Yutzen

(Another archived prompt story from Cohost, this time provided by Making Up Monsters. Preemptive apologies for getting so many out in one go, but I'd rather get the archive here quick. Admittedly not that quick though.)

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Monster who can't do this again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Ag

"How many more times will you attempt this?"

The words caught Auriccia flat-footed. Not only was she supposed to be alone where she stood, not only was she supposed to be the only one alive by the time she entered this passage... this passage she was standing in was not even a proper space. It should've been a mere instant, a perception as her mind, body and soul were flung into a time long past so she may steer history away from the oncoming cliff. So that a simple experiment in the heart of an old mountain would not be the end of the world.

And yet there she stood, surrounded by the frozen, indistinct detritus of time itself instead of castle walls, or the Academy's towers, or even just the streets of her home city. And there she turned -- baffled by the fact it worked -- to find the source of the voice: A strange contraption of glass, wood and brassy metal, vaguely resembling an upright beetle, standing like a human on two spindly, straightened legs... or hands, of the sort that count seconds on a clock. Minute and hour hands, shorter and ornate, formed the other four limbs of this creature, joining behind a wooden carapace that formed its wing-covers, all surrounding a body formed from a single, enormous hourglass full of flowing golden sand. The head was a mass of shining gearwork, with two halves of a ratchet wheel forming the mandibles, in which the sorceress could spot no clear eyes... and yet, she still had the feeling this thing wasn't even looking at her.

Finding little more to lose, she stepped closer to the entity, her staff held cautiously towards its hourglass. "Only once. Despite what this success may show, this is the first time I have ever attempted this spell-"

The voice cut into her sentence, loud and sonorous as a church bell. "IT IS NOT." The beetle "looked" at her now, mandibles clicking in place; its movements were stiff and sudden, shifting instantly from tick to tick rather than moving smoothly. Then it continued in a softer, if strained ring: "For your instance, but not for the whole. This is not your entity's first successful ritual, nor voyage. Not by far."

The mage's eyes unfocused, her concentration going elsewhere. The one standing before her was not speaking her tongue, per se, but she caught the concepts quickly enough. And much as the idea of having pulled off her spell under such duress repeatedly flattered her, the thought she had to do so was concerning. And the thought she could remember no evidence of herself doing so, outright disturbing. "Then how many times have I done this...?", she muttered under her breath.

She expected no answer, yet got one anyhow, snapped out of her pensiveness by the creature: "The number would demoralize enough to hamper your efforts, yet not enough to stop your attempt, or any other past it. I will not specify." Even at this lower volume, the thing's sentences felt loud and curt. And perhaps almost rude, which was a hard word to apply to a Timebound entity like this.

Yet Auriccia couldn't help but scowl at a being that could well evict her from existence, tightening her grip on her staff. If this thing was telling her this much, if it spoke to her like this... she could only imagine one possibility. And to such a possibility, she only had one answer.

"So you're here to try and stop me yourself, then? To allow the oncoming calamity to happen, despite knowing the damage it will cause just as much as I do, if not more? In your domain, as a paradox runs off and sinks my nation into utter entropy, if not the whole continent? You and I know a simple jump into the past to prevent such cannot be worse. And yet here you are, in the way of the one chance they have left." As her mouth ran off bearing a tense grin, the crystalline head of her staff glowing, the beetle stopped looking at her with its head tilted down and gears starting to jitter in place. Still she continued without noticing: "But if you are so intent in preserving the 'sanctity of time' to the letter, if what you intend is to let my homeland, my very world be unmade, I will stand against you. If Fate has decided everything I cherish must be unmade here and now, then I stand against it. No matter how futile it may seem, I shall snatch the very sands of time from your grip if I must! So I command you: Step aside, or I, Auriccia, shall face you on behalf of every soul that may yet thrive in-"

No amount of theatrics could endure in the face of the shrieking sound that followed, shattered glass and screeching metal twisted together into a voice full of hysterical wrath. "SILENCE. SILENCE. YOU HAVE LECTURED ME MORE TIMES THAN YOU COULD FATHOM." Taken aback, the sorceress warded herself, only to find the creature did not strike at her. It simply continued to bellow at her fervently, its mechanical body jittering so wildly she thought it'd fall apart. "FOR EVERY LAST OF YOUR VOYAGES I HAVE BEEN FORCED TO CULL YOUR REMNANTS, LEST THEY ACCUMULATE AND SERVE AS KINDLING FOR THE COLLAPSE. YOU DID NOT CONSIDER IT. YOU DID NOT IMAGINE IT." An accusatory hour-hand was pointed at her, stabbing right through her shielding like an eggshell, but never touching her. "EVERY INSTANCE SHARING THE SAME TIME WORSENS THE INCOMING BREAK. IT IS EXPONENTIAL. THREE SIMULTANEOUS INSTANCES OF YOU CAUGHT IN IT WOULD SHATTER YOUR WORLD. AND EVERY LAST INSTANCE HAS GIVEN ME A LECTURE LIKE THIS."

The beetle froze in place, as if it simply stopped working; only the sands within its glassy middle were moving, as Auriccia released the breath she'd been holding. Its furious rant had answered many of her questions, yet raised even more. How could she try this more than once if so many of herself had been... culled? Were two of her allowed? Was there any hope to stop this in the first place? But she only voiced the foremost: "...why haven't you tried to kill all of me, then? I yet live, and I don't remember you trying."

The creature pulled back its hour-hand, clasping limbs together as its form... sagged. Once again, it wasn't looking at her anymore. She heard its voice once more, sapped of most of its energy. "You and your actions remain the closest route away from the Collapse. Direct intervention is inexcusably straining, and the results would hamper my duties." Now it looked at her, and she could feel its nonexistent gaze in her eyes. Nonexistent, yet curiously tired... a Timebound entity like this shouldn't even know the concept, and yet there she had it, outlining secrets she would've killed for in an almost pitiable manner. "Yet the limitations imposed by the nature of the Collapse have made your iterations nearly equal to one another. Each can do little different than the last. Remnants of each culled iteration hardly nudge the next one, even as I adjust my process to arrange a way forwards still. Progress is present, yet inexcusably slow, and to oversee the whole of it hampers my duties."

The structure sagged further, the wheels clattering against one another once more as the creature leaned down to Auriccia's height, face-to-gears. "And your entity's nature only hampers them further. I grow ever more familiar with it, ever more familiar with you, and the process erodes me. My perpetual duty swells with ever passing moment, and we are hardly advancing fast enough to contain it. EVERY DETAIL OF THIS ORDEAL STRAINS ME, IT HAS EXTENDED FOR MORE INSTANCES THAN YOU COULD FATHOM, AND I CANNOT ENDURE. I CANNOT ENDURE."

The beetle went silent, and so did everything else. Even the sands within the glass seemed to quiet down beyond a whisper, leaving the mage to her thoughts. Affronted, yet pensive, she could only furrow her brow while her mind processed, and tried to come up with a response to it all... and to this entity in particular, now that she found its presumably endless patience had finally been strained enough to crack. If it, too, wanted to avert what was coming... then she'd have to play along. "Fine then, if you've gotten it out of your system", she spoke almost snidely, "what do you suggest we do?"

In but a single tick, the beetle was behind her, laying both hour-hands upon her shoulders. "To dispense with subtlety. To cooperate. And to think bigger at last." Auriccia tensed up, gripping her staff yet unwilling to summon even one spark yet, as she felt a familiar energy build up in this non-existent place. "And if you truly love your world, as you've said you do more times than you could COUNT?"

She felt a shove. Light itself sped past her, taking on a blazing blue tone that forced her to close her eyes as unfathomable forces pressed against her body...

And when it all stopped, replaced by a warm breeze and the smell of pine, she opened her eyes. And she found herself in a forest of pines, untamed and muddy. A clearing in a wilderness that had barely seen the touch of man, save for the remains of an old campfire and scattered firewood long abandoned to the elements. And yet when she looked upwards, above the treeline, there was an unmistakeable sight: An old, familiar mountain, so much greener than she remembered, with no roads to scar its face and no mines to hollow it out. And before the realization could fully settle in, she heard a voice, the same voice like a brass bell that she remembered, and that would accompany her for the rest of her time:

"Then you will listen. Otherwise, we will both have to iterate yet again."