260, 2/2

“You destroyed everything!” said a woman.

“Yup,” Erick said, “And then I rebuilt most of it.”

“You took away my family!”

“Yup,” Erick said. “Want to try and follow them?”

“Who are you to decide what happens to us!”

Erick raised an eyebrow at that, asking, “Like the Wraithborne Tower ever gave you more choice over your life?” When that was an unsatisfactory answer, Erick decided, “Okay fine. Hold on. It’s time to wake up Eldawae, because he needs to hear this, too.”

The resurrected people and the two dragons, Kylychbech and Vondria, watched as Erick pulled back the spellwork containing the sleeping body of Eldawae. With a bit of [Cleanse] to splash out white mist from the sleeping winged-elf, Eldawae woke up in parts, and then all at once. He did not rise, yet. But he did open his eyes and lean up to look at Erick.

Eldawae sat up and flexed his bone-white wings. He stared at Erick. “It appears you have won.”

“A battle. Not the war. Not by far. Anyway. Welcome back to the world of the living. Take a look around.” Erick said, “I was just about to talk about why I get to decide what happens to you.”

Eldawae was already looking around at the tall white buildings and at the waterways and at the obelisk in the center of this town square, here at the top of the city. A fountain burbled all around the obelisk, clear waters splashing down onto white eternal stonewood. He was having a moment he did not want to have. He was terrified. He was hopeful.

He was terrified of that hope.

Erick began, “Look. All 27 of you here, the four spying with magics, and all the people further out there looking down at us. Also, hello Morbion. Anyway. You all know that most of the people here, just like all of the people enslaved by the Tower, were all put through cultures that produced these Evils in the first place in order to make people who were both Evil and willing to put themselves into situations where they could ruthlessly be exploited by the bigger Evils out there.

“None of the evils that the people here committed out there in the rest of the universe were really their fault, and most of the prisoners of this land were put here under false pretenses anyway. Everyone who fell here was made worse by the prison itself. This was by design.

“Everyone here was being used, including Eldawae.

“And so yes. I ruined it. I would commit such ruin again.

“I do not care that I ‘ruined what you had going here’. It needed to be ruined. You deserved to be ruined. Now, you get to live in your ruin, and you don’t have any inmates to torture, and you’d probably feel bad about doing that torture anymore anyway if I [Reincarnation]ed you back correctly, which I feel that I did. So now, you get to build better.

“I’m sure that you’ll try to reconnect with the Tower once I am gone, which is fine. If the system that sends prisoners down here isn’t a connection to Wraithborne, then perhaps you can not reconnect with the Tower? Just a thought.

“If you do get more prisoners down here then perhaps you can do something else. Try for rehabilitation this time instead of cycling people through your slavery-prison-complex so you can turn more bucks or live in privilege while slaves support your lives. You now have near-endless resources and now you can accrete better power than the average person, because Benevolence can do everything.” Erick handed out copied books about accreting Benevolence, holding them in front of every single person with his aura. Some people did not take them. Some people swatted them out of the air. Eldawae looked at the book, and took it. So did the dragons, though they had trouble with that because of giant talons. Good enough for now. Erick continued, “You’re all Benevolence-aligned now. These books will help you learn some magic and grow your Darkness and then how to accrete well. You can even try altering the manaminer of this land to help. Remember, everyone’s mana is different. You can only accrete your own. The book goes over all of that.

“You can do everything with Benevolence.” Erick asked, “So? More questions?”

Eldawae half-asked, half-threatened, “What did you do to me, exactly?”

Erick looked to the winged-elf. He was shorter than Erick right now. That would likely change with time and with him reaching for lichdom again. His 6 wings were bone-white now; no longer black. Erick asked, “Where do you want to begin, and do you want all of that said out here?”

Eldawae frowned… But he did not rage. He controlled himself away from that emotion. And then he considered that he could experience such emotion at all was a good sign; Erick hadn’t soul controlled him that much. He looked to Erick, saying, “I would return to the grand dome. Vondria, Kylychbech. With me—” He stopped. He looked up at the two dragons. The two dragons were completely surprised, but intrigued and kinda delighted on Vondria’s part. Kylychbech seemed weirded out. Eldawae was weirded out, too. He asked Erick, “Why did I want to involve them?”

Erick smiled. “Because you want to ask others for help now. Everyone here does. Who you picked was not up to me, though. I didn’t actually put any controls on your soul at all. I just made you more personable and vulnerable and cooperative. You picked Vondria and Kylychbech yourself, and probably because they’re the two most powerful people here, aside from me and you. They’re also naturally immortal now, which you will be soon enough, as soon as you get your lichdom back. So yeah. There’s your new Da’luwe council.”

Vondria and Kylychbech wisely remained silent, which was pretty normal for both of them. Which was good. Eldawae was not pleased.

Eldawae fumed as he strode toward the rebuilt grand dome. He glared at Erick, saying, “You’ve reburdened me with more than my elfinity.”

Erick walked with the man into the grand dome of Da’luwe, saying, “Yes, I have.”

Vondria and Kylychbech followed.

In the courtyard, people started talking and arguing again.

– – – –

Behind closed doors, Erick stood on one side of a rebuilt platform, while Eldawae stood on the other side with his dragons flanking him.

Erick began, “To start, I changed—”

“I know what you changed.” Eldawae said, “I can already tell everything you did. I said that in order to get you away from spying eyes. Every single grey pillar out there can’t see directly down at us, but those that are on the other side of Margleknot space can look down at us from the other side of the sky. And they do. That’s how Morbion took over the Evil forces of Margleknot; through extensive, open spying and being just shy of bad enough to demand to be overthrown.

“Everything you’ve done is already known, and known well. And what’s worse is that you didn’t kill the time worm as well as you should have. If you would have killed it properly then we might have had a different sort of conversation when you came back to Da’luwe—” Eldawae paused as he frowned, then he calmed himself and said, “Most of what I do is an act, but it was a whole lot easier to be ambivalent when I had some Evil in my soul. You erased that… But you also erased a great deal of the problems of this land while giving us a whole lot more.

“I digress.

“The time worm is still the main weapon of Da’luwe. That’s where the majority of my original soul is located. That’s where I keep my main phylactery, which is also tied down with all the Contracts from Wraithborne. Did you go digging deep into the ground, to pull the whole thing up? No. You stopped after a mere ten-or-whatever kilometers below the surface.”

Erick rapidly realized a few things. He let Eldawae say them all, though, as he simply answered the man, “I dug up the worm far enough to know that there was no end to him. The body was sand and dirt past a certain length and depth.”

“Following the track of that beast is not easy. I would have thought you would have tried, anyway.” Eldawae said, “The time worm’s heart was located at the bottom of Da’luwe. When you killed me, that heart was shifted out into the Endless about five days low-spireward— You don’t know— That’s the direction the Fae Enclave points down.” He pointed. “That way.”

Erick shrugged. “I would have said ‘southeast’, but that doesn’t matter here, I guess.”

Eldawae scrunched his eyebrows together, as if debating if Erick was an idiot or not. “… The heart is that way. My most precious memories are that way. Those would be my conquering and city-building soul fragments. You seem to have restored some of that to me, here, but not my entirety. That Eldawae will crash into this city like the wrath of the Wraithborne Tower itself, with the time worm at his command, unless you go kill him and the time worm directly. Any other talk beyond the death of that executioner’s axe does not matter.”

Erick waved a hand, saying, “I’m not going away that easily. How about we discuss changing the manaminer of this land into something better for everyone? We could also discuss your future plans for this land. How about you put up a giant white pillar?” Erick smiled. “Do the Benevolence-thing full force?”

Okay.

Why was Erick smiling?

He was happy. Honestly, though. Erick was probably being a bit too mirthful about this, but everything happening here was good, even if it wasn’t Good. Everyone here would be fine, even if there was an adjustment period full of hard emotions and anger.

Eldawae noticed Erick’s mirth, too. He scowled, “And what is so delightful?”

“First off: Anyone who wants to ascend can probably make it back here in a century or even just a decade. You all need to stop thinking that I killed everyone. Your sister is still alive out there, Eldawae, and there’s a lot of her, too. She went out to a lot of people to try and help them ascend. Secondly: You have an overabundance of resources and a bunch of high-powered people to use them. Build a good foundation for whatever sorts of life you want to come next. Thirdly: I don’t think Wraithborne is coming after you. I spoke with some of them before I got dropped here, and they said that the cost of doing business with me was probably going to be the eradication of a few towns. You got what appears, to you, to be the short end of the stick, but there are depths here for you to use, if you should grasp them. I’m not even telling you to fight against Wraithborne.” Erick said, “So! How would one kill the time worm, for real?”

Eldawae sighed.

Violet Vondria and grey Kylychbech both looked down at Eldawae.

Eldawae said nothing. He just stared at Erick. Thinking.

So Vondria asked Erick, “How do I turn orc again?”

“Honestly, you will figure it out. It’s pretty instinctual.” Erick said, “But in a more directed-help sort of way: Polymorph is about changing who you are on the inside to become who you want to be on the outside. Most of the time I’m human-shaped because I like connecting to others as human. You’re still a dragon shape because you now consider ‘dragon’ to be your baseline; ‘dragon’ is comfortable. Hang out with enough small people and you’ll simply want to be able to fit through doors, so you’ll turn small in order to do that.”

Vondria frowned a little bit as she thought—

Kylychbech suddenly changed into a 4-meter tall elven man with 10 brilliantly-grey wings floating behind him. He stood there, looking at his hands. Erick mostly wondered how the hell he had wings floating behind him, unattached, but that was some quirk of magic and power, no doubt. Perhaps they were aura-based physical manifestations of power, too. That seemed pretty reasonable to Erick as an explanation… And yet… Hmm.

Eldawae looked at Kylychbech too. “… How are you supporting 10 wings? That’s a supernatural power of our kind, and you are not us.”

“Ah! Good! I was wondering that, too,” Erick said. “But dragons are inherently magical. That’s likely most of the explanation. What is your species called, anyway?”

Eldawae said, “Winged Astraelif. Void-fliers, in common parlance.”

Kylychbech looked at his wings, fluffing them out and controlling them as part of himself. He rotated the order of pairs, and then pushed them out far and then drew them in. “This is… not who I was— Ah.” And then he transformed back into the man he had been, but with grey horns. He touched his head. “Horns?”

Eldawae frowned. “Also a lack of concern for nudity and an overabundance of desire for hedonism.”

Erick laughed. And then he said, “Let’s talk about killing your time-worm-self, and then I can leave and do that and come back later, after you’ve all had time to adjust somewhat, and probably to speak to Wraithborne. You were only making 50k resons per day, anyway, right? So just go low power for a while.”

Vondria said to Eldawae, “We’re likely not in that much trouble, sir.”

“… Perhaps this time will be different from the five other times I have tried to rebel from Wraithborne.” Eldawae said, disbelieving his own words.

Vondria and Kylychbech stared openly, disbelieving the entire implication.

Eldawae noticed. “Oh yes. We’ve tried rebelling before. Didn’t work, for several specific reasons, all of which thoroughly enjoy putting down rebellions. Their names are Jeron the Folder, Wright the Hallow, and Ravaughn the Black. All three are still active, and all three… That’s not even counting his Primes, or his Witches. Those are just the walking disasters; Morbion’s Adjusters.” Eldawae looked to Erick, and said, “We used to have connections to the Good lands out there, most specifically Paradise Rises. We lost that connection when Morbion shattered that part of Margleknot. Eventually, Wraithborne and Emperor Morbion came for us, just like he came for all the smaller places like ours out there. Honestly, we’ll go back to Wraithborne if they will let us. There are no Good lands out there to support us anymore, and the Celestial Observatory is overrun with Wraithborne anyway.”

Erick nodded. “Heard and understood. So about that time worm…”

– – – –

Erick held a tiny glowstone in his claws that had recently started pulsing light.

Four days of flying low-spireward at maybe 80% of the speed of light had gotten Erick here, to this otherwise uninteresting stretch of the Endless. Tan sands stretched as far as Erick’s dragon eyes could see, for while the atmosphere in the sky overhead was nonexistent, and thus able to be seen through, the atmosphere here at the surface of the Endless was dense enough to occlude vision. Erick guesstimated that he could only see about 450 kilometers out because of that. That was also why the grey light at Da’luwe had been visible, even though the actual city had been way, way too far to see; the light had risen above the atmosphere.

That light was gone now, but Erick knew the way back easily enough.

Kinda funny that he was still following a light source from Da’luwe.

The trinket in his claws pulsed a bit faster. Erick was getting to the time worm’s heart, and also a copy of Eldawae; the ‘Evil Eldawae’. ‘Not-so-Evil Eldawae’ had given him this bauble because it was tuned to the resonance of its creator, and that resonance transferred over all copies of the man. If Erick needed to he could find his way back to Da’luwe using this thing.

And as he flew, he thought of Good and Evil.

Erick hated the entire idea of Good and Evil as mana Elements. He was glad that Veird did not have these hated things.

Could evil be redeemed? Sure. Could Evil be redeemed? Not so sure. Was a good person good? Yes, absolutely. Was a Good person good, or were they following instincts, and did that matter that they were following basic instincts to be good and that they had no real control over their own actions? Erick wasn’t sure.

Apparently there was Elemental Justice out there, too, and whoa boy did Erick have a problem with that.

Erick wasn’t so sure about a lot of things when it came to Good and Evil. Were Evil people actually evil? Or were they just selfish assholes in the extreme? Well… The Wraithborne Tower’s overall example of Evil was more the ‘softly selfish’ type.

Erick was absolutely sure that the ‘absolute selfish’ type of Evil present in the slavery-parts of Wraithborne and the various Slaver-locations in Margleknot were the worst types of evil. Erick was glad he had not seen much of that yet. Just casual sapient cruelty and smaller Contract evils, so far. He still wasn’t quite sure what he would do if he saw some kings or whatever, like, cut off a person’s fingers and toes and then work their way inward. He had only seen that four times, but even once was too much. He had stopped every single one of those instances that he could, but—

The world ahead was different. The ground had rocks.

And then Erick flew past the rocks, and it was just more sand.

His thoughts turned back to the nature of Good and Evil.

– –

A month or so ago, Lionshard had spoken on the Elements of Good and Evil while he had been at Erick’s house.

“Good and Evil are what they’re called, but those are perhaps misnomers,” Lionshard had said. “I only say ‘perhaps’ because there is very real power in using them as they were intended. A Good person empowers themselves when they are good in whichever way they desire. An Evil person is the same. And what is perhaps worse, is that the battle between Good and Evil is a source of fantastic power on both sides… But I can see you dislike this topic, so let us move on.”

Erick had chuckled, saying, “You can tell that much, eh?”

Lionshard had grinned. “I can tell a lot about a lot!”

– –

Erick was still mulling over the topic of Good and Evil and how they were situated against each other and how they were ‘sources of fantastic power’ when they went to war with each other. It reminded him of the time that Rozeta had told him to think about ending the Forever War between the demons and the angels of Veird by Establishing some Big Important Casus Belli, and then finding out a way to work that Casus Belli into something that could be ‘fixed’ through friendly competition, or something, instead of the Forever War.

Erick wondered if Rozeta had known about Good and Evil back then. Had she been asking Erick to Establish the angels or demons as Good and Evil, or the other way around? Maybe she had been addled to forget Good and Evil in the Painted Cosmology and this Fractured Cosmology, and she was merely dredging up thoughts from a whole universe ago that weren’t fully formed. Erick wanted to believe the second possibility. He did not believe that Rozeta would want to bring Good and Evil to Veird. If that was true, then she could have done that herself through the Script…

Or maybe her hands were tied in that way, because of the God Pact.

Erick thought, and he flew.

– – – –

The world ahead was different. Rocks, yes, but soon after that Erick’s glowstone bauble started to strobe and Erick saw the lip of a smoking crater kilometers wide. He dropped the bauble in the sand next to an arrangement of rocks so he could find it easily later, and then he proceeded forward, flying over the crater, shrinking down into a person once again as he zeroed in on Eldawae down below.

Or at least the being he assumed was Eldawae.

A great core of golden crystal lay at the bottom of the crater. The light of Margleknot’s unseen suns beat down relentlessly upon that stone, and the stone beat in turn. Gold light pulsed outward, and Eldawae stood atop the stone like a dark spot standing on an entire grand hoard of treasure, pulling in that golden light in streamers, turning gold to black before it reached his black wings and his skin. Gold crystals grew from his joints, but it didn’t remain gold. That crystal flashed to black now and then, only to be overwhelmed with gold, to ebb and flow between the two extremes as Eldawae pulled in more and more power.

His eyes were closed, and he was focused.

He was converting the power of the crystal into Evil within himself. He was cultivating.

… Or maybe accreting. Probably both and then a few other things besides.

Erick lowered down into the crater to float 25-ish meters away from Eldawae. And then he waited.

Eldawae cracked open an eye. And then he closed his eye again. “… You cannot win this war. You are aware of this, and yet you persist. It is vexing.”

“I do persist; correct.” Erick asked, “What makes you so sure I can’t win this war?”

“Because Evil is larger than you, and we’ve had bigger enemies than you for our entire existence. The War is Neverending.”

“Ah. You think I’m going to war with Evil. This is incorrect thinking. You are correlating causations instead of seeing it how it is. Redemption is a core tenet of Benevolence, and everyone is in need of redemption sometimes, including Good people. After I’m done with you and Da’luwe I hope to go back to the Celestial Observatory and knock some heads around to clean them up, too.”

Without opening his eyes, Eldawae said, “Your plans sound Good in their effect and thus you sound deluded in multiple ways. You are Good, and you won’t admit that.”

“I’m perfectly fine with you being a selfish asshole, Eldawae. You want to have an empire of degeneracy and good times, while people fight for your amusement out there on the field? Do that. But you will see that everyone consents of their own free will and that they have the absolute best health care that magic can make, and that those sorts of things are only small parts of the overall society you control. What I’m not fine with is you letting your charges and those below you know pain because of your negligence.” Erick said, “And so, you need to die, since we’ve already got the semi-decent version of you back there and we don’t need this evil version of you, here.” Erick continued, “But, if I kill you here and now, I assume that your soul will fly to the Eldawae in the city and connect with him to make yourself whole, and this one here will overtake that one there.” Erick said, “It’s really quite ingenious of yourself, to make that one back there the ‘good’ one and this one the Evil one. The good one is very good at getting people into a working system. He has probably gotten Da’luwe back in working order a few times in the past, only to have you come in and kill him and take over completely.” Erick Looked at him. “I didn’t see it back there, but I definitely see the shape of it all right now.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Eldawae frowned, and then he stopped cultivating/accreting. He opened his eyes and flared his 6 wings before dropping his wings back behind him, and saying, “It is also rather vexing that you have such a well-crafted insight into others and their internal magics. I suppose I should have expected nothing less from a Father of Margleknot. So what are you going to do now?”

“Do you want to be redeemed?”

“No thank you.”

“Would you fight your forced redemption?”

“Yes.”

Erick breathed in, then out, and spoke, “You will lose.”

His voice vibrated the sands, echoing out in a wave of power that crashed into a golden/black shield surrounding Eldawae and the heart of the time worm, passing them by without touching them at all. They were already deep in the philosophical Wizard War of the moment, but that had been Erick’s first real attack.

Eldawae responded by blackening the sky and turning the entire crater into the insides of the time worm, massive white teeth layering down the dark insides of the monster all around. They were like tusks undulating backward, downward, turning the world below into a continual tunnel of swallowing death, and the sky into the death of hope. The sky was a dot of white, and then the sky closed off as the time worm’s mouth shut. The only light was the gold from Eldawae’s now-floating crystal. That light glinted on the teeth overhead as those teeth crashed closed as the beast swallowed, a wave of teeth coming for Erick as the walls closed in.

Erick lit up the darkness with his [Lodestar] form, and then lit up the time worm with a reson-empowered [Reincarnation].

A lightning bolt came crashing—

– – – –

Erick sat on the ledge of a sandbox with red wood walls and dunes the size of mountains out there in the dirt, and yet, they weren’t the size of mountains at all. They were just small dunes, no larger than Erick’s ankles.

The sand moved a little.

Erick picked up the worm under the dunes and held it up to the light. “Hello, little time worm.”

The time worm looked at Erick with its maw-like face, its million eyes blinking around its body as it looked down at Erick’s palm. And then it seemed to frown—

The moment flickered.

Suddenly the time worm was ten meters long and staring down at Erick, its maw open a meter wide, power flowing out of the beast like desiccating desert wind as it boomed, “I’m bigger than you.”

Erick easily asked, “Do you want to be? It’s easier to be full if you’re smaller. Lots more food for small things than for large things.”

“Small things prey. I not prey. Bad bargain.”

The spell flickered again.

The time worm was a kilometer long and staring down at Erick with a maw 10 meters wide.

… Erick seemed to be losing control of the spell.

Not the first time that this had ever happened. That time he [Reincarnation]ed Oozy was the first instance Erick had ever experienced a [Reincarnation] differently than expected, but then again, using resons to empower this magic was already a different experience altogether, with this weird sort of talking space. The time worm was throwing everything off, though. It was making this here a Wizard fight.

Probably because the time worm was a small god.

Erick asked, “What do you want in your next life?”

The worm said, “I reject your call for a next life. I am the god of these sands. This is my land and no others shall have it.” The worm grew to be as Endless as the desert in which it lived. Its maw could consume mountains. It stared down at Erick with contempt, saying, “There is no winning against me. There are only those who I allow to live until they get big enough to eat, and those who manage to run faster than the slowest of them.”

“Ah. So you’ve been corrupted to eat mindlessly.”

The time worm looked down at Erick.

And then it shrunk a fraction.

Erick said, “I’ve seen how you eat. I killed you once by drowning you, and you liked it. You have been broken in some way, and I am here to fix you, because you haven’t allowed anyone to escape you at all. Not in a long time. You have eaten and eaten and eaten, without care for the habitat you have created. All you produce is death without hope for life. An end, without any restart of any new beginnings.”

The worm shrunk some more. It was merely a kilometer long now, and its maw was merely 10 meters wide.

“I’ve already put up some weather out there that will run permanently, unless someone disrupts it. That weather will create new life in these Endless sands. Do you want to be the guardian of that weather? I put a bunch of little frogs out there that serve smaller, similar functions of recreating that grand storm of life if it should fail. But if you want to have the power to bring life as well as death to all, I can give that to you. Wouldn’t that be a better balance for your gluttonous needs?”

The worm listened.

The worm shrunk back down to Erick’s hand.