The Newt and Demon

Watching how the market had flourished from nothing to a thriving sprawl of products and merchants was always amazing. Theo flitted between stalls, getting prices on food, spices, building materials, and seed cores as he went. He made a mental tally of these numbers, but they were incomplete. Prices would fluctuate by the day, depending on which merchant was in town from which other civilization. As always, Bantein and Partopour had the best prices while Tarantham had the best stuff.

The flow of merchant ships had become constant enough that at least one was docked in the harbor. Overland trade had been relegated to traders moving goods from Rivers and Daub and Gronro-Dir. That made up far more trade than Theo had expected, resulting in something of a boom of exports. There were some tax implications he didn’t care to think about. Alise could worry about who paid who and what it all meant. She was damn good at her job.

Tresk appeared from nowhere, joining the alchemist on the walls that encased the trade district. The tops of the tents were visible, creating a sprawling splash of color to offset the hard packed earth, cobbles, or gray stone of the walls. She had responded to a mental summons, appearing in a flash without her normal annoyed persona. Instead, she felt the request and responded without complaint.

“Numbers, huh?” Tresk asked, scratching her head. “I’m not so good with numbers.”

“You’d think the Tara’hek would have picked one person in the group that was decent with numbers…”

“So, we’re counting everyone in the world.” Tresk shrugged. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Come on. We’re counting everyone, but we need someone who is good at counting. And organizing stuff.”

“Alise?”

Theo nodded, turning away from the battlements. He found the nearest staircase, descending to the ground below. While he juggled other projects—things that would take a few days to move—he had time to plan for the future. The duo walked through the streets, heading for the town hall. Alex flew somewhere overhead, flaunting some new power she had gained. Perhaps she would become more dragon than goose soon enough.

The town hall was as busy as ever. Theo wondered what all these people were doing here all the time. Some administrative something-or-other. Alise was in a meeting, so they waited outside of her office for a while before being allowed in. For once, he didn’t barge in to demand her attention.

“What’s going on, Theo?” Alise said, looking up from a stack of papers with a concerned expression. “Did a dragon burst forth from the ocean? Perhaps a god has descended and we all have five minutes to live.”

“Those would be interesting, but no. I’m wondering if you have a headcount for the entire world.”

Alise looked down at the stack of papers in her hands, letting them drop to the table with a thud. She pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes at the alchemist. “Why do you wanna know?”

“Just curious.”

“Yeah, right,” Alise said, standing to shuffle through some papers on a different table. “I can smell one of your schemes from another continent… While the request is weird, I have some basic numbers. The entire world?”

“Break it down by continent.”

Alise shuffled through some papers, shrugging as she held up a tally sheet for the Southlands Alliance. “Everyone here is dead or in four cities. That makes it easy. The Southlands Alliance contains about five- to eight-thousand people.”

“That’s a lot of people!” Tresk shouted.

“Not really,” Alise said, shuffling to another sheet. “Bantein has at least fifty-thousand. These are estimates, by the way.”

Alise went through the rest of the nations. There were fewer than a half-million people on this planet. Theo took those numbers in as the administrator went on, talking about how she had collected the information. She wouldn’t stop reinforcing the fact that these were estimates, not exact numbers she had gone to check herself.

“Earth had a few billion people at one time,” Theo said, breaking out of his thoughts. “We were down to about one-million at the end, but this is strange.”

“I’m not sure how so many people could fit on one planet,” Alise said, tapping the end of a stack of paper onto the table. She stored it away with other, similar stacks.

“The point is, that’s not a lot of people,” Tresk said, reading Theo’s thoughts.

“No, compared to your old world. But what does it matter?” Alise asked.

Theo rolled his shoulders. This was the part where Alise got mad at him for coming up with a stupid idea. There were going to be some problems with bringing the Shards back to the mortal plane. Kinks he had to work out in Xol’sa’s inventions. He couldn’t estimate how long it would take him, or how long after that the gods would glassify the planet. He couldn’t bring everyone, but why not try?

“You know my plan to bring the alliance to my world,” Theo said, shrugging. He had explained the entire plan to her.

Alise blinked slowly, as though the slower the action the more her thoughts had time to catch up. “You wanna bring them all?”

“As many as we can.”

Alise sighed, shrugged, and grunted. “Yeah, whatever. Let’s do it.”

“Really!?” Tresk shouted. Perhaps a little too loud. “You’re not gonna yell at him? Call him an idiot?”

“What’s the point?” Alise asked. “He’s going to do it anyway. He likely wants to house these people while they’re here, claiming the spaces between the three towns for them to stay. Which is why I saw him walking over to the market earlier. Yeah, we started getting a stockpile of food. If we focused on that, we could feed an endless field of people for a few weeks.”

“Wow. You’re on board?” Theo asked.

“Yeah, why not? Let me run the numbers on half the world’s population agreeing to some nut-brained idea to hang out in the Southlands Alliance until the end of the world.”

Theo’s intuition said far fewer than half would show up. But planning for half was a good idea. It was hard to tell how things would turn in the coming weeks, and there was nothing wrong with the older Broken Tusker tradition of over-preparing for everything.

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“How long will that take?” Tresk asked.

“I dunno. Get out of my office and it’ll take a far shorter time.”

Tresk and Theo shuffled out of Alise’s office, heading out into the town hall aimlessly. A quarter-million people seemed like a lot, but they only needed to support them for a bit. As the alchemist considered this, he felt something strange tug at his chest. When he searched Tresk’s feelings, he felt that sensation mirrored in her.

“What’s going on?” Tresk asked, pawing at her chest. “Feels like someone is tugging on my cores from the inside…”

“Just the one core, actually,” Theo said, focusing on the sensation. His Dreamwalker’s Core was vibrating in his chest. Rushing outside, he turned his gaze skyward, unsure what he was expecting to see. But it wasn’t what he saw. Instead, he felt something. “A change in the system.”

No one else in town had felt the change. The alchemist felt something vibrating in his inventory, a haptic buzz that filled his mind. He withdrew his communication stone linked with Fenian and squeezed it tightly.

“I’m guessing you felt that,” Fenian said.

“What the hell was that, Fenian?” Tresk shouted into the stone.

“That’s… not the way the stones work,” Theo said with a sigh. “Something changed with the system.”

“Yes, but what?” Fenian asked. “I can’t… Oh, there it is! Did you get the message?”

Theo locked his jaw tightly, gritting his teeth. This was bound to happen… A message had appeared.

[Dreamwalker’s Core Message]

A seal has been set in place. A recent intrusion into the heavenly realms has forced a change with the Monitor System. The Seal of Passage has been set in place, making it impossible for any being—no matter their station—from crossing the boundary between the outer and inner realms.

The message appeared as general information, as though anyone who got the message would know what it meant. Tresk’s excited blustering meant she didn’t get what it meant. Theo let the communication crystal fall to his side. He was relieved. All the information he needed to weather the next phase of the storm was locked in his mind. Both Hallow and Void had given him the tools required to heal the space elves and bring the shards back to the mortal world. This was thanks to Twist and whatever strange plot he schemed.

“Well, I had no plans to go there anyway,” Fenian said, seeming arrogant with his words. “So, take that. You stupid system.”

“Anything else to report?” Theo asked. “What are you doing, anyway?”

“Snagging a few things from Tarantham right now. There are several artifacts I don’t want to be without when you steal me away to your world. Oh, are you going to buy me dinner before you kidnap me?”

“Bring your own food. Just don’t bring anything that could damage the world… Okay?”

“Sure, sure… I was thinking about making my own world! Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

Theo imagined the kind of world Fenian would build. “Hot elven women only, right?”

“Theo! I didn’t know you knew my type!”

Theo hung up before Fenian could say anything else. If he remained on the line, things were going to get weird. The alchemist didn’t want to know what the elf was doing, but at least he was regularly returning to Broken Tusk at this point. That just left him with the message driven by the Monitor System. Tresk was confused, so he needed to explain it.

“We’re sealed off from the gods,” Theo said, tapping his chin. His mind rolled over the information, tumbling them until he decided if it was a good thing. “We wanted this, actually. This is perfect.”

“Are you sure?” Tresk asked, raising a hairless brow. “Feels like we leaned on them for a lot of stuff.”

“That was before the thrones. This is the system as it was meant to be. The gods should have been sealed away entirely, only acting through agents. Instead, what we had was a gentleman’s agreement not to mess with the mortal world. We all know how well that went.”

“Yeah, but still…”

“And this means the gods would mess with us when we’re doing our job. Void can kick rocks if he has a problem with any of my plans… even if he has some command over the void, I don’t think he can leave the sun-like area in the middle of our new galaxy.”

“The what?” Tresk asked, regretting her decision to ask immediately.

Theo slipped them through the veil. An instant later, they were floating in the void, looking off into the expanse of spiraling nothing. The alchemist pointed to the center of the formation. “The gods all live there. Each of their worlds exists within the sun.”

“Ah, yes. Existential dread like I never expected,” Tresk said, nodding along. “Can we go back to land? I don’t like the void.”

Theo shook his head. “This is important. This is big, Tresk. Come on.”

Tresk groaned as they shot through the void, angled directly for Khahak. A blink later, and they were standing in the Arbiter’s Citadel, overlooking the endless metropolis of a world. Khahar’s top-floor office was a sprawling thing of ornate decorations, Khahari influences, and plush seats. The man himself was standing behind his table, turning to offer a smile at the alchemist.

“Didn’t take you long to come knocking,” Khahar said. “What are your impressions about the change?”

Theo nodded, a smile spreading across his face. “I’m very excited. Less oversight from the gods.”

‘Yet we’re sealed from their heavenly realms.”

Theo thumped his fist into his open palm, nodding. “Exactly. Mortal, Ascendant, God, System, Monitor System. That’s the pecking order, right? They need to leave us alone to do what we need to do over here. Same goes for them on the other side.”

Khahar turned, looking out his window. Theo could feel something of regret coming from the man. He tried not to think less of his old friend, as he knew what was making him feel this way. There was a long pause before anyone spoke. But it was the person the alchemist least expected.

“You gotta get over it, man,” Tresk said. “Just because you’re no longer Mister Know-It-All doesn’t mean you can’t make informed decisions.”

“What, like Theo’s plan to throw an end of the world party?” Khahar scoffed. He shook his head, turning back to the pair. “Sorry. I’ll admit, I’ve felt adrift recently.”

“Why don’t we pull Fenian in on this conversation?” Theo asked.

“Can you interdict him from…” Khahar trailed off.

A swirl of black appeared, Fenian stumbling out of the portal a moment later. He was wearing nothing but his underwear and smelled of Qavelli Berries. “Okay, that’s illegal,” he said, making an X with his arms. He turned, grabbing at the air as though he could rip the portal open with his hands. “You send me back this instant, alchemist. Do you know how hard it was to woo that elven princess? Do you!?”

“Not that hard for you,” Tresk muttered. “Guy sleeps around more than a Marsh Wolf.”

“I heard that!”

“This shouldn’t take long,” Khahar said, waving Fenian’s concerns away. “Only a few moments should pass on the mortal plane. Unless they adjusted the time again…”

“Oh, yes. I’ll just explain to her how I blinked out of reality for a moment. That won’t ruin the mood or anything!”

Theo pinched the bridge of his nose. After releasing a heavy sigh, he looked at the people gathered in Khahar’s office—including himself. Four unlikely people had taken thrones of power, becoming true ascendants. They held positions that equated to power, no matter how strange and chained that power was. Each had jobs related to keeping the world safe. Following the system’s rules was paramount.

“We’re the authorities, now,” Theo said, folding his arms.

Fenian yanked a blanket from a nearby sofa, draping it over his shoulders and pinching it closed in front. “Fine. Make it quick, or you’ll ruin the magic.”

“I call to order,” Khahar said, a smile spreading across his face. “The first meeting of the true ascendants.”

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