The eidolon quietly sat and watched the universes expand. Many worlds had life, and many worlds held interesting secrets. Some were magic touched, others marched forward with great technologies. Yet, it was a singular world that had awoken the eidolon—specifically the actions of a handful of people.

And it was one of those people the eidolon watched. His name was Luka, and like the eidolon, he was also fractured.

It took but a moment for the eidolon’s magic to understand and experience the World Walker’s life. The man had created weapons, powerful ones—for his world—and died alone because of it.

Just like the eidolon itself.

It was strange for the being to think about its past, the time before its “death.” People used to worship it, used to pray to it, used to sacrifice loved ones in its name. Life, back then, was simple; until it wasn’t.

Betrayal wasn’t an experience the eidolon yearned to witness again—nor was godship.

But what was existence then? If it wasn’t actively worshipped, what good was it? For all its power, for all its necessity and greed, what was the point of life if not to create then destroy.

The World Walker understood that—create weapons then deploy those weapons and create something new from the ashes…

Inside its dark hole, the eidolon’s smile faltered. If that was the point of life, then why was the World Walker so depressed? Why did he die alone, just like the eidolon itself?

With another twirl of magic, the being experienced Luka’s life since arriving in his new home world. It watched his triumphs: the carousel, the Ferris wheel, opening World Walker Park. It watched his failures: self-doubt, guilt, thinking he harmed the one called “Eve,” and most importantly, living when everyone else he killed stayed dead.

The eidolon, through Luka’s life, saw parts of its own life too. It saw its triumphs; it saw its failures. It saw the reasoning behind its deathly betrayal, way back when.

And yet, it did not understand. And in that lack of understanding, the eidolon finally departed its tomb.

It knew just the person to get answers from.

***

“Finally!” Luka whisper yelled as Eve and Franky stepped into the Whirlpool Tavern—the park’s newest addition and entrance to Whirlpool Plunge. The tavern was nearly full, including the second level and balcony seating. Drinks were poured all day as patrons enjoyed the stormy atmosphere. Set up in the corner, a bard galvanized the drunks into singing a local sea shanty about rowing your boat down the stream.

The siblings’ faces lit up when they saw Luka, their ride operation shift finally over. After ordering a round of drinks for themselves, they slid into the booth beside him.

“Finally!” Eve yelled, her voice carrying over the song. “We’re done!”

Luka laughed. “I just said that!” he yelled back, though his words were drowned away when a particularly loud verse of the shanty was sung.

“What’d you say?” she asked.

Franky leaned in. “I think he said something about kelp!”

Now it was Luka’s turn to ask, “What?”

Eve yelled, “I don’t think he said that.”

“He did!” The bald orc downed half his drink. “Trust me, Sis, I have great hearing.”

Eve muttered something.

“What was that?”

Luka rolled his eyes and pointed at the door. “Come on.”

With drinks in hand, the siblings followed—they’d return the mugs later. Now outside, the sea shanty fell away, replaced with the indistinct chatter of guests wandering the Stormcorsair Harbor. The churro shop was ever popular, a line leading out and down the docks. People entered the gift shop with full coin purses, then left holding a souvenir and questioning the concept of “impulse buying.”

Eve fell in line beside Luka with Franky on the other side. “How’s the reception for Whirlpool Plunge?” Luka asked.

The siblings—the two villagers who had operated the ride since opening—smiled. “Amazingly. I think you’ve outdone yourself,” Eve said.

“Yeah man,” Franky chimed in. “People don’t want to leave the boats after they ride. Even slowed down operations because of it a few times.”

Luka hummed at that. “I wouldn’t have thought that’d be an issue.”

The orc shrugged. “Luckily our new park security handled it. Saw that big fellow, Tank, pick up a dwarf by the scruff and lead him out the exit.”

Before Luka could say anything, Eve said, “But enough about us. You! What did you and Barns talk about? Objective criticism? We don’t need that here! The ride is perfect!”

“It’s not—” Luka watched as a kid jumped into an illusion puddle, then stared at her feet in confusion. Luka then sighed, took out his notes, and scribbled a reminder to add some water effects around the docks. “Whirlpool Plunge was more proof of concept than anything.”

“I thought Rogue Wave was a proof of concept,” Eve said.

“It is—well, was. Whirlpool Plunge is an evolution of the things we learned about illusionary glyphs. The concept part, however, is because of the storytelling part.”

“Rogue Wave has storytelling,” Franky interjected.

“It does, but nothing on the level of Whirlpool. What I’m trying to say is Barns’ criticism for the ride was that it was ‘too much.’ And I have to agree.”

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“Too much?” Eve asked, crossing her arms. “What’s too much about it?”

“Barns said at multiple points in the ride he forgot it was a ride and thought about bailing from the boat because he thought swimming a lake of lava was safer than whatever the lava giant might do.”

The siblings paused. “Oh,” Eve muttered. “That… actually makes sense for some of the things I heard when guests were exiting.”

Franky cringed a little. “There were more than a few crying kids.”

Luka sighed. “And Barns also said that once he remembered it was all illusions, he dispelled the glyphs and looked around. He said the mechanics of the actual ride were ‘really interesting.’”

“How exactly does he think you’ll be able to help with that one?” Eve asked. “You either do no illusions or a lot of illusions.”

“I have a few ideas, actually. But for Whirlpool, they wouldn’t work—not retroactively, at least. But I think the criticism is valid and something we can plan for in the future.”

“Okay ,fine. Did Barns have anything good to say?”

“Oh yeah, a ton. He loved the story—though his fiancé loved it more. He said the subtle clues in the queue were great, but felt the pre-show story scene needed work. Apparently, he and his gang didn’t understand they were being invited into the cellar and it had to be spelled out for them.”

Franky nodded at that. “I heard that as well, now that I think about it. Apparently, even after walking through the whole line, people were confused there was a ride all the way through the tunnels.”

Making a face, Eve asked, “What’d they think they were doing?”

“Stealing mead or something, I don’t know.”

Luka scribbled more notes down. “Well, okay. Uh, that’s…” He loudly sighed. “All noted. For God Neb’s rollercoaster, I think I know a good way to fix all these problems.”

“But they really aren’t problems,” Eve quickly said. “Once people get used to the illusions, they aren’t going to have the ‘jump ship’ issue. And seeing the mechanics of the ride? They can just dispel the illusions if they’re interested.”

The trio found an empty bench a few steps into the main section of the park. Behind them, the illusionary storm raged on. Luka gave a shrug. “I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t want to do every single ride the same way. First, things will get stale. Second, if there actually is something wrong with the underlying foundations and people never adjust to the illusions, we don’t want all of the rides to be that way.”

“I get that,” Eve said. “So, you’re saying that you want to switch things up until you find a perfect style. Not too many illusions, but enough to create a story and amazing ride experience.”

“On Earth, we’d call that ‘finding a formula.’ A certain number of illusions, enough storytelling, maybe a pinch of—"

“Excuse me, are you the World Walker?”

Everyone turned, finding a middle-aged human man wearing thick, fibrous robes. They draped across his shoulders and dragged across the dirt, gathering sticks and leaves like a rake. The man didn’t seem to mind, however, and kept his forearms hidden within the wide sleeves. Luka noted the robes were enchanted; a faint shimmering glow met his eye when he peered at the hunks of cloth with his magical sight. That, and the robes were perfect—despite literally getting dragged through the mud.

“I am,” Luka said, adopting a smile. Guests, for the most part, left him alone while he made his rounds in the park. But that didn’t mean everyone did.

“Ah, great then. My scrying spell worked.” The man shifted his arms in his robes.

Both Eve and Franky tensed at that, the latter leaning onto the ball of his feet as if he were a sprinter taking the block.

The man produced an envelope. “I am Mage Farr of the Guilds.” He handed the paper over; Luka hesitantly took them. “You’ve been served.”

He blinked. “I’ve been what?”

“You are expected to appear in defense of yourself in one week’s time in the Guilds Court. The details are listed inside.”

Luka’s smile turned sour. He let the envelope fall—but the paper glowed bright green, sticking in his hand like a glue trap.

The man, Farr, smirked. “You’ve just been cursed. Hasn’t anyone told you not to accept anything a titled Mage might hand you?” He shook his head. “Novices—they always think they’re above the law.”

Eve and Franky were on their feet. Franky took two steps around the man, closing off his exit path while his sister removed her glyph quill—for what little good it would do against a prepared mage.

“You cursed him?” she slurred.

“Nothing but a sticky-item-curse,” Farr said with a long, slow drawl. He shook his head again. “This is why I hate coming to backwoods places like this. Even those that ‘know’ magic don’t really know magic. You know?”

“Watch it, Mage,” Franky warned.

“No—I don’t think I will. You people are beneath me.” A red glow eclipsed the man’s sleeves. His hand darted out, striking Franky across the chin sending him spiraling.

“Franky!” Eve yelped. She started to write a glyph on the open air, only for a red hand to grip around her throat.

“Was that a combustion glyph?” Farr asked, his voice turning silky smooth. “Were you about to attack a working Mage? Maybe a stint in the dungeons will—”

A slender hand touched the man’s robes.

Magic welled.

The man crumbled, his bones breaking as they condensed onto each other. In the blink of an eye the middle-aged fully grown man was gone, a singular bean in his place. A human bean.

“Hello, Luka,” the newcomer said with a giggle. “Or should I call you ‘Father?’”

Throbbing pain drove through Luka’s mind. Long locked away memories roared to life, horrific ones, ones that reminded him just how terrible of a person he’d been. They were terrible memories, the ones that stung worse than the memories of death and destruction.

They were the memories of her, of his daughter, of Annie.

The very woman standing before him.

The woman that just crushed a man into a bean.

But as Luka stared at his daughter’s face, something nagged at him from the recesses of his mind. Something was wrong, something was very, very wrong. Through all his memories of Annie, he never once saw her hurt anyone or anything. Despite a fatherless childhood, Annie was perfect. She was so perfect.

“Who are you?” Luka demanded with a deathly glare.

Annie’s face split in two, curling up in a twisted smile. There was only darkness between her lips. “You figured it out already! I knew you would, I’ve been watching you for… well, for your entire two lives.”

Around, the growing crowd was more interested in the recovering Franky than the nondescript human woman. Luka, however, only glanced at the guests for a moment. He couldn’t think about them right now, not with whatever this thing was before him.

“’Thing?’” Not-Annie asked, reading his mind. “That’s hurtful. I’m not a ‘thing,’ I’m a god.”

Luka didn’t need to think about his reply. “You’re no god. I’ve met gods—”

Not-Annie giggled, cutting him off. “Well, I guess you could say I’m a god to the gods you’ve met. Did you know, in an alternate future they all came to attack me? This world had no gods after.”

He didn’t think through the ramifications of that. Instead, he asked, “What do you want?”

“Getting to the meat of it all, eh, Father?” Not-Annie sighed, her terrible smile fading into a firmly pressed line. “Believe it or not, we’ve lived similar existences. The scope is all wrong, but we are the same person at the end of the day.”

“No, we’re not.”

“That’s exactly right. No matter how I look at it, we should be. Yet, here you are, happy.” Not-Annie closed the distance between her and Luka faster than he could blink. “And I want to know how.”