Ar'Kendrithyst - Chapter 262, 1/2

“Please come in, Blighter and Seabass,” Erick said, holding open the front door of his house in Margleknot. “I imagine there is lots to be said, like, for instance, if you’re still my lawyers or not.”

Blighter and Seabass were both vampire-like elven beings from Wraithborne. They were also the best lawyers around. The last time Erick had seen them was at the Fae Enclave meeting, where Erick had been blipped to Layer 1, to the Endless desert of the time worm and Da’luwe. Right before that Erick had been struck by the Fractal Fairy, spilling blood everywhere in that multi-million point damaging ‘message’ from the Fairy to Erick. Erick had remembered all of that conversation and the surrounding moments of time since then.

He also remembered that Blighter and Seabass had both gorged themselves on all the blood Erick had spilled from his dragon body.

Erick added, “You certainly look healthy and happy, so I assume things are good?”

Blighter and Seabass both bowed, and then they walked into the house, Blighter saying, “Things are going wonderfully except for your case against Nothanganathor. I have spoken with Emperor Morbion himself, and he wishes you to know that there are no hard feelings over Da’luwe. That land is doing remarkably better by every possible measurement since your intervention, and Morbion wishes it to be known that perhaps they had gotten lax with how they ran things in their prison.” He added, “On a more personal note, I am grateful for the blood you shared with us at the Enclave meeting. Seabass is as well. Your blood since the Enclave meeting has erased my natural bloodlust ever since I had so much of it.”

Erick smiled. “I hope you kept some around.” Erick gestured to the side room where he had placed tea, coffee, and cookies.

“It was a madhouse to gather as much as anyone could. I believe that Lady Seraphaka found one of your larger scales in that skirmish and has made quite a lot of jewelry out of it. There was a minor war over three of your other scales, and most of that war is still happening. That particular conflict could flare to another war, just as easily as it could snuff out.” Blighter entered the side room. After Erick sat down, Blighter followed, putting his briefcase on the part of the table without the refreshments. He began taking out papers, saying, “The tale of Da’luwe and the time worm is still being debated in the Enclave, which is sort of like a minor war, but that is just the prelude to actual war. I have the full transcript here, along with personal notes.”

When Blighter took the notes out of his obscuring briefcase Erick read it in a flashing instant. He hummed in thought when Blighter actually finished laying the notes down, because he had to let Blighter finish speaking before speaking himself, of course; it was only polite.

Erick summarized, “So the lines are still Lady Seraphaka and Lady Aelorika against Lord Dakka and Lord Eldraki. The Fractal Fairy isn’t involved.” Erick frowned. “I would have thought Lord Dakka would have appreciated that I killed everyone and resurrected them into different forms, but he wanted actual blood and shit and rusted metal and torn lives… Hm.”

Blighter nodded.

Erick thought.

Blighter waited.

Erick sighed a little, then blinked, and asked Blighter and Seabass, “Do you want some fresh blood?”

Blighter’s eyes went wide. “… Your offer is duly appreciated, but I must decline.”

Seabass silently said the same thing by bowing a little.

Erick said, “Then coffee, tea, and cookies it is.”

Erick dished out some refreshments. He ate his cookie and sipped his coffee as he thought about the minutes Blighter had brought him. Blighter and Seabass politely ate and drank and waited.

Eventually, Erick set down his drink and said, “So I have to go to more war, since I’m certainly not trading anything to Lord Eldraki. I had assumed this was to be the outcome, but to see it so clearly stated is certainly a bit of a shock. Anyway! To start, I’m going to be building a branch of House Benevolence. Waithborne has old liches you want [Reincarnation]ed, yes? I’ll make use of them, transforming them to Benevolence like I did for Eldawae. They can go on their way from there, or they can be a part of the Margleknot extension of House Benevolence, if they desire. I’ll also be raiding the Waiting Room for people. I already have a god helping me with that. With such a coalition I am going to go to war against the Slaver’s Den and erase that Evil from existence. You may warn key people about that if you wish. Or you may fortify the Slaver’s Den with the Evil people you don’t like. All are acceptable options for me.”

Blighter, ever the well-put-together lawyer, and probably prepared for something similar to the various news that Erick had given him, easily said, “I will carry news of these plans to Emperor Morbion and let you know his direct thoughts, but based on previous conversations with him I can tell you a few different things. Emperor Morbion would appreciate a few liches of ours turned into new existences. We have three names for you right now; Kakalakot of the Slavehold, Odarimisu of the Depths, and Witch Aragathara. I have their information here.” He handed over some paperwork, then continued, “Our Emperor appreciates being notified of your plans to invade one of our allies, and he expects at least a week to return his own decisions to you about your plans.

“He would have an answer within ten minutes, but he would like some time to enact his own counter plans in a way that will not run completely counter to your own given plans. We are allies for now, and Emperor Morbion would like to remain as such.”

“I accept this time table,” Erick said, putting the dossiers for the three liches of Wraithborne aside. “I am not going to war with Wraithborne, for I hope to completely turn Wraithborne to Benevolence eventually, and I am comfortable with working with former Evils who are no longer evil. Please tell him that Benevolence is a fantastic path to power, but that it requires the user to support themselves on the backs of well-made civilizations. Both of those seem like things Morbion is interested in.”

Blighter asked, “Would you allow us to know what sort of House you wish to build?”

“I’m sure you have my dossier, which includes all of House Benevolence’s construction, just like I have Wraithborne’s dossier on their construction with your primes and officers.” Erick said, “I’ll do something like the Overseer system I already have, but I’ll go simple, for now. An Overseer of Enforcement, one of Governance, and one more of Magic. I’ll find three friends or three people who can work well together, and then turn the whole thing over to them, alongside a good portion of the reson generation from my Benevolent Sun. That thing is making close to a trillion resons per day, for me, and so a portion of that given to my House up here will be more than enough to set them up for success.” He added, “Other than that, I expect to descend upon Slaver’s Den like a vengeful god, turning millions of them into new people and sending the rest to the Waiting Room. I’ll effectively ‘reincarnate’ the entire continent that belongs to Slaver’s Den into something better.” Erick asked, “Would you allow me to know what sort of counter plans Morbion will try?”

Blighter said, “Margleknot has been unbalanced toward Evil for a long while and so the loss of a few hundred million Evil actors is likely a good thing for us all, including, technically, Wraithbrone. Therefore, your desired action against Slaver’s Den is likely going to be subtly empowered by the Balance, but your desired course of action is still in gross violation of several Great Contracts Wraithborne has with Slaver’s Den, who is a staunch ally. Therefore, at the base level, Wraithborne will have to provide assistance to Slaver’s Den in the form of information and physical assistance. When the assassins come for you, please know that it is nothing personal, and if those assassins could be let off with a stern warning and a simple kill instead of a twisting, such an action would be in accordance with the un-written allyship between Wraithborne and yourself.”

Erick said, “I’ll think about it.” He continued, “About this coming minor war: I was under the impression that murder is fine as long as soul twisting was not done, but that Wraithborne engages in twistings all the time with their contracts. Do you foresee there being a problem with me using grand soul magics upon people here in Layer 0?”

“As far as our Witches and Soul Mages have been able to discover, your ‘soul twistings’ are more ‘untwisting’ than anything, but we would still call them ‘soul twistings’ in a court of law, and the law would still agree. But no one is going to push the issue unless it has to be pushed.”

“That is what I assumed.” Erick continued, “So the Fae Enclave would not be involved with this?”

Erick already knew the answer to that question. But he wanted to know what Blighter would say.

Blighter easily said, “Balancing Wars are common on Layer 0. All people who die who are not soul-mutilated go to the Waiting Room, after all. Simple murder is also rather common. Continual murder is considered gauche. Going to War generally requires a notice of intent handed over to the Fae Enclave, though. It is considered polite.”

Erick nodded. “That’s what I’ve already heard. Can you assist with writing up that notice?”

Blighter flipped through some small parts of his briefcase and brought out a piece of paper with writing on it, saying, “Absolutely. Here is a basic form of Intent to War. The exact wording can be changed, of course.”

Erick glanced it over. The notice was a simple set of fill-in-the-blanks for one paragraph, some bullet points of articles which could be crossed out, or not, and a final empty part.

Erick said, “There will be no soul sundering, so you can cross off that threat. Soul twisting is still going to happen, and in a mass way, but if you could change that to ‘untwisting’, that would be acceptable. I’m starting this war with them for the purposes of freeing the universe of their slavery systems and taking their land. The people who I affect will be cast out from Margleknot. The people who I kill will go into the Waiting Room. I am willing to accept nothing less than their complete surrender, at which point they will be rapidly reincarnation’d into new lives. If they choose to remain here, then they can attempt to reintegrate, and I will accept them back. Otherwise, I can send them off into the rest of the universe to start their lives over elsewhere.” Erick looked it over again as Blighter wrote and then rewrote, using some small magics to rearrange wordings and already-typed parts of the declaration. Erick hummed when Blighter finished, then said, “Yes. That’s good.”

“Do you desire to have this filed now, or 10 days from now?”

“I’d hear Morbion’s decisions before you file it.” Erick stood. “And that’s all my business for today… Unless there’s more news?”

Blighter rose, bowed, then began putting his papers away as he said, “That’s everything on my end. I wish you luck in the Waiting Room. That place is a cacophony.”

Erick saw them out the door and off the property.

And then he called up Shadow through a messenger star.

– – – –

Shadow walked cautiously up the moss-laden root that was Erick’s front driveway.

She looked… Not terrified. But rather… embarrassed?

Erick called out to her, “What’s wrong?”

Shadow said, “Margleknot is here, Erick. Like here, here.” She walked a little faster, and this time in the air so that she didn’t walk on Margleknot’s root, or even on the plants on his root. “He doesn’t like people living on him. I’m surprised… That he went for this.”

This was her first trip to his house, wasn’t it?

Erick raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t we go over what my house looked like before? When I said I couldn’t receive the Waiting Room people here?”

“Seeing this place is different than hearing about it.”

Erick frowned at her. “Put your feet on the ground and walk like a normal person.”

Shadow… put her feet on the ground and walked like a fae creature, stepping weightlessly on the grasses and mosses and not bending a single bit of greenery out of place.

“Close enough.” Erick stepped inside his house, “Come on in!”

Shadow rapidly moved inside the house, opting to not spend a moment more atop the grasses and mosses outside. “So why am I here?”

“To talk about the glitter crystal that makes up the Fae Enclave, and which appears inside of a spell of mine that I got from Veird.” Erick held up a hand and conjured an image of the glittering, fractal crystal at the heart of his [Telepathy] spell. “This stuff. I believe it to be the Mark of the Fractal Universe, sort of how the Darkness is the Mark of the Painted Cosmology, but I’m not sure.”

Shadow had been steeling herself as Erick spoke—

But when Erick finished, Yggdrasil stepped into the room. “Hello, Father. Let us talk of this topic, all together.”

Shadow instantly said, “I’m going first! That is indeed the Mark of the ‘Fractal Universe’, which is a fine enough name, I suppose, and most people can’t see it at all or even know that it exists. I think the one you have in you is all fucked up, though, because it should be a source of resons like how the Mark of the Dark is a source of mana.” And then she said to Yggdrasil, “Apologies for stepping on your roots.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Yggdrasil said, “And yes. That is the Mark of the Fractal Universe. The Mark is not freely given, and not even given at all if this universe can help it. Melemizargo stole a Mark, put it in a person that they used to make children of which he only shielded in the first generation, and then let the Mind Mages perish or prosper until the Mark stabilized inside of them, granting them the abilities they have in the present day. That was not his original intention. He was trying to make people who had the ability to speak True Conversation without dying… though I’m rather certain that even he didn’t realize what he was truly doing.”

Shadow raised eyebrows when Yggdrasil spoke of True Conversation.

Erick asked, “Is that what I experienced with the Fractal Fairy?”

Yggdrasil said, “No. True Conversation is communication across Layers, usually toward oneself in different realities. This is how the Mark of this universe ‘makes resons’; by allowing one to self-actualize through viewed goals. Melemizargo mutated the Mark into a communicator of mind-to-mind in a single slice of infinity.” He said, “What you experienced with the Fractal Fairy was… Another thing I want to talk to you about, and Shadow should remain as well, because that’s somewhat related to True Conversation, but… Not.”

Shadow waited.

Erick waited as well.

Yggdrasil said, “I’m basically a paladin of the Fractal. Shadow is a paladin of the Darkness. Using ‘paladin’ like that is kinda like considering a toothpick a valid weapon all your life and then suddenly finding out someone that has invented a nuclear bomb. So while the term is correct, it is also incorrect.”

Erick said, “I assume that the Dark and the Fractal empower you to do their bidding?”

“Yup,” Shadow said. “And occasionally we speak for our universes, when they desire to talk. Usually they do not. We can survive those conversations though. You almost didn’t survive a single utterance.”

“… It felt like a full letter?”

Yggdrasil said, “It was a single utterance.” He continued, “Anyway. If you want to repair the Mark of the Fractal then you can. This will allow you to speak with other versions of yourself no matter where you are in the universe. Or, you can wait till you get back to Veird and break open [Telepathy] and learn Mind Mage Magic. They’re two different paths. You can only pick one…” He almost said more, but he stopped.

Shadow said, “He wants you to become a Paladin of the Fractal.”

Yggdrasil sighed. “And she wants you for the Dark.”

Erick said, “Well I’m certainly not picking any right now. But… That’s a big offer?” Erick thought about it for a second, then said, “Not right now. Probably not ever. I don’t really like accepting power from those so far above me.”

Yggdrasil smiled a little with relief.

Shadow said, “That’s what I figured, too. Anyway! Mind Magic seems fun, and I’m glad to get that tiny conversation about all the Really Big Stuff that doesn’t even matter. So? Are we doing the Waiting Room thing now? I would like to get this show on the road.”

Erick smirked. “Yeah. I want to build House Benevolence, too.” He asked Yggdrasil, “Will the Fae Enclave have a problem with me destroying the Slaver’s Den?”

Yggdrasil smiled. “Nope.”

Erick realized something. “Ah… You would have asked this of me if it didn’t happen some other way.”

Yggdrasil grinned wider. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, father. I’m not some mastermind planner at all.”

Erick laughed once.

And then Yggdrasil stepped backward and vanished.

Shadow smiled wide, saying, “Let’s go raise an army!”

Erick messaged Cascadio.

– – – –

Erick wore a burnished-gold pendant on a gold-thread necklace, empowered with the Light of Cascadio, as he stepped through the swirling gold-and-green portal. Shadow followed at his side, his companion for the day, or however long this took. Might take a few days, might only take an hour. Shadow might leave after only ten minutes and then come back later.

The Waiting Room was supposed to be rather safe, but only because it was rather strict in its rules, and almost no one spent time here unless they were working.

As they stepped onto the platform beyond, they were greeted by words in the air.

Welcome to the Living Waiting Room.

Violence of any sort is not tolerated at all and will result in an automatic stasis lock and expulsion from the Living Waiting Room and a lockout of 10 years, at a minimum. Most sentences are 100 years or more.

Our automated systems have marked you as and , which means that our systems cannot do much to you directly and so we will have to send people after you. Should we need to, we will send people after you, and also Margleknot’s transportation network will not work for you for 1,000 years. Please respect the Living Waiting Room, so that we may respect each other in polite turn.

And that right there, the threat of Margleknot’s gates not working for a person, was more than enough for most people to avoid this land completely.

Shadow said, “I got expelled from here once. I won’t be doing that again. And this place moves around, too, so the only real way to get here is with Margleknot’s help. Otherwise you have to find it first, and that’s the real pain.”

Erick stared out across the land, feeling a strange pang of homesickness yet again.

The Waiting Room looked like Ar’Kendrithyst, or Stratagold, or Bluite, or any of the Geodes of Veird, where the wrought lived and grew. Mostly, it looked like Ar’Kendrithyst from before Last Shadow’s Feast, before Erick broke the Shades and Anhelia started taking over the place. Shadows and more swirled inside the crystals.

It was crystal towers. A lot of them. All orderly and organized, like rows of 250-meter-wide octagonal crystal trees that had been planted in some sort of monoculture farming pattern. They were rainbows. They were clear. They were red, purple, and black. And then they were blue and gold, or white and yellow, or orange and blue. Purple and pink. White and black. The colors changed on whims, or maybe in some unknown order. The only constant of the Waiting Room was the churn of glitter and shadow inside of every single crystal spire, and the indistinct glow of white light beyond the crystals, far, far away, past an unknown distance of air and magic in every single direction with any sort of clear line of sight at all.

From Erick and Shadow’s private entrance platform, Erick gazed out across that unknown distance, down an aisle of empty air in four directions. The crystal towers stood in orderly rows. Here and there among the towers were crossbeams of further crystal. Light and dark and magic and souls flowed through those crossbeams.

It was so much like Ar’Kendrithyst in the beginning of Erick’s time on Veird, that it really took him a moment to see the parallels. Here was a land of many, many souls, all mashed together in a cacophony known as the Dead Waiting Room, just beyond this Living space. It was apparently intelligible once you were inside, but from out here, all Erick saw was a susurrus of souls.

It was like the trillions of souls that Melemizargo had rescued from the Old Cosmology and which he kept locked in the spires of Ar’Kendrithyst for so long, hoping to one day bring them back to life. The Shades had used those souls to make shadelings all the time, or to allow for shadelings to naturally arise on their own, as they pulled themselves out of that susurrus. Here, though, there was no automatic pulling. Everyone was locked to Death until their resurrection cost was finally funded, either through personal expenditure, or through the common cause payment which took 10-ish years to happen, on average.

After Erick had evicted the Shades from Ar’Kendrithyst, those souls of the Painted Cosmology had decayed and changed into the soul slime which Jane had then killed, which had then become the first dungeon slime.

Those souls were the souls that were used in the NPC program inside every dungeon core on Veird. Or at least pieces of them were.

Erick stared out at the glittering shadows of the dead of Margleknot, and thought this whole system was like how Ar’Kendrithyst was supposed to work, and yet did not, because of Nothanganathor. Those uncountable dead of the Old Cosmology were too lost to be helped through normal methodology anymore. When Melemizargo had created the dungeon slime, had he been trying to help the Old Cosmology dead? In a way he didn’t really know how? Highly likely.

This system here was in perfect working order, and Ar’Kendrithyst was… not.

Erick stared for a long moment.

And then he looked around.

Erick looked over the edge of the platform—

A warning appeared.

There is no place in the Living Waiting Room that is more or less conducive to resurrections than anywhere else. Please do not leave your private platform. Leaving your private platform is a minor violation. Three minor violations and you will be removed and your access to the Living Waiting Room will be revoked for 1 year.

Erick complained at the words, “I’m just looking over the edge.”

The message went away.

Erick looked down. All he saw was more light and air down there. “How big is this place?”

“As big as it needs to be,” Shadow said. “According to rumor, anyway.”

Erick came back to the center of the floating platform, asking, “I was meaning to ask you: Cascadio treated you with deference. Like you were older than him? But stars are like 4 billion years old when life starts to develop around their planets, right? Is he 4 billion years old, or… What was going on there?”

Shadow smiled a little. “I don’t know how old I am, Erick. What a weird question. I’m as old as I need to be. Cascadio probably kept track of his actual age, though. It’s probably something like 3 or 4 billion, yes. Whatever his people say he is, usually.”

Erick shook his head a little. “Sometimes these numbers are just ridiculous.”

“I agree. That’s why I don’t think about them.”

“And that’s not even accounting for time travel. I’m pretty sure I’m at least 60, but I might be 64.”

“So young!” Shadow said, laughing. Still smiling, she asked, “Who are you going to search for first?”

“The potential administrators. Lanzoil, Querkooda, and Ta’Kamoil.” Erick said, “But whoever I find first is probably coming out of there first. Are you going to wait by my side? You don’t have to. I could use you in the staging area, talking with the people as they come out.”

Shadow shrugged, and then she moved her hand through the air like she was picking up something that wasn’t there, and then she did exactly that. With a mug of beer in her hand, she sat down on a chair that also simply appeared, saying, “I’m pretty sure that assassins are going to try and get you here.”

Cascadio stepped out of the air, saying, “I’m sure they will try.” The big bear of a dark-skinned god stood level with Erick… And then he realized he was standing level with Erick, and he smiled. “You got taller!”

“This is my normal height when not going incognito,” Erick said, “Anyway. Welcome, Cascadio.”

Shadow waved her beer mug as she grabbed a book out of the air and started reading, saying, “I might move back and forth between here and the resurrection island. For now, I am here.”

Erick nodded, then asked Cascadio, “The prep space?”

“All ready and waiting. I am here, and I am there. If you bring back some of my unreachable flock first, then that would be good for those who follow. I’m sure that they will have interacted with some of those on your list in the many thousands of years they’ve been trapped by Wraithborne Contract.” Cascadio said, “I fully expect some of those interactions to have been positive.”

“I can do that, too.” Erick asked, “Who first?”

“Emberpeace, Hypenade, Lurros Chet Tri, Hangu Aldu, or Withershin Shine.” Cascadio said, “Any of them would have tried to build something Good if they could have.”

Erick nodded. “I’ll see what I can do… But honestly, I’m going after whoever is closest, first.”

Cascadio smiled like the rise of dawn, turning to golden flame that enveloped Erick with the warmth of a new day, and a Path toward the future. His voice echoed, “Then we dive into Death, young, powerful Ascended, in order to bring forth life.”

Erick breathed out—

And then he floated outside of his body. It had happened so fast that he had not been fully prepared for it. He looked at himself, and he looked down at himself.

A golden light enveloped him; a warmth of person and purpose.

A golden light enveloped his body, which was still him.

Erick adjusted his senses back to his body—

And Erick was in his body again, looking up at a ghostly version of himself floating in the air in front of him.

Erick said, “Ah. It’s a [Familiar] spell? Or more like an [Avatar]?”

Cascadio’s voice spoke all around Erick, but also through the pendant on Erick’s chest, “Similar. But not at all. The only way to enter the Dead Waiting Room is to be brought there by a god, or be rendered dead in some other way. This is less of a projection of life, and more of a projection of death. Most people are highly vulnerable as a ghost, but that’s ‘most people’. You, specifically, should only take… twenty times more damage? I am estimating, here. You are very powerfully built, Ascended Flatt.”

Erick chuckled and returned his senses to his ghost—

And spoke from the air like a soft whisper of a life gone by, “You’re powerfully built yourself.”

Cascadio laughed joyfully, and then he calmed. His voice turned whispery, “Shadow will hear everything said, except for this, and what you don’t want me to tell her. She is still a fine ally to have when paths align, but she is crafty and not-Good.”

Erick smiled at the care in the god’s voice. He quietly said to Cascadio, “I know. Your concern is charming and heard loud and clear. Thank you.”

Cascadio nodded without nodding at all.

And Erick floated forward, toward the nearest crystal, toward the rainbow surface filled with glitter and shadow and—

– – – –

Erick slapped down onto broken asphalt in a dim city.

A light flickered overhead. Wetness soaked into his jeans… He was wearing jeans? And a teeshirt. The light overhead was a streetlamp. The dim city was an Earth city and the sky was so very familiar with stars that Erick hadn’t seen in an age. Erick rapidly realized a few things. His Status worked fine. His Lightning Path was still there, arcing into a distance. He was alive and intact and inside the Dead Waiting Room, and yet not. He was also inside of his own memories, in the first room of the Dead Waiting room; his own room.

That sky up there was the North American sky over Michigan in Autumn, and this city around Erick was an amalgamation of a few different places. There was Erick’s childhood home. Over there were the dormitories where he had stayed at college. Over there was the orange stone house from Spur.

The sky was not actually a fully North American sky, either, with the Big Dipper and Orion. It had those stars, but it also had the Bucket and the Spearing Lion of Veird’s night sky.

It was an amalgamation of places. It was Erick’s ‘safe space’ that he could retreat to if the normal cacophony of the Dead Waiting Room got to him. Everyone who entered this place got one of these safe zones. Except, they weren’t really safe zones.

Erick extended his mana senses outward—

That didn’t work, actually.

Right. Nothing worked like it should here. Not exactly.

The only magic that worked here was resonwork and frameshifting-soulwork. That was one of the reasons that Wraithborne was so good at this place; at this land of Soul Magic.

Gods helped people return to life from the Waiting Room in more or less even amounts on the Good-Evil spectrum, and there were lots of organizations on all sides of Margleknot that worked this land to find people, but the fact was that the number of Soul Mages on the side of Good did not add up to a tenth as many soul mages on the side of Evil. It was for that reason that Evil would always rise above Good when it came to truly understanding the soul, and working the Dead Waiting room. This was because Evil did not care about the souls of others as anything other than a thing to be used. As long as a victim didn’t get soul-sundered, a Soul Mage could fuck as many people up as they wanted to acquire proficiency at Soul Magic. Good people had standards of care.

That was why Cascadio had asked Erick to consider expanding his soul-rescue plan many times larger than his initial 120-ish soul goal—

Erick put that stuff out of his mind. He was busy. He had goals. It was time to get to those goals.

The first step was frameshifting himself out of this personal space. To do that, Erick imagined himself as here, in the Dead Waiting Room. Not inside a memory of his own making.

Erick stared into the land around him, and then he slowly closed his eyes, not all the way at all, but merely mostly, manifesting the shift—

Flames rolled in from every horizon, like the rising of a great, burning sun.

And then the flames were there, and they were warm.

Through barely-closed eyelids, cacophonous existence assaulted Erick from every side and every sense. It was loud with ten billion voices screaming, talking, laughing, shouting, roaring, whispering, saying unkind things and saying brilliant loving things all at once. Erick cracked open his eyes and saw the madhouse colors of the Dead Waiting Room. He felt the ripping finger touches of others on every exposed part of his flesh. He felt the heat of Cascadio all around him, keeping him himself. And then Erick closed his eyes fully.

He pulled in the fire. He pulled in the light.

He shifted his sense of the world around him, attempting to experience the Dead Waiting Room as a single sort of existence, instead of ten trillion ways to live all at once. A single form of existence would have to cover a lot of ground in order to make sense of all of this, though.

Erick imagined Ar’Kendrithyst, with its tall towers and dead souls and bright sun overhead and red/purple shadows and Dark—

The madhouse shifted.

Soft breezes touched his skin, and everything was still.

He opened his eyes to a much calmer land.

Erick stood a few kilometers below the sky of Ar’Kendrithyst. Everything up there was bright yellow and gold sun, which was not technically correct, for that was Cascadio, looking down at Erick and guiding/anchoring him to his true self out there. Erick’s body was also on golden, yellow fire. That fire did not burn, but it did illuminate. The sun pinned to Erick’s chest beat in time to his own heart, each pulse brightening the land around him, solidifying crystal into something solid, turning distance into something intelligible, keeping him here, in this moment.

The sun above was the Guide. Erick could return whenever he wanted. The Guide would also illuminate the way toward the goal, with the goal being the souls on Erick’s list. Cascadio had that list, and all Erick had to do was concentrate on that assistance, and the nearest person on that list would be… somewhere down a road, or something. Erick didn’t really know.

The fire surrounding Erick was the Shield. It would take damage before he did. In an unsure way, Erick expected all damage beyond this sunshield would inflict ‘False Damage’ worth 20 to 30 times more damage against his real body. Since Erick had a billion Health, Mana, and Psyche, this was not a big deal. Other people were a lot more vulnerable to damage down here, though.

The little beating pin on Erick’s chest was the Translator itself. It would keep Erick stable and hold onto his current greater frameshift for him, allowing him to use smaller shifts when needed. The translator was perhaps the most important part of Erick’s current kit, for many reasons.

And those were Cascadio’s forms of assistance in finding Erick’s targets.

Erick’s targets lay all around.

He looked out and saw a madhouse of a different sort. A trillion souls milled about and lived in an endless towering, bridged city, of many reds and purples, that expanded out from here to far, far out of view. Erick looked down off the edge of the bridge underfoot and saw much, much further down than he should have been able to see. But then again this was a soul space, so yeah, Erick could see whatever he expected to see with his current frameshift. He couldn’t exactly look through walls, though, or look behind himself, or do a bunch of stuff he was normally able to do —not to mention magic was wholly different in here— but this frame of reference would work well enough, for now. Probably for the rest of the trip, too. And nearby walls were translucent enough to see through, to see threats hiding on the other sides of corners, so this was fine.

What was… possibly fine, but wholly weird, was that every single person out there was wearing simple Earth clothes. Jeans. Teeshirts. Belts, shoes. Dresses sometimes, but mostly not. It appeared that Erick had frameshifted every other person out there into human-shaped, which was wholly inaccurate, but that was Erick’s problem; not their problems.

Erick looked down at his own jeans-and-a-teeshirt and decided that was fine, as well. He hadn’t really worn jeans and a teeshirt in a long time… but this was fine?

Erick wondered about magic. The only magic possible here was pure resonwork, and Erick hadn’t done much of that. He was pretty sure he could, though.

Erick moved a hand through the air, focusing on who he was and what he knew he could do…

A ripple of power flickered across the air, like a wavy talon slash. That had probably taken a few resons out of his wallet, but he had millions of resons and his body was still generating resons, so he was fine in that way. It was still a freaky way to do magic, though. Pure intent. Pure focus. That specific frameshift was easy, though. All he was ‘doing’ was ‘using his real dragon body’ to do some stuff while in his human shape.

It was a pretty pure expression of magic, and Erick kinda liked it, but it was prone to a whole lot of personal failure.

Magic in the Dead Living Room was perhaps the most reson-based magic in existence, here in this Fractal Universe. Erick would not be casting any [Luminous Beam]s in here for multiple reasons, from particles not existing to mana not being here either, but Erick was still a big damn dragon, and that much of himself was easy to bring into this place. That was a personal failing, though.

He probably could do a [Luminous Beam] if he wanted, but to do so would probably break Erick’s mental idea of ‘what is magic’, and he didn’t want to go down that road.

This was fine.

Now to start rescuing people.

Where to start first—

Erick gazed around and spotted a pair of older women walking to the sides, carrying some groceries from this place to that place. As Erick looked, he saw the groceries were little people wrapped in swaddling and sleeping or struggling to free themselves. Some had decided to give up the ghost and retreat into their soul spaces. Those ones looked translucent.

Ah.

Erick knew what this was from his conversations about this place with Cascadio and Shadow.

Erick interrupted the women’s talk, asking, “Pardon me? Are those people you’ve overpowered and are taking somewhere?”

The two women, who were now twins and young with swords in their hands and tiny people in baskets on their back, spoke in unison, “What’s it to you?” And then, “Go find your own catches.”

“Just tell me what you’re doing with them and this can either go well or poorly for you.”

The twins laughed together. “Another one for the pot!”

And then they reached out with their hands which were big enough to grab Erick’s entire body—

And Erick lifted a hand, two fingers out, and drew two talons the size of his real form’s talons through the women’s entire beings. The women splashed into broken spellwork and blood and then they crashed away into every direction, soaking into the lands. That blood, bone, and flesh began to melt and evaporate, vanishing within two seconds.

Whoever they had been, they were now disrupted. They’d need to enter the Dead Waiting Room again, but first they’d need to nurse their killer headache/soulaches.

Their cargo spilled onto the ground, the swaddling unraveling. Some souls popped into being right away, eagerly freeing themselves. Some remained translucent and trapped. Erick manually bent down and freed one of them while one frantic woman rapidly searched the pile of people for a specific person. She grabbed her person, yelling in delight, and then unwrapped them. The wrapped person did not pop into being, but that was good enough for the concerned woman, for now.

Two people raced away.

Erick ignored the runners, asking the rest, “What happened?”

“Slave traders!” said one man, even as he raced away, calling back “Appreciate the rescue! I’m not sticking around unknown people!”

There was a dispersal.

A lot of the others raced away, saying similar things. Most of them just ran and ran, down bridges, past people who saw them but whom they could not see in turn. It was like they were running blind. One pair of people down there saw a racing man and they asked their companion, ‘What’s their problem?’ while the other replied, ‘They can’t see past themselves, honey. Don’t mind them.’ And the people ran on. One guy stopped at a crossroads with everywhere in the world to go, but then he started crying, saying something about how there was no way forward, and so he turned around and tried another path. Not 20 seconds later that same guy got stuck in the middle of an open bridge in bright daylight, saying, ‘shit! Another dead end! I can’t see anything in this dark!’ And then he turned around.

There was no dark. There were options to go everywhere.

The guy lacked a proper framing device, so… Yeah.

Erick watched as the guy raced back up to Erick, only to spot Erick and scream, before racing back away. Other people had remained with Erick, though. They saw the screaming man run and ‘hide’, squatting down in the middle of an open road, before he realized that might not be the best option. He turned and ran away again.

Erick frowned a little.

Perhaps, if it was just that one guy acting like that, then Erick would go and rescue him, but that guy was just one of thousands all acting like they were walking in their own personal world. And they probably were.

The woman who had frantically rescued her sleeping friend, who was still sleeping and translucent, was now smiling, watching the scared guy run and stop on empty streets. “Anorath’s Balls, that guy has a water’s chance in lava.”

Erick had realized that a bit ago, too. Erick asked, “Is everyone in the Dead Waiting Room like that?” Erick had seen a lot in the few minutes since he had landed here. He gazed around, saying, “I see a whole lot of people stopping at open roads and turning around, actually. It’s because they can’t envision some place freer than where they are, isn’t it. And yet, with a proper framing device, this place truly is like being a fourth dimensional being looking down at a three dimensional space.”

The woman scoffed. “Don’t know what that doggie-doo is about, matey. Alls I know is this is great fun watching idiots.”

Erick asked the woman, “Are you in my frameshift now?”

“What’s that?” The woman shook her head. “I ain’t got no idea what you’re talking about, matey.”

“You’re seeing crystal towers and bridges and people getting stuck in open areas, like I am?”

“Oh that!” The woman said, “Mostly, yeah. I’m stealing your Sight for my own. Don’t like it? Bugger off then. Big Sights always end up populated. Don’t like it? Then don’t be so clever with your Sights!”

Erick smiled a little at that.

A pair of rescued men had also remained nearby with Erick and the woman. They were watching the world, too.

One of them asked, “Are you a soul mage? Kind rescuer, sir?”

“Not by trade, but by necessity, yes,” Erick said. “Who are you? You need rescuing? I can remove Wraithborne Contracts and give you new bodies, but I ask that you agree to work for the House I am building for however long you have remaining on your Waiting Room time. It’s a House closer toward Good, but not actually Good.” He looked at the older gentleman. “You would have younger bodies, of your own design. Temporary bodies right now, though.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Sounds like a soul mage to me.”

“Not a full one, I admit,” Erick said, “For instance, you look human to me right now. Everyone here is human to me right now. That’s probably not what you actually are.”

The two men looked at themselves, their eyebrows going up.

“Human?” said one guy, sounding weirdly happy.

“Ugh,” decided the other guy. “Human.”

The woman laughed. She stood up and poked at herself. “I’m a pinky pinker to you?” She grabbed her boobs through her white shirt. “What does this look like when I’m doing this?”

“… Boob grabbing through a teeshirt.”

The woman laughed loudly and happily, rolling on the floor and crying a little, hugging her sister (?) to her chest (definitely not a chest.).

One of the men softly asked the other, “What’s a teeshirt?”

The other guy said, “Tunic.”

The first guy nodded.

Erick smiled, adding, “Anyway! Any of you want to be reincarnated as a human, or a different species?”

“Immortal void flier!” said the laughing woman. “Give me big wings, too!”

The two men walked away fast, both of them muttering ‘no thanks’.

Erick turned to the woman. “Maybe I can do that afterward, but I’ve just now firmly decided that I’m not giving anyone options of species, but I am giving options of sex.” Erick added, “Species changes can happen later— Actually. Let me start over. I prepared for this: I’m—”

“I don’t care! Get me and sis out of here and we’ll take your Contracts! You seem better than the other shits around here and…” She looked at her sister, still translucent in her arms. She frowned. “Sis ain’t gonna last another attack. She’s already withdrawn and we got 8 years left on our time.”

Erick said, “Very well.” He held out a hand. “Sister first, and then you.”

The woman said, “Yeah yeah yeah.” And then she turned back into a translucent small doll of herself. She fell to the ground. Her sister fell to the ground next to her.

… Erick shrugged, and then picked up the sister.

‘Zero magic’ was ‘available’ inside the Dead Waiting Room. Erick couldn’t mana sense and he couldn’t use his aura and he couldn’t expel or shape mana at all. The only real ‘magic’ available inside the Dead Waiting Room was frameshifting and resonwork, and none of that was how one resurrected people down here. All that stuff was useful for travel, though.

Sort of how the entire Fractal Universe was based on Infinity and Resons, so too was the Waiting Room. Adding to that, the Waiting Room was made of the same glitter-crystal that made up the Fae Enclave and the Fractal Fairy.

There was a deep mystery there that Erick would have to find out about later, in private conversations with Shadow or Yggdrasil… Probably Yggdrasil.

So for now, Erick got to work.

All sorts of resurrecting, reincarnations, and other rescuing magics, did not happen here, in the Dead Waiting Room itself. For all of that, there was the Negotiator in Wraithborne’s case, or in Erick’s case there was the Translator pinned to his chest.

Erick held the sister in one hand and then pressed his other hand to the Translator, briefly opening up—

– –

Erick was half awake, one hand to his chest, one hand holding the air. He sat on his butt on the stone platform he had come in on, and he held a translucent ghost in his hand, and yet they weren’t in his hand at all.

Erick was in the Living Waiting Room. Shadow was reading a book behind him. Cascadio’s golden warmth was all around, while the god himself was in the corner of Erick’s eyes, tapping ‘yes’ on a floating question that asked ‘do you want to pay 1000 resons to move this soul to the front of the line?’

The soul in Erick’s hand turned more solid. More there.

She was a centaur-like person, but with the bottom half of a lizard and the top half of a goblin.

Erick cast a [Reincarnation] on the goblin-centaur girl. He worked fast and half-awake, but he had been doing this for a very long time and he still did good work while under the effects of this ‘astral projection’ spellwork. A fractal splash appeared around the person’s soul in his hands and Erick selected the Path that made this girl a human woman who was smart and witty and who loved her family and her community. It was pretty much herself, but human.

And then she vanished in a flash of golden fire, taken away to Cascadio’s Cavalcade.

Shadow asked, “Which one was that? I didn’t recognize her.”

“Just someone I rescued from slavers.” Erick said, “Here comes more.”

Erick focused on his connection to the Translator—

– –

Erick stood upon a crystal bridge of not-Ar’Kendrithyst.

He picked up the other goblin-centaur girl and—

– –

Erick saw Cascadio say ‘yes’ to the payment again, and he felt the ghost in his hand turn more real.

Erick cast his spells. This woman was just like her sister, but according to her fractal splash she was a lot more prone to violence in defense of her home. That was fine. Erick let her keep that personal future. There would be a great need for a lot of violent people like her soon enough.

Erick smiled a little as the resurrected, reincarnated, new-human vanished in a flicker of Cascadio’s golden flames, off to the Cavalcade where Cascadio’s priests were present, waiting for new arrivals.

Shadow was waiting for a bit more of an answer.

Erick said, “They were simply opportunistic rescues. I have no idea who they are.”

Shadow stood, saying, “I’d go see them anyway.” She said to the air, “Margleknot. Transport to Cascadio’s Cavalcade Benevolence Meeting Center.” A golden and green portal opened, and Shadow stepped through. “I’ll be back later.”

The portal closed.

Cascadio said, “Rescue all the people you want, Erick. I can already tell those two are going to be fantastic additions to the future.”

Erick smiled a little, and then he dove back—

– –

Into his ghost self.

Erick continued to smile as he gazed around at the red and purple crystal spires…

And then he looked at the people trying to walk around who only managed to walk into invisible walls.

“… I could change this frameshift, but… No. I’m keeping this frameshift,” Erick said. And then he cupped his hands to his mouth, and called out, “Anyone want to remove all of their Wraithborne Contracts and join a war against some slavers?”

His voice echoed out across the cavernous air, through the light and the dark and the crystal.

Some people stopped walking this way or that and they looked around.

Erick heard four people call out a variation of, ‘Yes!’

He learned a few things about the Dead Waiting Room getting to those four people.

Erick tried to fly, using some resonwork to bring his dragon wings into existence. This did not work as expected.

Erick leapt off the side of a bridge, bringing into existence and spreading a pair of several-meter-wide wings to catch nonexistent air —and only realizing in that moment that there was no air in the Dead Waiting Room— and then he plummeted straight down, like feathers dropped in a zero-air environment. Or perhaps a certain animated coyote. Erick hadn’t really noticed the lack of air until he tried to reconcile what he was catching his nonexistent wings upon, in order to move.

So that was on him.

He managed to get back to solid ground with some force/counterforce reaction through billowing out his dragon breath and aiming the other direction. But it was only when he was back on solid ground that he realized that he shouldn’t have been able to do a force/counterforce reaction, because there were no particles or normal physical interaction in this place.

And indeed, the next time he tried to use his dragon breath to move, he did not move at all.

At least he wasn’t dying of not-breathing the non-existent air; Erick had erased that vulnerability from himself a while ago.

Erick tried a different approach to moving through the Waiting Room.

He blinked, willed himself toward the nearest person who had called out his name, and then he took a step—

Erick moved.

He opened his eyes and he was standing beside the first person who had called out, which was amazing. Erick had taken a long shot in seeing if the same ‘focus on a person and move to them’ of the Black Crystal District and the Celestial Observatory would work, and it had, wonderfully.

And now he was here, standing in front of a person who was a tangle of hooks and barbs and grabbing hands and black smiles. It was a trap. The trap reached for Erick and Erick blasted it apart with dragon breath. He might not have his [Luminous Beam], but he certainly still had his normal dragon body. No one could take that from him; he challenged them to try!

… And that was probably the normal sort of dragon arrogance speaking.

And yet again, it wasn’t arrogant if it worked. Arrogance was very useful for making magic, when magic was a matter of force of presence.

One simply had to show who was in charge around here!

And this time, Erick spread his wings and he flew, because dammit! His wings and flight did work exactly as they should work, even if there was no air present at all. It was, perhaps, easier to fly without air getting in the way. The lack of air certainly made hovering easier. Heck! He didn’t even need his wings to fly, did he?

And so, Erick floated down to the next person, wingless and comfortable in his jeans and a teeshirt, saying to the woman who had called out, “Hello. You want a way out of here?”

The woman spun around, half startled— She calmed. “Ah. Yeah. You’ll do. Can you actually remove Contracts?”

“Yup. I’ll send you out there looking human and female, since that’s what you look like to me right now. I can do more work later once you’re out and alive. You can be whatever species or person you want. The god Cascadio will be overseeing you while I work down here for a while to bring others back.” Erick asked, “That okay?”

“I gotta work for you for the time you’re shaving off, yeah? That’s 6 years.”

She seemed like she was lying about… A lot. But that was fine.

Erick said, “Sure.” And then he held out his hand.

The woman smirked and took his hand.

– –

Erick held the ghost of a vile thing of teeth and Evil and crawling death in his hands. It was fine.

Cascadio remarked. “Oh. That’s one of your targets. Vieltresia the Demon Summoner. She’s been locked down by Contracts for 1,700 years.”

“… Huh.” Erick [Reincarnation]ed her back to a person, changing her fate from one of clawing Evil to one of brilliant Benevolence. She instantly went to Cascadio’s Cavalcade. “I don’t think she believed I could do that at all.”

Cascadio said, “Looked like she tried to interrupt your Soul Magic to do… something. Whatever it was she tried to do, she failed.”

“I have a feeling I’m going to run into a lot of people who are going to try that.”

“News doesn’t happen in the Dead Waiting Room, with no one knowing who you are… Yeah. Everyone is going to try something against you.”

Erick nodded.

He closed his eyes—

– –

And floated down to the next person who had called out.

This man was another trap. He turned into a mouth and tried to eat Erick, but Erick simply crushed him down into a quiet doll… which was something he could do? Sure. And then he went back out—

– –

And saw the ghost of a twisted maw in his hands.

“… What is it?”

“A person so far gone they have become a monster.”

Erick quelled the monster and made them into a person again. They didn’t have many futures to choose from, but they had a good accountant future, so that’s what they got. For now.

And then Erick went back—

– –

The fourth person to call out to Erick to request a way out turned out to be a child who had no idea how she had gotten there. Erick wasn’t sure, either, but he sent her on to Cascadio’s Cavalcade anyway.

And then he focused on the first names on his list.

Magic wasn’t available down here, and magic-like effects were pretty unreliable, but Erick’s Lightning Path and Cascadio’s Guiding Light did a wonderful job of pointing directions in lieu of any real coordination of the land.

Erick picked one beam of Light pointing down from the sunny sky overhead and one thread of Lightning in his own Sight and closed his eyes. He followed the Paths and—

– –

Erick stepped into a dark part of the Dead Waiting Room version of Ar’Kendrithyst.

A woman stood there, serene and beatific. She smiled. “Hello. I’m Holy Mother Caa, and it appears that Good is finally swinging back against Evil. I heard your call earlier. I am thrilled.” She closed her eyes. “I am ready.”

… Erick opted to leave out a great lot of detail and allow her to believe what she wanted to believe in the moment, and simply ask her, “Any requests for your new, general future? We can change your fated future and your species back to whatever you actually are with a second one of these magics, but for now, I’m just gathering people in Cascadio’s Cavalcade, and for now, you’ll be a human woman.”

Holy Mother Caa paused a little. She opened her eyes again. … She closed her eyes, and said, “I’m fine with an interim body and whatever future you wish to bestow. I will be able to fix all of those myself once I am not weighed down by Wraithborne…” She paused, and then she seemed to glow as she grinned. “You could give me a general future of Motherhood.”

Erick took Holy Mother Caa into his hands and untwisted her horribly mangled soul back into something that might actually survive more than 1 second out there in the real world.

She had been a river, if Erick was reading that right.

Or maybe a big fish. Erick wasn’t sure. For now, she was a human woman who would eventually have lots of lovely children from lots of different fathers of all sorts of species.

It had been a weird [Reincarnation] for Erick, too.

He moved on.