Olivander's eyes snapped open, and he sat bolt upright. He was in the middle of a fight. The mimic, Lucindre…Giles, did he get out of the lake?

He looked around. He wasn't by the lake. He was in a richly appointed guest room. Gregory lay in a bed on the other side of the room, with Cooper curled up on the floor nearby. Gregory was silently tossing and turning in his sleep, and Cooper wasn't faring much better. Olivander relaxed at the sight of them. He had been worried how they would fare. They must have seen some things, but they were both alive and appeared to still have all their limbs.

Olivander stretched, feeling his body. He felt good. A few hours of sleep was all he had really needed. His mana recovery was still garbage, only about half full, but it was better than nothing.

He summoned his grimoire and drew out a spell. He directed the ritual at his sleeping companions and activated it with a word.

"Peace."

They both stilled, falling into a more restful slumber.

That accomplished, he dismissed his grimoire, and quietly left the room. He needed to find some information.

He found Leviana sitting in an office downstairs. She was studying some paperwork on her desk.

"Olivander, you're finally awake. How do you feel?"

"All I needed was a few hours of sleep, my dear. Where are Lucindre and Giles, and what happened with that Mimic?"

"Olivander, you were asleep for two days."

That brought him up short. He sat down in a chair and Leviana stood, pouring him some tea.

"Two days? I am getting old," he said, accepting the tea. "Thank you, Leviana. What happened while I was getting my beauty rest?"

Leviana brought him up to speed on the events of the last two days.

The city's organization and solid leadership had seen the entire population of the city cleansed and sweeped. The total infected death toll was a little over two hundred. Were it not for their discovery of the infections early on, it would have been much worse. Gregory and Cooper had assisted with sweep and clear operations with the constables, and had led High Magus Develie back to the Ghoul Mimic domain to ensure it was fully cleared and inactive.

"And the Master Mimic?"

"Jeremy was on his way back with the gold rank team when you went down. I had sent over a friend, the archer who assisted you, but he's only silver rank. He's fine, by the way. Took a solid hit, but Lucindre patched him up quickly. The gold rank team finished off the monster, and they burned the corpse. We pulled Giles out of the lake, unconscious, but otherwise okay. He's fortunate that his Aquamancer class gives him the ability to breathe underwater."

"I must apologize for the whole ordeal. I made a mistake when I let it suppress my power. It should have never escaped its domain."

Before Leviana could answer, another voice spoke from the doorway.

"It's me you should apologize to, you oaf," Lucindre said, entering the office. She sat in the other chair across from Leviana's desk. "You should have seen the bruises that water elemental gave me."

"You can heal simple bruises."

"Of course, but you should have seen them. I was basically one giant bruise. Nevermind that. Have you felt the balance?"

Olivander hadn't been focused on it. Now that he had some mana, he wasn't as sensitive to the effects of imbalance. As soon as he focused on it, it was like the world was tilted sideways again.

"I take it that's why I only regained half my mana in two days?"

"Probably, but you were well past your limits anyway, so that probably delayed recovery. Can you fix it? You're not Arch-magus anymore, but I assume you know the rituals. We haven't been able to get in touch with Amegnon to do anything about it while you were out."

"I should be able to, but I confess I've never seen mana this out of balance without a dungeon spawning."

"There was a god here. He probably suppressed the world's natural ability to form a dungeon when he decided to put up his own. You should get moving, there's no telling how long that effect will continue."

Olivander's knowledge of divine beings was rather limited. It was always one of his mother's favorite topics, so he at least knew the basics, but since it was one of her favorite topics, he had avoided in-depth study.

He nodded to Lucindre.

"I had best get to it then. Is Giles around? With how out of balance things are, we should make sure to have some solid fighters around in case I end up making a mistake."

A half hour later, Olivander was on the lawn of the manor, drawing out a massive pair of rituals. Giles stood nearby, chatting with some constables and other nobility who had wanted to watch. Lucindre stood on the opposite side with the group of gold rank adventurers who had ultimately rescued Olivander.

He explained himself to the onlookers as he was finishing up the second ritual.

"The magic and the mana in our world comes from several sources. The world produces a little naturally, and a large amount comes from natural openings into other Realms. The Faen Woods, the Ice Plains of Tevenavos, the Pits of Madness. Those are some of the more well known ones in our kingdom, but there are more here and around the world.

"When we use too much of the natural mixture, the power that fills in the gaps typically comes from the closest Realm, which can vary, and doesn't really mean much if you don't study magic extensively. The rub is that unless the world fixes the imbalance with a dungeon spawn, you can create an entrance into one of these Realms. If you've ever visited an entrance to another Realm, you'd understand why you definitely don't want that in the middle of your fine city.

"What we have here today is an overabundance of mana from the Realm of Madness. I will be balancing this out by connecting to the Fae Realm and the elemental Wind Realm. It's entirely possible a wind elemental, or creature of the Fae could manifest during these rituals, so be careful. Now, sit back and enjoy the show!"

He finished the second ritual with a flourish. He stood between them and extended a hand to each one. He hadn't developed the original balancing rituals, but he had refined them, making them much safer, and the process much quicker.

"I call upon the Fae Realm, bind your power to me," his left hand and the ritual on that side started glowing with a white-blue haze. "I call upon the Elemental Realm of Wind, bind your power to me."

His right hand glowed with a soft green, and the color spread throughout the ritual on that side.

The spells were complete, and now all he had to do was pull.

He focused on the balance, seeing the world through tilted vision. He drew power from the Fae Realm first.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Above the blue ritual, brief images of fairies, living trees with faces, imps, and all manner of insects flashed into and out of existence. Power flooded the entire area, spreading out over the city.

Olivander could feel his vision of the balance tilt back towards level, ever so slightly.

He did the same with the Wind Realm. No images of things that lived in the realm appeared, instead blasts of wind shot into the sky from the ritual, accompanied by another flood of power. He had to pull on this one for a while longer before the balance began to change.

He alternated between them, trying not to pull too much power at once. One small wind elemental was pulled across, on the side of Giles, and he blasted it apart with a casual spear of ice.

After nearly twenty minutes, Olivander's vision only had the faintest of tilts, but they were well out of the danger zone. He allowed his connection to the two realms to slacken and then disappear.

Giles didn't bother saying anything to him, he just gave him a short nod and departed. Olivander thought that might be the nicest thing Giles had ever done for him.

"Good work, Olivander. How do you feel?" Lucindre asked.

"Have you ever done that before, Lucindre?"

"Long ago. You make it look easy. The first time I tried it I pulled a three headed ogre over from the Fae that nearly killed me. That's probably why I never wanted the Arch-magus job."

"It does take a lot out of me. But I was fortunate enough to be well rested, and I can feel my mana recovery improving already."

"Olivander! A word please!" Constable General McKenzie was hurrying over. He had arrived before the balancing rituals.

"Constable General. I hear you did an excellent job managing the crisis."

"Thank you, Olivander. But I wanted to thank you. If you hadn't known about the disease these things carried, we'd be in a lot worse shape than we are now.

"The timing was very fortunate. The infected adventurers were the most dangerous part, but luckily most of the city's young adventurers are still out of town, challenging the temporary dungeon up north. So while there was a lot of damage, we avoided the worst of it. It's going to take time, but we'll come back stronger than ever from this."

"Glad to hear it. I'm just glad we arrived in the city when we did. What of people who escaped? Any word?"

"That is perhaps the rough patch. We know who portaled out, and the High Magi rounded up most everyone, but there were a few that they couldn't trace. There is another small chance that people escaped on foot, but we set up watch on all the neighboring villages. If they had bypassed those, we think the infection would have taken hold before they were able to get anywhere else," he grimaced at the thought.

"But overall, we think we have things contained and cleansed. It's unlikely that the few who portaled away were infected."

A weight Olivander hadn't realized he was carrying since first seeing the Ghoul Mimic was lifted from his shoulders.

They talked for a little longer before Olivander excused himself. He wanted to check in on his students.

He considered how lucky they were with the dungeon spawn drawing a significant number of adventurer's away before the infections started. He wouldn't call the arrival of a god and a personal trial for him lucky, since if he had been rested, the domain and most of the round up wouldn't have posed too much of an issue.

On his way back through the manor, he found a little girl walking around by herself. She was hugging a stuffed bear to her chest and was looking around in a panic.

She flinched when she turned and spotted him, and he crouched down and held his hands open, palms up in front of him in a non-threatening gesture.

"Hey there," he said in a calm, soft voice. "Are you looking for someone?"

"Gregory?" she asked. She looked like she was on the verge of tears.

Olivander kept his face pleasant, though he was a little surprised this little girl was looking for Gregory.

"I was just on my way to see him! Would you like to come with me? Do you know Cooper as well? We're friends."

She nodded. "You were asleep."

"I was! I was really tired. I didn't know I was asleep for so long until someone told me."

She just stared at him.

"Do you want to see some magic?"

Her eyes lit up a little.

He conjured a floating horse.

"Hop on! We'll go see Gregory. My name is Olivander, what's yours?"

The little girl touched the conjured horse with a hand, then climbed on, holding her bear tight.

"Rebecca."

"You have a lovely name, Rebecca. What about your bear? Does he have a name?"

He continued engaging the girl in conversation while he tugged her floating horse along behind him. It easily drifted up the stars, and soon they were outside his room.

He peeked in to make sure Gregory and Cooper were still there, and then they entered.

"Time to get up, my boys! we have a guest."

Cooper woke quickly and he trotted over to get some pets from Rebecca. Gregory took a minute to understand that Rebecca was there. Once he was awake though, Rebecca chattered at him for a few minutes before she and Cooper went to the side of the room to play. She liked throwing his ball, and he would never say no to a game of fetch.

Olivander drew out a tiny ritual, and a dome shimmered into place around Gregory and himself, muffling their voices from the rest of the room.

"I assume there's an unpleasant backstory behind why this little girl is so attached to you, and also here? She can't hear us."

"I found her in a house alone during the sweep and clear. Both of her parents are dead and she hasn't brought it up yet or mentioned her family. Gloria is trying to find out if she has any more family in the city. I…I'm not sure what she saw."

Olivander frowned. "You did a good thing taking her out of there Gregory, but I'm not sure getting to know her like this is the best idea."

Gregory turned an uncharacteristically dark expression on Olivander.

"I'm not going to abandon her, Olivander."

Olivander studied Gregory. Maybe rescuing and taking care of this girl was something the young man needed. Some kind of catharsis for his past grief. Olivander wouldn't tell him what to do, but he hoped Gregory wouldn't want to stay in Serin to take care of Rebecca or be hurt when she left him to join family elsewhere.

"I didn't say you had to. I just want to make sure you don't end up in a situation that causes you any more grief."

Gregory's expression softened, and he nodded at Olivander.

"I know. I'm a mess right now. What's our plan? I think they're planning on leaving the city-wide lockdown in place for a few more days."

"For now, just rest and enjoy the time not spent saving the city. You and Cooper did well, Leviana told me some of it. We can pick back up on your training in a few days."

Olivander dropped the privacy bubble.

"I think I'm going to head out and see if anything else needs taking care of around the city. I'll leave you with my golem again, in case you need to contact me."

He channeled power into the disk at his waist, and his personal assistant golem took shape. He really needed to figure out how to make the construct a little cheaper. He hadn't seen what it could do for himself yet, but the hourly mana cost was quite high.

"Getting brought back to consciousness in random locations is really jarring. It looks like we all made it out okay though! Great!" the golem said with a cheery voice.

"T-bone! You're back!"

"We are not calling it that," Olivander said flatly.

The golem gave Olivander a salute, and then drifted down next to Rebecca.

"Hello there! I don't think we've met. I'm Olivander's Feast Golem Personal Assistant, Olivander Junior!"

"Nope!" Olivander said.

"Are you hungry? You look hungry," the golem finished, ignoring Olivander's interjection.

Rebecca looked at the Golem with confusion for a moment, then made a small nod.

"Great! Olivander, could you spare a Lesser Feast Golem for me?"

Olivander sighed, conjuring one of the golem cooks. "I'm going to leave for a bit, but when I come back, you better have a name picked out."

Gregory and Cooper led Rebecca and the golems down to the kitchens, and Olivander went the other direction, towards the manor exit.

"Spare Rib?"

"Why are all your names about bones?"

"I like bones. Besides, he is a feast golem."