>Is the astrolabe itself the point, or close enough that removing it would destabilize the world?
>...well, whilst we have the chance... we could use some more knowledge about this highly unusual foe. Let's go ahead and sense it's being.
>You think it may be the former.
>You reach down to touch the astrolabe...
>Countless people lost, fallen between the cracks. Absolute destruction of all matter. Exalted but for a moment, then gone. They cry out existence, they reach and reach outward, seeking. Break it apart. Desiring love.
>You can feel them, a handful of worlds, clinging to the outer edge of the coil of the universe, caverns and fields open of the void, forests and ruined cities and open sky. A place of rock and a place barely realized in form. You feel the familiar mists of the netherworld brushing against it all, so close yet tantalizingly far.
>So many people, living in peace, then forgotten. Everything must be reduced to naught, yet unable to touch. A lone tree in the wilderness, revered but for the moment. It reaches toward them all, seeking love.
>Each world extends from it, you can feel that now. Each blade of grass a memory, a recalled fancy. Jumbled together, conflicting and complimenting. Dreams and recollections and hopes dream together, crystallized. Grasping the primal matter and shaping it. You can feel things that are so familiar, you think back to the time that you and Ran shared, it feels like so long ago...
>Smash the dreams. Cultivate the hopes. Remember the need to disintegrate. Each cleaves to the other, the distinctions are lost and found and lost again. It is many, it is one, it must destroy, it must be loved.
>Busy outer world streets. The gems lost, substance lost. A stately try near the border, made sacred and forgotten. Lives that never were, but not forgotten. The great destructor broken, yet still unable to fade. Worshiped but for a day, then forgotten.
>Something is watching! Something is here. Destroy it. Grab it before there is nothing to grab to! Love us! Break apart. Home! Extinguish it.
>_