The Newt and Demon

The Dreamwalk had become a place where Theo exploited Zaul’s core. While Tresk and Alex spent their time grinding out levels or improving their combat techniques. He doubted it would help them if they needed to fight a wave of Level 90 monsters, but there were other threats they could handle. The marshling had beaten the crap out of a bird guy who was likely at a level uncountable on the mortal plane. But she was juiced up on potions and drawing from Tero’gal, so that leveled things out a bit.

Theo focused himself on training willpower within the Dreamwalk. Each time he wove his spirit around the Hallow Ground Potion, ensnaring the minds of hundreds of undead, his willpower increased. The absurd amount of undead he imagined flooded the area, stretching over the bank of the river outside of Broken Tusk. If the creatures he summoned weren’t stationary, waiting to be brought under his control, this would be a grim sight. It was hard not to wonder if this is what the people in Vesta saw before the end.

“No matter,” Theo said, pulling the crowd under his control. “I’ll get them.”

Waking up from the Dreamwalk, Theo felt himself being drawn from his bed by the scent wafting from downstairs. Perhaps Rowan and Sarisa felt bad about their recent mocking, but they had prepared a spread. It was unclear who the supplier of bacon was, but he wouldn’t complain. Alongside thick cuts of smoke-cured bacon, Whisper’s sausages sat on plates piled high with eggs from Miana’s pozwa.

“You guys went in for it, huh?” Theo asked, piling his plate with the things he liked best. He ignored the zee-grits and loaded his plate with slightly spicy sausages, bacon, and eggs.

“Gimmie!” Tresk shouted, snatching at all her favorite things. It was sausage. She had a plate filled with sausage and nothing more. She ate them like a duck.

The administration screen had been filled with more information. Now that Theo knew where to look, he found Xol’sa’s newest project concerning the dungeons and their growth. Once breakfast was finished, he met up with the mage to take a look at the wards and arrays he had constructed. His magic was a combination of his Planar Mage class core and his Dungeon Engineer core. They worked together to create physical objects, shaped like the lodestones Zarali crafted. Each was a tether, pinning an aspect of dungeon energy to the mortal plane and allowing for manipulation.

Sarisa and Rowan stood in knee-deep mud with the pair. Xol’sa had it worse, as he was two-feet shorter than the others.

“Feels as though your wards aren’t attuned to the energies of the dungeon well enough,” Theo said, getting closer to inspect the ward. He allowed his aura to wash over it, making up for his lacking magical abilities.

“Well, that’s why you’re here,” Xol’sa said, waving his hands through the air. The code that ran the objects revealed itself. Magic circles filled with endless sigils and runes sprung into the air. Those runes were the Axpashi Language, and detailed instructions that steered the flow of magic. “You’re the best example of the magic that flows through here. Tero’gal and Grodul’harak. With you around, this is a simple… few… steps… and, done!”

“That was easy,” Sarisa grunted.

“At least he can serve as a magical point of reference,” Rowan said, nodding along.

Theo shot them both a look. “Did I step on your toes by accident?”

“No! You left us in the swamp!” Sarisa shouted. “Back to work, demon-boy!”

Theo grumbled, turning away to smile privately. He deserved all the mocking they sent his way. And it was pretty funny. Someone of less self-assuredness might take those jabs personally.

“You guys wanna see something messed up?” Theo asked.

“Not me,” Xol’sa said, turning away to trudge through the swamp. “I have wards to attend to.”

“Is it a dead body?” Sarisa asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Are we gonna throw rocks at a body?” Rowan asked, seeming more excited than he should have been.

Theo produced three Sense Spirit Potions from his inventory, handing one to Rowan and one to Sarisa. “Close to the mark. Let’s go.”

The group trudged through the swamp. Theo would have left them behind, but he needed to save his trip to Tero’gal. He could have forced his way into the realm, but that left him feeling uneasy. Even in his own realm, if he didn’t use the Tero’gal Dreampassage skill he would be a trespasser. They arrived in town, passing through the square and heading just beyond Miana’s ranch. The market area was coming along, with a few traders peddling their wares. Those traders would have been from foreign nations, arriving by boat.

But this was the area Theo had picked to focus his efforts. Through manipulation of his concentrated aura, he had made the market the focal point. A single lodestone stood in the market’s center, radiating his will to every golem. The effect of that lodestone would make the two half-ogres present crap their pants.

“We should stand on the wall for this,” Theo said, finding the nearest set of stairs that led to the battlements.

“I don’t like where this is going,” Sarisa said. “I can read, you know.”

“Not well.”

“Still, I know what the potion says. You’re going to make us look at creepy spirits.”

“She’s afraid of spirits.”

“No, I’m not.”

“There’s a spirit right behind you!” Rowan shouted.

Sarisa did not look back.

“Quaff your potions,” Theo said, tipping the contents of his potion into his mouth.

“Quaff?” Sarisa asked, giggling. She drank her potion, letting out a strained yelp a moment later.

Theo felt a chill run up his spine. A field of spirits spread from that lodestone, attracted to his willpower like moths to a flame. They gazed upon it, standing in concentric rings that radiated as far as he could see.

“There’s thousands of them,” Rowan croaked.

“Ah. I might have pulled a few too many in.”

“You did this? Why?”

“I think these are the souls from Vesta that refused to leave.” Theo studied the crowd. He couldn’t tell what race they were from. They could have easily been half-ogres or elves, it was impossible to tell. “I drew them in with my willpower. Something about the way the undead were banished attached them to that… flavor. I don’t have a better way to describe it.”

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“Are you abducting these people, Theo?” Sarisa asked. “Should we be concerned?” 𝔣𝚛eewe𝚋𝚗𝚘𝚟e𝔩.𝚌𝔬m

“I’m helping them along. They get to skip a step this way. I think.”

“How do I turn this potion off?” Rowan asked. “I don’t want to see these things anymore.”

“The potion expires in an hour.” Theo spread his willpower over the field of spirits. He could feel each one in his senses, flashing like candles struggling against a breeze. The lights seemed eager to move on, pushing toward the void even without his intervention. “Now you see them…”

The spirits soaked through the veil, vanishing from the mortal plane.

“Now you don’t.”

“Ah. That’s better.” Rowan nodded with approval, folding his arms over his chest.

“I still feel uneasy.”

“You’ll get over it.” Theo focused on his Tero’gal Dreampassage skill. He slipped through the veil, following those interdicted souls over the bridge. He thought he could hear Uz’Xulven yelling at him as he passed. A moment later, he set foot in Tero’gal. “Ah. That’s a line.”

As expected, the spirits had arrived before him. Belgar had directed them into an orderly queue, creating a line that stretched throughout the realm. The pending requests section of his interface for Tero’gal claimed there were exactly 1143 spirits waiting to interview for acceptance into the realm.

“Thanks for organizing this, Belgar,” Theo said, clapping a hand on the dronon’s back. “Great work.”

“I usually do this. You just don’t see it! What prompted this flood of souls into the realm?”

“I figured out how to drag souls from the mortal realm here. If they don’t want to say, we’ll send them off to whichever realm they want to live in.”

“For a moment there, I thought you’d force them to remain within our realm. Hah. Glad I was wrong.”

Theo rolled his shoulders, withdrawing a chair from his shared inventory. Tresk always had useful stuff in that inventory. He questioned why there were exactly one-hundred small stones, but shrugged it off. She likely had a good reason. Or no reason—either was acceptable.

“Now,” Theo said, facing down the first lost soul. “How can I help you?”

The task might have been daunting, but it needed to be done. If Theo wanted to be the gatekeeper of the souls he trapped, he needed to interview each one. But five minutes on the mortal plane would equal twenty-four hours here, giving him plenty of time to go through each one. It wasn’t as though the spirits expressed their life’s story, bogging him down with each stage. They gave him basic thoughts and feelings.

“Would you like to stay in Tero’gal?” Theo asked one soul. He assumed it was an elf. The spirit gave off a sense of thrilling combat. One-on-one duels and endless improvement for martial forms. “Parantheir it is.”

Many of the souls didn’t want to stick around, but he didn’t expect them to. They were sent to many realms, most of which Theo had never heard of. It helped when Uz’Xulven came over to yell at him for moving so many people over her bridge, but she remained. The dronon goddess assisted him, interpreting the vague senses the spirits gave him.

“No, he’s talking about Udok,” Uz’Xulven said, slapping Theo in the back of the head. “Come on, man. Get it together.”

“The dwarven gods all feel the same.”

“You’re just lazy. Come on, you still have a few hundred to go.”

All the spirits had been sorted out. Those that wanted to leave were sent off to their new homes, while those wishing to remain were ushered off by Belgar. More confusing than anything was how souls scaled in the heavens. When the realm reached 800 souls, it hit Level 40. But when the ticker counting the amount of souls reached 1000, nothing happened. Only when it hit 1300 did it roll up, meaning that new levels would require 500 souls per level. That was a lot of souls. 682 souls joined the realm by the end, which wasn’t a bad number.

“I could use some tea,” Theo said, groaning as he stood. He had been hunched over for so long that his back was hurting.

“The others are already gathered. Well, they’ve been gathered for a few years. A game of poker is afoot!”

“A years-long game of poker? I need to see this.”

Theo followed Uz’Xulven to the cottage. When he opened the door he saw Khahar and Benton sitting at the table together with other gods watching in the wings. The bear god didn’t break his concentration, but Khahar smiled up at Theo when he entered. The alchemist helped himself to some tea, grabbing a cookie before finding a seat on the outskirts of the battle. He reviewed his upgrade options for his realm.

Tero’gal already had a ton of great upgrades. His latest upgrade turned the realm into a proper sphere. Well, Earth was an oblate spheroid, but it was close enough to his home planet. A part of that upgrade had made him more eager to get more souls for the realm. Once the power of the realm had grown enough, it would have a proper ‘space’ area outside of the atmosphere. While he didn’t know why it was important to him, he knew he wanted some space.

There were upgrades for the realm which would allow him to turn it into any shape he wanted. He could form Tero’gal to be a domain of eternal darkness, a sprawling garden that went on forever, or something wacky like a giant volcano filled with pigs. It didn’t matter what he thought about, he could form his realm that way. But the thing he wanted most of all for his realm was something that felt real. He didn’t want something that was manufactured. Even if this place didn’t look exactly like Earth, he would settle for something that felt like his new home back on the mortal plane.

Several upgrade options stood out, but nothing could beat the ones that made this place feel real. For the first time in a long time, he felt himself being drawn away from those options. Tero’gal now housed two of the four thrones in this universe, and something tied to willpower caught his attention. It might not have been perfect, but anything that scaled with willpower was worth investigating. The alchemist examined this upgrade option, certain it would help defend those thrones against interlopers.

[Willpower Barrier]

Your realm can generate a barrier based on the collective willpower of all its inhabitants. Smaller barriers will be more resistant to damage than larger ones. Barriers may be created by owners of this realm anywhere within the realm’s boundaries. Interdiction events and invasions will be impossible until the barrier is destroyed.

This upgrade offered nothing to make the realm more Earth-like. But Theo had seen a long string of those upgrades, and felt it was prudent to defend the thrones. This also stacked with the Bubble] upgrade, which would make it even harder for anyone to invade directly to the thrones. Not that he thought this would happen anytime soon. It was good to be cautious, though. He inspected his realm.

[Tero’Gal]

Mortal Dreamrealm

Owners: Theo Spencer, Tresk

Faction: Unaffiliated

Level: 41

Souls: 1382

Expansions:

[Harvesting Array]

[Defensive Towers]

[Landscape Manipulation]

[Guardians of Faith]

[Bubble]

[Simulated Reality]

[Sphere]

[Willpower Barrier]

Pending Requests: 0

Theo was happy with where his realm was. It was a mix of quality-of-life upgrades and defensive ones. Whatever made the spirits within the realm happy made him happy. He turned his attention back to the game between Benton and Khahar, watching as the bear god made plays with expert precision. If the alchemist was honest with himself and others, he would admit that he had never been good at poker. Back on Earth, he was trash. Khahar mopped the floor with him, but he still tried. For Yuri, it was more about getting to know someone rather than winning or losing.

He was getting to know Benton very well.

The gods went nuts. Benton had done something impressive while Theo was taking a sip of his tea.

“Ah!” Benton said, clapping his hands together. “Really?”

Khahar smiled a toothy smile at the other god. “It appears as though you’ve won.”

“Seriously? I’m sure you could win it all back.”

Khahar held his hand up, silencing Benton. “I have business to attend to. I overextended myself and allowed you to take everything. Never reward bad moves. Or no one will learn.” Khahar vanished before Benton could say another word.

“Thanks, dad!” Uz’Xulven shouted. “He’s such a drama cat.”

“Anyone else want to play?” Benton asked.

The gods and Theo shared a look. His request was met with a collective, “no.”