Luka checked the recipe once more.

Requirements for a Potion of Reincarnation:

30,000 motes of life.

30,000 motes of death.

1 phoenix heart.

1 drop of liquid undeath.

1 meaningful possession of the deceased.

1/1,000 divine teardrop.

“How big is a mote?” he asked Goddess Tippy. They, Annie included, sat at a picnic table inside the Stormcorsair Harbor, munching on churros and sipping gra’mak’lish’lem-ade. Lemonade was, to Luka’s surprise, not very popular. People liked beer. Or mead. Or stout. Sour fruit water? Not so much.

“It’s an alchemical measurement dictated by the soul-strength of a material,” Tippy said offhandedly, the question an afterthought, not a focus. Instead, her focus was on a well of magic in her palm. Cyan sparkles exploded against her mortal skin, bursting in a strange oscillating pattern. Her eyes glowed a soft blue, her irises inflamed and multiplied. Power welled—then, a pair of rings rested in her hand.

Luka and Annie stared, the latter asking, “Are those my wedding bands?”

“Yes,” Tippy said, holding the pair out to the world’s newest World Walker.

“Where’d you and ‘Vladdy’ get married?” Luka asked.

Annie gave him a look. “Don’t call him that—and don’t let him know I told you his nickname. He hates it, but secretly loves it. And we got married in London, we met in postgrad.” She then paused, turned to the goddess, and asked, “Were these buried with us?” She held up the rings, highlighting their dusty coating.

“Yes.”

“Gross.” Annie paled, shivering.

“Why?” Tippy asked. “They were on your first body and husband’s hands. I don’t see an issue.”

“I’m with Annie on this one. Gross,” Luka said, conjuring a low-powered water glyph on the table. Soon, a small fountain spewed water, enough for Annie to wash the rings. “Is there a disinfecting glyph?”

“There is—but I’m not allowed to teach it to you ,” Tippy said.

“Why not?”

“The other gods have… said some things about our interactions, Luka. We have long maintained a certain level of scrutiny when it comes to gifting things to mortals, and I have reached my allowance.”

“The other gods grounded you?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“And God Neb, and my brother, God Rion.” Tippy sighed. “Luckily Neb and I were able to convince the lot of them to reward you for,” her eyes shifted to Annie, “the event rather than ignore you.”

“How divine of you,” Luka muttered, dripping with sarcasm. He shifted topics. “So, the rings are a ‘meaningful possession of the deceased.’ What about the other reagents?”

“Reagents?” Annie asked.

“It means materials.”

“How very otherworldly of you, Father.”

Luka jolted up, smiling. Her statement was sarcastic, yes, but she called him “father!”

“Here,” Tippy said, waving a hand. A sack appeared on the table.

“No fancy light show this time?” Annie asked.

“No—cross-galaxy teleportation is a bit more involved when compared to local-world.” Tippy reached out and opened the bag. “This should be everything.”

Inside were two jars full of what looked like glowing fuzz, one green and brimming with eagerness, the other black and waning like a slow cough—obviously the motes of life and death. Next was a bloody, still beating heart the size of an orc’s fist—a phoenix heart. It sizzled against the burlap, scorching the stitched fabric. Lastly was a small vial of a white substance streaked with both green and black—a single drop of liquid undeath. It was sealed shut, the cork wrapped in a golden chain and dipped in hot wax.

“We’re missing a divine teardrop,” Luka said, eyeing the goddess.

Tippy rolled her eyes, then jabbed herself in the eye with the force of a cannon. Luka and Annie gasped, flinching from a literal shockwave. Nearby, guests looked over, but illusions hid their presence behind a faux outhouse.

The goddess then blinked away the pain, a small tear welling against her swollen eyelids. “I really hate doing that,” she muttered, collecting the divine droplet on the tip of her finger. A vial appeared in her other hand, and she transferred the drop. She set it on the table. “There. Payment rendered for saving the world and all that.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Thank you, Tippy—”

“What about the other stuff?” Annie interrupted. “Because I want magic, and Father needs to know how to get more of all this crap.”

Tippy sighed. “Motes of life and death are created amongst the dust when enough life or death is around. The process is the same for other motes such as lightning, fire, and earth. A phoenix heart is a literal heart of a phoenix. Kill one and take its heart, simple. Liquid undeath is tricky to distill, but a particularly sketchy alchemist can do it—for a price. You already have my teardrop, that should satisfy you for a long while.”

“And what about meaningful possessions?” Luka asked. “Reincarnating a local won’t be an issue, but Annie’s family will.”

“Yes… that.” When the goddess went silent, the father and daughter glanced at each other. Eventually, Tippy said, “Unless you learn to cast divine-level teleportation spells, you’ll have to gain favor with the gods and earn their gifts.” She held up a hand, stopping the incoming barrage of questions. “And no. God Neb, Rion, and I are—how would you say?—tapped out of gifts to give.”

“Alright,” Luka said. “Thank you, Tippy.”

“Of course, World Walker—”

Annie interrupted by yelling at the sky, “Oi! Any gods want season tickets to World Walker Park? My dad will trade ten for a meaningful possession from my family members on Earth!”

Tippy flinched as if struck in the temple. “Please stop—” She gritted her teeth. “Praying like that is very loud.”

Luka raised an eyebrow. “Loud? How does that make sense?”

“It doesn’t,” Tippy answered honestly. She then spoke to the air, “Yes, yes. I’ll tell her. No—you stay up there. I don’t need help. I know. I know… please, just let me handle it.”

The father and daughter shared a glance. “You, uh, okay, Tip?”

The goddess leveled her eyes on the pair of World Walkers. “My… divine colleagues were speaking to me at once. Apologies, that never happens.”

Annie gave her a suspicious eye. “Tell me what?”

“Your prayer wasn’t just loud for me. It was loud for every god. The fear is that thing left some of its power in you, and that power leaked out when you ‘spoke’ to us.”

“That’s not good, right?” Luka asked.

“It is what it is.”

“No, Tippy. That’s not a good enough answer. This is Annie’s life we’re talking about here. We need more than that.”

The goddess sighed a complete and mortal sigh. “We don’t know. Something like this has never happened. It could be nothing, it could be something. Time will tell. But know this: every god has marked Annie and is constantly checking on her. If something wrong happens, we will know and handle it.”

Luka went to reply, but Annie’s hand stopped him. “It’s fine. I expected as much, honestly. That thing was powerful. I’d be more surprised if I was actually in perfect health.”

“You are,” Tippy reminded, “in perfect health. Just a bit too perfect.”

“Tippy you aren’t exactly quelling my worries,” Luka muttered.

Again, Tippy sighed a long and mortal breath. “Let’s move on. World Walker magic. Normally, we gods have an idea of what to give you long before you’re a candidate for reincarnation. We have a problem that we want solved and find a unique magic to get the job done and hope the uniqueness spreads into other things.”

“Such as Dad receiving the power to make anything for something when the problem you wanted fixed was a lack of entertainment?” Annie asked.

“That wasn’t the exact problem I wanted solved, but yes, the sentiment is the same.”

“And since I wasn’t reincarnated to solve a problem, here we are.”

Tippy looked off into the distance, another god talking to her. “I’ll let them know.” She turned to Luka. “I’ve been informed that after Vlad, any Earthling you reincarnate will not receive a divine World Walker magic.”

“Why not?”

“Because we don’t want to?”

“Is that a question?”

She gave a flat look. “We can’t have that many magical World Walkers running around all in allegiance to you, Luka. You’d gain too much power, political and magical.”

He shrugged. “Fine with me when you put it that way.”

Annie hummed. “I want magic that will help me build-up the park.”

The mortal and goddess looked over. “What?” the former asked.

“Might as well get into the family business.”

“You’re going to live here in Emberwood?” he asked.

“Do you not want me to?”

“No! I do! I just thought you and Vlad would move somewhere far from me.”

Annie’s eyes turned somber. “Not for the moment. Maybe if you piss me off or something.”

He reached his hand out and brushed hers with his knuckle. “You don’t know how much hearing that means to me.”

Tippy cleared her throat. “Divine terraforming magic—done.”

Annie flinched, a foreign knot unraveling in her stomach. “What was that?”

“A divine gift. Give it a few days before trying it out.”

“Terraforming magic?” Luka asked.

“She’ll be able to do what God Neb did to those trees last night and more.”

Luka remembered well. He wanted a grove of trees removed but didn’t want to kill them. So, Neb simply plucked them from the soil and moved them across the forest.

“I can move trees?” Annie asked. “Not to sound ungrateful—”

Tippy’s posture slipped, her head falling between her shoulders. “I thought dealing with one Luka was bad. And now there’s a second one. Just… trust me on this. You’ll like it.”

And with that, the goddess disappeared.

“Just so you know,” Luka said seriously, “some people will get mad at you because of the way you talked to Tippy. I got my ear chewed off about it because I asked about artifacts once.”

Annie grunted. “Blasphemy?”

“Yeah.”

“Good to know.” She paused and looked at the sack of reagents. “What do we do with all this?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “The ring only tells me what I need.”

Annie tapped on the table. “Know any good chemists?”

“They’re alchemists here, and no. But I do know Sol. She knows, like, everything about magic.”

“Shall we give her a visit?”

They took it slow through the park, both content with seeing the sights and filling their familiar roles for the first time.

“So, what’d you and Vlad do on Earth?”

“Vlad worked for a local soda company. Making new flavors and stuff like that. I owned a consulting firm that helped developed cities to expand tourism or become titans of industry. We were glorified city planners.”

“That sounds amazing.”

She blushed a little. “It was, but we were also busy. Eventually, I sold the company when Vlad and I had our second child. When they all went to college, I was hired in our local municipality and worked there until retirement.”

“Second? How many kids did you have?”

“Three. My eldest is…”