Bayek doesn't make the connection, if only because the funerary practices he's most familiar with don't really involve black, but he does recognize the sudden entrance for what it is.
"One of the gods of this place." Bayek does not sound at all pleased, scowl firm on his place. "If that is your aim, explain why you have brought me here twice now."
He falters a little bit, because he's not so sure about having gone home. What if it was returned memories instead? The ambiguity of this whole experience is frustrating.
"You've been brought to act in a round of the game called Synodiporia," the dark-clad man says. "And I assure you, while I have been mistaken for a god before, I am not one."
"We find it problematic to directly interact with what you refer to as 'the universe,'" He admits. "It is necessary to do so for our game. Therefore, we draw conscious intermediaries to act in the Still Places you conceive of as real."
Bayek is having trouble parsing all of this. He's aware of places beyond Egypt. He's aware of a world beyond that of the living. He's aware that this place is neither. But what counts as the universe? This not-a-god is here, so is this not part of the universe? Is Bayek no longer a part of it?
That is disturbing to think about and Bayek's brow furrows and he takes a half step back.
"Are you certain you are not a god?" Bayek says that with a bit of dry humor, because the sheer scale that this implies is beyond anything he could have ever imagined.
"You say you need someone to act on your behalf. I cannot do that if I do not know what your behalf entails, and you will find that I have little respect for positions. It is the character of the one holding that position that I care about."
"Quite sure." He sends Bayek a peentrating look, not quite a frown.
"I seek to change the systems that define our understanding. That is what I ask of my intermediaries: that they be agents of change, but deliberate, not... precipitous."
“I will keep my own counsel on seeking change or not.” There’s no outright challenge in his tone, but Bayek is very firm when he says that. He sees nothing wrong with the idea itself, but he’s also all too well aware that one person’s idea of good change is another’s season of oppression. So many of the Order had seen themselves as visionaries, leading Egypt into a new golden age, but blind to the destruction their lofty goals were leaving in their wakes.
"Not purpose so much as necessity," the figure answers, crisply. "The stagnant patterns of our game and our interactions no longer serve our interests, and from what I hear from Travelers, they serve yours poorly as well. I wish to redefine the nature of our associations."
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"One of the gods of this place." Bayek does not sound at all pleased, scowl firm on his place. "If that is your aim, explain why you have brought me here twice now."
He falters a little bit, because he's not so sure about having gone home. What if it was returned memories instead? The ambiguity of this whole experience is frustrating.
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"If you are not, what are you?"
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"Complicated."
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"What is the nature of this game, and why must I be here?"
He wants to go home. The Hidden Ones are still fledgelings and he needs to be there to help settle them.
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Bayek is having trouble parsing all of this. He's aware of places beyond Egypt. He's aware of a world beyond that of the living. He's aware that this place is neither. But what counts as the universe? This not-a-god is here, so is this not part of the universe? Is Bayek no longer a part of it?
That is disturbing to think about and Bayek's brow furrows and he takes a half step back.
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"You say you need someone to act on your behalf. I cannot do that if I do not know what your behalf entails, and you will find that I have little respect for positions. It is the character of the one holding that position that I care about."
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"I seek to change the systems that define our understanding. That is what I ask of my intermediaries: that they be agents of change, but deliberate, not... precipitous."
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“What is the purpose you seek change for?”
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