The Red Hand

"A way into the..." Halifax repeated the words that Elariel had just said, taking a moment to process things.

"And you didn't tell us this yesterday because?" Akagi rolled her eyes as she sighed.

{Not like it would've made any difference in my plans, but I don't like this idiot Goddess holding out on me.} (Akagi)

"I didn't say anything because, to be entirely honest, it slipped my mind." Elariel gave a nervous laugh before coughing. "I suppose I was a bit distracted what with the Demon Lord breathing down my throat, so forgive me for forgetting about this avenue."

"Well then spit it out!" Amakusa barked. "Let's get this whole thing over with so we can stop the other Gods' plans!"

{The longer we wait the more likely that something goes wrong, and I'd like to at least do SOMETHING to fix our fuck up!} (Amakusa)

"Is it just me or is to funny to see one of the summoned Heroes yell at a God?" Halifax snickered as Amakusa shot her a glare.

"Definitely funny." Akagi nodded with a smile. "But in all seriousness, tell me what you know." Akagi said as she tossed the various different cooking items and food stuffs back into her storage now that they were done.

"So correct me if I'm wrong but when we first discussed the problem with getting access to the Heavenly Realm, you said that you need coordinates, right? That way you could force open a passage without destroying Enoris?" Elariel asked.

"I mean, it should work out, yeah." Akagi nodded. "As long as I have dimensional information, then opening a connection shouldn't be all too hard. The main issue is that I need specific information, such as particle frequency, details of relative geo-dimensional location and a few other important bits " She'd done it many times when connecting to Omara and it was how she managed to create a stable path between Earth and Enoris.

{That's a load-bearing SHOULD right there...} (Amakusa)

"Then, in that case, the best way to get that information, sans torturing the information out of Gale or Reflia, would be to speak with another being that has the ability to enter our home." Elariel's words caused Halifax's eyes to briefly widen.

"But who other than Gods could enter the Heavenly realm?" Amakusa had no idea what the Goddess was getting at. "Isn't that specifically a place that only the Gods can enter?" She knew that the different planes that surrounded the material world of Enoris were governed by different types of entities. Such creatures could freely pass between their home plans and the world below, but only the Gods could access the Heavens freely as they held a different level of authority.

"Normally, nobody else should be able to enter the Heavens without our invitation, but there is one group of beings that can easily do it." Elariel continued. "You may be familiar with them, but in the mortal tongue, they are generally called-" She was interrupted by Halifax.

"Primordials." Halifax sighed, tapping her temple in frustration. "As beings on the same 'level' as the Gods, they can freely access any plane of existence, including the Heavens." Both groups were largely created at the start of Enoris' existence itself and as beings born out of the very fabric of reality, that meant each had more latitude than anyone else when it came to moving between Enoris' different realms.

{But finding one is going to be impossible.} (Halifax)

"Correct." Elariel nodded. "Primordials, or as we call them in our Divine tongue, Tic'korlac are beings that are just as old, if not older than we Gods." Elariel explained that both groups were created almost simultaneously at the 'beginning of time', and the oldest of both aren't much younger than Enoris itself. "They can move between planes freely, and unlike Gods, Primordials don't need to rely on one specific member of their group to do so. All of them are capable of interspacial movement at will, while we are limited to a select few Gods allowing us to borrow that power."

"Ok, I suppose that makes sense." Akagi nodded as she took out her Kiseru and lit it. "But Halifax here told me that your counterparts were nearly destroyed in the ancient war for supremacy between you. So are we even going to be able to make any use of this information?" She had no interest in a wild goose chase, especially against beings with that much power.

{If they don't want to be found, then I suspect even I will have a hard time finding them.} (Akagi)

"We fought a bloody battle that nearly destroyed the whole world, and they capitulated rather than let things continue." Elariel was around during said war and remembered it well. “Thus a few remain.”

"What did you even fight about anyway?" Amakusa asked as Yumi offered her some tea. "Was it like how the Greek Gods fought the Titans?"

"Titans?" Elariel tilted her head, not understanding the reference.

"Gods and Primordials don't come from the same family so that comparison doesn't really work here." Halifax answered as she sipped coffee. She'd read a bit about that mythological conflict due to Akagi bringing it up once and found it intriguing.

"Okay... But to answer your question, we fought because we fundamentally disagreed about the future of Enoris." Elariel decided to just ignore the Titan thing and move on. "Primordials are born of the Material world and are a part of nature itself, while we Gods are born of fundamental forces or ideas, etc." She was the Goddess of Time which, while part of the fabric reality, was considered an external force rather than internal, unlike the basic elements. "There were Primordials of base elements like Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind, along with others such as Lava and Snow." She didn't know exactly how they were created, since they just appeared like the Gods.

"So what differences did you have?" Yumi asked. Since she was once a Priestess of her own world's Gods, she had a bit more insight into things than the others. "I imagine that it has something to do with conflicting power structures."

{That's 90% of conflicts between Gods. They don't tend to like others stepping on their toes.} (Yumi)

"That was indeed part of it, and since some of us had overlapping domains that admittedly caused tension." Elariel gave a wry smile as she recalled a few of the disputes that popped up long before all out war. "But the primary issue was that the Primordials didn't want to use their power to shape Enoris while we did."

"Ah..." Akagi nodded in understanding. "So comes down to a philosophical disagreement. Primordials felt that they should represent natural forces and allow things to progress without interference, while the Gods thought that they should use their power to guide the world as they saw fit."

{Which makes sense when you think about how each like came into existence and what their overall purpose was. Gods are by and large beings that seek to impose structure on worlds, and would not approve of just letting it go wild and untended to.} (Akagi)

"That's... That's actually pretty accurate." Elariel nodded, surprised at how much Akagi had gleaned just from that small amount of discussion. "They opposed using our power to take direct action to change and developing the world, while we thought that, as higher beings, we should use our power to change things as we saw fit." She didn't want to say for the better because she knew that wasn't necessarily true.

{It was basically a war between Ego and Humility then. The Primordials didn't think of themselves as having the right to change the world and that they should merely preserve it and allow nature to take its course. While the Gods believed that their power could and should be used to bend reality to their will. I can't exactly fault the Gods for that logic since I'm not much different, but I can understand where the Primordials were coming from.} (Akagi)

"But isn't this a moot point? Didn't you kill them all?" Amakus asked.

"No, we did not." Elariel shook their head. "We probably could've to be honest, but that would've prolonged the destruction, and we were sick of war by that point." She sighed. "Their leader, Sheoldra, offered terms for a truce, which we accepted." Elariel explained that in return for the war ending, the Primordials would relinquish their claim to Enoris and would go into exile deep beneath the Material plane.

{Kaleago did help us fight Vikes, but that's more or less the only one of them to pop back up since they went underground.} (Elariel)

"So we just need to find one of these guys?" Akagi said as she let out a puff. "I can get digging, and it shouldn't take too long to uncover them. Though that's assuming that they've not gone dormant and are actively trying to avoid being discovered."

"That's... Unfortunately, your second part is likely to be the more accurate of the two..." Elariel shook her head.

{Yeah... I figured..} (Akagi)

"They didn't just dig a hole and bury themselves sadly. Otherwise, finding them would be easy." Elariel continued. "Primordials are entities that are part of the material plan and thus can easily fade into its dimensional makeup. What I mean is that when they went into exile, they more or less faded into the fabric of reality and then went into a deep slumber. I haven't seen one active in millions of years outside of one notable instance."

"Can't you just find them and rip them out?" Yumi asked Akagi, figuring that the Demon could make this easy.

"Bullshit powers I may have, but this is one hell of a hay-in-a-needle stack kind of situation." Akagi laughed, intentionally getting the idiom wrong. "I don't want to imagine how long it would take to find them if they really are keen on hiding, and then we run into the problem of me needing to use my power to make them appear, which could easily result in this world popping like a balloon."

"I figured as much." Elariel figured that it was a long shot. "But luckily for us, we don't need to go hunting for Primordials or have you start chopping up reality to find some."

"Wait, what?!?" Halifax exclaimed, nearly choking on her coffee. "You mean that you know where some are?!?"

{Why the hell was I not aware of this?!?} (Halifax)

"Not only do I know where they are, but it was yours truly that put them there." Elariel gave a smug smile.

"And where the hell was I at during this whole Primordial hunt?!?" Halifax exclaimed.

"I think you were sleeping." Elariel shrugged. "It happened around six hundredish years ago, so you weren't really active at that point."

"Even if I was dormant I think I'd recall hearing something about Primordials causing issues!" Halifax retorted.

{That kind of destruction wouldn't just get swept under the rug!} (Halifax)

"I mean, they did cause a bit of chaos, but they were quickly subdued and sealed before they could do anything major." Elariel noted that they were only actively causing problems for a few days and that few were actually killed, hence why it wasn't a big deal. "It's not even an event remembered by most of the races, and even the Elves barely have records of it."

"So where are they at?" Akagi asked as she stood up and stretched, getting ready to head out.

"Beneath the Holy City." Elariel's words caused both Amakusa and Halifax to scream.

"WHAT?!?" (Halifax x Amakusa)

"Why the hell are their Primordials beneath the most sacred city in the world?!?" Halifax couldn't believe that beings like that were within a place that she'd been to many times.

"It wasn't always the Holy City. We chose that spot to seal them, and then around three hundred some odd years ago we had the Church found their main administrative headquarters there precisely because they were sealed there." Elariel explained. "At first it was just to have them keep an eye on things, but over time it bloomed into a huge metropolis."

"I... And I've been there so many times." Halifax sighed. "How did I miss that?!?"

"Because Ro and Zo are sealed in such a manner that one couldn't find them without being led directly to their sealing location." Elariel said. "If you could sense them then we'd have people following that energy and trying to find them, so we placed all manner of wards, seals and barriers to prevent anyone from detecting it externally."

"Ro and Zo..." Halifax thought for a moment, trying to figure out who those two Primordials were. "Those names... They're not the names of any surviving Primordial." She knew the names of the survivors well, and none were called by those titles.

"Well, you don't recognize them because they are the children of Kal'ispi born after the war." Elariel replied.

"Eh?!? The Primordial of Storms had kids?!?" Halifax squeaked.

"Twins to be exact. Ro is the Primordial of Thunder while Zo is the Primoridal of Lightning." Elariel explained the phenomena that each Primordial was related to. "We had no clue they existed until they started attacking us around six hundred years ago, but they were no match for us." She shrugged. "So instead of killing them, we decided to seal them, hoping that a bit of a 'time-out' would discipline the children."

{Not to mention that we didn't want to start some kind of renewed conflict with the others.} (Elariel)

"Alright then." Akagi twirled her Kiseru around in her hand and pointed it at Elariel. "Then I suppose we'll have to make a stop at the Holy City in the not-too-distant future. I'll grab me some information then wrap things up with the Gods." She smirked.

{But first, we have other things to attend to. Killing the Gods is only part of my plans here, after all.} (Akagi)