Helios was running out of time.

Well, really, he’d already run out of time. There were only four portals left, and four portals were unlikely to make a difference. He wished he knew if he were winning or losing. He kept reassuring himself that he was winning, but it all came down to “the individual currently leading” the Quest. How many did he close before the bet started?

Did those even count against the bet? Helios didn’t think that was specified. He’d have to remember that if it turned out he was losing. It wouldn’t be fair to count portals closed before the challenge was even issued!

Not that paying the forfeit would be all that hard. He couldn’t remember this “Rissa Latimer”, but he didn’t curse people very often. She was probably one of the girls who barged in on his shrine while he was sleeping a couple years back; he didn’t think he’d ever caught their names.

Calling him a “creepy ghost”. Hah. Fools.

Helios was usually more prone to the “spontaneous combustion” variety of punishment, but sometimes there was nothing better than a curse, and those giggling girls completely deserved it.

He’d be paying for this for weeks, just like when he cursed them in the first place. Curses were part of a deity’s arsenal, but they weren’t something that was especially in tune with his power. So paying the piper if he lost would be simple enough, if unpleasant. Not that it mattered; he was surely winning.

A win alone wasn’t enough. He needed to make sure he had the highest overall contribution. That Dreamstone Orb would be his.

Which meant he had to keep going. Helios resumed scanning the world, looking for anomalies. Where could those four portals be?

No, three portals. They were going fast. He needed to pay attention to every inch; the remaining portals must be hidden. He’d been having trouble finding them for weeks.

Hours passed, then a day. Two more portals closed, but Helios kept searching.

Wait, what was that in the water? Something didn’t look right. Hm, no, just a rock … wait, there was a portal on that rock. It was unattended, which meant it would be easy.

Helios flashed to the rock and threw the Sun’s power at it, closing it the same way he’d closed so many others.

[Global Quest: Permanently deal with all Invasion Portals and remove the threat of the invaders]

[Quest Completed]

[Global Reward: Access to mediated trade through Settlement Crystals]

[Global Reward: Limited Access to Interstellar Portals]

Interstellar Portals? Wait, the rest of the universe would be able to come here?

Helios wasn’t looking forward to that, but then why would they bother? Earth was a backwater. It was a backwater even before the War, and it’d been getting worse ever since then. If he could have, he’d have left after it was obvious how bad it was going to get.

Not that leaving was an option. It’d only been a few millennia since he fled to Earth; his enemies were undoubtedly still out there. Worse, when he Ascended he’d chosen to bind himself specifically to Earth’s Sun rather than to the general concept of Suns. It gave him far more power on Earth, but meant that he’d never leave. He’d assumed he wouldn’t be able to; even then, Earth had fallen far enough that offworld travel was a thing of mystery at best and essentially impossible.

That was why he fled to Earth, after all. It was a place for the desperate. No one would bother to follow you to a place they knew they couldn’t leave.

But if you could leave now … did that mean his enemies would follow?

Helios reassured himself that they wouldn’t. Why would they? For all that he’d been blamed for the death of a Clan Heir, he was completely innocent! How could he have known the boy was so weak as to die of his injuries? It was a righteous fight!

Helios didn’t even remember what the fight was over, anymore. Something that had seemed important at the time. He did remember that his opponent’s death was unexpected, and that he’d had no idea the boy was anyone important anyway.

He was still musing over what “limited access to interstellar portals” meant to his future when the next message came through.

[Optional Quest: Invasion Portal Challenge failed]

Helios remembered the provision he’d thought of a few days earlier. “Hey! You’re counting the ones closed before I was even challenged, aren’t you? That’s not fair!”

[Acknowledged. Removing portals closed and contribution performed prior to acceptance of the Challenge]

So he was right! It wasn’t clear, and he could challenge the results as long as he came up with a good argument.

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[Optional Quest: Invasion Portal Challenge failed]

“Hey, I closed over a hundred portals, on my own! How can anyone beat that?” Helios wasn’t going to give up that easily. Not when he could potentially win Dreamstone.

[57 portals were closed prior to the initiation of the challenge]

[Helios individually closed 113 portals]

[Helios did not receive indirect credit for aiding in the closure of any portals]

[After the initiation of the challenge, Serenity and his team directly closed 154 portals]

[Serenity’s actions were instrumental to the closure of an additional 26 portals, leading to significant indirect credit]

[Serenity received limited indirect credit for an additional 104 portals]

[Closure of the remaining 58 portals was not influenced by either Serenity or Helios after the initiation of the challenge]

[Indirect credit was not issued to Serenity for any portals closed by Helios]

[Neither Serenity nor Helios received any penalty for preventing portal closure]

[Serenity is the leader in portal closure contribution]

[Second place: Helios]

[Third place: Nightwitch]

Helios read through the notifications and was about to issue another challenge when one final note appeared.

[Reducing Serenity’s contribution proportional to his contribution as part of a team does not reduce him below the contribution level of the second-place finisher]

Helios grumbled. He hated admitting he’d lost a bet, but at least it was interesting. This was the most fun he’d had in years. Possibly the most fun he’d had in centuries; it was too bad it was over.

Maybe this “Serenity” would have some more fun bets, and maybe he’d win the next one. Who was Serenity, anyway? Some new minor deity? The name kinda sounded like a deific name, and that would explain how he’d managed to beat Helios, even with all of Helios’s power, ability to see the world, and ability to move quickly.

“Fine. Who’s this Rissa Latimer I’m supposed to remove a curse from? Can’t exactly remove a curse from someone I don’t know.” Normally he’d ask the person he’d bet against, but he’d never met this Serenity. The intermediary should know.

[Failure Consequences: Required to cease all attacks on Rissa Latimer and permit her to enjoy the sunlight once more. Required to remove the blessing/curse applied to ALL of her relatives. Required to remove/heal effects caused by the curse. Not permitted to act against Rissa Latimer, her family, or her allies for a minimum of twelve years]

Helios cursed. He remembered the first part and the mention of a curse, but had he really agreed to that? Blood links sucked, and he had no idea what curse that even was. He didn’t think he’d cursed anyone related to those two girls … unless they were there with a sibling, maybe? He’d assumed the two boys were boyfriends of the girls, but maybe it was a brother and sister and their partners?

Fine. The important thing to do was to get it over with. The curse was only going to last another eight years or so anyway. There wasn’t that much difference between two years and a decade.

Helios vaguely remembered the curse he’d used; it was possible to cancel it, though not easily without the people in front of him. It would still be easier than dealing with them. Helios sent himself into the body of the Sun, where warmth, light, and power lived. He could only find three of them under the light of the Sun, but at least it included both girls.

Helios sent the warmth of the Sun to them, removing his Curse of Eternal Shade. Sunlight would no longer avoid the three he’d found.

He followed a sunbeam back to his favorite shrine, the same one the four found him at, and settled down for a nap. Dealing with curses sucked, even removing them, and he was very tired from chasing the Sun’s light to find portals even before that.

Unfortunately, he was interrupted before he fell asleep.

[Failure Consequences: Required to cease all attacks on Rissa Latimer and permit her to enjoy the sunlight once more. Required to remove the blessing/curse applied to ALL of her relatives. Required to remove/heal effects caused by the curse. Not permitted to act against Rissa Latimer, her family, or her allies for a minimum of twelve years]

Helios growled at the words filling his vision. “I removed the curse from three of the four of them, including both of the girls! Let me get some sleep before I try to find the last one.”

[The curse has not been lifted]

[There are far more than four affected by the curse]

[Rissa Latimer is still hurt by the sunlight]

But he’d taken care of the forfeit!

Helios reread the last line and realized that he’d taken care of the wrong curse. It wasn’t the Curse of Eternal Shade at all!

Something was very wrong; he hadn’t placed a Curse of Painful Light in decades, maybe centuries. Surely he wouldn’t be forced to remove someone else’s curse? “It’s not my curse, then. I removed the only curse I’ve placed in years.”

[The signature on the Blessing and Curse matches your mana signature]

Helios suddenly didn’t feel sleepy. SOMEONE had placed a curse and pretended to be him! They would die!

Helios roared at the uncaring messages. “Who placed that curse?”

[The signature on the Blessing and Curse matches your mana signature]

He’d have to do it himself then. Helios continued to shout. “Where can I find this curse?”

[Rissa Latimer is currently flying. She will land at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City, United States of America at approximately 6 AM local time]

“Before sunrise.” Helios thought he was being quiet, but that was true only in comparison to his earlier shouting. “Has to be; it’s winter there. I’ll have to wait for hours.”

Just the thought of the wait made him tired again. It was barely after sunrise here; it’d be hours before the Sun reached … exactly how far north was that anyway? He had a calendar here somewhere. No, wait, it was all on the computer these days, wasn’t it?

Helios muttered about change as he booted his computer, but it was halfhearted. Keeping a computer was easier than the massive set of maps and charts he’d once kept. Even if he did reach for them sometimes out of habit.

Waiting on the computer gave the adrenaline time to wear off; Helios had trouble keeping his eyes open as he looked up the sunrise time for New York City.

After 7 AM local time. Fine. He’d want a little time for the Sun to get above the horizon, as well, to make it easier to travel around. That gave him a few hours to sleep before he headed over. The loud voice would surely be willing to tell him where to go.

Once he woke up.

Helios barely made it to bed. He fell asleep on top of his covers, still dressed.