Ar'Kendrithyst - Chapter 249, 2/2

Several hours and no time at all later, Erick walked down the road from Melemizargo’s Throne, through the shadeling town of Ascendant Mountain. Inhabited crystal towers rose all around him, though he didn’t allow anyone to see him. Not right now. He was cloaked in a bend of light, his ‘sun form’ held tight against his body. Ha! A ‘sun form’. How deeply was Kirginatharp affected by these Red Sparks?

The ‘Killing Sun’!

A hundred other small events, all Red, all big and small.

The Stat known as Strength was even crimson colored under the Script. Melemizargo never mentioned it, but Erick wondered if that coloring and the popularity of Strength-based builds over magic-based builds was due to the influence of the Red Sparks. But then again, the makers of the Script had made it so that magic simply wasn’t as strong as it had been in the Old Cosmology, which was why Strength was so prevalent… But maybe that was the influence of the Red Sparks.

Or maybe the trauma of the Sundering and the aversion to Wizards was just logical.

… Only a Wizard could ever truly challenge the Red Sparks, though…

Once the veil had been pulled back, Erick started seeing a lot of things that he never saw before. His paranoia was ramping up, higher and higher, and Erick realized this, so he tried thinking more calmly, but it wasn’t working too well.

He couldn’t confront the problem, either. Melemizargo had explained that quite clearly.

… or at least he couldn’t confront it right now.

He and Melemizargo had spoken for a long time, but only minutes had passed out here. Talking in [Hasted Shelter]s and then not doing anything right afterward were one of the easier ways to ensure that the Red Sparks didn’t fight back, since the enemy was a time-based, long-view sort of enemy. Changing locations fast, hiding in the Dark, being underground where the sun never reached… All of these worked a little bit, but not completely. The Red Leviathan on the sun could not read minds, but it could prognosticate rather well.

Another way to avoid seeing the enemy was to avoid seeing the Red Sparks. Erick could easily tune his All-Seeing Eye and see those Sparks, but he chose not to, because reacting to the Sparks let the Sparks know you were there.

When he did turn on his All-Seeing Eye, though, he saw Red Sparks crawling all over his Lightning Shield. Which was expected. That was why Oozy had wanted the Shield so badly. Thankfully, the Red Sparks couldn’t act so brazenly openly, or else Oozy wouldn’t have needed to rollback the area and retry that conversation with him so many times.

The Lightning Shield would be a point of contention for Sininindi, though, so Erick was dreading that conversation.

A lot of conversations would become difficult, now.

Erick walked and thought, invisible under the light of the sun, in the shadows of crystal. Occasionally he glanced outward with his All-Seeing Eye turned to fullness and he Looked through Ophiel and Yggdrasil. He saw Red Sparks drifting in the air, in the far distance, and in all parts of the world.

Mostly, those Sparks did not touch Yggdrasil, or Ophiel, or Erick.

Those that did swing Erick’s and his children’s ways were matched by similar flickers of soft white lightning, like an encapsulating aura of white, and the sparking Red magic went through Ophiel and Yggdrasil and Erick like they weren’t even there. This, then, was the ‘immunity’ Erick was building up to the Red Sparks. It wasn’t perfect immunity, though.

Occasionally those ‘capsules’ of Benevolence broke open and the Red multiplied hard, but in those cases the response was either a larger jolt of cleansing Benevolence, or the Red came through Erick’s [Familiar]s to Erick himself, where the Red Sparks soaked into the Lightning Shield, and were destroyed.

So that was good news.

More good news followed. Erick had already checked on the Benevolent Sky, and the Storm was now 5 months away. It was quite disturbing to see that the Red Sparks were inside that event 5 months from now, though. As for other good news, the Red Sparks were not in every prophesied problem. Only several of the largest problems, almost all of them occurring beyond the Opening Of Worlds, when Yggdrasil started colonizing the planets of Veird’s system.

Thanks to current revelations, Erick saw why there would be problems beyond Veird now.

The Red Sparks would be able to infect new worlds at their very beginning.

Sure, there was no proper manasphere beyond the Edge of the Script, and thus all the mana out there was barely able to do any real magic —which was probably another reason why the Red Sparks were so weak— but as proven by Erick and other planars, you could still use mana outside of a proper manasphere. You could still cause problems in other worlds. And you could certainly plant Red Seeds onto the otherwise barren worlds of this system, which would sprout the very moment a proper manasphere took hold.

And so…

Erick needed to combat that eventuality, and he needed to use softer power to do it, otherwise the Red Sparks would work against him through impossible angles.

At least he could see the enemy now…

And Erick was already formulating a plan. It was not a good one and he could adjust on the fly, but it might work. As he stepped down into the empty clearing outside of the slime dungeon grove, Erick felt that maybe… Maybe this plan would work?

He needed to both decrease the influence of the ‘Red Leviathan’ on the Killing Sun —which he had pointedly not looked at, at all— and he needed to avoid the Red Seeds on the other worlds, and he needed all of the gods of Veird on board.

The first problem was… extensive and difficult.

For the second problem, Erick already had a possible solution. Or at least the beginnings of one.

The third problem would be… difficult. The main problem with involving the gods right now would be getting himself labeled as ‘yet another crazy Wizard, influenced unduly by Melemizargo’… but since he could see the Red Sparks and the gods could not, then…

Difficult.

But! Erick smiled a little. He never wanted to be a tyrant anyway, and a plan of soft power was inherently better than a plan of strong power when confronting big, systemic problems. Or at least it was until you got in range of murdering the actual problem. Then quick action worked the best.

Erick sent off a quick information packet to Poi which included exactly what Erick felt it could include, and not a bit more—

‘I’ll dissect that in a moment, Erick,’ Poi sent, ‘But for now there are about 17 different emergencies of varying levels happening right now, and you vanishing for an hour did not help.’

‘Okay. List out the major ones.’

‘The Sea Foam Throne is demanding the Shield.

‘There are five concurrent Shade problems happening across the world, and Fallopolis is trying to work with Burhendurur and Mox to solve those problems, but it’s not going well.

‘And there’s a Benevolence ring missing from storage.’ Poi stressed, ‘No one understands how that could have possibly happened. At least the Prophesied Storm is now 5 months away, but Teressa and Aisha are saying that it looks worse than it did before. Bigger.’

Erick heard, understood, and then sent, ‘The ring is unimportant. I know where it is. None of you will be able to find it so give up on that task for the next 6 months. Tell Fallopolis to come here to the slime dungeon. And tell the Sea Foam Throne to suck my dragon cock and choke on it. Tell them that exactly.’

Fucking fuck them. ‘Sea Foam Throne’. Like the Sea Foam Manor which Oozy lived in? He turned that memory of his home into his throne, then. Or at least he took the name and now everyone believed the throne of the Regency was the ‘Sea Foam Throne’ now. Fuck him.

Fuck Sininindi, too.

‘… Uh. Did something happen? You aren’t normally… Hmm.’

‘What I can tell you is in the packet, Poi. Open it now. Nothing bad should happen, for it is highly curated, but you’re going to eventually need to cede your Overseer of Mind Mages to someone else for the duration of this coming everything.’ Erick mentally shrugged, then added, ‘Or you just won’t be able to be near me at all.’

‘… One moment.’

Erick waited.

Poi came back with, ‘That told me less than nothing. I have more questions than you have given me answers. As far as ceding my Overseer position, that is not necessary. I will be able to mentally shield myself from listening to you, which will be a better proposition.’ With an uncomfortable tone, Poi said, ‘That’s going to be really weird, though—’ Poi’s voice cut. He came back. ‘The Sea Foam Throne wishes for you to contact Sininindi.’

‘I can do that.’

‘They also wish to formally tell you that they did not like your uncouth suggestion.’ Poi sent, ‘I’ve taken the liberty to clean up their language, obviously.’

Erick chuckled.

– – – –

Erick stood at the edge of a spit of land that wrapped around a storm-tossed cove.

At least Everbless was the same as he had been before Oozy came to town. Yggdrasil’s brother inhabited his massive cove as normal, looking like a grey banyan with a cloud for a canopy and heavy vines trailing down from that cloud, covering kilometers of space. He would eventually fill the cove and become even bigger than that, but his thunderhead canopy was already rising high, high into the sky, like a proper thunderhead. He even flashed with white lightning here and there…

He was not the same as he had been.

He flickered with Red Lightning and there were Red Fruits in that cloud canopy.

Those were the Red Seeds that Melemizargo had theorized must exist as a part of the Red Sparks’ journey to take over the solar system. Or maybe they were backups? Maybe the Red Leviathan hadn’t taken over any of the other planets out there in space, and the Leviathan was working overtime to get that done before Yggdrasil was ready.

This fact called into question Erick’s whole idea of needing to put a seal on Yggdrasil in the first place.

Had that seal been his idea? Or the Red Sparks’ idea?

The other gods had agreed to it, but Erick had been the one to demand it, and because he wanted to control Yggdrasil’s growth, to make sure he was a proper good person. Which, looking back on it, was incredibly selfish of him. You didn’t raise children in chains and expect them to turn out right, right?

… But Yggdrasil turned out okay, anyway…

But did he?

Erick needed to spend a lot more time with Yggdrasil. He was always off on his own, doing his own thing, and yes, Erick was always there for him and he made sure Yggdrasil was completely aware of all the various strings attached to him, as well as to Erick himself, and all of that. There was no such thing as ‘True Freedom’. Elemental Freedom had been Banned, and for good reason. True Freedom was anarchy and death and the rise of tyrants and people who mirrored the Shades in all but name.

Hierarchy always developed in some way. Even the basic family unit held hierarchy; from parent to child when the child is small, and then as equals, and then for children to help their parents in their old age. A peaceful world was one where the people at the top did what was best for everyone below them, and the people below those at the top kept the people at top in power; it was the mandate of the masses.

Yggdrasil understood that… Erick was pretty sure.

And now Yggdrasil was transforming from child to adult, and he wanted his restrictions lifted… Which was fine! Erick was on board with that. And so, Erick had ‘woken up’ from his [Onward] and began working to make that happen for Yggdrasil.

That release of Yggdrasil’s seal was still in the works, though.

Even after that seal was to be released, Rozeta would re-craft the seal to prevent Yggdrasil from being able to make world seeds, and Erick and Yggdrasil had agreed to that. But, if Erick kept to that timeline of 89 more years of Yggdrasil being unable to make seeds, then the Red Seeds from Everbless would make it out into the solar system and plant themselves on the other worlds out there, giving the Red Leviathan at least… Maybe 50 years? Of unimpeded growth before Veird began to spread? Erick wasn’t sure about that.

He was sure that would need to either clip these Red Lightning Fruits or fully un-seal Yggdrasil.

Both solutions carried problems of their own.

Erick was in a prognostication war, too, which meant there would be no actions taken right now, or even in the near, determinate future. Vague plans later that could change on a whim were preferred.

As Erick stood on the spit of land jutting out from around Everbless’s cove, the sea surged upon the rocks, sending sprays of saltwater into the air, and the sky flickered with gold and red lightning, with a few white sparks coming from Everbless himself. Everbless’s tentacled [Scry] eye was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Sininindi, or anyone else.

So Erick got the ball rolling as he spoke to the sky, “Hello, Sininindi. I hear you wish to talk.”

A wave crashed against the rocks, sending a plume of water higher than all the other times. Lightning fell in the distance. In the falling of saltwater and the rush of storm winds, Sininindi stepped onto the rocks in front of Erick. Her sailcloth-wrapped human body was five meters away from Erick, but she was a lot more than that; she was everywhere, in every drop of seawater and in every gust of wind.

She did not look angry.

This was a surprise. Surprises were not good right now.

Sininindi said, “I want to fix this rift before it widens.”

“… I would also like this.” Erick couldn’t say what he actually wanted to say, because he was in a prognostication war, and those things were touchy at the best of times, so he added, “But I believe something rotten is happening here in Storm’s Edge, so I will not be giving you back the Shield right now. Your ‘king’ Stormcaller is playing some sort of game with me and he killed Vanya and Soltic in order to do that. He also took over the dungeon that Quilatalap made for you, without any sort of talk with House Benevolence, or me; his solution was to go straight to killing.” Erick gestured toward Everbless, adding, “And I haven’t seen Everbless’s avatar at all since I came here earlier today. What is wrong with our son, Sininindi?”

Sininindi’s face was softer than usual as she looked at Erick, and asked, “How deep in the Dark have you gone, Erick? So far that you went through the other side and came out someone else?”

“… What?”

As Sininindi’s face fell a fraction, Erick suddenly realized he was already in the Red Sparks’ trap. He had taken Oozy’s statement earlier of him going insane as the ramblings of a tyrant madman, but to hear Sininindi say it, too…

The Red Sparks were going to discredit Erick by making him look insane through the reality altering of this world.

It had probably done the same during that Atomic War, and during… Everything major in this entire world. Every major event that could have led toward something better happening, was instead twisted into something worse.

But how? How could the Red Leviathan do that? It wasn’t doing Mind Magic, because if it could then it would be reading thoughts and acting that way. The most Mind Magic it could do was to daze people at important moments—

Oh.

Erick realized why Particle Magic allowed Melemizargo to wake from his insanity.

He realized something he had already known, but the depth of that knowledge had been hidden from him until now.

The God Pact allowed the gods to stabilize the collective reality of this world.

But Particle Magic and a Particle understanding of this New Cosmology was where quantum effects and gravity fields and the Many Worlds of this new reality took place. Those were the ‘mana’ of this New Cosmology, while the mana of the Old Cosmology was based on different elemental realities overlapping the main Dark.

Two different sets of fields, the Old made of mana, this New made of particles, which were both discrete things and simple wavelengths of reality.

Melemizargo had spoken of Other Realities as real only when observed, so here, now, was the natural result of the Red Leviathan observing those other realities and drawing targets into them.

Because the Red Leviathan was playing a much, much larger game against Erick than a simple prognostication war. This wasn’t a ‘war’ for the Red Leviathan. Veird was the Red Leviathan’s fishery, and you don’t go to war with the fish you raised. You simply eat what you want, and if anything gives you trouble, you remove it as easy as plucking a fish from a lake.

Sininindi said, “Oozy Stormcaller has been your friend for a decade. Storm’s Edge and my clergy have been allies of yours for as long as you have been here on Veird. And then you send Quilatalap here, at my request, and do everything you can to hide his murders and experiments, and you still want me to forgive him. But he hasn’t changed at all, Erick. You wanted him to change, and he appeared to change for a while, but he did not. He came here and he made copies of people in the dungeons and sent the copies out to get more people to come in, all the while he soul spliced and abomination’d every person who had the misfortune to fall within his sight. And now he releases ancient Shades into the world. The Archlich is dragging you down into the Dark, and if you cannot see that then I fear that Melemizargo’s insanity is finally affecting you…” Her voice trailed away. And now her anger came back, her eyes flickering with Red. “I could have forgiven you your foibles, but I cannot believe you would ask why Everbless is not talking to you. You attacked him. You might had been defending yourself from his own attacks, but he is a child, Erick. You don’t burn children to teach them lessons. The scars still haven’t healed, even 6 months on.”

Erick’s heart sank.

And then he glanced to Everbless, and saw where his bark was darker in places. Maybe those were burn marks? Erick wasn’t sure.

Sininindi said, “Tiza is taking it the hardest of us all. She used to be a great friend to you, Erick. Now, all she has is fury for what you have done and the path you are walking.”

It was a good thing this was so unnerving, because otherwise Erick would have laughed at that.

He almost laughed at it anyway.

This was all so ridiculous.

He had obviously been moved into a side dimension, or something. Or maybe the whole world had been moved around him? Erick wasn’t sure which was more crazy, or how to solve either of them. The first had at least one solution, though; become a True Wizard. True Wizards weren’t affected by the magics of others unless they allowed those effects to happen.

So.

Erick needed to get on that.

His previous plan to eventually fight the Red Leviathan was still workable… If he could get himself out of this situation. He could probably do that, right? Just a matter of shoving himself back to his home dimension; his home wavelength… Would that work? Sure; seemed plausible. Seemed like 90% of the solution, anyway. The mana could fill the final 10%.

As for avoiding this situation in the future…

All you had to do was move far enough and fast enough away from the focus of the Red Sparks and they couldn’t see you, or touch you that easily. Staying in one spot was what the Red Sparks wanted all its victims to do. So all Erick had to do was move far enough and fast enough and secretly enough, and he could… do something.

But first.

Erick played along with the narrative the Red Sparks was feeding him, “Perhaps I am going slightly insane. How would you like me to make it up to you? Ask for a Wizardry and I will do it, Sininindi.”

Sininindi said, “I would prefer to simply have the Erick whom I once called friend.”

“That’s going to take some time, for I have handfuls of Shades to cull and Empathy back into the fold and a thousand other things to do, as well as figure out what Quilatalap is up to.” Erick asked, “Ask for a Wizardry, Sininindi. Tell me how I can help you.”

Sininindi stared, her Red Lightning eyes—

And then she blinked.

Red Sparks spilled from Sininindi and washed away, cloying to everything, except Erick. The Shield ate those Sparks.

With clear eyes, Sininindi stared at Erick, “Fix it.”

… Was she really asking what Erick thought she was asking?

“You’re asking me to… Paradox it all away, and fix the whole mess?”

Sininindi twitched, and then she was two goddesses overlapping in the same space.

One of them was tainted red. She was yelling but her voice was silent. Hateful nothings spilled out from her as she tried to advance on Erick, but she stayed exactly where she was. Gold Lightning held her back, holding her in place.

The other Sininindi was made of lightning and gold. She was the true goddess of Storm and Sea, and she proved that as she intoned, “Time and again, sometimes Wizards are called upon to adjust that which cannot be adjusted through any other means. To win wars without fighting. To create possibilities where there are none. I am calling upon you now to do this most difficult of Wizardry, because something is wrong with this space. Something is wrong with this time. I did not recognize this until now, until I have met you in person, and you brought forth a question that has knocked some proper sense into this fraction of my self.

“I am not whole, and neither is anything else. It has all been eaten away at the edges. That consumption started when you stepped down onto this land, and it will continue until you are gone, for it is coming for you.

“Everbless, our son, isn’t here, and I mistook his absence for some logical thing I could have easily discarded, but that is impossible now. I have no idea why I would ever think that you would harm our son like that, and now, in seeing Everbless’s absence, I see more. Phagar isn’t here, Erick; the arbiter of the God Pact is missing, and that should not happen. The Pantheon has vanished without me noticing. All my people are gone. Everyone…

“All the world is gone, Erick, and the Primal Lightning is closing in.

“This timeline is doomed, and this version of me dies with it.” She raised her arms to the sky and gold lighting poured out of her, reaching high and thundering across the world. Clouds closed in, blocking out the sun, obscuring everything in shadow. The Red version of Sininindi burst away into Static that passed toward the horizon. And then the real storm started. Gold clashed with Red, and Sininindi became the Storm and the Sea, as she said, “Get back to the real world, Erick. Save yourself, and then save everyone else.”

Red Lightning danced across the horizon in every direction, closing in like the corrupting fingers of a distant malevolence. Gold Lightning failed in the light of Red.

Erick did not panic.

The first thing Erick tried was a [Gate], cast softly and surely. It failed. Yggdrasil’s bodies were elsewhere, and yet nowhere; they were inside of Erick, faint, and Elsewhere. Ophiel was only on Erick’s shoulder, and nowhere else. The Script was absent, somehow, and a prayer to Rozeta and Koyabez and Phagar and even Melemizargo returned absolutely nothing, though Erick wasn’t going to wait around to see if that changed.

Erick cast his senses wide and high, as he saw the world with his All-Seeing Eye.

It was a Primal Storm. Primal Lightning. This then, is what traumatized all the gods.

It was easy to see why.

The very world ended beyond the Red Lightning that ravaged the horizon. Gold Lightning tried to fight back, but it was failing. The Red was closing in. The ocean spilled out from fingers of Red thousands of kilometers long, seawater turning to frost in the vacuum of space. Mountains caved and exploded outward as Red passed by. Mana fled beyond the Primal Lightning, swirling into the void. The Storm died in fractions of a second, becoming a wind that was not a normal wind; it was the absolute vacuum of space carrying everything away.

Gold twisted with its final throes.

Erick called out to Elsewhere,

“In realms of peril and despair,

“Where Red Lightning rends void from air,

“I call upon the Storm’s good grace,

“To guide me to a safer place.

“This Path has failed, we lost today.

“Return me now to my old way.”

Benevolence poured out of Erick and filled the world with White, briefly pushing back the Red—

Like a known positive charge meeting a known negative charge, Erick’s Benevolence found the Path that he had been on, and which the Red had taken him from without him knowing. An inner path opened, like the lifting of an eyelid crusted by too much sleep, and Erick Saw his world. He saw Jane and Poi and House Benevolence and Solomon and all the rest.

Erick twisted—

– – – –

White mana puffed away from Erick’s body like the breaking of a spell.

Erick stood upon the spit of land that jutted out from Everbless’s cove and a thousand things happened all at once, but nothing really happened at all. The Script reconnected. Erick felt Yggdrasil. Ophiel spoke up, as though he had been in a daze and he hadn’t realized it. Erick felt Poi reaching for him and there was acknowledgment that something disastrous had almost happened, but then Erick had averted that disaster. No words were actually exchanged, for there was no time.

Sininindi stepped down in front of him.

This time she looked angry, which was much more normal. The sky was normal, and though there was a lot of lightning up there it was all white and gold lightning. Very little Red, and the Red was already retreating. Everbless sat in the cove, as normal, with unburned bark and no red fruits.

Sininindi began, “What the FUCK, Erick. You’re keeping my Shield?”

Erick couldn’t help himself. He smiled. He chuckled, nerves falling away like so much rain off of scales. Sininindi did not like that, her anger flaring, but then Erick truthfully, deeply said, “It’s lovely to see you again, Sininindi.”

Sininindi was briefly angry, a flicker of Red passing through her gaze, but then her eyes were almost completely Gold again. The Red Leviathan had a claw upon her in this God Pact world, but no more than that. Which was good! And then Sininindi’s countenance turned from angry coworker to concerned god, and that’s how Erick knew she was ‘okay’.

Nothing was ‘okay’. Everything was in danger. The Red had Erick in its cross hairs, and he had no idea when the next incident would be, for that is surely what had almost happened. A massive incident.

But Sininindi’s tone held concern, and that was enough for now. “What happened, Erick?”

“I saw something that I cannot tell you about— I’m sorry to be rude, but I have ten thousand things to do. I need to know—” Erick asked, “Who rules Storm’s Edge right now? Has Quilatalap killed anyone that you know of here in Storm’s Edge? How about the whereabouts of Vanya and Soltic?”

As he asked those questions he flicked open tiny [Gate] after tiny [Gate] to check on everything from the state of the House to every location of Yggdrasil to what was happening at Ascendant Mountain. Those initial inquiries all returned normal sights and visions.

Sininindi took a fraction of a moment to narrow her eyes at Erick’s heavy break of decorum with all those tiny [Gate]s, then she rattled off, “The Regency and Augustive Glorious Tidewalker. Quilatalap has been a perfect guest and dungeoneer, and we welcome him to finish the job. Not sure where you went after you got the shield and missed our ceremony time or why you took him away, and so I was concerned about that, but we would have him back to finish the job. Vanya and Soltic are still in there.” She collected herself, stared hard, and said, “And you took my Shield.”

“Okay. That’s fine. Please tell me how you recollect the meeting between me, Tiza, Asmus, and Oozy, inside the dungeon?”

“… Why are you asking after Stormcaller? And you were never at the meeting!” Sininindi huffed, then said, “Tiza sent a request to be allowed in the dungeon to find you, but Quilatalap never answered, and his guardians didn’t let them in, so they didn’t go in. What is going on, Erick.”

That was incredibly concerning. Erick had no clue at all where the ‘break’ in this reality happened where he had been taken from here and ended up at that Ending. Where had he stepped off the Benevolent Path that he had been on? No idea! Maybe it had happened—

It had happened either before Erick stepped into the Breaking Ritual, or just after. Probably just after, when they left the Shadow Dungeon in that unexpected way, just suddenly appearing outside of the Shadow Dungeon entrance instead of actually walking through all the checks that Quilatalap had put up between that Shady place and the rest of the Grand Dungeon. Yup. That had to have been it. Quilatalap had been acting funky, too, talking about how Erick should have made the Benevolence markers a sign to automatically kill someone, and… And Quilatalap had played that off.

Oh.

Okay.

So there’s a bit more existential horror to unpack later.

How had events happened out here? Erick would never know, would he? But he was in his proper world, right?

… Right?

Yes, he was. Yes, he was. Erick had already checked on everyone, and he had even poked a head into the dungeon of Storm’s Edge. Quilatalap wasn’t there, but he was at Ascendant Mountain for some reason.

How the fuck did that happen? Where did the previous reality begin and end?

Oh! Where was Wiloza?

There was Archmage Wiloza Tidewalker, on the walls around the dungeon space, wearing the Benevolence Ring Erick had given her. She was working, and she must not have seen Oozy yet or else she would have sent a message to the House… Or maybe she had seen him, and the Red Sparks had taken that memory.

So the Red Sparks could get around [Benevolence Detection], eh? Well.

Shit.

But then again, Melemizargo had said that Erick’s and Benevolence’s immunity to the Red Sparks was still building, so maybe… It wasn’t okay right now, but it would be okay in the future. Well sure. Sounded fine.

Wizard wars were just gonna be Like That, eh?

Erick breathed. He moved on as best he could. Everyone was alive, and there had been some missing time, and he had done some Wizardry to get back to this proper reality… But he had also had a talk with Melemizargo about the Red Sparks in that Other, abandoned timeline?

Okay.

Just.

Shove those thoughts out of the way for now. It was unimportant—

It was vastly fucking important, but not right now.

Where was Oozy, anyway—

“Ah ha! Found him.” Erick glanced through a [Gate] he had opened above the Blue Temple, just on the other side of Everbless’s cove. Oozy was talking to Everbless’s avatar on the docks where boat tours left to take supplicants to see Everbless from closer.

And his Benevolence marker was gone; his neck was free of white lightning.

So only the Oozy in Other Realities was the… Whatever he was? Okay? Sure.

Oozy was spilling out Red Sparks and some of them were lodging on Everbless, though, but that seemed to be happening to everyone near Oozy, which was in accordance with what Melemizargo had explained. Oozy was some sort of Champion of the Red Leviathan in that other timeline, but here he was just a guy with some Red on him.

Erick closed the [Gate]; he had seen enough. He wanted to tell Sininindi everything, but he was in a prognostication war, and saying too much caused a rollback. So he looked to Sininindi, and tried, “You helped me out a lot in the Breaking of a doomed world, Sininindi. I’m going to be sure to help you, too.”

Sininindi waited for more. “… Is that it? Cryptic Wizard shit?”

“Yes. Apologies.” Erick felt a crash of emotion force its way through his body and out of his face as tears. He couldn’t tell her anything; the Red would not let him. If he pressed, it would rollback this space, and Erick wasn’t prepared to go to war with an enemy with this much power, that he had just met less than a day ago and almost died to. Maybe he could have tried, but every part of him —Benevolence especially— was telling him that beginning hostilities was a bad idea. And so Erick chuckled and sighed. “Apologies, Sininindi. I’m keeping the Shield for now. I will give it back when I can.”

“… I suppose I have been without it for centuries already. I only request it be returned to me before you near the end of your Sundering Search, or before you truly start heading that way, just to be safe.”

“Heard and understood— Oh. Uh. Quilatalap?”

“… Quilatalap has my favor, now. He can return whenever, or not at all if he wishes to be a hermit again. Good day, Erick.”

“Good day, Sininindi.”

Erick felt a rush of small joy for Quilatalap, and then he opened up a [Gate] and left.

– – – –

Erick stood upon the Throne of Melemizargo, white stone stretching out flat until it dropped off and clear crystal towers rose in every distance except the north; the north was clear, with a fantastic view.

Melemizargo was there.

“It appears you encountered something that throws off my understanding of the Enemy. I was there and we did have that conversation, but things got fuzzy after that. I was not aware you were gone until you came back, which may or may not have implications for what happened to you when you [Onward]ed. Congratulations on making it back.”

“Thank you; it was little more than piercing through between this God Pact reality and any other God Pact-declared Element, but different, of course, since the Red Leviathan uses some sort of particle/field-based New Cosmology ‘mana’ which exists outside of the God Pact reality. It is probably not called mana, but I’m going to call it that for now. I am obviously playing off how utterly terrifying it all was as nonchalance, of course.

“Also! I met Primal Lightning. The Red Sparks are Primal Lightning. Yet another terrifying thing! These terrifying things are distressingly more common than they should be, Melemizargo. At least I can more easily visualize how it traumatized everyone, though I am sure my imagination simply falls short, because of course it falls short.

“Anyway.

“It is farming Veird for gods and entire worlds filled with people in those side realities, too. Every single day there are countless apocalypses, just not here. So… I’m not sure if your efforts to stop the sprouting of gods in this reality were the best possible action. Or maybe you did the right thing! The more I learn the more I know I know nothing.”

Melemizargo was a very still Dragon God of Magic.

And then he let out a sigh that filled the world.

Erick added, “Yup. Very terrifying. Also Oozy is the Champion of the Red Sparks in the side-realities, but specifically not in this reality? I’m not sure about that.”

“… I will need to think about all of this.” Melemizargo frowned a little at nothing in particular, and said, “Perhaps it is picking up simple divinity in those side-cullings? Or just… outright taking full sparks? Damnable… trash…” Melemizargo fell silent as his furious white gaze turned infinitely outward.

Erick said, “I’m off again. Probably gonna turn into a bit of a hermit now since the Dark seems safer from the Red than not. Or at least certain Darks. Quilatalap’s was ridden with Red.”

“… I did not see this either. Perhaps… No no…”

The Dragon God of the Dark fell silent again, thinking.

Erick asked, “So how about Verrod? Champion Fallopolis?”

“Oh yes,” Melemizargo said, not looking at Erick. “They’re around here somewhere. Do whatever you want but please be quiet now…” He looked at the horizon, mumbling. “No… Hm. Maybe… Hmm…”

Erick left him to his thoughts.

Down in the shadeling city, Fallopolis was coordinating a worldwide hunt for the new, old Shades. The new Champion of Melemizargo had been at it for hours now with Verrod, Goldie, Lapis, Queen, Treant, and Hollowsaur. The only modern-day Shade missing was Farix, and he had a good reason for being absent. The Professor was at New Brightwater, coordinating from there, working hard to get the Shades out of Ar’Kendrithyst before they could do any damage to Queen Anhelia’s domain.

The world was doing fine, as far as Shades went, and aside from Erick needing to [True Resurrection] a few people here and there across the world and placate a few bruised egos, these new Shades were a long-standing problem to deal with later. Erick did [Blessing of Empathy] all of them, though.

Crying, wailing Shades were easier to manage than homicidal Shades. Truly an improvement, in Erick’s mind.

But he had other things to do, so he left all that to Fallopolis.

– – – –

Erick stepped down into the Dark of the slime dungeon and saw the air was empty of Red Sparks.

It was a relief but also not, for how could anything be a relief right now?

Erick focused on the good.

It was rather comforting to not have any Sparks down here. Erick had no idea why Quilatalap’s dungeon had been filled with Sparks, or why the Red Leviathan clones had been there, or any of all of that, but he’d be getting answers soon enough if Melemizargo happened to gather any answers. Maybe not good answers. But he would have them.

First thing to do, though, was to talk to Solomon, and see about enacting his own plan to ruin the plans of the Red Leviathan forever.

Solomon was practicing aura control with Guile upon a stone platform. Poi and the girls and Evan were at the house, going over various items on the list. Quilatalap was there, which Erick was glad to see; he could stay here for a while, then, and be free of the Sparks. Quilatalap probably wanted to go back to the dungeon at Storm’s Edge, but Erick would try to talk him into staying out of that mess down there until Erick could solve that mess.

But for now, Erick stepped down onto the white stone platform with Solomon.

Solomon looked his way.

And Erick began, “I want to make a clear effort to get you the Lifeblood Heart and to ensure it comes to Veird properly. I have a plan for what you should do afterward, too, in order to get your Jane back. I will help every step of the way.”

Solomon went from tense to utter relief, and he said, “I’m all ears.”