“Hello, Sa’ar’kik, Kel’rk’ath,” Mori said, bowing a bit.

“Good day,” Fara echoed, Mori noticing her efforts to remain calm in front of the gods.

“Greetings, Aunt, Uncle,” VII said, staring into the gods’ eyes, “I believe this is the first time we have met personally. My name is E-X52. It is a pleasure.”

Mori raised her brow, “Aunt and Uncle?” she asked.

Sa’ar’kik giggled a bit, with Kel’rk’ath shaking his head beside her, “It’s a formality, dear,” Sa’ar’kik said, “We were all created by the same mother, so we’re technically siblings. It’s a bit weird to mortals, but you’ll get used to it soon enough. Now then,” she began, turning her gaze to VII, “Where do we start?”

“It would be best to start with the biggest question,” Kel’rk’ath said, “Can you explain something to us?”

VII withered under his gaze, but sat straight soon after, “I will do my best, as long as it does not betray my mother,” she said. Mori was torn on VII’s decision; on one hand, she had already made her allegiance to the gods clear, so she had no room to judge, but she silently wished that VII would just cooperate. On the other hand, Mori somewhat admired VII’s faith and allegiance to En’gem’ia.

“Good,” Sa’ar’kik replied, “This is important. We’ve been trying to talk to your mother for centuries at this point, but every time we try, she raves about something called the ‘87%.’ Can you, please, explain what that is?”

VII’s eyes widened. She quivered a bit and grit her teeth, “You… Mother told you? Then why are we still fighting!?” she shouted, “If you know, then why is any of this happening!? What’s the problem!?”

“The problem, X52,” Kel’rk’ath snapped, shutting VII up quickly, “Is that your mother has done a terrible job of explaining what the ‘87%’ is. As far as we have been able to parse from her ravings is that it is nearly certain to happen unless we do what she said so long ago. So, if you would, please tell us what is almost certain to happen.”

“You…” VII stopped for a moment, “You don’t understand what she was saying?”

Sa’ar’kik stood and leaned over VII, petting her head like a loving aunt wound, “Your mother thinks very differently from the rest of us. Her mind is numbers. Cause and effect. Probabilities. Those are her emotions. As far as I know, you are different. You have emotions as feelings, like living and undead people. But you also think like your mother, since you actually understand this whole ‘87%’ thing. Mori got close, didn’t she?”

“I did?” Mori asked, turning to VII, “Was that when you were laughing at me?”

VII was silent for a few minutes, looking into space, until she finally looked Sa’ar’kik in the eyes, “She… did. Mori, remember what you were saying before you thought mother got replaced by an imposter?”

“Wasn’t it… something about your mom wanting endless total war? She never wanted to win here?” Mori asked.

VII nodded, “That’s part of it. She’s… waiting. You all understand Mother’s domains, right?”

“Certainty and probability,” Kel’rk’ath answered, “The certainty that the clocks will tick powers you. She is also able to use probability to predict the likelihood of events. Which is why I am still wondering why she sent you to this world, of all places; she should never have been able to make such a tactically poor decision without knowing. Not to mention your Forgeheart going haywire.”

Sa’ar’kik nodded along, “Definitely. She would have seen something like that coming from a mile away.” 

“I don’t know why Mother did what she did. Nor do I know if she knew that the Forgeheart would rebel,” VII said, “But this has to do with her second domain: probability. 87% is the likelihood that every god within our family will be killed by a single being if we don’t come together.”

The room went quiet for a few moments, “Is that it?” Mori asked, “That seems kinda… underwhelming.”

“It isn’t,” Sa’ar’kik replied, turning to Mori, “You don’t know how hard it is to kill a god, so it may not sink in, but we are incredibly hard to kill. It is to the point that ripping every single strand of our souls into tatters is not sufficient to kill us for good. With a single, massive exception, we can overpower every soul that could try to control us. In the soul-to-tatters example, my whole person would be split into each of these shards. and I can control them all. It may take eons, but my soul would eventually gather enough shards to restore some semblance of my being, upon which finding the rest would only be a matter of time.

“Obviously, destroying our bodies wouldn’t work. Any myriad of magical means are ineffective. I won’t tell you what would actually put us down for good, but I’ll tell you that it would require a lot of sapient-- not simply sentient, sapient-- sacrifices. A lot,” she said, shaking her head.

Kel’rk’ath nodded along, “She has a point. It’s impractical to kill us. X52. Do you know how we are supposedly killed?”

“I don’t. Mother doesn't, either, but she said that it is guaranteed that someone will die before the war is over. She doesn’t want anyone to lose everything, because everyone needs to help once it ends,” VII said, “So… please. Please hear Mother out,” she pleaded, bowing her head, “Before we can’t win…”

The two gods shared a look, one that Mori knew was similar to one that she and Fara would share, “We will, Child. Now then,” Sa’ar’kik began, “While that’s in the works, we have something else to discuss, Mori, Fara.”

Mori tilted her head while Fara looked at the gods fearfully, “Did we do anything bad?”

“No, dear. Of course not. The problem, though, is her,” she said, nodding to VII, “Moreso what she has told you. We… can’t let you stay on Granulous. For that matter, we can’t let you keep your systems.”

Fara recoiled in horror while Mori tilted her head in confusion, “Can I ask why?”

Sa’ar’kik nodded, “Of course. You see, you know too much for your world. The point of claiming Granulous in the first place was to observe what a society would achieve without a ticking clock-”

“Ticking lifeclock, more like,” VII snickered.

The goddess chuckled a bit at the comment, “Very true. But, with the war, we took control of this world, moved every anchor point, or life clock, to our fortress, and decided a new purpose to it. We used this world to test out a rapidly-evolving application of both of our powers. Applying it to non-riftborn was easy enough, but the trouble came with giving it to our important forces.

“Being of the Rift was a death sentence to the mini-soul in the system runes. Yes, before you ask, we did put a miniature soul into each of your souls. It’s the only way to make the magical aspects evolve with the physical ones. So, anyway, the point of all of that is to say this: We don’t want you to stay in Granulous, even if the war ends. You would risk the experiment.”

“That seems a bit self-centered,” Mori growled, leaning forward, “We get to bring anyone we want with us. Upwards of… one hundred non-undead. And I keep my zombies and whatnot,” she offered, giving a hand. Fara was still in shock, so Mori decided to take charge.

“Deal!” Sa’ar’kik replied in an instant, shaking on it as well, “If anyone learns about this and they are left behind, we will magically seal them from talking about it, though.”

Fara leaned in next to Mori, a panicked expression on her face, “Mori, what are you doing!?” she furiously whispered.

“Securing some benefits,” Mori replied, whispering, “They can kick us out from Granulous any time they want, so we’re going to have to leave eventually. I’m just making sure we can bring a friend or dozen. Would you rather leave your mom and dad behind, or would you rather take them with you?”

Fara scowled, breathing in shallow breaths, before she nodded, “Fine, I’m on board. I trust you.”

Mori gave a happy grin, “Thanks, Fara.” She turned back to Sa’ar’kik and nodded, “That’s fine. So, you’re saying that we have to leave because we know too much about the gods and that we can’t keep the Sa’rk system because it would cause problems if we become ‘Riftborn,’ whatever that means?”

“In the most simplified terms, yes. That is exactly what needs to happen. At the end of all this, we could spend a few years discussing the issues with the current system and how being in the Rift precludes it from working in even the most basic sense, but for now, we basically need to work out…” Sa’ar’kik sighed, “Retirement benefits…”

VII giggled from the side while both Mori and Fara gave the two gods confused gazes, “Retirement… benefits?” Fara asked, “We aren’t retiring and I at least intend to continue serving you.”

“I do too,” Mori said, “So what’s this about ‘retirement?’”

“Well…”

“Sa, let me explain it,” Kel’rk’ath said, cutting Sa’ar’kik off. The goddess showed visible relief from her dozen eyes and nodded, sitting back in her chair, “For us… retirement is an odd concept. Angels do not ever ‘retire’ in the mortal sense, only voluntarily leave a god’s service under extreme circumstances. Thus, the term has taken on its other meaning for us. Retirement benefits, for us, mean what we give our angels when they are moved to different stations after centuries. Said benefit is usually a power boost in the form of a promotion, using some of the accumulated power we received from their labor.

“In this case, since you two will not have the benefits of the Sa’rk system, we decided to simply let you choose a ‘template’ that we designed for you specifically, while you give up your Traits. For example, Mori would lose her [Mechanical Affinity], since you are not using it, but you will, and this is unavoidable, be promoted to an archlich.”

VII grinned wide and patted Mori on the shoulder, “Good job. You’re going to become an archlich without even knowing what it is.”

“Umm… I would like to know, though. What’s an archlich?” Mori asked.

“Ah, an archlich is-”

Suddenly, a deep rumbling shook the room, and Mori felt that it was far more powerful than a simple explosion or similar event. The two gods glanced at each other and nodded and, with a flick of their wrists, split the fabric of reality at the far side of the room. The room was suddenly rearranged, with the rectangular table being shifted to a triangular one and the chairs being shuffled around. Mori and Fara sat on one side, with the two present gods sitting on their left and VII sitting beside an empty chair to their right.

The tear in reality widened, and Mori gaped at the thing that entered the room through it. She was… definitely a woman. The only problem, though, was the lack of skin. And muscle. And bone. And anything that was not black metallic struts, gears, buttons, and other mechanical parts, all combined into the shape of a woman. In the ‘head’ were two gears, one red and one blue, that looked around as if they were eyes, “So, Sa, Kel, you two finally wanted to talk?” the newcomer asked.

“Yes, En. We wanted to talk. Your… daughter has explained your ‘87%’ in a way that we can actually understand,” Kel’rk’ath said, “She asked that we hear you out. Sa and I decided that the best way to do this would be to include you in this relatively important meeting.”

VII turned, eyes widening, and bowed her head, “H-Hello, Mother. I-Urgh!” 

The newcomer moved forward and took VII in a crushing hug, squeezing her so tightly that Mori swore that she heard cracks. “Oh, my baby! I’m sorry for sending you into that! I shouldn’t have done that without telling you! Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

Mori and Fara shared a look. They had just met the goddess of the Clockworks, and subsequently seen her dote on her daughter. Mori wondered if that was what people who just met her felt like whenever she did something unexpected.