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~~Christmas Day Special - (page 16 of 24)~~

He partly expected the world to erupt into fire around him or for his mind to be assaulted by a tidal wave of ardor. That would have at least given him something to work with.

But it was silent. Still.

Not quite dead, though.

The tree would not be alive if that were the case. It was deeply connected to the Forge, though he was not yet sure how. Was it drawing life from the Forge's dormant power? Or was its life force sustaining the Forge? Perhaps a bit of both? Mutualism would be an interesting strategy to employ in the creation of such a thing.

He wished he knew who had made it. In terms of historically famous integrators, there could not have been many candidates. Hamenszoon was likely still too recent, so perhaps someone like Unso or Skapa. But then again, if someone that famous had been its creator, then how could it have ended up here, abandoned?

He was just guessing, of course, but it seemed more plausible to him that this Forge had been created by a so-called "secret emperor." That was, someone who held the requisite level of power but never revealed it.

It was difficult to know how many such people had existed throughout history. Some reapers argued that none did, that it was simply impossible to keep such might secret for long. And he could see the logic in that. But he'd also read accounts of past emperors being bested by completely unknown warriors. Unso, for example, had been slain by a cabbage farmer, of all things, when the emperor tried to seize his land from him.

That account had read like something out of a mythic legend, though Abbas had since met several reapers who swore up and down that it was true.