Ar'Kendrithyst

Chapter 258, 1/2

Erick Flatt, [60-ish] [Current Year: 1453 (Veird, layer 789), ??? (Margleknot)] [CURRENT REALITY=Layer 0, Margleknot]

Mana split; Soul, Body, Mind: 31%, 30%, 30%

Reson allocation rate: 9%

Soul: 56.9m per day / 658.56 per second , [Darkness Level = 3.83x Ascension baseline]

Body: 324

Mind: 437

Overall Stability: ↑↑ [+599, -3] Basic upkeep

Mp: 93.7m/∞, ↑ [+204, -1] Basic upkeep

Hp: 90.6m/∞, ↑ [+197, -1] Basic upkeep

Pp: 90.6m/∞, ↑ [+197, -1] Basic upkeep

Resons: 2.82m [+59.26 = +6.58]

After leaving the Wraithborne Tower Erick spent 5 days doing nothing but answering hundreds of messages per hour. It was good work. It was necessary work, too, and not just because he was directly helping people. Erick had needed some time for his Status to stabilize at this new, higher level.

As resons churned into being through his Wallet magic, and then piled into his Status, they also piled into his Soul, Mind, and Body, in a rather easy sort of accretion, but different. Erick had watched his Status rise and rise, all of his Stats gaining ground slowly but surely. The rate of growth had been rather fast at first, but after the first half of a day, Erick already saw where this was going. It was tapering off.

And sure enough, after his Body gained 112 more points and his Mind gained 120, the resons generated in his Wallet automagically stopped refining everything about him. Erick hadn’t even known that he could continue his accretion efforts until that happened, and now that it was done, he wasn’t sure he could actually accrete on his own, anyway. He had needed to increase the Darkness inside of him in order to accrete again.

What he was doing with resons wasn’t called ‘accretion’, though.

He could probably turn up the accretion tap to 100% reson accretion —or ‘cultivation’ as the people here called it— and get higher than that, and achieve a truly solid body. But Lionshard had opinions about that sort of thing.

Lionshard sat with Erick on Erick’s balcony, smoking a very large platinum pipe, blowing out a streamer of silver clouds. “It is quite wonderful that you have stumbled upon some sort of automatic secondary-cultivation-methodology. Makes me think you’ll go the distance with your place here in Margleknot.” He laughed. “It’s quite funny that you’re doing the basic cultivation all the way up here at this level of play, though.”

Erick smoked on his own silver pipe that was a match for Lionshard’s. The pipe had been a gift from Lionshard to go with all the new clothes he had also given him. Whatever they were smoking was pretty darned awesome, making Erick feel kinda floaty, but Erick could tell that he could cut off its influence with a mere thought. He chose to keep the influence going, though. With a minor bit of physical lung control, he blew out a pair of rings, and then he used just a bit of magic inside to shoot arrows of smoke through both of them.

Lionshard watched, smirking.

Erick asked, “What do you mean by that? Basic cultivation?”

“Well… That’s a big topic. Broadly speaking, at its base, Ascending is hard.”

Erick chuckled.

“Yes yes. I know. State the obvious.” Lionshard said, “Anyway! Ascending is hard, so people have to cheat. Ascending in this universe is incredibly hard, because resons are hard to cultivate and infinity has infinite problems. And so, we cheat using the powers of other universes. We’ve got oodles of other forms of power in this universe because it touches so many others. Mana exists here, though it’s hard to cultivate outside of a proper manasphere. Then you’ve got super powers, and various forms of martial energy, and then there’s pure Life or other things like it. The fairies are the source of most of the Life worlds, but there are lesser forms of people that cultivate things like Flow or Stone, which is not like Elemental Stone at all. Lots of places are like that; only one source of transcendental power.

“This universe only really has resons and you can’t do much with infinity except travel it and bring parts of it with you. Fairies can, but that’s another discussion altogether.

“And so, people cheat. They use multiple sources of power in order to ascend, because…

“Imagine a house with multiple floors.

“Mortality is floor 1. It’s like a hundred subfloors.

“Ascension is floor 2. Maybe a good ten subfloors.

“Floor three are the fae; also stratified.

“You start on floor one, and you have to get to the next floor. You can use a rickety ladder, or you can use a ladder and some rocks. Using a ladder and rocks is stable, and gets you to floor 2.

“Now you’re on floor 2, but you can’t pull the ladder up behind you to get to floor 3, or even higher on floor 2 than you already are, because you have to have a path to floor 1… for reasons. So hopefully you used enough rocks and your ladder is big enough to get you all the way up. If not, then you gotta search for a third thing.” Lionshard said, “In your case, you have used mostly mana and a bunch of tools to reach very high on floor 2, and you’ve barely touched resons at all. Can you use these same materials to reach floor 3? Probably! You’ve barely touched what resons can do, after all.

“Whatever the case, you built very well, and your systems are still working to strengthen you well, because you made them that way, and they’re cultivating for you, like a ladder that grows on its own.” Lionshard added, “The door to floor 3 is very hard to break through, though, and most people would stop where you are right now anyway.

“But your automagic systems are still running.

“And your automagic systems are cultivating resons, like a normal, basic mage here in this uber cosmology.” Lionshard finished with, “Because that’s what you’re doing. You’re doing everything backwards. Like. A normal mage here in this cosmology funnels resons into themselves, trying to build a ladder to a higher realm. You started with mana, though, and now you’re doing resons.” He smiled. “Automagically. Ha!”

“… Huh.” Erick blew out some silver smoke, saying, “Well that’s fun.”

“I bet if you worked out the math your ‘wallet’ is basically exactly as many resons as you mathematically expect to have. Very few are actually going into your ‘Status’.” Lionshard giggled, then spoke conspiratorially, “Maybe you’ll reach heaven-defying stage soon— Or core formation— No, wait! You’re still at ‘meridian expansion’.” He smiled, saying, “You’ve still got a ways to go before you reach core formation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you just woke up with a reson core one day.”

Erick raised an eyebrow, “The only one of those that I know is ‘core formation’.”

“I know! That’s what makes it so funny!” Lionshard plucked a book out of the air then set it on the table between them, saying, “Here here. Don’t do anything it says directly. Find your own Truth. This could still give you some tips about stuff, though. Still good to know all of it, too, so you know what it means to cultivate resons.”

Erick smiled as he took the book. “Thank you.” He read it all in a flash, then paused. “...Oh. That’s different. Not too unexpected, though. Resons are more ephemeral than mana? That’s why I can’t really see them like I can mana?”

“Oh yes.” Lionshard said, “Resons hide inside infinity… Sort of.” He turned a little bit more serious as he said, “Cultivating is not accretion is not developing is not gardening is not Finding the Path is not burnishing is not... etcetera etcetera. And then there are several types of cultivation, all of them different from each other. There’s peering cultivation —the most common— which is to look through infinity and find the version of yourself you want to be, and then aspire to them. This causes your reson generation to increase. Then you either get into demonic cultivation, which is the capturing of other selves and eating them, or cooperative cultivation, which is where everyone raises each other up.

“Like imagine you are a farmer who truly wishes to do… something. Avenge your family, for instance. You can use your resons to peer through infinity to find yourself having achieved your goals, and you know what it took to get there. This ignites a spark that causes you to take those steps, and you eventually find yourself at a new plateau of having avenged your family.

“Now what? Is that where you stop? Most people do.

“Most people never touch resons, anyway, so most people never even get to see the possibilities ahead of them, to learn the way forward. Most people simply do what they want, or they do not.

“Considerably fewer people achieve true reson manifesting, which is the first real step toward cultivating in this universe. That usually comes after a person achieves their first or maybe second goal. That’s when they finally get a glimpse of what they’re actually doing with reson generation.

“Some people simply burn out, because they have ‘used up’ their reasons-for-being.

“Mana is so much easier. Having both is truly useful, though.” Lionshard said, “And you managed to get reson generation going through mana manifesting. That’s the most common way to do it, but you even managed to make it easy with a personal manaminer.” He smiled wide. “You have a ‘status’! That’s quaint, too.”

Erick thought as he listened. And then he asked, “Do they not have manaminers here in this universe?”

“Oh sure. All over the place. Margleknot doesn’t allow them here, though, because he’s basically a manaminer… except not. Functionally? Sure. Actually? No. People use manaminers to solidify some parts of Layer 1 into strongholds, though.” Lionshard added, “They steal people’s mana with those miners, too, in order to power those bases and defenses.”

“Ahhh. That reminds me. People generate mana and resons in this universe, yes? Like… how many manas per day? How many resons per hour?”

Lionshard looked thoughtful, then said, “Resons are simpler to explain, so I’ll start there. Resons are the reason-for-being, and they are incredibly ephemeral. Much more so than mana. An average person can generate anywhere from… 1 to 5 per day? The average body has a pool of resons that drive them forward, and that number is anywhere between… 50 to 150. Numbers are hard when it comes to resons. A young and energetic person with a good plan for life might have a well of 250 resons in their body. An older person who is very sure of themselves might have 350.

“Reson generation is very much a matter of person, place, and purpose. Take a fish and put them on land and they’re going to spike in reson generation for a short while as they try to get back to water, and if they can get to water, then they’re fine, but if they can’t, then they die.”

Erick took a moment to think about all of that. “Is there a way to measure the number of resons in a person?”

“Not really. It’s all subjective.”

“Ahh. Okay.”

Lionshard nodded. “Anyway. Mana generation… is a larger, less-certain subject. Some universes have mana as a byproduct of life, like the Painted Cosmology. The Painted Cosmology had mana as a part of life itself, too. Mana is always… a creation of the soul… yes. I would say that is true enough to be true. Mana is a creation of the primal part of the soul that is the gift of the universe itself to the individual, that marks them as a part of their universe. This marking can be passed around a lot, though. When you put Benevolence out there, it ignited tiny drops of Darkness inside every slime born from it and from every person who decides to accrete it, and in that Darkness, they become beings of mana.

“All the mana you create is from the Darkness expressing itself… hmm. Expressing itself through the multi-dimensional crash of possibility through the lens of Your Everything? If that makes any sense. Talking about subjects like that is always more philosophy than reality. That could all be wrong under certain circumstances. Anyway. All the mana you put out there is from yourself. Your sprinkling of Darkness is just the newest bits of Darkness in this universe, but there’s been Darkness out there for a long while.

“Most of the mana out there is from other universes.

“Other people can take those manas into themselves and cultivate it and, in doing so, imprint within themselves the Mark of That Universe, whichever universe ‘That’ might be.”

Erick’s eyes widened a little.

Lionshard nodded knowingly.

Erick asked, “Could I have been imprinted with the Darkness on my original world? Earth?”

“Oh sure. Lots of things are possible.”

“… Ah.” Erick nodded. “Infinity is large.”

Lionshard chuckled. “Infinity is large.”

Moments passed in calm smoking.

Erick asked, “What other sorts of mana universes are there?”

“Uncountable lots! Depending on how you count, there’s either around 550 big, named mana universes, or ten million.” Lionshard said, “There are only around a handful of truly impactful other universes, though. Now let’s see… Ah. There’s the Drawn Universe, where mana is created when people draw things or build sculptures or stuff like that. Spellwork and mana in the Drawn Universe are inexorably linked. There is the Building Universe, where people build shrines of power and make mana that way. The Drawn Universe and the Building Universe have something of a friendly rivalry going.

“There’s the Garden Universe, where mana comes from gardening. Lots of those types of universes out there where power comes from cultivating things that grow. One such universe like that is thought to be the world where Margleknot originally came from, but no one really knows and Margleknot isn’t talking. Then there’s the Pocket Universe, where everything is layered into each other, all eggs within eggs within eggs, with the main part of that universe being a place where people cultivate individual pocket dimensions. That’s sort of like the Garden Universe.

“The Painted Cosmology was one of the few that were named in how they were created, instead of how they functioned, because classifying how they worked —through mana— was too not-specific-enough. Do you know how many universes have something in them called ‘Darkness’? Lots. That sort of naming just doesn’t work, because each Darkness is different. In those veins, there’s the Struck Gold Universe, the Cubic Crash universe…”

Erick listened to universes and smoked silver with Lionshard for a while. It was a good break from the work.

- - - -

Lionshard went back home.

Erick looked over a few things from the manual he had gotten from the platinum dragon.

There were a lot of similarities between the various stages of accretion that Erick had gone through with his mana, inside Ar’Cosmos, way back when, and the cultivation of here and now. It was kinda odd that he was doing accretion again, but differently, in this land of Other Fae.

Cultivation was not accretion, though, except in the superficial sense.

For mana, Erick had started with a core. Rozeta had helped him make that, and also his secondary Status in the Core of Veird. From there, Erick had accreted to keep his core intact and solid, and to not go insane with hunger from having a degrading core. Making a core was the first step toward True Wizardry, and Erick had started that journey in the Core of Veird in order to have Rozeta’s help.

And then Fairy Moon had kidnapped him to Ar’Cosmos for the other half of accretion learning. In that place, Erick had needed to open his aura and then soak his mana inward through his body, enhancing his body through charging himself with his own power. This led to his core stabilizing in his body, turning perfectly spherical; gaining an infinite number of facets.

And that was accretion at its base.

Erick had gone beyond that in his ascension to Benevolence, and then eventually becoming a True Wizard. He had become a fully crystallized being, and also a person.

Apparently the end step of cultivation was the complete opposite. The final step of reson cultivation, which appeared to result in a person becoming a fairy, was to ‘break all preconceptions and be Simply You’. There was no Paradox, like with mana and accretion and crystals and personhood; there was Simply You.

The Fae were naturally like that.

Other people had to work for that power.

At its lower levels, accretion shared one major thing with cultivation, though. Cultivation was all about finding the path forward that you choose to walk, and then walking it. Your ‘Truth’. Erick had done that with his creation of Benevolence.

Other than that, cultivation was almost entirely about ‘becoming a being of doing’, which was philosophical speak for ‘being a person of passion and action’. The ‘action’ part was just as important as the ‘passion’ part. Wizardry in this New Cosmology was all about actual Wizardry, after all; about pulling forth possibility from nothing and thus making the impossible possible, which required true purpose and power.

There was no grand path to become Simply You, though.

There was simply the act of getting more You, through all the methods one could possibly consider, and that is what worked, if it worked for you. The book had a very clear line about what that actually meant, and that line sent Erick down a deep ‘thought hole’, as Poi would have called it.

Erick set down the book and looked at the ceiling as he had a think.

He voiced the question he had read,

“Do I believe that what I am doing is enough to become Simply Me?”

Was Erick going to become a fairy, whether he wanted it or not?

Erick considered…

He felt in his very bones and soul and mind, that his answer was ‘yes’. Yes, he was doing something that would make him eventually become indelible upon the fabric of reality itself. Erick could have tried to lie to himself about that, but that would have been a lie.

The creation of Yggdrasil. The transformation of Margleknot. The Benevolent Sun in the sky of this central city. The eventual saving of Veird and the expansion of Veird into the universe. The eradication of Malevolence, which was another solid goal…

Erick hoped that whatever awaited him in the future was a good sort of fate because he saw where he was headed, his Lightning Path traveling off into the far, far distance, headed toward strangeness on an uncertain horizon. Unknown and unknowable. Hidden yet apparent. Truths beyond truths.

Erick would eventually walk that full Path if it made the universe a better place.

But for now, Erick simply stood.

The Lightning Path was already beckoning, there at the front gate of his property, and so Erick would walk it, even if he hoped that it would slow down.

He stepped through the house, to his closet, to view the nice clothes that Lionshard had bought for him. He opted for the sunglow and nightglow robes that most matched his usual fare, but these ones glowed on the edges and drank deep all light in the accents. They were appropriate for courtly drama in multiple ways. First, because they were simply the most beautiful clothes that Erick had literally ever seen, but Lionshard called them ‘simply appropriate for court’, and because they would regrow to their full, mended size, as long as Erick kept a fraction of their fabric around and set them in the light of any sun for a short while. That regrowing part was important, because they were certain to get shredded in any real Fae Enclave drama.

They’d also transform into some jewelry for him to wear as a dragon, when he eventually turned into that Truth of his.

So dressed, Erick stepped out of his house, onto the green grasses in front of the gate to his property—

He had been on a mission, which is why he had moved that fast, but he didn’t know that moving with fabrics like this would cause them to billow out and then fall downward in a truly, quite artistic sort of falling. His robes moved like those hair commercials back on Earth; all shimmery and magical. Erick smiled at that, at how his weightless clothes felt and moved, never getting in the way at all, and always making him look good.

Ah.

Nice clothes.

Nice clothes were nice!

Erick moved on.

He looked at the men who had just stepped on to the other side of the portal to his property. Erick stood on grasses and moss, but the two men in front of him stood upon black crystal. Erick said, “I assume you’re Blighter, from Wraithborne Tower. And this is your understudy, Seabass?”

Erick opened the portal between him and the two men on the other side. They now had a clear entryway onto Erick’s land.

Blighter was an elven man of dark, sharp clothes that matched his hair, but his skin was as pale as fresh snow and his eyes were red as blood. Seabass was a fraction darker of skin than Blighter, and his eyes were a bit more purple than red. Both of them were immortal vampires, or at least that’s what Erick mentally called them. They were bloodborn, which were either a very advanced form of blood ooze, or a virus that infected elves who did too much blood magic. Erick wasn’t completely up on the specifics of it, but Lionshard had spoken a bit about them, once Erick had asked the old platinum dragon about the letter he had gotten from the Tower.

And now these people from the tower were here.

They had large, black leather briefcases with them, each of them completely open to Erick’s vision, if he wanted them to be. Some non-magical seals on the outside of the briefcases denoted them as belonging to the Wraithborne Tower, and ‘woe betide all who seek to assail the Tower’. That much was probably enough to warn most people off from peeking.

Erick looked inside the briefcases anyway. It was just paperwork.

All the actual secrets were probably inside the heads of these two men, for the insides of these two men were kinda weird and bloody. Not very intelligible. They were probably immune to Mind Magic, because they certainly looked oozy in some parts, which was quite an interesting thing to see.

Want to be immune to Mind Magic of all various types? Be an ooze! Solution good in many different lands; not just Veird.

Blighter bowed, then rose saying, “Greetings, True Wizard of Benevolence, Erick Flatt of Earth and Veird. I am Blighter from Wraithborne, as you have correctly deduced. This is Seabass, my understudy. I would enjoy a sit down at your pleasure to discuss the case of Nothanganathor, the Painted Cosmology, and what you want to happen. I ask for safe passage while conducting these duties, and request relinquishment to the Wraithborne Tower instead of death or sundering, if I should fail to live up to your demands upon the reality of the case.” Blighter gestured to Seabass, saying, “My understudy wishes for the same.”

Seabass bowed quickly, and professionally.

Erick stepped back from the portal. “Request granted. Please come in, Blighter. Seabass. Let’s talk.”

- - - -

In one of Erick’s front rooms, Blighter set out paperwork for cooperation with the Tower.

Erick read it over, and said, “So that’s a lot less evil than I thought you would be. I was expecting absolutely devastating costs and blood contracts and such. All this says is I agree to not hold the Tower liable for the outcome of the Fae Enclave meeting, and that you cost 1,100 resons a day. A thousand for you, 100 for Seabass.” Erick asked, “So what’s the catch?”

Blighter said, “I have an Understanding with the Fae Enclave. You do not. They will use every trick in the universe to try and get you to falter and fail in everything you attempt to get out of them. If you allow me to speak for you, and if all you do is nothing but stand there, no matter what the fae say, then there are no catches here. But as soon as you speak they’ll instantly hold you in contempt and lock you up in a Time Stasis, and then they’ll try to work me over as your representative, until they come to some sort of agreement that they can deal with.

“We expect to get paid for the days you’re missing, since we will still be working.

“In the event that you talk and they really don’t like you, then they’ll jettison you to Layer 1 and we’ll still be talking in court until you come back.

“Please understand that they will very much attempt to get you to contempt yourself. Anything except for you speaking in regard to a direct question, and then answering fully honestly, will be contempt.

“The Fae Enclave will only truly deal with you in court after they’ve had their fun, or if they think they can have more fun adjusting a previous decision of theirs.

“I can tell you right now that they will not overturn their decision of Nothanganathor and the Painted Cosmology. Shadow burned a lot of goodwill with them when she tried to kill them to make her viewpoint stronger. All she did was make them angry.

“I will attempt to make you the Arbiter of Veird, but you’re likely going to have to settle for something else. I don’t know the exact shape of that ‘something else’, but it will be between several horrible decisions for you. The Fae Enclave deals in very nebulous concepts, and there are lots of outcomes on the table right now. For instance: Would you give up your Ascension to become the Arbiter of Veird? Your sense of purpose? Your Element? Your entire life on Earth? Or on Veird?”

Blighter stopped talking, because that had been A Lot.

Erick considered.

Erick asked, “And what if I went in there without you, for the first time?”

“Once you stop talking through lawyers, they stop taking you seriously. Therefore, this is not a recommended course of action. You would be able to speak your mind to them, though. Mind, please, that the outcomes of such an action could be a lot worse than what we could get out of them for you.” Blighter said, “Therefore, in my professional opinion, you should not meet them alone at any point in time.”

Erick pretended to need to think, to draw out the moment, as he asked, “So if they kicked me away, and I had you there in a professional setting, you could make bargains for myself while I am out of commission. And those bargains would be binding?”

“Yes,” Blighter said, “If you are not comfortable with that, we can do a different arrangement involving you as a self-representing person and us standing back and offering legal knowledge when you ask it, or when we have words that we feel the need to tell you. That sort of arrangement is unorthodox and makes the Fae Enclave rather uncooperative and violent toward the counsel of the claimant.”

“… Ah. Well I like that option better. I won’t have you making any sort of bargains for me, ever, without my prior, complete approval.” Erick said, “But you going in as my counsel and me self-representing would be putting you at risk. Can you handle that?”

Blighter said, “We would ask to step out after assisting you three times. That is the usual number of allowed interventions.” And then he added, “Ascended Flatt. I tell you right now that I would stake my life on making this case work out in your best possible favor. The Tower wishes to work with you. We desire your complete desire to work with the tower. We would not do anything to make you truly decide that we’re not worthy of cooperation, and we certainly would not harm your capability to be you, after facing the Enclave.”

“… Well.” Erick looked at both Blighter and Seabass, and said, “Let us speak of the actual case, and if you have a way to actually win, then I would hear it.”

Seabass opened up his briefcase which broke some sort of word magic on it, because all of the basic paperwork inside suddenly shifted, words becoming images that moved, animated with life until they settled down onto the pages again and told a much different story than ‘basic paperwork’. Seabass set them out on the table with a flicker of purple power, and Erick breathed in when he read what was down there.

It was the story of Nothanganathor versus Melemizargo, which became the story of how Nothanganathor had sought out help from the Wraithborne Tower for Propagation magic, and how he had taken control of the Veird situation during the Sundering. Great swaths of the story were missing and speculated upon, and those parts of the tale were noted with angle brackets, but Erick felt they were true speculations.

He summarized the hundred page document in his mind.

- -

11,500 years ago:

Ikaramaliana, the Goddess of Magic, informs the Painted Cosmology that she is passing into Darkness, and that there will be a tournament between all capable peoples for the Mantle of Magic.

11,450 years ago:

The tournament is held.

Through great hardship two reach the end stage of the tournament. Melemizargo and his Endless Style, versus Nothanganathor with his Shadowed Sun style. Melemizargo, of , had been expected to cede to his brother, of Paradox, and become Second to the God of Magic. Melemizargo fights Nothanganathor for real.

Melemizargo ascends atop the shattered body of his brother, to become the God of Magic. In that moment Melemizargo and the Elven Conclave breaks Nothanganathor’s Shadowed Sun existence and rips apart every source of power Nothanganathor has across the entire Painted Cosmology, .

They cursed Nothanganathor to obscurity, for Nothanganathor was responsible for the Goddess of Magic’s untimely death.

Nothanganathor is banished as a ; not a true dragon at all.

11,000 years ago:

Nothanganathor, who had been a traveler of many universes and who had found power in many places, comes back to Margleknot and begins rebuilding his power. He had always been a friend to Evil, which is why he was able to find a way to , but now he is at his weakest, and he drinks deep of the fountain of Evil. He begins to grow long, instead of dense.

He begins on his journey of rebuilding himself into something that could destroy the curse upon him, and to take the mantle of the God of Magic of the Painted Cosmology to further break his curse and truly Ascend once again.

9500 years ago:

Nothanganathor comes and goes from the Wraithborne Tower, venturing into the Painted Cosmology at the behest of Margleknot, to discover what happened to Margleknot’s person in that universe.

It is a quest given to him because Nothanganathor has long been a friend to everyone except the Good, and most people commiserate with his loss against his brother, since most people in the Painted Cosmology simply do not care for this uber-cosmology.

8500 years ago:

Nothanganathor officially allies with the Wraithborne Tower and with the man who would become Emperor Morbion Blackthorn. He also allies with the Corrupted Void Sanctuary, and the Corrupted Archive.

The search for Margleknot’s lost person goes unsolved, and is

7900 years ago:

Nothanganathor invents Malevolence.

The Wraithborne Tower truly begins to take root in Evil, and grow stronger. They are fully Evil in these days.

The Corrupted Void Sanctuary gains a strong presence and does not falter like normal Evil organizations.

The Corrupted Archive gains a strong presence and does not falter like normal Evil organizations.

7500 years ago:

Morbion Blackthorn rises as the Emperor of the Wraithborne Tower.

Thus begins an expansion of Evil upon Margleknot.

6500 years ago:

Paradise Rises, a land of Good people, falls to the Wraithborne Tower.

6250 years ago:

The Prismatic Wilderness, a land of Good entities, falls to the Wraithborne Tower.

The Wraithborne Tower suffers a major setback due to the Celestial Observatory and decides to go softer in its Evil. Thus, begins the Reformation. The Wraithborne Tower begins to grow at a truly astonishing rate, now that it has pulled back from all its truly Evil ways.

6000-1450 years ago:

Nothanganathor is largely missing. He occasionally comes back to Margleknot to make friends with rising evils and fulfill missions for the Fae Enclave. Whatever the Enclave wants, Nothanganathor will do.

During this time Nothanganathor goes from a leviathan a few tens of kilometers long, to world-spanning, and eventually to sun-sized. He is still not capable of Ascending, and the Enclave prefers it that way, for Nothanganathor is the Enclave’s greatest weapon against problems that need solving,

1450 years ago:

The Sundering of the Painted Cosmology.

Since the Sundering was an unknown destruction, and Nothanganathor is in the neighborhood, the Enclave puts Nothanganathor in charge of figuring out what happened. Nothanganathor is fine with this. The Enclave tells him that if he should merely wish to eat Veird for all eternity and never truly find out what happened in the Sundering, then that is fine, too. They were running out of things to feed their favored weapon, anyway.

(there are many caveats)

The destruction of a universe is a very large deal, after all. They want to know what caused the destruction so that they can prevent such a thing, or, as some believe, use such a weapon for their own ends.

Present day:

Nothanganathor is requesting the dissolution of Ascended Flatt’s influence inside Margleknot, while also apologizing that he could not fully contain Veird due to planar influence.

The Wraithborne Tower is currently choosing which side to back.

The Fae Enclave desires that Erick Flatt make an appearance.

- -

Erick sighed as the weight of it all crashed onto him again. “And this isn’t even the full story.”

“Correct, Ascended Flatt.” Blighter said, “We have many documents under the Seal of the Tower that we would rather release to the Fae Enclave instead of to you, for those documents will be hampered in their effectiveness if we allow you to use them yourself.”

If Erick had detected even the slightest bit of disrespect in that statement, he would have had to stop himself from biting Blighter’s head off, but Blighter was being the best lawyer he could be, and so Erick simply thought.

Erick had a lot of things he could do at that moment.

He chose what felt like the optimal one, but which likely wasn’t.

Erick said, “Here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to go to them and you’re going to play backup, and when they decide to start playing hard I’m going to request tasks to solve in order to build up goodwill. When I’m doing that goodwill building, you’re going to build a real case and show me some of the various things that you’re keeping from me. You are not allowed to bargain for me, but you can make hypothetical bargains to bring back to me. Now. On the subject of goodwill building: Does the Wraithborne Tower have things they’d like done that are classifiable as ‘good’? Because that’s something I need to work on, too.” Erick said, “You all are very close to being good, and Benevolence is a better worker of soul magics than Elemental Death.”

Blighter easily asked, “What are your opinions on reincarnating beyond-ancient evils into forms that are soul-stable? Our goal would be to make them vulnerable to other evils, to harvest them for what they have inside of them.”

“… Oh gods— Okay!” Erick mumbled. “That’s like… at least 3 different moral quandaries. Probably a lot more if I took more than a single moment to think about it… I would want to reincarnate them into simple people once again, without any special power. I would also protect them from harvesting… and probably do exactly what I did with Derock... But that is what you want to happen anyway and you know I’d be fine with that. You want me to simply make some ancient Evils young and alive and not so evil anymore, and then set them outside of the sight of every single person they ever knew, and make them untrackable in the process. Why ask in this particular, sinister way? Like you’re going to ‘harvest them’, etcetera?”

“To see how you would react.” Blighter said, “A lost evil reborn in a new body is fine. We simply want to get rid of them to clean house, one way or another. If they come back with Benevolent power then we’re good with that.”

Erick frowned a little. “Moving on.” He changed topics. “You know I have experience with some fae, right? Margleknot gave out a huge dossier on me to a whole bunch of organizations. What makes the Fae Enclave so special-deadly?”

“The main problem with the Fae Enclave is the same problem that makes fae everywhere so deadly.” Blighter said, “It doesn’t matter how many times you kill them, or how many times you win. They are the truest of immortals. All they have to do is win once.”

“… Ahhh. Yeah. That same problem.”

“They also have rather total control over the space of this land,” Blighter said, “They can shove even Ascended into Layer 1.”

Erick thought for a moment. “Have you all tried soul shackles on them?”

“Only the foolish attempt this. It merely makes them truly mad.” Blighter added, “But yes. Going against the Fae Enclave is how most places perish in Margleknot. If you annoy them, they will annoy you right back. If you please them, they might please you right back. The onus to be useful is always on the plaintiff or visitor. More than one Evil-based organization has fallen to them, one way or another, and the Wraithborne Tower has been born and died a thousand times over, each time taking a different name. The same thing has happened to some Good places out there, too.”

Erick nodded. “Your help is appreciated.” He said to the air, “Yggdrasil. I’d like to set up a continuous payment to them for their services. 1,100 resons a day.”

Words appeared for them all to see.

Done.

“Thank you.” Erick conjured two reson orbs, both of them the same size, but one was worth a thousand resons and the other worth 100. He handed them to Blighter, and then Seabass, saying, “A bonus for today, or whatever. Now let’s talk about the Propagation Magic that Nothanganathor learned from you, that you have left out of the meeting until now.”

Blighter looked to Seabass; a confirmation to do something.

And Seabass opened a hidden compartment on his briefcase that even Erick didn’t see, because it literally did not exist until then. Erick sensed the presence of some sort of odd, eldritch power, in that opening, like what he had seen in Lionshard’s orrery room, in the weirder, deeper parts of the empty sky here and there. Seabass used something similar to that intangibleness to pull out a single sheet of paper with words upon it that danced.

He set the paper down, being careful not to look at it.

And then he backed away and fell to his knees.

Blighter went to one knee.

A voice opened up in the air. “Hello? Who is this that seeks an answer from the Archive?”

Erick couldn’t even see the magic, but he could sense that something was floating above the piece of paper… He didn’t look too closely right now, but he could if he wanted to.

Blighter spoke, “It is I, a contracted lawyer of the Wraithborne Tower named Blighter, requesting the cooperation of the Corrupted Archive in order to grant knowledge of shared and sealed power to another.”

Erick watched, and did not interrupt.

He guessed he was in bed with Evil now, eh?

Felt less dirty than he imagined it would feel.

The voice drawled out, “Eeehhhhh! You can’t ask for that through a contact sheet!”

A beat.

Blighter was suddenly uncomfortable, as though he had not expected that answer at all.

Seabass was confused.

Erick assumed this was either a very good play, or else the man on the other end of the contact sheet was kinda loony and his lawyers weren’t sure what to do now.

Erick spoke up, “Hello, Corrupted Archive.”

“Oh!” said the sheet. “Who is this now?”

For a brief, horrible moment, Erick wondered if he had fucked up.

Erick felt the shifting of something beyond as the air above the contact sheet flexed and twisted, and an illusion that Erick had not noticed was suddenly noticeable. It was a sparkle of light that resolved into an absolute hole in the universe that led to a black infinity that was not black at all, but merely a color beyond reckoning.

A color made of eyes and tentacles and mouths.

… Kinda reminded Erick of Fallopolis, actually—

The colorless horde tried to step through the hole—

“Nope,” Erick said, flexing his Authority, suddenly feeling a whole lot more secure in everything. “We can talk through this thing, if you please.”

“Oh oh oh!” said the eye/mouth/tentacle thing. “Someone with actual Authority around here, eh? Who might you be, little… not mortal. Oh. Ascended? Oh wait.” Every single eye, mouth, and even a few of the tentacles in the infinity beyond the hole, seemed to smile. “You’re a powerful one. What might The Corrupted Archive grant you to tempt you to corruption?”

Erick gestured to Blighter. “The lawyer here, Blighter, on behalf of the Wraithborne Tower, is requesting the cooperation of the Corrupted Archive in order to grant knowledge of shared and sealed power to another.” Erick said, “I am that ‘another’.”

The colorless horde paused.

“… One moment.”

The colorless horde pulled away.

The colorless horde returned. “Ask the question, little Blighter.”

Blighter metaphorically regained his feet; he was still kneeling. “This one requests to be allowed to know the history of the entity known as Nothanganathor, his time learning Propagation Magic in cooperation between the Tower and the Archive, and what he did with that Propagation magic. This one requests to share this knowledge with the Ascended here known as Erick Flatt.”

The colorless horde said, “Oh? Let me see… Yes. That’s acceptable. This has been spoken and cleared prior to this event. Release the knowledge, if you desire. The Corrupted Archive is satis… Wait. Ascended Erick Flatt?”

Blighter easily said, “This conversation now falls under lawyer privilege and cannot be used to demand more concessions than are already stated in agreements between the Tower and the Archive. If you wish to make a separate deal with Ascended Erick Flatt, please make that deal and do not involve us as a bargaining chip.”

The colorless horde frowned but accepted Blighter’s words. He said to Erick, “You want Nothanganathor True Dead? You come to us when the Enclave fails you. Contact paper finish.”

The portal winked out. The paper collapsed inward and then turned to ash.

Erick [Benevolence Cleanse]d the space—

And an absolute torrent of mana of every possible flavor washed out into the world like a tsunami of thick, white air; an ephemeral bomb. It was thick enough to ruffle hair and clothes and paper, but not much more than that.

Erick patted his clothes down, saying, “Well then! That was ‘corruption’? What exactly makes corruption so dangerous?”

Erick had heard a little bit about corruption from Lionshard, but Lionshard had been evasive about that, so Erick wanted to know why these guys had decided to open a portal to corruption in his meeting room. Erick had some Thoughts on why they had tried it, but he chose to keep those thoughts to himself. For now.

Blighter rose from his kneeling position, saying, “Corruption is not dangerous in small doses, but I believe the Archive might have gotten a bit too corrupted lately, if it wasn’t able to know that it should have approved our request right away. I would apologize on their behalf, Ascended Flatt.”

“Apology accepted. You didn’t answer the question, though.”

“Corruption is something unknowable that actively causes harm to all who view it, and which grows large and fast if allowed to grow. It is a breaking-down of all natural order into something terrible, and it is responsible for the deaths of many universes. We believe it is from another specific universe, but we don’t actually know. Many of the greatest forms of malicious evil are based around corruption, and all of the strongest forms of propagation magic are based on corruptive ideals. Malevolence is one of those magics. That is what Nothanganathor learned at the Corrupted Archive, among other things.” Blighter continued, “But Malevolence is not corruption. It is a mana-based version of corruption that is able to interact with and deny corruption, or allow corruption to run rampant. This is partially why the Fae Enclave is fine with Nothanganathor doing whatever he wants. He is very good at killing corruption.

“Other types of mana-based powers include Elemental Crisis, and Elemental Misfortune. Other, non-mana powers are much more varied in their ability to fight, create, or contain corruption, including Entropy Manipulation, Reality Bending, Karma, and Sealing.

“Evil is very good at killing other Evils, Ascended Flatt, and that is why Margleknot is about Balance, instead of just being about Good.”

For a moment, Erick was speechless.

And then, because he truly had no idea, and he needed to know, he simply asked, “Is Benevolence good at anti-corruption magics?”

It should be good against corruption, right? Erick had invented Benevolence with the idea of tackling issues exactly like this ‘corruption’ problem, though he had never heard of what corruption could really do or how it was used before now.

Benevolence worked hard to prevent all apocalypse scenarios…

But did Benevolence actually work against the first real apocalypse scenario that everyone else knew about, but which Erick did not? This was, perhaps, the first real test of Benevolence on the greater stage of the universe…

And Erick had no idea if his power did what he wanted it to do.

He felt like Benevolence would work very well against corruption, though.

It was just taking a while?

“I’ve no idea!” Blighter said, appearing slightly excited for the first time, and perhaps, a little bit, aware of Erick’s internal monologue. “If Benevolence works against corruption then we might have an actual chance against Nothanganathor in fairy court!” He instantly digressed, saying, “Or maybe not, honestly. Elemental Malevolence is incredibly useful against corruption because corruption likes to work behind the scenes and that’s where Malevolence shines. The Corrupted Archive has been using Malevolence to clean itself up when it gets bad enough which is probably what it is doing right now.” Blighter added, “And it is very possible that even if we should get Nothanganathor all the way into a corner, that he is going to say something to the Enclave along the lines of ‘I helped to bring Benevolence about, therefore all my Evil was justified and you owe me’. That’s the tactic I would use against you if I were working for him.”

… Well then.

Erick asked Yggdrasil, “Yggdrasil? Is Benevolence working against the corruption out there?”

Yes. Of course it is, Father.

This is a very weird question.

Benevolence is right up there with The Fractal Mandala and the Sacred River when it comes to fighting corruption. Fighting corruption is where practically all of my half of the Benevolent Sun is going, and most of my production on Veird. And since you bring it up, now is a good enough time to inform you that I have added another Surface to your Benevolent Sun. Your daily income has a little more than doubled since last you checked.

It’ll hit 500b per day soon enough. I need you to speak to the Enclave about allowing me to make it larger.

Current income: 382b per day

Current expenditures: Max.

“Oh! Well look at that.” Erick laughed a little. “Right! Right. I thought it was… Well that’s a lot more specific than what I had known, and I didn’t know any of that. Okay! Good.” Erick felt secure as he told Blighter and Seabass, “I’m going to the Enclave now. You can stand back and watch what happens. You will have notes for me afterward. I assume they’re either going to shove me to Layer 1 or give me an impossible quest or five.”

Blighter stared hard at the ‘The Fractal Mandala’, but he realized that Erick had finished instructing him, so he bowed, then rose, saying, “Probably a shove to Layer 1 and the quests, Ascended Flatt. They likely won’t be impossible quests, either, unless you anger them most severely.”

Seabass bowed with him, and then rapidly packed the papers back up.

“I’ll try not to anger them— Ah! That reminds me.” Erick asked, “If I meet slavers over there on Layer 1, I am going to dismantle them. Tell me now if that is going to be a problem.”

As though he had been prepared for it, because he probably had been, Blighter said, “The Wraithborne Tower has interests on Layer 1, and we ask that you leave our clearly-marked lands alone. Everything outside of our territory is fair game. We have warned our allies about this already, and that warning is 4 days old as of right now. There will probably be a lot of false-Tower icons out there, but the actual Tower zones are very clearly marked and visible from every single direction as grey pillars of light in the sky. We make them that way so that we can serve as beacons of relative safety in the Fractal Wastes. If you wish for guidance out of the Fractal Wastes, then you might try one of our outposts.”

Erick considered that, and then said, “Honestly, if I find people raping and soul mutilating then the Seal of the Tower is not going to save them.”

“We accept this highly likely scenario. Extensive damage to our interests will be considered the cost of doing business, as long as you don’t completely try to remake the Wastes in your image.” Blighter said, “Everyone on the Fractal Wastes has been expecting you to show up for a while now, though, which should tell you a lot about a lot.”

“… Ah. I suppose it does.”