261, 2/2

Erick stepped out of swirling gold and green, onto a land that looked rather Veird-normal or maybe Earth-normal, but different. The buildings were made of stone, or maybe even concrete, and the windows were glass. The road was paved with bricks of varying grey colors that formed a nice pattern leading up to grand and semi-grand cathedrals in the distance. People were everywhere, and Erick stood upon a ‘Teleport Square’ of sorts.

Portals opened and shut all around Erick, disgorging people out of this crossroads or letting people leave.

“Please move along!” flapped some large red goo-like person, sitting upon a pedestal situated to the side of the portal square. And then it pointed toward Erick and his companion, “Please move along. This means you.”

Shadow moved forward, saying, “We really have a lot to be doing besides this.”

“Yes,” Erick said, already walking forward, enjoying the fact that no one recognized him. He wasn’t wearing his horns right now and he was simply a 2 meters tall human-person, and his soul was hidden. He still expected someone to instantly say something; to spot him, to out him. That didn’t instantly happen, though! Erick stepped onto the road to the churches, alongside Shadow, saying, “But this is on the list, and while I want to be your ally, you are not empowered in the necessary ways right now, and I want to build my House, and so we’re here.”

“… When you answered my message I assumed we’d be having a long talk. Not that I’d get asked about my current inadequacy and then get an invite to go talk to some piddling little gods.”

Shadow was a former goddess of creation. She was the one who first forged a link between the Darkness and Something Else, thus making the Painted Cosmology. She was also a former Goddess of Magic, the great-great-a-lot grandmother of both Melemizargo and Nothanganathor, a person whom Erick hoped would be a fantastic ally, and a whole lot more besides. She was also Just Shadow, and right now that meant she could not help Erick how he needed to be helped, for he needed a god, and Shadow was, quite firmly, a former god. She even looked rather mortal right now. Gone were the deep shadows around her body, and the light in her eyes was merely the light around her; that much was a show, though. She was pretty good at blending in, physically, but not so much mentally. At least right now.

Erick couldn’t really blame her for that. He had kinda swept her up in his own designs.

“I’m skipping all that talk and moving on,” Erick said, “Because I’m rather certain that you and I would have a more productive time actually being productive in a goal, rather than sitting around talking to each other. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m working to make the unkillables approve of me in order for them to withdraw their approval of that guy, collapsing his support structure and making it so I don’t have armies of your kind working against me, rather than for me… Or whatever vague sorts of threats they’d do if I went back and fought that guy directly.”

“A continual stream of 10 to 100 of ‘my kind’ constantly trying to kill you is correct,” Shadow said. And then she mocked, “Look at that! I’m being helpful already, and would do more if you would talk to me.”

Erick eyed her a little, saying, “Your method hasn’t gotten you far. I would like to try my methods and I would like your help, since you cannot access the Waiting Room like you used to. In doing such help, we learn to work together to achieve good ends, and maybe you can get some goodwill back among your kind. The goal is to establish a wing of my House here, and thus have people working for the good of our shared home even when we’re not here. I would have you as a part of that House.”

He had already explained this before, though admittedly it had only been a 5 minute ‘hey I’m doing this, want to come along?’ sort of conversation.

Shadow had already heard this before.

Erick hoped that this time the message would actually stick.

Shadow rolled her eyes. “Fine fine fine, Apparently you’re the King. So we do this your way.”

They were speaking in slight code so they could go incognito for a little while. Or at least Shadow had picked up on that, and she was following Erick’s lead well enough that he couldn’t tell her off.

“Appreciated,” Erick said, looking around.

Priests and proselytizers stood on short stone risers outside the front of every church and other sort of structure dotting the road ahead, while the sky overhead was pale blue with a single sun. ‘The Mortal Lands’ was similar to the Celestial Observatory on the outside of the ‘dyson sphere’ that was Margleknot, in that it was on the interior of the main shell, while the Observatory was on the outside. There was no Margleknot sky here. All of that spatially-altered place was located on a different slice of Layer 0.

These Mortal Lands were perhaps how Erick would have thought to continue building FENRIR, if Nothanganathor weren’t ‘locked’ inside.

Erick couldn’t see the land on the other side of the sphere, unfortunately, but he could fly up, theoretically, and look at the nearest thousand kilometers. This land even had a day/night cycle, unlike the Endless desert. That was achieved through some sort of translucent bubble around the sun that turned opaque in a 15 hour cycle, with 15 hours of light and then 15 hours of dark. Erick wasn’t sure about what was going on up there or how it worked, but the small description of all of that in Yggdrasil’s Guidebook suggested that opaqueness was some sort of energy-gathering thing, perhaps technologically-based.

The sun right now looked bright, yet it was getting darker. It was afternoon according to a clocktower at the end of the street where the street split into two more streets, so that made sense. When that clock struck an hour to dark, then the sun overhead would rapidly begin to turn dark in hexagonal markers in a moving crescent, the whole thing vanishing over the course of an hour like a moon rapidly turning phases. It was already doing that, actually. The sun looked kinda like a squashed circle. It would get more squished as the day went on.

Erick wanted to watch that transition happen. It was an impressive feat of engineering and magic and technology, for sure.

When the sky turned dark, he might be able to see some of the lands on the other side, bathed in light. Unless clouds rolled in. It never really got dark in the Mortal Lands because the sun was always still there in some capacity, unless clouds rolled in.

Erick felt a deep pang of homesickness as he thought of Jane, and maybe Beth. They’d love to explore this place. Maybe not the Mortal Lands, for this place was filled with people in the way that America or any first world nation back on Earth was filled with people; violence happened, but it was rare. War here was like war back on Earth. But in the rest of Margleknot? On Layer 1 Mortal Lands? Now that place was a disaster zone. People always tried to win more lands there, and the war never ended. Layer 1 anywhere was filled with danger.

Layer 1 was more Jane’s style.

Or maybe Jane and Beth would go to the Celestial Observatory, and spend eternities diving into other worlds to help Good people with whatever disasters they were experiencing—

“What ya thinking about?” Shadow asked.

“My daughters. Home. The future…” Erick asked, “And now I’m wondering about what makes the Mantle of Darkness so special. I was warned against accidental divinity a few times. Seems like That Guy could have ascended that way if he wanted to.”

Shadow raised an eyebrow, then smirked, and said, “I believe I will let you find that out through the actions here today.” She gestured to the road ahead, at the priests on their pulpits and the parishioners on the path. “Pick a poison!”

“Sun gods.” Erick said, “I was told about one of them, but if you have a better idea then I’ll hear it.”

Shadow made a face. “I never was one for those kinds, but… I suppose you are.” She frowned a little. She thought. She looked around, and focused on a few different places. “Ikarothis is a decent sort. He’s a god of Undeath and Protection. He regularly deals in Waiting Room evacuations. Not a sun god, though. But he should fulfill the needs of the Waiting Room quest rather well.”

“… Hmm.”

Ikarothis’s temple was an austere cathedral of grey stone that looked like flowing fabrics layered upon pillars, and upon each other. The whole place looked sort of like a four-poster bed crossed with a normal cathedral, and it wasn’t very big, either. None of the places here were big, and that was by regulation. Ikarothis’s place didn’t take up its full lot, though, which Erick kinda respected.

Some of these places were like grand apartment buildings and places of worship all in one, their lands fully occupied as much as they could be with either ostentation, or priests living together. Erick kinda respected the apartment buildings more than he respected the giant places of worship… But then again, the people here were the ones who built these places, not the gods.

Erick glanced at his Lightning Path, as he often did, and decided that while Ikarothis would work for his desires, he wanted someone that he could maybe import to Veird. He didn’t want to step on Phagar’s toes, and Ikarothis seemed like he would be stepping on Phagar’s toes—

Erick had a sudden question.

“Are the gods of different cosmologies different? Can they work together?”

Shadow hummed, then said, “Big question, there. Gods are born in specific universes in a way that that universe designs them able to be born. In this universe, gods arise from individuals, and in that rising they gain the powers that their worshipers desire them to have while losing themselves in the process. In my… In my old universe, gods arose from common thought, divorced from any individual, though an individual might become crowned with the mantle of a god, and thus speak with that god’s might. I didn’t like people losing themselves, so I made it so that they didn’t lose themselves. Here, though, people lose themselves all the time. It’s the Curse of Power.”

Erick realized… “Ah. That’s why the Mantle of Magic is special. That guy could keep himself through that transformation.”

Shadow smirked. “Didn’t take your actions long to divine that answer.” She continued, “Anyway! It’s a lot more complicated than that, with gods in this universe being rather weak, seeing as they’re what people believe they are, and the gods of my universe being strong, because they’re often individuals with godly might at their call. But to move on and answer your other half of the question: Yes, gods can move and interact with other gods as their people move and interact with other people, and worship spreads. The minute you end the quarantine of V— our home, then people and powers will start moving back and forth. Unless you do a lot of controlling of thoughts, then whoever shows up will show up.”

Speaking of controlling thoughts…

Hmm.

Erick would leave the discussion of the Mark of the Fractal Universe inside [Telepathy] to another day.

He asked, “You read the dossier on me that went out, right?”

Shadow looked a little miffed. “Yes. I had to beg for one of those, though. V— Our home seems pretty… Unstable. But getting better.” She looked at him, put a hand on his shoulder, and stopped walking. She said, “Thank you. I did not know things were that bad down there.”

Erick smiled a little. “It’s getting better.”

Shadow let go, then nodded. She looked forward with renewed vigor in her sight, resuming their walk as she said, “Our home could use some specific gods, though. Otherwise the ones that show up will be whichever ones are feeling more expansionist than others.”

Erick grinned as he walked alongside an ancient fairy goddess, saying, “That was part of my reasoning today, too. What are your thoughts on Cascadio?”

Shadow made a little frown. Then she dropped the frown. “… He’s probably a good choice. Your son put you up to him, didn’t he?”

“He was one of the few mentioned, yes. The only one, actually.” Erick inclined his head toward a large sign with a bunch of god’s names and distances and directions to get those temples. “And he’s not listed here.”

“He wouldn’t be listed here. Cascadio is bigger than this place.” Shadow said, “Let’s go visit him.”

“He’s only part of the reason for visiting here, though. There are also gods of Trickery and Deceit that I would rather have on my side as opposed to that guy’s side.” Erick said, “Those gods are included alongside a bunch of other people on a list of known allies of that guy. Lots of little things I have to check off, here.” Erick asked her, “What would be the better pursuit right now? Investigating the allies of that guy, or going to Cascadio and trying to build the House?”

The question was a little test. Not a big one. It was just to see who Shadow was. There were no wrong answers here.

Shadow said, “I tried to do this all alone last time. That didn’t work. So yeah. Let’s go talk to Cascadio and get you some worker bees for your House expansion.”

Erick paused. He nodded. “Well okay.” He looked around. “He’s really not here? I kinda expected to see an office of his around here.” Erick gestured to the side, saying, “That place is a Sun God temple. Rona, the Goddess of the Healing Suns.”

“She’s a love goddess all about sex in the open sun and rather small besides.” Shadow said, “Atunir would not like her.”

“… There’s probably a whole bunch of portfolio overlap, eh?”

“Oh yeah.” Shadow turned around and began walking back. Erick walked with her, as she said, “Our home is pretty solid with divine influences as it is. I can only think of a few fragments of civilization that aren’t already represented.” She looked at him briefly. “The Sun is about the only one we should consider filling in right now.”

“I wasn’t going to invite Trickery and Deceit home. I did want to remove their backup of that guy up here, though.”

Shadow hummed a little, then said, “Later.”

They walked back to the ‘Teleport Square’.

– – – –

The crystal-like icicle of the Fae Enclave and its crossways silver beam of a Quantum Nexus Hub lay up there in the sky, in the center of it all, surrounded by a whole bunch of invisible suns.

And down here lay the Nexus Gardens.

Down here, the land was green and blue with colorful flowers and a brilliance to the air that reminded Erick a lot of Ar’Cosmos, or fae gatherings, except this brilliance was gold and the ambiance was one of mortal powers and godly oversight. If there were fae here, then they were just a part of the gatherings, joining in the revelry with mortals, while gods of all sorts held parties and jubilation.

It was an eternal garden/jungle/mansion/high-class/low-class party.

Erick and Shadow popped into existence outside of a specific gathering taking place on hundreds of small islands that were only technically islands, but each one was only a meter from each other one, and the waters separating those islands was only a meter deep. Each individual island had people talking and laughing or listening to music or reading with each other, or sleeping in beds or doing any thousand of other activities. Erick imagined that the sleeping areas were the only quiet places, because otherwise there was a soft music in the air that was kinda lively, but not too lively. Erick looked across the large area from this taller, entrance island, and saw places where people were partying down. Other islands had orgies, because of course there were orgies.

There were always orgies when it came to gods.

And in the center of it all lay a grand golden island, raised higher than the rest. A muscular-dad sort of man with dark skin and wearing a toga of gold, reclined on a couch on the top center of that island, and though he did not shine like a sun, he certainly had that sort of aura about him. He laughed with what looked to be friends, as they all drank from golden goblets and ate food off of golden plates, as they spoke of this or that in obvious mirth.

That man was Cascadio, for sure, and Erick already liked the guy.

Shadow did not approve of him, scowling a little, saying, “He’s too bubbly.”

“What are his domains?”

“ ‘Portfolios’, when it comes to gods,” Shadow said, stepping down the stairs, onto the lush grasses of the entrance island of Cascadio’s cavalcade. Erick followed, and Shadow continued, “Gods have influence depending on how their worshipers recognize that influence here in this cosmology, so there is a lot of room for overlap of all types of gods, but we call those influences ‘portfolios’. In my cosmology there were major portfolios, of which there was only ever one of each specific kind. There was always more room for countless minor sparks of those major portfolios, though, and that system created avatars of the major gods. Sometimes those personal manifestations of the major gods were individuals granted power by the major gods, who then went on to become major gods in their own right, and other times they were attempted usurpers of the throne of the major god.” She waved a hand all over the place, saying, “All of this is so much different, though. Gods here are so much weaker… In an absolute sense.”

Erick stepped across a small river, only a meter wide, and set foot on a different rising island closer to the center of the Cavalcade. The entrance island was filled with the soft music of the Cavalcade, but this island was a raucous party and the music was loud and booming. Erick kinda liked it. Shadow kept up.

Neither of them said anything as they kept to the side of the large dance floor and what looked to be choreographed musical numbers… But Erick kinda wanted to join in. He even saw a spot for him, and one for Shadow, right between the main dancer there and those backups over there. The lead dancer winked at Erick, and Erick smiled back, while he also checked his Status. The magic of this place was ‘attacking’ him, but not really. The ‘attack’ was only 1 extra Health and Psyche per second, so Erick easily ignored it. A lot of people outside of the main musical number were ignoring the call to fill that void, too, drinking shots and eating food to the side.

Not a real mind bender. Just a call to party.

Erick stepped off of that island and looked down into the waters as he stepped onto the next island.

He saw flippers down there, below the deepest parts of the water. For a brief moment his mana senses fully worked and he saw Cascadio’s Cavalcade as a whole bunch of turtle islands, all swirling in sync around the main golden-shell island, with more turtles underneath the main flow, all swirling around the power that was Cascadio in the center. Those underwater turtle islands still had parties happening, too. It was kinda beautiful.

And then the simple riverlands and grass islands returned, and Erick was on the next island in the chain, listening to someone speak on a podium about the nature of Good and Evil.

… Erick wanted to listen to that, too.

Shadow moved right on along, easily walking across the edge of the lecture-hall-island, ignoring the talk up above.

Erick followed, softly asking, “So every island is a temptation?”

Shadow shook her head, saying, “No. That’s simplistic. Every island is a stepping stone. Once you have experienced what you want to experience you move forward to the next one, and in that moving you examine yourself and your goals and your whole nature as a living individual.” Shadow stepped onto the next island.

Erick followed.

This island was another party, and a lot more disorganized. Some guy handed Erick a drink and Erick smiled because it was a ‘Vivid Gloom’. The swirling black drink was filled with white flashes, looking exactly as Erick remembered. The first time he had one of these was from Mephistopheles at his Garrison in Candlepoint, back before Erick took that place over. Erick had his second Vivid Gloom courtesy of the Shade Professor Farix, at Last Shadow’s Feast, while the professor was mixing drinks and wearing a cock sock. Cascadio’s Vivid Gloom tasted pretty good, and Erick nodded at the man who had given it to him. That man just smiled and went back to dancing.

Shadow got her own drink which was absolute black. She sipped it, then said, “Cascadio’s Cavalcade is less of a trial and more of a cleansing. People are free to spend as long as they want wherever they want, and then moving in or out as they desire.”

“Cascadio seems like a pretty great god,” Erick said, “So why do you have a low opinion of him?”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Shadow hummed, shrugged, then stepped onto the next island.

Erick joined her on an island of people playing board games that were entire worlds. Little armies moved on little maps, but Erick looked too closely at one of them and he felt the map expand and his consciousness zoom in toward ground level, to a battlefield taking place in a wintry land under a distant sun, where people fought and died to unchained necromancy. Erick pulled back, away from the battlefield, to stand with Shadow.

Shadow glanced at him, then continued on. “I have a low opinion of him because I’ve been through all these stepping stones before, and yet we still have to go this way to reach him because he doesn’t allow people to simply speak to him unless they’ve gone through this path.” She sipped her drink of Darkness. “It’s all very elitist.”

Erick wondered about that. “… It has to be protective, too, right?” They stepped onto an island that was a lagoon with sandy beaches and people sunning themselves and playing in the surf and having sex under palm trees. The only sound was the sound of the waves and soft love-making, and it was wonderful. Erick moved on. “The people who get closer get to have actual talks with an important person, but those who get closer are also changed themselves in how they see Cascadio, and thus Cascadio gets to keep his interpretation of himself, himself.”

“True,” Shadow said, stepping onto the next island.

It was a land of silence and gentle prayer. There was no music, but the wind in the trees and in the tall grasses around the central pavilions certainly sounded like a kind of music.

Erick did not speak, and Shadow did not interrupt the meditation either.

The next island was a land of soft talking and coffee and hot drinks and morning foods under the rise of a new day after a night of love and connection.

Shadow said, “This is how all the bigger gods of this cosmology are. The small ones look to make rituals like this all the time, hoping that the good rituals catch on and that they stabilize themselves into the configuration they designed in their rituals. But this does not always work. The truly big gods always have different cultural interpretations of themselves, forcing them to split into new forms. Some gods try to force this split in a way they like when it seems they’re close to a cultural shift. Some gods just let it happen however it will happen. Some gods like splitting into new forms. For instance, it is thought that all gods of Trickery here are the same, but with different faces. If you talk to them they’d tell you that same story, too, unless they felt like lying to you.”

“Where does Cascadio lie on the small-versus-big scale?”

Shadow thought. She finished off her Darkness drink and tossed it in a bin. Erick finished off his Vivid Gloom and did the same. Shadow continued, “Cascadio is a… A proper god of this cosmology, I guess. He’s infinite, and yet not. I’d rate most gods a 1 to 3 on a power scale going up to 10, with the Darkness as a 10. Cascadio is a 2.”

Talk of Darkness as a god got Erick thinking about the Fractal Fairy. Thinking about them got Erick thinking about the glitter crystal that made up the Fairy and the Fae Enclave. Those thoughts led Erick to consider the Mark of the Fractal Universe sitting inside his [Telepathy]. Was now the time to talk of that?

Erick opened his mouth—

Softly, Shadow said, “No. Not here. Later.” They stepped onto the next turtle-not-turtle grass island, where people learned magics and secrets under the sun, all knowledge shared freely. Shadow tsk’d when she saw the island. “Well damn. Didn’t mean to step on this one.”

The island had moved without either of them seeing. It had been a place of people training with swords and spears and all sorts of other weapons, all of them wearing full golden armor. But now it was a library with personal tutors speaking softly inside sound-containment bubbles to students learning the mystic arts.