And the next morning, Lace gives Elana a parting kiss, and heads over to the temple.
It's early, still, only the priests praying in public - most people have a hearth shrine for the everyday gods. Lace looks around the different altars, noting the two most ornate - Akatosh, the Dragon God, chief of the pantheon of the Empire, and Shor, the patron of humanity and favored of the Nords.
Dragons, and time...
The last Elder Scroll vision is fresh in her mind. Lace drifts over to that altar, kneeling before it - not in the style of the priests here (on both knees, hands out, head bent up) but like she would at home if she was feeling playful or overwhelmed or moved or actually devout for once (for those deities she actually feels something like worship for; her father can have - and prefers - a punch in the face) - on one knee, hands pressed to the floor, head down. She clears her mind - the deities of her home world are of art, and it is sacrilege to approach them with anything other than appreciation (or a mind full of burning but relevant art opinions, if you're as cheeky as she is). She fills her mind with thoughts of dragons wrought beautifully, of time and time pieces, of the Art of Marking Time, of scientific theories on the nature of time and space as rendered by the cleverest minds of her world, filtered through popular science books and articles because she isn't one of those...
She feels herself - detach, almost. She has a disorienting moment/ day/ year of not knowing how long anything lasts - an equally disorienting moment of being viscerally aware of every millisecond -
"Raise your head, child," a voice rumbles.
Lace looks up.
Before her is a whirlwind of clocks - modern ones, mostly, glowing precise counters, atomic clocks, a few pretending to be clockwork but those aren't accurate enough for the modern day - a dragon, or dragons, or a multitudinous beast her mind is only kind of sort of parsing as a dragon, scales a shining gold, curling around and among the clocks, numerous claws tending to them, numerous heads and eyes observing them. Her mind can't make sense of all the motion and information. The part of her brain responsible for processing whether the world contains threats shrugs, decides this pattern matches to CGI pretty much, and gives up, and her forming headache recedes slightly.
And one reptilian head, larger and more present, peering at her through dark eyes.
"Hello," Lace says. "I'm afraid I don't know the proper term of address, here."
"Not something I bother with," the dragon says, sounding vaguely gruff. "You have interesting thoughts. What is general relativity?"
She blinks. "...Probably I have ever read a book on that, and you're welcome to dig through my memories - and timeline - in case there's better storage of it somewhere. Though I ask a favor."
The dragon waves a claw. "The divine spirits do not need to make planes in Oblivion. None of us had any before we came here. Making one weakens you magically and ties you to the realm it is made in. The power lost is permanent, but you can gain new power later, though it will be significantly harder as a divine spirit than as a mortal becoming a divine spirit. Making a movable plane is theoretically possible, but has not yet been accomplished. The timelines where you ask Meridia are more likely to result in you discovering how to do that, but you are not always interested in it so the point might be moot. The ritual as you have surmised it can work, though it will require some attention to detail to not overload your healing or draw too little power. Molag Bal's dominion would not survive the ritual unless he forces a plane meld during it. Can you guarantee you will read more books about time if you return to your world?"
"...I will try my best, and I'll also try to send books back if at all possible," she says after a moment.
The dragon's gaze goes distant. "Can you randomize which book you will read. Ideally true randomization, not rolling dice."
Lace blinks. "Sure? - Are you looking at futures where I read physics books - "
"Yes. The vision is hazier if it has a low probability of happening, but I have realized your world contains so many physics books it is better to have a large sample, and you are more likely to read one book than two or more." The dragon's attention drifts back to her as he speaks.
She nods. That kind of makes sense, if timekeeping dragons who don't already know everything about time makes sense. "Speaking of - why do you want that?"
The dragon frowns a bit. Maybe. It's hard to tell on a dragon face. Lace definitely has a possibly mystic sense of a god being currently somewhat annoyed at himself and mostly his colleagues. "This venture was poorly planned, and the person responsible for the core design left and took his blueprints with him. It took me a while to figure out how to make events happen in a sensible order. I have not invented the space-time continuum yet, that is a fascinating idea and probably less effort than what I am actually doing. I suspect your scientists have a mostly descriptive and incomplete idea of how a self sustaining system of time works, but it will be better than nothing."
So many questions pop into Lace's head. "...I'm really not sure how you have recognizable physics. Like at all."
The dragon makes a very vague gesture almost like shrugging. "We're arguably just simulating having physics. Mostly poorly. Meridia is constantly getting annoyed about light being incorrectly implemented. Though now I should be able to begin establishing a better system without messing anything up - perhaps I will pause time; that's an interesting concept too, as I have never thought of events as being the sorts of things that can just not continuously happen... Though I can't in the near future as you experience it, too many predicted events are piling on top of each other..."
"...Good luck?" Lace says, quietly resolving to not return to this world after she leaves until she's very sure Akatosh is done experimenting. Maybe ever.
Akatosh nods, gaze going briefly distant. "You have been very helpful. Daedric Princes - as the mortals stylize them - do not have responsibilities, unless they choose to take some on, but do have politics. They are generally very nosy and resentful of new powers. The division between the daedra and aedra is not actually the same as the Ayleids recorded it - the closest accurate concept would be those of the divine spirits who invested ourselves in Mundus, and those of us who invested ourselves elsewhere in the Aurbis, which is magically significant among us. The aedra are weaker on the attack, but stronger on the defense, because we are bound to one another as well as Mundus. The daedra are better capable of influencing things outside their realms - and therefore stronger on the attack - but are more susceptible to outside influence - and therefore weaker on the defense. Peryite and Vaermina are aedra. Stendarr is a daedra. Namira and Sithis are neither; they predate the divine spirits and are not of us.
"Elana would be an uninvolved divine spirit, until and unless she chose a place to invest herself. Investing herself in Mundus would allow her to introduce or seize hold of concepts and places. Investing herself in Oblivion would give her a plane entirely under her control, unless another inhabitant of that realm forces a plane meld. Leaving would detangle her from this universe. The ritual Elana uses to ascend will flavor her powers and what it is easiest to invest herself in, but she will not actually have an aspect or domain until and unless she invests herself. The probable flavors she will take on upon ascension are those related to control, of either oneself or uninvolved others, but usually not both - however, to a divine spirit, those who swear themselves to her will count as 'oneself.' Mastering her own mind prior to ascension gives her greater power over herself. Involving sacrifices other than you in the ritual will give her greater power over others. Our powers are manifold and difficult to summarize even for a partially divine mind. They become more constrained in breadth but more powerful in depth if we commit ourselves. I had weak mastery over everything I tried as an uninvested spirit, and gained absolute local mastery over time when I invested.
"Also you will never think to ask this, but I am telling you anyways because the futures where you know are less obnoxious - the Dwemer of Morrowind have found the thing that metaphorically corresponds to the Heart of Lorkhan. It can be used to create new gods with the right tools, but the activation of it probably forces me to temporarily stop maintaining time - I cannot actually foresee what happens during that period, just before and somewhat after. It is very annoying when this happens. Elana will not need the Heart of Lorkhan to become a divine spirit. The ritual you are currently pursuing works more consistently. However, I would appreciate it if the Dwemer were not allowed to try and stick the Heart inside a machine in an attempt to create a predictable, rational, controllable god. That does not work. That will never work. Kagrenac is the main driver of that, and cannot activate the Heart if he is dead, but to be safe I would also like his notes burned. You are not obliged to do this, however if you do not the Heart will likely be activated before you two can finish your ritual, which will be very annoying for you. Incidentally that is also why this year is foretold as the Year of Sun's Death; the futures where the Heart has been activated involve a lot of volcanic explosions."
The dragon pauses, as if to give the timelines where Lace has follow up questions time to settle, then nods.
"...Thank you for the information. I can't think of any questions," Lace says after a moment, mostly for formality's sake.
"You are capable of praying to me again, but you probably will not," Akatosh says. "Goodbye."
And then Lace crashes back into her body.
Time doesn't seem to have passed since the start of her vision. Still, it takes her a few breaths to get her spiking heart rate under control.
She stands, shaking, and goes to find Elana.
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