I heard it from around the corner of an unfamiliar castle hall: “I don’t think this Vencia project is going well.”

This castle was a glittering mass of copper-colored tile and stone on the outside—at least, that’s what I’d gathered while hurtling straight through the stratosphere and the ceiling. Now I was levitating inside a maze of white walls and wood whose color resembled burnished gold.

The hallway was long and had many forks. Far ahead of me, humans with bowed heads and ornate shawls crossed from path to path.

The same voice continued, playful and leisurely. “What were your guiding principles this time again?”

Another voice sighed—and the sigh shook the passageway. “They don’t change,” it insisted.

Hm…

Technically I had infinite options. Since I was dead—or at least dreaming, or something—I wasn’t tangible. My Stats were all zeroes, but they were also through the roof, literally. Meaning I could jet my way around the universe! Right?

But obviously I wouldn’t leave after hearing a stranger mention that Vencia “wasn’t going well.”

I started creeping around the corner toward that voice…and was startled to see my paws pass through the floor like it was air. Snap out of it. It’s not permanent, I thought, without conviction.

Look, just distract yourself with the conversation, okay?

I started floating instead of creeping. With a steady application of will, I coaxed my body to coast. How did it work? I wasn’t prepared to answer that.

…Wait, what happens if people see me? Is that even possible?

“Ah, but you added a little more of the System this time,” the leisurely voice said.

“It’s not the System that’s the problem, strictly speaking, it’s just—they get rowdy.”

“No, they want the fullness of the power they believe is rightfully theirs…”

Uh, they couldn’t have been talking about me, right? I didn’t have any clear notion of what was “rightfully mine,” besides, like, the obvious—my body. Any Skills I got, I would take, but I didn’t need their “fullness.” Maybe I should’ve just listened, but it was hard to clear my racing mind after all the recent weirdness.

I rounded the corner and made my way behind a freestanding paper wall. It was dark fuchsia on one side, yet see-through on the other, decorated with wafting ferns and dandelions.

This was a room of riches. A thousand precious stones I couldn’t name had been fashioned into chandeliers, enormous rose-filled vases, and swirling decorative patterns on the wooden walls. These walls showed a forest scene in wild, lush technicolor, with wolves, boars, and…dragons. Lots and lots of dragons.

That part made sense, because at one end of a rather large marble table sat a dragon that barely fit in the room at all.

So this was the source of the booming voice. His body was long, snakelike, and opulently gold, constantly bristling with golden-bronze clouds of sheer energy. With every breath, powerful nostrils heaved. Fangs poked out from the lip.

This was…the king of Vencia? If so, then maybe the person at the other end of the huge marble table was his advisor?

Swaddled in so many black scarves and cloaks, that advisor was harder for me to get a read on. Underneath their hood and baggy sleeves, I saw hints of pallid gray skin. Their hands constantly fidgeted, fiddling with their teacup, their chin, or just the other hand.

“It’s time you gave up,” the advisor said. “If it weren’t for this overdramatic cloud palace, the ‘Lord’s Own’ paladins would have all this for firewood. And your body.”

The dragon shut his eyes and sighed again. “All the same, I want to finish what I’ve started.”

“Have you ever considered that there’s more than one way to make a clean slate? You don’t have to kill them,” the advisor said with a jarring laugh. “Just take their Skills!”

“That would…that would mess up their historical record.”

“Yes. They’d just have an Age of Myth.”

“I don’t want to plunge them into a Dark Age.”

“Then let someone else do that. You have them on the line already.”

“I am not consorting with the Beyond!” the dragon stormed. A flurry of magic stormclouds swept through the room, nearly knocking down the wall I stood behind—and getting me to shiver despite my utter numbness.

The discussion stayed hushed for several seconds. Then a new voice interrupted before the smoke could fully clear.

“Gib’s right, though!” she said, the tones full and bright. “You’re a total flip-flopper. The sooner you admit it, the better!”

“You tell ‘im,” a deeper one added.

I heard shuffling and clanking teacups. By the time the puffs had cleared, two new faces were sitting at the table, claiming the long sides of the rectangle. One of them I could only see from the back. She had short, untamed brown hair, a long silver gown, and a tie like black leather around her neck. Wait…was that the same tie I’d seen on that wizard boy Sephene, minutes before his spell slashed me apart?

Across from that person was a…a catgirl!

A woman with long hair that tufted in places like a fluffy cat’s luxurious mane, white around her face and inside of her ears but deep brown and black elsewhere. She had come dressed like some kind of businesswoman, wearing a tweed blazer. Was it just me, or did her gaze seem to disapprove of everything and everybody?

Okay, it had to be just me, because the next thing out of her mouth sounded deathly familiar.

“I noticed you didn’t even bother inviting me, Norton,” she said to the dragon. “I do appreciate cards and condolences, you know.”

The advisor—Gib—leaned forward on an elbow. “Likewise, we appreciate your friendship, and the reliability of it.”

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The dragon Norton was more straightforward. “There’s hardly any point when you’re in a different palace every week.”

“So Teague is my glorified pager?”

“Guess so.”

“I don’t mind,” the brown-haired woman said. She was still chipper, and she shifted and bobbed as she spoke and followed the conversation. “You don’t even need to pay me. All I ask is that you’re happy!”

“Aw,” Gib fawned—while Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata, looked away and narrowed her eyes.

That had to be her. The way she acted reminded me of…okay, it was starting to remind me of myself too. How I didn’t want to acknowledge Sierra even when she was being helpful, yet admitting that helpfulness would feel like giving in. I couldn’t imagine being friends with someone as standoffish as her, let alone having her as a kingdom consort…but immediately after thinking that, I remembered how standoffish I was and I just got sad.

Teague reached across the table for her hand. Sierra sheepishly accepted.

“We are gathered here for—”

“Stop that,” Sierra said to Norton.

“…Okay, but just to make you happy.”

Poof. The massive dragon became a white-haired young man dressed in brocaded finery that equaled the splendor of his old scales. Actually, traces of scales remained on his neck and hands, and so did the piercing gold of his eyes. Wooden diddlies like antlers stuck out from his head.

Sierra smirked at Gib. “You two are so insecure.”

“If I looked like all my constituents, I would have a new form every five seconds,” Gib said.

“Yeah, and I would step on you.”

“Thank you for the offer. A light breeze has the same effect, though.”

Norton restarted. “I call this meeting to—”

“Why do you keep treating your creations like notes instead of, y’know, finished drafts?” Teague asked Gib. “It’s gotta stop being fun sometime.”

“No, it’s still fun. I have too many ideas, and I do not think werewolves are cool.”

Even from directly behind her, I could tell Teague frowned seriously at that.

A fist banged on the table. “I call this meeting to order!”

Everyone stopped talking…then broke into giggles.

Uh, at first I’d assumed this was a royal hotshot meeting with the fate of the world in its hands, but now it looked like a random party that just happened to feature all-powerful deities. Or was “Arkmagi” the word? Either way, I was seriously debating my next move—whether to even make a move. How did all this work? If I got Sierra’s attention somehow, would she bring me back to life?

Wait…would I even want to return to life if I’d be lobbed back into a coming Vencian Dark Age?

Now Norton was up, pacing, with scaly hands behind his back. “The situation in Vencia has gone sour. I was very excited about my most direct mortal interventions to date, particularly the part where I made a magically enhanced warrior class to patrol the republic. Sadly, my interventions actually brought about a dystopian society earlier than usual.”

Alright. “Dystopian” sounded distinctly unlike the Vencia that I knew, and so did roaming paladins. I had to be in a weird mirror dream world, or a different timeline, or…

Sierra raised her hand.

“Give up,” she said.

“I…didn’t call on you. Also, no.”

Teague raised her hand.

“Yes?”

Teague took a deep breath. “Like I was saying when I came in, you’ve already made friends with some Things from Beyond. And you bragged about it! Saying you didn’t would just be dishonest.”

“I wasn’t bragging! I was taking a clear stand so the other Arkmagi would know which side I was on…and it only backfired later when I wanted to change my side back. A-and we’re not even friends anymore!”

“Convincing,” Sierra said dryly to Gib.

Norton said, “Yes, I am insecure, and I’ll own that.”

Teague said, “Maybe you can hand this whole planet to the Beyond. You’ve basically prepped it for them.”

“That sounds evil. I mean, more so than what I’ve put this planet through already.”

“Well, what if…what if you just hand over five humans, or some amount like that?”

Norton squinted in irritation. “Oh geez, no.”

“He won’t hear about any ‘greater good’ that’s not his own,” Gib hummed. Then they raised their hand.

“Yes?”

“I think you should simply hand the place to me.”

Teague turned to them with sparkling eyes. “Oh my gosh! With the magic and the myths and legends already set up? That’d be so cool! As long as you don’t just fill it up with random sludge monsters!”

“There can be sludge dragons.”

“You’re such a creative mind, Gib!” Turning to Norton, she added, “Trying to attain the perfect society is cool too, but you’ve just got to make the best of a slightly crappy thing, and Gib…Gib can do that.”

Sierra raised her hand again. “Can you let me examine the minds of some of your corrupt warrior class, actually? I need to research the problem of evil so my next catgirl doesn’t go rogue.”

Norton didn’t answer. Now his mind was heavy, and the longer he stood staring pensively at the floor, the more that silence became like a weight.

At last, he announced, “Cool!”

He didn’t exactly sound satisfied, but the outburst did give the other three some relief.

“Cool, yeah, I’ll write it out,” he said, extending a hand and—poof—getting to work with quill and parchment. “Sierra, you can temporarily extend your System to several Vencians, in a limited capacity, just to scan their brains.”

“And can I ask them questions?” Sierra added, demonstrating a deep and abiding interest in the thoughts of others which, perhaps, she would never show again.

“Sure! As many as you want within the span of four weeks. Then we’ll mindwipe it.”

“I’m alright with that.”

“Gib, you’ll get possession of Vencia, you get to decide when and how I withdraw my System, and you can pick and choose which citizens you want to give your System to.”

“That should work,” Gib said, leaning back. “But I’m thinking I’d rather invite in some leftover spirits from an old planet…”

“Not the ghosts and ghouls?”

“No, it’s totally the ghosts and ghouls.”

“Aw, no…” Norton rolled his eyes, though he was still writing at a breakwrist pace. “Not the Shadow Kings.”

“The Shadow Kings.”

“It’s fine. I cede control. Lastly, Teague, you can…you want to do any werewolf experiments?”

“Do you really think I’m still doing werewolves?” Teague said. “Because I am.”

“…Sierra, you’re not teaching her sarcasm very well.”

“I try,” Sierra said. “Just not hard.”

With a final splashy signature across the bottom of the makeshift contract, a brief golden glow beamed from the page. So the business was done—and I had no clue what was up next.

I figured I knew what this was now. I had gone back in time, before the Age of…the Era of…whatever time period the Lady Canny statuette’s description had mentioned. This Norton guy had goofed, ruling Vencia but changing it into a horror show in the process. Now he was handing it over to his friend Gib—also goofy—to usher in the reign of the scary-sounding Shadow Kings.

And Sierra was there too! Now that the conversation was turning, I kept my eyes firmly on Sierra. It made sense that she would be the key. By Leaping into her arms—sorry, I meant by slowly scooting my ghostly form so that it almost phased through her arms—maybe I could jog her memory of me! But wait, my own birth hadn’t happened yet.

Maybe it was safer to bide my time and—

“Okay, break out the snacks,” Sierra announced, standing boldly. “Whose turn for Movie Night?”

Rrrgh! One hour and thirty minutes of continued chicanery?!

I wasn’t gonna stand for it, nor float for it. Zero Speed, activate!

I passed through the paper wall possibly faster than paint dries.

The foursome at the table were shifting, de-Inventorizing and re-Inventorizing goods, debating the merits of movies in corny boxes that even I could tell were uniformly bad…

Nobody noticed me.

I positioned myself in the air. A floating cat, directly in Sierra’s face, occasionally overlapping it as she argued laughingly with Gib.

I activated Skills, just to marvel at the nothing that would do.

I didn’t cry, but only because I was a cat and cats can’t do that.

Then the lights started to dim. Norton was turning a dial at the edge of the gem-encrusted room, and the movie was about to begin.

Oh no—it was all over, wasn’t it? My faint hopes of getting Sierra’s attention, lost…and my own soul lost either in these halls or in those vast nebulae of space. It’d been a good life, a good two lives, but not nearly good enough to make my afterlife feel full.

Now everything was getting so dim. Too dim. Or was it my eyes that were changing?

My senses of touch, taste, and smell had already been gone, so it made sense that now my vision would leave. My ears seemed to stuff up with tissue and fog. Colors, all dark, were bleeding into each other, blotting with the tears I hadn’t shed.

It all bled together. And then I was back in dark numb space.

I spent seven seconds in despair.

Then I saw Sierra wake up with a gasp, rattled awake by a rough dream.

Or maybe she only looked so frightened because I was currently standing on her collarbone and staring into her unsettlingly close face.

O-okay, great! I felt her skin and bone under me—I could feel things again! I must’ve been back to—

Lightning struck, seemingly right outside a cabin window. I yowled and fell to the floor.