262, 2/2

Shadow moved back and forth between Erick and the Cavalcade reincarnation island. There wasn’t much to see in the Living Waiting Room, though, so she spent most of her time at the Cavalcade. Cascadio had put up a large island for this purpose, and he had tens of priests and simple clerics organizing everything for Erick whenever he was done with his fishing trip.

A lot of the people he rescued were simple worshipers of Cascadio, who were beyond relieved to see that Erick’s rescue hadn’t been a trick. A lot of the people spoke of the flames around him the entire time he was down there, and how he was a beacon to their senses, but the Dead Waiting Room was full of people doing evil things, and a false call to life was a common trick, a common lure.

The ones who had been on Erick’s list were split in their reactions. Many were subdued, waiting for the hidden sword strike or the big catch. Most disliked their human bodies, but some marveled at their human bodies. A lot of them had never been anything approaching human before, so it was a weird experience for them.

The Cavalcade was right there, too, so a bunch of people went off into the Cavalcade to experience life as a human-shaped person. Most stayed behind for a time to at least read the information about House Benevolence and [Reincarnation] and of Erick’s plans for the future. Those who wanted to know more than the general plan were easily able to ask those questions of priests who had been briefed on those deeper answers, but most of the priests and clerics only knew as much as they were told.

‘That is the limit of my knowledge; you will have to wait for Ascended Flatt to come back to answer more,’ was a common refrain.

‘Please fill out this [Reincarnation] paperwork for a better body,’ was another common saying.

Some people who were not part of the reincarnation project were coming off of the Cavalcade to see what was happening, and a few of them were signing up for [Reincarnation]s. The priests had tried to push back on that at first, but they rapidly decided to let it happen and let Erick figure that out when he got back. Shadow wondered how Erick would handle that. She wondered if Erick would put out an all-call for his House, or if someone else would put out that all-call for him.

And some of the people saw Shadow standing there, looking calm and controlled and unknown. She had answers, and they knew that.

So they came to her with their questions and they learned some deeper answers than the ones held by the priests.

People learned of Nothanganathor and the plight of Veird and of the Painted Cosmology. Of the Fae Enclave’s decisions, and of Erick’s desire to transform Wraithborne itself into something less-Evil. Of the Father of Margleknot, and of Margleknot’s adoption of Erick’s Yggdrasil-shaped-form. A few people truly understood what that meant; how deep this Abyss truly yawned. Most did not, but only because half the people here were Cascadio’s people and they did not understand that deeply. They certainly understood most of it, but that understanding was in the way that a mortal person understands a worldquake; in a ‘yes, that is happening, I suppose’, sort of way.

Their reactions were less than Shadow could have hoped for.

And yet, Shadow was thrilled. This was so much further than she had ever gotten in pulling people together in this awful place. She tried not to show this joy, of course. To show pleasure in the face of actual relief when the problems were this big was to invite danger back around, to tear it all down. They were not out of the Drain yet.

And so Shadow was having a bit of fun. Perhaps a lot of fun, actually. She was also honing her Dark Queen persona. This would be the one she used going forward, she decided. The Dark Queen was always calm, always ready for killing, and always prepared… But the Dark Queen was also more than willing to betray and backstab.

Hmm.

Betraying and backstabbing probably wouldn’t be too useful here, in this place.

… How about a Benevolent Dark Queen persona?

It wasn’t much different than the normal Dark Queen. She had done both before, but that old version had been a ‘benevolent’ Dark Queen. Not a Benevolent Dark Queen.

… Eh! She could do that.

In fact.

She would.

Benevolent Dark Queen, here she was.

Shadow adjusted her hair a bit, putting on a small, black tiara. Black jewelry dripped from her long ears. Her skin turned a shade greyer. Her eyes went Dark and Benevolent iridescent white at the same time. Her clothes turned slightly finer, and her back straightened. Black rings.

And then iridescent white opals adorned her black jewelry.

It was all rather similar to Erick’s colors, wasn’t it?

Shadow allowed herself a small grin as she spoke to someone who had been a Cascadio person, but who was now desirous of House Benevolence. He wanted both, actually. Could he have both? Was that actually possible?

With an easy voice, Shadow assured him, “House Benevolence does not ascribe to any one god, and has no issue with its people worshiping whomever they want.”

The man was not convinced. “You say that, but that’s never the full truth, is it?”

“Believe me or not. Actions speak louder than words, and Erick, while allied with Cascadio for this, has many more gods at his side. He would never pick one over the other, and his House is the same as him. We welcome all faiths, even Evil ones, for all can be reborn in Benevolence.”

“And where are those other gods?” asked the man, frowning and arms crossed.

Holy Mother Caa, who Shadow was rather sure would become a great ally, spoke for Shadow, saying, “They’re on Veird, and we’re going to free them from Fae Enclave control as soon as we can, but that requires proof of power, and so we’re going to go murder and reincarnate Slaver’s Den in several days.”

The man shook his head, saying, “Too powerful for my blood—”

Caa said, “Power is easy to gain when you are a part of a powerful organization, and House Benevolence is on a Layer-breaking rise. This is the ground floor.”

Shadow spoke a soft declaration that everyone could hear, if not directly, then in the background, over the words of everyone else in the area, “Stay or abandon this rising Power and decide your entire destiny in that choice.”

Many conversations quieted. Some resumed fast enough. Some did not resume at all, for people needed to think, and so they thought.

The man in front of Shadow looked cowed, and then he looked ready. He uncrossed his arms. With strength in his shoulders and back and in his deep blue eyes, he said, “Then I should go and fill out that [Reincarnation] paperwork for a proper body.”

Shadow nodded. “Yes you should.”

The guy walked away.

Holy Mother Caa spoke softly to Shadow, “I wish to be your Second.”

“There are many trials approaching.” Shadow said, “I do like what I see, but you have lost a great deal of your previous power.”

“I will regain much of it with time, but with a proper [Reincarnation] I will regain all of it much faster.”

Shadow regarded her. “… I suppose you will.”

Caa grinned, and it was the grin of a drowning maelstrom in human form.

Shadow eventually found a few of the newly-risen whom she believed would be most useful going forward. Lanzoil, Querkooda, and Ta’Kamoil, were supposed to be the ones that Erick wanted for his main House Overseers, but they were off in their own thoughts and plans for now. Erick would have them, if they chose to be had. Others had shown themselves to Shadow and already decided to be a part of all of this.

Holy Mother Caa was chief among them, along with a few former kings and queens and generals and great mages and warriors of various Good lands. Many talents who had taken on all the Contracts of their people in one great act of ritual suicide, to remove those Contracts from circulation, were so very happy to be back, to strike back at Evil. They were perfect. Too perfect, perhaps.

How Erick found that list of his Shadow could only guess, but her best guess was likely the correct one.

Lady Seraphaka or Lady Aelorika were playing cards behind the scenes to bring Good to the land, or to at least erase some Evil. Perhaps that oracle that everyone always talked about in the Celestial Observatory was to blame as well. Or maybe that oracle was just a pawn of Lady Seraphaka and Lady Aelorika. That’s how it usually was.

Shadow was a little miffed at that, but as the Benevolent Dark Queen her anger was a small thing to her plotting. The ‘Good’ Old Fae wanted Good to come back? That was useful for Shadow, for now. Once this was done and Lord Dakka was won over, Shadow would descend upon Nothanganathor with the full weight of this House Benevolence and all the surviving gods of the Old Cosmology, and rip out his heart and eat it.

Shadow breathed deep, feeling a thrill as she imagined eating Nothanganathor’s Everything—

Yasmi interrupted Shadow’s thoughts, “Where is Erick? Is he truly still bringing people back? We’re at 350 revives so far.”

Aryear stood with Yasmi, holding her hand, saying, “The more we get, the easier it will be to overthrow Morbion.”

A third Talent that Shadow had picked up, the former Demon Dragon Heliberko, said, “I still cannot believe that you two are an item. Two thousand years ago they were telling stories in the taverns about how you two were mortal enemies, locked in a horrific battle for the final fate of Paradise Rises.”

Yasmi Bloodgood and Aryear Zumgwy tightened their hold on each other’s hand. Yasmi frowned, and said, “Everyone always gets history wrong all the time, and it is infuriating.”

Aryear added, “It’s a common enough failing, and yet it still surprises me, too. No doubt Morbion is to blame.”

“He still has that Office of Propaganda, yes?” Mother Caa asked. “He had it back when I was alive. He should still have it today.”

They looked to Shadow for answers.

And Shadow was their Benevolent Dark Queen, who knew everything, as she said, “After the fall of Paradise Rises, Wraithborne went on to destroy the Prismatic Wilderness, and thus experienced a blowback by the Balance. The Reformation period was a time of collapse and regrowth and settlement that took a few centuries to solidify. The state of Wraithborne is today as it has been for 5,500 years, with the Primes and the Officers who control the various branches of the Tower. Specific people have changed, of course. The Office of Propaganda is currently controlled by…”

She spoke for a while, answering questions as she knew them. Luckily, she knew most of the answers. Or at least she did when she was her Benevolent Dark Queen self. Memories were fickle like that. Normal Shadow wouldn’t give a shit about Primes and Officers at all.

Being the Benevolent Dark Queen would be good for the rest of this Margleknot excursion, of course, but when it was time to go back to Veird, Shadow would need to abandon this form…

But did she have to abandon this form? No. Not really.

… Could she be the Queen of House Benevolence? Here in Margleknot? For a time, anyway. She had already been here for so long that another 500 years to cement power in this place wasn’t too long of a commitment to consider. Erick would need someone to be in power here for him, as well…

Did she want that?

… Part of her wanted that?

She did want that. Huh. She had fucked up by not giving the Old Fae the face that they should have been given…

Was that an influence of Benevolence upon her?

… it was?

Hmm.

They built a functioning society that continually expands, so… Yes.

The Benevolent Dark Queen approved. Shadow, as herself, hated them, but the Benevolent Dark Queen approved.

Well that was a fun thing to discover.

– – – –

A day after he began, Erick exited the Dead Waiting room, falling out of his ghost and into his real body, fully opening his eyes and fully waking. Cascadio stood to the side, a towering gold and black man with a radiance to his smile that was literally sun-bright. He smiled and chuckled, and he held down a hand.

“You do great work, Erick.”

“I only do as good of work as my allies allow.”

Erick took the god’s hand, and Cascadio hauled Erick to his feet.

“Ahhh! Modesty. It is fine on you,” Cascadio said, “But regality is better. I’m not sure how many of your new people will want to stay your new people once they have true forms, but I believe it is time to see and find out!”

Erick smiled. “I agree. But before we go, thank you for your help, Cascadio.”

“It is I who thanks you, Erick. You brought back hundreds of my people to me. Far more than I requested. Far more than I ever could have hoped for. I would give you a boon, if you would have it.”

Erick almost said that he was just happy to help, but sometimes doing that was a foolish thing to do, for sometimes when powerful people thanked you, it meant that they owed you, and that they wished to discharge that debt. Erick had thanked Cascadio, but Cascadio had thanked Erick.

As Erick looked at Cascadio, silently questioning.

Cascadio nodded. “A boon, both to commemorate the moment, and cement something for future progress. Think on it, if you wish. I do not need an answer at this moment. Consider this: There are many powers of this land of Margleknot that do not exist at all within Veird, or even within resons and Infinity. My followers span ten thousand worlds, in many universes. I have spread far and wide, Erick Flatt. Further and wider than you could truly know at this moment in time. Further than your own Sun in the sky of Margleknot and your son Yggdrasil has sent your Benevolence into this reality.” He smiled. “But perhaps your own sun will eventually catch up to me.” He said, “Think on a wish, and then make it.”

Erick already had something he could ask for. “I want to be able to cancel the spells I have cast at any point in time.”

“… Ha!” Cascadio smiled, saying, “This is easily doable, though I would have imagined you would have wished for something better, like propagation abilities, or undying life tied to Benevolence without needing to be a fae, or additional innate manas. You have created Benevolence, but perhaps you could create something else that suits your evolving existence.”

“I plan on unleashing untold destruction and ever-expanding change soon enough,” Erick said, “So the ability to easily just say ‘stop’ from layers away is perhaps the most important thing to invest in right now.”

Cascadio said, “I will teach you this, for it is a small thing. My debt remains. You can ask for something larger at a later date— Aup! I will not hear otherwise, Erick. You deserve nice things, and some trinket magic is not a nice enough thing.” He waved a hand, and a portal appeared. “Let us step over here for a while to learn this trick.”

The portal led to a land of dark gold floors and a warm expanse.

Erick smiled, and then he stepped through.

– – – –

The land was a large area of burnished-bronze tournament ground or some other type of location, open to the Margleknot sky, with green grass growing in sparse clutches far beyond the edge of the bronze field. A few bronze pillars stood here and there among the bronze land.

Cascadio said, “These are the Training Grounds. Anyone can access one whenever they want. The floor itself is nearly indestructible and if you charge up the floor with power then the people in the area are automatically resurrected at a fraction of the cost of going through the Waiting Room. Every instance of this land is private for every person who comes here, though that sort of security is not that hard to break. There are no real downsides, except that if you’re in this land without exerting power or testing oneself for a while, then it will gradually drive you away. The sky will turn darker, the land will turn colder, or hotter. It might even get brighter. Sounds and then shaking might occur, all in an effort to get you to leave. The final step is a portal simply whisking you away to the Mortal Lands.”

“Huh.” Erick was already inspecting everything. This place looked rather solid. Erick tapped the floor. “What is this?”

“Immortal Bronze. If you can affect it, then you can gain a block of the stuff for your own use. It is a treasure of the land. There are many lands of Margleknot which naturally dispense treasures if you know tricks to them.” Cascadio said, “The real treasures are the people and connections of this land, though. Immortal Bronze is no stronger than the eternal stonewood of your Yggdrasil.”

“Oh! It’s illusion-based, then.”

“Hmm… Correct… ish.”

“Heh.” Erick smiled. And then he poked a pillar nearby with his finger. Nothing happened, of course. And then Erick swiped at it with a dragon claw… And his claw clicked across the surface of the metal, not leaving a single scratch. Next he touched and [Duplicate]d it. And nothing happened. He frowned a little, and then he stuck his aura into the bronze, feeling around for the molecular structure, if it even had one… And yeah, there was copper and tin there, but also an assortment of other metals and something that was not metal at all. A lot of other things. It was also dense as all get out. Erick pulled his aura back, saying, “That’s impressive.”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Cascadio watched, smiling a little, then he said, “There are a few best ways to make magic that you can cancel from a distance. There’s the manual way, the automagic way, and the power-way where the power to do what you ask is grafted onto you by one such as myself. I assume you wish to learn how to do it yourself, though.”

“Yes. I would rather have the power myself.”

Cascadio nodded. “There’s the method of resonating with your spellwork and sending out a destructive pulse along that resonance. That method is wonderful to use in an offensive manner, if you can match harmonies that easily. The boon that I would make for you in this manner would be along the lines of allowing you to erase all of your own spellwork that exists within your direct sight. You might be able to make something similar in that vein.

“Another method involves implanting auto-destructive magic within every spell you cast that can explode Elemental Destruction or other Elements into your cast spell at your command. The final version of such a spell would likely be a thing that you hold that automagically puts kill commands into every spell you cast. The main spell would be, for example, a little sun orb helper that you can crush when you’re done with a specific campaign. This method is difficult for most peoples, because the ways of doing this spell involve either meshing destructive spells into their existing spells which is already difficult enough, or one can make both spells occupy the same sort of space, but have the destructive spell ‘phased out’ until it is time to destroy the main spell. I believe you would call that Paradox Wizardry. I would call it ‘sub-slicing infinity’; putting the destructive stuff on a different… hmm. Wavelength of existence? That works, yes.

“A third method is to simply will your spellwork gone. The ‘just do it’ method. This is perhaps the most reson-intensive option, but it is also the simplest. This involves no mana at all. This is simple action creating simple outcome, because you desire it so.”

… He could ‘just do it’ with resons?

Erick considered…

And then he manually cast a bunch of little lightwards in a wide arc, bringing into existence a thousand little balls of colored light. Some of those balls continued to move away at a fast pace. Some simply remained nearby.

Erick quieted his mana sense, his aura control, and simply stood there, focusing on doing nothing more than measuring his intent against his reson wallet. He wasn’t even sure how to use resons this way.

Empowering magic with resons was easy. All that involved was simply flowing resons into Shapings and Alterings and mana and intent and whatnot, and the resons went where they wanted to go inside the magic, soaking into the spells like the resons soaked into his own body and Status. This sort of ‘soaking in’ that resons could do with spellwork was simple.

But ‘just do it’ was pure reson work?

Hmm.

Erick exerted his… intent… against the floating… orbs?

Hmm.

Erick didn’t feel like he was doing anything at all. Even using resons inside the Dead Waiting Room was easier than this, for in the Dead Waiting Room, Erick knew he was more ephemeral and the rules were a bit more lax in there, since it was all about souls and frameshifting…

… Could he frameshift in real life? Outside of his soul?

No no. Obviously not…