Re: Pitched Combat [Final Round: Simulacrum Citadel]
01-11-2011, 10:29 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.
"Oh, for..."
Omnipotence comes with a fair few drawbacks rarely considered by those not suffused with it from their first timeless moments; none are particularly egregious from a mortal's perspective, and certainly not enough to dissuade any serious seeker of power, but they can be somewhat vexatious. One of the more mundane and relatable of these is the simple inability to truly blaspheme: when gods are not just something that holds no sway over you, but actually entities that are about as far from ineffable and awe-inspiring as it's possible to be, taking one's name in vain or invoking their curses seems silly. For that matter, any random collection of mundane syllables deemed profane by whatever squishy culture that first spewed them out lacks any real significance; a lazy (and almost certainly mortal) author might be tempted to employ mentions of twisted Black Speech, primal words of unspeakable power and evil, sounds that warp and break reality around them and send minds that survive them reeling into the deepest pits of insanity. But again, from a certain perspective, even that sort of thing is amateur hour. It's truly hard to express displeasure adequately when few things have real significance or power and taboo is a meaningless concept.
Anyone that heard the Organizer's two little words would therefore have been hard-pressed to say whether he was slightly frustrated, livid beyond belief, or anywhere in between. For all that his words suggested a mindset that would have made a human click their tongue and say "drat", his actions betrayed much stronger emotions.
Whatever form he had taken or been imitating at the time he spoke was gone in an instant; whatever it had been was forgotten as quickly, given the one he took. It was simply impossible to keep both in the mind at the same time, and especially to reconcile the reality of what was happening with the cheerful lavender man the phrase "The Organizer" conjured.
This new shape couldn't truly be described with words like "shape", "form", or "appearance" anyway; for one, it was formless: ebbing, flowing, changing, roiling, and difficult to focus on. The impression was in a small way analogous to looking at a picture of a mask which could be pointed towards or away from the viewer: there were simply not enough cues to deduce the true contents of the picture. In the case of the mask, the lack of the third dimension obfuscated comprehension; in the case of the Organizer, the fact that words like "dimension" probably weren't accurate or applicable went a long way towards explaining its incomprehensibility. To say that "a dark, oily, oddly-solid fog, full of tentacles and teeth and bits of crawling flesh and hints of even more twisted things bolted from where the Organizer had been towards the Jordans' dying place" would be no more accurate than saying "a small pink trifle merrily tapdanced its way towards the Timeless Interstice", but it does a much better job at hinting at the horror elicited by the transformation.
In the same way that words invented by three-dimensional beings occupying what they called reality had no real hope of accurately relaying what happened after that little "Oh, for...", it is impossible to convey what had happened (and indeed, was happening) to the Jordans. Hurling their bodies into the Interstice caused nothing with any real analogue in most universes; the Interstice wasn't filled with the void of true nothingness that filled the multiverse, or matter of any description regardless of how exotic, or even the anti-matter which is just matter in a funny moustache putting on a silly accent. There were no catastrophic explosions following the Jordans' passage, or limb-rending extradimensional beasts waiting beyond the veil to tear them apart; their voices simply stopped as they were hurled into realms Man Is Not Equipped To Know. The best that can be hoped is that what followed was simply beyond their ability to experience; who knows, after something like that, perhaps they would have been glad to know their erasure was so complete as to prevent even the possibility of an afterlife; the prospect of an eternity with the knowledge of what HAD happened to hem is certainly not a pleasant one.
In any case, what was understandable was the general thrust of the action; Jordan was certainly, irrevocably dead; so was Jordan, for that matter. Something about the manner of his death had upset the Organizer, who moved faster than simple teleportation would allow towards the sphere Jordan had so hastily broken; in the wake of the speeding thing, the Citadel was torn or battered apart, shreds of reality colliding and recombining and falling apart randomly. This was nothing compared to what was happening in front of him, however, but that treads again into indescribable territory. A useful assumption to make would be that the Interstice was leaking out into or tainting the world around it; that would certainly explain the great, expanding area of pure ineffability that was marring the Organizer's lair.
Whatever the truth was, the grandmaster arrived at his destination quickly and put a stop to the problem in short order. Ostensibly, the alternative was "allow the destruction of everything that is". Or something like that. The details don't matter; all that's important is that things became, before the still-upside-down dragons even had a chance to become aware there was a problem, stable once again. The phrase "Imp, Rife, end Roan" finished scribing itself, and the trio it represented disappeared for the last time. For a while.
They found themselves in a grassy field. Standing nearby was the smiling man they knew as the Organizer, once again all lilac and grins; they had no reason to believe he had ever been anything else, of course. While the trio found they could not move, which was typical for encounters with the grandmaster, this paralysis was not accompanied by the sense of nonexistence that came with his usual round transitions. They were somewhere real, without the intervening break in the dark.
The Organizer stepped forward. "Congratulations again, my champions! Even in the face of quite literally impossible odds, you made it through! You are the winners. Well done."
He gestured to the landscape around them. "Breathe in, although I don't know where that air actually goes, the sweet scent of your native world. Your native country in fact, Ms Dragon. It must be nice to be home; I'm told there's quite the appeal in returning, though I don't see it myself. It's also one half of what I vaguely promised at the outset of our time together, if you recall.
The other half, of course, was the ambiguous "riches and rewards". "Rewards and riches" actually, now I come to think of it. Riches, of course, are easy. Not that I know what a dragon ever needed with gold, especially a dragon that's just a head stitched to a spider-infested scarecrow, but it seems traditional. Perhaps one or the other of you will find it a pleasant snack."
A pile of glittering gold materialized just a few feet away from the newly-christened champion; gold ingots and coins and jewelry were stacked and jumbled haphazardly, replete with gems and inlay. The sheer quantity of valuable metals and minerals would have put most rulers' personal treasuries quite to shame, to say nothing of the masterful craftsmanship all of the jewelry and occasional statuettes were made with.
"So there's that; more riches than you could probably ever think of what to do with. Not what I'd call particularly satisfying, though. Certainly not enough to satisfy the "rewards" portion as well. So, I've given it a little thought, and I think there are a couple of small things I can do for you. It's not even so much doing anything as letting you know things in any case, but I suspect you'll appreciate it nevertheless.
First: you'd probably notice this yourselves eventually, but your time away from this world has significantly weakened some rather important enchantments on your persons. Keep in mind that I mean "enchantment" in the "mind-affecting spells" sense, not the "persistent magic" sense. That is to say, you're your own man! Men. Dragons. For the most part anyway. Second:" here, he snapped his hand and a scrap of paper appeared on the ground nearby the treasure horde. "A little gift, but I think it's a nice one. A bit of a reminder for you."
The Organizer blinked a couple of times and sighed, rubbing his eyes. "I think... I think that's it. Enjoy your rewards! Enjoy the prestige. Enjoy your lives, really. Try to keep enjoying them for that matter. I'm sure you figured out what's to come, one way or another, but that's ages away. I assume. Time in these worlds is a bit confusing from the outside, but I should be able to manage it such that you don't have to worry about seeing me again for a while. Until then, then."
And he was gone, with no fanfare or effect, leaving only the trio, their treasure, and the paper. The paper was just a small slip of parchment with two words messily scrawled across it; one was in English, the other, Chinese.
---
It was some time later, but as the Organizer had intimated to his champions, it would be difficult to say how much. The grandmaster himself was sitting in the high-backed swivel chair he had greeted his finalists from, a copy of Potched Kumquat on his lap. The book had already finished recording its last near-illegible sentence, and now sat closed as the Organizer gently spun in his chair.
The room around him was much less like the Monitor's lair than it had been at the start of the final round; fragments of memory and ersatz reality had collided or blended or switched places in some areas, such that one wall of the steel bunker had been replaced with rows of bookcases, while a number of instruments protruded haphazardly from the ceiling. The Organizer had picked this room primarily because it had retained the highest resemblance to the original out of most of the Citadel; many other areas were so smashed-together that they resembled nothing so much as the spare-drawer of a disorganized model-builder, while some places no longer even seemed to have constituent parts that he recognized. It was going to take some tidying up.
He didn't really react when she showed up; he'd expected she would, at least as a courtesy, but he didn't have much to say just yet. He waited for her to make the first move, and she did as soon as his idle pivoting had him facing her.
"Well, congratulations. It was rather spectacular, especially the final few rounds."
The Organizer waved a hand and sighed, then stood up. "It rather was, even if I had to force things on a bit. Good show, good characters, good plot. Wish I'd seen more of a rebellion, though. Monitor had the right idea, sticking a confederate in with the lot."
The Composer bristled slightly. "You're right, insofar as the sentiment goes, but... It's hard to give that machine much credit. It's a bit like saying "My goodness, I am so proud of this little cockroach for only spreading a little plague when it eats my food!". Even if it is a clever little cockroach, it's still a bothersome insect."
The Organizer rolled his eyes, even though it was a bit hard to see on the Composer's borrowed face. "Really, you're right. it's obviously silly to expect everyone running these things to be overdeities or whatever, but... There can still be standards, right? I'll be completely honest, I was quite relieved when you intervened with the Eccentric, to say nothing of the Wordsmith. He'd been dead for millennia! And that little group of cultists, calling themselves gentlemen..."
His guest's hands raised in something of a 'you're preaching to the choir' gesture. "Not to mention the Redeemer. "Call me Zaire" indeed. It's almost painful to watch a bunch of mortals and pretenders running around, hosting battles, acting like they were on our level... I almost wish the Prestidigitator hadn't stepped in. It's not as though we weould have had much of a problem wresting the rules back from that frail little swordsman."
"You know, I rather like the Prestidigitator. Not what he used to be, but he's got credentials, and I respect someone who respects tradition. Shame to see someone like him go to pot, really, but at least he's no Fool." With no warning, he turned and began striding across the floor, beckoning for the Composer to follow. "Come on, I'd better take a look at what's left of this place, and you might find it interesting. No reason to interrupt our conversation."
The pair moved, only occasionally physically, though increasingly-irrational architecture and jumbled locales. The Organizer would occasionally stop and sigh while poking at something, apparently at random, while he and the Composer chatted idly about those they considered the less impressive grandmasters. Eventually, as they picked their way across a room that couldn't decide if it was an auditorium or a forest, the Composer changed the subject. "Quite a champion you have in those dragons. Certainly more interesting than mine, and doubtless more powerful than the Director's. Still, the next battle is a way off. What do you plan to do with your once-again truly-limitless time?"
"Well, you know. Lots to do here on the home front. The Interstice fix was just temporary, I've got lots of reality threads to disentangle as you can see, and it's not like I didn't have hobbies before I got involved with the battles. Gotta plan for All-Stars too! Busy busy busy, really."
"Come on, I know that's not it. You're obviously not ready to leave all this behind yet."
"Well, I was thinking of starting another match at some point in the future. Keep the old guard's fingers in the future of Grand Battles, that sort of thing. It'll be a while, of course, but it's not like time means much. Oh, and I'm definitely going to keep toying with the Observer. That's far too much fun to give up."
The Composer stopped dead. "You what?"
"Oh, didn't you know? I've been manifesting to some of his first batch of contestants, telling them secrets and helping them plot. Really, it's the sort of rebellion I wanted for my own battle, but it's also nice to see it directed at that self-righteous little cyclops."
She drew herself up, lips pursed. "I don't keep myself well-apprised of his secondhand little bouts. I'd rather cohost with the Controller than spend any time with that one-eyed waste of divinity or even dignify him by watching his trash battles."
"Really? Then I guess you don't know... Hm. Well, then, I probably shouldn't say..."
""Don't know what, precisely? Are you implying the Observer has something important?"
"Well, it might not even matter if all goes well. If anyone has the power to erase him, it's that faceless thing he picked. Not that I predict that actually going anywhere, but, you know. Hope springs eternal and all that."
The Composer struggled to keep her face passive and her voice level; it certainly wouldn't behoove her to lose her temper now, but dealing with the Organizer could certainly be frustrating. Still, he was the genuine article, and it was certainly better than most other options."Don't dodge the question. What don't I know about the Observer's battles?"
"Well, you know it's hard for me to pick up on all the subtleties of this multiverse's politics and whatever, so I can't say with any certainty or real clarity, buuuut... I dunno, I'm pretty sure old Observer and his battles should be of more interest to you than disdainfully ignoring them. He's not exactly what he seems, you know? I'm being honest, that's about all I've picked up for sure. You might just want to look into his stuff more deeply. You know he's all about trickery and misdirection!"
"And that's all you have to say about it?"
"Well, I mean, that's all there really is to it. I certainly haven't wasted much effort scrutinizing some of the less desirable elements of our little social club."
"Just sabotaging them?"
The Organizer grinned unabashedly, the first real sign of his usual cheerful flippancy she'd seen since arriving. Honestly, seeing him so comparatively serious had been a bit unsettling. "Mostly him, although... I'll be honest, it's been such fun I might see if I can't find my way in somewhere else, too. Like I said, I can't tell you much more about him, but I suspect he's going to have his hands full pretty soon; now might be the best time to get a bit of snooping done or talk to some of the more reputable grandmasters a bit; it's not like your plate's too full at the moment, what with your first battle done."
There was silence for a time as the Organizer picked at some errant strands of spacetime, but it was broken before too long. "Just, don't forget about me, you know? You're right when you say I've got a lot of free time ahead of me, but I don't think I'm quite ready to just fade away. There's still a lot of fun to be had with some of these self-styled little gods, and I want to be part of it. I know you do too, so just... Keep me in mind."
"Hm. I must admit, I'm a little surprised to see you so enthusiastic about all this. I thought your "scheming and collusion" was just going through the motions."
"Well, it was at first. They schemed, so I had to scheme. They meddled, so did I. Just how it was done, I thought. But then, I thought..." There was a brief pause before he spoke again.
"Well, there's a few of our friends I'd like to see exit the stage. But mostly, well... It was so much fun to set a group of mortals against each other, imagine how satisfying to do the same with those who think they're all powerful."
"Oh, for..."
Omnipotence comes with a fair few drawbacks rarely considered by those not suffused with it from their first timeless moments; none are particularly egregious from a mortal's perspective, and certainly not enough to dissuade any serious seeker of power, but they can be somewhat vexatious. One of the more mundane and relatable of these is the simple inability to truly blaspheme: when gods are not just something that holds no sway over you, but actually entities that are about as far from ineffable and awe-inspiring as it's possible to be, taking one's name in vain or invoking their curses seems silly. For that matter, any random collection of mundane syllables deemed profane by whatever squishy culture that first spewed them out lacks any real significance; a lazy (and almost certainly mortal) author might be tempted to employ mentions of twisted Black Speech, primal words of unspeakable power and evil, sounds that warp and break reality around them and send minds that survive them reeling into the deepest pits of insanity. But again, from a certain perspective, even that sort of thing is amateur hour. It's truly hard to express displeasure adequately when few things have real significance or power and taboo is a meaningless concept.
Anyone that heard the Organizer's two little words would therefore have been hard-pressed to say whether he was slightly frustrated, livid beyond belief, or anywhere in between. For all that his words suggested a mindset that would have made a human click their tongue and say "drat", his actions betrayed much stronger emotions.
Whatever form he had taken or been imitating at the time he spoke was gone in an instant; whatever it had been was forgotten as quickly, given the one he took. It was simply impossible to keep both in the mind at the same time, and especially to reconcile the reality of what was happening with the cheerful lavender man the phrase "The Organizer" conjured.
This new shape couldn't truly be described with words like "shape", "form", or "appearance" anyway; for one, it was formless: ebbing, flowing, changing, roiling, and difficult to focus on. The impression was in a small way analogous to looking at a picture of a mask which could be pointed towards or away from the viewer: there were simply not enough cues to deduce the true contents of the picture. In the case of the mask, the lack of the third dimension obfuscated comprehension; in the case of the Organizer, the fact that words like "dimension" probably weren't accurate or applicable went a long way towards explaining its incomprehensibility. To say that "a dark, oily, oddly-solid fog, full of tentacles and teeth and bits of crawling flesh and hints of even more twisted things bolted from where the Organizer had been towards the Jordans' dying place" would be no more accurate than saying "a small pink trifle merrily tapdanced its way towards the Timeless Interstice", but it does a much better job at hinting at the horror elicited by the transformation.
In the same way that words invented by three-dimensional beings occupying what they called reality had no real hope of accurately relaying what happened after that little "Oh, for...", it is impossible to convey what had happened (and indeed, was happening) to the Jordans. Hurling their bodies into the Interstice caused nothing with any real analogue in most universes; the Interstice wasn't filled with the void of true nothingness that filled the multiverse, or matter of any description regardless of how exotic, or even the anti-matter which is just matter in a funny moustache putting on a silly accent. There were no catastrophic explosions following the Jordans' passage, or limb-rending extradimensional beasts waiting beyond the veil to tear them apart; their voices simply stopped as they were hurled into realms Man Is Not Equipped To Know. The best that can be hoped is that what followed was simply beyond their ability to experience; who knows, after something like that, perhaps they would have been glad to know their erasure was so complete as to prevent even the possibility of an afterlife; the prospect of an eternity with the knowledge of what HAD happened to hem is certainly not a pleasant one.
In any case, what was understandable was the general thrust of the action; Jordan was certainly, irrevocably dead; so was Jordan, for that matter. Something about the manner of his death had upset the Organizer, who moved faster than simple teleportation would allow towards the sphere Jordan had so hastily broken; in the wake of the speeding thing, the Citadel was torn or battered apart, shreds of reality colliding and recombining and falling apart randomly. This was nothing compared to what was happening in front of him, however, but that treads again into indescribable territory. A useful assumption to make would be that the Interstice was leaking out into or tainting the world around it; that would certainly explain the great, expanding area of pure ineffability that was marring the Organizer's lair.
Whatever the truth was, the grandmaster arrived at his destination quickly and put a stop to the problem in short order. Ostensibly, the alternative was "allow the destruction of everything that is". Or something like that. The details don't matter; all that's important is that things became, before the still-upside-down dragons even had a chance to become aware there was a problem, stable once again. The phrase "Imp, Rife, end Roan" finished scribing itself, and the trio it represented disappeared for the last time. For a while.
They found themselves in a grassy field. Standing nearby was the smiling man they knew as the Organizer, once again all lilac and grins; they had no reason to believe he had ever been anything else, of course. While the trio found they could not move, which was typical for encounters with the grandmaster, this paralysis was not accompanied by the sense of nonexistence that came with his usual round transitions. They were somewhere real, without the intervening break in the dark.
The Organizer stepped forward. "Congratulations again, my champions! Even in the face of quite literally impossible odds, you made it through! You are the winners. Well done."
He gestured to the landscape around them. "Breathe in, although I don't know where that air actually goes, the sweet scent of your native world. Your native country in fact, Ms Dragon. It must be nice to be home; I'm told there's quite the appeal in returning, though I don't see it myself. It's also one half of what I vaguely promised at the outset of our time together, if you recall.
The other half, of course, was the ambiguous "riches and rewards". "Rewards and riches" actually, now I come to think of it. Riches, of course, are easy. Not that I know what a dragon ever needed with gold, especially a dragon that's just a head stitched to a spider-infested scarecrow, but it seems traditional. Perhaps one or the other of you will find it a pleasant snack."
A pile of glittering gold materialized just a few feet away from the newly-christened champion; gold ingots and coins and jewelry were stacked and jumbled haphazardly, replete with gems and inlay. The sheer quantity of valuable metals and minerals would have put most rulers' personal treasuries quite to shame, to say nothing of the masterful craftsmanship all of the jewelry and occasional statuettes were made with.
"So there's that; more riches than you could probably ever think of what to do with. Not what I'd call particularly satisfying, though. Certainly not enough to satisfy the "rewards" portion as well. So, I've given it a little thought, and I think there are a couple of small things I can do for you. It's not even so much doing anything as letting you know things in any case, but I suspect you'll appreciate it nevertheless.
First: you'd probably notice this yourselves eventually, but your time away from this world has significantly weakened some rather important enchantments on your persons. Keep in mind that I mean "enchantment" in the "mind-affecting spells" sense, not the "persistent magic" sense. That is to say, you're your own man! Men. Dragons. For the most part anyway. Second:" here, he snapped his hand and a scrap of paper appeared on the ground nearby the treasure horde. "A little gift, but I think it's a nice one. A bit of a reminder for you."
The Organizer blinked a couple of times and sighed, rubbing his eyes. "I think... I think that's it. Enjoy your rewards! Enjoy the prestige. Enjoy your lives, really. Try to keep enjoying them for that matter. I'm sure you figured out what's to come, one way or another, but that's ages away. I assume. Time in these worlds is a bit confusing from the outside, but I should be able to manage it such that you don't have to worry about seeing me again for a while. Until then, then."
And he was gone, with no fanfare or effect, leaving only the trio, their treasure, and the paper. The paper was just a small slip of parchment with two words messily scrawled across it; one was in English, the other, Chinese.
---
It was some time later, but as the Organizer had intimated to his champions, it would be difficult to say how much. The grandmaster himself was sitting in the high-backed swivel chair he had greeted his finalists from, a copy of Potched Kumquat on his lap. The book had already finished recording its last near-illegible sentence, and now sat closed as the Organizer gently spun in his chair.
The room around him was much less like the Monitor's lair than it had been at the start of the final round; fragments of memory and ersatz reality had collided or blended or switched places in some areas, such that one wall of the steel bunker had been replaced with rows of bookcases, while a number of instruments protruded haphazardly from the ceiling. The Organizer had picked this room primarily because it had retained the highest resemblance to the original out of most of the Citadel; many other areas were so smashed-together that they resembled nothing so much as the spare-drawer of a disorganized model-builder, while some places no longer even seemed to have constituent parts that he recognized. It was going to take some tidying up.
He didn't really react when she showed up; he'd expected she would, at least as a courtesy, but he didn't have much to say just yet. He waited for her to make the first move, and she did as soon as his idle pivoting had him facing her.
"Well, congratulations. It was rather spectacular, especially the final few rounds."
The Organizer waved a hand and sighed, then stood up. "It rather was, even if I had to force things on a bit. Good show, good characters, good plot. Wish I'd seen more of a rebellion, though. Monitor had the right idea, sticking a confederate in with the lot."
The Composer bristled slightly. "You're right, insofar as the sentiment goes, but... It's hard to give that machine much credit. It's a bit like saying "My goodness, I am so proud of this little cockroach for only spreading a little plague when it eats my food!". Even if it is a clever little cockroach, it's still a bothersome insect."
The Organizer rolled his eyes, even though it was a bit hard to see on the Composer's borrowed face. "Really, you're right. it's obviously silly to expect everyone running these things to be overdeities or whatever, but... There can still be standards, right? I'll be completely honest, I was quite relieved when you intervened with the Eccentric, to say nothing of the Wordsmith. He'd been dead for millennia! And that little group of cultists, calling themselves gentlemen..."
His guest's hands raised in something of a 'you're preaching to the choir' gesture. "Not to mention the Redeemer. "Call me Zaire" indeed. It's almost painful to watch a bunch of mortals and pretenders running around, hosting battles, acting like they were on our level... I almost wish the Prestidigitator hadn't stepped in. It's not as though we weould have had much of a problem wresting the rules back from that frail little swordsman."
"You know, I rather like the Prestidigitator. Not what he used to be, but he's got credentials, and I respect someone who respects tradition. Shame to see someone like him go to pot, really, but at least he's no Fool." With no warning, he turned and began striding across the floor, beckoning for the Composer to follow. "Come on, I'd better take a look at what's left of this place, and you might find it interesting. No reason to interrupt our conversation."
The pair moved, only occasionally physically, though increasingly-irrational architecture and jumbled locales. The Organizer would occasionally stop and sigh while poking at something, apparently at random, while he and the Composer chatted idly about those they considered the less impressive grandmasters. Eventually, as they picked their way across a room that couldn't decide if it was an auditorium or a forest, the Composer changed the subject. "Quite a champion you have in those dragons. Certainly more interesting than mine, and doubtless more powerful than the Director's. Still, the next battle is a way off. What do you plan to do with your once-again truly-limitless time?"
"Well, you know. Lots to do here on the home front. The Interstice fix was just temporary, I've got lots of reality threads to disentangle as you can see, and it's not like I didn't have hobbies before I got involved with the battles. Gotta plan for All-Stars too! Busy busy busy, really."
"Come on, I know that's not it. You're obviously not ready to leave all this behind yet."
"Well, I was thinking of starting another match at some point in the future. Keep the old guard's fingers in the future of Grand Battles, that sort of thing. It'll be a while, of course, but it's not like time means much. Oh, and I'm definitely going to keep toying with the Observer. That's far too much fun to give up."
The Composer stopped dead. "You what?"
"Oh, didn't you know? I've been manifesting to some of his first batch of contestants, telling them secrets and helping them plot. Really, it's the sort of rebellion I wanted for my own battle, but it's also nice to see it directed at that self-righteous little cyclops."
She drew herself up, lips pursed. "I don't keep myself well-apprised of his secondhand little bouts. I'd rather cohost with the Controller than spend any time with that one-eyed waste of divinity or even dignify him by watching his trash battles."
"Really? Then I guess you don't know... Hm. Well, then, I probably shouldn't say..."
""Don't know what, precisely? Are you implying the Observer has something important?"
"Well, it might not even matter if all goes well. If anyone has the power to erase him, it's that faceless thing he picked. Not that I predict that actually going anywhere, but, you know. Hope springs eternal and all that."
The Composer struggled to keep her face passive and her voice level; it certainly wouldn't behoove her to lose her temper now, but dealing with the Organizer could certainly be frustrating. Still, he was the genuine article, and it was certainly better than most other options."Don't dodge the question. What don't I know about the Observer's battles?"
"Well, you know it's hard for me to pick up on all the subtleties of this multiverse's politics and whatever, so I can't say with any certainty or real clarity, buuuut... I dunno, I'm pretty sure old Observer and his battles should be of more interest to you than disdainfully ignoring them. He's not exactly what he seems, you know? I'm being honest, that's about all I've picked up for sure. You might just want to look into his stuff more deeply. You know he's all about trickery and misdirection!"
"And that's all you have to say about it?"
"Well, I mean, that's all there really is to it. I certainly haven't wasted much effort scrutinizing some of the less desirable elements of our little social club."
"Just sabotaging them?"
The Organizer grinned unabashedly, the first real sign of his usual cheerful flippancy she'd seen since arriving. Honestly, seeing him so comparatively serious had been a bit unsettling. "Mostly him, although... I'll be honest, it's been such fun I might see if I can't find my way in somewhere else, too. Like I said, I can't tell you much more about him, but I suspect he's going to have his hands full pretty soon; now might be the best time to get a bit of snooping done or talk to some of the more reputable grandmasters a bit; it's not like your plate's too full at the moment, what with your first battle done."
There was silence for a time as the Organizer picked at some errant strands of spacetime, but it was broken before too long. "Just, don't forget about me, you know? You're right when you say I've got a lot of free time ahead of me, but I don't think I'm quite ready to just fade away. There's still a lot of fun to be had with some of these self-styled little gods, and I want to be part of it. I know you do too, so just... Keep me in mind."
"Hm. I must admit, I'm a little surprised to see you so enthusiastic about all this. I thought your "scheming and collusion" was just going through the motions."
"Well, it was at first. They schemed, so I had to scheme. They meddled, so did I. Just how it was done, I thought. But then, I thought..." There was a brief pause before he spoke again.
"Well, there's a few of our friends I'd like to see exit the stage. But mostly, well... It was so much fun to set a group of mortals against each other, imagine how satisfying to do the same with those who think they're all powerful."