My mana was regenerating. It was far slower than I’d like. If I was happy with keeping my little world as it was we could persist. But I wanted more. I dreamt of a colosseum filled with spectators and strange creatures from all over. It would be exciting but It would be cruel to the creatures.

I spun the idea to Ferris. She came up with a great idea. When the creatures are put into pens, replace them with doppelgangers.. Not true doppelgangers, that would also be cruel. Puppets, Identical in every way except one. Sentients. They would be as close to the real thing inside and out.

The colosseum would have tournament brackets where creatures fight. There would be Air, land and sea brackets. There would be an elemental bracket for all the strange magical creatures as well. The winning creature would become a champion of the colosseum and pay dividends to the men who wrangled it for every fight won. The previous champion would fight the winner of their bracket.

There would be deathmatches where men would test their might against the colosseum's favored creatures. They would be given talismans that teleported them to a healing pool when they're close to death. Unfortunately there’ll probably be battle junkies tossing them seeking the thrill of death.

It's a grand idea. Except I don’t have any magical creatures. I also don’t want someone to bring in a dragon or something. I want to see my creatures in the colosseum. I also didn’t want people to run amuck killing everything in sight. I couldn't see a way to prevent them from eradicating everything. I couldn’t use traps or make some giant guardian. It would be suspicious.

The only way to make sure it wouldn’t happen is to have people treating it like their territory. They would have laws. People oddly are more afraid of laws than monsters. It wouldn’t stop everyone. But it could go wrong. Some people would steam roll everything in the name of colonization. Burning swaths of forest just to plant crops.

Eventually I had an idea. What if people could only come one way and they would be forced to return after a certain time or if a rule was broken. I brought it up with Ferris. Contracts would enforce the rules. But it would be suspicious if I made contracts with people. Ferris had it covered.

We would set up a portal. I was fond of gate-shaped portals. When entering a contract would be sent. It wasn’t a physical one. If the contract was rejected they would walk out the other side. If it was accepted you would exit a portal in our little world. If you broke the rules you would be flung out the gate you entered. I figured it would be embarrassing for anyone who was thrown out like a drunk at a bar.

The contract was special. Here's a vague overview of the contract. Party A will allow party B to enter their realm so long as they abide by Party A’s rules and shall be Deposed If said rules are broken. This contract is enforced by The gods of hunting, Atler and .Nohrn. A contract signed by a god is a sure fire way to prevent someone from breaking a contract without repercussions.

I was unsure about having a contract with a god. The idea terrified me. Ferris apparently knew a few gods and goddesses who were quote Chill end quote. ‘I don’t know them personally but they’ll form a contract with just about anyone. They're pretty chill. They can sense the sincerity behind them so if you were some a** trying to use them for some vain reason or to cause harm they wouldn’t make it. Also they might curse you since you pissed them off. Oh not you! You're good. They like contracts like these.’

The contract was anonymous. Anyone who read the contract wouldn’t know Party A was a core and not a person. I consider myself a person but not everyone would agree. Apart from making a contract with Atler and Nohrn. They asked for a shrine. It wasn’t a price to make the contract. They just liked it enough that they asked for a shrine to be made in my realm. Realm has a nice ring to it. Their words not mine. I live in a hole in the ground technically. So it was nice of them to call it a realm.

Ferris and I were tracing designs in the sand but later switched to stone. Hogsworth thought we were playing a game and kept stamping over them. He seemed proud of his accomplishment. Like he added something important. We made several renditions. My idea of a gate was put on hold. The portal connecting my realm to the outside world would be different then the gate I intend to use my realm. I think it would give it a little mystique.

Ferris agreed. We made a teleportation pad. A circular ramp leads up to the pad. The pad was inside a pair of rings. The teleporter was made to be flashy. The rings would rise and spin in opposite directions and generate wind around the outside. If you ever dropped a frisbee or spun a coin then you’d understand what it looked like. The rings would glow and spin faster before erupting in a flash of light. If anyone didn’t accept the contract they would remain on the pad. A tear would open above the pad and rule breakers would be flung out away from the pad with a smaller flash.

The pad in the realm was sandy granite and being a nerd in my past life. I made up a language and put it all over. Ferris let out a snort and Hogsworth got excited thinking she was trying to speak pig. As a contracted creature we can communicate but I choose not to. ‘Food food food. Play PLAY! Want to play? Play with hogsworth, yes?’ It is amazing that he knows his name. Ferris talking to him all the time probably raised his intelligence a bit. (Name Hogsworth..) (Smart pig: Become a smart piggy. Aww whos a smart pig you are yes you are.)

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

A Lot of titles and achievements are made on the spot but follow a theme. Whoever made the smart pig achievement was definitely distracted. It was probably a nature goddess. I can see them finding pigs cute. Actually I think they would find almost all animals cute. Ok fine the little guy is a little cute I guess. Still bald though. I tried giving him fur but Ferris got upset.

Anyway I sent a tendril up to the surface to find a discreet spot to make the second pad. I didn’t want people to come here immediately. I wanted it to be found easily but not immediately usable. The portal was made at the bottom of a pond. It wouldn’t be noticed unless you looked down while on the water. There was enough traffic in the area that someone would notice. Be it a swimmer or a man trying to catch a fish. Someone would notice and soon.

The pad was made out of a gray stone found in the region. The stone was called ashstone and was the leftovers from a long pasted cataclysm. The region is quite cool now. Ashstone was literally made of ash. Well mostly. It's more complicated than I care to explain and I don't know how it was originally formed. I can replicate it all I want though.

The Teleportation pad was nearly identical in form to the first. I put a few artificial cracks in it and made some stones larger than the other portal. Under scrutiny they wouldn’t look identical. I want to sell that it was made by hand and not something copy and paste. I covered it in algae and pond scum so it would blend in but the shape was still noticeable. It would be some time before they cleared away the water. Hopefully they’ll set up a barricade and pump the water out instead of emptying the whole thing. A mage could make an earthen wall and remove the water. Crap they could do that in an instant.

I didn't want to remake the whole thing so I accepted that I wouldn’t have enough time. I made some ruined buildings in my realm around the teleportation pad. I was making a shrine to Atler and Nohrn but I remembered they were pretty young among gods and ashstone was a lot older. It felt wrong to destroy it so I moved the statues I made of them out. I left some vague faceless worn statues inside and collapsed the shrine. It would look like the shrine was eroded with time and no one would know who was prayed to just that the inhabitants did pray to some forgotten gods.

I was thinking at a million miles an hour trying to make up a feasible story that I was starting to get burnt out. I wanted the place to truly feel like an ancient civilization existed here. I kept coming back to the idea of what if this civilization had descendants somewhere. I wanted to create some people to inhabit my realm. I was stuck for a bit pondering how I was going to be able to make them in time.

I couldn’t wait for people to come and hope that I could skim off the top and the people I made would act just fine. I didn’t have enough time to teach them and raise them up. Slowing down time was also way off the table. I simply don’t have the mana for it. I finally came to answer. My memories. I lived two lives after all. There had to be enough in there to make a few functioning people. With a little managing they could pass as natural. With a little time they wouldn’t need to be managed at all.

I ran the idea to Ferris. She seemed a little disappointed that I was rushing things. ‘It's complicated and delicate. For example you can’t make a pig walk on two legs and put some memories in and call it a day. They would be confused having the memories of a man while inside a pig. Also they would act on their instinct so mid conversation they might rip someone's face off because they perceived a sound they made was a threat.’

‘That.. That sounds like an orc.’ ‘Whoa! That's so racist.’ ‘I meant the pig men kind. You know eastern orcs.’ ‘Eastern orcs? I don’t know what you mean. Orcs are like humans with green skin tusks and bigger muscles. Did you never see one as a human?’ ‘I know what they look like. The word orc in some places is used for nonhuman races.’ ‘That's a little messed up. That's like saying demihuman. Hearing that would piss off a lot of orcs’ ‘Yeah I get that. Anyway when I said orc I meant the race of pig men that also call themselves orcs.’ ‘Wait… They call themselves orcs? That's confusing.’

‘I have some memories.. That might be very strange and confusing. There are things I haven't told you.’ ‘You got some juicy stuff in there huh? Don’t worry I won’t see what you don’t want me to. I swear I won't go snooping around.’ ‘thanks.’ ‘You can tell me about all the weird stuff you're into later.’ ‘that's not what I meant.’ ‘I know.’

I wasn’t as confident as she was. The best part of being a core was being able to recall things in striking detail. Scratch that. There are things that shouldn't be remembered in detail. My thoughts are jumbled at the best of times switching from one thought to another. Keeping focus on one should have been the most challenging thing in my life. It was. Easy. Remarkably so. The process seemed instinctual.

My memories were recorded. I asked Ferris if she saw anything weird. ‘I didn’t see a thing.’ I couldn’t tell if she was honest or choosing to not talk about it. ‘You didn’t see anything weird? Nothing at all?’ ‘If you thought of something weird it's in there.’ She pointed to a crystal with a swirling vortex of what memories apparently look like. There were too many images and scenes flying around to make sense of it. Imagine a camera falling off a drone and instead of recording the ground and sky spinning. It was a collage of pictures.

‘You can fish it out yourself. I don’t want to see whatever's got your panties in a twist.’ My mind went on a tangent. Wouldn’t this be super useful in a court. It was a short thought. I remembered that powerful necromancers could see the memories of the dead. It's not the same but people wouldn’t know the difference. You’d be killed before you could explain the difference. Unless you were in a country where necromance was legal or regulated. Ahhh damn it.

It was time to make some bodies. I sound like a necromancer damn it! I didn’t want to make a copy of something that already exists or a copy of something I remembered. Something about using a human body as a template and changing it was wrong as hell. Maybe it made me think I was desecrating a corpse. It wasn’t one but it wasn’t helping. I dispersed it. And started over.

I found a method that didn’t make my skin crawl. I took a page from a god in my previous life. I started with a mound of clay and shaped it to look almost human. It was basically a manikin you’d find at a store. I added different features from all kinds of animals. I even went with alien aesthetics. The kind that look like they have a purpose. Random things that do things because you say they do.

I was surrounded by manikins in all shapes and sizes when Ferris found me. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Making life.’ ‘Really? Cuz it looks like you're playing with mud.’