"Signed: An interested party"
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'Is this some kind of prank?' Freyya thinks to herself. 'I wasn't exactly quiet about my search for apocryphal knowledge on the Elder Gods, so there could be all kinds of unsavory people trying to lure me out to an isolated place.'
The more she thinks about it, the more fishy this all seems. 'I'll bring my spear with me and make sure I'm full on mana. I'll scout around the area first and check for ambushes.'
'Still… the base of the World Tree is a very big place, so how could I possibly search this entire area for ambushes?'
'On the off chance that there really is someone trying to be helpful, I'll still go to the meeting. It's not like I can afford to miss out on any potential leads.'
So, Freyya packs up her spear, spends the day getting ready, and heads out.