Pan Post 83 takes place within the Hypericum Empire where two young princesses, Ameryl and Imeryn, are visited by a mysterious man, Highemperor, through their rotating fireplace. The fireplace is actually a monitoring station set up within the Deep Void by the Pan-Cosmic Command who want one of the two girls dead. A Clockwork Man, created in Discharding, appears and seeks to kill the girls but Highemperor and his friend, Soriel, save them. The two men return to the Deep Void to deal with the Clockwork Men but when Highemperor returns to Hypericum he finds that the two girls have grown up into beautiful, young women. They take him to bed with them. A brief visit back to the Deep Void and Soriel reveals that the Clockwork Men are all bound, at once, for Hypericum. When Highemperor next returns he finds that Imeryn has already dealt with the robots herself, having been taught Powerplaying from Highemperor and she is pregnant with his child. She invites him to stay as her King Consort, along with Peysiant Guril - her Queen Consort. Their daughter, Chimaat, grows up to be a powerful Powerplayer but Highemperor, believing his Writer would doom his new family, leaves when she is just eight years old. Ameryl would go on to hate Highemperor for abandonning her and found the Twelve God-Monarchs against him. Chimaat joins both the God-Monarchs but also the Stronghold of Powerplayers in the High Empire. She cannot tell which is her future and which is her past - being both for and against her father and mother. She prays to the WriterGod, who takes control of Earth and humanity to protect the world and its people from the gods of the Multiverse, including the twelve. Imeryn wants Chimaat to gather her own powerful worshippers, like many of the twelve have, but Chimaat choses turnips and claims that, through worship of her, turnips would be elevated to a greater status.
Post[]
The Girls in the Fireplace AKA Totally Not a Rip-Off[]
DISCLAIMER: This post was originally inspired by a Doctor Who episode. I was blinded by my fanboyism of the series at the time, but now I find this post's content to be repugnant, and so I completely altered it. However, Geb and Britt the Writers both vehemently opposed the alteration of the post, maintaining that doing so is against the spirit of improvisation and collaboration that NeS and its spinoffs are based on. This is true, but I myself still vehemently despise the content of this post. As a compromise, I have agreed to leave the original post, but with this disclaimer at the top. In addition, the alteration I intended is added after the original post's content.
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The Deep Void is strewn with universes like stars, bright points in the vast gulfs of nondimensional emptiness between cosmos. Many are like the NeSiverse, and many are not at all similar to it. It is in one of these many universes, far removed from the NeSiverse, where this post opens.
In a galaxy, on a planet, within a palatial bedchamber, two young girls stir in their sleep. One of them nudges her twin.
Girl #1: Psst! I'm cold, go turn up the fireplace!
The other girl mumbles something sleepily, and her twin nudges her again more insistently, finally prompting a response.
Girl #2: Whaaat?
Girl #1: Go turn up the fireplace!
Girl #2: We have servants for that sort of thing.
Girl #1: Sure, but why bother them? And you're always embarrassed about anyone except Mummy and Da seeing you in your nightgown.
Girl #2: Okay, but why don't YOU turn it up?
Girl #1: Because I'm oldest!
Girl #2: Only by a minute and a half...
Despite her words, Girl #2 grudgingly rolls out of bed and pads over the floor to the fireplace, and kneels before it to adjust the nozzle.
Man Cloaked in Black: Oh! Hello there.
Girl #2 is startled as she suddenly realizes that the back of the fireplace is gone, and instead there is a vast chamber behind it, with a man crouching down to look through the fireplace at her!
Girl #2: Em. Hello, sir. What are you doing in my fireplace?
She is fascinated rather than scared. This man is a handsome stranger, with a strong face and kind eyes. The sort of charming prince she and her sister read about.
Man Cloaked in Black: Well, there appears to be a space-time rip centered on this portal from this Deep Void vessel, though why the Pan-Cosmic Command wants to spy on a little girl is beyond me--
He breaks off at the blank stare from the little girl.
Man Cloaked in Black: Emm...I'm your fireplace inspector.
[b]Girl #1:[/b} Who are you talking to?
Girl #2: Come here! There's a man in there!
Doubtfully, Girl #1 comes over to her sister, and is equally shocked to see the man cloaked in black.
Man Cloaked in Black: Oh, I see! It's a cloning facility of some type!
Girl #2: It is?!
She appears shocked. Girl #1 rolls her eyes, and answers her twin before answering the man.
Girl #1: No, doofus. We're twins, not clones.
The man cloaked in black opens his mouth to reply, but is interrupted by a whooshing sound from some distance to his side, beyond the twin girls' vision.
Man Cloaked in Black: Ah, I'll be right back. I have to go convince him that we're NOT ripping him off.
He pauses.
Man Cloaked in Black: Again.
He stands to his feet and moves away, and then the wall of the fireplace is back, as if nothing had ever happened. The two girls look at each other, wondering if they were dreaming, before finally going back to bed, and eventually drifting back into slumber.
A few months later, the girls are asleep one night as usual, but jerk awake as the fireplace rotates, revealing an identical fireplace, and from it steps the man cloaked in black.
Girl #2: Sir?!
Man Cloaked in Black: Hey, it's just me - the fireplace inspector? We just talked.
Girl #1 regards him with some disdain but also curiosity.
Girl #1: That was two months ago.
The man cloaked in black frowns, and turns around to tap the fireplace.
Man Cloaked in Black: Hmm, must be a loose connection.
Girl #2: Why are you here?
Man Cloaked in in Black: That is an excellent question. I'll answer with another question. Why are the Pan-Cosmic Command spying on two little girls, using a fireplace as a window?
Girl #1: Not just a window, it seems. A door.
Man Cloaked in Black: Indeed.
He pivots around, eyes scanning the room, until his gaze fixes upon the clock set upon the mantle.
Man Cloaked in Black: Ooh. That's not good.
Girl #2: What's not good? It's just a clock.
Man Cloaked in Black: Yeah, but it's broken. Looks like it was smashed. So here's another question...
Girl #1 finishes his sentence in realization.
Girl #1: Why do we still hear ticking?
Clockwork Man: Technically, it's tocking.
The girls jerk their heads around to see another man standing beside their bed. He appears to be a sort of clockwork robot.
Clockwork Man: Honestly, it's a bit aggravating that organics can never tell the difference.
[b]Man Cloaked in Black{/b] Fascinating. A Discharding clockwork man. Steampunk[Ext 1] robots that gained sentience.
He adds this last bit for the benefit of the girls.
Man Cloaked in Black: Tell me what you want with these girls.
Clockwork Man: Nothing.
There is a pause.
Clockwork Man: But the Pan-Cosmic Command wants her dead.
He produces a blade from his sleeve. The two girls gasp. Girl #1 reaches for the bell rope to summon the bodyguards, but it has been cut. The gaze of the man cloaked in black hardens.
Man Cloaked in Black: These girls are under my protection. Why do you want them dead?
Clockwork Man: I told you, I don't.
Man Cloaked in Black: Ugh, why are all robots so literal? Your bosses want them dead, and you're going to obey them, so close enough. Save the semantics for when it matters.
Clockwork Man: You're still wrong. My bosses don't want them both dead. Only one.
Girl #1: Which one?
Girl #2 is clutching her sister's side, but Girl #1 shows no fear.
Clockwork Man: Unknown. Cannot correlate records with youthful incarnations.
Man Cloaked in Black: So one of these girls is going to grow up to become a threat to you, is that it? And you're going back in time to prevent that. But you don't know which one, so you're spying on their timeline until you can figure it out.
Clockwork Man: That is correct.
Man Cloaked in Black: Well you tell your bosses - these girls are under my protection. Both of them!
He thrusts out his hand, and a line of glowing white light lances from his palm, spearing through the air to the clockwork man. As soon as the steampunk robot is touched by the light, it vanishes, disintegrated into atoms.
The twin girls gasp in shock and delight.
Girl #2: My hero!
Her eyes are adoring.
Girl #1: How did you do that?
Her eyes are fiery with fascination and curiosity.
Man Cloaked in Black: It's called powerplaying. You're more or less impressing your will on the universe, then inventing a reason, a metaphysical justification as it were, for your will to come to pass.
Girl #1: Sounds like magic.
Man Cloaked in Black: It's very similar, to be sure.
The fireplace rotates again, bringing another man into the room, this one cloaked in red and brandishing a sword.
Man Cloaked in Red: I heard the sounds of your super ray--
Man Cloaked in Black: I keep telling you, it's not a super ray - it's a Mega Blast Type IX.
Man Cloaked in Red: --and came to help!
Man Cloaked in Black: Already took care of it. But there's more on that Deep Void vessel. Clockwork men from Discharding. Although they don't work for Discharding, they've taken up with the Pan-Cosmic Command.
Man Cloaked in Red: Ugh, Discharding. Hated that place. So stuffy and full of politics, no one actually fights!
The man cloaked in black rolls his eyes and ushers the man back to the fireplace, following him.
Girl #2: Wait!
The men pause.
Girl #2: Who are you?
Man Cloaked in Black: Oh! Silly me. I'm Highemp. My bloodthirsty friend is Soriel.
Girl #2: Pleased to meet you! I'm Ameryl. My sister is Imeryn.
Girl #1: We're princesses of the galactic realm!
Highemp bows, his black cloak flapping.
Highemp: A pleasure, ladies. Until next time. I shall endeavor to prevent any further clockwork men from reaching you.
Then he and Soriel rotate with the fireplace back into the wall, and are gone.
The next time the fireplace rotates for Highemp to emerge, it is daylight, and the rooom is empty.
Highemp: Ameryl? Imeryn?
He calls softly, not wishing to cause a ruckus. A lovely young lady enters, and starts to see him.
Highemp: Hail! Sorry for the intrusion - are Imeryn and Ameryl around?
The ghost of a smile appears on the girl's face, and she calls out the door.
Young Lady: Ameryl! Come here!
Highemp hears footsteps, then the door opens again as an identical young lady enters. Highemp's eyes widen in realization.
Highemp: Oh, YOU'RE the twins. Damn, that really is a loose connection.
Ameryl: It is rather rude of imaginary friends from one's childhood dreams to infringe upon one's waking adult life.
Highemp: Er, sorry? I'm just trying to figure out why the Pan-Cosmic Command is after one of you. Soriel and I have scoured the vessel for clockwork men, but there are always more.
Imeryn: Perhaps if you got to know us better, you'd be able to figure it out.
Highemp: Well, perhaps a telepathic scan would be best--
He is interrupted as Imeryn pulls him to her and snogs him.
Hours later, on the Deep Void vessel operated by the Pan-Cosmic Command, Soriel is standing atop a heap of clockwork parts. Highemp comes in, staggering slightly, a glass of wine in his hand, his red sash tied about his head.
Soriel: What took you so long?
Highemp: I just snogged a princess! TWO princesses!
Soriel: SILENCE, BLADE! Didn't the last princess you snogged die?
Highemp glares.
Highemp: That's a touchy subject, and not a pleasant memory, thankyouverymuch.
Soriel shrugs.
Soriel: I can't find any more clockwork men, and I've smashed all their production lines so the ship can't make any more - but the manufactory records indicate more clockwork men than we've destroyed.
Highemp: We've searched the entire ship, so where could they--
His eyes widen in horror.
Highemp: They've marched en masse through a portal!
He dashes back to the fireplace portal, brandishing his sword of white energy, and stops short as he sees Imeryn, sitting in a comfortable chair in her bedroom and sipping wine. Clockwork scrap litters the floor at her feet. She lights up to see him.
Imeryn: Lover!
Highemp: Oh - I guess you didn't need my help after all.
Imeryn: But you did help - you taught me how to powerplay. Now I'm a great sorceress and queen of the galaxy!
Highemp: Oh! Well, congratulations!
Imeryn: Don't go this time. Stay with me. You shall be my King Consort, along with my Queen Consort.
Highemp is tempted - he has been wandering for so long, and let's face it, he's a giant pervert who loves a menage a trois with two females.
Highemp: Alright. Where's Ameryl?
Imeryn's face darkens for just a moment.
Imeryn: She has been banished. One cannot have any rival claimants to the throne.
Highemp: No, I suppose not...
Imeryn: Now come, greet me properly, and kiss me as you did six months ago.
She stands to her feet, and now Highemp notices that her belly is round and swollen with child.
Imeryn: And you can feel our heir kicking in my womb.
She snogs him, and Highemp returns in kind. He thinks about asking if Ameryl was pregnant too, but decides it's unwise to ask.
And so Imeryn and Highemp and the Queen Consort - a former peasant girl - live happily together. Soriel serves as a royal enforcer, sent out to trouble spots throughout the galaxy where he exults in putting down rebellions in as bloody a manner as possible.
Imeryn gives birth to a healthy baby girl, and they name her Chimaat, 'daughter of destiny'. The daughter of two powerplayers, she possesses an unfathomable affinity for all manner of supernatural energies, as well as being highly resistant to any hostile or unwanted supernatural effects, be they from a cosmic, mystic, psionic, or any other source.
One day many years later, when Chimaat is 8 years old - the same age her mother and aunt were when they met Highemp - she is sparring in an arena. Swordmasters, archmages, deadly creatures, and psionic champions face off together against her, and she defeats them all, her powers deflecting all their attacks as she knocks them all unconscious with blasts of multiple types of supernatural energy.
Highemp, watching from a balcony above, sighs heavily. He knows it is time. He realized a few months ago, and he can put it off no longer. He turns to his lover, Imeryn, who is standing beside him, beaming proudly down at their daughter.
Highemp: Imeryn, love...I have to go.
She catches the tone in his voice, and frowns at him.
Imeryn: Why?
Highemp: I've told you of the writer who controls my destiny.
Imeryn: Yes, a sort of personal deity. Chimaat once asked if that meant he was your guardian angel.
They both smile briefly at the memory.
Highemp: He always, without fail, ends my happy romances in dramatic tragedy. I don't know why, it's as though he's justifying his own circumstances by making mine tragic. But Chimaat is powerful enough to protect herself without me, and if I leave now, perhaps I can avert the tragedy.
Imeryn squeezes his hand.
Imeryn: We can work together to thwart your Writer. We're the two greatest powerplayers in the multiverse, surely we can do it!
Highemp shakes his head regretfully.
Highemp: He is the source of my powers. And a fragment of his soul resides within me. I am literally unable to fight him, though I often rail at him. I have to leave, I'm doing this to protect you both.
Imeryn: Then I will wait for you. Some day, you may appease your writer, and come back to us.
He kisses her, and bids his beloved daughter a tender farewell.
Chimaat continues to grow, and bereft of her happy life with Highemp, Imeryn's ambitions rise to the fore. She conquers and conquers, expanding her queendom to multiple galaxies, then to a universe, then across multiple universes.
Chimaat fights in these wars of conquest, but eventually leaves to wander and find her own path. Her mother is immortal and needs no heir, and Chimaat wishes to find something that will bring her father back to them, and to claim her fate somewhere in the multiverses.
After her daughter's departure, Imeryn stumbles upon the Stronghold of Powerplayers and attempts to claim their throne. Her ruthless amibitions, coupled with her long-buried anger and sorrow at her separation from Highemp, boil over into seething vengeance when she learns that the throne is reserved for none other than her onetime lover.
Imeryn: Is it not enough that he abandons me and my daughter, but he must also usurp that throne which should rightfully be mine? I declare him, now and forever, my foe, and name foes all who stand with him!
So the war begins, before Imeryn is eventually driven back and escapes to the NeSiverse, where she founds Mega Jonestown Prime and assembles the God-Monarchs. One day, a familiar stranger comes to her grand space city.
Chimaat: Hello, mother.
Her daughter still appears youthful, same as her half-sister Kimleigh, but her eyes are ancient, the same as her father's. Her power is beyond reckoning, perhaps even beyond that of her mother, and she takes a seat one of the God-Monarch's thrones.
Elsewhere and elsewhen, Highemp finally ends his wanderings, claiming his destiny as leader of the Stronghold of Powerplayers and conquering a massive and grandiose High Empire. By this time, his writer has relented, and allows him all the happy romances he wants; but Imeryn is still embittered and will not allow him to return to her. One day, a familiar stranger comes to his great capital of Urbs Dei, beyond Forever.
Chimaat: Hello, father.
She is a powerplayer almost without peer, and takes a seat as one of the Entities that comprise the greatest Powerplayers in the High Empire, the High Pantheon of the Throne. She has wandered so far and so wide, throughout time and space, through dimensions above and below, that her timeline is twisted and tangled and gnarled beyond comprehension. As Powerplaying God, she remembers her time as a God-Monarch, and as God-Monarch, she remembers her time as a Powerplaying God.
But she can no longer tell if she is remembering her past, or remembering her future. Or perhaps she does know, and keeps her secrets.
As Powerplaying God, she is friends with the Indigo Shade and Kimleigh, both her half-sisters. As God-Monarch, she applauds the Indigo Shade's rebellion and mourns Kimleigh's death.
In both roles, her power is unfathomable. She commands unthinkable amounts of supernatural power - cosmic, divine, psionic, mystic, and more, and she binds all her knowledge and secrets into a thick tome of infinite pages.
As God-Monarch of Mega Jonestown Prime, billions of years before the NeSiverse's present day, she joins her fellow uber deities in cherry picking the best and most powerful artifacts of the multiverse to customize and empower the NeSiverse that they have chosen as their home. Chimaat herself diverts ley lines - of fate, of magic, of quintessence, of reality - from many multiverses into the NeSiverse, and they are all centered on Earth, to be the crown jewel of their domain against Highemp.
But Chimaat prays a secret prayer...
Chimaat: Save my father. O Writer of Writers, save him from his personal writer. Save him from himself.
So when the WriterGod usurps Earth and humanity on behalf of the Ancient One, declaring the planet sacrosanct, the other God-Monarchs fume. But Chimaat smiles, for she senses a far larger plan at work. So many schemes and empires under the purview of the most uber deities and muckity-mucks ever, and yet an unassuming little god can thwart them all.
And when Mega Jonestown Prime departs the known NeSiverse for parts unknown, secreted away for eons, Chimaat leaves behind her tome with the local cosmic god of magic, the Runekeeper. And she takes up a hobby, at her mother's suggestion.
Imeryn: Daughter dear, you really should get some worshippers.
Chimaat: I do. We all do.
Imeryn: Those are the beings who worship us all as a pantheon. You need your own personal worshippers, the way I have my PUDDAFs, Typhon has his Derkesthai, Minos has his alitaurs, Yannah has her toastinators, and Dave has his Daves.
Chimaat thinks.
Imeryn: Something grandiose and fitting of an uber powerplayer and deity. Perhaps a synthesis of multiple races? Such as the way I amalgamated phoenixes, unicorns, dragons, demons, angels, and fairies!
Chimaat: I've got it!
She has cast her sight across the multiverse, before settling on something from the NeSiverse's own future. She has a fondness for this universe, having been instrumental in its early rule, as well as the fact that it's her father's origin and her mother's chosen home.
Chimaat: Turnips. I shall be a goddess of turnips!
Imeryn: What?! Surely you must be joking.
[b]Chimaat:[/i] I'm Chimaat your daughter, not Shirley your jester.
Imeryn: But why turnips of all things? They're so... dull.
Chimaat: And therein lies the draw. Through worship of me, they shall be uplifted into beings greater than even PUDDAFs, and all shall know how great I truly am!
Imeryn: Brilliant! I am proud of you, my daughter.
Chimaat: Thanks, mum.
She is indescribably ancient from her long wanderings, probably far older than her mother at this point. So she has no need for her parents' approval - but it's still nice when it happens.
Imeryn: Now if only I could get you to start drinking wine instead of tea...
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Non-Story Note: Here ends the content of the original post. Following is the altered content that I wished to introduce. Due to Geb and Britt's objections (as noted in the Disclaimer above), the following altered content is NOT CANON. (It has the alternate post title 'Star-Crossed Romance'.)
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The Deep Void is strewn with universes like stars, bright points in the vast gulfs of nondimensional emptiness between cosmos. Many are like the NeSiverse, and many are not at all similar to it. It is in one of these many universes, far removed from the NeSiverse, where this post opens.
In a galaxy, on a planet, within a palatial bedchamber, two young women recently come of age at 18 stir in their sleep.
Woman #1: Stop making noise!
Woman #2: I'm not making noise!
Assassinbot: What, you can hear me?
The two women jerk upright in bed to regard the interloper into their quarters.
Woman #2: Eek!
Woman #1: Oi! Get out of here before I call the guards!
Man Cloaked in in Black: Actually, it's probably me you heard. Swishing cape and all that.
The women whip their hands around in shock to regard the handsome stranger.
Woman #2: Oh my! Are you here to save us?
Woman #1: And what are you doing in our bedchamber?!
Man Cloaked in Black: That is an excellent question. I was tracking this assassinbot.
He turns to the robot.
Man Cloaked in Black: Why are the Pan-Cosmic Command sending an assassinbot after two young women? Tell me what you want with them.
Assassinbot: Nothing.
There is a pause.
Assassinbot: But the Pan-Cosmic Command wants her dead.
He produces a blade from his sleeve. The two women gasp. Woman #1 reaches for the bell rope to summon the bodyguards, but it has been cut. The gaze of the man cloaked in black hardens.
Man Cloaked in Black: These women are under my protection. Why do you want them dead?
Assassinbot: I told you, I don't.
Man Cloaked in Black: Ugh, why are all robots so literal? Your bosses want them dead, and you're going to obey them, so close enough. Save the semantics for when it matters.
Assassinbot: You're still wrong. My bosses don't want them both dead. Only one.
Woman #1: Which one?
Woman #2 is clutching her sister's side, but Woman #1 shows no fear.
Assassinbot: Unknown. Cannot correlate records with pre-aggrandizement incarnations.
Man Cloaked in Black: So one of these women is going to become a threat to you in the future, is that it? And you're going back in time to prevent that. But you don't know which one, so you're spying on their timeline until you can figure it out.
Assassinbot: That is correct.
Man Cloaked in Black: Well you tell your bosses - these women are under my protection. Both of them!
He thrusts out his hand, and a line of glowing white light lances from his palm, spearing through the air to the assassinbot. As soon as the robot is touched by the light, it vanishes, disintegrated into atoms.
The twin women gasp in shock and delight.
Woman #2: My hero!
Her eyes are adoring.
Woman #1: How did you do that? We can cast spells, but they require a bit of time to cast!
Her eyes are fiery with fascination and curiosity.
Man Cloaked in Black: It's called powerplaying. You're more or less impressing your will on the universe, then inventing a reason, a metaphysical justification as it were, for your will to come to pass.
Woman #1: Sounds like magic. With fewer limits than spells.
Man Cloaked in Black: It's very similar, to be sure.
Another man leaps into the room through the window, this one cloaked in red and brandishing a sword.
Man Cloaked in Red: I heard the sounds of your super ray--
Man Cloaked in Black: I keep telling you, it's not a super ray - it's a Mega Blast Type IX.
Man Cloaked in Red: --and came to help!
Man Cloaked in Black: Already took care of it. An assassinbot working for the Pan-Cosmic Command.
Man Cloaked in Red: Ugh, hated them. So stuffy and full of law and order, no one actually revels in battle!
The man cloaked in black rolls his eyes and ushers the man back to the window, following him.
Woman #2: Wait!
The men pause.
Woman #2: Who are you?
Man Cloaked in Black: Oh! Silly me. I'm Highemp. My bloodthirsty friend is Soriel.
Woman #2: Pleased to meet you! I'm Ameryl. My sister is Imeryn.
Woman #1: We're princesses of the galactic realm!
Highemp bows, his black cloak flapping.
Highemp: A pleasure, ladies. Until next time.
Soriel has already leapt out the window, but Ameryl forestalls Highemp's departure.
Ameryl: It would be rather rude of us not to reward you.
Highemp: Eh, don't worry about it. I'm just an itinerant wanderer.
Imeryn: I'm sure we can work something out.
She stands out of the bed, her curvaceous figure draped by her nightgown.
Highemp: No, really, it's fine--
He is interrupted as Imeryn pulls him to her and snogs him.
Hours later, far away, Soriel is standing atop a heap of destroyed robot parts; they had no relation to the assassinbot, but the swordsman had to sate his craving for combat somehow! Highemp comes in, staggering slightly, a glass of wine in his hand, his red sash tied about his head.
Soriel: What took you so long?
Highemp: I just snogged a princess! TWO princesses!
Soriel: SILENCE, BLADE! Didn't the last princess you snogged die?
Highemp glares.
Highemp: That's a touchy subject, and not a pleasant memory, thankyouverymuch.
Soriel shrugs.
Soriel: I couldn't find any more assassinbots, so I made do with these.
Highemp: We should still do a more thorough investigation, see if the Pan-Cosmic Command will send more after them.
Soriel: As long as it involves chopping and slashing, I'm game...
Some months later, Highemp leaps in through the window of the princesses' bedchamber again, brandishing his sword of white energy.
Highemp: It's the PCC, they're sending more assassinbots after--
He stops short as he sees Imeryn, sitting in a comfortable chair in her bedroom and sipping wine. Robotic scrap litters the floor at her feet. She lights up to see him.
Imeryn: Lover!
Highemp: Oh - I guess you didn't need my help after all.
Imeryn: But you did help - you taught me how to powerplay. Now I'm a great sorceress and queen of the galaxy!
Highemp: Oh! Well, congratulations!
Imeryn: Don't go this time. Stay with me. You shall be my King Consort, along with my Queen Consort.
Highemp is tempted - he has been wandering for so long, and let's face it, he's a giant pervert who loves a menage a trois with two females.
Highemp: Alright. Where's Ameryl?
Imeryn's face darkens for just a moment.
Imeryn: She has been banished. One cannot have any rival claimants to the throne.
Highemp: No, I suppose not...
Imeryn: Now come, greet me properly, and kiss me as you did six months ago.
She stands to her feet, and now Highemp notices that her belly is round and swollen with child.
Imeryn: And you can feel our heir kicking in my womb.
She snogs him, and Highemp returns in kind. He thinks about asking if Ameryl was pregnant too, but decides it's unwise to ask.
And so Imeryn and Highemp and the Queen Consort - a former peasant girl - live happily together. Soriel serves as a royal enforcer, sent out to trouble spots throughout the galaxy where he exults in putting down rebellions in as bloody a manner as possible.
Imeryn gives birth to a healthy baby girl, and they name her Chimaat, 'daughter of destiny'. The daughter of two powerplayers, she possesses an unfathomable affinity for all manner of supernatural energies, as well as being highly resistant to any hostile or unwanted supernatural effects, be they from a cosmic, mystic, psionic, or any other source.
One day many years later, Chimaat is sparring in an arena. Swordmasters, archmages, deadly creatures, and psionic champions face off together against her, and she defeats them all, her powers deflecting all their attacks as she knocks them all unconscious with blasts of multiple types of supernatural energy.
Highemp, watching from a balcony above, sighs heavily. He knows it is time. He realized a few months ago, and he can put it off no longer. He turns to his lover, Imeryn, who is standing beside him, beaming proudly down at their daughter.
Highemp: Imeryn, love...I have to go.
She catches the tone in his voice, and frowns at him.
Imeryn: Why?
Highemp: I've told you of the writer who controls my destiny.
Imeryn: Yes, a sort of personal deity. Chimaat once asked if that meant he was your guardian angel.
They both smile briefly at the memory.
Highemp: He always, without fail, ends my happy romances in dramatic tragedy. I don't know why, it's as though he's justifying his own circumstances by making mine tragic. But Chimaat is powerful enough to protect herself without me, and if I leave now, perhaps I can avert the tragedy.
Imeryn squeezes his hand.
Imeryn: We can work together to thwart your Writer. We're the two greatest powerplayers in the multiverse, surely we can do it!
Highemp shakes his head regretfully.
Highemp: He is the source of my powers. And a fragment of his soul resides within me. I am literally unable to fight him, though I often rail at him. I have to leave, I'm doing this to protect you both.
Imeryn: Then I will wait for you. Some day, you may appease your writer, and come back to us.
He kisses her, and bids his beloved daughter a tender farewell.
Chimaat continues to grow in power and skill, and bereft of her happy life with Highemp, Imeryn's ambitions rise to the fore. She conquers and conquers, expanding her queendom to multiple galaxies, then to a universe, then across multiple universes.
Chimaat fights in these wars of conquest, but eventually leaves to wander and find her own path. Her mother is immortal and needs no heir, and Chimaat wishes to find something that will bring her father back to them, and to claim her fate somewhere in the multiverses.
After her daughter's departure, Imeryn stumbles upon the Stronghold of Powerplayers and attempts to claim their throne. Her ruthless amibitions, coupled with her long-buried anger and sorrow at her separation from Highemp, boil over into seething vengeance when she learns that the throne is reserved for none other than her onetime lover.
Imeryn: Is it not enough that he abandons me and my daughter, but he must also usurp that throne which should rightfully be mine? I declare him, now and forever, my foe, and name foes all who stand with him!
So the war begins, before Imeryn is eventually driven back and escapes to the NeSiverse, where she founds Mega Jonestown Prime and assembles the God-Monarchs. One day, a familiar stranger comes to her grand space city.
Chimaat: Hello, mother.
Her daughter still appears youthful, in a similar manner to how her half-sister Kimleigh had preserved her own youth, but her eyes are ancient, the same as her father's. Her power is beyond reckoning, perhaps even beyond that of her mother, and she takes a seat one of the God-Monarch's thrones.
Elsewhere and elsewhen, Highemp finally ends his wanderings, claiming his destiny as leader of the Stronghold of Powerplayers and conquering a massive and grandiose High Empire. By this time, his writer has relented, and allows him all the happy romances he wants; but Imeryn is still embittered and will not allow him to return to her. One day, a familiar stranger comes to his great capital of Urbis Imperia, beyond Forever.
Chimaat: Hello, father.
She is a powerplayer almost without peer, and takes a seat as one of the Entities that comprise the greatest Powerplayers in the High Empire, the High Pantheon of the Throne. She has wandered so far and so wide, throughout time and space, through dimensions above and below, that her timeline is twisted and tangled and gnarled beyond comprehension. As Powerplaying God, she remembers her time as a God-Monarch, and as God-Monarch, she remembers her time as a Powerplaying God.
But she can no longer tell if she is remembering her past, or remembering her future. Or perhaps she does know, and keeps her secrets.
As Powerplaying God, she is friends with the Indigo Shade and Kimleigh, both her half-sisters. As God-Monarch, she applauds the Indigo Shade's rebellion and mourns Kimleigh's death.
In both roles, her power is unfathomable. She commands unthinkable amounts of supernatural power - cosmic, divine, psionic, mystic, and more, and she binds all her knowledge and secrets into a thick tome of infinite pages.
As God-Monarch of Mega Jonestown Prime, billions of years before the NeSiverse's present day, she joins her fellow uber deities in cherry picking the best and most powerful artifacts of the multiverse to customize and empower the NeSiverse that they have chosen as their home. Chimaat herself diverts ley lines - of fate, of magic, of quintessence, of reality - from many multiverses into the NeSiverse, and they are all centered on Earth, to be the crown jewel of their domain against Highemp.
But Chimaat prays a secret prayer...
Chimaat: Save my father. O Writer of Writers, save him from his personal writer. Save him from himself.
So when the WriterGod usurps Earth and humanity on behalf of the Ancient One, declaring the planet sacrosanct, the other God-Monarchs fume. But Chimaat smiles, for she senses a far larger plan at work. So many schemes and empires under the purview of the most uber deities and muckity-mucks ever, and yet such an unassuming seemingly minor god can thwart them all.
And when Mega Jonestown Prime departs the known NeSiverse for parts unknown, secreted away for eons, Chimaat leaves behind her tome with the local cosmic god of magic, the Runekeeper. And she takes up a hobby, at her mother's suggestion.
Imeryn: Daughter dear, you really should get some worshippers.
Chimaat: I do. We all do.
Imeryn: Those are the beings who worship us all as a pantheon. You need your own personal worshippers, the way I have my PUDDAFs, Typhon has his Derkesthai, Minos has his alitaurs, Yannah has her toastinators, and Dave has his Daves.
Chimaat thinks.
Imeryn: Something grandiose and fitting of an uber powerplayer and deity. Perhaps a synthesis of multiple races? Such as the way I amalgamated phoenixes, unicorns, dragons, demons, angels, and fairies!
Chimaat: I've got it!
She has cast her sight across the multiverse, before settling on something from the NeSiverse's own future. She has a fondness for this universe, having been instrumental in its early rule, as well as the fact that it's her father's origin and her mother's chosen home.
Chimaat: Turnips. I shall be a goddess of turnips!
Imeryn: What?! Surely you must be joking.
Chimaat: I'm Chimaat your daughter, not Shirley your jester.
Imeryn: But why turnips of all things? They're so... dull.
Chimaat: And therein lies the draw. Through worship of me, they shall be uplifted into beings greater than even PUDDAFs, and all shall know how great I truly am!
Imeryn: Brilliant! I am proud of you, my daughter.
Chimaat: Thanks, mum.
She is indescribably ancient from her long wanderings, probably far older than her mother at this point. So she has no need for her parents' approval - but it's still nice when it happens.
Imeryn: Now if only I could get you to start drinking wine instead of tea...