The Observer - A Matter of Time's page

Apparently unaffected by the tremors or the heat of the lava flow, the observer stops and turns back to Irina.

"HA! I'd always wondered why you'd never asked me that. I don't know why you see me. This humanoid form is something you people conjure up to rationalize something you can't understand. Physiologically speaking, I mean. Most mortals have the good sense to ignore me. I've met you several times before. Apparently, you people are some sort of time travelers."

He turns back to the spout of lava illuminating the square in orange light. He removes a ledger from his robes, flips in a few pages, and begins scribbling notes.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," he says, waving you away, "I've got the end of the world to record."

With that, he fades away in front of you.

"Yes, yes, the White Tower, exactly," the observer says, completely ignoring Sevram's threats, "That trinket is a temporal anchor. The chronomancers built them to sync with the causality matrix. How else would you ever expect to find it?! How do you not know this?!"

Sudden realization comes over him, "Gods! Is this the first time we've met? I always figured you people had some idea what you were doing! All this time you've just been blindly groping in the dark?! Why does management torment me like this?"

He throws up his arms in exasperation and walks out the front door of the inn, mumbling something about mortals.

Ignoring Gliressa's inquiry, the observer turns to Irina, "Quite the contrary. It would cost me *everything* to save them. I tried interfering once. I merely suggested, every so casually, that maybe it wasn't a good idea to build a causality matrix, you know, because of the whole 'end of the universe' thing, that maybe mortals shouldn't put themselves above the gods, and what do I get for my trouble? Demoted! Forced to endure the lifetime of the universe, recording every mundane event that ever happened! It's not like they even *listened* to me. They still built that stupid tower, and now here we are! Not again, no thank you!"

The man in the booth rises, seemingly undisturbed by the event.

"Hmpf. I was off in my calculations by more than a second. This never would have happened if it wasn't for your silly spell ruining my notes.

He moves out toward the ruined edge of the inn, "I believe what we saw there was an incursion of the elemental plane of air."

He sighs, "Actually, yes, I *was* just going to write about it, until somebody ruined my parchment. So yeah, I'll give you the two minute version... well, I guess the 49 second version under the circumstances."

"The planar discohesion event was theorized... I guess the concept of when can't really be expressed to your simple, linear minds, but let's just say a long time ago. Now, it didn't come up often, because everyone assumed nobody would be both intellectually advanced and blatantly idiotic enough to engineer a paradox that would invalidate existence -- but, hey, if there's anyone who can find a way to really screw things up, it's mortals, right?"

He already seems to be growing bored with the explanation, and he begins to speak faster, waving his hand as if it was the most mundane information you will ever hear, "Long story short, over the next few weeks your plane of existence will break apart, be reintegrated into the multiverse, and everything you've ever known will cease to exist. The event b--"