---Maddy---

  Maddy stood at the top of her plateau, gazing about at the surroundings. There were some decaying remains of a massive spider in the corner. A rocky chair near the middle. All about, slightly further back than she remembered, was the familiar wall of static.

  What now?

  A good portion of her confidence had begun to fade as soon as she appeared here. For the past while Maddy had been following her fae perception – she had her wish at the end of a trail, and she just needed to walk along it. Just had to follow the ‘want’, like a line of string in a maze.

  Now that the framing was gone, it was hard to tell if anything she did would help or hinder her goals.

  Before she continued, Maddy focused on her wish once again. It was harder to find in this state but after a while she found a link and stepped sideways towards it.

  There.

  This was what she was building. A metaphor for something intangible forced into something that appeared physical. Like happiness turned into a solid or trust used as a vessel to transport dreams.

  She could see the wish itself. I looked like a large balloon – bigger than her body was tall. Because she’d made it visible, she could no longer see all the parts that made it up – the information, the sacrifices, the raw power she had put into it so far. All she saw was a physical object and a faint sense that this was what she was looking for.

  From this perspective, it looked nothing more than a hollow shell. A massively overinflated ball of nothing.

  The world ran on wishes. Wishes were the primal source of all magic…but this wish was hollow. That was the best description she could think of. It looked like she grabbed a powerful grain of sand and tried to blow it up to the size of a person.

  Maddy simply didn’t have enough power to force this wish into being true. Not at the scale she imagined or with the hopes she had for it. It was bigger than her. No matter how much Maddy sat there wanting it to work, it wouldn’t change. She hadn’t sacrificed enough. She wasn’t powerful enough. The wish she had imagined and began to build…was something an entire civilization would have to sacrifice themselves for. Something multiple gods would have to work on – not one fae boosting herself to the starting line.

  …but that was framing this wrong. Fae didn’t brute force solutions. They tricked. They made an illusion. Clamed that illusion was real and behaved as if it was.

  Who cares if it's hollow? It’s the right size is it not? All I have to do is paint it and you won’t see how transparent the ball is.

  Maddy grabbed the wish and stepped back towards her clearing.

  Her mind hallucinated countless shapes around her as she moved – they edged her reality with conflicting intent. While it had felt like a second or two to step into view of this wish, the step back took minutes. It took time and effort – everything she could perceive almost shuddering with the weight of the hollow wish as she carried it.

  And then it was done. She was back in her clearing. Her authority. She had her wish as a physical object – represented the same way and held carefully above her like a missive beach ball.

  “How should I go about painting it? Where’s my dark or light affinity?” Maddy muttered staring around.

  She snapped her fingers a few times hoping a ‘her’ would appear with a paintbrush or similar…but that had only happened before because R had made a space where it happened.

  She couldn’t just hope for solutions without doing anything. The training wheels were off now and the metaphor of her magic wasn’t as easy to access.

  Maddy walked about in search of a solution. Would she find it on the ground? Should she repeat the process she used to collect her wish to find more tools? Finally, Maddy found herself near the old corpse.

  It was the only real feature of this space. The only object that stood out. Maybe she could use it somehow?

  Maddy dragged three loose stones over with her feet shifting them into a triangle. She then carefully rested her prize in the middle, stepping back slowly to make sure it didn’t roll away.

  Next rolling up her sleeves, Maddy reached over and began jerking on a fuzzy leg, working its joint bit by bit. With a dull snapping noise, she tore the limb off and held it up to consider. This should work like a paintbrush, right? And something about it being a limb should maybe help ‘conceptually’ with the idea of doing an action?

  Maddy was less clear on that last bit. It was hard to be sure about anything in this space. The biggest problem was a lack of conceptual feedback. Maddy didn’t have a whisper in her mind of potential links. She didn’t have a tiny voice in her head confirming things were possible or nudging her along. In some cases, her fae instincts were equivalent but while her senses in ‘reality’ were closed, she couldn’t easily link everything here to something out there.

  That was what led to her current uncertainty.

  She couldn’t help but worry that conceptually this corpse had a higher link to death than it did light and death magic – after all. It was dead. That meant death, right? Her one hope was that the corpse being a metaphor of what she had cast off meant more than just its shape. It should have some links to history… It should represent humanity somehow…right?

  Maddy found the most damaged portion of carapace and began ripping chunks off the body. Some of the fluids leaked red as if they were blood. Other bits leaked blue. Most of the colours blended together in a muddy purple and turned to paste as they mixed with grey dust on the stone below.

  Why had this body stayed here all this time? Was she holding onto it somehow? Did ‘things’ linger in this space if she didn’t actively remove them?

  Maddy reached through a crack and tore an entire side down.

  Rubbing her makeshift paint roller through the partially dried and decaying fluids Maddy stepped over to her wish and began coating. Barely any had been transported but she kept at it, traveling back and forth in a rhythm.

  This ‘felt’ like it shouldn’t work. If this was a real corpse, its blood or whatever a spider had in place of blood should be too old to work.

  The coating she used ‘should’ be too thin to black it out…but as the fluid mixed with dust from the stone below and layered on the ball, her wish began to grow opaque which is all that mattered.

  Soon the sense that her wish was hollow vanished. She stared at the ball and saw nothing more than a large purple sphere with marbled grey-blue and red tints.

  She ‘knew’ it was still hollow…but without being able to ‘see’ it, she could almost believe the ball was solid.

  Now she had to figure out where to put this wish.

  …

  In ‘reality’ tucked away out of sight from everyone including its owner an old abused body began to break apart in small unnoticeable ways.

  Bits of flesh held together by nothing more than spit and grit began to melt. A hollow shell began to fade and evaporate. And Maddy’s lingering attachment to humanity began to fray.

  …

  Maddy walked towards the chaos surrounding her. She needed to carry her wish carefully, a small sense of paranoia infusing her every step.

  How fragile was this?

  Even if it no longer ‘looked’ fragile…would it not still pop or shatter if damaged? Was there anything that could damage it here?

  Maddy wanted to follow R’s steps to perform a miracle. She wanted to push this wish high enough that it acted as an absolute natural law. Something even she couldn’t break when it was in place.

  Maddy wanted to follow his three step process but she couldn’t help but feel it wouldn’t be as easy as he had made it look.

  One of the problems was one of means. He had literally shifted the known and unknown into two spheres.

  And Maddy couldn’t just ‘do it’ quickly or easily. It felt like he had done something else – in his example they had been surrounded by a nothing she understood as perfect. Not some secret void or hidden unknown area between the two…a perfect backdrop. It had been like an endless desert of worthlessness you knew was devoid of life and knowledge.

  How did she go about making that? If it wasn’t apart of her authority or the chaos surrounding her…then how did she make it?

  Besides the clear barrier preventing her from just ‘doing it’ there was a flimsy one of intent. Was…was the exact process R had gone through the best for her?

  R had taught her how to achieve a miracle while remaining outside of it. A miracle from a third party, an outsider.

  What Maddy wanted was to create a miracle she could be apart of. A gift for others she could share in. She…wanted a miracle she could enjoy as well. Her fae senses were dulled in the moment, but she remained relatively certain of one thing. If she were to complete her goal ‘perfectly’ she had to do so while remaining within the two areas. R had shown her a process, but she had to modify it to suit her needs.

  Step one…Maddy needed a knife. Something to cut with…that part at least felt important. She needed to make a knife out of what she was willing to put on the line. Then she had to…personally go cut a spot out of the chaos to put this wish? Cut something she could fill it up? That part she was less sure about, but she could figure it out as she went.

  What was she willing to use as a knife? What was Maddy willing to sacrifice?

  Maddy stared at her wish. Currently it could be considered her baby. Over the past few weeks, the goal had ballooned. Become everything she wished for from magic and more.

  Her goal…her goal had this wish in a place for everyone. This would be everyone’s wish.

  …but no one else had added to it yet. Right now, it was all hers. Only hers. Maddy hadn’t ever felt a maternal instinct but in this case…framing it this way, ‘mother of magic’ had a nice ring to it? This magic system was her baby and she would do quite a lot for it to succeed.

  Maybe a better question was what wasn’t she willing to sacrifice? She didn’t want to lose her friends. Memories…she didn’t care for her memories of earth. She didn’t care for her past – but she did care about the time she had spent on this planet. She didn’t want to lose magic…but she was willing to lose her current magic? As long as magic existed and as long as she was still able to use a version of it…then yes, she was willing to sacrifice all her spells. All her affinities. Her concepts. She wasn’t attached to the strength she had built in the same way others might be.

  Maddy didn’t care for power.

  Thinking back to her dinner conversation with R…he had said something in passing that stuck with her now.

  James wanted control. He wanted control over himself – not necessarily others. He wanted strength for personal freedom to the point of obsession. Deep down James craved that control at a level that infused his very domain. It manifested in his magic – infusing it if you knew where to look…and it wasn’t even that hidden. His magic and domain allowed him to manipulate anything that grew close enough to affect him no matter how different it might be. He very much had a massive level of personal control with his reflective shield and ability to wrestle foreign power into personal strength.

  Richard also wanted control. Deep down he wanted control over others. He wanted to provoke reactions from people. He wanted people to notice him. He wanted them to laugh at his jokes. He wanted to manipulate people’s reactions…and sure that was a bit reductive. Sure, he appeared to actively limit his own ability to achieve this control. Of course, Richard wanted more than ‘just’ that and sure he didn’t quite want to abuse power…but that desire to control others remained deep down. Even if he blocked himself or wished for harmless power that wish remained in his core to this day.

  Of all the humans brought to this place, a huge percentage of them craved some form of control.

  Maddy on the other hand had already had control. She already had control over other people in the form of social manipulation – a power Richard would have accepted instantly. She had started with ‘control’ and had actively given it up.

  She had hated her control. Had hated that part of her enough to kill it.

  R had talked about how that innate manipulation was infused in all parts of her. How even if she had killed the social manipulation, she retained a level of magical manipulation higher than most. How that had contributed to her transformation into fae. How that attracted him.

  The rest of his speech was less relevant.

  So…this innate part of her. Was this something she was willing to give up? Something she felt she deserved?

  Did she need to be special? Did she need to be known or acknowledged?

  Maddy didn’t need fame. She didn’t need power over others. She didn’t need more power over herself than anyone else…and while she wanted a measure of freedom for herself it wasn’t an obsession like it was for James.

  What about her life? She wanted to explore all there was to explore – she wanted to study magic for a thousand lifetimes and if her wish was granted the magic, she could study would be endless. So Maddy didn’t want to hurt her immortality. She didn’t want to sacrifice her lifeforce or health…

  What about her other abilities? What about her time? Her effort? Momentary pain?

  …

  Maddy slowly collected a list of every possible part of herself she was willing to put on the line while reaffirming all she wanted to keep. Everything she refused to lose was a smaller list than you might expect.

  Every time she thought deeply about something that was hers and reached for it, something appeared in the surroundings. Her lifeforce became grass sprouting from cracks. Her memories became dense words written on her skin and the shell of the spider.

  Where had this been when she was looking for her illusion magic?

  True magic was strange…whenever Maddy found something she was willing to sacrifice she made sure to use a large amount of it in her blade construction. The shell of the spider was carved into a sharp point. The tag on her wish proving to others she was responsible for it, was ripped off and taped to her handle.

  When she found something, she wasn’t willing to sacrifice like her lifeforce or friends she very purposefully left it alone.

  And then she was done. She had a weapon – a blade cobbled together from dozens of random parts and placed on a stick.

  As far as weapons went it was more sword than knife…and more scythe than sword considering how long its handle was.

  Maddy couldn’t tell you what this exact weapon was called, but the polearm felt comfortable in her hands. It looked more put together than it ‘should’. Less makeshift than you would think considering its materials. More professional in its construction despite her limited tools.

  Maddy stared at her weapon and then the wish. How could she carry them both? She couldn’t help but feel terrified that she might accidentally poke the ball and break it by accident.

  Wrapping a rope of her safety around her waist and tying the polearm with its blade facing downwards was the best she could do.

  Maddy picked up her wish and held it with both hands just above her head.

  And stepped towards the chaos.

  As she grew near the wall of sparks the swirling colours began to recede. As the wall retreated it left a messy landscape in its place. It was as if there were a small bubble around her pushing the static back…but the static had been hiding weirdness.

  While her clearing was relatively mundane, the cleared chaos was just ever so slightly unfamiliar looking.

  Stone looked slightly spongy with tiny tide pools of rainbow sheen – as if it were pumice and each hole was filled with oil.

  “This is the universe” Maddy spoke as she walked. There was no resonance. No indication her words were magic or even true.

  “This is the universe I’m currently residing in. All around me is the unknown. I’m walking into the unknown part of this universe in search of a place to plant my gift.” Maddy continued speaking as she stepped deeper into the chaos. Behind her the bubble closed removing her view of the clearing.

  Tiny rainbow sparks flickered on all sides growing brighter as she delved deeper. Some of the sparks were almost the size of small fish – blobs of shapeless colour that danced in random repetitive patterns.

  Large holes began to appear in the ground – portals of swirling rainbow chaos. Looking at them gave her an ominous feeling as if they were bottomless pits or holes into an unknown but dreadful location.

  Out of the corner of her eye flickering shadows shifted and moved as if creatures stalked her just out of sight.

  Above her something seemed to swim past. It was…something. A shape. An idea – something Maddy didn’t want to stare at. Didn’t want to acknowledge even in her own mind. It felt like a massive imaginary monster. Acknowledging it would make it true.

  Maddy gripped her wish carefully. Nothing could take it from her. Not until she gave it to everyone.

  Do I have to use my blade to kill tha-ose pools are pretty aren’t they? What a nice empty plane. Nothing here but me. Nuh uh. Those wing shadows are nothing more than a trick of the light.

  The danger that didn’t exist faded as she ignored it. Maddy clutched her wish tightly paranoid someone would take it from her then continued on once again. Below the ground began to form steps. Layers of stone cracking up into larger and larger ledges. She was climbing upwards now the steps acting like a massive natural staircase.

  Soon the steps required her to place her precious gift on them before hoisting herself up with both hands.

  If only she could pop up them…but this was a metaphor and teleporting past it would break it somehow.

  Every moment her wish left her hands was a moment of panic and anxiety. It felt like if she lost her paranoia for a moment, someone would swoop in and take it from her. If she placed it down to scout ahead, she would come back to it gone or replaced with a fake or smashed or worse.

  Soon Maddy arrived at the top of a plateau. Not her own – not one anywhere near the two she had seen. A wild plateau. One large enough she couldn’t see across with her small bubble of visibility.

  A bubble…that seemed smaller than it had been when she left the safety of her clearing?

  That was concerning.

  Maddy began to walk, double checking both her items as she did so. She aimed roughly towards the center carefully watching everything and searching for threats.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The structure almost jumped out at her with how sudden it appeared.

  She flinched even though this was exactly what she was looking for.

  In front of Maddy built into the stone was what looked like an incredibly old multi layered fountain. Tiny statues stood on tiny pedestals each dripping different coloured streams of oil. One was vaguely shaped like a fish streaming water from its mouth. Another a hairy humanoid pissing. A third a coil with liquid spinning down it as it moved.

  All mixed at the bottom into a rainbow sheened black.

  As the statues and fountains grew closer to the top, they became bigger but visibly more damaged. The stone making them up was cracked – many had no liquid coming out of them. Still others had too much liquid coming out of too many random parts.

  And at the very top…was something that hurt to look at.

  There was ‘something’ up there…some shape way above…a shape Maddy didn’t want to stare at from more than just pain. It felt similar to the imaginary creature she had passed by.

  Acknowledging the law at the top of this pillar of laws would make it true. Acknowledging it would mean failing her goal.

  Carefully placing the wish down Maddy slowly untied her weapon sliding it up and placing it near the unknown object. She stared about one final time – it looked like her bubble was much bigger now that she had reached the middle…as if this structure had a bubble of its own that had combined with hers…Maddy estimated she had four meters of clear space centered on the structure in front of her.

  With a grunt Maddy began to cut. She sawed and struggled to remove the highest law. That meaningless thing she wished to subvert. To replace.

  Whatever was on top of the fountain twitched and spewed inky oil as she worked. It felt like she was sawing into something living – this wasn’t stone. It was a silent living…thing.

  Maddy struggled to remove the law – she didn’t have enough leverage. She kept dropping a hand to rest upon her wish but refused to leave it alone. She felt plenty of give and yet the stubborn law above refused to just fall off.

  Maybe if she looked at what she was cutting?

  No…that felt wrong.

  Suddenly the sense of being watched intensified. The paranoid feeling of being observed that had existed up till now spiked. Maddy heard a faint noise and turned.

  Behind her – visibly stepping out of the chaos – was a clone. A creature just like her. Vaguely humanoid in form with a single massive eye for a head. Her clones body dripped chaos liquid as if she had just stepped out of a storm and in her eye rainbow flashes swirled as if she had been infected by the surroundings.

  Her clone…wasn’t familiar. Maddy knew every shade of her sisters eyes. She could recognize one of her bodies instantly – this…wasn’t her.

  Her clone stepped forward a bit shaking some of the liquid off then approached with a predatory stalk.

  “Who are you?” Maddy called pulling her weapon off the highest law and facing it towards her clone.

  The creature paused for a second then continued at a slightly slower pace.

  “Give me your soul” the creature demanded as a starting price.

  What?

  The creature pivoted halfway towards her and began to walk around the structure.

  “You heard me. Give me your soul. Its not fair that you have one and I do not. Give me your soul and I will finish what you started. I’ll help just as I’ve helped until now.” Her chaos copy’s voice echoed in the clearing coming back scratched with static as if the echo was coming through an incredibly bad speaker.

  So much paranoia that something would snatch or sneak past her…the fact that her clone came to her in such a straightforward manner was almost refreshing.

  “No. Who are you?” Maddy asked watching as the creature passed behind the fountain moving with slow jerking steps.

  “You, obviously. You know this, stop pretending. I’m you but not lucky enough to be gifted a soul without working for it. It’s not fair. Isn’t this in the name of fairness?” her clone gestured towards the wish as she walked.

  “Prooove it. Prove that you’re for fairness and give me your soul.” The creature demanded.

  “How does that make sense. Theres nothing fair about giving up my soul.” Maddy responded

  “You got the soul from the past to now. I should get it from now to the future. That’s even. That’s fair. Do you know how much it hecking sucks to exist without a soul on this hellhole? The only part of you that matters is some wispy junk in the neither. It doesn’t matter what you do. How much you BLEED. How much you STRUGGLE. Stop trying to cheat me of my due and GIVE ME YOUR SOUL.” Her copy screamed – her voice sounding incredibly weak even when bouncing back and filled with static.

  Maddy kept hefting her weapon – protecting the precious wish below – but something felt off. Why had this creature not attacked yet? Maddy didn’t want to fight near her wish, but she also didn’t want to step away from it in case something happened to it while she moved away.

  “You are not me. Who are you? The truth.” Maddy asked again.

  “I told you stupid lottery winning soul hogger, I’m you.” Her copy suddenly sobbed slightly with a manic laugh. “But without a soul nothing I say can be proven can it. Souls proof right? Garbage system.” Her copy spat to the side.

  “Open your eye to the truth.” Her copy whimpered as if Maddy had struck her. The creatures voice sounded even weaker than before.

  Maddy stared down at her weapon. Stared across at her adversary. Stared up at the partially sawed off law then jerked away before she figured out what it was.

  Would…listening to the monster break her ritual? Is it what she needed to do for the next step? Was this a trial or a part of it?

  Finally, Maddy made a decision. She would…like to believe she could be reasoned with.

  Maddy opened her eyes.

  It took a while – she felt herself coming together in her chamber. Bits of herself was everywhere and she didn’t remember activating her domain…but she was somewhere around here. Maddy focused and found her perception clearing as countless eyes opened in the walls.

  In the middle of the chamber sat an eye. A recognizable eye. This was the helpful outsider in her ritual.

  Her copy…was a monster created from Maddy’s essence. All the magic she had done in this universe had created essence. All that essence had combined into this monster.

  Before Maddy could continue that train of thought the copy spoke, a voice vibrating out in the surroundings incredibly week.

  “Do you want me to introduce myself? My affinities are Fire/Ice and Speed/Slow mana.” Her clone spoke with all the energy of a witchy girl sharing her star sign. A poof appeared in front of them and slowly a small candle flame began flickering and drifting about in spirals.

  It was more than just an illusion.

  The enclosed room began to heat up noticeably the longer the copy spun her flames. Fire sparked into whips and chains then formed arrows and spears…

  Maddy was suddenly distinctly aware that she was flammable.

  “Of course, you claimed three of the primes in your timeline. How can I hope to compete with the chosen one’s soul. I get the discards, don’t I?” Suddenly three more clones appeared behind Maddy popping around behind the first.

  They were transparent and flickered slightly before the first did ‘something’ and stabilized the three slightly.

  “Life” The first spoke, a scene suddenly playing behind her. Maddy – her old human body – ran along a grassy field in a blur with someone who looked almost like James. In this scene Maddy’s body was toned and covered in visible muscles. She was wielding a scythe – its end radiating a slow cold death and its handle a fast fiery life. A blurry spike flew in from the side – a strange looking spear that spiked through Maddy’s chest in a spurt of blood. Ignoring the hole her copy regenerated the wound in seconds before shimmering with a haze of speed. Turning her copy blurred – speeding up with incredible reflexes before she swung and killed a hooded figure surrounded by floating spears.

  Raising a hand, the vision of an alternative Maddy used this death to power a massive nova of icy mana. With a single pulse everything in the surroundings suddenly froze and a second attacking figure was suddenly revealed moving towards her in slow motion.

  Jerking across with purposeful speed, the copy sliced through and shattered them before the vision seemed to end.

  “Creation and Destruction” The second spoke, her voice a bit stronger than the first and a similar scene played behind her. The Maddy in this vision turned the world red.

  Her copy’s domain spread with a crackle as fire grew and broke the surroundings. It looked almost like one of the cities Maddy had passed – the one with the population being controlled by a tyrant with vines. Maddy’s copy destroyed the world and from the ashes new structures were formed. The wizard king came out of his tower and fought against her clone, but after a furious back and forth her copy managed to throw him into her inferno. The wizard’s vines burned hot and his silent screams were loud enough the air in the vision shook visibly. “He deserved it” Maddy’s second copy added as if defending her actions.

  The third and final clone created her own projection – a spark of pure white fire transforming into a detailed illusion showing several different scenes. Unlike the first two, this third copy of a copy spoke as if she were giving a presentation to a class. She was almost as formed as the original clone in front although she spoke with the nervous energy of someone in an interview for a job. Maddy had never felt or acted like that before in her life.

  “I’m sure you know how great light and dark mana are. Speed, light and fire are trivial building blocks for lightning” she gestured and before them the vision began to move. It showed a version of Maddy flicking a long wand as yellow arcs flickered about, cracks of power flicking and chaining between dozens of monsters.

  Beside that scene, another version began to play. This one had her floating in the air and directing a single incredibly condensed beam of light about like a conductor. Yet another scene showed her hurling balls of plasma while a fourth had her hiding behind an ice mirror as a giant praying mantises’ attacks bounced off her.

  “Fire is the concept of power given form and light mana helps give so many different shapes to that power. Light mana really is the affinity of mages, isn’t it?” Her copy spoke and Maddy could almost imagine them shoving a pair of glasses up their face. Her clone coughed as if in embarrassment before shifting the images again. Now 10 copies of her stood holding simple fire in her hands. Red fire, Blue fire, Yellow fire, Green Fire, Purple Fire, Orange Fire, White fire, Black fire, Pink fire and finally a dark brown flame was held in each of her copies hands.

  “Each colour is important. Each has a different effect,” Her copy added swapping the scene to 6 versions of her holding a rainbow of different colored lighting then again with beams of damaging light.

  Finally they collapsed to show her copy holding a massive diamond above her head. Mana entered and split causing all six primary and secondary colors of fire to burst out, each forming different spells that shot into the surroundings. “Prism focus needs a domain activation to use properly, but I’m nearly positive I’m the strongest mage in my timeline,” Her copy added nodding happily before going silent.

  The leader glanced backwards a faint jealous look somehow obvious in her single eyed gaze.

  “Look at what I could be with that third affinity. Who I could have been” Her copy sighed then turned back to Maddy with an annoyed look. “Real greedy to take it from me you know that right? Real greedy to roll the dice as our realities joined and suddenly your past is truth and mine is a lie.”

  …

  Maddy stared at the chaos creature as it stalked about her, lapping around and around in an ominous ring.

  In the ‘real world’ the copy glared – almost matching the longing desperate look in the chaos copies face while Maddy tried to figure out just what they were.

  “You…actually are me?” Maddy asked after a moment, staring into the pained eye trying to connect in some way. “From…a different timeline? A different universe? Why do you need my soul? Why do I have to give up my own?”

  The creature’s eye narrowed slightly tinges of both hope and despair wafting off of them.

  “The soulless do not get to grow. I was told by reality that my memory is fake. All my memories are fake because they aren’t stored in a soul and everything else can be tampered with. I know its real! I know my life is real but what does that matter when reality disagrees? Only those with souls can be proven real after all. Hahaha, isn’t it fun? Something we don’t understand and can’t control suddenly meaning more than everything else? I remember being controlled slightly to give you a trial you know. The memories are broken and barely there after you killed me, but I still remember that stupid beatable story. Your magic laws make mind control next to impossible for the ensouled…but us soulless beggars? Our agency is meaningless. We aren’t real people after all. Monsters are made to be killed.

  “Those without souls cannot grow. Those without souls do not matter. They are nothing more than dreams and stories and ideas...a dice roll and I am lesser. A coin flip and suddenly my magic is dead. My magic cannot grow anymore. I can feel it. Feel how the mana that should be improving spells have become nothing more than empty skills mimicking what I made in my past. Feel the way reality killed my magic just to give you yours. Feel the way you don’t even like your magic anymore, when I would kill to regain what I lost. “

  Maddy felt like defending herself. “I’m…donating magic to everyone. I still like my magic. I love magic!”

  Her clone laughed. “I can feel the way you are trying to make a new ‘magic’ because you are bored with your slice of infinity. Some of us don’t get a slice you ungrateful bitch! Why does your universe get to grow while mine shrinks! Let me come here! Let me live here instead! Instead of smashing your magic to bits give it to me!”

  Maddy stared at her copy. She…sympathized. She really did. Was it just because her copy had Maddy’s face? It was easier to empathize with someone who looked like you? Was she being tricked?

  Assuming they were telling the truth, it sounded horrible. Even if half of it was true, it sounded horrible – the clones explanation did jump around and seemed to be full of holes. If her copy remembered being killed did that not mean her copy had a soul?

  But even if it was true… why should she have to take this copies place?

  If being without a soul sucked that much…why would Maddy want to take her place? It sucked but Maddy wanted to live.

  The vision of the fountain began to wobble slightly and Maddy realized she might lose that perspective. She had almost wished to find a solution and broken what she was working on.

  Carefully closing her eyes once again Maddy ‘returned’ fully to the fountain and tried to think.

  Would they have to fight soon?

  She had a choice, but it didn’t fully feel like a choice. It felt like everything was hinging on this ‘decision’, but the choice itself was garbage. What was the alternative?

  If Maddy tried to ignore the creature and return to cutting the top, would it attack? Should she be the one to attack first? Was she being forced into fighting by some third party? Was there a way for everyone to win?

  The choices loomed.

  Maddy could allow this creature to complete her work in some ultimate sacrifice. Or she could kill her removing the threat and forcing a solution through violence.

  The first was not an option. Her wish had her in it. Completing it and dying for the goal would be a failure. It would be weakening her wish to complete it.

  The second…would it undermine her goal somehow? Maddy had killed plenty of monsters – she had even killed a clone before. What was different about this one? The fact that the monster hadn’t attacked her first? Hadn’t done more than threaten? Beg?

  One solution for if she wanted her goal perfectly completed at the cost of her self. One solution for if she cared enough about this goal to fight to the death for it.

  She couldn’t see a third option. She couldn’t see a path. Crystalize her purpose through combat. Crystalize her purpose through ultimate sacrifice.

  The world waited for her to decide and as it waited Maddy kept thinking.

  Trying to ignore her copy was not an option. Option one sucked. Option two sucked slightly less.

  Her clone visibly grew impatient but made no move to attack.

  Why? Monsters attacked, didn’t they? R had told her as much…and the only way to make them stop being a monster was to change them? To…give them a soul? How did you make a soul?

  Time continued to pass. No solution was handed to her. No instincts offered potential solutions. And yet Maddy’s imagination hit off something. She thought of an idea and her fae senses stirred as if trying to follow the path she had just noticed.

  She wouldn’t follow it – she wouldn’t risk losing her current position...but the very fact that a potential path existed meant Maddy was on the right track.

  It was an idea without real backing. An idea without proof that it would work. A third choice she had come up with on her own.

  “What if we share our soul?” Maddy asked.

  “Not shared as in I had it up till now and you have it in the future…shared as in you get half” Maddy clarified.

  A variety of expression flicked across her copy’s eye before she spoke. “That…I don’t know if that will work.”

  This wasn’t a refusal.

  She was open to it.

  Maddy strained slightly she felt herself sliding towards that new path but looked about and maintained her view of the surroundings so she wouldn’t get lost.

  She wouldn’t leave. She could do it here.

  Maddy pulled her blade around. The blade she made to help create her miracle.

  Staring at it for a moment she turned it around and dug it into her chest.

  If only she had a mirror. Maddy stared down in concentration as she sliced and dug out a fleshy orb she knew represented her soul.

  As soon as it was visible her copy’s face grew hungry. Maddy could see the longing.

  Re arranging her position Maddy held her soul in one hand the blade held above it with a question.

  “What if it damages it too much to work?” her copy asked – less a complaint and more a worry.

  “I’ve already split my soul into dozens of pieces.” Maddy spoke and suddenly there were 8 of her each holding a knife and orb. Across from her there were four. “As long as you have a piece of soul your problems disappear, don’t they? Reality no longer discriminates?”

  “Four halves make four wholes no? One for each of you?” Maddy added gesturing to her four sisters lost to time.

  “I’m willing to try” her opposite finally confirmed and Maddy suddenly sliced.

  …

  “For you my life and death self from another life and another death.

  “Half my Dark-Creation-Death and half my Light-Destruction-Life. Hopefully this conjoined core will resonate well with your path.

  …

  “For you my Creation and Destruction Twin.

  “Half my Dark-Destruction-Life soul and half my Light-Creation-Death one. Use it well.

  …

  “For you Light/darkness eye”

  “Half of Dark-Creation-Life and half of Light-Destruction-Death.”

  …

  “Finally. My true opposite. My ‘self’. My reflection or maybe the me that was lost – I give you the rest.

  “Light-Creation-Life and Dark-Destruction-Death. Two of the purest sounding opposites truefully no more or less me than the others. I hope…I hope by doing this you can join me. I hope by half completing your wish you will help with my goal.”

  Each of the four opposites stepped forward as she called them. Maddy came to each of them with her blade. She dug it in, watching as sparks flickered down her blade for each opening. Maddy transplanted bleeding soul pairs into each of her copies then passed her blade down the line.

  She felt each loss…but it was nothing more than a loss. Not a complete failure.

  Her reflections didn’t seem to know what to think as they silently held bleeding chests pushing their skin closed.

  In that moment it felt like the world had been holding its breath and suddenly let it out.

  In ‘reality’ her copy created a scythe of fire borrowing parts of Maddy’s old concept to do so.

  “Its…its back?” her copy spoke through tears turning to thank Maddy and not finding her.

  Turning in panic a few times her copy settled and pushed through.

  In the dream all 8 of Maddy’s original bodies had collapsed. Her four copies stared down at her with tears in their eyes than wordlessly took the blade and moved to sever the highest law.

  It snapped and dropped below with a single swing - The maddy holding the scythe had been more of a warrior after all.

  They then grabbed the ball and lifted it up towards the top slowly slotting the wish in place.

  As they slotted the hollow shell down, they noticed a second wish at their feet as if the first wish had dropped it when she wasn’t looking. The top wish was the complicated rules for delineation and filtration of reality. This second wish was the system.

  Cutting off a second crumbling law Maddy’s copy placed this new sphere in place…but there were now two smaller balls below her.

  And yet another wish appeared and another.

  The cycle of new laws kept going until all of the material was gone.

  Delineation above. Combined magic right below. Two tiny spheres on either side representing the explorer and founder classes. Another law disconnected from these and attached to the above – liquid falling from the highest law, missing the class system and landing on the transition between worlds.

  This law was designed to create new laws subordinate to the ones above.

  …but this was unbalanced. There were pedestals with the old laws still high above everything else. Directly under the top pedestal a law of chaos was formed and placed, balancing the magic system. Below it two more laws of chaos split and reformed to balance the classes…and as soon as her copy placed these laws, the balls of chaos shifted into living defenders. A kraken above, its tentacles waving about as if to protect the balls. A spiky creature that looked like something halfway between a worm and a hedgehog climbed down its stone pillar and began crawling about the other laws. A metallic arm attached to an arm attached to an arm continued on into the surroundings. This arm swept the entire clearing around her moving like an assembly line robot with dozens of joints.

  Finally, the setup was complete.

  Maddy’s copy bent and grabbed the fleshy nothing law previously held as absolute, then turned and chucked it into the chaos surrounding them. The robotic limb followed it into the chaos then returned as if confirming it was safe.

  She glanced up at the laws nodding a few times then silently walked over to her injured sister.

  Crouching for a moment, her copy rose holding Maddy’s unconscious body then turning towards the chaos stepped through.

  …

  The last while of Maddy’s ritual everything appeared to fall apart. Her massive floating storm of invisible power rushed away fading into the stone surrounding them…

  Maddy’s body unraveled completely. Every atom of her human form was torn and pulled together…

  And then everything ignited. Reality ripped and tore stone screeching as it was shredded over an insane distance.

  Stone was atomized and turned to power. Energy fed into itself in a way that should be impossible – enough raw energy to obliterate a solar system several times over, twisted into itself in an unstable knot.

  Power crossed a fourth dimension raw energy forming tethers of information, connecting an otherwise normal planet with a plane of solids.

  Everything buckled and hitched several times as Maddy activated her domain again and again stealing the raw energy even as it burned her existence. She ate till her stomach exploded and then her exploded stomach ate to keep itself from fading. She ripped herself to shreds even as she ripped reality to shreds. Each activation was exponential. She was unconscious – she wasn’t here. She was all powerful – she was everywhere. All across a planet devoid of sapients, clouds began to form and eyes rained from the sky like it was the apocalypse.

  Tiny giggling fae appeared by the thousands as she danced by herself – living and dying by the billion. Delusion aside, a mass of eldritch flesh broke through barriers that should not be broken its gaze tearing gravity and time as it swept the area.

  The planet was split in two – a barrier holding its long tutorial on one side and a slightly ravaged sandbox on the other.

  There wasn’t a lot of humans still in the tutorial. A thousand max – Maddy grabbed their instances dragging them up to the moon to complete.

  She mirrored the planet – a perfect copy of everything appearing on the ‘unknown’ side that had previously held the tutorial…and then drew the first delineation of nature. “This side is aether. This side is mana. Neither will damage the other and while humans can pass freely between sides, they must conform to the rules of each”.

  In the higher realm a void had formed. A massive empty sphere the size of a planet.

  The size of this planet.

  Maddy used her copy’s mirror concept and false domain again – overcharging it till it shattered to mirror the entire planet in part.

  In the empty sphere, features began to appear – anything significant on the planet below was given an equivalent in the realm above. One of the giggling eye sprites spiraled a finger to make a portal in a blatant copyright infringement. She then reached into the sky above and stole a star – shoving the spark into the higher plane then holding a finger to her mouth as if to tell the nonexistent observers to keep that one a secrete. No one would notice it missing.

  She placed the star in the center of the inverted higher realm, blowing on the fading spark until it could warm the entire sphere and blanket it in light.

  From another perspective a giant eye closed the rules of the class system into a shell then looked into its past to gift the MacGuffin to Richard. These were absolute laws in the higher realm. They were Truth. Truth simply was. Truth could not be changed. Truth had always been apparent. Maddy hadn’t ‘made them’ they had always been in place – and the break in the timeline was proof.

  And then all across the planet and higher realm overspent eyes began to die in truth.

  An exhausted story closed her eyes and disappeared. A baby abnormality fell into the rip in time it had created.

  And everything settled for when people returned.