“You want me to make WHAT?” Sol asked, the village mystic both amused and annoyed. “Really now, boy, some in the village would smack you for mocking them like this.”

Luka and Annie shared a glance. They were inside Sol’s home at the edge of the village. Space warped strangely along the walls, both extending and shortening the inhabitable space within. Torn sections of paper strung across the walls, each holding a particularly expansive glyph made of red ink.

“Sol—did I get that right?” Annie asked, receiving a nod from the very young-looking elder. Her raven headdress cawed. “My father promised he’d reincarnate my husband—”

“And then he’d reincarnate my dead sister and her husband, right? Finally!” Sol yelled with a mocking wave of her fist. “Divine justice for me and my sins!”

“Sol,” Luka said her name devoid of humor and sarcasm. “I’m serious. I have the ingredients already—”

“Not you, too! Did that monster fry both of your heads!?”

Annie looked down at the floor, a gesture Luka noticed. He flexed his back, puffing his chest out. Annie didn’t need his protection, nor did he want to overstep, but Annie was as alien to this world as it was to her.

“Don’t talk about that thing, please Sol,” Luka said, maintaining her piercing stare. “I’m being serious. Here, put this on and think of a position of reincarnation.”

He handed over his artifact ring. What happened next would forever be one of those special moments that all parties present would never speak of. Sol’s face went through several different distinct emotions. Confusion, ire, hope, sadness, before finally landing on surprise. And it was in that moment of surprise that a particular type of magical enchantment failed.

A “glamour” is typically a personal enchantment that changes one’s appearance—a frog glamoured into a princess, a wanted criminal into a lazy farmer, an elder into a young woman. Sol’s perfectly smooth skin shriveled and died in that moment. Her porcelain green hue went gray, her haunted stare turned mute.

“We will never talk about this,” Sol muttered, her magic now returned. She handed over Luka’s ring. “And we will never talk about that.”

He nodded, his wide eyes slowly retracting in width. “I—I know. Eve told me not to tell anyone, but I think I needed to ask you. I have no idea what to do with these reagents.” Luka hoisted the sack of stuff front and center.

“You already have everything?”

“Payment for saving the world or something.” Sol gave a searching stare. Luka purposefully looked at the floor. “Can we get on with it? I want to go see how the rollercoaster is doing.”

Sol huffed and slowly took out each item. She squared them on the table, then drew a chalk circle, connecting each one. “Alchemy is a very simple school of magic,” she explained as she sketched several glyphs with a quill. “Essentially, it is the combination of reagents using magical means—glyphs in most cases.”

Luka studied the chalk. Besides the glyphs strung up on the walls, the glyphs Sol drew were the most complicated he’d ever seen. Normal water creation glyphs were like a simple triangle compared to this Penrose tiling. And yet, he wasn’t confused. He noted the powering circle and the dynamic structures connecting the items, he identified the glyph for “mixing” within a larger glyph, and he guessed correctly what Sol was going to draw next: a production area.

Essentially, the interior of the glyph would house the alchemical creation after drawing upon the reagents.

“This seems too easy,” Luka said. “Just a few glyphs and boom—potion of reincarnation?”

Sol shook her head. “This is why people can’t stand World Walkers. You see something that has an easy final step, and you think magic as a whole is as simple as counting to ten. No—without express tutelage of alchemy, you’d destroy these reagents faster than you could spit on them.”

“Then how—”

“This is my alchemical structuring. It has been honed after several lifetimes, passed from village mystic to village mystic. No common mage could recreate this, nor could they ever hope to ‘mix’ this potion.”

“Why not?” Annie asked. “You just drew some lines and—”

Sol’s glare was silencing. “Motes of anything are easy to combine. Monster parts—in this case, a phoenix—are commonplace in alchemy. Undeath is an oddity, but no self-proclaimed Master Mystic would be uninitiated in its usage. And lastly, we have a divine tear…” She took a long, pained breath. “I begged the gods once to bring my family back to life. If I fail to make this potion because of some god’s eye water, then I’m going to find my way to their heavens and kill them once and for all.”

Luka was stunned silent. Annie on the other hand, asked, “I thought you said something about the locals and not blaspheming.”

Slowly, his jaw started working. “Sol’s a unique case.”

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“Uh-huh. Well, I like her.”

Sol continued, “So, the difficulty of alchemy comes from the glyphs. However, finding the recipe is significantly more difficult and time-consuming. And recipes grow exponentially more convoluted with reagents such as divine teardrops. They’re practically impossible to research since, well, for obvious reasons.”

She gnawed the inside of her cheek. “And now you have a ring that just gives you the recipes.”

Sol shook her head, placed an empty jar in the production circle, licked her lips, then activated the circle. The ingredients housed inside jars or vials disappeared, leaving the glass behind—except for the divine tear, which only lost one one-thousandth of its volume. The phoenix heart turned to dust, leaving behind a pool of blood. The soft glow of the motes flashed bright like the midmorning sun before waning into nothingness. And finally, Vlad’s wedding wing tarnished and crumbled.

The empty center jar filled. Pure black with golden flakes, the potion swirled softly, swimming like mud along the bottom of a river. Sol audibly sighed in relief. “No god killing today.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” a newcomer’s voice said. God Neb, in his elder glory, appeared in the corner of Sol’s house, eyeing the red ink glyphs hung on the walls. “And you should take another look at this one when you get a chance.”

“Noted,” Sol muttered.

“I thought Tippy said you and her weren’t going to help us anymore,” Luka asked.

Neb shrugged. “Think of this as a thank-you gift. The potion should be drunk by Annie. You must think intently of the person you want to reincarnate. Powerful magic will be coursing through your body during the duration, but I think you’re well accustomed to that. The process of reincarnation will take a few hours, most of which will be the soul’s arrival to this realm. In the meantime, one of us gods will become Vladdy’s patron and create his new body. Depending on who, his soul might get a say in what it will look like. So, don’t be surprised if he’s now a woman or has a tail.”

Annie furled her eyebrows. “I can’t tell if you are messing with me.”

The old man chuckled. “I think Goddess Bylow, Goddess of Brews, has an interest in Vlad. She’s okay. And a word of advice: Have him offer a mug of every ‘soda’ he creates to Bylow. She’ll shower him in gifts if so.”

“Bylow?” Annie asked Luka.

He shrugged. “Never heard of her before today.”

They looked back to Neb, but the God of the Stars was gone. Annie slowly reached out and took the potion of reincarnation in her hand. “Bottoms up,” she muttered before drinking.

***

Mayor Tram and Judge Ben stood hand in hand watching over the park’s newest attraction. It was an instant success, sporting a line four hours in length. She’d have to ask Luka to do something about that, but for now, she planned on giving the lad a break. He deserved one.

Around, strange rock spires reached for the starry night sky. It was actually noon, but the illusions in this “land” were nothing like Tram had ever seen before. I guess I have Sol to thank for that, she thought before mentally adding the old woman to her list of things to do.

Since the mine collapsed, Tram and Sol’s friendship had soured. Once, back when they were just girls, they did everything together. They crushed on the same boys, they explored the forest together, they learned their trades at the same time, they even married the same year. But Ben was alive, and Sol’s husband died long, long ago.

If he was still alive, would the mine have collapsed? Tram didn’t like to think about---

The night sky flickered and failed, reverting to day. The strange rock spires disappeared, the magic creating them overburdened and shrunk. Tram, Ben, and everyone else in the park turned in the same direction—toward Sol’s hut.

A wave.

That was the best way Tram could describe it. An aura of magic doubled the height of the emberwood trees and was more powerful than when all the gods descended from their heavenly perches. It battered through the park and forest in every direction, gliding its mighty invisible force through everything.

Magic was tangible, but also not. It was a phenomenon scholars argued endlessly about—but one thing was for certain: everything, everyone, felt it smash into their chests and souls and rip through their bodies.

The wave continued through the forest, leaving the park in its wake. The illusionary spires and night sky reignited, returning the land into a beautiful starry wasteland.

And yet, the park was silent.

Until someone shouted, “THE GODS ARE WITH US!”

At that point, the park erupted in cheers and celebration. Today, the people celebrated their gods.

Today marked the world’s newest holiday, Godfall: the day the gods descended.

And where would Godfall be celebrated? Everywhere, but specifically World Walker Park.

The wave of magic continued, soon stretching the circumference of the world, passing through all.

***

Goddess Tippy, God Neb, God Rion, and all the others stared down at their world with slack jaws and wide eyes.

The wave wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Must be Annie’s unique circumstance. Whatever that fake god left in her must amplify magical power,” the God of Magic said.

“You heard her prayer, right?” asked the Goddess of Rain. “Practically screamed in my ear.”

Neb sighed and dispelled the magical wave once it rounded the world and crashed in on itself. “We’ve got our work cut out for us, people. A new god-focused holiday is something we’re used to.” He looked at the God of Bloodsport. “Griss, I want you to create the schedule for us. We need to know who shows up where and when.”

Griss slumped. “Fine.”

“I’ll take care of the background lore,” offered the Goddess of Books. “I just love writing some juicy lore. I’ll make sure to paint Luka in a good light for you, Tip.”

Tippy rolled her eyes. “What are we telling our priests and priestesses?”

“The truth,” Neb said firmly. “A terrible event forced our descent, and the world survived to celebrate the day.”

“Seems… lacking.”

“Fine. Tell them Luka and the park were paramount.”

“Favorites, favorites,” muttered the God Griss. “Last time I tried to make a champion, you all plotted against me.”

Neb hated sighing but found himself doing it a lot lately. “You tried to create a champion who would conquer us gods one by one until he could face off against you.”

“Yeah! And it would have been epic!”

The gods devolved into bickering.