269, 2/2

The Blue Corps headquarters was actually inside Ar’Kendrithyst, in the upper layers. It was located at what used to be the Armory.

Quilatalap’s former Trials of the Dark had been thoroughly abandoned when the Shades had abandoned the city. When Anhelia began retaking the land, the Armory had become a point of contention between a whole bunch of various forces, but mostly Stratagold and all the other Geodes which all wanted prime representation in the new land.

This was because Erick had put a small Gate Network inside Ar’Kendrithyst, at the Armory, which led to many different Geodes. Erick had done this mini-Network for the Geodes because the Geodes had asked for it, and he had built it at the Armory because the Armory had a nice ‘Central Avenue’ leading directly north from the place, and that central avenue was home to many people and businesses which all moved in under Queen Anhelia’s new reign. Most everything important was near the Armory, in every direction. Brightwater had been the heart of Ar’Kendrithyst (though the new heart was certainly where the Forward Base of Spur used to be, in the north) but the Armory was practically the lungs; not a lot of the outside world got to see the heart, but it certainly saw the lungs.

And so, the Armory was a point of contention.

Who got to build here? Who got to do anything there at all?

And then the Day of Genesis happened and the Blue Corps came into being and they needed some central space for a bunch of powers to gather, so they kinda smashed through all the points of contention and built right in the center of Ar’Kendrithyst.

The Trials of the Dark did not look how they used to look. No longer was the land mostly open, with a giant mushroom-like black dome in the center, with four side-mushrooms acting as side-Trials.

The Blue Corps grew here.

The buildings were skyscrapers and bridges of imported Bluite crystal from Geode Bluite. What had once been black and solemn, and then had been a series of craters after Last Shadow’s Feast drew all sorts of grave robbers out of hiding, and which then became a land of contention in Anhelia’s New Kendrithyst, was now a shimmery blue brilliance. It was about the most-accessible, brilliant-blue part of the world, and it reminded people a lot of the Core. Bluite was just as insular as Stratagold and all the other Geodes, after all. This show of blue was as rare and beautiful as it was a mark of concerted effort against the Red.

The Blue Corps had offices from every major power in the world.

Erick was interested in the map rooms right now.

Erick opened a lightning portal and stepped into one of the many different map rooms he had made and then installed within an [Infinite Imaging] and a bunch of tech from Margleknot over the last few days. The people in those different rooms went through many different imaging scenarios, all under the watchful gaze of Illustrious Moon, from House Fae of Ar’Cosmos, and Inquisitor Kromolok of Stratagold and Rozeta’s Church, and a few other larger powers, taking control over other individual maps.

Everyone was cooperating with everyone else these days, except for the Angels and Demons, which Erick would get to eventually. Ar’Cosmos, in particular, was working overtime on cooperation. They had gained a lot of new allies in light of the Red Sparks, because the Fae Realm was one of the ways in which the people of this world managed to evacuate from Red attacks now and then.

Inquisitor Kromolok noticed Erick first. He turned, his full-white body and incani-countenance going from concerned over whatever it was they were scanning for right now, to a little relieved. He was full of questions upon seeing Erick, but he realized rather fast that he’d get a few of those questions answered if he simply allowed others to go first.

Illustrious Moon, with her giant amethyst horns and bright purple eyes, took Erick’s arrival with a bright squeal of absolute delight. It looked adorable on the large woman. “ERICK! You’re back! And we’re going to be distant cousins!”

Erick smiled at that. “I can only chat a little, so pardon me for being fast. How is the mapping going? That is what I came here for.”

“Wonderfully.” Illustrious Moon got right down to business, saying, “We’re going through the lists of missing persons and finding tracks, at least. Sometimes we find actual people. The auto-cleansers you have set up at the map and elsewhere haven’t activated at all, so no Malevolence has seeped through the Infinity of this new Scanning Magic, but we’re activating our new [Benevolent Cleanse]s anyway every time we put in a new target. We haven’t spotted any dissolving Red, so we’re pretty sure that there hasn’t been any attacks.” She added, “We’re also very careful to only limit our Scans to Veird-space after that incident in the beginning. That hasn’t happened again.”

Some guy had input a scanning target for someone and not limited the scan to Veird space in the beginning. That target ended up pinging on Fenrir’s shell, and Red invaded the entire map room. No one was injured because they shut it down fast, but that guy was not in the map room anymore. Erick had recast all the magics here after that, just to make sure there weren’t any hidden tricks, or whatever.

Erick didn’t think the guy had meant any harm by it, and accidents happen, but it was too large of an accident for the people here to let go. There had been talk that the guy had been a Nothanganathor sympathizer. That talk hadn’t borne out any fruit, though.

A sympathizer was a specific kind of person, and that guy hadn’t been one of them.

They weren’t face stealers; not exactly.

But they kinda were. Maybe. Sympathizers were suspected copies of people from other side realities that were predisposed to thinking Nothanganathor was right to kill Melemizargo. The first sympathizers had been noticed last year, but they were among the hardest of enemies to find, because they were just normal people who hated Melemizargo and wanted him gone.

And yet, the ‘Nothanganathor Sympathizer’ might not even be a real thing.

It might just be a phenomenon of paranoia.

“Have you found any real Nothanganathor sympathizers?” Erick asked, hating that he needed to even ask that. “Real ones.”

Kromolok spoke up, “It’s still an unproven theory that Red Repros even exist, for even the gods cannot tell them apart from normal people. But all the evidence on the ground supports that Red Repros do exist. And if not them, then mundane sympathizers very much do exist, Erick. A lot of people would rather have Melemizargo gone.”

Erick cast his gaze to the other maps, in the other rooms of the Blue Corps Map Compound. “Looks like no real confirmation of Red Repros, though, based on what I’m seeing?”

Illustrious Moon said, “Sympathizers surely do exist. The Erased One has power from more than Malevolence, and he has gifted that power to the people of this world to sow destruction when he calls for it.”

“Confirmation is the most difficult part,” Kromolok said. “We’re not judging people for taking his power; only for using it.”

“All we’ve really found are petty criminals,” Illustrious Moon said. “The Day of Clouds got rid of the actual face stealers. Also: I heard you were going to make Sininindi responsible for that.”

Erick raised an eyebrow. Illustrious Moon had spoken her words like she was making an accusation of a misappropriation of power. Well. Hmm. Erick decided to simply say, “It’s the truth. Sininindi helped a lot, long ago, and that help continues on until today. It’s not my fault you guys haven’t met all of her fractal selves in other slices of reality.”

Illustrious Moon decided to move past that, and said, “Very well. Where are you off to next?”

“I need to speak to the minotaur nations and the Angels and Demons.” Erick said, “But before that: What can I do for you? For either of you. Individually or together or however it comes.”

Illustrious Moon was suddenly without words. She looked like Erick had gifted her a ‘white elephant’, though that phrase hardly really applied when it came to dragons. How would you pay for the upkeep? The grounds that it would live upon? A dragon would simply eat it.

Kromolok answered first, simply stating, “Talk to Ascendant Prime about the Mark of the Fractal.”

“Already on the list. Does it need to happen now?”

“Within the hour.”

“Then it’s at the top of the list.” Erick asked Illustrious Moon, “Any requests?”

Illustrious Moon decided, “We want to pair up some people with Quilatalap and the Inquisitors and all the rest as you delve into what makes the Awakening Machine work. I know it’s a big ask, considering the history between us and your lover, but… I am still asking for that.”

Erick was a little bit stunned by such a request for a few different reasons. He had thought that Quilatalap’s hatred of the fae had gone to the wayside in light of all the much larger problems out there, and how everyone was cooperating with each other right now. Weren’t Quilatalap and the fae getting along right now? Erick had thought so. Maybe he was wrong. And so, Erick treated Illustrious Moon’s request with the seriousness it deserved; she wouldn’t be asking such a thing in such a way unless there was an actual problem.

Erick said, “Quilatalap is heading up that project along with a few Shades, for Melemizargo is involved there because the whole thing kinda infuriates and baffles him; calls it an ‘affront to divinity’. Ask Quilatalap, and see what happens. I will also ask. You truly would be better served by learning how computers work at all, Illustrious Moon. That needs to come first. The magic in the Awakening Machine is incredibly esoteric.” Erick added, “Either way, that technology is going out to the entire world.”

Illustrious Moon had assumed a deflection and a denial-in-parts, and she was not disappointed in that way. She did a little curtsy, and said, “Our requests are already on file. It’s been a day of no-answer.”

“Ah… That is more easily handled. Be right back.”

Erick departed.

– –

Erick reappeared at the House Benevolence Awakening Machine Research Center, the AMRC.

The place was perhaps the most secure and least secure building on the planet right now. Located north of the Gate District, the AMRC was a collaborative effort of about 135 different peoples to tear apart and understand everything there was to understand about the Awakening Machine. Erick had several of those machines, each working overtime with people stepping in and Awakening their auras, base mana production, and also a low-level Elemental Body, because here on Veird that’s what the Script made of the person who stepped into a machine.

Being inundated by an Awakening was like a person had put on a piece of Elemental Body armor and then absorbed that Elemental essence into their souls, except the machine didn’t use essence at all. It only used elemental-charged metal plates that Erick had set up with a node network and some magical imbues to keep those elemental plates charged up all the way; it was the better solution to replacing the metal plates every 10 Awakenings. Erick had said that he could find a more permanent solution to [Duplicate]ing elemental metals, and he had.

People from all walks of life were currently deciphering everything about the machines that they could, because how they were giving people Elemental Bodies was just one small part of their mysteries. The biggest mystery was how it empowered the Dark Mark in a person.

Erick looked around the center. There were a bunch of different forces in meeting rooms, poking around at some disassembled Awakening Machines and mostly arguing with the tech guys about how stuff worked. The tech guys were kinda furious when the mages just went around touching stuff, but also kinda miraculously happy with the powers the Script had granted them. The tech guys could poke at some broken thing with [Mend] and repair it easily, for tech was not magic, and [Mend], when stressed to perfection, easily repaired broken, highly complicated, small things.

It was only day-4 since this whole thing had started, so most people were still in the organizational stage.

The Shades, Quilatalap, and House Benevolence’s Office of the Overseer of Magic were the only people really understanding what was going on with the magic and soul-influencing of the machines at all, but then again, not really. Yggdrasil was the only one who really understood it all, and he was having trouble getting the rest of them to understand the machines because there was a lot of base knowledge that simply wasn’t there.

And the Script obscured souls.

Erick zipped through the air and landed in a giant hangar with a bunch of disassembled machine parts, diagrams in lightwards everywhere on every wall and in the air, and Quilatalap coming to terms with whatever Yggdrasil said about— What was it? Oh. Souls—

Oh.

Yeah. He could see why Quilatalap was having problems. While Shade Fallopolis and Goldie looked on, and Queen poked around at diagrams at the walls, and Al was nowhere to be found because he made himself scarce whenever Erick showed up—

Quilatalap shook his hands at the diagram in front of him, saying, “But if there is no universal Fractal Mark, how do people cultivate resons? Where is the foundation for a growth when there is no foundation to be had?”

Yggdrasil said, “That’s the thing. Most people don’t cultivate resons. Either way, the foundation comes second.” He looked over to Erick, raised an eyebrow as he probably sussed out everything that Erick wanted to talk about, and probably through some rapid, full-world mana sensing, and then said, “We’ve got all those papers for requests to join the AMRC on hold. Everyone wants to send their best people here but we need people on the front lines still, and the researchers on Malevolence are actually making progress now that they can contain the Malevolence to a small area and not be swimming inside invisible Malevolence, and fucking up everything they’re trying to study. Ar’Cosmos was doing a lot of good research in that direction. They truly should get back to that.”

Erick nodded. “That answers that question. Illustrious Moon will simply have to wait until we’ve secured Veird from annihilation.”

Quilatalap hadn’t even flinched at the mention of Illustrious Moon, and by extension all the other fae, which was good. Erick didn’t expect him to have a reaction against any fae right now, not years past the last incident with one of them, and when they were all in a war for the very survival of Veird. Quilatalap had flinched a lot when Erick spoke of Shadow and had all those necessary conversations, but he seemed fine with the Fae… as much as he could be, anyway.

It seemed that Illustrious Moon’s request had hit a blanket stop, not a personal denial, though Yggdrasil was giving her a personal denial now, if she really wanted a proper answer.

Yggdrasil said, “We’re getting closer to the security of Veird. We’re not there yet, and we won’t be until Nothanganathor is gone, but we’re closing the window on him. He will act soon.”

Quilatalap said, “Just tell House Fae to send whoever they want, Erick, and tell her I’m offended that she even needed to go through you to begin with. I understand what is at stake right now. Tell her I helped them set up all those Malevolence research centers, too. I had thought her battlefield was already full.”

Erick smiled a little. “Sure.”

Quilatalap went back to his diagrams.

Shadows curled around the edges of the space, the Shades watching current events with bright white eyes. Quilatalap was frustrated with a great many things right now, but the look on his face was the one he got when he was truly interested in a project. Erick hadn’t seen that look on that man since he decided to become the world’s premier dungeon master.

Erick said, “I’ll catch you all later, then. I’ve got work.” He did a little nod to Fallopolis, Goldie, and Queen. “Ladies.”

And then Erick left.

– –

Erick stepped into the Blue Corps Map Center again and gave Illustrious Moon the news. He could have done that with a letter, like the one that the AMRC had already sent to her, but it was important to appear everywhere he needed to appear, and to coordinate everything he needed to coordinate, and erase all the friction that he could possibly erase.

Illustrious Moon took the ‘not available right now’ better from him than she had from the letter, saying, “It’s good that there are no diplomatic issues. We were afraid of that.”

“Don’t you already have all your best people on some Malevolence research areas, anyway?”

“We did,” Illustrious Moon said. “Some people went back to that, but after the Day of Clouds ended all projects and forced everyone to start over, some people just could not go back to that, not after a good 19 of them turned out to have been replaced by Malevolent face stealers who had been sabotaging all projects. I do not blame them for their desire to move on.”

Erick’s eyebrows went up. He decided, “End the Malevolence research. Send the people to the Awakening center, and explain these things to Quilatalap or whoever is there. We don’t really need much Malevolent research anyway. Seems almost too dangerous to touch.”

“I agree,” Illustrious Moon said, smiling a little. “Smashing it apart is a much better demonstration of what it’s good for.”

Kromolok spoke up, “Ascendant Prime, please, Erick.”

“Right right!” Erick opened up a portal. “Later!”

And then he was off again.

– – – –

Erick stepped off a part of the ‘Second Layer’ above the ‘Former Surface’ onto a land of Mind Magery and a whole bunch of people living out in the open for the first times in their lives, with all of their mind tendrils getting everywhere. Cerebrum was the name of this place. It was the Mind Mage city; the first of its kind in living memory. Usually these things ended rather horribly with the Mind Mages getting persecuted by this people or that people, with the Mind Mages unwilling to fight back through Mind Magic and prove themselves an enemy.

There was a lot of controversy surrounding this place because Mind Mages were still incredibly powerful; to a normal person this land was full of ‘archmage-level’ people. But controversy was everywhere these days, and the Mind Mages were taking the chance with a singular city, because a lot of Angels and Demons were former Mind Mages, newly risen in Genesis, and they wanted a true neutral ground. This was their neutral ground.

And now, just the other day, Erick had exposed that Mind Mages had proven both uniquely susceptible to Malevolence, and also uniquely resilient, and then there was the information about the Fractal Mark. The current Knowledge Mage reports were filled with rumors that Nothanganathor was leaving the Mind Mages alone because of some Mind Mage bomb that he was waiting to trigger at the exact right moment. Before all that, though, Cerebrum had been a city of peace and prosperity.

Despite all that, Cerebrum was still a lively, nice city, that had everything anyone could ever want, and was probably the place that Erick would be hosting some Angel/Demon peace talks later.

And yet, people were leaving fast. It was an unfortunate thing to happen, but they kinda were threats, without meaning to be. Erick hoped that he could solve that whole gordian knot today, or soon, before Nothanganathor did something weird with the people here.

Erick walked down a wide road that still had people going about their business. Cerebrum was still populated, but it was emptying fast. That’s what people did in this day and age of random, impossibly dangerous monster attacks. Some people had probably left through the Dungeon Gate Network.

It wasn’t a ghost town, though. People still went to the bakeries and to the schools and lawyers offices.

A few people on the street looked at Erick like they didn’t understand what they were seeing. That was mostly because Erick looked like the Apparent King, and yet that would be crazy, right? What was he doing here?

Erick was going about his business, that’s what.

The local Mind Mages stopped trying to poke at Erick with their tendrils and instead decided to leave well enough alone. The street started to empty; not quickly, not in a rush. But it did empty.

And then subtle little mind tendrils wove through the air, directing Erick into a nice little bakery to the left.

Rizala, Poi’s sister, owned the place. She also worked here. After her maternity leave was over and the Day of Genesis created a whole bunch of new lands and this whole city of Cerebrum came into being, Rizala ended up going back and forth from this place a lot. Rizala, her husband Variol, and their child Kenni, still technically lived at the cloud castle at Candlepoint, but this place had their people, and she wanted to be here. She was still technically on maternity leave right now, but she couldn’t sit that still.

Rizala looked almost the same as her brother, Poi, with the same sapphire scales and semi-strict sort of face, but she moved with an easier grace than stiff-backed Poi as she took some bread out of the ovens in the back of the shop, and set it down on a cooling rack. Erick was the only one in the store right now. Variol and Kenni were at school, down the road, at a parent-teacher-faculty meeting about the current state of affairs and what they were doing going forward. Variol wasn’t a Mind Mage, and not everyone was, so they did these sorts of things in public spaces like normal people; because that’s what Mind Mages wanted to be, just normal people.

But the fact remained that they were not normal people, and that they needed special considerations long before this Malevolence-specific-weakness came about. Thus, Ascendant Prime was everywhere here in Cerebrum, along with an assortment of other Ascendants who picked up or discarded names however they saw fit. It was because of those Ascendants that Cerebrum had been completely safe from Malevolent actors these past two years… Theoretically.

The Mind Mages were pretty safe from the war games of the Angels and Demons, though, and that safety was still true.

Rizala saw Erick, startled, and then grinned and turned normal and relaxed for a moment, and then her eyes glinted divine gold.

Poi had only ever been a ‘right place, right time, will-you-let-me’ sort of solution for Erick to talk to the Ascendant Minds, and Ascendant Prime in particular. Rizala had specifically chosen to become the go-between of Ascendant Prime and much of the world a while ago, while Erick had been gone. It was still kinda weird for Erick to speak to Rizala like this. Erick was used to Poi talking with Ascendant Prime’s voice.

Things had changed.

Ascendant Prime spoke with Rizala’s voice and body, saying, “I wondered if those visions on the streets were true. Give me a moment and I’ll be ready.” Her eyes glinted a bit more gold as her hands flexed the air and the ovens turned off and were instantly cool, as though they had not been on at all. Rizala and Ascendant Prime grinned. “I learned some Wizardry! Or resonwork, if you prefer. It’s probably closer to resonwork. It’s rather difficult to do, but I have been able to use reson donations from the entire network in order to create and alter things. Once you notice these things then even the obfuscation of the Script is easily observed.”

“Not to be hasty,” Erick said, “But I heard there was something of an emergency.”

Ascendant Prime paused. And then she made an ‘ah’ face. “Kromolok is correct that this is important and that I wished to speak with you as soon as possible, but it just came up in the last few hours. I would have found time later tonight to speak with you at the cloud castle if you had not shown up sooner.”

Erick focused.

Several things could have happened. Chief among them, though…

Erick guessed, “You finally made contact with Margleknot.”

“We did,” Ascendant Prime said. “We put the Crossing back up enough to cross some sort of invisible threshold and whatever sorts of Fractal Marks we have inside of ourselves were rapidly connected to the Greater Universe. The Fractal Fairy, as you call Them, spoke to me.”

Erick was suddenly worried and thrilled, and then he focused on the worry. Rizala looked okay… “Are you okay?”

Ascendant Prime’s eyes glinted gold as she made a little tilting, unsure-motion with a hand. “We’ll be fine. No mortals were harmed in the contact. A few Ascendants are still pulling themselves together but it’s really hard to kill an Ascendant. Which makes sense. Apparently, we’re technically fae.”

Erick paused.

Fae?

And then Erick laughed. “Fae?! What!”

“Moving right along—”

“Waitwaitwaitwait.” Erick asked, “Back up there?”

They would not be backing up, though, because—

Shadow and Fairy Moon stepped into the conversation. Or rather, they sat down into the conversation, at the table to the side where a bunch of pastries had turned from a display-for-sale into a display-for-eating. Coffee and tea were served as well, and the table was big enough for all four of them to sit around.

Shadow softly smiled, saying, “Hello, Erick. I wanted to wait on this, but we can’t wait anymore.”

Fairy Moon said to all of them, “We are going to win this war but Erick does not need to know how to kill fae yet.” She repeated, “Yet.”

“And I disagree,” Shadow said, “There is no way that Nothanganathor hasn’t attained some level of Eternity, even if it is in single-use form. Probably larger than single-use, what with his Sign of Power. The Ascendant Minds are only half there and they’re already rather unkillable via all traditional methods. This whole conversation is connected.”

“These Mind Mages don’t need to know either, Shadow,” Fairy Moon said.

Shadow said, “The Mind Mages already know.” She looked to Ascendant Prime. “Or they’re able to put it all together easily enough.”

Ascendant Prime said, “We ended up contacting the Fae Enclave directly, and a few different halfway-houses of Mind Mages out there in the rest of the universe.” She sat down at the table, saying, “It was enlightening.”

Erick supposed he should sit down, too, so he did. “There are a lot of things I haven’t even touched upon yet, because there is too much to be done right now.” He wrapped them in a [Hasted Shelter]. Ascendant Prime had a moment of slowness because most of her was outside of the Shelter, but she adjusted fast enough. When she was fully present, Erick continued, “Like the Fractal Mark at the center of Mind Mage magics, and how I want to open and use that power, and how to use that power, and also how to negate Nothanganathor’s Sign of Power, which is apparently this thing called ‘Eternity’?”

“It’s all tied together,” Shadow said. “To the thing called Life.”

Fairy Moon resigned herself to the fact that this was happening. She sighed. And then she asked, “Do you know why most fae start life small?”

“Firstly, I haven’t really seen any small fae, and all the small fae I’ve seen are purposefully small and I doubt that is what you meant.” Erick said, “But I can make an educated guess to this brand new information you’re telling me.”

Shadow and Fairy Moon both raised eyebrows at that. Ascendant Prime just watched through Rizala.

Shadow asked, “You never saw a baby fae before?”

“Nope.”

Fairy Moon frowned. “But we have a baby fae in Ar’Cosmos. You saw him. He’s Grub. He’s still a baby, too; barely ten thousand years old.”

“This is literally new information for me.”

Fairy Moon said, “Big eyes, grey scales, kinda lizard-like— You have seen him!”

Erick did recall something that stood out to him, now that he was thinking about it. It was a lizard-like grey thing that haunted every windowsill of Fairy Moon’s mansion in Ar’Cosmos. Erick hadn’t seen that thing since then, and he certainly hadn’t thought about it. “That was a fae? I thought that was a guardian to keep me from escaping via the windows.”

“That’s Grub!” Fairy Moon said. “He’s a baby so he escaped being confined to the Elemental Fae Bands of Intent, mostly because I kept him intact. He doesn’t do diddly but guard great places of power and pretend to be powerful by way of appearing innocent in incongruent scenarios, and yes, he might have munched on you, but he wouldn’t have killed you. Just kept you still for a second or several.”

Shadow countered Fairy moon, “Grub would have taken his legs to keep him still. Arms too, maybe.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Erick suddenly remembered— “Oh! Tasar once told me about a second fae in Ar’Cosmos… Why is this the first time I’ve heard of his name?”

“Because when people pursued him I killed them most cruelly,” Fairy Moon said, solidly. “But he is a baby fae, so yes, you have met a baby fae.”

“I guess I have.” Erick moved on, making a guess regarding Fairy Moon’s question on the nature of small fae and how they grew, saying, “Baby fae are small and unformed because their ‘Simple As’ purpose has yet to rise to the level of self-reflection and multiplicity that is required for them to be a person who walks streets and buys bread from bakeries and pays taxes. That takes thousands of years. Small fae are vulnerable in this time frame more than most, either from soul magics or from a corruption of purpose, like taking a waterborn fae and trying to raise them in the desert. They wouldn’t necessarily die, but they would become something they were not.”

Shadow smiled, saying, “Paying taxes is something we almost never do.”

Fairy Moon paused. She went, “That’s the mostly-true truth there; you sussed that out rather succinctly.”

Shadow chuckled. And then she added, “It’s not a bad thing to take the water fae and put them in a sandy environment. It might kill them, yes, but it might spur their growth.”

Fairy Moon said to Shadow, “I hope you would never do such a switching, Shadow. That sand pit might have grown its own growth, but such an action would have purloined the purpose of both locations and only originated one life instead of two. Sure, the two people take more time, but we have a terrific amount of time.”

Erick left that particular conversation alone and extrapolated what another part of this conversation was about, saying, “Ascendant Prime has come to this ‘Simple As’ existence from the other direction; through multiplicity they are remade every time pieces fall apart—” Erick had a moment.

A completely different idea suddenly came to him.

About creating an environment and then filling that environment.

He looked at Shadow, Fairy Moon, and Ascendant Prime, and asked a question he felt like he already knew the answer to, “If we create a gap in the world that is where an Erased person is supposed to be, will that gap be filled with the person that got Erased? Or is this ‘from something: a fae’ phenomenon only usable to make more fae? And can we use the Fractal Mark to do this? To implant memories in people about those who should exist, and thus make those people who have been Erased once again whole?”

The idea had just sort of plopped out there and it wasn’t fully formed at all, but…

It was there.

Most of the pieces.

Ascendant Prime was suddenly having a moment, too.

Rizala’s gold eyes dimmed as Ascendant Prime went Elsewhere for now. He was still there, in the background, but he wasn’t currently inhabiting Rizala, and now Rizala was sitting with arguably the 3 most powerful people on the planet. She was used to 1 powerful person; not 3, and certainly not the Creator of the Painted Cosmology.

Rizala tried to keep her calm as she asked, “Anyone care for some tea— Ah. The tea is already here.” She added, “But I have special blends.”

Shadow smirked, saying to Rizala, “I saw the special blends, but I wasn’t about to take them without being offered. I would love some special blends of tea. Perhaps that darkly floral one you have back there?”

“At once.” Rizala got up and went to the space behind the glass displays, to the tea and coffee prep area. She got out some packets, offering, “I have ‘Dark Garden’?”

“I’ll take it,” Shadow said.

Fairy Moon was having a moment, too, which is why she had been quiet. And then she huffed a little, chuckled once, and said, “I suppose we can push past all the carefully constructed cause and creation speeches and soliloquies I had prepared previously and arrive at the simple start of an answer to Erasure just like that.” Fairy Moon said, “Be forewarned, father of futures: It is not easy to make a miracle like the one that you have sighted on the most distant of horizons. You likely won’t be able to actualize it at all. You must find another to grab this gain.”

“Solomon can do it, now that we have a battle plan.” Erick said, “I would like to hear your speeches on the nature of Life and Eternity, though, if you would say them.”

Fairy Moon shook her head a little. “You have a small solution. The powerful prayers I have sorted can be saved for Solomon. We also felt it best for him to behold these truths, but we wished to approach you for your acumen first. Now that we have it, we will begin plans to plot for Solomon’s security of power.”

Erick nodded. “Great! Moving on, then:” He said, “I would like to know your opinion on the nature of the divinity of Ascendant Prime. Is he a Fractal God, or a Painted God? Beholden to the masses, or a person unto himself, unburdened by the Curse of Power?”

Rizala glanced Erick’s way as she made tea, and then Ascendant Prime was back, saying, “I’m many people?”

A curious thing to say, when said in that way. She didn’t know what she was herself.

Fairy Moon looked to Shadow, to see if she had an answer; this was Shadow’s realm of power, after all.

Shadow said to Ascendant Prime, “You’re a Painted demigod. You have a nascent mantle made from Darkness and you are not actually Ascendant at all. You’re more of a fae made of a whole lot of Life, and your golden coloring comes from the resons you contain and the belief that you should be gold, rather than anything else.” She waved a hand, saying, “But that’s like describing me by the color of my hair or my height; it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just hair color. The Painted God versus Fractal God does mean something though; that’s the difference between a person and an idea. Continue to develop your Dark Mantle and await for Melemizargo to bestow upon you a Spark. Do not seek out more Fractal Power, or else you will truly lose your individuality.”

“… I will keep that in mind,” Ascendant Prime said. And then she set a four-person tea preparation down on the table. “Tea?”

Shadow took a cup, saying, “Smells wonderful. Now let’s talk about how to kill a fae.”

Fairy Moon had objections. She kept them mostly to herself, as she said, “If there were another way to go about this then I would have preferred that, but since Nothanganathor has some sort of Fractal Mark of Life, then you are going to need to learn how to kill fae, even if the Erased One isn’t technically ‘Ascended’.”

Ascendant Prime said, “This is rather adjacent to our desire to speak with you, Erick, for we also imagined that Nothanganathor was somewhat fae, because he has that Sign of Power.” She looked to Shadow and Fairy Moon, adding, “That’s what the Fractal Fairy told us.”

Shadow sat back in her chair, saying, “Let’s talk about that first, actually.”

“Bah,” Fairy Moon said, lightly. “That Fractal came all the way to talk to you and They didn’t pop in to the party we’ve been having? Sometimes I don’t know why I even bother with the Old Fae.”

That comment merited discussion.

“Okay. First:” Erick said, “Is the Fractal Fairy a fae, or the Universe Itself?”

Fairy Moon and Shadow both looked at Erick.

Shadow said to Fairy Moon, “There’s not much difference?”