I once thought that time was of no concern to me. Distance yourself from others and stay focused on your work. A few years or a few hundred… it’s all the same. But after all this, I’ve realized the perhaps this way of thinking is fundamentally flawed. The passing of time have its own consequences. The answer that I’ve been searching for amongst all those lives…
Perhaps it’s life itself. -- Anon Guest
Time, wise philosophers say, can make the world strange. That sort of thing only really happens when you're not living in it. Immortals at work on perfecting one singular thing will turn around twice and find themselves in another reality. The strange soup of time turns things around, yet some things remain unchanging no matter how many centuries passed.
Neless had been working on the omni-cure so long that ze had lost track of which millennium it was, which war was raging, or even which polities were running the majority of the world.
Hir work on Panacea came to a halt from the lack of experimental ingredients, so now ze had to wander the world once more. Seeking that which worked, and that which ze hadn't tried yet. A general survey of known herbs, magic, and remedies was in order. So too was a distribution of hir discoveries. All to further the greater good.
First discovery - hardly anyone spoke Ormanish any more. The Trader Tongue had evolved and changed, and many words had warped in their meanings. Stepping outside of hir laboratory was like stepping into an alien world.
Intelligent beings who were once considered Unwelcome were now Welcome. Some were still barely tolerated, but they weren't entirely Unwelcome any more. Nomadic Harukh traded with Elves. Kobolds and D'varuv chatted with Gnomes and Trolls. Hellkin performed in sideshows, displaying their eldritch magic capabilities for applauding audiences. There were even Giants doing the heavy lifting for construction crews.
Neless eventually found a scholar who could fumble their way through coherent sentences in Ormanish. From them, ze learned much.
Many of the diseases that Panacea was made for were almost unheard of. Dysentery, cholera, and typhoid were almost extinct. Destroyed by underground sewers and waste treatment procedures. Polio had been driven way down by similar measures, and a campaign for habitual cleanliness. Smallpox was being driven to extinction by the judicious application of cowpox.
Food-related diseases were near to nonexistent because of laws regarding the manufacture of food. Even something as common as milk had to undergo a process that heated and then chilled it before it was distributed for consumption. Or, for that matter, turning it into cheese or yoghurt.
So much that ze had been working to defeat was already defeated.
Ze had to learn to converse all over again, and almost all hir hard work was rendered null and void. Panacea would still be needed, but... not nearly as much.
Naless wanted to save the world. While ze was busy on the work, the world had saved itself. Ze decided to learn the world anew, and find out how ze could work to saving the world... with the world.
Ze would learn that even the great people who changed the world... did so with the help of others. Maybe ze could give that a try, this time.
[Photo by Evgeniy Smersh on Unsplash]
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