282, 5/6

Erick stepped away from Margleknot, to a different sort of knot of time and space, where three different lives were all tangling together, back on Fenrir. Erick had many other places he wanted to be, but he went here, first, because as soon as he went back to the Cloud Castle over Candlepoint he’d be settled in for the long haul, whatever that might mean.

In Solomon’s Black Castle of Dungeon Island, south of Ascendant Mountain, Erick stepped into the family gathering room on the upper floor.

Solomon stood gathering Genesis and Divinity, arms raised wide, eyes focused forward, gold and silver melding into a large red crystal that was not really Red anymore. It contained the sleeping soul of Debby, or at least what remained of her. Solomon had not been able to bring her back through his [Silver Heart] rituals because she had been trapped inside implacable Malevolence, inside Nothanganathor’s Sign of Power.

But now Debby was here, waiting to be born again.

Destiny lay on the ground, spent. She had been helping until she couldn’t help anymore. All of her attempts to help Solomon bring Debby back had been ruined, and her failure and Solomon’s similar inability, and even Rozeta’s unwillingness to help more than she already had, was threatening to shatter a family-that-could-be.

Erick had stepped into a knot of Benevolence; a black tangle in the Benevolent Sky.

Solomon hadn’t even considered calling out to Erick for help, for to do so would be to admit that he could not do this himself, which would have ruined the ritual in a whole different direction. Wizardry worked best when the caster believed, after all, and Solomon had the beliefs of countless Ericks-that-failed working with him to help him complete this magic already. He was set with help.

But there was a fly in the ointment. Solomon considered himself the ‘Ericks that failed’.

In another, grander and more understandable sort of way, Solomon was trying to do too much. He was trying to bring back every Jane-that-died. That was what was going to ruin the ritual. Solomon’s grand cooperative cultivation had created Fenrir, and he could do a lot in that sort of direction, but that was easy compared to this. The creation of Fenrir was one person using a bunch of other people to make an object in the sky. What Solomon was doing now was trying to do the [Silver Heart] ritual across an infinity of slices of this Layer, bringing back every Jane that ever died. No matter how impressive Fenrir was, it was still just a single object. An infinity of lives was still an infinity of lives.

And then there was another problem. He believed it was his fault that Fenrir failed to trap Nothanganathor.

Those thoughts were poison.

Solomon looked at Erick as he cast, as mana charged the air and flowed into Debby in an endless tide. He gave Erick a look of utter dismay, and sadness, that Erick was going to step in and take over. That once again, Erick would be the one that would succeed, and he would fail, yet again.

Erick didn’t do that, though.

Erick simply said, “You’ve already succeeded, Solomon. You have to let her be born as who she is. You can’t make her everything. She has to do that herself. And she will.”

Destiny propped herself up on her arms, coughing, “You’ve done enou— enough, Solomon.”

Erick had done no magic, and neither had Destiny.

That was why Solomon believed them.

He had done enough.

Solomon’s dismayed gaze turned softer.

He gazed upon Debby, and then he tied up his spellwork, completing the working, cutting off countless other dead Janes that had yet to become part of Debby. He let his magic happen, as it was.

Gold directed silver and Genesis blossomed inside the not-Red crystal, crackling the surface as Debby once again took form, her body materializing in a flashing instant.

Things happened fast from there.

Debby coughed. Destiny said small expletives of thanks to various gods. Solomon fell to his knees, before his daughter. Debby had been changed by the Red, her irises crimson, her hair fire-red, her nails the color of blood. But she was Debby. She was a Jane from another multiverse, taken out of so many different Red Deaths and then brought forth into this life, but mostly she was the Debby that had been born of a dungeon slime, who had decided to become daughter of Solomon, who had died trying to get them all information about Nothanganathor, to wake them all up to the real threat of the Red.

Debby glanced at Erick, but then dismissed him as not her father.

Solomon, though, she stared at, because she could not believe who she was seeing.

Tears of blood rolled down Debby’s stoic face. Those tears rapidly became normal tears, as she whispered, “Dad?”

Solomon went to his daughter and took her into his arms, hugging her tight, “I’m here, Jane. I’m here.”

Debby-Jane held her father, and both of them cried out at the reunion.

Eventually, they would speak about Nothanganathor, multiverses, dungeon slimes becoming people, and all of that. But for now, Father held daughter, and all was good.

Destiny smiled from the sidelines alongside Erick.

Before all the multiverse stuff, and after all the crying yet to come, Solomon introduced Debby to Destiny, saying, “You know Destiny. It’s been a few years and… many different lives since you were here. Destiny is my wife, now.”

A moment of tension snapped.

Debby frowned. “I’m not ready to have a mother yet.”

Destiny laughed, Erick smiled, and Solomon began backpedaling, starting to talk about the multiverse and all of the big topics—

“Before all of that!” Debby looked at Erick, now, saying, “So you’re the uber-god, now? That’s the sense I’m getting from a lingering connection to Melemizargo.”

Erick said. “Right now I’m just an uncle who is very glad to see you— Oh yeah! You didn’t get to be a dragon yet. All your siblings are dragons now. You want to be a Benevolence Dragon? Or you could ask your dad about being a Genesis dragon! Or just a normal dragon; the Dragon Curse is gone.”

Debby’s eyebrows rose as she was left speechless.

Solomon grinned at his daughter as he asked Erick, “Will anyone want to be a normal dragon, if something like the Dragon Curse was even possible?”

“A Dragon Curse can only ever go so far. It only worked on Veird because Veird was so small, and Nothanganathor disrupted all the timelines where the Curse was broken. Veird would have broken out so many different ways if not for Nothanganathor’s various tricks.”

Debby was a little lost, so before she got more lost, she spoke up, “Okay! I want to be a dragon, yes. I want to learn magic now, too, from…” She looked at her father and uncle. “From someone. I want to know everything that happened after I died, too, so that I can make sure it never happens again, and I need phenomenal magic to do that.”

Solomon and Erick looked at each other and made a cooperative choice.

Solomon tried to be unexcited and kinda failed, as he casually said, “I’m sure I have some things I could teach you, if you want to learn.”

Erick added, “Maybe I have some useful magics, too.”

Debby smiled.

– – – –

Erick stepped into the cloud castle carrying a case of beer in cans from Margleknot. The castle was empty and the beer was the good stuff.

He sat down next to Poi, who was watching the false sun set on the horizon, painting the world in oranges and reds. He already had some beer, but Erick set a can down next to him.

Poi did not notice Erick right away, because Poi was in two very different places right now. Here, and also on the inner surface of Fenrir, more than a million kilometers away. He was currently creating a Crossroads with the help of Ascendant Prime and his sister Rizala, who were both in the Mind Mage city of Cerebrum on the second sphere, up above this Former Surface. To say that they were ‘in Cerebrum’ was a small lie, though. They were mostly spread out all over the place, just like Poi was right now.

Poi eventually noticed Erick, though. He blinked a few times, the pale blue light in his eyes returning, and then he gasped a little, before chuckling. “I can see your mind again.”

Erick had opened up his mind once again. It was easy when one was a god, to do many impossible things at once. Using Erick’s memories, Poi cracked open the beer can as though he had been using them all his life, and yet there had never been beer cans on Veird until this moment.

Poi said, “But that’s not all of you?”

Erick smiled. “I’ve got it set up to show you all the normal things I’m thinking, and I can even use normal Mind Magic, too. So there’s no real hiding trick, except for hiding the god stuff. And now you can know how to open a beer can without being told! It’s amazing, all around.” He smirked. “I might even be vulnerable to Mind Magic.”

Poi snorted. “Pity the fools that try that on you.”

Erick chuckled.

After a moment of comfortable silence, Poi said, “I’m glad, Erick. Really happy. Everything worked out.”

“Were there ever any doubts?”

With a small joy in his voice, Poi said, “Soooo many doubts. Everywhere! All the time!”

Erick laughed.

– – – –

Erick lay in bed with Quilatalap, both of them just breathing, holding onto each other, enjoying the moment.

“I love you. I missed you a lot,” Erick said.

“I love you, too. Do you want to talk about where you went?”

“Not really. Not yet. I mostly [Onward]ed it, anyway.” Erick smiled and said, “So about me needing to give you lots of reasons to still love me as you work through your trauma: How about some god sex?”

Quilatalap paused as Erick’s words actually sunk in, and then he started chuckling, his chest heaving under Erick’s arms. “You mean that wasn’t god sex? You’re holding out on me!”

Erick laughed.

It was a good day.

– – – –

The next day, Teressa and Rizala and Dariok held a party at the Cloud Castle for the extended family.

It was a barbecue in big pits with smoke and beer, and bonfires and small talks, and lots of desserts and lots of good times, getting together with everyone.

Everywhere, all across Veird and Fenrir, the same sort of thing was happening, as it could. People met with family. They reconnected in their new lives. They made bread from wheat [Grow]n in fields. They ate monsters grown in dungeon spaces, or out in the wilds. They built cities and made babies. They sailed boats across oceans the sizes of several planets, and hiked up mountains even larger.

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They made houses, and they made those houses into homes.

Back at the cloud castle, Teressa and Dariok introduced a new puppy to everyone, because Lenitha wanted a dog and it seemed like a good time to get one. It was a cute puppy that was already 50 kilos, because they were orcols. Eventually the dog would become the size of a human. Her name was Rex, because Teressa had asked Erick for dog names and that was what he had given her.

The cute little (really very big) puppy bounded everywhere, trying to get everyone’s food, but Lenitha was charged with teaching the puppy how to behave, and she was doing a great job. It helped that the dog was already super smart. Rex was a mixed breed that was part wardog, of the famous Wardogs of Nelboor, and part dober, of the much smaller, but no less famous form of dog that Erick had made out of some [Reincarnation]d shadowolves, down in Candlepoint well over 15 years ago by now. Dobers had become a truly prolific breed, being smart and loving, but able to fend off shadowolves all on their own. There were only about 50 pure dobers right now, but there would be a lot more in the future, for sure. Crossbreeding with [Husbandry] was where most people got their dobers, though, and that’s where Rex had come from.

Rex tried to eat Kiri’s [Familiar] off of her nearby perch.

Sunny was covered in bits of barbecue that she couldn’t really eat, but she really wanted to try, anyway, so Erick couldn’t really blame Rex for wanting to nibble. But Sunny flew away fast and Rex barked and gave chase. Lenitha gave chase, too, trying to get Rex to slow down. Everyone else laughed.

In a quiet way so Lenitha couldn’t hear, Teressa asked Kiri, “Is Sunny becoming herself? Or is that you playing with them?”