Private Finished An Amalgamation of Information

The fear that someone would snap him in half had always been more of Broen's thing than Jude's. Jude, for the most part, believed that people were fundamentally good. He was friendly, well liked, and had few enemies. He was also vigilant to the point that many would consider it actual hypervigilance. He knew about security. He knew about safety. He went out of his way to ensure that he wasn't caught off guard. If someone wanted to snap him in half, they were welcome to try, but Jude was going to make them work for it.

Jude had everything he needed to be really dangerous.

"I get that," Jude said. "For a long time at home, I was totally powerless. Powers weren't as common there as they are here, but they were still all over the place, and I was in a pretty power-heavy field. Gives you a bit of a complex about being... under powered, I guess?"

Something he could probably relate to.

Steven had gotten it, but Jude frowned just the same when he explained about people slipping through the cracks.

"I guess I never thought about it," Jude admitted. "But it makes sense. The scouts aren't all knowing. They can't sense all magic or anything. But..."

Jude trailed off for a moment, seeming to stare into space as he worked through his reasoning.

"Wait, are there like... magical communities outside of Manta Carlos? Like, on this planet."

There was some obvious discomfort there, and Jude was more than happy to move the conversation on to other things. He'd only just met Steven, and the last thing he wanted was to make the whole thing awkward enough that he'd just leave.

"Back when I first got here," Jude started, "I used to go around and explain all the differences, but I've been here long enough to know that it's easier to just say that my universe was a lot like a superhero comic book or movie. Similar sort of thing - masked heroes, masked villains, people with powers, a sprinkle of mages and aliens, and a normal populace... similar enough to here, I guess."

Jude couldn't help but crack a smile at the whole thing. He'd explained it a lot, and he felt like he had it down to a science.

"My universe had these... uh, beings known as the Gultha. They manifested into physical objects, and took anyone who touched one of those objects as hosts to varying degrees. I'm technically the host for Giltenn, but they're more or less an impartial observer, so they're not really, uh, manipulating me or anything."

"My world didn't make it," Jude said. "Well, earth didn't."

He paused for a moment, and then pulled a chair out, grabbing a seat before launching into a rather long winded explanation.

"So the idea of the Gultha is that they'd... I guess bless civilizations with their gifts. Raise them up. They'd stay with a civilization for a millennia or longer, but if the civilization began to fall into decay, they'd shift to the next stage of the cycle. They'd consume the world and everything in it, regaining the gifts they'd given. Then they'd move on to the next universe. And they did that with a species known as the Ijians. They destroyed almost everything, but some of them escaped. Maybe a hundred refugees, going with their great protector. That left the cycle incomplete, so the Gultha continued to be in... uh, attack mode. The Ijian's went to earth, and while it took some time, the Gultha followed. But the lengthening of the cycle seems to have damaged their core purpose. There are supposed to have been twelve Gultha, only one of them--Phokrus, the Teeth--began to consume the others. By the time they made it to earth and began to start to manifest again, there were only seven left. The Gultha--mostly Phokrus and the ones that aren't Giltenn--are supposed to destroy the Ijians and all trace of them, which means more or less every human on earth. That was what they were doing when we fled here. Two more had been killed, which leaves just five. Just one now, probably - things were... Things were not good when we left."

Jude's face fell, but he had no way of knowing just how wrong he was.

"I realize it's kind of a complicated explanation."

Jude couldn't have told him, even if he'd asked. He didn't know why Giltenn had decided to leave, but the truth was simple: They hadn't wanted to be eaten by Phokrus like the rest of their kind.

"Sorry for dumping it on you," Jude said. "It's... been a few months for me. I'm kind of getting used to it, honestly. To the whole... idea. I tried explaining it, I tried not explaining it, and I... kind of dumped it on you."

Oops.

"Saying they're like computer programs is... actually pretty accurate. Like everything went wrong and they went off the rails. Like... When I first bonded with Giltenn they were pretty clinical, but now they're kind of... ah, cheeky? Like a teenager."

Probably they were feeding off him.

"We had magic in my world, but not much. The mage--the strongest one I knew of--made a portal to evacuate us. They wanted us to get clear so they could focus on trying to stop the Gultha without having to worry about the kids. So it was me and some friends, basically."