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“This is all such a terrible idea and I shouldn’t make a repro, because I’m rather damned sure that I don’t want to be here at all,” Poi exclaimed, “Because Holy Gods Above, this is such a terrible idea.” Poi stared at Erick and Erick 2, and said, “But the world needs me to stand up, and so I will stand up.”

Erick had left the slime dungeon a few hours ago and immediately asked for Poi to join them, to discuss adding his repro to the dungeon, to help combat the possible memetic-angle to the Sundering search. Poi’s initial answer had been a resounding, ‘Yes, but,’ with a lot of rather prudent words about ultimate goals and otherwise, and that he’d need to meet ‘Erick 2’ before he made any real decision.

Then there were a bunch of concerned words about Erick’s mental state. No one should be subject to the sorts of stresses that Erick was now subject to, and the Sundering Search should not happen, but reality was not very kind to Wizards, it seemed.

And now they were here, in the slime dungeon, in the ‘house at Spur’, with Poi, Erick, and Erick 2 sitting in the kitchen. Poi had walked into the house not 2 minutes ago. There had been no ‘hello’s or ‘how are you, Erick 2’s, because Poi was Poi, and Erick was Erick, even though one of the Ericks was actually Erick 2. Almost instantly he had delivered his penultimate decree on the subject of a Poi-repro.

Erick 2 said, “But there’s more to it than that.”

And Poi nodded. “There’s a recent trend among Mind Mage dungeon masters going around Nelboor that I want to try. You put me to sleep, then you apply the slime, then you keep us both asleep until the repro is fully developed, and whoever wakes up as whoever is who they are from then on. Since your [Sleep]-like spell works well enough as [Sleep], we can do it this way; otherwise we’d need another Mind Mage to help with this, but we don’t have one of those.

“This is a way for us to see each other without the other’s thoughts influencing ours before we’re ready.

“But also: Neither me nor ‘Poi 2’ are going to become other people. We’ll go a step beyond the dual-[Sleep] set up, and do a [Hive Mind] meld. Whoever is the original will go back to Spur— Sorry. Candlepoint…” Poi looked at the house again. And then he focused. “The original will go back, and the repro will stay, and we’ll do a little [Hive Mind] magic so that we’re both the same person from now on. But we won’t physically meet each other at all.”

Erick went, “Ah?”

“You can do that?” Erick 2 asked.

“You can’t. I can… Theoretically. I know the magic, but I haven’t actually done this yet. [Hive Mind] is a spell that we use for cooperative casting but it sort of fell out of popularity with the rise of [Renew]. I still learned the proper way to do cooperative casting, because it’s the proper way to do that sort of thing.” Poi added, “[Hive Mind] will also be useful for keeping everyone in House Benevolence apprised of this situation.”

Erick 2 asked, “Well then? Should we do this?”

Erick could tell that Erick 2 was going too fast, and on purpose, but he could hardly blame the guy. He wanted his friend to be here with him in this trying time. That was why Erick wanted Poi here to begin with, but now that Poi was here, Erick saw that Erick 2 needed him a lot more than Erick did.

Poi leveled an easy glare at Erick 2, saying, “You and my repro are going to talk a lot when this is over. And you need a proper name. I suggest something culturally significant, possibly meaning peaceful and good, so that when the Dark tries to twist you to his ways, your very name will remind you of who and what you are, Erick. Not ‘Erick 2’.”

Erick watched as Erick 2’s breath hitched.

Erick 2 wiped away an unruly tear, saying, “I’m glad you’re here, Poi.”

Poi nodded. “I am, too.”

Erick suggested, “Halcyon?”

Poi said nothing.

Erick 2 eventually said. “… That’s too ‘in the past’.”

“Oh!” Erick suggested, “Solomon.”

As soon as Erick said the name, he knew it was going to be the one. There was just too much meaning attached to it to not be perfect. ‘King of Peace and Wisdom’. It even had ‘Sol’ in the name.

“I kinda like that one… I really like that one.” Erick 2 smiled, and said, “Okay. I guess I’ll be ‘Solomon’, then. It even has ‘Sol’ in the name.”

Erick smiled, saying, “Nice to meet you, Solomon.”

Solomon chuckled. “I even look like an aged king now.”

Poi breathed deep, then said, “Glad to solve that problem. Now let’s get me a repro and we can figure out solving all the rest of the problems to come, for both my repro and Solomon won’t be tied too hard to the dungeon as soon as there are 2 masters here.” Poi looked at Solomon, and said, “Because you’re not a hermit, and I don’t want you to become one, either.”

Solomon smiled wide. “Thank you, Poi.”

Poi breathed deep, and then walked off toward Erick’s— Toward Solomon’s mage tower. Erick and Solomon followed. Poi plucked a crystal-sealed dungeon master slime from the asteroid belt, and then walked back down the hall to his room, carrying the softly-developing slime in his blue-scaled hands.

Soon, Solomon laid Poi 2 down on a [Duplicate] of Poi’s bed, inside Poi 2’s room, while Original Poi was already asleep on ‘his’ bed, for he had put himself to [Sleep].

Erick stood back beside Solomon, and asked, “Want to try for a [Hive Mind]? We might be able to swing it with some Wizardry.”

“No,” Solomon said. “I am… Really glad to have Poi here, though.”

“Me, too. He made a lot of things rather clear back there.”

Solomon nodded. “I think my thoughts on the function of this dungeon have matured, too. We can’t make any effective changes to the Rules and thus the space for another week, but when we can, I’m thinking that instead of having Jane explore the Dark by making repros and breaking cores all over the world, we instead make some Well-like [Scry Mirror]s in here, that allow us to [Scry] the entire Dark, and maybe even walk in the Dark.” He added, “It’d probably take some Wizardry to make that happen, but we can figure that out, and maybe, through that, we can figure out exactly why you’re not able to become a Full Wizard.”

Erick smiled as he said, “Sounds like the wisdom of Solomon to me. Are you going to be conjuring demons next?”

Solomon laughed. “I could!” And then he paused. “… No. Not demons. But a…”

Solomon frowned a little, his eyes glancing toward Ophiel, where before he had dutifully not looked at his former [Familiar] at all. Erick wasn’t going to say anything about that, but the only one who hadn’t noticed Solomon’s tension at not looking upon Ophiel was Ophiel, who had been quiet until then.

But now Ophiel asked, “What goes?”

Solomon smiled, and said, “Nothing, Ophiel.”

Ophiel nodded on Erick’s shoulder and returned to just observing the world. Most of his attention was out with the slimes on the dungeon floor, anyway, as he had moved in another of his bodies to take a slime form, and to play with the slimes while his father and Solomon talked about stuff. Ophiel often checked out of these sorts of small talks, so what he was doing now was nothing special. Except Erick could see how Ophiel’s distance was hurting Solomon.

Solomon saw Erick see him. So Solomon shrugged, tried to put on a smile, and said, “Maybe, when he separates… Can you bring him here? Or one of him, maybe—” He shook his head, looking away as he mumbled, “No. Wait. Forget I said that.”

Erick instantly said, “Ophiel. You wanted slime-time, right?”

Solomon’s breath hitched—

As Ophiel focused all of his attention on Erick, asking, “Slime time?!”

Erick said, “Why don’t you play slime time with Solomon here?”

Ophiel flickered, eyes opening all across him, as he took in Solomon and declared, “Slime time!”

“Solomon slime time!” Solomon said, as he turned into a light slime.

Erick’s repro was a slime as brilliant as a minor sun, shimmering with white iridescence, as he activated his Sun Form at minimal power. Solomon bounced away, putting a whole lot of effort into looking like a slime and acting like a slime, except when he turned to light and just flickered through the window.

Ophiel followed instantly, trilling in jubilant violin sounds and then making a whole lot of clatter as he broke the window going through it. He paused to fix the window, and then he kept right on going, bounding after Solomon, up through the dark hole in the ceiling of the cavern, onto the dungeon floor.

Erick watched Ophiel play with Solomon, and felt great about that.

It kinda reminded Erick of how a child would play with a family member that they had forgotten about, all distant and worried, but willing to try. And then Ophiel got into the groove, bouncing after Solomon trying to give chase as a slime, both of them winding up all the slimes all around as they played among the fountains and pools. Something like unfamiliar recognition took hold inside Ophiel after just a minute of play.

They recognized Solomon as Erick, but not as Erick at all, both Ophiel out there squeaking in unsure guitar and agitated flute sounds, before erupting in triumphant violin sounds. And then the chase began for real, as Ophiel tried to understand what he was seeing.

Another Ophiel popped into the room with Erick, having lightstepped here to check on him, before going back out to the dungeon floor to play with the bright light slime that really looked like Erick’s slime form. All three Ophiel seemed to be having a lot of fun with Solomon, even if they knew something was up, and they didn’t quite understand.

As Erick watched them play, he wondered…

If Quilatalap didn’t want to be a secondary father to Ophiel, Solomon was another good choice. He obviously wanted the job of ‘father’… Except.

“Maybe I’d call Solomon an ‘uncle’. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea that I’ve married my repro.” Erick shivered as he recalled some stories which had appeared in newspapers and Knowledge Mage briefings across the world. Erick was already the talk of the world over, from what restaurants he ate at, to where he got clothes, and even his pooping habits. That last story was a particularly odd one to read about. Erick did not want to be subject to any sort of incestuous public ridicule. Erick shivered again. After that passed, and as he watched Solomon play with Ophiel, bounding up and down slides and splashing water, and playing with the other slimes who decided to play, Erick decided, “Solomon would be a fantastic uncle, though.”

- - - -

Erick watched over Poi and Poi while the first one slept and the second one was still making himself into a person.

Solomon spent two hours playing with Ophiel and exploring all of the first floor with him in the process. Erick tagged along through Ophiel’s eyes occasionally. There wasn’t a whole lot to explore up there, as the entire floor was basically a kiddie water park, but it was still important to do that exploration.

There was not a single dangerous spot for any slime to be in that entire land, and there weren’t any moving parts anywhere on the entire floor, for all the water features were cleaned and set into motion through basic [Ward]s set here and there in the deeper parts of the water park. There were no underground levels that could trap anyone, and the largest drop from one height to the next was less than a meter. Any drops above a meter always had water pools at the bottom, and the slimes —and Ophiel— loved rolling over those drops and plopping into the water.

The only ominous part of the entire floor was the Dark, located all around.

A tall rink rimmed the dungeon, separating the parts where slimes played freely under prismatic lights, and the desolate black beyond. That black oozed and pulsed here and there, like vertical waters misted over with gloom. It churned occasionally, as though great beasts swam just beyond the veil.

The slimes knew nothing of the danger just beyond the dungeon, for the rink around the land was ten meters tall in most places, and twice that thick. That rink served as a white stone beach, where most of the golems were located, each of them looking like simple egg-shaped stones 2 meters tall.

Erick suspected that those golems would unfurl into threatening things if any unapproved existence came near them at all. He was proven right soon enough. When Ophiel and Solomon went by, the white eggs did unfurl a little bit, but then they went right back to being egg-shaped and Ophiel and Solomon went back down into the dungeon floor. There were a few egg-shaped stones here and there on the dungeon floor, too, but, according to the dungeon status sheet, there were only 500 of them, and from what Erick was seeing that 500 number was likely correct. Over a hundred square kilometers of white stone land, they were few and far between, with most of them on the walls.

Erick tried not to watch Solomon play slime-time with Ophiel too much, for both of them were having a blast, and Erick did not intrude. But he couldn’t help but watch now and then.

When Solomon came back inside the house, smiling and tired and human-shaped, with Ophiel on his shoulder, Erick decided to just tell him.

“I want you to be Ophiel’s uncle,” Erick said.

“Yes,” Solomon replied instantly, a tight, worried, relieved, and joyful expression rapidly passing across his face, and onto the rest of him—

Ophiel chirped and flitted from Solomon’s shoulder to Erick’s asking, “What uncle?”

“Solomon here is like my brother, Ophiel,” Erick said.

“No no! He repro!” Ophiel said, “I know.”

Solomon chuckled.

“Yes, Ophiel; Solomon is my repro, but that means he’s also exactly like me. So he can be like your uncle. You can always come here and look to him for help with anything, okay?”

Ophiel flitted off of Erick’s shoulder and landed on Solomon’s. He looked Solomon in the eyes with all of his own eyes, saying, “You other-father.”

Solomon smiled. “No no. ‘Uncle’. Don’t want people thinking I’m romantically involved with Erick.”

Erick chuckled a little bit in embarrassment.

Ophiel would get it right eventually.

But for now, Erick sat down with Solomon and they spoke of magics to come, of Dark Mirrors to be made at the edge of the dungeon space, and of changes to the dungeon itself in order to solidify it against potential Primal Lightning, or Evil gods, or whatever might appear. While they did that, they watched Poi 2 gradually and inexorably become a copy of Poi 1.

- - - -

Poi and Poi 2 woke up together under Erick and Solomon’s watch.

The original looked to the repro, and the repro looked to the original.

Poi 2 said, “Well shit.”

Poi 1 said, “At least we know this style of waking up together lessens the mental trauma.”

“Of course, we already knew it would work—”

“—but thinking and experiencing are different.” Poi 1 got out of bed, saying to Erick, “Transport back to Candlepoint, please.”

“Is that it?” Erick asked, too many things happening too fast. What about acclimation? What about some time spent together? What about propriety and acknowledging what a big deal this was? “What about [Hive Mind]?”

“Already active,” Poi 2 said, also getting out of bed. “You can stop calling me ‘Poi 2’, by the way.”

Poi 1 and Poi 2 spoke in alternating words.

“We’re—” “—The—” “—Same—” “—Person—” “—In—” “—Most—” “—Ways.” “The—” “—Only—” “—Way—” “—We’re—” “—Different—” “—Is—” “—In—” “—Dungeon—” “—Control.”

“Please call—”

“—Us both Poi.”

One Poi walked out of the room, eager to be separate, while the other remained behind, looking stoic and ready to work.

The departing Poi quietly asked, “Ophiel. Transport to home, please.”

Ophiel rapidly flitted over to the shoulder of the departing Poi, turning them both to Benevolence and flickering away, to exit the dungeon as quickly as possible. Within 10 seconds, Poi was through a [Gate], and back home.

Ophiel came back without Poi and landed back on Erick’s shoulder—

And the Other Poi was also standing before Erick and Solomon, saying, “Don’t call me ‘Other Poi’, please. I’m just ‘Poi’.”

Erick and Solomon both mumbled a ‘Sorry’.

Poi nodded, “Now to get on this memetic and anti-memetic threat that you believe might be happening with the Sundering. It’s quite possible. The Sundering might be memetic, or anti-memetic. We don’t know.” Poi walked out of his bedroom, toward the living rooms, and Erick and Solomon followed. Poi continued, “There are three artifacts that exist on Veird already that you’re going to want to take from their respective guardians. Also: Jane is going to be coming here soon, since it’s been about a day since you came in here. You can’t avoid her at all.” They were at the bottom of the grand staircase in the front room when Poi turned around and told them both, “She’s going to make repros, and you’re going to have to let her, or else she’s going to hate you. Also, don’t take it personally when the repros are inordinately happy about finally having a reason to fully break away from your light, or when Original Jane looks sad that she can’t do that, too.”

Both Erick and Solomon sighed a little.

“… Yeah,” Erick said.

Solomon said, “I figured she might be happy about that.”

Erick demanded of Solomon, “What the fuck did we do wrong?”

“I don’t know why she hates us!” Solomon said, suddenly angry at himself, or at the world; it was hard to say.

Poi rolled his eyes. “She doesn’t hate you. She wants to protect you but you’re impossible to protect, and so she runs away. Please don’t ever tell her I told you that.”

Both Erick and Solomon were quiet as they digested that information. Poi was obviously breaking Mind Mage confidentiality which was a big deal, and yet...

“Well… We already knew that, we suppose?” Solomon guessed.

“Yeah. But… Hearing it from you helps. Thank you, Poi,” Erick said.

Poi smiled a little as he entered the kitchen and went right to the candy cupboard like he was a man on a mission. He opened that cupboard, because apparently he was a man on a mission, and then he pulled out the jar of sprinkle stars. “Ah ha!” Poi laughed as he opened the jar and took out a purple star between two talons. “They don’t make them like they used to!” He popped the chewy candy into his mouth, smiling wider. “Yup. These are the originals! Ha!” He set down the jar.

And then he turned toward Erick and Solomon.

“The place that made these burned down 35 years ago in Kal’Duresh along with the grandma that used to make them. When they remade their business they had to rediscover the recipes, because that grandma didn’t write anything down.” Poi tapped the jar with a talon, saying, “These might look like the ones I used to get and keep in the house at Spur, but these are from the old recipe. These are from that grandma.

“There are many ways this could have happened. I don’t know enough to list all the ways. Paradox Wizardry, Dark shenanigans, maybe that grandmother is a shadeling at Ascendant Mountain, but whatever the case, it’s strange that they would put the original, real candy here, in this house. Were they watching us that closely? Or maybe they heard me talk about how I liked the original candy better than the remake. Or maybe Fallopolis, who built this house, liked the old version of that candy, too, which is really damned weird. I don’t know. I can’t read Shade minds.

“Whatever the case, I believe this candy was plucked out of the Dark, like an old memory brought to life. On its own this doesn’t mean much, and I have no idea why Melemizargo put the original recipe in here, but it does prove my theory that you can find a lot of stuff in the Dark that isn’t that deep at all, which will be good for Veird.

“It’s not the only thing I noticed that was plucked from the Dark in this house, either, like manasphere imprints [Mend]ed into reality.

“The sheets on those beds are the finest cottonfruit sheets that I have ever felt. The clothes in my dressers are from current-day largesse. The soaps are from Oceanside, and are better than anything we used to have in this house.” Poi went over to the cold box and pulled out a steak wrapped in paper, and labeled ‘Oolarito’. “These steaks in the fridge are easy to mistake as from Ooloraptoor, but they’re from a breed of cow that was made extinct by the Shades a thousand years ago, because the original warlord clans wouldn’t sell to them.”

Erick rapidly looked around the house as Poi spoke. “… Err. Perhaps I wasn’t seeing just how nice some of this stuff was.”

“Neither was I,” Solomon admitted. “But what’s your point, Poi?”

“My point is an easy one. There are many possible memetic and anti-memetic threats in the Old Cosmology. Ones we cannot account for, and ones we will have to over prepare for. But you can bring stuff from the history of Veird into the modern day, and we know how to safeguard against those memetic and anti-memetic threats.

“You were talking of bringing back big magics and bigger resources from the Old Cosmology, and we’ll still get that stuff, of course, because we should,” Poi said, “But there’s a lot of stuff on Veird that you can pull out of the Dark that would be a lot better for us than ancient stuff that has no bearing at all on modern day Veird.

“Just think of every single person who ever died, for one.

“You could bring them all back as shadelings, first, and then real people afterward. You could save everyone that the Anarchy and Blue Wizards killed. Reach back far enough and you can undo the Fall of Quintlan, bringing billions of people back to life. Reach back just over a decade and you could undo the Chelation War.”

The air seemed tense and full in that moment, as the entire weight of what Poi was suggesting gradually settled onto Erick’s shoulders—

“You could find my mother in the Dark, and bring her back, too,” Poi said. But before Erick could think about the gravity of all of that, Poi rapidly added, “It’s just a thought, though, and I already know that Rozeta and Phagar don’t like people mucking around with time on Veird, but it’s been done before, and it can be done again, in a much more positive way. We’ve got a lot of work to do here, but since we’re exploring the Ancient Dark for old Truths, it will pay to keep in mind that not-so-ancient Truths also exist.”

Solomon spoke, “Exploring memetic and anti-memetic threats come first. Defending against the unknown is more important than bringing back shadows of people, no matter how personally important they are.”

Erick agreed. “But the lure of just… Bringing people back to life?”

Solomon nodded. “It’s… It’s a thing that we should consider, yes.”

Poi smiled softly, then began, “Before we get into all of that, though, there are three memetic-type artifacts that currently exist on Veird that you should acquire before we go much further with all of this. All three are under the protections of the Mind Mage conclave, and the first is located in Nelboor…”

- - - -

Three artifacts sat before Erick, Solomon, and Poi.

The first was a Crown of Self. It had started existence as an iron band that went around the head like a crown, that people used when hunting unicorns, and other mental monsters. Through an act of supreme self, and a casting of minor Wizardry and great personal trauma, it had become more than that. Outwardly, it had changed from iron to silver, and gained a sheen that marked it as magical. In effect, it had changed a lot more, making one completely mentally separate from the rest of the world, offering complete immunity to memetic magic, and a whole bunch of other magic besides.

At its base effect, it meant no outward magic at all.

“It also means no [Telepathy], no Familiars, no magical communication with anything at all,” Poi said, “It has been tested against… Well. A lot. There’ve been 2 Mind Mage Wizards in the last thousand years, and this thing was born out of the capture and killing of the first one, and then finally taken out of storage and heavy Mind Mage contraband control before finally being used by an assassin to kill the second Wizard. I suggest Solomon take it and use it, but only when necessary, for anyone who wears it will be cut off from me, anyone else trying to contact them, and the dungeon. [Cascade Imaging] will likely find the person wearing this, but not [Scry], or anything like that. This is a Wizard Artifact, so it works here even in the Dark, just like the other two.”

Solomon frowned a little at that.

Erick looked to the next artifact.

The second artifact was the Lidless Eyes. It was a collection of tiny glass eyes, all stuck to each other, and freely floating on a golden chain, like drops of dew, or chains of grapes. They would not fall off of the chain, but they did move around. The eyes tracked Erick as he stepped a fraction to the left, and then the right, as though all of those tiny eyes belonged to an Ophiel-like entity.

Solomon said, “I don’t like how it has 57 eyes one moment, then 59 after I blink, and then 48 when I look again.”

Erick looked to Solomon, then back to the Lidless Eyes. “Without moving or blinking, how many eyes does it look like it has to you, right now, Solomon?”

“63.”

“It’s 64 to me.” Erick activated his All-Seeing Eye. “Still 64 with this eye of my own.”

“… Well now it’s 64?” Solomon said, frowning a little, as he narrowed his eyes at the artifact.

Poi said, “The Lidless Eyes let you see all manner of Mind Magic happening everywhere around you, and it draws that Mind Magic into itself, along with any magics that directly attempt to affect the wearer, popping eyes with every magic absorbed. For every eye popped, the user is protected against that specific magic for the next hour… or maybe just a few minutes. The stronger the magic, the lesser the safety guaranteed by the used eye. Eyes come back a day after being used or whenever they feel like it. This is a very chaotic artifact, but it’s a Wizard-level artifact, and it works very, very well against singular memetic threats. It has no downside, though, which makes it among the best of the three from our hoards.”

Solomon and Erick looked at the artifact of eyes…

Erick asked, “Could Lapis replicate any of these?”

“Probably not,” Poi said.

Erick and Solomon narrowed their eyes, thinking.

“Moving on,” Poi said. “The Crown protects against active change, and is the most absolute of the items here. The Eyes do the same, but without the downsides of absolute protection. Memetic threats are often the most dangerous, so that’s why I had you get two of those types of artifacts. But the third is what might actually matter. The Bracelet of Memory.”

“That’s clearly a slave shackle,” Solomon said.

Poi did not argue, because it was a slave shackle. Or at least it had started off that way. The thing was a wrist-lock of black iron about 5 centimeters wide, a full centimeter thick, and large enough to fit around most human wrists. It had a hinge that was rusted over, yet the whole thing easily opened and shut as though the rust didn’t exist at all. It also had a clasp where a lock could be inserted and secured, to hold the two sides together, to make sure it never came off of an arm. There was no accompanying lock, though. The inside had some anti-mana engravings, but those had been worn away, while the outside had some silver etchings that had been scratched out in precisely the weakest spots to break the enchantment therein. From what Erick was seeing, it looked like someone had broken the magics on the item and when the [Envelop Item] magics had failed they had taken a chisel to it, so that it couldn’t be easily repaired.

The thing was a dead weight to Erick’s mana sense. The Lidless Eyes and the Crown were both highly magical, but this thing was subtle. Barely there.

Poi said, “The Bracelet of Memory was probably accidentally turned into an artifact by a Mind Mage Wizard who was born a free woman, but who was captured and forced into slavery down in Nergal, over 700 years ago. Back then the Mind Mage Collective wasn’t nearly as unified as it is today, and there were some Mind Mages who used some rather terrible Mind Magics to control their slaves. We think the woman who made this might have been sent to infiltrate and break up that slave trade but we don’t know. She had lost all her memories in that infiltration and sequester. Somehow, she made this, and then she was able to free herself and hundreds of others. When she came back into the fold and achieved freedom, she took the bracelet off and erased her own memories.

“No one is sure why she did that, but it is a trend that remains for all who use this item.

“All this does is make absolutely sure that all information that goes into your mind, stays there. You will not be able to forget anything while you wear this. It’s the most potent anti-anti-memetic artifact we have in our collective, and it should not be used by anyone going out on any missions. The other two items are nice, and irreplaceable, but this one is beyond irreplaceable. It should be used here, at base, so that we can be sure that it is never lost.” Poi said, “Aside from that warning, this thing is practically a memetic-hazard on its own because remembering everything you see can be dangerous. But then again, you both have Intelligence, so that ship has mostly sailed.” He shrugged. “Or perhaps if either of you wear this, you’ll want to take it off instantly. I don’t know.”

Silence stretched as people thought.

Erick said, “We’ll talk about the distribution soon enough. Jane is coming down.”

“By the way,” Poi said, “I am in contact with Quil. If you want to ask some questions about working dungeons, Solomon, I am available to help in that way, and Quil is too.” Poi added, “And Quilli, and Quardo, and a few other Quilatalap repros.”

Solomon chuckled. “Ah. So this is what it’s like to be on the other side of that divide, eh?”

Poi nodded.

Erick felt left out, but that was okay. Solomon could enjoy himself, if he wanted.

Solomon said, “I’ll talk to the Q’s, and you, Erick, can talk to Jane.” He smiled a little. “It’ll be nice to know her from a different angle too… But later. So yeah. Let’s talk in the library, Poi.”

Poi and Solomon walked off to the library, speaking of dungeon controls and changes all the while, and picking Quil’s brain on what he thought of this dungeon. Erick watched them go for a moment. And then he moved toward Jane, where she was coming in. She hadn’t been here in the dungeon yet, so this was going to be a change for her, too.

Erick wondered how she would take it… And yeah. From what Erick was seeing through Ophiel, Jane was taking it weirdly, too.

Erick met Jane at the front door. “Hey, Jane.”

Jane stood by herself in the front ‘yard’, upon the orange/white stone, her eyes wide as she took in the sight of their old house.

“Did you know that Melemizargo and Fallopolis got our house from Spur?” Erick asked, “Because I certainly didn’t. And I already made a repro. His name is Solomon. Poi came and left, and left us with a repro Poi, too, but they’re [Hive Mind]ed, so it’s just Poi. They’re talking to Quil right now. You know Quil? He’s the Quilatalap repro dungeon master of the Grand Benevolence Dungeon.”

Jane blinked, and then steeled herself as she strode forward, saying, “No; I did not know that they got our house. Poi is Poi, which is fine I suppose. We’re going to need some Mind Mages assistance with figuring out some memetic threat-counters.”

Erick smiled as he stepped aside and let Jane in the house. As her eyes went to the very familiar and yet unfamiliar layout, Erick said, “I already got three artifacts from the Mind Mages, courtesy of Poi. Do you want to make some repros now, too?”

Jane paused. And then she turned to her father. “That’s not going to be a problem for you?”

“I would be lying if I said it wasn’t freaking me out, but I’m maintaining, and you already made your decision. I’m sure it’ll go well, anyway; Quilatalap has lots of repros and he gets along with all of them, too.” Erick said, “The slimes are in my mage tower. Want some accompaniment?”

“Nope. I got it. Thanks, dad.”

Jane wandered off upstairs, toward the mage tower.

And Erick stood in the foyer, watching her go…

- - - -

Time passed.

Erick made meals to pass that time, and when making meals for everyone wasn’t enough, as that only took him an hour and all the ‘Janes’ were still asleep and Solomon and Poi were talking to others, Erick watched over the world, and remotely fixed problems the world over. The food waited inside Preservation magics, for now.

‘Fixing the world’ ate up another few hours, as he took care of top-level issues.

He could have spent days doing even more, but he did not.

As Jane repros came to themselves and spent a while talking amongst themselves, Erick spent another hour making more food just so that he could give them all a hearty meal of beef wellington, because he felt like being fancy. And because he wanted them to like him.

He wasn’t sure why he felt that way, but he did.

Everything was weird. Erick was dealing with it as best he could.

Dinner with the Janes was a tense ordeal of unsaid emotions. But then again, all the girls wanted to go right out to conquer dungeons for base mana regen, and that was an easy enough conversation to have. ‘Oh you’re killing things? I killed some things today, too. It was fun and I saved some lives.’ It was weird to say it like that, but he brushed past that, and so did everyone else. Erick would have loved to actually forget some of the weirder moments of sitting there, talking with his five daughters, but that wasn’t happening.

And then Jane said, “So we were thinking that we could stay in the hotel, and you could stay here with Solomon and Poi.”

“Sure sure,” Erick said, because that’s what you did when your squadron of copied daughters wanted to live on their own. “Solomon and I will be working on the dungeon, anyway—” Erick turned to Solomon, for his repro had joined dinner, too, alongside Poi. “You want to go out and get some base mana regen, too, right?”

Solomon said, “Yes. So I’ll be joining you girls, if you don’t mind your not-dad trailing along with you.”

“Oh sure!” said one of the Janes, after all of them had a brief moment of panic about a hundred different things. And then that Jane added, “It’ll be good practice for when we go core crushing, right?”

“Right.” “Yeah.” “Sounds good, not-dad!”

It was still very weird.

After dinner the extra Janes all disavowed their dungeon master status. Prismatic mist spilled out from their bodies. That mist flowed into the air, and then vanished, while Poi and Solomon proclaimed that they were once again the only dungeon masters in the group. The status screen of the dungeon said as much, too.

The extra Janes were very eager to leave, to start delving in the canyon to get their base mana production up. Why were they so eager? A bunch of reasons. Erick didn’t think about all those reasons. The girls left.

Solomon tagged along.

And then it was just Poi and Erick in the house again.

Erick sipped his after dinner tea, while Poi did the same.

Erick whispered, “Holy shit this is gonna be an experience.”

Poi nodded, then said, “Not to break Mind Mage protocol too much, but everyone here is way too tense around everyone else. You’re all worried about how the other feels and if they’ll be disappointed in you, but you all actually feel the same way; It’s just a lot of love, Erick.”

“If she loves me, then why doesn’t she want to be near me?”

“She’s worried about eliciting any form of disappointment from you at all, for if you show disappointment, that means that you cannot connect to her how she wants you to connect, because if you were connecting how she wanted that connection, then you would be automatically be proud of her— And yes, I know you are proud of her, Erick, and she knows that you are proud of her, too.” Poi said, “But she’s hyper-sensitized. If you show her that you’re always proud of her, then she’ll think it’s fake; that you’re putting on the ‘parent persona’ in order not to harm her emotionally. If you show disappointment, then you just don’t understand her. There is literally no winning that sort of ‘fight’, because it’s not a fight. It’s just a parent-child relationship that is growing apart, because it’s normal for children to want to have their own lives away from their parents, but you two are a special case, because Jane literally will never, ever, ever, be able to get out from under your light. She knows that, and you know that, too.”

Erick stared out at nothing as he listened to truths he already knew.

“You’re a good father, Erick,” Poi said. “Jane turned out well.”

Erick smiled softly. “Yeah she did.” He sighed, banished his worried thoughts, and said, “I’m thinking I should make a few more All-Seeing Eyes, but I need the proper environment for that. Would you mind me stepping out for an hour or two? I think I need to go to the Well to ask a question about Wizardry.”

Poi smiled softly. “I’m fine here, Erick.”

“Are you really, though? You talked about Solomon becoming a hermit down here, but I don’t want you to be alone, either.” Erick rapidly added, “I’ll leave Ophiel here.”

Poi chuckled. “I am more connected to the rest of the world than you are. I might physically look alone, but I am not alone at all. It’s much more important for Solomon to get out there than it is for me, which is about 40% of the reason I decided to do this repro thing anyway.”

“… Okay. Well. I know Solomon appreciates you being here, and I do, too. He certainly was in a darned hurry to get out of here, wasn’t he.”

Poi smirked. “He was.”

Erick thought. “… You know… Could we restructure this dungeon in order to grant connected-dungeon-masters base mana production, from the killing of slimes in the dungeon? So that none of them need to actually leave to kill things if they don’t want to? Take the base production of dead slimes and apply them to the masters?” Ophiel twittered in concerned noises on Erick’s shoulder, and Erick frowned at himself. “Ahh… I don’t want to kill any of the slimes, though. I suppose. I like that the slimes are just… living up there.”

Poi focused on some thought tendrils trailing out of his mind. “Hold on one second.” Poi stared at the air for a moment, concentrating… “This is more difficult than Solomon made it look— There we go.”

A black screen with white lettering appeared.

- -

Slime manifestations (Daily): 19,300

Slime deaths (Daily): 18,900

Ooze deaths (Daily): 16

Other deaths (Daily): ~0

- - -

“Takes a bit to figure out how to make a new screen from scratch. Anyway.” Poi said, “The guardians are very good at killing the oozes that naturally appear, but oozes eat the slimes every now and then. From what I’m seeing there also appears to be a lot of natural death; this is a mature dungeon, and slimes do just die from flopping too hard sometimes. Theoretically, you wouldn’t need to kill slimes in order to take their mana regen for yourself at all; you could simply take advantage of all that natural death.

“But.

“Like how farmers can’t gain experience from monster cows they raise on the Surface, masters cannot gain mana from their own dungeon; it’s an in-built limit to the system. Even if we made big monsters that were actually worth mana production, then we wouldn’t get mana production from killing them.”

Erick said, “And then there’s that whole ‘challenges that grant base mana creation have to be challenges’.”

Poi smiled. “I’m pretty sure that a Wizard could break all of those limitations, but this change to normal operations is not a switch that can be flipped; the switch must first be created.”

Erick’s mind wandered in thought, and then he glanced at his empty wrist, where his gold staff no longer was. “Solomon should be able to overcome whatever challenges exist in the other dungeons, but I’m not sure if the staff will actually count as his.”

Poi shrugged. “You’ve been awake for about 3 days straight now. Are you going to continue that?”

Erick chuckled. “Ahhh… I probably should sleep... Later. I’ll sleep later.”

Poi nodded, then said, “Another switch that I feel you could easily add would be a switch to change that timer; to allow the creation of new Rules faster than the 8 day delay demands.”

- - - -

As Erick flew through the sky, taking the long way to get to the Well amid Ascendant City, he had a lot of thoughts about a lot of things.

Poi had thrown him for a heavy loop.

Primary among Erick’s thoughts was the desire to figure out what action he could take right now, and in the coming days, which could set this Sundering search on a good path to success. There had been a lot of talk about a bunch of various directions they could go, and Jane was already doing all of what she had originally wanted to do, but that was Jane, and Erick… Erick had different ‘needs’.

Did he actually want to resurrect every single person lost in the Darkness?

To ‘go back in time’, like Poi suggested, and pull every single dead person to this present and make them into new people? Even putting aside the idea of ‘can I actually do this’, such an action would have a catastrophic effect on all godly domains, would it not? Dead souls went to the gods they worshiped or cared about, in order to become one with that god and with all others who had gone to that god before. Resurrecting people from the past would disrupt that, right?

Added to that, this whole way that ‘divine power’ worked, reminded Erick of dungeon cores, but different. Dungeon cores had been purposefully built not to allow their masters to gain power, but gods gained power from people who worshiped them, no matter how that worship took place. Could cores be Wizarded to do exactly what they had been created to not do, and bring power from the dying inhabitants directly to their dungeon masters, as gods did with people born on Veird?

But beyond that...

Erick felt like he was facing choice-paralysis.

And yet, he needed to make choices, because the only thing worse than making a bad choice when facing a crisis, like this Sundering search, was making no choice at all.

Usually it was a lot easier for him to see the path forward, but everything had gotten cloudy lately.

As Erick flew across the crystal-tower sky, and watched shadelings down below go about their days, Erick was very glad that Poi had chosen to make a repro, and that they were [Hive Mind]ed together. Talking to ‘Other Poi’ was just like talking to Poi, because it was talking to Poi.

And Poi had a lot of good ideas, and he had already brought some crucial artifacts to the table. Erick wasn’t sure how all those Mind Magic artifacts would work out, but he was pretty sure that all three of those Wizard-level artifacts would be absolutely necessary going forward. Especially that anti-anti-meme shackle.

As Erick stepped down onto white stone, in front of the archway to the Well, he was not on any real visible ‘path’, but his thoughts on the next steps began to crystallize. He was beginning to know his direction forward again, besides just putting one foot in front of the other. He still did that too, of course, as he continued forward, beyond the archway under the Throne of Melemizargo, to enter the dungeon with the Well. Erick had come here to ask a question, and as he stood inside that grand space, Erick felt that he actually knew what he would be doing next.

He’d be doing Wizardry, of course, but with a twist.

First, he’d be trying to figure out what Wizardry was, exactly. And through that, maybe everything else would flow easier, because there was no way that in the entire Old Cosmology other Wizards hadn’t faced the same sort of trouble Erick was facing right now with becoming a True Wizard.

Erick stood upon white stone, under a black roof. The black pool rested undisturbed by anything or anyone, beyond a gold line in the ground, and then beyond even more white stone and the barest lip in the white floor. Erick stepped forward, past that gold line.

Erick filled his voice with purpose, as he asked, “In the entirety of the Old Cosmology, someone must have made a manaminer that helped with ascension to True Wizardry. How can I add that functionality to my slime dungeon, in order to guide me to becoming a True Wizard?”

Erick’s voice was a low rumble that set the water to rippling. His voice flowed over the Well, and the Well flickered with even more ripples here and there that rapidly expanded and then flattened, like Erick’s voice had touched off hidden things in the Dark, and those Dark things had turned the water to flat ice, to glass.

Opaque black water became a Dark Mirror.

A land appeared beyond that mirror. A land where the land curled up instead of out and down out of sight. Oceans rose in the distance, and all the world was inverted. A blue sphere hung in the center of the sky.

The view shifted to a land of white buildings on a green peninsula, where islands grew beyond that peninsula. The first island held a palace. The second island held a slightly smaller tower. The third held a temple that was smaller yet. The fourth island was half-buried under ocean waves.

The image focused on that tower, on that second island.

It was the Grand Wizard’s Tower in the Core of Veird, where Erick had spent a while on his Worldly Path. It was where he had first learned of what Wizardry could really do. It was where he had made [Renew]. It was also where Erick had gained his Second Status, under the Script, and Rozeta’s kill switch had been implanted into him, so that if he should ever go rogue that she could end him with a thought, or at the very least extract him from the Script entirely. Neither Erick or Rozeta ever fully spoke on what that ‘kill switch’ was, exactly, because neither of them truly wished to threaten the other, or even give the appearance of threatening—

The image changed.

The Core vanished in the sky. The world unfurled; continents and oceans no longer stretched up. A horizon formed, becoming real, and flat. The sky unfurled in radiance and illumination from a billion distant suns, and the empty Grand Tower changed.

Where once there was nothing but memory, now there were people. Humans and angels. There went a centaur-thing, cantering alongside a winged woman. A small squad of bird people flocked overhead, setting down onto the top of the tower alongside other lunch-goers. A mass of tentacles served ice-cream-like treats to several very small blue people, and then the blue people went back to their small group under the sun, to discuss advanced mathematics, or whatever those squiggles meant on those very large books. Out in front, among the gardens and the walls, a white dragon walked the grounds, breathing fire at an invasive vine. That vine was growing over the statues of famous Wizards, but the vine was also a cultivated sort; the dragon was just keeping it contained to its planter boxes.

A 2 meter tall god in gold and white walked alongside a person that was both a 2 meter tall floating cyan crystal and a heart-like structure in the center of that cyan crystal. They spoke of something, as they walked into the tower—

Erick suddenly looked back toward the dragon.

It was a white dragon. Long and sinuous. And it looked young. The horns were very slightly different, but...

“Is that Rozeta?” Erick whispered to himself.

The Well heard him anyway.

The Well surged upward, flowing all around Erick in a mesmerizing display of Darkness—

- - - -

Rozeta whipped around inside the Core, her eyes scanning the world. All she saw was Blue and Everything, and while a lot of particulars were exactly where they should have been, a few things were… Out of place. Moving weirdly.

Not on the Surface, or near the Geodes, but…

Rozeta pulled her eyesight inward. The Core was fine. Ten thousand pop-ups of problems appeared every minute and she was putting them down even faster, making right what people had mishandled, but other than that, the Core was fine. The Primal Lightning monitors were silent, as they had been for the last 1450 years, except for when Erick had made Benevolence and the pure visual similarity had triggered those warnings…

Everything was fine…

Right?

Rozeta looked to the sandbox part of the Script that held Erick’s connection, and yes, he had added another repro to that connection, but that was expected, and her and her father had already discussed that. Rozeta wasn’t sure how she felt about the name ‘Solomon’, for it felt too Significant, but it wasn’t nearly as Significant as ‘Yggdrasil’ had been, which was probably more of a matter of four gods putting Yggdrasil together…

So what had made her feel—

… A [Scrying] feeling? Is that what she was feeling? What the fuck? No. That couldn’t be right. No one could [Scry] on her, and especially not here. And yet, Rozeta knew the feeling of being [Scry]ed upon, for recognizing when one was being [Scry]ed was a skill that she had learned to develop so very long… ago…

Rozeta narrowed her eyes on reality.

Another alarm went off, right before Rozteta knew it would.

“What the fuck are you doing now, Erick.”

- - - -

The Darkness faded, and Erick was not where he should have been.

The sky held a blue sphere the size of a large moon. Clouds layered between the ocean ahead, and that sphere above.

The ocean was definitely curving upward, along with the coast line, and the continents in the distance, only disappearing from sight when the pure volume of atmosphere between here and there became too much for light to pass through unobstructed.

Erick turned to his right.

Rozeta, in her white wrought human form, tersely said, “Welcome back to the Core, Erick. What brings you by?”

“Strangely enough, the search for Wizardry solutions.” Erick said, “I was thinking of making a dungeon that would help with the ascent to True Wizardry, and so I asked the Well how to theoretically go about that.” Erick turned around and looked up at the Grand Wizard Tower of the Old Cosmology, which reminded him a whole bunch of House Benevolence or the towers of Oceanside, or the tower at Archmage’s Rest by Stratagold. This one remained completely devoid of all inhabitants, though. “The Well showed me this place as it used to be, back in the Old Cosmology. It also showed me either a young-you, or a relative, for the horns were very similar but not exactly the same. Whoever it was, she was tending to overgrowing vines over all those statues of Old Wizards.”

Rozeta’s lips were a thin line. “… I see.”

Erick waited.

“She was my mother. Her name was Liliandroza and she was more than a gardener, but that is what she loved, and so that is what she did.” Rozeta turned and walked up the beach, saying, “Let’s have this talk inside.”

Ophiel chirped on Erick’s shoulder as Erick followed Rozeta up the beach, into the Grand Wizard’s Tower. Only one Ophiel had come with Erick, so he began summoning the rest, bringing him back up to 10. Those other Ophiel began spreading out, as Erick walked alongside Rozeta, down a path toward the tower ahead, where the double doors sat open and inviting.

- - - -

The ‘food court’ of the tower was much as Erick remembered; a bunch of tables and chairs and lounging spaces, surrounded by business spaces and restaurants. And then there were the traps. Color bombs were inside every couch seat and hidden behind every door, just waiting for someone to walk though and get colored with indelible magical dye.

Ophiel instantly went about setting off one of every color for which he had a body, which meant that soon Erick had an Ophiel in every color, with a double in purple.

Rozeta disabled the traps where she sat down, and invited Erick to sit with her.

Rozeta served tea, and as Erick took a sip, she began, “I believe it would be a bad idea for you to try and circumvent the natural ascension to True Wizard that comes at this point in your life, either through a manaminer, or through other means. That sort of ‘manaminer-assist’-action would taint whatever final form you figured out. Furthermore, I believe that you asking the Well for assistance in this was not a good idea. Aside from the Well possibly granting you false information, and fucking up everything that you are from now until forever… Don’t go walking in the Dark, Erick— Or more to the point:

“Even in the Old Cosmology, Wizards were a minor manifestation of the Darkness, going their own way, not beholden to the Dark at all. By this action of you believing the Well and being transported by the Well, you threaten to make Wizards unanimous with the Dark yet again, which will not go well for anyone.”

“… Okay. Well. I understand that. So do you have any hints about True Wizardry that you haven’t already given me?”

Rozeta shrugged. “Not really. But since the Dark brought you here, he feels that something can be gained by you in this location… And yes. I know I just told you not to trust the Dark, but I highly doubt that when the Dark delivers you to me that it is trying to screw with you somehow, and by extension screw with all the rest of the world.”

“So there is something here, eh?”

Rozeta looked to Erick, and said, “There hasn’t been a True Wizard here on Veird since the Grand Translation put most everyone into bodies. Perhaps the problem lies in Particles itself? I don’t know. Perhaps you have to become a magical soul and nothing else, first. Perhaps lichdom is the proper path to Wizardry these days.

“I have told you this already, but back in the Old Cosmology, Wizards had to either purge themselves of everything that was not themselves or they had to permanently integrate everything that they were into their crystal form before they could ascend to True Wizard. This physical action was a magical action back then, since everything was made of mana.” Rozeta said, “So, like my father had once said…” It was tough for Rozeta to continue, but she did. “Perhaps the Script is the real problem, as my father suggests, because with the Script you’ve never had to truly wrestle with your innate mana production before. You have undeveloped mana veins because of that. And yet, Wizards used to ascend to Full Wizardry all the time, even without going through any of the proper steps at all. But there were steps for a lot of them, and you have never needed to go through those steps.

“On the other claw, mental hangups were always the largest stumbling block for every single Wizard… And that’s likely where you’re faltering. If you became a True Wizard, you’d have to either kill or instantiate Ophiel and Yggdrasil both, not to mention separate from the Script, and all that that would entail.”

Rozeta sipped her tea.

Erick sipped his tea, too. Yggdrasil would be easy to instantiate. All that would require is the removal of his seal, for any length of time at all. Doing that would probably allow Yggdrasil to plant his True Self, too. Or maybe removing the seal would allow Erick to do that; to fix that one pesky line in that blue box that said ‘The World Tree has yet to be planted.’.

Ophiel was going to naturally separate in a few months. Maybe 4. Erick could probably force that birth early if he wanted. The standard way to force that issue would be to use Time Magic, but Erick already knew that he could force Ophiel’s instantiation through some Wizardry, if he absolutely had to do that. Oddly enough, because how much Erick had screwed up [Onward], Wizardry might actually be the safer option than using Time Magic directly.

… But besides those personal issues, Erick was still not happy with the state of the world, either. So maybe he had some mental hangups about how becoming a True Wizard would separate him from everyone else in a very real way, and he didn’t want that separation yet.

But if he fixed everything, then he could safely separate?

Erick asked, “What sort of problems would you like to see gone from Veird, or solved?”

“I want the Forever War to end,” Rozeta said, without reservation, “Not sure how to stop those assholes from fighting all the time, though.”

Erick had a timeless moment of disbelief that Rozeta would actually go that direction, and then he smiled. “It would be pretty great if they stopped fighting.”

Rozeta stared at Erick without actually staring at all, as she said, “It would take a Wizard to invent a supreme reason for why they are fighting at all, and then help mediate how to stop the fight, either through the removal of that reason, or through some other way to stop the eternal hate.”

“… Oh.”

Rozeta nodded. She knew the seriousness of what she touched upon.

Erick had a thousand thoughts on that. From the ethics of causing such a deep change in how the universe worked to wondering if he could even do any sort of real change at all, to suddenly realizing that other Wizards had ‘won’ wars by simply putting themselves at the end points of those wars, as the victor. And Erick was a ‘truly strong’ Wizard. He could… Do a lot, if he wanted.

“… It would have to be…” Erick began, “It would have to be a deep enough reason for war so as not to fuck up all the rest of history, right?”

Rozeta skipped all subtlety and directly stated, “Make both Elements able to gain more of themselves when one triumphs over the other. That could be the base reason for their war. From there, we pivot away from killing to games of triumph, and debates, and anything else that is not outright war. There has been a war for so long that there is no other way to see ‘angels-versus-demons’ other than as a war. But it could change. It could be made better.”

Erick set down his tea. “I’m not sure if we should continue this, or if you’re even Rozeta at all.”

“I am Rozeta,” Rozeta said, “So ask the real question.”

“Why would you ever suggest such a thing? The pure chaos that it would create is unimaginable!”

“I know what I am asking for. I know the danger of it all. I know a lot more than you, Erick. And I know that you might not choose to do this, and thus I will have damaged our working relationship from now until forever. But this change doesn’t have to happen now, and it’s just one possible solution to the problem. Maybe you simply talk to them and end the Forever War that way. Maybe you make it so that when an angel harms a demon or the other way around that they actually harm themselves, which is another solution I have considered but I am less sure about. Either way, the Forever War needs to end before it can be allowed to spread past this world.

“It’s because of them and their war that my father is allowed to do this Sundering search in the first place; that you were dragged into this horror, and that you and Jane and now Poi are subject to making repros and all that that entails. The only reason that the angels and demons voted that way was because both of them saw the chance for them to use what was coming to create some ultimate weapons against the other. Nuclear, Establishment, Wizard-ways. They even want to start wielding Primal Lightning against each other.

“I have overlooked their war for the longest time, because I must remain neutral, but they threaten to disturb the very fabric of our reality, and thus they need to change.”

Erick’s breath was almost still in his lungs. This was real. Ah.

Rozeta said, “The Forever War needs to end, and the creation of a reason for the war to exist at all, and the subsequent annihilation of that reason, seems like a good way to erase that war from existence for good. Maybe you can even make a simple artifact that is the basis for the entire War in the first place; both sides are small enough that that trick might actually work, but it won’t work once we get past Veird.” She said, “The ending of the Forever War also has the side effect of disrupting their voting bloc and returning actual democracy to the Relevant Entities of the Script. That needs to happen.”

“… Okay. It’ll take me a while to come to terms with that… A while.”

Rozeta leaned back in her chair. “Understandable. I have been able to uphold neutrality for a long time, Erick, but this latest turn of events... It’s taken me time to come to grips with this turn of events as well. I didn’t even know how to bring it up with you last time we spoke, but since you’re here in the Core… I brought it up.”

Erick didn’t speak.

Rozeta offered, “We can move on to other topics.”

Erick breathed out, then moved on. “Got any suggestions on how to handle Jane and her repros? I am worried about all of them.”

Rozeta was a goddess after all. She had seen a lot, and knew a lot. Erick felt he might as well ask her such a question. But as soon as he asked, Rozeta got a strained look in her eyes—

Rozeta said, “Anything I say to you could theoretically be used by my own father against me, so I’m going to echo Poi’s words, and say that you’re just growing apart… But. Perhaps give her missions to complete? To prove her power to herself and to you?” Rozeta shook her head. “I don’t know, Erick. Ask any other god besides me about that topic, please. Personally, I’m afraid of my father gaining Jane as paladins, and that you won’t fight against them if he should drive all of them toward your destruction.”

Horrors on top of horrors.

Erick asked, “It’s not possible that I’m secretly and Paradoxically Melemizargo myself, right?”

Rozeta shook her head. “You’re not him. Paradox Wizards are confounding bastards at the best of times, but a Paradox Wizard could never become the Dark.”

“And yet, people have been calling me ‘Xoat’ for the longest time.”

“Now that—” Rozeta said, “Xoat and the Darkness are entirely two different things. But if you want to talk about how a Paradox Wizard could be Xoat? Well now that’s a much more reasonable conversation.”

“… I’m not sure if I like that comparison.”

The tension in the room eased as Rozeta gave a small grin. Then she nodded. “I understand your reluctance, but there’s nothing wrong with you being an incarnation of Xoat.”

Erick moved on, again. “So about the Well’s idea for me to find a Creation Wizard in the Dark?”

Rozeta shook her head. “A bad idea. You’d bring forth any number of my father’s claw-picked Wizards, and I cannot abide by that. We wouldn’t have a Destruction Wizard capable of matching them for power, either, and we absolutely do not want a Destruction Wizard on Veird at all.”

“Understandable, then.” Erick went right onto the next question, “So if Solomon gains enough personal mana creation… At what point does a normal person become a Wizard?”

“Ahhh… Now that’s a question.” Rozeta said, “There’s a qualitative difference between the mana production gained through the Trials of the Dark and the mana production of being a Wizard. Small Wizardries are happening all across Veird all the time now, primarily because dragons are living in the open here or in Fairie, but there’s an increasing section of the population that does Wizardry through their own natural mana production that they gained in Trials of the Dark. Mostly, people are just making magics easier than they used to be able to make magic; going from the Basic tiers of the Script paid for with 1 point, up to tier 5 and 6, just through pure desire and a basic magical education. The average level of spell creation used to be 2.7 before the dungeons. Now it’s 4.1.

“But becoming a Wizard through the mana gained from trials is completely unheard of. I haven’t seen anyone cross that divide, but it should be possible.” Rozeta said, “It would require some sort of ignition-event, though, to transform a conglomeration of Dark mana into personal mana.”

Erick scrunched his eyes. “So there’s a difference between Trial mana and personal mana?”

Rozeta shrugged. “There is no chemical or physical difference between a diamond grown with a spell and a diamond grown with natural forces, but the one grown by natural forces has a certain magical impression upon the world that the spell-created diamond does not possess. And yet, magical impressions can be manufactured. Just takes time and pressure.”

Erick thought about that for a moment. And then he tried to relax, and look around a little. “So I guess I ended up back here somehow… Want to talk about that past? I might be looking to get it back… or maybe Melemizargo wants his wife back?”

Rozeta smiled a little at the mention of Melemizargo getting his wife back. “That particular path is a doubtful one. My father was not a father like you are a father. Most dragons are not. Back in the Old Cosmology it was considered an honor and privilege to mate with the Dark. It was a privilege my mother won several times in the last 30,000 years, or something like that. The Dark is a completely absentee father, though, until events bring his children to his attention.”

Erick raised an eyebrow.

“Dragon culture is a lot different from what you’re used to, Erick, because Dragon Essence does not lend itself to normal ways of mortal life. Dragons in Fairie are perhaps the most normal of us all, making eggs and leaving them to hatch and grow and thrive on their own, or die in the process. When dragons inhabit the forms of the mortal races they’re a bit better about caring for offspring, but you know how that ends. All dragon fathers and mothers leave dragonkin children to die or thrive on their own, for their Dragon Essence and Will To Power drives the dragons onward, and if the child should prove strong enough, then the parents will see the child again eventually.

“Benevolence Dragons are a big change in that natural order, though. I see all of them raising clutches together… Which is kinda weird, actually. But they seem to be happy that way.” Rozeta shrugged. “Whatever comes next will probably form the basis of the rest of existence from now on, but back then things were not like they are now.

“In this land, I had what I would call a ‘normal’ dragon childhood.

“My tale of this Grand Wizard’s tower is barely unique, though, for there isn’t a god or otherwise who fell to Veird who didn’t come through this place at some point in their lives. This Grand Wizard’s Tower was practically the center of the universe, though back then such a statement would have sparked a thousand dissenting voices.

“I was born here, though, so it was my center for a long time.

“Liliandroza set a clutch of eggs sired by Melemizargo down upon the fourth island out there, the one that is half-buried in the ocean, and I was hatched in that clutch, whereupon I won the hatching battle. My brothers and sisters fled with superficial wounds, for the Wizards in their tower prevented me from killing the others, which I wasn’t thankful for until many years later, when one of my brothers…” Rozeta got a far-off look in her eyes, as she said, “He saved me and I saved him.”

A silence descended.

Erick asked, “Did he survive the Sundering?”

Rozeta’s pain was old, and so she easily said, “No, he did not. He was on the other side of the universe when that happened and I was on Veird already. This Grand Wizard’s Tower didn’t survive at all.” She waved a hand, indicating the tower. “This is all just a rebuilt memory.”

Erick nodded as he looked around. For a moment, Erick focused on the unfinished stone statue of ‘Xoat’, standing in the back of the food court, and at the empty base behind that statue. Melemizargo’s statue should have been there, on that empty pedestal, overlooking the statue of Xoat. But the representative of the Dark was gone from this place; removed by Rozeta, for his crimes.

Erick asked, “When did Melemizargo become a part of your life? Or how about your mother? If she lived here, too.”

“My father was not present at all for any part of my life until I came into my own power, when I began working with Koyabez on the manaminer of Veird. But before that, a thousand years before… I lived here in this Tower, and I knew my mother as a distant force of power, always in her garden and keeping the Tower secure.

“This Tower and the Wizards therein were much more my family for the first 250 years of my life…”

- - - -

They had moved up to the second floor an hour ago to have some pastries and coffee at ‘Koyabez’s Rest’ and to talk of history long gone, of material solutions to current-day problems, and about the differences between ‘safe’ Wizardry, and ‘big’ Wizardry.

Rozeta refilled her coffee and Erick’s, as she continued, “Solving the Forever War outright would be a Big, unsafe Wizardry, so yeah, I don’t want that. Not right now, anyway.”

“Well good!” Erick laughed a little. “Neither do I.”

Rozeta smiled, saying, “I would prefer a smaller solution, though I doubt it would work. Maybe you can use some combination of Wizardry and Benevolence to pluck out important demons and angels from the mess of them all to talk to them and to get them to agree to a permanent truce? Maybe.” She lost her smile. “I was really hoping that the inroads with your Gate Network between the Wasteland and Greensoil would have lasted, but then that asshole Darundi went and did some political gain.”

Erick sighed. “I had a lot of circumstantial evidence… Enough to convince me. But that really is what happened, eh.”

“I can talk to you about things that you already know, but as a goddess of neutrality, I won’t and can’t involve myself with mortal intrigue.” Rozeta said, “Honestly, Erick, you could make this world so much better if you had fewer morals, but if you did, then you wouldn’t be you, so going the slow way is better for everyone.”

Erick sipped his coffee, thinking.

Rozeta said, “Smaller Wizardries are good for that. A dungeon would be good for testing those small Wizardries, too. Removal of that timer to change the Rules. You might think of some sort of implementation of your own control over the dungeon, instead of needing to go through a dungeon master slime. You can try creating Dark Mirrors and Pathing Portals in your dungeon and linking it all with a Benevolent Gaze upon history… Just viewing history shouldn’t be a problem, and as a Paradox Wizard you should be able to do that. As none of that is allowed or possible via the dungeon, or the Script, or by Benevolence, all that would all require Wizardry in order to happen.”

“All good targets for Wizardry experiments, theeaaH—” Erick yawned. “—good targets then. Excuse me.”

Rozeta smiled softly. “You’ve been awake for about 4 days now. There’s a room in the palace on the other island for you, if you want.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea…” Erick thought about the trip to the Surface, and then to Ascendant Mountain, and then to the house in the Dark where he should be sleeping right now. “… It’s gonna be damned hard to sleep in that dungeon.”

“Make the house into a safe space with Benevolence Wizardry.”

“… Ha!” Erick said, “I probably could, couldn’t I. Benevolence should be able to make a safe space… I think.”

Rozeta nodded. “You might not be able to simply burn away something like a Sun Wizard could, but Benevolence has utility. But, there is something else to consider. In creating a safe space around a dungeon core through act of Wizardry, you are going against the core; you will have put a safe space over an area overseen by the Dark, which will definitely cause unintended side effects, because the core being able to protect itself through absolute violence is sort of its base nature. That’s not even getting into other possible side effects, such as my father saying, ‘No’.”

“I could make a core with the base nature of making the world safe?”

“And then we get into a conversation about ‘what is safe’ which goes through a bunch of philosophy but eventually arrives at a ‘safe’ dungeon core being antithetical to the Darkness, and the real-world problem of the Dark then doing something unexpected to ‘fix’ the problem.”

“Ah. Yeah. Unintended Big Wizardry. I should have realized that before I said it.” Erick looked down at the coffee. “I think it stopped working.”

Rozeta stood. “I’ll let you get to bed, Erick. Sweet dreams.”

And then Rozeta stepped away, into the ether, vanishing in a golden flow.

“I suppose it’s time to clean up one more mess before I go,” Erick muttered to himself.

And then Erick looked over at Ophiel, and at the ten purpleberry pies that he had attempted to eat, and had instead gotten everywhere across the floor, and across a few tables and chairs. The distribution of crust and purple and lumps of berry were all very purposefully placed. It kinda looked like the cloud castle, with different purpleberry pie detritus on different levels of chairs and tables, forming the different buildings of the cloud castle. And then Ophiel noticed Erick looking.

Ophiels in four different colors suddenly flopped onto the mess and squawked, “My art! No touch!”

“Ophiel,” Erick began, “You have made a beautiful sculpture of the house, but we can’t leave art like this wherever we go. Please put the room back how you found it.”

Quietly, and defensively, Ophiel whistled, “nooooo.”

“Your art is fantastic, but it will only last a few days like this anyway. The berries are wet right now, but they’ll dry and darken. Then mold will come in and grow colors everywhere, while also being quite dirty.”

Ophiel hopped up, and cast some Preservation magic on the mess. “No dirty! Last forever!”

Erick stared for a moment, disbelief and surprise and a strange sense of pride all vying for prominence in his mind. And then came discipline. Erick said, “You’re not getting any more purpleberry pie from Quilatalap unless you clean up this one.”

Each Ophiel looked at each other, all of them sharing unsure guitar noises and unhappy flute sounds. And then, most reluctantly, Ophiel began cleaning up his mess.

Erick wordlessly thanked the gods for the small miracle of children sometimes listening.

- - -

As Erick fell into a bed fit for a king and softness surrounded him, Erick wordlessly thanked Rozeta for the hospitality, and the talk. He now had a solid plan going forward. He was absolutely not going to ‘Wizard-up’ a solution to the Forever War, but… He could do something good for everyone. A little here, a little there.

Maybe pluck out lost powers from the history of Veird, to bring them into the modern day?

As Erick almost fell asleep, he had another thought, though. All of this power he had, this capability to change this very world, went against his own idea that no one should have the power to change the world on their own whims.

Poi approved of Erick making changes, though; he had always said as much.

Rozeta and the gods were fine with Erick making changes, too.

… Still felt weird.

- - - -

Erick stepped out of the sky, Ascendant Mountain sprawled out in front of him, all its crystal spires glinting in the light of a fresh morning. Everything was palest blue, mostly white, and filled with shadows, with not a spot of red glows anywhere; nothing was on fire, so all was good.

Another lightstep took Erick directly to the entrance to the slime dungeon, among a copse of crystal-crusted trees. Nothing untoward out here. Another step took Erick through a dark portal, inside, to stand upon the white staircase. Nothing was on fire down here, either, and as multicolor Ophiel explored the multicolor space, Erick saw that nothing was wrong, though a lot of things were still uncomfortable.

But Jane seemed happy, and Poi and Solomon seemed okay…

This was fine.

Another lightstep took Erick directly to the house under the floor, where he entered the kitchen just in time to see Solomon flip a pancake, and call out that breakfast was ready. Six Janes sat at the table, instead of the 5 of yesterday, while Poi sat at the far end, all of them talking to each other, with three of the Janes asking about [Hive Mind], and the other three distinctly not wanting [Hive Mind]. Erick briefly wondered where the Jane#6 came from, but they must have used another one of the slimes in the mage tower, and yup, Erick counted them again, and another one had been used.

The second Erick appeared the Janes were up and demanding to know what had happened, and Erick was quite flustered by the experience of having 6 daughters all wanting to know if he really was okay. Only one of them gave him a hug, though; the other 5 stayed away, looking somewhat crushed that they weren’t the ones hugging Erick, and also that they didn’t feel they were allowed to hug him. Erick made a movement to hug them, too, but they winced, and backed away, and so Erick did not close that distance.

Instead of thinking about that, Erick rapidly went into a brief rundown of what had happened with the Well. As the Janes focused on work, too, the whole group came together in solidarity. Silently, and to himself, Erick wondered if he would be experiencing the same sort of ‘multi-child’ event with Ophiel, and maybe even Yggdrasil, when they were ‘born’. Yggdrasil would probably remain himself, but Ophiel… Looking upon all the differently colored and shaped Ophiel, Erick imagined that Ophiel would probably become a lot of different kids.

Erick was too busy talking about what had happened in the Core to give much more than a passing thought toward suddenly having 10 Ophiel, multiple Janes, and also Yggdrasil all as kids.

Before Erick knew it, he was out of the spotlight, breakfast was back on, and the conversation turned back to [Hive Mind].

“If it can’t be done with us, because we don’t know Mind Magic,” Jane asked, “Then how about an artifact of [Hive Mind]? Do the Mind Mages have those?”

“We can’t all be the same person anyway,” another Jane said, circling back to the main point against [Hive Mind]. “Us all being the same person defeats the entire purpose of making the squad of separate people.”

Jane nodded, then said, “But in the downtime? We could all come together—”

“Then what about transferring memetic threats that we don’t know we’re passing to each other?” said another Jane.

Poi had seen that point coming, so he said, “We have those artifacts, but they’re not perfect, and communicable memetic threats are very much a threat in this New Cosmology. I imagine they’re a threat in the Old Cosmology, too.”

Solomon skirted around the conversation to set before Erick a very large plate of pancakes, sausage, and eggs. He stage-whispered, “You didn’t miss much; just a bunch of arguing and monster killing.”

Erick happily took the plate of food, smiling as Jane after Jane derided Solomon for his lack of adventuring experience, which was primarily filled with complaints about how he wasn’t allowed to just blast everything away with absolute authority. ‘Just blasting’ was no way to learn what the dungeon was trying to teach you. There was some pushback from the other Janes, though.

“Quite frankly, Jane, Jane, Jane, and Jane,” Solomon said, smirking, “I think Jane and Jane have it right; I can blast shit apart if I want.”

Erick had an absolutely surreal moment.

It was yet another moment in a chain of such moments.

“Yes but you only get half-gains!” Jane said.

“And half-gains are better than none. And speed matters,” Another Jane said.

“Lyrical didn’t beat us in base regen due to being precise about anything,” Jane, original style, said.

“Well that’s true,” Jane said, reluctantly.

Erick was having trouble with the surreality of it all, but on the other hand, he was absolutely enthralled with the conversation, because it was like he was watching his daughter from a completely different angle. Primarily, the Janes spoke of what was done right in the dungeon, and what was done wrong, and they gave a whole bunch of specifics about this and that, but to Erick ‘blast it apart with light’ was a valid strategy. More than that, though, Erick was listening to his daughter talk to herself.

He was learning so much from all of these interactions.

But regarding the ‘proper way to do a dungeon’, Erick eventually found a moment to quip, “It’s like you used to say, Jane! If violence isn’t working, you aren’t using enough of it.”

All six Janes still groaned, and all six of them visibly thought about throwing something at Erick.

- - - -

When the Janes left to go back to delving, Erick sent a dense telepathic packet to Poi and Solomon about what had happened with the Well. Erick had spoken of all of that at breakfast, but Erick had left out specifics that needed to be said. Poi already knew everything, of course, but Solomon did not, and he needed to know the full story.

It took Solomon a moment to digest the information therein, but not too long at all. When he was done, he opened his eyes, and nodded. “Wanna talk about the Janes now?”

“They were scared to hug me when I came back, but they all wanted to.”

Solomon gave a tiny, knowing smile. “Yeah. Same for me, but… When we were in the dungeons, one of them let slip that she was happy that she had sisters, and then she realized I overheard her and they all got embarrassed about that.”

That made Erick feel some kinda odd way that was hard to put into words. Happy, for sure, but also a bit melancholy. “It certainly did seem like they were happy to be around each other.” Erick said, “Honestly this whole thing is kinda hard to process.”

Solomon nodded, his expression turning serious, “I’m trying not to think about it too much, because all I can think of is that most of them are going to die. I’m probably going to die, too.”

“Not if I have anything to say about that,” Erick said. “And you have Time Magic, too, right?”

“I do,” Solomon said, “Though it appears a lot weaker than what I’m used to.”

Erick’s eyebrows rose. “How much weaker?”

“I can go 10 seconds in the past for 10,000 mana, but I can’t activate it again and again in rapid sequence to go back 100 seconds.” Solomon said, “I get a lot less bang for the buck than I used to.”

Erick frowned. “That is a concern.”

“Not much of one,” Solomon said.

Poi didn’t seem concerned about dying or the lack of absolute power that Erick was used to having.

As soon as Erick had that thought, Poi said, “I’m not concerned with dying; that is correct. I’ll live on even if this body perishes.”

“Well that’s weird, but okay.” Erick stood from the breakfast table, saying, “Let’s work on proper defenses, anyway.”

Solomon nodded.

Poi asked, “Where do we start?”

- - - -

Erick stood with Solomon and Poi in the mage tower, underneath the model of the solar system, where the sun was the dungeon core. That false sun glowed white and iridescent, bathing the room in a calm sort of light that glinted off of the [Crystal Stasis]’d dungeon master slimes, hanging out in the asteroid belt.

A message held in the air ahead.

- -

RULES:

1: Script Interface, minimal settings

2: Auto-Resurrection, unlimited lives

3: Maximum Life Support, slime generation set to maximum; PLAIN SLIMES ONLY

4: Sanctity of Space, golem enforcement of life form level; MAXIMUM LETHALITY

~ Exceptions: Fallopolis, slimes, Erick Flatt, Jane Flatt, Ophiel, Yggdrasil, + Accompaniment

5: Direct access to Darkness

Note: Rules Changes Locked for <07D:01H:39M>

- -

Erick was going to try and turn that timer down to 0, to unlock Rule changes in the dungeon.

Poi said, “You could put the core in a [Hasted Shelter] and make it count down fast on its own. No need for Wizardry at all.”

Erick paused in thought.

Solomon did too. And then Solomon answered, “Do the Wizardry, Erick.”

Erick said, “The [Hasted Shelter] idea is a good idea. It has merit. It’s a good way to visualize what I want to happen… But Solomon is right.”

Poi shrugged. “I just needed to say what both of you were thinking, to put it out there for discussion instead of left unsaid.”

Erick looked at Solomon, and Solomon looked at Erick.

“… Well, huh,” Solomon said.

“I’m only going to try to ‘add a switch’ to the timer,” Erick said, “And then if it works, we can add more switches in other places; try to make this a repeatable Wizardry.”

“That was always the hardest part; the repeatability,” Solomon said, “None of the Wizardry worked the same twice in a row.” And then he paused, adding, “Well… We can reliably copy spellwork through Wizardry; speaking to the mana instead of casting at all.”

Erick raised an eyebrow. “Have you tried that sort of Wizardry, yet?”

Solomon happily said, “It wasn’t working at the start of the dungeon delves, but after the second day I had 2,300 base mana production, and I was able to make tier 1 through 4 magic work through Wizardry alone.”

“Huh!” Erick asked, “What about mana costs?”

“About 25% costs, until tier 4, which was 110% costs. I have definitely lost that innate connection to the mana that I had as a Wizard, but with enough effort I believe I can get it back. I can figure out an ignition event, like Rozeta suggests is possible.” Solomon said, “The Janes were completely unable to replicate that spellwork trick, though.”

“… Huh. Well I guess I’ll be repeating those experiments, too. But first.” Erick looked up. “You’re sure there are no switches for you two to flip to make that timer go faster?”

“Correct.” “No switches.”

Erick focused.

He spoke.

“A small change to allow, in this dungeon of slime.

“A small switch installed now, an allowance of time.”

The air flickered.

Solomon and Poi both shuddered.

And then the sun-like core settled down…

Erick had a hard time understanding exactly when the core had been unsettled at all. Perhaps it was like noticing a sound only after the sound was gone? Or perhaps the addition of something new in the air that brought everything to a different sort of harmony?

Erick would be puzzled over that for a little while. Whatever it was, it had been Wizardry. Small Wizardry, for sure, but Wizardry all the same.

Solomon breathed in, then said, “Well… Okay. We have a timer switch, then.” And then he reached over to the still-visible black box, and touched the air near the timer. Over the ‘day’ category, Solomon touched a triangle above the number, and a day was added to the timer. Erick looked back through the past and saw that the timer had always had that switch above the numbers. And yet, in his memories, there had been no timer at all. And then Solomon pressed the switch below the day slot, and subtracted a day from the timer. It was the same deal with the ‘down’ switch; it wasn’t there, and then it was. As Solomon pressed the ‘down’ switch a few times, bringing the countdown to <00D:01H:39M>, he said what Erick was thinking, “I didn’t even see the down button before now. But… Yeah. It’s there. It was always there.”

Poi’s face was tense. “How much did that take out of you, Erick?”

“Not much at all,” Erick said. “… Four or five mana? Barely noticed it, and it’s already back.”

Solomon pressed the ‘down’ buttons on the rest of the timer, rapidly approaching 0, as he asked, “What do our first Rules look like?”

Solomon hit 0.

The entire screen shook, and then changed. A new black screen appeared. The largest part of that new screen was a blank area with a blinking white line on the left, reminiscent of the blinking line when one was writing on a computer. A much smaller part were all the numbers and words before that entry area.

- -

<22> new rules available for instantiation <today>.

<1,000,000> mana per new rule.

SPEAK NEW RULE HERE:

[_______________________]

Final upkeep cost of new rule is <estimate=~unknown>.

Accept new rule? Yes / No

- -

Erick said, “You know… It didn’t really hit me until just now, until seeing an entry area that uses natural language commands, that these cores are more Wizardry than natural magic. This whole dungeon space is Wizardry in the Dark, after all… And then again all natural magic is based on Wizardry.”

Solomon smirked. He said to Erick and Poi, “So I’m thinking ‘ability to designate absolutely-no-Script spaces with variable manasphere density’, to train for being cut from the Script, and also for making mana crystals.”

The box changed.

- -

<22> new rules available for instantiation <today>.

<1,920,000> mana for new rule.

<new rule uses 1.9 new rules>

SPEAK NEW RULE HERE:

[Creation of No-Script, variable-manasphere-density areas, at request of dungeon masters]

Final upkeep cost of new rule is <25,000/day per large-sized area created>.

Accept new rule? Yes / No

- -

Everyone looked at each other for a moment.

Erick decided, “Create the Rule.”

Nothing happened.

Solomon echoed, “Create the Rule.”

The dungeon core flickered overhead, bathing the area in a pulse of shadowy light that stretched out into the world, past the house, where that shadow light suddenly inundated the entire slime dungeon.

The Rule Change screen and the Rules screen both flickered, changing, followed by the dungeon status screen appearing, also changed.

- -

Rule Accepted.

<20> new rules available for instantiation <today>.

- -

- -

- -

RULES:

1: Script Interface, minimal settings

2: Auto-Resurrection, unlimited lives

3: Maximum Life Support, slime generation set to maximum; PLAIN SLIMES ONLY

4: Sanctity of Space, golem enforcement of life form level; MAXIMUM LETHALITY

~ Exceptions: Fallopolis, slimes, Erick Flatt, Jane Flatt, Ophiel, Yggdrasil, + Accompaniment

5: Direct access to Darkness

6: Creation of No-Script, variable-manasphere-density areas, at request of dungeon masters

~ Notification: mana escaping into the manasphere due to Script severing will be taken into the dungeon core through natural means. Beware rapid progression of any slimes or other beings should they be exposed to high levels of mana.

- -

Inflow: 1,750,000 per day

Outflow: 23,590,000 per day

Use: 197,500 per day

Masters: Solomon, Poi, <awaiting> x9

Bosses: Master Golem

- -

Erick read them all, and said, “Well then! That ‘notification’ on the Rule is kinda weird.”

“We can turn the roof of this mage tower into a… funnel, or something?” Solomon said, “Instead of letting it flow around all willy-nilly.”

Erick nodded. “I’ll probably raise a stone platform high above the first floor and put the no-Script area up there, and carve some stone channels so the extra mana flows down here to the core. The idea might need some adjustment if my severance from the Script is anything like it was beyond the Edge, but we can deal with that when the time comes.”

“All that is easily solvable without making another Rule change,” Solomon said.

“Looks like each Rule change costs maybe 1 million of the day’s excess mana production, too?”

“Looks like,” Solomon said. “Quilatalap always said it was different for every dungeon based on the solidity of the Rules being made.” Solomon looked to the air, focusing on something beyond Erick’s sight. “Feels like this dungeon is tuned toward very high parameters.”

Erick asked, “You think something is going on in the back-end? Some unseen Rules?”

“Well yes.” Solomon said, “I feel I could… lessen the exactitude of the Rules—”

“Nope,” Poi said, “I would prefer that each Rule does exactly what it says it does, with very little open to interpretation. That’s how you get rogue dungeons. If it takes a million mana to make a rule, and we can only have a max of 22 new rules per day, that is fine.”

Solomon looked to Poi, saying, “Are you sure that’s you saying that? And not the dungeon? Because I’m getting messages from the dungeon telling me to tell Erick not to lower that safety parameter at all.”

Poi frowned. “I know my mind, Solomon. In this case I agree with the core’s determination. I would prefer safety over Wizardry, even if Wizardry is the way this is all going to go. We leave the million-mana-new-Rule-cost alone.”

That was the first time Erick had seen either of them not act like normal people; that he had seen them speak as though they were extensions of the dungeon. They were not ‘normal’ people, though...

Erick brushed past all of that. They were Solomon and Poi, and it was what it was.

But Solomon had noticed Erick having those sorts of thoughts, since he did have all of Erick’s capabilities, while Poi ‘heard’ Erick have those thoughts more directly. Almost as fast as they had noticed Erick having a weird moment, they both had their own weird moments, due to Erick’s reflection upon them.

No one had any desire to tackle that topic now, or ever.

Poi said, “We leave the safety measures alone, even if they cost a lot.”

“I agree,” Solomon said.

“Let’s go make a testing area,” Erick said.

- - - -

A bit of [Stoneshape] and [Duplicate] soon had a large four-column spire of a platform raised into the air above the dungeon floor. Made of white stone, just like the dungeon, the new platform was located to the left of the hole that led to the house. It was about 50 meters wide, and circular-ish, and it was probably wholly inadequate for what was to come, but it would serve for now.

The slimes loved the new space.

Or rather, they were kinda angry at it. They swarmed the new pillars like rowdy kids, bunching up atop each other, trying to climb up the slick white stone. They soon gave up their ‘attack’, but they did prowl around the base of the building rather a lot.

Erick stood upon the edge, looking down at the dungeon floor. “I didn’t realize it at first, but they’re kinda violent for slimes.”

“They’re not that bad.” Solomon looked down at the slimes with him. “Normal slimes don’t attack others, but you normally never see slimes on their own in any sort of environment. They’re always a prey species. When it’s nothing but slimes, then slimes get aggressive.”

“I suppose this sort of aggression does happen in element-harvesting dungeons. Eh.” Erick turned away from the edge, to face the flat white platform ahead. It was mostly flat except for a ridge in the stone that drew a circle in the center of the platform, marking off a 30-meter diameter area. “I’m ready.”

Solomon nodded, then said to the air, “Emplace the void.”

A bubble that was not a bubble appeared in front of Erick, filling the platform up to the ridge in the white stone. The bubble was not solid, but it appeared that way due to the lensing of mana at the edges, looking like a layer of thick air.

The interior of that bubble was a complete, absolute void to Erick’s mana sense. Air and light still existed in that space, but the 0% manasphere density completely stopped Erick’s primary sense of the world. Erick stared at the space for a moment, expecting some sort of horror to climb out of it. But nothing happened. And yet...

“Gods above that’s freaky,” Solomon said, putting Erick’s own thoughts into words.

“It’s just like the 0% manasphere tests we did in the Glittering Depths,” Erick said, trying to get over his own trepidation.

“Bah! Those were done in a space we controlled, and which wasn’t an absolute void of Script and mana. This is different.”

“… Aye. This is different.” Erick squared his shoulders, and began walking forward, saying, “This is just like with the Anarchy Wizard! I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Solomon rapidly muttered, “Jesus fucking christ,” as he stepped far away, to hang in the air and surround himself with his sunform. He gripped the gold staff tight, as he watched. “Ah, fuck, here it comes—”

Erick had wasted no time in getting on with it, even though he had really wanted to. Erick’s foot went into the empty space, then his hand, and then the rest of him. It was like stepping into a cold shower, his entire body shivering at the point of contact, until that shower touched his core—

Knives. Hammers to the chest. Scalpels under the fingernails, tracing lines of fire from his extremities to his heart.

And then the floodgates opened.

With what he thought had been firm control over his body, Erick watched as his chest exploded outward, as white light splashed in every direction, his own Benevolence crystallizing upon his fingertips and ossified bones and flayed muscle in a riotous splash of carving color. Power shattered the platform underfoot and crashed against the world overhead—

Erick was larger than himself. He felt the world in that splash of mana all around him, even in the parts of him that expanded past the void-edge, into the other-mana, but those other-mana-parts were like being numbed by a dentist. His teeth extended everywhere, but his feeling was only there, in the center.

It was a little bit of euphoria, but only in the way that one gets when they fly high in the sky, unaided by others.

It lasted forever and a day, and also no time at all.

Erick came back to himself in small ways.

First, in the feeling of pressure around his head, and then more, as he pulled his head back together. His hands appeared next, and then came his left foot, then right foot. Stomach, legs, shoulders. Erick saw himself in multiple ways. The first was in the sea of Benevolence surrounding himself. The second, was through the lens of his own eyes, looking down.

The world was malleable, and so was he. Erick only needed to flick a thought and cause armageddon to appear here or there, but he would not do that, for he knew where he was. He was in a dungeon, in the Dark, near Ascendant Mountain. And there was nothing to fight here.

He was not in the sky above Quintlan. He was not fighting Anarchy. There was no need for an apocalypse.

He was safe as could be.

Erick pulled his chest back together, controlling himself into a person once again.

Amid a crystalline splash of pure Benevolence, Erick stood, grabbing onto a crash of white crystal to lift himself up onto his feet—

The crystal broke and Erick fell to the floor, smashing a bunch of smaller crystals in his fall. He lay there for a moment, simply breathing, simply bleeding. He was human again. Mostly. His black horns were out and his skin was crusted over here and there in white flakes and larger growths, but he was human again. Soon, the bleeding stopped. Soon, he was whole again.

His mana senses were back, too. Solomon had to have taken down the v—

Solomon stood atop the crystal near Erick, saying, “I took down the void. Obviously. So how was it this time? Bad as it looked?”

Erick cracked open an eye and white rock fell away from his sight. He looked up at Solomon. His voice cracked, “Not great.”

Solomon nodded.

“When did you take down the void?”

“About 3 seconds after the explosion. Took a moment for you to reconnect to the Script, but when you did, that’s when you started coming back together.” Solomon said, “Wizards are meant to learn this slower, for sure. Perhaps you can try it without the mana vacuum?”

Erick chuckled, and it hurt to chuckle.

Solomon nodded. “Yeah. Probably wouldn’t matter, vacuum or no. Not like you can tone down your mana generation, anyway.”

A moment passed in silence, and just laying there.

Solomon added, “You were probably numb inside the other mana, anyway, right?”

Erick nodded, there on the ground. The pain was mostly gone, but as he moved the pain came back. Still, he moved, stretching out his legs and breaking a few crystals in the process. And then he sat up. He was feeling a lot better as he looked up at Solomon, and said, “You wanna try?”

“Yes,” Solomon said, as he handed some clothes to Erick.

Erick got up, put on his clothes, and got a good look around as he did so.

He stood in a land of broken crystal, all of it pointed in his direction, as though he had been the center of an explosion, which is exactly what had happened. Some secondary crashes of power, or maybe some turbulence, had caused some white crystals to spike up and out on the edges of the platform, and even further, down on the ground of the dungeon floor, like Erick had cast a shadow of Benevolence upon the land. Which is exactly what he had done.

All of those mana crystals were already all evaporating and turning into thick air, which swirled and drained down the hole in the dungeon floor, near the house. Unaltered mana crystals couldn’t survive under the Script for very long.

Erick stepped into the air, to cast his gaze wider, as Ophiel landed on his shoulder and tweeted in concerned guitar noises. Erick patted him, saying, “I’m okay, Ophiel. Are you okay?”

“Don’t explode, dad.”

Erick smiled softly. “I’ll try not to, but no promises.”

Ophiel twittered in more concerned and slightly angry sounds; this time it was flutes, so he was definitely angry.

Erick cast his gaze outward.

Some slimes were playing on a particularly large Benevolence crystal… Or. No. They were trying to eat the crystal. The slimes of this dungeon came in every color of the rainbow, but the ones near the crystal growths here and there were definitely paler than the ones further away.

“… I’m sure it’s fine,” Erick said to himself.

The slimes of Benevolence Tower were all Benevolence slimes, and they were more docile than normal slimes in almost every case. It was fine if some of the slimes here became Benevolence slimes. Erick turned back toward the platform, where Solomon was using his sunform like a snow shovel, scraping away at the encrusting Benevolence, sweeping the larger hunks off of the platform. The small stuff had almost all evaporated already, but the larger stuff seemed to have some shelf life, with slimes swarming around the larger hunks and getting showered by the snow-like fragmented crystal. Cleaning up the platform took a matter of moments, and then Solomon looked up toward Erick in the distance.

Erick gave a thumbs up.

Solomon spoke something small to the staff in his hands—

The staff appeared next to Erick, to float there gently. To watch.

Solomon stood in the center of the platform, and then he activated the void.

… And nothing really happened.

Erick rushed closer, to stand on the edge, to look.

Solomon gazed at himself and smiled as he said to Erick, “Now this is doable!”

Erick couldn’t mana sense what was happening, but he could still use his eyes, and his All-Seeing Eye. That afforded him all the Sight he needed.

Solomon’s core was located next to his heart, connected to his entire body through an organized mess of shadowy mana arteries and veins that mirrored his natural circulatory system. Inside a normal person, on Veird, this shadowy vein system was functionally useless because the Script allowed aura control without the need for veins and arteries. But within the mana void of this dungeon…

Light trickled out of Solomon’s core, Benevolence and possibility flowing out through the arteries of his body, to reach his flesh, to soak outward, and then flow back to the core, through his veins. Amongst those systems of circulation lay every part of Solomon, from his bones to his brain to his stomach, guts, and all the rest, each with their own sponge-like quality to them, each taking in mana and making themselves slightly more Real among the reality of this shared space.

“That’s what you can do with 2,300 natural mana production?”

“Close to that,” Solomon said, “The measuring device Jane has is only an estimate.”

“Are you meditating right now?”

“Yes. Also aura controlling. I don’t feel like there’s any more body or soul for me to strengthen since we did that to the max a long time ago, but maybe there is? Let’s try dropping control for a moment.”

Solomon dropped control even as he said that’s what he was doing… And his internals continued circling as they usually did. But the circling slowed here and there. Imperfections in the flow multiplied. Benevolence slipped—

Solomon’s aura suddenly shifted, like a heart that stopped beating. Power still wafted out of his core, but it wasn’t controlled. Moving like a disturbing echo, that power broke blood vessels and—

Power cracked through shadowy veins and flexed back into order as Solomon grunted and frowned and took control. In the same moment the mana-void vanished, Solomon likely canceling that effect, and Solomon’s body began to heal from his internal injuries.

With a grunt, and bleeding lungs, he said, “Active control seems necessary to maintain working physicality.”

“Proper accretion is tying off mana flows so that active control is not necessary, and you did that. Except...” Erick frowned at himself. “But even inside Ar’Cosmos they don’t have mana actively pumping out of their cores all the time; the Script is still there, still throttling mana production.”

Solomon smiled. “Yup.” He fixed himself up all the way, as he said, “In the Old Cosmology, people were mana, and now they are more than mana. Having a body made of physical matter and a body made of soul and mana might be inherently incompatible. Maybe that’s why the people of Ar’Cosmos completely forgot about True Wizards, aside from the fact that they couldn’t make any True Wizards in the first place. Also, I imagine it’s hard for a dragon with only 5,000 mana production to fully crystallize when their bodies are that big. I know I couldn’t do it at 2300.” He looked down at himself. “… Probably not at anything less than… I don’t know. 100,000? Just to be safe?”

“Do you actually want to try for that? 100,000 mana production is very reachable.”

Solomon thought. “Yes. I do.” He asked, “Do you want to try again at 100% mana density?”

“I do.”

Solomon set the space up.

Erick exploded again.

Solomon hauled Erick back to his feet and then handed him another set of clothes, but Erick just shook his head at the clothes. They’d get ruined soon enough, anyway.

Solomon said, “Maybe try opening up a direction for the mana to escape, instead of letting it find its own way out.”

“I tried that with aura control. My vent wasn’t large enough... Or physical enough. Probably not physical enough, actually. Mana at this quantity is rather physical.”

“Maybe purposefully open a real hole in your chest?”

“Yeah, that’s the next step.” Erick frowned as he looked down at himself. “I might have to Wizard up a solution to the incompatibility between the physical and mana.”

Solomon said, “A better option might be starting in Benevolence form. Or at least do that for the area around your chest. No need to go changing how you work at a base level just yet.”

Erick smiled. “That’s a better option.”

Solomon added, “And besides that; you can let me go changing myself, first. Once you see the process at 100,000 mana production, adapting that process to 12 million might look more feasible.”

Erick raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you self-sacrificing now, too?”

“Ha! No.” Solomon said, “You can undo whatever Wizardry I might be able to do to myself, but the reverse is not true.”

“Don’t you get sacrificing on me, too. I’m barely able to keep up with Jane’s everything.”

Solomon nodded knowingly. And then he gestured to the space around them. “Try again?”

“Try again.”

- - - -

Rozeta glared at the ‘Erick Might Be Dead’ alarm as it went off for the third time today.

Melemizargo said, “You want some help tuning that alarm to be less intrusive?”

Rozeta glared at her father. “No. Now back to the problem of you having some sort of unknown connection to the Core, as made evident by Erick’s use of the Well to infiltrate this land, and how all of that is against current agreements.”

Melemizargo endured Rozeta’s tirade, only letting out a little sigh at the end. “I still don’t understand why you are blaming me for that. Erick did that.”

Koyabez and Phagar both frowned. Rozeta glared.

Melemizargo exclaimed, “What! It’s the truth!”