“Hubris. Arrogance. These have brought low countless strategists, and they will bring low countless more. One must keep careful watch of both, if one wishes not to join them. Trust not an easy victory or a weak foe. Consider others your superior in everything, or risk becoming another monument to the strength of these forces.”
— “Strategy: A Primer”
Two golden eyes looked upon the weft of time, smiling as they scanned through a uniform nexus point – the magewright’s body reduced to golden sand, her companions pursued by his servants. Across all the minute differences of time’s inexorable march, her death was destined.
A grin began to form at the edges of his mouth. He cast his gaze forward from that moment, watched its ramifications in countless worlds. In some, her six comrades perished alongside her, golden sand wicking away in the northern wind the only record they had ever existed. In others, they continued, slowly meeting her fate one-by-one, the survivors clinging on desperately to life as their compatriots steadily vanished. In one, all seven of them stood victorious in the aftermath of battle.
The grin faded instantly. Eyebrows furrowed.
“No…”
He cast his gaze further back, watched the dwarf and the greenwarden collecting her remains, watched their petition to the Stormbearer and the dwarf’s sacrifice. Watched her body reform in white light that shimmered in the great hall his presence had graced once before.
“No no no no no…”
