261, 1/2

The sky of the Celestial Observatory was a blue blackness, filled with stars. The world itself was divided between mountain tops and valleys, with layers of illuminated clouds separating mountains made of crystal spires, and valleys filled with greenery and sparkling blue water. The air was cool, but not cold, though Erick didn’t really get cold anymore.

Not as a human-shaped protean person, and especially not as a giant black dragon.

With wings spread wide, Erick surveyed the land. This was not where Yggdrasil had dropped him the first time; that kilometers-wide bridge between the two crystal-spire mountains was nowhere to be seen. Of course there were other big bridges between the mountain lands out there. The crystal spire cities above the clouds were all connected by bridges, like they were all islands in an illuminated sea of clouds.

Erick flew above those clouds, feeling kinda great, as he checked his Lightning Path.

There was lots to do here.

As opposed to Erick’s time at Da’luwe, where all his Path generally pointed at the various problems of Da’luwe, since the world outside the city was pretty hostile to life and thus there wasn’t much he could do out in the Endless, there was life everywhere here, in this land of peaks and valleys. Down there, in the green lands, people toiled in fields and lived simple, rural lives. The places Erick flew over seemed to be firmly stuck in the 1400’s, if he were going by Earth-standards, though some places looked a lot more primitive than that. Cows helped men and women plow fields while kids played with hoops and sticks as grandmothers and fathers knitted scarves or whittled wood into cooking utensils. The buildings looked made out of wood and plaster and thatch while the roads were dirt in most places, and gravel by the nicer houses.

It was so weird to see, and yet not that weird at all. The more Erick saw of Margleknot the more he knew how stratified the whole place was. There was the Dragon District, where people invented reality whole cloth, and then places like this and like Da’luwe, where some people lived so far below others that they were practically caricatures of ancient pasts.

The people that lived above the clouds were somewhere between those extremes.

Erick soared through the eternal night sky and cast his gaze far and deep.

In those crystal spire mountaintops Erick saw what appeared to be places like Ar’Kendrithyst, with spires and sky bridges and people living openly, using little ‘smartphones’, or whatever they called them. Some restaurants used machines to flip vegetable-and-egg cakes on griddles and serve them to customers. Men and women spoke at board meetings to investors. Nannies and grandfathers and uncles and aunts and fathers and mothers and all sorts of people walked from this place to that place with two kids in tow and a baby in a basket on their back, or with their girlfriend, or boyfriend, or just friends.

Watchtowers here and there spotted Erick, and so did a whole bunch of completely normal places.

Most people simply freaked out for a moment at the big black dragon flying far away, and then they continued about their day. One guy at a tower that stuck out pretty far from the other towers pissed himself, but that, and some ribbing from the other guys on duty, were all that happened there. That guy would probably recover from the loss of pride eventually.

Erick smirked a little as friends laughed at friends, as he kept flying, breathing in the cool air and feeling pretty great.

The Celestial Observatory was a land divided, though, and the ‘why’ of that was a pretty big explanation. He already knew a little bit of that reasoning, according to one of the conversations he had had with Eldawae, back in Da’luwe.

– –

City Eldawae, who was named as such for Reasons, had scowled when asked about the Good lands of Margleknot, saying, “All the truly Good places are gone and have been for a while. Paradise Rises was the truest bastion of Good in the universe over 6,400 years ago. Morbion saw to the destruction of that place personally, and it only took him a millennium to do it! Of course they should have seen it coming, though, so it was kind of their own fault. Morbion acted as a sort of ally of Good back then, killing off the most Evil lands out there. That’s how he started getting Contracts in on the Celestial Observatory and other places; they saw him as an ally of convenience now and then, and so that is what he became.”

Other Eldawae, named himself that way because they both were still trying to figure out new names, continued, “When Morbion eventually turned on Paradise Rises he turned with the full force of Balance at his back. Paradise Rises never stood a chance. From there they went after The Good Lands, Heartshearth, and many others. All the while the Celestial Observatory was getting worked on by Wraithborne’s lawyers due to the survivors of those other Good lands flooding that place. That’s what really did the Celestial Observatory in. Wraithborne conquered that place through infection of Contracts. Some of those Contracts could even be passed down to kids!”

City Eldawae said, “Now when the Prismatic Wilderness fell to Wraithborne… that’s when the Balance started to shift back against Wraithborne.”

“Quite right.” Other Eldawae said, “The fall of the Wilderness is when Wraithborne began its Reformation, adjusting from a land of complete war and domination and Evil, to something less overt. The lawyers came out in force with Contracts that forced more Contracts.”

“Morbion forced the Celestial Observatory into what it is today,” City Eldawae cursed, “A land of middling Good filled with systemic problems which would require war to fix, but no one wants to go to war because that would cut supply lines and end the easy life for a great many people.” Eldawae waved a wing. “And sunder a bunch of souls, too, as generationally-tied Contracts activated all across that part of Margleknot.”

– –

Both Eldawaes were not friends, exactly, and they both had rather dim views of the Good lands out there and they were not afraid to be acerbic about it, but they were both people who had stopped lying to Erick a while ago, in the month that Erick had spent at Layer 1 in and around Da’luwe. That solidly spoken nature and spending some time among the real people of Margleknot had helped Erick to learn a whole bunch of little things that he hadn’t known before that break.

Erick saw one of those facts now, as he soared through the starry sky, and viewed the horizon of Margleknot.

Margleknot was what Veird and FENRIR might one day be, in the very, very distant future; a giant dyson sphere surrounding a sun, but a whole lot more complicated than that.

Looking down at the Celestial Observatory, Erick imagined Margleknot’s original sun inside the sphere underneath, far, far inside, along with a bunch of other suns gathered and created by the various Fathers and Mothers of Margleknot, and all the other strong powers of this Fractal Universe. The entire interior space of that dyson sphere was many, many astronomical units across. No one but Margleknot really knew the full distance between one place and the next. The entire interior space was under Margleknot’s full control, and things such as ‘distance’ only really mattered when Margleknot made them matter. One could simply look up at the sky and see other lands, which should be impossible in any normal sort of space.

Inside the sphere, if Erick would have kept traveling across the Endless desert to reach the next grey pillar rising up from the next Wraithborne town, he would have stumbled into a land of forest and trees and simply left the Endless behind, without realizing he had left it behind. That’s how it was traveling in there. To get back to the Endless, he would have had to fly for many days back in that direction, and when he finally, suddenly found the Endless, he would have found himself a week away from the forested places.

Traveling out here, though, outside of the sphere, was a lot simpler and straightforward. The land below had such an imperceptible curve that it looked like all the crystal mountaintops simply stretched on forever. The Celestial Observatory was technically a land of 350,000,000,000,000,000 square kilometers, and more than ten times that when it came to actual living space, which was all up and down those mountains.

The Celestial Observatory was the entire outer surface of Margleknot, which was why it had been so easy for Wraithborne to infect with Evil. There were simply too many entry points into this land.

Except that wasn’t the whole story, either.

A lot of the outer surface of Margleknot was used for a lot of different peoples; in a way similar to how the inside was all spatially managed, the outside was also cut up into pieces. The Observatory didn’t actually comprise 350,000,000,000,000,000 square kilometers. It was more like only .5% of that big number.

Still a pretty big freaking number.

Trillions of people lived within quadrillions of square kilometers, so it wasn’t that populated. Technically. This was still one of the more populated, low-power places, though. The lands where the big powers existed was far, far away from here. And yet, if one moved right, the powerful places were just a skip over the next horizon.

The ‘next horizon’ being both multi-planetary and spatially-managed in distance, of course.

Erick could turn to lightning and fly where he needed to go, but he was pretty sure that it would take decades, because Eldawae’s estimates of the land’s size were rather guesstimates. Margleknot grew and shifted all the time, after all.

Knowing all of that, it was pretty easy to understand why Yggdrasil was happy to have Veird expand onto a dyson sphere.

Knowing that, it was easy to see why whatever legality and rights of ownership surrounding Veird was a Big Fucking Deal that Erick wasn’t truly prepared for. Not really.

And so, he needed allies, and the Celestial Observatory needed to be freed from Wraithborne’s grip.

And that wasn’t even the whole story of the Celestial Observatory. The main story of this spatially-managed and divided land was even deeper than that, with secrets and powers that Erick had barely read about in Yggdrasil’s Guidebook, but which he kinda wanted to test out.

The Celestial Observatory was not just a land that viewed the sky, it was also a land that viewed the other lands. The true ‘Observatory’ were the crystal mountains above the illuminated clouds. The land below was not the Observatory at all. Not really.

There were two, maybe 2.5 ways to travel through this place.

The main way to travel was kinda difficult. Eldawae had explained how to navigate and move through this land, but Erick wasn’t quite seeing it yet, and he didn’t want to simply ask Yggdrasil for the quick navigation solution.

Apparently, if he flew for a while, aiming toward a specific person, the land would change around him and he would end up at that person, or near them. That was the simple, overworld-sort-of-travel. It was sort of like how the Black Crystal District that surrounded the Dragon District worked.

And then there was a more difficult way which involved dipping below the clouds, for the lands down there were not connected directly to the mountaintops all around. They were other worlds. Other places that could use some help. Other lands in other galaxies around other stars and other layers that needed help from those on the Good Mountaintops of the Celestial Observatory. That was, in actuality, the main way in which the Celestial Observatory worked.

One could look down from the mountaintops and always see a land of Good people in need of assistance.

This was a rather supreme land of Good, and when people weren’t watching the lands below, those lands changed into other lands that needed help.

Erick could literally spend an entire immortal life flitting down through the clouds and up again, helping people who could use it, or who deserved it. They were ‘random’ lands down there, though by some metric they were not that random at all. Those lands belonged to people who had some distant connection to Margleknot, and who prayed to any sort of iteration of Margleknot, or to the Good gods who held court here.

Every single valley was an open invitation for people to come and help.

Most valleys had watchers, though, and that was the rub.

Those watchers maintained vigilant views on the lands below, and so those lands below remained below, visible and open for any to come and visit, as long as some Good person existed down there, desiring help of any form at all. If the watchers stopped watching, or if the valleys emptied of good people, then the lands would change and a new source of need would open up.

And so, people above the valleys watched the valleys and kept them from switching to new places that needed help, thus they ‘fulfilled their duty’ of keeping the lands around them safe and Good.

It was kinda insidious, and Wraithborne was to blame for a lot of this current culture of the Observatory.

And yet, to find a valley that truly needed help, all Erick had to do was fuzz his vision and his senses, and fly for a while, seeking to right a great wrong. And then he’d be above a valley that needed help. According to what he had heard, he would then find himself above a plagued land, or a land at war, or even something as simple as a woman needing help giving birth who had no one to help her.

It was a siren’s call to help.

A lure.

A demand on every part of Erick’s everything, now that he knew what this place truly was, thanks to Eldawae.

Erick wanted to give in to that siren’s call. To drop down into other worlds and gift them power and prosperity and peace. But that would be stepping out of Margleknot. The way back would remain, of course, but time would shift in the transfer between worlds, and there was no telling how much time would pass on Veird between now and after Erick solved whatever problem there was to solve in whatever valley he managed to enter.

And so, like many of the crystal mountains all around, Erick inured himself to the small problems and good lives he saw that could be made better.

Erick sighed out, releasing his gaze upon the world, shutting his senses and then closing his eyes. He was aiming to find some specific people. Not just anyone who needed help, but those who could help him.

He felt the wind flicker and a chill pass, and then he opened his eyes… And he wasn’t much further from where he started. Hmm. So. Maybe he needed to travel for longer? Eldawae had said that sometimes it took a great deal of blind flying before the world shifted, if you had a great deal of distance to go to get where you wanted to be. Erick was rather certain that ‘where he wanted to be’ was ‘wherever Moonarcher and Darkcaller and Crystalmaster were’.

Maybe he needed to lower his scope, though.

Just pick one of them.

Well… Shadow hadn’t known that Crystalmaster was here, and that was on purpose from Crystalmaster, so he’d be the hardest to find, but Erick kinda really wanted to talk to that ancient Wizard from the Painted Cosmology. Later, though.

Orin Darkcaller was probably busy ‘connecting worlds through darkness’. Whatever that meant, it was yet another thing that Erick was truly interested in investigating. But later.

Astrologer Moonarcher was the 6-winged astraelif who everyone went to see because she was some great oracle…

Erick focused on Moonarcher. If anyone was ready to receive him, it would probably be her. She had been right there in the center of that formation of powers when Erick had appeared last time. She might even have messages waiting for him, should he show.

Erick flew high into the sky and focused on Moonarcher, and then he closed his eyes and—

– – – –

—opened his eyes.

The world was different below and above.

Erick was no longer surrounded by a random assortment of crystal mountains filled with people, and valleys filled with the same sorts of people, but less technologically advanced. The valleys below were distant things, but there were castles and markets and people working magics here and there. The mountains all around were relatively empty.

Erick flew above a kilometers-wide bridge, set between two massive crystal mountains that barely had any people in them at all. There were the guards who were probably not guards at all, but paladins, and then there were people in robes.

A giant gate held far behind Erick, while ahead of him, in front of the largest crystal mountain he had seen, was a bigger gate. This right here was where Yggdrasil had set him down that first time, where he had met Crystalmaster, Moonarcher, and Darkcaller that first time, and Crystalmaster had sent him seeking Wraithborne instead, so that the paladins they had arrayed around them didn’t auto-sunder from Wraithborne Contracts.

Erick was a dragon this time, so walking to that big gate went a lot faster. Within a minute he stood before the gate, and this time there was no greeting from those in the towers beyond. Erick shrunk down to person-sized, his glowthread clothes reforming around his body like living light made into ephemeral, professional softness. He really did like his clothes when they did that.

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Erick spoke, “Hello! I come seeking an audience with the forces of Good in this land.”

Every single nearby person winced, even though they were all behind heavy wards and doors and walls.

… Erick hadn’t spoken that loud—

A door opened to the side of the big gate and a paladin stepped out. He wore gleaming silver armor and his helmet at his side, hooked to his belt, showing off a strong chin and a human appearance. With an unexpected weight to his gaze, and yet a lightness in his voice, he spoke as though from a script that he didn’t realize he was following, “Pardon, good sir, but a more precise desire would be easier to fulfill. What do you want, exactly?”

Erick took a moment because everything seemed surreal, and then he said, “I want to untangle the Contracts from Wraithborne that have flooded this land and make some allies to take with me back home.”

The man nodded, then he took out a small black book from his back pockets and handed it over, grinning lightly as he said, “I’m supposed to give this to you now.”

“… Okay?” Erick could not see the book in his mana senses, but that wasn’t that unusual what with all the different powers he had seen here and there. Erick took the book— He paused as he read the cover. And then he looked up at the paladin. “A list of souls from the Waiting Room?”

“Yes, sir.” The paladin spoke softly, yet strongly, saying, “Sometimes some of our people are Contracted too steeply to ever allow themselves back into the world, and so they choose to stay in the Waiting Room after death. Some of them have been in there for a few thousand years or more. A good explanation of all of those people and more are there in that book, gifted to me by some force I didn’t understand, asking me for something I did not want to give, but which now I do, wholly and fully. It was an honor serving the forces of Good. Please don’t speak to anyone else here, good sir.”

And then the guy exploded into ribbons of light, as though he had been holding everything back as much as he could, and he simply could not pull back from the precipice any more.

He had been sundered via Wraithborne Contract.

Erick had a few different thoughts. Firstly, he wondered how good a Contract Sundering was, because normal Sunderings were able to be recovered from through Time Magic, but Nothanganathor’s Sundering of Debby was impossible to reverse.

And then Erick rewound time.

Stepping back to where he had stepped, Erick watched as the paladin in silver stepped out of the side of the gate.

The Contract Sundering wasn’t one of the stronger ones. Good!

“Pardon, good sir, but a more precise desire would be easier to fulfill. What do you want, exactly?”

Erick said the same line again, “I want to untangle the Contracts from Wraithborne that have flooded this land and make some allies to take with me back home.”