RULES:
~ GRAND NOTIFICATION: Due to extensive rules changes, most of these rules are only applicable within normal dungeon space. DELVER BEWARE!
1: Script Interface, minimal settings
2: Auto-Resurrection, unlimited lives
3: Maximum Life Support, slime generation set to maximum; PLAIN SLIMES ONLY
4: Sanctity of Space, golem enforcement of life form level; MAXIMUM LETHALITY
~ Exceptions: Fallopolis, slimes, Erick Flatt, Jane Flatt, Ophiel, Yggdrasil, Dungeon Masters divorced from this dungeon, + Accompaniment
5: Direct access to Darkness
6: Creation of No-Script, variable-manasphere-density areas, at request of dungeon masters
~ Notification: mana escaping into the manasphere due to Script severing will be taken into the dungeon core through natural means. Beware rapid progression of any slimes or other beings should they be exposed to high levels of mana.
7: Sighting Mirrors into the Dark.
~Notification: The Dark sometimes stares back.
8: Floors, expanded
- a -: Entrance; a separated staircase. Flying or use of transporter required. Stabilized and life support.
- b -: Slime Floor; the current dungeon layout. Stabilized and life support to 10 kilometers square, 1 kilometer height and depth.
- c -: House; a guarded space below the Slime Floor. Stabilized and life support to 1 cubic kilometer.
- d -: Experimental space; Open to the Deeper Dark on the north side of the Slime Floor. Unknown stability, unknown life support, subject to change at any time.
~ Notification: Rule 8, subsection d. BEWARE that interacting with the Dark most commonly leads to death. The dungeon is not responsible for you stepping out of its solidified area, and has less than minimal power to affect the Deeper Dark.
9: Experimental Space, expanded
- a -: A dungeon master may cause a change in the Experimental Space, locking a part of the Experimental Space to solidity for a short while. Efficacy of this subrule is wildly variable, and dependent on the power and clarity and positions of lands that lie beyond the edge of this dungeon.
- b -: Once a change occurs, the adjoining floor will be made stable by the dungeon and a timer will appear. The timer will estimate the length of stability left on the adjoining floor.
- c -: The slime dungeon can expend mana at the request of the dungeon master in order to increase the stability of the Experimental Space. This stability increase will be reflected in the timer.
~ Notification: BEWARE that interacting with the Dark most commonly leads to death. The dungeon is not responsible for you stepping out of its solidified area, and has less than minimal power to affect the Deeper Dark.
10: Lures of Darkness, attempt to bring known parts of the Greater Dark nearer to the dungeon
~ Notification: BEWARE that interacting with the Dark most commonly leads to death.
~ GRAND NOTIFICATION: Due to attempts to circumvent the domain of the Dark, you have drawn the eye of the Dark. Witness this message and tremble, mortal: (Developer’s note: Do some Wizardry, Erick.)
- - - -
Over the next several days, the group had figured out some Rules that did most of the job of fishing in the Dark for them. Implementing those Rules had taken several more days beyond that.
Almost a month had passed since Erick first walked into this dungeon.
In taking this step, to find the Sundering at the behest of the gods and to eventually unseal Yggdrasil from his own soul, Erick had felt unmoored yet again. Of course, fucking up with [Onward] all those years ago had not helped with that feeling of being lost. For the first time in a while, and in multiple ways, Erick truly had been lost, and not just because he wasn’t at House Benevolence, helping people every single day, or taking care of this or that crisis.
It had taken him some time to come back to himself.
With the addition of five new daughters and a brother he never knew until now, everything had gone crazy yet again. But then there were the family dinners. The talks with a person who truly knew him, and seeing his daughter from five new angles. Poi was a godsend, too.
Kiri, back at the House, was doing very well, now that she had increased the size of the Office of the Overseer of Gate Expansion by a whole platoon of people, doubling the size of that office. She’d probably be doubling it again in the coming months, because as soon as Erick talked to her about his new multiverse theories, Kiri became his bright-eyed apprentice yet again, seeming to drop a decade with her inquisitive questions, and doubling her usual desire to learn. Erick handed her a copy of the multiversal theories work he had already done, and she added a bunch of her own notes in response, for she had been kicking around something similar in her head for a while now.
Kiri was doing well, and she would do even better in the future.
Ophiel was growing up, getting more and more curious with every passing day. When it was just Erick, the little fluff ball was actually asking questions about what was happening. He had never done that before. Erick happily kept up with the little guy’s strings of questions, in between working on his enchanting and his multiversal theories of magic.
Yggdrasil was getting ready to separate. From Erick’s mostly-covert talks with Zolan about Yggdrasil’s new ‘Office of Forestry’, Yggdrasil was doing well, connecting with new people with an orcol-avatar. Of course Erick’s largest son would decide to be an orcol; he had done most of his growing up around orcols.
And the girls were driven right now, delving dungeons to get their base mana generation as high as they could make it, but when this was all over and the world was safer and better than it had ever been before, the girls would be adrift, like Erick was at the beginning of this new journey. He would have to be there for them. He wanted to be there for them, and for all his maturing children. And Solomon wanted to help. Which was great! Erick didn’t think he could raise ten children like Ophiel on his own, nor could he keep up with 6 daughters, two of which looked as though they might want to actually spend time with him. Long term!
Emily would probably ask for a position in House Benevolence. She would probably also ask about being [Reincarnation]ed as a boy. Her brief core breaking experience as being born male had done a lot to her, though she didn’t want to talk to Erick about it much at all.
Debby was going to go full-mage, but keep her body. She was experimenting a lot with Lightning, and finding it quite fun.
Jane, along with Abigail, Beth, and Candice, would be returning to Adventurer City. And that was fine.
Erick smiled to himself, as he stood upon the northern edge of the dungeon, thinking about the future, and how the path ahead had become a lot clearer in recent days.
… Well.
Certainly not that clear.
Clearer, though.
They would be stealing everything they could from the Dark, then finding and fighting the Sundering source, and then ending that threat forever. Neat Stuff! Especially the part about stealing from the Dark.
Erick was more and more happy with that—
Solomon asked, “What are you thinking about?”
Erick gazed at what had been the Dark until a few days ago, when they implemented the new Rules. “About the uncertain path ahead, but how my footsteps had gained a lot of certainty in recent days.”
Solomon raised an eyebrow, then turned to face the once-Darkness. “Mind sharing some of that certainty with me? ‘Cause all I can see is chaos.”
Solomon was referring to the northern side of the dungeon, of course. It had been replaced.
Instead of an opaque wall of misty shadows layered upon a black ocean that swirled with unseen monsters, there was clarity. The shadows were still there, but they were transparent. The black ocean was still there, but it was also a thousand swirling dreams, with depths sometimes stretching out to infinity, layered with ancient battles and worlds glimpsed and then lost. Riotous magic killed a billion people and raised a thousand million more. Births outnumbered deaths, with eggs laid in clutches by the beach and little girls and boys and otherwise slipping out of birth canals while mothers cried out in agony, and then in blessed joy as babies joined the cacophony.
A man made an artifact and then made a world.
A woman killed a deer and spilled its entrails into the heavens, creating a network between sky islands and the stars.
A dragon ate the throat out of another dragon, the two of them entangled until that moment, and then the victor stood upon the sands, their wings spreading wide as the body of the fallen fell off, into darkness, while the cheers of adoring fans filled the arena and the city beyond.
A god died and rose again.
A god killed another god, gold light flashing. The victor was murdered in return when a third pounced, and widened the wounds suffered by the newest loser in the war of gods.
A land of pillars held briefly upon the other side of the dungeon’s edge, beyond the smoke and absolute death promised by the Dark—
“There!” Solomon said, rapidly activating his half of the preparation they had laid down for this exact moment; the moment when an innocuous land appeared.
Erick was ready.
Between Erick and the Other, was a circular gate set upon half of a pyramid. It was runed with power and filled with promise, with the topmost part of the circle actually a pair of arrows, one side feeding into the other, forming a great Gate of [Renew], and Benevolence. It was about 5 meters across.
A timer appeared, indicating 15 seconds.
The lands beyond the Darkness came into focus.
Erick surveyed the land, rapidly judging what he was seeing.
Beyond the Benevolence Gate, simple pillars became ornate granite carvings of people in prayer and in honoring some ancient power. The ground became layered with large granite tiles, where clipped grasses grew between. Small trees blossomed in the Dreaming Dark. A fountain burbled, glowing with waters that were clearly pure Elemental Healing. Birds sang, and people stood in prayer beside the fountain, while some priest used a very long spoon to pick up a small bit of Healing and deliver it to the mouth of the first person in line. That person had a blindfold over their eyes, and then light erupted from their eyes, and the blindfold fell away.
He could see again, and his nearby family cheered for him.
It looked like a good location to Erick. The timer was down to 11 seconds.
Erick sang,
“A land once known, now only dreams. We doth bemoan.
“Yet Darkness gleams!
“Through chance we greet, past lightning’s wrath!
“Pray now we meet, down winding path.”
As Erick sang the billowy gloom separating the floors of the dungeon listened. Everything did. The very air, and stone, and the blood in Erick’s veins, and the Benevolence in his core, all soaked in his intent, in his request, in prayer.
Existence twisted upon the lathe of Erick’s Reality.
The runic gate lit up with white lightning.
Like a flickering imagination written down and made solid in the writing, the lands beyond turned ever more real.
The timer went from 1 second to all nines, filling the black box full, and then overflowing. The membrane between realities shattered inside the gate, like the cracking of glass. White lightning crackled out from the gate, expanding across the entire northern wall of darkness beyond the dungeon. That outer lightning turned solid, like a hand gripping tight. The center of the gate swirled in fractal dances, the chips of broken reality slipping away, pulled apart by lightning, revealing a path that was only a meter long, and yet so, so much longer than that.
Birdsong and the gentle laughter of happy people spilled out from the other side of the gateway. The slight staticky sound of the humming gate was completely unable to eclipse the new Truth on the other side. People were getting healed, and joy overflowed.
Erick felt like he had run a marathon, but marathons were nothing to him these days. It was a good sort of tired. A fulfilled sort of pain.
A smaller, clearer joy came next, as Solomon opened up a black window and Erick glanced at the window.
- -
RULE CHANGED:
10: Lures of Darkness, attempt to bring known parts of the Greater Dark nearer to the dungeon
~ Notification: BEWARE that interacting with the Dark most commonly leads to death.
~ GRAND NOTIFICATION: Due to attempts to circumvent the domain of the Dark, you have drawn the eye of the Dark. Witness this message and tremble, mortal: (Developer’s note: Do some Wizardry, Erick.)
10: The Black Gate, through Benevolence all things are possible
~ Notification: With skill, Benevolence, and the agreement of the Dark, call forth a Dark Dream from the depths. When the requested dream surfaces it will instantiate within the Experimental Floor of the dungeon. BEWARE, the local area is made of Benevolence and is amenable to life, but the Script is distant in the dream, while the Dark is ever closer.
- -
Erick grinned. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”
“Even managed to make it out of Benevolence, and let the Script into the space… a little bit? Not sure on that part,” Solomon said, as he flicked a hand toward the timer box. The timer box floated to hover above and in front of the [Renew] Gate. It was still showing all 9s. “I can’t see a soul or anything like that in those people. Can you?”
Erick had already scoped out the people and the healers attending to them. “They don’t look real to me, and I don’t think they can see us. We could just watch for a while? See if they wander off and then we don’t have to deal with them? I think I would prefer that.”
Solomon said, “The girls aren’t even back yet, so yeah. Let’s wait and watch.” He looked to Erick, saying, “Good work.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you.” Erick breathed out in satisfaction, and then he summoned a chair for himself, and for Solomon. He sat down, asking, “How much longer will the girls be?”
Solomon sat down, saying, “Maybe two hours.”
Erick nodded. He turned his focus to the scene happening just beyond the ephemeral edge between the slime dungeon floor, and the Other Space just beyond. Dark mist, or smoke, or clouds, lingered here and there, forming a transparent film between this reality and the Other. The only space where that film did not exist was within the [Renew] Gate. There, the air was clear.
Solomon watched with him.
Over the next hour, the parishioners at the Healing Fountain —as Erick was calling it— all got healed, and they all moved on, following a young woman in white robes to some other space. They vanished as they passed out of view, walking into far-away black clouds, back into the Dark Dream, without care that they were walking back into oblivion. Heavily armored clergymen, covered in robes, remained beside the Healing Fountain, as the healer who had spooned out the Fountain’s water flipped over a heavy metal grate, securing the Fountain’s basin. The top of the Fountain was still fully exposed; the liquid Healing spurted up into the air, casting rainbows, still able to be touched, and imbibed, before it fell past the slotted grate, into the basin. But the basin was protected now.
“You think he’s protecting the Fountain from theft?” Erick asked, “Or from people overdosing?”
“Overdosing; has to be,” Solomon said, “Looks like we’ve only got a kilometer of space secured on that side, so there might be walls and such out there… But I doubt it—” He fell silent, because the people on the other side were talking.
The healer spoke of that being all for the day, and that he was headed back to the temple. The guards nodded, then one of them took out a great big lock and locked the Healing Fountain’s basin. It looked like a magical lock to Erick. And then the three people walked on, down the granite-tiled path, beyond the carved pillars filled with unknown words. Soon, they were past the safe space. They vanished into the Dreaming Dark. And then the space was empty of people.
Solomon spoke, “Looks like that’s it.” He sat back in his chair. “I wonder why this was a memory in the Dark. All the other memories were big shits. Battles and deaths and births of all kinds.”
“Maybe this is simply a place that helped a lot of people.” Erick said, “Looks like free healing to all that comes… or maybe there’s some other price they pay, elsewhere. But the place certainly isn’t guarded at all. Or at least not in the traditional sense.”
They fell to silence for a short while.
And then Solomon said, “This whole thing sort of reminds me of that time we went Dreaming and ended up with Rozeta, and she was typing away at that computer.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Erick recalled that time. “We were so exhausted from ending the Chelation War that we just collapsed, and ended up in that liminal space that touched upon Rozeta’s.”
Solomon nodded. “That was probably Soul and Mind Magic, now that I think about it; a half-step into the realm of the Divine. Like all of this, actually.”
“This was from a different angle, though, and a lot more permanent.”
Solomon nodded. After a moment, he said, “We should get Poi out here, to ask the Crossing what this thing is.”
“That’s a very good idea.”
- - - -
Poi stood before the [Renew] Gate, saying, “That’s a Healing Fountain, or at least that was one name for it. It was a common artifact recorded in the archives of the Mind Mages… But since it is here, in the Dark Dream, it has to be one of the oldest ones. Or one that saw a lot of specific people get healed, and then those people went on to do something special.” Poi said, “Other than that, I have no basis to understand whatever this is. We might even be wrong. Something about this space doesn’t seem like where you’d find a Healing Fountain; those things were constantly crowded.”
Debby, who had returned with all the girls, suggested, “We should go steal the pillars? Have the writing analyzed?”
She was digging for answers and had none. A ‘Healing Fountain’ had no real use on Veird, after all. This first search was likely a bust. No one was actually saying that yet, but everyone was thinking it.
So Erick said it, “This is a bust. And that’s fine. Let’s go after the Censer, then.”
“Wait a moment,” Jane said, stepping forward. “Let’s at least explore this land on the other side. I’m going in.” Without further discussion, Jane started walking up the stairs, to the Gate—
Erick forced himself not to say anything.
—The others went with her; Beth, Abigail, Candice, Emily. Solomon held back, while Debby looked like she wanted to go, but decided against it. The girls stepped through the large [Renew] symbol, Jane leading the way.
Jane stepped into the sunshine on the other side of the gate, her skin temporarily flaking away, Erick’s heart rate spiking, until Jane flickered with power and solidified. She remained whole. Her voice was clear as she said, “Still a Dark sort of space, but it’s easy walking once you attune to the difference.”
The girls followed, all of them exhibiting a lot more stability, thanks to Jane’s warning.
The five of them spread out.
Abigail approached a pillar, looking up and down the whole length as she said, “I can’t tell any writing. Can you pick up my thoughts and viewpoint, Poi?”
Poi said, “Barely. Not really, though.” He said, “You all should explain what you’re actually seeing on that side, anyway. It’s not the same as what we’re seeing.”
Ophiel asked, “I go inside?”
Erick softly said, “No, Ophiel. Not doing that.”
Ophiel whistled in unsure guitar sounds.
Beth prowled around, keeping her eyes open and active. She began speaking as though she was in a documentary, “The sky is blue and distant, as anyone would see from any sort of plane. We cannot see the other floor of the dungeon on this side; all we see is the hole in the world that leads over there. The space beyond the Gate looks like more of this land, with pillars and tiles and grasses. I could perhaps walk through what appears to be the ‘wall’ of the dungeon, to walk beside the Gate and effectively overlap any of you on that side, but that seems ill-advised.”
“It’s like we’re in a land of pillars, and the Gate is in the middle,” Jane said, “But we could walk around it if we wanted.”
Abigail started walking that way, saying, “I’m going to try it. Be prepared to Time me.”
Erick’s chest tightened as Abigail approached the left side of the Gate, preparing himself to cast [Return]. Abigail easily walked through the wall of mist, vanishing from sight—
“Girls!” Erick demanded, “What just happened—”
“She appears fine,” Jane said. “She’s walking around.”
Two seconds later Abigail appeared on the right side of the Gate, walking back into view. Erick’s heart still clenched.
Solomon spat, “That was fucking dangerous, Abigail.”
Abigail said, “I appear unharmed, but the decay I experienced due to Darkness seemed to speed up on the other side.”
Emily snorted. “Lucky you didn’t just evaporate.”
“That wasn’t going to happen,” Abigail said, defending herself.
Jane said, “So it appears that we can explore past this stabilized area, but the Darkness is a whole lot stronger past what the dungeon would call the ‘Experimental Floor’.”
Candice, who had been silently inspecting the fountain, spoke up, “This isn’t a spring from some underground source. There’s some sort of brightness down inside the well. Looks like a fragment of some sort of stone. Or ice. Actually. Yeah. That’s Ice. Elemental Ice? Looks like a block of dry ice, actually.”
The other girls turned and walked her way to see what was up.
Candice said, “Maybe a solid form of Elemental Healing?”
Poi suddenly yelled, “Don’t touch that water. Get away from it.”
They weren’t about to, but the warning stopped them short. They all took a step back from the fountain.
Erick and Solomon looked to Poi.
Poi was engaged with a bunch of tendrils coming off of his head, though. He jerked a little bit, as he frowned at the distance, his voice small as he said, “One moment. I’m trying to… Hmm.” He said to Erick and Solomon, “I think we have run into a Forgotten Mana. I think that is Elemental—”
The air filled with a buzz.
Erick waved his hand, and said, “I hate that Silencing. One second.” Erick tried to bring up his Minor Entity of the Script overrides— But a different angry buzz filled the air. It was distinctly different from the one that filled the air when Poi spoke of Silenced magics. Erick looked up, saying, “Come on now. I know I’m in the Dark and this area isn’t exactly secure… Okay. Never mind. I see the problem without having to be told.” He looked to Solomon. “Another Rule?”
Solomon said, “We’ll have to. We probably should have already. This is fine, though.”
Jane spoke from the other side of reality, “Change it up later. Poi. Should we take this thing?” Jane looked down into the waters below the metal grate. “It looks easy enough to steal.”
“No.” Poi said, “Elemental - - - - - - doesn’t do anything for us… Well. Actually. It might be really useful— Eh! Come on back for now. We have to institute some new Rules. The timer still reads all 9s so that space isn’t going anywhere.”
The girls walked back through the [Renew] Gate, each of them reappearing in this reality without any trouble at all.
Jane said, “So the new Rule is to allow Banned magics?”
Solomon spoke, “I should think not. A better Rule would be the allowance of talking of Banned and Forgotten magics.”
Erick couldn’t help himself from musing, “You know… Silences in the Script make a whole lot more sense now, when you consider that they simply disallow certain dimensions from existing or entering into discussion, as though those possibilities have been separated… rather far… Huh. You all aren’t hearing what I’m saying right now, are you?”
Almost the entire group had gone a bit far-eyed as Erick spoke, his words damaging them on some small, yet fundamental level. Solomon seemed the least affected.
Had Erick accidentally run into a Silenced topic?
Well how about that.
Poi was unaffected at all, for some reason. He said, “Rule 10 will have to be extensive, especially if we plan on keeping the Script in here.”
As everyone came back to themselves—
Erick said, “I suspect you might be right, Poi.”
“I really hate those Silences,” Solomon said, and then he pinched half of his nose shut and expelled a glob of blood from the other nostril, directly onto the ground. “Unpleasant.”
Beth said, “How is Elemental - - - - - -” She winced, along with everyone else. “… How is it bad, though?”
Jane said, “Table it, for now.” She looked to Poi. “Rule change?”
Poi nodded. “Do we want to keep the Script? If we don’t keep the Script, I can make a rather simple Rule to allow for the discussion and sequestering of Banned magics, so we might be able to grab that shard of stuff and bring it here. Otherwise, if we keep the Script, I’m not sure how to make a Rule that will allow us to talk about all this stuff, or to retrieve Silenced magic items from the Dark.”
Erick asked, “Kick the Script to Ar’Cosmos levels? Would that be enough?”
Poi said, “Something a bit more aggressive than that might work.”
“Fine by me.” Erick said to everyone, “Everyone okay with manual casting from now on?”
A few small nods and otherwise passed around the group.
Poi nodded. “That works. That’s what we’ll do.”
Half an hour and a million dungeon mana later, Poi changed Rule 1.
- -
1: Script Interface, minimal settings
1: Absolute Minimum Script Interference. Banned and Forgotten Magics allowed.
~ Notification: You have drawn the Sight of the Dark with this rule. (Developer’s note: There’s a lot of dangerous stuff in there, Erick! Don’t get yourself killed too thoroughly. The dungeon can only [True Resurrection] you if there is something to [True Resurrection].)
- -
“I hope to never use those [True Resurrection]s,” Erick said to the air. And then he turned back to his family. “So what’s the Banned magic?”
“Elemental Purity,” Poi said, “Those people weren’t getting healed. They were being made ‘Pure’.”
“Ahhhh,” Erick looked to his daughters. “That would explain the distaste I saw on your faces.”
“Purity could be useful, though,” Candice said. “We’re trying to do some anti-anti-memetic stuff, right?”
“A valid idea,” Solomon said, “We should consult the gods.” He looked to Erick. “Which means you.”
Erick nodded.
- - - -
“Ew, no,” Rozeta said, standing in the clearing outside of the dungeon. “There are better ways to protect against ‘impurity’ threats.”
Erick had called the gods for another small meeting and explained the situation. Not all the gods had shown up, but a few had.
Koyabez said, “Move on past the horror of that Element; it never ends well.”
“What is Purity, anyway?” Erick asked, the Script vaguely Silencing ‘Purity’, but not too badly. He already knew about it, and all the people listening to him were gods, anyway. “It looks like Elemental Healing.” He added, “Also! What’s with the Silencing of how Silences work?”
Rozeta frowned at Erick. And then she just sighed. “Well that’s great.”
Phagar turned back to the topic, “Elemental Purity is a confluence of Healing, Destruction, and Ice. Those who are too impure to begin with, or those who touch Purity without the proper protocols, are themselves destroyed. It’s a good thing no one touched it.”
Erick’s eyes went wide—
And then Aloethag, the Goddess of Beauty and Brutality, and of the Orcols, descended from the cloudy sky to stand upon the grasses before Erick. She was dressed in white and red and unadulterated magnanimity. “I want this Artifact of Purity. In return, and as a start, I will speak on Quilatalap’s behalf regarding his attempt at reconciliation with the Pantheon, and with the world. Other agreements will be at your discretion, Wizard Flatt. How about a Boon of Blood, for start? Five times as much benefit regarding your Blood Mana Class Ability; burn 1 Health gain 5 mana.”
Rozeta went stoic and unreadable; she was staying out of this conversation to preserve neutrality.
Koyabez frowned. “Why can’t you just be happy with having orcols. Why do you want the elves back, Aloethag.”
Aloethag said, “I want both.” Perhaps a little more harshly, she said, “And a Purity Fountain will allow me to cleanse orcols of their Rage completely. A lot of them would wish for this, and I would give it to them.”
Rozeta clearly stated, “No Banned Elements will be allowed to return to Veird.”
Aloethag narrowed her eyes at the Goddess of the Script, then she pivoted. She said to Erick. “Find me elves. Find me people who want me as their goddess. And I will grant you everything I can.”
She obviously didn’t require an answer right then and there, because she spilled into the atmosphere like a splash of golden blood that rapidly vanished into the ether.
“… Well okay then,” Erick said to the air. “I guess that’s it.”
Phagar vanished next, saying, “Farewell.”
“Till next time,” Koyabez said, vanishing as well.
Rozeta remained. She relaxed a fraction, then said to Erick, “I’m amazed that he’s actually letting you plunder the Dark.”
“I’m amazed that it’s working.” Erick asked, “Want to come in? See this place for yourself? Tell me if it is actually working?”
Rozeta was unsure for a moment, her thoughts elsewhere. Then she decided, “No thank you. That is a step too far for me right now.”
“Okay. Then I have a question for you about the nature of mana production.”
Rozeta nodded.
“What is the nature of a person’s personal connection to the multiverse versus how much mana they produce?” Erick clarified, “Like, everyone makes some amount of mana per day, with mages making more and people who are just living their lives making on average 10 mana per day. But where is that mana actually coming from? The number of personal choices available to them? The closeness they have to their own personal multiverse?”
“That’s a mystery of the Dark,” Rozeta said, “But you might be able to get an answer out of my father, when no one else ever could. Personally, I believe that maybe 50% to 80% of the amount of mana a person makes is directly proportional to how much they’re willing to change the world with their power. The other part of that equation is allowances of the Dark, through the awakening of Darkness in everyone who touches upon magic. My numbers are likely off, but they are based upon evidence gathered over a long-ish time.”
Erick thought for a moment, trying to slot that into his current, and growing, idea of the multiverse being how magic actually worked. “Thank you.” Erick spoke, “So when I made [Renew], and then Benevolence… Before all that, every single person’s mana was different. Every single person was a producer for a different universe of themselves. This was why the mana of different mages couldn’t mix properly, without extensive ritual work and cooperative casting, but with [Renew], one mage can express their power in a way that directly communicates and bolsters the power that another has set down.” He asked, “Is that how that works?”
Rozeta chuckled a little. “It’s very like a Wizard to not understand what they have done until many years later. But yes. That is precisely correct. Your Benevolence and empathy has made communication between ‘individual universes’ possible. Though that is a very weird way to state that accomplishment.”
Erick slowly nodded, as the words of the Other Erick, when he witnessed his first core breaking, came back to him. He decided to ask, “So I saw this core breaking last month. I saw my Other Self. He told me: ‘It’s all about communication. That’s the reason for everything happening in your life. And yet, you are nothing. We’re all just motes of our reality, shoved outward in hopes of understanding the Great Other.’ It was all rather cryptic.” Erick asked, “What do you think about that?”
“I can’t give you any sort of satisfying answer, but what I can say is that I am surer and surer that this whole mess of a Sundering search is the correct Path for you.” Rozeta said, “And I do mean ‘Path’; I see that now. With every step you take, and revelation you make, you’re getting closer and closer to True Wizardry. When Yggdrasil and Ophiel separate from you, you will likely be able to become a True Wizard without trouble.”
Erick hummed a little, and then nodded. “Thanks, Rozeta.”
Rozeta smiled softly. “I still want that Lifeblood Heart, Erick. Veird could use the mana. But the others were right when they said that you likely couldn’t approach it at all. Try anyway, please.”
“Of course.” Erick said, “We’re going to go after the Censer of Destruction again, next. Do you want that brought up here, or do I need to deliver it somewhere— Oh! Does Destruction mana literally just close off the dimension of other manas, when paired with that mana? Like that’s how Destruction-plus-Fire ends Fire Magics, and even mundane fire?”
Rozeta raised an eyebrow. “Sure. I’ll be able to take the Censer here on the Surface. And yes. That’s how magic works… Though I wouldn’t phrase it like that. But I see you’re on your own explanation of the universe, and you’re probably correct— And I see you have a lot of other questions, but I gotta go, Erick. We’ll talk later.”
Erick smiled, saying, “Yes. Talk later!”
- - - -
Back inside the dungeon, Erick announced, “Elemental Purity is Banned; we’re not touching that stuff. It’s Elemental Destruction-aligned and has some sort of connection to Aloethag and elves, so that’s a ‘no’. Funnily enough, we are going after another Destruction source; the Censer.”
There were no objections.
Standing before the [Renew] Gate, Erick willed the [Renew] Gate to power, and the webbing of lightning that radiated from the gate seemed to ‘let go’ of the Experimental Space. Lightning retreated, pulling back to the rune of [Renew].
And the timer above the gate rapidly began to count down, the all 9s rapidly changing to two simple digits; 18, then 17, 16…
The land beyond began to fray. Shadows moved in. Pillars and the words upon them turned indistinct in the light of a sun from another universe. As the timer approached 0, the world beyond flickered and birdsong died, passing into dreams.
The timer faded.
The path through the Gate was the final thing to vanish, becoming a tunnel, and then closing off, as though the Gate were an eye belonging to a fainting person. And then there were dreams. The Darkness beyond returned to a cacophony of near-silent memories, fading in and out from the depths, vibrant colors and deep shadows passing in and out of black clouds, briefly revealing themselves as real, and then revealing themselves as not.
Debby asked, “So how does this luring work?”
Erick smiled. “Like this:” And then he intoned, “Find and secure the Censer of Destruction.”
The [Renew] Gate flickered with power. A brilliant white light flickered out of the hole in the ground that led to the house, and the core, followed rapidly by a roll of power that spread outward from that point, flashing across the white stone ground, glittering upon every slime. That brightness radiated into the depths of Darkness surrounding the slime dungeon. And then, on the northern wall, between dreams and reality, light flashed down from every single side, coalescing upon the gate.
The gate hummed to life.
The cacophony of memories beyond began to slow down. Births flowed into deaths and then into destruction. The annihilation of nations and worlds came next, followed by smaller, more concentrated ends; the annihilation of individuals, and then artifacts. The breaking of that which needed to break came next as smoke flowed in from all corners of the Darkness.
And then the smoke flowed out of an invisible space, situated down an expansive hallway that would prove the equal of any world’s greatest cathedrals.
A great white metal bowl, spectacularly clean and yet spilling smoke everywhere, stood in the center of a crossing hallway, in the center of a white cathedral floor. It was several meters across and filled with holes, each of those holes spilling forth smoke. It was a simple thing, and yet not. It held no fire, and yet it burned. It burned, and yet it was clean. In that cleanliness, in that spilling smoke, it cleaned the world.
Priests and paladins stood nearby, overseeing the burning.
A rag-tag group of adventurers also stood nearby, some of them openly weeping in joy and in other heavy emotions, as the tallest of them softly said to himself, “It’s over. It’s finally over.”
His voice was mostly lost in the smoke.
Back in the dungeon, Solomon raised an eyebrow at Erick, asking, “Is that how it works? I wasn’t even sure.”
Erick chuckled. “Seems like it does work exactly like that!”
“I thought I was going to have to help on my end. If that was even possible.”
“Ah? Well. Maybe next time? We can try that experiment, too.”
Jane said, “For now, we wait until the crowd clears.”
Debby asked, “What do you think they were burning?”
Erick guessed, “An artifact of great evil, that could be destroyed no other way. Or maybe the Censer was simply the easiest way to destroy the artifact? Probably the second option. Some artifacts and magics are very hard to destroy.”
And then Poi asked, “Will we be able to fit that thing through this gate?”
“… Ah. Hmm.”
Erick looked at the size of the gate. It was maybe 4 meters wide on the inside.
The Censer of Destruction was at least 6 meters wide. Maybe 7? Hard to tell from this distance.
Abigail said, “Looks like a no, to me.”
Solomon said, “On it!”
And then he did something with the dungeon that Erick didn’t fully understand.
The [Renew] Gate expanded twice as wide. It was now 10 meters in diameter.
Erick looked to Solomon. “Is that how it works?”
Solomon grinned. “Seems like it does work exactly like that.”
As if realizing something that he already knew, Erick said, “All magic is connected. All magic is the same. For mana is simply possibility made manifest. You just fucked with possibility?”
Solomon smiled wider. “Yup. I think what I did was make it so that the larger version of the Gate exists.”
Erick looked to Solomon. “It was that easy?”
Solomon chuckled. “If we were in a less daughter-filled environment, I would make a joke about me going second and widening the hole.”
Erick blinked, stunned that Solomon would speak—
Jane burst out laughing, at Solomon’s joke or at Erick’s delayed reaction, hard to say, while Abigail and Candice both gave a muttered ‘gross’, and Emily and Debby both simply chuckled.
Erick rolled his eyes—
Poi added, “The dungeon did the heavy lifting.”
Solomon grumbled, “Bah! Poi.”
More laughter, as Poi smirked.