I stood in the void, surrounded by many brilliant stars. My galaxy burned brightly, especially compared to Mercy’s gloomy red.
She only had a handful of stars around her. Not even large ones. Just pathetic little motes of light, barely worth a passing thought. All of her undead were either truly dead now, belonged to me, or were otherwise so inconsequential in the real world that my subjects missed them.
I wondered what would happen to them once we left this place? I assumed they’d just drop dead, with their master gone.
Your undead really are unremarkable, you know? I mention. I mean, it was so easy to convert them! They had no will of their own. No ego to speak of. They’re just… puppets.
They’re loyal! Mercy shouted. They’d never betray me!
They never had the chance. I counter. You deliberately weakened yourself to smother them. Used your will to counter theirs. Is it so hard to just let them do what they want to do? I took a step forward.
Mercy jolted back.
I faked a smile. I’m learning so much! Really, it’s a joy to have you around again!
I don’t believe you?
I pretended to pout. Now see, that’s what happens when you betray people! You develop trust issues! You should learn to be more friendly.
My galaxy around me spun in a lazy circle. None of my subjects had ego’s in this space, but I like to think, as I raised out my hands, that they were taking turns to get pet. My hand brushed up against each and every single precious one of them. They’d fought hard. Not a single one of them had died! A few injuries were to be expected, and maybe even one or two deaths, but no! Everyone was fine! The frontline fighters outside the walls did wonderfully. The human and unenthralled backups within the walls only ever had to deal with stragglers, and the small number of Mercy’s horde that managed to make it through. Still, they were no match. Using the cannon to eliminate the largest threats was truly the best decision. I’m glad I was able to rescue Dweller and leave Mercy unharmed.
After all, I wanted to kill Mercy with my own two hands.
My stars floated up behind me, mimicking angel wings with their brilliant light. Have you ever been here before Mercy?
Where are we? She asked. Poor thing. So frightened.
It was a novelty that I had more experience in a given magic subject than someone else. I considered showing off, but deemed it a useless endeavor. Mercy would die soon anyways.
I don’t know what to call this. I told her truthfully. I just know that once we’re in here, only one of us can leave.
Mercy cowered, as much as a cube could. Mercy?
I held up a hand to my ear. Ah, yes. That word. Do you know what it means? I didn’t give her the time to answer. Mercy, is what the strong give to the weak. It is a privilege, and one that cannot be earned. Only given freely. I gave you that name. So wouldn’t you think that, by the nature of your unprovoked betrayal, you have broken the trust imparted upon you by that word?
Mercy said nothing further. Her cube shot away, flying through the void in as straight of a line as it could away from me.
I pouted for real this time. I had a whole villain speech planned out, and she didn’t stick around long enough to listen to all of it! Rude!
Oh well. I had time.
And so, I began walking. No rush. No hurry.
It wasn’t like Mercy could get away from me in the end.
----------------------------------------
Time did pass in this realm, even if it didn’t pass outside. So I had plenty of time to think about things. A novel experience, given the rushed nature of life outside. I could ignore Mercy for now and just think of things I wanted to do when I got out! Daydreaming was a hobby of mine. Ironic, given my ability to lucid dream, but nevertheless. The stories of my dreams had to come from somewhere after all!
With the discovery of Damian’s ability to breathe fire, I wondered how exactly I should go about giving Silver the ability to breathe fire. It would take some bits of evolution to advance their fire breathing abilities to where I wanted them, but I couldn’t sacrifice size for it. Silver needed to be a proper dragon after all!
Actually, speaking of Silver, I wonder if they missed Dweller? They were thick as thieves when they were younger! Oh man, it’s so nice to have Dweller back, even if he’s undead. I wonder-
----------------------------------------
I was tired of moving my feet, so I just decided to fly through this space. Or is it considered floating, since I'm moving slowly?
I wondered if there was an end. Some sort of barrier? Surely there had to be a limit, right? I pondered on what sort of shape the void was. Was it centered on a point in space, or was it around the average space between us two cores?
----------------------------------------
Grant’s core was unique! Wow, I only just saw this now, but he has his own orbiting star! I bet that’s his bat buddy! I check over each of my stars one by one, taking my precious infinite time to identify each and every single one. Well, except the undead. Aside from Dweller, they all feel about the same.
I’m a bit surprised to see that Mr. and Mrs. Vernant aren’t orbiting each other. They were close, right? They’ve certainly had quite a bit of negative distance contact after becoming my thralls.
Oh god the noises they make. You’d think the giant Mr. Vernant would grunt like a bear, but he was actually rather quiet during the whole thing. Mrs. Vernant on the other hand, oh god! You’d think she was being impaled!
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
I chuckle at my own joke.
----------------------------------------
Now look, I know time doesn’t pass outside, but this is getting stupid! I’ve been chasing Mercy for at least a day now! I’m running out of things to think about!
Well, no, that’s a lie actually. But it does get my point across!
Anyways, I think I’m going to daydream about space wizards for a while. That sounds cool.
----------------------------------------
I really should have studied up on biology more. Making up creatures from nothing was hard! And I wanted my aliens to have a little bit of realism built in!
Well, I suppose it’d help with being a dungeon too, but that’s secondary to my personal enjoyment.
----------------------------------------
Were there any dungeons on the moon? If I get bored of earth, I’m 100% setting up a colony on the moon! I’ll force evolution to the point where they can survive on the moon!
Ooh, that makes me think! I wonder if I can make a monster that photosynthesizes! I wonder how that works in terms of the whole ‘overfeeding my monsters to gain mana’ thing. More leaves means more mana? Or would I gain any mana at all, and they just work like thausens, with the inability to pass on the magic they consume.
I’d have to ask Owyn when I got out.
----------------------------------------
I twirled around a stick I’d created from my undead stars. The practice still felt uncomfortable, even after having done it a handful of times before. The other shapes I’d made from my undead stars floated around me as well. I conducted them with a few lazy waves of the wand, playing pretend with the funny shapes.
Good god I was getting bored.
----------------------------------------
I’m going to see how high I can count!
1,2,3,4…
----------------------------------------
Ah shit, was that group of stars the thousands, or the millions? Damnit, I’m not starting over. Not again.
----------------------------------------
…
----------------------------------------
I’ve stopped chasing Mercy. What’s the point? I’m pretty sure we’re moving at the same speed anyways, so it’s not like I can catch her. I’ll just play with my stars for a bit longer…
Make some shapes…
I won’t combine any of them. I’m still not sure about that part. Don’t want to risk it. I’ll just make some lego blocks or something with the small pieces.
----------------------------------------
I stood, my hand held out to Mercy. I knew where she was. Somehow, that was an inherent property of this void. I always knew where she was at any given moment.
I’d refined that sensation for the past few weeks. I could tell where her stars were too. I just had to want it enough. At this point, knowing where Mercy herself was was simply reflex. Or instinct, or whatever. It was natural, is what I’m getting at.
And if I closed my eyes for a bit, I could sense the void around me. It felt like a breeze. Invisible, intangible, but there nonetheless. I could breathe it in. Breathe it out.
Meditation was as close as I’d gotten to sleeping in a long… long while.
This was nice.
----------------------------------------
I learned a new trick today! Man, I wish I had a diary to write in.
Ok, so! If I desire it enough, the same as any other magic it seems, I can swap places with one of my stars! It’s not quite the teleportation I’m used to, but I like it! I can choose to teleport stars as well, swapping one for the other, or everything for one thing! Just choosing which stars move where made it happen!
I wonder if I could use this to teleport closer to Mercy? My normal teleportation doesn't work here. It doesn't really phase me, most dreams operated by different rule sets from each other. I just had t figure out this world's rules!
I'll chase Mercy again later. After a few months of complete and utter isolation, I’ve begun to enjoy the silence!
----------------------------------------
The void was a planet. Of sorts.
It wasn’t like any three dimensional object I knew of. More fourth dimensional. We were inside of a fourth dimensional sphere, assuming my 3D brain could comprehended this correctly. If you go out the one side, you come back through the other. In all directions.
I had no frame of reference, otherwise I’d tell you exactly how big it is too.
With the ability to morph my body as I wished, I’d lost my original dimensions long ago. After nearly a year trapped in here with Mercy, I found it a miracle I remembered the proportions of human anatomy at all! A few months back I sent out a cluster of my stars to get as far away from me as possible, moving perpendicular to Mercy of course, for safety. Thanks to that, my understanding of this ‘infinite’ space was basically complete. I probably could learn more to do with my stars, but I forwent with that opportunity when I wasted their transformations back in the first few months of being here.
I found it preposterous that a system was designed like this. There was no incentive for the weaker core to engage in combat with the overwhelmingly larger one. They could just run away for all eternity if they really wanted to. After that, it’d be a matter of wills. Surrender was always possible, but surrender killed you. And that was unacceptable. Mercy had to be the one to die. Not me. I had too many people relying on me.
My story wouldn’t end here.
I held my hands in my lap serenely. This was a delicate matter that took a lot of will. Not so much concentration, like I always imagined magic to require, but desire. The want for something to happen needed to overwhelm the rules that dictated that such things were impossible.
Directly casting magic upon another thing requires you overwriting its will. Its desire to maintain itself. My evolution, as I’m theoretically understanding it, is merely casting magic upon creatures who willingly give themselves to me. In so much as a thrall forcibly enslaved can be willing.
Casting magic upon the natural order of things was trickier. Things still wanted to behave as physics wants them to behave, and as such, it’s only by playing by the rules that you’re able to convince things to perform magic. Fly, catch fire, be quiet, etc. This was all just a theory, because I still didn’t have a proper explanation for the bullshit that some of my monsters pull off, like Rab’s betrayal of the square cube law, or Damian or Silver's abilities to fly.
In here though? Time did not flow. Physics did not exist. Casting magic here should be easy. But I cannot summon things from nothing. I cannot create fire. I cannot even create sound. Mercy and I still speak through our thoughts directed at each other. Of course, we must both be willing in order for that to happen, and Mercy staunchly refuses to believe that she can hear me if I am a certain distance away from her.
It all has to do with the fact that nothing exists here. No atoms to bounce sound around, and no oxygen to burn. Physics still may work here, but I’m definitely thinking of it wrong. I’m thinking… too three dimensional.
This space has no walls. No barriers, nothing stopping us from moving infinitely in a definite amount of space. No two points in this space were any different from the other. Travel should be as simple as taking a single step from one place-
EEP! Mercy cried as I appeared from nothing directly in front of her.
-to another.
She flees, as she always does when I approach her. I let her flee. For truly…
What is the point in chasing her?
The space around us shrinks to nothing. A mere bubble of its former glory. Light bends in odd ways, allowing Mercy and I to exist alone with each other. I expected to be able to see the back of my own head, but no, I guess. She leaves out one end, and appears at the other. Never further than an arms length away at any time. I take a breath of air that does not exist.
I missed the real world. I missed my friends.
My hand reaches out for Mercy, gripping her tightly.
Wait!
It’s time to go home.
Crack!