"I don't know where I am," says someone who am in an unexpected location.

A woman, dressed in a trench coat and fedora despite being indoors, puts a whipped cream covered whisk back into a mixing bowl with as much dignity as is physically possible under the circumstances.

"You are in my kitchen, on a largely uninhabited Earth." says the woman, starting down the path to neutralizing whatever threat this newcomer might pose to the safety of Cauldron and the world.

"I don't know how you got here."

"I think I got here in a magical accident but I wasn't expecting it to happen."

It sounds true, when Elspeth says magic is real. Still, Contessa hasn't trusted her own instincts about what's real and what's fantasy since she was 11. Path to knowing whether she is telling the truth and magic is real?

Path to Victory's basic functioning as a shard is to scan it's surrounding and simulate future events, determining what actions are necessary to achieve a specified goal. The simulation portion of this is incredibly detailed - if necessary it will model events down to the behavior of individual molecules to determine whether a plan will succeed (though typically coarser simulations are sufficient). However, it is based on the basic premise that reality functions according to known and quantified laws of physics. It's simulations don't account for the possibility of magic. It's not that Path to Victory is dumb, it's just that it's never encountered magic before.

And so, searching for the answer to Contessa's question, it scans the anomalous humanoid....

Oh, does someone want to know things about Elspeth? Her magic is very obliging! Here it is at full blast! ElspethisahalfvampirefromanEarthwherevampiresandmagicexistandshehasapoweranditistotellthetruththewholetruthandnothingbutthetruthand-

(It can go on like that at pretty high bandwidth.)

What happened to her power. Path to fixing to her power! Path!

"What did you do?!" the suddenly much younger seeming woman asks, brandishing the cream covered whisk in a white knuckled grip. 

"...I've just been standing here talking to you since I arrived."

That sounds true but how is she supposed to know whether it's actually true??

A bit of whipped cream drips from the whisk onto the floor as she glares at the intruder.

"I can just get out of your way, I apologize." She heads for the door.

She is going to stay in this kitchen and wait for her power to come back and also try to remember what Doctor Mother's phone number is. 

The compound hallway outside matches the spartan white decor of the kitchen, almost eerily clean.

Kind of weird. Elspeth's shoes are not eerily clean and she is going to track dirt here in the process of getting away from the woman who is ?allergic to half vampires? - maybe she has something like Alice does and can't route around it or turn it off and in that case not interacting with her is the only real solution. Down the hall, looking for the exit.

She can't find an exit. She can't even find windows, just labyrinths like hallways leading to rooms containing various pieces of medical equipment - CT scanners, MRIs, examination tables (with what appear to be cuffs to hold patients down), and devices which Elspeth doesn't recognize. None of the rooms contain any people.

"Hello?!"

No reply - there's barely even an echo. 

So concerning. Hello? she tries. I'm here the hallway she's in and lost. I'm looking for the exit.

She feels a gust of what might be air and an "X" being drawn on the palm of her hand by dozens of fingers at once. 

Huh. No exit?

A checkmark is traced onto her hand this time.

Is there a direction I could tunnel out?

No response.

What if she tilts her hands in different directions so a simple arrow could indicate any normal direction.

No response.

She will retrace her steps to go see if the whipped cream woman can perhaps kindly explain how to get anywhere else.

It took Contessa three failed attempts to call Doctor Mother before she remembered the obvious, and requested a door. When Elspeth returns the room is empty, a single waffle left behind in Contessa's rush. 

(She remembered the whipped cream though.)

...is the kitchen at least stocked so she won't starve very soon.

Aside from the lonely waffle there's a reasonably well stocked fridge and pantry, leaning towards fresh produce, with a thorough array of appliances. 

Fresh produce is not her favorite but she can eat it.

She eats the waffle.

It's an extremely good waffle. Best she's ever had.

Though it could do with some whipped cream.

Mystery lady was good at making waffles, apparently.

She explores the rest of the facility. Occasionally asks yes-or-no questions of the ghost.

She can eventually find a staircase that leads downwards! The ghost's opinion is she should not go down the staircase. 

"Could you draw letters on me? It'd help to know why."

D. A. N. G. E. R.

"To humans or even to someone much faster and tougher?"

A checkmark.

Okay. "Thank you." She does not go down there and just explores the rest of the facility.

As Elspeth explores down one particularly long hallway a portal opens up a dozen feet away, the fedora wearing women stepping through.

"- hello again. I can't seem to find the way out."

"Oh, we use portals to leave. Sorry for running - my power shorted out when it tried to scan you. It's back online now and says I should explain things to you so you defeat the evil space god that's going to end the world."

"...I'm not sure if I'm cut out for defeating evil space gods but I'm happy to listen to an explanation."

"It thinks you are, and it's usually dependable about that sort of thing."

"A bit over three decades ago two space god things showed up near the planet Earth and began to give lots of people super powers, with the intention of gathering data about how those powers are used and then blowing up the planet. One of the space gods crashed and we killed it but there's still another one around who is going to try to destroy the world soon. Cauldron, which I work for, has been preparing to fight him when he tries this."

"Why do they want to blow up the planet?"

"We think it's how they reproduce."

"...why do you think that?"

"When people get powers they often experience a fragment of a memory from one of the space gods - many include them thinking about destroying worlds to reproduce."

"Oh, I guess that would be suggestive. I don't know how I could help, surely if I go tell him that you don't like that and are working to stop him this will not factor overmuch into his plans."

"My power thinks you talking to him would work."

"...what does your power do?"

"It makes plans to succeed at goals."

"Why haven't you succeeded at your goal before, then?"

"The last alien god I killed put a block in place to prevent me from using my power on alien gods. Plans involving you are an exception to this."

"I take it you don't know how that would be either."

"The block didn't cover magic."

"Your power isn't magic?"

"It's very advanced alien biotech."

"Oh. Well, what would you want me to tell him?"

"It doesn't really matter exactly what you tell him, so long as there's a lot of it," Contessa replies, looking surprised and confused at her own words.

"I guess that can and has killed people but I wouldn't expect it to work on a god!"

"He won't die, though he'll no longer be an ongoing threat."

"What will happen to him?"

"He'll change his mind and decide there are better things to do than trying to destroy the world."

What.

"Why can't he figure that out for himself?"

"He doesn't know that magic exists, and also isn't very good at figuring things out for himself."

"Oh. Okay. Well, where is he?"

"Canada - we can take a portal there."

"Lead the way."

"Door to outside Ferland Community Center, Quebec City, Canada."

A portal opens up to a city street. 

Is the evil god visible anywhere?

Well, there's a glowing golden man hovering above the ground, gently coaxing a nervous looking cat from a tree branch. 

"The guy with the cat? Why is he doing that?"

"He does random acts of good constantly, we don't know why."

Aaaaaa... he's right there and it's terrifying and she is so happy her power is working again because otherwise she'd be running to find Doctor Mother right now. 

Hello, she tries, before just opening the firehose on this guy.

Scion stops moving, the rescued cat still held in his hands as he hovers a foot above the ground.

He looks at Elspeth.

YOU ARE NOT A HOST.

It's a statement and a question and an exclamation and a roar of context and connotation all at once. This being appears like a host in many ways but doesn't have any shard attached to her. She isn't the host of a broadcast shard and yet she broadcasts thoughts just the same. His species developed the ability to broadcast like this and it's possible some other species did but not one that's supposed to be on this planet and his role in the cycle is supposed to include destroying external invaders of their chosen planet, but what would be the point the cycle is broken anyways.

It's enough information packed into such a short transmission that a human's mind could be hurt merely by hearing it.

Well, she's not one of those.

No, I'm not. I'm -

And she swats him with what she's got.

Entities collect and record data from the lives of millions of host during each cycle, sifting through and recording the most important lessons. Stil, the memories of thousands of lifetimes in far more vivid detail than a host, much less a shard, remembers them, is enough to give him pause. 

Briefly.

YOU HAVE COLLECTED A LOT OF DATA.

I mostly got it from somebody else.

WHY ARE YOU HERE.

I had a magical accident but I don't know why or how it sent me to this world in particular.

I CANNOT SEE YOUR WORLD.

This is surprising! Scion can normally see all worlds.

Well, neither can I right now. Why were you going to destroy this one?

THE CYCLE REQUIRES IT.

The cycle is the processes by which his species spreads and searches for an answer on how they can escape the inevitable death that comes when resources run out.

It seems pretty wasteful to destroy a bunch of resources while you're working out how to deal with running out of them.

WE ONLY LEAVE WHEN WE HAVE LEARNED WHAT WE CAN.

This is tinged with bitterness and the knowledge that this doesn't apply to him - his part in the cycle is broken as his partner is dead. There's nothing for him here.

So what are you going to do instead?

A host told him that he'd be happier if he helped people, so he's trying that but it isn't working. If he could get his partner back he would but it's impossible - he can see the past but not in enough detail to retrieve his partner from it, not without far more energy than he has access to. Maybe he'll try something else later. Eventually he'll die he supposes - everything takes energy, and he can only harvest so much from these worlds as he absorbs the heat and sunlight from a thousand alternate Earths. It'll be a little longer now, her transmission of memories was large and the energy he absorbed while listening to it was substantial. But eventually he'll run out of energy anyways.

I DON'T KNOW, he transmits, conveying all of this. 

Well, please don't destroy the Earths, a bunch of people are using them.

I DON'T CARE.

The hosts aren't worth caring about, the only person who was worth caring about is gone.

You should though.

WHY?

Did you actually pay attention to the data I sent you? It's not noise, it's meaningful content.

IT WAS NOT VERY USEFUL, NO ONE WAS TRYING VERY HARD TO OPTIMIZE FOR CONFLICT.

You don't need conflict anymore.

WHAT ELSE IS THE POINT.

Different people have different points. I don't know what yours should be.

Scion broadcasts an intense pulse of grief - he knows what his point should be and she's gone now.

Yes, it's terrible to lose your mate.