In the cold blackness of the void a behemoth lingered feeling the destruction wrought to its domain. It had spent countless eons creating the weave that held the multiverse together and now there were troglodytes punching holes in it and burning it down.

Fools. The creature seethed.

It skittered across the weave in the spaces between all things on eight legs as wide as planets and as long as entire solar systems. It had to assess the most recent damage.

Soon it came upon the most recent damage. A mortal had named himself god over his own homeworld. It had developed sufficient technology that with his wealth and power he could turn himself immortal and have magic-like abilities that few others could afford. Worse, his ambitions had extended beyond his own system. He had now punched holes in reality in search of new worlds to conquer beyond the confines of the light-speed barrier that had kept his civilization “trapped”.

Disgusting. The behemoth bemoaned its inability to do anything.

This was not the first time this had happened. For one reason or another all intelligent races seemed to be fully intent on breaking reality at some point in their lives. Usually it was a minor thing. One or two a millennia, the race would destroy itself in hubris, and the weave would be slowly repaired.

However, the last few hundred years had seen dozens of races uplifted to the point where they were able to bend reality to their whims and warp its fabric into a sad mockery just waiting to collapse. New “Gods” had taken it upon themselves to grant boons and powers to “lowly” races and expedite the process, while simultaneously guiding each race back from the brink of destruction each time they nearly killed themselves!

Reality was breaking apart faster and faster and there was nothing that could be done. The creature lived within the space between. It lived under reality feeding off of the stray energy from reality, but it could never exist within reality itself. It may have tried for a time to break into it and sate its hunger, when it was young and foolish, but it proved an impossibility. Now it was more than sure of its cosmic purpose as a gardener and observer to reality as a whole.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Something needed to be done, something must be done.

If only it weren’t alone…

That was it! Maybe it couldn’t find a way into reality, but it might be able to influence someone in reality to help it with its cause. To slay the so called gods that were making such a mess!

It plucked at the threads of its weave and felt the fabric of the universe, looking for the places where the veil was the thinnest.

One intensive search later brought the creature to something that was in a way intruding on the space between all things. It was both real and unreal at the same time. Some facsimile of reality but different, artificial yet still connected to it.

It could see an entire civilization blinking into and out of it, doing feats that were not possible when they weren’t in this space. So it decided to watch and learn.

Very quickly it became apparent that this space was crafted to serve as entertainment as well as a multitude of other uses. But what caught its eye the most was that there was a way to communicate to others through a system framework that everyone seemed comfortable with. Maybe it could be used.

The creatures would encounter a scenario and the system would then speak to them and give them tasks to do and would reward them. Maybe the creature could instigate an event and whisper through the system, crafting its own quest. Now the question was, what did it need the most?

Truly it needed help to fight off the self-righteous ‘Gods’ that were wreaking havoc on its weave and punching holes in reality. But, that’s not something a mortal could really assist with at their current stage of technological development or inherent strength. Maybe another person to repair the weave? That… could help. Another weaver, but this time on the other side. But no other creatures it knew of could weave. There were some small creatures, but they had hollow shells for consciousness.

Actually, the creatures in this crafted world did not always look like the ones outside of it. In fact… it looked like there were ways to change into other races. That’s it! Give one of them a quest to become similar to it! Craft it in such a way that allows the creature to think its a simple race change quest and then manipulate it to influence their body back in true reality. They already had devices that were influencing their brain and muscles, it would just need to tweak things a little to allow it to really mimic what was happening in the crafted reality.

A deep and satisfied chittering rumbled just beneath the surface of reality, rippling outward. A great many people felt a shiver run down their spine, but brushed it off the next moment.