Chapter 241, 1/2

“This is all such a terrible idea and I shouldn’t make a repro, because I’m rather damned sure that I don’t want to be here at all,” Poi exclaimed, “Because Holy Gods Above, this is such a terrible idea.” Poi stared at Erick and Erick 2, and said, “But the world needs me to stand up, and so I will stand up.”

Erick had left the slime dungeon a few hours ago and immediately asked for Poi to join them, to discuss adding his repro to the dungeon, to help combat the possible memetic-angle to the Sundering search. Poi’s initial answer had been a resounding, ‘Yes, but,’ with a lot of rather prudent words about ultimate goals and otherwise, and that he’d need to meet ‘Erick 2’ before he made any real decision.

Then there were a bunch of concerned words about Erick’s mental state. No one should be subject to the sorts of stresses that Erick was now subject to, and the Sundering Search should not happen, but reality was not very kind to Wizards, it seemed.

And now they were here, in the slime dungeon, in the ‘house at Spur’, with Poi, Erick, and Erick 2 sitting in the kitchen. Poi had walked into the house not 2 minutes ago. There had been no ‘hello’s or ‘how are you, Erick 2’s, because Poi was Poi, and Erick was Erick, even though one of the Ericks was actually Erick 2. Almost instantly he had delivered his penultimate decree on the subject of a Poi-repro.

Erick 2 said, “But there’s more to it than that.”

And Poi nodded. “There’s a recent trend among Mind Mage dungeon masters going around Nelboor that I want to try. You put me to sleep, then you apply the slime, then you keep us both asleep until the repro is fully developed, and whoever wakes up as whoever is who they are from then on. Since your [Sleep]-like spell works well enough as [Sleep], we can do it this way; otherwise we’d need another Mind Mage to help with this, but we don’t have one of those.

“This is a way for us to see each other without the other’s thoughts influencing ours before we’re ready.

“But also: Neither me nor ‘Poi 2’ are going to become other people. We’ll go a step beyond the dual-[Sleep] set up, and do a [Hive Mind] meld. Whoever is the original will go back to Spur— Sorry. Candlepoint…” Poi looked at the house again. And then he focused. “The original will go back, and the repro will stay, and we’ll do a little [Hive Mind] magic so that we’re both the same person from now on. But we won’t physically meet each other at all.”

Erick went, “Ah?”

“You can do that?” Erick 2 asked.

“You can’t. I can… Theoretically. I know the magic, but I haven’t actually done this yet. [Hive Mind] is a spell that we use for cooperative casting but it sort of fell out of popularity with the rise of [Renew]. I still learned the proper way to do cooperative casting, because it’s the proper way to do that sort of thing.” Poi added, “[Hive Mind] will also be useful for keeping everyone in House Benevolence apprised of this situation.”

Erick 2 asked, “Well then? Should we do this?”

Erick could tell that Erick 2 was going too fast, and on purpose, but he could hardly blame the guy. He wanted his friend to be here with him in this trying time. That was why Erick wanted Poi here to begin with, but now that Poi was here, Erick saw that Erick 2 needed him a lot more than Erick did.

Poi leveled an easy glare at Erick 2, saying, “You and my repro are going to talk a lot when this is over. And you need a proper name. I suggest something culturally significant, possibly meaning peaceful and good, so that when the Dark tries to twist you to his ways, your very name will remind you of who and what you are, Erick. Not ‘Erick 2’.”

Erick watched as Erick 2’s breath hitched.

Erick 2 wiped away an unruly tear, saying, “I’m glad you’re here, Poi.”

Poi nodded. “I am, too.”

Erick suggested, “Halcyon?”

Poi said nothing.

Erick 2 eventually said. “… That’s too ‘in the past’.”

“Oh!” Erick suggested, “Solomon.”

As soon as Erick said the name, he knew it was going to be the one. There was just too much meaning attached to it to not be perfect. ‘King of Peace and Wisdom’. It even had ‘Sol’ in the name.

“I kinda like that one… I really like that one.” Erick 2 smiled, and said, “Okay. I guess I’ll be ‘Solomon’, then. It even has ‘Sol’ in the name.”

Erick smiled, saying, “Nice to meet you, Solomon.”

Solomon chuckled. “I even look like an aged king now.”

Poi breathed deep, then said, “Glad to solve that problem. Now let’s get me a repro and we can figure out solving all the rest of the problems to come, for both my repro and Solomon won’t be tied too hard to the dungeon as soon as there are 2 masters here.” Poi looked at Solomon, and said, “Because you’re not a hermit, and I don’t want you to become one, either.”

Solomon smiled wide. “Thank you, Poi.”

Poi breathed deep, and then walked off toward Erick’s— Toward Solomon’s mage tower. Erick and Solomon followed. Poi plucked a crystal-sealed dungeon master slime from the asteroid belt, and then walked back down the hall to his room, carrying the softly-developing slime in his blue-scaled hands.

Soon, Solomon laid Poi 2 down on a [Duplicate] of Poi’s bed, inside Poi 2’s room, while Original Poi was already asleep on ‘his’ bed, for he had put himself to [Sleep].

Erick stood back beside Solomon, and asked, “Want to try for a [Hive Mind]? We might be able to swing it with some Wizardry.”

“No,” Solomon said. “I am… Really glad to have Poi here, though.”

“Me, too. He made a lot of things rather clear back there.”

Solomon nodded. “I think my thoughts on the function of this dungeon have matured, too. We can’t make any effective changes to the Rules and thus the space for another week, but when we can, I’m thinking that instead of having Jane explore the Dark by making repros and breaking cores all over the world, we instead make some Well-like [Scry Mirror]s in here, that allow us to [Scry] the entire Dark, and maybe even walk in the Dark.” He added, “It’d probably take some Wizardry to make that happen, but we can figure that out, and maybe, through that, we can figure out exactly why you’re not able to become a Full Wizard.”

Erick smiled as he said, “Sounds like the wisdom of Solomon to me. Are you going to be conjuring demons next?”

Solomon laughed. “I could!” And then he paused. “… No. Not demons. But a…”

Solomon frowned a little, his eyes glancing toward Ophiel, where before he had dutifully not looked at his former [Familiar] at all. Erick wasn’t going to say anything about that, but the only one who hadn’t noticed Solomon’s tension at not looking upon Ophiel was Ophiel, who had been quiet until then.

But now Ophiel asked, “What goes?”

Solomon smiled, and said, “Nothing, Ophiel.”

Ophiel nodded on Erick’s shoulder and returned to just observing the world. Most of his attention was out with the slimes on the dungeon floor, anyway, as he had moved in another of his bodies to take a slime form, and to play with the slimes while his father and Solomon talked about stuff. Ophiel often checked out of these sorts of small talks, so what he was doing now was nothing special. Except Erick could see how Ophiel’s distance was hurting Solomon.

Solomon saw Erick see him. So Solomon shrugged, tried to put on a smile, and said, “Maybe, when he separates… Can you bring him here? Or one of him, maybe—” He shook his head, looking away as he mumbled, “No. Wait. Forget I said that.”

Erick instantly said, “Ophiel. You wanted slime-time, right?”

Solomon’s breath hitched—

As Ophiel focused all of his attention on Erick, asking, “Slime time?!”

Erick said, “Why don’t you play slime time with Solomon here?”

Ophiel flickered, eyes opening all across him, as he took in Solomon and declared, “Slime time!”

“Solomon slime time!” Solomon said, as he turned into a light slime.

Erick’s repro was a slime as brilliant as a minor sun, shimmering with white iridescence, as he activated his Sun Form at minimal power. Solomon bounced away, putting a whole lot of effort into looking like a slime and acting like a slime, except when he turned to light and just flickered through the window.

Ophiel followed instantly, trilling in jubilant violin sounds and then making a whole lot of clatter as he broke the window going through it. He paused to fix the window, and then he kept right on going, bounding after Solomon, up through the dark hole in the ceiling of the cavern, onto the dungeon floor.

Erick watched Ophiel play with Solomon, and felt great about that.

It kinda reminded Erick of how a child would play with a family member that they had forgotten about, all distant and worried, but willing to try. And then Ophiel got into the groove, bouncing after Solomon trying to give chase as a slime, both of them winding up all the slimes all around as they played among the fountains and pools. Something like unfamiliar recognition took hold inside Ophiel after just a minute of play.

They recognized Solomon as Erick, but not as Erick at all, both Ophiel out there squeaking in unsure guitar and agitated flute sounds, before erupting in triumphant violin sounds. And then the chase began for real, as Ophiel tried to understand what he was seeing.

Another Ophiel popped into the room with Erick, having lightstepped here to check on him, before going back out to the dungeon floor to play with the bright light slime that really looked like Erick’s slime form. All three Ophiel seemed to be having a lot of fun with Solomon, even if they knew something was up, and they didn’t quite understand.

As Erick watched them play, he wondered…

If Quilatalap didn’t want to be a secondary father to Ophiel, Solomon was another good choice. He obviously wanted the job of ‘father’… Except.

“Maybe I’d call Solomon an ‘uncle’. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea that I’ve married my repro.” Erick shivered as he recalled some stories which had appeared in newspapers and Knowledge Mage briefings across the world. Erick was already the talk of the world over, from what restaurants he ate at, to where he got clothes, and even his pooping habits. That last story was a particularly odd one to read about. Erick did not want to be subject to any sort of incestuous public ridicule. Erick shivered again. After that passed, and as he watched Solomon play with Ophiel, bounding up and down slides and splashing water, and playing with the other slimes who decided to play, Erick decided, “Solomon would be a fantastic uncle, though.”

- - - -

Erick watched over Poi and Poi while the first one slept and the second one was still making himself into a person.

Solomon spent two hours playing with Ophiel and exploring all of the first floor with him in the process. Erick tagged along through Ophiel’s eyes occasionally. There wasn’t a whole lot to explore up there, as the entire floor was basically a kiddie water park, but it was still important to do that exploration.

There was not a single dangerous spot for any slime to be in that entire land, and there weren’t any moving parts anywhere on the entire floor, for all the water features were cleaned and set into motion through basic [Ward]s set here and there in the deeper parts of the water park. There were no underground levels that could trap anyone, and the largest drop from one height to the next was less than a meter. Any drops above a meter always had water pools at the bottom, and the slimes —and Ophiel— loved rolling over those drops and plopping into the water.

The only ominous part of the entire floor was the Dark, located all around.

A tall rink rimmed the dungeon, separating the parts where slimes played freely under prismatic lights, and the desolate black beyond. That black oozed and pulsed here and there, like vertical waters misted over with gloom. It churned occasionally, as though great beasts swam just beyond the veil.

The slimes knew nothing of the danger just beyond the dungeon, for the rink around the land was ten meters tall in most places, and twice that thick. That rink served as a white stone beach, where most of the golems were located, each of them looking like simple egg-shaped stones 2 meters tall.

Erick suspected that those golems would unfurl into threatening things if any unapproved existence came near them at all. He was proven right soon enough. When Ophiel and Solomon went by, the white eggs did unfurl a little bit, but then they went right back to being egg-shaped and Ophiel and Solomon went back down into the dungeon floor. There were a few egg-shaped stones here and there on the dungeon floor, too, but, according to the dungeon status sheet, there were only 500 of them, and from what Erick was seeing that 500 number was likely correct. Over a hundred square kilometers of white stone land, they were few and far between, with most of them on the walls.

Erick tried not to watch Solomon play slime-time with Ophiel too much, for both of them were having a blast, and Erick did not intrude. But he couldn’t help but watch now and then.

When Solomon came back inside the house, smiling and tired and human-shaped, with Ophiel on his shoulder, Erick decided to just tell him.

“I want you to be Ophiel’s uncle,” Erick said.

“Yes,” Solomon replied instantly, a tight, worried, relieved, and joyful expression rapidly passing across his face, and onto the rest of him—

Ophiel chirped and flitted from Solomon’s shoulder to Erick’s asking, “What uncle?”

“Solomon here is like my brother, Ophiel,” Erick said.

“No no! He repro!” Ophiel said, “I know.”

Solomon chuckled.

“Yes, Ophiel; Solomon is my repro, but that means he’s also exactly like me. So he can be like your uncle. You can always come here and look to him for help with anything, okay?”

Ophiel flitted off of Erick’s shoulder and landed on Solomon’s. He looked Solomon in the eyes with all of his own eyes, saying, “You other-father.”

Solomon smiled. “No no. ‘Uncle’. Don’t want people thinking I’m romantically involved with Erick.”

Erick chuckled a little bit in embarrassment.

Ophiel would get it right eventually.

But for now, Erick sat down with Solomon and they spoke of magics to come, of Dark Mirrors to be made at the edge of the dungeon space, and of changes to the dungeon itself in order to solidify it against potential Primal Lightning, or Evil gods, or whatever might appear. While they did that, they watched Poi 2 gradually and inexorably become a copy of Poi 1.

- - - -

Poi and Poi 2 woke up together under Erick and Solomon’s watch.

The original looked to the repro, and the repro looked to the original.

Poi 2 said, “Well shit.”

Poi 1 said, “At least we know this style of waking up together lessens the mental trauma.”

“Of course, we already knew it would work—”

“—but thinking and experiencing are different.” Poi 1 got out of bed, saying to Erick, “Transport back to Candlepoint, please.”

“Is that it?” Erick asked, too many things happening too fast. What about acclimation? What about some time spent together? What about propriety and acknowledging what a big deal this was? “What about [Hive Mind]?”

“Already active,” Poi 2 said, also getting out of bed. “You can stop calling me ‘Poi 2’, by the way.”

Poi 1 and Poi 2 spoke in alternating words.

“We’re—” “—The—” “—Same—” “—Person—” “—In—” “—Most—” “—Ways.” “The—” “—Only—” “—Way—” “—We’re—” “—Different—” “—Is—” “—In—” “—Dungeon—” “—Control.”

“Please call—”

“—Us both Poi.”

One Poi walked out of the room, eager to be separate, while the other remained behind, looking stoic and ready to work.

The departing Poi quietly asked, “Ophiel. Transport to home, please.”

Ophiel rapidly flitted over to the shoulder of the departing Poi, turning them both to Benevolence and flickering away, to exit the dungeon as quickly as possible. Within 10 seconds, Poi was through a [Gate], and back home.

Ophiel came back without Poi and landed back on Erick’s shoulder—

And the Other Poi was also standing before Erick and Solomon, saying, “Don’t call me ‘Other Poi’, please. I’m just ‘Poi’.”

Erick and Solomon both mumbled a ‘Sorry’.

Poi nodded, “Now to get on this memetic and anti-memetic threat that you believe might be happening with the Sundering. It’s quite possible. The Sundering might be memetic, or anti-memetic. We don’t know.” Poi walked out of his bedroom, toward the living rooms, and Erick and Solomon followed. Poi continued, “There are three artifacts that exist on Veird already that you’re going to want to take from their respective guardians. Also: Jane is going to be coming here soon, since it’s been about a day since you came in here. You can’t avoid her at all.” They were at the bottom of the grand staircase in the front room when Poi turned around and told them both, “She’s going to make repros, and you’re going to have to let her, or else she’s going to hate you. Also, don’t take it personally when the repros are inordinately happy about finally having a reason to fully break away from your light, or when Original Jane looks sad that she can’t do that, too.”

Both Erick and Solomon sighed a little.

“… Yeah,” Erick said.

Solomon said, “I figured she might be happy about that.”

Erick demanded of Solomon, “What the fuck did we do wrong?”

“I don’t know why she hates us!” Solomon said, suddenly angry at himself, or at the world; it was hard to say.

Poi rolled his eyes. “She doesn’t hate you. She wants to protect you but you’re impossible to protect, and so she runs away. Please don’t ever tell her I told you that.”

Both Erick and Solomon were quiet as they digested that information. Poi was obviously breaking Mind Mage confidentiality which was a big deal, and yet...

“Well… We already knew that, we suppose?” Solomon guessed.

“Yeah. But… Hearing it from you helps. Thank you, Poi,” Erick said.

Poi smiled a little as he entered the kitchen and went right to the candy cupboard like he was a man on a mission. He opened that cupboard, because apparently he was a man on a mission, and then he pulled out the jar of sprinkle stars. “Ah ha!” Poi laughed as he opened the jar and took out a purple star between two talons. “They don’t make them like they used to!” He popped the chewy candy into his mouth, smiling wider. “Yup. These are the originals! Ha!” He set down the jar.

And then he turned toward Erick and Solomon.

“The place that made these burned down 35 years ago in Kal’Duresh along with the grandma that used to make them. When they remade their business they had to rediscover the recipes, because that grandma didn’t write anything down.” Poi tapped the jar with a talon, saying, “These might look like the ones I used to get and keep in the house at Spur, but these are from the old recipe. These are from that grandma.

“There are many ways this could have happened. I don’t know enough to list all the ways. Paradox Wizardry, Dark shenanigans, maybe that grandmother is a shadeling at Ascendant Mountain, but whatever the case, it’s strange that they would put the original, real candy here, in this house. Were they watching us that closely? Or maybe they heard me talk about how I liked the original candy better than the remake. Or maybe Fallopolis, who built this house, liked the old version of that candy, too, which is really damned weird. I don’t know. I can’t read Shade minds.

“Whatever the case, I believe this candy was plucked out of the Dark, like an old memory brought to life. On its own this doesn’t mean much, and I have no idea why Melemizargo put the original recipe in here, but it does prove my theory that you can find a lot of stuff in the Dark that isn’t that deep at all, which will be good for Veird.

“It’s not the only thing I noticed that was plucked from the Dark in this house, either, like manasphere imprints [Mend]ed into reality.

“The sheets on those beds are the finest cottonfruit sheets that I have ever felt. The clothes in my dressers are from current-day largesse. The soaps are from Oceanside, and are better than anything we used to have in this house.” Poi went over to the cold box and pulled out a steak wrapped in paper, and labeled ‘Oolarito’. “These steaks in the fridge are easy to mistake as from Ooloraptoor, but they’re from a breed of cow that was made extinct by the Shades a thousand years ago, because the original warlord clans wouldn’t sell to them.”

Erick rapidly looked around the house as Poi spoke. “… Err. Perhaps I wasn’t seeing just how nice some of this stuff was.”

“Neither was I,” Solomon admitted. “But what’s your point, Poi?”

“My point is an easy one. There are many possible memetic and anti-memetic threats in the Old Cosmology. Ones we cannot account for, and ones we will have to over prepare for. But you can bring stuff from the history of Veird into the modern day, and we know how to safeguard against those memetic and anti-memetic threats.

“You were talking of bringing back big magics and bigger resources from the Old Cosmology, and we’ll still get that stuff, of course, because we should,” Poi said, “But there’s a lot of stuff on Veird that you can pull out of the Dark that would be a lot better for us than ancient stuff that has no bearing at all on modern day Veird.

“Just think of every single person who ever died, for one.

“You could bring them all back as shadelings, first, and then real people afterward. You could save everyone that the Anarchy and Blue Wizards killed. Reach back far enough and you can undo the Fall of Quintlan, bringing billions of people back to life. Reach back just over a decade and you could undo the Chelation War.”

The air seemed tense and full in that moment, as the entire weight of what Poi was suggesting gradually settled onto Erick’s shoulders—

“You could find my mother in the Dark, and bring her back, too,” Poi said. But before Erick could think about the gravity of all of that, Poi rapidly added, “It’s just a thought, though, and I already know that Rozeta and Phagar don’t like people mucking around with time on Veird, but it’s been done before, and it can be done again, in a much more positive way. We’ve got a lot of work to do here, but since we’re exploring the Ancient Dark for old Truths, it will pay to keep in mind that not-so-ancient Truths also exist.”

Solomon spoke, “Exploring memetic and anti-memetic threats come first. Defending against the unknown is more important than bringing back shadows of people, no matter how personally important they are.”

Erick agreed. “But the lure of just… Bringing people back to life?”

Solomon nodded. “It’s… It’s a thing that we should consider, yes.”

Poi smiled softly, then began, “Before we get into all of that, though, there are three memetic-type artifacts that currently exist on Veird that you should acquire before we go much further with all of this. All three are under the protections of the Mind Mage conclave, and the first is located in Nelboor…”

- - - -

Three artifacts sat before Erick, Solomon, and Poi.

The first was a Crown of Self. It had started existence as an iron band that went around the head like a crown, that people used when hunting unicorns, and other mental monsters. Through an act of supreme self, and a casting of minor Wizardry and great personal trauma, it had become more than that. Outwardly, it had changed from iron to silver, and gained a sheen that marked it as magical. In effect, it had changed a lot more, making one completely mentally separate from the rest of the world, offering complete immunity to memetic magic, and a whole bunch of other magic besides.

At its base effect, it meant no outward magic at all.

“It also means no [Telepathy], no Familiars, no magical communication with anything at all,” Poi said, “It has been tested against… Well. A lot. There’ve been 2 Mind Mage Wizards in the last thousand years, and this thing was born out of the capture and killing of the first one, and then finally taken out of storage and heavy Mind Mage contraband control before finally being used by an assassin to kill the second Wizard. I suggest Solomon take it and use it, but only when necessary, for anyone who wears it will be cut off from me, anyone else trying to contact them, and the dungeon. [Cascade Imaging] will likely find the person wearing this, but not [Scry], or anything like that. This is a Wizard Artifact, so it works here even in the Dark, just like the other two.”

Solomon frowned a little at that.

Erick looked to the next artifact.

The second artifact was the Lidless Eyes. It was a collection of tiny glass eyes, all stuck to each other, and freely floating on a golden chain, like drops of dew, or chains of grapes. They would not fall off of the chain, but they did move around. The eyes tracked Erick as he stepped a fraction to the left, and then the right, as though all of those tiny eyes belonged to an Ophiel-like entity.

Solomon said, “I don’t like how it has 57 eyes one moment, then 59 after I blink, and then 48 when I look again.”

Erick looked to Solomon, then back to the Lidless Eyes. “Without moving or blinking, how many eyes does it look like it has to you, right now, Solomon?”

“63.”

“It’s 64 to me.” Erick activated his All-Seeing Eye. “Still 64 with this eye of my own.”

“… Well now it’s 64?” Solomon said, frowning a little, as he narrowed his eyes at the artifact.

Poi said, “The Lidless Eyes let you see all manner of Mind Magic happening everywhere around you, and it draws that Mind Magic into itself, along with any magics that directly attempt to affect the wearer, popping eyes with every magic absorbed. For every eye popped, the user is protected against that specific magic for the next hour… or maybe just a few minutes. The stronger the magic, the lesser the safety guaranteed by the used eye. Eyes come back a day after being used or whenever they feel like it. This is a very chaotic artifact, but it’s a Wizard-level artifact, and it works very, very well against singular memetic threats. It has no downside, though, which makes it among the best of the three from our hoards.”

Solomon and Erick looked at the artifact of eyes…

Erick asked, “Could Lapis replicate any of these?”

“Probably not,” Poi said.

Erick and Solomon narrowed their eyes, thinking.

“Moving on,” Poi said. “The Crown protects against active change, and is the most absolute of the items here. The Eyes do the same, but without the downsides of absolute protection. Memetic threats are often the most dangerous, so that’s why I had you get two of those types of artifacts. But the third is what might actually matter. The Bracelet of Memory.”

“That’s clearly a slave shackle,” Solomon said.

Poi did not argue, because it was a slave shackle. Or at least it had started off that way. The thing was a wrist-lock of black iron about 5 centimeters wide, a full centimeter thick, and large enough to fit around most human wrists. It had a hinge that was rusted over, yet the whole thing easily opened and shut as though the rust didn’t exist at all. It also had a clasp where a lock could be inserted and secured, to hold the two sides together, to make sure it never came off of an arm. There was no accompanying lock, though. The inside had some anti-mana engravings, but those had been worn away, while the outside had some silver etchings that had been scratched out in precisely the weakest spots to break the enchantment therein. From what Erick was seeing, it looked like someone had broken the magics on the item and when the [Envelop Item] magics had failed they had taken a chisel to it, so that it couldn’t be easily repaired.

The thing was a dead weight to Erick’s mana sense. The Lidless Eyes and the Crown were both highly magical, but this thing was subtle. Barely there.

Poi said, “The Bracelet of Memory was probably accidentally turned into an artifact by a Mind Mage Wizard who was born a free woman, but who was captured and forced into slavery down in Nergal, over 700 years ago. Back then the Mind Mage Collective wasn’t nearly as unified as it is today, and there were some Mind Mages who used some rather terrible Mind Magics to control their slaves. We think the woman who made this might have been sent to infiltrate and break up that slave trade but we don’t know. She had lost all her memories in that infiltration and sequester. Somehow, she made this, and then she was able to free herself and hundreds of others. When she came back into the fold and achieved freedom, she took the bracelet off and erased her own memories.

“No one is sure why she did that, but it is a trend that remains for all who use this item.

“All this does is make absolutely sure that all information that goes into your mind, stays there. You will not be able to forget anything while you wear this. It’s the most potent anti-anti-memetic artifact we have in our collective, and it should not be used by anyone going out on any missions. The other two items are nice, and irreplaceable, but this one is beyond irreplaceable. It should be used here, at base, so that we can be sure that it is never lost.” Poi said, “Aside from that warning, this thing is practically a memetic-hazard on its own because remembering everything you see can be dangerous. But then again, you both have Intelligence, so that ship has mostly sailed.” He shrugged. “Or perhaps if either of you wear this, you’ll want to take it off instantly. I don’t know.”

Silence stretched as people thought.

Erick said, “We’ll talk about the distribution soon enough. Jane is coming down.”

“By the way,” Poi said, “I am in contact with Quil. If you want to ask some questions about working dungeons, Solomon, I am available to help in that way, and Quil is too.” Poi added, “And Quilli, and Quardo, and a few other Quilatalap repros.”

Solomon chuckled. “Ah. So this is what it’s like to be on the other side of that divide, eh?”

Poi nodded.

Erick felt left out, but that was okay. Solomon could enjoy himself, if he wanted.

Solomon said, “I’ll talk to the Q’s, and you, Erick, can talk to Jane.” He smiled a little. “It’ll be nice to know her from a different angle too… But later. So yeah. Let’s talk in the library, Poi.”

Poi and Solomon walked off to the library, speaking of dungeon controls and changes all the while, and picking Quil’s brain on what he thought of this dungeon. Erick watched them go for a moment. And then he moved toward Jane, where she was coming in. She hadn’t been here in the dungeon yet, so this was going to be a change for her, too.

Erick wondered how she would take it… And yeah. From what Erick was seeing through Ophiel, Jane was taking it weirdly, too.

Erick met Jane at the front door. “Hey, Jane.”

Jane stood by herself in the front ‘yard’, upon the orange/white stone, her eyes wide as she took in the sight of their old house.

“Did you know that Melemizargo and Fallopolis got our house from Spur?” Erick asked, “Because I certainly didn’t. And I already made a repro. His name is Solomon. Poi came and left, and left us with a repro Poi, too, but they’re [Hive Mind]ed, so it’s just Poi. They’re talking to Quil right now. You know Quil? He’s the Quilatalap repro dungeon master of the Grand Benevolence Dungeon.”

Jane blinked, and then steeled herself as she strode forward, saying, “No; I did not know that they got our house. Poi is Poi, which is fine I suppose. We’re going to need some Mind Mages assistance with figuring out some memetic threat-counters.”

Erick smiled as he stepped aside and let Jane in the house. As her eyes went to the very familiar and yet unfamiliar layout, Erick said, “I already got three artifacts from the Mind Mages, courtesy of Poi. Do you want to make some repros now, too?”

Jane paused. And then she turned to her father. “That’s not going to be a problem for you?”

“I would be lying if I said it wasn’t freaking me out, but I’m maintaining, and you already made your decision. I’m sure it’ll go well, anyway; Quilatalap has lots of repros and he gets along with all of them, too.” Erick said, “The slimes are in my mage tower. Want some accompaniment?”

“Nope. I got it. Thanks, dad.”

Jane wandered off upstairs, toward the mage tower.

And Erick stood in the foyer, watching her go…

- - - -

Time passed.

Erick made meals to pass that time, and when making meals for everyone wasn’t enough, as that only took him an hour and all the ‘Janes’ were still asleep and Solomon and Poi were talking to others, Erick watched over the world, and remotely fixed problems the world over. The food waited inside Preservation magics, for now.

‘Fixing the world’ ate up another few hours, as he took care of top-level issues.

He could have spent days doing even more, but he did not.

As Jane repros came to themselves and spent a while talking amongst themselves, Erick spent another hour making more food just so that he could give them all a hearty meal of beef wellington, because he felt like being fancy. And because he wanted them to like him.

He wasn’t sure why he felt that way, but he did.

Everything was weird. Erick was dealing with it as best he could.

Dinner with the Janes was a tense ordeal of unsaid emotions. But then again, all the girls wanted to go right out to conquer dungeons for base mana regen, and that was an easy enough conversation to have. ‘Oh you’re killing things? I killed some things today, too. It was fun and I saved some lives.’ It was weird to say it like that, but he brushed past that, and so did everyone else. Erick would have loved to actually forget some of the weirder moments of sitting there, talking with his five daughters, but that wasn’t happening.

And then Jane said, “So we were thinking that we could stay in the hotel, and you could stay here with Solomon and Poi.”

“Sure sure,” Erick said, because that’s what you did when your squadron of copied daughters wanted to live on their own. “Solomon and I will be working on the dungeon, anyway—” Erick turned to Solomon, for his repro had joined dinner, too, alongside Poi. “You want to go out and get some base mana regen, too, right?”

Solomon said, “Yes. So I’ll be joining you girls, if you don’t mind your not-dad trailing along with you.”

“Oh sure!” said one of the Janes, after all of them had a brief moment of panic about a hundred different things. And then that Jane added, “It’ll be good practice for when we go core crushing, right?”

“Right.” “Yeah.” “Sounds good, not-dad!”

It was still very weird.

After dinner the extra Janes all disavowed their dungeon master status. Prismatic mist spilled out from their bodies. That mist flowed into the air, and then vanished, while Poi and Solomon proclaimed that they were once again the only dungeon masters in the group. The status screen of the dungeon said as much, too.

The extra Janes were very eager to leave, to start delving in the canyon to get their base mana production up. Why were they so eager? A bunch of reasons. Erick didn’t think about all those reasons. The girls left.

Solomon tagged along.

And then it was just Poi and Erick in the house again.

Erick sipped his after dinner tea, while Poi did the same.

Erick whispered, “Holy shit this is gonna be an experience.”

Poi nodded, then said, “Not to break Mind Mage protocol too much, but everyone here is way too tense around everyone else. You’re all worried about how the other feels and if they’ll be disappointed in you, but you all actually feel the same way; It’s just a lot of love, Erick.”

“If she loves me, then why doesn’t she want to be near me?”

“She’s worried about eliciting any form of disappointment from you at all, for if you show disappointment, that means that you cannot connect to her how she wants you to connect, because if you were connecting how she wanted that connection, then you would be automatically be proud of her— And yes, I know you are proud of her, Erick, and she knows that you are proud of her, too.” Poi said, “But she’s hyper-sensitized. If you show her that you’re always proud of her, then she’ll think it’s fake; that you’re putting on the ‘parent persona’ in order not to harm her emotionally. If you show disappointment, then you just don’t understand her. There is literally no winning that sort of ‘fight’, because it’s not a fight. It’s just a parent-child relationship that is growing apart, because it’s normal for children to want to have their own lives away from their parents, but you two are a special case, because Jane literally will never, ever, ever, be able to get out from under your light. She knows that, and you know that, too.”

Erick stared out at nothing as he listened to truths he already knew.

“You’re a good father, Erick,” Poi said. “Jane turned out well.”

Erick smiled softly. “Yeah she did.” He sighed, banished his worried thoughts, and said, “I’m thinking I should make a few more All-Seeing Eyes, but I need the proper environment for that. Would you mind me stepping out for an hour or two? I think I need to go to the Well to ask a question about Wizardry.”

Poi smiled softly. “I’m fine here, Erick.”

“Are you really, though? You talked about Solomon becoming a hermit down here, but I don’t want you to be alone, either.” Erick rapidly added, “I’ll leave Ophiel here.”

Poi chuckled. “I am more connected to the rest of the world than you are. I might physically look alone, but I am not alone at all. It’s much more important for Solomon to get out there than it is for me, which is about 40% of the reason I decided to do this repro thing anyway.”

“… Okay. Well. I know Solomon appreciates you being here, and I do, too. He certainly was in a darned hurry to get out of here, wasn’t he.”

Poi smirked. “He was.”

Erick thought. “… You know… Could we restructure this dungeon in order to grant connected-dungeon-masters base mana production, from the killing of slimes in the dungeon? So that none of them need to actually leave to kill things if they don’t want to? Take the base production of dead slimes and apply them to the masters?” Ophiel twittered in concerned noises on Erick’s shoulder, and Erick frowned at himself. “Ahh… I don’t want to kill any of the slimes, though. I suppose. I like that the slimes are just… living up there.”

Poi focused on some thought tendrils trailing out of his mind. “Hold on one second.” Poi stared at the air for a moment, concentrating… “This is more difficult than Solomon made it look— There we go.”

A black screen with white lettering appeared.

- -

Slime manifestations (Daily): 19,300

Slime deaths (Daily): 18,900

Ooze deaths (Daily): 16

Other deaths (Daily): ~0

- - -

“Takes a bit to figure out how to make a new screen from scratch. Anyway.” Poi said, “The guardians are very good at killing the oozes that naturally appear, but oozes eat the slimes every now and then. From what I’m seeing there also appears to be a lot of natural death; this is a mature dungeon, and slimes do just die from flopping too hard sometimes. Theoretically, you wouldn’t need to kill slimes in order to take their mana regen for yourself at all; you could simply take advantage of all that natural death.

“But.

“Like how farmers can’t gain experience from monster cows they raise on the Surface, masters cannot gain mana from their own dungeon; it’s an in-built limit to the system. Even if we made big monsters that were actually worth mana production, then we wouldn’t get mana production from killing them.”

Erick said, “And then there’s that whole ‘challenges that grant base mana creation have to be challenges’.”

Poi smiled. “I’m pretty sure that a Wizard could break all of those limitations, but this change to normal operations is not a switch that can be flipped; the switch must first be created.”

Erick’s mind wandered in thought, and then he glanced at his empty wrist, where his gold staff no longer was. “Solomon should be able to overcome whatever challenges exist in the other dungeons, but I’m not sure if the staff will actually count as his.”

Poi shrugged. “You’ve been awake for about 3 days straight now. Are you going to continue that?”

Erick chuckled. “Ahhh… I probably should sleep... Later. I’ll sleep later.”

Poi nodded, then said, “Another switch that I feel you could easily add would be a switch to change that timer; to allow the creation of new Rules faster than the 8 day delay demands.”

- - - -

As Erick flew through the sky, taking the long way to get to the Well amid Ascendant City, he had a lot of thoughts about a lot of things.

Poi had thrown him for a heavy loop.

Primary among Erick’s thoughts was the desire to figure out what action he could take right now, and in the coming days, which could set this Sundering search on a good path to success. There had been a lot of talk about a bunch of various directions they could go, and Jane was already doing all of what she had originally wanted to do, but that was Jane, and Erick… Erick had different ‘needs’.

Did he actually want to resurrect every single person lost in the Darkness?

To ‘go back in time’, like Poi suggested, and pull every single dead person to this present and make them into new people? Even putting aside the idea of ‘can I actually do this’, such an action would have a catastrophic effect on all godly domains, would it not? Dead souls went to the gods they worshiped or cared about, in order to become one with that god and with all others who had gone to that god before. Resurrecting people from the past would disrupt that, right?

Added to that, this whole way that ‘divine power’ worked, reminded Erick of dungeon cores, but different. Dungeon cores had been purposefully built not to allow their masters to gain power, but gods gained power from people who worshiped them, no matter how that worship took place. Could cores be Wizarded to do exactly what they had been created to not do, and bring power from the dying inhabitants directly to their dungeon masters, as gods did with people born on Veird?

But beyond that...

Erick felt like he was facing choice-paralysis.

And yet, he needed to make choices, because the only thing worse than making a bad choice when facing a crisis, like this Sundering search, was making no choice at all.

Usually it was a lot easier for him to see the path forward, but everything had gotten cloudy lately.

As Erick flew across the crystal-tower sky, and watched shadelings down below go about their days, Erick was very glad that Poi had chosen to make a repro, and that they were [Hive Mind]ed together. Talking to ‘Other Poi’ was just like talking to Poi, because it was talking to Poi.

And Poi had a lot of good ideas, and he had already brought some crucial artifacts to the table. Erick wasn’t sure how all those Mind Magic artifacts would work out, but he was pretty sure that all three of those Wizard-level artifacts would be absolutely necessary going forward. Especially that anti-anti-meme shackle.

As Erick stepped down onto white stone, in front of the archway to the Well, he was not on any real visible ‘path’, but his thoughts on the next steps began to crystallize. He was beginning to know his direction forward again, besides just putting one foot in front of the other. He still did that too, of course, as he continued forward, beyond the archway under the Throne of Melemizargo, to enter the dungeon with the Well. Erick had come here to ask a question, and as he stood inside that grand space, Erick felt that he actually knew what he would be doing next.

He’d be doing Wizardry, of course, but with a twist.

First, he’d be trying to figure out what Wizardry was, exactly. And through that, maybe everything else would flow easier, because there was no way that in the entire Old Cosmology other Wizards hadn’t faced the same sort of trouble Erick was facing right now with becoming a True Wizard.

Erick stood upon white stone, under a black roof. The black pool rested undisturbed by anything or anyone, beyond a gold line in the ground, and then beyond even more white stone and the barest lip in the white floor. Erick stepped forward, past that gold line.

Erick filled his voice with purpose, as he asked, “In the entirety of the Old Cosmology, someone must have made a manaminer that helped with ascension to True Wizardry. How can I add that functionality to my slime dungeon, in order to guide me to becoming a True Wizard?”

Erick’s voice was a low rumble that set the water to rippling. His voice flowed over the Well, and the Well flickered with even more ripples here and there that rapidly expanded and then flattened, like Erick’s voice had touched off hidden things in the Dark, and those Dark things had turned the water to flat ice, to glass.

Opaque black water became a Dark Mirror.

A land appeared beyond that mirror. A land where the land curled up instead of out and down out of sight. Oceans rose in the distance, and all the world was inverted. A blue sphere hung in the center of the sky.

The view shifted to a land of white buildings on a green peninsula, where islands grew beyond that peninsula. The first island held a palace. The second island held a slightly smaller tower. The third held a temple that was smaller yet. The fourth island was half-buried under ocean waves.

The image focused on that tower, on that second island.

It was the Grand Wizard’s Tower in the Core of Veird, where Erick had spent a while on his Worldly Path. It was where he had first learned of what Wizardry could really do. It was where he had made [Renew]. It was also where Erick had gained his Second Status, under the Script, and Rozeta’s kill switch had been implanted into him, so that if he should ever go rogue that she could end him with a thought, or at the very least extract him from the Script entirely. Neither Erick or Rozeta ever fully spoke on what that ‘kill switch’ was, exactly, because neither of them truly wished to threaten the other, or even give the appearance of threatening—

The image changed.

The Core vanished in the sky. The world unfurled; continents and oceans no longer stretched up. A horizon formed, becoming real, and flat. The sky unfurled in radiance and illumination from a billion distant suns, and the empty Grand Tower changed.

Where once there was nothing but memory, now there were people. Humans and angels. There went a centaur-thing, cantering alongside a winged woman. A small squad of bird people flocked overhead, setting down onto the top of the tower alongside other lunch-goers. A mass of tentacles served ice-cream-like treats to several very small blue people, and then the blue people went back to their small group under the sun, to discuss advanced mathematics, or whatever those squiggles meant on those very large books. Out in front, among the gardens and the walls, a white dragon walked the grounds, breathing fire at an invasive vine. That vine was growing over the statues of famous Wizards, but the vine was also a cultivated sort; the dragon was just keeping it contained to its planter boxes.

A 2 meter tall god in gold and white walked alongside a person that was both a 2 meter tall floating cyan crystal and a heart-like structure in the center of that cyan crystal. They spoke of something, as they walked into the tower—

Erick suddenly looked back toward the dragon.

It was a white dragon. Long and sinuous. And it looked young. The horns were very slightly different, but...

“Is that Rozeta?” Erick whispered to himself.

The Well heard him anyway.

The Well surged upward, flowing all around Erick in a mesmerizing display of Darkness—

- - - -

Rozeta whipped around inside the Core, her eyes scanning the world. All she saw was Blue and Everything, and while a lot of particulars were exactly where they should have been, a few things were… Out of place. Moving weirdly.

Not on the Surface, or near the Geodes, but…

Rozeta pulled her eyesight inward. The Core was fine. Ten thousand pop-ups of problems appeared every minute and she was putting them down even faster, making right what people had mishandled, but other than that, the Core was fine. The Primal Lightning monitors were silent, as they had been for the last 1450 years, except for when Erick had made Benevolence and the pure visual similarity had triggered those warnings…

Everything was fine…

Right?

Rozeta looked to the sandbox part of the Script that held Erick’s connection, and yes, he had added another repro to that connection, but that was expected, and her and her father had already discussed that. Rozeta wasn’t sure how she felt about the name ‘Solomon’, for it felt too Significant, but it wasn’t nearly as Significant as ‘Yggdrasil’ had been, which was probably more of a matter of four gods putting Yggdrasil together…

So what had made her feel—

… A [Scrying] feeling? Is that what she was feeling? What the fuck? No. That couldn’t be right. No one could [Scry] on her, and especially not here. And yet, Rozeta knew the feeling of being [Scry]ed upon, for recognizing when one was being [Scry]ed was a skill that she had learned to develop so very long… ago…

Rozeta narrowed her eyes on reality.

Another alarm went off, right before Rozteta knew it would.

“What the fuck are you doing now, Erick.”

- - - -

The Darkness faded, and Erick was not where he should have been.

The sky held a blue sphere the size of a large moon. Clouds layered between the ocean ahead, and that sphere above.

The ocean was definitely curving upward, along with the coast line, and the continents in the distance, only disappearing from sight when the pure volume of atmosphere between here and there became too much for light to pass through unobstructed.

Erick turned to his right.

Rozeta, in her white wrought human form, tersely said, “Welcome back to the Core, Erick. What brings you by?”

“Strangely enough, the search for Wizardry solutions.” Erick said, “I was thinking of making a dungeon that would help with the ascent to True Wizardry, and so I asked the Well how to theoretically go about that.” Erick turned around and looked up at the Grand Wizard Tower of the Old Cosmology, which reminded him a whole bunch of House Benevolence or the towers of Oceanside, or the tower at Archmage’s Rest by Stratagold. This one remained completely devoid of all inhabitants, though. “The Well showed me this place as it used to be, back in the Old Cosmology. It also showed me either a young-you, or a relative, for the horns were very similar but not exactly the same. Whoever it was, she was tending to overgrowing vines over all those statues of Old Wizards.”

Rozeta’s lips were a thin line. “… I see.”

Erick waited.

“She was my mother. Her name was Liliandroza and she was more than a gardener, but that is what she loved, and so that is what she did.” Rozeta turned and walked up the beach, saying, “Let’s have this talk inside.”

Ophiel chirped on Erick’s shoulder as Erick followed Rozeta up the beach, into the Grand Wizard’s Tower. Only one Ophiel had come with Erick, so he began summoning the rest, bringing him back up to 10. Those other Ophiel began spreading out, as Erick walked alongside Rozeta, down a path toward the tower ahead, where the double doors sat open and inviting.