The goal 'Save the world' was too vague. Save it from what, when, what counted as the world. What are the conditions for achieving or failing the goal. I sent a complaint at the System interface, which responded by prompting me to open my Goal Progress screen.

Goal Progress Neutral Realm 43% Failure Threshold 25% Secured 0.0003% Active Influencers Winter God (Converting to Winter, 42% Complete) Victory Stop all influencers from converting the neutral realm to another realm type.

Or

Secure twenty-five percent of the Neutral Realm against conversion and hold it for six months.

That's exactly what I was asking for. Running the numbers, 'Secured' looked to be the percentage of the neutral realm that I had covered with God Banishment wards, which was just the one kilometer circle that was my original claim from the Forest Keepers. To get that up to twenty-five percent I would need to have God Banishment wards over the equivalent of an entire Biome, which would be a huge task.

There was also fifteen percent that was neither Winter or Neutral. It could either be entirely Summer, or maybe there were pockets that were still claimed as Good and Evil from the time before those two gods had been killed.

"It worked, my lord C.C.," Flicker said excitedly within the simulation. "It was not fun, but having a body is fun. I'm a real wisp now!"

Flicker's new wisp body hovered up from the mana crystal table causing me to lose my connection to it before quickly dropping back down. I sank my power back into it and chilled it back down.

"Hot!" Flicker said. "It's dangerous to have a body. How do you live out here in such temperatures?"

"This is just the temperature we need to survive," I said. "Maaata and I would both die quickly if the room were at a temperature that would be comfortable for you and we didn't have protection."

"So outside would be better for us?" Flicker said. "Oh, I want to go see the other wisps, I'm sure they live at better temperatures. Are you going to do Shiny now?"

"We will do Shiny, yes," I said. "And if you both want to go to the wisp hive then we can ask the archwisp there if it is okay. I don't know enough about wisp culture to know if it will let you visit."

I picked Flicker up off the table, moving it out of the way, and prepared to make the second wisp body.

There was still more than half of the stone left from making Flicker's body, and Maaata was tapping into the mana that was stored in the table, which in turn was being filled from the relay at the stairs and the huge recharge ward in the ward room.

There were no complications in making Shiny's body, just a lot of highly detailed work. Flicker didn't panic when Shiny stopped responding like Shiny had done and we finished with no interruptions.

Shiny skimmed along the surface of the table, making circles and figure eight patterns. Flicker joined it and they began dancing in intricate patterns. Less than a minute later they both began to dim.

"My... Lord... What.." Flicker said, struggling to project his words into my mind.

"Flicker, use the simulation to talk," I said.

"Sorry," Flicker said. "Our bodies aren't working very well, they slowed down and can't think."

"They've used up their mana," Maaata said. "In the simulation they never had to refill their mana storage. I'll send a stream at them and hope they can work out how to eat it."

"Cast an enchantment at or on them," I said. "The wisp we came across before ate the spells directly that were placed on it."

Maaata frowned. "That isn't really within my abilities," Maaata said. "Enchantments are distinct from curses or enhancements. The mana stream looks to be working well enough."

Both wisps were brightening as they filled with mana again, ending up much brighter than before. I brought out two small Bags of Holding and placed them on the table.

"The archwisp used tendrils of its fog to pick up the Bag of Holding that I gave it," I said. "Can you do the same?"

They both moved closer to their bags and the fog around them quivered and washed over them, but the bags didn't move. Hmm. Maybe it was a learned skill? I picked up Flicker's bag and placed it on top of him where it sank into the fog of his central body. Maaata did the same for Shiny's bag.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Its... a bit uncomfortable," Flicker said. "But I can hold it in me. What is it?"

I transferred two Fortress Coins to both of them.

"It's an easy way to carry Fortress Coins, and other items," I said.

I compiled a primer on inventories, Fortress Coins, portals, and the Fortress Shop and sent it to the both of them. They dropped into their personal simulations for a few moments before returning.

"We can go to the wisp hive now, then?" Shiny asked.

"You can," I said. "But don't float off once we get there, I'll need your help to talk to the archwisp."

The wisps and I headed to the closest portal, which was the leprechaun one two floors up, and Flicker purchased the portal travel from the presence outside the portal room. It took about thirty seconds for the interconnecting portal to come through the wall in front of the presence inside the portal room, linking us to the portal nexus.

We went through and there was a short queue of six people waiting to go through the narrow checkpoint between the guard tables. Gaal and Barr were on duty and Gaal waved us through as soon as he saw me. I gave him a nod and walked through the checkpoint towards the center of the wall that had several portals in it. The portals shifted around until the one at the end of the path on the floor was ours, a wave of chill coming from it.

I put on my armour and remembered to chill the outside of it down so as not to cause too much alarm to the wisps of the hive.

Flicker and Shiny hadn't mentioned the lack of mana in the Pocket Dimension at all.

I stepped out of the wisp hive portal room, into the winter realm, and turned to face the wisp hive. I didn't trigger the automatic passive defences, which was a good start, but there were wisps diving down from higher up the hive and it looked as though they were charging up their frost attack.

"Could you tell them that I've come to speak to the archwisp, please?" I asked.

Flicker and Shiny both bobbed in agreement and left my hands, floating upwards slightly.

"They're calling us intruders, attackers," Flicker said.

Guards. They all reacted the same way. I stepped around the portal and closer to the hive, directly below the three diving wisps, and flooded heat into the palms of my gloves. As I was expecting, the thermal plume that rose up to meet them made them reconsider their attack run.

"Tell them that if they attack me, or either of you, that I will destroy them," I said. "I am not attacking the hive. They should get the archwisp or someone who is authorised to deal with a visiting lord."

One of the wisps headed back up while the other two remained hovering ten meters above me. There were other wisps moving around the hive but they had moved away as soon as I'd arrived and kept at least twenty meters away.

Thirty seconds passed and more wisps began floating down from higher up the hive to join the original two. It looked as though they were forming into an attack formation, drifting slowly down and surrounding me. I sighed and sent Flicker and Shiny a movement path to take them back into the portal room where they would be safe.

They made it in fine, and I wrote up a quest for the archwisp to meet me, the reward being the lives of twenty of his guards and the penalty being the same. This was the first time I'd used a penalty on a quest, but it went through without any problems.

The wisps around me began charging their frost attacks, waves of more intense cold coming from them. I began heating my armour and summoned twenty throwing blades from my inventory, pushing heat into those as well. Twenty blades was a handful, so I placed most of them down onto the ice which began to melt.

I wasn't sure how well I would go against twenty opponents trying to freeze me all at once, they might have no effect, or they might succeed in freezing me solid. Their attacks charging up was taking longer than my blades heating, so I had the opportunity to attack first.

The first wisp was just moving forward in its attack, and I had a glowing throwing blade ready for it, when a small red meteor fell from the sky. It slammed down into the ice ten meters away from me, sending up chips of ice, and immediately the wisps around me stopped their preparations to attack and fled upwards.

The archwisp floated out of the crater it had made and floated towards me, stopping two meters away. A few seconds later the halo of guards that usually accompanied it arrived.

"Okay, I think it's probably safe to come out," I said to Flicker and Shiny. "I'll need you to translate for me. Just send what the archwisp is saying projected from where it is, and then send what I say to it."

They both came out and hovered over my shoulders.

"Lord C.C., what brings you here?" the archwisp asked.

Well, if it wanted to ignore its people trying to attack me I would go along.

"Two new members of my people expressed a desire to visit your hive," I said. "I wanted to make sure there were no misunderstandings that would lead to me killing those that hurt them."

"Two new people..." the archwisp said. "What are they? They look and sound like wisps, but they're barely holding themselves together, and they aren't cycling ambient mana from the environment at all. Completely untrained adults, they should have starved to death long before now no matter what hive you got them from. They cannot be wisps, what are they?"

"Are too wisps," Shiny said. "Our lord created us, and even gave us bodies."

"Technically you're Demi-AI," I said. "Archwisp, you heard my warning. You say they are untrained, what would it cost for them to be trained here?"

"A full mana crystal per week," the archwisp said.

"Done," I said.

"Each," the archwisp added at my quick reply.

I stepped back so that the two wisps were in front of me. "Have fun," I said. "And don't worry too much about dying. Avoid it if you can, of course, but we can make you another body if its needed."

The archwisp and his guards drifted upwards, Flicker and Shiny following them. I stepped back through the portal and into my Pocket Dimension. One responsibility taken care of.

Mal'Thorn had sent me a non-urgent ping when I was preparing to be attacked, and I responded to it now.