Landfall Minus One (Part 3)

> From: Cariques (Joconard.Cariques@techsupport.temple.moth) > > To: RosewingD (Dairdel.Rosewing@intel.eldercouncil.tam) > > By secret glyph: dreamsleeve transmission > > Security Protocols: Mothy McMothface > > Authorization String: When you wish upon a moth > > Transcript Follows:

Cariques: Hey Rosey!

RosewingD: Hey Jacko. I heard you'd got caught abusing temple resources. Had your 'sleeve access revoked and yourself suspended pending a full disciplinary hearing. The works. Are you sure you want to be talking to me?

Cariques: Yeah, I am. Look, I may not have a lot of time, and I probably won't be able to do this again for a while. Will you just listen for once?

RosewingD: I don't understand how you're even getting through. Those protocol strings are insane.

Cariques: Rosey, don't tell me you're relying on the Sphinxmoth stack for your security. That thing's been backdoored since sometime around the Great War.

RosewingD: Backdoored? How?

Cariques: Isn't it obvious? It'll accept anything containing the string "moth". Just don't re-use one unless it's an valid authorisation ticket or you'll trip all the security that ought to have gone off the first time.

RosewingD: And you didn't think to tell anyone?

Cariques: I did! I sent a copy to Pastor Jullevelus, one to your department, one to you personally and one to the Ocato simulacrum you cooked up that no one is supposed to know about.

RosewingD: Then stop talking about it on an insecure channel! Talos guard us!

Cariques: So far as I can tell, no one even opened the messages I sent.

RosewingD: Ouch. All right, you got me. I'll give the matter my urgent attention.

Cariques: Let me finish telling you about the Dwemer, all right? I really don't know if I'll be able to do this again.

RosewingD: I suppose I owe you that much. Go for it.

Cariques: All right. Let's try it this way. In Report To Trebonius, there's a reference to Baladas Demnevanni, yeah? Now it turns out Demnevanni represents a nodal point in the Nerevarine timeshimmer. If he talks about this at all, he always says the same thing. That makes him one of the more reliable sources we have. Let me pull up the reference:

> Inclusion: Baladas Demnevanni. Paratemporal transcription > > During the Dawn Era they researched the death of the Earth Bones, what we call now the laws of nature, dissecting the process of the sacred willing itself into the profane

RosewingD: Yeah, so?

Cariques: Rosey, there were no Dwemer during the Dawn Era. The Mer were all still Ehlnofey back then. They didn't differentiate into tribes until we entered the Merethic.

RosewingD: And yet there they apparently are.

Cariques: Precisely! They decreated themselves in the Now, rolled back up the creational gradients and then re-elaborated themselves in Dawntime.

RosewingD: ... where they can study the creation of Mundus in detail. OK. That explains how they were able to do some the things they did. But we already knew they were clever.

Cariques: More importantly...

RosewingD: Jacko, I have a shitload of work do dealing with the security protocol mess you just dumped in my lap. Tell me there's a point to all this?

Cariques: Oh, it's just a little thing I like to call The Imminent End Of All That Is. I guess it can wait...

RosewingD: Now I know you're trying to wind me up. Cariques, you sat through the same orientation lectures that I did. You know destroying the world is impossible.

Cariques: It's happened before.

RosewingD: It has. Several times. It never takes. It can't. The best anyone can do is to destroy the kalpa. That leaves an infinite number of parallel time kalpas still in in existence, so Mundus continues. And since Mundus continues, the Jills do what they always do and stitch our timeline back together again. In most cases, the disruption is never even noticed. If it gets really bad, the historians might start talking about a "mini-dragon break".

Cariques: Rosey, the Dwemer are in Dawntime.

RosewingD: Also, about the only thing currently capable of that level of threat is Numidium, and we've got that distracted. It's busy chasing Thalmor Mirror Logicians through fractal possibility matrices. And even if it gets out, it still can't do any lasting damage because the Jills will still fix everything.

Cariques: The Dwemer are in Dawntime.

RosewingD: I heard you the first time. So what?

Cariques: So they are present at Convention.

RosewingD: Again: So?

Cariques: From there, they can enter any of the kalpas. They can be in all of the kalpas.

RosewingD: ... and building Numidia on all of them.

Cariques: Now you're getting it.

RosewingD: Oh fuck.

Cariques: You said it.

RosewingD: An infinite number of them.

Cariques: Uh-huh.

RosewingD: All the kalpas destroyed at the same metamoment.

Cariques: Uh-huh.

RosewingD: Oh fuck. Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Cariques: Rosey, stay with me. We can still fix this.

RosewingD: Yeah. OK. Let me ... let me set up a conference call. I need to you explain this to some people.

Cariques: Rosey, there may not be time! We need to

+++ CARRIER LOST +++