253 - End Book 8 (Patreon)

“Resons and infinity are easy to understand, yet hard to work with. This difficulty is the defining feature of magic in this New Cosmology.”

Guile sat on a high chair, the blonde fox’s ten tails wafting around his small form, his voice clear and solid as he spoke to Erick, Destiny, Solomon, and Ophiel, all sitting around the table in Erick’s house inside Benevolence Itself. All of them were all ears, even Ophiel, who seemed like he was remembering something he had forgotten more than he was learning something new. Perhaps Yggdrasil was the same way, for he was surely watching in on this conversation.

Erick felt a spike of melancholy lodge directly into his tattered core and soul, all of him feeling ragged from top to bottom, as he felt out that part of himself that used to connect to Yggdrasil and instead felt nothing. Just a wound.

He wiped away a stupid tear and tried to get back into the moment of solving the world’s problems.

But Guile looked at him.

Erick shook his head, then said, “Please continue.” Destiny and Solomon looked to him. Ophiel put his hand on Erick’s, and Erick held that hand tight as he tried to smile. Erick strongly said, “Please continue, Guile. I’m not good right now, but I will be good.”

Guile accepted that, and continued,

“In this New Cosmology:

“ ‘Infinity’ is the multiverse and everything which could have happened, but which has not happened. There is no ‘true universe’ like the one that the gods dominate and make real on Veird. Instead, every universe is valid and solid and constantly spilling into new universes, with some major caveats. If you can target it, you can arrive at it. We will get to targeting in a moment.

“To navigate infinity correctly is to become a small god in this New Cosmology.

“To understand ‘resons’, we must first understand that ‘resons’ are not what they are called in all languages, but instead what we would call them, in Ecks, here on Veird. Other acceptable words include amber, cognizance, synth, ‘resin’ as from trees, and ‘reason’ as from ‘reason for doing something’. We call them ‘resons’ because of a bastardization of language. A reson, in short, is a coalescing of purpose to affect a change.”

Erick smiled.

Solomon said what Erick was thinking, “It’s almost like that time we messed up confusing ‘worm season’ for ‘wyrm season.”

Destiny eyed them both, and for a moment, Erick was thinking in English as Destiny asked, “How could you confuse ‘okapah season’ and ‘wyrm season’? What even is okapah season?”

“A foible of language,” Erick said, then nodded at Guile.

“Probably not just a foible of language,” Guile said, looking intently at Erick and Solomon. “Language is magic; what else would you call putting vibrations out there in order to affect change in other systems of action, except for ‘magic’? Whatever experience you have with the word ‘reson’, I would hear it.”

“… Well.” Erick said, “That word is similar in English to ‘reason’, but also a bunch of other languages on Earth.”

Solomon said, “English is ‘reason’ but with a bit more ‘ee’ sound there in the middle, and ‘resin’ sounds just the same as Ecks’ ‘reson’. French has ‘raison’, Latin has ‘ratio’, Japanese has ‘riyu’, Spanish has ‘razon’… For that specific definition of ‘reson’ as, like, a ‘reason for being’, not all of Earth languages say ‘reason’ like Ecks says ‘reson’ by a [Long Bolt], but a lot do.”

Guile nodded. “The words of mana trickle into many languages; this is known. It is not too surprising that our ‘reason’ is so close to ‘reson’ which is close to your ‘reason’ and ‘resin’, but it does make sense for someone like yourself, with such a background, to have tunneled through the universe to Veird, alongside your daughter. The language of magic already touched you way back then, or perhaps you touched it first.”

Erick and Solomon thought about that—

And Destiny said, “Resons? Actual use, please.”

“As for the actual use of resons,” Guile continued, “That is where magic comes from.

“The concentrated reasons for your actions and desire become like a resin seeping slowly out of your soul, into the universe, becoming a fuel that you burn to enact a change how you desire by bringing forth the parts of infinity that most match what you want.”

Guile let that stand.

Because Erick and Solomon were both having a small epiphany.

“It’s what we’ve been doing in the Dark, then?” Erick asked.

Solomon said, “It sounds like what all magic is.”

“All multiversal theory, yes,” Erick added.

Guile interrupted. “Don’t go further with those thoughts, because magic in this cosmology is more difficult than working the Black Gate in the slime dungeon—”

“Hold on,” Destiny said, “I need an explanation. Are you talking about all magic being rift magic, Guile?”

“Multiversal magic,” Erick clarified.

“Yes, that.” Destiny said, “Solomon spoke to me a little about your ideas there, and they’re interesting.”

Guile said, “Rift Magic in the New Cosmology is not nearly as easy as we have it here on Veird, but it is still similar to Rift Magic that we have seen in the Black Gate, and pulling things out of the Dark.” Guile said, “For starters, there are limits to infinity in this New Cosmology, and vast, vast limits to magic, because all resons decay into the multiverse, creating more multiverses. It takes a very special sort of person to hold onto a pure enough reson to enact any sort of change in this universe.

“Mana is much, much easier to work with.

“Pulling a fireball out of resons would require there to be fire in a nearby infinity that you can reach, and for you to really, really want that fire to explode on a target, or some other way. For all but Wizards, simply starting a fire with a bomb brought in from elsewhere would be easier than attempting magic. Even for Wizards, you would be better served by bringing a bomb you made with you and bringing forth the possibility that you exploded the bomb on the target, while keeping the bomb still unexploded and useful more than once.

“The closer the possibility, the easier it is to bring forth.

“For instance, if you are walking along the lava of a volcano then it would be easy to imagine a universe where lava exploded up from that pool to strike a target flying ahead. However, summoning a fountain of water from the lava would be near impossible.

“The waterball would require Wizardry because, much like the Bands of the Script, infinity in this universe is parceled out into primaries. It takes a Wizard to reach across those primary demarcations. And no, I have no idea how big a primary is, only that they exist.

“Making a [Fireball] out of mana is easy. You can pull Fire from the Elemental Plane of Fire and slam it into a target, or you can accrete Fire in your core and launch it forward at a later date. Or you could mana alter your mana into Fire and do the same thing. You can’t do that with resons and infinity.”

Guile went quiet, waiting.

Erick was the first to ask a question. “How many resons does it take to flip a switch?”

“I have no idea.”

Solomon asked, “What is Wizardry in this universe, then?”

Guile nodded, then said, “Primary demarcations in infinity are like the bands of elements here on Veird, but larger. For instance, I believe the God Pact world of Veird would be a primary. Nothanganathor is likely constantly trying to reach us, but we have secured a personal infinity for ourselves, through one way or another. I know not how.

“Other such primaries are the world of Earth as it is today versus the infinities of worlds where life did not arise on Earth, though I am less sure about that since I am not there, and I cannot go off of anything about Earth except that which Solomon has told me.

“Wizardry would be a guy from Earth suddenly shoving himself across the universe to step onto the God Pact world of Veird.

“Wizardry would also be someone mapping the entire universe in a blink, even though this cosmology could never possibly allow such a thing due to the speed of light… Unless there are shenanigans afoot. Perhaps, when you Mapped the universe you merely tapped into something that already existed. Yes. That is probably what happened.

“Wizardry would be stepping off of Veird, onto a rocky planet that is Veird, but completely dead, with no Red Leviathan on the sun at all. A Veird that died and took Nothanganathor with it.” Guile said, “I highly doubt it would be possible to Wizard up a Veird in which Nothanganathor is not a threat, or rather, you possibly could, but you would just be leaving all of us behind in this universe. You will not have solved anything at all, except to save your own skin.”

“Well that’s not part of the plan at all,” Erick said, picking up what Guile was putting down.

Guile breathed out, seeming to relax a moment, saying, “I appreciate this.”

Solomon had been suddenly concerned, but then he relaxed, too. He asked, “Do you think Veird is on the same slice of infinity as Earth? My Earth?”

Guile said, “By the process of logical deduction, I would assume that most civilizations of the New Cosmology are on the same slice of infinity, except those which germinate from Wizards punching through to new slices of infinity, and establishing life there. So this means, either, that Earth exists on this slice of infinity, or it is close, and there are probably markers somewhere that would guide people to the main slice of infinity upon which all of the universe interacts.

“Someone has to have built a main hub or even billions of main hubs somewhere, yes?

“As for your Jane being on any of those Other Earths, I have no idea.” He added, “In all likelihood, Nothanganathor has attacked us from a slice of infinity that held no one, thus ensuring his project to destroy the Old Cosmology went off without a problem, but I see that as unlikely because… I don’t know, actually. I was speaking too much there, without much knowledge. Nothanganathor certainly did not destroy the entire Old Cosmology on his own, did he? Doubtful. And yet...

“We have reached the end of my knowledge of infinity and resons—

“Ah. One thing.

“I believe I said resons are like amber? That would be the blood of trees. Resin. Yggdrasil will soon start producing vast amounts of amber, reson, resin, synth, etcetera, rather soon, if not already. He will likely hide this resource here, inside Benevolence and use it for Erick’s plan, or, if that is not necessary, it will become the start of Yggdrasil’s own Wizardry… Perhaps his New Cosmology Wizardry, though. Not Old Cosmology Wizardry. Or however it works for World Trees out in this cosmology. I am unsure. Trees usually get bigger and less prone to disruption, so I imagine that will be the direction of his growth; an ultimate fortress of strength.

“Probably not capable of fighting off Nothanganathor yet, though. Maybe if he grows a thousand times the size of Veird, but probably not even then…

“And I have reached the speculation stage again. Apologies.”

Guile stopped.

Erick had no idea of Yggdrasil’s power, and he didn’t want to use that as a part of his plan, so he said, “Yggdrasil is a part of the plan, but a safer part than what I will be doing. I wanted both him and Ophiel born so they could survive what comes next, even if I fail.” He said to everyone at the table. “And that’s kind of an issue. The whole problem with us, here, doing this.

“Veird has survived a long time without me being here; without us working against the Red. If we do nothing, Veird will continue to survive. If I do something— If we do things, then Veird is in danger—”

“We’re already in danger,” Destiny said. “This red dragon is fucking everything up for all of us. He must die. We MUST sunder him. There is no question of that.”

Solomon said, “We can leave the roaches in the basement and they won’t kill us as long as we don’t go down there. But I am with Destiny. I have too many plans in life to allow something like Nothanganathor to exist, to rip at us from the edges and kill us if we get too far out of line. Because that’s what it looks like to me, Erick. This isn’t a case of us ‘multiversal outrunning’ the Sundering, as you think it is. It looks like a ‘cat playing with its food’ situation. When Veird plays dead the cat gets bored, but it could still kill us at any time.”

Guile spoke up, “I prefer Erick’s comparison to a farmer raising fish. It seems to me that we were allowed to get back in line; allowed to retreat to the God Pact. It won’t touch us overmuch if we stay in line. But when we get out of line, it comes for us. I feel that it wants something from us. Or rather, from Veird.”

Destiny frowned at the fox. “You’ve been talking to Melemizargo too much.”

She wasn’t wrong, exactly. Guile was parroting Melemizargo’s old insanity, which was insane, yes, but based on facts that he couldn’t share with anyone.

Erick and Solomon shared a look.

Erick decided to stick up for Melemizargo, saying, “It seems more and more likely that Nothanganathor does want something, and he doesn’t want to allow us to escape his clutches, because if we escape, then he won’t get what he wants.”

“What could it be, though?” Solomon looked up, out, and shrugged a little—

Then he froze.

Erick felt a little jolt of power.

Destiny focused, and then she gasped.

Solomon went, “Oh.”

All three spoke in unison,

“The Mantle of the God of Magic.”

Ophiel softly said, “Never repeat that ever again.”

Erick felt a chill up his spine, and he knew they were right. Absolutely, 100% correct. Nothanganathor’s entire reason for the Sundering, for killing a universe, was to get control of the power of Darkness as the God of Magic… or maybe he just wanted to be the God of Magic? Erick wasn’t entirely sure what the God of Magic did, exactly, but Melemizargo had been the ultimate power in the Old Cosmology, and that Mantle passed down a family line…

Oh.

Nothanganathor was a family relation to Melemizargo?

Maybe?

Was the ‘Red Leviathan’ a leviathan? Or a dragon? Was there a difference, when dragons bred with everyone anyway? Ophiel had called Nothanganathor the Dragon Who Could Not Ascend, the Erased One…

But in addition to that, when considering the family history of where Old Cosmology dragons even came from in the first place…

Nothanganathor was at least a distant relative of the original Daughter of Fairy Moon and Gregarious; the very same Daughter who became the first Goddess of Magic, the first Dragon God, She Who Made Shadow. Or at least that’s how the fae told the story.

The Shades’ version of the creation of the Old Cosmology had the Dark Dragon making a middle path between Light and himself, thus creating Shadow, and thus the first God of Magic, in order to allow people to commune with the Dark. There were a lot of similarities between the two stories, but the actual attributions were different in both tales.

Erick believed the Fae version of events a tiny bit more than the Shade version. Fairy Moon had never lied to Erick, ever, but the Shades were born on Veird and they had grown up under an insane Melemizargo. The Shades might not have lied, either, not exactly, but they weren’t anywhere near Fairy Moon’s first hand account of simply being there for the birth of their universe.

Guile’s fur fluffed out in fear, at the thought of Nothanganathor targeting the Mantle of Magic. Perhaps he had made a whole lot more connections than Erick had in that possible revelation of intents. And then Guile shook himself and settled down. “Let us move on, please. I would speak of True Wizardry in the New Cosmology now.”

Erick, Solomon, and Destiny were also glad for the switch.

“In the Old Cosmology, a Wizard was a focal point of depths too deep for anyone else to change. Throw a fireball at them, and they could stop the fire any ten thousand ways, or they could just let it hit them and it would be like throwing a drop of water onto an ocean; not accomplishing much of anything at all. A Wizard achieved this by transforming into a full crystal that was also themselves and alive, but it only looked like a crystal. They were basically a mana ocean unto themselves. Their crystal self would be very, very dense, containing billions of mana effortlessly.

“In short: if a Wizard was enough of themselves that nothing else could touch them, and they remade the universe in their desired images always, then they were a Wizard in True.

“That was in a universe of pure mana, though.

“In the New Cosmology, a Wizard is much the same as in the Old Cosmology, but infinite multiverses complicate things. Perhaps you distribute damage among everyone? And healing among everyone? Perhaps you become a gestalt of all others, like Solomon is becoming? All good possibilities.

“I believe Yggdrasil will become an Old Cosmology sort of Wizard, growing ever larger and containing more and more mana of very high density, and such and such. Trees grow big. It is easy for them. But perhaps Yggdrasil will go the other way? I do not know. I don’t know how he could be a New Cosmology Wizard, but I have been surprised a lot lately. Either way...

“You cannot grow larger, so you have to go the other way, as most Old Cosmology Wizards would do, though they would also be partially on their own plane of mana at all times, too, so they did not have to deal with concepts of infinity, except with regard to Creation Wizards, who were the most largest of Wizards… Usually.

“Wizards are complicated. You don’t need to be too complicated, though.

“Just grow infinitely inward.”

Erick nodded a little, having already had a lot of these thoughts, but Destiny had never been exposed to this idea before, and Solomon was only most of the way, mentally, to where Erick was right now.

Destiny asked, “What the fuck? Infinitely inward?”

“We have examples.” Solomon said, “Some of those metamond crystals from the Glittering Depths. Are there any here— Ah. There’s this one. Wheatly?”

Solomon’s bracelet uncoiled from his arm, becoming a 3 meter tall solid gold mirror in the shape of a staff with a coil of gold at the top that surrounded a brilliant white sphere. The mirror reflected wheat fields, while the white sphere was filled with the silent radiance of Benevolent lightning.

Solomon said, “Wheatly’s sphere is an infinitely-inward space of power and intent. Or at least it can be.”

“… hmm...” Destiny narrowed her eyes on Wheatly’s core, as she asked, “Please explain the concept of infinity-inside to me. So we’re on the same book.”

Erick held up two hands, separated a little, saying, “Imagine the number 1 here, and the number 0 here. Pick a point between 1 and 0 and you’ll always be able to move left or right without crossing over a previous point. You can go from .5, to .4, to .45, to .44, to .445, to .444, to .4445, to .4444, and so on and so on, never reaching a point where you cannot go deeper into the space between.”

Destiny cocked an eyebrow. “Ah. Well. That explains that. And since mana is possibility, it can just do that.”

Solomon said, “Correct. Though it does take some convincing and the laying of a framework to get that started.”

Destiny held up a hand and mana began falling inward, into a spot of power that never grew brighter or bigger, but which fell inward and inward and inward. “That’s not that hard.”

“… How much mana did you put in there?” Solomon asked, as Destiny kept pumping the tiny dot full of what appeared to be Benevolence.

“At about ten thousand right now.” Destiny added, “That’s 20,000. Yeah. This is easy. Huh.” And then she snapped her hand and the mana exploded and then did not, flowing back into her body without damaging anything. “Okay. That’s simple. I’m going to expand my core using that method.”

Erick and Solomon paused. And then both of them laughed.

“That’s fantastic!” “Ah, that’s great.”

Erick wasn’t sure how she had managed that so effortlessly, for the Script actively prevented mana crystals from forming, and yet she had done exactly that. She had created a metamond outside of any no-Script space. Of course it had exploded in short order, but that was normal.

Solomon added, “You’re amazing, honey.”

“What! Like it’s hard?” Destiny said, smirking, knowing exactly how much she had impressed them. And then she admitted, “It might have been a little hard. The start was the hardest.”

Erick asked, “Can you do that with every single kind of mana, all of them along different axes, in a multi-resonant sort of crystal?” He said, “I’m pretty sure that’s how to get True Wizardry, but that is, I believe, impossible inside the Script, for many reasons.”

Guile spoke up, “While the nature of the Script simply preventing True Wizards is something we should discuss, I would advise all of you to not speak of your personal Wizard Ways. Every end goal of True Wizardry is the same; to become a slice of reality unto yourself. The ways in which you get there are as varied as the numbers of stars in the sky, and to use the methods of others is to impair your own Truth.”

Destiny said, “I’m really not interested in pursuing True Wizardry right now, because I am absolutely sure that Nothanganathar doesn’t like that, because why else would there never have been any True Wizards on Veird… Which makes me wonder if he put some shit into the Script to stop us from claiming our Truths.”

“He is the ‘Dragon Who Could Not Ascend’.” Solomon said, “And the Script is an adversarial system, accepting all valid inputs, because otherwise it could not exist. So yeah. Nothanganathor probably put shit into the Script, just like Melemizargo did, just like the Old Demons did. Just like everyone does.”

“He’s a malevolent asshole,” Destiny said, then added, “Times infinity.”

Erick and Solomon grinned at that.

Guile asked, “What specific things are you referring to, Erick, when you say you believe True Wizardry is impossible under the Script?”

Erick nodded, then said, “In the worlds where I escaped the Storm, the Storm destroyed the Script first, and I started releasing mana almost like a gentle fog. No exploding. Nothing deadly at all. I’m not sure what, exactly, the Script is doing to us, but it was meant to curb the excesses of Wizards anyway, so there’s no way to ascend to Wizardry inside this manasphere… Which is about all I want to say on that.”

Solomon frowned a little, but he saw that Erick didn’t want to talk about his plans, so he let it be.

Destiny hummed. Then asked, “So you’re planning on escaping Veird somehow and accreting resons out there? Or something?”

Solomon huffed a tiny laugh, as Destiny said what he had been planning on letting go unsaid.

Erick smiled, and said, “I’m not sure.”

“Yeah yeah. I get it. Fine fine. No talk of plans.” Destiny asked, “So how do we accrete resons and what good are they if mana is so much better?”

Guile said, “You must have a concentrated reason for what you want, and the resons make that happen. Controlling that power is something that must be learned. I do not know how.”

Erick thought he understood what Guile was saying, but he wasn’t sure. “Are you speaking about the act of Wizardry, as in ‘I will it into being, and thus it is so’? We must accrete that capability? We must accrete the very capability of ‘intent’, ‘communication’, etcetera?”

Guile nodded. “Yes. There is no true mana in this New Cosmology. Every single act of magic is Wizardry, no matter how small, all of it communicated through the multiverse of infinity by resons, which bring those possibilities here, to this current instance of infinity. Of course, the same could have been said for the Old Cosmology, and that would have been partially correct, but not fully.”

“So you’re saying that our acts of intent created resons, Guile?” Solomon asked, to see if he was understanding this new concept completely.

“Yes,” Guile said. “I imagine you will be able to use your mana production gained from the Dark dungeons in order to fake your way to reson capability, but none of you are reson-based Wizards, except maybe Erick, and that is a big ‘maybe’. I imagine that the overall difference between an Old Cosmology Wizard and a New Cosmology Wizard are a lot smaller and more nuanced than we might think. I do know that the Old Cosmology had a separation of general Wizardliness between Creation, Destruction, and Paradox. I imagine that perhaps only Paradox exists in this New Cosmology, though that feels wrong for me to say.”

Erick and Solomon thought for a moment—

And Destiny rapidly said, “Yeah yeah. A universe where only Wizardry exists; no small mages and magics. Sure. What about how Wizards have bodies on this side of reality and mana realities on the other side? Like Erick with Benevolence? How do resons work with that?”

Guile said, “A great question. I have no idea.”

“Well…” Erick began, “In the Old Cosmology, everyone was mana, and that mana created side realities and personal bodies, right?”

“Correct,” Guile said, “Everyone made mana and made themselves in the process, but everyone also started off as a collection of Other, and purging the Other while keeping oneself intact was an important part of the ascent to Wizardry. That’s the crystallization of True Wizardry we speak of. If a person failed to maintain oneself and their full Wizardry self at the same time, Paradoxically, they would die. Many people never went further than archmage levels of power to avoid that final ascension, which is simply the gathering of a lot of mana in one’s core, to use as one wishes.”

Erick said, “So maybe True Wizardry with resons and infinity involved, in this New Cosmology, is just the same. The Wizard becomes a person who can step through infinity to their other selves and ensure that they never die or are harmed through the use of multiversal shenanigans.”

“So those other realities of infinity correlate with the realms of mana?” Solomon asked.

“Probably more complicated than that, but yes,” Erick said. “I imagine a capable Wizard could even start using their other selves to produce resons, if they become one with all their other selves or something like that. That seems like it would be ‘stealing the darkness’ from others, though; what Jane called ‘demon cultivation’ that one time.”

Solomon huffed a laugh. “ ‘Demon cultivation’! Ha. The incani did not like that.”

Erick smiled. “Yeah.” Then he said, “But if you ask for the resons from others, thus empowering yourself, then that seems more ‘cooperative cultivation’.”

“Plus, we’ve already invented [Renew], so that seems like it would…” Solomon paused. “Yeah. That’s probably the Benevolent Path working, isn’t it. Making mana of all types able to feed into other mana types. It probably works across more than just your own other selves’ mana, too.”

Erick nodded. Solomon had gotten to the thought at almost the same time Erick had. Erick expanded that thought, saying, “Maybe we could ‘cultivate’ whole other worlds. Maybe it’d be like using Mana Siphon. We could siphon the mana of a billion side universes that weren’t using that mana anyway, to use that mana here.”

Solomon went, “Huh. Have you tried using Mana Siphon on the Red Sparks?”

“I have not. Not directly. And yet… I think that’s part of how Benevolence is working at its base. How Yggdrasil is protecting us. How all of that is working. Mana Siphon is a reverse [Renew] that picks at the stray power of whatever spellwork we’re touching, using that power to bring power to ourselves. It doesn’t work that well against direct strikes, but it does work really well at sustained magical conflict on wide scales. The more surface area we expose to the enemy magic, the more disruption and siphon that occurs.”

Destiny went, “You lost me there.”

Guile and Ophiel simply watched.

“Okay. Well. Back on subject:” Erick said, “Cultivating resons—”

“We’re not calling it accreting?” Destiny asked.

“I’d rather not; that would be confusing,” Solomon said.

Destiny nodded.

Erick continued, “Cultivating resons sounds like performing Wizardry to enact a will upon a space. Perhaps there is a base unit of power? What does 1 reson do? How many resons does one person produce in a day? Where do they actually come from?”

Guile said, “No idea. No idea. No idea. No idea.”

Solomon said, “Well look on the bright side. I’m rather sure if there is a ‘demon cultivation’ versus a ‘cooperative cultivation’ then Nothanganathor is for sure the first, which would explain why he can’t find us. There’s only one of him.”

“So we need to go wide,” Erick said, “To escape him fully.”

“That does seem logical,” Solomon said, “But we just don’t know what we don’t know.”

“And then there’s the whole ‘what about time and space magic’ thing,” Erick said. “Can resons even do Time Magic? Soul Magic? Anything like that?”

Guile spoke up, “Considering the nature of the Old Cosmology as a thing-that-could-be-destroyed-in-days versus this New Cosmology which contains infinity in multiple ways, and considering that this universe does have a beginning in the Big Bang —according to Solomon— and is growing, then that means that this universe is stable. Perhaps quite a lot more stable than the Old Cosmology. In my opinion, this means that this New Cosmology is much more limited in what magic can do. Time Magic is probably not happening for New-Cosmology-Only spellwork. But also! This means that you, as Wizards with Old Cosmology powers in this New Cosmology, have access to mana and those powers, which will likely stick around through whatever other powers you encounter in this New Cosmology.

“It is certainly due to the powers of mana that we have been able to escape the Red Leviathan for all this time.”

Erick took that in, thought for a moment, and said, “Interesting.”

Solomon nodded—

“Okay okay!” Destiny said, “Let’s circle back to what we do know. Let’s go over your Mana Siphon and the Red Sparks… Are you saying you’re eating Malevolence? I find that very interesting. It mirrors what he is doing to us.”

Erick paused.

Solomon paused.

They looked at each other.

“Want to go try it?” Erick asked. “See if we’re actually doing that?”

Yggdrasil appeared. “Not necessary. I am doing this right now; question answered.”

And then he vanished again.

Erick called out, “You and I are having a talk about everything that happened and soon, Yggdrasil.”

Ophiel grinned happily.

Destiny eyed the ceiling, then the room, waiting for Yggdrasil to show. He did not. So Destiny said, “Okay. Then what about how we’re surviving outside of the Script, and how to come back from being caught by the Red Sparks. I want to talk about that now.”

Solomon said, “Which leads to a different question, first: There’s mana out there, outside of Veird. But it’s outside of our control. Can we leave the Edge and not be instantly dead due to the vacuum of space?”

Destiny frowned at Solomon. “Obviously.”

“Well okay then,” Solomon said. “I wasn’t sure it was obvious.”

Erick nodded, then began, “The first time I came back from Sininindi’s Death World, Sininindi helped me, and I felt home, here, like Benevolence leading me back through cracks in reality, widening the path. Lightning suddenly connected me from where I was, to where I wanted to be. The second time I did that on my own. It was the Lightning Path.”

Destiny’s eyes sparkled as she leaned forward, asking, “So you saw the Lightning Path and walked it?”

“… Do you see a Lightning Path right now?” Erick concentrated on the conversation and saw the best way forward—

Erick and Destiny spoke at the exact same time, “It’s like this, then. A simple view change. A Benevolent way forward. We simply have to find the Path and walk it well.”

Erick dropped the Path. “Ah. Freaky.”

Destiny blinked out some lightning from her eyes, smiling as she said, “That’s my Benevolent Chaos! You found it!”

Solomon leaned forward, “We need to try doing that again, Destiny.”

Erick and Destiny both held out a hand to him, as they held out a hand to each other and linked grips, the two of them saying, “Take a hand, man.”

Solomon laughed, and then put his palms into Erick’s and Destiny’s.

Lighting met Lightning. Path met Path.

A Way Forward opened.

And all three of them spoke together, “Everyone has to get there on their own, but no one is ever alone.”

They released hands at the same time and lightning sparked across those fading touches, like the breaking of power lines, white jolts tracing moss and mushrooms across the round table between them. The mushrooms glowed white.

Solomon smiled.

Erick grinned.

And Destiny said, “Okay! So. Loved that. Moving on to actual plans for the fight, now?”

Erick said, “I have a plan. Solomon has a plan. But what I want to know is where you’re going to strike first, Destiny.”

Destiny grinned wildly, saying, “To start, I want to tackle the lending houses of the Wasteland—”

Erick opened his mouth to object.

“—Let me finish! I know it’s a bad look with the incani/human stuff, but I was talking to Avandrasolaro, and he wants to get into overhauling all of Hell’s contractual law, and...”

The conversation went on and on, with many topics circled and tackled from different angles, multiple times. They spoke of resons and infinity. Of the Lightning Path. Of Destiny’s plans for problem cleansing. Of a lot.

And all the while, the Benevolent Sky, with its ‘death of Benevolence Marker’ hovering 450 years out, began to recede. To fall further out of sight. To fracture and change and become ten smaller events that spread out far and wide, none of them too certain at all. That wasn’t too surprising. As Wizards moved they changed the world, and there seemed to be more and more Wizards around these days.

And yet, the Sky was not perfect. For every tangle of black in the Sky that denoted some good possibility, some axis upon which everything could be made better, Benevolence still tangled dark and deadly here and there.

Red Sparks hovered inside some of those black tangles.

But not too many.

The Red Eye itself was nowhere to be seen.

- - - -

Erick stood on the viewing platform in front of the Benevolent Sky. A permanent gate to House Benevolence held to the side, surrounded by a complicated series of defensive structures both magical and mundane. Beyond those Illusion Magics and Blood Magics and Scanning spellwork and adamantium door, lay the Benevolence Research Center. Overseer Aisha and Teressa Rednail were in office today, with Teressa doing prognostications for official visitors asking for prognostications and Aisha sometimes doing the same. Teressa was fully pregnant right now, though, so she couldn’t do too much non-Script magic without endangering the baby, so her schedule was light. Neither of them were in Benevolence Itself right now.

It was just Erick.

Not even Ophiel, for Ophiel was hanging out with Destiny and Solomon at the house. Erick, Solomon, and Destiny had spent the last three days talking about everything under the sun, which was a funny way to think about their conversations. ‘Under the sun’. Hah.

Solomon and Destiny were getting along well with each other, and also with Ophiel, though Ophiel was only a tenth there at any one time, except when one of him died trying to rescue people from around the world from various dangers. Really now. Erick was very tired of Ophiel getting himself killed, but… He wasn’t really dying.

Erick hoped Ophiel never died.

He hoped Yggdrasil would be okay. Erick had showered Ophiel with love every chance he could get, but Yggdrasil was distant right now. They had only shared a few quick words since Yggdrasil swallowed the sun’s power and spat Veird into a better universe at his birth, which Erick was still coming to terms with.

Jane, Abigail, Bethany, Candice, and Evan, were all working together with Champion Fallopolis and the former Champion of Melemizargo, Verrod of Vast Skies, in order to do some stuff with the dungeons; Erick wasn’t wholly sure. The Shade messes from the release of all those Shades from Sininindi’s dungeon were all cleaned up, but the girls and Evan were still working with the Shades. Erick didn’t get into it too much with them, but he would soon. When he got back to reality.

Erick, Solomon, and Destiny were all going back soon. Not right now. But soon.

Erick hoped they would all be okay when he was gone. They should be. Ophiel was already sad, knowing what was coming. Solomon suspected Erick’s plan, and probably knew 90% just from pure deduction. Destiny probably knew the general shape of the plan, but only in the vaguest of ways. Yggdrasil knew the whole thing, for sure.

He knew.

They all knew something big was coming.

Erick breathed deep, and then Called out, “Rozeta. Can we talk?”

Rozeta’s white wrought form stepped onto the platform with Erick, smiling a little. “You look good, Erick. Your soul isn’t tattered much at all.”

“Thank you,” Erick said, feeling melancholy and trying not to show it.

“… Is something wrong?”

“Just plans being made. I feel a lot smaller than I used to be.” And then he got right into it, saying, “I’d like your death switch relaxed, please, but not removed. I’m going to need to use part of that whole thing soon.”

“… You’re going to try and do the True Wizard thing.” Rozeta said, “I don’t believe my switch is interfering with you.”

“Everything is interfering. The switch is just one such interference.”

“Ahhh. I see, then. I can do this ask of yours. This is not a problem.”

Erick smiled. “Thank you.”

“… Are you okay, Erick?”

“It’s ascension, and I think I know what to do, but the bad outcome is death and that happens to most Wizards that try, yes?”

Rozeta said, “I don’t believe that will happen to you. You already tried several times and didn’t 100% die, so the only way you might die is if you don’t have anyone there for you, and you’re not going to do that, because you’re not careless. I know you, Erick, and I believe I know what is truly bothering you, and it is the lack of [Familiar]s, and your changing life. You don’t have Yggdrasil or Ophiel there all the time anymore, because now you have to look at them from the outside, like all the rest of us do.”

Erick grinned. “That has a lot to do with it, yes.” And then Erick lost his grin, saying, “Ophiel is constantly pulling people out of danger the world over due to prognostication telling him to help people in certain places, but he keeps getting himself killed. It’s like he forgot how to defend himself, and his low regeneration isn’t helping him at all.

“I think I pissed Yggdrasil off a lot by telling you about the Computer Mage.

“I have no idea what the girls and Evan are up to, and Destiny and Solomon are an item now, you know.

“The House is the House and I really should get back to that but I have a lot of other things to do for Melemizargo still with this Sundering Search, but also with this Lifeblood Heart thing.” He breathed. He asked, “So where do you want to start fixing some problems? Any problems of your own?”

“Let’s go through your concerns first.” Rozeta conjured some chairs and sat down, pouring Erick some hot tea as she began, “Ophiel’s Status is a special case.”

Erick sat down. “He showed it to me, and while it is odd, his mana regeneration is what concerns me. How long till he’s paid back my debt?”

Rozeta nodded. “You did an extensive [Death’s Approach] with him, using 20-odd years of mana regeneration well before it was actually here. This would have burned out much of his soul, as [Death’s Approach] does. Normally, he would simply have died from that, but the Script can do a lot, and one of the things it does is ensure [Familiar]s survive. Ophiel is going to be fine, and it won’t take him 20 years to pay back that mana he used, either, for that sort of debt is just something that cannot be repaid. So it will be a gift, from me to you, and one I was not exactly expecting to give, but which I am happy to do.

“Ophiel will still have about a year of downtime, though. I can mitigate his issues, but time is a better healer than I by far. If I were to try and actually fix him I would need to replace the broken parts of him and that would be soul surgery, which would change him, which I will not be doing. In the meantime, the Script gives him mana as it does everyone, though he is only receiving a tenth of what his Status says he produces. That I can’t fix either.”

“Can I pay some of his debt? Or all of it? It’s my debt.”

“No, you cannot. You produce a lot more mana than you actually use on most days, so you would think that would give you a surplus, but mana is not something like money. It cannot be transferred that easily.”

Erick gave her a Look. “[Renew].”

Rozeta rolled her eyes. “If you want to do some [Renew] magic you can, but I cannot do that. I won’t do that. Before you try, though, I urge you to simply let Ophiel grow up in Benevolence. Let him have a childhood with you or with the people of House Benevolence, and even with random adventurers he rescues from the world. He doesn’t need to be out in the real world right now.”

“… Fair enough.” Erick asked, “Yggdrasil and his girlfriend?”

Rozeta froze for a moment. And then she thawed. “Ahh. Girlfriend. That explains a lot.”

“I haven’t had much chance to talk to Yggdrasil for he has said he’s busy, but I have talked to him a little bit about the Computer Mage.”

“Let’s circle back to that later.” Rozeta asked, “Are you going to keep working with Solomon and the Black Gate?”

“He’s doing well with that on his own, and I want to let him have that. I want him to succeed. He’s very focused on getting Debby back; his Jane.”

Rozeta was purposefully calm as she said, “You believe his delusion of Debby, then.”

Talking about anyone taken by the Red always drew the Red, and this time was no different, except no Red spilled out of the air, or out of anywhere inside Benevolence. The Red flickered behind Rozeta’s white wrought eyes. The Script itself was infected with Red, but then again everything was infected with Red, except for Benevolence.

To poke further at the Red was to invite it, though.

So Erick said, “Perhaps it’s a lie, but it is one that keeps him going, which grounds him in purpose and power.”

“And what happens after he gains his purpose?”

“… Are you worried about the Lifeblood Heart rescue?”

“Of course I am worried about that. I am worried about Solomon’s delusions, but of the Heart itself, I am worried what it might do that I have not accounted for, and all the problems it might solve, even though it will bring along new problems of its own. I admit, my worries are less right now, because of a whole slew of worries that have been removed from the board, from that Prophesied Storm, to Ophiel’s birth, to Yggdrasil’s birth… Melemizargo hasn’t tried anything yet, which is surprising. He is waiting, though. Preparing.” Rozeta said, “Though to say that makes me sound like a broken record—” She grinned. “—To use the phrase you have brought to Veird from Earth, and then made real through the invention of records. You should know that Ezekiel is doing amazing things with small technologies. I hope to link him up with the Computer Mage in some way… But now you tell me that Yggdrasil has feelings for the Computer Mage, and thus my original plan is out the window.”

Erick smiled a little. “Seems like you still have a lot of concerns of your own, too.”

“Always and forever, Erick.”

“I’m letting Destiny loose on the world more.”

Rozeta suddenly sighed. “Really now.”

“Yes. I’m giving you a heads up. She needs to work more than she is. Yggdrasil sees lots of problems with the world, too, and he also wants to help. He considers Solomon and Destiny his uncle and aunt, you know. I love that, so I am encouraging it.”

“… Solomon and Destiny are truly together, then?”

“I found out myself the other day.” Erick asked, “What are you going to do with the Computer Mage?”

“Nothing, for now, if you can keep an eye on her through her time at your school.”

“I can’t do that. She would be singled out, and that could be bad. She doesn’t even have a Benevolence ring around her neck right now. It’s a very ‘in the air’ possibility that she’s the Computer Mage.”

“But you believe she is, and Yggdrasil does too.”

“Yes.”

“Is Yggdrasil going to attend school with her?”

“That was the original plan. Did he say one way or the other?”

“He said he was, yes… But Erick... Every immortal ever, always falls in love with a mortal to start. This has the expected result. Some people arrive at immortality because they lead normal, mortal lives, and they experience mortal death, and they decide to never go through that ever again. Some immortals try to pretend they’re something smaller than they are, and this has the expected result, too. Immortal and mortal culture is vastly different, and you have made a right mess of that usual divide with [Reincarnation], but the divide exists. Yggdrasil is going to have a tough time in a hundred years. He’ll have a tough time in one year too, though, so maybe all that other stuff is premature.”

Erick smiled. “Maybe a little premature.”

Rozeta said, “I have decided that if you want your kill switch removed, then you need to put it onto Solomon.”

“… Rozeta.”

“I’m serious, Erick. You have a personal interest in keeping Destiny under control and you’re vastly stronger than her, so, if the worst should happen with her, I trust you to fight against her and win. But Solomon is different. If you were blocking you from resurrecting Jane, I would expect you to win against you, which means I expect Solomon to win against you, should you fight.” Rozeta said, “You, but with a goal, would be able to beat any goalless version of yourself every day of the year.”

While she might have been right in normal circumstances, Erick had a very clear goal right now, and Solomon wasn’t going to hurt anyone with his pursuit of his Jane… And yet.

Erick was already going to do some shenanigans with his kill switch and Status and all of that, in his upcoming plan to fight the Red, to escape Veird, to become a True Wizard, and to get a message out to whoever was out there. Nothanganathor had specifically prevented Erick’s Star Map ritual from escaping Veird, so that meant that someone was out there… So this was perfect.

Fate was intervening here.

It seemed that an unknown actor of the mana was on Erick’s side, again. Once he became a Full Wizard, though, could Fate help him at all? No. He’d have to make his own Fate.

Erick said, “I’ll make it part of my plans, Rozeta. Probably during the Lifeblood Heart extraction if things look to go sideways. Right before.”

Rozeta smiled. “Good. Thank you for agreeing. That was the last bit of preparation to make on my end. Plans A, B, and C, as Solomon calls them, are maybe a day away from being ready.”

“A day? I asked Solomon and he said 20 days— three days ago. So 17 days. I assume people are working behind the scenes? What are the plans, anyway?”

“Stratagold and Bluite are on the job. Plan A is the standard event. A Void Well that I have had built to specifications will grab the Heart and the whole thing will be slowly and stably drawn down to Veird’s Core, along a relay route that goes through the down ways whirlpool at the center of the Glorious Land.

“Plan B is the risky one, but it has a higher chance of working. The Heart will pop out of the Dark and some people we have will catch it in their soul, and then they’ll step through a [Gate] down to an open tunnel to the Core. Once there, they will let it go and shoot the Heart into the Core Lands where Void and Particle magics will funnel it into orbit down there. To use [Gate] itself will likely fail, but I will be working on some modifications to a special [Gate] that should make it work well. To use a [Gate] on the Heart itself is likely a fool’s errand, so we don’t be doing that. I’m not sure why, for I never personally interacted with the Heart, but people have tried to use [Gate] on it before and that never worked.

“Plan C is Solomon will catch it himself and run it down to the Core, flying as fast as he can through the whirlpool between the islands of Glorious Land. We expect him to get as far as he can and then hand off the heart to others, forming a relay event to the Core.

“Once the Heart passes the boundary of the Core Wall then I will have complete control over the flow of mana in the area and I should be able to lock the Heart into an easy orbit around the Core. I’ve already done some experiments with designating weightless blocks of foam as massive mana producers that double the mana all around them, and because of those tests, I am 99% confident that we can grab the Heart and solve all of Veird’s mana worries for the foreseeable future.” Rozeta finished with, “Plans might change a little, but those are the main plans.”

Erick said, “Sounds good. Plan C is Solomon’s goal, then.”

Rozeta smiled softly. “I have accounted for that. Once the Heart is in the Core, I plan on allowing Solomon or anyone to use it at my discretion. I have already vowed to do this. Solomon would be first on the list. As soon as the Heart is secure, everything gets more secure, including using it, so there is absolutely no reason for him to want to backstab that idea.”

“And yet you want to put a kill switch in him.”

“I am rather cautious, yes. Cover all bases, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Solomon wants at least 20 more days till go-time.”

“I’ll take that conversation up with him later, then, but I suspect that was only because I was going slow because I wasn’t quite sure how to get him to agree to a kill switch. He doesn’t have quite the same problems that I can solve as I was able to solve with you, with your needing to hide your core and your self from the world.”

“Ha! Been a long time since then.”

“It has been a wonderful, amazing time since then, Erick. I’m glad I trusted you. I hope I can trust Solomon and Destiny and Yggdrasil and Ophiel going forward, too.”

Erick felt all warm inside for a moment. “I’m sure you can.”

“I’m sure you can, but I don’t trust that quickly.” Rozeta asked, “Are you going to go back to the House now that Yggdrasil is released?”

“Not yet. Gonna plan for the True Wizard thing and then do that. I thought I knew what I needed to do, but things changed a little. I was actually wondering about how mana must be in this New Cosmology, and what sort of ‘mana’ like magic existed out here.” Red threatened to knock the conversation to a Bad End, so Erick made a Lightning Path that did not trigger the Red Sparks, and he took it. “How do you protect Veird from that sort of stuff? Is that something you can tell me? Or will I have to stumble my way into protecting myself from that stuff on my own? This includes protecting myself from Banned Magics, and all the other worlds to come, of course.”

Rozeta smiled a little, saying, “This concern of yours is where I spend most of my days fixing broken spellwork and trimming up the spells people make on their own, for a lot of people make malformed magic all the time due to the various factors of the physicality of the New Cosmology interfering with their spell creation and implantation in their soul. My solution to those problems is constant vigilance and many, many redundancies, because I’m overseeing the soulwork inside every single living thing in the world.

“Your solution will be much simpler.

“All you have to have is enough mana to drown out all other spellwork, effectively making it so that other magics cannot touch you through distance. This would include any possible magics from other universes, too.”

“Fair enough.” Erick asked, “You sure you don’t want to talk about the various space ships in the Vaults?”

“Let us not discuss that,” Rozeta said, a flicker of Red appearing in the far off space beyond her white wrought eyes.

“How about mana outside of the manasphere? How does one deal with that?”

“Struggling to hold onto it as best one can.”

Which explained a lot, actually. Rozeta was purposefully denying herself the ability to understand that mana existed beyond the Edge of the Script. Her denial was probably a defensive measure against the Red.

Rozeta asked, “Are you going to try and make a space platform? I hope if you do, you don’t try making a staircase like Holo if you plan on exploring in the void past the Edge.”

“The Wizard of Anarchy went about that all wrong. Sometimes I wonder about that. Why did he make such a giant staircase? People just wouldn’t have seen him as a problem if he hadn't done that.” Erick said, “I wish that would have worked out better.”

And as Erick tried to recall that whole battle, he wondered how much of his scattered memory of that time was due to the Red Sparks, his [Onward] accident, or due to the Wizard War with Holo and the traumatic nature of all that. Dealing with the Blue Wizard had been a lot easier, since that had occurred entirely inside the Script.

Rozeta said, “Wizards are always major turning points upon which entire worlds spin, Erick. He and you were on opposite sides of a brief, furious war that ended like those sorts of things usually do. I’m very glad that we won that, and the confrontation with that Blue Wizard when she attacked Oceanside.” Rozeta added, “Speaking of Oceanside… Have you spoken to Kirginatharp recently? He asks me if you’re purposefully avoiding him.”

Erick paused. He was purposefully avoiding Kirginatharp, the dragon with the Sun Style, who was Second to Rozeta, who was Rozeta’s son, while Nothanganathor was likely related to Melemizargo and also Rozeta and thus Kirginatharp, and who held the Dragon Curse which kept down all non-Paradox’d dragons in the world. But Erick shouldn’t avoid Kirginatharp. Perhaps he was doing that subconsciously? Erick considered a trip to Oceanside…

Erick would just need to force a good Lightning Path and thus he wouldn’t fall off the God Pact world.

Erick said, “I’ll visit him later, actually.”

“Ask him about mana beyond the Edge.”

“… That’s a good idea.”

Erick wouldn’t be doing that, and he hated implying that he was going to, which made him something of a liar. He did not like that. … But. Was it a good idea to talk to Kirginatharp about mana beyond the Script?

Maybe Erick could make that happen, too.

Rozeta grinned softly. “I have good ideas occasionally.”

Erick asked, “Have any good ideas about using Computer magic to make the Script easier?”

“Oh my no. Not happening. But for travel between worlds and the organizing of logistics and the recording of information in smaller areas than what Book Magic can do? Yes. I expect Book Magic to be better for almost all normal means, but Computer Magic should be able to do computation and other such tasks well. I expect there will be explosive growth in the use of gridwork in spellwork, but that’s about all I’m expecting Computer Magic to be able to do… Unless you have other ideas?”

“I have a lot of theoretical ideas, actually. Want me to start at the top?”

“Yes. I have time.”

Erick smiled, and began, “Math in magic is never something I got into, but a lot of people have, and so Computer Magic should be able to easily do things like the Crossing, facilitating point to point communication. The threat of information leakage and information threats will be the worst aspect of Computer Magic, and while the Crossing is vigilant against that, Computer Magic will need a lot of people working to keep the systems running well, while only a few bad apples might ruin the whole thing. But at the same time, computers run on parts and programs, and if the programs are corrupted, then the parts should still be usable. In the short term, a proper signaling machine should be able to link up multiple worlds together a lot better than most magics can, using radio waves, or through mana shenanigans for faster than light information communication…”

They spoke for a few hours.

It was nice.

- - - -

A month passed faster than Erick would have ever thought possible. It was not an [Onward] incident. He had just been busy. Busy with the House, and with Destiny purging problems the world over, from petty crime lords who would have risen to power in the chaos to come, to tyrant landlords who were kicking out people who could not afford to live anywhere else. Busy with Ophiel, and how he started a [Gate] fight with four liches in Death’s Throne that Quilatalap showed up for as an intervention. Busy with Fallopolis to make sure the New (old) Shades were copacetic.

Busy with Avandrasolaro and some incidents with a coordinated hostile effort that started in his city, through his people, who tried to take over several transportation companies the world over, to try and make Avandrasolaro’s city of ‘Angelwatch’ into a new center of trade. There was nothing wrong with that sort of takeover, since it was all above board, but a lot of people had complained to Erick about that, and he had needed to actually investigate what was going on. Benevolent dragons had been involved in Avandrasolaro’s peoples’ business practices, too, which complicated matters a lot.

Erick made liberal use of [Hasted Shelter] to get all the time he needed to put the world in order.

Because he was pretty sure he would be gone from this world for a while, if everything worked out.

In the middle of all of that, Erick had forced a sit down with Yggdrasil, because the big kid wasn’t talking to him like Erick wanted him to talk.

- - - -

Erick stepped onto Yggdrasil’s roots inside Benevolence, and patted his trunk, saying, “We’re gonna have a talk now, son.”

It took Yggdrasil a moment to prepare himself, then another moment to appear. He was his human form with black hair and a crown of rainbows. “… Hi, Dad.”

“That’s not your real form. Come on now. I love you, and I want to see the real you, please.”

Yggdrasil froze for a moment, all of his trunk flickering, dimming, and then coming back solid, while his human body frowned. That frown deepened. He did not change forms. With a hurt sort of tone, he asked, “But I’m still your son?”

Erick smiled and hugged him strongly, saying, “That will never change. No matter what form you are, no matter how far apart we are, I love you, Yggdrasil. I want you to be happy. I want you to be you. And I want to share in your joys, however those joys might happen. No matter what, I will always be your father, and you my son. Nothing can ever change that, and especially not the end of the world. Besides, we’re going to stop the end of the world, and that’s that.”

Yggdrasil held on tight, his voice cracking, “I’m not just your son, though.”

“And I’m not just your father. Those extra masks and lives we show others might be true, but you and I? We’re true, too. I don’t care if you originated in some other multiverse. I probably did, too.”

And then Yggdrasil hugged hard. He sobbed softly into Erick’s shoulder, and Erick held tight. Yggdrasil’s voice was a soft thing, “I knew you’d figure it out before I told you.”

Erick smiled onto Yggdrasil’s shoulder, then pulled back, not caring for the tears trailing lines down his own face he wiped off the tears from Yggdrasil’s cheeks. Far, far overhead, green leaves fell here and there from the flaming green sky like falling stars. Erick held onto his son, and said, “It could only be so many things, right? So many reasons for being scared to talk to me. I’m sorry I made you scared, Yggdrasil.”

Yggdrasil smiled softly, and said, “I didn’t want to scare you but… I think I have a life far, far beyond here. Ancient. Too big. I’m tiny right now but…” His voice drifted off as he looked down. And then he flickered and transformed. No longer was he a copy of Erick at 14, but he was an orcol teenager, barely taller than Erick in his human form. Erick guessed he was still physically 14. Yggrasil asked, “Can you be your Apparent King self?”

And then Erick was. Black horns out like a crown, taller than Yggdrasil now. A bit of magic resized his clothes; the same magic that Yggdrasil had used on his own. Erick looked down at his son, and asked, “Want to sit down?”

Yggdrasil smiled a little, and then he sat down on his root.

Erick sat down beside him.

For a long minute, they simply watched the ocean floating around Yggdrasil’s body in Benevolence.

And then Yggdrasil asked, “Did you know what you were doing when you named me ‘Yggdrasil’?”

Erick said, “Barely a clue at all. It was a wish for a brighter, better future, anchored in mythology from Earth. At the time, I had the goal of making a defensive [Familiar] to go with Ophiel’s offensive nature—”

“He certainly kept that nature,” Yggdrasil mumbled.

Erick smiled and put an arm around his son and held him close, saying, “And you turned out to be someone very special.” He kissed Yggdrasil on his black hair, then let go because Yggdrasil wanted some space. Erick continued, “Both of you are special. At the time of making Ophiel, I picked a name out of the ether that sounded vaguely angelic. When I named you, I had no idea what to name a tree, but I did have a desire for you, Yggdrasil. I wanted you to bring safety to all, and through that safety, everything else would follow. You were a bedrock upon which to keep me and Jane and others safe. Everything that came after was just me getting to know you, to try and raise you right. To try and instill within you the desires and purposes that drove and continue to drive me. Obviously you’re your own person, and I tried to recognize that right away… I still have fond memories of you sending me million-word [Telepathy] packets about fish.”

Yggdrasil’s green face turned slightly red as he looked down and away.

“All this stuff with Malevolence and the world ending constantly and whatever multiverses we belong to… None of that was on purpose. I think Benevolence was always going to work out like this, though, if it ever worked out at all. I’m glad it did. I’m glad I’m here with you. I’m sorry if you don’t like your name, or what it has done to you. It was never my intention to hurt you, but instead to gift you a name that resonated with every hope I had for you, and more.” Erick said, “And honestly, I didn’t know many tree names at the time. I didn’t gain Intelligence until after that Shadow’s Feast, hours after I created you with the help of the gods.” Erick asked, “Would you prefer a different name?”

Yggdrasil was silent for a while.

Erick waited patiently.

Eventually, Yggdrasil said, “I like my name. What other names might you have called me, if you would have remembered others?”

Erick leaned back a little, looking up at the green fire and branching white lightning that was Yggdrasil’s canopy and branches. “Let’s see. There’s the Ashvattha of Hindu mythology. The most famous one of those is the Bodhi Tree, the tree under which Siddhartha Gautama, otherwise known as The Buddha, sat and achieved enlightenment, allowing him to achieve nirvana, but he stayed on earth in order to teach others the Middle Way, which was all about kind living and a way to achieve freedom from suffering; a way between pure indulgence and strict asceticism. See, there was this belief that the only ways to free yourself from suffering was to indulge in everything, or nothing, and Buddha said that there was a middle way, and that resonated with a lot of people.

“I’m probably messing that up, but that’s the basic premise of that idea.

“The mythological Ashvattha, though, was a sacred fig, that grew upside down and extended roots into everyone and everything, tying it all together, locking it into suffering and reality, and which must be cut off in order for one to ascend and attain enlightenment.

“So I’m glad I didn’t think to name you that.”

Yggdrasil nodded a little, grinning a little, too.

Erick continued, “There’s the Sky High Tree of some people, I forget which, which simply ties together the heavens and the earth and all the mountains and hell. People adventure on it. There’s Jianmu, which is a road for the gods to take to heaven and back. And that’s all I remember. I’m sure there are a lot more, but Yggdrasil was the one I actually know about the most, for that particular World Tree has been in popular culture for a long time.

“That particular tree was supposed to hold up the nine worlds of men and gods and everything above and below. To walk Yggdrasil was to walk from Here to There, to travel an entire cosmos. Of course, that cosmos was only 9 worlds in the original stories. With your capability, I expect you to be able to do a lot more than that.” Erick said, “I hope I’m not putting too much pressure on you.”

Erick fell silent.

And Yggdrasil just looked out at the waters.

Erick waited again.

Yggdrasil asked, “What’s the full story of Yggdrasil?”

And so, Erick spoke out a tale that he only half knew, about gods named ‘Odin’ and ‘Thor’ and of Ragnarok and the burning of the World Tree, and roots that lead to worlds, and the rebuilding of everything after that apocalypse. He spoke of Fenrir swallowing the sun. Nidhogg eating Yggdrasil’s roots. A rainbow road known as bifrost that connected everything to everything else, and was a way to get around without walking on Yggdrasil’s body, which was the long way. He spoke of Odin hanging from Yggdrasil and paying the price of an eye in order to gain the knowledge of everything, and then Erick made a joke about how he had gained an ‘All-Seeing Eye’ that now hung around his neck that gave him True Sight Beyond Sight, but Yggdrasil was focused on himself the whole time, so he didn’t really find Erick’s joke amusing.

Erick finished saying, “It’s all quite jumbled up and probably wrong, too. But it’s just a story. And yeah, I can see you already pointing out parts of it that fit too well, but it’s just a story. It’s not our Path forward. I didn’t make Nothanganathor exist by naming you Yggdrasil.” Erick said, “But we’re sure going to slay that dragon eventually. Ain’t no dragon going to eat my son’s roots for all eternity.”

Yggdrasil smiled softly, saying, “Thanks, Dad.” And then he added, “By naming me Yggdrasil you carved a groove in reality that allows us to see this thing through to the land beyond, whatever that might be. We just gotta swallow the sun and have a Ragnarok.”

Erick chuckled. “Ahhhhh… Well. Yeah.”

Yggdrasil handed Erick a small, white gem. Erick had not seen it to begin with, but now it was suddenly there; the brightest thing in Erick’s mana sense. Yggdrasil picked up Erick’s hand and placed the drop of power into his hand, and then closed his hand, shutting out the light, completely blocking the power of the object. “It’s something you’re going to need. Don’t ever use it. When it needs to be used, it will use itself. Also, I just made it so you cannot lose it. Set it down and then think about it, and it will appear in your hand.”

Erick smiled a little, and then he opened his hand, exposing the drop of white light, letting the magic show. He set it down on Yggdrasil’s mossy surface, then held his hand out and thought—

The drop of power moved to his hand.

Yggdrasil said, “It’s still a good idea to wrap it in a bit of metal and put it behind your All-Seeing Eye, though. Easier to make it stay with you if you actually try.”

Erick smiled a little, then opened a tiny [Gate] to a workshop and pulled out some stainless steel. He wrapped the drop of power up in metal and then clipped it to the back of his necklace, saying, “Thank you, Yggdrasil.”

Yggdrasil almost said something else, but he stopped.

And then he hugged Erick.

Erick hugged his son, his head on Yggdrasil’s black hair, his arms around his back. He ignored his own tears, and said, “The girls and Evan are going to be so mad at you when all this stuff goes down.”

“I have a plan for that,” Yggdrasil said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I won’t talk to them.”

Erick laughed.

Yggdrasil whispered, “I’ll talk to them. To everyone.”

Erick hugged tighter. “Thank you.”

- - - -

And then it was the day before the Big Day.

Security was tight. House Benevolence had already prognosticated 5 attempts to interfere with the reclamation of the Lifeblood Heart from the Dark, but they hadn’t stopped a single one; they hadn’t needed to. Burhendurur and Aisha as Overseer of Enforcement and Magic were working closely with Geodes Stratagold and Bluite in order to ensure the safety of the upcoming event, and the wrought were on the case.

The collection of wrought upon the Surface in the last four days had become the largest collection of wrought on the Surface of Veird since the world’s last Forgotten Campaign, however many centuries ago that might have been. All across Dungeon Island, from the slime dungeon and all around Mount Ascendant, to the downways at the whirlpool in the middle of the Sister Islands, stood temporary wrought fortresses. Each one of them was captained by many archmages and otherwise. All throughout the sky, high, high above the slime dungeon, were cloud castles or floating platforms or floating stone castles. Tenebrae, now as a 28-ish year old orcol man, had remade his floating castle and floated it up there, in line with the other floating bastions.

Dragons of all the Houses of Ar’Cosmos were represented in their own fortresses here and there, but they were mostly on backup.

This event was already the largest gathering of coordinated effort on Veird.

The plans had already been made, set, and triple checked. Hardly any people in the world knew who Solomon was before this; not really. But they certainly knew now. This was Solomon’s baby. His honor proof. His way to resurrect a forgotten daughter. That last one wasn’t said in too many circles, but it was said in a few.

In a small room on Oceanside, under the light of the bright sun, two people were speaking of those hidden subjects right now.

Kirginatharp looked the same as he always did, and Erick was glad that ‘the Headmaster’ was not subject to the Red Sparks at all. The Apparent King and the Headmaster had had their heart to heart about Erick’s mental health two weeks ago, and then Erick had taken tea with the Second of Rozeta a few times since then, to discuss this or that, and for Kirginatharp to officially request that Erick remove Destiny from Oceanside grounds, for she was ‘doing weird things, Erick, like moving books around and spilling grass seed onto one kid’s botany project, and switching out the caffeinated coffee for decaf, and I cannot abide!’. Erick had convinced the older-looking man to just let Destiny do what she wanted, if she was harming no one.

Which was coming back to bite him in the ass right now.

Kirginatharp said over tea, “Destiny and Solomon are an item, and Destiny’s small actions are too much. In particular, she blew a ship off course a week ago and delayed the rescue of that class for a day, and now the ripple is here. That professor of that castaway ship was one woman who I would have assigned to watch over the Heart Relay, but she is now sick with The Blue, so I had to send another guy, who was the person I decided to send because, apparently, Destiny had helped all of his students prepare for his pop quiz which he designed them all to fail, so that I would not be able to assign him to the Heart Relay, because he would had have the excuse of ‘but I have an important class!’ which is what he always does when I want him to work on something specific.” Kirginatharp took a breath. “And that’s only ONE of her ‘small actions’ that I have uncovered.”

Erick just smiled. “She’s rather great at that, isn’t she.”

Kirginatharp rolled his amber eyes. “And that’s not to mention anything of Solomon trying to bring back a daughter that never existed, and his obsession with this Heart and with an ignition to Wizardry.”

Erick was deep in a Benevolent Path with Kirginatharp right now, the Red Sparks fighting off the edges of his words, but really, not much more than usual. Erick followed the Path, and asked, “How about your own obsession with Wizardry?”

“Bah! I have enough power. I’ll get in line for the Heart like everyone else.” Kirginatharp asked, “What I am really afraid of is Solomon simply taking the Heart into himself right then and there, and damning all the rest of our ascensions for his own foolish concepts of Reality. A Reality which —I am not sure if you have considered this or not— which might be complete fantasy. A dream! A falsity.”

“I know you have your concerns but Solomon will prove himself as capable. These are just last minute worries of yours, anyway. We’ve gone over all of them before.”

Kirginatharp said, “And we have some extra time right now, so I will go over them again—” He stopped. In a moment he switched modes, turning from an old friend to the Second of Rozeta. A Red look entered his eyes, as he said, “Not enough time, it seems.”

Erick nodded, glancing at the clock on the wall. The plan was for the Heart Relay to start in 32 hours.

The real plan was to go in ten minutes.

Erick said, “We have a moment. Please sit, Kirginatharp. Ask the question you want to ask but are avoiding.”

Kirginatharp frowned at him, Red vanishing a little. “Why haven’t you gifted your Death Switch to him? Rozeta allowed that over two weeks ago. Why are you waiting this long?”

“Because I’m plan D, in honor of Debby, and I’m absolutely sure that I’m gonna need to do the switch and other magics against Solomon somewhere, at some failure point, in order to keep Solomon in line with Veird. The requirements of that action will change based on today’s events, and a whole bunch of other shit besides. I can’t lock him down without raising him up at the same time, Kirginatharp.”

Kirginatharp’s Red eyes faded, leaving wholly Gold, and then he calmed a bit more, and his Gold faded, showing amber irises and black pupils. “I suppose that’s metaphysically significant enough to be an acceptable answer.”

Erick nodded.

And then Erick opened a [Gate] to the clearing outside of the slime dungeon. It was daytime at Oceanside, but Dungeon Island was a world away, in the middle of the night, and all three moons were barely slivers at all, looking like eyelashes made of minuscule color upon a black sky. It probably would have been a starry sky, but the various fortresses everywhere were drowning out the true night with their light.

Erick and Kirginatharp joined the cacophony of people from all around the world trying to make this happen, with the area outside of the dungeon entrance as the largest gathering. It was an organized gathering, at least, with plenty of space for Erick and Kirginatharp to move around, and with wrought lining the clearing, some of them bowing.

Even Melemizargo was in attendance, though he was not visible, and his help would be a lot smaller than the actions of everyone else, and hopefully nonexistent. Rozeta didn’t want him touching the Heart at all; if he did, that was considered a secondary fail state, for Rozeta would never accept such an item into the Core. There was a lot of difference between Melemizargo handing over something he took from the Dark himself, or something that Erick, Solomon, and company achieved.

Not like Melemizargo would have done such a thing anyway. He was always about personal power overcoming adversity, and reaping the fruits of one’s own labor. The world would gain the Heart through its own power, or not, according to a very public statement by Melemizargo just a few days ago, where he spoke of Trials of the Dark and a bunch of other politically-flavored words.

And now, the Trial was here. Veird would attempt to reap one of the largest fruits of all the Old Cosmology.

The grove was laden with Red Sparks.

Erick suspected they’d be a problem, but not right now.

One foot in front of the other, Erick walked the Benevolent Path.

Inside the dungeon, Solomon walked that Path, too.

And somewhere in the world, Destiny also walked that Path.

- - - -

The slime dungeon’s main floor tumbled with rolly, gooey little slimes of all colors of the rainbow, all of them playing in the water rides, or resting on the white stone in the ambient light of the dungeon. It was hard to place the light sources for the dungeon, because all the roof of this separated space was black as Dark, except for the northern wall, which was a cacophony of color and images and dreams from so very long ago.

A Black Gate stood between the stable dungeon of slimes, and all that chaos of beyond.

Solomon stood beside that Gate, its enormity dwarfing his body four times over. Jane, Abigail, Beth, Candice, and Evan, stood close to him, but not too close.

It was all organized chaos, with everyone but Solomon coordinated by Mind Mages. Solomon was exempt because Erick had asked them to extend the same protection he enjoyed to Solomon and Destiny, which had raised a lot of red flags and concerned voices, but no Red Sparks, so that was great. Solomon didn’t know Erick’s plan, anyway, so that cleared that hurdle nicely.

Erick suspected that Kirginatharp was half here to watch him and Solomon, in addition to being a backup support. Which was fine.

Erick, Kirginatharp, Rozeta’s mortal form, and Koyabez, stood to the side, out of the way. The gods were forbidden from physically interacting with the world, due to the God Pact, while Erick was Plan D, and Kirginatharp was Plan E. There was no Plan F, but Erick was pretty sure that Fallopolis was heading up plan F. She was out there at Ascendant Mountain with the other Shades, watching from a distance. Everyone knew the Shades would get involved if something horrific happened and the Lifeblood Heart —gods forbid— shot away from Veird, into the sky and beyond, but no one wanted that, for that would invalidate Veird being able to accept the Heart at all. Despite the displays of peace and prosperity from the Shades for the last decade, no one truly trusted them.

A bunch of wrought relay team members stood on platforms beyond the ledge which supported the Black Gate. Sitnakov was there, along with a bunch of his friends. Archmage Tasar was the center of that formation, though.

The copper green and adamantium black Summoner Archmage of Spatial Magic was the main actor of Plan A, because she had finally succeeded in making her [Familiar], using Erick’s methodology, last week, and that [Familiar], along with some other powers, made her the anchor for this event. Tasar had decided to abandon her pursuit of The Worldly Path in order to finally bring her [Familiar] into the world, because she had finally decided that she simply couldn’t allow anyone to transform her personal mana signature into Benevolence, or any other Element. After making that tough decision, and then making her [Familiar], she had told Erick that she couldn’t be happier. She looked happy, too. Sengaralo was a cute little chipmunk-like creature that was primarily Spatial magic, which rested on Tasar’s shoulder and also along the whole path from here to the Core of Veird.

Tasar might not have [Gate] herself, but Rozeta had outfitted her with a special, one-time cast of [Gate]; a divinely supercharged version that should work well to capture and transfer the Heart to the Core, as long as the first person to hold the Heart didn’t explode in that holding.

That first person to hold the Heart was Sitnakov, looking ready and raring to go. Other holders of the Core would be a Void Well positioned here, in the dungeon, and outside in the clearing.

Plan B was all the wrought standing around outside, along with thousands from here to the Core.

Plan C was Solomon taking the Heart himself, if it should pop out of anyone along the relay path. It should stay with him for a while, too, because he could transform into a dragon and ‘soak the Heart’ for a while, whatever that meant. Erick was clear on the concept, but Jane’s suggestion of the Heart constantly dealing damage to the host had turned to tanking terminology, which Erick wasn’t quite sure was correct, but that language had stuck around anyway.

Erick and Kirginatharp would follow along in their own dragon forms.

And Melemizargo would be out there, too, somewhere. Waiting.

The Red Sparks were surprisingly absent, as they had been throughout most of this whole endeavor except when dealing with certain people. Perhaps Nothanganathor wanted the Heart released from the Dark? Probably. Nothanganathor wanted to be the God of Magic, according to some logical reasoning that might be utterly wrong. Would the Heart be enough to accomplish some of that?

Eh. Who knew.

Perhaps Nothanganathor simply wanted the Heart for the sake of having it. But the theoretical distance that the Heart acted at was a hundred solar systems, so Nothanganathor would be empowered for a while, even if the Heart should shoot off into space. Heck! Even Veird would remain empowered for a while. It was very possible that the Heart would escape and then begin to slow down in the void of space, and perhaps gravity would keep it tethered to Veird’s system for a long, long time. No one really knew the distance the Heart would act at, though. All of that was a guess.

No one wanted that solution—

Into the pregnant air, almost a day before the publicized go-time, Rozeta spoke, “Now.”

Solomon breathed deep, and regarded the Black Gate. He spoke,

“From Darkness cast, Wisdom’s decree,

“This Lifeblood Heart, sets mana free.

“Wonders rise tall, magics take wing,

“Infinity now! Eternal heart spring!”

The world flickered beyond the Black Gate—

Iridescent Dark Dreams became the absolute void of the deep mana ocean of the Old Cosmology.

A light bloomed in that universe of mana, like a distant comet, and like the disturbance of a phosphorescent ocean. Light spilled away from that spot of brightness, the very ocean itself churning to life, to expansion, to brightness in the dark, like a sparkly cheerleader’s pom pom coming into view. The Lifeblood Heart itself was pale blue, or maybe that was just the color of the ocean out there. Hard to say—

The Heart had only been in view for a bare moment. It had started out as a pinprick of light in the distance.

Now it was a radiant ball of every color in the universe and several that Erick had never seen before. Some of those colors felt like they should not exist.

And now it was a brightness which consumed the entire northern wall of the dungeon, all ten kilometers of it.

Colors exploded across everyone and everything. The Black Gate was not large enough. Nothing could ever hope to contain that power coming through the world, spilling into Veird already—

But something could. The Void Well. That Well was the only hope that they had to make the Heart come this way. The Void Well sat in the center of the dungeon, not even visible until now, until it started sucking all the mana in the air down, down, down, into nothing. Technically it sucked that mana down into the dungeon core, because the Void Well had been installed in the dungeon core for this exact purpose.

And still, the Heart came on.

The world was washed in color, every single person and living thing spilling out rainbows from themselves like colorful shadows and inks dropped in wells and so, so much glitter. The Heart itself was barely in view, and Erick wasn’t even sure if he was really seeing it among all that mana.

This was just the halo of the Heart.

The Black Gate was open, but it needed to be opened more.

Solomon flexed his [Physical Domain] into the Gate, into the mana ocean beyond—

And it was like punching into a geyser.

Mana flowed into the dungeon in such great quantities that it was a physical force, slamming into every single person present. Some of the wrought went flying, briefly, before Poi, at the controls of the dungeon, turned the Void Well to maximum power.

Color faded from the world, but every living person remained wreathed in rainbow—

The Heart had been moving oh-so-slightly off course. It had been aiming away from the Black Gate. Erick wasn’t sure how he knew that, but he did, because he saw it now. Finally, the Heart was in view.

It was a sphere of gold and silver and black and white. Red, blue, yellow, green. Solid and ethereal. Deadly and bountiful. Giving and pressuring. A drug and the cure. It was life itself, and it was coming for Veird, for a hole in the mana ocean—

Perhaps the original Heart had been lost instantly as soon as Primal Lightning created Yawning Voids.

—And that was the last thought Erick had had before the Heart slammed through the Gate, a hole in one, a swoosh of a basketball through the hoop, and traveling a thousand kilometers a second.

It slammed into the Void Well and suddenly stopped, hovering there in the center of the emptiness. It had absolutely no mass, but Erick was still surprised to see that sudden cessation of movement. And yet.

It vibrated.

Sitnakov moved.

The black orcol wrought slammed into the Heart and the world turned to a softer rainbow and a gale-force wind. Sitnakov was all about wind magic, after all. He grunted. The Heart held steady, its rainbow held in check by adamantium solidity and a fuck ton of buffing and supportive magics.

Tasar moved. Everyone moved.

Time slowed around the Heart and Sitnakov as Solomon cast a [Slowing Shelter] in the shape of a long tunnel leading all the way to the dungeon exit. Sitnakov slowed, and then slowed even further as the Heart bolstered the Time Magic around Sitnakov. Sitnakov could move just fine under Slowed time, though; this was to give everyone else a chance to move.

But this was not a good solution to the whole relay because Time Magic was about the presence or antipresence of Elemental Time, and the Heart would turn a Slow spell into a Haste spell or into a Stop spell soon enough.

Among the first steps to this process was getting the thing out of the Dungeon, though, so certain magics had to be used. Other steps that they had already passed was the consideration for the Heart turning everyone into piles of flesh and tumors and doing the same to the world, but that step was easily seen and voided as a threat well before the Heart actually came out of the Dark. Sitnakov was holding strong, too.

Poi, as dungeon master, adjusted the Void Well through the Slow tunnel, and Sitnakov followed the Slowing Void space, rainbows and wind flying everywhere, but people could handle that—

Solomon canceled his Slow magics right as he and Erick both saw the same problem. Sitnakov had jolted with super-fast movement for but a second, the Heart switching powers on him. Sitnakov’s wind briefly turned to a stone solidity in the air, too, as Sitnakov struggled to maintain.

He maintained.

And he followed the Void tunnel, out of the dungeon.

It was nail biting. It was stressful, and then everyone was out of the dungeon, into the illuminated night, and Tasar cast a [Gate] to the Core, slicing a hole in reality where the Core Lands waited far on the other side, along with Void Wells and other stable spellworks—

Red glinted upon Sitnakov—

The Heart popped out of Sitnakov and Sitnakov went flying backwards, through the land itself like a black meteor, completely unconscious. The Heart was out in the open—

The dark world turned to rainbows—

Historians would debate for many, many years what exactly happened next.

What Erick saw was Red ripping apart Tasar’s [Gate] and the Heart flying upward, only for two wrought to get in each other’s way in a way that never should have happened, ever. Rozeta called on someone to [Return], and it did not work because Red interfered, and perhaps Time Magic was not the best magic to use around a Heart. Erick hoped that whoever Rozeta had called upon to [Return] was okay, but they were probably dead. It hadn’t been Kirginatharp. The Headmaster was watching Erick and Solomon most closely, waiting for them to try some shit, while trying not to appear too ready for violence.

But there wouldn’t be any violence today, not among any of his oldest allies and friends.

Erick walked The Lightning Path.

And so did Solomon, Yggdrasil, Ophiel, and Destiny.

Solomon was suddenly there, in the sky, to intercept the Heart and swallow that power.

Rainbows faded. The night partially returned—

And then the world fractured around Solomon as he winced hard, his core fracturing, and then he suddenly calmed, his eyes going bright white, and then shifting to silver—

All the world glinted silver-white, the night banishing under Solomon’s power, his reason for being, his resonance of Wizardry. Every single person gained a silver shadow under the light of Solomon’s ascension.

Rozeta shouted, “Dammit!”

Erick said to Kirginatharp, and through him, everyone else, “It appears that Solomon is rising to Wizardry, so I will give the kill switch now and help him. Line up someone else to take the Heart. He knows to try and shoot it toward the downways.”

And then Erick focused on Solomon.

“Solomon! Embrace your Wizard’s grace, apotheosis now, power embraced!”

The world clicked.

- - - -

Erick stood in a space of white light, while Solomon stood in a domain of silver. The world beyond was gasoline rainbows.

A third person stood to the right, between them both. He was an old man; an original Erick.

He was the one whom Erick had first spoken with, when he gained his double form. He was from a failed version of Erick; one who had never gotten that hand up from that social worker on Earth, who had turned to crime to keep his daughter in diapers, and then turned to Dark Wizardry to get his daughter back when Jane had died on Veird. Rozeta had hounded him for those actions, and thus Other Erick had ended up in Deep Paradox, looking for a solution. What he found was that he did not exist, and that he was being used for fuel to give Erick more options in life.

Erick greeted the guy, “Hello, Erick.”

The old man huffed a laugh. “What the fuck is this? We were just talking and I knew I was vanishing. There were a few weird dreams about suns and Red and shit... And now we’re here again? Why ain’t I non-existent? Why did I have dreams at all?”

Solomon said, “We told the universe we have bigger dicks than it, so we make all the rules.”

“Ha!” said Other Erick. “So what happens now? Am I more fodder for Wizardry?”

“Not at all,” Solomon said. “I am the Erick who always lost Jane, who never succeeded. All of my stories are long and complicated, and none of them end in victory, but this one will. This time, I am getting my Jane back, and I am going to commit Absolute Grand Violence against the thing that took her from me in half of all those lost lives.”

Other Erick breathed deep, his eyes going wide.

Solomon asked, “Will you join me?”

Other Erick said, “Sounds perfect.”

He reached out and locked hands with Solomon.

Erick felt something ephemeral and dangerous fade from his soul—

As Solomon and Other Erick intoned, “We’ll get her back. This will be our genesis.”

- - - -

Erick came back to himself and felt a part of his soul fade away under the silver-white sky—

Solomon’s radiance shifted.

And the sky rotated.

The sun was directly above. Everyone around Erick panicked. Yggdrasil bathed the Edge of the Script in white light, even as Red Claws descended again. Kirginatharp roared out questions. Rozeta demanded answers. The wrought were equally panicking and ready for war.

And then people disregarded Erick’s request for them not to read their minds.

More panic.

A wave of Red Sparks cascaded across the world, flushed out by white light, as Yggdrasil commenced a Grand Cleansing.

Rozeta softly said to Erick, “I can give up the Heart. Do what you need to do. I’m sorry you weren’t able to tell me before now. Good luck out there, Erick. I’m ready.”

Erick stepped into the air, saying, “Please keep them safe, Rozeta.” He smiled, adding, “And the relay plan might still work. Try to catch the Heart when it comes down.”

And then Erick stepped into the sky to join Solomon.

Erick faced his brother.

Solomon was still deep in the throes of power.

So Erick started, “We call upon the wisdom of Solomon.”

Solomon breathed and ten thousand souls breathed with him, each of them staring out of Solomon’s eyes, at Erick, and then up at the sun. His silver eyes narrowed, his voice overlapped with itself, whispering, yelling, raging, plotting, planning, speaking, commanding, knowing, simply saying, “We See Now. An ancient enemy, unknown and Forgotten until today. We see what we must do.” He looked to Erick. “Will you speak with us a song of power?”

Erick firmly stepped upon the Lightning Path and all the world was caught in his current.

In Ar’Cosmos, a Fae party stopped. A king and queen turned to the sky.

On Ascendant Mountain, Shades watched and prayed to the Dark.

Melemizargo took his throne, and wrapped his wings upon what was to come.

The Pantheon stepped out onto the tallest mountains of the world.

Every Mind Mage went to work, linking the incani, the orcols, the humans, the harpies and goblins and pixies and wrought and dragonkin and dragons and arbors and all others capable of thought. Some rejected the call to sing, but most joined in the moment, as the Crossing seeped into every mind on the planet. Ascendant Prime held it all together, as they often did.

Every geode, every wrought living their normal lives, drawing never ending ruts through routine, stopped. New thoughts emerged, and routine shifted for a moment.

Silverite looked up from her desk in her mayor’s office of Spur, and Al stopped fixing the leaking pipe in front of him.

The Songstresses of Songli joined their voices to the growing Genesis, the temple of Rozeta ringing out across the land.

Storm’s Edge and Everbless were lost in the moment, not sure what to do, as Oozy bunkered down to wait out the storm.

Destiny and her Benevolence Dragons opened their mouths.

The world spoke,

“A genesis of power given unto form to make red riven.

“A trail through time and place of Paths to make a focus of our wraths.

“You take from us? You make this fuss? We make you now superfluous.

“A Sundering! Ha! A floundering fall! You’re nothing more but a treasure hall!

“Nothanganathor! Your name is Known! Your Red cover is fully blown!

“We take your power, ascension failed! And now you are forever jailed!

“Fusion Energy Nullification, turned to land beautification!

“Radiance Impounding Relay system, filled with all our possible wisdom!

“FENRIR! We call this magic now! Your Red is turned to a dog’s chow!”

Silver light flowed white into the sky, channeled through divinity and Wizardry, straight to the Edge of the Script, and then beyond, never stopping, never ceasing, flowing faster than the speed of light. The spell became lightning, like a grand zap of Benevolence stretched out across the entire distance between Veird and the sun. The Red Lightning tried to stop it, to prevent it, but the plan was laid well, and then suddenly launched before the Unascended Dragon could react.

It was also tuned specifically against Nothanganathor, the Erased One was now seen, his main power stripped in that Knowing.

Or at least that’s what Erick worked for, and believed, as he watched an event unfold that he had participated in, but which Solomon orchestrated, and which took place on scales far, far larger than could be acted upon or even seen, due to the speed of light.

The spell had been designed to strike the very sun itself, and Erick had discussed Solomon’s Wizardry long before today.

Solomon was a Creation Wizard. He was going to create new possibilities, to find Jane on worlds that likely did not exist. So he would have to make those existences. Erick doubted he would be able to do anything like what Solomon had done, for Solomon was the source of the infinite mana flowing outward in order to create this spell, while Erick had merely orchestrated most of this through his contacts among Veird. Once all the gods and all of Destiny’s plots were aligned, everything else fell into place. Everything aligned behind Solomon; even the Script.

Erick said to Solomon, “And now, the rest.”

The spell in the sky was still there. All of Veird was still bolting the sun with one continuous, solid line of white lightning that was probably so very similar to what Rozeta and uncountable immortals remembered of Primal Lightning that half of them were probably panicking, while the other half were reveling in turning the image of the Sundering against its creator. Rozeta was certainly reveling down there, on the clearing, watching this all happen and making sure it continued behind the scenes.

But this was not over.

It would not be over until the Red was gone. But the Red was not gone.

Trapping magics worked better than destruction magics, though, especially against a still-unknown enemy.

Erick, Solomon, Destiny, and Guile, had discussed what sort of war they could commit against the Red and win, and Erick had needed to give up some of his plan so that they were all on the same page. It had been a very concerning last month as Destiny dodged Mind Mages and Solomon wore the Crown of Self occasionally, so that no one could ever read his mind ever, but they had made it here, to this stalemate. The Red would be imprisoned for a while. Maybe for a very long time. That imprisonment would fail eventually, and so, there was just one more thing to do. The part that Erick had told no one, but which Solomon had easily guessed.

People called out to Erick and Solomon in the sky, but the only one Erick really heard was Jane.

“What the fuck, dad!”

Yggdrasil would tell Jane, Abigail, Beth, Clarice, and Evan, all of the truth later. Most of the effects of their World Spell would be visible soon, though.

While Solomon was securing Veird against the Red even more, working with all of the world to prevent relapses, and probably giving Veird a physical shell of anti-magic which would absolutely stop the Red…

Erick would be moving on—

The sky brightened as time and the speed of light allowed them all to finally see what was happening up there. The spell Solomon and the world had cast was a Mana Siphon-based spell, and that spell ripped through all the Red mana on the sun, and then rapidly progressed everywhere else. Propagation magic wasn’t possible on Veird, but this wasn’t propagation magic anyway. It was Solomon supplying an endless font of mana to the spell, through a million untapped lives, filling the solar system with the White of Benevolence and his own Silver Genesis.

And then the Silver, White, and Red sun vanished beyond a hexagonal eclipse of black, as the spell ate at the Red, turning power into prison and then [Duplicate]ing that prison over and over and over.

Part one of the FENRIR system was a hexagonal worldplate the size of Veird, twenty moons-to-Veird distance away, but only a few thousand kilometers thick. Or something like that. Solomon was working with a lot of minds right now to make it work, all of his memories focused on those of himself who were math geniuses and aerospace engineers and other assorted possibilities that never survived this far at all, coupled with Intelligence and Book Magic and a lot more. Erick wasn’t too knowledgeable about all that, but Solomon was. That’s why he was doing this right now.

Erick had wondered what Solomon was going to call his new Element. He had thought it would have been ‘Elemental Wisdom’, because duh. Solomon had chosen something more primal, though, there in that Paradoxical space with the Other Erick.

Elemental Genesis created the first worldplate of a dyson sphere far, far away from Veird. And then it created another, and another. Soon, the sky toward the sun was blocked out with black, as power built upon power and each and every metal plate of the dyson sphere began to soak the sun. Now that usage of ‘soak’ Erick fully agreed with. Those world plates should already be enchanted, at their very cores, with Mana Siphon on the interior and a whole bunch of stuff on the exterior surface.

Solomon was figuring all of that out.

And FENRIR swallowed the sun.

Ten thousand Solomons looked upon Erick, voices overlapping, “What’s next, Arbiter of Veird?”

All the world listened.

And Erick brought the world fully onto his Lightning Path.

“You layer protective metal shields upon Veird, like multiple Surfaces. Draw the moons to Veird to use and save those afterlives as new layers of Surface. Turn the Forever War into allies working against the Red. Work in as much reflection magic as possible onto the upper shields. Work with Rozeta to purge the Script of Red influences using Benevolence, which is supplied by all the Benevolence dragons and all the Benevolence that has soaked into this land for the last decade. Yggdrasil will be directing that flow mostly, but he cannot do it alone.

“EVERYONE HELPS.

“The Red cannot be allowed back in. You will have time to do this due to the FENRIR system, but not a lot of time. You need to be ready when Nothanganathor breaks free.” Erick said, “But before you shutter the house, I need to leave, to get help from the outside. I will get lost among the adamantium plates and ascend to True Wizard, and then make the Call. I have some tricks that will allow me to do that, as long as your Genesis spell works right and is stable, and I know that it is. I can already see lights upon the world plates of FENRIR. It’s all working well. If I’m not back in a year or two with reinforcements then you need to figure out something else. I imagine by that time that you and everyone else will have had a lot of discussions about the Red, because there’s no Forgetting it this time. Plan B is you all fighting against Nothanganathor yourselves. It should be considerably easier now that you can actually fight back.”

Solomon nodded multitudinously. “It shall be done.”

“Okay, then—”

The Lightning Path coalesced before Erick was ready.

All the world was aglow with Benevolence and Genesis as ten thousand Solomons, ten thousand Wizards from other timelines, turned their gaze upon him in a cooperative cultivation effort—

Erick vanished.

- - - -

As the light of the sun fully vanished beyond the black of an impenetrable adamantium shell, the moons of Veird slipped out of their orbits to lay down softly upon new adamantium surfaces of Veird. Genesis guided well and nothing broke at all, afterlives becoming real one after the other, high, high above every previous land.

More layers of black crowded Veird, layer upon layer, and then the whole thing flashed over with silver, before the planet completely vanished from all sight. The people of Veird were cut off from the solar system. But not forever. Just for now.

Nothanganathor raged, impotently, at the center of a cage he could not scratch at all, for all of his power, all of his capacity he had stolen from all the multiverses of Veird, was being used to empower that cage itself. The more he struggled, the stronger the walls became.

He threw planets at that cage. He threw fire and lightning.

The cage grew stronger.

And Melemizargo laughed.