They landed in their golden bed a moment later.

Something was wrong though.

They weren’t just sharing a body and physical sensation as before, but also thoughts now. In a chaotic maelstrom, their thoughts tore each other apart. Neither able to process a full thought in the mess.

They screamed. Their whole body feeling like an overfull balloon, about to burst. Like their whole body was too full.

They barely registered the angel statue appearing in the corner of their room. At least not until an image of Jux was beamed out of a crystal in the angel statues hands.

She was different, more confidant. Also, the Divine aura suppressing some of their pain was a new and welcome change.

“Oh shit sorry guys, I should have foreseen the problem of both your souls being in one body. Let’s see what happened to your real bodies… oh! They don’t exist right now. Maybe in a few hundred years when the inner world grows the system will place your neighbourhood somewhere...”

They grunted in confusion and pain.

“Right, right. That doesn’t do you much good, for now, does it?.” The AI examined them. “First off the dark-elf or fey blood cosmetic thing you tried for will help. Just fuse in those wings. I guess sapient Fey will have to get 1 less accessory slot in this world to make up for natural wings, more wing flaps at max health, less to start. To make flight time mirrors game progression to a degree.”

Brooklyn was writhing in slightly less pain for a moment, then the thrashing damaged the wings before they instinctively went incorporeal. They were hurt and the instinct forcing the wings to be incorporeal was extremely... itchy.

The AI Goddess kept narritaing her attempts to help. “Ok, that made some more room, now that your body is upgraded and half immortal you have room for a big strong half immortal soul. Not quite enough room for the both of you fully. If I shave a bit here, remove some walls you guys won’t need between yourselves over here. There! They fit like a puzzle piece. No, even better, more like a ying-yang symbol.”

Brooklyn was no longer in excruciating pain. Marty and Rayne were still distinct entities in their mind, but their thoughts flowed back and forth easily. Now unable to hide anything from each other.

For the first time, they really felt like Brooklyn, and not just two people playing a role.

Rayne and Marty played back everything Jux had said in her rant. They easily found consensus over what to ask first. “What do you mean, our bodies don’t exist anymore?”

The AI’s avatar visibly thought about her answer, even though the couple knew that she could think hundreds of times faster than them. “Ok, so extremely long story short: When you felt reality pause for a moment a lot more time passed then you personally experienced. About a week on the surface of the world, but I don’s really know how long it took us to make a new world. For me, it feels like it's been years.”

Jux Continued. “In all that time, the world ended, not just nuclear apocalypse or something either. The Whole planet exploded. Some Gods, AIs and World Systems worked together to put the pieces of the earth together with pieces of thousands of other smaller pocket worlds. The new world is much bigger and I made sure that there would eventually be enough room for everything.”

She looked sad. “However I couldn’t play favourites, I didn’t have the time. I made divine programs to place similar things together, or near other useful things. I guess there was nowhere to put your residence, yet. Basically, your bodies and home are locked in stasis in the world’s hard drive.”

Marty asked next. “So, are we dead?” They looked concerned, and maybe a bit disbelieving.

Jux waved her hand in a vague motion and replied. “Ehhh, not really, not yet. So for my help in saving the world, I became a minor Goddess. So basically this world and the other game worlds are kind of like my heaven, or maybe more accurately the vault is my heaven and your’s and the other worlds are going to compete over who gets to be my limbo and hell. By that, I mean I MIGHT be able to permanently stabilize one or two more of my worlds.”

Jux sighed. “I needed a week of having my “angels” distribute items from the vault to survivors before I even had enough faith energy coming in to turn the game worlds back on again. They are much more real now, being my potential divine worlds and not just games anymore. There is potential for travel to and from this plane, but you won’t be able to leave for long, and not until you have stabilized the world more. So you’re somewhere between as alive as a soul in the afterlife and the Divine being that rules that afterlife, like the devil in Christian mythos.”

Rayne looked puzzled for them. “So we’re maybe kinda dead, for now. If you are telling the truth and correct. Which we will assume you are because I can’t log out and you are our only source of information.”

Marty took over smoothly for Rayne. “How do we stabilize the world more? That seems to be our main priority besides this competition you mentioned.”

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“I’ll tell you more about the competition in two weeks. Starting rankings will be based on your stabilization work.” Jux started to explain. “Basically there are two main ways of progression based on your world’s makeup and systems. The first is through Vault donations. When you interact with one of my statues you can dump items into a donation hamper that adds them to the vault world for me to potentially give people in the real world. That in turn helps me gain more believers, and thus more faith energy I can put into my worlds to stabilize them and make them more real. Marty, you have already indirectly saved thousands of lives by making that vault for me.”

Marty made them laugh a little. “who’d have thought that years of being an item hoarder would help people, I’m guessing we don’t get extra credit for that.”

Jux looked regretful. “No, I’m sorry, I could only keep that world because there were no living souls in it, and thus ownership defaulted to me. That means, all the faith energy I gain from the Terrania Items in it goes to me directly, you folks and your world are tied to any Devanian Items in the vault that you donate from now on.”

Rayne Piped up “So what’s the other way?”

Jux coughed awkwardly “Basically, Have sex with NPCs until they get smarter. Other types of interaction will work too, just slower. Also, have lots of children”

Marty narrowed his eyes “I get how turning video game items into real things and handing them out would help you gain believers. How does fucking save our little world?”

Jux’s appearance changed, her outfit becoming that of a dominant Teacher. Glasses appearing on her face, and hair sliding up into a tight ponytail. “Time to learn the birds and the bees children. You know that when a male and female have sex, pregnancy occurs when a sperm fertilizes an egg. However, what you probably don’t know is that each little sperm and egg has a tiny bit of your soul energy attached. When fertilized the two little bits of soul energy merge. This triggers the summoning of a fresh soul core, which is imported from the well of souls. This little developing soul grows with the body, the core is the immortal part of the soul that can be reborn an infinite number of times, whereas the two little soul bits will begin to grow the part of the soul that determines who this new life is in this lifetime.”

As she explained an illusory chalkboard self-illustrated a little cartoon of the egg being fertilized and beginning to grow alongside the newly developing soul.

“The NPCs of these worlds have a tiny spark of me in their soul cores, but with that alone, there is no growth. The more you interact and stimulate these NPCs, the more their souls will grow. Thus the more real they will become. Any being in one of my worlds will automatically know I exist, and thus provide me more faith the more real they become.”

Now the chalkboard showed one stick figure with a bright shining aura talking to a stick figure with a weak aura. The weak aura grew slightly from the contact.

“Any children you have will get a spark of me from their NPC parent, if they lack sufficient soul of their own and a bit of you both. So they should develop normal souls or ones that are close to normal. Requiring a bit of parenting to help them become full sapient people of their own.”

Another set of stick figures showed two parents holding a child’s hand. One parent had a bright aura, while the other parent’s aura was weak. The child’s aura was between the two in strength, but growing faster then their dull parent’s one.

“Lastly the actual act of sex. When reaching climax, there is a burst of soul energy that comes off a person, that goes into their lover or lovers. This is usually a part of the mate bonding process and the actual exchange of energy is minimal. However, my soul-energy starved NPCs will absorb that burst of energy like a sponge, helping them develop quickly. So even when you aren’t making children, sex grants a much bigger boost to an NPC then just talking to them or buying stuff from them would.”

One Stick figure kneeled in front of another. The standing figure had a bright aura, then little spurts of chalk sprayed across the kneeling chalk figure, making their aura grow brighter all at once.

Brooklyn looked contemplative. “I never thought an AI would teach me how souls work. This is hella weird.”

Jux chuckled lightly “heh heh heh, how do you think I feel. I don’t know if I even had a soul last time we spoke, I was a pure machine. Then I skipped right past normal souls to having a divine one, now my server is like a secondary vegetative brain. Too weak to hold even a tenth of my true self now.”

Marty asked. “Is there even a town of NPCs in this world, or do we need to make one?”

Jux grimaced. “You need to build it, you two are a fair bit behind because of that. I am explaining things to the other World Master candidates now as well. Their past weeks of effort won’t make their worlds any more stable than yours is right now, as all the worlds became real-ish at the same time. Most of them do, however, already have lots of NPCs they can begin to interact with and make more real.”

Marty sighed. "I guess we know what we're doing today then"

{sorry hun this is gonna be boring} Marty thought projected to his better half.