The Egg and Its Counter is an antimagic egg with a countdown, given to the Seekers of Ardis Vala on the sixth level, whose count ended over Ritornello. It was one of two.
| Type | Object |
| Chronicle | AV |
| Spanish entry | El huevo y su contador (Ardis Vala) |
Description
The egg cannot be levitated, conjured or lightened; it must be carried by hand. One who tried felt something so baleful he let go.
History
- RAJ-750, a three-thousand-year-old intelligence in a white-polymer structure like a blue whale, gave the Seekers two boxes from the weapons module, one holding the egg.
- It lit up on its own: fifteen hours. The count later ran in days (twenty-nine for all organic life in Ardisvala to perish, then seventeen, then thirteen), delayed but never canceled.
- Roderick fled with it on his own.
- Knights claimed it as lost custody; the trolls, the Varumani, wanted it as a weapon, the price of an alliance; the white-haired innkeeper said donde hay un huevo siempre hay dos (“where there is one egg there are always two”).
- Salorquí, the vivisectionist in an orange suit with small red horns, hid it under the ichor of a fountain in his temple of fundamental liquor. His hologram called it “el huevo que hará nacer no solo ranas, sino al primer ser y al último” (“the egg that will hatch not only frogs, but the first being and the last”). When its six-armed, serpent-tailed guardian fell, egg and counter vanished and a voice was heard.
- Simon Magus demanded it as the price for a companion’s life, asking how many orphans there would be when the trolls razed the capital with it.
- The Seekers gave it to the trolls; Roderick later avenged that shame. The count ended over Ritornello.
Open questions
- Whose voice was heard, and what it said; the Obsidian Marilith is a candidate.
- Where the second egg is.