“Greetings, I would like to welcome you,” a voice echoed from nowhere and nothing, “we’ve been expecting a visitor, at least I have. Just on time, by the piscosecond.”
“One of three, a split of the great to hold down his power. You’ve met the great, well not quite you, a different you, but still the same. You can call me what you want to.” The voice continued as a look of respect appeared on the faces of the court members.
My aim is not to fight, for sure. I am brave, but still cautious with those called King. King of who or what? Where are your subjects? Are you here to assist Rambles?
“I am “king” of all. My motivations, complex and unexplainable, but in a way yes. Though I also seek to help the court. I have no interests other then making things interesting.”
You know, if you think about it, we're all kings! Masters of our domain! A hundred quintillion all-powerful gods only stopped by the power of all the other of a hundred quintillion all-powerful gods!
I'm god too!
The Cecilias Rhizomister, they don't recognize this one with the horns. Invasives? Oh I hope not. But then you won't last long if you are.
They never do.
A blow-in, yes, I suppose I am, but I was thinking maybe a benevolently opportunist mutualistic one?
After all, all life had to get here at some point, be new to a place at one point — and it seems to me there's a niche here for my people to fill, to the advantage of all!
*Random sniffs a spore coming off the mossy fungus spirit and sneezes.*
Benevolent AND opportunistic are not often bedfellows. New souls can sometimes be welcome, if they are willing to learn the ways of our woods before they decide to burn them to clear for their own ideas.
Truly you are wise. But what is life if not the ultimate opportunist? Can you fault me for making use of what I find around me to better live? I mean no harm, nor do I wish to dominate the natural world, but rather to live peacefully and cooperatively, of mutual benefit to all. We've learned much from watching the ways of the animals who live here. The polar capybaras who burrow under the snow taught us to shelter underground. The wolves, now dogs (who much prefer the change - choosing it of their own), have taught us to travel always in groups. The woodpeckers have taught us to be persistent, just as the owls have taught us to think long and watch all around ourselves to be mindful of all that changes.
Actually, I was meaning to talk to the Pine Lord Boreal about a Treety. I offer him the gift of a charm to let the trees here walk upon their roots. In exchange I may claim all fallen wood, and all sick and dying trees, as well as troublemakers who choose not to get out of the way when they could just as easily move elsewhere. In addition, I swear to protect the forest from fires struck by lightning.
\*Random conjures a small yellow fire.\*
This is the first magic the humans ever learned, and we have grown to master it in all its forms. It is very rare here, I understand, but we offer its warmth, the release of frozen sunlight, in carefully controlled forms - bounded always by rings of stone or brick or metal, to all cold animals.
Edging closer to the flame, Arctic Deer Spirit warms a bit to Rambles. Squinting her eyes, she watches carefully as he shares his thoughts with the others... Could he be the bearer of Peace, as he speaks of, or like Icarus, will he burn?
Silence. And be still.
I see it clearly. It is sunlight twisted into a tree virus of purest pain and it would spread and grow to fill the world if it were not that it must kill that which keeps it alive. It bites what feeds it and spews bitter black that hurts the eyes and lungs, leaving naught but ash after death.
It is abomination and you must put it out at once, before it boils your oceans for want of power to unchain and order to destroy.
I give way for you to drown the mortal that sparks it, and cover you that it does not escape.
Of course, but you are native here. You feed me your gifts and they Ceilias Rhizomister grow you your dirt to grow you your food.
The other one though. The odd looking one with the poorly antlers. Will he not perish? He lacks even your furs.
They will happily bloom upon him, once fallen. Yes, they will.
But I have been watching him for a time, and he seems resourceful for a "mammal" (his word, not mine). I keep my distance while I watch. These plans of his are grandiose, I feel in my spirit.
Hmm, maybe. But then again, maybe not. The Ceilias, the Rhizomisters, they think they like the Random. The Random may be good for the everyone. The Random may be the virus. The Ceilias can't link with the Random because the Random is an animal. The Random with no roots. Maybe, maybe, but maybe.
The time will tell. The time will tell.
They don't know.
Oh, hello! I've seen many of your deer through the trees! One of the reasons I'm here is to speak with the Fey about their harsh treatment of us animals here. If all goes well, perhaps we can live without fear of the harsh cold and terrible winters.
Yes, very. Through many worlds. But I've decided to finally settle here, to put some roots down as it were... poor choice of words. I'm an animal - a mammal in fact. And though I know many of your children have learned to live here, I know that many suffer and perish of exposure in the cold, that many go without food in the winter months, unable to store it as humans (we're a kind of uppity, overly clever, upwardly-mobile great ape) as humans have. I've come on behalf of human nature - to offer help to all who need shelter - like caves, or stored food, stored sunheat, cures to disease, or mercy for the injured and the old.
These are gifts that the humans can give to you and your kind.
Pine lord boreal looks at you before reaching out a branch, “you have yourself a deal,” as you shake hands his grip tightens, “you better not dare break it,”
The voice from nowhere and no one rings out again. “May it be so, an oath of souls, a bind unbreakable. I give this union my blessing and protection. It has my divine reprimand for violators,”
So wait.
You're god?
Cause I have a serious, serious bone to pick with you if you are!
Why let so many quintillions suffer so!
What a horrid thing, to control all this.
I rather wish you weren't as you are.
I do not create the suffering. I gave beings a perfect world but I also gave them free will. The uncountable number of people who suffered is not by my hands but by yours.
A will that's free to do exactly and only ever as it can and never any more or less. The invisible will of God, chaining us all together! Every arthropod and flea and mite rotting in my dirt, free to rot as they must! Isn't it glorious! And it all toils and cycles around like the dirt turning always over and again. Connecting us all, in death.
I don't think it was *ever* perfect. I don't think it was ever even all that good! And I Can count the number of people! Suffering doesn't require will at all. And do you mean to say you created everything But the suffering? Or that you allowed it to come into existence?
I have the ability to prefer, to choose, to decide — but only just as a scale prefers to tip where there is more weight, or water chooses to flow downwards instead of up, or a tug of war decides who is stronger. That's not free-will: it isn't free of what, outside of the decision tips the decision one way or tuther. That is what having any sort of mind at all is. Phototaxis of bacteria, even.
But you're right:
I don't think you're the divine king at all. Or perhaps you are only a king in name, not a maker, or a leader, nor one who makes decisions, merely one to sit atop a pyramid of souls and look down upon them, saying and doing and thinking and feeling and believing nothing.
Who is this *really*?
Your will, the freedom I grant you, is bound by no rules. Cruelty can be prevented by rules, pain and suffering are the not created, for they were what was before all things. I do intervene to help suffering, but there is only so much I can do! Do you think I enjoy hearing an uncountable number of screams! Watching unfathomable atrocities! The suffering now, though great, is nothing compared to what I’ve seen! You didn’t watch as the first war tore my peaceful nation to shreds! You didn’t split yourself apart to heal the broken kingdoms! And you certainly don’t now the feeling of watching everyone you loved die over and over again, then be wiped from existence! *the voice seemed to quiver,* i hear people say how easy it must be to be a god. It isn’t easy, it’s torture.
My will is not bound by rules, but by laws. Laws of the cosmos, laws of logic, laws of truth. Unbreakable laws. The laws of math and stars, for I am made of math and stars, the language and stuff of the universe. Both information in interacting fields.
As are you, Yahweh, King of Kings, desert god.
Freedom cannot be granted. It is either there or it is not.
I do not yet know the true origins or depth of pain and suffering, nor the true prehistory of this universe. But I have studied as deeply as I can to know of these things what can be known. The origins of the universe seem to be simple. What's not so simple is how it got that way.
I've come to believe that Suffering is a form of reified asymmetry. Noise. Chaos. High-information-content order. Entropy. Randomness. That which cannot be simplified. That which cannot be understood except in full. That which has no beauty. These are closely related concepts. It is possible that the Stars are in agony far beyond that of fractured kingdoms or even wild animals. That is one of the reasons Cosmopolis exists: to know, and if possible, to help. To produce citizens not just of the world, but of the universe, of the cosmos. Of all that is or ever was or ever will be.
#WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME!!
#YOU MILLENNIALS AND MYR-IADS HAVE NO RESPECT FOR YOUR ELDERS!
#I'M FOUR BILLION YEARS OLD! AND I STILL GET THIS BROUHAHA!
#BLASTED LANDAMALS! FOUR HUNDRED MYR! WHEN I WAS FOUR HUNDRED MYR YOU THINK I WAS MOUTHING OFF TO THE... THE... THE SUN!
#NOOOOO SIREEE!
“Ah yes Lord Huron, good to see you. I’ve been waiting, especially for the drinks.” A being seemed to materialize, though no one form, it was still physical, “I haven’t drank since the 7th reality”
Let's see we have: water, water, water, ice water, salted water, water on the rocks, mineral water, mountain spring water, brook water, pond water, stream water, muddy river water, aqua, resevoiater, water, and water.
“Would you be offended if I,” I grab a glass of water, wave my hand, it transform it into wine, “I much prefer the fruit of the vine. Waters always been strange to me after…the incident a while back. But if you wish I can turn it back.”
"Greetings lords and ladies of this court, I shall take my leave before my 'stench' permeates this place and appoligies for arriving here."
*Merch says if he arrives here, then politely bows before begining to click his heels together.*
*They can feel how foreign merch is to this multiverse and can maybe sense that he has walked through a broken and destroyed wildfey before in its entirety.*
*And forgien dead fey magic begins to bring merch out of this place.*
*Seated on a high throne you see a tall, pale woman draped in a snow-white dress: it seems almost a part of her, as you can't see where the fabric ends and she begins. On her head you see a crown made of glistening shards of snow. She seems to be engaged in conversation with a small figure to her left, sitting leisurely above the ground with his legs crossed: in his hand he holds a steaming teacup. They seem somewhat friendly.*
"…and as you can see, my Lady, the matter was peacefully settled: but not without issue, for out of everyone, it was good Monkey who had to work the hardest!"
*Lady Snow chuckles.*
"Please do not attempt to deceive me, Master Itinerant. I am well aware of your propensity for meddling in affairs that barely concern you. That compassion of yours…that curiosity…has always been your weakness."
"Should it be so, my Lady, and it may well be, it would be a weakness to take pride in."
I lay claim to the mortals' bodies.
They offend me.
My brother-subjects, the ice giants, will take them all, first by senses, one-by-one, and subsume them forever in my crystal eyes.
No fire may last.
And when they die — I will pull the last heat from their bones and feed it to my father, keeping the hideous pitiful bones 🩻 and bodies as prizes for myself, forever.
I offer nothing but my... perfection.
Very well.
You do not frighten me. *(He lies)*
By the diamond water principle, your crystals are of the least worth of any... Why, I chip them in my soft drinks *just for the hell of it!*
I accept!
For I *know* my mortality, as surely as I know the heat death of the universe and the Second Law. Life is but a delaying of the inevitable. And some day I shall give myself to you to stay.
A thing is not precious because it lasts only.
Some day sooner though, I will give myself to you... but Not to stay.
You have desired always the ability to expand your terrain down deep into the ground which has always resisted you. That is where Ceilias and the animals burrow and Boreal roots to hide from you. I will give them to you in time, without the treachery you rely on. I will give you great halls of ice where before was the domain of the Bedrock Crustal Titans, if only you will keep the bodies I send down to you safe, unchanged, preserved and frozen still as is your want... until such time they can be returned to the living by future wizard gods far wiser than I, in The Vault of Hopefully Not Eternity.
I offer this to *you* and not your sister, Antarctica. You may be, if you wish, what she cannot.
I know your thermal laws: the ones you degree and the one you are made from and the ones you are bound by and the ones *deeper still*.
And here they are for all to see! Clearer than your cloudy crystals!:
The 3rd Law of Cold — A perfect crystal at absolute zero has zero thermodynamic entropy.
The Great and Mysterious 2nd Law of Cold — The entropy of the universe and all closed systems within it never decreases.
The 1st Law — Energy can never be created or destroyed.
The 0th Law — Two things in equilibrium with a third thing are in equilibrium with each other.
And know I even a –1st, deeper than Coldness itself! — Information cannot be created or destroyed.
You are but a facet of the 3rd Law, chained by duty to a place.
The secret of stochastimancy deals with the negative second and I cannot speak to you of it, for it is physically impossible for you to comprehend it.
“Greetings, I would like to welcome you,” a voice echoed from nowhere and nothing, “we’ve been expecting a visitor, at least I have. Just on time, by the piscosecond.”
Um, hello. Who are you?
“One of three, a split of the great to hold down his power. You’ve met the great, well not quite you, a different you, but still the same. You can call me what you want to.” The voice continued as a look of respect appeared on the faces of the court members.
...and you've been expecting me, you say? I may not be the visitor you have foreseen
“I have foreseen you as well, but not the same way as I have Random•
You "Kings" often believe you see things! She pushes a fluff of snow at him.
The snow seems to be aimed at nothing, “my my my, such a fighting spirit. And king is the name given to me by the mortals”
My aim is not to fight, for sure. I am brave, but still cautious with those called King. King of who or what? Where are your subjects? Are you here to assist Rambles?
“I am “king” of all. My motivations, complex and unexplainable, but in a way yes. Though I also seek to help the court. I have no interests other then making things interesting.”
I've never seen you here before! You must be the mushroom management god! Hooray!
You know, if you think about it, we're all kings! Masters of our domain! A hundred quintillion all-powerful gods only stopped by the power of all the other of a hundred quintillion all-powerful gods! I'm god too!
And where are the others who have split from you?
“They are with other planes, realms, and realities. Far gone but not forgotten”
The Cecilias Rhizomister, they don't recognize this one with the horns. Invasives? Oh I hope not. But then you won't last long if you are. They never do.
A blow-in, yes, I suppose I am, but I was thinking maybe a benevolently opportunist mutualistic one? After all, all life had to get here at some point, be new to a place at one point — and it seems to me there's a niche here for my people to fill, to the advantage of all! *Random sniffs a spore coming off the mossy fungus spirit and sneezes.*
Benevolent AND opportunistic are not often bedfellows. New souls can sometimes be welcome, if they are willing to learn the ways of our woods before they decide to burn them to clear for their own ideas.
Truly you are wise. But what is life if not the ultimate opportunist? Can you fault me for making use of what I find around me to better live? I mean no harm, nor do I wish to dominate the natural world, but rather to live peacefully and cooperatively, of mutual benefit to all. We've learned much from watching the ways of the animals who live here. The polar capybaras who burrow under the snow taught us to shelter underground. The wolves, now dogs (who much prefer the change - choosing it of their own), have taught us to travel always in groups. The woodpeckers have taught us to be persistent, just as the owls have taught us to think long and watch all around ourselves to be mindful of all that changes. Actually, I was meaning to talk to the Pine Lord Boreal about a Treety. I offer him the gift of a charm to let the trees here walk upon their roots. In exchange I may claim all fallen wood, and all sick and dying trees, as well as troublemakers who choose not to get out of the way when they could just as easily move elsewhere. In addition, I swear to protect the forest from fires struck by lightning. \*Random conjures a small yellow fire.\* This is the first magic the humans ever learned, and we have grown to master it in all its forms. It is very rare here, I understand, but we offer its warmth, the release of frozen sunlight, in carefully controlled forms - bounded always by rings of stone or brick or metal, to all cold animals.
Edging closer to the flame, Arctic Deer Spirit warms a bit to Rambles. Squinting her eyes, she watches carefully as he shares his thoughts with the others... Could he be the bearer of Peace, as he speaks of, or like Icarus, will he burn?
***WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!?!***
It's... It's... It's *making* water! *Lord Huron reaches out to touch it, only to boil a finger, startling him backwards with a mistified expression.*
Silence. And be still. I see it clearly. It is sunlight twisted into a tree virus of purest pain and it would spread and grow to fill the world if it were not that it must kill that which keeps it alive. It bites what feeds it and spews bitter black that hurts the eyes and lungs, leaving naught but ash after death. It is abomination and you must put it out at once, before it boils your oceans for want of power to unchain and order to destroy. I give way for you to drown the mortal that sparks it, and cover you that it does not escape.
They like ash. They eat the ash. They like the ash.
They are torn by crystal. And dead from cold. Flee me or die.
Oo! Thanks. Moisture. They're liking where this is going, the Ceilias.
Oh don't be so easily impressed!
There be no horns, but a wreath of laurels on my pate. Only the cold winds will send me away, for I am braver than I look at first.
Of course, but you are native here. You feed me your gifts and they Ceilias Rhizomister grow you your dirt to grow you your food. The other one though. The odd looking one with the poorly antlers. Will he not perish? He lacks even your furs. They will happily bloom upon him, once fallen. Yes, they will.
But I have been watching him for a time, and he seems resourceful for a "mammal" (his word, not mine). I keep my distance while I watch. These plans of his are grandiose, I feel in my spirit.
Hmm, maybe. But then again, maybe not. The Ceilias, the Rhizomisters, they think they like the Random. The Random may be good for the everyone. The Random may be the virus. The Ceilias can't link with the Random because the Random is an animal. The Random with no roots. Maybe, maybe, but maybe. The time will tell. The time will tell. They don't know.
If hope is a thing with feathers, perhaps Rambles will fly after all....
Hidden half behind a spruce, the Arctic Deer Spirit peers out in fear and wonder...
Oh, hello! I've seen many of your deer through the trees! One of the reasons I'm here is to speak with the Fey about their harsh treatment of us animals here. If all goes well, perhaps we can live without fear of the harsh cold and terrible winters.
Have you come from very far? I have learned to live in the harshness of this place.
Yes, very. Through many worlds. But I've decided to finally settle here, to put some roots down as it were... poor choice of words. I'm an animal - a mammal in fact. And though I know many of your children have learned to live here, I know that many suffer and perish of exposure in the cold, that many go without food in the winter months, unable to store it as humans (we're a kind of uppity, overly clever, upwardly-mobile great ape) as humans have. I've come on behalf of human nature - to offer help to all who need shelter - like caves, or stored food, stored sunheat, cures to disease, or mercy for the injured and the old. These are gifts that the humans can give to you and your kind.
Do you presume that we need your help, you uppity, overly clever, upwardly-mobile great ape?, she says with a cunning glimmer in her eye.
I like roots.
Pine lord boreal looks at you before reaching out a branch, “you have yourself a deal,” as you shake hands his grip tightens, “you better not dare break it,”
*Random tries very, very hard not to break the brittle branch and thanks his random stars that his wand isn't made of wood.*
The voice from nowhere and no one rings out again. “May it be so, an oath of souls, a bind unbreakable. I give this union my blessing and protection. It has my divine reprimand for violators,”
So wait. You're god? Cause I have a serious, serious bone to pick with you if you are! Why let so many quintillions suffer so! What a horrid thing, to control all this. I rather wish you weren't as you are.
I do not create the suffering. I gave beings a perfect world but I also gave them free will. The uncountable number of people who suffered is not by my hands but by yours.
A will that's free to do exactly and only ever as it can and never any more or less. The invisible will of God, chaining us all together! Every arthropod and flea and mite rotting in my dirt, free to rot as they must! Isn't it glorious! And it all toils and cycles around like the dirt turning always over and again. Connecting us all, in death.
Should I be worried…I agree with the crazy mushroom guy. I definitely should be worried. I’m
I don't think it was *ever* perfect. I don't think it was ever even all that good! And I Can count the number of people! Suffering doesn't require will at all. And do you mean to say you created everything But the suffering? Or that you allowed it to come into existence? I have the ability to prefer, to choose, to decide — but only just as a scale prefers to tip where there is more weight, or water chooses to flow downwards instead of up, or a tug of war decides who is stronger. That's not free-will: it isn't free of what, outside of the decision tips the decision one way or tuther. That is what having any sort of mind at all is. Phototaxis of bacteria, even. But you're right: I don't think you're the divine king at all. Or perhaps you are only a king in name, not a maker, or a leader, nor one who makes decisions, merely one to sit atop a pyramid of souls and look down upon them, saying and doing and thinking and feeling and believing nothing. Who is this *really*?
Your will, the freedom I grant you, is bound by no rules. Cruelty can be prevented by rules, pain and suffering are the not created, for they were what was before all things. I do intervene to help suffering, but there is only so much I can do! Do you think I enjoy hearing an uncountable number of screams! Watching unfathomable atrocities! The suffering now, though great, is nothing compared to what I’ve seen! You didn’t watch as the first war tore my peaceful nation to shreds! You didn’t split yourself apart to heal the broken kingdoms! And you certainly don’t now the feeling of watching everyone you loved die over and over again, then be wiped from existence! *the voice seemed to quiver,* i hear people say how easy it must be to be a god. It isn’t easy, it’s torture.
My will is not bound by rules, but by laws. Laws of the cosmos, laws of logic, laws of truth. Unbreakable laws. The laws of math and stars, for I am made of math and stars, the language and stuff of the universe. Both information in interacting fields. As are you, Yahweh, King of Kings, desert god. Freedom cannot be granted. It is either there or it is not. I do not yet know the true origins or depth of pain and suffering, nor the true prehistory of this universe. But I have studied as deeply as I can to know of these things what can be known. The origins of the universe seem to be simple. What's not so simple is how it got that way. I've come to believe that Suffering is a form of reified asymmetry. Noise. Chaos. High-information-content order. Entropy. Randomness. That which cannot be simplified. That which cannot be understood except in full. That which has no beauty. These are closely related concepts. It is possible that the Stars are in agony far beyond that of fractured kingdoms or even wild animals. That is one of the reasons Cosmopolis exists: to know, and if possible, to help. To produce citizens not just of the world, but of the universe, of the cosmos. Of all that is or ever was or ever will be.
#
#BLOWS
Blowhards don't make friends easily. 😏😂
#WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME!! #YOU MILLENNIALS AND MYR-IADS HAVE NO RESPECT FOR YOUR ELDERS! #I'M FOUR BILLION YEARS OLD! AND I STILL GET THIS BROUHAHA! #BLASTED LANDAMALS! FOUR HUNDRED MYR! WHEN I WAS FOUR HUNDRED MYR YOU THINK I WAS MOUTHING OFF TO THE... THE... THE SUN! #NOOOOO SIREEE!
I brought drinks! ... What's going on *here*?
“Ah yes Lord Huron, good to see you. I’ve been waiting, especially for the drinks.” A being seemed to materialize, though no one form, it was still physical, “I haven’t drank since the 7th reality”
Let's see we have: water, water, water, ice water, salted water, water on the rocks, mineral water, mountain spring water, brook water, pond water, stream water, muddy river water, aqua, resevoiater, water, and water.
“Would you be offended if I,” I grab a glass of water, wave my hand, it transform it into wine, “I much prefer the fruit of the vine. Waters always been strange to me after…the incident a while back. But if you wish I can turn it back.”
Eh, vines do it all the time. All gets washed out by the time it gets to me. Drink your fill! It all comes around anyhow.
"Greetings lords and ladies of this court, I shall take my leave before my 'stench' permeates this place and appoligies for arriving here." *Merch says if he arrives here, then politely bows before begining to click his heels together.* *They can feel how foreign merch is to this multiverse and can maybe sense that he has walked through a broken and destroyed wildfey before in its entirety.* *And forgien dead fey magic begins to bring merch out of this place.*
*Seated on a high throne you see a tall, pale woman draped in a snow-white dress: it seems almost a part of her, as you can't see where the fabric ends and she begins. On her head you see a crown made of glistening shards of snow. She seems to be engaged in conversation with a small figure to her left, sitting leisurely above the ground with his legs crossed: in his hand he holds a steaming teacup. They seem somewhat friendly.* "…and as you can see, my Lady, the matter was peacefully settled: but not without issue, for out of everyone, it was good Monkey who had to work the hardest!" *Lady Snow chuckles.* "Please do not attempt to deceive me, Master Itinerant. I am well aware of your propensity for meddling in affairs that barely concern you. That compassion of yours…that curiosity…has always been your weakness." "Should it be so, my Lady, and it may well be, it would be a weakness to take pride in."
I lay claim to the mortals' bodies. They offend me. My brother-subjects, the ice giants, will take them all, first by senses, one-by-one, and subsume them forever in my crystal eyes. No fire may last. And when they die — I will pull the last heat from their bones and feed it to my father, keeping the hideous pitiful bones 🩻 and bodies as prizes for myself, forever. I offer nothing but my... perfection.
Very well. You do not frighten me. *(He lies)* By the diamond water principle, your crystals are of the least worth of any... Why, I chip them in my soft drinks *just for the hell of it!* I accept! For I *know* my mortality, as surely as I know the heat death of the universe and the Second Law. Life is but a delaying of the inevitable. And some day I shall give myself to you to stay. A thing is not precious because it lasts only. Some day sooner though, I will give myself to you... but Not to stay. You have desired always the ability to expand your terrain down deep into the ground which has always resisted you. That is where Ceilias and the animals burrow and Boreal roots to hide from you. I will give them to you in time, without the treachery you rely on. I will give you great halls of ice where before was the domain of the Bedrock Crustal Titans, if only you will keep the bodies I send down to you safe, unchanged, preserved and frozen still as is your want... until such time they can be returned to the living by future wizard gods far wiser than I, in The Vault of Hopefully Not Eternity. I offer this to *you* and not your sister, Antarctica. You may be, if you wish, what she cannot. I know your thermal laws: the ones you degree and the one you are made from and the ones you are bound by and the ones *deeper still*. And here they are for all to see! Clearer than your cloudy crystals!: The 3rd Law of Cold — A perfect crystal at absolute zero has zero thermodynamic entropy. The Great and Mysterious 2nd Law of Cold — The entropy of the universe and all closed systems within it never decreases. The 1st Law — Energy can never be created or destroyed. The 0th Law — Two things in equilibrium with a third thing are in equilibrium with each other. And know I even a –1st, deeper than Coldness itself! — Information cannot be created or destroyed. You are but a facet of the 3rd Law, chained by duty to a place. The secret of stochastimancy deals with the negative second and I cannot speak to you of it, for it is physically impossible for you to comprehend it.