Chapter 257, 1/2

Chapter 257, 1/2

Erick Flatt, [60-ish] [Current Year: 1453 (Veird, layer 789), ??? (Margleknot)] [CURRENT REALITY=Layer 0, Margleknot]

Mana split; Soul, Body, Mind: 34%, 33%, 33%

Soul: 32.5m per day / 376 per second , [Darkness Level = 2.19x Ascension baseline]

Body: 207

Mind: 304

Overall Stability: ↑↑ [+376, -3] Basic upkeep

Mp: 5.8m/∞, ↑ [+128, -1] Basic upkeep

Hp: 5.7m/∞, ↑ [+124, -1] Basic upkeep

Pp: 5.7m/∞, ↑ [+124, -1] Basic upkeep

Resons: ??? [???]

- - - -

Erick stood on the balcony of his house in Margleknot, under a sun-filled sky.

One more sun held in that sky today, as compared to yesterday. That was Erick’s Benevolence Sun... or at least that’s what he was calling it in his mind. Anyway.

Message stars continued to pile up by the gate to his house like explosions of fireworks.

He would get to the starscape of messages soon enough, and all the rest of all the tasks he had set for himself, but first he wanted to do a few things to make the rest of this time easier.

Resons were the uber-currency of Margleknot, as far as Erick knew, though he was rather certain that many places took many other currencies. For the average person, 1 reson was 1/1000th a resurrection, and that seemed way more important than buying bread for the day, especially if people only made 1 reson a day, or something like that. Erick honestly did not know. ‘How many resons does a person make per day?’ was among the many, many questions that he simply didn’t know, and hadn’t really thought to ask anyone when had been asking those questions. Whatever the case, resons could be ‘used up’, and ‘go dry’, like Erick had been back there at the final casts of [Reson Gathering] up there on that sun, which meant they were limited.

And therefore smaller currencies must exist, because bartering ‘this’ for ‘that’ simply wasn’t viable... as far as Erick knew. Maybe smaller economies in Margleknot did bartering? Large economies did not barter, for sure... right?

Erick truly didn’t know.

He needed some experience with the economy, but first he needed a ‘wallet’.

He already had a ‘wallet’, technically. Resons naturally existed inside people, where they naturally accrued based on personal drive and desire and ‘reasons for being’, sticking alongside everything else that made a person a person.

He also had a way to force production of resons, through [Reson Gathering], and throwing [Renew] at the gatherer.

Now, to make all the rest of this easier, Erick needed his mana-to-reson generator to be an internal system that slipped more resons into his very being and which allowed him to ‘open the tap’ and pour out crystallized resons on command from, like, his aura? Erick wasn’t sure about that. But. Yeah. That sounded good.

Okay! Basic logic solved for.

Now to make it happen...

“I think I know what sort of gift I want to give Lionshard for his help, too.”

Erick went inside of his house to sit on a pillow in his mage tower. The Malevolence Beast was still alive on the first floor down there, but it wasn’t doing anything. It remained locked down, and that was good enough for now. Maybe Erick would do something with it later? Maybe not.

Anyway.

Erick sat down on the third floor of his mage tower and peered inside of his soul.

The entirety of his Status, in Benevolence crystal form, floated before him. It was made with Book-shaped Benevolence and other Elemental crystals, and it was a lot more complicated than an Escher painting. Still understandable, though. [Reson Gathering], his new spell which he had made, floated right over there. It was a multidimensional button he could press which did many things, all at once, all of them completely unlike most of Erick’s other spells.

Ignoring the complexity of the spell itself, and frameshifting to make that vision so, Erick saw the spell shift into a simple Renew-symbol that was not simple at all. It became a web-like construction made of many filaments that coalesced into most-of-a-circle, with stretched-out tendrils going everywhere. All of that central construction was focused on the break between the ends of the symbol. The spellwork would take in mana from the space around it, and make resons in that crack.

All of that looked good.

Erick frameshifted again, looking inward to himself, and to the symbol, and he saw more filaments connecting the two. Erick had frameshifted to see how his body connected to the spellwork, to see how mana got from inside to outside, and into proper shapes. This, then, was some of the way in which Erick used his own resources to cast this spell.

[Reson Gathering] was not a spell that was cast using mana, though. Or at least not fully. It was a spell made of Benevolence, and Erick saw where his mana fit into the spell, but there were only 9 bits of Benevolence in there. [Reson Gathering] was primarily a spell cast using resons.

Tracing those reson lines...

Oh.

Erick saw a forgotten memory that he had heard about a long time ago, but which never really came up, for various reasons.

Inside of his soul, inside of his physical body, and inside of his mind, were shadowy lines of power that connected to the space that used to hold the core in his chest. Those shadowy lines were his mana channels, and yet, they were not.

In his ascension, Erick had become a fully crystallized being and also a person of flesh and mind. His original core was gone. The mana channels that his body used to have running alongside his veins and nerves, in a shadowy duplication of his circulatory and nerve system, were gone.

He had never used them anyway. The Script and basic physical biology did that better.

Quilatalap had spoken a few times about how mana channels in the Old Cosmology were useful for keeping the body intact, and for exploring one’s aura, but they were an obsolete system from the Old Cosmology. Those old channels were what one used to balance oneself and rid oneself of unwanted mana. Now there were blood and nerves and a digestive system that emptied out concentrated mana from the body in order to prevent monsterization. The Script did aura exploration a whole lot better, too.

The old mana channels still existed, though, because they were a very important part of how things used to be in the Old Cosmology. Inertia that large could not be denied.

Erick had completely ignored his mana channels when he ascended, though.

But since he had desired to keep the same sort of body, here were some mana channels that he never used, reappearing again in an unexpected way.

His actual body did not have mana channels. Erick checked himself out in the real world for a good four minutes to make sure of that. And yeah; he had no mana channels.

But his spellwork thought he had mana channels.

The reson ‘wallet’ of his body was all throughout his soul, mind, and body, but [Reson Gathering] seemed to be attached to the lines of his former mana channels just a little bit more than all the rest of his crystallization. Even as he watched the spell inside of him, as he gazed upon its connection to his resources, he watched those possible connection lines of his soul and his spell shift a little, like the moving of a target. Those movement lines flowed alongside the spaces that would have contained his mana channels just a little bit more than they flowed everywhere else.

Honestly, if Erick hadn’t checked out this whole reson-wallet problem, looking for a way to stuff more resons into himself, then he probably never would have noticed this about himself. Or at least he wouldn’t have noticed until some unknown time down the road.

... The memory of mana channels inside of his crystallized self were... something.

Erick wasn’t sure if they were a weakness or not.

They were a foible; a way of being and doing that didn’t need to be that way, but which simply was.

They were how his spells activated; where the resources for them came from, when Erick wasn’t directing that power himself, through his aura. When he had his aura out he could make magic happen anywhere inside his aura, because his aura was him. Otherwise his Mana, Health, and Psyche, remained inside of his body, growing denser and denser over time. His mana channels were...

“Not really important now, actually.”

Erick considered why he started this exploration of himself in the first place.

He wanted to make a system to hold extra resons in his body. Did he need to figure out his obsolete mana channels? No, he did not. Might be something fun to learn eventually, but he didn’t really care about them, and his Lightning Path was telling him that whatever he was observing right now wasn’t important at all.

So Erick ignored his ‘not-mana-channels’, and went back to his [Reson Gathering] spellwork.

He copied the spell inside of his body. That took some doing, but he got it done, and now he had two of the same spell.

The second one automatically hooked into his everything exactly as the other one had, sending filaments out into his Soul, Body, and Mind. The basic form of the spell was exactly the same as the other one, and would produce a reson-Renew outside of his body, wherever he wanted it to be.

Erick came back to himself, breathed for a moment, taking some time to let time pass, because if he fucked up this next part he wanted to be able to easily return to this time period, and a larger break meant easier targeting for [Return].

And then he delved back into his Status.

Taking the second [Reson Gathering] into his control, Erick plucked at the ‘logistical’ filaments that would have created an exterior gatherer, drawing all mana inside of the gatherer and making resons, clipping all of them off. Now he was left with a [Reson Gathering] that only took from his own body.

It only took in 9 Benevolence and a bunch of resons, though.

Erick restrung the spell, adding logistical filaments to the reson production, and then stringing those ‘exit points’ all throughout his entire body. Those exit points for resons weren’t really there, and Erick wasn’t really doing what he seemed to be doing. This was all conceptual, frameshifting soulwork, but it should work exactly as he intended it to work.

And now he had a spell that was inside of him, that took his resources and made resons and put those resons into his own Status.

Erick already had a part of his Status which could measure those resons, too, and which could keep track of some of those resons.

All the plumbing was there inside of him to let him just... hook up this new part and see what happened! But that seemed like a dangerous step.

So Erick came back to himself and took another break, giving himself another ‘save point’ to come back to if he messed up...

Erick considered.

His Status had Book Magic in order to allow him to classify stuff inside of himself. Did this mutation of [Reson Gathering] work right, in that classification, Book Magic sort of way? Erick called up his Status box for this new spell, to see if that part of his Status worked like he imagined it would.

Words appeared in the air.

Reson Wallet, permanent self-enchantment, ?????

Make a reson gatherer inside of your soul and turn on the money. 9 mana to 1 reson.

Unintended side effects? Probably.

Erick grinned at that, and then he laughed.

“It worked! ... Probably.”

Erick had a think.

“... It’s fine? It’s fine.”

And then he went back inside his soul.

With careful touches, Erick made a ‘tube’ of resources from his Darkness, which went to his Status, and then he hooked up a connection from his Status to [Reson Wallet], and then back again. The tap was not turned on. This was just getting the starting stuff ready.

Erick wondered if he had created a New Stat. ‘Reson Wallet’. An odd name for a Stat, for sure.

Erick pulled out of himself and checked his Status.

- -

Erick Flatt, [60-ish] [Current Year: 1453 (Veird, layer 789), ??? (Margleknot)] [CURRENT REALITY=Layer 0, Margleknot]

Mana split; Soul, Body, Mind: 34%, 33%, 33%

Reson allocation rate: 0%

Soul: 32.5m per day / 376 per second , [Darkness Level = 2.19x Ascension baseline]

Body: 207

Mind: 304

Overall Stability: ↑↑ [+376, -3] Basic upkeep

Mp: 5.8m/∞, ↑ [+128, -1] Basic upkeep

Hp: 5.7m/∞, ↑ [+124, -1] Basic upkeep

Pp: 5.7m/∞, ↑ [+124, -1] Basic upkeep

Resons: ??? [+???]

- -

Erick smiled wide. “OKAY! Wow. That worked. Okay. Good.” And then he chuckled nervously. “Now to turn on the tap—” He paused.

He thought.

“... does this count as a New Stat anyway? Can I... quantify this? Find out how many resons I have baseline?”

... He thought.

“No. Resons are simply not quantifiable; not really. That little bottom readout isn’t ever going to be right, either, just like how the Darkness level is incorrect. I have no idea how to measure Darkness, and no clue at all how to measure resons. Darkness is only estimated based on the initial start I had when I ascended, and just to know how far I have come, or if anyone tries to steal my Darkness. Resons are similarly unknowable, but I can certainly count out how many I might create from here on out... Probably.”

... Probably.

Erick nodded.

And then he went back inside of himself and turned on the tap.

Just a little bit!

Erick watched as mana flowed from his Darkness, through his foundational Stats, forming the basis of his crystallized self, and then to his Status, forming the simultaneous layer of his entirety. That’s where it struck his [Reson Wallet], and changed. White became gold and then flowed back into Erick’s Status, and into his everything.

... It seemed to be working. Nothing was breaking.

His little reson-creation system system could be recognized, removed, and remade at a moment’s notice, though. This set up... seemed okay? It seemed okay; yes.

Erick watched the reson system for a little while, watching Benevolence flow out from his everything, into a part of his everything that made goldish-resons, and then flow back into his everything, the resons fitting in smoothly with everything else. The resons were slightly gold colored, but when they slipped into Erick’s soul, mind, and body, they became nothing once again. They were there, for sure, but they weren’t knowable.

Which was exactly what Erick had wanted.

Okay! Good.

Erick came back to himse—

Well this is not ideal.

Erick was crusted over with golden crystal. It was 5 centimeters thick in some places.

Erick checked parts of his status again.

- -

Mana split; Soul, Body, Mind: 33%, 31%, 31%

Reson allocation rate: 5%

Soul: 32.5m per day / 376 per second , [Darkness Level = 2.19x Ascension baseline]

Overall Stability: ↑↑ [+361, -3] Basic upkeep

Mp: 5.8m/∞, ↑ [+124, -1] Basic upkeep

Hp: 5.7m/∞, ↑ [+116, -1] Basic upkeep

Pp: 5.7m/∞, ↑ [+116, -1] Basic upkeep

Resons: 1 [+19 = +2] Warning! Improper storage.

- -

Erick moved like an unstoppable force covered in ice. Resons broke to the ground like so much amber, shredding Erick’s already-mangled clothes even further. As he moved, gold crystals broke away from uncomfortable places, and fell in sheets from his thighs and chest and back. Resons continued to fall from his skin, pushed out of his body like manifested honey that rapidly hardened, even as he moved around, like a continual rain of golden sand.

Erick mentally flicked off all reson allocation and the gold dust stopped. He shook out his hair and rubbed the resons from his eyes and other places, and then he put his hands on his hips.

He though—

Which was phenomenal, for him.

But Margleknot’s conversion rate was 10 to 1.

So this didn’t actually help him at all.

Lionshard would continue to use Margleknot’s banking system. He had explained that to Erick who seemed to have taken that news okay, and also some other, odder way. At the mention of Margleknot’s bank, Erick got too chaotic to read. Lionshard let that bit of weird chaos go in order to get back on topic. ‘No’, Lionshard had explained, ‘Thank Margleknot (‘Yggdrasil’, Lionshard supposed) you have not upset Margleknot (the city) as much as you think you have.’

It was a good thing that Erick hadn’t upset the Balance too much...

“But this is touching a fate too large, for sure. And yet, Benevolence is in response to Malevolence, so is this a Balance shift at all? ... Yes, it is. Malevolence was never that strong, but Evil has been rather stronger than Good for a long time. So this was... a good thing?” Lionshard was having trouble reading that particular Fate. “... Whatever the case, people are going to be shifting toward Benevolence cultivation, for sure.” Lionshard hummed as he inspected his gift. After several minutes, he decided, “This is really too extravagant of a gift. I need to give him something better in return... What, though? What could possibly be better than this? This is... A lot of money, as soon as I deign to hire someone to make resons for me cheaper with this. I would need to raise someone to power, though that shouldn’t be too hard. As for this artifact itself... Well it’s archival grade, for sure. I’ll have to put it on a pedestal, I think. Where should it go?”

Lionshard hummed and thought.

He had been meaning to organize the Margleknot archive section anyway. This would be a good new centerpiece? Yes. That worked.

“But what gift to give Erick in return?”

Lionshard thought, and thought, and thought, and eventually Guided Fate toward a good decision for himself.

“Ah. Clothes and food— Or rather fabrics and directions of where to find food he would like. Yes. That’s a better idea.”

Lionshard opened his messaging book and found an old standby.

“Hello. I would like to place an order for moonglow, sunglow, darkglow, and lightglow base fabrics, and a wardrobe of suits and various other clothes to fit the new Father of Margleknot... Yes, this is a real order. Yes, this is actually Lionshard calling you— This is still Lighthold’s Weavery, yes? I know I called the right number— Sure. I’ll hold.”

Lionshard frowned a little. Was Lighthold’s going downhill? No, surely not. Lionshard would have called someone else if they were. Lighthold’s was still one of the best tailors in all of Margleknot, right? Right. When had he ordered clothes from them last, though? ... Oh. 3,551 years ago. Ah.

That would explain why they didn’t know it was him.

... Maybe he was too much of a hermit—

“Ah! Hello, Lighthold— Oh. You’re his son? Oh he passed? Ah. I’m sorry to hear that. 1,500 years ago? Ah. I have been out of current events for a while. My condolences. Can you still do— Ah! You can? Wonderful.” Lionshard smiled. “I have a big order for you. Yes, for the new Father of Margleknot. He got me a gift and I need to get him one, and I thought of clothes, and I thought of you— Your father, but I look forward to your work, too. So that’ll be moonglow and...”

- - - -

Erick stood on the grass of the lands of his property and asked the air, “I have a bank account?”

Words appeared.

You have an account which is only accessible here, in Margleknot. Your current balance is: 0

Current income: 167b per day

Current expenditures: Max.

Time till finished: <>

If you want to pay for anything at all, you can stop funneling resons into the projects you have lined up and then pay for something, but your personal reson wallet is more than sufficient for common needs. Paying off the resurrection costs for people is a never ending process. I’ve devoted 50% of your income to that, and the rest to the lineup of needs you’ve already handed over to Lionshard.

“... Huh. Okay.” Erick said, “Thanks, Yggdrasil!”

The words in front of him bobbed, and then vanished.

Erick turned around and went out the gate of his front property, stepping—

- - - -

— onto black crystal roads. English-looking black crystal buildings lined both sides of the wide, black road. Steep roofs and balconies were everywhere, with little signs in curled script hanging off of black crystal bars above doors. People walked to and fro, headed here or there. That place over there was a bar. That place over there was an apartment building. There was a messenger office, which Erick assumed was for sending out letters like the stars he had gathered by his front door. There was a grocery. A spice store. Clothing store. There was a lot, and all of it looked high-end.

Prices ranged from 1 reson to 3 resons to a few more esoteric currencies for the odder items. A piece of clothing in that store that looked like a cloak made of Illusion cost ‘1 favor’, which was both interesting and telling. There was a bit of a barter system going on, but most transactions were done in resons.

Erick was glad he had made his wallet, even if Margleknot already had an automagic banking system.

Erick widened his senses a little, extending his sight up through a little pseudopod of aura. The city stretched out before Erick, and behind him. He had stepped through a black archway on the side of the road, and into a land of powers and so very many different races of people. He saw winged people and orcs-but-blue and people made of rocks and people that looked human but who had long ears— Ah! Some sort of elf, Erick imagined. Maybe they were astraelif, the ‘cosmic people’, and whom most would consider the dominant race of this cosmology.

Some people looked at him like he was strange, and then went about their days.

Erick loved that.

He was just another guy— Ah. He had forgotten to put his horns away. Or shrink down some. Ah. This was fine? Sure. This was fine. The city seemed full of horned people, or people with oddities and whatnot. He was pretty much average-sized right now, it seemed... Except for when it came to those really short people over there, moving in a group. They looked like goblins but with seafoam green skin and bodies like tiny supermodels. Kinda weird.

Erick went to find the Black Crystal Tavern, just to see what Shadow was up to. She might be mad, which was fine. In his defense, he had been busy getting his house in order. His house was still very much not in order at all, but that was fine, for now.

Erick stepped onto the road and walked down the way, only now realizing that he didn’t have shoes.

... Eh, the centaur guy over there didn’t have shoes, either, and neither did the lizard people buying bread in that bakery over there. Some of the astral elfs didn’t have shoes either... but those people looked like bums in dirty clothes and with dirty faces— Actually, the dirt on their faces was applied artfully, and their clothes only looked ripped and with shredded edges. That was on purpose.

Erick probably looked more like a bum than those guys...

Oh. Shit. He did look like a bum.

Erick smiled.

He loved this even more. He was just a bum going on a walk on the town! This was great.

Erick strode down the side of the street, walking with traffic to a place outlined in Yggdrasil’s Guidebook. The edge of the Old Dragon district was rather only a few kilometers wide, at the widest, but it was incredibly long. How long? Tens of thousands of kilometers long. And yet it only looked 4 kilometers long.

To the left of this black crystal land stood mirages of houses beyond ephemeral gates. To the right were gates leading to mortal lands. Here in the middle, in this infinity of length that looked 4 kilometers long, were repeats of businesses, but no repeats of houses or apartment buildings. People lived wherever they wanted, and they could visit the same bakery every day if they wanted, but the bakery over there was repeated in this same ‘4 kilometer length’ of the black crystal district over and over and over. Did they really visit the same bakery every day if they chose the one right next to their house? If they chose the one right next to their house, then yes. If they picked a different one, on one of the other iterations of the Black Crystal District, then that question was not so easily answered.

‘The Bakery’ —which was named exactly that, simply ‘the Bakery’— only looked like a normal bakery in a single building in a normal location with a footprint several tens of square meters large. In truth, the Bakery was actually a multi-dimensional bakery that existed alongside the entire length of the black crystal part of the Dragon District. It had a few thousand employees, and every repeat of the edge of this Dragon District was just another expression of the same building.

If Erick walked down the far edge of the place, he would end up behind himself and in a different sub-layer of infinity, and find slightly different people living in a slightly different ‘same district’.

The only way in which it was not a simple 10,000 kilometer long repeating place, was that if you wanted to meet a specific person, and if they wanted to meet you, then you just agreed to meet ‘at the bakery’ or ‘at the Black Crystal Tavern’, and you would be able to do exactly that. If you walked with the intent of finding a bakery that wasn’t crowded, you would end up there in 4 short kilometers, at the longest. If you wanted to see a big crowd somewhere, you could do that, too.

It was all about walking with intent.

And so, Erick walked with intent, down the road, ignoring the first Black Crystal Tavern he came to, looping around to the next sub-layer, to walk by the bakery once again.

And then he found the Black Crystal Tavern.

Shadow peeked out over the railing overhead, spotted him, and yelled out, “Took you long enough! Get up here! I’ll buy you a beer.”

Erick chuckled. “Sure, sure.”

The Black Crystal Tavern was a place of ‘adventurer ambiance’, as they would have called it back on Veird. Or ‘delver ambiance’, these days, with the dungeons and all. That first phrase was still hard-indoctrinated into the lexicon of many different people back home, though. This place would have suited them all well.

Wooden structure. Cozy, inviting lighting. A bard playing soft music on a fiddle on stage. People in coats and nicer clothes sitting in booths, drinking beer or wine and talking in low voices, or cheering with each other and eating food and spilling beer... Except no beer got spilled.

It was the little things that let Erick know this place might look lower class, but it was very, very high class. Beer never spilled; it flowed all the way out of the cup, but then flowed right back in. Sawdust, ostensibly meant to make it easier/safer to clean up and walk around drunk upon, had no beer spills, or blood, or even vomit. It was perfectly clean, and kept that way, because no one vomited, or maybe those messes were simply cleansed away when they happened. The stuff behind the bar was all boomingly magical; it was like looking at artifact level enchanted stuff, and worse... Or maybe just like looking at resons, now that Erick realized how he was thinking, and what this place actually was. There were multiple floors to the place, and as Erick looked up through the open-air center of the bar, to the upper floors, he saw the floors extend up to infinity, or maybe just 10,000 or so. Hard to say—

“Hello! Is this your first time here?” asked a pleasant looking young woman wearing simple barmaid’s clothes, but a barmaid from some other world. She had a weird, ‘art fashion show’ sort of look to her, but only in small ways, from the cut of her collar to the white tunic which held up her ample chest like a corset. “I’m going to assume it’s your first time.”

Erick smiled, and said, “Yes. Sorry if I was staring. Everyone is very different from back home.”

The young woman smiled kindly, then said, “How about a first drink on the house, then. Come on over here.”

Erick easily followed the woman to the bar.

She went behind the bar and grabbed a cold mug, asking Erick, “We’ve got all sorts of flavors. Name it and we got it, and if we don’t have it, we can get it. Your free beer is gonna be one of the cheaper options, though.”

Erick chuckled, then said, “I’d like 5% alcohol on something even-bodied. Not dark, not light. Something that you’d drink with a nice sandwich. I’d also like to know what they actually cost, because I’m a bit lost on that and none of your prices are labeled.”

The woman nodded as she smiled, then she turned to the seven beer taps behind the bar. She gripped one of them that was a dark beer, but she didn’t pull that one. She moved it to the right, and, like the wall wasn’t a solid wall at all, she spun the entire beer tap selection like a frictionless treadmill toward the side. Beer taps appeared and then disappeared as that part of the wall, and that part of the wall only, slipped on by—

She grabbed a handle, stopping the treadmill and pouring the beer in the same motion. She had picked out something called ‘Simple As’, and it looked and smelled exactly like the kind of beer Erick wanted. It took a lot longer to fill the cup than Erick expected it would, though.

She said, “This one is called Simple As, and it’s about that complicated. Currency here is a bit different than where you’re from, no doubt. You don’t seem to have any money on you, unless buttons can be traded for money?”

“Ah? No.” Erick looked at his platinum buttons. “... Well. They could be, I suppose. I wasn’t planning on it. I assumed metal wasn’t useful here at all.”

“Ehhhh... That’s a bit reductive. It’s useful. Just not in this particular land. We price things in resons here.” She finished pouring the beer and handed it to Erick. “Let me know if you like it!”

Erick was sure he would. He took a sip, and it was just about the best beer he had ever tasted. It reminded him of simpler times, before he was the Wizard of Benevolence, back when he was simply the Particle Archmage. That time of drinking beer with Al at the bars of Spur certainly didn’t last nearly as long as Erick wished it could have.

Erick smiled, and held the beer in his hands, saying, “It’s fantastic.”

“I can usually pick out a proper option, so I’m glad to see I haven’t lost that touch.” The woman said, “As for prices: a small cup of Simple As is 1 reson, which is just the size of the cup. Simple As is a middle-of-the-road beer, but as for where it lands among our total options, it’s on the very low end. That’s a deep cup in your hands right now, which is 10 resons for Simple As, because it’s 10 cups of beer. Endless cups are 5 resons for the cup itself, and then whatever you drink from it is added on. Drinks are paid for when-served. Endless cups need to be prepaid. Food and such is paid for when-done.

“You’re very good about keeping your power to yourself, which is appreciated. Some patrons are not that together, so please be mindful of others.

“Fighting in the bar is forbidden.

“This is my absolute domain, and I reserve the right to deny service to anyone I wish.” The woman said, “I’m Lyra Vonaldar; the owner of the Black Crystal Tavern. Nice to meet you.”

Erick nodded. “Ah! Nice to meet the owner so soon. I’m incognito right now and very much enjoying it, if that’s okay.”

Lyra raised an eyebrow. And then she flicked the air.

The space around them became impenetrable. The rest of the bar vanished. It was just Lyra and Erick, hanging out in the middle of a violet black void.

The owner of the establishment said, “It’s fine to be incognito, but I don’t allow anyone into my business if I don’t know who they are. If you agree to that and tell me your name, then you can stay. I certainly won’t go blabbing your name all over the place; that you can trust, just like you can trust me to keep this place organized and peaceful.”

“Erick Flatt,” Erick said, without reservation.

Lyra’s eyes went wide. And then she calmed. “... Huh. Okay. I knew you were a big deal, but not that big. In that case.” She reached up behind the bar, to the shelves of special drinks, and she pulled down the shelves like she was moving a different treadmill downward. The lower options vanished into wherever they went, and more and more high-class options appeared as upper shelves manifested. She went all the way to the top, where a staggeringly gold bottle of something very large and expensive sat on the top shelf, but she didn’t go for that one. She went for the second-to-the-top shelf, grabbing a violet bottle of brew. She popped the cork on that one and the impenetrable air of the protected bar space filled with a soft call toward great times and good memories. It was like the entire atmosphere of the entire bar crammed into a liquid form. She poured herself a small shot glass of violet swirls, and then poured one for Erick, too. “A taste of Homey Heavens. A welcome to the neighborhood.”

Erick took the small shot glass, wondering at—

Lyra said, “To good times.” And then she downed hers.

Erick downed his—

For a moment, Erick was sitting down with everyone he ever loved for a nice meal and a good vacation, but from several different times in his life. There was Jane, trying her spicy wings down at Enduring Forge. There was Teressa, serving a whole roast cow at Festival that one year. There was Poi, with his fish dishes he made for a different Festival. There was Ophiel, with his purpleberry pie inside Benevolence, and right beside him was Quilatalap, also with his purpleberry pie. There was Yggdrasil, sitting at the bar with him, nodding.

The memory faded.

Erick breathed deep the faint smell of Elsewhere.

Erick chuckled, wiping away a small tear, saying, “To good times.”

“It’s nice to meet you, True Wizard of Benevolence,” Lyra said. “Got a name you’d like to be called on your tab?”

“Erick is fine, I suppose. I’m not one for lying very well at all.” Erick gestured at the violet brew. “How much does that one cost?”

“Not for sale. Only to be used for special occasions. Other than that, a billion resons a sip.” Lyra said, “We have thousands of ‘Erick’s, so no one will really know who you are until you use your full name. Most won’t even know then, but I like to keep apprised of gigantic local matters.”

Erick chuckled. “It’s only one new sun out of however many there are up there. 14? 15?”

“14 visible ones. The rumor is that 7 or 8 exist outside of Margleknot’s Sky, but sometimes that number is as high as 11. That red/blue one here in this sky only looks like two suns sometimes.”

“Every time I learn more, I have to reevaluate my idea of how big this place is.”

Lyra smiled. “That’ll never stop. As an example: I heard your inclusion into the resurrection line has already dropped the average wait time from 10.05 years to 9.87 years. Or at least that’s how the maths are mathing right now. The various warlords will likely increase their attempted captures of new lands, though, so that number will go back up to 10 years soon enough. They like to plan their campaigns around how long their people may or may not be dead, and 10 years is the accepted rate of how long they’re fine with people staying dead.”

Erick sat stunned. “... Fucking hells. In one breath I hear a good thing and in the other breath it’s open season for warlords to warlord more.”

Lyra grinned wide, saying, “That’s the kind of reaction I expect from a truly good man. It was very nice to meet you, Erick Flatt. I know all the best gossip around the Black Crystal District, so come around and share a drink with me sometime if you want to know some esoteric shit, or if you have any good stories of your own to tell. I can help you make connections based on what you choose to share.”

Erick paused. He asked, “I’m looking to permanently kill the dragon that has current Fae Enclave control over my world. How do I go about doing that?”

“A thousand resons.”

Erick held out his aura and dropped a thousand resons into a single amber sphere. It glowed like a sun, there upon the wooden counter.

Lyra gathered up the trinket, disappearing it into the palm of her hand. “You’re going to have an easier time finding capable people to help you if you look outside of Margleknot. Everyone inside the Grand City has an agenda, while most people outside of the city only want to get here for the power that this place might bring them outthere, and those outsider agendas are much easier to work with than the complicated things of this land.

“You’re already spilling out Benevolence to the multiverse, so see about shifting that Benevolence with some Fate magic and other sources of controlling futures in order to find people to help you build your case against Nothanganathor out there in the rest of the universe. Gather them. Raise them. Use them here in Margleknot and then send them back home better for the exchange, or bring them with you to Veird when you go back.

“Whatever happens with the Fae Enclave, you’re going to need warriors to truly extol the virtues of your case against Nothanganathor.

“As for looking for help inside Margleknot, you might seek out the Wraithborne Tower and ask them for help finding good lawyers— I know this option disgusts you, for the Good of you is written in the very suns of Margleknot, and your disgust at this option is there upon your face, but the best lawyers truly do work for them.

“Or you could trust your Benevolence to try to pick people from the Waiting Room for you. Resurrections-on-the-cheap is always a good way to get help. The standard agreement for that is that you hire them for the years they would have needed to wait in line, and after that they’re free to go. You can offer better rates than the standard contract, but only the desperate would take you up on that because you would look suspicious. You don’t want desperate people working for you.

“Make sure whoever you hire is soul shackled, otherwise they would simply skip out on their debts— And yes. I can see that disgusts you, but that’s how it’s done. If you have a better way to make people pay their debts in an infinite world, then you can go ahead and invent that and change everything.

“The Celestial Observatory is a place you must go, but don’t expect much from them. Shadow already went to them long ago and they absolutely refuse to work with her on anything at all. They might work with you, but probably not, because of Shadow.

“Shadow is the main proponent trying to save Veird from Nothanganathor’s clutches, but while she can help you in some ways she is wild magic and she has burned many gates trying to control and rescue the remnants of her previous universe. Use her or not. It’s up to you. She’s waiting upstairs.

“And finally: Don’t make enemies before you make friends. As I said earlier, everyone in Margleknot has agendas with everyone else, and we’re all near enough to true immortals that pissing anyone off has a way of backfiring on you a long way into the future. Countless immortals have come here and been ostracized for their actions, and thus they have no influence at all. Shadow is touching that line right now.

“Nothanganathor made many, many friends before he became the Arbiter of Veird. That’s how he got there.” Lyra finished, then said, “That’s about what 1,000 resons will buy you. I hope it was helpful.”

It had been very helpful, actually.

Erick said, “You confirmed a lot of the plans I already made and added some nuance that I needed to know. Thank you. You must have some sort of fateful decision making power?”

Lyra smiled. “I do; just like all the other Old Dragons of this land. To answer your next question is another thousand resons.”

Erick deposited another thousand-reson crystal on the table.

Lyra swiped it up, saying, “My agenda is to have a bar that my friends can eventually find without error, as long as they ascend high enough. They’ve all died ten thousand times and been reincarnated ten thousand different ways, but they’re all still out there in the universe. They’re still existent, and thus hope remains. I know this because they’re all still tied to me, and I to them. I try to nudge things to make it easier for them sometimes, but sometimes they go up against too large of odds, or they’re too far away, and so they die and are reborn again in some other time and place.” She shrugged, putting the violet bottle back up on the top shelf, saying, “And so, I wait for them to join me.”

Erick felt his Lightning Path open wide.

He held out a hand and conjured a reson crystal that was not exactly gold. He set it on the counter, saying, “Good luck to your family.”

Lyra paused. And then she reached out to the resons. It was not a normal golden color. It was slightly white. She hesitated. And then she swiped it up. It vanished. “... Thank you.” She asked, “What does it do?”

“I’ve no idea.”

Lyra chuckled, then she dropped the barrier between here and everywhere else, saying, “Good luck, good sir.”

Erick picked up his beer and nodded. “Thanks for the welcoming beer.”

Erick walked away—

Shadow was up there on the second floor, peering down at him from the edge of the balcony.

Shadow called out, “Finally!”

No one seemed to care that Shadow was yelling. Some people seemed disgusted by her actions. Erick just grinned and walked up the stairs to the right, to land on the second floor.

“Hello, Shadow.”

“Let’s sit in a privacy booth.”