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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7920514" data-attributes="member: 79141">Session 258, Part SixRound 17A bright spot appeared at ‘4 o’clock’. Nicodemus rallied Borne, who gradually lowered the Time pillar, once Nicodemus had replaced Illocus with Regulus, the lynchpin of the Watchmaker design.Korrigan handed off Jiese to Matunaaga, who ran like the wind back to the Air pillar.“Did you just give an icon to someone?!?” Rumdoom demanded, outraged.Korrigan reached Borne’s chest-plate, where he said to the colossus, “Nicodemus is not your father.  Your father was Alexander Grappa, who tried to free you; Kasvarina is your mother, who fights alongside us even now.  You were made to view Nicodemus as your god, but you don’t have to follow a god unwillingly.”Leon brought Kasvarina to Borne’s shoulder.  There she tried to talk to her boy, who was clearly very worried about his actions.Angrily, Nicodemus unleashed both worldwide rebuke and thoughtseize on Kasvarina.  But even as she shrank back before him, he suddenly cried out, “No! No!” as if seized by some invisible enemy.  The sky rumbled with deafening thunder that rolled in from the horizon where the Gyre hung low, and then Nicodemus fell to the ground and gripped his head in both hands. His form distended, as if a second person was trying to move inside a single body, hands and faces pressing out against his spectral skin.William Miller had arrived.Those who had been to the Gyre felt themselves joined by their reflected selves and were at once fully whole.  All of their memories came flooding back and they were both versions at once, able to recall their odyssey in the Graveyard of the Planes and their confrontation with the Voice of Rot.Matunaaga stopped running at the energy tendril, waiting for it to move; Gupta lifted the Life pillar; Linia took the Death icons; Uru found the weak spot under the chest plate and caused the wayfarer lantern to shatter.  “Well, done, son,” said Pemberton.Rumdoom had been still for a while.  Suddenly, he flew towards the Fire pillar.  When he landed, he said, “Nicodemus is right about one thing.  Let’s not fool ourselves.  We have become the Obscurati, and I, the Avatar of the End will not be tainted with that brush, not will I have breath!  Korrigan, I said before that we are on different paths.  My path leads to freedom for everyone, for ever!”He struck the Fire pillar with the Stone of Not and utterly destroyed it.Korrigan regarded him in abject horror.Round 18Quratulain’s rocket boots began to phut-phut and sputter. She complained, loudly, that they were a total liability.  “Just alter the settings,” said Alden Wondermaker, calmly, via Korrigan’s telepathic network.  “I’m not a complete idiot!”She did so, and they propelled her on an intercept path with the falling Nicodemus.Despite the removal of the Life pillar, the golden disc began to rise up again and slowly drifted towards the centre of the circle.The tendril jumped to 4; Matunaaga set off at a blistering pace towards Gupta.For everyone but Nicodemus time slowed, as he benefited from restoring the Time pillar.  The others watched as he fell to the ground, struggling and arguing with himself at double speed, and in a very high-pitched and silly sounding voice:“Whoareyou?Getoutofmymind!”“I’mwhoyoushouldhavebeen.Weopposedtheholywarbecausethehierarchscaredmoreaboutvictorythanfollowinganysortofmoralcode.Nowyou’rejustlikethemandjustasblind.OurarrogancecausedtheMalice.Youshouldhavebeenhorrifiedbywhatyou’ddone,butyouweretooproudtostopfighting.Well,I’vespentfivecenturieswiththeghostsofthoseyoukilled.Feelwhattheylost.”He struggled and screamed, and through the power of the sacrament of apotheosis everyone in the battle understood what was happening. Then, as time returned to normal, he stopped falling just above the ground, and righted himself. Miller, now in control of the ghostly body, called out, “I have only a moment. For now he’s overwhelmed, and I’ve ended his link to the sacrament. Quickly, destroy me. I don’t have time to apologize for it all, but I can help you stop him.”Quratulain knew that this was the moment she had been waiting for. Matunaaga halted his run and watched as she landed and took aim. Was this the moment he had foreseen?For Quratulain, this was just a test shot, to see if her hunch was right. She took aim at Nicodemus’ chest and fired. But that was all it took. The bullet ripped a hole and began to unravel him.  A look of intense relief passed across his face and he dissipated entirely in just a few moments.Matunaaga nodded, sagely.  He had passed the baton of Living Weaponhood to Quratulain,  and now she had done what was required.“Wait! What? Was that it?!?” stammered Quratulain in growing alarm. Every sensor indicated that Nicodemus was in fact dead, but she could not accept it. “No, it can’t be. He can’t be dead. What about my vendetta bullet?” Then she fell to her knees and let out an agonised cry.By now, Rumdoom had reached the Air pillar, and obliterated that too.Borne groaned and shook his head in confusion.Korrigan gave Conquo’s golem heart to Uru and flew towards the Life pillar.From up on Borne’s shoulder, Leon teleported Rumdoom over to the Water pillar.  “What are you doing?” cried Korrigan over his shoulder.“I think he’s right,” said Leon. “I’ve been thinking all along that we’re doing the wrong thing.  We should set things back the way they were before the Ancients interfered.”“He’s insane,” Kasvarina shouted. “You’re following another madman!”Matunaaga ran on towards the Life pillar.The golden seal was now drifting over Gupta.  Just in case, she replaced the Life pillar.  Then she used Hildegaard’s voice to speak to Rumdoom.  “Kagan, wait, maybe we can fix things.”  But Rumdoom knew that Hildegaard was watching this, and was behind him every step of the way.Pemberton gouged out the remains of the broken wayfarer lantern from Borne’s chest cavity.  Uru crawled inside and found a slot at the back where the tip of the lantern unit fitted.  It just so happened to exactly match the dimensions of the golem heart.  Uru slotted it into place, then crouched in the cavity, thinking about which way to jump.</blockquote>

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