"You are surprisingly casual. I fully expected an arrogant demanding individual once I realized what was going on." I said bluntly.
"I stripped this echo of my own personality it prevent trouble passing on my knowledge. If I had not no one would ever obtain it and the knowledge would be lost with me." he said calmly.
"That's more like I expected. Let me guess the idea also wasn't yours but you merely took it for yourself?" I asked and he nodded.
"The idea was my daughter Athena's for her own artifact of inheritance." he said calmly.
This surprised me as I hadn't even considered if the other Olympians would create items to house their inheritances but it made some sense they might have if Zeus did.
"How many Olympians created inheritance artifacts?" I asked eager to know more.
"I knew of only seven. The rest never made any mention of it so I was unaware if they did or not." he said.
'Only seven? More than I hoped but less than one would expect with how self centered this lot were.' I thought with a frown.
"What were the seven and their artifacts?" I asked curiously.
"Athena created three artifacts that she spread her knowledge and power to based on her specialties. A book of wisdom, a helm of battle, and a chest of handicraft. Hermes created two artifacts, a pair of sandals imbued with his knowledge and skill with speed magic and a staff of peace. Poseidon created a single artifact with all his power and knowledge in the form of his trident. Hades created two artifacts, the archway of the dead and the helm of the soul. Hephaestus left his hammer and forge with all of his knowledge and skill. Apollo and Artemis both imbued a single bow with all of their knowledge and power." he said calmly.
'That's most of the big names but I'm surprised Hera is not on the list anywhere.' I thought as I seriously pondered the use of this knowledge.
The biggest was that I could right offhand identify that two of these artifacts had been found already. The sandals of Hermes and the archway of the dead. The sandals were considered cultural artifacts belonging to the Greek branch of the magical world. The archway was more likely than not the same archway in the room of death in the department of mysteries of the ministry here in the british side of the magical world.-
"And you? How many artifacts did you create?" I asked with a more vested interest in this answer.
"Three and an incomplete one. This scepter, my spear, my throne and an incomplete realm." he said calmly.
"An incomplete realm? What exactly is a realm?" I asked intrigued.
"A deceptively simple question with many answers. A realm is a sort of alternate space, uniquely attuned to the sorcerer who controls it. Each realm is different and operate based on rules the sorcerer decides. A sorcerer is most powerful within their own realm and only the most powerful among us possessed them. These were what we used to deign ourselves gods as within we were as close as we could understand the concept." he said leaving me deeply contemplative.
"Why did you all vanish seemingly out of nowhere?" I asked a question that had bothered me even in my past life.
For the first time a flicker of emotion crossed this echo of Zeus's face, regret.
"Our downfall came not at the hands of some great enemy, nor from the inviolable law of mortality. Instead we were the authors of our own demises. Magic in the world is both infinite and finite at the same time. At any given moment it exists like a great sea that trickles down as a river across the planetoid we reside on. It firsts enters the land and from there the beasts and finally us, the people. It's flow rate is based on this balance being maintained as such. We broke this balance however. We tore the magic from the land and slaughtered the beasts with abandon. The ambient magic plummeted year by year from our overconsumption until it collapsed entirely." he said with severeness that stood out.
"Despite you having all of your personality stripped away you are showing some emotion talking about this." I pointed out.
"My original self was not welcoming of the end, nor of being inarguable incorrect." he said back to the emotionless calm of before.
"Makes sense." I said with a nod.
I willed myself out of the mental landscape of the scepter after that as I had some serious thinking to do over the next few days. For example I had to verify that the thing in the scepter was indeed an echo and not Zeus himself trying to pull a fast one to trick me into giving him my body.-
Oh don't get me wrong I fully believed the nugget of information about why the gods had vanished seemingly out of nowhere as it made sense. If their longevity was based off the magic they were taking from the land and beasts then it collapsing would render them mortal again since there'd be no magic to siphon for fuel. That said it would not surprise me at all if Zeus were to bind his mind or soul to an artifact like a Horcrux but fully instead of partially to bide his time for a chance at life again.-
Until I could fully verify that the thing in the scepter wasn't such a thing I'd take anything it taught with a grain of caution. For now though I needed to sleep as I had some explaining to do tomorrow after my electrical show at dinner. The next morning I woke up and waited in the common room until everyone was there to make my explanation since I didn't want to repeat myself many times.