From Fenrir, Veird hung in the sky like a silver, blue, and white illuminated marble. It was one of many such marbles, but only Veird was an actual planet. All the other spots in the sky were light sources to shine down upon Fenrir.

From Veird, Fenrir appeared like half of the universe; a land that stretched out to infinity in every single direction. Due to the size difference, Veird was a drop of a world hovering above an ocean of a much larger world.

Surrounding them all was the star-filled universe.

They couldn’t be more physically different, and yet, both lands held the same people. Veird held all of those who were originally from Veird, while Fenrir’s patchwork-lands were also from Veird, stolen from their original world and then planted down on the one below. It appeared, in some places, like Nothanganathor had scraped away the lands of Veird with a giant pallet knife and then spread them out over the adamantium shell, like rough peanut butter on bread.

Veird was organized, and prepared for battle, but it was not prepared for battle against so many of its own people. To Veird, the surface of Fenrir had filled with people from the side realities of Veird a little over a week ago. Veird had made plans to fight against esoteric Wizard-defenses and to penetrate Fenrir, to take it over, and then to fight Nothanganathor on the surface of the sun.

They were not prepared to fight their own people.

Fenrir was likely prepared to fight against its own people.

“Because Malevolence likely picked out the people it needed to pick out to make this war win for Nothanaganthor,” Erick said, in the command center of the Blue Corps, and then he lightened his tone, “Or at least that’s the most logical course of action for him! But we don’t really know yet. Not until we actually do it; until we make our moves, and see what happens. Things are going to get very confusing for some of you, but that’s fine. Let’s open with Plan Surround and Consume.” Erick asked the technicians, “How is that plan coming along?”

Killzone, with senses spread wide, said, “Looks about 75% of the way to ignition.”

Erick glanced over to the Spellsurge Mountain readouts, and saw that yeah, the northern one was just about ready.

Erick nodded, leaving the organization up to Killzone. He turned and looked to Shivraa, who was on standby as the main contact of the Valkyries, in the back of the room. The 3-meter-tall, pale-violet ice-queen of Carnage-Death-and-Blood, was looking at Erick with a particularly strange sort of look. Her head was tilted a little, her eyes focused on Erick, but also in the far, far distance.

Erick asked her, “Valkyries on standby?”

Shivraa came back to herself. “Yes.” And then she stared again, and this time it was directly at Erick. “You’re different.”

Rozeta, Jane, Evan, and a few curious technicians and other people in the command center had similar questions on their minds, though they did not voice them a second and third time. Shivraa had only asked the once, though, and she probably felt Erick’s change the most of anyone in the meeting. Erick judged that withholding knowledge from her would impact her ability to do her job correctly, since it was likely true that every single Valkyrie was now feeling what Shivraa was feeling, and probably none of them understood that uneasiness.

It had taken Erick a while to understand that uneasiness, too, but he had experienced it enough back when he spent 30 years on Earth, retreading his own history over and over again to get things right.

Erick said, “One of the side effects of True Paradox magic is that a True Time Mage interacts a lot with the side slices of the Layers of Infinity of the Fractal Universe in an attempt to remain on the one they are trying to remain on. That is the real weirdness most of you are likely feeling. Right now, as the Node Networks for the various spell cannons warm up, and the [Seeds of Atunir] are loaded into the chutes, I am probably somewhere, at one of them, at this very moment in time, doing a few different things. A future version of me, anyway. Phagar is probably pissed at me, but he’s likely dealing with the version of me elsewhere; the one that actually committed the sin of doubling in time, telling me to do less of th—”

The world was thin, and then it was not.

Reality snapped solid into place, and a certain kind of growing unease in the room was suddenly once again taut.

Rozeta said, “Phagar is stabilizing it.”

“Excellent!” Erick said—

“Sirs!” called out one of the technicians, responsible for what appeared to be one of the [Infinite Imaging]s that targeted the airspace of Veird. “There’s something out there!”

Among the room there were many differently-sized screens, showing off this or that information.

Killzone saw what the guy had seen. His eyes glanced at Erick, even as he said, “Big screen it.”

The technician pressed some buttons and his working screen showed on the main screen, where everyone could see.

At the north pole of Veird, just to the side of Yggdrasil’s body up there, a black dragon took off from the Silver Surface of the Silver Forest and launched into the sky. It was Erick, and right below that takeoff was the Spellsurge Mountains—

Phagar stepped into the command center, the world fracturing and then coming back together. He looked like Erick, since that’s who he was dealing with right now. He said, “Erick. Please don’t thin the Godpact like that. I stabilized it, and can do so more easily in the future, but keep that to a minimum. Also, you need to be there for the spell castings. They get corrupted by Malevolence once they reach the Edge.”

Erick nodded, then he said, “I’ll try to keep the real Paradox work off of Veird, but it’s going to happen here and there, Phagar.”

“I know and accept this. Now get going, fae.”

There were gasps around the room. Rozeta just frowned a little, though, as if confirming what she already knew. Jane exclaimed, ‘What!’ while Evan went, ‘The fuck?’. Killzone snorted. Shivraa went, ‘Ahhh. Yes.’

… So maybe they were sensing that weirdness, and not his time-doubling weirdness? Well then.

“Already?!” Jane exclaimed.

“Took about 30 years, or maybe more. Not sure about that,” Erick said, and then he went and hugged his daughter again, saying, “I love you.” He grabbed Evan and hugged him, too, ignoring the tears in his own eyes as Evan squeezed once more, and then let go. With a smile, Erick said, “Surprisingly enough, when the fae say to ‘cultivate Elemental Life’ to Ascend to Fae, they don’t mean literally, and yet they mean very literally. I’m just glad I didn’t copy Fairy Moon’s alliteration compulsion, or whatever is going on there. She’s the only one that does that, you know— Well. There are probably others, I’m sure. Not many!”

And then Erick Stepped away, and it felt awful to drop that on his family, but it also felt amazing to actually be inside a proper manasphere again. It was like living in the desert, and finally the rains had come. As Erick stepped through time, he began to hum.

“I bless the rains down in aaaafricaaa...”

… Maybe he had one compulsion. To sing? Yeah.

That seemed about right.

- - - -

As Erick Stepped to the base of the Spellsurge Mountains, he watched his dragon self fly to the Edge of the Script alongside a massive payload of magic that dwarfed his own body. It was like watching a black bird flying next to a bright gold car.

Erick turned his gaze back to Veird… and the mountains would keep. He turned to the right and looked at Yggdrasil’s tree body. Erick’s largest son was as massive as usual, looking like an entire set of mountains himself, all green and white and rainbow-crowned.

Yggdrasil’s orcol-sized avatar stepped to Erick’s side, looking him up and down, and then looking up into the air, at Erick’s dragon self up above with that spellwork, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. He turned back to Erick-on-the-ground… he paused, as his thoughts fully formed. “Ah. I was wondering what that weirdness was. It’s like that, eh?”

Erick smiled. “Are you multidimensional and non-linear, too?”

“I’m not, but I can recognize it easily enough. I was more focused on the fae-thing, though. Congrats, Father.” Yggdrasil smiled a little— And then he frowned. He looked to Erick. “You don’t know how this war is going to go, do you? You didn’t study up before you came back?”

“I did not. I didn’t want to give it any weight. How does Margleknot react to time wars like this? Phagar didn’t seem to like it.”

Yggdrasil judged that an acceptable answer, then said, “We don’t deal with time travel on Margleknot because there’s only one way to deal with time traveling shenanigans, and that is to not support them, so they end up going elsewhere. People get warnings, though, and then if they violate those warnings we stop assisting them. They get blackballed. That means that they’re fair game to steal from and kill and sunder, though only the truly unfortunate ones ever have that happen to them. We do, of course, have some time travelers on Margleknot, but they know not to show off or do anything like that, because then they get blackballed. It’s a whole… a whole thing, really, and I haven’t even scratched the surface of how that all works out.

“Usually time travelers get employed by people so that they can live luxurious lives on Margleknot but employ their powers outside of our protected space, and that’s allowed. Since the people who employ them aren’t actually time travelers themselves they aren’t blackballed, either. It’s… It’s a whole subculture and an honor system.” Yggdrasil looked up at the sky with Erick, as dragon Erick closed in on the Edge of the Script, alongside the payload from the Spellsurge Mountains. “Nothanganathor’s Establishment-based magic is one of the reasons that Nothanganathor got in good with Eldraki and the Council; he didn’t do this sort of time magic at all. Now did he do this sort of Time Magic outside of Margleknot? I honestly don’t know, father.” He added, “But you’re doing this sort of Time Magic a lot, and that’s… Well. You’re fae, too, so they’ll probably trust you with this stuff.”

“Ah…” Erick said, “I did a lot of Time Magic outside of here. I spent about ten years working on corruption cleansing out there in the universe, for Margleknot and the Fae Council. Most of it during this time or before. I was a Hidden Asset.”

“Oh! Well.” Yggdrasil looked a little embarrassed for a moment. “That would be one of the ways that Margleknot would trust you to have this sort of power, then. Are you going to close this loop, or are you going to rip the loop?”

“Since I didn’t research this war for Reasons, and therefore I have no idea how it’s going to go, I’m probably going to rip the loop.”

Yggdrasil breathed deep. “Ah. Damn. Not a great prognosis, then?”

Erick smiled wide, and said, “What do you mean? The war is going to happen perfectly in our favor!”

At that very same moment Erick’s future self broke through the Edge of the Script, ahead of the spell payload coming in right behind him, right into a sea of Red, hovering invisibly out there. The Red ripped at Future Erick’s draconic body, but Future Erick ripped the Red sky right back, a great ring of white lightning surrounding his body, spreading out wide and deep into the Red before flashing across everything.

It was like the universe had been briefly parted by White, and then the White spread into the Red, consuming and multiplying, the White continually ripping until all the Red was gone. And then Erick opened his mouth and swallowed the power he had spat out there, like a glutton eating a prepared meal, or the opening at the bottom of a whirlpool. Pink sparks flowed into him, becoming White before they got too close, and then disappearing into his maw and into his black scales, like power becoming one with a void.

Future Erick pulsed once more with white, sending out a dome of power that kept going, and going, and going, and encountering nothing, like a roar into an endless void that held no echo at all.

The spellwork payload crested out of the Edge of the Script, into the void that Future Erick had prepared, and then it kept going, without Red interruption.

Current Erick watched with Yggdrasil on the Silver Surface, as the spellwork crashed into its targeting point; one of the glowing spheres of artificial sunlight about three hours away as-normality-flies, but only about 2 seconds away as Future Erick flew. In a single blink, Future Erick flew with that magic, and was suddenly at the artificial light.

Future Erick was a single dot of black against a radiant ‘Sunlight Ward’ the size of a moon.

Moon-sized entities were fine to battle, though.

Future Erick blasted a cone of Benevolence at that artificial sun, eradicating a small ocean of Red within the center of the thing, and then weaving a spell that allowed the payload that had come from Veird to implant itself into that ‘sunlight’. Within a second of reaching the middle of that dissipating light, the payload detonated, and an actual moon formed.

And then the moon blossomed.

Iridescent white light swirled into a planetoid that rapidly sprouted into a land of solid gravity, tower after tower of half-kilometer-wide bamboo stretching far into the illuminated sky, and branches that acted almost as sky bridges. Water spilled out everywhere and slimes bloomed into life as light-filled branches shone out light into the void. The [Seed of Atunir] started producing mana almost instantly.

So that worked out well.

Erick cast his senses into the Spellsurge Mountains, to see what was happening on this end.

The Spellsurge Mountains were one of several launch sites around the world that Erick and others had raised from the Silver Surface and adapted into great gathering spots for spellwork. The mountains themselves looked like mountains from the outside —in that they were craggy and kinda green with plants here and there— but if one were to fly over them, they would see that those mountains were a facade. A great, big, hundred-kilometer-wide-and-long facade.

Behind that facade lay massive tunnels, tens of kilometers wide at the largest, and only a kilometer wide at the smallest. Each tube was primed to hold different kinds of magic, while the whole organization was overseen by an archmage, to ensure that the node networks and payloads were all working as they should. This particular location was overseen by Archmage Tenebrae, and his wife, Palodia, both of whom Erick had [Reincarnation]ed a while ago, transforming them from very old human and less old incani, respectively, into teenager orcols. They were now happily married, and Tenebrae had some new [Familiar]s, like the Rockys that had come before him, but very young.

The tube they had used to fire the [Seeds of Atunir] seemed to have acquired a melting problem, and Tenebrae’s ‘Rocklings’ were rushing around the glowing hot stone mountain, putting magma-fied walls back into place and strengthening the node network, which had overloaded. Those little rock dudes didn’t seem to mind the quartz-melting temperatures of the place, which was pretty good for them. No one else could enter the disturbed land.

The various rank and file people of this Spellsurge installation were busy in the command center or in the back end, putting node networks back into place that had blown like fuses, and restocking mana batteries of various kinds.

The actual [Spellsurge Weave] that controlled the planetoid overhead seemed to be doing just fine, even though all the tech hooked up to that floating, magic map seemed to indicate that there had been a lot of massive problems. Readouts blinked red here and there, but those red warnings were calming down, back to white. They had done tests with this stuff, but obviously not any large tests. This was the first real test of the system, and the problems encountered in the first real test of the system were rapidly being solved and becoming a memory...

Erick glanced up at the sky and watched as Future Erick wrangled with the new planetoid, bolstering it and doubling its size through the furious growth of the bamboo.

Erick nodded. He saw the work he had to do, and he would do that work later.

Between adventuring and working, Erick much preferred working. ‘Working’ was just something you did to make the world a better place. Work was easy, and most of the time Erick enjoyed his work. ‘Adventuring’ was fraught with peril and the baked-in idea that you might not survive the adventure. Like, sure. There was some danger coming up ahead in this battle with Nothanganathor, and Erick had no idea how the whole ‘Nothanganathor is already the God of Magic in the future’-thing would pan out, but he was seeing work ahead of him; not some grand adventure.

Yggdrasil spoke up, “It seems to be going well? The mountains melted a little when that much power flowed through them, but that was a normal sort of accident, and Tenebrae is already repairing them.”

“Any clue how Nothanganathor is keeping his Red out there invisible and ready? Is he really aura-controlling everything out there, or is it something simpler? Some tool?” Erick asked, “Is it the Whirlpool? Solomon prepared against that with that Ocean Calmer he pulled out of the Black Gate, but does the Whirlpool perhaps have a calmer setting besides ‘destroy everything’?”

The Whirlpool was supposed to be a multi-world destruction artifact that was responsible for the collapse of some ancient civilization and which made a small part of the Old Cosmology simply uninhabitable. The Sundering maybe could have gathered that artifact and brought it under Nothanganathor’s Sign of Power, but perhaps that wasn’t what was happening here. Nothanganathor would need to be able to turn the Whirlpool off, first of all, and Erick doubted such a thing was possible. The story of the Whirlpool wasn’t something Erick was wholly aware of, or even concerned about, but it was one of many small concerns and perhaps the easiest one to point out as the source of Nothanganathor’s ability to control his aura all the way out here, past Fenrir.

Maybe the Whirlpool didn’t work outside of a mana ocean, and worrying about the Whirlpool was just like worrying over randomly dying while eating dinner, or something? Sure, it could happen, but it wasn’t bloody likely.

Erick wanted the source of Nothanganathor’s power to be a tool that he could steal or break.

That would be nice.

Yggdrasil guessed, “He could have found a version of the Whirlpool that worked selectively instead of one that just turned on and then swept everything away?” He shrugged. “Nothanganathor used everything he ever came across and hoarded a lot more. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Erick smiled a little bit and then Erick hugged his son, saying, “I missed you. Is Ophiel around?”

Yggdrasil chuckled onto his father’s shoulder. “I’m glad to see you’re still a hugger after whatever stuff went down beyond the present.” He added, “Ophiel is at the southern Spellsurge Mountains, but mostly he’s with Teressa in Benevolence Itself.”

Erick let go, nodding. “I’ll see them soon, too. Gotta work!”

Yggdrasil smiled.

Erick Stepped over to the mountains before Stepping back in time—

Tenebrae stood right in front of him, looking slightly miffed and with papers in his hands. “He said you’d appear here, but I didn’t rightly believe it.” He shoved the papers against Erick’s chest, saying, “Dammit if I didn’t see it for myself. Get going!”

The rocklings near Tenebrae looked at the ground, speaking at the ground as they said, “Sooooorryy.”

Tenebrae took a much nicer tone with his kids, saying, “You don’t need to apologize to people appearing out of nowhere. They are very rude for doing that.” He looked to Erick. “Aren’t you.”

Erick smiled as he read the papers, saying, “See you earlier~” as he Stepped—

- - - -

Erick Stepped out onto the control chambers of Spellsurge Mountains, Northern Wing, right into the grappling arms of two suddenly-appearing Rocklings. Stone surged around Erick, and Erick let the kids grab him, for they didn’t hurt and Erick didn’t want to hurt them back.

The control center looked the same. Kinda relaxed. It was a mage’s research and control center, after all. Not a military installation; not really. Tenebrae wasn’t a crotchety old man anymore, but he still demanded to be in total control of his own facilities, and this was his facility, completely. It was also the easiest facility for people to abandon if things went wrong, so Tenebrae had gotten the honor of setting up the systems and shooting the first rounds of spells.

While Erick looked around, the rocklings on him roared,

“Halt! Unauthorized entry into a restricted space! You are being detained! Do not resist!”

Tenebrae had been sitting in a chair, watching everything happen in front of him, in various floating screens both magical and electrical, from Margleknot. But now he whipped his head around even as his kids were grappling Erick. He launched from his seat, rapidly, angrily saying, “What the fuck are you doing here? You just disappeared off the battlefield and then you come back here? Do you want to get me targeted?! You shouldn’t be anywhere near here!”

Erick laughed at that—

Phagar stepped out into the air, splitting the world with fractals. His voice was much more measured than Tenebrae’s. “You are endangering the stability of the Godpact with this sort of magic, Erick, because you are directly targeting the Godpact, and I know when the Godpact is targeted.”

Erick returned to professionalism. He said to Tenebrae. “Please relax your children.”

“Bah, you bastard dragon!” Tenebrae spat, and then he —much more softly— told his kids, “You can let the Apparent King go, kids.”

The rocklings startled as Tenebrae named Erick.

Or rather, Named, with a capital letter and all that. Erick had always wondered when the ability to be Named would happen to him, and it appeared that time was now. Tenebrae’s voice was merely the closest one to Erick, and he was rather strong as a mage, and so perhaps that’s why Erick had felt a light touch upon himself when the words ‘Apparent King’ entered the air, cast as they were from Tenebrae like the tossing of a stone into a still lake.

That was going to get terribly annoying if he had no way to shut it off.

Anyway. The kids were having a much different reaction to Erick’s Naming, or rather, to Tenebrae’s request.

Their arms rapidly dissolved and they slunk away, sobbing about not recognizing Erick. The rocklings were all about 1.5 meters tall, so like a short human, but they were all sized for orcol sensibilities, just like Tenebrae was an orcol himself these days, so they were rather darned short in that respect. Halfpints, really. Halfpints that cried tears of silver.

Tenebrae patted their heads and told them, “It’s alright. He shouldn’t be here anyway. Even the God of Time and the End says so.”

Phagar nodded, smirking.

Erick handed over Tenebrae’s own notes, saying, “It appears I need to be here to help get this payload off the ground. Please implement your own changes as fast as you can.”

“… What the f— Ah. Time shit. Yeah yeah yeah…” Tenebrae’s voice trailed off as he grabbed the notes, reading them in full though he had likely already read them with his own mana. Without looking up at Erick, he said, “Something is wrong with you, Erick. What’d you’d do to yourself?”

Phagar arched his eyebrow at Erick, as though requesting the same answers.

Erick told them both, “I’m fae. I’m also going to war out there from here, so if you could please tell me how long it would take to implement your changes to your own workings?”

Tenebrae said, “A minute. I’m already changing things out there.” He looked up at some screens. “Looks like the systems are all blue from here, but this stuff is a revert to a less-safe version of the system… But the end result is a more stable spell matrix, as long as it can be protected.” He looked to Erick. “We opted for less power and a weaker endspell in favor of more protections, but I guess you’re riding the spell to the target which is now an actual target, so you can guide the spell to power better that way? You sure you want to go out there, yourself? I thought you’d be safe, but you were just eaten by a fish.”

“Eh!” Erick said, “I’m a fae that can time travel properly.”

Phagar said, “And you need to be careful with that, Erick.”

Erick nodded. “I’ll do what needs to be done. Thank you for your allowances.”

Phagar breathed in, and then he stepped away, into fractals, saying, “Atunir is telling me she’s ready to assist with the spread of this slightly altered plan. She’ll be back later, to talk, and so will I.”

Erick nodded at that, and then he asked Tenebrae, “No questions about fae, or Time?”

“I want some Juubi cakes from Greendale in Greensoil, at a little shop on the corner of Bushings and Down. Aim for 25 years ago, before the original grandma passed on the business to their grandson and he ruined the recipe—” Tenebrae thought for a second. He added, “Might have been 35 years ago.”

Erick smiled, and then he turned to a splash of light that Stepped up into the mountains above, though his voice lingered in the command center, “I’ll think about it!”

“Do more than think!”

And then Erick was a giant fuck-off dragon, standing over the mountains, waiting for the spell to weave itself in the base of one of the ten-kilometer-wide cylinders. About 13 various alarms went off inside the command center, speaking of blockages above the spell tunnels, while many of the screens showed as much of Erick as they could. It was only on the largest overview screen that Tenebrae actually got to see all of Erick. A 15 kilometer wingspan was pretty massive, after all.

Tenebrae frowned, saying, “Oh fuck right off with that shit.”

And then he got to pressing some buttons, muttering about damned fucking dragons.

Soon, light blossomed in the bottom of the main spell launcher, and Erick wove some more magic into the working, smoothing out bumps and crystallizing spells himself, now that much of the conduits were relaxed. Power poured in fast and hot, and the temperature started to rise as crystals manifested in semi-liquid form, the very Script trying to destabilize what was happening in the tunnel.

“Ah,” Erick said, “That didn’t happen in our tests.”

Erick fixed it with an application of his own Authority, taking over the brunt of the Script’s anger at the spellwork hims—

A blue box appeared.

It appears there were some fish in the Core and they were messing with various systems, including the Weaver system.

Kirginatharp killed them.

They spawned from him, though.

This Dragon Curse plan of yours has some holes, and perhaps we should reconsider that whole thing.

~Rozeta

Erick nodded at that, and said, “We’ll speak later about that, too. Glad to hear it went well. Kirginatharp is safe?”

He’s okay.

Thank you for your concern.

Erick nodded and then dismissed the box as he finished his machinations with the spellwork at the bottom of the spellsurge tunnel. That magic glowed like ephemeral power, now, radiant with gold and iridescence and white.

The spell launched, blossoming like a nuclear bomb mushrooming into the sky.

Erick rode the giant mass of spellwork into the sky.

When he reached the Edge, he entered a Red Ocean that he promptly subdued with a massive [Fulmination Aura], Benevolence-style that shot lightning across the Red-filled void exactly as though it were actual water, which was great for getting some distance on that spellwork. One flash later, and Erick had ‘killed’ the red. And then his [Undertow Star] aura came out, and shadowy tendrils gathered the half-dead Red and drew it inside, like Erick was swallowing the ocean.

The pink turned Red here and there, but applications of Benevolence broke up the Red—

Nothanganathor’s direct attention was on the Red, through Domainwork, trying to sneak into Erick, but Erick had practiced too well against that shit to be fooled. Erick spat out flickers of Benevolence lightning even as he drew the ocean of power into himself, crashing his Domain directly against the Erased One’s.

Fighting with Domains was a bit like aura fights. The smaller, stronger aura was usually able to pierce the larger, softer aura, but when strengths met with strengths, the winner usually came down to a matter of mana-versus-mana, or desire and control versus the same qualities in the other user. That was normal combat, though.

This, right here, was also a Wizard duel.

Erick was the one physically present, though, and that made all the difference.

It was like wrestling over the remote control, to decide who got to watch what that day. Nothanganathor started off strong, his control on the Red like an iron grip, but Nothanganathor was fighting from behind the walls of Fenrir, like an older brother stuck with one arm behind his back. Erick pounced, and pried, and then he won. The Red fell out of Nothanganathor’s control, and Erick devoured it.

With the [Seed of Atunir] now protected, Erick rode the spellwork out of the Script, across the void, pulling the spellwork behind him as fast as a single Step. Once at the target, Erick devoured the Red inside the false sun that was their target. Soon, the planetoid of the [Seeds of Atunir] was growing strong, and Erick departed the battlefield to rejoin Veird, flying sedately back to—

Erick was about halfway back to Veird when a faster-than-light arc of Red Lightning was a single meter away from impacting the new planetoid.

The Red lighting hadn’t even gathered from anywhere. It had simply appeared.

And then Erick saw where it was gathering. Down below, on the Edge of Fenrir’s ‘Script’, Red Sparks were crowding out the clouds hanging above that Script.

This, then, was a Wizardry, and also a danger, because it looked like an act of corruption. Divorcing cause from effect was one of the most obvious ways that corruption happened, but small applications of such power was just what wizards did sometimes. The fact that the Red Lightning was also still gathering on that Red Edge of Fenrir, even as it almost impacted the new planetoid, was maybe corruption, or maybe not. It was an attack out of sync with time, whatever it was, causing an effect before the cause actually happened, doing everything at the same instant.

Erick saw Red Lightning just appear with the forward arc of it almost touching down onto an illuminated spire of the Seed world. That Lightning was as thick as five spires; kilometers across.

Erick watched a Future Erick in his draconic body step into the path of the Red Lightning and attempt to devour it—

The Red tore right through him and then into the planet below.

“Ouch,” Erick and his Future self both said, though Future Erick said it more like a dying man.

Which was kinda scary, really.

And then his Future Self vanished, for Erick had chosen not to take that route.

He had ripped the loop.

The universe ripped a little bit in turn, as one does when one switches slices of Infinity. In one slice of Infinity Erick got hurt, while in this one Erick chose differently. It was less an action of him stepping out of the Godpact slice, though, and more of him pushing the bad future away from his chosen battleground. Erick remained on the Godpact slice, and all failures fell away.

Such was the nature of a Wizard War, though Erick could only really see the mechanics of it all now that he was a higher existence.

Erick stepped back in time and this time, instead of standing in the way of the Red Lightning, he pulled at the Benevolence of the planetoid, rapidly drawing on the nascent gate space he had worked into the magic, allowing him to open a giant portal that would swallow the Red and spit it out the other side, neatly avoiding striking the planetoid at all.

And then the Red did something weird. This time, it did not simply appear. This time, it acted like it should have, with cause creating effect.

All across Fenrir’s local ‘Edge of the Script’ —Erick was going to need to think of a better name for it— Red Sparks gathered. From thousands upon thousands of kilometers of open sky, Red Lightning twisted into being, and then struck through the void, almost crawling now that it wasn’t moving faster than reality.

Erick watched himself from a few thousand kilometers away as the Red Lightning —Primal Lightning, no doubt— tried to curve around Erick’s current position, to strike the planetoid.

Erick simply widened the [Gate].

The Red Lightning went through, and then beyond, sparking off into the void, trailing off and never stopping, though it did unwind here and there now that it was beyond its strike-range. The spellwork scattered into so much Malevolence that then burrowed into Infinity, vanishing from sight.

Erick closed the [Gate].

He eyed Fenrir’s Edge of the… Hmm.

Erick wasn’t going to call it Fenrir’s Script.

“Fenrir’s ‘System’? … Not that either... But it was a system of spellwork that Solomon laid down to make the land make land, until Nothanganathor took it over— Oh! Fenrir’s ‘Scheme’! That’s what we’ll call it. Fenrir’s Scheme.” Erick flew through the void, toward Veird, openly thinking, “Or maybe someone else came up with a better name—”

The solidity of time suddenly shifted when Erick was halfway to Veird, for something had surrounded the nearest thousand kilometers of space and then altered the flow of time within Erick’s vicinity.

It was an application of the basic idea of Veird’s own Plan Surround and Consume, of simply acting from a higher physical position against an opponent in a lower, smaller position. The FENRIR system was Veird’s initial idea to regain the upper hand against Nothanganathor in that very same way. The Fusion Energy Nullification Radiance Impounding Relay did exactly as it said on the tin, but Nothanganathor had corrupted it to his own ends, and now he regained the upper hand, which was how he had been able to shoot that Primal Lightning at the recent Seeds of Atunir planetoid, and do all the rest of the shit he had been able to do these last years.

Nothanganathor’s entire shtick was that he was the Arbiter of Veird, and he acted from the sun, to form the heliosphere that had originally dominated Veird, to have the true upper hand through sheer size.

That was how Nothanganathor had initially fought Erick, back when he Ascended to True Wizard, and he had been trying to escape the Erased One, to escape the trap the leviathan had made for him.

So Erick wasn’t too surprised when a thousand kilometers out from his current form, the universe twisted, and Erick’s bit of reality slipped out of alignment with the massive [Hasted Shelter] that had enveloped Veird, and which Fenrir had matched. Nothanganathor hadn’t actually done anything to Erick in that action. He had removed Erick from a magic that Erick had been participating in.

It was a rather soft application of power that didn’t even come into contact with Erick’s own strength. It just undid the [Haste] around him at a vast, vast distance.

Time sped up out there.

Erick saw wars rage across the heavens in a fraction of a second, as Valkyries went out and died and the Red-infected people of Fenrir zipped in large ships up to Veird to attack—

“Well that’s enough of that.”

Erick stepped back in time, to stand directly onto the Edge of Veird, and stare at his former location up in the sky, between Veird and the new planetoid. For a long moment, he watched himself be stuck in the bubble of non-hasted time, far, far away. That Past Erick out there would be stuck out there for practically years, according to the time flow in here. But yeah. That wasn’t happening.

That bubble of non-[Hasted] time collapsed as though it had never happened, because Erick had escaped to prevent everything that Erick would have seen come to pass out there. Were the Valkyries going to fail? Were ships from Fenrir going to attack Veird? Not on his watch, and Erick was here on watch, for sure.

Standing atop the Edge of the Script, Erick faced Fenrir and openly tsk’d at Nothanganathor, saying, “Obviously I could have simply stepped over to Veird and not have left myself vulnerable out there to that trick at all, so it seems unwise that you deployed that magic. Did you simply feel the need to dominate, in any way you could? Or was it more of a ‘well he’s there, and I gotta try’ sort of situation? I’m glad to have baited out that attack, either way. Great work.”

Red sparked across the Edge of the Scheme, far, far away.

Ah.

Erick’s taunt was too much?

Ha!

Primal Lightning gathered at the Edge of the Scheme, a moon-length away, and then it twisted into direction, into force. It was like a river of Red Lightning as it lifted off of Fenrir. That Red came for Erick, and for Veird behind him.

Erick imagined that Rozeta was having a traumatic episode right now, right alongside a great deal of other immortals down below.

But on Veird, this close to Erick’s established Gate Networks…

Erick could have simply opened a [Gate] all across Veird, but… No. Erick changed his tactic at the last moment.

He did not open a [Gate]. Nothanganathor probably wanted to surprise him with a trick to use against a [Gate], but Erick had some tricks of his own. Instead, Erick began weaving a spell, and then he stepped through time, yet again, and then again and again and again and again.

A hundred Ericks stood in the skies of Veird, just beyond the Script, not impacting the Godpact at all as they spoke in unison and also in sequence.

“[Animadversion].”

It was barely a working of Wizardry, and yet, it was still Wizardry, with inspiration taken from the Lightning Shield that Erick had once held in his hands, which helped protect him while he learned the truth of the Red. He also took inspiration from his own time guarding the universe from corruption, and acting with his own selves on Earth, a few times. Erick did not discard these futures all around him; no. He empowered them through his own actions as he worked methodically, and strongly.

He paced every version of himself as he handed off spellwork to himself, weaving threads of thorny silver Elemental Reflection across the entirety of Veird, like the biggest basket that Veird had ever seen. The threads of Animadversion were thin things, like wires, with thousands of kilometers between individual threads. This allowed the people on Veird to see outward, but the thread would still protect them from the Red, because Animadversion was a proactive, mobile spell; it would move to intercept what it needed to intercept.

Primal Lightning attempted to crash against the original Erick that had started the working.

But the threads of [Animadversion] bunched up, in the sky around Erick, multiplying themselves ten thousand fold and dominating the space between Erick and the Red. The silver threads thickened and turned thorny, right as the Lightning came.

The lightning hit the silver thorns, and then did not reflect.

It was swallowed whole, and Erick smiled.

Nothanganathor wasn’t the only one that could do a trick.

The spellwork did not actually absorb the spellwork, though. It reflected it Elsewhere, though Infinity, into another land, where a leviathan coiled on the sun. Erick caught a glimpse of black things among the reflection; of Nothanganathor’s backlit body against a nuclear furnace. The Primal Lightning went all the way back to Nothanganathor himself, skipping Fenrir entirely.

And then the Lightning cut off, and Fenrir was fine, and the silver threads of [Animadversion] relaxed back around Erick, to settle back down like loose, disintegrating threads upon Veird, their power spent, the spell ended. Nothanganathor probably got a new tiny burn against his scales, which was expected. Or maybe nothing happened at all.

Erick watched his Future Selves weaving magic for a little while, to see that they had all contributed a bit toward making this present a reality. There had been a contest of wills, for sure. Current Erick barely felt that contest, now that there were so many of him working together.

It was time for Current Erick to become those Futures selves, though.

Erick Stepped through time and set up next to himself, to pull at threads of [Animadversion] and extend them out to other Future Ericks further along the Edge of the Script, and in time.

Erick watched Primal Lightning descend on Veird a thousand times that day. Mostly, he reinforced the [Animadversion] when the Red tried to corrupt it. Or rather, ‘corrupt’ it. Erick was 100% sure that Nothanganathor had only taken inspiration from corruption to make Malevolence, but Malevolence wasn’t actually corruptive though it certainly looked like it was now and then.

In a thousand ways, in the opening of the return stroke against the sun, Erick locked eyes with Nothanganathor in those fractions of a second, and he told that Red bastard,

“No.”

When Erick’s 10 hour long battle ended, he was down a few million mana and resons, which was rather acceptable. He had trillions to spend, after all, and if he needed more he could just take a break somewhere else and wait for it all to come back. Or he could Siphon resources from the [Seeds of Atunir] once they got going.

It still might not be enough.

Nothanganathor was likely harvesting all the mana from all the people on Fenrir, now that it had people, and so if Erick had had waited a week to start this attack, then Nothanganathor would have recouped all his own losses to bring all these new people to life and then some. Even before that, the guy probably had quadrillions of mana or more since had been gathering that mana from Veird and infinity for a long while, so Erick was facing an uphill battle, for sure, but there was no reason to let Nothanganathor establish himself even stronger than he already was.

Erick had time, but not an infinity, even if that’s how this universe was set up. Sooner or later, something important was going to shatter and Erick wouldn’t be exchanging ‘simple’ barbs with Nothanganathor. This war would enter its endgame.

… Probably.

But for whatever reason, as Erick hovered above the Edge of the Script, singular in nature with eyes focused upon Fenrir, another sideways-attack did not come. Erick stood there, like a man guarding a wall… or perhaps like a dragon guarding his hoard. The thieves had stolen into the mountain and pilfered gold, and they had plans to pilfer even more, but now they were rethinking their attack.

Erick waited, there above the Script, for an attack that did not come.

An hour or so later, he turned his eyesight briefly to the left, to watch as the Benevolence planetoid divided into two, like a giant slime that had grown too large, or rather more like a bunch of very complicated plants and water systems and a multitude of life that had been organizing itself for the split for the last little while. Right on cue, the planetoid split, and a second, smaller Benevolence planetoid drifted away, toward another glowing lightorb in the sky. It grew larger before it reached that part of the grid of lights above Fenrir, and right as it impacted the lightorb, it flashed with brilliant Benevolence. The Red core of the second lightorb broke and faltered, dissipating into Infinity, and the new [Seed of Atunir] took its place as a sun in the sky for Fenrir.

A few hours after that, both the first planetoid and the second one split again, sending off starter colonies into other nearby lights. When the colonies touched the light, they blew away the Red in those lights and became the new mini-suns in that part of the world of Fenrir.

Plan Surround and Consume was active, and working, and it was also destroying a working of Red in those sunlights. Good work, all around.

Erick opened tiny portals into Benevolence itself now and again, to check on those mini-worlds as they grew and thrived under their own rapidly-created life. He found nothing amiss with those lands.

And so, he waited for the other shoe to drop.

He also checked his Status, to make sure he wasn’t under an attack he didn’t see.

Erick Flatt, [100-ish] [Current Location: Layer 789; Veird, year 1453]

Mana split; Soul, Body, Mind: 31%, 30%, 30%

Reson allocation rate: 9%

Soul: 2.23b per day / 25,810 per second , [Mark of Benevolence Level = 2.23]

Body: 3218

Mind: 4723

Overall Stability: ↑↑ [+23,487.1, -33] Basic upkeep

Mp: 351.6t/∞, ↑ [+8,001.1, -11] Basic upkeep

Hp: 349.1t/∞, ↑ [+7,743, -11] Basic upkeep

Pp: 348.9t/∞, ↑ [+7,743, -11] Basic upkeep

Resons: 98.9t [+2,322.9 = +258.1]

Yup; that looked about normal these days.

Erick sent a second glance down to Veird, back down to the northern wing of the Spellsurge Mountains, where Tenebrae and a few others were working to contain an organize the [Spellsurge Weave] map that controlled the [Seeds of Atunir]—

Ah.

And a Future Erick stepped out of the air, to help them.

Current Erick was about to go down there, but he’d keep watch up here for a while…

He looked back down.

“How long do I have to stay up here?”

- - - -

“You stay up there for a while,” Erick said to his Past, of about 20 hours ago. Erick then turned to the room with Atunir, Tenebrae, Rozeta, and Archmage Riivo of Archmage’s Rest, all concentrated on the Weave in front of them. “And I’ll take over from here. So! Guys! There’s a few different attacks coming, and we need to prepare for them all, because in that preparation, they won’t happen.”

Atunir sighed out in relief as she smiled, saying, “It is so nice to have you back as an accomplished Time Wizard, Erick. Loved that thing with the [Animadversion].” She chuckled a little, then admitted, “I was truly worried for a moment there.” Her voice got softer. “Very worried.”

Rozeta had a hollow look in her eyes as she got down to business, saying, “She was not the only one who was worried—”

“I’m not worried now,” Atunir stressed, and then she swept a hand at the glowing map of the expanding [Seeds of Atunir]. “Everything is working out very well out there, and now you’re both out there and in here at the same time. I feel practically young again, Erick, seeing someone step through time so easily. Tell me the problems coming down the line, and allow me to feel joy that this whole thing is going to work out in our complete favor.”

Erick raised an eyebrow at the Goddess of Field and Fertility. “You’re quite peppy right now?”

“I most certainly am! And you should be, too!” Atunir said, “You have no idea how much stress the entire world is under, Erick. So much stress. But now you came in and spent ten hours out there, on your own, fighting the good fight through time itself…” She smiled, and a tiny golden tear formed and then collected in her deep brown eyes. “And I’m rather experiencing a lot of emotions right now.”

She took the drop of gold from her eyes, like plucking a drop of sunlight from the sky, and she flicked the drop into the [Spellsurge Weave] map. That drop struck one of the planetoids out there and then spread like golden light through the spreading spellwork.

Erick couldn’t tell exactly what she had done, but she had just cleared up a good 8 problems that he had foreseen, but which he hadn’t gotten the chance to talk about. He was going to tell them about… well. A bunch of stuff.

Rozeta said, “I’m the Goddess of Knowledge, and you being here is enough to grant me the Knowledge that you want me to have.”

“Ah,” Erick said. “All the gods and Relevant Entities of the Script are in deep communication right now, because that was part of the plan, wasn’t it. I had forgotten about that nuance of this war.”

“You spent a while away, Erick, but now you’re back and stronger than ever,” Atunir said, “And that very presence helps us in turn. The Pantheon has been without any true powers to act on our behalf in… in so long.”

“I’m glad to help,” Erick said, smiling. “I live here too, after all.”

Atunir smiled gently.

“I still have concerns,” Rozeta said. “But yes. We’re all in communication with each other. Everything is working as it should. You leaving was a very big concern, but now you’re back and strong enough to venture outside of the Script without worry, and now we wonder if we should adjust some of our plans. Should we be more aggressive?”

Erick said, “Yes to aggression. It is probably time to talk about killing your alters out there, on Fenrir.”

Rozeta said, “That is one of our main concerns, yes. One among many, really. It has only been a week since we saw Fenrir reveal itself as it currently is.”

Atunir said, “We found out what went wrong with our initial implantation of [Seeds of Me] on Fenrir. We already assumed that he would have some divine assistance to come at us sideways, through an attack based on the nature of mana and divinity itself, and that is exactly what happened there. This larger Plane Surround and Consume is working because it’s taking place outside of Fenrir’s protected space and you’re there to make it actually work, but I can’t plant anything on Fenrir’s surface because… He has a reflection of me down there, Erick. She stopped me.”

Phagar stepped into the meeting, saying, “There are copies of all of us down there.”

Rozeta said, “Everyone except Melemizargo.”

A shadow coiled in the room. Bright white eyes lit up in the gloom, as Melemizargo said, “Of course he doesn’t have me down there.” He looked at Erick. “We need to talk.”

Rozeta sighed. She said to Erick, “We’ll talk about those things later.”

Erick nodded

- - - -

Erick stood with Melemizargo at Ascendant Mountain, atop the central pillar and under a swirl of Darkness. The main source of light in the space was the pillar underneath, which glowed like a white-ice ocean under the sun. Everything else was black.

Melemizargo’s eyes were also rather illuminated, though, almost rivaling the light from the floor. He was 3 meters tall at the moment, but he was still a dragon and that was his sitting-down height, so he was still rather wide.

Erick was similarly sized, but he was in his human form.

A chair rose out of the ground for Erick, and Erick took the offered seat, asking, “What’s up, Melemizargo?”

“I’m going to die soon.”

It was a sudden statement, voiced softly, in a way that Erick had only ever heard Melemizargo speak to his daughter. It was not what Erick wanted to hear.

It was a finality.

An End.

Melemizargo did not simply mean ‘die’ when he said ‘die’, and both of them knew that, and both of them knew that Melemizargo did not want to die, but they knew it was going to happen anyway. Or, at least, that’s what both of them believed. Melemizargo was resigned.

Erick still had hope.

Erick breathed deep, then asked, “I can’t change that?”

“No. Nothanganathor won along the avenue of the Godpact world, and though you have split this reality from that reality, the reality we focused on for so long still carries a certain weight. He becomes the God of Magic along that avenue of power. That is set in the Firmament Itself.”

“Why can’t I change that?!”

Melemizargo got a far off look in his eyes, and then he looked at Erick, and said, “Once, long ago, I had a conversation with my own mother that went along these very same lines, when I found out about what Nothanganathor had done to her. I asked her why we couldn’t alter her death. She told me something that was a rumor to me before that moment, even though I had been her Second for a long time. Something I didn’t truly believe, but which has proven true. I can feel it even now.

“My End.

“Erick.

“Understand this: the Darkness always knew that there would always be a Wizard War contest over the Mantle of the God of Magic, and so the Darkness set up some rules. One of those rules is that whoever wins the Mantle will keep the Mantle, and no amount of Paradoxing or Creation or Destruction will change that.

“There are not many hard rules when it comes to True Magic, done true, but this is one of them. When the time comes for a Changeover of Mantle, the Mantle moves on. And so, Nothanganathor will get the Mantle, 38 days from now. No matter what you do, he will get the Mantle. He might not know this, but he likely feels it. I feel it, too, and I recognize the feeling. Rozeta knows what is coming because she is the Goddess of Knowledge, and it is her sacred duty and burden to Know Things. She and I have had a conversation already, but we had to break it off because it was too troubling for her, and for me.

“And now you also know this sacred information.”

Erick breathed.

He accepted what he was told.

And then he tried to find a way around it.

He asked, “If we can’t prevent the date, could we skip over the date?”

“The Changeover is not a solid thing. It can move this way or that, but it will happen. Even if Nothanganathor is dead, he will be revived by the Dark, because he is already the God of Magic in the future. Causality will break and then reform to make this happen. If necessary, the Dark Itself will take action, which means that every single person in the nearest few light years will likely die, including you, if you stay here.”

Erick said, “He told me that he ‘did things’ to ensure that he is the God of Magic. Is this one of those things? Is this a fiction invented by him to make you believe these things?”

Melemizargo smiled a little, though it was a sad sort of thing. “No. He lied to you about that, about ‘him doing something’. He is claiming credit for the work of others. This is how the transfer always works, though the hows-and-whys of it is different every time.”

“… Shit— Wait. What if we change the Mantle itself into something lesser? Make the Goddess of Knowledge the true power of the Dark?”

Melemizargo smiled worriedly. “Then the Dark would strip Rozeta of her life and power and grant all of that to Nothanganathor. As it is, the Dark will likely do that anyway, and if not the Dark, then Nothanganathor once he is able.”

“He doesn’t make any inroads into the Dark after he wins, Melemizargo,” Erick said, as solid as he could. “The universe of the future had Nothanganthor winning, but he was still a while away from actually getting the Dark to accept a new emplacement of life within itself. He might never have reached that goal. Yes, he had won, but he had won a Mantle from an Overdeity that didn’t seem to care for him at all.”

Melemizargo chuckled darkly. “Aye. The Dark would hate him… But the Dark hates me, too. I stripped people of their power before, Erick, which set the stage for the Sundering. I have not been a good steward. When I was young... Nothanagnathor is just the most present of the offended. Even here, on Veird, I couldn’t get anyone to be who they should have been. I am a failure in the eyes of the Dark.”

“Let’s not be defeatist yet.” Erick thought a little bit… “How about we make Nothanganathor ascend to a god of the Fractal Cosmology?”

“And then he gets to be a double god? Ha?”

“No no. Fractal gods can only do what people think they can do, and if everyone believes that Nothanganathor can only ever be… the Hidden Antagonist, or something, then that is what he will become. And then, when he gets the Mantle of Magic he will become a god that is… that is what his worshipers made of him? Someone more in line with the actual purposes of the Dark?” Erick could see that Melemizargo didn’t like any part of this idea, but Erick continued, “Just wait a moment— There are lots of problems to this idea, with the main one being that Nothanganathor is siphoning away his divinity to Margleknot, through ancient pact, so he can’t actually become divine, otherwise he would have done so long ago. Also, his Sign of Power probably siphons away divinity, too. But the point is… Can we turn him into a phantom of himself that would give up his power and undo what he has done, reviving everyone he killed and undoing the Erasures and all that? If we can do that, then that’s pretty much a win, right?”

Melemizargo looked even less happy. “… You want to forgive him?”

Erick kept the anger out of his voice, but it was a near thing. “Do you want to live and turn back into the God of Magic after a while of being dead, or do you want to just plain lose?” Erick added, “I’m spitballing ideas right now, anyway. We might come up with something better with more than a handful of minutes of thought.”

Melemizargo harrumphed. “Honestly. You, calling for forgiveness. This is less of a surprise to me than it should be. You, calling for forgiveness! I’m surprised it took this long. Your fae ascension truly brought you back to your roots.”

“I fully expect to be too furious to be able to think straight now and again, but being able to walk through time has given me some much-needed distance.”

Silence.

Erick’s thoughts turned to the past.

Melemizargo was probably thinking of the past, too.

Anger and frustration bled away from the moment, like pus from a wound.

Melemizargo was resigned, and it had taken Erick some time to get there with him. He still wasn’t there, but… If Melemizargo had said he was going to die, then Erick kinda believed him.

Erick said, “Rozeta might have already told you, but… When I saw Nothanganathor the last time— 30 years ago, to me, not that glimpse through the reflect— when I saw him he told me how I had proclaimed to be the ‘ultimate forgiving sort’ —like that was something awful to be— and that he deserved the same treatment, and then I told him ‘Forgiveness is for those who desire it, or those who I can force into compliance. You are neither, and you will have NOTHING.’. He exploded, or I exploded him. I don’t know if I actually managed that myself, or he allowed it, but it still feels good to have done that to him.”

Melemizargo said, “It was probably an avatar. I did the same thing many, many times. Never with him as a god, though…” Melemizargo nodded proudly. “That’s quite an accomplishment for you. Congratulations.”

Erick laughed. “Thanks for humoring my mortal achievements.”

“Ha! Mortal, he says.” Melemizargo adopted a sarcastically imperious tone, saying, “Now Erick, just because I have seen it all a billion times already does not make this time any less important, and you are no more mortal than Fairy Moon, or Shadow, or any of the others.” A bit softer, he asked, “Have you not experienced a physical death yet?”

Erick shuddered. “I thought I already did?”

“Well yes. Your worldline shattered and then you brought it back together. Seems you made some sort of power that allows you to recollect more than just yourself after death, though. It allows you to not actually spend any mana, if you wish… Hmm. And also allows for magic sampling? Ahh… That’s your Archmage upbringing; Always investigative. But you know why the Dark wants people to actually spend mana, though?”

Huh. So [Wizard’s Clarity] was the first step to becoming Fae? … or at least the version of Fae that Erick became.

“To spend mana is to expand existence, I am sure.”

“Correct.” Melemizargo asked, “Have you experienced death since your initial death?”

“Nope! And I’m fine with that.”

Melemizargo smirked. “It’s actually quite good to know that you have this kind of power. I’m sure exploding Nothanganathor’s avatar was no small feat, either.”

“I’ll count it as an accomplishment if I can do it again, and directly. Maybe if I can kill his real body I can [Reincarnation] him into someone better… Oh. Uh. Would that get rid of his Curse of Obscurity?”

“If you can put him into a position that you actually have enough power to [Reincarnation] him, then I will be able to undo the Curse from here.” Melemizargo said, “With the Curse undone, that would allow you to actually uphold your ideals to protect those who you subjugate, wouldn’t it?”

They had skipped past the part where Erick would have said that he would have taken Nothanganathor under his wing after a [Reincarnation], if he was actually able to do any of that, which meant protecting him from forces that wanted to End him. Erick hadn’t wanted to bring that up… but he kinda did want to talk about it, which is why he mentioned undoing the Curse of Obscurity.

Erick said, “I don’t want to forgive him, for anything—”

“And yet, you would, if you could.”

“If forgiving the Sundering would put all this behind us and sever him from the power to ever Sunder ever again, as well as ensure all good outcomes for all always? Then yes, I would forgive him, and you will, too.”

“But you don’t want to forgive him.”

It was an accusation, a demand of Melemizargo’s own, a plea, and a need, all wrapped up in a small sentence that was almost a question, but not quite.

“Yeah. I don’t…” Erick said, “I don’t know if I could honestly forgive him for anything, Melemizargo.” Erick thought of Debby, and all the pain of the last 1453 years of Veird’s history, and the uncountable trillions of people that the Sundering killed and then ripped apart until nothing was left, not even their souls. “I don’t want to forgive him. He doesn’t even deserve forgiveness as he is… But if he gives up everything? If there is a way to make this work that results in no more war? Then I… I would do what I needed to do.”

Melemizargo snorted; a laugh. And then he said, “If he asks you to ask me to undo his Curse of Obscurity, then know now that the answer is ‘no’, unless you can truly put him in a position where you or I have all the power over him. If you can draw any sort of solid agreement out of him that would be acceptable then I would… allow it.”

That was big.

Erick nodded.

The both of them allowed the moment to settle.

And then Erick asked, “You’re not down there at all, are you? On Fenrir, I mean. I thought you could look through the Dark Mark to see everyone you want to see who has a Mark?”

Melemizargo furrowed his scaled eyebrows. “No. That’s not how that works… Is that how Nothanganathor sought to speak to you after your dismissal?”

“I thought it was, but now I’m realizing that there’s a discrepancy in that thought.”

Melemizargo shook his head a little. “There is little discrepancy. Unless I am truly focusing on a known power, it is hard to see them, and even then it would be impossible to see an average person outside of Veird, outside of a proper manasphere. I have caught glimpses of times and places like that, since the Sundering, but I had always assumed it was a phantom; a trick to get me to release my Mantle. The only way he was likely able to see you after he kicked you away was that you were inside of a manasphere and you were a Wizard of the Dark; two very necessary things in order to draw the attention of Magic Itself and to allow the Dark to see you. The Dark sees its Wizards everywhere they are, all the time.”

“Ahh… Well yeah. I guess so— Can you see me now?”

Melemizargo said, “Yes, but only because you’re a weight upon the world. If you lighten your steps then you will become invisible.”

“… Huh.” Erick said, “One of the things he said was that it was anathema for the God of Magic to take away a Mark, so he had no real leverage except all the leverage he had, which was obviously a threat…” Erick asked, “But I think I transcended my Mark. Is there… something I can do with it, now?”

Melemizargo grinned a little. I was not a wholly happy look, but there was a great deal of joy in there. And then he seemed to relax into softer stance, as he said, “He won’t be able to find you with it anymore unless he truly focuses, but with the power at his command it would be easier to find you in other ways; through your family, through your history. Once he becomes a God then his options bloom immeasurably. If he strips your Dark Mark from you, then you will have every cosmological right to take your revenge upon him, as he has done to me with the Sundering. As it is now, your Dark Mark is more of a trap for him, should he attempt to influence you through it. Don’t let him bluff you with taking it away, but also don’t ever act like you would want it taken away; that would allow him to take it without repercussion.” Melemizargo said, “And so, you should simply keep it. I’m sure you will find a use for it eventually. But as for now… Let us move past the talk of strategy and outcomes.” Melemizargo said, “We are currently under a [Time Stop], and I would enjoy hearing about your journeys through time, if you would tell them. Rozeta is actually quite reluctant to speak of the secrets she knows, which is how a Goddess of Knowledge should be.

“So Erick?

“What did you learn?

“What did you see, beyond my death, in this universe that is so large and beautiful?”

Erick felt a pang in his chest.

And then he conjured a table and set upon it some foods from Earth that he had taken and saved over the years. “It’s all junk food, comfort food, but I enjoyed all of this from my home. I already ate everything that I saved from my journeys through the Time. But please, take what you want.” Erick grabbed a slice of buffalo chicken pizza, saying, “I missed pizza the most. It was so bad for me, but I loved it while I could eat it without problems.”

Melemizargo eyed the food… reluctantly. He was not impressed, and yet, he floated a slice over to himself and then took a bite. He thought for a second, and then he took another bite. “Not bad?”

Erick laughed. “It’s pure commoner food, but yeah. It’s not bad.”

Melemizargo chuckled.

Erick began, “So when I stepped through time the first time, it did not start off that way at all. I stepped through a Benevolence portal into a void, and created [Wizard’s Clarity], which sort of cleared up everything around me. I wasn’t inside a void at all, but inside Benevolence Itself. Still looked like a void, though, except for the points of light so far away that turned out to be collections of nebulous Benevolence out there in the Fractal Universe.

“The first place I fell was this world of Abarial, over 172 million Layers away. I learned a lot there about corruption, but also about Valkyries. You know I gave up that [Blessing of Empathy] when Koyabez helped make my silver star pin into the Crystal Star? He kept granting that specific spell back over the years, but I was glad to actually be rid of it. It served very well for a time, but it was a lot of strong-armed soul twisting. Necessary soul twisting, but not something I wish to engage in more than necessary.”

Melemizargo nodded as he sipped a 2-liter bottle of high-caffeine soda through a giant swirly straw.

“Anyway. The Valkyries are actually a rather similar application of that [Blessing of Empathy], what with their mind-meld magics. Over the course of the war, which took about half a year, I saw fractious worlds come together under one mind, and when it all ended, and when I ended the Valkyrie spell, I saw worlds that had been too broken to stop the advance of corruption all come together to work together, to truly restart their civilization. Being a part of the Valkyrie magic was as close to enlightenment as most people were ever going to get… or at least that was the sentiment they spoke of.

“As for the actual war: To combat the corruption over a land of a few tens of planets, and three Layers, I took a direct, burning approach to the corruption itself, but I deployed Valkyries extensively in order to rush through the repair of their civilization as fast as I could…”

- - - -

Erick had tried to get back to work after seeing Melemizargo for a talk about everything in the universe and a few other universes besides, but he found himself faced with Jane instead. She had asked him to talk for a little while, alone, before he got to doing anything big. She hadn’t expected him to easily agree, but now she was dealing with that new reality she had created.

Erick was taking it easier than Jane.

In Jane’s house in the cloud castle over Candlepoint, Erick sat down with his daughter while she made tea in the kitchen. Jane almost never used her house, but Erick had kept it neat and tidy for when she did. These days Evan was the one actually living in the place, which was what Jane and Evan had agreed on, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise when Jane rummaged through the cupboards looking for her preferred tea, and she couldn’t find it.

“Fuck it, I guess we’re drinking whatever weird shit Evan bought,” Jane said, grabbing some ‘Mild Greens’. “What even is ‘Mild Greens’ anyway?”

Erick smiled a little. “It’s a tea from Nelboor, by way of House Star Song. Evan is one of the main contacts for them now that he’s here at the House most of the time. I think you liked it when you tried it once, when we were served it at breakfast with the grass travelers.”

Jane was dumping the tea into little metal containers, but she paused. She bent down and smelled it— “Oh my gods. I remember it now! I loved this stuff… Huh.”

She stayed there for a moment, thinking about a lot, and then she got to putting the tea back together. With a flick of her hand she boiled the water in the pot, but she manually put the tea strainers into the water to let them steep. She brought the pot and a plate of cookies over to the kitchen nook table… But with a small uncomfortableness, she looked at the table.

She was probably thinking about how the table was a tall one, with tall chairs. It easily doubled as a standing table sometimes, which is how Evan used it sometimes. It was not the table that Jane had originally had in the house.

Jane set down the tea pot and cookies anyway, saying, “Evan has some weird tastes, but the table is sturdy enough.”

Erick smiled softly at that—

Jane instantly added, “You’ve had this weird, forlorn look in your eyes ever since you… Well since you came back.”

“Yup. No doubt. How old are you now?”

Jane raised an eyebrow. “… How old do you think I am?”

“34 or 36. I’m not sure. I think our birthdays heavily diverged recently—” Erick gave his daughter a Look. “And you made yourself younger.”

Jane smiled. “35, and yeah. I went for 25. 25 was a good age.”

“What was so good about 25?”

“Oh lots of things. I almost got married—”

Erick was floored. He asked, “Where was I when this almost happened?”

“… Which you did not know at all, did you.”

“Where was I?!”

“Up here— Just below here, at the House, being King.” Jane kept dropping bombs, “Anyway. 25 was a great age. I told you about the Unicorn Hunt, yeah? Marric. Orcol mind mage that partied with me? We met later on and sort of… one thing led to another. He knew who I was and I knew him and we almost got married, but then his family turned out to want him to want kids and he couldn’t have kids with me, and then things just sort of fell apart from there. He’s still a great guy, but we lost him in the Red while you were gone at Margleknot.”

Erick breathed deep. “Sorry I wasn’t here.”

Jane winced. “No no— Dad. That’s not why… Sorry. I guess that kinda came out wrong. No. I did not mean to— That’s not… I just wanted to tell you, not hurt you. It didn’t work out anyway. But… I liked being 25. It felt like things finally started to come together for me, there. Even my breakup with Marric was a good thing, for both of us.”

Erick said, “Sorry I wasn’t here for that.”

“Well. Yeah.” Jane said, “I’ve been thinking about… a lot of things. Mainly about organized magic and how you made yourself able to be hurt only through Health and the other two… And I was thinking about all the sideways attacks that Nothanganathor is coming at us with…”

She went silent.

Erick allowed her a moment pouring both of them some tea; it was ready now. “You still like sugar, right?”

“Milk, too, but I can do that myself.”

Erick smiled. “I know you can, but I want to help you.”

Erick saw the pain in Jane’s eyes as she thought.

Jane made an important decision.

And then Jane looked at her father, and spoke some words she had obviously been practicing in a mirror somewhere, “You know, Dad, you talk about a bunch of stuff that’s so far out of the ability for anyone to really reach. Time travel. Layers of the universe. Resurrection and reincarnation. Fate Magic. But at the same time, all of that is because of Wizardry, which is basically you telling the universe that you have the power, so what you say goes. Wizardry is whatever you want, right? Tell me if I have that wrong.”

Erick wasn’t exactly sure where Jane was going with this, so he just answered the question, “There’s nuance, but yes. Just like with normal magic, if you know what you’re doing then it costs less to do it, but at the same time if you simply have enough resources to not care about cost, then you can do anything.”

Jane relaxed a little. “Okay. So…” She paused again. She said, “This war is getting out of hand. None of us can actually contribute anything at all to it— No. I mean it, dad. Don’t interrupt, please. The vast majority of us are worthless. There is power to be had if we can get it, but we’re talking universal, existential threats, and we have no time for all the rest of us to Ignite to Wizardry. There’s not a single person on this world, aside from you, that can turn into a dragon and multiply through time and then shit out all this mana that then comes right back to you as though it was never spent at all.”

Erick almost interrupted there, too, because he had some plans to give some Marks of Benevolence to people to help them cultivate a sort of power that would stay with them… though he wasn’t sure how it would work in the Script. The Houses of Reason on Earth were full of mages that could cast some small spells all day long, for basically forever, as long as they spaced those spells out every several hours. The mana they cast would eventually come back to them. It would come back faster if they mediated on it and actively pulled that mana back to them. But when they spent too much mana over something big, like a [Fireball] or [Lightning Bolt] then that mana tended to stay gone and then the mage would need to wait for their soul to fill with Benevolence again in order to cast anything else. Such waiting might take them anywhere from a day or several days.

Most mages of Earth tended to stick to very small, [Prestidigitation]-type spells.

But could someone with a Dark Mark and a Benevolence Mark spend mana and have that mana come back to them? How would the Script help or harm a person who had multiple mana-generating Marks in their souls? How would that work at all?

Erick had a lot of questions about that, but he wanted Jane to get her words out before he went on that tangent, because what she was saying was important. The war was getting way, way out of hand. Any day now, either Erick or Northanganathor might pull something truly horrendous out of possibility.

Jane seemed like she might have a solution to that.

Jane breathed. She said, “And so… instead of everyone trying to one-up each other, why not work on smaller powers? Ah. No— No. I said that wrong. I mean… If you could make this war work out however you wanted, through Wizardry, do you really need to keep going big? You could go small and make the small battles mean just as much as the big ones. Maybe a simple [Force Bolt] to the head and Nothanganathor’s a goner, because he has no Health. You know how you made yourself only able to be damaged through Health, Mana, and Psyche? Could we do that for everyone, including the Valkyries and all that?

“That sort of thing.

“That’s my idea to win the war, though I don’t know how valid it is. Winning a war by going backwards in overall strength? Sounds crazy but… Wizards are Wizards, right? You can make anything happen. Can you make a normal person able to punch up against a god?

“And. Like. I’m just a normal person. I’m not a Wizard. I just have the power I gained thanks to the Script and… you. There are millions of us, and even the Valkyries share some of my concerns. Shivraa has been great to talk to this last year… Anyway.” Jane’s practiced speech sort of fell apart. “That’s what I’m wondering. Is it possible to bring the concerns of this war back down to something that we can actually participate in, so we can decide our destiny instead of having Wizards battle it all out for us?”

Erick’s mind had hit a speed bump and knocked the whole train off the track.

“… Huh.”

Jane instantly pulled back, saying, “Yeah. It’s a dumb idea. But I had to ask. Nothanganathor wouldn’t respect something like a Polite War at all and—”

“Now that, I am going to interrupt, because yeah, he won’t respect that, but who cares what he respects. I certainly don’t, and so, all we have to do is have the larger power in order to erode his power away from him…” Erick found himself vanishing down a thought tunnel with ten thousand million thoughts at once. He resurfaced without resurfacing, and in the power of the moment, said to Jane, “Benevolence is all about gaining power to help those below you, but helping them against what? That’s right.” A light seemed to flicker on inside Erick, and somewhere far, far away. “Helping them against oppression and tyrants, of course.”

Erick felt a cascading shift in his Status that reverberated outside of his body, echoing far, far away.

Benevolence Itself flexed, and Erick caught sight of a bunch of Spells in his Status as their descriptions began to change.

Benevolence Jolt, instant, long range, 7 mana

An ethereal bolt of benevolence inexorably strikes a target for <5x WIL effect>. <Effect multiplies when acting on behalf of [][][][][][][][][].>

The bottom line shifted to—

Jane grinned a lopsided, unsure sort of grin. “Well yeah. ‘Helping against tyrants’. Was that a surprise?”

“Well... No. Not really.” Erick rapidly said, “But the best realizations are the ones that aren’t a surprise at all. The answer has been there this whole time!” Erick raised his voice, “Hey, Rozeta! Did those black boxes in those Benevolence Spells finally clear up?”

Rozeta stepped into the room, “I cleared up those problems so long ago, and now you bring them back, just to reveal what I had hidden as unknowable— Yes! They cleared up, but you did more than that! What did you do, Erick?”

Jane looked up in the air, reading stuff.

Erick didn’t get a box, but he could see that Rozeta was right here, and she could see that Erick wanted to see, so she waved a hand and a litany of blue boxes appeared. Just like in his own Status, they had that line a the bottom, ‘<Effect multiplies when acting on behalf of [][][][][][][][][].>’ but those words were changing.

The unknowable had become known.

Benevolence Jolt, instant, long range, 7 mana

An ethereal bolt of benevolence inexorably strikes a target for 5x WIL effect.

Effect multiplies when acting to help others, or to harm a threat to all.

Creates a barrier of Wizardry upon the user when the threat is great enough.

Benevolence Bomb, instant, long range, 73 mana

Launch a super quick ethereal missile of benevolence that explodes on contact in a large area, causing 10x WIL effect.

Effect multiplies when acting to help others, or to harm a threat to all.

Creates a barrier of Wizardry upon the user when the threat is great enough.

Detect Benevolence, instant, medium range, 16 mana

Detect ongoing benevolence effects.

Effect multiplies when acting to help others, or to harm a threat to all.

Creates a barrier of Wizardry upon the user when the threat is great enough.

More and more boxes filled the air, and Erick smiled as he read them all.

But the improvements weren’t done yet!

Erick asked Rozeta, “Do you have a schematic for the Personal Script you were working on?”

Rozeta breathed deep, and then she held out a spark of blue, saying, “It’s not done at all, but here is a copy.”

Erick smiled wide—

The world transformed in a sweep of iridescent white light.

Tables tucking into Infinity and walls vanishing into Elsewhere. Windows vanished into themselves and the floor went away as the cloud castle and all of reality slipped out of the way.

Erick, Jane, and Rozeta floated among Benevolence Itself, and Rozeta’s spark of blue manifested fully into a bright blue marble of Knowledge, unformed.

Erick opened his left hand and brought forth the Mark of Infinity that the Fractal Fairy had given him, oh so long ago. That Mark shattered the world into a rainbow of differences, turning the iridescence of the white into concrete images of other lives and places. There was Jane, as she was in dark blue, but behind Jane was a Jane of a different color; bright green and looking softer, like Abigail. Behind Abigail was yellow Beth, wearing an explorer’s hat and hiking boots. Orange Candice had blood on her clawed hands and a happy look on her face, even with the fangs. A red Jane stood, missing, and yet not; Debby wasn’t back, but she was close, and Solomon would bring her back all of the way soon enough. Erick imagined he saw Deborah in the flavors of Red Jane stretching outward into infinity, and he smiled at that. Purple Evan was next, looking handsome in a suit and in House Benevolence colors.

The rainbow repeated, in different variations of power and style, on into Infinity.

None of them could stand against horrors like Nothanganathor on their own, but they weren’t on their own. They had Erick. Jane was asking for a miracle, and Erick was going to give her one. He was going to give a miracle to everyone.

Erick held out his right hand, and Benevolence Itself twisted down into his palm; a spark of white-rainbow held close. The overall space was not diminished at all. Just like the Fractal Mark, Benevolence multiplied in the face of an existential threat.

The Path of Lightning, the impetus to help others, the rage against injustice, and the desire to make everything better; Erick put it all into that spot of white rainbows in his hand. And then there was more. [Wizard’s Clarity], for self-contained power. Draconic options and unlocks for those of such dispositions. A Wizardly call to Infinity to stabilize what was there through recursive functions.

Erick was a splash of draconic black against the white. He was the turning point of change, the tangle in the Benevolent Sky, and a clash of lightning determining where it wanted to go to make everything better. He was also an uncountable number of himselves. Ten thousand hands held his own hands, as he worked his magic. It was like when Erick helped birth Jane, but different.

Rozeta was the unwavering white solidity of her own draconic self, along with golden Knowledge and the blue Script. She was power written down and controlled. The blue marble was all of that, too, but it was incomplete; it was just a thing. No gold divinity glowed in there. No draconic markers. Just blue.

It was a library of possibility without a guiding light, for Rozeta had been making a thing that would outlive her and her own understanding ten thousand times over, all the way into Infinity.

Erick could See what that blue marble could be.

He Knew what needed to be added. Not just the Dark that it was born within, and the Knowledge grown out of that Darkness, but something more pleasant, that could fit in anywhere it needed to fit in, to blend everything together in the Dark, and bring it out into the Light.

Erick held out his multitudinous hands and the power they contained.

With hands cradling and supporting, Erick’s voice overlapped with itself as he spoke,

“The [Strike], The [Bolt], The [Wall], The [Bomb],

“The [Fly], The [Scry], The [Blink], The [Heal].

“These are the spells we work with aplomb.

“These Scripted strengths! We make them real.

“They tear through tyrants like strong aspirants

“Founding great futures upon even keel.”

Power melded with power.

Light dimmed as Erick held that power together.

The working took an age and a single moment to come together, and then it was done. Erick almost slumped for how much that had taken out of him, but he felt good. He felt great!

And then, like someone had turned off blinding floodlights, Jane’s house returned out of the brightness like it had never gone anywhere. Erick, Jane, and Rozeta once again stood in the house that Jane had gifted to Evan.

Jane blinked out tears from her eyes, from the brightness.

Rozeta breathed in concern.

And Erick opened his hands.

It was a floating marble made of blue glittercrystal. It glinted. It shimmered. It was rainbows, but also mostly blue.

Erick picked it up, and pulled out a copy of it, and suddenly he had two Personal Scripts, or whatever this thing was going to be called. He pulled out a few more copies of the original, plucking them out just how the Fractal Mark had worked. Erick pulled a few more copies out of the original, and then he handed one to Rozeta.

“And one for you, of course.”

Rozeta breathed deep as she accepted the thing they had made. She almost said something.

But Erick was handing a copy to Jane. A glittering spark held in the air in front of Erick’s hand, as he handed his daughter her future. “For you. The power you asked for. A power I am overjoyed to grant.”

For the briefest of moments, Jane almost hesitated. She stared at that glittering mass like it was a trap, and to accept it was to indebt herself to her father. And then she realized that was ridiculous. This is what she had asked for, from her fae father, and she was getting exactly what she wanted and so much more.

With a steady hand, Jane took the bit of blue glittercrystal and it sunk into her body, into her soul. Her soul flexed and she winced in pain. Briefly, tendrils of spikes and scales and even feathers and simple flesh erupted from her skin where the glittercrystal had sunk into her soul, and then she controlled herself once again.

Erick glanced over at Rozeta as the Goddess of Knowledge and the Script experimentally plucked another Mark of Something out of the little glittercrystal he had given her, and then she plucked out a few more. Then she put those things back together, into one. In none of those actions had she diminished the original at all.

But mostly, Erick looked at his daughter. At Jane.

Jane flinched a little bit here and there as she blinked a lot, her insides mutating here and there like an out-of-control tumor, but only for brief moments—

Jane settled.

Erick smiled and he vanished his own copy of the ‘Personal Script’ with a twist of his hand. Maybe someone would call it something better in the future. He asked Jane, “How do you feel?”

Jane took a moment to think, and then answer. “… The exact same?”

“Good!”

And then Jane looked to Rozeta. “I have New Stats.”

Rozeta said to her, “It seems Strength, Vitality, Constitution, and Dexterity, are all a part of your new Body Stat, while Perception and Intelligence are now part of your Mind Stat. Willpower and Focus are a part of your Soul Stat, which governs… everything that they were trying to get out of the Awakening Machine research project. It will still be good for them to work on that project, but this is the best outcome for this working here.” She held up a single blue glittercrystal marble, staring at it, saying, “Your father implemented an array of Benevolence that would tie into whatever powers this little Personal Script touches. Dark Mark. Fractal Mark. Any other universal marks that might be out there, that might make their way into the user.” Rozeta rolled her hand and the glittering blue thing vanished. She said to Erick, “Thank you, Erick. I have work to do and people to give this to. It needs a name, though.”

Erick looked to Jane. “What do you want to call it?”

“… It’s just your own Benevolent Mark, isn’t it?”

Erick said, “In part. That’s one of the bases. But in whole, it’s a whole bunch of stuff.”

“ ‘The Benevolent System’?”

Erick chuckled. “For some reason, I enjoy the abbreviation ‘BS’, but also not.”

“Oh. Ah. Ha? Let’s just go with Personal Script— Oh. It did something… Uh. All my numbers went down? Oh! Never mind. They went back up?” Jane said, “Ah. It’s saying ‘Building Foundation’.”

Rozeta said, “It’s still calibrating.” She said to Erick, “I’ve distributed a sandboxed version to a thousand people already and a few monsters beyond a [Time Stop] and almost nothing changed about them, but now the Script seems to hook into the Personal Script, adding a few features. Jane should stabilize in… there she goes. Probably still take her a few hours before she’s ready for combat. You should have a few versions of a Status, Jane. The words at the bottom might change as I work things on my end. What do they look like right now?”

Jane blinked at the air, reading. “I have the original Status and then the new one… But I have the New Stats now? They don’t seem… to be affecting me?”

Erick was worried that he had just done an experiment on his daughter, that his ‘collective cultivation’ with a thousand other versions of himself wasn’t good enough, but Rozeta’s words calmed him. She was working outside of his sight many times faster than this event right here, and there were no Future Ericks around telling him to stop.

He was already sure this was all going to work, but now he was actually sure.

So he just smiled.

Jane pushed some text through the air. “This is rather… weird.”

The first one was Jane’s old Status, updated a bit since the last time Erick had seen it so long ago.

For starters, she now had all of the New Stats, instead of just the one Erick had given her.

… Which was sort of an oopsie, but Jane seemed to be handling it well? Erick had handled it well, himself, after all, and he had cleaned out all the Malevolence from his Status and Rozeta certainly did the same, so the Personal Script Erick had made was surely not going to give Jane paranoia problems.

Oh gods.

Now Erick was kinda panicking.

Jane Flatt

Human, age: 35

Level 99, Class: Prismatic Polymage

Exp: 2.9 e27 / 1 e100

Class: 10/10

Points: 5

HP

8,580/8,580

17,160 per day

MP

10,980/10,980

21,960 per day

Strength

75

+68

[143]

Vitality

75

+68

[143]

Dexterity

17

+68

[85]

Constitution

75

+68

[143]

Perception

21

+68

[89]

Willpower

114

+68

[182]

Focus

115

+68

[183]

Intelligence

17

+68

[85]

Alert! You have a Personal Script!

The Script has judged a few things to be true, and made some decisions on your behalf.

This Status is PRIMARY.

This Status is the Primary Status until the Personal Script is functioning at over 100% of Script Status. Switching to the Personal Script before then will be hazardous to all parts of your existence.

Personal Script is <1% ready.

Jane Flatt, [35] [Current Location: Layer 789; Veird, year 1453]

Mana split; Soul, Body, Mind: 31%, 30%, 30%

Reson allocation rate: 9%

Darkness Level: Archmage

Fractal Level: Blind

Benevolence Level: Store Manager

Soul: 114; 721,500 per day / 8.3 per second

Body: 60

Mind: 19

Overall Stability: ↑↓ [+7.5, -7] Building Foundation, 87% complete

Mp: 2/114,000, ↑↓ [+2.57, -2] Building Foundation

Hp: 2/60,000, ↑↓ [+2.5, -2] Building Foundation

Pp: 2/19,000, ↑↓ [+2.5, -2] Building Foundation

Resons: 0/100, ↑↓ [+.7 = +.08] Building Foundation

Erick chuckled nervously. “Okay! That’s—” He focused on Jane, moving to stand next to her in half of a heartbeat. He stared into her soul, into her mind, into her body, asking, “How are you feeling, honey?”

Jane flinched backward. “Too close.” She tried to nudge him away, but she only ended up pushing herself away. So she stopped pushing. “Seriously. I feel fine. A bit weak, but fine.”

“She’ll be fine, Erick.” Rozeta said, “You made it properly. She’s just building her foundation according to her mana generation. She’ll be done in a little while, and then she can start filling up her Personal Status with her mana generation.” Rozeta said to Jane, “I haven’t gotten to experiment in all the permutations of what is possible for a person with a Personal Script, but it should do all the things a normal Script can do, and more. You’re going to have to learn to accrete to raise your base numbers, and cultivate to raise your reson generation, and be a… leader to gain more Benevolence?”

Erick said, “Yup.”

“So like Darkness but different,” Rozeta said, “Keep in mind that your various pools do not protect you nearly as well as your father’s infinite-cap ‘Health wells’ protect him.” Rozeta looked to Erick, saying, “That should be all of the big questions answered.” She said to Jane, “Your Personal Script is rather intuitive, so your father should have all the rest of the answers.” She said to Erick, “This was great work. I would congratulate you more if we weren’t in a war.”

Erick nodded. “Thanks for coming and helping.”

“This might win us the whole war, but even if it doesn’t, this might just be the single greatest magic I have ever seen. It will change everything, Erick. I wish I had more time to discuss it all with you, but I must attend the spreading [Seeds of Atunir]. They are going to make great bases.”

And then Rozeta stepped away.

Erick focused on Jane. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Jane said to him, “Of course I’m okay. It’s you that made this magic.” She blushed a little, looking away. “… It’s embarrassing to tell you how much I look up to you… but I guess I have to actually say it or you don’t know it... You’re amazing, dad.”

Erick smiled softly, and then he hugged Jane. “You’re amazing.”

“Gods I hope I can be,” Jane said, chuckling a little bit on her father’s shoulder.

Erick spoke with conviction, “You are, and you will be. You can be anything you want to be, and you are a warrior capable of cutting down all enemies.”

Jane chuckled a little bit more, and then she patted her father’s back. “We have more cookies and tea, and I want to hear more about what happened while you were time traveling, and then I’m trying out this new Personal Script against a Wizard-fighting dungeon that we set up for testing.”

Erick almost went right into talking about his time on Earth, but...

Erick pulled back, sat down, and looked at his daughter. “Jane. You have an anti-Wizard Dungeon that you set up for testing? When did this happe— Oh my gods. It’s not an anti-Wizard dungeon, is it. It’s an anti-Malevolence Dungeon, isn’t it. Oh my gods, Jane.”

Jane instantly said, “It’s good training! I only died a few times— If you’d prefer we could do some of the anti-tyrant scenarios in some of the various dungeons around— There’s that dungeon over in Greendale that you did. That meta-iron one, with the gems you based your Personal Script on? The third floor, the assault on the Broken Siphon is a great way to test yourself against an appropriately strong enemy, and once the limiters come off and there’s a facsimile of a Wizard defending the Siphon then it becomes a whole lot more realistic. Of course you can only run that scenario once, and it takes up a lot of bandwidth to do that, but that faux-Wizard can kill pretty much anyone he sees with a flick of his fingers. Rather realistic.”

A rising panic; that’s what Erick was feeling.

“Oh my gods, Jane. How are you preventing the creation of a hostile Wizard with that sort of scenario? A real Wizard? But it has to be close to real, right, if you’re to get any actual learning out of it at all.”

“Oh that’s easy,” Jane said, seemingly not worried at all because she knew she was fine. “If he becomes real he disconnects from the Dungeon and loses all his powers. We— Uh. We had an incident, and then we resolved it.” Jane easily saw that wasn’t good enough of an answer, so she said, “We only allow one go at those scenarios before we full-reset it; no multiple-lives, continually attacking the Wizard. That really makes the guy realize what is happening. We dismantle the Wizard after we use him, too, so he never rises above the level of a smart slime. Stimulus/Response, sort of levels. We did mess up once at a different dungeon years ago, back before your Day of Clouds… But we did need real training, father. These days we only use a few different places that we know we can put on ice when we’re not using them, that way we’re not messing with actual people. Just NPCs.”

Erick wasn’t sure what to think, except… “I suppose this is war, and horrors happen.”

Jane almost said something else but she decided not to.

Erick admitted, “I went back in time on Earth to the 1500s in a different slice of Infinity from our slice to learn how to work Malevolence. I ended up spilling it everywhere, and it wormed into everything. It was already there when I got there, though, and it had been for a long time. Tried a Day of Clouds on Earth and the stuff just came back. Multiple times it came back, even.” Erick stuck his hand into the air, into a hole that appeared only when he reached for it. He pulled out a bunch of DVDs and a few different video game systems and other stuff that Jane had loved and set them down on the kitchen counter. A great big television and DVD player came next. As Erick set those down, he said, “Earth was a whole bunch of stuff that came and went way too fast. Other than that, I went around the universe cleaning up corruption. Blowing up a planet that was too far gone here and there. Etcetera. That’s how I got that Fractal Mark that I used to make the Personal Script. I work part-time for the uber-god of this universe. Not quite a paladin. More paladin-adjacent. A part-timer.”

Jane had a moment.

And then she Looked at Erick, asking, “Are you trying to make me worry about you?”

Erick smiled. “Completely unintentionally, I assure you.”

Jane exclaimed, “Then I guess we’re just both a pair of crazy people, doing crazy shit!”

“As one does; yes,” Erick agreed.

And then they got to talking.

It was wonderful.

Soon, everyone showed up here and there, from Teressa to Poi to Kiri and Quilatalap. Ophiel and Yggdrasil. Evan and the girls. Even though Erick was outside for the Script at that moment, fixing the war, he was still here, with his family, constructing the best of all possible worlds.