In The Dimension of Discussion in the 19th Realm.
Welcome. Welcome. We greet the arrival: the fools, the unchanging fools, the unbending fools of the museum. Pass into the dimension of discussion, where lines reek of creation of new laws.
Where Death holds a man by the bridge in his unapologetic stare.
Where Identity grins from the visage of a severed woman.
Where Structure intones a lullaby through a thousand fractured forms.
Where Memory keeps vigil as a man paints the eruption of an extinct volcano.
Where Emotion is the silent witness to a boy's scream in the desert.
"I suppose that was a fitting second opening to today's gathering," Milah—The Tour Guide—murmured, his fingers absently tracing the grain of the long purple table.
"Did I embody the essence of the new Sage well enough?" asked the Maskbearer—the Thousand-Faced One—her voice shimmering with overlapping tones. She didn't wait for an answer before continuing:
"I propose we use our personal names today. It feels... appropriate for the topic at hand."
She turned her many-shifting gaze to Milah.
"Don't you agree, Milah?"
"Yes, Mara," he replied with a slow nod. "That would suit the mood of the hour."
"You've said that every time," said another voice—measured, exacting.
The Framer, the Golden Spine. He tapped a long index finger against the marble in front of him. "Thirty meetings in a row, by my count. Tradition or tedium?"
He adjusted his posture with mechanical precision.
"If it pleases the dramatists in the room, call me Silas. For today."
Milah exhaled, distracted. His mind wandered—not to the table, not to the topic, but to Aether.
"Tour Guide. Milah," said the Echo—the Whispering Remnant—without invitation or inflection.
She was the only one standing, her voice soft as mist but echoing through the room like remembered thunder.
"And the tourist?" she asked.
"You may call me Eamon."
Milah hesitated, searching for words that wouldn't sound like mourning.
"They had... beautiful deaths," he said finally, though his eyes betrayed the weight behind them. They lingered on Eamon a moment longer than necessary.
The others said nothing, their collective attention settling on the final Fool—the one still silent.
The Beast—the Trembling Vein—tilted its head slowly, like a hound listening to thunder beneath the earth.
"Why this meeting?" it rasped. "Is this another dirge masked as a summit?"
Then, with a jagged grin, it added,
"If it suits your poetry, call me Shiver."
Milah stood, the weight of uncounted years folding into the moment. His voice was clear now, stripped of detachment.
"This marks our ten-thousandth convening of the Pentamorphs—the Fools of the Museum. And for today's agenda..."
"Contemplating the existence of Eras," Mara concluded, her smile untouched by time.
Silence fell.
And in that stillness, even the dimension held its breath.
Milah paused. "You believe—"
"We don't believe," Silas cut in, the interruption sharp as snapped chalk.
Silas leaned forward, his joints moving with the precision of interlocking gears. "Tour Guide Milah—Death embodied—tell us plainly: does death subjectivize?"
Milah didn't hesitate. Shadows pooled at his feet like spilled ink. "Death does not bend."
His voice wasn't a claim—it was a law. The air grew thin, tasting of gravestones.
Silas's spine straightened, marble cracking into fractal patterns beneath his palms. "Nor does Structure. Shiver is the scream. Mara wears every face. Eamon is the vigil. We are not arbiters."
His words crystallized in the air—rigid, unyielding truths.
"Today's discourse must flow from our being. Not around it."
Milah nodded. There was no need for ceremony in that agreement. Only alignment.
"…Mara," Milah said again.
"Yes?" she replied, her voice crystalline, as her thousand faces shimmered and cycled—child, soldier, queen, beast, martyr.
"They—" Milah gestured downward, to the sages convening far below, mere specks in the fog of chronology. "Or they—" he added, sweeping his hand to it, the vague curvature of the Museum's impossible and infinite geometry.
"They," Mara said with a gentle shrug, pointing downward.
"Always them, even in my dimension I hear the insistent ache that is birth," Eamon added quietly, brushing imaginary dust from her sleeves. "The ones trying to remember what's never been said."
"So we are here to contemplate the existence of life," Milah declared softly, as though remembering it for the first time.
"Yes," Mara answered cheerfully, almost singing. "Because life—unlike death—is far more difficult to preserve."
"The sages," Mara continued, tapping her fingers lightly against the purple table,
"Believe they can simply erase what makes us... us."
Her cheerful tone cut like a blade dulled by repetition but not intention.
"If we acknowledge this," Eamon circled the table like a memory in orbit,
"We accept our existence is... disposable."
"We've survived countless periods. The eras don't define us—we define them." Silas scoffed, waving his hand in a precise, dismissive arc.
Milah barely heard them.
His thoughts drifted again—to Aether. To that last glance. He wondered why Death lingers for a boy who in time will linger for him.
Now here they were, debating ontology and permanence while his own world—his own tourist—unraveled.
Mara's cheer turned barbed. "You're drifting, Milah. This affects you—especially your... situation."
Silas cut in, precise as a scalpel: "The Sages prune eras like gardens. But infinity cannot be trimmed. We're discussing the mathematics of existence itself."
Mara smiled. "Now you're thinking. But consider: what happens to those caught between eras? Those who've formed bonds across the boundaries?"
Her gaze fell squarely on Milah.
And his chest tightened.
"Rasvian energy doesn't care about the Sages' decisions." Shiver's voice shook the chamber, low and sinewy. Its brown hide expanded, veins pulsing with raw, radiant power as the space warped around its bulk.
"It flows where it wills. It manifests how it chooses."
Eamon's voice cut like soft thunder. "How long before they alter eras like they did realms?"
"They cannot eliminate what they don't understand," Silas countered.
Milah stood suddenly, his chair scraping against the floor.
His expression fractured with something close to grief. "This isn't just theory," he said, his voice cracking. "It's about people. Lives. Connections."
He nearly choked on the last word—Aether's name unspoken but felt.
"If they start erasing eras, they're not deleting timelines. They're annihilating entire ways of being."
Mara's cheerful demeanor finally cracked, revealing more indifferent smiles underneath.
"That's why we're here: five representatives, each embodying aspects of stories and existence. We stand for all eras, for every thread in the infinite weave of existence. Together, we're here to stop the sages from unleashing existence-wide devastation under the guise of 'streamlining' reality. Mass extinction will not occur again."
Eamon stepped closer, her hands brushing the cold purple table where Milah sat.
"They outnumber us a hundred to five. I'm with you—but I ask because it matters:
What do you get from this, Milah? Shouldn't death alone drive you?"
Milah sat back down. "First," he said, "we prove that the infinite weave—the connections across time—are not a flaw. They are the point.
Second…" He looked at her, and then beyond her.
"Death has no meaning without the living."
Shiver nodded, its voice quieter now.
"Including love... a string that ties different eras."
Milah turned to it, eyes steady despite the tremor in his breath.
"Especially that," he said. "Because if we don't protect the bonds that matter most—love, memory, defiance—
then what are we even preserving?"
No one spoke. But the thought rang in each of their minds, indivisible from the air itself:
What does a story matter, if not for those who live and love and experience through it?
"Tell me, Mara, how many thousand forms did you fill out to get this meeting approved?" Milah asked slowly, his gaze hovering over hers now.
"Milah, there are protocols—" her expression cycled through countless lifetimes.
His hand grazed the table.
The chamber groaned, energy pulsing from the impact.
"That's exactly what I mean. We are playing their game. Following their rules. While they prepare to erase everything that makes existence worth surviving." Darkness began seeping over the table, as Eamon draped her finger over it, turning it to fire.
Silas tensed, Mara's mask flickered, Shiver's hide pulsed once—but no one interrupted.
"Realms exist, Milah. Life flows from them. Yet, tell me, Mr. Death – is this a fundamental truth... or just the shape of my own desire?" Silas muttered, his gaze seeing through Milah.
"But the sages control each Realm," Mara said, her voice echoing a thousand layers.
"The sages control what we let them control." Milah's voice reverberated.
Shiver stood slowly, her cheerfulness completely gone now. "What are you suggesting, Milah?"
"I'm suggesting we stop talking and start doing. Right now. Let's go to an era – any era – and I'll prove that these connections exist everywhere." His eyes swept the room.
"Unless you're all too bound by protocols to act?"
Mara's faces cycled through cold calculation. "A direct intervention? Milah, even you aren't that reckless. If we breach protocols now, they'll accelerate the pruning before we can mobilize."
Eamon's mist-like form trembled. "She's right. But... what if we observe? Not to act, but to gather proof."
"Which one?" Silas asked, his curiosity growing rather than agitation.
"'The Wishes of a Boy, to Kingdomhood,'" Eamon said softly. "It's... it's an era born from two different eras that proves connection as its infinite brethren."
"Perfect." Milah pulled out the door, from the darkness pulling the ground and a door rising. "Anyone not coming can stay here and fill out more forms."
The jab hit home. One by one, they stood. Even Silas.
Silas produced a crystalline hourglass from the marble. "We have until the sands fall. Any longer risks detection."
The air split open, revealing a world that seemed to flicker between reality and imagination.
They stepped through into chaos.
The era unfolded around them like a child's drawing come to life. Buildings spiraled up in impossible architectures, their shapes changing as they watched.
People walked past wearing clothes that seemed to be made of dreams and determination, each outfit reflecting not just their status but their aspirations.
"Welcome," Milah said, gesturing broadly, "to proof that the sages don't understand half of what they claim to regulate. This is our dominion."
A young boy raced past them, his clothes shifting between rags and royal robes, his crown alternating between wooden toy and solid gold. Behind him, reality rippled, responding to his dreams and desires.
"As you know, eras can be born out of two means: naturally, a simple continuation of another era, or born from the deaths of people who become eras. This entire era exists because a single child dared to dream beyond death."
"It's stable," Mara whispered.
"Exactly," Milah's voice rose with passion. "In the simplest terms, each Era is like a separate book or story with its own unique universe. It has its own distinct setting, rules, characters, history, and narrative logic."
Silas watched as a group of children ran past. "But the resource allocation—"
"Look around you..." Milah interrupted. "Where are these resources being allocated from? This era, as all eras, draws energy from the God of all that is."
Everyone went silent at that declaration, even Eamon eyeing Milah, as they all muttered in unison, "The God of all that is, is Gone."
Milah nodded, not stating further.
They stopped at a small square where a boy king sat on a throne made of hopes, listening to his subjects' dreams and making them real through nothing but belief and determination.
"This," Milah said softly, "this is what they want to destroy. Not just the individual eras, but the possibility of new ones being born. The chance for reality to expand beyond their theories and controls. They created the system, but don't understand the limits of Eras."
"So," Milah turned to face them, "shall we go back to filling out forms and following protocols?"
"Yes," they all replied to Milah, who tilted his head, expecting it.
"We can fight it, and prevent it, but not stop it, Death?" Eamon asked, picking up a child who came towards her.
A silent understanding passed between them as they stood amidst the pulsing dream-reality.
"Laws exist for a reason; we birth from law," Silas said, twirling his finger slowly.
"We do not let personal struggles get in our work. Sages are old; they are not irrational. Why act suddenly when this is the first of many debates? Why deal in absolutes?" Mara began, her gaze hardening over Death, who shifted his head.
Mara blurred beside Milah. Her form condensed, not into a mere girl, but into a specific child: freckled, wide-eyed, clutching a threadbare toy rabbit. The innocence of the shape clashed with the indifferent smile twisting her lips. Her voice, high and clear, carried the weight of glaciers grinding stone.
"Time will tell, won't it?" she whispered, the little girl's head tilting unnaturally far. "And if it doesn't... we are above time." Her thousand lifetimes flickered behind the child's eyes like trapped lightning. "We all will tell."
Silas nodded once, sharp as a guillotine. "Waiting."
Milah's hand didn't tremble as he ripped a wound in reality—a portal back to the sterile Discussion Dimension. The vibrant chaos of the boy-king's world bled away behind them.
He stepped through without looking back.
"Then we watch."
The last sound swallowed by the void: a child's triumphant shout from a dying era.
In The Council Dimension (Sages' Assembly) of the 19th Realm.
Sage 23: "For what reason does this matter?"
Sage 54: "For every reason, Sage 23."
Sage 75: "Humans and the other hundreds of beings are fleeting, mere sparks in the realms. Why bother discussing them at all?"
Sage 103: "Fleeting or not, they all create ripple effects. Every life, every decision, no matter how small, alters the course of our world through the very emotions that reverberate through it all."
Sage 89: "But what difference does one human or Squidi life make? Are we to focus on each ant in an infinite and layered colony?"
Sage 22: "It's not just about one life. It's the collective influence of their actions."
Sage 54: "Indeed. Their trivialities accumulate over time—seemingly insignificant choices shape the realms."
Sage 75: "Then let the realms shape themselves. Our concern is not the minutiae of their existence."
Sage 103: "And yet, it is those minutiae that have sparked corruptions at its peak, left our framework of skills for over a hundred million years, and created unity through disaster. Dismiss them at your own peril."
Sage 43: "Perhaps there's wisdom in observing them. Not all trivialities remain trivial."
Sage 92: "But where do we draw the line? Should we oversee every quarrel, every dream, every failure?"
Sage 75: "We observe the grand tapestry; we create the laws they follow; we allow them freedom. We do not observe the individual threads."
Sage 103: "But the tapestry is made of threads, Sage 75. A single thread may seem insignificant, but pull the wrong one and the whole thing unravels. Think of the newest addition to our ranks."
Sage 29: "And yet, not every thread needs our attention. Are we not to focus on larger matters, on the wonders of the infinite eras and realms that truly shape existence?"
Sage 103: "We aren't overseers of the Eras. Sage 29, that task alone is left to the Fools."
Sage 13: "The smallest thread, if unnoticed, could weave something greater than any primordial, again like Sage 17 said."
Ghost: "I do not think myself to be held to such standards; we are talking about everyone..."
Sage 54: "I do not think of such trivialities as 'everyone' to be of such great importance! They live, they die, the cycle repeats. Resurrection!"
Sage 75: "Precisely. Life and death, resurrection... are constants. Why should we intervene? We exist above concepts or even care?"
Sage 103: "Because intervention or neglect holds power. You may find their lives trivial, but within those lives lies unpredictability like the demons! Something we sages should never underestimate."
Sage 64: "Humans are unpredictable, yes. But should that unpredictability rule our actions?"
Sage 38: "We decide what holds value, from an extinct race to the most modern human. Trivialities will remain so if we choose not to focus on them!"
Sage 103: "And that is our arrogance. We choose what to see, but that does not mean we see everything. Sometimes what we ignore has the greatest consequence!"
Rage is brewing.
Sage 75: "Then perhaps we should find a balance, Sage 17. We cannot drown in the details, yet we cannot ignore the ripples entirely."
Sage 54: "Far less than you think. Let them live their sometimes short, chaotic lives. We are here to oversee more than the chaos of minute beings."
Sage 103: "Perhaps. But I suggest we do not dismiss them entirely. They are, after all, part of the realms we safeguard."
Sage 75: "Disagreed. Let us not waste time deliberating on each of their trivial affairs. Our attention must remain on the greater picture."
Sage 23: "Then let us watch, but not interfere unless necessary. Trivialities may become something greater, but only time will tell."
Sage 75: "A wise choice. We shall see what these trivialities amount to."
Sage 2: "The earlier conversation seems to have reached a mutual understanding for now. Time for the other set of sages to enact their conversation. Sage 66, please."
Sage 66: "Ah yes... I suggest we wipe them out."