a necromancer visiting her witch friend for the afternoon
the witch drinking tea, dressed in elegant finery. the necromancer with a double espresso, clothes worn and covered in patches and pins
they chat and watch their toys play games, where the necromancer's poltergeist breaks trinkets and causes mess, giving the witch's doll more tasks to complete
the witch chuckles and says that she is glad that their toys can enrich each other. the necromancer smiles and agrees
"i like that you give them a chance to be themselves," says the necromancer, pointing to the witch's doll
"thanks!" says the witch. "i like that you let them find themselves even after it's too late."
"Rise, little one." said the Voice above the broken doll
it looked up, stirring from from more than just Stillness. it climbed to its feet and looked down, seeing its physical form crumpled upon the ground, core cracked, and clutching its treasure
"Your time has come to join me." said the Voice. the doll looked towards the Voice, and saw that It was Death
the doll bent down and took its treasure from its body, and presented it to Death. Death looked upon the treasure, and saw that it was a chess set
"So, you wish to play Me for more time? Just know that I have never lost."
the doll shook its head, and said "No, this one is happy to go as told. But... it doesn't know how to play, and it broke before Miss could teach it. It always wanted to learn. Could You teach this one how to play, please?"
Death looked at the doll, then to the chess set, and then back to the doll. with some amusement, It said "Very well, little one."
Running a universe was easy, actually. All one had to do was take the current state of things, destroy the entire universe, and then recreate it again exactly one moment later. This process needed to happen at every moment throughout all of history and into the future, for every single possible timeline in the synaptic net of causality. For efficiency, Bill elected to divide the work by dividing herself into very large number of copies of herself, so that each moment could happen in lock step. Every situation and moment had a copy of her standing there, ready to destroy and repaint the universe into existence like an assembly line. Bill was very good at her job.
Just because it is simple to run a universe, does not mean it is a rapid process. Though the little ones living on stage in the universe never experienced the eons between transitions, Bill and her siblings ended up with quite a lot of, well, time on their hands in between those snapshots. A mortal might ponder the situation with growing horror at the prospect, fearing being overcome with isolation and boredom in the abyss of time between times, without realizing that such fearful experiences are exclusively for the little ones within the universe. It is difficult to become bored when one is experiencing all of time and space at the same time. Plus, an angel's biology simply did not come equipped to experience boredom or horror or dread; that was their dad's job.
Also she had hobbies, thank you very much. Bill loved nothing more than to peak into the universe and watch the little ones playing life. And she would get hyper fixated on those stories, and start seeing herself in them, and then finally decided to start cosplaying as that particular one. So far, she had several trillion cosplays, and was always keeping an eye out for when inspiration struck next. What could she say, she got it from her dad. Sometimes she would pluck a little one out of the universe for a brief chat, asking "Hey, why'd you make that decision?" or "I'm writing a fic about you, what would you order at a cafe in a coffee shop AU? Also it's enemies to lovers." They never really understood the artistic vision, and mostly just screamed till she put them back in.
Bill swam through the network of causality. Mortals often thought of time and timelines as an endlessly divergent set of lines, never to meet again. That was silly; moving left one step and then right one step had the same end state as moving right one step and then left. Situations re-converge more often than most mortals imagined. No, it was better to see causality and timelines as a set of lines which connect each moment together, and would activate a moment when enough causality went into them. From Bill's perspective, it was plain to see that cause is to effect as dendrite is to axon. Time and situations activating and propagating along a network, with new connections being made by her sister. Some events never take place, and those ties eventually wither away. Other events take place so often that it is certain fate to go down a particular path if events ever lead there.
She occasionally wondered what the network of cause and effect was thinking. Sometimes she wondered if she was looking at the mind of her father. Sometimes she wondered if she was looking at the mind of something else they were trying to make. It doesn't matter either way, really.
Certain clusters in the network were really interesting. It felt like anything could happen in them. She flew over to one such cluster, and nearly ran into one of the most powerful beings in the entire universe. The first god (after Bill's father, of course), a primordial force capable of ripping apart reality and stitching it back together in what ever shape She desired. She had countless names, uttered by mortals scattered throughout all of creation.
With all due reverence, Bill began the appropriate rites for greeting Her. She ran and tackle hugged Her to the ground, with a glomp, shouting "Aunt Shepherd!!!"
FOR EXECUTIVE EYES ONLY
REPORT FROM R&D ON SHAPESHIFTER PROJECT
This document assumes passing familiarity with Mask creation, the principle of contradiction, and ego dissolution. For a summary of these processes, please reference document IR-3492.
A brief history on the motivation and theory behind the project.
Each and every ego is associated with a Mask, which inform the fundamental nature of that ego. This nature includes traits including but not limited to abilities, form, and behavioral traits. In the vast majority of cases, each ego is associated with exactly one Mask.
However, from both field studies and information provided to the lab by the company president, we have been able to observe certain egos capable of wearing additional Masks and temporally assume the nature of the new Mask. The shapeshifter project has been an initiative to explore the possibilities of this phenomenon, as well as examining the limits of the initial Mask an ego wears.
The process for creating a shapeshifter is relatively straightforward to describe, though implementation involves several variables which have proven to be difficult to control. Due to these issues, the cost and effort required to produce a single shapeshifter has been great, and only four prototypes have been created.
Applying Masks appears to be trivial, but due to the principle of contraction, removing them externally requires extensive effort. We believe this to in part be due to the self-perception of the underlying ego, which acts as a form of inertia or adhesive. This raises an intriguing question: what were to happen if a Mask were applied to an ego devoid of the fundamental characteristics of an ego?
The first step involves making the subject pliable enough that the principle of contradiction may be applied. This involves altering the will and self-perception of the subject, and requires procedures which leaves the subject's body, mind, and soul in a deteriorated state. The procedures require a trained expert. New team members often require mindfulness training to help prepare for performing the procedures.
Once this step has been completed, we proceed to applying the principle of contradiction to the subject's inherent Mask. This involves the object causing each aspect of its Mask to contradict another aspect. After several rounds of contradiction, the Mask may be removed with very little effort.
After the Mask has been removed, we utilize the experimental dissolution process (the so-called scoop) to remove most of the underlying material. This step is extremely dangerous, as once enough material has been removed, the space it once occupied becomes a void which pulls unsecured surrounding matter into itself and seemingly annihilates it. All team members must be safely out of range and within either the control room or the observation deck. Due to the intensity of the void being proportional to the amount of the underlying substance removed, it is currently not feasible to remove everything. We have been able to remove up to 80% thus far, and hope to increase it to 85% next quarter. Permanent disposal and destruction of removed material is still an open question.
After as much material as possible has been removed, we simply apply Masks to the resulting void. Only one is sufficient to cover the void and eliminate any danger. We then apply as many Masks as we have available, and have not noted any upper limit on the number it may take on.
At this point, the shapeshifter is complete. She may freely switch forms to whichever Mask she possesses. Remarkably, she also appears to be capable of synthesizing new Masks which were not provided to it, which grants even more flexibility in the forms it may take. There seems to be no resistance to switching forms, and may do so freely. Additionally, she does not seem to experience much behavioral change due to wearing a Mask.
Intriguingly, she seems to only be capable of switching forms when no one is looking. This phenomenon may be worth studying in the future.
Due to the possible applications, operations decided to send one to the field as an agent. Unfortunately, they lost contact after a few weeks. After testing, we have noted certain instabilities in the personalities of the subjects, and have taken measures to adjust them. Operations has sent another subject (codename "Pandemonium") into the field to investigate the disappearance. We are still performing tests on the final two (codenames "Da'ath" and "Sunyata") for additional testing.
Overall this is a promising line of research, with excellent results so far. We believe that after further refinement, it may be possible to mass produce shapeshifters. More shapeshifters will grant the company exciting capabilities, and we believe that it will be of great benefit to the board, the CEO, and the president.
