Microstory 687: Book of Marsali

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Marsali Porra was not a Lightseer, nor did she ascribe to any religious beliefs. She was a completely unbiased historian, and she was not human. Some believe Peter Fireblood to have built the Marsali model himself, but most of that conjecture is based solely on how close they were. They were associates and contemporaries, but no historical record suggests that he had anything to do with her creation. She was a Class MI-9 artificial intelligence, which means that she was purported to have a soul. Salometers are one of the few technologies that are illegal in Fostea, so we’ve not been able to prove this one way or the other. Marsali, whatever her condition, dedicated herself to—or, to the skeptic, was programmed to—observing and recording history, particularly the events in our galaxy. She is capable of transferring her consciousness to multiple substrates, and can in fact, exist within our interstellar data network. There have been no confirmed sightings of her since the Sacred Savior was revising the Book of Light, and starting to work on his memoirs. There are those who believe her to have not avatared herself to an android body in centuries, instead choosing to remain without our datawork. This would certainly make sense, as it would allow her to monitor everything we lowly humans are doing simultaneously. She is one of few independent automated systems in the galaxy. They’ve not been banned, but we value human ingenuity and hard work above all else. Though full automation on par with the dirty communists in Lactea is possible, we choose to do everything ourselves. Regardless, we have no cause to prevent someone like Marsali from existing, and most Fosteans seem to be okay with it. Over time, Marsali has released volumes upon volumes of our collective history, which is a service she apparently provides completely free of charge. She has now changed tactics, however, in order to align with taikon predictions. She has released the Book of Marsali, which reexamines the events surrounding Sotiren Zahir’s birth, life, and death; reportedly giving the audience a fresh new look on how his teachings impacted the shape of things to come, through the lens of hindsight. It will be released later today.

Microstory 686: Find the Ring of Law

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Since the taikon began, a special group of Lightseers have been going around to verify the validity of them. We can’t just take anyone’s word for it. Simply claiming an action to qualify as a taikon is not enough, so it is absolutely vital that we make sure they are truly happening. Still, as dedicated and intelligent as the verifier council is, they are as flawed as anyone. Some of their rulings have come into question by people wishing to ensure the integrity of the system. We do not condemn these challenges, for without them, our faith could not truly be pure. The primary creed of Lightseed is rely only one oneself, but trust in others. This statement may seem self-contradictory, but it is the most important thing anyone can learn on their journey through the Light. It tells us that no one in this universe can get you what you need except for yourself, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it on your own. Let people help you as they can. Be wary of their motives, but do not dismiss them outright. You never know what damage you can do to your own agenda by ignoring relationships that can make, or break, you. It is with this maxim that we not only allow challenges to Lightseed decisions, but encourage them. If we never hear more than one perspective, then we can’t really ever know whether ours is the right one. Out of all challenges drawn against the taikon verifications, not a single one has resulted in a reversal of their ruling. So far, every taikon has been accepted as the right one, and we have been able to successfully move on to the next ones. The Book of Light warns us, however, that things might be getting a little more difficult. We won’t necessarily be able to depend on the way we’ve been doing things. Though the quantum darkness has seemingly been eradicated, it remains in each and every one of us. We were all profoundly affected by its emptiness, Lightseers and nonbelievers alike. That will continue have an impact on everything we do from now on, up until the foreseeable future. It was important, then, that we find the Ring of Law, which is said to be powerful enough to discern the legitimacy of anything, taikon included. We never knew what happened to the ring centuries ago, but we know where it is now. If the quantum darkness did any good, it was to show us the way. Out of all that blackness, one shining light overwhelmed all others. Its location was marked on a dead moon that orbits Hiereus, which was where the original Eido Seamus spent a great deal of time. From now on, we will no longer have to count on but the words of the verification council. We will have proof. All we need to do now is carry out a ceremony bequesting the Ring of Law to the new Eido Seamus.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 2, 2148

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No one was torn out of time come August 2, 2148. During breakfast, Mateo kept doing a headcount, making sure that he wasn’t crazy. This wasn’t the first time Arcadia had broken her pattern—just saying that she does have any pattern may be a bit inaccurate—but still, this was making him nervous. What did she have in store for them? Was it good? Bad? Neutral? Was it a break? Were he and Leona meant to have their honeymoon now? After they were done eating, the two of them went out for a swim in the lake that The Cleanser had used for the Six Days Seven Nights tribulation. Leona had convinced him that there was no use fretting about the possibilities. When they had an opportunity to rest and relax, they needed to take it, and not worry about secret plans.

“I suppose we could use some time to talk,” he said while slowly slipping into the water.

“Yeah, we’re married, and we never talk about it,” she agreed.

“Are you wishing we weren’t?”

“No. It wasn’t right that she forced it on us, but I’m happy it happened. I want to be married to you. We’ve been together for thousands of years.”

He chuckled at the remark, knowing that saying it had been thousands of years wasn’t really doing their situation justice. “We’ve not really taken time to go over the Serif thing, though.

“Oh, are you still in love with her?”

He was silent at first. The three of them cared for each other deeply, but it wasn’t an equal bond. Though Mateo now knew that Serif didn’t exist until a few days ago, his memories of her from before that remained intact. He could remember when they met, and how their relationship developed. Leona’s feelings grew at the same time, and they eventually had to admit that the best way to describe it was polyamory. Even as such, though, Mateo and Leona were the primaries, with Serif being a third-wheel. That wasn’t an insult, though, as it was Serif who made this claim for herself. She called them collectively a tadpole tricycle, which was a design that involved having two wheels in the front, and one in the back. “Without me,” he falsely recalled her having once said, “the tricycle falls apart. Two wheels in that configuration are completely unstable. But have no fear, because a tricycle with two wheels is a bicycle. You would simply have to redesign the relationship to account for my absence.”

“I guess she should be included in this conversation. I didn’t forget about her, but I sort of avoid talking to her about it, because I know she’s all right. I know she’s not upset about our marriage, or that she wasn’t part of it. That’s just the kind of person she is. You would love her, Leona. If you gave her a chance, you would feel as I remember you feeling.”

“Well, that’s the thing. If what you two say is right, and that my memories of her were somehow corrupted, then all we should have to do is finish the expiations. If I’m really supposed to love her, then my memories of her should return, along with those of everyone else we’ve lost.”

“Rrrrriiiiight, well...”

“Well, what?”

Well those memories can’t return to you because they don’t exist. Mateo was saved by the bell when none other than Serif burst out of the bushes.

“There’s a boat!” she called down to them. “Whoever’s on it has probably gotten to the beach by now.”

They ran through the jungle, and then down the beach to find a sailboat anchored far off shore. Passengers were still on their way in three inflatable motor boats. The islanders stood there in shock, not knowing whether the people who had arrived were friendlies, or else.

The group of newcomers smiled kindly, though, so things were looking up. The oldest one extended his hand in friendship, which Leona took hesitantly.

“We have been granted passage to your island so that we may thank you for saving our lives. We’ve been waiting to do this for many years.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“The children. In Petrovichi.” He gestured to his group, all of whom were smiling as warmly. “You made a tea for us that cured us of our disease.”

“But you died. We watched you,” she argued. “Some of you, at least.”

“It just made us look dead so our parents would let us go. We were then brought to this world where we’ve lived ever since.”

“How did we not know about you,” Darko asked.

“We weren’t allowed to come here until you had experienced your time in 1921. It’s a big planet. You’ve not seen it all. In fact, you’ve seen very little.”

“It must have been hard for you to grow up alone like that,” Mateo said.

“We weren’t alone. Not by a longshot. This world is teeming with life. We are not here just to thank you, actually. We’re here to take you there so you can see for yourself.”

“Is this an expiation?” Mateo asked.

The leader stared at him. “I don’t know what that means.”

They all piled into the inflatables and then onto the sailboat, including Marcy and Dar’cy. It was a little tight, but they were all able to fit with decent breathing room. “Are we gonna get there before the three of us jump into the future?” Serif asked, not thinking until that moment that these people may not have any idea what their pattern was.

“Ira,” the leader, whose name was Anisim, said.

Ira knew exactly what he meant just by him saying her name. Through the little window, Mateo could see her fiddling with the instruments.

“Best hold on to somethin’,” Anisim recommended.

Just as Mateo grasped some kind of metal bar, the boat flew into superspeed. He looked down to see the water flying away from them faster than it should have been possible for any boat. The clouds were doing the same. The wind, on the other hand, was a different story. It was definitely coming at them at a high rate, but not as high as it should have been for as fast as they were moving. This was a magical boat, one that was capable of subverting the traditional laws of real-time. It probably operated on the same principle as Serkan and Horace’s friend and speedster, the mysterious masked K-Boy.

Anisim smiled at the newbies and their dumb newbie reactions. “It would take us days without the cylicone design,” he explained. “It’ll get even weirder once we reach land, though.”

“What happens then?” Darko asked.

Anisim just smiled wider.

About an hour later, they could see land up ahead, and were coming upon it too fast. They would either have to slow down soon, or the magic boat was even more magical, and could stop instantly without throwing them all overboard. The islanders tightened their grips and kind of leaned back and squinted. They couldn’t help but not fully trust the mainlanders to not kill them all. Their fears were unwarranted, of course, but it was true that the boat never stopped. It kept flying over the land, as if it were simply more ocean. It started to twist and turn through trees, around mountains, and even between buildings. Yes, there was a city of highrises, and even skyscrapers. If this was just the coastal city, what did the rest of it look like? How many people lived here, and exactly how advanced we they? He couldn’t see too many details at their current speed, but he did see people walking around. Some of them watched the boat fly by them, but no one appeared to be shocked by it. This could have been an entire world of people who experienced the manipulation of time on a regular basis. How did they not know this place existed? How long had they been there?

A half hour later, the boat slew down to more comfortable speeds, and finally came to a stop. They were in a region of the mainland called Sutvindr, which Anisim described as the Kansas of Dardius. It hadn’t occurred to Mateo to name the planet that he supposedly owned, but he was glad he never did. That was a good name, and it would have made things weird for it to have more than one. But then he started thinking about the fact that there were so many people living here. It wasn’t really his at that point anyway, nor was it ever Gilbert’s. It was easy to own it when the Tribulation Island was the only area populated, but now that he discovered there to be so much more, that all seemed even crazier than it had before.

“How many people live here?” Leona asked. They were standing at the edge of another city.

“A few billion,” Anisim answered. “Maybe four? I guess don’t really know.”

“That’s half the population of Earth when we first left,” she pointed out. They’re all refugees?”

“I guess you could call us that. But not all anymore. The majority of people here are descendants of these...refugees. They’re not all from the same timeline, and not everyone is human. We even have a subpopulation of Dardieti natives that we didn’t know about when the world was first settled fifty-two years ago. They did not yet have complex language, but now they’re productive members of society.”

“You did all this in half a century?” Lincoln asked, impressed.

“Eh, time...right?” was all that Anisim said.

“How long do we get to stay here?” Marcy asked. “There can’t possibly be enough time to see everything.”

“For you there will be,” Anisim said. “For these three,” he added, gesturing to Mateo, Leona, and Serif, “not really. I believe we have you for the next three or so years.”

“Wow,” Dar’cy said, eyes wide.

“Where do we start?”

“Come on.” Anisim motioned for them to follow as he walked off. “Mateo National Park is just up ahead.”

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The Mystery of Springfield, Kansas: Chapter Three

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I expect to find myself in the other dimension I’ve been to before, but it is nothing like that. It’s cold and frightening and filled with near-blinding light. I can see that there are objects around me, but everytime I try to focus on something, the intensity of the light increases, blocking it from full view. The only way I can keep from running into things is if I keep them in my peripheral vision, for anything else overwhelms my eyes. I call out to Hokusai for a little bit, but quickly grow tired of it, literally. I have no reason to believe she’s still anywhere near here. I keep walking, but very slowly, holding my hands out and pivoting so I don’t collide with anything. My God, who knows what dangers are around me? There could be an entire field of knives. Just, like, the ground is knives. I recognize it as a crazy idea, but as I’m trying to shake these fleeting thoughts from my mind, I encounter my fear. The ground is knives.

I don’t know how it’s possible, but the powerful light dims enough to show a few square feet before me. The business end of numerous knives are protruding from the ground, swaying in the wind as if mere wheat on the plains. No, this is nothing like the other dimension. This is Nightmare World. Every fear you have will be made manifest, just by you worrying it might. And there will be no escape from this, because even if you think of something you believe to be innocuous, the world will present it in the most horrible way possible. I will not be able to fight a giant marshmallow monster on my own, which is definitely on its way, because it’s all I can think about. The light recedes some more, and I see something in the distance. It’s a very large tree, on which someone has built a treehouse. I have no fear of treehouses, and I wasn’t thinking about them recently, so it must just be something that’s here on its own.

I reach down and tear one of the knives out of its place. It comes out like a tuft of grass; difficult and messy, but possible. I wait there, staring at the place where it used to be, assuming two more would grow back in its place, but they don’t. I keep doing this, building myself a path to the tree. Sure, I should probably just turn around and get the hell out of here, but I’m a detective. If nothing else, maybe Hokusai needs my help. If her experience here is half as bad as mine, she could sure use it. It takes a really long time, but I manage to get all the way through. When I reach the treehouse, I collect myself and examine my surroundings once more. It’s much easier to see than before, though there is still so much light around me that I can’t tell where it’s coming from. The rate the light was dimming would suggest that it is simply this world’s own perverted version of nightfall.

There’s evidence that the treehouse once had a rope ladder leading up to it, but it’s no longer there. I’m going to have to do this the hard way. I used to love climbing trees, but I haven’t done it since I was in single digits. I still remember how, though, and it’s not too difficult getting up there. The hardest part is figuring out how to get from under the floor, to the door, without falling on the death knives. I regret being so hasty with this. I should have taken some time to rest and warm up. Now I either take my chances and jump over to the edge of the house, or I climb back down and risk being far less lucky in my second attempt. I decide that I might as well not retrace my steps, and just go for it. I snag the edge and, while barely holding on, push the door open with my other hand, and lift myself in.

I half-expect to see Hokusai waiting for me with a smug look on her face, but it’s completely empty. The place is pretty sparse, but obviously someone was living here. There’s a decent low-to-the-floor twin-sized bed. Next to it is a desk with what looks like a lamp on it. The windows are covered in blackout curtains, but the lamp-like thing has been rigged to stream and control the natural light from the outside. Clever girl. There are stacks of papers next to the desk, and on top of a miniature refrigerator. It isn’t cold inside, but none of the unidentified meat in there has spoiled, so it was probably working at one point recently. Sitting neatly on the desk is a single sheet of paper. Well, it’s not so much a single sheet as it’s several sheets cut up and taped together, ultimately forming one sheet. Each section appears to have been written at different times, and only later put together.

Detective,

I hope this letter never finds you. After retrieving your flashlight, I hope you either decide to give up, or upon replacing the batteries, you discover that it no longer works. This is a terrible place, and it’s taken me months to learn its tricks. Everything here is dangerous, except for anything within the bounds of the treehouse. I have been living here alone for one three four seven months one two three years. Don’t worry, time won’t necessarily pass for you as fast as it does for me. As you might have noticed, the world recognizes your fears, and gives them to you as if you had asked for them. My worst fear is time, and losing too much of it before I find my daughter. If that’s never been a problem for you before, it shouldn’t be a problem now.

I’ve left for you a few things that might help. The goggles on the corner of my bed will protect you from the light, and allow you to navigate. The stack of papers under the bed should help you figure out what happened to Springfield. I believe those two boys you were searching for are still alive. The goggles, the knob, and the flashlight could help you find them, along with a few other objects that I’ve tracked, but never actually found.

Please ignore the hoarder stacks. As many things as I’ve been able to conjure here, I never could figure out how to summon a filing cabinet. They’re part of my own investigation, but they won’t do you any good. Half of them are in a shorthand of my own devising, so you wouldn’t be able to decipher them. The other half are just my diaries.

Feel free to anything in the fridge. No, it’s not cold, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s a timebox, which means it’s only been in there for a few seconds, no matter how much time has passed outside of it. The book we found has taught me to build a many wondrous things, including the fridge, and the quantum replicator, which I plan to take with me when I finally leave. The reason I’ve not left yet is because I returned to you the Rothko Torch, which is vital to reopening the portal. It has taken me this long to understand how to do without it. I do not blame you for this, it’s my own fault for not trusting you. This is all on me. I do know where my daughter is, however, and I will be using my newfound knowledge to get to her. Please, take what I have given you, and leave as well. No one should have to be here, even for just a few minutes. Don’t try to enter the Ruby Cave, don’t drink the sap of the blackthistle trees, and don’t—under any circumstances—close your eyes for an extended period of time outside the treehouse. I learned that the hard way. Just get out. Now.

With apologies,

Hokusai Gimura

I stuff the meat in my bag, along with the notes she told me to take. I put what I’m now calling the HG Goggles over my face, and make the climb back down. The goggles protect me from the light, leaving the environment looking like regular ol’ daytime. The knives are gone, so I run as fast as I can, just hoping that I’m going in the right direction. Before too long, I reach the wall. The house cannot be seen from this side, but the flashlight illuminates the wall just as well as before. After taking one last look at the new world, I step back through, and return to what was once Springfield.

Upon leaving the house, I discover that my car has disappeared, as has Hokusai’s. She perhaps would have taken hers, but not also mine. I get out my phone to hail a ridesourcing vehicle, but of course, the battery is dead, so I just start walking. After a while, a man in an old truck pulls up and offers me a ride. “What’s your name, friend?”

“Kallias,” I answer.

“That’s a great name. I’m Randall. Randall Gelen. What are you doing out in the middle of nowhere?” he asks.

“Car broke down. I was just passing through,” I lie.

“I’m on my way back to Topeka where I live, so I can drop you off anywhere between here and there.”

I take a deep breath and flip through the pages that Hokusai left me. “Topeka’s as good a place as any.”

“What about your car?”

“Let the birds have it.”

He just nods, completely without judgment.

“I appreciate this, by the way. Not many people would pick up a stranger in 2016.”

“2017,” he says simply.

“What?”

“It’s 2017.”

I say nothing at first, because a hitchhiker is dangerous enough. I don’t need him freaking out about me thinking I’m a time traveler. Obviously I spent more time in Nightmare World than I knew. Though I may not have the same issues with time as Hokusai does, it is still a concern for me, and that must have been enough for me to skip at least several months in only a few hours. It could be so much worse, though, so I’m just grateful it’s only been that long. “Of course, my mistake. Slip of the tongue.”

He nods again, still not worried I possibly brought with me one of the knife plants, and intend to use it against him. Just then, his car rings. “Hello?” he asks after pushing a button retrofitted on his steering wheel.

“Hey, dad,” the voice of a young girl says.

“Leona, shouldn’t you be in class?”

“I can make a call in between classes, I’m not hurting anyone.”

“Well, as long as you’re not hurting anyone...”

“When will you be home?”

“Early enough to catch you sneakin’ a beer with your friends.”

“All right, we’ll leave early then.”

He smiles. “I’m not too far away. I can pick you up this afternoon, if you need it.”

“Nah, I’m okay.” A schoolbell rings. “I better get goin’. Love you, dad.”

“Love you.”

“Just the one kid?” I ask, trying to make conversation.

“Yep. I know I’m pretty old for a teenage daughter. Carol and I adopted her after both her parents died. She’s a good kid, and she’s been through a lot.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“Got kids of your own?”

“No. I was a detective. I spent a lot of time looking for other people’s children, and knew I never wanted to risk going through that myself.”

“You were a detective? What are you now?”

I look out the window at the trees racing in the opposite direction. “I don’t know.”

“Well, if you’re lookin’ for a new job, I recommend you not apply at Analion.”

“What?”

“Sorry, I couldn’t help but notice your papers. If that’s an application for that company, best let it go. That place is fallin’ apart.”

I look down at Hokusai’s papers to see what he’s talking about. She says something about an astrolabe. Apparently I might be able to find it at a place called Analion Tower. “Oh, these are just...they’re nothing.”

He nods once more.

We make it to Topeka where he drops me off at a gas station. I buy a charger for my phone and hunker down at a coffee shop that has wireless internet. I start reading through the papers, and doing research on my first target. Analion, which is based out of Kansas City, is going through some tough times as of late. Hopefully they’ll be too busy with their legal troubles to notice when I break in there and steal a mystical artifact from the president’s office.

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Microstory 685: Salvation From the Quantum Darkness

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After every star in the galaxy disappeared all at the same time, we were forced to think about how life might continue without them. The Book of Light predicted that it would last for weeks in its current form, and even longer in some unexplained capacity. We assumed this meant that some stars would be returned to us in full force—hopefully the most important ones; the central worlds—while other remained shrouded, but we didn’t really know. Panic spread across every planet in Fostea like a virus. Even those who were traveling, or even living, in artificial interstellar vessels were feeling the pressure of having to change their way of life. As said before, most plants require sunlight in order to survive. Though there are forms of life that require less light, or sometimes even none, every utilitarian plant needs it greatly. Over the course of the next couple of days, these plants began to die off, starting with the smallest. Large trees promised to survive for much longer, but they provide us with relatively few resources, so that was little comfort to us. The entire food chain on each planet relies on this plant life to survive as well. Even animals that feed only on meat either feed on animals that feed on planets, or they feed on animals that feed on animals that feed on plants. In the end, the only species that had any hope of adapting were humans, and even we weren’t doing so well. How could we get through this for weeks? If it wasn’t lack of food, it was war. If it wasn’t war, it was darkness-induced insanity. If it wasn’t insanity, it would be something else. With the quantum darkness could come completely unknown threats. What else would this hell in mithgarther have for us that we couldn’t even begin to fathom? Then something we still don’t understand happened. The darkness was abated. In only a few standard days, the quantum darkness that had overcome every star was somehow destroyed. It did not happen all at once, but it did happen shockingly rapidly. Suns blinked back into their full glory several at a time. Not only that, but scientists studying this phenomenon have begun to notice an odd unnatural pattern in which the stars returned. One might even be able to trace a path between them, as if a force were moving in one general direction, swallowing the darkness little by little. We still don’t have all the data analyzed, but we suspect that the metaphor of a Light of Life may be not so abstract a concept as we once believed. When asked about the time discrepancy from the Book of Light prediction and reality, the resurrected Sacred Savior smiled, and said, “I told you it would take weeks to abate the Darkness. But time is relative, you should know that by now. We don’t all perceive it the same way. I wasn’t wrong, you just mistook my words.”

Microstory 684: The Quantum Darkness Begins

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This is a turning point; in the taikon, for the believers, and for Fosteans as a whole. It’s easy to forget that Sotiren Zahir did not write the taikon as prophecy. We do occasionally use that word, but we know that it can be rather misleading. He was not telling us what would happen, he was telling us what needs to happen if we are to survive them. The taikon are tests, our salvation being dependent upon our ability to succeed in them. Which means that it is entirely possible to fail, leading either to the uprising of The Liar, or a complete cessation of the taikon. This particular taikon, in fact, is one where the latter possibility is more likely than it ever has been before. It is designed to test our faith. We have been steadily gaining followers to the Light. Even before the taikon began, our numbers would show a general trend upwards. The Quantum Darkness threatens to damage that trend, and could even go so far as to diminish our numbers to their lowest in recent history. The day after the observation of the very first Daglit, all stars switched off simultaneously, as if mere lightbulbs. Literally every single star in the galaxy simply disappeared from sight. Their power was still warming their respective orbitals, and the people on them, but they could not be detected by the naked eye, or simple telescopes. Plants began to suffer from having no way to conduct photosynthesis, destroying a significant amount of the animal population almost immediately. Humans have plenty of ways to survive this in our advanced technological era, but that was never our problem. We crave the light. You’ll notice that nobody lives in the void between galaxies, and only the sickest few of us live underground, deep underwater, or otherwise cut off from daylight. Every intelligent species in the universe evolved and grew out of the light of a sun, and to lose them all at once was the worst thing we’ve ever experienced. When the Sacred Savior spoke of this in the Book of Light, it’s not that we didn’t believe him that something like this could happen, but we severely overestimated his use of metaphors. We could never dream of the possibility that we would be plunged into actual darkness everywhere. We don’t know how to save ourselves from this terrible new environment. We know only that if we don’t, we shall all surely die, or be as good as dead.

Microstory 683: Remember the Sufferers Part II

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Since this holiday we have created is a new one, we didn’t know how we were meant to observe it. In fact, we didn’t even know what to call it. Highlightseers started to determine the details before the lost man was made to remember, but once Meliton Rete was suddenly cured from EQUA, they discovered that they didn’t need to. He had their collective propositions, all in his head. Literally. At first everybody thought that his suggestions were completely original, but a few tests gave evidence of something completely different. Rete was suffering from quantum amnesia, which meant that his memories were floating around spacetime somewhere. When they were returned to his mind, they somehow brought with them lots of other people’s thoughts as well. Over the centuries, people have thought about, and discussed with each other, their faith. They would consider what each taikon means, what the rest of the Book of Light might have to do with the universe, and just...everything. Anything and everything. All of these notions had the potential to be sent to Rete’s mind, but we believe only the best ones did so. His brain rearranged them in a cohesive vision; an amalgamation of how all Lightseers think things should be. It was Rete who proposed that our new holiday be called Daglit. It was he who recommended how each faction should remember the sufferers. But in reality, this is the general consensus, and Meliton Rete has somehow become the vessel for that. Though we share a history, we’ve all been through different things, and we all have different perspectives. Rete understood not only this maxim, but how each faction would see this day, and how they would recognize those they’ve lost. In less than one day, he wrote an entire book, spelling out the differences and similarities between the practices. We now know what to do, and it starts tomorrow.

Microstory 682: Remember the Sufferers Part I

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As previously stated, there aren’t very many holiday observances in Fostea. There is one that we could have started long ago, but were essentially forbidden to by the Book of Light. Sacred Savior Sotiren Zahir first proposed a day to reflect on those who have been lost to our cause back when he was first writing the Book. It was his wishes that his followers not actually participate in anything like this until the taikon had begun. When asked why he felt this way, the following was his response.

You can’t legitimately remember something that just happened, or is still in the middle of happening. Doing this would be completely pointless. Everything is still fresh in your mind, and that is when you should be taking action. There’s a reason every culture we’ve encountered in the entire universe—save Earth—mourns their dead for a period of four days. We recognize that all important events are processes, rather than static moments in time. You have to leave a little buffer between when it first began, and when you start thinking about it. Otherwise, you can’t really have any perspective, can you? You have to have both experienced something, and also experienced what came of it to have this perspective. That’s why I don’t want this observance to yet exist. Many have died protecting The Light, but many more will die for the same reason. I’m not saying all suffering will end once the taikon begin, but our greatest obstacles should be over by then. If this is not the case, then may the Light protect us all, for I fear we are destined to meet our end at the hands of The Liar.

Zahir is referring to the final taikon, which is not a prediction, but a consequence. If we have served The Light well, and met the taikon with dignity and truth, we should be protected for eternity. If, however, we have failed, then the Savior worries we will be overcome by darkness, and ruled by a mysterious entity known as The Liar. This is why the taikon are so profoundly important. If we don’t get this right, we will not get another chance, and we will be doomed to a world of nothing but torment and misery. Now is not the time to rest on our laurels, but we must also remember all that we have been through up to this point; all pain that we have conquered; everyone who sought to destroy us. The new holiday has been instituted, and now, we will remember the sufferers.