256, 2/2

“You’re here so soon! I’m so delighted! Come on in, come on in. My home is your home.”

Erick walked past a doorway that hadn’t been there until just now, freshly delineating the space between Erick’s lake property and Lionshard’s regal-looking property, with its small hedges and fountains and white castle in the distance. Lionshard stood beside a fountain, smiling brightly, looking pleased as a cat with the chicken. Some gardeners were working on the hedges. Some other people were clipping down branches from the trees to shape them better.

“Thank you for the invitation,” Erick said, looking at all the people, and then at Lionshard— and then at the sky. It was a dual-sun sky, with one sun bright silver and the other gold. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a gold or silver sun.”

Lionshard smiled, saying, “They’re from my home world. One is Fate, the other Choice.”

Erick looked to the suns again. He said, “The one back on Veird is Malevolence, but I didn’t know that until recently.”

Lionshard nodded. “Unless I am deceived, you appear to have discovered a whole bunch of new stuff since last we spoke. I do hope you stay in Margleknot for a long while, before you go back. Or at least you come back as quickly as possible. We could use a man like you around this place.”

Erick chuckled lightly, some of his nerves fading. “Thank you for making this conversation happen quickly. I wasn’t quite sure if it was proper or not to just go for the information requests, or if we needed to spend a few hours talking about the weather first.”

Lionshard nodded. “Let’s at least move to the tea room, and then we can talk about everything you wish to know. Usually I like to walk places, but I can step places, too, in the interest of haste, for I am rather sure you wish to be hasty?”

“Please.”

Lionshard nodded, and stepped to the door of his castle, moving a kilometer in a flash.

Erick joined him.

The great platinum doors opened and Erick walked with Lionshard to a nice room in the suns, overlooking the gardens. A servant walked by and delivered tea and cookies to a table and Lionshard sat down and sipped the tea first. Erick joined him. The tea was brown, but also gold.

It tasted literally divine.

Erick’s eyes went wide. “Fantastic tea?”

Lionshard chuckled. “It is quite good. It’s sunglow tea, and I have played a very small trick on you. Most people can’t enjoy this tea because it would burn them up with power, but True Wizards with entire worlds worshiping them have the capability to become gods, and to test for that, we have this tea. It’s either explosive or bad or delicious or truly the best thing ever, depending on how close you are to godhood, which is why I have done this test; godhood is not great.” He added, “It’s obviously not truly delicious to you; you would know if it was.”

Erick looked at the tea again. He sipped it again. “Pretty good. I give it an 8 out of 10.” He set the tea down, saying, “It seems that you know everything about me, now.”

“Not everything, but I did look you up a lot after I left. I am glad we got to have our first conversation untainted by knowledge, but there’s a lot of knowledge here now, and so we must as we must.”

“So what’s this godhood test about? Veird, or…? Not Veird, then.” Erick scrunched his face. “Yggdra— Margleknot?”

Lionshard said, “A deep set of truths, first.

“Gods are rather powerful, but limited at the same time. A god can do practically anything that their believers can believe they can do and a whole lot more within specific Portfolios. Gods arise from collective belief given solid form. They affect the universe to stabilize the universe around them.

“Ascended arise from individuals, and are therefore able to act on their own.

“Margleknot turns every power that touches him into resons, into foundational strength.

“This includes divinity.

“Margleknot is like a god, but not actually a god. Margleknot is technically Ascended. In practice, he is the best of both powers. He can act outside of what people believe of him. That’s what world trees do.

“Margleknot, because of his base ability to turn everything into solid resons, will never become a god.

“People like you and I need to be careful, or else we might become gods and have the weight of a universe telling us who we ought to be. This is the Curse of Power. It has other names, but that’s one of the big ones.

“It’s easy enough to forgo godhood for most people. Just put on a different set of horns every time you go out into the world to do good. Or never actually show yourself to people, properly. I choose the second path.

“This business with Abarial, located on Layer 172,287,913, if you would do the work to reconnect it yourself, has the capability to change you into a god whether you wish for it or not. This would strip you of all your individuality and you would be making choices based on the ideas of you that people have in their heads.

“Or at least you would be subject to that, if you were a normal Ascended.

“While you are here in this city, Margleknot siphons off all of your divinity from you, turning it into resons. It’s the same sort of system he has for all us Old Dragons here in this district. We can all hide out indefinitely while our homeworlds and layers either move on, forgetting about us, and the Curse of Power goes away, or simply gets stronger and we are practically confined to this land.” Lionshard said, “This siphon of your proto-divinity vanishes if you step out of Margleknot, or Veird, in your case.

“If you helped Abarial, as yourself, then you become even more subject to this Curse of Power. But if you worked the backpowers, and no one knows that you helped them at all, then you can avoid the Curse of Power altogether, and you can remain yourself. Whatever way you choose to move forward, since your reveal as the Father of Margleknot, leaving the power of Margleknot is probably going to have you brushing up against godhood rather fast, so just stay within the first thousand layers of this universe and you’ll probably be good. If you help Abarial as yourself, then you won’t be able to step past the first 500 layers of this universe, and since you’d already be at layer 172 million plus, then you would ascend to godhood rather fast.

“Save several places like the Abarial nexus and you become a god as soon as you step out of the Old Dragon District; you can’t even visit the main city.”

Erick thought.

Lionshard sipped his tea.

Erick said, “Okay. That sounds like good advice. How do I work the backpowers? I don’t want to become a god.”

Lionshard grinned wide. “I’m glad you asked! The first lesson is this: We Ascended help each other without telling the mortals about our community help. So if I help you, you never tell anyone I helped you.”

“… Sure. I can do that— Okay. This is weird. I am usually a very open person.”

“I know. I read your biography.”

“… I have a biography?”

“Would you like to read it?”

“… Yes.”

Lionshard pulled an expensive-looking tome out of the air, handing it over, saying, “Here you go. I have my own copies. I’m sure a lot of other people have lesser ideas of who you are, too, though they didn’t get that knowledge from me.”

The tome was platinum-bound with beaten metal that read ‘Erick Flatt, True Wizard of Benevolence, True Father of Margleknot/Yggdrasil’ in fancy script. The inside pages were thin as light, and strong as steel—

“That one updates in real time based on edited observations of Margleknot. I ask you to keep it in your private collection here in the Old Dragon District, in your deepest vaults.” Lionshard stood. “But for now, would you like to see how to change the universe for the better without leaving your house?”

Erick suddenly laughed, the idea of being a hermit and helping the universe anyway kinda hilarious, and then he stood, saying, “I already planned on making a Benevolence Dungeon for Yggdrasil here in Margleknot. I assume, since you’re head of mana mining operations here in Margleknot, that your suggestions would fall along some path like that?”

“Oh yes. Resons make the universe,” Lionshard said, nodding. “But let’s go see what that actually means.”

– – – –

The orrery was a massive room of stone walls with a dome ceiling that was absolutely filled with glowing lights and twirling flows. It reminded Erick a lot of the orrery inside the Wizard’s Tower inside the Core Lands of Veird, but different. The core orrery was a gravestone made of solid metal. This here was a place of magic and mana and things that didn’t feel like mana at all. There was power here, and only parts of it contained particles at all. Half of the room was awash in not-particles, and not-mana, and Erick’s eyes felt like they should have hurt to gaze upon the unknowable thing he was now staring at.

And then Erick looked to the side, where Lionshard was looking at him, softly grinning and looking quite relieved.

Lionshard said, “A lot of people can’t handle looking at this. I knew you could, though. Sometimes people try to break in here, and sometimes they actually get here, trying to see That Which They Are Not Meant To See, and I find them exploded on the ground from Forbidden Knowledge. Sometimes they survive only partially dead. I do what healing I can and send them on their way. You should know that this is not the heart of Margleknot, but some people consider it as such. I am not one of those people.”

“… I’m not sure which part of that is more worrisome. People can break into your home?”

“People can do anything, Erick. They can even get where they shouldn’t get.”

“Ha. Fair.”

“I advise you, when you make your defensive systems of your home, to add in some resurrection magic like I have here, or make it a lot harder to get into your house. Margleknot is personally looking over your house right now so invasions shouldn’t be an issue, but he’s busy.”

“Good advice.”

Lionshard nodded, then gestured to the map, saying, “Now then… The nexus world of Abarial, located on Layer 172,287,913, is not on this orrery at all. It never will be. It’s simply not important enough. A few billion lives that far from the countless people here in the center is simply too distant of a problem for this map. So we have to set the stage to make it important.”

Lionshard spread his hands at the map, and the whole thing shifted, blossoming outward until the entire thing was beyond the edges of the room and out of sight. In a flashing instant, there was nothing.

The room looked completely empty. It was a void, both in mana sense, and in a particle sense.

Lionshard said, “This leads the way to Abarial. Now, we just need to connect it to the power of Margleknot, which means we direct a flow of power in that direction. It’s as simple as that. Now, how to pay for that power is another question entirely. That is the question that needs real answering.”

Erick nodded. “I’ll be paying for it with my Benevolence monster dungeon, soon as I get it up and running. Can Yggdrasil really not make dungeons himself?”

Lionshard nodded. “Yes. By ancient decree, Yggdrasil is allowed to siphon from people and the things people make for him, but he is not allowed to grow his own power base. People contribute to him, and he stabilizes everything in return. He can bend a lot of rules in a lot of ways, but the base rule must be respected.”

“Do I need to come back here and ask you to hook up the tower to this land later?”

“A small message is telling enough. Mostly it’s all automagic, anyway.” Lionshard said, “Imbuing of power into specific directions in the universe is not a fast thing, but when the people of Margleknot actually try to make things happen out there, it is very easy for us to make things happen. You will be throwing money into the void, though. What you’re doing is helping people, but you’re not getting anything out of it if you do it this way.”

“That’s fine. I’m good with that, if it helps people to live.”

Lionshard nodded. “While I am unsure of what Benevolence can do at scale, I am rather sure that the cost of saving Abarial, which seems like a simple re-hooking of connection, would be measured in the billions of resons. There’s an opportunity cost for helping them, instead of helping yourself, and there are literally infinity problems out there, Erick.”

Erick said, “I will help people at personal cost; this is fine. My own home is stable for now. I have time to learn and to grow and to help a whole lot of people along the way.”

Lionshard smiled softly. “This issue might take several years to solve in a satisfactory way, or shorter, but I have no doubt that you can solve it. When you wish to help more people who request your help, let me know. If you wish to take tasks from me regarding places that need help, I can give you that work, too. The work is literally never-ending, and there is always good to be done.”

Erick felt warmth in his heart at that. He looked at the empty map, and then he asked, “Can you zoom back out?”

Lionshard glanced at the map, and it was back to its full picture.

Erick asked, “What sort of tasks— Ah. I’m getting ahead of myself. Way ahead of myself. Let’s scale back, please. What is a reson? I feel like you all might actually know that. I am not actually sure what they are, myself.” He held up a finger and a tiny dot of Benevolence appeared. “Like this is one mana of Benevolence. Are resons similarly quantifiable?”

Lionshard laughed. “A strange question! I am surprised you don’t already have an answer of your own. But as for an answer that is from me? A reson is a drop of multivariable Fate; not a simple directed Fate. A Fate can only go one way, toward one thing, affecting cause and effect and possibility all along the way toward a goal. But a multivariable Fate can become anything at all. Personally, a reson is a confluence of Fate and Choice. Your answer will be different.”

Erick’s eyes went wide. “A drop of… Prismatic mana?”

“Ah? Hmm.” Lionshard paused, then said, “I suppose, if that is how you would want to name it, then yes. That could work— Well. It’s more than that. I know of the manas. Prismatic mana is one part of a reson. If you go wide enough with mana possibility then you can make a reson. Mana is possibility. Resons are undiluted possibility. A refinement, maybe? … Sure.” He gestured to the bit of Benevolence hovering above Erick’s finger, and said, “That is about a hundredth the power of a reson.”

… Erick got a crazy idea.

“Do you have any magic that can turn mana into resons?”

“Yes. Very complicated systems. Margleknot has the best efficiency, though. Most people just donate straight to him. Margleknot is about a 10 mana to 1 reson system. The most efficient magics a person can cast are at a 50 to 1 basis, and that’s not even taking into account when a person uses actual resons for actual magic. That sort of creation is an instant instantiation of resons that have already collected within a person’s everything, only to come out and be used in the moment of activation. That’s where the name ‘resons’ comes from, you know; as in ‘Margleknot’s resin’, or the ‘sap of a world tree’. Thick and slow but powerful stuff.”

Erick nodded, and then he changed his words slightly as he asked again, “Do you have a stable magic, in a contained space, that uses a well of power to make resons?”

And the very fact that Lionshard didn’t seem to know what Erick was getting at told him a lot. Maybe Yggdrasil hadn’t written about [Renew] in the ‘Book of Erick’ that Lionshard had handed him?

Lionshard raised an eyebrow, saying, “Sure? I can try one of those magics— Let’s step into the hallway out there… Unless we should go further?”

Erick said, “The hallway should be fine. Maybe a bit further would be good.”

Lionshard led the way to a side room, far down the hallway and with several bookshelves and a nice reading nook by the window. He lifted a hand and cast a spell into the air, making a platinum sphere of power that slowly turned gold at the bottom.

Lionshard said, “I threw a good thousand mana at this. It takes about an hour for the Fate inside to turn to amber— Ah. Amber is what I used to call resons…” He looked at the spell, and said, “I haven’t cast this in a very long time.” He looked at it for a moment longer, then gestured toward it. “Your go.”

Erick flooded the thing with [Renew], Benevolence slipping into the Fate Magic and transforming from silver to gold, becoming like thick honey, to fall off the bottom of the platinum sphere like tiny crystals—

“Oh! It’s that [Renew] spell.” Lionshard said, “Yes, we have that here. I thought you were going to do something else.”

Erick had a moment.

Then he laughed. “Bah!” Erick stopped the [Renew]. “I thought I had a trick there!”

“Oh, it’s a good trick. Don’t get that wrong.” Lionshard said, “But you’re using my base spell to make the resons and the efficiency there is still around 50 to 1. Fate Magic is decent for this sort of conversion. Fate can do a whole lot, after all. Benevolence, however, seems great for this sort of conversion. If you studied this magic you might be able to get down to Margleknot-levels of conversion; 10-to-1… 20-to-1 might be more realistic.”

“I suppose I didn’t just break the reson-economy, then.”

“Not yet, anyway.” Lionshard smirked. “You know? It is rather hard to read your future. I find it rather delightful— On you, that is. Not being able to read the future of good people is fun. On others I would be appalled.”

“Ha! I never really got into the future-reading thing for similar reasons— Say. I have a wild question, since you read my biography. Do you know what would happen if I were to shoot backward in time to where I fell to Veird with my daughter?”

Lionshard nodded. “In a non-god-world, you could simply do that, but you would be creating another infinity and that infinity would be the one you would live within. For a god-world like Veird, you would end up in your original slice of reality and change everything from then on; gods make the reality solid, after all. In that case a lesser version of you might simply cease to exist, because of paradoxes, and the gods don’t like paradoxes, so you would erase yourself, or the gods would erase you first. However, as an ascended you’re immune to that sort of godly control, so your old self would still exist and the gods will complain and fight you, but you would likely… Well. Likely be forced to either abandon that world or make some pacts with those gods, or fight them to the death. Could go any sort of way.

“If you actively chose to slide into a different slice of infinity at the beginning, then you’d leave the gods behind.” Lionshard said, “That’s for your specific world of Veird, here in this cosmology— Ah! ‘Universe’. I meant ‘universe’… Or multiverse, if you want to call it that. Everyone has so many different names for these things, I swear.”

Erick smiled. “That’s really good news.”

Erick had known the God Pact world was special.

Lionshard nodded. “As for getting to Veird, you have a few different ways. Yggdrasil will get you there in a flash, if I understand the situation right. Otherwise, crossing through layers is how you get from one part of the universe to another without needing to cross the intervening distance; it’s like using your Benevolence gate space, but easier and everyone can do it if you know how.

“It takes about a hundred resons to cross through layers, if you understand my meaning.”

… All of that was incredible news, for sure, but Erick wasn’t sure he did understand what Lionshard was getting at, exactly.

A backdoor to Veird? Reachable under his own power? One that didn’t go through Yggdrasil?

Ah.

A path that Yggdrasil could say that he had no knowledge of Erick doing.

That was it.

Erick wasn’t going back yet, though. Not without an army behind him and the weight of law or power, whichever one worked better.

Lionshard saw when Erick realized what he was saying, so he moved on, “It only takes one reson to flicker through the individual infinities of a layer, or to bring something from a different part of the individual infinity to your person. Less than one, really. Resons really are the best form of mana out there.”

“Do you have a book on resons conversions?”

“I do, but you should look up more examples than my own. Yggdrasil would be a better teacher than I for that, by far.” Lionshard said, “You’ve already got the gist of it; prismatic mana with a bit more oomph would qualify as a reson.” He stood tall, and asked, “Now, would you like to discuss the problem of Nothanganathor?”

Erick steeled himself, turning more serious by fractions. “I would like to discuss him, but I get the distinct impression that you can’t interfere with that.”

“This is true; I cannot interfere with him. Nothanganathor is on the list of approved evils.”

“… Excuse me what?”

– – – –

Erick stood upon the surface of an asteroid-sized white sphere that was Yggdrasil’s designation of Erick’s Benevolence Tower space. The sphere was maybe 30 meters in diameter, and it floated somewhere high in the skies of Margleknot, maybe multiple planets away from every other thing in the sky. Probably further than that, though. Distance in Margleknot was a funky thing, because while imagery was allowed to reach across an infinite gulf of space, there was still an infinite gulf of space between this floating land and all the other lands out there.

A simple rock floating in the escher-drawing that was Margleknot might actually be the size of a sun.

Erick came here to start on his Benevolence Dungeon, with plants and slimes and water and all that shit.

But now he sat down on the white sphere, and simply looked across the lands of Margleknot.

‘List of approved evils’ was really getting to him.

Erick probably should have stayed with Lionshard for a much longer conversation, to understand everything about Nothanganathor and ‘the list’, but after hearing just a little bit about how Nothanganathor was ‘approved’, Erick had to leave. He tried to be polite. He might have actually been polite. But he had been sparking blackening Benevolence on the floor of Lionshard’s house and burning up the carpet.

Lionshard had excused Erick’s anger. He had already seen that coming, of course; Fate Magic and all that.

And so, Erick left Lionshard’s house without knowing much more about Nothanganathor at all.

Erick sighed out, “I should send him an apology gift and a thank you gift.”

Erick laid down on the surface of the white sphere, floating in the skies of Margleknot, and thought.

He had pretty much known, before meeting Lionshard, that there were acceptable evils within Margleknot. Yggdrasil had told him that much. This entire land was a land of balance. Raise up a strong Good, and here came an Evil to stop it. Raise up a strong Evil, and soon some Good would come to disrupt all of that Evil.

Erick imagined he was the solution to Nothanganathor’s Evil.

Was he the ‘hero’ in this shit?

Maybe.

“Balance fucking sucks,” Erick said to the world.

Yggdrasil sat down beside him. “Sometimes, yes.”

Erick sighed, and then he sat up. He looked at his son. “There are other problems to address, too. I want to never ascend to godhood unless I absolutely need to.”

Yggdrasil held out a hand. “All that takes is a handshake.”

Erick shook his son’s hand—

The world flickered gold and then faded inward, falling into the space between their hands, Erick feeling weaker in some unknown way. He let go, and Yggdrasil held a glowing dot of gold power. Like playing a coin trick, Yggdrasil twisted his hand and the gold dot vanished.

Yggdrasil twisted his hand again and handed over a small book, saying, “This is the theory behind some Power-to-Reson spellwork that you will find useful.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Erick took the book and held it to his chest. He didn’t read it right now.

He laid down on the surface of his asteroid. He stared at the sky, which was currently the crisscrossing Fae Enclave ice crystal and the cylindrical silver Quantum Nexus Hub. He breathed.

He asked, “Why are there so many places named ‘nexus’?”

Yggdrasil chuckled. He laid down beside his father to stare at the sky, too. “Because everyone thinks they’re the center of the universe, or whatever thing they wish to be at the center of. The Quantum Nexus Hub is the only one that actually counts as ‘actually central’, though, and only marginally, because they managed to pierce the Fae Enclave a very, very long time ago, and the Fae Enclave liked it, because the crossing makes an actual center at that hub. Before that piercing everyone used to argue if the top of the crystal was the center, or if the other top of the crystal was the center, or if the center was the center. A lot of wars were fought over that.”

“… You have wars here?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose that makes sense.” Erick thought for a second. He asked, “Could I get some people from House Benevolence up here? I think I want to make this Benevolence Tower an actual place; not just a dungeon.”

“Sure. Five people. It’s a bad idea, though.”

Erick looked over at Yggdrasil. “… Really? You can do that?”

“I can. But people will try to kill them and they’re not powerful enough to live here… Maybe Destiny could. But not even her. Who were you thinking of?”

“Ah. Forget it, then.” Erick said, “Everyone is beholden to someone in power here, and they’re locked to those people, which threatens them and otherwise… and all that.”

Yggdrasil laughed. “That’s one of the least coherent things I’ve heard you say.”

“I made myself unable to get really tired, but the scale of it all is getting to me.” Erick thought for a moment, then said, “Aisha, because wrought would be strong, I think. Destiny could come, unless she’s busy. I’d love to get Zolan up here for a hundred different reasons. Mox, of course. Poi because yes. Teressa would be lovely, but she’s a new mom, or at least she should be. The girls and Evan are probably busy… Everyone is probably busy a lot, actually… Ophiel is too young. Gods. I miss them all.”

Yggdrasil asked, “Want me to tell you all about all of them?”

“Can you?”

Yggdrasil said, “We made a pact for your continued divinity gains. I can do a lot more now than I could earlier.”

Erick huffed a laugh.

Yggdrasil smiled, and then he lost his smile, saying, “One month after the Sealing of Veird, which is just one name for it, that’s when the Nothor Beasts started to fall to the First Surface and crawl out of the lands below. It was a very small infection at first. Barely noticeable. They’re that red beast you discovered in your soul. When uncontained, Nothor Beasts are like Moon Reachers but worse. People were disappearing and no one knew why, and no one recognized most of those disappearances, but meanwhile your Benevolence dragons were going on rampages that no one quite understood, because they could see them. The Nothor Beasts stayed away from me and Ophiel, so we couldn’t see them either. The world at large didn’t even understand they were there till several months ago…”

Erick listened to problems 789 layers away and wished to be able to help more than he already was.

Home was doing well, though, and Erick was doing good here.